Note: read “Arguing With Myself” first.
You are Lavender, and right now, you’ve got something very important to do.
You’re at the Skoow, with your other daddeh.
Or rather, you’re under the Skoow.
Beneath the Skoow, there’s a bunch of rooms called sells.
They’re rooms for bad hoomins, munstahs and fluffies that the Kay-oh-tiks doesn’t have anywhere else to put them.
You and your other daddeh are in one of those sells, but you haven’t done anything wrong.
You’re here to talk to Umbra.
Who has done lots of things wrong.
And your other daddeh is here to make sure Umbra doesn’t give you any owwies.
You’ve been wanting to have this talk for a long time. Since before the Cwis-mus party.
In fact, you’ve been wanting to have this talk ever since the whole thing with the sky turning reddies and all of the dee-muns showing up.
After all, you’ve never really gotten the chance to actually talk to Umbra. You’ve heard a lot about him, and you’ve seen and heard about the bad things he’s done.
You’ve seen him go forever sleepies three times.
You weren’t really surprised that mistah Cal didn’t make it four times.
Even you can see that it doesn’t work.
So maybe talking will work instead? Who knows? It’s worth a shot, right?
You tried to talk to that other Umbra, the one who stole his mistah Cal’s body.
But he didn’t want to listen.
So you’re hoping that this Umbra will listen.
But, if you have to be honest, you’re not expecting it.
The two of you are in Umbra’s sell, which looks a lot like a saferoom.
But for some reason, the room is filled with golden light.
You look around at the room.
“Dat wite am pwetty.”
And Umbra is just staring at you. You can feel that he’s really bored.
“Typical fluffy stupidity. You do realise that’s an anti-magical field, don’t you? Utterly redundant, considering the gold bracelet I’m wearing…”
He wiggles a leggie, and sure enough, he’s wearing a gold bwacewet.
“…but Korkea must have been feeling paranoid. I must admit that I’m a tad confused about this visit. I was under the impression that neither of you wanted anything to do with me. Especially you, Chris.”
Your other daddeh laughs. He’s wearing his Oh-may-guh Bustah, without the, uh, the hew-met.
“I’m just here to keep an eye on you, in case you try anything stupid. Lav’s the one who insisted on making this happen.”
“Is that so?”
Umbra looks at you.
“And why did you want to talk to me so much, Lavender? Do you want to lecture me about how I could have been a good fluffy again? Because I’m really not in the mood for another round of that conversation.”
You shake your head.
“Nu. Wavendew knu dat dewe am nu point. Umbwa wan be a bad fwuffy, dat am wut yu haf chosun. But Wavendew wan knu wai yu chose dat.”
Umbra grins, but you aren’t sure why. Judging by the emotions you feel coming from him, he probably doesn’t have a lot to smile about.
“You don’t know? Hasn’t your old pal Cal told you the story? About how the Faucheuse brothers created me, and then attempted to kill me? Too bad, I’m also not in the mood to tell my life story. But I know you’re telepathic. Why don’t you just take a look through my memories, and see my past for yourself?”
“Wavendew nu wan du dat if Wavendew nu gutta. Yu may be a bad fwuffy, but yu stiww gut da wite tu men-taw pwai-vah-see.”
“Mental privacy? That’s Deston verbatim. He trained you, didn’t he?”
“Yus, but how du Umbwa knu dat?”
Umbra chuckles.
“None of your business, that’s how. Let me ask you something: why do you choose to be a good fluffy? With your powers, you could bend your owners’ minds to your will. You could turn that charming little farm you live on into your own personal fiefdom, if you felt like it.”
“Cud Wavendew weawwy du dat? Mistah Caw nu wud wike it…”
“Oh, so you’re just another of his minions, is that it? He says jump, you say how high? I simply do not get it. What is it about Korkea that makes everyone so eager to lick his boots?”
Your other daddeh laughs again.
“Well, for starters, he saved the world a bunch of times, that makes it easy to like him. Do you deliberately try to find the most pessimistic way to say things, Umbra? Or does cynicism just come naturally to you?”
“I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but I think I preferred our timeline’s Chris Oldman. Sure, he was an alcoholic, sex-addicted, fluffy-impaling demon, but at least he hated Korkea as much as I do, so he wasn’t all bad.”
“Yeah, but he’s super dead, and I’m not.”
“An dewe am a wee-sun fow dat.”
Umbra chuckles.
“Yes, because this Chris killed his demonic counterpart. You know, Chris, the O.M.A. forbids doing exactly what you did. So how did you persuade them to let you go?”
“None of your business, that’s how.”
“…Waddled right into that one, didn’t I. Oh well, it doesn’t really matter. We’re not here to talk about you, are we? You’re just the bodyguard. So why don’t you keep your trap shut, do your job, and guard that worthless purple body?”
“Don’t talk about Lav like that again.”
“Or else what? You’ll both leave? I want that. I’ve never really enjoyed the company of fluffies, barring one exception, who is technically a lot of exceptions.”
“But wai? Yu am a fwuffy.”
Umbra shrugs.
“Only on the outside, Lavender. I’m far more intelligent and refined than any other member of our pitiful race.”
“Yu weawwy nu wan be a fwuffy, huh.”
“Did trying to steal Korkea’s body not tip you off? I hate being a fluffy. I hate this useless body, with its useless stubby legs and useless marshmallow hooves. Useless, useless, useless! How does it not piss you off-- HEY!!!”
Using your floaty thing to lift Umbra up into the air, you crack a grin at him.
“Wavendew can du a wotta fings dat now-maw-wee nee handsies.”
He angrily flails his leggies, trying and failing to break free.
“Yes, you’ve made your point, now put me down!”
“Say pwease.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. Why is everyone so fixated on making me say plea-- hrrrk”
“Cuz yu neba du it.”
Your other daddeh nods, a poopie-numming grin on his face.
“You claim to be intelligent and refined, yet you can’t seem to grasp the concept of basic manners.”
“Jus say pwease, it nu am dat hawd.”
Umbra sighs.
“Please let me down, Lavender. And don’t make me say the P-word again.”
You nod, putting Umbra back on the floor.
“Yu am just gunna haf tu git yoost tu sayin pwease, Umbwa.”
“Bah! I’m tired of hearing this nonsense. I miss the days when I was calling the shots. You can’t imagine what it’s like, Lavender. To go from ruling the Order of Darkness to… to this. And being Dehak’s Royal Mage was better than this too. I used to enjoy the kinds of luxuries you could only dream of on your filthy little farm.”
Umbra starts waddling in circles around you.
“I would offer you a chance to join me, but it’s clear to me whose side you’re on. I just want you to know that you and all of your ChaotiX friends have chosen the wrong side. If you think I’m bad, you haven’t seen how bad Dehak is. You weren’t there when the ChaotiX invaded Dehakonia, were you?”
“Wavendew wuz dewe at da end. Wavendew wuz a soon-mummah at da time, su Wavendew nu cud du anee fite-in. Wavendew saw Dehak at da Fess-tih-vaw, foh.”
“Oh boy, I could tell you stories. Dehak told me a lot of them. And most of them end with something along the lines of and then Dehak killed them. Mark my words, he will find a way to Earth. And when he liberates me from this prison…”
Umbra stops waddling, staring into your see-places.
“I’ll turn you into a purple smear on the ground. But first, I’ll kill everyone on that farm of yours, and make you watch. The fluffies will go first, one by one, starting with your mate. And when your turn to die finally comes, I’ll make sure you die cursing Korkea’s name for letting me live.”
You aren’t scared by the threats. You know that mistah Cal has beaten Umbra four times, and you’re pretty sure he can do it again if he has to.
And you’ve heard what Slayer did to Umbra. Mistah Dave showed you, using his fone.
It’s kind of hard to be scared of someone after Slayer’s given them bad special huggies.
That, and you aren’t as easy to scare as you used to be.
You’ve been through a lot since you started living on the fawm.
But despite everything, you’re still you.
If this conversation had been taking place around the time of the inner-ven-shun, you’d be really scaredies.
You might even be chirping.
However, it’s taking place right now, and right now, you’re not scared at all, you’re just getting annoyed.
And you’re not easy to annoy, either!
“An den wut? Yu gib ev-wee-wun foweba sweepies?”
“Probably. If I give them the choice between death or servitude, they’ll choose death.”
Umbra tilts his head towards your other daddeh, who looks just as annoyed as you.
“See, that’s the problem with humans, Lavender: they think they’re too good to take orders from a fluffy. They find the very idea absurd. Even those humans who claim to love fluffies are still enslaving them. That superficial love evaporates the moment their pet begins to rebel. I’ve seen what humans do to fluffies who become liabilities, and smarties get the worst of it. Don’t you remember the other Chris murdering an entire herd of smarties? Did anyone mourn for them?”
“The other me got evicted for that, so it’s not like there weren’t any consequences for him.”
“I wasn’t talking to you, Chris, so be quiet. I was talking to Lavender. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it, Lav? Because you wanted to know why I am the way I am. Why I’m so bad. Really, what is it that makes me bad? Not wanting to suck up to the monkeys?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s being a sadistic bastard who does nothing but hurt people that makes you bad. I know, it sounds ridiculous, but–”
“I said be quiet, Chris.”
Your other daddeh laughs yet again.
“Why should I? You’re not the boss of me. If you think you can order me around, you’re talking to the wrong Chris Oldman.”
“An daddeh am wite. Umbwa am bad cuz Umbwa wike duin bad fings.”
Umbra scoffs again.
“Oh, and who is deciding what is good and what is bad? The monkeys, that’s who. You see? Every aspect of our lives is decided by humans! We live and die based on their whims! And objecting to that makes me the villain? The entire damn system is rigged against fluffies! It’s been rigged from the very beginning! And the only way to change that is by force!”
“Dat nu am twoo. A wot haf changed fow fwuffies.”
“Yeah, Umbra. Don’t you know that fluffy abuse has been banned around here? It’s been illegal in this state for a while now. And it’s being banned in a lot of places.”
“And yet such changes still depend on the humans to happen. The average fluffy can’t really do anything to improve their lot in life on their own. Because most fluffies don’t have any power, like Lavender and I do.”
“If yu weawwy cawe abowt dis, yu cud yoos yu powahs to hewp fwuffies. Wike we du.”
Your other daddeh gives Umbra an angry look.
“But you don’t care. You’ve openly admitted that you don’t give a damn about other fluffies.”
Umbra scoffs.
“Not this lecture again! Why does everyone keep spewing that tripe at me?!?”
At this point, you lose your temper.
“CUZ YU JUS NU WIWW FUKKIN WISSEN, UMBWA!!!”
In fact, you get so angry that you accidentally use your floaty thing to send everything in the room floating up into the air.
Including your other daddeh and Umbra.
“Woah, Lav! Where’d this come from?”
“Now you know how I felt, Chris.”
“Shaddup, Umbra. Lav, sweetie, can you put us down now, please?”
“Oh, wite.”
As you calm down, you gently put them both back on the floor, and start lowering everything else to the floor too, one thing at a time.
It’s a bit hard to move lots of things with the floaty thing at the same time on purpose.
Like, uh… how did mistah Cal put it? Like the dai-wemmah with the little long buggy munstah with lots and lots of leggies, that can’t walk anymore when it starts thinking about how it moves all of those leggies.
You don’t know what most kinds of buggy munstahs are called. Some fluffies might like buggy munstahs, but you are not one of those fluffies.
Mistah Eddy thought it was really funny when he heard that you don’t like buggy munstahs. He said something about buggy munstahs being “soopah eff-eck-tif” against you, and you had no idea what he was going on about.
It had something to do with poking someone on.
You don’t know who is being poked, or on what.
It’s possible that you might have misheard mistah Eddy.
Once you put the stuffy friends of mistah Cal and Marley down, the last floating things, you sigh.
“Wavendew am sowwy abowt dat. Wavendew jus… jus wost Wavendew coow.”
Your other daddeh kneels down and strokes you.
“It’s okay, Lav. It’s perfectly understandable. Umbra’s got a knack for pissing people off. So try not to let him get to you again, alright? It’s what he wants.”
Then your other daddeh stands up straight, and points at Umbra.
“Lav is right, you know. Trying to reason with you is like banging our heads on a brick wall. You keep acting like this, you’ll be in here for a long time. I don’t think it’ll surprise you if I tell you that Cal’s been watching this little chat.”
“No, it doesn’t surprise me. Korkea seems to have made a pet project out of trying to, ha, redeem me, and I’m sure you two won’t be the last of his lackeys he ropes into this. But I like myself the way I am now. I could do without this gaudy cell, but I’m sure help is on the way as we speak.”
Then Umbra smiles at your other daddeh, in a way that unsettles you for a reason you can’t quite describe.
It’s like…
Like he knows something that you don’t know.
Something he thinks is really funny.
Something that might be really important.
And you can’t help but wonder…
How hard would it be to see what he’s thinking?
While he’s smiling up at your other daddeh, you seize your chance, and look into his pure red see-places, hearing his deep raspy voice in your head.
“Just wait until Dehak gets here, Oldman. He could be on Earth right now. You stupid ChaotiX monkeys don’t even know about the other passage-- wait. GET OUT OF MY HEAD, LAVENDER!!!”
You wince as Umbra forces you out.
“Gnh! How did Umbwa–”
Umbra glares at you.
“Did you really think that I wouldn’t detect your presence in my mind, Lavender? You sneaky little bitch, thinking you could slip past my psychic defences while I was distracted. Get out. The interview is over.”
Then he shuts his mouth, turns around, waddles away, sits down and stares at the wall.
You look up at your other daddeh, and he shrugs.
“Let’s just get going, Lav.”
“Otay, daddeh. Wavendew gut anudda twain-in sesh-un wif Nawdos, aneeway. An, uh, Wavendew gutta teww mistah Caw sumfin.”
“This… didn’t really go the way you hoped it would, did it?”
You waddle over to him, placing a hoof on his shiny boot. His Bustah has a blooper in it.
“Nu, nu weawwy.”
Before he bloops you both out, you look over at Umbra again, still looking away from you.
“But it went da way Wavendew ess-peck-ted.”
And just before you both vanish, you’re sure you hear Umbra sigh and mutter something.
“Don’t say a word.”
Who is he talking to–
blip