HelloHound

Story cover! I commissioned it  :)

Less than a week before this whole nonsense is dealt and done with, as the schedule had been moved up by like, a lot. Some rich guy decided to muscle in on the ceremony of a town in the middle of nowhere like he was some kind of ‘high-roller’ as Brunhild put it. I don’t see how the height of rolling really impacts why we now have to deal with some kid we never met. Based on how the Ritugam was pulled up almost a month ahead of when it was supposed to, he’s not a patient brat.

Everybody’s up in arms about it, talking about how Kensington was offering enough to build a whole new church in return for humoring his demands. What’s a systematically and religiously significant ceremony based on the gifting of awe-inspiring powers in front of the all-mighty gold? Especially in Ogren, not much money passes through here most of the year except for festivals and harvest season. Or…just harvest season. It’s like fun is banned here by order of the viscount.

It’s been a while since I last, ahem, expelled my cubes and I’m feeling a little off. My fingers have been…dripping. Just a little. It’s nothing big just yet, only a little when I clench my fists but it goes downhill fast; I need to hide away somewhere, get rid of what’s built up, then go rat hunting for the fifth time at Daffodil’s ‘request’.

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“Child, I apologize for the inconvenience but,” Daffodil’s long eyebrows crinkled helplessly, “we can’t have any squeaking during the ceremony.” 

Again with the squeaking; who is this guy fooling? I’d snark in reply but I currently have a cube on my tongue. Let’s leave while I still can.

“Hrm,” I reply shortly, then turn to flee as a delicate hand lands on my shoulder with all the gravity of a boulder. I freeze, then turn to look at the placid, smiling face of my enemy.

“Sybil.” The hand tightens, “It would be uncouth to leave the sanctuary without paying proper respects.”

I turn and bow lowly, palm on my chest as my left arm rested on my back. I swallowed thickly, feeling the cube recede slowly down my throat, almost sulkily. I cough lightly to test if a cube pops out in front of the priest and when it’s clear I am not about to not-vomit the void I speak:

“Praise to the capricious, to the kind and the cruel.”

Nodding benevolently, Daffodil smiled and waved me out as I exceeded my last record of running out of the church’s elaborately carved doors. I feel my throat seizing and I feel the need to burp, or cough. Ugh, this is a gross feeling, like I have a bubble in my chest. I open my mouth with a bit of an ‘urp’  and I quickly cover it as I rush down the road, avoiding the eyes of people passing by, hoping that they read the situation and leave me be.

Too many people are out, I can’t go to the woods in time before I cube out and that would be in full view what seems to be the entire fucking town. I hate the Ritugam so much right now I swear to Urthis.

Halfway from the church and the orphanage, there’s an old shed, used mostly by hunters and guards during the winter. Sometimes I use it to hide away from chad and his group of goons but to be honest, the place was a dump, dusty, and drafty with all sorts of rats and such passing through like it was some kind of marketplace.

“>Fuckin’ douchebag.<” I cussed out Daffodil and his entire flowery family line. If he wanted to fuss about ‘hearing rats’ then he should have had his head shoved into one of the shed walls. Bet a couple rats would be interested in introducing themselves to him. Fuckin’ douchebag.

I disinterestedly stare at the goopy pile forming at my feet and sinking into the dirt floor just as the topmost part of the goop halfheartedly forms cube-like shapes before escaping into nothingness. Despite the bowl-sized puddle that I last gave, I still felt…full. Let’s keep talking, but what about?

“>The more I’m told that everything will turn out right, the more I distrust it.<” I confess before slacking my jaw and imitating a walking dead I found in the woods once. “Uuugh” I groan like a corpse, raising my arms playfully. 

Then I coughed as small yet very solid cubes fell out of my mouth fully formed. They almost clinked against each other as they fell against the ground, then disappeared. What was strange is that instead of sinking in, the solid cubes popped into thin plumes of smoke, causing my nose to wrinkle.

“>Tickles…<” I murmur to myself, then spit out the final cube which was the usual jiggly texture, thank goodness. It rolled softly from my tongue onto my outstretched hand, right as the door slammed open as Chad stepped in.

I yelped in surprise and flailed as the still airborne cube was smacked from its determined destination where it made an audible ‘splat’ onto the blond boy’s face.