Hairlines, the bane of every man with unblessed genetics that has ever walked and/or wheelchaired on Earth. The problem with them is generally one of macroeconomics. Recession, to be more concrete. So when the hairline is advancing over the land and engulfing the city like a tide of little white and gray nematodes spread in every direction by the wind and the whims of aerodynamics and magic, most people tend panic a little bit. Not me, though, because an invasion of dust bunnies with a life of their own is just another Monday for owners of Retriever breeds.
I casted the Canaver Remains into the air and stepped back so they would have room to expand. My rotten little friend was soon standing in front of us, ancxxious to receive orders for a mauling.
“You!” Said Canaver.
“Hello big fella, long time no see!” said Fernando.
“He’s with us now, Cancan. You are not allowed to harm him.”
“What sort of shitty JRPG with redemption arcs is this?” he spouted, offended, showing all his teeth, that weren’t few.
“We lumped together to stop Mariana from being herself,” explained Sabrina.
Canaver looked behind him, beholding the desolate wasteland ruled by slithering dust bunnies. “Ah, average Golden Retriever shedding season. What’s the plan though?”
“We find Mariana and I nag her into submission,” I revealed the most recently conceived child of my superior intellect.
“And what do we do?” asked Florencia, placing a finger under her lips.
“I don’t know. My survival is all but ensured. This is Mordor, but I have a VIP pass to just fucking walk into it. So, uh…” I made an awkward silence. “Yeah, I have no idea how to deal with this. Sorry, people.”
The three half elves gasped in unison. Florencia unsheathed the sword and the chair, and pointed at me with the least sharp of the two.
“What have you done with Walter? He would never admit ignorance and apologize on the same sentence!”
The realization that I was acting profoundly out of character hit me like my sister did when she wanted to go to a costume party and I suggested to go dressed as, and I quote: “Fattie-chica”.
“Apologizing? I called yourself Sorry people. You must be under the impression I included a comma where there was none. I should have used the word retards…”
Florencia lowered the sword.
“Well, that does sound like you.”
“uhh, Dilaes and Mentlegen…” said Canaver, that was peeking over a corner.
“Listen, I can already see what you are seeing, but for the sake of drama, I will have to turn that hair-covered building’s corner to be allowed to invoke higher powers,” I explained to him.
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The rest rushed around me like a violent river. I walked with tranquil step, even if feigned. Because at the other side of the wall lurked what could be described as a completely valid reconstruction of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. With a body wholly composed of dead Mariana’s fluff, a tail that was shaped after the body of a millipede, tentacles shaped in honor to centipedes, mandibles and all, And a central body fashioned after… come on, guess it… decapods! And being as long as a couple buses, the thing was rather imposing.
“Gasp, oh my Lord in Heaven,” I deadpanned, noticing everyone’s else jaw was dropped. “You summon gods from people minds, why are you scared and or impressed?” I casually asked Fernando.
“Mariana’s puns must have reached dangerous levels for such a thing to exist. What even is this supposed to mean?”
And, as the monster approached, we, the two sages of the group, kept on wondering the hidden meaning .Then, I snapped my fingers. “I give up, I think Mariana simply saw they were powers of ten plus ‘poda’ and the fluff did the rest.”
Then I rolled through a tail swiped that sent everyone else reeling to the floor, except Canaver, who was trying to maul the fluff millipede to next to no effect.
“We aren’t going to fight this, let’s go find Mariana.”
The only answer was groans of pain and “fuck you”s.
“Fine, I will kill it.”
I saw the maws of the centipedes coming for me and bob and weaved through them with movements worthy of a martial artist. The monstrous dust bunny was absolutely predictable. When the pincers of the main, half-crab-half-lobsterlike body came from me I simply took out my dagger and parried them while I watched the nails of my other hand.
“How is he doing that all of a sudden? He doesn’t even belong to a class with ease to parry,” said Florencia, who was helping Sabrina get back in her feet.
“Years of roughhousing with Mariana, darlings.”
I yawned as two more pincers joined the onslaught. It was all too easy. Myh belts began commenting on the event.
“Our pet necromancer has grown so big! I almost miss when he thought about deepfrying us for our sins.”
“Yes, now he only desires to cast us in a fire, and that doesn’t add +15 to deliciousness.”
I kept dodging and parrying attacks as they spoke. I even began singing.
Fernando screeched like a fangirl with incontinence.
“La Oreja de Van Gogh? Let’s sing Deseos de cosas imposibles as a duo!” He proposed, more excited than Mariana when you say the word “food”.
“Fine, but know that I personally prefer La Playa. Also, I have a petition: You sing the parts that Abel pintos sings in the version featuring him.”
Canaver began crying the instrumentals and and Fernando extracted a pair of microphones from his memory, and then threw one to me. I caught it midflight, gave a wink to the dust bunny as I took some steps back while sidestepping the slams of his tentacles, and began singing the first verse.
And thus we sang! About dumb mosquitoes, about poets with an actual job (Which is the most impossible thing in the whole song), about full stops and suicidal sentences, about tricking our current partners into believing we are not still in love with a long stranded person and thus building a cage of sadness for ourselves due to the deception we devised to avoid solitude and accept a life of mediocrity as it was the reasonable thing to do.
And as we sang, we danced around one another and looked at each other’s eyes, as if we were the long lost lovers of the song. Everything for the sake of the show, of course.
“Do you think we are witnessing anj act of homosexuality that must be purged?” Casually asked Florencia.
“Flor, remember what dad said: people don’t like it when you go around skewering gay people,” replied Sabrina, and they both then shook their heads.
“But this is definitively a Walter thing.” They concluded in unison.
As we continued singing, the Dust bunny began jamming along, and so, like monstrous Hamelin flautists, we advanced towards the Fluff spire in the center of the city: Mariana’s lair.