which-qsmp-egg-would

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

EGG SPOTTED 🫵

Sock takes a stroll!

This is an ArtFight attack of Sock by @sw1ft-sniff!

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

theres so many little character interactions and side stories I wanna do with everyone from Glass Bracelets but...... my pacing.......

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

GLASS BRACELETS

Chapter 3

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---

LIAR. LIAR.

LIAR.

That's all that Tequilla can think about now. Not the feeling of leaves and dirt under his claws, not the feeling of the smooth orange paper of the box in his hand. No, all he can feel is betrayal. How long must Poll have known where his mom was? It kept it a secret from him- from HER- since Christmas. There's an anger bigger than his body boiling under his scales. He wants to scream, to slash at saplings with his talons, but he can't. He needs to keep moving.

He doesn't know where he's going. He doesn't even know if there is a where. He just needs to go. To run away. To get as far as he can from the only place he remembers calling home.

—

Poll clutches tightly against their papa's form, snot filled tears mixing with the blood pouring from their snout, just to be wiped messily against their arm. Stardust rubs the back of their head and carries Poll into the house, past the still ajar back door, through the hallway and into the bathroom. It sits the sobbing dragonling on the edge of the tub and starts running water.

“I messed up so bad papa.” They cry. “Tequilla's gone and it's all my fault, if I had just told him the truth then I, I-” They cough, wet and uncomfortable.

Poll grimaces at the taste of blood. They hadn't realised they were still bleeding. Stardust wets one of the hanging towels, using it to lightly wipe the snot and blood off the egg's face.

“Huh?” Poll cocks their head at their papa. “No, no scrapes. just the nose.” They sniffle, flinching at the feeling of the blood oozing into their throat. It's hard to hear their papa's thoughts(?) when their head is this loud. “Papa, do you know where TQ is?”

Stardust pauses for a moment, its form shifting from projecting a distant galaxy to a deeply wooded area. It nods.

“Do you…” Poll falters. The echo of Tequilla's words ringing out in their head. I hate you. “Do you think you could bring me to him?”

—

Tequilla can't help but think all of this feels too familiar. The running from something indistinct to a place unknown. Unsure of where his next resting spot will be or what his next meal will entail.

His memories of the woods are blurry at best. Despite his best efforts, it's hard to remember something like that. He's not sure he even wants to remember. All he knows is that one day, the first truly clear day in his memory, he woke up under a tree, deep in these same woods. The only clue he had was the dirt under his nails, the gross feeling of sweat caked onto his scales, the unhappy grumble of his stomach, a still painful scab on his ear, and a book bag filled with various pieces of junk and a slip inside that simply read “If found, return to Tequilla Ibuprofen.” It haunts him to remember that he didn't know his name before that moment. He can still feel the nausea from that day.

He didn't have a home back then. A family. A sibling. Not one he knew. All he had was a broken memory and a bag.

Now all that's left is his fractured memory, his bag, and an orange present from someone he thought had abandoned him.

And for the first time in his memory, he is completely alone.

—

“Wh-what?” Poll cries. “Why can't you?”

“He needs to wander and-” Poll mumbles to themself as they decipher its meaning, “No no no, he needs t’ come back, I need to apologize t’ him! He can't- he can't disappear like you do, what if he gets hurt? What if he never forgives me?”

Stardust looks down at the egg, radiating concern.

“You'll be keeping an eye on him?” Poll repeats. “Like you do with me?”

Papa nods.

“But– but what if someone finds him? What if one of the labcoats is out there and grabs him and chips his shell like J-7? Or- or he disappears without a word like J-2 did? or-”

An indistinct hand squeezes Poll's shoulder.

“Just… You'll tell me if something happens, right papa?” Poll rubs their snout, only coming away with a little bit of blood this time.

“...Thanks.”

—

Tequilla has slowed down to a halt, staring into the forest around him. The light filtering through the trees has begun to disappear, turning a deep orange as the sun sets.

What am I even doing? Tequilla thinks to himself. What kind of goal do I have? To run?

He clutches the present. No, he has another goal.

To find his mom.

He takes a deep breath, claws stilled as they graze the paper of the present. He flinches as they tear through. Lifting the lid carefully, he reaches his hand inside.

There's a note.

I know that writing this is pointless I wanted to tell you I miss

It's been 7 months since you left us. Your moms and your dad have missed you very much. I think they've come to visit since I built this place, but our paths never cross. I'm sure you're happy to have the company! I would come more often but things are so hectic in the city.

I don't know why I'm writing this. I know I'll just come back to get this present in a few days. My sister always said that writing your feelings helps, but I think she might have said that to read my diary and blackmail me when we were kids.

There's the distinct ripple of teardrops dried on the page.

I'm getting off topic.

I miss you so so much, Tequilla. I hope you know that.

I love you. Merry Christmas.

Tears fall from his eyes, but no real emotion follows them. He knows he's supposed to feel sad. Maybe the kid he used to be is the one crying. He just feels numb.

His claws fish out something else. He holds it up in the dying light of the sun. It's a bracelet. Wooden and plastic beads patterned randomly along it, all leading up to a center stone. Or glass, more accurately. A piece of seaglass has been carefully tied to the bracelet. The color, despite being clearly faded by the waves, is still a vibrant yellow.

This is from his old suncatcher.

A headache suddenly pounds against his skull. As painful as it is, that means this is a memory.

He used to have a suncatcher. He asked his moms to hang it by Momma's bed. It was brighter there, there were no windows in his bedroom because it was too dangerous. It was… TQ winces. It was made of seaglass from the beach. Like the green piece he carries with him that makes his stomach hurt. He can't remember much more than that, but he remembers loving that suncatcher. He hates that he ever forgot it.

This is a good sign. It means that he doesn't have to rely on Poll the liar to help him with his memories. He can find them on his own. He just needs to find the city. He needs to find his mom.

It may be dark, but he's experienced.

He will find the city.

—

Poll's ears perk up. “You know where he's goin’, Papa?” They sit up from where it was tucking them in for the night.

Stardust nods, gently pushing Poll to lay on the mattress again.

“Can you tell me where he's goin’, Papa? Please?”

It stays silent.

Poll huffs, turning away from it. They listen as it gets up, halfway to the door before they pipe up again. “Could you stay in here until I fall asleep?” They ask. “'m not used to sleepin’ alone anymore.” Stardust nods, settling on the edge of the bed, staring off to presumably keep an eye on Poll's brother.

They hope he's okay.

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

Thinking about TQ's parents again because they don't get enough love from me i think so I'm just gonna say whatever comes to mind under the cut

drinking, religion, & death mentions

Doll and Don don't fight ALL the time. Don's unconscious crush on Doll means that she does actually admire her to an extent- until Doll does something Don deems stupid and the insult cycle repeats anew.

Gin drinks sometimes, always in the privacy of his room or a crappy bar he built under The Nook. Don often goes with him despite her high tolerance for alcohol. She usually just brings him back to bed. Although sometimes Doll will join him instead and have a drink too. She deserves one honestly.

Aurelia sometimes wonders if she has siblings. I mean she was a Federation experiment, so the real question is if she has LIVING siblings, but still. She also experiences a degree of dysphoria once she learns of her origins, but I think over time she learns how to accept her artificial hybrid status.

I think that Doll's sister is either older than her by 5-6 years, or her identical twin. Either is funny tbf. I swear you all will see her sister one day, she's gonna be important.

If you think Don crushing on Doll is bad, she'd be sooooo much worse with her sister.

Gin misses his friends from the Federation. Sure its hard to make friends as an office drone, but there are workers there that know more about his family than his co-parents do. He tries to greet them whenever he sees them out and about. Sometimes the respond. other times, they just avoid eye contact and leave.

I still haven't decided if there were other eggs on Horchata island. If there were, none of them were very close. Horchata never quite got the "takes a village" memo. Clearly.

Belladonna is genuinely so terrified that one day the Federation will finish their work on her mother plant (yk, the plant that a dryad's soul/life is tied to) and she will simply burn up and wither away. She ends up very frantic over this fear, which causes plenty of fights. Nothing a little bit of deflection won't solve!

Gin has never visited TQ's statue.

Doll was scared when she first met TQ. While she IS the oldest out of the four (i think), she's never really thought about having kids (None of the men in her town ever really caught her eye). And she doesn't interact with either side of her family enough to have much recent experience. The best she had was observing the kids at church when she was like, a teenager. She read soooooo many parenting books and was (and is) so paranoid that she's gonna mess it up.

Doll has got some religious guilt going on. What religion? no idea, but she's got it!

Gin has memory issues from disassociation. It got better for a time, but it's been REALLY bad recently.

Aurelia constantly experiments with her "hairstyle" (the way she curls the tentacles on her head). Sometimes when she talks about someone she'll mimic their hairstyle and/or horns. When she sleeps, her tentacles untense and she looks like the Grunge.

Aurelia can breathe underwater like any other octopus hybrid, but her artificially made body means she gets lightheaded after a while.

Doll once installed bells on TQ's door just in case he started sleepwalking one day (she was a sleepwalker as a child and once made it down the street before waking up). Gin took it down before the week was up because it kept waking him everytime TQ needed to go pee.

Doll's constant caretaker attitude is moreso an instilled habit from home than anything. She does it without meaning to, even if it affects her own health.

Don's caretaker attitude is so nonexistent until it becomes obvious that she messed up. Like she'll make sure TQ doesn't wander off a cliff but she won't really step in unless he's gonna hurt himself.

Aurelia is a good mix of the two.

Gin literally gave a 5 year old a knife what do you expect me to say here.

Doll has drunkenly made out with one of her co-parents exactly once. I refuse to tell you who but it has happened. she vehemently denies that it ever did though.

Don perma-killed at least one adventurous adventurous back home with the other dryads. Tbf tho they had it coming. Probably. definitely probably.

They all have different nicknames they use for TQ.

Aurelia once bit into the berries that grow on Donnie's head. For science. It took her a full day to respawn. Turns out she does NOT have any poison resistance. I guess there's a difference between their toxins.

The others joke that Aurelia once got drunk from the smell of alcohol. Which is an exaggeration of course, but honestly shes such a lightweight that it would probably work anyways.

Out of the four, Donnie has the hardest time with respawns. Dryad code is closer to mob than player, so it takes her longer than the average player, and she's a lot more exhausted when she comes out the other side.

Less a fun fact about the characters and moreso an unfortunate truth about me, I have thought about how in the world dryads reproduce WAAAAY too much. They're weird.

Doll's co-parents spent a solid week trying to catch a glimpse of her tail. It's usually hidden in her dress, but sometimes it's visible in her other outfits. It's cute.

Donnie hates when people touch her tail. The flower is sensitive.

Doll once dyed her tail pink, just for fun. She regretted it immediately.

Aurelia often struggles with her hybrid instincts clashing. Doll helped her through the episodes and would tell her if something was unique to her situation (this came in handy when she met Lils :D)

Okays thats all I can think of, i hope you enjoyed 🧡🧡🧡

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

WAIT THAT TWITCH NOTIFICATION WAS FR???? I IGNORED IT BECAUSE ALL MEN (re: big Q) DO IS LIE.

"Welcoming creators internationally. More languages, more creators, new stories, real-time translation. WELCOME WORLD."

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

Duckduck

When we communicate with each other, I can read your messages. Like words you see on a book.

Anyway are you able to survive by yourself?

Note to Captain:

Any hints to words that will trigger something different or new?

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

Oh, something else came up, too. Looks like a follow-up message?

Any new latest report?

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

Any new latest report?

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

I wanna draw Poll and TQ for Odaiba day so bad 😭😭😭 my hands won't work with me 😭

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

are you on artfight? i ask for. normal reasons

I, admittedly, don't know how art fight works 😅

But it always sounds cool!

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

Okay now that you've all met the Resistance group, I wanna ramble about a design thing I do

I am not great at designing characters. that's just a fact. But one thing I do for these characters is that I try to imagine what their CC would be like, and what their Cubito's skin ACTUALLY looks like. (Ex. Doll's cc would be a Vtuber with a cubito to match, so her design matches with her skin, like Ironmouse)

(please note that the CCs here are purely hypothetical, I'm just pretending like they're twitch streamers for funsies)

So like, Tapioca has a very normal human mc skin that people extrapolate into a reptile because its part of his branding. Does variety games but is most well known for mc.

The Old Man is an old school mc player, like the kind of cc that all the other ccs look up to. But he has the most basic dog skin that he could find 15 years ago and has been in the community for so long that he just chills and doesn't do much.

Lils is a pngtuber. I don't actually know why but she just Is. Her skin is another one of those basic human skins that gets extrapolated. Lils is an OG too but she didn't get as popular.

The twins are the fun one to me. You know how like half of the hermits just have steve skins, slightly altered over the years? That's the twins. Slightly altered matching Alex skins. I feel like they would be the type of ccs to stream themselves hacking on minecraft servers, or have a 200 part 1 hour each Create Mod series. they look absolutely nothing like their skins.

Collen has a clown skin. I mean its more like a jester or a mime but everyone calls it a clown skin. But since noone could properly creaturify her, she got the shapeshifter treatment (like Tubbo or Princezam)

Stephen is a faceless streamer that wears one of those led screens. that or another vtuber with a really sofisticated rig. His skin is just a robot with a =D face

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

Oh hey this post finally makes sense to yall now

I'm a day late, but. How was Doll celebrating mother's day?:)

Her teammates in the resistance group shes a part of gave her some gifts :3

Even though she hasn't been there as long as some of the others, shes still one of the older members of the group and dotes on them all so much She's dubbed the group mom and so they celebrated her. Tapioca helped her with her paperwork. the Twins offered to "upgrade" some of her stuff (she declined). Stephen got a flower from outside of the city (despite technically being older than her. He just wanted to make up for the twins' (accidental) likely bomb threat)

The other two members are older than her, of course, but they at least sat through a story of her one and only mothers day with her son.

She had a good day, y'know? she does love her team

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

Aaaaa I'm so happy you love them!!! they came to me in a vision ♥️ I really like making diverse hybrids and creatures

Yes, they are against the Federation! They all have their own reasons of course. Doll wants to find her sister (and avenge her son), Lils and Stephen were experiments and hurt by that, and the others motivations i haven't quite gotten down yet. I think Tapioca is here to help make the island safer for his little sister and his family (they're estranged but he loves her.), and I think the old man got tired of fighting the fed's battles.

A good amount of their work is information gathering for other groups, but there is also an aspect of helping people as you can see. They're in contact with some of the.... less drastic rebellion groups.

As for looking for TQ's other parents, Doll doesn't really... care? She knows that Donnie is doing some stuff similar to her over on Horchata, in a smaller group tho. Obviously Doll's feelings towards her ex-co-parents are complicated. On one hand, she resents them. On the other, they're her last connection to her son. Anywho, she's seen Aurelia a couple of times since they split up (although not recently), and Gin is MIA.

I could absolutely keep going UUUUGH I love my little blorbos ♥️♥️♥️

GLASS BRACELETS

Chapter 2

prev | next

Cw: discussions of deportation

---

“I'm leaving.”

Aurelia grabbed his shoulder. “Why? there's still a chance-”

Gin ripped away from her grip. “You don't know Them like I do. They don't do second chances. There's nothing holding me here anymore.”

“The memory of your son should be enough to keep you here!”

He growled, knuckles white on his cane. “He was never my son, he was yours.”

Doll sighs, rubbing the soft fur of her ears.

“You can't be serious.”

“I am. I just… he's gone. I've accepted that.”

“You can't know that for sure!” Doll cried. “Aurelia he can't- they never showed us a body. He could still be-”

Aurelia sighed, crouching down to Doll's level. “If you really believed that, you wouldn't be building the statue. He's gone, Doll. I'm sorry.”

Doll tugs at her ears sharply.

“I can't just stay here and wait for a miracle, I need to find my mother plant. Everyone else is gone, Doll.”

Doll didn't respond.

“...I hope you find your sister out there, Princess.”

“Doll?”

She jolts, startled out of her own head.

“Oh sh- uh, yes Taps?” She looks up at the younger hybrid. When they first met he said that he was a skink hybrid. She'd never been great at telling reptiles apart, but the yellow stripes that line his dark features look a lot like the pictures he showed her of his “cousins”. He looks down at her, concerned, still donning the hodgepodge black and grey armor and hand crafted gear from the recent expedition.

“First off, you should really stop tugging at your ears.” he points with a claw. “you're going to give yourself a migraine. Second,” he taps the papers on the messy desk in front of her. “Have you found literally anything valuable from that yet.”

Doll pinches the bridge of her nose. “Aside from the usual doom and gloom ‘quest for immortality and making everyone's lives hell’? Nothing.”

Tapioca sticks his tongue out, leaning against the wall. “Laaaame.”

“How about you, hon? How was the mission with the twins?” Doll shuffles the papers back into order. When she joined this group, an impulsive decision when they broke her out of jail months ago, she definitely expected more action than sifting through stolen Federation paperwork.

“They kept trying to convince me to help them steal computer monitors, Doll. Not the computers themselves, the monitors.” Tapioca says flatly.

Doll snorts. “Well you know how the Alexes are. They're always wanting to upgrade the base.”

“Yeah but there was so much better tech there we could have focused on. You know full well that they just want to upgrade Stephen.”

She sifts through the documents lazily. “In fairness hon, It's probably best that Alex M. focus on fixing up Stephen while Alex C. focuses on the base. We don't need another-”

Tapioca shivers. “Please don't remind me of the coffee pot incident. Or the heat lamp.”

“I still don't know why you asked them to ‘juice up your heat lamp.’” Doll makes air quotes, smiling.

Taps throws his hands up, gesturing vaguely to the grey ceiling. “You try staying in a metal bunker in the middle of winter when you're partially cold blooded! I was dying! It doesn't help that this city hardly gets sunlight.”

Doll's smile falters at the mention of the city's current state. “Well aside from the Alexes klepto tendencies, did you figure out anything? Any more paperwork for me?”

“I… yeah, we found some stuff. It doesn't look great.” Tapioca admits, eyes darkening. “That's why I came to get you in the first place, actually. We're having a meeting. Everyone has to attend.”

“That bad, huh?” Doll stretches, adjusting her corset as she stands from the chair she's been glued to for hours. “Lets see the damage then.”

She follows closely behind the skink hybrid as the two wind through the halls of the resistance bunker. The layout isn't too difficult to learn, but Doll has had enough experience to know that it's easy to get turned around anyways. Collen says that it's to confuse any Federation spies that might follow them in there, and Doll has learned to not question her.

After too many corners to count, they arrive in a small meeting room. A stained plastic table sits in the middle, surrounded by chairs of different sizes and shapes. A variety of people sit at the table.

To Doll's immediate left, a small flying squirrel hybrid perches on the edge of a barstool, combing through the fur of her tail. Her hair is as brown as the rest of her fur, light scars adorning her tanned skin underneath handmade clothes. Doll wondered for the longest time how a hybrid like her could be so small, nearly the same size Tequilla was as a toddler, until Lils told her about her childhood being raised by the Federation. Apparently she's an artificial hybrid like Aurelia. The thought makes her nauseous still.

Just past Lils is possibly the strangest of their group. Sitting in a fold out metal chair is a robot, assembled with a variety of parts with colors ranging the spectrum of grey, gunmetal, and rust. The twins brought him here one day, busted up and running on reserve power. Apparently he used to be one of the Federation's artificial intelligence experiments, but was beaten and thrown out for reasons he nor the twins will tell anyone. The first day he was booted back up he declared his name was Stephen and everyone just went along with it. Despite being the newest member of the slowly growing squad (having shown up only a month after Doll) he's taken to the group quickly, keeping inventory in the base in a futile attempt to keep the twins from squirreling away parts. Doll suspects that he lets them get away with it sometimes in exchange for upgrading his body, already a mess of spare pieces and “cosmetic touches.”

Just before the end of the table, an empty wooden rocking chair sits still on the concrete floor. The old man must still be asleep, Doll thinks. For a dog hybrid, the old man has to be the least active person she's ever met. Although, she admits she's stereotyping.

Tapioca walks past Doll to the end of the table, sitting in the coveted Well-Made-Real-Wooden-Chair, reserved only for mission runners that have to host the meeting. It's by far probably the best seat in the room through prestige alone. Doll almost chuckles to herself when she sees how small the chair looks compared to Taps’ lanky frame. His bright blue tail curls up into his lap.

As always, the twins sit next to each other on stools, this time across from the old man and Stephen. Alex M. sits the farthest from where Doll stands. She fidgets with her long red hair, weaving various bits and bobs into it while clearly lost in thought. Tools stick out of every pocket of her brown overalls and cover the table space in front of her and her brother. A black muscle shirt, identical to her brother's, is barely visible under the overalls. Doll always wondered if the Alexes felt out of place in a group full of hybrids, robots, and Collen. But they said that they've never had the best relationship with humans and left it at that.

Closer to Doll, Alex C. is sat hunched over his shared mess with his sister, furiously putting together small bits of machinery, occasionally pulling a new piece from his over-loaded cargo pants. His usually shoulder-length red hair is pulled up into a messy bun, only a hair or two falling into his pale face.

Finally in the seat closest to her is… uh. Alex C. again. But in a lawn chair. His feet kicked up onto the table staring up at the ceiling in boredom. She almost asks if she's seeing double (triple?) but Lils cuts her to the chase, gliding down from her perch to land on Alex C.(?)’s leg with an oomph.

“Collen, this is an important meeting, be respectful and stop using your teammate's face.” She smacks the bottom of their sole until their legs retract with a groan. With a nod of approval, Lils returns to her perch.

Doll watches in fascination as Collen returns to one of her preferred forms. She's seen it a hundred times by now but she can't help it. The Shapeshifter's form blurs and warps, the transition from Alex C. pale face and red hair seamless into Collen's stark white face and black hair. The clown-like markings pop onto her face, highlighting her cheeks and eyes. Doll doesn't exactly know why she prefers to look like a clown. Her clothes don't always match that aesthetic, today's outfit is particularly plain, just a t-shirt and sweatpants. Collen looks over at Doll, sticking her tongue out. “You gonna sit, goatmom?”

The hybrid rolls her eyes. She's not the oldest by any means, only being in her early 30s, but apparently her protective tendencies have landed her with the mother role. A fitting role, she supposes. Honestly it felt like she was Tequilla's only parent back in The Nook. But Doll nods, pulling out the armless wooden chair that she stole from a Federation office. Right of passage, the twins had said. She's just glad she snagged a chair that doesn't press against her fat uncomfortably.

She leans back, a look of concern on her face at the grim expression Tapioca wears across from her.

The tense silence fills the room.

Lils speaks first. “Tapioca, Alex M., Alex C., please begin your report.” Doll gives a silent sigh of relief. When the old man doesn't come to meetings, it's usually up to her or Lils to kick it off. But with the funk she's been in today she's not sure if she could have done it.

Taps glances at the twins and nods.

“We infiltrated the Federation data center that Doll informed us of from her extensive research into documents found at the previous site.” Tapioca starts.

“We didn't find any evidence of Doll's sister at this site,” Alex M. says, giving Doll an apologetic look, “Nor did we find any more information on the locations of the other test subjects.” Lils and Stephen deflate at that, but try to hide it. “What we did find though…”

She trails off.

Alex C. sighs, running fingers through his hair. “Voidsake, uh, so, as all of us are aware, this city is almost completely populated by humans. There's some hybrids within the walls but they're few and far between. With the constant cloud cover, this city could have been an ideal spot for beings that prefer less sun. But the Federation is very strict on who can enter or exit.”

“Yeah we know that, what horrors are they unleashing now?” Collen interrupts.

Tapioca takes a deep breath. “They're… cleaning up.” he fidgets with his tail. Doll can't help but think he looks too young to deal with all this. No wonder they call her goatmom. “There were some drives there that the twins snagged. On them were… plans to get rid of the remaining non-humans in the city.”

Lils nods. “That means it will be dangerous for any of us other than the Alexes and Collen to be spotted in the open. Stephen, do you still have the contact information of the non-humans we have already helped?”

Stephen beeps, his LED eyes closing for a moment. They pop open again as he nods “Yeah, but I doubt these are all the hybrids in the city.”

“There are likely more, yes. But we will evacuate as many as we can outside of the city until things quiet down.”

Doll thrums her fingers against the stained plastic. “We should probably evacuate the low expression hybrids too, just to be safe.”

The squirrel nods.

“What about the hybrids that we miss? If they get caught?” Collen asks.

“One of the documents says that they'll be held in an underground prison for a few days until transport arrives to cart them off to who knows where.” Alex C. says.

“Alright,” Doll sighs. “I guess that means that while you three get to rescue people, Stephen and us hybrids will just stay here.”

Alex M. rolls her eyes. “Don't be like that. You four can break people out of jail before they get transported. And the Old Man can keep his cot warm.”

Tapioca thunks against the table with his palms. “So that's settled. The twins and Collen will get the non-humans outta the city using the information Stephen has saved up. Collen, if you can, try to get into whatever database they're keeping the information about known hybrids. Meanwhile, Doll, Lils, Stephen, and I'll plan to infiltrate another underground Federation prison if need be. This sound good to everyone?” The group nods. “Alright. Then I'll go relay this to him,” he gestures to the empty rocking chair. “While the rest of you enjoy the afternoon.”

Collen salutes him grimly like a soldier gone to war before breaking into giggles. Taps huffs, hurrying past the group and towards wherever the old man is in this maze.

The team disperses, leaving just Doll and Lils.

“Want to rummage through the kitchen with me?” Doll asks, extending her forearm like a falconer. “It's not like I can get through this place very well anyways.”

Lils shrugs, gliding over to Doll with a practiced ease. “I am not very hungry, but I will help you find the kitchen.”

“You're a saint, Lils.”

“And you are a comfortable perch.” She smiles, patting Doll's arm.

They walk in silence for a few minutes, only interrupted by Lils’ quiet directions. Once they arrive at the small kitchen, the flying squirrel hybrid glides to sit on the fridge. Doll rummages through it, humming indistinctly to herself.

“...Has there been any word from the Horchata branch?” She asks.

“They are still alive, if that is what you are asking.” Lils reports. “But you know how hard it is to get any communication from Horchata to Quesadilla without interference. Is this about that dryad?”

“No.” Doll slams the fridge door, her hands empty. “I just wanted to know if they had found anything important.”

“Well I believe that the squad that… she is a part of has been mostly focused on the Federation's toxin research.”

“Brilliant.” Doll grumbles.

“It is important information, Doll.”

“I know.” Doll groans.

She hears a sigh, followed by the sound of wings and a cabinet being opened. Doll jolts as a packet of peanut butter crackers are thrown at her.

“You forgot the food part of coming here.” Lils prods. “Do you want to head back to your bunk and pretend to do paperwork?”

Doll laughs in relief. “Yes, please.”

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

GLASS BRACELETS

Chapter 2

prev | next

Cw: discussions of deportation

---

“I'm leaving.”

Aurelia grabbed his shoulder. “Why? there's still a chance-”

Gin ripped away from her grip. “You don't know Them like I do. They don't do second chances. There's nothing holding me here anymore.”

“The memory of your son should be enough to keep you here!”

He growled, knuckles white on his cane. “He was never my son, he was yours.”

Doll sighs, rubbing the soft fur of her ears.

“You can't be serious.”

“I am. I just… he's gone. I've accepted that.”

“You can't know that for sure!” Doll cried. “Aurelia he can't- they never showed us a body. He could still be-”

Aurelia sighed, crouching down to Doll's level. “If you really believed that, you wouldn't be building the statue. He's gone, Doll. I'm sorry.”

Doll tugs at her ears sharply.

“I can't just stay here and wait for a miracle, I need to find my mother plant. Everyone else is gone, Doll.”

Doll didn't respond.

“...I hope you find your sister out there, Princess.”

“Doll?”

She jolts, startled out of her own head.

“Oh sh- uh, yes Taps?” She looks up at the younger hybrid. When they first met he said that he was a skink hybrid. She'd never been great at telling reptiles apart, but the yellow stripes that line his dark features look a lot like the pictures he showed her of his “cousins”. He looks down at her, concerned, still donning the hodgepodge black and grey armor and hand crafted gear from the recent expedition.

“First off, you should really stop tugging at your ears.” he points with a claw. “you're going to give yourself a migraine. Second,” he taps the papers on the messy desk in front of her. “Have you found literally anything valuable from that yet.”

Doll pinches the bridge of her nose. “Aside from the usual doom and gloom ‘quest for immortality and making everyone's lives hell’? Nothing.”

Tapioca sticks his tongue out, leaning against the wall. “Laaaame.”

“How about you, hon? How was the mission with the twins?” Doll shuffles the papers back into order. When she joined this group, an impulsive decision when they broke her out of jail months ago, she definitely expected more action than sifting through stolen Federation paperwork.

“They kept trying to convince me to help them steal computer monitors, Doll. Not the computers themselves, the monitors.” Tapioca says flatly.

Doll snorts. “Well you know how the Alexes are. They're always wanting to upgrade the base.”

“Yeah but there was so much better tech there we could have focused on. You know full well that they just want to upgrade Stephen.”

She sifts through the documents lazily. “In fairness hon, It's probably best that Alex M. focus on fixing up Stephen while Alex C. focuses on the base. We don't need another-”

Tapioca shivers. “Please don't remind me of the coffee pot incident. Or the heat lamp.”

“I still don't know why you asked them to ‘juice up your heat lamp.’” Doll makes air quotes, smiling.

Taps throws his hands up, gesturing vaguely to the grey ceiling. “You try staying in a metal bunker in the middle of winter when you're partially cold blooded! I was dying! It doesn't help that this city hardly gets sunlight.”

Doll's smile falters at the mention of the city's current state. “Well aside from the Alexes klepto tendencies, did you figure out anything? Any more paperwork for me?”

“I… yeah, we found some stuff. It doesn't look great.” Tapioca admits, eyes darkening. “That's why I came to get you in the first place, actually. We're having a meeting. Everyone has to attend.”

“That bad, huh?” Doll stretches, adjusting her corset as she stands from the chair she's been glued to for hours. “Lets see the damage then.”

She follows closely behind the skink hybrid as the two wind through the halls of the resistance bunker. The layout isn't too difficult to learn, but Doll has had enough experience to know that it's easy to get turned around anyways. Collen says that it's to confuse any Federation spies that might follow them in there, and Doll has learned to not question her.

After too many corners to count, they arrive in a small meeting room. A stained plastic table sits in the middle, surrounded by chairs of different sizes and shapes. A variety of people sit at the table.

To Doll's immediate left, a small flying squirrel hybrid perches on the edge of a barstool, combing through the fur of her tail. Her hair is as brown as the rest of her fur, light scars adorning her tanned skin underneath handmade clothes. Doll wondered for the longest time how a hybrid like her could be so small, nearly the same size Tequilla was as a toddler, until Lils told her about her childhood being raised by the Federation. Apparently she's an artificial hybrid like Aurelia. The thought makes her nauseous still.

Just past Lils is possibly the strangest of their group. Sitting in a fold out metal chair is a robot, assembled with a variety of parts with colors ranging the spectrum of grey, gunmetal, and rust. The twins brought him here one day, busted up and running on reserve power. Apparently he used to be one of the Federation's artificial intelligence experiments, but was beaten and thrown out for reasons he nor the twins will tell anyone. The first day he was booted back up he declared his name was Stephen and everyone just went along with it. Despite being the newest member of the slowly growing squad (having shown up only a month after Doll) he's taken to the group quickly, keeping inventory in the base in a futile attempt to keep the twins from squirreling away parts. Doll suspects that he lets them get away with it sometimes in exchange for upgrading his body, already a mess of spare pieces and “cosmetic touches.”

Just before the end of the table, an empty wooden rocking chair sits still on the concrete floor. The old man must still be asleep, Doll thinks. For a dog hybrid, the old man has to be the least active person she's ever met. Although, she admits she's stereotyping.

Tapioca walks past Doll to the end of the table, sitting in the coveted Well-Made-Real-Wooden-Chair, reserved only for mission runners that have to host the meeting. It's by far probably the best seat in the room through prestige alone. Doll almost chuckles to herself when she sees how small the chair looks compared to Taps’ lanky frame. His bright blue tail curls up into his lap.

As always, the twins sit next to each other on stools, this time across from the old man and Stephen. Alex M. sits the farthest from where Doll stands. She fidgets with her long red hair, weaving various bits and bobs into it while clearly lost in thought. Tools stick out of every pocket of her brown overalls and cover the table space in front of her and her brother. A black muscle shirt, identical to her brother's, is barely visible under the overalls. Doll always wondered if the Alexes felt out of place in a group full of hybrids, robots, and Collen. But they said that they've never had the best relationship with humans and left it at that.

Closer to Doll, Alex C. is sat hunched over his shared mess with his sister, furiously putting together small bits of machinery, occasionally pulling a new piece from his over-loaded cargo pants. His usually shoulder-length red hair is pulled up into a messy bun, only a hair or two falling into his pale face.

Finally in the seat closest to her is… uh. Alex C. again. But in a lawn chair. His feet kicked up onto the table staring up at the ceiling in boredom. She almost asks if she's seeing double (triple?) but Lils cuts her to the chase, gliding down from her perch to land on Alex C.(?)’s leg with an oomph.

“Collen, this is an important meeting, be respectful and stop using your teammate's face.” She smacks the bottom of their sole until their legs retract with a groan. With a nod of approval, Lils returns to her perch.

Doll watches in fascination as Collen returns to one of her preferred forms. She's seen it a hundred times by now but she can't help it. The Shapeshifter's form blurs and warps, the transition from Alex C. pale face and red hair seamless into Collen's stark white face and black hair. The clown-like markings pop onto her face, highlighting her cheeks and eyes. Doll doesn't exactly know why she prefers to look like a clown. Her clothes don't always match that aesthetic, today's outfit is particularly plain, just a t-shirt and sweatpants. Collen looks over at Doll, sticking her tongue out. “You gonna sit, goatmom?”

The hybrid rolls her eyes. She's not the oldest by any means, only being in her early 30s, but apparently her protective tendencies have landed her with the mother role. A fitting role, she supposes. Honestly it felt like she was Tequilla's only parent back in The Nook. But Doll nods, pulling out the armless wooden chair that she stole from a Federation office. Right of passage, the twins had said. She's just glad she snagged a chair that doesn't press against her fat uncomfortably.

She leans back, a look of concern on her face at the grim expression Tapioca wears across from her.

The tense silence fills the room.

Lils speaks first. “Tapioca, Alex M., Alex C., please begin your report.” Doll gives a silent sigh of relief. When the old man doesn't come to meetings, it's usually up to her or Lils to kick it off. But with the funk she's been in today she's not sure if she could have done it.

Taps glances at the twins and nods.

“We infiltrated the Federation data center that Doll informed us of from her extensive research into documents found at the previous site.” Tapioca starts.

“We didn't find any evidence of Doll's sister at this site,” Alex M. says, giving Doll an apologetic look, “Nor did we find any more information on the locations of the other test subjects.” Lils and Stephen deflate at that, but try to hide it. “What we did find though…”

She trails off.

Alex C. sighs, running fingers through his hair. “Voidsake, uh, so, as all of us are aware, this city is almost completely populated by humans. There's some hybrids within the walls but they're few and far between. With the constant cloud cover, this city could have been an ideal spot for beings that prefer less sun. But the Federation is very strict on who can enter or exit.”

“Yeah we know that, what horrors are they unleashing now?” Collen interrupts.

Tapioca takes a deep breath. “They're… cleaning up.” he fidgets with his tail. Doll can't help but think he looks too young to deal with all this. No wonder they call her goatmom. “There were some drives there that the twins snagged. On them were… plans to get rid of the remaining non-humans in the city.”

Lils nods. “That means it will be dangerous for any of us other than the Alexes and Collen to be spotted in the open. Stephen, do you still have the contact information of the non-humans we have already helped?”

Stephen beeps, his LED eyes closing for a moment. They pop open again as he nods “Yeah, but I doubt these are all the hybrids in the city.”

“There are likely more, yes. But we will evacuate as many as we can outside of the city until things quiet down.”

Doll thrums her fingers against the stained plastic. “We should probably evacuate the low expression hybrids too, just to be safe.”

The squirrel nods.

“What about the hybrids that we miss? If they get caught?” Collen asks.

“One of the documents says that they'll be held in an underground prison for a few days until transport arrives to cart them off to who knows where.” Alex C. says.

“Alright,” Doll sighs. “I guess that means that while you three get to rescue people, Stephen and us hybrids will just stay here.”

Alex M. rolls her eyes. “Don't be like that. You four can break people out of jail before they get transported. And the Old Man can keep his cot warm.”

Tapioca thunks against the table with his palms. “So that's settled. The twins and Collen will get the non-humans outta the city using the information Stephen has saved up. Collen, if you can, try to get into whatever database they're keeping the information about known hybrids. Meanwhile, Doll, Lils, Stephen, and I'll plan to infiltrate another underground Federation prison if need be. This sound good to everyone?” The group nods. “Alright. Then I'll go relay this to him,” he gestures to the empty rocking chair. “While the rest of you enjoy the afternoon.”

Collen salutes him grimly like a soldier gone to war before breaking into giggles. Taps huffs, hurrying past the group and towards wherever the old man is in this maze.

The team disperses, leaving just Doll and Lils.

“Want to rummage through the kitchen with me?” Doll asks, extending her forearm like a falconer. “It's not like I can get through this place very well anyways.”

Lils shrugs, gliding over to Doll with a practiced ease. “I am not very hungry, but I will help you find the kitchen.”

“You're a saint, Lils.”

“And you are a comfortable perch.” She smiles, patting Doll's arm.

They walk in silence for a few minutes, only interrupted by Lils’ quiet directions. Once they arrive at the small kitchen, the flying squirrel hybrid glides to sit on the fridge. Doll rummages through it, humming indistinctly to herself.

“...Has there been any word from the Horchata branch?” She asks.

“They are still alive, if that is what you are asking.” Lils reports. “But you know how hard it is to get any communication from Horchata to Quesadilla without interference. Is this about that dryad?”

“No.” Doll slams the fridge door, her hands empty. “I just wanted to know if they had found anything important.”

“Well I believe that the squad that… she is a part of has been mostly focused on the Federation's toxin research.”

“Brilliant.” Doll grumbles.

“It is important information, Doll.”

“I know.” Doll groans.

She hears a sigh, followed by the sound of wings and a cabinet being opened. Doll jolts as a packet of peanut butter crackers are thrown at her.

“You forgot the food part of coming here.” Lils prods. “Do you want to head back to your bunk and pretend to do paperwork?”

Doll laughs in relief. “Yes, please.”

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

I wanna post chapter 2 right this second soooo bad

and chapter 3

and chapter 4

and chapter 5

and-

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

Who's ready for Chapter 2 of Glass Bracelets tomorrow :DDDD I absolutely am

1pm CST!

:D

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

Did you know I'm in love with her btw