Kisses in the Dark

A breath before Shady’s lips met mine, reality skipped like a record needle catching on a scratch, the scene dimming instantly and making us booth freeze.

At the same time, an avalanche of memories smashed into me, drowning me in their embrace.

Pills rattling when I picked them up from the bathroom counter. View of the endless highways, gravel roads and bushes from my parents’ RV. Dr. Marsgrove’s office, dotted in many fanciful diplomas. Mom’s worried face across the dining table asking if I’d taken my dose. 

Dad looking through environmental reports with a perpetually grumpy expression on his bearded face. School hallways full of fluorescent buzz and hostile or outright uncaring students that switched every few months or years. A decade of teenage mundanity, drained of color, every meal tasteless, every sunset flat. 

The last summer when I talked to my grandfather, his mind half gone due to Alzheimer’s, him ranting about ‘our divine Lady from beyond the stars’. 

Dax’s concerned face in our dorm common room as he handed me a coffee, asking why I didn’t find his jokes hilarious. Getting off antipsychotics. Myriads of failed dates. Comicons during summers. The four hour drive from Seattle to Cascade for Grandpa Archie’s open casket funeral attended by far too many odd looking people.

The thrumming, black ring on his finger bisected with a line of pure nothing that nobody else seemed to notice. My hands chafing to pry the ring off his finger. My eyes and head throbbing as his casket was lowered into the ground with the final words of the priest.

Job applications, cover letters and rejections.

Adult Shady barging into my life, occupying my couch and demanding sanctuary and horror movies. Me, struggling to remember her, to remember us. Shady losing her mind and me becoming the Emperor of Humanity through desperation and sheer hubris.

“What?” I let out as my mind wobbled, finally settling.

The cloud-sea was dark, Sunny gone from view.

Pink and gold clouds had inexplicably switched to bruised purple and sluggish iron. The wind died. The Always stopped its motion, hanging in the murk stillness, sails slack. The little luminous mushrooms on the spiral shell ignited in soft silver pinpricks, lanterning the deck in dim, syrupy light.

The colors of Neverland were inexplicably muted, as if wiped away by an unseen hand.

Something moved behind the teenage Wendigo girl occupying my lap.

A second, semi-transparent Shady stared at us from behind the mast.

A third Shady oozed up from beneath the deck planks, Gibliia studio, No-face spirit-style.

A fourth crouched on the prow, head tilted at a ridiculous 60 degree angle.

A fifth dangled upside down from the rigging, tail coiled around a rope.

And around us, more Shadies blossomed. Tall, long-armed, antlered shadows leaning out from behind the mast, peering up over the gunwale, perched on the boom, hanging upside down from the rigging like fruit. Silver eyes blinked, leering at me with cheeky interest. Sharp grins of glowing teeth, star-freckled cheeks, tongues out.

About a hundred Shady-shaped specters filled the Always to the brim like the crows in “The Birds” 1963 horror film by Alf Hitchock.

The Shady on my lap blinked at me, lips parted slightly, ruby-red tongue out in a small blep. She wiggled a tad, likewise registering the sudden tonal shift of our surroundings, and made a small annoyed noise. 

“Frick,” she let out. 

“Shady.” I voiced, fingers digging into her thin waist.

“Yu-huh.”

“Why does our boat look like a horror movie set right now?”

“Uhhhhmmm….”

“Are those your… hooks?”

“Yes,” she answered and then evaluated my wary expression. “Don’t worry ‘bout ‘em. They’re, like… uhm, action spectators. Not allowed to touch. Bad-touch shadow-mes get exiled to the soul-basement.”

“Is this… a dream?” I asked.

“Yep,” she said.

“When did I even fall asleep?” I demanded.

“When you were examining the Neverland map on my lap,” she stated. “Your mind sort of snagged on a deep memory of you drawing it and I… took advantage of it, wiggled it further with my hooks and my own memories, made us relive our adorkable past in a day-dream-dive.”

“Ah,” I let out. “Right. I see. So, why did the memory stop at the kiss? What happened after?”

“No idea,” Shady frowned. “There’s nothing else there.”

“Why?”

“I doooon’t know. Neither of us remembers what happens after.”

“Any guesses?” I pressed on.

“Uhhh…” Shady made a bothered face. 

“Your high school field trip to the Backrooms didn’t retrieve all of your memories of Neverland?” I asked.

“Backrooms only gave me everything Aunt Evely took,” Shady said. “Maybe the pirates stole our memories or Neverland nommed our first kiss. Or maybe we gave them up willingly. No clues.”

“Inconvenient,” I sighed.

Her body became taller and curvier, more like her twenty two year old self. “Do you want to… resume where we left off?” She suggested, big silver eyes digging into me. “Make new… memories like we wanted to.”

“Feels a bit iffy with all of your hooks watching.”

“My hooks are always watching.” She shrugged. “From inside me. That’s their job. To notice stuff that I don’t. They’re part of me, like a hundred extra pairs of eyes. Always have been… since Neverland tore them off my soul.” She sniffed my neck. “Plus they aren’t the only curious eyes here. The fox, dragon and kitty are watching this too through Sage’s Fox Sea. Freakin’ peepers.”

“Are they now?”

“I think so,” Shady revealed, “my hooks can feel their undivided attention on us. They wanna to know about Neverland too, I bet.”

I exhaled, relaxing slightly. “Does that bother you?”

“Eh, let them all watch,” Shady purred. “Watch n’ boil in the jelly-ness feels. You’re mine and I’m yours, Ashy. Forever…. and Always.” She grinned. “We’ve spent so much time together in Neverland, ain’t nobody ever going to catch up to how tight we are.”

“Yeah,” I smiled. “Seven years of mayhem. I can’t believe we forgot our adventures. I went through puberty, grew up twice…”

Shady nodded.

The gloom intensified, the other Shadies fading into darkness. 

The air became colder, but there was a ridiculously curvy Omnid girl on my lap, wearing a dress of ferns and shells that now barely fit her. My fingers moved from her waist to her spine tracing a line from the back of her neck to her feathery tail. Shady let out a mewl-moan, curving her back, tail swishing behind her.

“Shades,” I said as I teased her tail with gentle pets. “What the fuck is Neverland?”

“Uhmmm… ahhh,” she wiggled on me. “I… I think… that it’s a… Wandjinn nest.”

“Really? The stick-figure guys I saw in Arizona?”

“Yuh… th-that’s them. I think…”

“You think?” My hands slid off her tail to knead her ample behind.

“Yuuuhu-huh,” she panted, tongue out, back curved, chest pressed against me, one of the antlers phasing through the side of my head feeling like a sprinkle of arctic wind. 

“Why do you think that?” I asked, squeezing her butt harder and making her squeal-moan softly.

“The pirates and everyone really, except for us… called this place… Ascendgard. Wandjinn Omnicorp is called Ascendia and those knobs aren’t very creative with their naming convention.”

“And the pirates?” I squeezed tighter.

“Are their… human kobold Cultivators. Ascendia markets their nests to potential followers as a place of ‘eternal ascension’… A personal heaven where their cultivator disciples… aka A-Ascendants can… Ahhh! Sacrifice various things to become less physical and more… c-closer to their divine… Mother.”

“Is that why this place is so colorful?”

“P-probably,” she shuddered as my fingers slid lower. “Ah-ahheee… The Wandjinn Ascendia Omnicorp is incredibly secretive. They… eeee… Don’t like Wendigos very much.”

“Why?” I ran my fingers from her butt to her tail.

“Ehhh-ahhh,” Shady mewled, swaying. “They… Ahh… The Wandjinn are… B-basically… The total opposite of the Frontenachii Omnicorp. We hoard artifacts in dark, personal extra-dimensional vaults where nobody can paw or see them, bind kobolds to ourselves to get stronger, rule through fear… prefer dimensions like the Deep to skulk in to spook everyone creepy-shadow style. The Wandjinn radiate light and colors… Instead of collecting and binding stuff to gain power, they get more magical… and ascend via rejection of concepts.”

“What, like Buddhist monks?”

“I guess so, yeah.” Shady answered, wriggling atop me, claws digging into the wood of the couch bench behind me. “Wendigos make themselves more m-magically Syntropic by hoarding artifacts stolen from others. Wandjinn become magically more Entropic as they sink deeper and deeper into their Astra-Sea bubble nest by sacrificing their own stuff. T-they… Ahhh… Also make their kobold Ascendants sacrifice stuff too. From what I heard ‘bout their whole ‘cultivation’ biz, the more stuff everyone in Ascendgard sacrifices, the more wholesome and vibrant their… ‘heaven’ becomes. Ascendia cultivators learn to project null-fields without any artifacts which makes ‘em hella dangerous enemies.”

“Like Baldie did. Right. What the hell is Sunny then?” I wondered, trying to keep myself on track which was becoming increasingly difficult with Shady making sexy noises atop me.

Shady turned head towards the dark cloud-sea, glancing at the absent horizon usually inhabited by the golden sun-child of Neverland. “I think… that Sunny is a Wandjinn Mother.”

“Hrm? She didn’t seem very motherly,” I pointed out.

“Nobody knows what Wandjinn Mothers are,” Shady said. “Since they don’t really interact with anyone and Ascendia rejects all connections, deals and offers of other Omnicorps. Theoretically… the more shit Wandjinn give up, the more powerful they become. Sunny is obviously ridiculously OP, but also… Ahhh.” She whimpered, distracted as I ran my fingers up and down her tail feathers.

“Very blank,” I filled in.

“Yessss,” she let out. “Blank. Thoughtless. Functioning like a network of switches. Uncaring as fuck. The cost of their power is… Uhh… Personally, I find it the opposite of what I want. I’d sooner chew my legs off than give up my feelings for you or my personal wants for more magical power.”

“Sunny cared a lot when you died,” I pointed out. “Cleaned up the Astral Fountain.”

“Probably as a response to a threat to her nest,” Shady said. 

“And the local reincarnation?”

“Sunny probably sees everyone in Neverland as her cultivator Ascendants, gives everyone the immortality package.”

“What else do you know?” I interrogated my cryptid girlfriend, kneading her tail and behind.

“Ahhmmmm… Nobody in Omnithornia actually understands the Wandjinn… Like, at all.”

“How do you even know this much then?”

“Occasionally Frontenachii hunters catch a weak or failed Ascendant at the edge of Ascendia Omnicorp territory. One who hasn’t sacrificed enough stuff, hasn’t earned their null-field yet, can’t dive into Ascendgard on their own.” Her expression became wry. “The weak Ascendant gets mind-scraped and we get junk-ass, often conflicting information about Ascendia. Most of it is vague hopes and dreams about immortality, cultivation, heaven… etc. Personal wishes like ‘I’ll sacrifice something stupid and become invincible and immortal’, etc.”

I continued my Wendoggo petting campaign. 

“Other Omnid sources… Ahh… Cite third-hand information at best. Half the Omnithornian scholars who study Wandjinn are working off notes from people who interviewed someone who interviewed someone who briefly touched an Ascendant’s sleeve once,” she revealed.  

“So what little we know about Sunny…”

“Is edumacated guessing dressed up in confidence.” Shady shrugged. “Sunny deffo seems more like a process rather than a person. A lamp rather than someone holding a lamp.”

“Maybe Sunny renounced her maturity for more power?” I wondered.

“Mmm… perhaps.” Shady agreed, closing her eyes to enjoy my hands roaming across her body.

“Which means that Wandjinn mothers sacrifice everything and become blank slates with cosmic power,” I mused. “What is even the point of that? What’s the end goal here?”

“Don’t ask me, I’m not a freaking Wandjinn.” Shady shrugged. “Maybe this is their mid-stage Poketman evolution thing and eventually Sunny will punch through the other side of the Astral and get reborn like a Phoenix, all powerful and also all-knowing? That’s a theory I’ve heard from Dr. Grayfield. Not sure if it holds any water though.”

“Hrm.” I smiled. “Or maybe they’re like immortal jellyfish and undulate between adult and child-like selves over millennia of cultivation or whatever?”

“Maybe.” Shady agreed, shuddering from my pets. “If Neverland denizens are to be believed, they’re all connected to Mother. Maybe they’re bits and pieces of her sacrificed psyche scattered across this entire dimension?”

“She could be a freshly rebooted Mother,” I mused. “Or maybe one who rejected too much of herself too quickly and the cycle accidentally broke partway through. Lost the old age without gaining the new purpose. So radiant whimsy is all she has left now.”

Shady leaned forward until her forehead bumped against mine, antlers framing my head from two sides. Her eyes were enormous and bright and very close. She licked my lips

“An extremely sadge vegetable state, if true,” she commented. “Either way, we should stay the fuck away from Sunny’s defensive responses. An Omnid who can create their own massive time-accelerated dimension filled with many idiot disciples and various shards of herself and hand-smother hundreds of Astral Fountains over seven years without Corpse Seekers and auto-incarnate anyone… is truly batshit powerful… maybe on a tier of the entire Frontenachii Fleet.”

“Hey… Why did the sail of the Always always get pulled in the general direction of Sunny, but like, slightly off… almost like a spiral?” I arrived at another question, glancing up at the dead, gray sail of our pirate yacht. 

“Someone who sinks this deep into the Astral with this many disciples creates a funnel of flowing magic,” Shady answered. She licked me again, then kissed me softly. “Bending this entire dimension-nest in a particular way. Like a supermassive black hole… orbited by a bunch of stars creating a galaxy-shape.”

“Wait… wait, wait,” I suddenly arrived at another theory.

“Yeah?” Shady tilted her head.

“Earth,” I exhaled. “The faded petroglyphs across America. The Canyon de Chelly spirals. The Nevada boulders. The Haida Gwaii wards. Ruth telling me to breathe like she recognized what I was seeing. Ancient sites all over Earth that look identical to Omnid rune systems.”

Shady clicked her tongue at me and blessed me with another, longer kiss.

“Modern Earth has no magic,” I continued. “You all keep ranting about how dense and linear, low-Aether this place is. Scruts have trouble reading minds here. You, always hungry without a hoard.”

“Hmmmm, yeah,” Shady voiced.

“What if Earth was Wandjinned… to the max… By Sunny,” I said. “What if Sunny… what if Neverland sucked out and is actively sucking up all of the magic from my Earth… like the sun evaporates water from the ground, creating clouds in the atmosphere?”

“A cute, if incredibly effed up theory,” Shady commented. “Buuut… Wouldn’t there be more Earths like yours if that was the case? There’s sus Wandjinn nests all over the Omniverse but they’re not magic-free to this degree.”

“Maybe Sunny succeeded where others failed?” I speculated. “Gave up so much of herself she drained all Aether from the Earth below her nest?”

“Maybe,” Shady’s claws released the bench and slid under her dress straps, snapping them and freeing her massive chest. “Don’t… Ahh… can’t care enough to think about it more. Let’s… have some fun instead”