Indy's eyes started to hurt. It was probably because the sun had crept into his field of vision. It was dimmed only slightly by the dome of blue encompassing everything in about a mile radius of where Indy lay.
He felt like he was buried under wet cement. It was possible to move, but all his limbs felt so heavy that the very idea of even rolling off his side soured his mood more. So he didn't bother. What was the point, anyway?
Based on the movement of the sun, it had been at least a couple of hours since the Weight had settled on Indy's shoulders. He could tell because the sun was directly in his eyes. Indy didn't bother closing them.
In the distance, there was an eerie wail. But it was distorted by the blue dome, so he had no idea what it was.
Footsteps on wood alerted Indy to someone's presence. "Afternoon," said a deep, smooth voice. The kind that almost made you visualize a polite tip of a cowboy hat. "Sorry to bug ya. Here on business."
"Oh. It's you," Indy replied. He didn't want to do anything, and that included not wanting to be rude. "Are you here for me?"
"Nah. Sorry son." The owner of the familiar voice knelt down nearby, casting a shadow. Indy heard a click, and the ticking of a watch. "I got a few minutes before everybody's ready, though. No sense making more than one trip. Here. Lemme make sure ya don't go blind."
Indy felt a pair of fingers close his eyes. "Thank you."
Indy didn't speak for a little while after that. It didn't particularly make him feel better, but the familiar voice's presence didn't make him feel worse, either.
What did somehow make his mood worse was the stink of dead fish.
Indy heard the click of the watch again.
"There's one," the familiar voice said.
One question on Indy's mind was important enough to make him speak again. "How many this time?"
"That depends.If your friends hurry their asses up, might just be him."
Indy wasn't going to comment on the pun, but before he could not respond, his mouth was pried open and something was poured in.
It tasted absurdly sweet, to the point of being disgusting. But after the first swallow, his limbs felt freed from the Weight.
With the second swallow, his eyes started to creak open. With the third, Indy's grin snapped back into place around the neck of the bottle and his pupils dilated to the size of dinner plates. Despite the blue dome, his vision turned entirely pink, the color blooming from the center of his vision outwards. His depression was erased by a giddy euphoria. It was less like he'd taken antidepressants and more like he'd been injected with liquid sunshine and rainbows.
The entire mile-wide blue dome dispersed in a huge flash of pink, and Indy shot to his hooves like he'd just downed a gallon of coffee. "HOO-WEE! That is soooooo much better!"
"Yaaaaay!" His savior sat down to applaud with her front hooves. Salmon looked a lot like Indy. She was a Toon donkey, hot pink instead of Indy's blue, with slightly paler pink on her snout, belly, and hooves. She was a little more plump than Indy, and didn't have his crooked tail. Her grin was wide, and immaculately white. "I saw the dome from Grinner Central and knew you were having an episode, so I knew I had to come save you!" She wiggled a half-full soda bottle of pink liquid, crudely labeled "Special Formula" with a permanent marker.
He gave her a big hug, nuzzling his nose against hers. "Thanks so much! Also hi! I missed you!"
"I missed you too!" Salmon gushed. "I was soooo worried!"
"I'm sorryyyy!" Indy replied, without dropping his grin. "I just wanted to do as much as possible to help everyone I could!"
"Dawww. You're so sweet!" Salmon gave him a big hug, nuzzling Indy's cheek. "Best boyfriend!"
"Noooo! You're a way better girlfriend than I am a boyfriend!"
"No, you!"
"No, you!"
Their denials of who was the better partner grew in pitch and speed, until they were tittering like chipmunks.
Another Grinner trotted up, waiting politely for them to finish. This one was a skinny green donkey that Indy knew to be named Chartreuse. When she had their attention, she saluted, still grinning, of course. "The people on the beach aren't in good shape, ma'am. They're all pretty badly sunburned from lying in the sun for hours. Should we move in to treat them?"
"That's probably a good idea," Indy replied. The initial rush of the special formula had worn off, leaving him happy, but more clearheaded. Clearheaded enough that he fell over sideways, now able to feel the crimson sunburn all over his body. "Oh wow! This is a deep pain!"
Salmon knelt by his side. "Bring the others in to help patch everyone up!" she ordered. "Come back here when you're done. I'll handle Indy."
"Yes ma'am!" Chartreuse galloped off.
But before Salmon could start tending to Indy, he heard the odd wail again. This time, not only could he care about it, he could recognize it for what it was.
"HEEEEEEEEEELP!" yelled a voice from out on the ocean. He could see a dark shape bobbing amongst the waves.
Indy instantly jumped up. In midair, he blew up into a red bubble, which popped to reveal his typical blue self as he rushed down the beach towards the water.
"Indy wait!" Salmon said, but Indy was already making his way towards the shape in the waves.
What he found was a Toon black cat, clinging to a surfboard to avoid being dragged down by the undertow.
"Are you okay?" Indy asked as he approached.
"Do I look like I'm okay!?" she snapped. "My friend and I were waiting for the crazy blue dome thing to go away, when some f*ckin' water wrestler thing knocked our boards over! F*CK! I knew I should have never come back here!" Both her swears were overtaken by a loud, censoring bleep.
Indy ignored her, diving down.
His eyes stung from the saltwater, but he could see the struggling pig a few dozen feet down, held in the bearhug grip of the water wrestler, who had a wicked grin on his face.
Indy grabbed the pig, attempting desperately to pull her away. The wrestler swatted at him like a fly, making it feel to Indy like he'd just been hit by a tidal wave. But Indy stubbornly clung to the pig. He swung his back legs around to kick the wrestler in the face.
Despite contrasting with all known laws of physics, his hooves connected, making the water wrestler react very much like an ordinary man being kicked in the face by an ordinary donkey. He released the bearhug and clutched his face as Indy and the pig fled to the surface.
Both of them gasped for air, the pig grabbing the floating surfboard while Indy just treaded water. "We really ought to get back to the beach!" Indy advised. "There are worse things than the Wave down there!"
"Indy!" Salmon called from the beach, panicked. "You can't swim!"
Indy's smile froze. He glanced down at the water, legs going stiff. "Huh. Well… Water you gonna do, I guess? Haha…"
The undeserved laugh at that terrible pun was turned into burbles as Indy sank like a stone.
Thankfully, before he could go down far, he felt himself being grabbed by the ears and pulled along towards the beach beside the surfboard holding his two rescues.
Salmon shoved the board onto solid ground, breathlessly sitting down next to it after her mad dash across the waves. "Is everybody okay?"
Indy sprayed a fountain of water from his mouth, then hacked up a rubber boot on the end of a fishing pole. "I'm good!"
The cat staggered to her feet. Now that he was able to look at her, Indy couldn't help but think her design was oddly simplistic. Other than her eyes, which were orange, she seemed to be drawn with solely black ink. Her fur was so dark that it was hard to see her mouth when it wasn't open, or if she was wearing any kind of swimsuit. The only details she had were a scar on her eye, a bandage on her tail, and a notch in her ear. "I'll live…" She shook herself aggressively, splattering water everywhere. "F*ck water." Her expletive was once again censored by a bleep. "Actually, no. Don't f*ck water. You'll probably get cholera or something."
Her porcine companion laughed. The pig very clearly wasn't a Toon. She was a good foot taller than everyone present, and wore a purple bikini. Sleeve tattoos of curling barbed wire on both arms ended in hands with purple-painted fingernails instead of hooves, and there were three piercings each on her lower lip and both ears. "You guys really saved my ass there. Uh…"
"It's not offensive," Indy assured her.
The pig let out a relieved breath. "Great. Would really prefer not to make an ass of myself. Anyway, I'm Misty, that's Muffin."
Muffin gave a semi-grumpy salute, finally seeming to get over their near-deaths at the watery hands of the Wave. "Nice to meetcha. Can't stick around though. We were only supposed to be here for an hour or two to relax while the movers worked."
"We tried to catch some waves, and time told us we could catch these hands," Misty joked.
"You guys are new in town?"
"Kinda," Misty replied. "Muffin is—"
But she cut herself off as she heard a big splash. They all looked towards the water. The Wave had emerged from the surf, puffing like a steam train and pointing at them aggressively. He opened his mouth like he was shouting, but only made the noise of rushing water.
Misty's smile vanished as she stomped towards him. "The fuck do you want!?" she snapped, picking up and folding a beach chair to brandish as a weapon.
The Wave paused, taken aback by his failure to intimidate her.
"Ain't so brave when you can't sucker punch me, are ya?" Misty swung the chair at his knee. It was like she'd smacked a water balloon, dispersing his whole ham-hock thigh into the damp sand.
The Wave gave a silent scream, losing his balance and falling over.
Misty kept beating him with the chair while he was down, making a noise like she was slapping the surface of a water bed.
Muffin, meanwhile, sauntered over to provide running commentary. "Eat sh*t." Thwack. "I bet all the ladies tell you 'Wave, goodbye.'" Thwack. "I bet you got a high pH, because you're a basic b*tch." Thwack.
Finally, the puddle of sentient water that remained had the presence of mind to flee from the furious duo, back into the ocean.
"Wooooo!" Salmon clapped her hooves at the display. Indy applauded with her.
Misty was a bit out of breath when they got back. "Sorry ‘bout that. Figured I'd teach him a lesson so he doesn't try sinking surfers for a while. Anyway, you two interested in having dinner at our place? Figure we kinda owe you."
Muffin tensed. "You think that's a good idea? We just met them."
"The movers we hired tried to roast me on a spit," Misty pointed out. "I don't think they can be worse than that."
Salmon downed the rest of the bottle of special formula, before responsibly tossing it in a trash can. "Sounds like you hired Jed and his boys! I wish I could go, but I've gotta help the rest of my Grinners clean up the mess on the beach."
True to her word, the gaggle of rainbow donkeys was helping grateful victims of horrific sunburn.
"I'll get some water and help out," Indy offered, wincing in guilt.
"Actually," Salmon replied, grinning a little wider. "Why don't you go with them, Indy? You've really been through the wringer today, and I think you deserve a break."
"Are you sure?" Indy asked.
"Of course!" She gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Best boyfriend needs a breather!"
He grumbled, but never stopped smiling. "Okay. You win."
"Awesome!" Misty said. "We'll get dressed and grab our stuff. Meet us in the parking lot."
----------------------------------------
Twenty minutes later…
----------------------------------------
"So, you're in a cult, huh?" Misty said from the driver's seat of her beat-up black sedan. She's put on a black denim jacket over a purple tank top, and black jeans.
"I told ya he'd be f*ckin' weird…" Muffin muttered. She wore a gray hoodie, and nothing else.
"Well we're not really a cult," Indy replied. "Just a group dedicated to making people happy."
"You have a charismatic leader, you all look alike, you follow a weird code of behavior and ethics–" Muffin shot back.
“–And said charismatic leader makes you drink mysterious pink shit," Misty finished.
Indy paused, smile curling down uncertainly. "...Oh my gosh, we are a cult!"
"Ain't a big deal," said Muffin. "There's like fifty cults in Happy Vale. Not surprised a few new ones turned up."
"That's what I was saying earlier." Misty made a left onto Flood Street. "Muffin's not new in town. She just moved away for a while. Some stuff happened, yada yada, and somebody left her a house here. She needs a buddy, so I'm here too."
"That's really nice of you!" Indy replied. "You two must really—"
"We're here!" Muffin interrupted, causing Misty to skid to a stop.
Flood Street could very loosely be described as a suburb. It had the rows of identical houses, the gate keeping undesirables out of the community, and the uniform lawns.
The difference was, those identical houses were all ominous, two-story, Victorian houses that looked like they'd belong better in a place called Haunted Hill instead of Happy Vale. The lawns were all overgrown, and each even had a similar gnarled, spooky tree out front. Muffin's new house was no exception.
Misty parked the car on the driveway, and they all got out of the car to head inside.
But something stopped Indy before he went in. A prickling feeling on the back of his neck. He turned around, scanning the street.
"You okay?" Misty asked.
"Yeah," he lied, not wanting to spook them.
Indy may have been away a while, but he'd lived in Happy Vale long enough to know the feeling of being watched.
But that wasn't too uncommon. Even if he was, it was better to be inside being watched than out in the open. So he shrugged it off, and went inside.
Indy immediately wished he hadn't.
It was a nice place. The furniture was very expensive, and there wasn't any obvious damage, but Indy was immediately horrified by the fact that this was the dustiest building he had ever been in.
His nose itched just walking in the front door, and he immediately sneezed, blasting a cloud of dust off the welcome mat.
"Sorry 'bout that," Misty said with a laugh. "We were gonna clean up while we unpacked."
"It's— ACHOO! I-It's okay!" Indy assured her, seeming panicked despite his grin. "Maybe I could help clean up?" His voice had more than a little desperation in it, and his eyelid twitched the twitch of a frightened neat freak.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"Sure," Muffin said, shrugging.
Misty frowned at her. "Hey now! We don't make guests clean, Fin."
"What? He offered!"
Indy had already donned a full hazmat suit and produced an industrial-grade vacuum. "It's really no trouble!" His voice was muffled by the gas mask.
Misty prodded his belly, making a honk like a bike horn. "Guests. Don't. Clean. Also holy crap you have a rubbable belly. Is that a weird comment?"
Indy was properly distracted from the dusty nightmare, and the cheeks of the gas mask blushed a bit. "No. I get that a lot."
"It'll be a bit before Angel gets here with the food," Muffin cut in. "May as well at least let him dust."
Misty picked up Indy's vacuum. "I'll do it. You can show him around the place."
"Alright, fine," Muffin conceded. She used a claw to slit the front of Indy's hazmat suit, and pulled him out of it in one move. Holding him up, she hesitated a moment, before also poking his belly.
Indy gave an involuntary "Tee hee!"
Muffin actually smiled! Indy couldn't see most of her mouth, as it was camouflaged amongst her dark fur, but he could see a couple of sharp fangs poking from her upper lip, curved upwards slightly. "I can live with this," she said. "C'mon. As much as I hate this house, there's some cool stuff here."
"Why is this place so dusty?" Indy asked.
"It's been empty about a month," Muffin explained, setting him down to lead him through a door on the other side of the living room. "Me and Angel's ma, Lulia, owned the place. When she kicked the bucket and left the place to me, I really didn't want it, until I got evicted like a week ago."
"Oh…" Indy's brow furrowed. "I'm really sorry. That's a lot of bad things to happen in just a month."
"Eh. I guess," Muffin said with a shrug. "I'm used to bad luck."
The back hallway had beige wallpaper, patterned with green vines. It was lit by two light fixtures designed to look like old-fashioned wall candlesticks. A few old photos hung in frames on the wall, but the glass was too dusty to see what they depicted.
As soon as he stepped into that hallway, Indy could tell at least part of why Muffin hadn't wanted this place. The hall was just a little too narrow to be comfortable in. The lights weren't quite bright enough to make it seem warm, and there was a slight chill in the air, as if it wasn't properly insulated. With a single step, he'd gone from a bright, sunny town, to a place that made him feel anxious just being there, even with the special formula dulling his negative emotions.
Muffin chuckled. "I know that look. Don't worry. Lulia ran a tight ship. The place is safe-ish."
"How did you live in a place like this?" Indy asked.
"Very carefully, and not for long," Muffin replied vaguely, leaving Indy with even more questions.
But before he could ask any, there was a polite knock on one of the doors, and a piece of paper slid out from under it.
Muffin's jaw dropped. "No way. You're still here?"
Another piece of paper slid out in response.
They approached the door. Indy immediately noticed there were several different types of lock on it: regular padlocks that took keys; two that looked like old, rotary password locks, and even a very modern fingerprint lock.
Muffin picked up both pieces of paper. “I feel footsteps upon the floor. Who comes tromping outside my door?" She swapped to the next one. "It's good to hear from you, Muffin my dear! And is that my reader whom I hear?"
"Uh, reader?" Indy said in confusion. "N-no. I'm just a guest. My name's Indy."
A third piece of paper slid out. Indy picked it up. "I'm sorry, Indy, I haven't been fair. With my reader around, I didn't see you there."
"Lulia called him the Poet," Muffin explained. "I dunno why she bothers with so many locks. He seems perfectly happy in that room, and I've never seen him try to get out."
"What is he?" Indy asked.
"Beats me," Muffin replied. "He never says, and I never asked. You know what they say about curiosity and cats. Anyway, the downstairs bathroom and dining room are at the ends of this hall. Kitchen is through the dining room."
Indy was a little hesitant to just move on, but as the Poet seemed to have nothing further to say, he didn't have any other options.
Despite being dusty, Indy could definitely tell that this place was fancy. The master bedroom was huge, with a four-poster bed that even had a decorative, velvet canopy. The upstairs bathroom had a hot tub that was big enough for four or five people, practically a swimming pool.
By contrast, the guest bedroom was tiny, with old, worn mattresses, and barely any furniture. The downstairs bathroom was little more than a closet with a sink and a leaky toilet.
But everywhere, there were pictures of the same petite, purple bat toon, wearing a witch hat and cape that matched her fur, and holding an old broomstick.
Muffin scoffed. "Lulia got even more self portraits after I left."
“She was your mom?” Indy asked. Lulia didn't look very special. She looked like a sweet, middle-aged lady. Maybe a little mischievous.
“Adopted,” Muffin replied, putting her hands in her hoodie pockets and looking away.
“You don't seem to like her very much,” Indy said, a little concerned.
“I didn't.” Muffin took the picture down, and tossed it in a hall closet. “Gotta get rid of these.”
He wanted to ask more, but they didn't know each other very well yet. That'd be rude.
Indy followed her downstairs, to the dining room. It was just as extravagant as upstairs, with an oak table and chairs carved in intricate patterns to make the legs look like updrafts of wind. The kitchen was through a separate door.
To his surprise, someone he didn't recognize was already there, carrying heavy, overladen plastic bags full of delicious-smelling takeout in each hand. She was a snow-white she-cat. Unlike Muffin, she was unscarred, and dressed in an immaculately clean, bright-blue suit that matched her eyes.
"—and we almost died, if not for this donkey dude," Misty, who had just finished cleaning the kitchen with Indy's vacuum, finished. She smirked a bit at Indy when he and Muffin stepped in. "Oh hey. There he is."
"Indy, this is Angel," Muffin said. "Angel, this is Indy. The random stranger at the beach who saved us from an ocean wrestler."
"It's lovely to meet you, Indy!" Angel greeted him pleasantly, gently shaking Indy's hoof with both her hands. Even her voice was the opposite of her sister's, soft and sweet compared to Muffin's rough and raspy. "Thank you for saving my sister. I'm sorry you almost got hurt in the process."
"You're very welcome!" Indy helpfully took one of the heavy-looking bags over to the counter. "As for almost drowning, eh. It's Happy Vale. Almost everyone has at least one near death experience a day, and that's when there's no fog!"
Angel gave a nervous chuckle, Muffin laughed, and Misty just looked concerned. "Surely it can't be that bad," the pig said with a frown.
"I warned ya!" Muffin teased.
"It's not as bad as it used to be," Indy admitted. "A decade ago, it was way worse. These days, you can't even get tricked into knocking the whole power grid out for a week without an angry mob running you out of town and making you live in an old ski resort in the woods with no heat for two years."
"Oddly specific, but okay," Misty said with a shrug. "What's with the fog, though? Everyone keeps mentioning it. I know Muffin's always freaked out in bad weather."
Muffin sighed. "Sh*t. I dunno how to explain it to someone who ain't a Toon."
Indy helped set the table. "Long story short, expectations affect Toons a lot." He reached up and pulled a rollout diagram from the ceiling, showing himself on a sunny day, smiling, with a laughing emoji. "On a regular day in a Toon town, you'd expect funny things to happen, so they do. That's why you can't really kill a Toon most of the time, unless it'd be really funny to a regular, sane person."
He let the diagram roll back up, and pulled down another one. Now the picture of Indy looked frightened, and was surrounded by fog. "But some things kinda shift the Genre. You wouldn't expect anything funny to happen in thick fog. It's the same thing on a dark and stormy night, at the bottom of the ocean, or in a big, spooky house. The Genre goes from comedy to horror, where anything can happen if it's scary. Sooo…"
"Anybody can die?" Misty guessed.
Angel nodded. "In most places, the chances of anything happening are low. But in Happy Vale, well, there's cults, conspiracies, and don't even get me started on the monsters out in the mountains."
"Everybody knows what the Fog means, and nobody can resist taking advantage," Muffin finished. "Seems that at least has stayed the same."
Misty gave a shake of her shoulders, that was maybe a quarter of a wry laugh. "You sure the free house is worth it, Fin?"
"I got my reasons," Muffin replied.
Misty looked at her for a moment, then smirked, punching her on the shoulder. "Alright. You know I got your back."
Muffin could keep up the grumpy look, but she couldn't hide the purr in her throat.
"D'awww!" Indy cooed.
Angel giggled, and Misty gave Muffin a very big, very embarrassing hug.
Muffin growled, but didn't stop purring, nor did she push Misty away. "Enough with the exposition! I almost died, and I’m starving. Let's eat."
That was met with unanimous agreement, the cute moment quickly executed to be replaced by the delicious-smelling takeout.
"Oooh! Is this from Manny Martini's?" Indy asked as he opened the box of Italian food.
"It is!" Angel confirmed. "Do you go there often?"
"I used to work there when I was a teenager! I was a cook."
Muffin snorted. "Coulda just had him make dinner."
Misty's eye twitched a little at that suggestion. "What was the big, blue dome thing at the beach?" she asked, trying to change the subject.
"Oh yeah," Muffin agreed. "I ain't never seen anything like that either."
"A blue dome?" Angel asked. "I think I heard one of the cults caused something like that a few years ago."
Misty and Muffin turned to Indy, who just flinched, smiling awkwardly.
Angel continued eating her food in blissful ignorance for a moment before she realized where the others were looking and made the connection. "Oh. Are you one of them?"
"Yeeeeaaaah…" Indy admitted, rubbing the back of his head. His ears were lowered but he still smiled weakly. "It's kind of hard to explain. But the blue dome was my fault. When I get really, really sad it just… spreads. I call it the Weight."
Muffin, to his surprise, looked sympathetic. "Jeez. I thought I had it rough. That why you're with the… what'd you call 'em?"
Indy's ears perked up a little. "The Grinners, and yeah. Salmon's special formula makes it so I can't be sad. I dunno what's in it, but whatever side effects it might have, they can't be as bad as the Weight, right?"
"How'd it start?" Misty asked.
"I dunno. Been going on long enough that I can't remember," Indy replied with a shrug. Swiftly, he changed the subject by turning to Angel. "If you remember the big blackout, does that mean you've lived here a long time?"
"Oh yes!" Angel replied, smiling. "I tried leaving for a little while. But I came back to help Mom."
"That's sweet of you!" Indy said brightly.
Muffin muttered under her breath, and Angel looked away uncomfortably. Indy suddenly felt he'd said something very wrong. This was bad. He was being a downer without even trying. In desperation he tried a safer subject. "So uh… what do you guys do for a living? Must have been hard to pack up and leave for Happy Vale."
"Eh, not really," Muffin replied. "I ran a little gig as a 'fortune teller.'" She did air quotes. "Set up a little booth on a boardwalk. Do some cold readings to make it look like I'm psychic. Make a good hundred bucks or so each time."
"Ooooh!" Indy said excitedly. "Even if it's not real, that sounds neat! Can you do me?"
Muffin looked a little unsure. "Well, I'd have to unpack my tarot cards…"
Indy gave her puppy dog eyes.
Muffin couldn't hold up to that. "Alright, fine. Gimme a bit to find 'em." She got up from the table, and left the dining room.
Angel cleared her throat nervously. "I, um… I was a magician, but I had to give it up to support Mom. Now I work at Bits and Bites, as a cashier. Would you like to see a magic trick?"
Indy was instantly brought back to maximum cheer. "Would I!"
Angel retrieved a deck of poker cards from her shirt pocket. "It's been a while, but I can give it a try." She pulled the deck from its box. "Personally, I like telling a story with my tricks. I call this one, 'Save the Suicide King.' Pick a card, look at it, and put it facedown." She spread the deck out in front of her.
“Interesting name!” he said, picking a card and looking at it. A Three of Spades. Not as good as a Joker, but still great! He put it facedown.
Angel put her finger on the card. "This is the king's only trustworthy advisor. Every other card in the deck, save the king of hearts himself, is an untrustworthy noble who wants him dead."
"Ooooh! Epic fantasy!" Indy leaned forward, chin on his hooves in excitement. "What's next?"
"The king is tired," she removed the king of hearts from the deck, placed it on the table, and then shuffled the deck. "He can't take the stress anymore. He can't take the constant paranoia and suspicion he needs just to stay alive." She placed four cards around the king, facedown. "He's surrounded by a group of advisors, who are keeping the trustworthy advisor out while pushing him closer to the edge. But the trustworthy advisor has a chance, since that group is chosen by the king." She gathered the four cards around the king into the pile. "Put your card anywhere you like in this pile."
"Alright..." he said, feeling oddly invested in the safety of this fictitious king. The way Angel told the story just drew him in so well, almost like the storytelling itself was magic. He picked up his Three of Spades and stuck it haphazardly into the pile, trusting in her abilities despite this being the first trick he'd seen. He was just so excited to see the results!
Angel put the four cards back into the deck, shuffled it, and placed the king on top. "Four advisors will be chosen from the deck. Two directly beneath the king, and two from the bottom." She placed the four cards in their square, and the king facedown in the middle. Then she took one more card from the top of the deck and put it in front of Indy. "The advisors tell the king who to pick for his ambassador, to be sent far away, where they can't influence court politics, nor have access to the king." She turned the four advisors over. Indy's three of spades was not among them. "But the trustworthy advisor was too clever. He knew as a mere advisor he would never be able to save the king. So, he and the king arranged a clever plan to swap places..." She turned over the card in the center, which should have been the king on top of the deck, but was now the Three of Spades. "...while the king escaped to safety, disguised as the ambassador. Care to turn over that card in front of you?"
Indy turned over his card, revealing the king of hearts. "Wooooo! Beans on toast, that's so cool!"
Angel blushed and tittered, doing a little bow in her chair. "Thank you. I'm a little out of practice, so I was worried about messing up."
There was a crash from upstairs, and Muffin's voice came through the ceiling. "Those F*CKING movers creased my high priestess!"
"I had better go check on her…" Angel muttered, getting out of her chair to slink out of the room.
With it now being just the two of them, Indy turned to Misty. "How about you? What do you do?"
Misty leaned back in her chair, feet up on the table, and tilted her head back and forth. "It's complicated. I've had a bunch of odd jobs, but I don't really need any of them. Got a decent nest egg, so I can pretty much do what I want. Mostly I play guitar and write songs."
"Can I hear one?"
"Maybe next time," Misty said. "I don't feel like unpacking my guitar."
There was a slightly awkward moment of silence. Indy looked around the room, just taking it all in. He thought for a second that he saw something purple beneath the curtains as his eyes passed, but it was gone when he looked back.
Luckily, Muffin and Angel walked back in, with Muffin holding a little, black box, and a bottle of some kind of spray. She tossed it up onto the table, letting Indy see a picture of a purple, hooded figure on it as she climbed into a chair.
"Alrighty," Muffin said, taking cards with a similar hooded figure on them out of the box. She gave them to Indy. "Can you shuffle this with hooves?"
"Yes indeedy!" Indy took the deck. Like many Toons, his lack of fingers did not matter in the dextrous arts, and he easily shuffled the cards.
Muffin took them, and fanned them out. "Pick six."
Indy did so, and Muffin placed them in three piles of two each. "Let's take a look at your past."
She turned over the cards on the left. The first was a sobbing person in bed, with nine swords on the wall behind them. The other was upside-down, but bore the image of two people in a boat, with six swords embedded in it. "The Nine of Swords and the Six of Swords." Muffin's miscellaneous New York accent had changed to a miscellaneous Eastern European accent. Her eyes actually glimmered a bit. Her slouch was gone, making her look almost a foot taller, and less dead inside. The utter shift in personality was baffling. "Great despair, sadness, driving you to a breaking point! It led you to a transition, or an exodus!"
"Wow, uh…" Indy was slightly taken aback. "Yeah. That definitely happened."
"Excellent! Now, onto the present!" Without asking further, Muffin turned over the second pair of cards. The first of these two had a pair of beggars, looking haggard in the snow beneath a window, which bore five pentacles. The other was upside-down, but showed one person with a hammer and chisel, with two in robes, and three pentacles on the ceiling. "The Five of Pentacles, and Three of Pentacles Reversed. You're an outcast, who's been shunned. Your actions aren't being appreciated."
"Well that's not… Yeah, I guess that's kinda true." He chuckled. "I'm not exactly popular in town. I'm trying to fix that, though."
"Let us see if you will succeed."
She turned over the future cards. The first of this last pair had a pair of people standing before some kind of demonic goat. The other had a man standing before seven cups, filled with various things. Some had fruit, but some had things such as snakes or mushrooms.
"The Devil, and the Seven of Cups," Muffin announced. "You'll suffer bindings, mental as much as physical. You'll see glimpses of things you think you want, but they could be illusions."
With that, Muffin collected her cards, dropping them back into the box.
Indy could only stare, frowning in confusion. "That's not very reassuring."
Muffin, now having dropped the persona, shook her head. "Relax. Like I said, it was a cold read. I used some educated guessing from what I knew about you to make up some stuff that sounded true. Pretty authentic, huh?"
He brightened. "Ooooh! Now I get it! That's actually pretty impressive."
"Yes, when everyone's in on it, it's all in good fun." Angel's voice wasn't exactly happy, but Indy didn't know why.
But before he could ask, a car horn honked outside. "Oh! That's probably Salmon. She's here to pick me up."
Muffin blinked, clearly spooked, but not saying why. "Well, alright. It was good meeting you."
"Here!" Indy pulled out a notepad, and scribbled down his phone number, before giving it to Muffin. "Gimme a call if you need anything! I'll be happy to help out."
She took it, with a small amount of reluctance, still looking a little scared.
"We might have to take you up on that," Misty said. "It'll be good having some friends in town."
Misty's input finally seemed to calm Muffin down. "Yeah. Alright. See you around, Indy."
With goodbyes said, Indy left, hopping into the shotgun seat of Salmon's pink sedan. The inside was scrupulously clean, something Indy appreciated, and she had a little disco ball dangling from the rearview mirror.
She greeted him with a kiss. "You have fun, hon?"
"I sure did!" Indy replied. "They're all really cool. I hope I get to see them again."
"Maybe you should!" Salmon agreed. "How long has it been since you've had friends outside the Grinners?"
"Since before we got kicked out," he admitted sheepishly.
"Exactly! You gotta get out more!" She playfully nudged him with her nose. "Find some people to have fun with besides me!"
She was right, and Indy knew it. But that thought reminded Indy of something else. "Salmon, are we a cult?"
Salmon tilted her head back and forth in thought, which Indy found cute despite the subject matter. "Kinda, I guess. We're a bit loosely organized for that, and don't have the religious stuff, but if you're going by dictionary definition, then sorta yeah."
"Oh." Indy hadn't expected her to be so blunt about it. "That doesn't bother you?"
"Well there are like, fifty cults in Happy Vale," Salmon pointed out. "The Slaughter Family literally eats people, and the fog worshippers do Toon sacrifices. So even if we are, I don't think we're the worst around. All we do is give away my special formula and do community service."
That calmed his nerves somewhat. "I guess you're right. I could just say no if you tried to make me do something bad."
"Of course!" She nuzzled his cheek, making him smile and blush. "If I ever make you uncomfortable, you can tell me, and I'll stop."
That finally made Indy feel better. He felt wrong for doubting her. For the rest of the long drive out into the mountains, he rested his head on her shoulder.
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