Shady Smoosh
“From these weird guys… dressed in British Imperial-style regalia and silly pointy hats. They were… Steampunk as hell,” I recalled. “Brass telescopes, copper-riveted hulls, flying ships running on god knows what, spewing thick, white smoke.”
Shady squinted at me.
“1800s aesthetic! Max Victorian era everything.”
“Did we… fight them?” The Wendigo asked.
“Constantly! We’d raid their ships and pyramids, they’d raid our fort, we’d set elaborate traps. It was fun. Dying wasn’t a thing in Neverland. You’d get horribly hurt and then wake up in the nearest fairy circle. Same for our nemesises. We called ‘em pirates, but they weren’t really pirates, more like a silly cult of some kind, maybe? I don’t remember the exact details.”
Shady stared at me with a half-disbelieving expression.
“What?” I asked.
“Either you bonked your head too hard or…” She began.
“Or what?”
“Ashy,” Shady stated. “What you’re describing shouldn’t be possible, even with the Netherweave Fold. My Fractal Engine heart at age nine was basically a pilot light. A birthday candle. Enough juice to make minor magical fireworks, or to dive into the deep, or to steal cookies from high shelves. Generating an entire compressed Earth with its own fucking physics, caterpillar biome, autonomous population, and time dilation? I’d need… thousands of years of accumulated hoard power for something like a fraction of this.”
“Maybe Darkfall helped?”
“Darkfall amplifies magic, sure. The local Aether there is more entropic than anywhere else on your linear Earth. Still…” She chewed on her lower lip with humanoid-ish teeth currently blunted from their usual shark-like proportions.
“A single Wendigo spawnling Fractal Engine simply can’t produce a stable time dilation field, functional flight physics for a non-Omnid human, AND an entirely new planetary body simultaneously. My Fractal Engine barely powered my holofractal dog at nine. This is like saying a double-A battery powered the Large Hadron Collider.”
“What about the rocks?”
“The fairy circle rocks I licked probably had some ambient magic. Plus the gold. But even all of it together? A fraction of a percent of the required output.”
“Then what powered Neverland? How did it come to be?”
“A very solid question.” Shady pursed her lips.
“Maybe Zexxia left something in Darkfall,” I offered. “Buried artifact on Mount Olympus amplifying everything?”
“Maybe.” Shady didn’t sound convinced. “Or maybe the fairy circle tapped into something already there. Something arcane that I accidentally got us into by shiny licking rocks like a dummy. A gate to another pocket dimension with really high Aetheric density where thoughts weave desires into existence with ease.”
“The abandoned mine?” I guessed.
“The abandoned mine could be a good place to start looking,” she echoed.
We stared at each other.
“We are absolutely going to explore the hell out of that mine,” I said.
“Agreed.” She nodded. “We gotta explore all the things, because what you’re describing is pure dimensional fuckery to the Nth degree and I don’t understand how any of that could be possible.”
I stood up, carried the chair back to the patio and paid Claire with my Visa, tipping generously for the “large dog” hospitality. Claire waved at Shady, cooing “Bye Princess Snugglebottom!” Shady wagged her tail in response with the dignified suffering of royalty enduring peasant affection.
We loaded back into the jeep. Shady’s antlers phased through the roof again.
“Pet shop time!” she reminded me.
“Yep.” I agreed.
I drove us from the shore to Cascade’s main street, parking in front of Pet Paradise which now had its Nexxali-obliterated front window covered in cardboard and silver duct tape.
The clerk tormented by Nexy last week wasn’t in. Instead, a teenage girl with dyed teal hair, an eyebrow piercing, and a nametag reading “JESS” looked up from her phone.
“Hey there! Oh WOW, wat-a big boy! Or girl?”
“Girl,” I confirmed, Shady padding beside me on all fours, looking very much like the world’s most well-behaved horse-dog hybrid.
“Jeez, she’s, like, YUUGE. Is she show quality?”
Shady preened, radiating smugness.
“She certainly thinks so,” I said.
“Kewl. Watcha lookin’ for today?” the salesgirl asked.
“A collar for this rawd beastie.” I waved a hand at Shady.
“Sure thang! We’ve got nylon, leather, chain link, padded sport collars, swank LED collars for night walks…”
Jess led us to the collar aisle. I stared at the rack, acutely aware of my massive Wendigo girlfriend looming beside me on all fours, appraising each collar with the critical eye of a jeweler evaluating diamonds.
“How about this one, Miss Princess Snugglebottom?” I grabbed a neon pink collar studded with rhinestones and the word “PRINCESS” embossed in glitter.
Shady’s silver eyes narrowed to slits. “What.”
“It matches your sparkly personality,” I added, rapidly fastening it loosely around her massive neck. “Let’s try it on.” The rhinestones caught the fluorescent lights and threw tiny rainbow spots across the kibble aisle.
“Not too shabby,” I said teasingly.
A low growl vibrated through the shop. Jess, oblivious, clapped her hands together. “Aww, she looks quite cute in pink!”
“See? Professional endorsement!” I grinned at the Wendigo.
“I said I wanted black,” Shady ground out.
“Hmmm… Wish I could speak dog, then I’d definitely know what color my girl wants.” I took the pink monstrosity off her and grabbed a lime green collar with cartoon bones on it. “This one maybe? Classic green! Very dignified.”
Shady’s claws dug into the linoleum as I collared her.
“Green is a peasant-grade terraformer color. Remove it,” she growled, tail swatting leg. “or I will remove your kneecaps.”
“Jess, what do you think?” I asked, ignoring the mobster-wendoggo threat. “Does the green suit her?”
“Ah, yea. Totes.”
A low, subsonic rumble vibrated through the floor tiles.
“Red?” I swapped to a fire-engine red number with a heart-shaped tag dangler. “Very passionate. Makes a statement.”
“The statement is ‘my owner has no taste.’” Shady huffed.
“What? Red matches black. How about… Lavender?” I procured a pastel purple collar with a small bow. “Elegant. Refined.”
“I look like a freakin’ mobile bridal shower decoration.”
“You say this like it’s bad.” I rebutted.
“I believe we’ve had an agreement.” Shady stated.
“Yeah, but look at all these options.” I waved a hand at the collar aisle. “Maybe there’s something you’ll look amazing in, you never know.”
“Ughhh fineeeee.”
Each collar went on, got evaluated by Jess with varying degrees of enthusiasm and by Shady with increasing irate-ness, and came off. Yellow with daisies. Teal with anchors. Orange reflective safety neon.
“Wat a patient doggaw!” Jess gushed, reaching out to scratch under Shady’s chin. “Many dogs hate trying stuff on, struggling to sit still when there’s so many fun toys about.”
“Oh toys! Do you want a chew toy, Princess?” I asked Shady.
Shady endured the chin scratch. Barely. Her pupils were thin silver slits aimed exclusively at me, promising elaborate, protracted vengeance.
I was running low on tacky choices and whacky colors and Shady still hadn’t given me the reaction I truly wanted.
Time to escalate!
“So, Jess. You work here full time? Studying nearby?”
“Oh, uh, part time! I’m at Peninsula College. Marine bio.”
“Marine bio? Cool. I’m an electrical engineer. Just moved back to the area.”
Jess smiled at me. “Oh nice! Cascade’s pretty quiet, but it’s a good quiet, you know?”
“Definitely.” I smiled back at her. My best, most practiced, I-am-a-functional-charming-human smile. “Isn’t Peninsula College like an hour drive away?”
“It do be a long drive on tha’ 101 roun’ the Darkfall spine,” Jess agreed. “I’m staying with my surfer bestie in Cascade for the summer. Port Angeles is kewl and Lake Chrysalis is a nice canoeing spot, but Cascade’s totally like the prettiest town in Washington state. Wicked waves on the Pacific plus waterfall-central mountain views!”
“For sure,” I agreed with my best NPC response. “The coffee at Driftwood Ally’s is SO good, have you been?”
A massive black paw landed on my shoulder. Five blunted claws pressed into my collarbone with the delicate restraint of someone bench-pressing a car and choosing to set it down gently.
“Heh. My dog seems jealous,” I observed, wincing slightly.
“Aww!” Jess melted. “She’s protective! That’s so sweet!”
“Walking is for poor normies,” I fired back. “I have two Corpse Seekers to ride in with Teya.”
“RRRRRRRRRRRrrrrr.”
“Aww. She wants attention,” I told Jess. “One second.”
I turned, crouched, and cupped Shady’s massive skull-face in both hands, thumbs tracing slow circles through the star-dusted fuzz on her cheekbones. The silver freckles under my fingertips sparked violet and orange, starry fireworks detonating where skin met fur.
“Such a jealous girl,” I murmured.
“Jealous enough to eat a marine biology student whole,” she murmured back, leaning hard into my palms. Her eyes half-closed, the murderous edge softening into needy warmth.
“You insufferably INFURIATING chuppy.”
“What’s a chuppy?” I asked.
“A… cute, little winged fox beast from Arx.”
“Awww, such compliments.” I petted Shady, making her void-mane ignite with increasingly vibrant detonations of colorful constellations.
Jess let out a small yelp, jumping back.
“Dang,” she let out, blinking. “Unexpected colors. Yeesh. Gotta take it easy on Dannie’s brownies, seeing shit this early in the morning.”
She retreated down the aisle, rubbing her face and nervously glancing at Shady.
“Way to terrorize the locals,” I said.
“Me? You’re the one derailing my glamour focus with all the… nice touching!” Shady huffed.
“Touch, touch, touch,” I commented, squishing her face.
The tiles beneath us rippled with a wave of darkness. When it struck my body, a sensation of pure dread rushed up my spine, making my entire body tingle as if I was standing at the edge of a kilometer-tall cliff, about to fall.
Shady grabbed my shoulders and opened her entire maw wide as if she was going to bite my head off, then blessed me with a massive lick across the face, making me sputter. “Black collar. Gibs. NOW.” She growled loud enough to vibrate nearby toy and kibble shelves.
“I dunno,” I said. “Still so many nice colors to test.”
“Ashyyyyy we’re losing daylight,” she whined.
“But we’re gaining such excellent insights!” I grinned.
“What freaking insights?”
“That you’re a control freak even about accessories,” I chortled.
“I will antler you.”
“With those soft nubs?” I ran my hand along her right antler, producing a trail of fiery orange stars till I reached the round end. “Press X to Doubt.” I pressed the top of the antler, making the silver-blue stars there shift color to orange-red-gold.
“I will eat your spleen.”
“You don’t even know where my spleen is.”
“I’ll find it. I have excellent spatial awareness and I… only slept through some human anatomy classes!”
“Pffff,” I teased, both hands running up and down her long antlers. “I think someone’s much too distracted to maintain any kind of awareness.”
“Am… am… not d-distracted,” Shady let out. A mere glance at her chest told me otherwise, the massive curves beneath the tight tank top now featuring two prominent peaks.
“Liar,” I chortled. “Liar, mane on fire. Hrmmmm.” I intensified my antler-exploration. “Do you have nerves in the antlers? Do you shed them in the spring? Do your feathers… molt?”
“Nnnn-nerves everywhere,” Shady panted, her clawed hands tugging at my shirt. “Can feel… everything. N-no shedding. Nothing’s dead on an Omnnn-nid.”
“Nothing?”
“Nnn-not really,” she replied with a half mewl.
“So I can’t pull out a feather for keep-sake?”
“I’m right here, you butt, the Abyss would you want a keep-sake for? You going somewhere?”
“Might fall into the backrooms with the way you’re wobbling the fuck out of reality,” I commented, staring at the slightly vibrating, warping, black tiles bending inward beneath my feet as if I was standing on a soft bed of moss.
Shady’s grip on me tightened. “No. Never ever ever. NEVER. I’d never let HIM have you.”
“Him?” I blinked.
“Number Six.” She stated with a deep, bothered growl.
“The backrooms are fucking real?” I paused the antler-petting.
“Everything is real somewhere,” Shady stated darkly. “I learned ‘bout that shit at Skyfall. Yellow halls, endless storage, the containment of everything wrong and awful. Doctor Greyfield called it ‘the infinite corpse of Number Six where ALL broken, forgotten things end up’.”
“Your Moths open gates into the backrooms?”
“Sometimes.” Shady nodded, the playful mood derailed slightly, fluffy ears tilting back. “We went on a field trip there. It was… dreadful.”
“Isn’t that nice for you?”
“S’not the good kind of dread that I can feed off. More like… loneliness divided by infinity. This… uncaring, dead emptiness… overwhelming, swallowing up the dread everyone felt. The stale air and flickering lights and endless moldy halls smothering hope, chewing on plans, eating dreams, grinding at the soul like a million invisible knives, pawing at my heart. It was during that field trip that Aunt Evely’s ‘forget stuff’ spell on me tore off completely and I recalled you… remembered our childhood together. Number Six made me recall everything good that was taken from me. I cried a lot that day… everyone did. Victor Greyfield showed our group his Stabalist pin that day and told us that it takes a great deal of courage to face truly painful, forgotten things.”
“Poor spooked wendoggo bae,” I reached past her and plucked a collar from the back of the rack.
Plain black leather, matte silver buckle, understated and elegant. No rhinestones, no cartoon bones, no ironic text. The leather was thick and supple. “Here. Bet this will make up for all the bad times.”
Shady’s eyes locked onto it. Her ears rotated forward, pupils dilating from slits to full silver moons.
“You like this one?”
She nodded.
“Come on,” I smiled. “Let’s get it engraved then.”
“T-that’s an option?” Shady tilted her head at me, dog style.
“Uh-huh.” I nodded. “Saw a sign at the front desk offering such.”
“Eeeeeeeeee,” Shady let out and wrapped me in her embrace, sparks of tears dancing at the edges of her eyes.