Warning: spoilers for the New Tenneb Saga and the Stranded Saga.
Note: thanks to @chungusmybungus for letting me use his characters in the first segment!
In the dark world on the other side of life, the Death of Fluffies walks into a living room.
He’s not here to carry out his DUTY yet, he’s just here to check up on a future client.
The Death of Fluffies sees said future client perched on the couch: a stallion with brown fluff, a darker brown mane and tail, and a bad case of anal and genital trauma, sobbing to himself.
“Huu… miss mummah… huuuuuu…”
In truth, that fluffy wasn’t always one of the Death of Fluffy’s clients, because that fluffy wasn’t always a fluffy.
That fluffy started off as a human, a rather unpleasant young man by the name of Vince, who, through mysterious circumstances that will most likely remain mysterious, woke up one day to find himself in the body of a fluffy.
And unlike the extremely late Christian Ellis, Vince didn’t have to die first.
But much like Mr. Ellis, Vince enjoyed abusing fluffies when he was human. Perhaps his transformation was karma. Perhaps it was the doing of Chaos, who is one of many fans of irony. Or perhaps a passing wizard decided to teach the little bastard a lesson.
Sadly, that’s one for the ages.
Vince’s mind quickly began reforming to fit its new vessel, like water taking on the shape of the jug it’s in.
The Death of Fluffies knows all about that, seeing as he has a mind as old and vast as the universe, in a body made for giving hugs and eating pasta. A very amusing combination indeed.
And he’s not the only one who knows about it. It’s a documented phenomenon in the living world. Mages call it the Borrowing Effect, because it can happen to mages who Borrow the bodies of animals for too long. As has been explained in the past, if one spends too much time Borrowing the body of, say, a dog, one will start acting like a dog, sniffing asses and barking at the mailman, and eventually, one will forget that one is not a dog. One’s mind will be subsumed by the animal, and they’ll be unable to find their way back to their rightful body.
If they’ve Borrowed the body of a bird, they’ll probably fly off and never be seen again. It’s happened before, to foolish, reckless mages who ignored the warnings of their betters.
Even if they end the Borrowing in time, they can still be left with some lingering habits for a while. For many mages, owls are one of their least favorite animals to Borrow, because a mage who Borrows an owl will usually be trying to twist their head all the way around for days after the Borrowing.
It’s a real pain in the neck.
Not even Umbra, a repeat client of the Death of Fluffies, is immune to the Borrowing Effect. The brief period Umbra spent in the body of Timeline-1999’s Calvin ended up affecting Umbra ever so slightly, making him more… more Calvin-y, exacerbated by Umbra eating his own counterpart’s soul when he stole the body U-1999 stole first, as U-1999 had spent much more time in his Calvin’s body.
To this day, Umbra is unable to shake off the mannerisms he’s unwillingly adopted from Calvin.
It takes a strong will and a strong sense of self to prevent the Borrowing Effect from affecting one’s mind.
Clearly, Vince’s will wasn’t strong enough.
Now, he is more or less a fluffy inside and out, so he falls under the Death of Fluffies’ jurisdiction.
Vince fled his home after his transformation, and his new fluffy instincts kept leading him into trouble. There was a certain shameful incident with a dead mare that Vince would very much like to forget, which lead to his genitals being destroyed by a disgusted hobo.
Then he was forcibly recruited into a feral herd, spending his time there as a poopie fluffy, going from metaphorically eating shit to literally eating it.
When another abuser decided to kill the herd, Vince bolted again.
And just when Vince had found a nice human who he thought would be able to help him, he soon learned that he had merely gotten out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Sure, the nice man decided to adopt Vince, so Vince has a roof over his head now, and food, and toys.
But he’s, ah, got to pay a price for that. He’s got to, um, earn his room and board.
And he doesn’t have cash or grass, so ass is the only way he can pay.
His new owner has made a fundamental misunderstanding about Vince’s gender, and is either willfully ignoring a certain detail, or too stupid to tell the difference between a vagina and an anus.
Or he just doesn’t care, and thinks that a hole is a hole.
The end result is the same regardless.
When Vince hears the front door open, his ears prick up, and he sobs harder, knowing what is about to happen.
He sees his new owner walk in, a pudgy, balding man in his forties with glasses, and the man coos at Vince.
“Honeeeeey~, I’m hooo-ooome~!”
You can almost hear the sitcom laugh track, can’t you?
Most of the people in those laugh tracks have been dead for a long time. The Death of Fluffies knows that for a fact, because a colleague of his reaped them.
It’s haunting, when you think about it. All that’s left of those people is the laughter, echoing for eternity.
Naturally, neither Vince nor his owner can see the Death of Fluffies watching them. They aren’t psychic, magical, dead, undead, on drugs, small children, or in any of the other groups of people who can see the Deaths when the Deaths aren’t letting people see them.
As the man unzips his fly, the Death of Fluffies quickly waddles out through the wall.
NUP, NUP, NUPNUPNUP.
It’s not just because he can sense DUTY calling somewhere else.
It’s also because he really doesn’t want to watch what happens next.
He knows what’s going to happen to Vince. He can’t not know. To his unusual memory, the past, present and future are all one and the same, he knows everything that could happen.
That doesn’t mean he has to stick around for it, though.
Much like Vince’s new owner might be doing, the Death of Fluffies is trying hard to pretend he doesn’t know.
He’ll be back to reap Vince eventually.
A week or two into the past, deep in the depths of space, the Death of Tennebites stands on one of the few chunks of rock that is all that is left of New Tenneb.
YOU REALLY ARE A PIECE OF WORK, YOU KNOW THAT?
The Deaths exist outside of time as we know it, remember.
His client, the spirit of the late King Ternis, is huddled on the asteroid in the fetal position, laughing madly, his eyes swiveling in two different directions.
“HYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! HYAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! GHEE HEE HEE HEE HEE!!!”
Ternis’ ghostly body is bound by silvery threads to the asteroid field formerly known as New Tenneb, because by the time he died, New Tenneb itself was his body, and his original body had effectively ceased to exist.
The Death of Tennebites summons his sword, rather than his scythe. His client is-- er, was a king, and kings get the sword.
The hilt of the sword is black, and the blade is translucent, almost nonexistently thin, and glowing blue, the glowing being the result of atoms splitting on its edge. The scythes and swords the Deaths use are sharp enough to tear the soul out of the body without leaving a mark.
He swings the sword through the… well, can’t exactly say air, and it be/ /comes apparent th/ /at the sword is even sh/ /arp enough to cut the wo/ /rds on a pa/ /ge.
LOOK AT YOU, TERNIS TENNEBRYS. EVEN IN DEATH, YOU’RE COMPLETELY INSANE. THAT STONE REALLY DID A NUMBER ON YOU.
With that, he gets to work on severing the threads, Ternis still howling with mad, mindless laughter.
“GHEH… GYEH HEH HEH… HEE HEE HEE!!!”
I WISH YOU WOULD JUST SHUT UP ALREADY.
“HYAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”
UGH, WHY AM I EVEN TALKING TO THIS LUNATIC?
It’ll take a while, but time is not important to the Deaths.
Back on Earth, in the present, the Death of Fluffies waddles into an alleyway in Clermont-Ferrand, in the Auvergne region of France.
His clients, a couple of feral fluffies, are looking around for their foals, but they are, of course, bound to their former shells, so they can’t go far.
“Babbehs! Whewe am babbehs?!?”
“Wai scawy mistah take dem?!?”
Both fluffy’s corpses bear the signature signs of a vampire attack. The pinprick wounds are the obvious one.
And if you shaved all that fluff off, you’d see that the skin underneath is paler than a fluffy’s skin should be, obviously due to exsanguination.
To the Death of Fluffies’ relief, the corpses aren’t getting back up.
Whichever vampire attacked these fluffies clearly wasn’t looking for new thralls.
Henry Morris isn’t the only vampire who turned a fluffy for companionship.
Most likely, the vampire behind this was just hungry, and felt like he was too good to drink NuBlood.
Fluffy blood tastes fine to vampires, because of the human DNA in the fluffy genome. It has a rather sweet flavor, like the blood of children.
It shouldn’t have to be explained that any vampire who knows from first-hand experience how a child’s blood tastes probably isn’t one of the nice vampires.
To vampires, the blood of their own species tastes best, and satisfies the craving best. And most vampires were human in life, of course. Varney, the creator of vampirism, was human himself.
The most probable reason that the perpetrator would take the foals is to save them for later. There’s not enough blood in a fluffy foal to really sate the appetite.
It’s not up to the Death of Fluffies to deal with the vampire, or to save the foals. That will be up to the Hunter Association, who come down hard on vampires who treat the living like walking Happy Meals.
There’s an understanding: you don’t feed on people, you don’t get staked. And fluffies count as people too.
There’s no real excuse to not drink NuBlood, seeing as it’s literally given away for free.
No, the Death of Fluffies’ job is merely to pick up the pieces at the end.
As he summons his scythe, clenching it in his teeth, he addresses the spectral fluffies.
DEWE AM STIWW A CHANCE DAT YU BABBEHS CAN BE SABED.
The dead fluffies turn to him.
“Weawwy?”
“How?”
The Death of Fluffies shrugs.
IT NU AM UP TU DEATH OF FWUFFIES. AN IT NU AM UP TU YU TOO ANEEMOWE. BUT DEWE AM A CHANCE. AN EBEN A WIDDWE CHANCE AM STIWW A CHANCE.
He’s leaving out the possibility that he may be reaping their foals soon, because that would just be cruel.
As he cuts the threads, the ghostly couple fades away.
And the Death of Fluffies departs, feeling DUTY call once again.
The Death of Humans folds his arms, tapping his bony foot like a disappointed teacher.
JUST WHEN I THINK I COULDN’T FIND A DUMBER WAY TO DIE, YOU WENT AND PROVED ME WRONG. CONGRATULATIONS.
He’s standing in a basement, lit by a bare bulb like many basements he’s been in.
In one corner, there’s another family of ferals in a milk crate, hugging each other for comfort.
And in the middle of the room, one of the foals is sitting on his fluffy bum, sucking his hoof. He’s terrified, but completely unharmed.
The colt is surrounded by the wreckage of what appears to be an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine, made from all kinds of household objects.
How exactly it was supposed to work is another one for the ages.
The corpse of the man who constructed it is lying among the wreckage, a fried egg on his face. Part of the machine apparently involved a portable cooker and a frying pan.
The fried egg isn’t what killed him. The cause of death is a large kitchen knife in his chest, seemingly launched from across the room by a small catapult on the other side of the basement. There’s a balloon with a string attached floating above the body, the other end of the string tied to a small weight. Presumably, the string is what the knife was supposed to cut, in order to drop the weight on something, possibly the foal.
The man’s spirit is looking like he’s thinking very embarrassed about this, rubbing the back of his translucent head.
“Okay, that was not how it was supposed to go. Ugh, I knew I gave the windup car too many turns!”
The Death of Humans gestures around at the wreckage.
WHAT EXACTLY WAS THIS RIDICULOUS CONTRAPTION SUPPOSED TO DO? KILL THE FOAL IN SOME HILARIOUSLY OVER THE TOP MANNER?
The man’s spirit nods.
“Well, yeah.”
The Death of Humans points at the crying colt.
I CANNOT HELP BUT NOTICE THAT THE FOAL IS UNHARMED. YOU SEE THE IRONY, YES? YOU ONLY ENDED UP KILLING YOURSELF.
“Yeah, you don’t have to tell me.”
YOU KNOW, I CAN’T SAY THAT I APPROVE OF FLUFFY ABUSE, SEEING AS IT ONLY GIVES ONE OF MY COLLEAGUES MORE WORK TO COMPLAIN ABOUT, BUT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN MUCH EASIER TO SIMPLY HIT THE POOR FOAL WITH A HAMMER. THERE IS SUCH A THING AS DOING WRONG RIGHT.
The man shrugs.
“Yeah, but hitting fluffies with a hammer been done to death.”
AND SO HAVE YOU.
The Death of Humans summons his scythe and cuts the silvery thread binding the man to his former shell.
As his client moves on to the afterlife, the Death of Humans leaves the basement, walking up the stairs into the hallway, and from there, the kitchen.
Through the window over the counter, the Death of Humans can see his white horse standing in the front garden, and he can see people approaching the house, including the police.
They can see the horse too. He’s a living horse, but a horse with certain unusual properties, and one of those unusual properties is that no matter where he is, no one who sees him will question his presence. Even if the horse is somewhere a horse couldn’t possibly be.
And those people have bigger problems on their minds than an inexplicable horse right now.
The Death of Humans guesses that they heard the Rube Goldberg machine fall apart spectacularly, and are investigating the commotion.
AH, GOOD. THEY’LL TAKE CARE OF THOSE FLUFFIES.
As the police break the door down, he walks out through the wall, unseen by the living.
THE DEATH OF FLUFFIES WILL BE HAPPY TO HEAR ABOUT THIS.
Meanwhile, the Death of Fluffies walks into a seedy house in a bad neighborhood.
It’s obviously a drug den of some kind, several filthy, dishevelled people slumped around on the floor, obviously tripping balls. Not much furniture is actually in the house, and it’s probably been sold off to buy more drugs.
But he’s not here for any of them. They’re not in his jurisdiction.
He’s here for the dead feral stallion who wandered in through the open front door looking for food, and wound up consuming a fatal overdose of God knows what.
The druggies didn’t notice him, they didn’t even realize that the door was open.
The stallion’s spirit, still bound to his corpse, is trying to figure out what just happened.
“Wut did fwuffy jus num? Fwuffy cud see foweba!”
The druggies also don’t notice the stallion’s corpse, lying in a puddle of his own drool, urine, feces, blood and et cetera, his eyes bloodshot.
That’s because they’re all staring blankly at the Death of Fluffies. They’re so high that they can actually see him, and they’re trying to figure out whether he’s just part of the trip or not.
The Death of Fluffies pays them no mind, knowing that they’ll probably forget about him later, and addresses the stallion’s spirit.
DEATH OF FWUFFIES AM SUW-PWIZED DAT YU NU STIWW AM STONED. DAT AM STWONG STUFF FOW A FWUFFY.
One of the druggies mumbles an incoherent statement.
“You tell 'em… you Nazi walrus, you…”
The Death of Fluffies ignores this, and summons his scythe, reaping his client.
Before he departs, he turns to the druggies, deciding to give them some advice.
YU AWW BETTAH GIT CWEAN. OW A COH-WEEG OF DEATH OF FWUFFIES AM GUNNA BE BE COME-IN DIS WAY SOON.
He grins.
WEAW SOON.
Then he leaves, hoping they take his advice.
It’s not up to him.
Later, the Death of Fluffies returns to the domain he shares with the Death of Humans, the Death of Rats, and the Death of Woollies, the black cottage in a black field under a black sky, the only real splash of color being the field of wheat, swaying gently in a nonexistent wind.
It’s a reminder, to take good care of the harvest.
He knows that the Death of Humans is home, because he saw the white horse in the stable, and as he waddles into the black cottage, so much bigger on the inside, he sees that the door to the lifetimer room is open.
So he waddles in there, entering a room bigger than any room on Earth, rows and rows of hourglasses of all sorts of shapes, sizes and colors on black shelves.
These are the lifetimers, the ultimate metaphor for the fleetingness of life. And the ones in this room are those of the Death of Human’s clients.
That is, humans.
Duh.
You can imagine how big this room has to be. You know how many humans there are.
Every Death has a room like this in their domain. There’s other rooms like this in the cottage, where the lifetimers for fluffies, woollies and rodents are kept.
Now imagine how big those rooms have to be.
Or how big the Death of Bacteria’s lifetimer room has to be.
Mindboggling, isn’t it?
Each lifetimer has the name of the human it corresponds to engraved on it, save those who don’t have names, like newborn infants. The sands within those ones have already begun to fall.
From the moment we are born, we begin to die.
When the sands in a given lifetimer are all in the bottom half, that lifetimer vanishes with a pop, indicating that the human that lifetimer corresponds to has just died, and every few seconds, a new lifetimer, yet to bear a name, takes the place of one of the lifetimers that have vanished with another pop, indicating that another human has been born.
And as newborns in the living realm are bestowed with names, those names appear on their lifetimers. The name Calvin has become a very popular boy’s name in recent years.
Occasionally, the name on a certain lifetimer will change from a masculine one to a feminine one, or vice versa. You can probably guess why.
The Deaths don’t have to reap everyone in person. They just have to reap a few souls here and there, and that keeps the momentum going.
Of course, mages are entitled to a house call, and they even receive an advance warning, so they can get their affairs in order.
The Death of Fluffies walks among the shelves, until he finds the Death of Humans looking at one particular lifetimer.
It’s rather big, with many chambers, so utterly complex that it’s nigh-impossible to tell where it begins or ends. It looks like it was blown by a schizophrenic glassblower on acid with the hiccups.
The frame is bronze, and the sands inside it are blue, flowing up and down and all around.
And upon it is engraved the name Calvin Quinton Korkea.
AM YU WOOKIN AT DAT FING AGAIN, DEATH OF HOOMINS?
The Death of Humans turns to the Death of Fluffies.
IT’S RATHER FUN TO WATCH, DEATH OF FLUFFIES. IT USED TO BE A LOT SMALLER. I HAVE NO IDEA WHEN I’LL BE COMING TO REAP CAL.
MAWWEY WUN WOOK WIKE DAT TUU.
IF AN EXPLODING PLANET WASN’T ENOUGH TO KILL THEM, I HONESTLY DON’T KNOW WHAT IS.
WE NU CAN CAWM-PWAIN, WE WIKE DEM TOO.
YES, I’M GLAD THEY GOT HOME. I WISH WE COULD HAVE DONE MORE TO HELP THEM.
BUT WUWES AM WUWES.
I KNOW. CHAOS IS PLEASED THAT THEY’VE COME HOME, THAT’S FOR CERTAIN.
The Death of Humans points at a lifetimer almost as complex on another shelf. That one has the name Reiner Swan engraved on it.
AND THEN THERE’S MR. SWAN, WHOSE DEATH IS NEARLY AS HARD TO PREDICT AS CALVIN’S. HE’S ALWAYS HAD A KNACK FOR FINDING TROUBLE, AND GETTING OUT OF IT. BUT I THINK IT’S ALMOST DINNER TIME. LET’S SEE WHAT PHILIP HAS FRIED UP FOR US THIS TIME.
DA FWIED POH-WIDGE NU WUZ BAD.
As the two Deaths walk out of the lifetimer room, they make small talk.
SEE ANYFING GUD OWT DEWE DIS TIME?
JUST AN IDIOT WHO KILLED HIMSELF WITH AN ELABORATE HOMEMADE CONTRAPTION THAT WAS MEANT TO KILL THE FLUFFIES HE HAD CAPTURED. DON’T WORRY, I THINK THOSE FLUFFIES WILL BE TAKEN CARE OF, I SAW PEOPLE COME RUNNING ON THE WAY OUT.
REMEMBEW DAT WUN GAI HU TWY-ED TU KIWW FWUFFIES WIF A HOMESIE-MADE FWAME-FWO-UW?
WELL, IT DID KILL THE FLUFFIES WHEN THE FUEL TANK EXPLODED. HE JUST WASN’T EXPECTING IT TO KILL HIM TOO.
AT WEAST HE WENT OWT WIF A BANG.
The Death of Humans chuckles at his colleague’s pitiful attempt at humor.
YOU’RE NOT WRONG, DEATH OF FLUFFIES.