duskys-dreams

[duskys-dreams]

Something bad was going to happen to Earth. I left with Marcel and Xander, and we stopped at a restaurant for food, where I met someone new.

I was posting some art I made, and she posted hers right after, which was rude. I started arguing with her, at one point asking about the art she posted, where she revealed interesting Sonic lore that intrigued me. We put the argument behind us and hung out for the rest of the time. I learned that her name was Ally and this was her first time visiting Earth, but now that it was getting destroyed, she has to leave. I introduced myself as Moon and offered to go with her.

We went into her spaceship, which was more like a tiny sphere. Ally started driving, but she started to breathe heavily and stoped steering. She was having a panic attack, so I had to take over flying.

We were approached by three similar-looking spaceships, except they were darker in colour. They fired at us, which I managed to dodge with an uncontrollable sharp turn. I managed to return fire on one spaceship before I had to flee, dodging and weaving with terrifying speed.

Before long, a large mothership that somewhat resembled a hover drone came into view. I dove underneath it and turned back to my pursuers, who had wisely decided to back off. I managed to direct the spaceship in through a hole at the bottom, and Ally and I exited the ship. She was doing better now, and complemented me on my flying skills. Few flyers could direct their ship like that. I laughed and thanked her, but added that I was probably not the best candidate for flying.

Ally led me to a group of girls our age, and introduced me as a new cadet. They were friendly, but went back to their own thing quickly.

More girls joined the group, clearly already familiar with everyone there. To my surprise, a boy wandered in, and everyone began baby-talking at him and acting really condescending. He told us that Admiral Heather would be here shortly, and left.

I asked Ally what that was all about, why did everyone react to the boy like that. She looked confused and said that’s the way it was here — males weren’t as capable as females, and would remain on the ship doing menial work while the women went on important missions. Sexism was alive and well on the mothership.

Admiral Heather made her appearance, and all the girls snapped to attention. She welcomed everyone back from their scouting missions to find Warg outposts, and told everyone to report any findings to her office later. This group had proven themselves as worthy warriors, and would be welcomed into the next rank. Then she dismissed us, and we all went back to our quarters.

Ally took me to her room, and we talked. I asked her what happened back on the ship, when she shut down, and she nervously said that it just happens sometimes. She doesn’t know why.

I told her that it was most likely a panic attack, and I had them too occasionally. I explained how they worked and how they were not a symptom of weakness or anything of the sort. Ally seemed mystified, telling me that everyone thought she was suffering from some sort of disease, and no treatment had worked, in fact they often made it worse. Fearing that it was contagious, nobody would share a room with her.

I confidently told her that I would stay here with her, and she seemed genuinely surprised, and thanked me earnestly. I offered a hug, and Ally hesitantly tried, the concept apparently new to her. I hugged her, and she whispered that it was nice. I’d have to sign up to officially be able to stay in this room with her, but for tonight it was fine.

I took the empty bed on the other side of the room and watched as Ally took out a journal and started writing. I was curious, and managed to catch a glimpse of a sentence that had my name in it, but decided not to push the issue. She was entitled to her privacy. We went to bed.

I woke up in the middle of the night to find Ally breathing shakily. I came over to her and quietly asked what she’d like me to do. She gasped out that she didn’t know, so I sat on the edge of her bed and wrapped her in a bear hug. It seemed to help, and Ally regained control of her breathing in just a few minutes. I asked if she was okay now, and she said yes. I asked if she’d like me to stay, and she said yes. I held her for the rest of the night, and we fell asleep that way.

We awoke early the next morning, and Ally said it was time for training. They were going to assess everyone’s abilities individually, to make sure they hadn’t fallen during their time away. I stopped by the front desk and signed up as Ally’s roommate, and the clerk registered me in the system. I could now train with everyone else.

The first was flying. I was naturally skilled at evasion and aerial battle, but making sharp turns and navigating tight spaces turned out to be an issue for me. At least I knew now.

The other lesson, surprisingly, was on water. I went on a jet ski with two guides, and we took off. I actually found it easier than flying, but the exercise was a lot longer, and familiarizing myself with the jet ski’s controls turned out to be a steep learning curve. I couldn’t fit through the last doorway and got marked down for it.

The tests were over, and I met up with Ally by a refreshments table. We talked about our results, but the conversation turned back to earth. Ally was not supposed to be there at all, as the people here were forbidden from ever visiting the primitive earth for fear of one group infecting the other somehow. They were told stories about how males dominated the society there and the injustice all around, and were made to believe that this backwards planet had nothing good about it. But Ally found it beautiful, and wished she could return and befriend one of the fluffy creatures she saw, a dog. Such an idea was treason, of course.

I noticed a guard looking directly at us. Her name was Luna, and she started to approach us stiffly. We ran. Ally turned out to be very bad at sneaking, and we ran all the way back to our room with Luna close behind. We were cornered.

Luna looked down at us and reached into her bag. We tensed, expecting her to pull a weapon, but she drew out a small white creature. She placed it on the floor and shut the door without a word.

I recognized this creature. This was my dog, Ferdinand! I had no idea how Luna happened across him. We made sure to make Ferdie a hiding spot during the way, and spent the rest of the time cuddling the old dog.

Ally leaned against me, and I took her hand. I asked how she felt. She said she felt… home, for the first time. This place finally felt like home, and it was because of me. We spent the rest of the night at each other’s side.

[duskys-dreams]

Amaterasu was travelling across Nippon with a group of people to help her, not unlike Chibi’s partners. They found a baby bird on some stairs and Sunny told her to hatch it in a hidden yard so it would be safe.

As she was doing that, she was attacked by a demon that she managed to fight off without damaging the egg. She also noticed that one of her partners, Lukas, was absent for this fight, which was odd. That partner appeared in a raft a moment later, alarmed and apologetic for not being there when she was in danger. He was scouting the house, and hadn’t found anything specific, but it had bad vibes.

They all kept moving through the massive house. Every doorway was covered in darkness and seemed to teleport everyone who walked through it to a random room. Eventually it was just Amaterasu and Lukas walking together.

They were ambushed by a group of people, not demons strangely, who captured Lukas and demanded that he give up the locations of all the people they’d save along the way. Lukas refused, so Aiden punched him in the face.

Amaterasu didn’t want to abandon Lukas, but there was an item in the horse barn that could make it so easy for them both to escape. Lukas assured her he would be fine, so Ammy took off as he continued to get pummelled.

The horses were scattered and panicking, with one horse trying to calm everyone down with some chants. Amaterasu snuck past and took the item from the barn with little issue.

When she returned, she found an odd sight. Her partners had found them and tried to help, but it seemed like time had been frozen. When Amaterasu spoke with individual people, they would become unfrozen enough to talk, but both Lukas and his captors were still completely stuck.

When Amaterasu approached, a woman explains that Lukas kept taunting them, daring them to hit harder, be worse. They were going so fast at this point that time had frozen. This tactic wasn’t working.

The woman smiled. They did have other methods they could employ, that even the goddess of the sun would not be able to stop.

Lukas unfroze and started moving erratically, as of being pushed by invisible forces, before vanishing all at once. Amaterasu could hear odd sounds around her, but they weren’t from this world.

The woman grinned and vanished, and the rest of her team quickly followed.

They had taken the fight to the real world. They had kidnapped her roommate.

Amaterasu’s team gathered around her. She said that she had to go rescue Lukas, and it’s possible that she might not be able to return. Everyone said their goodbyes, and Amaterasu took off her vr headset.

It was strange to be human again, after so long of being a wolf. Ammy crawled up the stairs on all fours, eyes out and ears pricked for where they could be keeping Lukas. She found the room easily enough, but charging in now would be a death wish. Instead, she targeted a room on the other side that contained the leader. She crept forward, knives out, and launched her attack.

She had learned how to wield weapons as Amaterasu, and so managed to hold her own quite well. When she held out her hand to use her celestial brush, however, nothing happened. She couldn’t rely on that in the real world.

She managed to kill the leader, and looked for the next room. She found my mother, and used a glaive to stab her through the next to finish the fight quickly. Then, she had to face my dad, who was much stronger. It was difficult, but Ammy managed to kill everyone in the house.

At last she came to Lukas, bruised and bloodied but alive.

[duskys-dreams]

I was part of a field trip run by my English teacher, Mrs Hills (real person, fake name). Marcel and I were the oldest students by far.

I noticed a strange adult man dressed in grey watching us from afar, and I convinced everyone to get on the bus and leave before he could do anything. I sat down in my seat, closest to the door, and I heard a voice behind me. Somehow, the man was on the bus and standing in the aisle.

Somehow I knew this man was incredibly dangerous. I got out of my seat, along with a young girl who followed me, and jumped off the bus, landing in downtown just by the hill to my house. I waited there for a long time, armed with nothing but my throwing spear.

Mom eventually found me, and took me home along with Marcel and Xander. She took us to the trampoline behind our house and explained the situation. We were part of AkiraTheKersonine’s Wings of Fire map, and we had work to do.

Mom handed each of us three small eggs and one large egg. We had to hatch them for part of the project. Somehow, Xander had accidentally broken all three of his eggs before mom had even finished talking. She yelled at him that he wouldn’t be getting any more eggs and sent Marcel and I to get out jobs done. One of my eggs rolled away, but Xander caught it and handed it back to me. The egg was broken too. He was very apologetic.

The large egg hatched into a beautiful blue-spotted toad, and I set to work animating my part. It was an AU map, where Darkstalker promised Fathom power if he did some terrible things for him. But at the end, instead of turning him into a high-ranking Blue or Green, he turned him into a Collector, the lowest possible rank. He started freaking out while Indigo hugged him and screamed at Darkstalker. It turns out Marcel had done the exact same map part, and also hatched a blue-spotted toad. Mom said she would deal with it.

We would trade these animations for Advil. We had run out, and Mom needed to take it every day or else a horrible headache would overtake her. She had been unable to have her phone calls with Dad in the mornings because of how much pain she was in. She brought down the mood.

As for me, I needed some lozenges. My throat was horribly cracked. Mom had me call some people who could deliver the medication for both of us, and they were very confused when they didn’t recognize my voice.

Mom took Marcel and I back to the spot I first landed at, where we met the young girl from earlier. A few teachers pulled up, including Mrs Hills, where she confirmed that these were indeed her students, more or less. The girl went to another school but was visiting for this field trip.

We had to keep running though, because the man had caught up to us.

There were two people, who could become one. Red had red wings, that would turn blue when their partner Blue merged with them. Red also had powerful wild magic that they couldn’t really control, but when they and Blue worked together in one body, it could be harnessed. But aside from this partnership, Blue had no powers of their own, something they were self-conscious of. They felt that they were only useful when leeching off of Red.

The girl from before had powers of her own, much weaker but still useful. And Jake had healing and strengthening abilities, something that would be very useful in their battle against Janus. Janus was a two-headed snake, incredibly powerful and dangerous. They took the form of a giant black snake with non-solid body, allowing it to fly and slip through small gaps.

In their first clash, Red and Blue found a small white dog left behind where Janus had retreated. They took it with them back to their base, which was the roof of my house.

This dog was Ferdinand, my elderly dog. He wouldn’t be useful in the fight, but they still needed to keep him alive and safe. They gave him these medication shots to help with his health. They also discussed their next plan while they were here, which would be for one of them to wait in the sky as bait, and when Janus revealed themself, the others would perform sneak attacks. With that, they flew away to take their places. They had to leave Ferdinand behind in a kennel, but this would keep him safe.

Red and Blue waited in the sky, flying in loops like they were on a scouting mission. The girl and Jake watched from below, ready to attack the moment Janus appeared. And Janus did, but with both teammates wrapped in their coils. Somehow, he had foreseen their plan and put a stop to it. They taunted Red and Blue as they tightened their hold, slowly suffocating their allies.

There was no other option. They challenged Janus to a death duel, invoking an ancient call to battle that had long since been outlawed. Janus could not refuse.

The battle began.

Red and Blue powered up each other’s attacks, hitting Janus with more force than should have been possible. But Janus wouldn’t go down. They activated invincibility, which would last for eighteen minutes, but somehow they kept taking damage from Red and Blue’s attacks. Special defences like that didn’t work in these ancient death duels, one of the reasons they had been outlawed.

Red and Blue found themselves victorious. Jake and the girl were released, and they came back down to earth, where everyone was waiting and cheering. But here was something they had to do first.

Jake was part of their team, but the girl was not, and she never wanted to be. She has asked that once this was all over, they make sure she never had to fight again. So, they took her to a field and transformed her into a soft brown moth, and she flew away to live her life in peace.

Before they could rejoin their group, Blue paused. There was something they wanted to talk about.

Blue worried they they were holding Red back. They had all these incredible powers, immeasurably strong. They could do anything. But when Blue was there, that power was weakened. And they had nothing to bring to the table, either, powerless as they were. Maybe it would be best for them to become a moth too, and leave Red to allow them to be whole.

Red disagreed. Blue’s presence made that power manageable, when before it was too strong to safely wield. They were also incredibly smart and loyal, and Red wasn’t sure where they’d be without them.

And… even if Blue didn’t have powers, they were still glad to be near them every day. Because they love them. Only together were they whole.

Touched, Blue allowed Red to guide them back to the group. Everyone offered their congratulations, but Mrs Hills was concerned. She saw what they’d done, invoking the outlawed death duel, and worried that the cosmic law would come to seek trial. Red and Blue assured them that as most of Earth didn’t even know aliens existed, the planet was not bound by intergalactic law.

Not even a moment later, They were summoned to the courtroom. Red and Blue sat at a desk before the judge, a thin green vine snake. This was a well-known and respected judge. Hopefully she would listen to what they had to say.

The trial began. The judge declared that she had seen what Red and Blue had done, invoking the death duel. This was an illegal and unfair act. The courtroom was shocked. Nobody had tried to do that in decades. Why would they, now?

Red and Blue confessed that this was true, but argued how it was necessary. Janus was a dangerous criminal and planned to wipe out Earth. This was the only way to stop them. The judge disagreed. While Janus was a criminal, the death duel was a criminal act. This put Red and Blue on the same level, and they had earned the same punishment.

As the gavel was about to drop, Mrs Hills appeared in the back of the room, in her true form as a yellow octopus person. She marched forward and said that this trial was null, as Earth was not bound by intergalactic law. As residents of that planet, Red and Blue could not be charged for breaking laws that did not apply to them.

The jury was agreeing, and the judge bristled. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Under her breath, she muttered “if only you had stayed dead the first time.”

Blue stiffened. Mrs Hills had been killed by Janus earlier, revived by their defeat. How did the judge know that had happened? In fact, how did she know of the death duel when everyone else in the room had been surprised?

The judge turned back to look at Blue and winked.

Blue began to freak out, concerning Red. The judge in front of them was an imposter, a fake. That was Janus, seeking vengeance. But nobody else had put the pieces together yet, not even Red.

The judge disappeared behind her desk, done arguing with Mrs Hills. The lights dimmed, and a long dark shadow appeared behind the desk, taking form into Janus. Then, they began to attack everyone in the room.

Red and Blue started to run, but as Janus whipped past, Blue was sent flying into a wall and knocked unconscious. Red quickly merged with them so they could both escape.

Outside the building, they met with Jake, along with a few other aliens who weren’t sure what was happening. They all flew away, back down to earth and to their base on the roof.

They landed when it was dark, and Red separated from Blue and gently laid their partner on the ground. Jake set to work healing them while Red turned to Ferdinand to give him his medication.

Blue woke up with a start, their eyes landing on the white dog. They yelled out for Red to stop, and they did, confused. Blue explained, breathlessly tripping over their worlds. Janus was a shapeshifter and had taken the form of the judge in an attempt to see them punished for winning. They could have taken any form.

Their eyes locked on Ferdinand. How had Janus known of their plan to ambush them? It was almost as if…

The dog’s cloudy eyes turned pitch black, and the shadows around them strengthened all at once. Janus was here all along.

[duskys-dreams]

This blog exists for exactly this reason

[duskys-dreams]

The Animorphs split up into groups of two to drive a bunch of cars. I, Rachel, was with Jake.

We saw Ax crash into a tree, so we parked and ran out. Jake ran a different direction, which was odd, but I didn’t have time to worry about that right now.

Marco was there too. I opened up the car door and hauled Ax out. He was unconscious and packed into a strange ball from the impact. I held him as I begged him to morph human.

After a few horrible moments of nothing, he began to move, and stumbled across the street as he slowly morphed to human. Marco and I followed him as he went into a sort of restaurant.

Something was wrong here, we knew that well enough. Ax wasn’t right.

I spotted Jake as we were going up the stairs, and I caught his eye. He nodded back at his younger cousin that he had to watch, but I pointed up at Ax. He sighed and went up after us, and I filled him in, saying that Ax had crashed his car into a tree and was taking it extremely personally.

Jake ordered a couple of muffins for us as Ax wandered around the small restaurant. Eventually, he left again, and we followed. Ax asked us if we had heard him earlier, and we said no. He seemed relieved and kept walking.

I had seen him with a packet that looked awfully similar to sugar, and realized that it was a cleaner packet. Those are poisonous to eat. We dragged Ax back up the stairs and sat him down. I pulled out my phone to Google what to do, and Jake just looked at it in wonder.

Every time I searched something up, it would just show me the cast of this weird cleaner movie, and after multiple different attempts, I just gave up.

We tried to get Ax to vomit or eat something to cancel it out, but he refused to cooperate. In his mind, crashing the car was so egregious that he deserved death in the most dishonourable way possible.

The restaurant cleared out, as it was closing time, but we remained. Ax morphed back to Andalite, but we still had to work to make sure he wouldn’t try anything.

We noticed the cashier watching us oddly, but we just wrote it off. We had bigger things to deal with.

The rest of the Animorphs finally showed up, and Cassie had the idea of taping all of Ax’s fingers. We decided to do that.

We then noticed the cashier taking a picture of us. We told them to cut it out, but they didn’t want to. They just said they were positing it on social media, nothing to worry about.

Then we heard a group of people walking up the stairs, and I turned to everyone else and asked “what are we supposed to do if they point a Dracon beam at us?” Jake sent the rest of us to the nearby closet for battle morphs.

We did that, and returned as a chubby older woman was pointing a gun at Ax. I ran up to her from behind and knocked the dracon off the aim just as it fired. I couldn’t see the beam at all,  but it turns out I had just blocked it with my paw. And holy crap it hurt.

Battle ensued. Everyone was scattered across the two rooms, fighting for our lives. The cashier from before was still filming, and I got pissed off at them and just yanked them into the fray, saying that if they enjoyed watching us being killed so much, they could join us. They were ready to wet their pants.

But suddenly, everything went quiet. A controller had a dracon beam right at Ax’s skull. They told us that they would spare him if we agreed to fight for the yeerks. They went to us one by one, and the others agreed, but I did not. A controller readied a shot, but I managed to duck out of the way and run toward the storage area.

POV shift to Marco. He was frustrated that Rachel would mess up the plan, but he ran after her anyway.

As he and Cassie crouched behind a shelf, Cassie pointed out a car. If they could sneak a bomb in, Marco could bring it over to the controllers and explode them. He agreed, and slid underneath the car as it rolled toward the group of humans.

He realized that he would get caught in the radius too at this point, and wondered why Cassie hadn’t thought to warn him. Even so, he hucked the car toward them and crouched down as it exploded. He was fine, and realized he was the only one who had he ability to both throw the car at them, but also survive.

I woke up before the battle ended, but with that car bomb move I can only assume we won. Hope Ax was okay.

[duskys-dreams]

The cast of HTTYD was in the library. I was trying to find some gay romance books, but it was tough going.

There was an older woman with a really nice purple suit. I told her I liked her outfit, and she just laughed because literally everyone had said the same thing to her. She tried to find a stew recipe to thank us.

The Dragon Riders left the library and flew to a small house, resting on the grass just outside.

Ruffnut and Tuffnut wanted to play a prank on everyone. When they went to sleep, they set up some crystals on the ground to swallow up the other dragon riders. They nearly got Fishlegs and Meatlug, but Hiccup and Toothless woke up in time to warn everyone.

As they all recovered from that near death experience on the grass, some gold lights began approaching them. Ruffnut and Tuffnut had no idea what this was, and neither did anyone else.

It got closer, and they all flew away, regrouping in a field. It looked like they had gotten away, but they would take precautions this time.

Everyone slept a short distance away from each other and took some sort of protection with them, like a helmet. Snotlout forgot to pick up his pot helmet, and I threw it at him as he was about to fly away. It clattered noisily on the ground.

Everyone went to sleep, but Astrid didn’t. She didn’t trust that they were safe.

She began nodding off anyway, and woke up when the gold lights were almost upon them. She yelled for everyone to get up and run, but it was too late for them.

Astrid ran. She had to find a way to save her friends somehow, with no dragon, all alone.

Well, not completely alone, she realized as Gustav peeked out from behind a tree. He had been hiding from the malicious lights as well. Astrid took him along, despite her reservations toward the boy.

They climbed a tree and were hopping from branch to branch, hoping that the altitude would protect them from the lights.

Astrid heard a whisper as she walked along a branch. It sounded eerie, and she didn’t recognize the voice. “With the boy, you can do anything.”

She asked Gustav if he had said anything, and he shook his head. They continued navigating the branches.

Another whisper. “The next branch is dangerous. You must find another.” Astrid was just about to leap to another tree limb, but she decided not to. She went for another one a bit to the right.

As they continued, they noticed that some of the tree’s branches were specifically reaching out to grab them.

There was yet another whisper. “Find the right port side to get past.”

Astrid jumped to the left, but there was nothing there. Midair, she pivoted to the right, and found a safe branch.

Who was this mysterious guide? Could they really be trusted? Gustav seemed to think so.

They reached the end of the forest and hopped down to the ground, into a small pile of red hibiscus flowers. Gold lights surrounded them for a moment, before riding up to take the form of ancient cats.

They explained their story. They had once been a peaceful race of cats, living in a beautiful valley. But one day, they were attacked by a huge pack of coyotes, and their village was wiped out.

Their spirits sought revenge. Blinded by hatred, they saw every life form as a coyote or a descendant of. The only way to protect oneself from the malice was to show you truly weren’t one of them.

“But how could we do that?” The spirit explained that the river that lead to their old home was powerful, but harmless to good spirits. If they could let themselves be swept along, without struggling, the spirits would see that they were not the enemy.

Astrid and Gustav thanked the spirit and left for the river. The gold lights followed, and they ran, finding themself on the bank of the river before long.

Gustav went in first, letting himself be swept along without so much as a paddle. Astrid jumped in as well just as they lights nearly had her. The river was fast and terrifying, but Astrid forced herself to relax and not try to find the surface.

The river eventually spat them out in a flooded and ruined town. It was beautiful, but fallen far from its former glory. Floating in the water was an unusual amount of red hibiscus flowers.

The two Vikings were lucky to be alive. On impulse, Astrid snatched Gustav into a tight hug.

The lights fell into the water and formed into more cats, who approached and apologized for their aggression. They were clearly not the enemy.

But they still had to rescue the other dragon riders! They climbed out of the settlement and ran through the forest, the lights chasing them once more. But they weren’t in danger this time.

The found the other riders in the same place as before, surrounded in lights and seemingly turning to stone. Astrid and Gustav started dragging them toward the river, and the lights who had witnessed their demonstration helped them.

They pulled them back through the forest and tossed them into the river. They washed up at the end safe and sound, and no longer stone.

As they were all gathered, the lead spirit stepped forward and offered to show his memories, what really happened that fateful night.

The coyotes attacked, and left dozens of cats floating in the water, dead. But a few had survived, pretending to be dead as the coyotes surveyed the damage they had caused. When they were gone, they stood and climbed out of the valley, searching for a way to revive their friends and family.

One of them, called the Blue-Eyed Saviour thanks to an earlier prophecy, made it the furthest out of any cat. But as he was about to climb a wall, he fell, turning to golden light and his body turning to red hibiscus flowers.

The rest of the cats had also turned to light, and they left the valley, searching the forest for the coyotes who had hurt them. The light would extinguish the darkness on this land.

But now they had friends, allies who had proven themselves to be trustworthy and good. They still sought revenge on the coyotes, but the dragon riders were granted free passage in this cursed woods.

With that, the movie was over. I was watching it with my dad, along with Nick, and I loved it.

Still alseep, in the kitchen I tried to find the movie online, but it wasn’t anywhere. It wasn’t a real movie, it was invented by this dream. I was sad, and said it could’ve had a cool name, like “Hallowed: a Hollow Lie.”

[duskys-dreams]

I was watching a warrior cats series on YouTube. It was an AU, and regarded as one of the best accomplishments of the fandom.

Fireheart had joined a clan of cats that lived in a fortress of sorts. The leader was a slim, tall, bronze she-cat named Leapstar. She was rather strict, but a very good leader and well-liked.

The premise of the series was that Scourge was trying to end the clan, because he despised IceWings and that was what the clan cats were, apparently. He had three henchmen, a tom, an eager and rather violent she, and an anxious tom who everyone regarded as loyal and stupid.

It turned out that Princess, Fireheart’s mother, was part Unicorn, which granted great power that she had no idea how to use. It turned out that Hollyleaf was also Princess’ daughter, so she and Fireheart were half-siblings.

Meanwhile, back with Scourge’s army, they were planning their next move. Scourge demanded that they find four suits of armour for half off by the end of the day. The anxious tom did some mental math, dividing the cost of armour by half and them multiplying by four, and deduced that they had enough money for that, and something else. He slipped away while everyone else was arguing.

He returned with the armour, and dropped some books in front of everyone. Scourge had to read them upside down from his position, but he was pleased. The tom had picked out books on IceWing weaknesses and strategies. He had done well.

The she-cat went to Princess’ home and prepared to push her off the balcony.

Scourge’s army travelled to the fortress under the cover of night. All the clan cats were gathered inside, but it was dark enough that they could go inside too and not be noticed.

Leapstar noticed that something was off. She stepped forward, ears alert, searching for the intruders. She stopped just before Scourge, unable to see him until he suddenly attacked, killing her instantly. Leapstar stumbled back, her wounds glowing white for a moment before disappearing. She had lost a life.

The clan cats leapt into battle. They heavily outnumbered Scourge’s army, but he was formidable, and took down cats left and right.

The anxious tom saw a chance to prove himself to Scourge. Leapstar had paused to catch her breath, and he lunged, killing her with a powerful blow to the neck. She fell and lost yet another life. He looked around to see if anyone had seen his act of loyalty.

Scourge hadn’t even noticed.

At one point, Fireheart and Scourge found themselves face to face. Scourge gleefully hissed that he was going to kill Princess, or maybe he had already done it. Fireheart swung at him, but he dodged and started running, toward Princess’ house.

Fireheart turned to a brown cat, the fastest in the clan, and sent him after Scourge. He began running, and it looked like he was gaining on the little cat.

Just like that, the battle was over. Scourge’s henchmen were all dead, and the leader was gone.

But Leapstar was dead.

Fireheart carried her out of the fortress as the other cats followed, and they met on a hill nearby. They had to decide on a new leader, since the clan didn’t technically have a deputy.

After a long moment of hesitation, Hollyleaf offered herself as leader. Eventually, the rest of the clan did too.

But suddenly, Leapstar was revived! She was down to her last life, but she wasn’t gone yet. She jumped on the top of the hill, and Fireheart pushed aside her wings so he could stand next to her.

The battle had been won.

The brown cat managed to stop Scourge, so Princess was okay. She visited the clan to show her gratefulness, and offered to show cats how to become unicorns themselves (she had to adopt them).

The credits were a joy to watch. Cats were becoming unicorns, Fireheart was named the official deputy, that one girl who had a crush on the friendly robot got together with him, Scourge and his henchmen sulked in the Dark Forest, everything was good. I was so happy I decided to watch this series.

I decided to Google what the hell the unicorn stuff meant. It took some time and a lot of specifying, but it turned out that unicorn was one of the forms a cat could take if they were destined to be leader. It was dependent on moon signs and astrology and stuff. I saw an image of Lionheart looking like a wolf, and someone’s OC named Ivytree who took the form of an imp. “But she only had like three horns because she was so docile.”

I thought that was weird, because it didn’t really make much sense in the context of the series, but who am I to judge. It was the best thing in the fandom, after all.

[duskys-dreams]

The king was leaving on a boat, and nobody wanted him to do this. His subjects were all lined up on the dock, begging him to stay. In front of them all was his daughter, Merida.

She was upset, and angry. She screamed that he wasn’t her father anymore, as no man worthy of that title would abandon her like this. The King was clearly hurt by this, but he had already made up his mind. The ship started to sail away, into the darkness and stormy waters.

Merida stood there for a long time, watching, completely still. Then, she whipped around and stormed back, declaring that the king had abandoned them. Everyone sadly hailed her as the new queen.

Years passed, and Merida was known as the Ice Queen for her cold disposition. She didn’t really know how to feel about this title, but that simmering anger still remained. Her Uncle, Beast, did his best to guide her through life, but Merida would fight him every step of the way.

Merida was tired of being cooped up in the castle, so today she marched out, startling the subjects wandering nearby. They were respectful, but asked if she should return to the castle.

Ignoring them, Merida pushed a sunbathing person out of the way and laid down in his spot, happy to enjoy the sun for the first time in a long while.

Beast appeared. He silently stood before the young queen, disappointment radiating from him. This was enough to finally get Merida to look up.

He explained that Merida was much too pale to be out here, as her skin would burn very quickly. She looked down at her arms and saw they were bright red. She yelled in pain and agreed to come back inside, as long as he had a way to make the pain go away.

Beast led her through the castle, to the very top floor. Her room was on the left, but he led her to the room on the right, a place where even she was not allowed to go. Beast explained that he did have ointment here that would help, but there was also something that she should see.

Inside the room was a small whale, sitting next to the door. Merida noticed something strange about the way he held himself, and asked Beast if this was her father. He said yes, and that some fishermen had found him while out on the sea. The boat was capsized on an unusual rock, and he was found in this form.

The whale spoke up, saying that this was true, and he was so sorry for leaving Merida alone. The truth was that he was searching for her mother, who had gone missing not long after she was born. This had to be kept a secret, for fear of it reaching her ears and making her disappear further, but in the end it seemed that he had only hurt his surviving family. He was incredibly sorry.

Merida, fighting back tears, said she understood. She had always wanted to meet her mother, but didn’t understand when her last parent disappeared like she did. But it made sense now, and she was so sorry for the things she said to him on the night he left.

Beast stepped forward, handing Merida the ointment. He said that he was glad to bring closure, but the king would have to remain here, under the guise of being an exotic pet. They didn’t know how to reverse his form, and it would only bring confusion if the public knew.

Merida was upset, and asked why they hadn’t searched for a way to reverse it. They had the technology to read minds, surely there was an answer in there.

Beast’s face was grave. He said in no uncertain terms that nobody should ever do that to the king. The technology had only been tested on humans, and could very well kill a whale, or cause permanent damage. It was too dangerous.

Things were cut short by the appearance of the twin princes. They were Merida’s younger cousins, and she disliked them greatly.

One turned to Merida as she was leaving and asked her to do up his lips like she always did. With an irritated sigh, she took a white lipstick and scribbled on his face with it. This satisfied him.

Some time later, Beast came downstairs and went into a conference room, where he was to give a presentation to thirty representatives from another kingdom. He was not to be disturbed during this.

The princes came downstairs a bit later, dragging the small whale with them. Merida demanded to know what they were doing, and one of the princes explained that they were going to experiment with the mind-entering technology on him. Beast said it was okay.

Merida was conflicted as the two continued down to the basement. She did like the idea, since they could find a way to save the king, but Beast had warned her against this. Why would he approve of his sons doing it?

Glancing back at the conference room, she doubted he had at all.

In the basement, the princes had the whale connected with the wires into his head. Merida shouted for them to stop, and they froze, staring at her. She told them what Beast had warned her of, and asked why they would do it anyway?

They shrugged and said it was just a whale, she shouldn’t care so much. So what if things went wrong? It’s not like it was a real person.

When she told them that it was her father, their uncle, they rolled their eyes. If this was true, then he would’ve turned back by now, but he hadn’t.

They turned on the machine.

Merida dove, trying to take it off before it was too late.

It reached full power just as she made contact.

She vanished before their eyes.

Beast, hearing the commotion, appeared in the basement to demand what was going on. The princes sheepishly looked at each other.

Meanwhile, Merida was in the ocean, in the form of a whale. Some people had the ability to do this, but she never had, so she had no idea what to do. Neither did she know where she was, or why. Hadn’t she been in the basement moments ago?

Today had been a clear and sunny day, but now it was night, and a storm was howling. What on earth?

Beast’s voice cracked to life inside her head. He explained that he was using the mind-reading technology, but instead of seeing the memories, it appeared she was living them. He wasn’t sure how to get her out, but promised he would try everything from his side. Merida should try as well, but also use this time to find out exactly what happened that fateful night. The king had always been vague when asked.

So, she started to swim, following the small boat which held her father.

On the other side, Beast was tinkering with the device, attempting to switch it off, unplug it, change the settings, everything. Nothing seemed to work. He kept cursing under his breath and glaring at his sons, who sat together on the opposite side of the room looking very guilty. A few other people came down the stairs, heeding Beast’s call, and they were here to help.

Merida had caught up with the boat and swam next to it, trying to catch a glimpse of what was happening on the deck. Her father was standing at the helm, with crew members running around, but she couldn’t make out any of the words they said.

Three people seemed to rise from the water and jumped onto the ship, causing panic. They attacked everyone, and the king attempted to stop them.

He managed to push all three of them into the water, but fell down himself. He shapeshifted into a whale as he hit the water and kept chasing them. Merida followed from a distance away.

The attackers were surprisingly deft swimmers, managing to stay ahead of her father despite not shapeshifting themselves. He chased them into a monument under the ocean and cornered them there.

The three seemed to have enough, and lashed out at the whale with their blades. With a shock, Merida realized that the wounds her father received also appeared on her body. She needed to stop them.

It was already too late as she approached. He was on the brink of death already, and so was she. He had already stopped moving, floating dead in the water. Which was… strange, as she was still alive and could move.

The three, satisfied with their work, left the dead whale and swam away, returning to the ship, which had hit a rock with nobody to steer it and was slowly sinking. They jumped on the rock and met with a woman, but Merida was too far away to see who it was.

Her father appeared behind her, still losing blood. He swam past her, seemingly unaware of her presence, but seemed to falter when he caught a glimpse of the four people standing on the rock. Did he recognize them?

They all swam away, and the King went to the ship, to see if he could save anyone. He could not. Everyone was either dead by blade or drowned. He had failed twice.

Beyond the wounds in her body, Merida felt strangely weak. The world around her seem to phase in and out of existence. She was dying too.

Back with the Beast, he was growing frantic. Sharing memories like this shouldn’t be possible at all, and was clearly taking a toll on his niece. If he didn’t get her out now, she would die.

Sap, a man who was about an inch tall, jumped on the unconscious whale and started jumping on the connectors. Beast had failed to remove them, but he knew he could. However, being this close to them as they lost connection would bring a huge surge of electricity, which might very well kill him.

He didn’t care. He wanted to save Merida.

The room glowed brighter and brighter as Sap worked, white electricity crackling all around. With one final leap, he landed square on the connectors and dislodged them, the surge of electricity blinding everyone in the room.

When their vision returned, Merida could be seen on the floor, still bleeding from the wounds her father had sustained. Beast scooped her up and carried her upstairs, vowing that this time, he wouldn’t leave. She was going to be okay.

The king opened his eyes. He had burns across his body from the botched mind-reading and subsequent electrocution, but he was alive. He looked down at his hands.

He had hands.

He was human again.

[duskys-dreams]

I finally played Bugsnax. It was not what I was expecting.

On a dreary island, there was a house with a single young grumpus. She wanted to go on an adventure, but she had no way of travelling safely. She couldn’t swim or climb. So of course, I had to help her.

We left the house together, navigating through the maze of doors between her room and the outside. Then, off we went.

We travelled through forests, talking about the effects of climate change and how we could help stop it. We met all sorts of grumpuses along the way, but most of them were quite unfriendly. We made sure to avoid deep water and found safer paths when we could, as making a mistake would send us back to the beginning of the area.

Eventually, we made it to the island at the very end of the journey, containing one single house. The house was empty and kind of eerie, so we left it.

There was a small boat on the edge of the island, and we rode it straight ahead. We found the starting island not far away.

The girl went to bed, and I told her I would join her soon. I wanted to explore the area a little first. I watched the father and mother play around in a shed, shooting paintballs made of different sauces and writing things on the walls and ceiling. They calmed down and started to just talk, and I lost interest. I went to the house as her brother appeared, walking towards the shed holding a large egg.

The next morning I woke up horrified. My yellow fur had turned charcoal black. The girl was worried and told me to come with her, someone in her family was a doctor.

As we exited the house, the entire family was lined up, staring at us. The brother pointed at me, declaring I was the traitor, and everyone moved to grab me. The girl tried to reason with her family, but they ignored her pleas as well as my confused shouting. They dragged me onto an airship and closed the door before the girl could get on. She could do nothing but watch in despair as we all flew away.

The father approached me, all the joy and love I had seen last night replaced by a stern disgust. He told me that they knew I was the one who put their daughter in grave danger. Grumpuses would die permanently if they were not on their island, so I could have killed her. They were taking me to the mainland so I could be properly dealt with by authorities.

Obviously I wasn’t going to let them do that. Since I was a journalist and was given permission to leave the mainland, I could respawn regardless of where I was. Maybe these grumpuses didn’t know that, and even if they did, how would they stop me?

While everyone was distracted, I leapt off the side of the airship, falling into the ocean. Grumpuses couldn’t swim, and I was about to take full advantage of that.

I swam to the bottom with my arms still bound. Just as the last bit of life left my body, I turned around and looked up at the surface, a smug smile on my face.

I was back on the airship. The brother rolled his eyes and told me they knew of my little power, so they set my respawn place on the ship. I wasn’t going to be whisked away so easily.

In a panic, I leapt off the ship again. If death wouldn’t save me, I would just swim away.

The uncle leapt off the airship, a cable attached to his back. Somehow, he managed to grab me, and started dragging me back to the ship. I panicked, but there was no way to free myself. I was back on the airship in moments.

This time, they attached a chain from my neck to the floor. They asked me what kind of bugsnax I liked, and I told them I wanted nothing. But somehow they could tell that ham was my favourite.

The mother came back holding a jelly donut bugsnak. She told me I wasn’t going to get what I wanted, including nothing, so I had this. They forced me to eat it, and I passed out moments later.

When I awoke, we were at the mainland.

[duskys-dreams]

My brother and I were playing that Roblox game where every second you jump higher. There was an event where people would be infected and have a ring around their character, and could pass it to you if they touched you.

I was surviving for quite a while, but then Marcel started chasing me.

I climbed up the tallest tower in the game, but he was right behind me. I crouched under the low ceiling at the top, but he managed to tap me and turn me infected right as the event ended.

I was pissed. I yelled at him that he had hurt me with the weird claw thing he was wearing (it did actually hurt) and that I wanted to throw mine at him. He told me it was just a game and left to play a different one.

I left too, searching Roblox for other games with events happening. I found two, and my brother was already playing a different one, but I decided to put my computer down. We were here.

We were all escorted into this huge building, it was quite beautiful. Our chaperone told us to leave our belongings inside the gate at the front, as we won’t be needing it. I put my backpack just outside the gate so I knew I could find it again.

We were brought up a few levels and escorted to a large room with a few low tables and an assortment of cushions around each one. I took one on the right side of the room and said hello to the others who decided to join me. They were all girls.

The chaperone handed out some sheets with puzzles on them. One of them was one of those mad-lib games, but we needed to find the exact right words to fill in. This was a contest. Whichever team completed the puzzles first would win.

And we were off. This one girl next to me seemed to be the leader, she could organize everyone fairly well and people listened. I liked her.

I looked at one of the sheets and found a filled-in mad-lib game that seemed to be the same one. It seemed a bit too easy, but we figured it’d be a good idea to just copy it in. We weren’t sure about the top part though, since the answer sheet was kinda grey in that section. We left that part for now, even though I was pretty sure that if the bottom part was right, the top part would be too.

Another team behind us had a person climbing the hanging light over their table with oranges balanced on their head. We figured we should probably do the same thing.

We had five oranges, with one of them pre-peeled. I handed out an orange to each person who could climb and told them to hold it in their mouths so their hands would be free. It would taste gross, I warned them, but it was worth it to win. I kept the peeled one for myself since it wouldn’t taste as bad.

There was still one orange left, so I sighed and took it for myself as well, since we didn’t have anyone else who was willing to climb.

I went up first, shimmying up the chain with an orange in my mouth and another in my hand. It wasn’t that hard to climb, actually, and I managed to balance them at the top. Everyone just handed me their oranges instead of climbing, and I wedged them against the ceiling. I then hopped down.

We were making some good progress. It was a bit stressful not being the leader, but I eventually learned to trust my team. They were pretty smart.

Everything changed when half the time had elapsed.

To mix things up, the adults put a Large Shadow Wing in the middle of the room. We had to protect ourselves from the jets of fire while still solving the puzzles.

We tried to do just that at first, but the dragon seemed to be targeting us. Our table was getting scorched, and it was only a matter of time before an important paper, or a person, got incinerated.

I made up my mind. I yelled that I was going to keep it busy, everyone else had to keep working. I ran toward the dragon and started jumping around, doing awesome spinning leaps over him to draw his fire. It worked, and everyone was more productive than ever.

But it turned out that what I was doing was against the rules. The PA called that I was to be collected by a supervisor and escorted out of the building.

I ran back to the table and tried to subtly hide my face, just as a chaperone appeared. But surprisingly, instead of coming for me, they went after another girl at the end of our table. She tried to protest, saying that she was innocent, but they hefted her over their shoulders and dragged her out.

I wondered if they had just mistaken someone else for me, and if I was safe now. I breathed a sigh of relief, silently thanking the girl for taking my fate.

The leader picked up a green Sobeys bag and yelled “[Dusk]! Catch!” And tossed me to it. The chaperone outside stopped, and I gave her an incredulous look. I had almost gotten away with it!

She gave me a sheepish look as the chaperone came toward me. She told me to come with her, and I complied, not wanted to be carried over her shoulder. As I started to leave, I sneered “have fun with the puzzle” with all the venom in my voice I could muster. The leader gave me this absolutely crushed look.

As I was about to turn the corner, I deflated, knowing I would feel guilty about that. I looked back at her and mumbled “I know you didn’t mean it.” Then I left.

We took an elevator down one level, and we met up with the other girls who would be leaving too. Sylvia, who they had mistaken for me, Marcel, and an Arabic girl named Ira.

We walked down the next set of stairs while chatting. I noticed that every single person in this building was a woman, which was odd. I wanted to ask our chaperone about it, but I could never find the right moment.

We had arrived at the lobby, where all our stuff had been left. The supervisor here, a man, surprisingly, told us to gather our belongings. I found my backpack where I’d left it and hurried after everyone else.

As we were leaving, I finally worked up the courage to ask the chaperone about all the women. She told me that only five males were allowed to work in the building, as it was the divine’s decree. It was their sacred mission.

Not what I was expecting. I dropped the issue, and we stepped outside. Ira asked if we would be riding in her car, and the chaperone said yes, saying that she was being increfluous.

I elbowed Ira and asked if she knew what that meant, because I didn’t. She did not either.

I was going to sit in the front seat, but it was already taken. I went to the back and sat next to Sylvia.

As we started driving, I pointed out the building. It looked like a small church, but the walls were painted blue to camouflage with the sky and hide its true size. It was cool, and I wondered what it would do at night.

I looked around and realized I could only see three people. I said I was pretty sure there was a fourth one, but Ira turned around in her seat and said she was here too. I couldn’t see her before, she was too short.

Marcel got a call from mom, and a couple minutes later, I did too. Marcel was gesturing for me to give him my phone, but I ignored him.

Mom asked me what I was up to, and I told her we were leaving the event. She was chill about it.

[duskys-dreams]

There was a dragon inside a volcano, a fault ripper, that we had to stop.

We gathered all the dragon riders we could outside and told everyone the plan. We’d ride in together and fight.

I had a limited time to select a team. I was being indecisive, so as the timer ran out, I frantically selected a bunch of random dragons.

Hiccup, Fishlegs, Astrid, and Snotlout took the lead, along with… Gobber. He rode on Hookfang.

They flew inside the volcano, but the dragon was ready for them. It began firing, and it was all they could do to dodge the attacks and stay on their dragons. Gobber fell at one point, but Snotlout and Hookfang managed to save him.

They all fled the volcano, but Hiccup and Toothless landed somewhere a bit further away.

Hiccup came to inside a pit of tar. He had already sank halfway, and was completely trapped. Toothless couldn’t do anything to reach him, and he couldn’t fly away to get help. He shot a distress call, but trees were blocking the view from the rest of the group.

Toothless stood on the edge and carefully put one foot in tar, and tried to pull Hiccup out. But he couldn’t. He sat back on the edge and whined sadly, shooting another distress call into the air.

Suddenly, the dragon riders appeared. They had seen the beacon after all. Hookfang picked up Toothless and carried him back to camp, and Barf and Belch pulled the nearly unconscious Hiccup out. They all flew back to camp.

Hiccup recovered quickly, and they were ready to launch another attack. But they had a different target now: the hunters.

It was a stealth mission this time. The dragon riders flew into the hunter’s base and crept around, searching for someone high-ranked to capture.

Viggo noticed them, but he didn’t sound the alarms. Instead, he told the riders to keep quiet and out of sight as Krogan appeared.

Krogan saw the riders and turned his ire onto Viggo, demanding why he would associate himself with the enemy. Viggo didn’t have an answer.

The dragon riders snatched Viggo away before Krogan could attack. They brought him back to the base and asked him why he would help them.

Viggo said that he had a high respect for the dragon riders, more so than the hunters. He would help us with our mission.

[duskys-dreams]

Okay so last night I had a dream where a new Sanders Sides episode was being made called “Roman’s Empire.” To generate hype I guess, a bunch of out-of-context clips from the episode were released. I have illustrated them thusly:

I could not begin to tell you what the plot of the episode was.

[duskys-dreams]

While on a recon mission for the dragon riders, I had to land my gronckle. I heard hunters approaching, and quickly tossed my phone in the bushes so they couldn’t take it from me.

The hunters appeared, led by Viggo, and I was promptly captured. I expected to be thrown into prison, and I was ready for it, but instead they told me I would be put to work. I was scared.

I was escorted to my room. It looked like a hotel room, and it was… rather nice. My “work” was folding towels using a specific method. Not that hard at all.

I didn’t have a way to contact the dragon riders without my phone, but I hoped they would notice my absence and launch a rescue mission. I waited until the end of the day. Nothing. It started to rain, and I was losing hope.

That night, I snuck out of my room and to the place I had been captured. My dragon was nowhere in sight, but my phone was in the same place I left it. It was fine despite the rain.

I took it back to my room, along with my tablet, and opened up chrome so I could use discord. Then, I quickly DMed @morningdewflop explaining the entire situation and begged to be rescued. I then hid my devices under loose clothing and under beds, and went to sleep.

The next day, Viggo appeared in my room. He sounded friendly, and asked me how my stay was so far. I subtly made sure my devices were hidden, and then I told him the truth: they had treated me surprisingly well, and I didn’t really mind it here. Viggo smiled and told me that was because he wanted me to get used to this. This is how the dragon hunters lived, and I could join them.

I was surprised. Me, a rider, joining the hunters? But I thought about it. It had been two days, and the dragon riders still hasn’t made any move to rescue me. It never took them this long. Had they given up on me?

Maybe I ought to give up on them as well.

I told Viggo I accepted. I would be a dragon hunter. He was pleased, and led me outside, to the other hunters. The hunters were actually very friendly, and accepted me as one of their own. I especially liked this one girl. I immediately felt a sense of kinship here, unlike anything I had felt with the dragon riders. I was home.

Outside, we heard explosions. The dragon riders were attacking. We all ran to defend our home. I saw the dragon riders up there, blasting away, but they didn’t seem interested in looking for me. This solidified my resolve.

I assisted the hunters with defence, and took up a bow of my own. We managed to shoot down Snotlout, Fishlegs, and the twins.

We regrouped afterward, and everyone was happy with my work. I really was one of them. I was happy too.

The other hunters had unlocked some powers by facing down the dragons. Each was different. The girl I liked had the ability to make things hover, and I helped her set it up like a magic trick.

Outside, we heard Hiccup and Astrid attacking again, looking to avenge their fallen riders. I went out there, ready to take them down.

They were surprised by my appearance, telling me they thought I was dead. I told them that I had messaged them for Thor’s sake, I knew they had just abandoned me. Then, I shot them both down.

Viggo congratulated me for my valour in battle. I was truly a dragon hunter. I was home.

[duskys-dreams]

My friend @morningdewflop had posted an adopt of a large brown-black cat with no eyes. There could be fire on his head and behind his eyes to symbolize his power. Everyone was interested, but I really wanted to get him. So, I started writing a story for him.

An angular white wolf, Okami Amaterasu, came to fetch Blazesight, the cat. She led him down a long slushy path and told him that he needed to see what was at the end. The wolf said that she had been doing her best, but it was no longer enough.

When they reached the end, they met a wizard at an altar who gestured at the sky. The sun was high, and the moon was… flying around? It turns out that the moon was about to be completely destroyed, and that would wipe out all life on earth. The planet was already starting to collapse. They had to stop it, but how?

The wizard offered a solution. If they brought the Chosen One to this altar, they might be able to reverse the damage and save the planet. The issue was finding them and getting them here. The wolf stayed to guard the altar while the wizard and Blazesight left to find their only hope.

They came into the town and saw the moon in the sky, zooming across way too quickly. A reminder of how dire this quest was. They tried to cross the street, but none of the cars were stopping for them at the crosswalk, even with the red light. Eventually they decided to just book it and entered the nearby house.

It turned out to be a sort of zoo inside a house. I took a liking to the green parrot that would sometimes repeat what I said, and has this silly little expression where his break would hang open and he would stare at me.

At one point, the parrot opened the cage and stole a leaf frond (saying “leaf frond” while he did so, the most complicated word he’s said) and I went to fetch the worker. She said that the tiny grey cockatiel was allowed to slip through the bars, but I pointed at the green parrot. That one was not supposed to be out here. She apologized and picked up the parrot, moving him to a different, more secure cage.

We considered taking that parrot for the quest, maybe giving him a white feather to balance out the colour palette, but our musings were interrupted by a woman entering the room. She put a towel by the door and declared that nobody was to leave.

The worker, the woman’s daughter named Wood, told her that was ridiculous, and we shouldn’t just give up because the apocalypse was happening. Her mother ignored her and went into the bathroom.

Blazesight tapped Wizard. Wood seemed like a good candidate. She wanted to stop this and wasn’t going to roll over and let it happen. This was what we needed.

Blazesight went to approach Wood, but she was standing in front of the bathroom door, listening to her mom. He listened as well, and heard her saying she was sorry and she hoped her daughter would be okay without her. Then there was the distinct sound of her slitting her own throat.

Wood panicked, and Blazesight called out to her, holding out his arm to hug her. He comforted her, and told her that they had to leave, as they had a job to do.

As they passed by a hallway they contained pictures of her family, Wood stopped to look at her mother. She said that she was mourning the person she used to be, brave, loving, never willing to back down. This apocalypse had done something to her, turned her nihilistic and killed her before she was even dead. Wood said she missed her dad, who had died long before this. He would’ve protected her, even now.

As they all started to leave, there was a knocking on the door that sounded distinctly non-human. Blazesight used his fire powers to knock away the door and found a large mushroom standing there. He did a friendly dance, and Wood recognized him as her father’s spirit. Blazesight didn’t notice and knocked him away too, pulling Wood and Wizard out the door.

Outside, they had to keep running, and they flew through the town looking for a specific place. Creatures chased them, and they found asylum in what appeared to be some sort of lab.

As they crept through the abandoned lab, Blazesight reminded everyone to keep sharp. They didn’t know what they might find in here.

Suddenly, the web of pipes on the ceiling started to move. They were like snakes, and started to attack the group.

They all ran through a doorway, and Wizard made a blockade out of strips of wood, woven into something that resembled a door. They would hear the pipes pushing on it from the other side.

Blazesight’s powers were useless here, so he asked Wizard what they should do. Before he could respond, however, the door was bashed in and all the pipes poured through. They latched on Blazesight and Wizard, and Blazesight vaulted Wood into the air so she could climb out via a gap at the top of the door.

Blazesight and Wizard were now trapped. There was nothing they could do as the pipes coiled around them.

But suddenly, Wood reappeared, slashing through the pipe holding Blazesight. It started pouring water, and Wood picked up the pipe, using it as a weapon as the water pressure destroyed anything it came in contact with. She accidentally hit Wizard at one point, and he grumbled at her as she shouted “sorry!”

Wood turned to the stained glass window and pointed her pipe at it, shattering the glass instantly. The trio jumped through the window, and now they were safe.

But perhaps safe isn’t the right word, as they saw zombies wandering the streets. They had to stay hidden.

It was darker now, and they needed to find food before they left. Wizard suggested peanuts, which Blazesight said might work. He would have to be dunked in the river afterward to hide his scent. Wood suggested salted peanuts, which was a much better idea.

So, they all travelled to the convenience store. Blazesight and Wizard went inside while Wood waited on the roof, and she has to dodge bullets and also the blasts of the ender dragon. It was challenging (as the game was set on Hard difficulty), and I ended up just skipping the minigame and having Wood just go inside with her companions.

Inside, they found the peanuts very easily. They were just right there. Blazesight turned to his companions and asked if we were ready to leave, but Wood froze.

There were names written on the walls here, but she took notice of a few in particular above a window. Three names, the names of the bandits they had encountered earlier. This was where the bandits spent their time. They had to get out of here.

The door burst open, and the bandits appeared, pointing their weapons at the group. Blazesight and Wizard were prepared to defend Wood immediately.

[duskys-dreams]

I was running some sort of evil empire in what appeared to be a type of video game. I was doing very well with it, travelling to other people’s places and taking their resources easily.

But eventually I had to leave, and discovered a new place. There were four trials, each representing a different element. Fire, water, earth, and air.

The fire trial started in some sort of giant basketball court, and I had to protect my friends from all the other people there.

After that, I went to the air trial. It was much more difficult.

I had my two friends, and we had to get on top of this ledge to progress. But the only way to do that was to use this air geyser given to us, and it was difficult. It was just too far away from the ledge, and there was a second complication.

On the first failed jump, a large door on the right wall would open, revealing these rails. On the second fail, a huge teddy bear in a huge minecart would appear, going in a straight line. If anyone was hit by the teddy bear, all of us would die and we’d have to start again. But after that, the teddy bear would disappear and the cycle would repeat.

I took the lead, trying to jump again and again. The air guardian, a young girl not much bigger than me, watched us while smiling smugly, offering us no help.

Eventually, I managed to make it onto the ledge. I then waited for my two companions, warning them not to get hit or else I would die too. We all made it, and together we walked toward the next challenge.

We had to hop across these small circles in the water, making sure not to touch the liquid. Easy enough, we all did it first try.

After that was a bit more challenging. We had to run through this long and dark tunnel filled with water and avoid the zombies that would come out of holes. It was terrifying and difficult, but we made it.

The end was kind of nice. We were at the surface again and there was this artificial island nearby, full of plants and very pretty. We left after that, annoyed at the air guardian for making such an absurd challenge.

I went to my mom, who was standing at the end of this huge line behind the elementary school. Apparently we needed to get some sort of papers checked, and it was a long wait.

I had to go find something, so I left my mom in the line and went inside the house. Inside, I asked my mom through those red headpieces she has (we both had a pair) if she remembered that old elf-on-the-shelf movie. She said she didn’t, so I went about describing it as I puttered around the front landing. I told her how it was about these two tiny elves-on-the-shelves, one wore white and green and the other just green (and very small). They were watching this one house, but the elf wearing white was accidentally touched by the kid and couldn’t go back to report to Santa. But with the help of the little green elf and the girl who accidentally touched him, he made it back to Santa.

During this explanation, I munched on these old Easter candies I found in the potted plant, and I couldn’t hear my mom afterward. So I went back outside and could see her lips moving, but I could only barely hear her through the headpieces. I asked her to fix it, and she agreed, but said she wasn’t the one eating while talking on the phone. I felt embarrassed.

We both had to go upstairs to talk to someone to fix the headpiece, but we needed someone to hold our spot. My brother and Xander were both there for some reason, so I ran up and called him Tobias, asking if he could hold mom’s spot. He said sure, looking confused. I ran off.

Everyone had to climb this steep hill, but it looked difficult. As I watched, some kids would lose their grip and slide all the way down. We had to go to the building on the right, so I considered trying to climb the much more jagged part of the hill on the right, but instead had a better idea. I went to the left and clung to the building as a climbed, using this small wooden ledge as a support to pull me up as I climbed.

The supervisor on the hill praised me for my ingenuity, saying that I even had a handhold.

I made it to the top of the hill (it was a struggle even with my strategy) and Mom and I went to the building on the left. I reflected on the nature of names during the walk, thinking about how Tobias’ name didn’t sound right and neither did mine.

We climbed the stairs and found a man sleeping in a bed, with his gorgeous tortoiseshell cat curled up next to him. Mom went past him and into the next room, looking for screws, and the man sleepily came to, saying “hey, dear.” He thought it was his girlfriend who was waking him up. It was not.

I paid more attention to the cat. She was very beautiful, and even had a pamphlet about her. It has basic instructions and trivia about cats, and in one part said “is it good if a cat slow blinks at you?” and then a picture of the cat’s face instead of an answer. Peering closer at the cat’s face, I saw it has the word YES written in white fur on its right cheek. It looked like it has been written with the numbers on a clock.

I asked the man if this happened naturally, and he seemed unsure, but said he was pretty sure the people at the pet store bleached the fur for the trivia. I was disappointed.

My mom found what she was looking for, so we left, bidding goodbye to the man and his cat. He seemed nice enough.

We slid down the hill easily, along with everyone else, and rejoined our spot with Tobias and Xander. There were more people behind us now.

I asked my brother if his name was actually Tobias or if I was losing it. He laughed and said I was losing it, his name was Marcel. I was confused, but it sounded right.

I abandoned my mom and Marcel and met up with my companions from before. It was getting dark, and we wanted to get revenge on that annoying air guardian.

We went inside her challenge again. It was dark this time, but the geyser still worked. The rails and teddy bear were nowhere to be found.

I managed to grab these water pipes that ran across the ceiling, which hadn’t been there before, and pulled myself on top of it. I then shimmied across it, dropping down on the ledge. This wasn’t the way we were supposed to do it, so it was exactly what we all did.

We ran down to the cushions in the water again, and I took the lead, hopping across but heading to the right instead of straight. It hadn’t been there before either, and it turned out to be a shortcut that led directly to the surface.

Once I was on the surface, I jumped around a lot, trying to make sure my new checkpoint was saved. I was on gravel, and my socks were getting wet, but I didn’t care much.

Granddad was watching me from across the street, and I waved at him. He said nothing, so I said nothing in return.

I saw two figures emerge from the darkness, one who was short with long hair, and another that was taller and had two bug-like eyes on top of her head. But they came closer, and it was just my companions. They asked what we should do now.

We went to the island and started messing around in the water. The physics were exactly like in Roblox, and we’d be forced to the surface at every opportunity.

We found more people during this, and they liked our plan. They joined us in our plan to mess with the air guardian.

We went back to the beginning, along with our new friends. But now, the teddy bear minecart was back. This time, however, the minecarts weren’t disappearing when the teddy bear did. We decided to activate it over and over to see if we could break it.

The minecarts piled up, and the teddy bear would keep colliding with it. Sometimes we would get stuck in the minecarts and have to hop out, which would delete that minecart.

Eventually we had a pile of minecarts. One companion said this probably wasn’t supposed to happen. I said that was a good thing, and we climbed up the pile easily.

We went through the circuit again and again, memorizing it and getting better each time. Eventually, we all met up at the end and went on the island.

I swam inside the island, which was hollow in the middle. We knew we had succeeded, and it was time for celebration.

My friends were on the outside, and I looked at them. We started a song as I opened the wheel-like door, as I would shout out lyrics and my friends would scream “SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!”

I changed the lyrics to something from Encanto, and everyone fell silent in confusion for the first line. But they got it after the second one.

After we got to the “READY? SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS, SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS-“ the island started flying into the air, higher and higher with each chant. At the final “SPOONGEBOB… SQUAREPAAAAAAAAAANTS-“ the island kept floating in the air, and I held onto it like a small Lego house until it ended.

After that, we all started to leave. Two people got in a boat, and one said to the other, “now who is going to be the princess, if not the air guardian?” The other said that Wheels was a good candidate. My name was Wheels.

[duskys-dreams]

The class had gone on a trip to a sort of museum, we weren’t really sure what it actually was.

I stayed with the class, but I started to realize that something was wrong. Nobody ever even looked at me, even when I spoke or stood in front of them. It eventually became clear that I was a ghost.

I was confused and a bit upset, but I decided there wasn’t much use in trying to fight it. I stuck close to my friend Alex the entire time, even though they had no idea I was there.

At one point, Alex was taken aside by a strange old woman. She told them that they needed to do something important: find the secret in the attic. To do this, they needed to steal the collar from the tour guide that was watching over our class, as it contained the key. We also needed to steal the bible that was also contained inside that collar and read the passage. I asked which verse it was, but my voice was useless.

Alex was confused and overwhelmed, and I put a hand on their knee in an attempt to comfort them, even though it also did nothing. They rejoined the class, and they started to go back upstairs.

Meanwhile, I stayed below, trying to find the collar the old woman mentioned. I saw it on the guide’s hips (it was a big collar) and then I ran up the stairs to find the rest of the class.

The first group I saw was not my class, but a group of kids who were tormenting someone, taunting and throwing things at them. With a start, I realized that Alex was the centre of their mockery, and they were clearly upset. I tried to stop them, but I could do nothing as a ghost.

Alex finally ran away and cried in the hallway. I went after them and wrapped them in a hug.

After a long moment, Alex started to grow concerned, asking if they were dead. I backed off, and saw that they were looking straight at me. I wasn’t a ghost anymore! I reassured them that they were not dying, I was just finally back.

Together, we went looking for our class. We found another one and nearly joined them, as I recognized a classmate, Bennett, but it wasn’t the same group we were with before. We went back down the stairs, and found our group in the same basement as before, for some reason.

Now was our chance. We had to steal that collar.

I ran up to the guide while Alex tried to find people in the group to join us, and explained everything. He took off the large collar and gave it to me, but alarms started blaring as he did so. He was not supposed to take off his collar.

I knew if I ran through the museum with this thing I would be caught immediately, so I pulled the hatch in it and found a little bronze star attached by a string. I quickly asked if I could rip it off, and the guide said yes, so I snapped the string and pocketed the star (which was also the key) and gave the collar back.

I found Alex again, who had gathered a small group of people, and we all started running up the stairs.

Alarms still blared and people ran around, but nobody tried to stop us. We went up more and more sets of stairs, and the hallways started to get more narrow.

Eventually, we made it to the top. There was a long space to stand, and a bunch of platforms one could hop across to get to the final level, which was four feet up. There was a gap between the two levels that seemed to go down a very long time.

Without pausing to consider, I hopped across all the platforms and stood on the final level. I looked back, and was confused to see that nobody had followed me. I asked why, and someone explained that those platforms were clearly unstable and probably unsafe. I was the most reckless among them, they said.

Snotlout somehow found a huge black golf bag and passed it over to me, telling me to hold it in place so the rest of them could climb it like a bridge. I thought this was ridiculous. Surely running across some circular platforms for four seconds (which I had already done, mind you) was safer than straddling a bag of golf clubs. But whatever, I still held the bag in place.

Most people eventually worked up the courage to follow my path, but Fishlegs stubbornly climbed up the golf clubs anyway. It took forever, and we were all waiting for him.

After that, we looked around the room. It was of a decent size, around the size of my bedroom, and had a large grey-white bed taking up the left side. Other than that, it was empty.

We poked around, looking for a keyhole. I thought I found it first, but Alex pointed out the real one for me. I slid the star into place, turned it, and suddenly the bed transformed into a wooden table with a black case on it.

Opening up the case revealed a board game that seemed to include sweets in it. We set it up on the table and started to play (which meant moving our pieces around and making absolutely delicious treats) but we were having a different conversation now, about families.

Fishlegs said that he’d never met his mom, but Snotlout lived with both of his parents. He described his mom, and I wrote it down in my journal. Fishlegs watched me eagerly as I wrote “scrawny, blonde, with icy blue eyes.” Writing “eyes” was a bit of a struggle for some reason.

Fishlegs was excited. That’s exactly how he’d had his mom described to him. That meant that he and Snotlout were half-brothers! So Fishlegs started to leave, picking up the golf bag and trying to get it to stick.

I protested. He couldn’t just up and leave! We were playing a forbidden board game! But he didn’t care. He wanted to go meet his mom now.

Eventually, I gave in. We didn’t need him anyway. Snotlout and Fishlegs left together, and the rest of us kept playing the game.

[duskys-dreams]

It stared with a shapeshifter attacking me using the form of brainwashed King Micah from She-ra. When that was over, I played this really complicated game with my choir that involved chasing people and getting them to sit.

When the game ended, we tallied up our points by seeing how many tokens we got. My team’s was these tiny eggs, and the other team’s was sour-patch kids.

My team was winning at first, 8-4, so out of pity I gave the other team two of our eggs. It wasn’t enough for them to win the game anyway. Or so I thought.

We kept adding up our points, and the numbers kept climbing. When we reached 60 points, I looked at the other team’s scoreboard and saw in horror that they had 120. We only had a limited time to tally points, so we picked up the pace.

I dug around and found more eggs and sour-patch kids. We had to break the eggs to get the points, or eat the sour-patch kids. It took longer to add the sour-patch kids, so we ate them as fast as possible.

Both teams were over 200 points by now, with us at 263 and them at 280. There was only ten seconds left, so I ate the last few sour-patch kids I could find and also dabbed a black sharpie in my mouth, which would double the points apparently (it tasted awful).

But the points didn’t go through in time, so the other team won. But I knew they had cheated, so we were the winners in our hearts.

Then I woke up in the dream and saw that it was like 3am, so I complained in Noah’s DMs about how I wanted to actually be able to sleep for once and explained the dream in excruciating detail. Then I went outside to the front yard and hung out with some uncles I think. They ate all the stew but they gave me some bread (they told me the stew *was* a loaf of bread, which raised questions about the texture.)

Then I went inside and booted up one of my Minecraft worlds, the one with the giant amusement park which I actually do have. Apparently there was an update that superflat worlds were normal worlds now with biomes and stuff, so I went exploring.

I found this village in the jungle with a giant hole next to it, and inside the whole was this huge and beautiful cavern with all sorts of jungle plants growing. But there was an ender dragon in there for some reason and it attacked me. It didn’t hurt me since I was in creative mode, but the blast kinda destroyed the entire village and I was sad. I used a command to kill it. It killed both this ender dragon and the one in the end, and the game said that it had killed one in the “slave realm” and one in the “spawning realm.” I thought that was really weird so I took a screenshot to send it in the minecraft channel later.

I left the village and realized I was so far away from my amusement park. I tried to teleport there, but the command hadn’t been set up, so I got out a compass and just stared running.

On my way back, I found this strange house. It was pretty and mostly grey bricks, but along the top was these pistons that kept pushing these honey blocks up and down over and over. They had a couple anvils on each block too to keep it from bouncing too high.

So I went inside. It was strange, had a wall that showed three different rooms, with a person in each. The one on the right had a man in a sort of living room reading a book. He asked me what I was doing in his house, and I told him I thought it was cool and I was just poking around. He grunted and went back to his book, and I gave up bothering him after a few more tries. The middle room had a woman who also looked busy, so I just let her be.

And I’m the left room, there was a young girl in a sort of dojo, practising different battle moves. She noticed me and ran over, calling me Jack (while introducing herself as Lisa-rose) and asked me to do the dance she liked. I tried to explain that I was not Jack, but then her parents appeared and waited for me to make a move. So I went “screw it” and started breakdancing right then and there. Lisa-rose loved it and started doing it with me, and after that her parents said I had to leave. So I did.

I found myself in a sort of underground mall next, after running for a long while. I had no idea how I had gotten so far away from my amusement park, and I was planning to ask a sales associate if they knew a faster way to get there.

But as I was approaching them, someone called my name. It was Lisa-rose, and she was ecstatic to see me. She told me to “do our thing,” and we both sat down on the ground. Everyone else in the store was watching us, and sat down as well, albeit a bit more hesitantly.

Lisa-rose and I started breakdancing in sync, and everyone cheered. That is, until Lisa-rose’s parents appeared, and they were pissed. They yelled at Lisa-rose for running off to play with a stranger, and she yelled back that I was her brother (apparently?) and I treated her better than they ever did. I stood next to Lisa-rose during all this, mostly quiet but at one point I did tell them to treat their daughter with more respect.

It ended with Lisa-rose running off in tears, and I and an few concerned passersby went after her. We found her in a makeup booth, doing her own makeup with trembling hands. We asked if she was okay, and she said she was done with her parents. Her mother always did her makeup for her on Fridays, and she was doing it herself this time to show that she didn’t need them anymore.

The other passersby eventually wandered off, but I stayed with Lisa-rose, keeping her company and giving her small feedbacks on her makeup. It didn’t look too bad actually, she had this really saturated red eyeshadow.

After she was done, she asked if she could come with me. I told her I was on a quest to find my home, but it was actually a really boring quest so she probably shouldn’t come. But she did anyway, and off we went.