It only took a few shambled steps for Sue’s exhaustion to really hit her.

Her expression turned into a pained grimace as she tried to keep pushing forward, painfully sore all over. It was bad enough to where she worried whether she’d even be able to make it to Willow’s clinic—or avoid fainting where she stood, for that matter.

The wisps of panic sprouting from that thought joined the stirring pot of misery that was her mind, only making basic movement even harder. Getting around was hardly the only concern bubbling in there, either—responsibility for what had happened to Solstice, fear of the rest of Moonview learning of her role in the Mayor’s breakdown, her own powerlessness to stop it.

What did she do?

What did I do?

Why does it hurt so much—

*crackle*

The sudden noise took Sue aback, stopping her pitiful march before it could even really begin. It sounded like a roaring flame trying its hardest to whisper, with the accompanying worry palpable to her sixth sense. Neither that sensation nor their sounds could’ve prepared her for the stranger’s physical appearance, though.

Sue might’ve begrudgingly accepted the existence of actual ghosts by now, and that some of them could be nice, even if Hazel wasn’t… the best example of that fact. Even with all that in mind, though, a floating bedsheet was the last entity she expected to see here, feeling almost like a joke at her expense—even if the being hiding underneath wasn’t in any jovial mood.

As to what it—they even were, Sue had no idea. They levitated with no visible legs, had a large point at its top that the off-white shroud draped on, and… seemed to glow. Kinda. A cold light illuminated the fabric below a straight cut-off line, but without it casting any shadows, it didn’t give her any ideas of what the stranger could’ve looked like. Despite their weirdness—even by Moonview’s standards—they were still concerned for her, though.

Another fiery crackle grabbed Sue’s attention as the other creature’s worry grew, making her realize just how obviously messed up she must’ve looked. Her face was sodden with tears, her path so far veered to the side despite being only a few meters long, and she winced with every ever-pitiful step.

As close to misery incarnate as it gets.

Sue’s attempt to repeat the freshly practiced telepathy only netted her an outburst of burning pain in her head, almost sending her down onto the grass there and then. She gritted her teeth as she leaned on a nearby building, clenching her eyes closed and sensing the floating bedsheet growing even more alarmed at the sight. “D-don’t whorry,” she tried to mutter, “I-I’ll be—”

*swoosh!*

Before she could even finish her sentence, the stranger had left, zipping around the corner faster than she would’ve guessed they could based on their appearance alone. Sue might’ve felt only barely capable of pushing forward on her own, but she decidedly didn’t want to wait here for them to return with company—not so close to Solstice’s outpouring of despair.

Onward, onward, onward.

Sue took off with a determined grunt, clutching her crutch even harder as she ventured deeper into Moonview. Each step drained more and more of the little strength that she had left, the accompanying winces drawing worried looks towards her. Using all the burning determination she could muster, she didn’t acknowledge any of them, only doubling down on her desperate march as the last of her tears dried up. Even if that headstrong part of her wanted to push on forever, Sue was acutely aware of how little she had left in her—no way she was making it to Willow’s clinic, not like this.

She needed to stop and rest, no matter how much she hated that thought.

The rough bench she’d eventually spotted in the corner of her vision made her gasp as she beelined for it, almost tripping over nothing a few times. In just a few strenuous seconds, she was there, less sitting down and more so collapsing on the cold, rough wood, bringing immeasurable relief.

Fuck whichever god got me here, and everyone else… thanks for the bench.

With her rear finally resting on a flat surface, Sue broke into raspy panting and let go of her crutch. She kept trying to plan her next step between her breaths, forcing the little of her brain that wasn’t hurting to come up with something despite how much it too wanted to rest.

She had to gather her bearings and make it back to Willow’s clinic; that was the rough outline. As she examined the nearby buildings, she tried to remember them from her past walks around the place, soon coming up with a tenuous route that, if not directly to the clinic, ought to have at least led her back to someplace she recognized.

And from there, straight to bed and a nap. Good Duck, could she use a nap—but only then!

Don’t get any funny ideas, body.

The last thing she wanted to do was doze off on the bench, fall off mid-nap, and end up making even more of a scene. Or, Duck forbid, somehow break her other leg.

Before Sue could finish getting the equal parts terrifying, embarrassing, and amusing mental image out of her mind, she heard a loud cry coming from nearby. It was rough and low pitched, but… not aggressive from what she could tell, keeping her from getting too startled. The sound was much too soft to be a hiss or a growl, sitting ambiguously in the middle and leaving her wondering what kind of creature could even make noises like that—for about half a second before she finished turning her head. “H-hi Astra, hi Joy!”

Joy’s harsh sounding greeting from Astra’s arms single-handedly broke Sue’s weary expression into a shaky smile, especially when it was combined with the little maw girl excitedly pointing her out to the dragon, the latter answering with a soft giggle. The toothy tyke wasted no time before scrambling over to her tall friend once her guardian had lowered her down, wrapping her arms around Sue’s torso.

The bench didn’t have enough space to accommodate Astra, but she wasn’t bothered—especially with her line of sight ending up around Sue’s once she’d sat down on the grass beside the bench.

As excited as Joy was to run into Sue, her happiness soon wavered at noticing her obviously roughed up state. The shaky movements, the wetness on her cheeks, the uncertain smile. It only took Joy pointing her little finger up Sue’s face for Astra to notice and grow alarmed too—followed by leaning in and pulling both Joy and Sue into a gentle embrace, patting the Forest Guardian’s back with her massive paw.

“I-I’m okay, I’m okay, I—I can’t understand you, Astra,” Sue sighed. Her garbled words were enough for the dragon to realize the lack of any translator around, but with the nearby streets not having anyone who could help with that, Astra was out of ideas.

That didn’t mean that she’d stopped dishing out her affection, though—or that it didn’t help. It helped so much more than Sue would’ve ever thought it would, especially with Joy doubling down on her weak hugs as well.

Moment by moment, the surrounding warmth slowly banished all the leftover gloom Solstice’s breakdown had left her with. She breathed easier, felt lighter, the modest pain rocking through her body easing out with every breath. For a moment, she wanted to pretend that all this was just a result of finally sitting back down and resting her body, but… she couldn’t, not when the effects were this stark.

Guess Forest Guardians interpret the power of positive thinking much more literally.

As fascinating as that observation was, Sue’s attention soon shifted back to the pair of vastly different friends bathing her in said positive thinking. Her arms reached out, trying to wrap around them both as she appreciated the dragon’s quiet mumbling, incoherent as it was. “Th-thank you both...”

Even if they didn’t fare any better at understanding her than the other way around, they still got the gist. Their hugs grew stronger, Joy’s especially, her front head nuzzling Sue’s midriff. Quite a few pets were in order as thanks for that, and the toothy tyke appreciated them no less than the last time once they were dispensed. This time, though, Sue wanted to try something else as well. She waited until Joy was done nuzzling her head into her palm, then carefully stroked the top of her large maw, avoiding the bandage still wrapping it.

Despite a brief jolt of surprise, it soon became clear that Joy enjoyed having her back face pet even more than her front one. Moment by moment, the shock evaporated and left only calm, comfort, and desire for more affection, expressed with quiet mumbles as her whole small body shuddered.

Astra was no less surprised at this development than Joy, but soon grew just as happy, mentally jotting Sue’s discovery down. As glad as she was to have discovered that about the little one she watched over, though, Sue was still exhausted and clearly needed a pick-me-up. She cleared her throat, catching both girls’ attention before saying something to Joy, and then repeating it for good measure. The toothy tyke clearly had only a partial understanding of the dragon’s words—if even that—but that didn’t stop her from absentmindedly nodding in response.

Left none the wiser about nobody understanding what she’d just said, the dragon took off into the air. The fierce gusts of wind in her wake sent Sue’s front lock of hair flapping against her face as she watched Astra fly towards the clearing.

Suppose we can sit here for a while longer.

Sue didn’t mind, and—judging by her relaxation—neither did Joy. The small, out-of-the-way bench gave them a pretty good look at the various creatures passing by. The tyke was understandably much more focused on her big friend than any assorted strangers she wanted little to do with, though.

Ironically, the incoming attention went mostly in the opposite direction.

Hardly anyone cared about the injured Forest Guardian—she was old news at this point—but the toothy child on her lap kept drawing the passersby’s focus, be it positive or not. As much as Sue glared whenever she’d sensed the latter, though, Joy wasn’t paying enough attention to notice it, to her temporary guardian’s relief.

The more Sue watched the passersby, the more taken aback she got at the sheer diversity Moonview—and by extension, this world—had. Not just in species, but also in how close they were to any animals she recognized from Earth, the group that settled down across the road from them exemplifying that range. A couple of its members tingled the Forest Guardian’s recollection and caught her attention, especially now that she had enough time and light to examine them closer.

One of them was just a donkey. An actual little brown and cream donkey, reaching to her waist at the shoulder and looking so ridiculously… mundane that Sue had to do a double take. If not for them clearly talking with their friends with brays and slightly different proportions, she wouldn’t have spared them a second glance back in her own world.

The pink creature beside them, though, looked straight out of a nightmare—a nightmare Sue was familiar with by now; their initial appearance at the clinic permanently burned into her memory. She was still baffled at how they combined the creepiest parts of bats and scorpions, their massive fangs a cherry on top. The way they crawled up a nearby lamppost, the way they just waved their tail and its huge stinger around, it all left Sue spooked.

Spooked, and annoyed that it was the shy maw girl beside her that was the focus of so much negative attention and not that pink demon. For crying out loud, that stinger full of Duck-knows-what alone was ten times more dangerous than anything Joy could dish out!

…

On second thought, it was probably not a good idea to think about the passersby’s lethality—both to avoid dehumanizing them, and to preserve some of her rapidly dwindling sanity.

…’Dehumanizing’? ‘Depersonifying’? Neither? Anyway.

Somewhere between the normalcy of the donkey and the nightmarish-ness of the winged scorpion sat the last member of their tagalong group. There wasn’t anything immediately off-putting about them, or even that weird—at least, beyond them being a light green plant bulb the size of her head, with several stubby extremities that let them move around. And grasp objects, if splitting up a small bounty of a few fruits between the rest of their group of presumably children was any sign.

It was that living plant that eventually drew the group’s attention towards Sue and Joy, their responses differing greatly—especially regarding the toothy girl. The bulb just gave them both a friendly wave, but the other two instead chatted nervously amongst themselves, enough so for it to break into an argument, fortunately without shouting.

It was still enough to catch Joy’s attention, though. The maw girl clung onto her friend even harder in fear once she’d turned to see the source of the noise, making Sue’s eyes narrow—the dots weren’t exactly hard to connect. Once the Forest Guardian was done pulling the little one closer, her focus shifted to leering at the arguing kids. The pink bat reeled immediately while their donkey friend kept talking to them, in what had to be the most lethargic raised voice mathematically possible—until a whistled question from the plant finally interrupted their spat.

The donkey answered shortly after, taking the bulb aback as they first looked at the pink bat, then over at Joy, and then back at the bat, raising their voice soon after. With a double-sized dose of chiding from their friends and a piercing glare from Sue, the flying scorpion had had enough. They hissed something out before taking to air and dashing behind the nearest corner, the rest of the group left annoyed and confused in equal measure.

I’m neither skilled nor strong enough to actually hurt that pink freak, but if I ever get my hands on them—

A firmer hug from Joy broke Sue’s wrathful train of thought, her arms shaking as she returned the affection and resumed her petting. She banished her anger one deep breath at a time as she whispered, “I-I won’t let anyone touch you again as lhong as I’m h-here, Joy.” The girl didn’t understand the exact words, but they mattered the least at the moment. Her friend’s embrace, affection, the reassuring tone. Feeling cared for, protected,

Safe.

As Sue focused on the toothy girl beside her, she felt the emotions and attentions of the two remaining kids shift. First onto her, then onto Joy, themselves, and finally, at something else. Something weird enough to catch much more of their attention. Something in the direction of her and Joy, but what—

…

As she huddled together with Joy, Sue suddenly felt a very different, very unnerving sensation. Something cold, slimy, and wriggly was pressing itself into the other side of her lap.

I don’t wanna look I don’t wanna look I don’t wanna look—-

The maw girl felt her friend’s sudden freeze, peering out of her hug to see just who the intruder was. Somewhat reassuringly, she wasn’t bothered by the sight that awaited them, left curious more than anything else. If nothing else, it gave Sue the confidence to at least check what was happening, whole body bracing as she slowly turned her head and witnessed… something that was much less immediately terrifying than it could’ve been.

The two large barbs on both ends of the brown caterpillar were secured with small balls of yellowish wax, keeping them disarmed. It was amusing enough to almost make Sue overlook them having those massive stingers, to begin with—but only almost. Even knowing she wouldn’t be getting stung by them anytime soon, she still audibly gulped, the caterpillar only barely reacting to suddenly becoming the center of attention.

Their front perked up for a moment to return Sue’s frightful glare, the two locking eyes for a second—before they immediately went back to trying to crawl onto her lap, much to Joy’s giggles.

At least she finds this funny.

“Please get off m-me...” Sue whimpered. But with her plea not getting responded to at all, she knew she’d have to do it herself. With all the care she could muster, she reached over to pick the bug up and put them back down somewhere else. Or, at least, she was gathering the strength to attempt doing just that, praying internally for someone to come and take that thing off her.

For once, her prayers would be answered immediately.

Sue jolted at seeing a yellow blur in the corner of her vision, but its source had already bolted off to the side by the time she could look at it. Loud buzzes and palpable, worried confusion filled the Forest Guardian’s senses as her eyes played catch-up with the stranger, only succeeding after they’d stopped to look her way.

Why did it have to be bees?

All the various bugs clad in yellow and black already had a permanent spot on Sue’s shit list, and this one being the size of that flying hell scorpion, able to move blazingly fast, and wielding massive, glistening spikes for arms did nothing to endear them any. Their arm-spikes were disarmed in the same way as the caterpillar’s barbs, which helped Sue’s sanity somewhat, but any relief that might’ve brought was then immediately undone by the stinger in the ‘normal’ position still being exposed and dangerous.

Oh, and they kept buzzing at her, because why wouldn’t they. For what it was worth, though, the sounds Sue could sense being aimed towards her were clearly apologetic. It was the caterpillar that got their share of chiding instead as the bee swept in and picked them up, their speed leaving Sue even further intimidated.

As thankful as Sue was for the oversized insect taking what likely was a baby of their species away, she couldn’t deny wanting them to fly anywhere but here, and preferably to the next continent over. They had other plans, though, continuing their attempts to chat her up despite receiving no response. She had no idea why—she couldn’t sense any ulterior emotions or motives in them or their actions, but that only made their enthusiastic insistence on chatting with her even more confusing.

After a solid few minutes, they finally realized the Forest Guardian wasn’t responding, giving them a pause. The resulting silence finally gave Sue an opportunity to respond, and even if it wouldn’t be a straightforward answer, it’d at least convey the crux of the issue. “I’m shorry, I can’t understand you.”

Finally, an emotion I can empathize with—utmost confusion.

Sue chuckled weakly as the bee turned towards the pair of kiddos on the other side of the road; their subsequent question answered predictably. No, they didn’t know what the heck this Forest Guardian had just said, either. Unfortunately, that didn’t result in the one thing Sue really, really hoped it would—namely, the insect being deterred in the slightest. Instead, they kept trying with much slower buzzes and accompanied by waving their massive stinger arms at her.

As much as a part of her wanted to, Sue couldn’t pretend she didn’t understand that gesture, arms shaking as she waved back at them. Joy copied her action soon after, sending the bee into a laughing fit for some reason. Unfortunately for Sue, though, now that the bee had seen her communicate, they wouldn’t even think of relenting anymore. Once a few more communication attempts failed, they finally took matters into their own stingers, hovering beside her and carefully grabbing her hand between the two wax balls that capped their spikes.

It took Sue her entire willpower to not yank it back with a terrified shriek there and then.

To her further dismay, they still weren’t done, pulling her limb towards themselves as they flew up, as if trying to drag her onto her feet. It seemed the only way forward was to follow them, lest they expressed their impatience in a much more painful way. Sue gulped at the associated mental image as she got up. Joy’s confused squeak fell on deaf ears as she scrambled along, huddling as close to her friend as she could.

To little surprise, the bee was no less excitable than before. They constantly pointed the way as Sue ambled on, commenting on everything in sight—and especially on what soon turned out to be the group’s destination.

What the hell is that place…

The first descriptor that came to Sue’s mind was a massive, termite hill with half a wooden shack embedded in it. As superfluous as the door of the latter looked considering how many holes the former had, it also was where Sue was eventually led to, bracing herself for Duck-knows-what once the bee had opened the door. The room that awaited them was small and sparsely decorated, with little more than straw littering the floor. It was hardly boring as a result, though, with one of its walls missing and instead opening into the myriad tunnels of the insect nest.

The occasional twitching inside them didn’t exactly fill Sue with confidence.

Their impromptu guide eventually laid down their caterpillar… offspring before diving into one of the tunnels, leaving Sue alone for once. To her unending gratitude, the little bug didn’t climb onto her again, opting instead to close their eyes and try to rest. As muddled and half-formed as their emotions were, the exhaustion in them was clear to see.

Before Joy could waddle over and pet the impromptu friend to help them sleep better or Sue could gather the courage to run away, the bee had returned from their delve. They brought a huge egg in their stinger arms, carefully placing it down in an opening close to Sue’s eye level and hovering beside her as if to show it off.

Insect eggs were hardly surprising on their own, though Sue wouldn’t have thought they would look so similar to bird eggs. This one was the shape and size of an ostrich egg, colored equal parts green and yellow. It even jittered from time to time, as if whoever rested inside kept stirring in their unborn sleep.

Wouldn’t have thought that an unhatched mutant insect could feel so… cute.

Judging from the bee’s excitement, pride, and a bit of concern, the egg was also one of their offspring. Suppose them being this hyper was slightly more understandable with that in mind, even if it didn’t explain why they had been dragged here. Still uncertain, Sue mumbled, “Umm... con-congratulations?”

Adding further to her confusion, the bee kept nudging her beyond just staring at the pretty egg, gesturing… something towards it. Sue had no idea how to decipher their intent, eventually wagering a guess and reaching towards the egg with her free hand—only for the bee to instantly shield the egg with their body, cutting her off as their emotions turned to shock.

Okay I get it no touching please don’t kill me please please—

If not for them simply shaking their head with no anger she could sense, Sue would’ve skipped straight to hitting the legs. Instead, she was left paralyzed in place as she tried to make sense of it all, stewing in her own stress. She’d been left at such an uncomfortable impasse that even her next idea was less anxiety-inducing than continuing to stand here like a dope.

The strained parts of her mind had gotten less sore since she was shoved out of Solstice’s tent, making it possible to try talking to someone again. It’d still suck and be painful and Sue really didn’t want to be forced to do it, but she had no idea what else she could try anymore, considering her choices were either trying her luck with telepathy or continuing to stand there dumbfounded like a moron.

The prospect of finally communicating with someone by herself was exciting, though, pushing her on despite how much her circumstances filled her with dread. Adding to her confusion, the bee grew palpably happier once she’d begun to focus, not clarifying any of it.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Thankfully, I can just ask them about it in a second.

Using her hands made controlling her psychics much easier, but it also meant that being left with just one working arm made the entire process much more awkward. Many, many more emotions in her immediate vicinity didn’t help either, and if not for her roaring anxiety, she would’ve probably stopped there and then.

Her grip on all this was already shaky, and that was with the idealized conditions of Solstice’s training. Sue knew she shouldn’t have kept going, but by then, she wanted nothing more than to be out of this mess as soon as she could.

Despite Sue’s awkward pose, using her free hand to tune out nearby emotions worked enough to let her continue, even if at the cost of a steadily creeping headache. With the pathway to the bee’s mind clear, her crutch hand and limited mental control began to twitch as she reached her psychics towards them, towards the insect that had dragged her into all this.

And maybe she would’ve even reached them, but Fate had different plans.

Sue’s increasingly awkward grip on her crutch made it slip slightly on the straw that covered the floor, throwing her off balance. Her right arm moved wildly to regain it, succeeding soon after—and driving her mental tendril straight through the bee’s mind.

FUCK.

Their head exploded with pain, unrelenting even as they tried holding their head with their stingers and buzzed loudly. Sue immediately realized what she’d done, the fear of the stranger’s retribution making her hyperventilate as she backed off, deaf to Joy’s alarmed squeaks by then.

The bee’s pain soon gave way to hurt, annoyance, and then, at last, anger. That latter emotion hastened Sue’s retreat as their eyes narrowed and their buzzing grew pointed. She wanted to run; she wanted to apologize—and the realization she wasn’t capable of either tied her mind in ever tighter panicked knots.

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m—oh Duck thank you please help explain this mess!

Seeing the leafy caretaker open the shack’s door made the once-human grow weak with relief. Her whole body ached as she bounded forward until she ended up behind Splitleaf, hoping beyond hope she’d be able to defuse the situation. Joy caught up with her as the plant-like mantis and the decidedly non-plant-like bee exchanged buzzes, both trying to figure out what was going on in here.

To Sue’s distress, though, their conversation hadn’t made the bee any calmer, with the insect nanny soon turning to face her with an unamused, angry expression. She desperately wished she could explain that it was all an accident and apologize, but the ever-tightening bind of panic left her just standing there, unable to whimper even a single word. Her lack of response left the mantis agitated at not being graced with a response, and before the realization of how overwhelmed Sue must’ve been could settle in, the group all heard a sound from the outside.

*growwl?*

Astra!

The dragon’s voice pierced Sue’s panic for long enough to let her shamble out of the shack and run towards the dragon, almost crashing into a passerby before clinging to Astra’s soft, orange body. She trembled in panic as she looked away from the mess of her own making, tears of fear and anxiety flowing freely down her cheek as her overstimulation tuned out any further discussion taking place around her.

She felt Astra grow confused as she was pulled into the conversation, evidently unsure what to think. Despite her uncertainty, she erred on the side of comforting her tall friend first and asking questions later. Splitleaf and the bee weren’t all too happy to see that, slamming the shack’s door closed soon after. The sound made Sue flinch and freeze, heart racing a mile a minute as Astra gently patted her back.

“I’m shorry...” she whimpered quietly, much too late.

Astra was already busy huddling them all to the side of the road, letting the weary Forest Guardian lean on her as long as she needed. Bit by bit, Sue unwound from her panic attack, and the zesty fruit roll the dragon had given her once she’d stopped hyperventilating helped greatly. Until, at last, only guilt and regret remained.

I… I just hurt that stranger for no reason, haven’t I? They probably just wanted to share the joy of having another child on the way and for that, I repaid them with misery and didn’t even apologize afterward. I made Solstice have a breakdown, hurt that bee... I can’t fucking do anything right, can I—

Before Sue’s train of thought could drag her deeper into the quicksand pit of self-loathing, she felt Astra’s body move. She glanced up, seeing the dragon waving at someone down the road, out of her view—or, at least, out of view until her ears peeked out from the crowd.

The rest of the surprised Sundance revealed herself soon after, eyes going a bit wider at the scene before her. Her confusion soon turned into concern at Sue’s situation, though. She calmly asked, “Are you alright, Sue?”, her question only partially rhetorical. She was just as clueless as everyone else about what had happened, both earlier today and just now.

The rest of the group listened keenly at finally being able to understand Sue, waiting patiently until she whimpered, “I-I don’t th-think sho...”

Astra and Joy held her tighter as Sundance nodded at her response. “Would you want to talk about it? One on one?”

Leaving her friends in the dark felt bad to think about, but… she would probably need to. Even beyond what had just happened, there was little Sue wanted more right now than to figure out what was going on with the bee, with Solstice, with Pollux, with Night Father.

Especially from the one person who seemed like she knew everything.

“Y-yeah…” Sue sighed.

“Hope you feel better soon, Sue! You didn’t mean it, right?” Astra asked cheerfully. There weren’t many things she could’ve been referring to, making Sue’s expression grew more pained as she shakily nodded, adding further fuel to the fire of Joy’s tiny hug. “I knew it wasn’t like you to do something like that! Are you gonna say sorry?”

Sue wanted to apologize, wanted to do that so much, the reminder of what she’d done almost pushing her to a breakdown again. To her relief, Sundance gave her a hand, though, “It’s best if Sue waits until the tension defuses some more and everyone calms down.”

“Of course, ma’am!” the dragon nodded.

Sundance chuckled at her response. She wasn’t a fan of titles, and while in other circumstances she would’ve brought it up to Astra, Sue’s wellbeing was occupying the vast majority of her attention at the moment. She patted the Forest Guardian’s back. “Let us get going, Sue.”

It took Sue a moment to detach herself from Astra’s comfort. Thankfully, Joy gave her enough space to shamble until she could grab Sundance’s paw. The vixen was taken aback at that, but ultimately didn’t complain, instead offering her a faint smile. “Shorry for all this,” Sue muttered. “I-I’ll see you both later. You’re both great...”

“Awwww,” Astra cooed, “so are you, Sue! Feel better soon!”

Joy’s stutters were much less understandable than Astra’s words, but their warmth was much the same. Sue gave the toothy girl a tired smile before taking off with the fiery vixen, the latter keeping her pace down as she mentally whispered, “^Would you want me to fetch Solstice—^”

I can’t think of a worse idea than that.

“No no no no, do not, th-there’s no need to,” Sue pleaded.

Her forceful rejection took Sundance aback, leaving the mystic more surprised than Sue had ever seen her up to that point. It didn’t last long once the vixen got her bearings, though, acknowledging her pupil’s response as she guided her further into Moonview. “^Alright.^”

“Wh-where are you t-taking me?”

“^My dwelling. I initially considered taking you to Willow’s clinic and grabbing Spark along the way, but considering how you answered that... it’s something very private, isn’t it?^”

Sue tilted her head to the sides, uncertain how to answer. “More sho just... scary and confusing...”

The vixen’s curiosity only grew as she led Sue towards a large—for Moonview’s standards—building she’d seen a few times by then. Even beyond its second floor, it stood out greatly from its surroundings, the pale stone it was made of unlike anything else around. The intricate patterns chiseled into the lower floor’s exterior provided a clue as to its inhabitant’s occupation.

Their destination, however, was the upper floor.

It was shaped like a dome with a circular opening at the top. A large canvas patch flapped beside said opening, attached to something Sue couldn’t make out. She might not have been afraid of heights, but the stairs leading up to Sundance’s dwelling made her reconsider.

Why do these not have guardrails… o-or even just anything to hold onto…

Sue’s palpable fear made Sundance add a new item to her to-do list. “Apologies. I didn’t realize how frightening you’d find the stairs.”

“It’s alright... th-though it wouldn’t pass inspection where I live. O-or lived, I guess...”

The vixen blinked. “Inspection?”

The question lingered in the air as they made their way into Sundance’s dwelling. Its layout turned out to be not too different to Solstice’s tent, comprising a single open space with no designated rooms. The ceiling being set much higher than anywhere else in Moonview made it much more welcoming to Sue’s human sensibilities, and even if the dwelling as a whole reminded her of a messy studio apartment, there was an order to its layout.

On a closer look, each corner turned out to have a designated purpose. A large flat stone slab above a wood-fired stove made for an obvious kitchen, especially with a few other counters around it. The spacious, plush bedding must’ve been the bedroom, or the bed-corner. Heaps of ceramic jugs and woven baskets full of food and other supplies were a clear pantry.

The last corner, though, was much more confusing, mostly in that the last thing Sue expected Sundance to have in her dwelling was a rudimentary workshop. Saws, picks, clamps, flat surfaces, a bunch of wooden scraps.

Tinker, Mystic, Psychic… Spy. Need to work on that last one.

As Sue took the sights in, Sundance grabbed a large ceramic cup from the kitchen and filled it with water from one of the pots. Afterwards, she began adding bunches and pinches of contents of the other pots, filling the air with a mixture of familiar and alien smells alike, tingling Sue’s nostrils. “Take a seat on the yellow one,” the vixen instructed. “And… ‘inspection’?”

A direct command snapped Sue out of her spaced-out state; her brief confusion eased once she spotted the two recliner chairs facing each other at the center of the room. Their covers, one yellow and one orange, made it clear which one she was supposed to take—as did the ‘orange’ chair looking incomparably more worn down.

As she stumbled over to her seat, Sue got to explaining her Earth-y aside. “Umm, when you b-build a new building where I’m from, it has to fit certain requirements, especially about shafety. So then, someone qualified comes in and ch-checks the plans before you can even start building it.”

“I see,” Sundance nodded thoughtfully. “A dedicated person ensuring construction safety? That sounds like an... exceptionally narrow of a role.”

“Oh, it’s not, there are sho many buildings going up all the time th-they have their hands full, no doubt,” Sue clarified, leaving the vixen thoroughly dumbfounded.

Moonview was putting up a new building around twice a Moon at their current rate, and said buildings couldn’t possibly take more than a few minutes each to be ‘inspected’. Just how ridiculously many buildings must have Sue’s people been building for even one person to be occupied with inspecting them full time? Sundance summed it up, muttering, “That’s... hard to imagine.”

Sue giggled, “It helps th-that human cities are much, much bigger than M-Moonview.”

A large part of the fiery vixen really, really wanted to question her inter-universal guest about the size of her world and its implications. She doubted she’d be able to keep herself from doing that forever, but at the moment, her curiosity played a distant second fiddle to Sue’s concerns. “Remind me to ask you more about your world sometime. I... had not realized it would be as different as your words here are implying it to be.”

Sue raised her eyebrow at the vixen’s words; Earth wasn’t that different from here—oh. Well, not too different as far as natural vegetation and geology went, probably, but… that wasn’t everything, was it now. Even beyond this world being populated by magical mutants, the effect that several centuries of global human civilization had left on Earth was impossible to deny—or overlook. Eventually, Sue muttered, “I will.”

Even if Sue couldn’t lean into the seat because of her back horn, sitting down still brought immense relief. Her exhaustion’s grip waned as she observed what her host was doing, Sundance soon catching onto her curiosity. “I’m preparing you something to drink to get you back on your feet. A complex brew, but remarkably good at bringing forth a second wind when needed. In the meantime, could you tell me what happened back there? Did you hurt someone by accident?”

Admitting that didn’t hurt any less, despite some time having passed. “Yeah. Th-the... I don’t know their name, the black and yellow one with all the stingersh. Their kid or someone else, the brown caterpillar with a couple spikes, had waddled onto my lap when I was resting with Joy. Then, they showed up to pick them up and began talking to me.”

Sundance nodded, following along as Sue caught her breath.

“I tried to make it clear I couldn’t understand them, but they didn’t understand I guess and e-ended up dragging me with them to their nest, I-I think. They showed me an egg and exphected me to do something. I tried following Solstice’s practice and linking with them, and accidentally pushed much too hard and got them hurt, th-they felt very pained, and then I-I panicked becaushe of them getting angry with all the stingers...” Sue continued, trailing off as her self-consciousness grew ever more oppressive.

Everyone here’s a freak of nature; why would I fear that bee more than anyone else around? What the fuck is wrong with me!?

Sundance wordlessly acknowledged her pupil’s words as she wrapped the concoction up. Once it was done, she moved the cup over to the kitchen corner and set it on a raised stand. If it was anything like the drinks Sue was used to, it’d need to get heated first—she just didn’t expect Sundance’s ablaze paw to act as the heating element, though. It was effective, the steady stream of flames emanating from it quickly warming the drink up as Sue stared at it, mesmerized by the casual display of fire magic.

“That all sounds... unfortunate,” the vixen sighed. “It matches what I’ve heard of Basil; he can get rather hot headed. He probably hadn’t even considered you being plainly unable to talk, and thought you were being mystical or oblique.”

“Wh-what did he want from me, though?” Sue asked, still confused.

“I can’t know for certainty, but the most probable answer is that he wanted you to bless his unhatched offspring.”

Bless? Me?

The only time she’d seen anything be blessed was when she was four and a local bishop came to tour their freshly renovated preschool, and she sure hadn’t gotten any holier since then. Thankfully, Sundance was eager to explain, chuckling at her confusion. “Forest Guardians are commonly seen as emissaries of the Night Mother, having a special bond with her across all other kin. It’s not a universally held position, and Solstice has been trying to work against the idea of there being any chosen people, but, alas, the superstition holds. I cannot blame Basil for his desire either, not with the Night Mother being such a big deal around these parts.”

Sue sure felt chosen, but if the Night Father’s visit in her dream was any sign, it wasn’t by Duck. Hell, she was probably cursed, if anything. “I-I see. That’s... that feelsh so weird to me.”

“Likewise.”

“Is he gonna be alright though?” Sue continued, worried. “H-he felt really hurt...”

“If he was still flying afterwards, then any injury was at best superficial. It hurt, no doubt about that, but he’ll fully recover soon if he hasn’t already. It is unfortunate, but it is what it is. If you wish, I can come over and help translate your apology—but if I were to guess, he’ll be more upset about you panicking afterwards than about you having hurt him.”

Sue blinked. “Why?”

“His kin are… very territorial, and often thought of as savage. The best we have negotiated with their nearby hive is a hard border between our territories. Splitleaf found his egg ways into our land a few years ago and raised him as her son. Even if his stigma isn’t as recent or cruel as Joy’s, I imagine he won’t be amused by being thought of as dangerous.”

Ouch...

“Th-that’s... I’m s-so sorry.”

Sundance weakly smiled. “It’s unfortunate, but not the end of the world. I hope he can empathize enough to put himself in your situation, especially with how obviously feeble and tired you were. Sometimes, however, all we can do is apologize and not be forgiven—and that’s alright. The world keeps turning, even if made heavier by someone’s resentment.”

Sue chewed through the vixen’s words, plunging the hut into silence. For a few minutes, the only sounds in the dwelling were the crackles of Sundance’s orange flame smothering the ceramic cup, its contents soon beginning to steam. With the brew’s unusual aroma growing in intensity, she could finally make out what comprised it. The most prominent scent was no doubt coffee, its appearance made even more nose-catching with the once-human having been spared of it for the past few days.

Eventually, Sue just sighed. “Yeah. Th-that just shounds so... dreadful, though.”

“It certainly does. Ultimately, it’s just a part of life we all have to learn. You can do everything right and some people won’t like you, some people won’t forgive you, some people won’t accept you, and trying to force them to is a pathway to suffering. They won’t be losing sleep over it, neither should you. How do you like your drinks, hot or cold?” Sundance asked, snapping her guest out of the philosophical mulling.

Sue glanced over at the vixen just in time to see her pour the black, steaming brew through a sieve into another cup. “...what do you mean by cold?”

Sundance chuckled at her pupil’s question, raising an eyebrow as she picked up the hot cupful of… something and smirked at Sue. “The same as everyone else, even if I do think they’re missing out on freshly boiled tea.”

…oops.

“Sorry. I-I’ll have it shlightly warm if-if that’s alright, then.”

“It absolutely is, worry not,” Sundance reassured. The mystery of how someone so fiery was going to chill the drink turned out to have a very mundane answer. She lowered the cup into the pot of water and waited patiently as their temperatures equalized.

In the meantime, Sue had a moment to take in more of the vixen’s dwelling’s quaint design. The almost-noon Sun shone bright on the center of the chamber, lighting up a circular patch of the stone floor between the two chairs. As she looked up to investigate the rudimentary sunroof, the decorations that surrounded it finally caught her attention, previously overlooked as just bits of paint.

They turned out to be so much more than Sue could’ve expected, a ring of dolls suspended around the circular opening in the ceiling. Their designs were mere curiosity—until they suddenly weren’t.

Are those… Duck and the Night Father?

The rudimentary depictions of the two deities on opposing ends caught Sue’s attention and wouldn’t let go, finally forcing her to ask, “Wh-what are those?”

Sundance didn’t even have to look to know what her guest was referring to. “Crafts projects. It’s... easy for me to get lost in my mind’s realm at times, especially when the situation in the physical realm grows difficult. I found that making myself put these together with my bare paws every once in a while keeps me... honest, sane even. They are simply something entertaining I can focus my attention on and weather the storm without sinking ever deeper into my thoughts. In addition, they help me maintain manual agility and prevent me from getting too dependent on telekinesis for everything.”

Sue appreciated the explanation, but it didn’t explain everything. “And... deities?”

Sundance chuckled as she set the freshly cooled drink on a stool beside Sue’s seat. “Well, I make what I know~. Sometimes, I craft a depiction of someone in Moonview, though I keep these to myself and disassemble them afterwards. Even if someone doesn’t believe that a figurine of them gives its wielder control over them, it still unnerves them, and I’d rather avoid that. Don’t have that issue with celestial beings—lest someone thinks I can make the Moon dance to my whims with a bunch of sticks and leaves.”

“Know... how?”

“Not by any sort of heavenly visions, if that’s what you’re asking,” the vixen winked. “Various peoples constantly make depictions of their deities, and I just happen to have a great visual memory when that’s concerned. Even here, I can just look at Night Mother and Ni—well, just Night Mother’s altar now and copy that design competently enough.”

Sundance felt Sue’s attention at her correction, but she opted not to act on it right away. Instead, she walked over to the storage corner and dug through one of the smaller pots in search of something, the resulting silence growing that bit heavier.

I’ll need to ask about that when I bring Pollux up…

Sue really wanted to finally get to the topic of night kin and their deity, but could tell Sundance was avoiding it. Whether it was temporary, she could only hope for—and that’s what she did. In the meantime, she refocused on the deities dancing under the ceiling, a couple of them catching her attention in particular. “What’s that one?”

Sundance glanced over her shoulder a moment as she kept digging in her supplies, the answer as simple as it was haunting. “Death.”

Its serpentine body was mostly gray and red, culminating in a yellow head. A multitude of tentacles sprouted from its back, both the shorter yellow ones and longer black ones with red tips. Judging by the sheer number of additional threads holding it up, its design wasn’t any easier to keep assembled than it was to put together to begin with.

“D-does it kill or—”

“It comes afterwards, doing whatever you think it does with the souls of the dead,” the vixen explained. “Be it ferrying them to the world beyond this one, passing judgment on their deeds, or just devouring them whole and leaving nothing behind. I’ve heard all of those expressed with fear and reverence alike—more so the former than the latter.”

“S-so it doesn’t kill?” Sue asked, uncertain.

“That would be the Gate.”

The Forest Guardian felt her attention being drawn to one doll in particular, its appearance confusing. It appeared to be made of three equally spaced crimson limbs with black decals, and a bit of gray fur around the center. It took her a while to notice a small head between two of the limbs, colored the same as the rest of its body.

Step aside, Grim Reaper, a floating ‘Y’ just stole your job.

“Does your world have a deity of the afterlife?” the vixen asked, curious.

…does the top dog of Christianity count?

“I-it’s complicated.”

Sundance chuckled. “As most things are.”

“Nothing th-that does all the options you’ve listed, I-I don’t think.”

“Well, that isn’t the case here, either. Most agree on what Death is, but each faith has its own interpretation of what it does.”

“There ishn’t even that agreement where I’m from,” Sue elaborated. “B-but there’s shomething kinda like a similar symbol of death where I grew up; not a deity, but like a representation of death, a skeleton in a b-black robe with a scythe.”

The mental image got Sundance thinking as she returned to her seat, holding an… unexpected find. It was a wooden pipe, the kind Sue associated with Sherlock Holmes more than anything else, stunning her as the vixen continued, intrigued. “Is it a... specific skeleton?”

“A—a human skeleton mostly, bu-but I’ve also seen skeletons of other species...”

Only ever as a joke, but still.

“I think I like how that sounds,” the vixen chuckled. “I can’t say I have ever tried to construct a skeleton, or even have a good idea of what mine looks like, but it sounds like an interesting project idea for when I have spare time on my paws.”

Sue chuckled nervously, worried that she’d somehow managed to misrepresent her own pop culture to someone from another world. She knew it didn’t matter much ultimately, but left her uneasy all the same. Trying to distract herself from that, she brought up the pipe in the room: “H-heh, yeah. Umm, wh-what are you smoking, by the way?”

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image [https://i.imgur.com/irsg4Pz.jpeg]

By the lovely vk.com/art_meri!

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Her words came right as Sundance leaned back in her chair, lighting the pipe’s contents with a small Ember sprung from the tip of one of her claws. The resulting smell answered Sue’s question a split second before the vixen did, the actual answer the furthest thing from what she’d expected. “Oh, it’s just hemp. Considering your question, ‘smoking’ like that is a thing in your world too?”

“Yeah, it’s—it’s a plague,” Sue explained, stunned to see her mentor be a stoner.

“Oh. I can stop if you’d want.”

A considerate stoner, even. “No no no, it’s mostly tobacco th-that’s the worst one there.”

The vixen had to think way back to the last time she’d tried that particular plant for herself. Her recollection didn’t paint her experience in the most positive light, leaving the implication that it was common in Sue’s world rather surprising. “You wouldn’t get me to voluntarily try tobacco again. I can’t imagine it being pleasant to experience often.”

“You’ve no idea.”

Both women went quiet as Sundance took another deep breath through the pipe. Before she could relax fully, something caught her attention first. “You can toss the cover aside and lean into the chair’s back—Solstice loves doing that whenever she comes over.”

The prospect of resting her back after several days of inhabiting this body caught Sue’s undivided attention. The revelation of the widely spaced wooden splats under the cover left her downright ecstatic, much to the vixen’s amusement, but not even that came close to the sheer relief that leaning all the way back and resting her shoulders brought.

I don’t wanna move… ever again…

Sundance chuckled. “And I thought Solstice’s reaction was drastic.”

“You can’t imagine h-how good thish feels after not being able t-to rest my back...”

“I clearly cannot, indeed. Remember to have your drink before it gets too cold,” the vixen reminded.

As Sue reached over to grab the ceramic cup, her attention drifted upwards once more, soon caught by what appeared to be one very convoluted doll. Or, at least, before she squinted and realized it was two separate dolls, simply bundled together, explaining the confusing appearance. “Wh-what are thoshe?”

Sundance followed the once-human’s line of sight as the latter took a sip of the concoction—

Holy shit, what is this stuff!?

It was definitely coffee alright, just one with an absurd amount of additives. Its bitterness was mixed—no, overshadowed by fruity, zesty sourness, half a dozen subtler, herbal flavors and at least four tablespoons of sugar. The end result probably had enough caffeine in it to down an Indian elephant in a single sip and enough calories to keep her running for three days straight.

The vixen was oblivious to her guest’s shock, though, explaining, “I don’t think they have a unified name. The titles I remember hearing about are ‘The Capricious’ and ‘The Judicious’, the twin gods of fate and destiny. Or simply Fate and Destiny.”

Both of the intertwined dolls had the same general shape of a large head with three points, two to the sides and one straight up, with a small body underneath it. One had a yellow head, a white body, and a few strips of green fabric hanging off the points of its head, while the other was equally split between pink and gray, with branches that had been contorted into circles and painted yellow hanging from the sides of its head.

They almost look like hoops of some sort.

“Fate and Destiny?” Sue asked, tilting her head. “Is there... a difference?”

Sundance laughed softly at her question, taking her aback as she explained, “You have just stumbled on a topic of one of the bigger theological debates I ever had the... ‘honor’ of witnessing in person. It was amusing if nothing else—at least before it devolved into a brawl. Afterwards, it became a matter of making it out of there in one piece.”

Sue’s wide-eyed stare brought even more amusement to the vixen, soon dismissed as she regained composure and continued, “From what I gathered, ‘destiny’ is preordained by divine will, and ‘fate’ merely happens to you, thanks to nothing more than chance and consequences of what came before. The way I see it, any control over the latter turns it into the former by definition, but that’s the gist of what I got out of all the shouting.”

If anything, the chaotic mess underneath the Sundance’s ceiling covered the confusion rather clearly. The similar size and body shape, together with their physical proximity, made it difficult to tell where one ended and the other began, physical chaos representing divine order.

“Sometimes they’re just one deity that puts on one of two masks, sometimes they’re opposing forces, sometimes there’s only one and not the other. I don’t think this wider area has a strong worship of either, beyond believing that they both manifest as comets in the night sky. Remember to make a wish the next time you see one, and who knows, maybe one of them will hear it,” Sundance smirked, leaning back in her chair.

With the explanation finished, the vixen took a large hit of her pipe as Sue continued to sip on her concoction. Their respective indulgences soothed their minds—if not necessarily their bodies—and let them peace out after a turbulent morning. Or, in Sue’s case, peace out as much as possible while in the beginning stages of a sugar high.

As relaxed as they grew, though, both of them knew full well that the Forest Guardian didn’t just come here to chill and down an energy drink. Before long, the tension began to creep back into the chamber—until Sundance finally acknowledged it. “The incident with Basil wasn’t the only reason you wanted to talk with me, is that correct?”

Sue nodded as she put her cup down, arms jittering from the mix of nerves and caffeine. “No. Earlier t-today I was practicing with Solstice and it was going well, a-and then she mentioned someone called Aurora and broke down in front of me and forced me out of her tent. And yesterday, Shpark took me to see her friend who was a black fox that I couldn’t sense and they hid from people. And then they ran away when spotted a-and I don’t know why and—” Sue stopped, only barely catching herself from rambling on. Instead, she looked up from the drink, staring the vixen dead in the eyes. “What’s going on, Sundance?”

The Forest Guardian focused on her host’s emotions, trying to piece together the puzzle with their help. A part of her worried about the topic, making the mystic furious because of her uncovering something that wasn’t meant to be known—but, fortunately, that wasn’t what happened.

Unfortunately, the truth was so much worse.

For a few moments, Sundance could only flatly stare at her before shifting into a resigned somberness, sighing, “In hindsight, I do not know why I even hoped you wouldn’t run headfirst into all this on your own. Maybe if you had awoken in this realm in any other body, but... no, not this one. Of course, the pretense would all come crumbling down.”

Sue could only hear her own racing heartbeat as the vixen closed her eyes, searching for the right words, but… there weren’t any. “To answer your question—nothing now. Nothing anymore. But… to recount what led to this, what happened all those years ago, I have to tell you a story. A story of a wayward soul that came here from afar. One that saw the harm zealotry and prejudice could inflict and vowed to build something better, safer, a place all could call home… and failed.”

Despite the comfort of her seat, Sue involuntarily leaned forward, the entirety of her attention occupied by Sundance’s tale.

“Her name... was Solstice.”