#anton fennec

[jaws-and-canines]

Flowers

A re-write of this scene. Contains vomit, gore, blood, mentions of animal cruelty, field medicine and passive suicidal ideation. Sorry Fennec (again)

---

His heart is beating so hard it hurts. He pelts through the forest,the dappled light playing over him. His ID card has come undone, the pin stabbing into his collarbone over and over, but he doesn’t have time. There's no more time. The papers in his pockets crumple every stride he takes, his signature on the orders, his name on his own death warrant.

But he doesn’t want to die. Not here. Not like this. Not scared, not so far from home. Not alone. Not in pain.

Please, not like this, and that's the mantra that keeps him running from the State soldiers not far behind. He tried. No quarter, they said, and knelt him down to put two in the back of his head. Their commander interrupted. He thought he was saved.

The officer gave him a three minute head start in a fox hunt. He is the fox. He is going to die like one too, he thinks, unless he keeps running. All that matters is that he keeps running-

Searing cramp shoots from his foot up his leg. He screams, stumbles and hits the ground, scrambling on bruised knees and grazed hands, and feels the horrible heaviness of bile rising in his throat again. He claws his way to his feet against the bark of a tree, clamping his jaw shut to keep himself from vomiting. It doesn’t work, an acidic stream erupting from his nose instead, and finally, he succumbs to it, and throws up into the mud. He doubles up, a hand on his chin, tears streaming down his face, spit trailing from his beard.

His muscles are on fire. He is on fire. Part of him wants to lie down and wait for them to catch up with him, wait for them to sit him up and cut his throat, or to meet his end with fibre wire and a hand over his mouth. If he's lucky, to be double-tapped and watch a round tear through his chest before the one through his head finishes him off.

But he knows he can't. He's too scared. He wipes his mouth and forces his burning self onwards. Steps become walking becomes jogging becomes running with the taste of vomit in his mouth. He breaks out of the forest and into a meadow. The ground hardens a little beneath his feet. He glances behind him and sees nobody.

Maybe, he dares to hope, he's gotten away. A smile cracks across his sweat-drenched face. A cool breeze rustles through the meadow, across the balmy blue sky. His running slows into a jog. The smile broadens as he glances behind again, and starts the slow jog towards the far treeline.

“Not today,” he gasps, winded, the same smile on his face. “Not-”

The words are ripped from his tongue abruptly. From a place he doesn't see comes a shot he doesn't hear. A high calibre bullet carves the air apart. He just happens to be in it's way. Immense speed meets soft flesh. Speed obliterates it, carving a path through him, throwing blood and bone and muscle out behind him.

The shattered bones give way and the force of the bullet carving through his leg knocks him off his feet. His brain is yet to process the pain. It simply feels like he has been hit by an invisible wave, an unseen force tossing him backwards. His torso and hands go one way, breaking his fall in one direction, and his legs go in the other- and for a moment, he thinks he is split in two. Like he has been hit by lightning- one moment he is upright. The next he tumbles head-over-heels, and then the last, he hits the ground with a bang. Ribs crack. A spray of blood arcs over his head- somehow, it ends up on his face, in his hair. It takes a moment to work out what has happened. He looks down, and then heaves a dry retch as he looks at his leg. It looks like it is hanging on by a thread of shattered bone and gristle. There’s so much blood. He can’t believe how red it is.

“No!” he cries out quietly, drawing out the last syllable into a little howl, a quiet protest at the universe. He gasps for air to try and calm himself down. It doesn’t do much- his eyes are fixed on his ruined leg, on the bright red blood spreading in a pool beneath him- and his mouth goes dry when he realises it’s not that just he may never walk again- he is actively bleeding to death.

It still doesn’t hurt yet. He thinks maybe he can walk on it. He claws at the mud, pushing one foot into the dirt and pulling with all his strength. He bears down on the other, and then feels something break inside of it- an almost audible crack, with the overwhelming sensation that may as well have been a baseball bat to his head.

He is proved wrong on every count. He can’t walk. It hurts. It hurts like hell. He puts his fingers against his leg, and for some reason, claws at it, wondering if he can distract himself enough to be able to crawl. Fennec is again proved wrong- he moans, bearing his teeth, feeling his fingers go into his bone and his muscle. Paper, the lower half of his leg is little more than paper, and as he tries again to bear down on it, to get to his feet, the noise of something snapping like a twig is unmistakable. A noise tears from his mouth- an animal howl.

He bears down again, pushing himself to his feet, and then lurches forwards, falling down into the dirt, his good leg slipping in the mud. He gets nowhere. Again, he puts his hands in the mud and pushes himself up to a position where he can half-crawl, half-drag himself along the ground. Behind him, a snaking trail of blood runs over the drought-parched ground, swirling into the dirt. He slips again, his elbow giving way, and this time, lands on his knee. Something snaps again. His vision goes white, almost, then black around the edges. He realises he isn’t breathing- he isn’t remembering to- and gulps down the cold morning air like a fish out of water.

He goes from crawling on hands and shattered knees to lying on his side, howling at the top of his lungs, almost as if he is no longer the same as his body. The noise that comes out of his mouth barely seems like it’s coming from him. The flowers remain silent. It passes after what seems like an eternity. He rolls onto his back and puts his hands beneath him for a moment. He didn’t think that that simple movement would hurt him. It does. His shattered knee rolls over along with him, and the next phantom blow takes him out.

The white-out is tremendous. The black seeps in again as he forgets to breathe. When he gasps for breath again it is laboured. The blood has turned what is beneath him to mud. There’s bile and tears and snot all down his jumper. Cracked glasses, cold fingers and toes, and the only heat is what leeches from his leg. He looks a picture of utter dread- staring into the middle-distance, he sees his own death rapidly approaching.

He is going to rot there, he thinks. The flowers will eat him away into nothingness under the rolling grey sky. His wife will never know what happened to him. All Alais will know is that he is gone and he is not coming back when the officers show up to their little cottage with their caps in their hands and paperwork and condolences.

The flowers remain silent. His unborn daughter, Sabine, she will grow up without a father, and he will die here, in the middle of this field, far from home, with the slate-grey storm rolling above and the flowers swaying gently around him. He will rot, like he’s seen deer carcasses rot- his skin will slough off, eaten by flies and maggots and animals, and then his bones will stare up into the disapproving sky until their putrid brown is bleached to ivory white.

He starts to sob, and still, the flowers remain silent. It’s not fair, he thinks. He tried. He really did. He tried and he’s still going to die. The tears quickly pass. Something fills him, an uncanny calm as if it’s being poured into him like water. He puts his fingers at the edge of the hole in his knee, wipes his face and lies back in the grass, staring at the sky. Waiting to die.

He undoes the top button of his shirt, leaning back into the cool earth, and feeling the warmth pour from his body and into the earth. The sky that he is beneath is the same Alais will look up at- they will never be apart, not really, as he soaks into the earth and his atoms return to feeding plants and animals and seep into the watercourse- because nothing is ever created anew, and nothing is ever really destroyed, they will never be truly separated- and the more blood that leaves him and soaks into the earth, the more he knows he is okay with this, he’s okay with this, he’s okay with this.

But this is not what happens.

No, that is not what happens, and he laments that fact, sinking deeper and deeper into the uncanny calm. Even as the dark green uniforms of the Rangers fill his hazy vision, he can’t find enough care in him to react. He just stares at them, silhouetted by the sky. They kick his sidearm away from him, and his knife, and pull something from his pack. Fennec looks at it and realises it’s his haemorrhage control kit. All he can remember from the classes where they taught him how to use it is the smell of wood polish. The rest is lost under the smothering blanket of the peace that threatens to drown him. The earth beneath his back is cool. He is getting colder.

The Ranger apologises to him, pulling something out of the trauma pack. Catastrophic bleeding from the leg can be stopped temporarily when the femoral artery is compressed enough by the tourniquet further up the limb than the open wound. No more blood can get to the wound and no more blood can get out. It is well renowned for being painful. To a patient who is conscious and aware of what is going on, it can be explained and braced for. Fennec can’t fathom why the man would apologise. For what, he thinks. Apologise for what? Not for this. Not for this feeling. This beautiful feeling. He does not understand it, and he does not brace for it either- just watches distantly as they apply the tourniquet- until they tighten it.

The bleeding stops. The agony takes him by surprise. The white-out comes again. He can hear himself screaming and yet cannot make himself stop. All he knows is the notion that it must stop. It must stop. He screams, and screams, and screams, trying desperately to slam his head against the ground, arching his back, clawing furrows into the dirt with his fingers and kicking an arc into it with the heel of the shoe that isn’t completely drenched in blood, the sky’s pallid blue glancing off of broken glasses lenses, yet, though he tries with all his might to knock himself out on the ground, it never happens.

He writhes in agony, screaming and howling, kicking out weakly with blood-soaked trousers and his good leg, drawing his hands up to try to hit himself in the face just to feel something else in the hopes that it would lessen the feeling that the pain is shredding his very personhood into tiny little pieces. He can make no words, no sounds but the screaming.

When it is over the flowers are silent still. He catches his breath, chest heaving. The dressing being packed into the wound barely makes him flinch as he comes back to himself still hazy. He winces as the skin pen touches his forehead, writing the time below a letter T in blue-purple ink.

He thinks he will never know pain like it ever again. In fact, he would come to be good friends with it. He has the rest of his life to get to know it- in the dead of night, he would have many a conversation with it- and it would be like an unwelcome guest in his house lingering to the morning. But there and then, in the meadow- he had never once felt something like that before. He didn’t think it was possible.

But now he knows.

[fuzzro]

[knightofleo]

Adrianne Lenker, Akini Jing, alva noto, Aphex Twin, Ariana Grande, Arooj Aftab, Art School Girlfriend, Astoria, Astrid Sonne, Ativin, AT-XYA, Barrie, Bat for Lashes, BbyMutha, BEA1991, Belén Aguilera, berlioz, Beth Gibbons, Beyoncé, Big Ever, Brimheim, BRONQUIO, The Bug, Burial, Caribou, Cassandra Jenkins, Charly Bliss, Cheekface, Chelsea Wolfe, Coined, Dawn Richard, The Deep, Dexter Colt, DjRUM, Douglas Dare, Drown, Enrico Demuro, Entrañas, Father John Misty, Fennec, FKA twigs, Forest Swords, Fine, Footballhead, Floating Points, Four Tet, Fousheé, Gesaffelstein, Ghostly Kisses, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Greg Mendez, Hakushi Hasegawa, Hana Vu, Hannah Elizabeth Cox, Henrik Lindstrand, The Horrors, Horse Jumper Of Love, Hour, Hovvdy, HUNJIYA, illuminati hotties, Ingrid Witt, James K, Jane Remover, Jeff Rona, Jessica Pratt, Joan As Police Woman, Joanna Sternberg, Joe Goddard, Julia Holter, Julia Kent, Julieta, Kali Uchis, KAVARI, KAYTRANADA, Keeley Forsyth, KETTAMA, Kim Gordon, Laryssa Kim, Lip Critic, Lisa Gerrard, Lonnie Holley, Loren Kramar, Macseal, Magdalena Bay, Maria Chiara Argirò, Martha Skye Murphy, Masayoshi Fujita, Matthew Bourne, meg elsier, Memphis LK, Meth Math, MJ Lenderman, Moor Mother, Mustafa, Naomi Sharon, Nicolas Jaar, Nicole Miglis, Nilüfer Yanya, Oklou, Oliver Coates, Orcas, Or:la, Orlando Weeks, Otha, Poe, Prins Thomas, Priori, Rafael Anton Irisarri, Ravyn Lenae, Raia Was, Real Lies, Remi Wolf, Richie Culver, Robert Owens, Rosa Anschüts, Rose Gray, Saya Gray, Selvagia, Silly Silky, Skeleten, Smerz, Spencer Zahn, St. Vincent, SUN ORGAN, Susanna, They Are Gutting a Body of Water, Tristan Arp, TSHA, Two Shell, Ty Dolla Sign, underscores, Verde Prato, Vitesse X, Waxahatchee, Wishy, Yan Wagner, Yasmin Williams, YHWH Nailgun, Zsela, 1-800 GIRLS

2023, 2022, 2021

[burnwater13]

Concept art by Anton Grandert of Boba Fett and other members of the Sand People tribe jump on a repulsar train from speeder bikes in the deserts of Tatooine. Image from The Book of Boba Fett, Season 1, Episode 2, The Tribes of Tatooine.

Din Djarin woke with a start. He looked around and sighed. They were safe. Grogu was eating, as usual, and nothing was happening that needed the immediate attention of a Mandalorian bounty hunter. He was grateful for that. That certainly wasn’t how most days had been since he’d picked up the bounty fob directing him to a fifty year old male. 

He didn’t often think about how Grogu was technically older than him. And he didn’t think about all the ways this life had changed since he decided that, no matter what his age was, the child he’d seen first in the pram did not deserve to be handed over to ex-Imperials who couldn’t possibly have his best interests at heart. The decision had been easy. It was the execution of it that had been hard. That day and every day since then.

Now, the two of them were taking a short break from chasing other Imp remnants down and just relaxing on Tatooine. More or less. Fett had asked him to come for a visit. He wanted to talk to the tribes of Sand People and set up some sort of mutual aid agreement. Fett was still stung by what had happened to the Tribe that had taken him in and he clearly didn’t want that to happen again. 

Djarin had understood that. It was the same reason he’d been going after the Imp remnants. The people on Nevarro and Sorgan, and even Tatooine, didn’t deserve to have bad actors holding them hostage when people like Fett, and Fennec, and members of the Mandalorian diaspora could make a difference. They didn’t have to let the losers from a failed ‘empire’ bully the galaxy again. Just the same, he was glad to take a short break from helping the New Republic, which found it hard to get out of its own way, and just help Fett, who seemed possessed with the very essence of clarity of purpose. 

He just wished the dreams would stop. They were too real. Too tangible. Too meaningful. Sometimes the dream he had inserted him into Fett’s past. He was the one on the speeder bikes with the Sand People, attacking the repulsor train full of spice. Other times, he was the person riding on the rancor’s shoulders and destroying those scorpenek annihilator droids. And he absolutely hated the dream where he was sucked down into the sands of Tatooine and found himself engulfed with the dead and dying that the sarlacc hadn’t finished digesting yet. Of all the things, Din Djarin disliked, confined spaces were at the tope of the list. 

That would have been funny or ironic, considering his chosen profession compelled him to spend large chunks of life inside a starship. But when he was a boy, not much older than five years old, he’d fallen off a pile of feed stock at one of the neighboring processing plants and caused the wretched thing to collapse on him. Cava nuts covered his head, clogged his nose and throat with their dust, and almost crushed the life out of him. It had felt like an eternity before someone saw his hand, grabbed it, and pulled him up and out. 

During that eternity he’d heard a voice. Soft. Childish. Calm. “I’ll send for help. Don’t be afraid. I won’t let anything happen to you.” What other five year old could have possibly helped him? It didn’t make any sense but then he’d been rescued. His parents had given him a heck of a lecture and then hugged him to tight he felt like he was stuck in the cava nuts again. He’d heard the voice again. “Just breathe, Djarin. Just breathe.” He had and his fear of confined spaces had slowly resolved to a very healthy aversion.

Now, here he was on Tatooine. Experiencing that horror all over again and the thing that bothered him the most was that he hadn’t heard her voice. Yes, he’d grown to understand that child’s voice belonged to a woman. A person who’s voice he must have heard a dozen other times. When he was in danger. When he was afraid. When he was exhausted and injured. It was always calm, always reassuring, always comforting. Always a frustration because he had never once met the person who belonged to that voice. Not once. 

After the cava nut incident, he’d listened carefully to every person he met, young or old. Nope. None of them had been his dream friend. When the Mandalorians rescued him from the attack on Aq Vetina, he continued to check voices against his memories. Still nothing. How did someone know about him, but he didn’t know about them? It just didn’t make sense. 

After awhile he stopped obsessing over it and focused on the here and now. Which had worked well enough, more or less. But here and now, on this trip to Tatooine, his sleeping hours were filled with dreams and ‘she’ was back. To make matters worse, Fennec, Fett, Peli Motto, and even Grogu were talking about a ‘Dream Guardian’. Were they talking about his benefactor? It sounded right. He could well imagine the person that voice had grown into charging into a krayt dragon den as if it were nothing special in order to help children in distress. Djarin just hoped the dreams meant something good. He and Grogu and even Fett could use a break. 

With that in mind he went down to the kitchens of the palace and made himself a cup of caf. He started to laugh. Cava nuts were ground into a powder to make caf. He drank caf every day. He had no idea if the caf powder came from Aq Vetina or not, but even so, his past was never very far away and he supposed that was a good thing. 

“It is Din Djarin. Just breathe. This is the Way.”

[queerplatonicshipshowdown]

Round 1 starts Monday, September 4, 2023!

Here are your match-ups (links under the cut):

Preliminaries:

Balloon and Suitcase (Suitloon) from Inanimate Insanity vs. Test Tube and Fan (Fantube) from Inanimate Insanity

Round 1:

Chance and Shadow from WOE.BEGONE vs. Zolf Smith and Oscar Wilde (Zoscar) from Rusty Quill Gaming Podcast

Karina Lyle and Ryan Goldsmith (goldenrose) from Tiger & Bunny vs. Barbie "Malibu" Roberts and Barbie "Brooklyn" Roberts (Barbie^2) from Barbie

Lord Viren and King Harrow (Virrow) from The Dragon Prince vs. Balloon and Suitcase (Suitloon) from Inanimate Insanity

Ainsley Ainsley, Antone Postminger, and The Gap (horseycule) from Legendlark vs. Kurusu Kazuki and Suwa Rei (Kazurei) from Buddy Daddies

John Doe and Arthur Lester from Malevolent vs. Caspar von Bergliez and Linhardt von Hevring (Casphardt) from Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Ronan Lynch and Richard Campbell Gansey III (Ronsey) from The Raven Cycle vs. Kotetsu T. Kaburagi and Barnaby Brooks Jr. (Taibani) from Tiger and Bunny

Rosé, York, and Grendan from Drawtectives vs. Bakugou Katsuki and Kirishima Eijirou (Kiribaku) from My Hero Academia

Adagumo no Yaorochi and Sukune Katano (YaoSuku) from Le'en Project vs. Hardwon Surefoot and Moonshine Cybin (Hardshine) from Not Another D&D Podcast

--

Crowley and Aziraphale (Ineffable Husbands) from Good Omens vs. Jonathan Sims and Alice “Daisy” Tonner (JonDaisy) from The Magnus Archives

Hooty and Lilith from The Owl House vs. Jane McKeene and Katherine Deveraux from Dread Nation

Moiraine Damodred and Lan Mandragoran from Wheel of Time vs. Jennifer Walters and Patsy Walker (patsyjen) from Marvel

Camilla Hect and Palamades Sextus (Campal) from The Locked Tomb vs. Kazuma Asogi and Ryunosuke Naruhodo (Asoryuu) from The Great Ace Attorney

Steve Harrington and Robin Buckley (Stobin) from Stranger Things vs. Bells Broussard and Emma Robledo from Sidekick Squad series

Daisy Tonner and Basira Hussain (Daisira) from The Magnus Archives vs. Percival King and Ramsey Murdoch (Ramsival) from Epithet: Erased

Sakuko Kodama and Satoru Takahashi from Koisenu Futari vs. Jughead Jones and Sabrina Spellman from Jughead Jones

Gon Freecs and Killua Zoldyck (Killugon) from Hunter × Hunter vs. Mako Mori and Raleigh Beckett from Pacific Rim

--

Stanford Pines and Fiddleford McGucket (Fiddauthor) from Gravity Falls vs. Jem Carstairs and Will Herondale (Heronstairs) from The Shadowhunter Chronicles

Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye (royai) from Fullmetal Alchemist vs. Stanley Barber and Sydney Novak from I Am Not Okay With This

Maz Kanata and Dexter Jettster from Star Wars the High Republic vs. The Doctor and Missy from Doctor Who

Fennec Shand and Boba Fett from Star Wars vs. Curt Mega and Tatiana Slozhno from Spies Are Forever

Lapis Lazuli and Peridot (Lapidot) from Steven Universe vs. Gwen Poole and Quentin Quire (Gwentin) from West Coast Avengers

The Doctor and Jack Harkness from Doctor Who vs. John - 117 and Cortanna from Halo

Ellie Miller and Alec Hardy (Millardy) from Broadchurch vs. Moomintroll and Snufkin (Snufmin) from Moominvalley

Beth Tezuka and Plum (PlumBeth) from Bravest Warriors vs. Allan and Weird Barbie from The Barbie Movie

--

Edgin Darvis and Holga Kilgore from Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves vs. Jolteon and Crap Gorps from Dogs In Love 2

Starscream and Skyfire (Skystar) from Transformers vs. Anne, Marcy, and Sasha (Sashannarcy) from Amphibia

Robbie & factoryAI from Void Terrarium vs. Perle and Dejean from Our Bloody Pearl

Matilda and Drea from Everything's Gonna Be Okay vs. Taion and Eunie (TaiEunie) from Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Nepeta Leijon and Equius Zahhak (Meowrails) from Homestuck vs. Jessie and James from Pokémon

Roxas and Xion from Kingdom Hearts vs. Tang and Pigsy (Freenoodles) from LEGO Monkie Kid

Zelda and Link (Zelink) from Tears of the Kingdom vs. Shin and Noi from Dorohedoro

MK and Mei (goldendragon) from LEGO Monkie Kid vs. Yelena Belova and Kate Bishop (Bishova) from Marvel

[hmm-ctrl]

hi guys guess which characters ive got on the mind

[fereise]

Overhaul/Update version for one of my proudest works, a main cover art(?) for my little project call Robotnik AU.

Characters list:

Upper row/section (above Movie Eggman's hands), from left to right: - Sonic.exe (the utmost terrifying OC/FC from the creepy pasta thingy) - Queen Boom Boo, Merc version (OC/FC made by Dan-Habiki/@Dan_Daymaker) - King Boom Boo - Lah - Su & Uh - Shadow the Hedgehog (Team Dark) - Rouge the Bat (Team Dark) - E-123 Omega (Team Dark) - Dr. Eggman Nega - Doctor Albert W. Wily (Megaman, Archie comics) - Honey the Cat - Breezie the Hedgehog - Bocoe & Decoe + Bokkun - Dark Oak/Lucas - Dark Queen/Merlina - Erazor Dijinn - Coconuts - Scratch & Grounders - General Helmut Von Stryker - Anton Veruca (Shogakukan magazines) - Junior Robotnik - Captain Whiskers & Johnny - Opal the Jellyfish (Pirates of the Setting Dawn) - Dive the Lemming (Pirates of the Setting Dawn) - Blade the Shark (Pirates of the Setting Dawn) - Captain Shellbreaker (Pirates of the Setting Dawn) - Mr. Bristles the Yeti Crab (Pirates of the Setting Dawn) - Mephiles the Dark - Silver Sonic - Dark Enerjak (Knuckle) - Nazo (appeared in Sonic X's last teaser) - Eggette/Omelette Robotnik (famed OC/FC originally designed by Alpha Gamboa (blackbookalpha)) - Infinite the Jackal - Solaris - Black Doom - Eclipse the Darkling - Black Death - Dark Gaia (Perfect form) - Metal Sonic - Iron Queen aka Regina Ferrum - Time Eater - Mammoth Mogul - Iron King aka Jun Kun - Imperator Ix - Wendy Naugus - Bearenger the Grizzly (Witchcarters) - Carrotia the Rabbit (Witchcarters) - Falke Wulf (Witchcarters) - Walter Naugus - Fleetway's Super Sonic - Shade the Echidna - Boomer Walrus aka Anti Rotor - Patch D'Coolette aka Anti Antoine - Princess Alicia Acorn aka Anti Sally

Middle section (below Eggman's hands), from left to right: - Speedy (both Pre and Post-Super Genesis Wave versions) - Sage - T.W. Barker - Dave the Intern - Sleet & Dingo - A.D.A.M. - E.V.E. - Lyric the Last Ancient - Zor - Zash (OC/FC made by @saccharinerose) - Zeena - Zazz - Zomom - Zavok - Master Zik - Agent Stone (Sonic movies 2020/2022) - Orbot & Cubot - Wes Weasely - Snively Robotnik - Dr. Robotnik (Sonic movies 2020/2022) - Thunderbolt the Chinchilla - Predator Hawk (Destructix) - Anti-Miles - Scourge the Hedgehog - Storm the Albatross - Wave the Swallow - Jet the Hawk - Rosy the Rascal - Sleuth "Doggy" Dawg (Destructix) - Sergeant Simian (Destructix) - Fiona Fox (Destructix) - Duck "Bill" Platypus - Bark the Polar Bear - Bean the Dynamite - Drago Wolf (Destructix) - Nicolette 'Nic' the Weasel - Razorclaw - The Foreman (Grandmaster) - Hugo Brass - Diesel - Flying Frog (Destructix) - Geoffrey St. John - Hershey the Cat - Nack the Weasel/Fang the Sniper (Team Hooligan) - Fleetway's Chaos (Darkon fish form)

Lower section, from left to right: - Dr. Finitevus - Grimer Wormtongue - Dr. Fukurokov - Dimitri the Echidna - Maw the Thylacine - Mecha Sally - Mecha Sonic - Mecha knuckle - Jackal Squad, named by Nibroc-Rock as Uno, Deux, Trois, Quatre, Cinq & Sei (Shadowy figures) - Kayseri Valaedshkova (OC/FC made by dirtthefox/@Its_Dima_V) - Strike (OC/FC made by @speedofsoundsketches) - Surge the Tenrec - Kit the Fennec - Sofia the Gorgon (OC/FC made by Sofia-MMD/@GorgonSofia) - Clutch the Opossum - Kaibette the Genet (OC/FC made by @kaibette) - Rough & Tumble the Skunk - Battle Lord Kukku XV - ***Mecha Robotnik - Akhlut the Orca (both Pre and Post-Super Genesis Wave versions) - Tundra the Walrus - Mordred Hood (drawn with @adokle's style) - The Foreman/Tassel boy (Post-Super Genesis Wave) - Mimic (the Mimic Octopus) - Byte the Goat (OC/FC made by @bunniibones) - Lightning Lynx - Iblis - Phage - Conquering Storm (Post-Super Genesis Wave) - Bride of the Conquering Storm (Pre-Super Genesis Wave) - Dr. Starline - Biolizard - Sigma (Megaman, Archie comics) - Axel the Water Buffalo - Abyss the Squid - Cyani the Cobra (OC/FC made by @bunniibones) - Cipher the Owl (OC/FC made by @bunniibones) - Bleak (OC/FC made by HT-Doodles/@HtDoodles) - Clove the Pronghorn (my top fav among all the characters here) - Cassia the Pronghorn - Lien-da - Chaos - Tikal the Echidna - Pachacamac - Gae-Na - Kragok - Thrash the Devil - Warden Zobotnik & Znively (Zone Cop) - Belinda & Charlie - Nephthys the Vulture - ??? (Behind Nephthys) - Trevor Burrow the Mole (Desert Raiders) - Sonar the Fennec (Desert Raiders) - Spike the Porcupine (Desert Raiders) - Razor the Shark - Queen Angelica - Rusty Rose - Robo Tails (Brain-washed, based on Sonic Lost World's designs) - Beauregard Rabbot - Jack Rabbit - Matilda the Armadillo - Zefir (my main OC/FC) - Gamer Deer (aka 'Aleko' the Northamer Guard or the 'Gamerdeerdude' by @adokle) - Zonic (Zone Cop) - Chesah the Tarsier aka No.29 (my OC/FC) - Sandy the Caterkiller (OC/FC made by @the-hydroxian-artblog)

For the Alt version: FeReinsm on Instagram: “Overhaul/update versions for one of my proudest works, a main cover art(?) for my lil’ project - Robotnik AU. For the 2nd and 4th pics…”

[konnorhasapen]

I HAD AN IDEA AND NOW I AM EXERCISING THAT IDEA

ASSIGNING EACH LISTENER AN EXOTIC PET AND ALSO NAMING THAT PET

I think this may have turned into an oc thing💀

°•°•°•°•°

Lasko's listener: I just established the other day that they own an axolotl named Cella (that Freelancer is hellbent on calling "Celery" and Huxley loves her ((the axolotl))sm) and this is canon to me now. They also have a Chinese water dragon named Lotus bc I said so :)

Freelancer: do rats count as an exotic pet?? (Google says they do-) They named her Gribby. This is also canon to me.

Angel: they 100% have a sugar glider named Goblin (and David is terrified of him.) They want a fennec fox and they will get a fennec fox and they will name her Deedee. Short for Speed Demon.

Baabe: snake. They own a snake and they named her Rory and Asher loves her to death.

Sweetheart: chameleon. His name is Karma and he and Aggro are besties to the max.

Darlin': a fucking raccoon. Or a badger. Either one named Cujo.

Lovely: they own a bat named Valentina.

Bright Eyes: also owns a rat, but they didn't him Remi. They couldn't remember the rat's actual name so instead they ended up naming him fuckin Ratatouille💀

Starlight: albino ferret albino ferret albino ferret and she's named Carina :)

Seer Obscura: literally owns a barn owl named Tiresias.

Cutie: they have a couple mice they named Allen and Atlas.

Honey: iguana named Geechee, but he also responds to the name Bee for some odd, unknown reason (*cough* Guy-)

Warden: snake. Burmese python. I feel like they would want to name her, but wouldnt know what to name her, so they'd settle for Mesii (to base it slightly off "burmese")

Mentor/Baby: four ferrets. Four ferrets that are specifically named Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde.

Smartass: they have a bearded dragon named Ivy and she vibes with Aaron.

Sunshine: they have chinchilla siblings named Nimbus and Nebula :3

Anton's listener: they have 2 tree frogs named Mika and Aivo, and a chinchilla named Seria (I like my chinchillas, okay?? I've always wanted one-)

James' listener: hedgehog named Morose and he's the cutest little baby James has ever laid his eyes on.

Asset: they found a mouse in the vents one time and they've kept it ever since. They named her Thias. They like to show Thias to Anton. Anton likes to see Thias(Thias reminds him of Seria). They have also introduced Thias to Brian. Brian also likes Thias. Most of the people working with/on Asset know Thias.

Precious: they aren't allowed to own a pet. Because owning a pet means giving their love and affection and attention to someone other than Regulus.

°•°•°•°•°

Bonus Bits!

Damien: ...Freelancer, I think you have rats.

FL: huh?? Oh, no, that's just Gribby.

Damien: *petting Gribby* who names a pet "Gribby"?

FL: I do. Oh- don't touch her left back leg.

Damien: why? Is she hurt?

FL: I got her checked out first few times it happened, but they said nothin' was wrong.

Damien: then why..?

FL: she just starts screaming.

Damien: what.

☆

David: Angel, I'm—

Goblin, who escaped his habitat: *zooms up the fridge and soars straight towards David, landing on his face and getting comfy on his head*

Angel: Goblin, where'd you go!? Oh! Aww! He loves you!

David: *frozen with fear*

☆

Sam: Darlin'?

Darlin': hm?

Sam: why's there a raccoon/badger on your kitchen counter?

Darlin': that's Cujo.

Sam: ...Cujo was-

Darlin': "mEhMeHmEhMeH cUjO wAs a dOg tHoUgH" let me name my trash panda/rage skunk whatever tf I want.

☆

Vincent: you got a pet bat?

Lovely: yeah! I wanted to name her Vincent as well, but then I thought you might get confused, so I went with Valentina instead! ^-^

Vincent: *teary-eyed* you wanted to name her after me??

Vincent: ...wait- you thought I'd get confused-

☆

Vincent: did you buy a rat?

Bright: I found it in the trash can and he's mine now.

Vincent: o..kay. Does he have a name?

Bright: um, duh. Anyone who owns a rat and doesn't name it Ratatouille is committing an actual crime against humanity.

Vincent: ...hold on.., wasn't the... wasnt the rat's name Remi?

Bright: ...

Vincent: ... I-

Bright: y'know what Vincent?

Vincent: wha-

Bright: shut the fuck up.

☆

Chat: you have a pet!??

Honey: yeah *fetches Geechee from his habitat* His name's Geechee

Chat: YOU HAVE A PET LIZARD!?!?

Honey: iguana*. Anyway, this is Geechee, but I've noticed he also responds to the name "Bee" and I have some speculations as to why that is.

Guy, in chat: I haven't the slightest clue what you could possibly be talking about.

☆

Baby: I found these poor little guys in a box thrown in a trash can.

Ollie: OHMYGOD CAN WE KEEP THEM? HAVE YOU NAMED THEM SO WE CAN KEEP THEM??

Baby: yes, we're keeping them and no, I haven't named them yet.

Ollie: ..suggestion?

Baby: I suppose.

Ollie, immediately: Inky Blinky Pinky and Clyde!

Baby: *sigh* goddamnit, those are gold.

Ollie: Inky Blinky Pinky and Clyde?

Baby: *nods* Inky Blinky Pinky and Clyde.

Ollie: YES!

☆

Asset: hi Marcus!

Marcus: jEsus chRIst- you scared me half to-...

Marcus: what do you have?

Asset: I found someone!

Marcus: you... found someone..?

Asset: *opens their hands to show a petite lil mousey* I've decided to name her.

Marcus: oh- y-yeah? And.. what did you...name her..?

Asset: Thias!

—

Asset: good evening, Anton.

Anton: good evening

Asset: Thias says hello, too!

Anton, with a tired but genuine smile: hello and good evening to you as well, Thias.

°•°•°•°•°

This was fun. I had much fun. This was so much fun :3

[annakompaniets]

The day after Anton's play we went to see Windsor in the cold beautiful sunshine. I wore a Loretta Bloom suit teamed with a Jaques Vert blouse and a Fennec London www.fenneclondon.com scarf and a headpiece and shoes by myself. Found an adorable treasure trove of a shop at the end of the main shopping street. It is run by St. Thomas Hospice and only sells vintage things.

[jaws-and-canines]

Every knock on the door will haunt you, every little rustle of wind in the leaves, every passing car- every little glance at you on the street- it will haunt you, and haunt you forever- but you wouldn't have it any other way.

They will have taken you to pieces with everything that you could survive having done to you. You will have bled, you will have cried, screamed, and wept, and then you will have been silent. When your body started to give out you gave them your mind to stay alive and it will have barely been enough to keep them away from your broken body. It will hurt you forever, every waking moment, and some of your dreams as well. It will hurt forever and you wouldn't have it any other way.

You said that you would always remember them, and you will, but it will seem so little in the face of your betrayal. It will always be the thing that eats at you. You will always have fallen apart, you will always have been insane, and you would not have it any other way- because despite the pain that follows you relentlessly, despite your cowardice, despite all you have done, despite everything, you will come to love yourself, in one way or another.

You will, one day, come to love yourself again, and you wouldn't have it any other way.

[jaws-and-canines]

To Do Is to Die

A Verschlimmbessern story. Days of interrogation at the hands of the Special Division leave Anton Fennec with nothing more to say, save to lie to save his life, over and over. Contains themes of death, psychological torture- Russian roulette style, gaslighting and themes of suicidality.

---

He’s back in the empty concrete room again. He often is. The Special is as faceless as the concrete room- unremarkable, almost as if he’s had every interesting feature of his face scrubbed off with steel wool and then painted over like a porcelain doll. Nothing really remains save for his unnaturally white teeth and bright eyes and he stands just at Fennec's periphery, holding the revolver to his head with a steady hand.

Fennec is weeping, as, again, he often is. Handcuffed to a metal folding chair, his bad leg out straight, his whole self practically quaking with fear as he throws his head back and tries to catch his breath between waves of tears pouring down his face. His ears are ringing from a shot that never came, from the way his heart seems to be fit to claw out of his chest, and he can barely breathe through his tears. “No, please, please,” he wails. “I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you.”

A one-sided game of Russian roulette. A surprisingly simple way to get a man who is terrified of death to talk, and very quickly.

The Special spins the cylinder again and presses the revolver to Fennec’s head. Fennec does the maths, without even thinking, then immediately regrets it. One in five. 

“Well, then, let’s tell me.” The Special prompts him. “The ATLAS-types you people stole, they’re being tortured, aren’t they?”

“Yes, yes,” agrees Fennec. The words fall out of his mouth like they’re nothing. “They’re… they’re…” He trails off, trying to think what the man wants to hear. 

The Special puts words in his mouth. “They’re dissecting them, aren’t they?”

“Yes, they’re dissecting them,” he agrees again, nodding with a bone-dry mouth. They’re not. He knows they’re not. But insisting they’re not, telling the truth, hasn’t gotten him anywhere and now the odds are one in five that the next pull of the trigger will blow his head off. They’re not interested in truth anymore, he thinks, and maybe they know that he’s exhausted every secret, every little scrap of intelligence he has to give, and maybe they know that all they’re getting now is whatever they ask for. Or maybe they don’t, and perhaps that’s worse, because once they do find out, he knows what happens to him. 

Gloved fingers snap in front of his face, pulling him back to the now with a start. “Where are the ATLAS Units being held?” asks the Special.

Fennec swallows sharply. “I don’t- I don’t know, I don’t know,” he says, and the shaking starts again as the Special pulls back the revolver from inches from his head, and spins the cylinder again. 

There’s a click as he puts it back in, and the muzzle grazes Fennec’s temple once more. “I don’t know,” he groans. He tilts his head, as if the tiny distance he gains would make a single bit of difference. No, he is dead either way. But he’ll say anything just to stop them from pulling that trigger, anything to make it stop- and he has, and will, and will continue to. 

“You do. So tell me.”

Fennec shakes his head, his hair plastered to his head with a sheen of sweat. “I don’t know- no, I won’t, I won’t-” he says, having to choke out his words past his fear. A sudden wave of bravery takes over him and he rallies against what they’re making him do, the mindless thing he’s become. “Because wherever I say, wherever I say you will use what I have said as an excuse to bomb or invade or take over- and I can’t let you do that, I can’t- people will die-”

“Wrong fucking answer.” The rally abruptly ends. He cries out that he’s sorry right as the Special pulls the trigger again, and the tiny click of the revolver striking empty is followed almost immediately with an incoherent babble of words that resemble an apology, which he swallows back once he realises it’s utterly incoherent.

Fennec is abruptly reminded that he’s far beyond the stage where he can make a moral stand. How did he end up here, he wonders, but he knows exactly how. Asking him nicely with a smile and a cup of tea to name a place where three of their augmented soldiers were taken, presenting him with a map and a marker pen- and Fennec had refused outright. The ATLAS-types were in a hospital, somewhere in Austria, the Eurocorps had rescued them, and they were happy, and recovering from the unnatural things that the State had done to them in the name of progress- this, he knew and he told them, the first time they asked, but the Specials weren’t having it. 

They wanted names to kill and places to bomb. They didn’t want the truth, they wanted outrage, a narrative and an excuse. The revolver had come out after he’d lost his temper and accused them of exactly that. 

Suddenly he’d found himself agreeing with their narrative. Like, he thinks bitterly, the coward he is. The ATLAS-types had been kidnapped, yes, he agreed, yes, they were being tortured, yes, they were being dissected, yes, this was an abominable act on behalf of the Eurocorps- but no, he would not tell the Specials where.

The same issue returned, again and again, that he wouldn’t give names, he wouldn’t give places, in truth or in lie, knowing that if he did, they’d be killed or razed or ruined, or, worse, they’d end up here, wherever that ‘here’ is, with him. Every little resistance he makes against being their pliant mouthpiece, against saying what they tell him to, signing things they put in front of him, it ends in agony- emotional, or physical, with hands and pliers and hammers and knives, or with sheer fucking fear eating his soul from the inside out- it ends in agony.

Gloved fingers snap in front of his face again, and he startles. “Come back to me, now, Anton,” says the Special. “Remember where you are and what I want.”

One in four. Those aren’t good odds when the consequence of losing is death, thinks Fennec. If it was a simple bet, losing one in four wouldn’t be too bad. You’d win eventually, and you’d win overall. But he sees no winning in sight here.

“W-why should I tell you?”

“Because I’m asking.”

“You’re just looking for answers that you want to hear, I tried, I tried, I tried,” he sniffs, shivering. He’s freezing. He’s not quite sure why. “I told you this morning, that they’re in Austria, somewhere, in hospital-”

“No,” says the Special. “No, they’re not.”

One in three.

He has to be coaxed out of his panic to speak again. It takes a few minutes until he can form words well enough to apologise to the Special. The words are numb. He is, once again, he realises, just saying whatever he can to make it stop, and he despises himself for it. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know what- I don’t know what you want,” he weeps.

“Just tell me more,” says the Special, and puts a hand over Fennec’s. He thinks, for a moment, it’s a gesture of care, of comfort, but no, it can never be. The Special continues his spiel. “Where are they keeping them?” He looses the handcuffs, leaving Fennec’s left hand still chained to the chair, with his fist clenched so tight his knuckles look fit to burst through the skin. 

“I don’t know, I don’t-” sobs Fennec.

The Special hums a noise of disapproval. He picks up Fennec’s hand and with his hand over the top, wraps Fennec’s hand around the grip of the gun and guides Fennec’s finger to the trigger. “I want to know. Or this time, you’re pulling the trigger.”

“There’s n-nothing m-more.” Fennec can feel his own shaking through the muzzle of the gun. His mind is blank. His mind is blank beyond coming up with any lie. He shakes his head, tears dripping down his cheeks. “I can’t,” he says, and the Special tightens his grip.

“Where are they kept? Tell me.”

 Again that urge to fight back returns. “No, I fucking won’t!” he screams.

Fennec- or the Special, at this point he isn’t really sure who moved first- pulls the trigger. He screams as he feels himself do so, but bites the scream back with a shiver.

Click. No bullet. Fennec is more terrified of the prospect of the split-second of agony of the bullet tearing through his skull than the eternity beyond- at this point, he’s barely relieved. He wants it over either way.

The maths barely needs to be done. One in two. Fennec can barely breathe because he’s crying so hard, gasping for air between sobs. “I didn’t- I didn’t- I can’t-” he weeps.

“So let’s go over the facts again,” says the Special calmly. “These ATLAS-types, you’ve said they took them to torture them, yes?” Fennec chews the inside of his cheek. “Y-yes,” he says.

“And they’re dissecting them?” “Yes,” he mumbles, repeating his lie.

The Special tuts. Those white teeth bear in a smile, and it's not a friendly one. “But you won’t tell me where?” Fennec scrambles for time. “I don’t- I don’t know-”

The Special shuts it down almost immediately. “You’ve lied, haven’t you?”

Fennec visibly breaks, slumping forwards in the chair. “I told you the truth- this morning, I- I- it was the first thing I said- Austria, somewhere, I don’t know where- but they’re patients, in a hospital, they’re recovering-” he stammers, and becomes acutely aware, as the air stills in the room with a moment of silence, that the only reason he feels cool is because he is sweating so much.

“You’ve lied.”

“Yes,” he breathes. “I don’t know what you want from me anymore.”

That in itself is enough to make the Special pull the trigger one more time.

Click. And that’s the end of it- one in one, loaded- the next shot will kill him, and Fennec knows that he’s said everything that can be said. He resorts to screaming his same response, hysterical.

“I told you the truth to start with!” he screams, on the verge of frenzy. “I told you everything, I told you everything, there is no more to tell! So what else could I do but lie?” He howls, drawing out the word lie because he knows the admission is tantamount to death. “They’re in a hospital, they’re in a hospital, recovering, somewhere in Austria, I said this this morning!” 

“And I said that we know you’re a liar!” screams the Special back, the force of something dark and evil behind his voice, unlike the fear that Fennec screams with.

That sparks something in Fennec he has not seen for a very, very long time. Anger. “I don’t know what you want from me anymore!” roars Fennec, the rare anger in his voice making the Special adjust his grip on the revolver and press it into Fennec’s temple, hard enough to bruise.

The anger shrivels in his chest. He returns to his hunched-over position, shaking in the chair, the whites of his eyes showing. “I’m sorry,” he manages. “Innsbruck,” he lies, a final attempt to save himself. “Innsbruck, they’re in Innsbruck.”

“You filthy little liar.” “I’m- I’m sorry,” he stammers, and then gags on his apology. He can’t get any more words out of his mouth, nothing to apologise, nothing to assuage the Special, nothing at all. It takes everything in him not to vomit, not to lose his mind, just to stay present in this moment which seems to be burning up like silk into annihilation, towards his inevitable death. The thought makes him gag again, and he leans forwards in the chair, his free hand on his face, covering his eyes. 

“Fucking pathetic,” the Special mutters, and pulls the trigger. 

Bang. Fennec swears he feels the bullet punch through his skull, and then annihilate everything in its path. 

Wishful thinking. In reality nothing happens. The deafening bang, the white-out, the moment of agony never happened. There was no bullet, no freedom, no finality. 

He’s still here. Burning up with shame and with tears and snot down his face. Nothing more to give, and still, they’ll want more. It’s not over, it’s not over, he’s not free. He will never be, he thinks, and looks up at the Special, silent tears running down his face.

“Don’t give me that look.” 

Fennec opens his mouth but the sounds that come out don’t make words, only a sort of mournful groan. His heart is racing so hard he can feel his pulse in his wrist, beating against the handcuffs.

“There was no bullet.” There’s a pause. 

Fennec groans again, letting his head roll back, the emotions of grief and relief and prevailing shame washing over him like the waves on a beach over a corpse. “No… no bullet. There was no… no… bullet.” He isn’t sure whether to laugh or to cry. “You palmed it. You… palmed the bullet.”

“Yes,” says the Special, leaning over him with a look of disgust on his face. "You’ve fucking pissed yourself."

Fennec sniffs, and he smells the bitter tang of urine. The Special isn't lying, he realises, he really has wet himself out of fear. He makes a noise halfway between a laugh and a sob and wipes his nose on the back of his free hand. “I don’t like myself,” he says quietly, still shaking. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

The Special ignores the quiet expression of resignation. He takes the bullet from his pocket, showing it to Fennec in the palm of his hand, slotting it into the cylinder of the revolver and showing that to him. “I want to know where the ATLAS-types the Eurocorps captured are being held.”

He pauses, stooping down to meet Fennec’s eyes. “We can play with a loaded gun this time, or we can go back to the map, and I can pick out some locations, and you can choose the right one. It’s your choice, Anton. Shall we continue, or shall we be done with this before you wind up getting your brains blown out?”

Fennec takes a deep breath. The whites of his eyes flicker across the gun, to the bullet, to the Special’s hands, and finally, settle on the floor, his cheeks burning with shame. 

They don’t want truth, thinks Fennec. They want places to bomb and names to kill. They want bloodshed. People are going to die for what he says, he knows it, but the truth- the only one that matters- is that he’s too much of a coward to let that blood that will be shed be his. That’s all he is now. A coward. A hand to sign what’s put in front of him, a voice to say what he’s told to say, a meaningless, identity-less thing for them to use for their own purposes. A coward who should have been stood up against a wall and died there long ago.

He wipes his damp eyes on his sleeve. “Map,” he says, voice hollow. “The map. Please,” he says.

[jaws-and-canines]

Functional

A Verschlimmbessern story. Contains institutionalised torture/gaslighting, ableist language and suicidal themes.

---

The sound of screaming is not an uncommon sound in a hospital ward, particularly not a field hospital, full of people so far out of it they don't know where they are. The sound of someone screaming in pain, however, is a far different noise than someone screaming for any other reason, and instinctively, it brings a chill to everyone’s bones, no matter how often it happens.

In the evenings, when everyone is a little more settled, that instinctive chill is often accompanied by not so instinctive irritation at someone breaking the quiet with such a noise. Tonight, the irritation hangs in the air so thickly it's almost tangible- moreso because the screaming seems to be coming from one person in particular an awful lot these days.

Behind the curtains that do nothing to stifle the sound, the source of the screaming lies on the bed, hands over his face, lit by the stark light over the bed, a distinctly unflattering light. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he sobs through his hands, his voice breaking. Fennec has never really looked worse- dressed in green pyjamas, unshaven, greasy hair, the sheets beneath him tangled and crumpled, pulled and grabbed at as he has writhed in agony. He looks at the metal pins sticking out of his leg- the external fixators, holding it together in the most literal sense- with tears in his eyes.

The nurse stands at the foot of the bed, staring at him, gloved hands holding a blood-smudged sterile pad. She tosses it into the orange bag stuck to the bed, and pulls out a new one, going for the next pin along. “Wait!” cries Fennec. “I’m sorry.” He takes a shuddering breath. “I can’t do this. I can’t.” He speaks in German, but the pleading tone is evident in almost every language, to almost anyone who cares enough to hear it.

In his black uniform, the surgeon standing to the left of the bed, watching the hardware be cleaned, turns to the man whose bones it is embedded into for the first time since he’s walked in. He's not really interested in the man, just the fixators and his bones, but with this amount of disruption, there's no way he can carry on ignoring the patient attached to his masterpiece. He speaks the patient's own language with a slightly odd language, but it's more efficient than the other way around- Fennec's English is little more than broken. The surgeon refuses to suffer through it. “You can’t do it?” There’s a hint of condescension to his voice- an unspoken why can’t you do it.

Fennec shakes his head. He’s visibly drenched in his own sweat, the paleness of his face accentuated by the dark circles under his eyes. He hasn’t slept well since it happened, and he feels his world starting to come apart, piece by little piece. He shakes his head and wipes his top lip on the back of his hand. “It’s too much. Every time it’s too much. I can’t. I just… can’t. I can’t do it.” 

There’s little sympathy from the surgeon. The rest of the staff around the bed stay quiet. The female orderly translates under her breath so they can follow the conversation. “It has to be done, or you’ll get an infection, and trust me when I say that hurts more.”

Fennec looks up at them all, passing his gaze from person to person, tears rolling down his face. “Can’t… can’t you knock me out? Please, please, I can’t do it. I can’t do it.”

Sighing, the surgeon puts his hands in his pockets. He's had this conversation before and he can't be bothered to have it again. “Knock you out how, Anton?” Again, that nasty tone seeps into his voice. It's met with irritation from Fennec, his Bavarian accent almost smothering what he's trying to say. “Put me to sleep, tranquilise me, sedate me, anything, I don’t know!” he says, raising his voice a little, throwing a hand out towards the black-shirted surgeon. “You’re the doctor, you tell me!” he snaps.

“I can offer you a mild sedative,” says the doctor.

Fennec tuts, waving a hand as if he is brushing the idea away. “You have given me those before and they have done nothing. I want to be under. I want to be right under. Asleep.” He points to the floor.

“You want us to put you to sleep, twice a day, every day, just for this.” “Yes,” says Fennec, wiping his nose on the back of his hand with a stifled gasp. “Please.”

“That’s not feasible.” The surgeon just looks at him, and gestures towards the head of the bed. “Just not feasible." He addresses the team in English. "Put him in restraints,” he says. 

That's a word that Fennec knows. He's heard it more than he would like.

They’re a leather five-point set of restraints, tucked under the mattress. One for each limb- ankles and wrists, and the final strap for across him to stop him from rolling and pulling himself free that way. Fennec eyes them like an old enemy, a frenzied look in his eyes. They’re not standard- and in fact, needed a court order to get after he ripped the fabric ones in two. It took five people to hold him down the moment he broke loose, just to stop him from tearing the pins out of his own leg, screaming in pain. He’d continually lashed out in his frenzy, hitting at anything in reach that was holding him down, desperate to get to his leg to claw the metal out of it, anything to make the pain stop. They’d sedated him after that- a needleful of something strong into the back of his thigh. The next day he was moved to a bed with leather restraints- white and brown leather, thick, heavy, and enough to hold him in place. He was so deeply sedated from the day before still- reduced to a drooling idiot- that it didn’t really register him to react to the pain as they slid him from the original bed to the new one. But still, it hurt.

In a way, seeing them take the leather restraints out from under the mattress, he considers that they are his old enemy. It takes a person on each limb to put them on, and then two to get the final thick strap across the bed, pinning him down. They’re quick enough that he doesn’t really resist beyond tensing up as they pull his right arm above his head to secure it there. “No,” he moans. “No!” The small resistance gets him nowhere. 

A noise- a mournful wail with a mouth full of thick and nauseated spit- tears from him as he feels them tighten the leather around his wrists and ankles, fingers at his bony points to make sure they don't cut off his circulation. “Please don’t… please don’t do this to me,” he begs. “It can wait. It can wait. It can.”

The surgeon just shakes his head. “This has to be done.”

"I don't think you ought to be a damn doctor," snaps Fennec, pulling his head up from the bed to look at the surgeon, an expression of disbelief and anger on his face. He can't even sit up- reduced to just lifting his head or letting it drop. "I think you're a nasty little man."

The surgeon waves back the extra staff, leaving the orderlies on either side of the bed, and steps back to the edge of the cubicle himself, giving the nurse cleaning the pins a little more space to work.

The screaming starts again. Worse than before, even- without anywhere to go to get away from the pain, he howls like an animal, rearing his head up from the bed between gasps for breath, straining against the restraints with all his remaining strength. “Make it stop!” comes the wail. “Oh, please, make it stop!” The plea sounds from the bottom of his heart, almost exhausted.

“This is what I don’t get.” The surgeon turns quietly to the nurse next to him, talking in English with his clipped public-school accent again. “It’s numb,” he says quietly, dropping his voice so that nobody else can hear him. “I gave him a local anaesthetic right as we started. You saw me.” 

The nurse opens her mouth to say something in reply. As if on cue, the air is split by something that barely sounds human. “Please!” he screams. “Just kill me, please! Please!” She says nothing, letting Fennec's screams speak for her.

“He shouldn’t be screaming like this.” The surgeon throws up a hand towards the man in the bed, still talking under his breath. “Every time we give him a local anaesthetic, every time he knows we’ve given it to him, every time he reacts like this. Like we’ve given him nothing.” he rocks back on his heels, arms folded, and shakes his head with a little sigh.

The nurse picks up on his frustration and tries to soothe it before his mood sours. “I think it’s very functional,” she says pointedly. “Most of it is up here.” She points to her head.

The surgeon shakes his head. “He’s crazy,” he mutters. “Utterly mad. I’ve never seen anything quite so pitiful.”

Fennec looks at them both, head reared up from the bed just to see what’s going on- hearing, understanding very little- but with horror in his eyes, he knows the word crazy and he understands how they use it- before the gauze meets the next pin sticking out of his skin, picking at horribly tender skin and flesh, pulling off dead tissue, iodine burning him deep under the skin, and he dissolves into animal screams again. 

The tendons in his neck stand out like cables as he throws his head back, the trembling starts in his wrists as he clenches his fists, every muscle in his body tense. “Anything, anything, just make it fucking stop!” he howls. “Make it stop!” He would swear on his own life they didn’t give him anything but saline. There’s no way to prove it.

I am not crazy, he thinks, the tears rolling down his face and catching in his beard, the taste of the salt from them on his tongue. I am not crazy. This isn’t all in his head, surely, surely, he thinks. If it were in his head he’d ask them to put an ice-pick through his eye socket and lobotomise him just to make it stop- but, as he tells himself again- he’s not crazy. And still, there’s no way to prove it. As the nurse finishes off wiping down the pin closest to his shattered knee, she jogs the frame. Fennec feels the jolt, right to his bone- and screams out a plea for someone to kill him. “Kill me, please!” he screams. That’s the only way this will stop, he thinks. “Just kill me, please, please!” he weeps.

The surgeon remains unmoved. “Why would you do something like this? He knows he’s not going to get any more painkillers. He knows they’re still going to put him on trial. This achieves nothing at all, save to make a show of himself.” The surgeon tuts. “I just don’t get it.”

Screwing his face up, twisting and turning from side to side, the agony burns Fennec up in a way quite unlike anything he’s ever felt- in the hours between, he forgets just how bad it really is. He becomes nothing but pain. There is no him anymore. Just it. “I-” He chokes on his own words. “I wish I were dead,” he cries, turning his head into his shoulder. His hands are nowhere near his face to wipe his tears, no matter how hard he pulls against the leather restraints, they never will be. “I want to be dead! Oh, God, I wish I were dead!” he weeps. His voice is starting to go, turning into tatters and shreds from torn vocal cords.

The hand of the orderly on his shoulder squeezes slightly, talking in his mother tongue, because, in the depths of distress, there's not a hope in hell of him understanding English. “You’re okay, Anton, you’re okay,” she says quietly. “It’ll be over soon.” The gesture is sweet but it does nothing. There’s nothing of Anton left to comfort, thinks Fennec bitterly, no- there’s only this thing that he becomes- barely alive, that screams and cries, and the ever heavier weight of the pain, crushing the pathetic thing that remains into something even lesser- a sort of base creature of stimuli-and-response, devoid of all sense of time and space, but always, always aware of the agony. He opens his mouth to scream. No sound comes out.

[jaws-and-canines]

The Defector Takes The Stand // Anton Fennec

Today in the historic trial of seven German Navy officers accused of violating the laws of war and causing the deaths of eleven State prisoners of war, the key witness for the prosecution speaks for the first time. Anton Ellmenreich von Fennec was the senior officer on board the Horatio and formally defected to the State in June before facing trial and being found guilty of three charges of negligent manslaughter and one of cowardice & desertion in July. Brought in under armed guard and sat behind a layer of bulletproof glass amidst fears for his safety, Mr von Fennec appeared in uniform and spoke so quietly that at several points, the questioning was stopped briefly to adjust the microphone as he was inaudible to the interpreter. The initial questions revolved mostly around his fitness to testify following a recent suicide attempt, which Mr von Fennec very plainly denied affected his comprehension or recollection of the events on board the Horatio. Once the defence's objection to the witness was settled, the testimony began. The initial cross-examination went on for three hours after which an adjournment was called to allow for a relief interpreter to be brought in. He presented a unique perspective to the court which has as of yet not been heard- of a ship far out of control and a crew caught in the grip of hysteria, with a captain who lacked the skill or ability to bring them back in line, creating the perfect storm which had tragic consequences for eleven of England's finest men and women. The trial continues tomorrow with further cross-examination of Mr von Fennec.

[jaws-and-canines]

This mock trial can no more determine my lot/Than can driftwood determine the ocean's waves

Brandish your ropes and your boards, and your basket-hilt swords/But what is there can punish like a conscience ignored?

-Elephant In The Dock, MewithoutYou

[burnwater13]

Concept art by Anton Grandert of the rancor on Tatooine, in Mos Epsa crashing through a courtyard and holding a speeder. Image from The Book of Boba Fett, Season 1, Episode 7, In the Name of Honor.

“Ship’s log: It’s day 134, officially Taungsday, at midday. Grogu has insisted that we travel to Dathomir to evaluate it as a potential location to re-home ‘Ranky’ if anything happens to Fett, Fennec, the rancor keeper, and those creepy monks that infest… I mean inhabit, the palace. I gotta say I’ve been to some real skugholes, but this place beats them all by a couple of parsecs. I’ll be completing a couple passes around the planet to collect appropriate data on the atmosphere, any living creatures, and any potential threats. Grogu keeps wrinkling his nose, and while cute, I think it’s a sign that the place smells ‘Sithy’. He’s made that face before and it’s always turned out that the person, critter, or place had some association with the Sith. Just imagine my surprise that a rancor comes from a place that you can detect the ‘Sithiness’ it gives off from orbit. Hope the Force covers us, because I can’t imagine how the Creed could. Din Djarin out.”

The Mandalorian looked over his shoulder and was at least glad that Grogu hadn’t been paying any attention to his log entry. Instead he was practicing his various meditations. Apparently the Jedi had a whole catalog of mediations that they used to prepare for things. He’d heard about the battle meditation. A Jedi, who was appropriately tuned into the Force and sufficient strength, and thoroughly practiced could turn the tide of battle whichever way they wanted it to go according to legend. Since the Jedi hadn’t won any major battles since the Clone Wars it was pretty clear that no one had met any of those criteria. 

After the battle meditation, there was the Pathfinder meditation. Similar in many ways to the battle meditation, the pathfinder allowed a Jedi, under all those same criteria, to find a path to any place under and circumstances and traverse it safely. Again, there had been no indication that any of Grogu’s masters had been able to perform that meditation either. Although, the story Grogu told of helping Ian escape from the Jedi Temple did seem like the output of some sort of miracle, Grogu had commented that he really hadn’t had the time and foresight to use that meditation to help solve that problem. He and Ian were just good at climbing trees. 

The next meditation that Grogu had talked to the Mandalorian about was the one the small Force worker seemed to use all the time. It was called Charm Creature. It puzzled the bounty hunter that Grogu had only mentioned it passing and that he had to get his apprentice to elaborate on what it was and how it worked. As it turned out, it still worked like all the others, but Grogu was so good at it he managed to do the steps in something like a wave of his hand. 

It had saved him from the Mudhorn, the Krayt dragon (Grogu told him that no one was paying attention to him, but he was certainly paying attention to that Krayt dragon), and then Ranky, when the critter went berserk because of the Scorpenek annihilator droids. All it had looked like to him was Grogu holding up one hand and kind of holding his breath. Then the rancor took a deep shuddering breath and began to fall asleep. Grogu had informed him that it wasn’t that easy, but he could hardly expect a Mandalorian to understand all the nuances. Din Djarin would have grounded the little krill-crabby patty for being so sassy, but the kid had just saved his life again. 

Right now Grogu was practicing the ‘Everything in its place’ meditation which he said helped him understand a new place faster. Where he could find places to hide, or places to stash snacks, or places that could get you away from danger even if hiding from danger was impossible or at the very least, highly unlikely. The Mandalorian had asked him if his plan covered hiding someone as big as his dad and Grogu and grinned widely and began to laugh. There was something to the laugh that was unnerving and Din Djarin wondered what story his son hadn’t told him yet. No doubt how he’d helped his friend Ian study rathtars and had to help smuggle them into the Temple from whatever crate or aquarium they had been at. 

The thought made him shudder. Grogu was capable of doing many things and the more time he spent training, the more amazing they were. Amazing and terrible. Since the little guy had been able to keep the terrible part focused on ex-Imps, the Mandalorian hadn’t worried about it too much. But now he was worried. They would be landing on Dathomir whenever Grogu gave him the signal and it was all so they could find a home for a critter that couldn’t even fit in any ship they had ready access to. 

Now, Din Djarin really shuddered. He couldn’t even imagine what sort of ship Grogu had in mind for his impossible to predict rescue mission that they both hoped would never come to pass. At least Din Djarin knew he hoped it would never come to pass. He was a little worried that Grogu knew something else about Dathomir and this reconnaissance mission was more about that and less about the rancor. 

“Hey, buddy? Are you almost ready? We’ve done our passes around the planet. The data is all over the place. Are you sure you want to check it out? We could go to Felucia. I understand rancors live there as well.”

Grogu opened his eyes and looked up at him and locked onto the Mandalorian’s gaze.

“Purrgil”

“Purrgil?”

“Purrgil” 

The Mandalorian wondered if that was the name of new meditation when R5 beeped at him.

“Space whales? Dank Farrik! What do space whales have to do with anything?”

Between R5 and Grogu they managed to explain it all to the Mandalorian.

“Ship’s log. Amended entry. We are not at Dathomir to evaluate it for the rancor. We are waiting here for it’s ride to show up so Grogu can explain to the space whales, when and where to collect it. Apparently he was using another Jedi meditation called 'Sight from Beyond’. It lets him sense major changes in the balance of the Force and prepare for them. When asked why that hadn’t helped the Jedi he replied that you have to listen to warnings. Great. After the ‘meeting’ we’re headed back to Nevarro, I hope. All this meditation has given me a headache. Mando out.” 

[burnwater13]

Concept art by Anton Grandert depicting Boba Fett in the Firespray looking down into the Great Pit of Carkoon at the sarlacc. Image from The Book of Boba Fett, Season 1, Episode 4, The Gathering Storm.

Din Djarin didn't know why Grogu wanted the Grand Encyclopedia of the Galaxy (pocket edition) or the Visual Guide to Tatooine’s Flora and Fauna. There were some questions he’d learned not to ask. Don’t ask about the process for training Jedi younglings unless you wanted to know the name of every Jedi Master going back for the last thousand years or so. Don’t ask if he’s had enough to eat. Grogu has never had enough to eat in his entire lifetime. Don’t ask if he wants to visit Peli Motto or Boba Fett. Of course he does. 

The Mandalorian was just grateful that his son wanted to learn something and that Grogu didn’t need him to do more than authorize his access to the information on his datapad. So far Grogu only had two collections of information that he was devoted to: the complete works of Diggle and Daggle, the Fish that fish, and anything and everything about critters. 

For a while the critter obsession was focused on large critters like the lesser krayt dragon, the mamacore, rancors in varieties, and anything at all published about mythosaurs, then Grogu started in on smaller critters like the scurriers found everywhere on Tatooine and the clothes eaters they ran into on a trip Hoth. Those things had been an absolute menace and Djarin had to replace his first and second layer after that trip and obtain a new set of coveralls for Grogu.

Grogu had said he'd been needing new coveralls because the old ones were getting tight around the thorax and the bottoms were all torn from all the walking he’d done with Luke on Ossus. Djarin had been happy to get Grogu something new, but the problem was that even the new stuff looked old and used and worn. Of course his old armor had gotten pretty scruffy looking before he met Grogu. It started out as second hand to begin with and the work a bounty hunter does, no matter how often they clean, polish, and repair the components, never look better than that first day. 

Maybe he should to talk to Fennec or Fett, as long as they were on Tatooine. Fennec’s suit always looked good and Fett hadn’t spared any credits getting his amor and the second layer sorted out and looking new. Or maybe, when they went home to Nevarro, he could take to Karga. The High Magistrate must have had access to some of the best cloth makers in the Outer Rim given how his next set of robes always looked better than the last set. Maybe he'd used that beskar plate he'd earned for Grogu's bounty and had gone to Krownest to get his finery? 

It wasn’t a bad idea to visit Krownest, or maybe Ordo, or Mandalore for that matter. Once the Imps had been driven off the planet, many of the artisans and craftspeople of Mandalorian heritage had begun to return to the planet. Surely, someone there would have access to the special cloth used for second layers. Then the Mandalorian could have a custom set of coveralls made up for Grogu and they would have to worry less about finding something durable enough on Nevarro or Tatooine. 

Of course the Jedi must have had a source for the material used in Grogu's coveralls. Djarin supposed that he could ask his son about that, but then he risked being lectured at length about the fine details of the procurement process that was in place when Grogu was a youngling on Coruscant. That could take hours and as much as the bounty hunter wanted to invest in new clothes for his son, he didn't actually want to spend quite that much time on it. 

He walked by Grogu as his son was quietly sketching and referring back to his datapad. The sketch was of the sarlacc pit with dimensions and cross-sections of the pit and bits and pieces of the sarlacc itself. Huh. Where did Grogu get that information from? 

Then it occurred to the Mandalorian that Grogu had asked for those reference books for a reason and that they might just help him with his problem. He continued to the palace lounge and took a seat and called up the Grand Encyclopedia of the Galaxy. He really didn’t think that the Flora and Fauna of Tatooine was going to help much. 

After a glance at the index and the glossary, Djarin began to try various searches to see if he could find the information he was looking  for in a reasonable amount of time. The search term ‘youngling coveralls' produced nothing meaningful. He was pointed to the definition of a youngling and that the ages varied from planet to planet and had changed after certain galactic events. It also included a species by species reference, but since he had no idea what species Grogu actually was that chart, as massive as it was, didn’t help him at all. 

Then he tried a search for children’s layers. That was a huge disappointment as he had no need to see the various anatomical charts showing skin, sub-cutaneous fat, muscle tissues, etc. He’d been injured enough times and in enough locations to have a fine appreciation for that already. 

Finally he entered the search term ‘Tailors to the Jedi Temple of Coruscant’ and hit pay dirt! Talea and Family claimed have to been the tailors for the Jedi and for the Emperor. Weird. You'd think that they’d leave that last bit off given what happened to the Emperor. The Mandalorian shook his head, but continued to review the entry about the business and where they were located (upper level, within walking distance of the Emperor’s palace) and if they were still in business (open four days a week, closed on Taungsday). Hmmm.

You never knew what you were going to learn if you just made the effort. The Mandalorian laughed at himself. He'd been doing that his whole career. You didn't find bounties by just bumping into them at a tavern and buying them a drink. You had to do your homework and be open to learning. He was glad that he was still able to learn from Grogu. Now he just had to figure out how to order a coverall from across the galaxy and have it delivered before they left for Nevarro again. Easy peasy, as Grogu would say, right?