Telltales

"That shouldn't matter... but... I've been surprised before."

As they got deeper and deeper into the humid, hot, black-leaf
forests of Mu'siir, the telltales became decreasingly forthcoming.

"One thing's for certain," said Faern, the rainbow-furred raccoon.
"Whoever fashioned this was tasked by the fates to waste our
daylight and our holy water, or, he or she or it or zee was an
imbecile."

Kosk, the black-furred fennec fox, said, "Patience; Wisely, and
Slow. It is Here. It will Serve as all the others have."

The raccoon and the fox stood together at a fork in the old road.
Presently, the raccoon with the rainbow fur stood on its hind
legs, and tapped one clawed hand rapidly, rhythmically, against
its grey leather jacket; It drew a dagger, twirled it about its
digits once, twice, thrice, and a fourth time, as the other hand
tapped, and then it dropped the dagger back into that dagger's
sheath, on the hip; Its other daggers (all three in sheaths sewn
along the back) called out to their puppetmaster, their maestro,
singing, "Dance with us, Dance with us; Let us dance, Let us
dance;" The raccoon ignored the other daggers for the time being,
and in fact stopped tapping its clawed rainbow hand against its
grey jacket. The fennec fox, plumed in black fur, clad in a black
cloak, helmeted with a black, wide-brimmed, and pointy-topped hat,
ornamented with a necklace of black bones strung together on black
cord, seeing with black eyes, smelling with a black nose, hearing
with black ears, and standing against a forest of black leaves and
black dirt, was invisible; She stood on all fours, black pawpads
standing on black dirt; The infinitesimal liminal space between
her feet and the ground was as though four soft moons orbited a
fertile planet in a universe without suns; She sniffed, and, by
the smell of lilac flowers in the air, she was reassured that
their work on the telltale was accomplishing something; Their work
on the telltale was not, yet, sadly, accomplishing what they hoped
for, but, even still, it was clear to the fennec fox that the
stones laid out before them were not dead and unpetitionable
things.

All around Faern and Kosk, the woods were not silent. The chirping
of insects was a thick blanket over the rolling hills. The birds
(singing, shouting, shouting, waiting,) came across as eager for
all with ears to know them well.

Kosk, as much as possible, preferred to observe, and not to be
observed; Earlier in their journey, when they had trekked across a
desert and Eric had still been in their good company, Kosk had
made her hair, cloak, hat, and so forth, to be the colors of the
sands. Playing with the pigments of her personage was an easy form
of magic, and truly quite fun.

Faern refused to consent to camouflage; It wanted to be seen by
all with eyes.

There at the fork in the road that the raccoon and the fox had
come to, there was of course the path behind them, and a path
ahead veering left around trees and hills, and a different path
ahead veering right around different trees and different hills;
And, in the center of the available ways, there was this fork's
telltale.

Telltales were things often found at forks in roads, in the many
parts of the many worlds that had ever been populated by magically
adept craftspeople; engineers; hobbyists; contractors;
passionates; the bored. A telltale was like a guestbook, signed by
all who passed by it; A telltale was, in effect, a collection of
ghosts, each ghost sliced apart and its pieces categorized into
different metaphorical drawers; To the magic user in the
possession of even some intelligence and wits, it was nearly
always a casual matter to arrive at a telltale, ask it a question,
("Who has passed through here in the last twelve days?" "Has a
hatchling dragon called Eric spoken any messages in any language
for a raccoon named Faern and a fox named Kosk?" "Where did the
hatchling dragon go next?") and then draw out the appropriate
ghost piece from the appropriate metaphorical drawer, and observe
the ghost's answer.

Ghosts spatially, not mortally; Echoes from those no longer here
at this location, not Echoes from those no longer alive. (Well,
with the telltales existing for decades to centuries to millennia
to longer, it is true that a ghost could often be both.)

The telltales of the worlds could take any and all shapes: an idol
on a plinth, a spinning wheel, a cone with a smooth and
undecorated face, a cone with a face interrupted by recesses and
colorful patterns, a mosaic, a model of a fortress, a fortress at
a full scale or greater, a book, a sundial, a sword set into a
stone, and so on.

The telltale before Faern and Kosk was a black boulder, at the top
of which was a tiny black cup; The stone of the cup was of one
piece with the rest of the boulder; The cup could hold very little
liquid, about a thimble's worth, before it would overflow down the
sides of the boulder on which the cup stemmed. Nearby the boulder
were three additional black stones, one positioned at each
direction a road continued in; Each satellite was significantly
smaller than the parent boulder, and each had a small recess on
top of its otherwise domed figure.

The fox's intuition, upon arriving, had been that she should pour
a dram of her holy water into the cup atop the center boulder, ask
which way Eric had gone from here, and then, she marked, she would
witness the holy water drain from the cup's bottom, witness the
holy water fill in the recess of whichever of the satellite stones
was closest to Eric's road, and also, she marked, she would
witness a ghost of the hatchling dragon passing through.

She was meticulous, though, and as best as possible, acted with
foresight so as to rarely find regrets in her hindsights.

So, upon arriving at the telltale at the fork in the road, she had
halted before getting too near to it, and had bid Faern to halt
likewise. Standing at a distance, Kosk duplicated her eyes;
spectral black orbs floated forth from her, one after another, and
began circling around the telltale, swooping closer to squint for
any details, sweeping outwards to examine the woods surrounding.
The fennec fox then swept the place with duplications of her black
nose, taking in the scents of the dirt, the surface of each stone,
the air generally, the foliage. At the end of her preliminary
observations, she did a pass around the place with duplications of
her ears as well, though the telltale proved to not be speaking
anything at that present moment.

With all of this done, she arrived with a sound knowledge of the
prior state of things; How all had been before any of her and
Faern's efforts. And so, when, with a spectral hand, she had
poured from a vial a dram of her holy water into the cup atop the
black boulder, she knew very precisely what effects the action had
not had, and had had. The holy water had NOT drained from the cup
and appeared in the recess atop a satellite rock; The satellite
rocks HAD each gained a perfume of lilac; Kosk was certain of it;
No such smell had been near here in her preliminary observation,
and only upon adding the holy water to the cup had the scent of
lilac flowers arrived.

The fennec fox went on to try various other acts, one of which
entailed pouring the holy water into the recesses of the stones
and asking her questions, another of which entailed dashing the
holy water against the boulder's side and commanding the boulder
to reveal any who had passed through here of late. Faern pitched
in an effort occasionally, the most bawdy of which, and, sadly,
also the most likely to have worked, was standing atop the boulder
and pissing into the cup, after it had first slurped out the holy
water that had been in the cup prior, and had rubbed the inside
surface of the cup dry with a finger as best as it could.

Pissing into the cup had NOT revealed which of the ways Eric had
gone from here, though it HAD, like the first use of the holy
water, re-intensified the scent of lilac in the area.

The fennec fox's most reliable connection to magic was in the use
of symbols. She could do much with her thoughts or with small
utterances, but she had first learned by way of symbols literally
drawn, and found them to be very dependable. She pawed symbols
into the dirt before the telltale, used dirt to draw marks upon
the boulder itself, but even exploring it this way for some time,
the telltale remained shut off from her inquiries.

As the sky overhead was dimming noticeably, the rainbow-furred
raccoon was becoming quite noticeably irritated with their lack of
progress.

FAERN
Maybe this one was built in a fitful tantrum of romance, and will
only open to those seeking true love or already possessed by it.

KOSK
That shouldn't matter... but... I've been surprised before.

FAERN
One thing's for certain: Whoever fashioned this was tasked by the
fates to waste our daylight and our holy water, or, he or she or
it or zee was an imbecile.

KOSK
Patience; Wisely, and Slow. It is Here. It will Serve as all the
others have.

FAERN
Is it like the others, for a fact? Do we know for a fact that this
isn't just the beginnings of a telltale?

KOSK
The beginnings?

FAERN
Ay me, it's a thousand and ten years ago, I'm an enterprising
little apprentice I am, let me spread paste onto the foot of this
cup and stick it to this boulder, oh that's very pretty, now to
design the enchantment, oh bugger oh bugger oh bugger this
enchantment business is puzzling, let me go ask daddy how it is
that I make a telltale again, oh what's this tickle in my chest?
Cardiac arrest, at my tender age? And even after I ate all of my
peas and cabbage? Oh, what a woeful fate it is to journey to the
grave so early due to a hereditary condition, OH I fall to the
ground now and perish, rather than finishing my very first
telltale, OHHH, AGGGGKKKK, GAHHHHKKKKK, AAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHKKKKKKKK.

KOSK
I see.

FAERN
He then writhes in agony for twenty minutes but no one is near
enough to hear his screams for help, and then he dies.

KOSK
I see.

FAERN
His telltale was begun, he had put the farting cup on the shitting
rock, but he never actually made them more than a cup on top of a
rock.

KOSK
I see what you mean by the beginnings.

FAERN
You sound unmoved by the theory.

KOSK
There is an enchantment here for a surety. We know that when
liquid is placed into the cup, the surrounding rocks begin to
smell of lilac.

FAERN
Oh well I am so very sorry to have left that fact out of my
theory, let me begin again. This time I will take it into account.
Ay me, it's a thousand and ten years ago, I'm an enterprising
little apprentice I am, here I am setting this cup on this
boulder, that looks very nice, this will be a very good telltale
I'm sure of it, and now to design the enchantment, oh bugger I've
bollocksed it to pieces and done the enchantment that makes the
surrounding rocks smell of lilac when a raccoon pisses into the
cup or when a fox pours in holy water, let me go ask daddy how it
is that I make a telltale again, oh what's this tickle in my
chest, cardiac arrest at my tender age, oh, oh, ack, gahk, aggghk,
I now writhe on the ground in agony for twenty minutes, and die
having intended to make a telltale, but in fact I only got as far
as making a set of rocks that smell of lilac when liquid is placed
into a cup.

KOSK
The theory has merit.

FAERN
Shall we pick a way, and with luck find out at the next telltale
proper that we are indeed still in pursuit of our truant
hatchling, or, failing luck, find out that we are in fact in
flight from our truant hatchling dragon, and double back so that
we may arrive here again and take the only path remaining, which,
by necessity, will bring us closer back to the hatchling's
company?

KOSK
A proper telltale or not, many things speak; I suspect I can find
an answer at this fork, by this same time tomorrow.

FAERN
Tomorrow! Make it a week and I would set up my tent! A year and I
would build a hut! A decade and I would erect here a cozy home of
bricks! Tomorrow is only enough time to cause me pain, knowing the
trail cools by the minute.

KOSK
Someone approaches.

FAERN
Yea, verily.

As the silver rabbit approached, Kosk walked off to stand along
the edge of the woods. Faern paced about, making obscene remarks
to itself.

FAERN
Go in the direction of the fucking cup? What sense in the name of
all of the gods and their whores up and down and left and right
does that make? Do you want me to sprout wings and fly, you stupid
map? Enough. I won't be the hapless little plaything of some
little piece of paper. Map o mine, I give you death.

With that, Faern clapped its claws together, and caused a very
large ball of fire to appear in the air before itself. The bulk of
the fire went away almost instantly, and left a ring of grass
burning red at foot. Faern began stomping at the ring. As the
silver rabbit arrived, the last of the glowing blades were going
out.

RUESUFF
If you'd kept the map a moment longer, I could've lent another
pair of eyes to figuring it out.

FAERN
Oh!

The rainbow-furred raccoon brushed some bits of ash off of its
grey jacket, and turned to face the new company.

FAERN
No, good swift one, I warrant that map had been seen quite enough.
Less of a map and more of a list of riddles.

RUESUFF
Oh, a list of riddles could have been great fun. Do you know of
the orange valley tavern? I was on my way there.

FAERN
A tavern is hereabouts? Ale? Beds? Strangers?

RUESUFF
Yeah.

FAERN
Oh swift one, how I love thee! Though the day waxes dark, your
presence brightens all that I see! Truly I have never known love
until now, and I only wonder, whither did Eric go from here, this
I ask, only so that I can go tell him of my newfound love!

With a gaping grin and sparkling eyes, Faern looked to the boulder
with the cup of piss, and paused, awaiting a response.

The fixture continued to smell faintly of lilac, and birds nearby
continued in their conversations, but no ghostly image of a
hatchling dragon appeared to show which way he had walked.

Faern shrugged, and said, "Worth a shot. Maybe it can tell if
someone is faking."

Ruesuff asked, "Trying to use this old thing? The ah..." Ruesuff
stood on his hind feet, and swiped a front foot in the boulder's
direction.

Faern conjured a flame in its claws, and threw it at the boulder.
The fire snuffed itself against the boulder's side. "Telltale,"
Faern said. "Do you know how it works?" Then it also turned and
called out into the black woods, "KOSK! I SAY, KOSK, COME MEET THE
LOCALS! THIS ONE IS A BIT BLAND, I THINK, BUT IT PROMISES ALE IF
WE FOLLOW IT!"

Kosk cringed from head to toe at Faern openly bullying the rabbit
--even if she did not disagree, from hearing the conversation thus
far, that the rabbit did not seem to be all too much for
conversation. In their travels so far, the locals of any given
place were often very strongly hit or miss for conversation, it
seemed; Some had all of the skills of listening and chiming in and
twisting ideas around with cunning and good humor and novel
insights and there seemed to be a fire burning within them,
knowledges and passions that wished to spread, wished to increase
to greater intensities by sharing the company of others with great
knowledges and passions; Other locals, when Faern and Kosk talked
with them, seemed in no way vile, but also in no way interesting.
The rabbit seemed very much the kindly disinteresting sort,
already at the outer limits of his skill to make small talk; To
Kosk, this left the rabbit as someone to share agreeable
politenesses with; To Faern, this left the rabbit as a blank
canvas on which to paint absurdities, until such a time as Kosk
was able to come in and help the poor thing.

Kosk quietly padded along the edge of the woods, and then hid
herself behind a tree, and waited, with the intent of emerging, in
a moment, as though just arriving when Faern had called.

Ruesuff, in reply to being asked if he knew how to work the
telltale, explained, "I only come through here to get to and from
the tavern, and sometimes to visit Lilin."

Faern bounded up to Ruesuff on all fours and then stood upright
beside him, threw an arm around the standing rabbit's shoulders,
and said, "Well, that makes three of us that don't know how to use
it, which is really no better and no worse than when it was just
two of us--me and Kosk--who didn't have a clue." Projecting its
voice to the boulder, the raccoon berated the stones, "Do you work
in threes, is that it? Three guests before you, three rocks around
you, three liquids all from my body I'll fill your cup with, three
miners' instruments I'll use to make you into powder, three
breaths after you're gone is the time that it will take before all
in the world will have forgotten you were ever here--do THREES
satisfy you, oh telltale?"

Kosk emerged from behind the tree, her fur brown, darker on the
back and lighter on the chest, as unremarkable a presentation of
countershading as she could get it, without the benefit of
spending an hour in front of a mirror fussing over the details.
Her hat she had changed to a greenish drab, her necklace of bones
off-white, her nose and the insides of her ears pink, her eyes--
she had forgotten her eyes! As she walked towards the rabbit and
the raccoon, she blinked rapidly; her eyes, just seconds ago
uninterrupted black, filled in with big brown irises.

She stooped her head and arranged the placement of her paws in a
curtsy, and said, "Charmed, and well met."

The silver rabbit got down on all fours again, and said, "Hello,
you're Kosk?"

"Yes, and this raccoon, if it hasn't introduced itself, is Faern."

Faerned remarked, "We were getting to introductions."

"My name is Ruesuff."

"A pleasure, Ruesuff."

Faern asked, "That way to the tavern?"

"Yeah, that way about a quarter of a mile, and then on the right
side of the path, there's a trail that leads down a hill, and that
hill is the orange valley, that the tavern is in."

"Then let us go, we brave three! Noble Ruesuff the bravest of all!
With one whisker, Brave Ruesuff lifts kits out of wells; With
swift hops, Brave Ruesuff rescues cubs from burning burrows; When
there is a brawl, Brave Ruesuff defends the peace--AH!"

To shut up the raccoon's barrage, Kosk had used a spectral hand,
two fingers extended, to squarely give the raccoon's tailhole a
jab.

Faern immediately turned its head and spit a glob of fire at the
fennec fox; The fennec fox bowed her head, and the fire hit her
hat, and was snuffed. While the rabbit was looking at her and not
Faern, she took a moment to have a spectral hand stick a finger in
the raccoon's ear, and then to have another slap the raccoon's
behind.

"Kosk, I am going to hatefuck your carcass tonight, okay?"

"It jokes," Kosk said to Ruesuff.

Faern, to Ruesuff, said, "It can joke and bite simultaneously."

"Well, um, the tavern is this way, if you two want to go to it."

Indeed, the three proceeded onward, taking the left fork in the
road. They walked for about a quarter of a mile, passing over a
couple of bridges along the way, and then took a footpath which
connected to road's righthand side. Down the footpath the three
walked, and soon, a tavern could be seen in the valley ahead, warm
lanterns lighting wood walls and stone chimneys.

Duluth, Minnesota

JANE
And THAT... is where we will close for tonight.

TEAGAN
Bravo! We accomplished pretty much nothing.

JANE
You asked me to run it by the book, I am running it by the book.

In-Universe, Earlier

FAERN
Ah!

KOSK
Stay, Stay; Calmly, Calmly.

ERIC
No, wait, do that to it again.

KOSK
Hush, Eric; Calmness, Calmness; Big breaths.

On their way out of the port town that morning, Faern had
purchased a pair of grey leather boots.

Now, after a day of hiking in them--forced to walk upright the
entire way, and feet fitting oddly atop the soles--the raccoon had
collapsed suddenly on the trail, and been unable to stand again;
Its legs, back, and most of all its feet, were stuck curled
inwards; Carefully, Kosk had used her spectral hands to lift the
raccoon to a nearby pond; So, now, the raccoon laid floating on
its back at the edge of a pond, vile boots up on the shore,
accompanied in the water by a green-coated fennec fox, and a blue-
scaled hatchling dragon. By the fox's magic, no insects pestered
them, and by the dragon's magic, the water around the raccoon was
warmed to a very pleasant, relaxing degree of heat.

As the raccoon floated on its back, the fox's spectral hands did
gentle work; Massaging, and carefully doing what she could to help
the raccoon through recovering. When the raccoon tensed or gasped,
she minded the pain, and did not provoke it.

"Stay, Stay; Calmly, Calmly..."

In time, Eric and Faern both fell asleep.

Gently with her many hands, Kosk lifted Faern out of the water and
laid the raccoon on the shore.

In the morning when she stretched and lifted her head, she saw
that Eric was most of the way done with turning the tall boots
into a jacket.

Duluth, Minnesota

Teagan felt like someday she was going to look back on it and miss
hanging out on Lidia's roof. It was nighttime, and hot. Lidia was
sitting cross-legged, while Teagan was lying face down, head
towards the edge of the roof, like she was going headfirst down a
slide; Teagan was covered in sweat, and the grit of the shingles
pressed into her arms, and in her mind she kept replaying feelings
--tactile, physical feelings--sensations--from about two minutes
ago, when she and Lidia had just made out for the second time
ever. That had been on the other side of the roof, on the slope
that faced the back yard.

Lidia said, "I'm not gonna lie, I tried picturing you as a dog for
some of that."

Teagan felt her cheeks fill with embarrassed blood. "Wow. Of
course you did. And?"

Lidia used a finger to toy with the edge of Teagan's Blue's Clues
t-shirt's sleeve, and said, "I was enjoying you as a dog a lot,
but then I was like, why stop at that, you could be a cute furry
who just got disowned because she told her parents she thinks she
might be gay, and I found you on the street and gave you a couch
to crash on for a while, and now you're stuck in this random hot
bitch's house--I'm also a furry for this--"

"Of course."

Lidia went on, "and you have all of these conflicting feelings
about wanting to show your gratitude to this random hot bitch--who
is me, I think you're a yellow lab and I'm a cheetah--but anyways,
you want to show your gratitude to this random hot bitch, but you
don't want to make it weird, and you also don't want to risk
getting kicked out and being homeless again, even though you kind
of are homeless cuz it's not like you actually live here, but you
do highkey want to fuck this hot cheetah, and you kind of feel
sometimes like she's flirting with you but you can't tell?"

"And then we make out," Teagan finished.

"Yeah. But then I was like, why stop at furries either, I could
imagine you as a dragoness."

"Uh huh."

"But then dragoness wasn't as hot, and then I was like 'I should
stop thinking about all of this' and then you were Teagan again.
And I was like, I like Teagan, this is new to me still, humans,
and I should freaking pay attention and enjoy it for what it is.
And I did enjoy it. Five stars. Ten out of ten."

A while ago when Teagan and Lidia were driving to a thrift store,
Lidia had been like, "What's one thing I don't know about you.
Like, give me a BOMBSHELL, right now."

Teagan thought of it instantly, and the two of them then drove in
silence for a little while, before Lidia was like,

"Cmon, say it."

And Teagan admitted, "I used to write erotic Blue's Clues
fanfiction."

And Lidia was like, "GIRL." And then banging on the steering wheel
to punctuate her words she was like "WHAT. THE. FUCK. I. D-M. YOU.
E-VERY. DAY. ABOUT HOW MUCH I'M DAYDREAMING. OF. DOGS. FUCKING.
ME. SILL-Y. I. D-M. YOU. ABOUT HOW FUCKED UP I AM ABOUT MARCUS. I.
D-M. YOU. ABOUT ZOOPHILE HOCUS POCUS. HIJINKS. THOUGHTS. AND
VARIOUS ZOOPHILE MUSINGS. AND I AM ONLY JUST NOW HEARING. YOU.
YOOOOUUUU. USED. TO. WRITE. BLUE'S. CLUES. FAN. FIC-TION. THIS--
wait, featuring Blue?"

"Yeah usually."

"THIS. IS. ACTUALLY. INSANE. WHAT. THEEEEE" (for theeeee she
drummed repeatedly on the steering wheel with both hands) "FUCK.
GIRL. DO. DOGS. MAKE. YOUR. PU-SSAY. AS. WET. AS. THEY. MAKE.
MINE. E-VER-Y. NIGHT. WHEN. I. TOUCH. MYSELF. WITH. ZOOPHILIC.
INTENT."

"I mean, I've been there with Blue."

"GIRL. THAT IS A-MA-ZING. AND I. APPRECIATE. HEARING. THAT."

Marcus had been Lidia's soulmate. A dobermann.

And anyways Lidia ordered Teagan a Blue's Clues shirt online and
gave it to her, and Teagan wore it a lot.

There on the roof, after their second time making out, Teagan was
like, "Do you think Kosk and Faern would ever start dating?"

And Lidia said, "I think the way it is with them is that everyone
thinks they're secretly fucking, and they encourage the
allegations, but actually they have never fucked and never will
and they are not even that good of friends."

And Teagan said, "As Faern: I agree completely. I wasn't sure if
Kosk saw it the same way."

Lidia slapped Teagan's arm, and then said, "Mosquito," and then
wiped Teagan's slapped arm with her hand, and then said, "Kosk is
not stupid. She very much sees Faern as... something between an
obligation, and a really useful killer robot."

"Yesssssss. That's great."

"She would actually be relieved if it finally died," Lidia said.
"She would not avenge you."

Teagan said, "Faern would avenge Kosk in a blaze of glory like the
multiverse has never seen before and it would never get her out of
its mind for as long as it lived."

In-Universe, at some point

ERIC
I miss him.

KOSK
Tell me about him again.

Eric and Kosk laid in the midst of a wide open field, late into an
Autumn night.

Eric, like most dragons, was not originally from this world, but
incarnated here whilst midway through living a different life.

ERIC
He had eyes like angels' haloes, and the cutest flopsy ears...

In-Universe, at some point

Faern had never felt better in its entire life; Throat sore from
intense panting and muscles screaming from physical exhaustion;
The raccoon laid floating on its back in a hot pool of dragon
blood; So far down in the depths of these caves, Faern could see
its own breath as it laid there, floating, panting, its body
overheating in the blood, the fur on its face freezing, literally
stiffening with ice crystals, in the cold.

Kosk, from some unseen vantage elsewhere in the cave, summoned
eleven spectral spears, and thrusted them at various calculated
locations in the chamber's ceiling.

An enormous portion of the ceiling fell, and crushed the dragon's
head, making sure that she was truly done with.

As the portion of the ceiling collided with the dragon and ground,
Kosk created temporary barriers around her own fennec ears and
around the raccoon's ears, to prevent the two of them from being
deafened by the sound.

Kosk and Faern were still catching their breath again when they
saw that an egg was beginning to emerge from the dragon's cloaca.

In Another Universe, Much Longer Ago

Blue voiced, "Bow, bowwwww," as Mr Salt grinded his glass body up
and down the outside of her pussy, his metal top poking at the pit
of her tummy with every upwards movement, getting salt in her soft
little strands of blue hair. Blue wrapped her mouth over Mrs
Pepper again, the shaker's glass body a nice cool feeling against
her slobbery jowls, the taste of pepper getting onto her tongue.

Mr Salt released an intensely pleasured moan as he grinded, and
said, "Blue... you feel wonderful." He began pressing on her vulva
with his hands.

Mrs Pepper slid out of Blue's mouth, and, stroking through the
hair on the outside of Blue's jowls with her hands, said, "I
cannot believe how arousing this is, the two of us having sex with
this dog together. I am glad we broke our promise to Mailbox, that
someday we could help him lose his virginity by allowing him to be
our first ever third. Imagine that we almost said no to this, and
for what, just to make him happy?"

Blue held Mr Salt tight against her canine body.

In Another Other Universe, A While Later Than The Blue's Clues One

Lidia added another 9x9 set of diamond blocks to the wall of the
passageway that she was working on. Her whole subterranean base
was a display of wealth and waste.

She had said to Jane in text chat at one point, "It's all in
tribute to him."

Jane had said, "I can see it. That makes sense."

Duluth, Minnesota, Presently

Jane looked up from the notes that were hidden behind her GM
screen, and said, "When we left off, Faern and Kosk, along with a
silver rabbit named Ruesuff, were in the orange valley, bound for
the orange valley tavern. The tavern had just come into sight,
with its cozy exterior decor, a few circular glass windows, some
chimneys with thin lines of smoke billowing out, birds chirping
and flitting around on the branches of the trees outside. The
sunlight is not yet gone for the day, but it will be definitively
nighttime before too much longer."

In-Universe

Kosk said to Faern, when they were nearly at the orange valley
tavern's front door, "None of your side quests."

Faern answered, "Above all, I am in need of a good night's sleep."

Kosk, Faern, and Ruesuff entered the orange valley tavern through
the front door.

SOMEONE AT A TABLE MID CONVERSATION
A hard day thanks to--

With a series of cartwheels and tumbles, Faern landed itself in
the one remaining empty chair with the other patrons at the table.

FAERN
When I'm having a rough day at work, I always imagine an abusive
mate is waiting for me at home, and that it's my one and only hope
to spend as long as possible at work before having to get back to
being put through it, emotionally, physically, I really get
imaginative. Name's Faern. If you've got a problem, I will fight
it, fuck it, or find it out, or some combinations of the above,
for eligible customers.

SOMEONE AT THE TABLE
A problemsolver, you say you are--

The innkeeper, a dire wasp named Locke, interrupted from behind
the bar.

INNKEEPER LOCKE
Miller Argus, does this one truly look to you like it's the type
to want to help you clear out your grandmother's knickknacks? The
O'Maisa girls are asking a fair price, and you won't find that
you'll get this one to help you for any less.

Kosk, immediately noticing that Locke had used Faern's correct
pronouns, it/its, without such a thing having come up yet, began
covertly sensing at the dire wasp, for any signs of magic.

Kosk got her answer very promptly, when the innkeeper's voice
appeared directly in her head, saying, "We can talk of magic and
telltales if you wish."

Kosk thought her response: "I do wish. I also hope you'll
understand if quite gruesome images appear in my mind's eye, or
that of my companion; If I see myself slitting the throats of all
at this inn, it is not because I find it likely to happen, or
desirable; it is merely one eventuality that one thinks about."

The dire wasp, facing the countershaded fennec from behind the
bar, nodded.

Kosk went on: "I hope you will also understand if I endeavor to
put up barriers."

The dire wasp said into her thoughts: "I would find it quite
understandable, and indeed a commonality from visitors adept in
the magical arts. For my part, I will make no concerted effort to
pry, and I anticipate your barriers will be effective. If you wish
for a sample of any of our food or drink offerings, I can preview
it for you through this avenue."

Kosk offered a response freely in her thoughts: "Really! That is
delightful! What is your favorite drink, and what is one you think
would be my favorite, and what is one you think Faern would like?"

The fennec fox, while still standing nearby the front door, her
mouth closed, and having not drank of anything inside of the inn
thus far, felt a taste form on her tongue: something VERY sweet,
much like a sugary syrup, with notes of apple. Her mouth watered,
and she felt a shiver resonate through herself. That taste went
away--seemed, in fact, washed away, as though she had just rinsed
her mouth out with bubbles, though again, her mouth still remained
closed.

That had been Locke's favorite drink, then. Next, for a drink that
Locke thought would be Kosk's favorite, came a very bitter tasting
beer; exceptionally bitter; sour, one might say, especially just
after the previous sugary taste.

That taste, too, washed away.

Kosk waited for the last taste, something that would be Faern's
favorite.

By this time, Faern itself was enmeshed in a card game with the
others at its table. Kosk realized that she was unsure as to
whether this card game had already been taking place, or if Faern
had spurred it to happen. Which, subsequently, made her realize
that she had not yet gone through her typical procedure, of
thoroughly investigating any place that she was newly arriving at.
She would have to do so, momentarily.

She thought to the dire wasp: "Well? For Faern's drink?"

Locke answered: "You would enjoy your stay better if I did not
tell you, and instead, that knowledge from Faern's mind remains
unknown to you."

"Give me the taste."

The taste of vomit mixed with urine appeared on Kosk's tongue.

Kosk fainted.

When the fennec awoke, she was seated at a booth, that was tucked
into one corner of the inn's common room. Faern was seated beside
her; she on the innermore side of the bench, against the wall, and
it on the outtermore side of the bench. On the table before the
two of them were two large cups of water, hers still full, its
nearly empty.

Kosk reflected on the taste again, and with no time to think as
she felt a violent heave coming on, she snatched Faern's cup, and
a second later was throwing up into it.

"Rude," Faern said.

"You owe me," Kosk said, as she brought the cup below the table.
She began covertly pissing into it, masking the sound from the
other patrons using her magic, and also magically cleaning any
that missed. She set the cup of vomit and urine on the table in
front of Faern.

"Have you utterly lost your mind?" Faern asked.

"Drink up. And thank the psionic innkeeper."

LOCKE
Truly, I wish it hadn't happened.

FAERN
Huh.

Faern lifted up the cup and started taking big gulps.

Kosk, keeping up her magic to muffle sounds from the other
patrons, doubled over against the table, dry heaving.

Faern took little, thoughtful, careful sips as it stared at her.

Soon Kosk could endure the raccoon's company no more, and left the
booth, getting out by crawling under the table past the raccoon's
legs. With no energy to give the commonroom a thorough examination
like she wanted to, and with no energy to put up barriers towards
the dire wasp in the slightest--she was dizzy, nauseous, and could
barely keep a train of thought going--she went to the bar counter,
and said aloud to the dire wasp, "We travel in pursuit of a friend
and cannot figure out the nearby telltale. It has been a long day,
and."

The dire wasp answered, aloud, "Rooms with beds are down this
hall. Any door that is open is available, your lodging is free as
a token of my apologies. For the telltale, I will explain more
tomorrow, but be assured I know how to use it, and we should plan
to awaken very early for the best odds of it working."

"Thank you."

"Shall I bar Faern from retiring to the same room as you tonight?"

"Oh I don't care. Wait. Yes, actually. Yes."

Kosk shambled down the hall that Locke had indicated, stumbled
into an open door, kicked it shut behind herself, collapsed onto a
bed, and fell asleep immediately.

The next morning, pre-dawn, Kosk and Faern both awoke, and at the
same time, exited their rooms, which were opposite one another in
the hall: there, across the hall, they met one another's eyes, by
the light of a lantern that sat on a small table nearby.

KOSK
You're gross.

FAERN
You're scrumptious.

KOSK
Ugh.

FAERN
I didn't ASK you to actually do any of that. I was literally never
going to bring up the idea for as long as I lived.

KOSK
Well. Sometimes things come to light anyways. Now we know.

FAERN
Know... what exactly?

KOSK
That you're gross.

LOCKE
Ahem. If you're both up, we should begin at once to the telltale.
We will want to be there at or before sunrise, ideally.

The three left the orange valley tavern together, and traversed
the trail through the black forest, in the nighttime. Each of the
three kept nearby them a small flame of their own conjuring. Here
and there in the woods, other tiny fires swooped through the
treetops--some of the birds kept conjured fires as well.

LOCKE
I am going to place a small amount of water into the cup atop the
rock that stands in the center of this fork in the road. The air
will smell of lilac. Find a comfortable way to sit or lie down, as
we will then have to remain still for some time; You may breathe,
and adjust your seating a little if you are uncomfortable, but we
must not make any hasty movements, and it is paramount we not make
any noises even so loud as speaking. We should put away our flames
now, as well, before we get there. When some time has passed, with
these instructions followed, the telltale will arrive, and you may
speak with it, and ask it your questions.

When the black fennec, the rainbow raccoon, and the dire wasp
arrived back at the fork in the road, the sky was just beginning
to illuminate with the morning sun.

The dire wasp waved a spindly arm over the cup that was atop the
stone, and conjured a trickle of water to fall into the cup. Kosk
nested down in a ball at the foot of the boulder, while Faern sat
leaning back against the boulder.

The morning progressed along, as the birds chirped, and the sky
overhead brightened, bit by bit. Calmly, calmly, Kosk and Faern
both remained as they were, taking slow, full breaths, and feeling
the wind occasionally ruffle their fur the slightest bit.

Eventually, a red bird flew down from the black forest, and stood
before the fennec and the raccoon.

Kosk asked, "When a hatchling dragon passed through here the other
day, which way did he go?"

The red bird hopped in place, and turned, and was facing the path
that Kosk and Faern had yet to explore--not the way they had come
originally, and not the way to the orange valley tavern, but the
remaining way. Along with the red bird's pointing, a ghostly image
of a green hatchling dragon could be seen walking, exiting the
fork in that direction.

Green. Not blue. This was not Eric.

Faern asked, "Has a blue hatchling dragon passed through here,
that you have ever seen?"

The red bird hopped in place, and then buried their beak down into
the black grass at foot.

"Oh?" Kosk asked. "Then... hm. What times has a fox or a raccoon
passed through here?"

The fork became dense with ghostly images passing through, but
among the crowd, Kosk was indeed able to spot herself and Faern,
doing as they had done both yesterday and even earlier today.

Kosk remarked, "Are we to deduce, then, that Eric never in fact
made it to this telltale?"

Kosk and Faern, with Locke's help, and the help of many friendly
birds, began to sweep the black forest, in the direction the fox
and the raccoon had come from.

Eventually, a bird excitedly flew to where the fox and the raccoon
were searching, and loudly chirped, "I found him! I found him!
I've never seen anything so blue!"

Following after the bird through the woods, over black hills and
around many trees and areas of dense bushes, the party arrived at
a large blue egg resting against a tree.

FAERN
Oh.

KOSK
Dragons do have a slippery relationship to ages. I had heard of a
coarse and wizened dragon fleeing to new, fresh environs, and
appearing gay and youthful again. This is the first dragon I know
of to slip from hatchling back into his shell.

Right at that moment, the shell began to crack, and soon enough,
Eric spilled forth from his shell once again. He beheld Kosk and
Faern standing before him.

ERIC
I was with him again.

The re-hatched dragon began to sob.

ERIC
I was chasing after visions of him until I came here, and fell
asleep. And then I was back home again, WITH HIM again. One day.
One day, I got to spend back there again, WITH HIM, and now I'm
back here again.

The blue dragon grabbed at pieces of his shell, and feebly tried
to put them back onto himself.

Duluth, Minnesota

JANE
And THAT... is where we will close for tonight. Bravo, you two.
Lidia, you spotted the innkeeper was psionic IMMEDIATELY, you got
that way, way sooner than the book thought anyone would, there
were clues ALL over the tavern that we did not need ANY of,
amazing.

TEAGAN
So, IF you can tell us now, what WAS the rule with the telltale?

JANE
Get ready, I am going to read this from the book directly: For
this telltale to work, the player must first place an offering
suitable for a bird into the cup, such as a splash of water or a
morsel of food, and then wait in place for one continuous hour,
not making any startling noises or sudden movements. The clearing
will smell of lilac for one hour after anything is placed into the
cup. The telltale is not the cup itself, or any of the stones, but
is a red bird who remains within a 2 mile radius of the cup. If
there is a startling noise or sudden movement in the clearing, the
bird will not approach until the dawn of the next day. For the
bird to have any reason to appear, the player must be visible to
the bird. If the party is arriving without prior knowledge of what
has transpired in the clearing throughout the day already, make a
percentile roll to determine if the bird has already been
startled: the odds begin at 0% at dawn, and for every full hour of
daylight that has passed, the odds increase by 3% that the bird
has been startled prior to the party's arrival.

LIDIA
Oh my GOD.

TEAGAN
Thanks I hate it.

JANE
I was like OH NO, are they going to spend weeks on this? Is this
actually just how the adventure ends, even? But you two nailed it
today.

Madison, Wisconsin

Mattie and Shayna do not get high and watch cartoons together
sometimes. Shayna does not ever explain to Mattie Rocky Horror.
Mattie does not ever say to Shayna, "This is probably a crazy
idea, but do you want to try to rent a house together?" Shayna
doesn't get food poisoning when Mattie makes both of them dinner
for the first time, and doesn't spend hours throwing up, and then
hours lying in bed with Mattie, and Mattie is feeling like an
asshole and Shayna is feeling like a half-zombie, under comfy
blankets, trying to just keep every sensory experience pleasant
but not overwhelming.

Mattie and Shayna do not play card games and shoot the shit.
Mattie and Shayna do not ever get really into the weeds of
discussing LOTR and Star Wars and Star Trek and Yu-Gi-Oh and MLP
and different fantasy worlds like that, talking about what is
confirmed canon, what is fanon, what is kind of technically only
ever expounded upon in the fanon but is really strongly implied to
exist from the stuff that's openly shown in the canon. Mattie does
not ever, based on some random tangent from a conversation with
Shayna, get soil and clay pots, and start gardening. Shayna does
not ever taste a weirdly delicious, huge green pepper from
Mattie's garden. Mattie does not ever attend a funeral with Shayna
for emotional support, and then listen and play along as Shayna
tells stories reminiscing on the drive home. Mattie and Shayna are
never driving together and pass by a German Shepherd and Mattie is
like "Would" and Shayna is like "Oh my GOD, pull over I will
actually ask the owner," and Mattie doesn't pull over because
Shayna actually would ask the owner. Mattie and Shayna do not know
that their birthdays are two days apart, which isn't anything that
has any particular significance, but like, that's the kind of
thing you could know about somebody else, if their birthday was
two days apart from yours.

Mattie and Shayna do not wear zetas on their accessories, or any
shirts with anthropomorphic characters on them, or anything with
pawprints. Mattie and Shayna do not go online looking for new
friends. On the rare occasions that one of Mattie's friends makes
a joke about bestiality, Mattie does not laugh, and does not
expand upon the joke. The one time one of Shayna's friends was
talking about some news story about a man being caught having sex
with a dog, Shayna did not suggest that the news might not have
entirely represented the story fairly.

Mattie and Shayna do not find out that one another are zoophiles.
Mattie and Shayna do not have a conversation out loud, with
anyone, for their entire lives, about zoophilia, or about the
depth of the relationships that each of them had with their
respective family dogs growing up. Mattie and Shayna do not ever
think of one another as anything more than someone who is
basically a stranger who they went to high school with back when
they were teenagers, and they sat in some of the same classes
together. Mattie and Shayna do not do more than nod and say
nothing when they pass by each other some days in the grocery
store.

Duluth, Minnesota

Teagan and Lidia were lying in Lidia's bed together. Teagan had
surrendered her phone to Lidia, with her old erotic Blue's Clues
fanfiction pulled up. She had read snippets of it to Lidia before,
carefully selected excerpts, but this was the first time Teagan
was allowing free range access. Teagan laid with her head buried
against Lidia's side, against the fabric of Lidia's shirt, as
Lidia was reading.

Lidia eventually commented, "Ohhhh my god you so get it. This is
zooey as hell."

"Yeah I mean, zooey, but also just a fixation I had on a show that
happened to be about a dog."

"Well, the way that you write your dogcore aesthetic is very
pleasing to me."

"Thank you."

Teagan wrapped her arms around Lidia's middle, having to burrow
one arm between Lidia's underside and the bedsheets, and gave her
favorite zoophile a hug.

Teagan in all honesty couldn't even remember when she learned that
Lidia was a zoophile. She did vaguely remember the first time
Lidia had used that word, "zoophile," in a text chat, and she had
selected the text, and pasted it into Google, and been like, "Oh,
I didn't know there was a word for that," but like, sure, of
course Lidia was that. She remembered the time like a year after
that that she was sleeping over and saw Lidia and Marcus kiss, and
it clicked that they were kiss-kissing, but that wasn't like,
surprising as far as "Lidia is a zoophile," it was surprising as
far as "Lidia has a BOYFRIEND?"

Lidia turned on the bed towards Teagan, and licked Teagan's face
in one long trail, starting at the chin, going up past the lips
and over a cheek, around the nose, really pressing in against the
tear duct while passing by the eye, up over the eyebrow, and ended
the lick with a kiss to Teagan's forehead.

Lidia then looked into Teagan's eyes for a while, and eventually
said, "You're really fun to spend time with, in character and
out."

"Oh my gosh, that's so nice. You too."

Lidia then requested, "Tell me the DETAILS of who is fucking who
in Blue's Clues and what all of their fucked up kinks are."

"Oh my god. Okay, so..."

Teagan and Lidia stayed up really, really late, talking.