entrancelogs | [OPEN] And if it ever starts to feel bad, little fang

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[OPEN] And if it ever starts to feel bad, little fang

Who: Chara, you, hey can you bring napkins
Where: OFF TO NEVER-NEVERLAND
When: Throughout the event
Rating: PG for potential violence? Will edit if necessary.
Summary: Chara is a ten-year-old with a violent resentment toward humans and grown-ups. So basically, business as usual.
The Story:

[A - Remember that your gifts are your game]

Adults.

Chara hates adults. Despises them, from the very pit of their soul. They thought they were safe in Wonderland, that they could live forever among kids who get it, kids who understand, kids like them. But now grown-ups have come, like they always do. Come to drag them back into the dark, kicking and screaming. Come to take them away and lock them up and make them pay for misbehaving.

Ha. They're welcome to try.

Chara has marked their face with warpaint, vicious streaks of berry-red slashed across their rosy cheeks. Two stripes, one on each side, going up toward their eyes. Don't know why, but it felt right. Powerful. They clutch a knife with a blade coated in dreamshade and carry jagged little rocks in their pockets. They're not alone now, not in Neverland. They have something to lose now. Something to defend. And they're going to defend it to the death.

They've scrabbled up into a tree, a smear of green shirt and brown hair hidden in the foliage. They know someone's bound to come by sooner or later. They left a trail, a deliberate and obvious track of snapped twigs and bruised ferns, to bait an intruder this way.

All they have to do is listen, watch, wait until the right moment. Then... they pounce.

[B - The melody sings what the words can't say]

[They'll never, ever, ever admit it, but sometimes, the Lost Ones sort of yearn for something that's missing. Something indefinable and out of reach, made of faint memories of comforting songs and warm baking and bedtime stories.

Not that Chara would know. They never feel that.

But they... sometimes something seizes them, they guess. An urge to be something they aren't? No - not that. They're just bored. They're...

They're making a blanket.

Two sticks that their knife carefully whittled down to straight, smooth evenness, yarn from - they can't remember where it came from, where did it come from again? - and the comforting, zen repetition of row upon row of garter stitch. They don't even know who needs one most, who this one is gonna be for. It's not like they could ever work fast enough to make one for every kid. But one kid, at least, can have a security blanket, if they work hard.

Maybe they'll ask Frisk. Frisk would probably know who needs one. They mull it over as they sit on a stump, looping together row after row together.]

[C - But they might laugh and they might be scared]

They don't like the night.

It's not that Chara's afraid of the dark. It's just... they're a light sleeper. Lost Ones whimper in their sleep, cry in the dark sometimes, snore or mumble or kick as they slumber. The forest is full of animal sounds and rustling branches. Always, always, they curl up as small as they can make themselves and hope and hope that nothing creeps in through a window, crawls its way in through a door, slides to where they sleep and extends a spidery roving hand up their leg and -

They don't sleep too good, a lot of nights.

So they take night watch. They never get tired. Their bedtime is never. And they're not scared of the dark. May as well be useful to someone, if they're going to be up anyway. Tonight's another night where they keep a vigil, feeding twigs and sticks to a campfire to ward off the nighttime chill and illuminate the camp.

Maybe you can't sleep tonight, either. Maybe you're an intruder, making your way to the flickering beacon of a distant campfire. Whatever you are, you can find them here.

[Wild Card
[Any other prompts you'd like to use!]

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"...I don't know," they admit. It sort of feels like they shouldn't be able to find yarn at all out here, maybe? Or like... not this yarn in particular? Because their stash is... because it came from...

They knit (ha ha) their brows together, scrunch their nose up. Don't think about it. Doesn't matter where it came from, doesn't matter how they know to do this. Doesn't matter who taught them to do something with their hands that wasn't picking or scratching or breaking or ripping or destroying, destroying, destroying. Doesn't matter who they were thinking of when they made sure not to whittle the points of the needles too sharp, because they don't need to be sharp. They're not supposed to hurt when you press them into the pads of your fingers.

"It's not like it's hard to do, anyway. I bet you could do it just as fast as I could if you learned how. All you're really doing is just making loops and counting."

He sees the look on their face and decides not to press. It's never a good idea to press, not when it comes to Lost Ones.

He grins a little and shakes his head when they suggest he could do the same.

"oh, heh. no way, not me. i'm no good at..." Anything. "...stuff like that. and, i think the string--i mean the yarn would probably get all caught on my hands."

Lots of little bones to get trapped on. He'd probably never be able to untangle himself. Just resign himself to having permanent mittens.

"yeah. i think i'll weave the knitting to you. hee. since you're already good at it."

"Not necessarily. I bet your, uh, your spaces? I bet they'd be great for intarsia work. You'd have no trouble keeping all the strands from getting twisted if you just ran them through..." They trail off halfway, realizing that once again they're spouting words that don't mean anything to him. He's already said he's not interested, so why would they bug him by going on and on about it, right? Knitting is boring, knitting is women's work, he's a boy and knitting is for girls and only a girl would...

They bite down on the end of that thought, crush it to bits, but they can already feel their rosy cheeks going hotter and hotter.

"If I had better string," they blurt hastily, changing the topic, intentionally getting it wrong because yarn's not really like string at all, sure they're twisted fiber strands but calling it "string" just grates on their own nerves but who even cares, that's so unimportant, god. "I would... I'd make a net. Or - or snares. Traps. Warfare stuff! To catch grown-ups!"

He blinks at them. "huh? what kind?" He's totally lost. They must be talking about some kind of knitting, right? Huh...so maybe there's a type he'd actually be good at?

It'd be weird to be good at something.

They're starting to look like maybe he said the wrong thing, though. Their voice gets a bit louder.

"um. i guess that would be good. seeing as...i guess we're at war now? or s-something?" He's been trying hard not to think of it in those terms. "War" means people are going to die. "but, um. you've made blankets before, right? i think that was you? like, for some of the other kids. um, i think that's pretty good too. a lotta people here can make traps but, i guess maybe, um, you might be the only one who can knit, maybe, so..."

He trails off, hunching a little. He's rambling. No one likes a chatterbox. He looks away, expecting Chara to start laughing or snap at him.

Another forceful yank of the reins, and they crush down the eager answer - intarsia is when you do shapes and patterns and different colors, and even if you only have two colors you can't just use two balls of yarn, some shapes mean you have to have multiple balls of the same color and one ball of the different color in the middle, and - nobody cares.

What matters is that you're useful. What matters is that a person who earns their keep isn't a leech, an ingrate, an undeserving parasite. Someone that they'll all get sick of, and replace with someone less broken. Who cares how it's done? Just keep supplying something useful.

"Anyone could do this," they mumble quietly, though it's a little bit of an uneasy thing to admit. "If I, I dunno, fell into a sewer and vanished, then someone else could pick up right where I left off, and the blankets would all look the same. It's not special. I'm not special. It's just... nobody else is willing to do it."

Sans digs his hands deeper into his pockets. This always happens when he talks to other Lost Ones. He's just...he's not good at this. They seem upset now. It's probably his fault.

He scuffs a toe against the ground, staring at an interesting pile of leaves.

"um, but...i think maybe that's the point? th-that no one else is willing to do it? but kids need blankets. no one really thinks about that kind of stuff. so, s-so i guess it's nice that someone is..."

He rubs the back of his head, sort of starting to disappear into his jacket.

"b-but you don't have to listen to me."

He's nobody, after all. Just a stranger. Some random skeleton kid who keeps talking despite his better judgment.

No one else tries.

"Before Pan's shadow took me away," They blurt, a cold, blunt bitterness behind their words, "I was surrounded by people who didn't really think about that kind of stuff. If a kid asks for help, then just look away and wait for someone else to help, right?" Helping is hard, is inconvenient. Easier to say that they must have done it because they had your best interests at heart. Easier to say that it's part of God's plan for you, so it's happening for a reason.

Just focus on the knitting. Focus on the soothing repetition. Don't get angry. Nobody wants to see attention-starved histrionics.

"Like you don't deserve to be heard if what you have to say isn't useful. You don't deserve to be warm or eat or get a ride home unless you've earned the right. It's always about what you owe them. If they aren't getting something out of it, then..."

Shut up, Chara. Shut up. Shut up.

"...I thought being here meant that we wouldn't have to live like that anymore. I don't want any of us to live like that."

People don't usually talk about before coming to Neverland. It's almost taboo, at least as far as Sans knows. He doesn't know all the ins and outs of Lost One etiquette. But people usually tell you to shut up if you ask about their history, or if you start talking about your own.

He's not going to tell them to shut up. He's always figured that if someone else is going to offer, that's their business.

"...yeah." His hands fidget in his pockets. "i know what you mean."

He's come to understand that the majority of the monsters back home were genuinely better than humans, or at least that they were better than the sample of humans he's heard about in Neverland. Not the Lost Ones themselves. The rare times they open up and actually talk, mention why they must have heard the music. Adults. Parents. People who gave up, or couldn't hack it, or hurt them, or worse.

Monsters aren't like that. Monsters don't hurt their kids, not that Sans has ever heard of. The worst they ever do is...

"if you're not useful or...good enough. if you're just making someone look bad. or it's too much trouble..."

Because you're always sick, you're always stuck in bed, you're always either Falling Down or on the verge, and none of the doctors or healers can explain why, can find a cause. Because you're an embarrassment, a freak, a runt, a weakling, proof of the failure of the species.

And your little brother is better, a thousand times better, but they hold their heads and watch him crawl and run and they say he gives them a headache, that they can't keep up, they can't deal with one who's too slow and too weak and another that's too fast and too loud. They can't. They can't do it. And it's your fault.

Stop. He has to stop.

He hates thinking about this.

"it's not much different here. i think it's better here for a lot of people. but not everyone."

"Sometimes I think there's no such thing as better," they mutter softly. Why would they say an ingrateful thing like that? They're away from that awful before. They're never going back there. Those adults can't hurt them anymore.

So why aren't they better?

"Are we wanted here? Or are we just not inconvenient to keep around?" If other kids try to hurt them, they're strong enough to hurt back. They can fight better than lots of kids. They can hunt the trespassers relentlessly. They can make blankets. They're valuable, because of the things they can do for people. The only thing people care about, right? What they can pry out of you. You're no better than a servant, and you have to know that, because you'll never survive without us controlling you. You can't be trusted to decide things for yourself, because all you do is take and take and never give. Wither everything you touch.

They give their head a vicious shake.

"Never mind. That's stupid. It's different here, right? It's not about just being useful."

He hugs himself a little, then adjusts it to just fold his arms so he doesn't look quite so pathetic.

"maybe not."

Maybe there is no better. Maybe this is just it.

He watches them for a moment without fully looking at them. Are we wanted here? It's different here, right? He doesn't think they're asking for real answers. He thinks they're asking for a lie. A nice lie.

They're fine. They're useful. He knows they can fight, and they make blankets. It might be a jungle here, but it still gets cold. This isn't even something they should have to worry about.

"y-yeah. i guess. it's different here."

They glance at Sans. Don't really know much about him. The monsters don't talk to them a lot, except for Toriel. But Toriel's one of the best kids here, so maybe when monsters aren't scared of you, they're actually the best thing there is. It's pretty obvious that he's just trying to tell them what they want to hear. He doesn't believe it. His voice falters when he answers, he pads it with an "i guess," he grips himself in a way that screams that he's trying to make himself as small as possible without being too obvious about it.

"I don't like it when people lie to me," they answer. "Even if the truth's ugly, I want the truth." They'd hated the guessing games most of all, back in that horrible, wretched before. Never knew when whatever came out of their mouth was the wrong thing, and they got put in their place for it. Getting scolded and yelled at one moment, being coddled and plied with ice cream and told we love you so much, we just want to do what's best for you, we just want you to grow up right the next, getting pressured to show just how much you love them, just how grateful you are. Not trusting what you thought or felt at all because you were always told it was wrong, those other kids don't get you, they're lying to you, they don't appreciate you like your family does. What you think you feel is all wrong. Listen to Mom and Dad, they know you better than anyone.

They don't ever want to be strung along again. Even getting dropped completely is better than dangling from a thin, fraying thread, never getting to know how fragile it really is.

"If it's different... are you happy here? You're away from the bad stuff, right? You should be happy. You should be excited. You're already free."

They look at him. He realizes they don't believe him even before they speak.

Their voice is quiet, normal, but the words still make him shrink back a little. Nothing feels quite like being caught in a lie. The odd combination of embarrassment and shame and the dread of retribution. The desire to protest, dig in deeper, even though that just makes the lie even less stable.

It wasn't even a particularly good lie. He was barely trying.

"s-sorry."

What is he supposed to say? Of course it's hard in Neverland. Of course surviving here is tough, of course everything is a constant struggle. At least they're all alive. At least they have somewhere to call home. At least there's food, and for the most part no one is trying to kill you.

He has no real right to complain. A parasite shouldn't complain. It should just be happy that it's allowed to stay instead of being brutally removed.

"you're okay. you're okay cause...cause you can do that." He gestures at the knitting. "cause it's useful. um. even if you say anyone can do it. you're the only one who does. and, and i know you fight good too. so, you've...you can do stuff. you can pull your own weight and be part of 'em. you're not weak. if you're weak, here, you..."

You either die, or you're allowed to continue. Maybe one person in a dozen will help you. They'll almost always expect something in return.

"i'm..." Happy. But they don't like it when people lie to them. "i should be happy."

He should be. He's alive, he has friends, he has a home, he has things that he likes to do. He makes jokes. He's smiling all the time. He should be happy.

Why can't he just be happy?

"I should be happy too," they snort. And yet, are they? They're away from what they hated most, so isn't that enough? They're lucky enough to be useful. That's more than enough. As long as you can earn your keep, as long as you can prove you're grateful for what you're given, as long as it's worthwhile to keep you around, that's as close to secure as a tumour like you could ever hope for. Don't be such an ingrate. Don't be so greedy for more things than you really deserve.

You'll never, ever deserve stability or safety.

"Sometimes I think maybe kids like us will NEVER be happy."

They ignore the way that makes their head itch.

"Come over here," they instead insist. "I'll show you how to do this. Maybe you don't like it or think you'll be good at it, but it doesn't take a lot of energy or concentration once you learn how to do it. Then you can be useful too."

Then...they're not happy? Even though they're useful? Even though they help people? Even though, theoretically, the other Lost Ones like them and see them as part of the group--part of the family?

Maybe kids like us will never be happy.

It makes his skull feel a bit funny. But maybe they're right. You'd think they would, should be happy. And he knows he should be happy, just being alive and just having even two friends who care that he's alive. He's happy sometimes, and he imagines that Chara must be happy sometimes too, maybe.

So why aren't they happy?

Maybe there's something wrong with both of them. Or maybe it's just that happiness isn't always that simple.

"really?" He blinks at them in surprise. "you would? i mean...it's okay?"

"I wouldn't have offered if it wasn't okay," they answer. "If people are going to say you can't do useful things, then you just have to MAKE yourself useful. Find a way to do it, to spite them."

Which is, of course, the noblest possible reason to survive. Purely out of spite.

They quickly finish their row off, then show him the needle with all the work on it. "I don't know if I'll be much good at tutorials, but do your best to follow along. You're basically going to be making rows and rows of loops, shuffling the work from one needle to another as you go. Since this is garter, all you need to know is how to knit. Watch closely. The loose bit of yarn leading back to the ball is your working yarn. You'll probably want to wrap it around your hand in whatever way is comfy for you - you want a degree of control over how taut it is. Now, to knit, slide your empty needle through a stitch, so that it's behind the full one. They should make an x-shape. Take your working yarn and wrap it around the back needle, so that it comes out in between the two needles - you know, like it's dividing the stitch in half. Next, bring the empty needle downward. Poke it under the stitch, at the side of the loop that's facing you. Then tug upwards, so that the stitch slides off your full needle completely. You should have a new stitch resting on your active needle."

They go through the motions as they explain, going slow and trying to exaggerate the movements. They know it might take a little practice to grasp.

"I'm certain that you're capable of it. Whoever suggests otherwise - whether they came from here or from... whatever was before - is, frankly, full of bullhonkey. With patience, you have the power to create."

He doesn't actually approach until they start talking, and it's slow. He scoots on closer the more the talk as he tries to see what they're actually demonstrating. It's all actually...really fascinating. It seems incredibly complex, and he knows his fingers won't be that dexterous, but it's still fascinating to watch. The needles click together, one dips down, in, the needles make an X, the yarn comes up and off and suddenly there's another stitch there.

It's like magic.

By the time they finish he's crouched nearby, leaning forward and watching their hands intently.

"that's...really, really cool..."

You have the power to create. Even someone like him? With patience, they say...he's pretty good at patient. Patience is waiting, saving your energy for the right moment, being slow and careful. He's good at that.

"can you sh..." He pauses, shrinking slightly, expecting annoyance and frustration before he even finishes the question. People hate repeating themselves. "sh...show me o-one more time? sorry..."

"I wouldn't be able to make any progress if I didn't," they point out. "Knitting is nothing but doing it one more time, approximately eight thousand times."

They stick to an objective, logical reason, because some part of them kind of... ha ha, they know, don't they? They know what it's like to expect that asking questions might fray someone's patience too much, might earn you five across the face for playing dumb just to bother them. Know what it's like when speaking up just gets you ridiculed, laughed at, scorned, when nobody will believe you anyway.

They know, too, that after you've gotten used to that, you no longer know how to respond to reassurance. It feels fake, too good to be true, too alien to trust for even a second. "Oh, I don't mind at all, it's totally fine" just feels like a lie. So they try to be logical about it. See, it makes sense to show him again.

So they repeat the motion, do another stitch. Again with careful slowness, occasionally tugging on the working yarn just to call attention to where it goes, pausing briefly at the various phases just so he can get a clear look at what the yarn looks like when you're halfway done. "It took me lots of tries too, I think. Sometimes I'd set it down in the middle of making a stitch, and it was like my head went blank. I couldn't recognize what step I was on for the life of me."

"oh...heh. that...makes sense."

Of course they have to continue. Hah. Now he just feels kind of silly.

But they still do it nice and slow so he can see all the motions, the up and down movement of the needles, the way they shift the yarn around. They don't have to do this. They really don't. They don't have to be bothering with him at all.

They could have told him to just go away ages ago now, but they haven't.

"yeah...it seems really complicated. um...but, thank you for showing me. i, um. it's nice of you."

"I'm not a nice person," they refute, doing another stitch with continuing slow, demonstrative deliberateness. "I'm scary. I'm a bully. I'm - "

Not exactly the greatest person.

Kind of a mild insult. They could think of worse. But that string of words... they think it, and it's like their chest caves in a little. They frown down at their knitting, lapse back into their usual automatic pace without really intending to.

"I'm a parasite, too," they instead say. "No one wanted me. Being born only made things worse for everyone. I just took and took and wrecked things for everybody who put up with me."

Past tense. Ha ha. Like it's at all past tense.

"So..." They trail off, shrug. They get it. Do they really need to say out loud that they get it? They're all Lost. They're all Lost for a reason.

He shakes his head.

"um...you might be kind of intimidating? but i don't think you're a bully. if you were, you woulda been mean to me by now."

Which might be a pretty pathetic thing to say, but it's also the truth. Bullies like to pick on the weakest kids more than anyone else, and Sans makes it pretty easy.

He's quiet for a bit after that. No, they don't need to get into the details. They get it; he gets it. Everyone who's here gets it on some level.

He tries to think of something to say.

"well...you haven't made anything worse for me, yet. so. you're okay."

"Yet," they repeat, laughing. It's a caveat he includes on purpose, and it's a caveat they know all too well. At best, they're a time bomb, a minefield. Nothing good can last. Something sets it off, and everything goes to ash.

"Do you want to try doing some stitches, or do you want to watch a little longer?" They ask, breezily moving on. Focusing on practical things is always easier. Tasks to fulfill. Jobs to finish. "The best way to learn this is by doing. It will become muscle memory, eventually. You just have to train your hands."

He smiles faintly. No point in saying that it's not really about them. He holds everyone at arm's length, at least everyone who's not from the Underground. It certainly isn't just Chara. Humans are vastly more powerful than monsters, and most of them here probably don't even realize it. There probably aren't that many of them that even realize just how easily they could kill him, completely by accident. He never would have survived this long here without the spring.

"i'd...is it okay? i'd like to try, but i'll probably make mistakes. and it's a blanket for someone else, so i wouldn't want to ruin it. if i did mess up--is that the sorta thing you can go back and fix? or is it permanent?"

It just doesn't look like you can undo those stitches once they've been made.

"Nothing in knitting is permanent until you bind off. Er, that's the thing you do at the very end to seal the stitches off. You can either tink - that's knit backwards, get it?" They demonstrate, digging the needle in below a newly-made stitch and unravelling it. "Or, if you really mess it up, there's always frogging. It's called that because you take it off the needles and rip it, rip it."

Ha. Get it? And they say knitting is a boring hobby.

"This blanket isn't really for anyone in particular just yet, anyway. You could say it's for you, if you wanted. Then it wouldn't matter if you didn't do it perfect, unless you want something flawless for yourself." They hold out the needles, waiting for him to take them or change his mind. "Mistakes, however, are an inevitable part of the process. That's why knitting is a nice hobby. No matter how intricately-woven or solid it looks, it's just a single strand of yarn. It can always be undone."

He blinks and gives an almost startled little grin.

"oh man. i didn't realize that knitting had puns. that makes it even better."

Rip it, rip it. That's a really good one. Even the Froggits back home would appreciate that, and they don't usually have the best sense of humor.

He very carefully takes the needles when offered, a little surprised at the weight. Who knew an intricately woven bundle of yarn could be heavier than it looks? But he supposes that makes sense. Blankets can be pretty heavy, after all.

Mistakes can always be undone. He gives a decisive nod.

"okay. so..."

He attempts his very first stitch. It's very slow and he pauses several times to make sure he's doing it right, concentrating harder than he probably has to. Down, up, yarn comes around...

He's very tentative as he pulls the completed stitch from one needle to the other and tugs it tight.

"is that right? it...looks right..."

They smile. Of course knitting has puns. Knitting is a pure hobby. An investment of hours upon hours, focus, concentration. You don't invest yourself in something that time-consuming unless there's love in it. Puns, too, are pure humour. The kind that relies only on wordplay, on bending the meaning of words. The kind of laughs where nobody is the butt of the joke, nobody gets stepped on, nobody gets hurt. Better than slapstick. Better than shock humour or roasts or your-mom jokes.

Maybe not better than self-deprecating jokes. Grave humour. It's okay when it's turned on yourself. Nobody else's feelings are hurt, and everyone knows you must be doing alright if you can still laugh at yourself.

"Yes, that's exactly right! Trust your judgment. You'll know how to read your knitting with practice. If something is wrong, then it will show." Something they'd learned the hard way. Too many times wrapping the yarn around both needles instead of one, then wondering why they had acquired an "extra" stitch. Too many times dropping stitches. Too many times purling where they were supposed to knit.

"Keep going," they suggest. "The more you do it, the more confidence you'll gain. The more natural it will feel. The more you will get a feel for what a successful stitch looks like. It's like playing an instrument; you need to train your hands. Once you've done that, it's almost intuition."

wrapped?

punful - 2016-11-07 20:06 (UTC) - Expand

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[OPEN] And if it ever starts to feel bad, little fang

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abuse allusion cw

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christ the unintentional metaphors in this tag

boy howdy

hoo boy

golly gee

wrapped?