A Pair Of Oddities (1)
Words: 2,608
TW's: Angst, Fear, Mentions of Bile, Needles/Syringes, Dehumanization, Referring to a Person as an "It", Mentions of Selling/Buying People, Mentions of Suffocation, Mild Violence
Characters: C!Tommyinnit
Summary: A pixie finds himself in a strange new world full of people who aren't quite...real
Aka: I putted pixies and robots into a blender :)
I accidentally posted the unrevised version so surprise reupload with some really tiny changes (no pun intended)
“How do we even know this thing is safe?”
“We don’t. That’s why we’re putting this in first.”
Blinding light flooded through the glass and Tommy blinked hard to clear the purple spots from his sight. Warped faces stared down at him from beyond rounded walls. If it were the first time he was on display, he might’ve bothered to tell them off. He’d learned the hard way that within the confines of that jar, he’d only hurt his own ears trying something like that. All he could do was glower up at them with the fury of a thousand suns and throw silent promises of bloodshed whenever he was given the opportunity.
The pixie had begun developing a list. It was the only thing that kept him sane most nights he spent there. Once he got a little bigger and a little meaner, he’d pay everyone who wronged him a visit to return the favor tenfold. Of course, the list had grown impossible to keep track of as the days crawled on. Even if he could’ve somehow written it down, he would’ve been just as likely to run out of ink as he was space on the page.
“How do we get it back after?”
“We don’t. We just watch through its eyes.”
Tommy had been pretty lost through the whole conversation but that part was what really threw him for a loop. What exactly were they planning? The lid was hastily unscrewed overtop him and tossed onto the table. He went limp as a doll when he felt rough fingers seize his waist. The tiny bite marks littering the offending digits served as a testament to his every attempt at rebellion.
Tommy’s stomach lurched as he was lifted up far too close to the man’s face for comfort.
“Per oculos creaturae.”
By the time the realization of the warlock’s intentions dawned on Tommy, it was already too late. The man’s irises lit up a sickly yellow. His magic was cold, unyielding no matter how hard Tommy’s biological defenses pushed against it. A yellow haze blurred the edges of his vision.
“There. Now I can see everything it does,” the magician announced. When the pale light faded from the man’s eyes, so did the fog around Tommy’s. A surveillance spell. Of course. They'd already pinned his wings and locked him away in a jar. Why not strip him of the only part of himself that was still his own?
“What if it closes its eyes?”
The warlock paused to glare at his companion.
“Yes, I’m sure that it’ll just keep its eyes shut the whole time it’s in another dimension because who would possibly want to look around in a place like that?”
Alright, alright. I was just asking,” the warlock’s elven companion insisted.
“Just light the candles,” the other snapped.
Another dimension? This was bad. Really bad. Tommy had been all over the lands, though most of his travels took place against his own volition. But this? This was a whole new animal. A world that could’ve been made completely out of lava, for all anyone knew. He’d be so far from the place he grew up in. So…far…
The flurry of panic in Tommy’s mind dissolved all at once like candy floss in water.
He’d be so far from this place.
A whole other world where nobody from the old one could reach him. Hell, if it was just a world of fire, it would still be a step up from the fantastical wasteland he’d grown up in. The pieces of a terrible plan were slowly falling into place.
Tommy was haphazardly dropped onto the table as the rest of the preparations were made around him. They had no reason to keep such a close eye on him. He was just a dumb pixie that they’d snuffed the spirit from. What could he possibly get up to? He scanned the desktop for anything useful. Since the place was a mess, it wasn’t difficult to find a myriad of different objects. Enchanted items, spell tomes, potions, gryphon claws, phoenix feathers, and-
Tommy fought a smirk.
An unattended glass of milk. The cure-all for nearly every spell, enchantment, and curse alike. He wasn’t the type to count his hippogriff eggs before they hatched but this…well, it would take more skill to mess it up than succeed. He glanced over his shoulder. The men scrambled about the study, neither one paying an inkling of attention to him.
With a final breath to steel his nerves, he scrambled up to his feet. He staggered, immediately tripping his own feet to land right back where he started. Walking was apparently a task easier said than done with the clothespin weighing down his wings. Alright. Scooching it was.
His eyes were fixated on the pair of busybodies still rummaging about the drawer, slowly sliding backwards. He nearly flinched when he bumped against something solid. It wobbled as he nudged it and he could only cringe and pray it wouldn’t spill.
He rose to shaky feet, barely using the glass to support his weight. He dared to turn around only for a split second to hoist himself up over the cup’s rim. The glass trembled beneath him. He only needed a little. A desperate hand reached for the drink a tantalizing distance away, the other hand braced against the cup to keep him steady. He dipped his fingers into the lukewarm liquid, hastily smearing it across his tongue. It was a drop but it was enough. More than enough.
His very veins flushed, cleansed of the unwelcome spell that had previously permeated through them.
He fought a sigh of relief as he scrambled to return to his previous position on the table just as the men returned.
“Ready?” the magician asked.
“Ready,” the elf replied.
Ready,
The elf kissed his fingertips, pressing them to each of the wicks of the candles in the enchanted circle. Warm flames gradually flickered to life. Tears of black wax spilled down onto the finished wood below. The warlock picked up a knife and slashed a clean line across his palm, shallow and long. Crimson liquid dribbled onto the lead rune.
Beams of violet light had already sprung to life before the warlocks had even begun his enchantment. His eyes were screwed shut as the slew of nonsense spilled from his lips straight into the circle of symbols. A jittery current rippled through the desk beneath Tommy.
One by one, the red flames blinked violet. The thrum of magic in the air was so heavy that Tommy could feel it in his chest. The objects littering the desk shook as the power grew focused and concentrated, draining into the waiting runes.
The light was blinding. A swirling vortex of purple and pink flashed like strobes, forming a hole in the center of the table. A hole with no perceivable bottom. Tommy had never been more tempted to throw himself straight into something. But he had to wait. Just a little longer.
“Holy Fates! It’s working!” the elf exclaimed.
The warlock's hands weakly dropped onto the table. He panted like he’d just run a mile.
“Unclip it and drop it in,” the exhausted man instructed.
A hand reached for Tommy.
“Wait!”
The elf’s fingers fell just short of the pix. The warlock’s face grew tense, eyelids fluttering in strain.
“The spell’s not working,” he said, paling in realization. His attention snapped to Tommy. That was all the motivation the pixie needed.
He heaved his body backwards, launching himself into the swirling void of color. A hand lashed out towards him. The massive fist closed around the air mere inches away from him. He laughed hysterically as he shot up double middle fingers at the two men gawking down at him.
“Later, dickheads!” he shouted. And, in all honesty, he didn’t care what he found or didn’t find on the other side of that portal because just seeing the looks on their faces made the entire risk worthwhile.
The world unraveled around him, sealing him away in the mass of colors. The constant strobes made it hard to keep his eyes open. The haphazard motion of his body being jostled about was nearly enough to give him whiplash. There was no end to the tangle of colors. The same, repeating pattern of hues went on for what very well could’ve been miles. Tommy was never much of a gymnast but the amount of backflips he did in that moment would’ve put any acrobat to shame.
All at once, it went still.
Well, all except Tommy.
His stomach dropped into his feet as he plummeted through the air. He flailed about wildly in a desperate attempt to steady himself. It was all futile as he was stuck in a constant state of tumbling. He probably screamed. In all honesty, he couldn’t hear a thing over the roar of the wind in his ears.
The first thing he registered was the wetness. The thing that finally broke his fall was wet. And freezing. And suffocating. Between the iron clothespin threatening to drag himself further into the depths and the residual vertigo from the fall, he didn’t stand a chance of finding the surface. By sheer luck, his feet hit something solid. He didn’t hesitate to use it as a launchpad. As soon as his face breached the water, he swallowed down a much needed gulp of air.
He threw himself onto the solid rim he found surrounding him, arms gelatin beneath him. He hacked so hard he could’ve sworn he’d sprained a lung-if that was even possible. All the water he’d stolen returned to its source and then some. Residual bile burned at the back of his throat. Between the erratic rise and fall of his chest, Tommy managed a single phrase.
“Holy shit.”
He slouched against the porcelain edge. The world around him was…bizarre. A normal enough blue sky with normal enough clouds and green grass below but that was about where the similarities between their worlds ended.
A deep red building was incongruous with the green lawn and white flora.He couldn’t even tell what material the thing was made of. Fashioned into sharp, rectangular shapes, the wall was adorned with panels that were almost a bizarre imitation of wood.
He sure would’ve loved to get a closer look. He glowered at the clothespin holding his wings captive, reaching at it with desperate fingers to no avail. He huffed. Maybe he could convince some local to take it off for him but finding someone would probably involve actually getting to the ground-a task easier said than done given that whatever dish of water he’d landed in was cradled in a pillar just tall enough to make a drop from that height lethal.
Great.
He was officially stranded.
Tommy’s ears twitched at the sound of a door opening. When he looked up, he found the glass door on the side of the building was all wrong. It didn’t pull in or push out. It slid. The pixie’s mouth fell open in utter shock. The person who stepped outside was wrong, too. Though they looked like your average common elf-sans the pointed ears-they didn’t move right.
Swathed in a ridiculous monochrome outfit, the woman made a b-line for him with feet that walked in a perfectly straight line. Her arms swung ever so slightly with every step, flawless face adorned with a smile that looked like it had been plastered right on there when she was born and hadn’t been removed since. The eerie grin left ehr full set of polished white teeth on full display.
Tommy froze.
He should’ve run. Definitely should’ve.
But he couldn’t.
Even if he wasn’t stuck suspended high up in the air, he was petrified by the unsettling woman before him. She stopped a few feet short of Tommy and bent down at the waist. Even the angle of her posture was too perfect. Was this thing even a person? It sure did look like one but Tommy could’ve sworn her chest wasn’t even moving.
Like she wasn’t breathing.
He was looking at her chest for scientific purposes, of course.
“Source of motion in custom name ‘birdbath’ identified,” she announced. Tommy’s eyes darted about the yard in search of who she was talking to only to find it entirely vacant beyond the two of them. “Scanning.”
Tommy went rigid as brown eyes lit up an icy blue. She looked him up and down. The gesture was probably the most familiar thing he had yet to experience in that place. It was like they were sizing him up to buy him.
“Scan complete. Organic lifeform not found in database. Blood sample required for further analysis.”
Did she say blood?
His stomach twisted in knots as she held up her hand. A narrow, metal needle emerged from the tip of her index finger, glinting menacingly in the sunlight.
Tommy ducked just in time to evade the needle that cut through the air above him. No way the people around here had weapons built into their skin! How unfair was that?
He dragged himself up further onto the very ledge of the porcelain dish. Though his body was made even heavier by the addition of extra water, he managed to hoist himself up onto the back of her hand. He shuddered at the feeling of skin too smooth and unmalleable to belong to something living.
She didn’t even have veins. What exactly was this thing?
He didn’t have much time to stand around and wonder. She reached for him with her opposite hand. He raced straight up her arm, hardly finding enough traction to run. His saving grace was her sleeve. He twisted the sleek fabric in his fists with every intention of gracefully descending until the woman bucked like a montaur.
In an instant, he was on the ground. He couldn’t even remember the fall. Every fleeting thought of clarity in his muddled mind scrambled at him to run so that was what he did. The dirt beneath his feet shook with the woman’s every step as she started after him.
Unfortunately for her, evasion was quite possibly the only skill he’d retained throughout his whole life. Granted, it had failed him in the past, but that made him stronger. Smarter. He narrowly escaped her swiping hands. Her fingers grazed the clothespin restraining his wings as he dove through the hole in the picket fence.
Tommy half expected her to barrel through the wooden fence but she didn’t. He peered through the slit between pickets only to watch her stop dead in her tracks, turn around, and simply walk right back into her home.
He let out a sigh of relief.
“Organic lifeform not found in database. Blood sample required for further analysis.”
The voice hit him like a stone to the teeth. He forced himself to move, turning to find a man in the exact same uniform as the woman.
The creature…whatever it was-be it a mimic or duplication spell gone wrong-walked towards him with that bone chilling gait. Tommy was catching on to the way of this world very quickly. He would just have to keep moving. Running, hiding, sleeping with one eye open if he ever got to sleep at all. And maybe in that sense, it all felt nostalgic.
A grim reminder that no matter what world he escaped to, he was condemned to the very same fate spent fleeing and scavenging. A pest across every universe. And if he ever got a moment’s peace, it could only mean that something was terribly, terribly wrong.
~
Sorry again about reupload but I got it all figured out this time...maybe >:)
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@da3dm @i-am-beckyu
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