Galley and LL: Game Faces On

"Xt's fuck-dark down here." You flip your hardware eye to picnic vision, carefully picking your way down the cave slope. Something underfoot goes crump. You are reminded of the feeling of chomping through the mantle of a baby octopus that's been steamed. "X thxnk X just squashed a grub pan."

 

"Eeeeww," you comment. "Don't say that in front'a the baby, you'll give'er a complex."

The group of you spend roughly an hour trudging through dank, dark tunnels before Otterdad sniffs out a shallow freshwater pool. It's freezing enough to make your globes want to jump up and hide up in your throat, but it's worth it to be able to wash off all the birdshit and sand and grime, and the little glowy orb Galley conjures up helps in warming you back up. Your mask has to go, as does Galley's and Pinkie Buglet's, but you're too tired to fuss over it much. It's not like Galley wanted to do anything besides keep you busy anyway.

You and your bro change into fresh, dry clothes. This leaves him wearing one of your lime green broom skirts and a long sleeved troll Freddy Kruger shirt, but hey, it's dry, he's warm, and it makes you smile. Pinkie Buglet is even tuckered out enough that she lets you slip her inside a blue left sock with just her bleary lil nugget sticking out.

There's not a lot to be done for Galley's lusus. He's clean, at least, but it's not long before your little sanctuary smells overwhelmingly of the special scent of wet otter.

Soon you break out the leftovers: there's still some fish you managed to grab, as well as your candy stash and some grue snacks from Galley's modus.

"Well, this is cozy," you mutter and try not to think of what's happening outside. You haven't heard anything else die, thank both your Lords, but you can still sense a lot of fight or flight instincts buzzing around out there, enough that you're pretty certain the FLARPing event--whatever it is--is still going on.

You fidget. You miss your mom. Times like this, you could just let her climb all over you or watch her play with grub bones or glom all her little suckers over your arms and shoulders. You could spend several idle hours mindlessly peeling her tentacles off you over and over again, all pop-pop-pop-pop-pop! so that you're left with cute little suction marks all over.

You want a nap. You think it's going to be a long couple days 'til Bel gets this shit sorted.

Speaking of Bel: "Any news from your matesprit?"

 

"Nothxng new," you say. "He's probably, X don't know. Polxshxng bullets. Do bullets need polxshed?" You have no clue about guns. Normally you are the guns. "Hope he gets back soon. X don't lxke xt when he's not here."

You sift through the fine gravel of tiny bones and sandy pebbles wih your fingers.

 

"Heheheheh depends on what kind you got, I'd wager," You watch his hands move through the rubble, partially because he has nice hands, and partially because it keeps you from being envious of Pinkie Buglet. A thought makes you pause: Cloris couldn't get in her bitty thinkpan, could she? You furrow your brows at her as she gnashes her chompers in her sleep and tell yourself that should the bitch try, she'd get her smirking dream-face eaten off.

You wish that mental image could make you smile, but it doesn't.

Your bloodpump twinges when Galley mentions missing Bel. The way he phrases things sometimes makes you want to wrap yourself around him like armor and keep the whole world out. Really shitty armor, fulla dents and vulnerable spots, 'cause there are things you can't protect him from and if Cloris ends up fucking up Bel you don't know what you're going to do, you'll never, ever forgive yourself, even if you personally rip off her head and punt it into the ocean, it would never, never undo what she did--

Grimacing, you give your head a violent little shake, take a deep breath in, and let it out slowly. You want hugs. You want paps. But those things make you sleepy, so you settle for wrapping your arms around your knees and resting your chin on them. "Yeah, bro, I know. Feels damn strange without him here." You shoot otterdad alook when Galley muses about grubs, and he finds a reason to bury his nose in his hip and nibble at an itchy spot. "Yeah don't get no ideas about stealin' you more eggs, two sparkass Geminis is being good and goddamn plenty."

Otterdad chuffs noncommittally and nibbles at a fishbone.

 

"Must be a thousand sweeps' worth of dead stuff xn here," you dust off your hands but immediately start sifting again. "Also, xt smells lxke ass. X'm surprxsed the old weasel hasn't brought home ten grubs by now." You wonder if you should build some kind of otter-proof fencing around the place for when you leave.

Wait, are you leaving? Like, without him? The moment the thought occurs to you, you realize it's just a stupid assumption you made because you thought that was how it had to go. But you don't have to leave him, do you? You don't even have to leave, if you don't want to.

"Hey LL," you say. "X just realxzed nobody's makxng my choxces for me now. Wexrd."

 

You arch a brow at him. "Just now, in this smellyass cave with a shitton of angryass gullbeasts screaming for our eyes outside?" Your lips quirk. "What got you getting your thought on in that direction, brother?"

 

"X dunno," you shrug. You recount your realization for her, and of course it sounds obvious now, out loud. But it wasn't, not really. Not when it counted, at least.

You find something lumpy and orange in the gravel.

"Look," you hold it up for LL to see. "Thxs horn's kxnda lxke a mutant bulge. Can you xmagxne goxng to schoolfeed wxth a rack lxke that?"

 

"Aah, well, yeah man, he's more'n welcome, even if he is a screechbeast molestin' snarkass baby stealin' stinky sneak," Otterdad lifts his head and you grin at him. "Yeeeah I'm talkin' 'bout your ass, fucker. It's a good thing you're goddamn cute. But yeah, ain't no direction manual for life, bro."

You snort and roll your eyes at that horn. "Heeey, I got enough shit for these lumpy things," You point sharply at your own rack. "I don't need no imaginings, I know. Pupas are fuckin' mean about that shit. But you got pretty horns, though, even if I did up and crack one of'em. Still feel bad about that sometimes."

 

"X don't even remember," you shrug. "Any txme X whxne about xt, X'm just tryxng to pxss you off. Healxng pretty good these days, see?" You show her the new keratin growth. "Bel's horn goop xs magxc."

 

"Heheh, yeah, I was figuring as much. And I guess not every troll's gonna go through life with they horns all perfect and shiny, I mean dang, it's no wonder I ain't lost a hunk or two. But still." You hitch a shoulder and grin lewdly. "Yeeeah, I bet Bel's goop is bein' magic."

 

"Oh, bxte my crank," you snicker, and flick the grub horn in her face for good measure.

 

It bounces off your nose. "Haha ow! Fuck no, you'd prolly like it." You have no room to criticize and you both know it, but you're entering that stage of tired where your pan synapses aren't firing quite right and words just kinda fall out. You giggle. "So, what we gonna do to keep all wakeful and shit? We can't just sit up in here twiddlin' our thumbs, and it don't sound like the flarping shit is gonna settle down anytime soon."

 

"We could go see the trxal caverns," you suggest. "That's where the lusus dens are. X thxnk."

 

You think it over. Do you want a bunch of young, emotional brand new lusii in your head this evening? Morning? What time even is it anymore? You sigh through your nose. "Mm. I don't see why not. It's beating the alternative. Think somebody'll catch us though?"

 

"Fuck the constabulary," you shrug. "Anyway, X bet xf we say away from the MG herself, we're probably fxne. Do you remember ever seexng a jade mxnder durxng your trxal? X don't."

 

You shudder. You don't even want to imagine what it would be like to have the fuckin' Mother in your head--just how sentient is she anyway? Can she talk? You realize you have no idea. You imagine she's seen some shit, though, and it's not shit you want to ever experience secondhand.

"Yeah, I don't think I ever did neither. Heheh, good thing too, I'd prolly up and imprint on the poor thing, all heart eyes and shit, and I'd end up a side character all like to be in some pupa's anime shit makin' all kindsa rumblesphere jokes." Yeah, you need a nap. You're not going to a nap any time soon. You wonder if Galley would let you have a coffee. "Right, yeah, let's get movin' if you're up for it, elsewise I'm gonna end up talking myself asleep."

 

"So long as you're not the creepy schoolfead controller droolxng over the gym unxforms, X see nothxng wrong wxth that."

You look around, trying to decide which way is more likely to keep you enterained. There's at least a dozen little tunnels, and they all look the same. Maybe you should just pick one at random.

Wait, no, you have a better idea.

"Dad, can you show us around?"

His tiny cookie ears twitch once and he's off without hesitation, scampering down the third tunnel to the left with his short little legs kicking up bone-dust.

You and LL exchange a grin. "Sweeeeeet."

 

You have to sit down. Even hovering half of the time, your ass is going numb after a few hours. Dad is happily pattering his greasy self along the cave floor before you, snuffling like a dog at the occasional stalagmite or discarded pile of tiny white bones. He's having a grand old time, you think, far too comfortable down here. How many times has he made this trip? How close have you come to not finding him at all when you returned to the hive? You do not want to think about it. Things worked out, that's all that matters. That, and your hurting leg muscles.

"Bruh," you evenually say, sprawling out on a lime-green boulder shaped kind of like a rude bit of anatomy. "Bruh. Dad. Txny creature wxth a troll face. Heed my words and bury me here, wxll you. X am a goner."

 

"Naaaw, ain't nobody gonna bury your ass." you say and turn to grin at him. You're tired too--walking down for lords know how many hours is straight up killing your shin bones. You press your hands to the small of your back and push, gritting your teeth as your spinebumps crackle and settle. "I'ma use your bones as a mobile over Pinkie's cribcupe. All like something offa that Troll Martha Skewer show; 'if y'all don't got no hive harvested femurs, store bought is fine!'"

You scoop up the buglet from where she is gnawing determinedly on the hem of your pants and flop over near where Galley has decided to expire, resting your head on his knee. "Yeah, I'm kinda dead too. Lotta noise up in here. I got the startings of a bitchass headache." You twiddle fingers near one of your ears, indicating what you hear, not the cavern's various ambient noises. Right now it's a big jumble in your head as you get farther away from the fuckin' death gulls and closer to where various lusii are doing their lusus things. It's enough that you can't really tell it all apart, just a whole lot of incredibly strong urges to feed and protect and regurgitate and groom and nurse and preen and fight. It's not anything you're not used to, but it's sort of like hearing a ton of vid screens playing the same commercial, with each one a few seconds behind the next one--the physical inside of your skull is nothing but WOM WOM WOM noise that you don't feel up to parsing very much.

You poke his hip. "You want some water or some shit? Getting kinda warm in here."