January 26, 2018: Sisyphean \ sis-uh-FEE-uh n \  adjective;

1. Endless and unavailing, as labor or a task.
2. Of or relating to Sisyphus.

Plort stared up at the parallel slats of wood crossing back and forth mere inches from his face and sighed. Above those slats were a mattress, and above that was a fitted sheet and on top of that was a monster. A real monster.

Shifting uncomfortably, Plort glanced over at the glowing red numbers on the bedside table’s clock. It was almost midnight. Almost time. His stomach tensed anxiously as the little red 57 turned into a little red 58 and he wished he hadn’t eaten so many dust bunnies earlier that night.

Closing his eyes, he slowed his breathing, perking up his long black ears, waiting. All he heard was the soft wind outside the window, the whir of the room’s ceiling fan, and the soft, shallow breathing of the monster in the bed. It definitely sounded like it was asleep, but Plort knew better.

Watching the red 58 blink into a 59, Plort closed his eyes again, this time trying to control his breathing just so he wouldn’t throw up. He had given up feeling guilty about how anxious this made him. It was his job, sure, but it was a never-ending nightmare. It was a Sisyphean task filled with agony and torment and–

Something had moved. His long ears twitched. He was sure of it. Something above him had moved.

His red eyes flicked to clock again. Still 11:59, but something had definitely moved. His forked tongue flicked out to moisten his dry lips, but his whole mouth had gone dry now, because he knew, it was about it begin.

He steeled himself, curling all four of his clawed hands into fists and began shimmying out from under one side of the bed. He took a deep breath, ready to let out a horrible hissing screech he had been working on that he was sure, he was so sure, would work this time, but–

“BOO!” the monster shrieked from behind him, and Plort jumped on top of the bed, letting out an equally shrill shriek himself.

This was bad, this was very, very bad.

Burrowing quickly under the blankets, Plort squeezed his eyes shut. Maybe it hadn’t seen him jump onto the bed–he really wasn’t supposed to be on top of the bed, it was sort of a basic rule, but what was he supposed to do when the little beast had infiltrated his domain–and held his breath. Maybe if he was quiet enough–

“BOO, I SAID!” it yelled again, ripping back the covers, and wrenching another shriek from Plort.

He leaped from the bed and paused for the briefest moment to try and find a safe place to hide. Under the bed was out, it had been compromised, and nowhere else in the room was deep enough in shadow to hide his slick black fur from the monster’s piercing gaze. But then he saw it–the closet. Perfect. Without another thought, he dashed for the closet, pulling the door closed behind him and–THUNK.

* * *

When Plort woke up who knew how long later, he found himself trapped under a laundry basket, with what must have been a bowling ball or two balanced on top, because he couldn’t seem to move the flimsy human contraption, and so much plastic wouldn’t have caused the bump he could feel forming on the top of his head.

“I have caught you, monster,” the voice came from outside his prison in the closet, and Plort narrowed his red eyes at the source. The blue eyes of his charge stared gleefully back at him, and Plort felt his shame rise anew as he took in all three feet of Eleanor Brown.

He growled at her, but she didn’t even blink. He made a try at his hideous hissing screech, and she only quirked an eyebrow at him. He gnashed his teeth, and clawed at the laundry basket, but she didn’t even fidget.

It was useless. He could have ripped the laundry basket to shreds if he took a moment or two, but what was the point when six-year-old Eleanor wouldn’t care one way or the other? So instead, he fell back onto his rump, and sighed.

“Finally given up, monster?” Eleanor asked, the slightly whistle on the ‘s’ because of her missing front teeth sending another stab of shame straight through him. She didn’t even have all her teeth and he couldn’t best her.

“I’m not the monster here,” Plort grumbled quietly, hunching his shoulders and refusing to give her the satisfaction of looking at her while he talked to her.

“What did you say?” Eleanor asked, her voice high with awe and wonder, and Plort realized he had never actually talked to her before. Not once in the six years he had been hiding beneath her as she slept.

“I said you’re the monster, Eleanor!” he said, glaring at her from inside his pathetic cage, not allowing his shame to stop him from relishing the look of shock on her face.

“What?” she asked, staring wide-eyed.

“I’ve been under your bed for six years, Eleanor Brown. Six years. I’ve emitted the most frightening noises, cast horrible shadows on your walls to fill your nightmares, I’ve even stared at you from dark corners with my blood red eyes. I’ve done all that for six years, and you know what you’ve done?”

Eleanor blinked questioningly. He let the question hang in the air a moment longer before he began yelling.

“You’ve ignored me. Or worse, you’ve giggled. You’ve waved at me from underneath the covers and smiled.” Plort shook his head, “so I ask you, who is the real monster?” he spat. Reciting the litany of his shame was just too much. Especially in front of her.

When Eleanor didn’t say anything for a long time, Plort finally looked up only to see she was doing it again. She was giggling. Sure, she was trying not to, she had her little hand pressed over her mouth, but she was staring at him and shaking with mirth. She truly was a monster. When Plort grunted, Eleanor actually burst out laughing, and his humiliation was complete.

“If you’re going to kill me, just do it,” Plort said miserably, hunching over further in his cage. That would be the best outcome. He couldn’t go back to the office after this. What would he put on his report?

“Kill you?” Eleanor asked, as her giggle fit abruptly stopped.

“Please,” Plort agreed flatly.

“I’m six. I’m not going to kill you,” she said.

“You monster,” Plort said in defeat, letting his head fall to his chest, and waited to see what worse fate she had in store for him.

He heard movement then, but he didn’t care. It didn’t matter. None of it did. Not the shuffling feet, or the little grunt of effort, or the laundry basket rising off of him…

He blinked.

She had taken the laundry basket off of him.

Plort stared at her in confusion as she took a step back, giving him a clear exit from the closet, back to the underside of the bed. But it had to be a trick. And he wouldn’t fall into it so easily this time.

“You think I’m that foolish, monster?” he snarled at her, a little of his pride returning now that he wasn’t trapped under a laundry basket.

Eleanor heaved an especially heavy sigh, especially for a six-year-old.

“Look, this has gotten kind of out of hand,” she said.

That wasn’t what he had expected her to say. He wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

“I only wanted you to see what it was like getting scared all the time so maybe I could ask you to stop. I didn’t mean to break your brain or anything,” she explained.

Plort narrowed his eyes at her.

“So you were scared?” he asked, trying to keep the hope out of his voice and not quite succeeding.

“Oh no. You just keep trying all the time. And it makes it hard to sleep,” Eleanor said.

Her hands shot up in front of her when Plort visibly crumpled. “N-not that I was never scared! You were really scary a few times! Like, a lot of a few times!”

Plort groaned. This was even worse than before.

“Well, I mean, you look kind of like an unwashed bunny,” Eleanor said apologetically.

Plort groaned even louder.

“I mean the claws are good!” Eleanor reassured him.

This time, Plort just sighed. And for a very long time, they both sat there, not saying anything at all, very awkwardly trying to avoid looking at one another. Finally, Plort broke the silence.

“I don’t know what to tell you. This is my job. My only job is to scare you,” he explained quietly.

Eleanor nodded thoughtfully at that, and began chewing on her lip.

“Well, maybe I could help you?” Eleanor said finally, after a few more awkward moments.

“Help me?” Plort asked, quirking a questioning brow at her.

“Yeah, like I could tell you things I’m actually scared of. Like, not bunnies,” she said.

Plort furrowed his brow. “Why would you do that?”

“I was thinking maybe if I helped you, you could help me,” she shrugged. She was chewing on her lip again.

“Well, what do you need help with?” Plort asked warily, worried all over again that this was some kind of trap.

“I… I get a little lonely,” she said quietly.

When Plort didn’t say anything, she continued.

“My mom and dad both work really late most of the time. And my big sister is supposed to babysit me, but she usually just leaves me with a pizza and tells me not to burn down the house. And I don’t have a lot of friends. Or any. So, maybe if I let you scare me sometimes, you could come and have pizza with me.”

Plort stared at Eleanor for a very long time, watching her chew on her lip and avoid eye contact with him. He looked down at himself, at his slick black fur, and his long black ears, and his sharp claws, and thought about the fact that this fearless little girl wasn’t scared of him at all. And he thought about going back to the office and explaining this whole situation, and all the paperwork he’d have to do. But mostly he thought about how monsters didn’t even have families, and what that must be like, to have one but sort of not.

And finally he grinned with all of his sharp, pointed teeth and said, “I have always wanted to try pizza.”

Note: I came really close to writing a story about myself staring at the word Sisyphean and that trying to write a story about the word Sisyphean being a Sisyphean task, but I think this turned out better. I’m kind of really into the idea of monsters under the bed, and might maybe have an idea for a short story collection? Maybe this could be polished and go in there? Maybe I just mostly like the name Plort.

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I’m gonna blame this dude for me being away for so long. I just couldn’t bring myself to draw Aisle. Yeah. That’s what it is. To be fair, he is really creepy looking. I was gonna blame it on him being a cub, which means he has a really big head and a teeny body and his proportions are EXTRA weird (in a series full of weird proportions), but then I realized my favourite character in all of Animal Crossing is apparently a cub, so there goes that theory. I think it’s just those cold eyes. And the fact that his catchphrase (which, to be fair, only appeared in Japanese) is “aaa”… It all just kind of screams serial killer to me. If he moved into my town, I think I would burn it down. Unfortunately, the next villager is a horror show too. So, yeah.

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January 25, 2018: reverie \ REV-uh-ree \  noun;

1. A state of dreamy meditation or fanciful musing.
2. A daydream.
3. A fantastic, visionary, or impractical idea.

The wind played fitfully with Andrew’s perfect brown curls, always leaving them placed elegantly on his face to draw attention to his piercing green eyes, his aquiline nose, his perfect soft lips. Katherine smiled softly as he held out a hand–a perfect hand, his fingers long and agile and always warm–to pull her up onto the back of the unicorn behind him. As soon as she put her hand into his–

“What the hell?” someone demanded loudly, shaking Katherine rather abruptly from her reverie.

She glanced over at Andrew, trying not to let her cheeks go red and give her thoughts away, but he was staring right at her and it was impossible.

In fact, he was staring at her rather incredulously. And his hair looked rather more windswept than she had remembered. And… did he smell of horse?

“I said, what the hell, Katherine?” he repeated, staring at her expectantly.

Katherine blinked. She hadn’t been staring at him, so there was no way he could know what she had been thinking, but he looked rather irritated and she noticed that his nose was running now.

“Oh, fantastic. I’m allergic to horses, you know,” he told her tetchily, wiping his nose on his sleeve in a gesture that she would very quickly erase from her memory. “And apparently unicorns.”

She stopped breathing. What did he mean, unicorns?

“Aren’t you even going to say anything?” he asked, raking his hands through his brown curls, trying to get them under control. Everyone in the lunchroom was staring at them now, and the warmth in her cheeks told her they were maybe the brightest shade of red they had ever been.

“Sorry?” Katherine asked quietly, glancing around at all the eyes fixed on them before returning her shy gaze to Andrew. He still looked really annoyed.

“Is that it? ‘Sorry?'” he asked in a mockingly squeaky tone that made her cringe.

“I’m just… not sure what you mean…” Katherine said quietly, wishing he would be a little quieter and everyone would stop staring at them.

“Oh yes? Then why was I on the back of a bloody unicorn a moment ago with the wind ‘fitfully playing with my perfect brown curls’?” He demanded. “And what the hell does ‘aquiline’ mean?”

Katherine’s blood went cold. “What?”

“I hate to break it to you, but I’ve got terrible circulation as well. My hands are always cold,” he grumbled.

Katherine just stared.

“Inaccurate narration aside though, what the hell was that?” Andrew demanded, wiping his still-running nose on his sleeve again.

“But… it was just a daydream,” Katherine said quietly, tightly gripping her legs under the lunchroom table, waiting for this all to be some kind of joke or dream or something.

“You daydreamed about me?” Andrew demanded, looking at her askance.

“It was more about the unicorn,” Katherine insisted, knowing her cheeks were getting even more red by the moment.

“But why me? I’m always awful to you,” Andrew still looked incredulous.

Katherine opened her mouth to answer but before she could, Andrew was talking again.

“Hang on, that really doesn’t matter. How did you do it?” He demanded, as if he has only just realized that what had just happened to him was more incredible than mousy Katherine being interested in him.

“I didn’t do anything!” Katherine insisted.

“Clearly, you did,” Andrew countered flatly.

“I didn’t, though! I was only daydreaming!” Katherine said, trying not to sound like she was whining and not succeeding as much as she might have liked.

“Haven’t you ever daydreamed before?” Andrew demanded, incredulous once again.

“Of course I have!” Katherine yelled back, the first thing she’d said above a whisper since the entire conversation had started. Several people who had long since lost interest in the conversation turned to look at them again, and Katherine hunched down awkwardly in her seat until they stopped staring.

Andrew gave her a long, considering look.

“Have you recently suffered head trauma? Or been bitten by anything radioactive? Or stuck your head in a microwave or something?” he asked.

Katherine gave him a cold stare.

“Don’t look at me like that! One minute I’m about to eat some spaghetti and the next the wind is whipping me around on the back of some bloody pink horse,” Andrew grunted.

Katherine did not stop glaring at him, and Andrew was quiet for another long moment.

“Look, it’s really flattering–” Andrew began.

“Don’t!” Katherine yelled again, and again people in the lunchroom were staring at her. “Just, let’s not talk about it, okay? I promise I will never daydream about you again.” She looked down at the table and tried very hard not to throw up.

Much to her surprise, Andrew didn’t say anything. When she finally looked up at her again, he was giving her another considering look.

“Now, let’s not be too hasty,” he said.

“What?” Katherine demanded, eyes widening, fingers clenching tight on her legs again.

“No more unicorns, for damn sure. But if, for example, you were to daydream us onto a beach in Fiji during next period, I certainly wouldn’t complain,” Andrew said, and then quickly added, “but with like a wall or something. I don’t need you narrating my masculine features while I sunbathe.”

“So I’m supposed to daydream about you sunbathing behind a wall?” Katherine demanded incredulously.

“But without the narration,” Andrew agreed.

Katherine gave him another cold stare and began daydreaming about giving the clod a swift punch in the jaw.

“OW!” Andrew exclaimed loudly, staring wide-eyed at Katherine and holding his jaw.

Very slowly, a smile began to form on Katherine’s lips.

Note: I’ll get caught up one day! Ah ha ha! In the meantime, whatever this is. (It has a unicorn, so I like it.)

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January 12, 2018: silver-tongued \ SIL-ver-TUHNGD \  adjective;

1. Persuasive; eloquent.

When she won the oration exhibition, she had been proud. More than proud. It was proof, they told her, that she was silver-tongued. Which, of course, was a great honour.

When they had guided her off the stage amidst the still thundering applause, she was embarrassed to admit she had been a little disappointed. She had wanted to stand in and soak up that adulation a little longer.

When they had taken her through the building, to a small, sterile looking room with a large mechanical chair under a spotlight, she had been confused. She should have been more scared.

She was scared when they strapped her into the chair, and she demanded to know what they were doing.

Giving you your prize, they had said, all smiles. One of them even congratulated her again, as he stuck a needle into her arm.

When she awoke who know how long afterwards, she was stiff. It took her a moment to recognize her own bedroom, her own bed. Her mouth felt numb and strange, so she reached over for a glass of water, and tried to take a sip, but something was wrong.

Pushing herself out of bed, she stumbled downstairs to look for her husband. He would know what was going on.

When she reached the living room, she been doing all she could to throttle down the growing sense of dread. It didn’t help to find her husband, sitting on the couch, staring at the mantle above the fireplace with abject horror.

When she finally saw it, she wished desperately she had never honed her silver tongue. For there it sat, on her mantel piece, plated and filigreed and monstrous, light reflecting off each little ridge and bump.

And she cried a wordless cry.

Note: A super quick foray into what I hope is horror? I’m not sure I built the mood enough, but I still like the basic idea, so I may revisit it again and drag it out a little more. I sort of desperately want to write some horror, so this was a lot of fun — hopefully tomorrow’s word conjures up imagery so quickly for me. Weeeeee.

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As promised, the queen of the side-eye, Agnes. She is one of the “uchi” visitors which is apparently like a big sister type that combines snooty and peppy and “normal” types. I would have gone with snootpep myself, because it sounds way cuter. Agnes’s catchphrase is “snuffle” which mostly makes me worry that she has seasonal allergies. She has one of the best starting shirts in the game, for sure. (Lookit them cute colours.) Tomorrow (or Monday?) get ready for AN ABOMINATION.

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January 11, 2018: jannock \ JAN-uh k \  adjective;

1. British, Australian Informal. Honest; fair; straightforward.

As she twisted the lockpick in the sturdy lock she had to admit, even among thieves, this wasn’t, as her very Australian great aunt would have said, jannock.

It was one of her great aunt’s favourite words, in fact, and one she rarely used when talking about Aubrey, so it stuck with her. Especially since her sister, Tabitha, was the epitome of jannock. Once she had joked, in front of her great aunt unfortunately, that Tabitha even had great “jannockers,” and she had been sure her great aunt was going to have a stroke the way she reacted.

“Giving you a bit of trouble?” Tim asked anxiously from his place at the corner, under the broken streetlight.

Aubrey grimaced. Now was not the time to be getting distracted, no matter how sour what she was doing was making her stomach. No matter how sure she was that her great aunt would just flat out keel over if she knew what Aubrey were up to now.

“Nope, got it,” Aubrey said as a satisfying click punctuated her success. She glanced over at Tim, who looked just about as triumphant as she felt, which was not very.

This was a definitely a terrible idea.

But if they were going to strike out on there own, this was the only way they were going to do it. She was tired of being Geoffrey Tennant’s “lock whisperer” when all it got her was a pat on the head and barely a tenth of any of the scores. He had actually literally patted her on the head once. Without irony. In front of other people.

It was starting to feel like a better idea again.

She gently turned the knob and pushed open the door to the antique shop.

Antique shop, antique lock, she snickered quietly to herself.

“Don’t giggle, Aub, it makes me nervous,” Tim said as he slid past her into the shop, chewing anxiously at a fingernail.

But everything made Tim nervous. She wasn’t sure why she had even brought him along. Only he was tired of being treated like a pet too (except for him it was even worse because at least Aubrey had magic fingers, all Tim had were a decent set of eyes), and Aubrey was too scared to try and break away from Geoffrey on her own.

And anyone else I had talked to would have turned me in to Geoffrey for a pat on the head.

Apparently everyone else was really quite happy with Geoffrey’s pats.

“Are you coming?” Tim hissed, sticking his head out of the shop to stare incredulously at her.

And he was right to — what was she doing out here? She nodded and followed him into the shop, closing the door gently behind her. As she let her eyes adjust to the darkness, she took a deep breath, trying to quiet her mind. Now was not the time to obsess over Geoffrey Tennant. Now was the time to act like the professional she knew she could be, to snatch the book out from under Geoffrey’s nose, and then make a break for it.

Geoffrey had told her about the book last week. He had actually been giddy about it. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but very few things made Geoffrey giddy. And the things that did made him cautious. So he was still making plans to scope out the little antique shop while Aubrey was formulating her plan to steal the book and disappear.

“Now, where’s the book?” she whispered quietly, half to herself, and half to Tim.

Tim shrugged and Aubrey reflected that maybe Geoffrey’s methods weren’t entirely overcautious — a quick trip to the store to find the book before tonight probably would have made things a little easier.

Too late now. Put it in the book for next time, Aubrey told herself, and began slinking around the shop.

“What’s it called again?” she whispered to Tim, who shot her another incredulous look in the dark. “What? I’m nervous too.”

Tim had been the one to dig a little deeper when Aubrey told him about Geoffrey’s glee and had managed to ferret out the name of the book. So really, she supposed, he did deserve to be here just as much as she did.

“It’s called Socrates on Wedlock,” Tim told her, “a rare Dickens thing or something.”

“Charles Dickens? I’ve never heard of a Charles Dickens story called Socrates on Wedlock,” Aubrey said, quirking an eyebrow at Tim. He hadn’t mentioned the author before.

“I guess that’s what makes it rare,” Tim hissed with an aggravated shrug, and returned to searching through the shop.

Aubrey grimaced. She was going to have to remember not to talk to Tim during these kinds of things if they were going to continue to be partners in crime. Being nervous made Tim an absolute dick. She cast a quick glare at his back to make herself feel better and then resumed looking through the shop herself.

Unfortunately, it was what she would have called a rather typical antique store in that things were piled high with no sense of rhyme or reason that she could guess, so finding the book might take a while. She glanced anxiously at her watch, knowing that every minute they spent in the shop was another minute closer to discovery when Tim made a strangled squeak from the other side of the store.

Aubrey stood up abruptly. “Tim? Are you okay?”

Tim poked his head around a haphazard stack of old rocking chairs and nodded emphatically, motioning her over frantically.

“What’s the matter?” Aubrey asked, making her way carefully through the shop. When made her way around the rocking chairs, her eyes widened and she knew exactly why Tim had made the noise. There, in the bookshelf in front of them was a copy of Socrates on Wedlock — clearly Tim had tried to pull it out, since it was sitting askew, at an impossible angle. Because Socrates on Wedlock wasn’t what they were here for. But whatever was behind the secret door they had opened when they moved the book, was.

“After you,” Tim said, motioning to the small door that had popped open next to the bookshelf.

“Such a gentleman,” Aubrey grunted sarcastically as she got down on her hands and knees and started crawling into the passage.

Note: Really? Jannock? I come back to jannock? I’m not sure how good a job I did incorporating it, but then, I’m not really sure what kind of criteria I’ve set up for myself beyond, you know, using the word. So in that case, good job, me! You even made a boob joke using the word of the day.

I am, however, eminently sad that I managed to miss “stardust” on Jan 8, “horsefeathers” on the 7th, and “denouement” yesterday, so I may have to go back and try to catch up. On the other hand, I did manage to avoid “boustrophedon” on the 6th, so we’ll have to see. 

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And then I got the flu, so Agent S had to wait… but here she is! (I don’t think I knew she was a girl, despite having met her in game before, and now I like her even more, because she’s this peppy little hero squirrel girl. Her catchphrase is even “sidekick,” which is like the first good one (of a whole gigantic total of three). In French, her name is apparently Ninjette, and I can’t decide if that’s cooler or Agent S is, but they’re both pretty great.) She’s part of the ridiculously adorable squirrel family of animals (seriously, like 90% of the squirrels are outrageously adorable in Animal Crossing) and was a nice bird break. Tomorrow, another non-bird! It’s gonna be the side-eyeing pig, Agnes!

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January 4, 2018: moira \ MOI-ruh \  noun;

1. (among ancient Greeks) A person’s fate or destiny.

2. Classical Mythology. ( initial capital letter) a. The personification of fate. b. Moirai, the Fates.

Stewart arrived at the bar early, which according to all the articles he had read and all of his friends, was his first mistake. “If you’re hot enough, women will wait for you,” his best friend Chad had said.

Why was he even friends with Chad? Chad was always saying things like that that made him sound like a complete asshole. Actually, Chad kind of was a complete asshole.

And Stewart definitely wasn’t hot enough for women to wait for him. So he arrived at the bar early. He found himself a table with a view of the door, and spent five minutes carefully arranging his copy of the Odyssey that would signal to his blind date that he was, in fact, the Stewart of lore and legend (and the dating website they both frequented). First he laid it flat, but he worried she wouldn’t see it, so he tried standing it up, but it kept falling over, and then he tried resting it against the salt and pepper, but they were no match for such a hefty tome. Eventually he settled for pretending to read it, his eyes peaking above the pages, taking in every woman who walked in, checking to see if she had a matching copy that would signal to him that she was the mythical Deirdre.

“Very subtle,” a voice said over Stewart’s shoulder and he jumped at least three feet in the air and dropped the book, which scattered the salt and pepper shakers and the napkin dispenser all over the floor. Stewart whirled around to see a young woman wearing a black t-shirt, an amused grin, and a name tag that said “Moira.” She was also holding a notepad, which she tucked into her apron and bent to pick up the mess Stewart had made.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have spooked you,” Moira said, placing the salt back on the table. “It was just after watching for the last five minutes, I liked that you went for the direct approach. You really can’t miss the book that way.”

“Sorry?” Stewart said, stooping to the floor to help Moira pick up the napkins strewn around his table.

“Blind date, right? She sees the book and knows it’s you?” Moira was grinning again.

“Oh.” Stewart glanced over at his copy of the Odyssey and scooped it off the floor, nodding a little. “Er, yes.”

“Interesting choice of book,” Moira said, stuffing the napkins into her apron.

“Oh, well, it’s a classic,” Stewart said as they both stood up and placed the last displaced item back on the table.

Moira stared at him with that amused smile.

“And I thought it would make me seem smarter,” Stewart admitted lamely, scratching at the back of his neck.

Moira laughed, and Stewart grinned himself. Somehow it wasn’t a mean laugh. It wasn’t making fun of him. It was a laugh that was meant for both of them. It was a laugh that made his heart flutter a little.

“Dude’s hearts don’t flutter,” Chad said in his head. What an asshole, Stewart thought back at him, and continued grinning at Moira.

“Can I say something a little crazy to you?” Moira asked, brushing a stray red curl behind her ear. She looked a little shy all of a sudden, and Stewart’s heart fluttered again. Chad would have groaned.

“Sure, yes,” Stewart said, putting his book down on the table.

“I just have this feeling that your date isn’t going to go very well,” Moira said, and Stewart’s heart dropped mid-flutter. Here had been thinking she was going to suggest they go skinny dipping or get matching tattoos or… he really needed to stop listening to Chad. He was pretty sure people didn’t actually do those things, they just sounded good in the kinds of magazines Chad insisted Stewart read in order to understand the female mind.

The cruel, pitiless female mind.

“Oh. Um. She probably hasn’t actually read the Odyssey either,” Stewart said after a moment, shrugging lamely.

“No! No, that isn’t what I meant!” Moira said instantly. “I just… get the feeling she’s not right for you.”

“Because you’re so obviously pathetic,” Chad said in Stewart’s head. Stewart feebly called Chad an asshole again, but he didn’t really mean it. Not when random waitresses who had just met him immediately recognized how pathetic he was. He couldn’t really argue with what he knew his best friend would have said.

“Oh. Sure. Thanks,” was all Stewart could muster, sitting back down at the table.

“I’m not saying this right,” Moira said, raking a hand through her curls in frustration. Abruptly, she sat down at the table, and pushed a chair closer to Stewart until she was staring straight into his eyes, inches apart. Stewart’s heart started to flutter again and he tried to distract it by noticing the way Moira’s mascara was clumping in her eyelashes, but it didn’t really work. She smelled like clean laundry and cinnamon, and her deep green eyes were staring right into his and despite how awkward it was, it was also kind of romantic.

“Stop falling in love with girls you’ve just met,” Chad said in his head, only that wasn’t quite right. That was actual good advice, and Chad wouldn’t have said that. That was all Stewart, and he knew it was true, but he had figured out that the cinnamon smell was coming from her lip gloss and it was making his heart flutter again. But then he realized he was staring at her lips, and that her lips were moving, and that she was looking at him questioningly. He blushed.

“Sorry, what was that?” he asked, feeling like an idiot for the hundredth time in the short span of time since he had met Moira.

“Do you believe in fate, Stewart?” Moira asked, her green eyes wide.

Maybe if he hadn’t had Chad’s voice in his head saying, “that is the worst pick-up line I’ve ever heard,” he might have paused to consider how she knew his name was Stewart, or why she looked so nervous all of the sudden, or he might have even seen Deirdre enter the bar, craning her neck around to look at him. But all he really registered was that this was definitely a pick-up line, that Moira was definitely trying to pick him up, so he just grinned.

“Definitely,” he said.

“Then come with me,” Moira said, and held out an open hand to him.

Note: I feel like I’m probably being unfair to people named Chad, but the name Chad is just such an asshole name in my head. I’m sorry to all non-asshole Chad’s that may ever read this. I’m sure a lot of you are super cool people.

(This is the weird stuff that’s going to happen when I make myself write every day. I bet asshole Chad is going to pop up again too, because now I kind of have a soft spot in my heart for asshole Chad. Good job, inner writer. You’re weird.) 

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No Unicorn Magic »

Today’s villager is Admiral, who, I am ashamed to say, is not a duck. He is, infact, a bird, the Animal Crossing wiki tells me. As, I think, all the “birds” characters are — nondescript avian creatures of some sort. I was right about the grumpy part though. Admiral’s catchphrase is “aye, aye” which is a little better than Ace’s, but not much. Apparently, he likes fishing and admires both lazy and snooty villagers, which is funny because he looks like the kind of bird who has absolutely no time for those kinds of shenanigans. You learn something new every day, right? Get ready for the first non-bird tomorrow! How exciting!

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No Unicorn Magic »

I love Animal Crossing. I love the villagers and making friends with them and ruining their houses with all the furniture that isn’t good enough for my house. So I’m going to draw a villager a day. And at that pace, it’ll only take me a year and three months to get through them all. Assuming they don’t put out anymore games. X3 So here’s the first one: Ace, whose narcissistic catchphrase is… ace. Good for you, ace. Tomorrow, the world’s angriest duck, Admiral.

Popular with unicorns who enjoy: Animal Crossing, Doodles by Sara
No Unicorn Magic »