INTRODUCING OUR SQUIRREL OVERLORDS, OPPRESSORS OF DRAGONS EVERYWHERE

Squirrels can’t speak.

They’re intelligent, true, sapient even (for a handful of species anyway), but the capacity for speech, either verbal or mental (like with dragons and true owls) eludes them all.

This doesn’t mean that they’re incapable of communication though, far from it, for while even the most intelligent among them were still simple creatures by human standards, communication does not require one to be capable of speech, either verbal or mental.

No, communication can be anything, as long as it can (relatively) accurately convey a message. Therefore, being incapable of speech as already stated, squirrels communicated in simpler ways; basic sounds, simple gestures, rudimentary, overt ways to convey simple messages effectively.

Unfortunately, while this is the best that they can do with their minimal intelligence and lacking natural capabilities, it is far from ideal, and... misunderstandings often tend to arise as a result.

One such misunderstanding happened just the evening before, between a little dragon and a squirrel whose name-sound is “squeak-squeak-squeak-chirp-squeak-chirp-chirp-squeak.” A name-sound which, I’m sure you can imagine, is more than a bit of a hassle to type out, so we’ll just call him Dave.

Now, Dave lived in a tree with his two brothers, who we’ll call Émile and... hmm, let’s see. How about Jean-Pierre? I like Jean-Pierre.

So, Dave lived in a tree with his two brothers, Émile and Jean-Pierre, and for them, life wasn’t too bad.

Fruits and nuts were abundant in the part of the forest they lived in, and, with the river nearby and the large insect population to supplement their diet, their basic needs were more than adequately met.

There were predators, of course, there always are, but most of them weren’t the best climbers and so weren’t much of a threat to the tree dwelling brothers.

For those predators that could climb well, or perhaps didn’t need to because they could, you know, fly, the brothers had learned to hide. Hide and, when necessary, fight.

They weren’t the best at it, fighting, that is, but with a combination of luck and a well-honed ability to pick their opponents, they’d gotten by well enough.

Well enough however did not mean without incident, as, every now and again, a particularly annoying or memorable foe would show up to cause trouble for the brothers.

One such event, in fact, happened just four days ago (three days before the ‘great clash’ with the dragon), when a golden iguana had decided to try its luck against the squirrel brothers.

A golden iguana is a rare breed of iguana with, yep, you guessed it, golden scales. And when I say golden scales, I don’t mean scales that are gold in colour, no, I mean scales that are literal gold.

18 karat gold, to be specific.

Golden iguanas are also carnivores, with a diet that mostly consists of small animals like bats, mice, and, of course, squirrels.

I’m sure you see where this is going.

The golden iguana comes out of the river, climbs their tree, and almost succeeds in eating Émile, the youngest.

After a long, hard battle, the hardest the brothers could remember, they managed to knock the iguana down and drive it off, but not without the reptile leaving them with a few wounds, and the unshakable belief that all golden reptiles were the spawns of Satan.

Fast forward three days, and the brothers spot another golden reptile in the river.

Sure, this one looked a little different from the last one, with a longer neck, shades of bright green here and there, and what Dave was pretty sure we’re wings, but none of that mattered. All the brothers cared about, was that he was a lizard, and he was gold, so clearly he was an accomplice of the golden iguana, and he’d come to seek vengeance.

There was a happy moment before the lizard reached them, when something in the water almost ate him, but then the asshole survived, and, wasting no time, he came right for them.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Fortunately, this new lizard was much weaker than the previous one and they summarily whooped his ass, but had to retreat when they realized that there was an owl present.

The lizard teaming up with an owl was worrying, and they were hiding inside, discussing what to do about it, when, to their eternal surprise and pleasure, the lizard had committed suicide.

Only, he hadn’t died. Somehow.

And now all the brothers were watching him bleed out on the ground from high up on their tree, and, to be honest, while he had been pissed off at first that the lizard had somehow managed to survive, looking at him now, Dave kinda pitied him a little bit.

‘Lizard die?’ Jean-Pierre squeaked, and Dave, the oldest of the three, shrugged.

‘Help?’ Émile, the bloody bleeding heart chirped, looking at him with doe eyes.

Dave’s instinctive response was a solid no; after all, the lizard had attacked them, he deserved whatever he got.

But then he thought about it; did the lizard actually attack them? At least before Dave himself had hit him? Because now that he was thinking about it, it hadn’t even seemed like the reptile had even known they were there.

Also, if the lizard wanted to harm them, then why didn’t he do so with his owl buddy, instead of spending hours flying around together like weirdos?

Most importantly, didn’t this new lizard look kinda very different from the last one?

Argh! Thinking was so hard! Especially when Émile was still looking at him like that.

Fine, he decided, then commanded his brothers: ‘Stay,’ before heading down.

He needed a stick.

—❈—

KILGHARAH THE DEPRESSED AND DEFEATED

I’ve learned one thing in the sixteen years that I’ve been alive... well, actually I’ve learnt lots of things in the sixteen years that I’ve been alive, one of them being that “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” is actually a lot more entertaining than people make it sound.

But the thing that I’ve learnt in my sixteen years of life that is actually relevant to my present situation, is that, those “silver lining” sayings; you know, like “turn that frown upside down,” or the one about making lemons with life’s lemonade; they’re all bullshit.

And fuck you if you think it’s cynical to admit it.

I’m bleeding, in pain, and I’m pretty sure that lots of things in lots of places in me are broken. And, on top of all of that, I’m still. Fucking. Hungry.

This just isn’t my day. No, this just isn’t my week. Because this entire week has, so far, been one giant shit show that has culminated in today, the shitty climax.

A spasm of particularly sharp pain runs through me. I groan.

Fuck me. I feel like I just got hit by a bus.

And that’s not a figure of speech, no, I know exactly what being hit by a bus feels like, seeing as it’s how I ended up in this fucking place to begin with.

Why couldn’t I have reincarnated somewhere nicer? Somewhere like My Little Pony. That’s supposed to be all sunshine and rainbows, right? Hell, I’m pretty sure there were characters in that show actually named Sunshine and Rainbow.

Another spasm of pain shoots through me, and I just... stop. Thinking hurts too much.

An indeterminate amount of time later, I feel something poke me. Once, twice, three times. Then squeaking and chattering.

What the fuck is going on?

I force a heavy eyelid open, and almost growl in rage at the sight of the squirrel fuck who attacked me yesterday.

He’s holding a branch in one paw, most likely what he poked me with, and he’s standing as far away from me as he can while still being in my immediate vicinity.

‘The fuck do you want?’ I ask, and the squirrel jumps back and raises the branch threateningly.

My instinctive reaction to flinch causes sharp spikes of pain to flow through me, and that stokes my annoyance all the higher.

‘What the fuck do you want from me?’ I scream. ‘What, yesterday wasn’t enough for you? You have to beat me while I’m down too?

‘What the fuck did I ever do to you? What did I do to any of you?

‘Why can’t you just leave me alone?’

My eyes sting, and it’s only when I sniffle that I realize that I’m crying.

Great, driven to tears by a squirrel. How much lower can I get?

The squirrel stares at me after my outburst, then it turns and scurries off.

‘Good fucking riddance,’ I mutter bitterly. I hope he gets run over by a bus.

I close my eyes and return to... honestly, I have no idea what I’m doing right now. I’m just too fucking tired to move. Or think, for that matter.

I think I’m beginning to fall asleep when I hear chattering again, and I angrily slam my eyes open, angry words on the tip of my tongue, before pausing at what I see.

A fruit. There’s a fruit in front of my face. And three squirrels standing farther back.

I blink.

‘Is this for me?’ I ask.

All three squirrels keep staring at me.

Okay? This is weird.

Weird or not though, my mind now recognizes that there is food right before me, and my stomach begins to make its demands known.

Fine, fine, I hear you, I think, and with supreme effort, push myself to my feet.

I stare at the fruit, the squirrels stare at me. I stare at the squirrels, they stare at me.

Okay?

Slowly, I reach for the fruit.

Before I can pick up the fruit, a thought crosses my mind; can I eat fruit? Don’t dragons only eat meat?

After a second, I decide to fuck it; I lose nothing by trying.

I pick up the fruit with my mouth and bite in, and my eyes roll into my head as the heavenly juice contained within bursts out onto my tongue.

Oh my fucking God.

I have seen the face of God, and it is a fruit.

The fruit doesn’t last long, and when I’m done, I lick my lips.

Fuck, that was good.

‘Thanks,’ I say to the squirrels, though I don’t know if they understand me. ‘Um, you wouldn’t happen to have any more of those, would you?’

The squirrels stare at me for several seconds, then one of them, the one in the middle, reaches behind him and picks up another fruit.

He rolls it to me, then chirps something.

Well, I have no idea what the fuck he just said, but I think I just found my new best friend.