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Fantasy Cosmical Glitch ( ellarose & starboob. )

The sky above Juno is crystalline and the sun that shines overhead is bright, much too bright. She shields her eyes with her hand and tries to sit up, but finds a bobcat sitting on her chest, leering at her with a hungry gaze. It licks its paw and rolls its eyes before speaking. "Still can't fend for yourself? I'm not surprised. When you came out so small, I really thought you wouldn't last a week. Everyone said you wouldn't last a week. Then you did and a week became a month became a year––not like that was anything to celebrate, of course. It's not that hard to live when all you do is shit, piss, eat, and sleep." (The voice does and doesn't sound familiar to Juno and in her confused state, she fails to place where she has heard this voice and where she has seen this bobcat. She doesn't even think to question where she is, because it's certainly not home. It doesn't even necessarily feel like home. It only feels like a place. A place she should be at, though she doesn't know why.) The bobcat sighs and places a paw on Juno's head, keeping her firmly pressed in the dirt. "I hardly recognize you, Juno. You were a little runt when I left you in that old bat's care. You were so small, in fact, that she only gave me a half-ration for you. ...You are still that worthless." The more the bobcat talks, the heavier Juno feels, so much so she can feel herself sinking into the earth. Deeper and deeper until––

"Juju!"​
​
Her eyes snap open in the same moment that she gasps for air, coughing up the noxious fumes and ash. When she manages to match a face to the voice that's called her name, she finds herself grateful for Olette (for once). In fact, her ridiculous taunt, coming so soon after that awful dream (?), is so welcome that she hides her face and smiles. 'Fucking faerie,' she thinks, as she sits up, wincing from the impact of the blast that had hit her and again when she remembers that her wrist is fucking broken. There's not time for her to heal it now, especially with that pursuer potentially still out there, so she shoves down her tears and grabs the rope with her good hand. Creating a foothold of sorts with the rope, she's able climb by hoisting herself up with her legs, and quickly adjusting her hand position to reach higher and higher until Marjorie is able to help her onto the back of the butterfly.

"Captain!" the skeleton exclaims, poking and prodding at Juno's numerous injuries. She places her hands on her hips and gives the pirate a stern look (as best a skeleton can). "You need to be more careful! And Miss Olette informed me that you totally ditched her back there. That is not being careful and that is not very nice." She tuts and helps the pirate off the butterfly once they land back on the airship.

"I had that under fucking control––that was all part of my fucking plan," Juno grunts, shrugging off the skeleton.

"What? Getting your girlfriend killed?"

"No! I was trying to figuring out how to bring––hey! She's not my fucking girlfriend," she scowls at the faerie and shoves her, just for good measure. Just so they're both on the same fucking page about where they stand. (Yeah, just because they saw shit they weren't supposed to see and just because they had to work together back there, doesn't mean fucking shit! She still fucking hates the faerie!) Unfortunately (for Juno), she shoves Olette with her injured hand and immediately regrets it the second pain floods up her arm. She tries (and fails) to mask the fact that her wrist feels like it's fucking exploding. Marjorie gives her a look that says, 'Serves you right,' and Juno responds with a glare that says, 'Fuck off.'

The skeleton sighs and waves the captain off, "Pah, whatever. Go get yourselves patched up." She then turns to Olette, giving her a pleasant smile (well, as best a skeleton can). "Will you be joining us for our gambling-free game of poker tonight? Abigail promises to not tell everyone what your cards are this time, but she also said she might not be able to make it because cubey is taking her stargazing."

Speaking of that oddball? Abigail makes a reappearance (the cube is still rattling in her ribcage) and wraps her arms around Juno and Olette, "The Maestro says you both did very well!" And before she can say any more nonsense, the edges of the cube start to light up and the pirate is already closing her eyes and bracing for impact, because––

Blip!

***​

A few days pass and life on the ship is as chaotic as ever. They're bounced from world to world, most of them peaceful and lacking the usual monsters and guardians and pissed off gods that are usually trying to eat Juno's entrails for a midday snack. For that, the pirate is grateful even if she won't admit that all the fighting from before had started to wear on her. Still, just because she isn't fighting for her life doesn't mean she isn't fighting at all. In fact, fighting the faerie has become a near constant. Sometimes it's on sight. Other times it escalates from a catty comment to an argument to throwing each other around the airship. More often than not, the skeletons have to break them up before they actually murder each other. Marjorie has even had to force them to promise to stop using magic during their fights after a particularly close call involving bomberflies and a bone army... Whatever.

That aside things have been mostly normal. Juno healed her wrist (obviously) and when the faerie presses her about that miracle, the necromancer just tells her that her bones are special. (Actually, she doesn't remember the specific excuse that she came up with but she's pretty sure it had been something like that.) When she's not fighting with the faerie, she's fixing the engine or hunting. (Recently, she's learned that animals are, in fact, edible and not all of them have poison flesh like the ones on her shithole planet.) In fact, she's out hunting when she feels that familiar tug in chest that signals she's about to get––

Blip!

As is their pattern, it's Olette's turn to land on top and Juno doesn't even flinch when it happens for the nth time. When she groans, it's not because of pain but because of exhaustion. "Well," she mutters, pushing the faerie off of her, "We made it fucking 13 hours without getting yanked across the universe. That's gotta be a record for that fucking cube, right?"

"'Scuse me, ma'ams," a fabric pumpkin with arms and legs taps Olette on the shoulder, then sticks out a sack of some sort (are they getting mugged?), "Trick or treat?"
 
Day by day, the stab wounds Lettie's wings sustained in that nightmare world glow and heal themselves naturally whenever she manages to get some much deserved beauty sleep. (Which sadly isn't as often as she'd like, when accounting for all of Juno's death traps-- and outright attacks-- along with the nightmares she's been having and the copious amounts of stress. Usually she passes out sheerly from the exhaustion of fighting with the pirate day in and day out. She also needs to double and triple check that cube is still in her possession, as sometimes it mysteriously vanishes thanks to Abigail. Getting intel from the crew that the pirate is asleep as well and therefore not a potential threat to her safety also does wonders in getting her to sleep at night. Or during the day, depending on which world cubey decides to set them on. Her concept of time is all out of whack.) While this innate magic doesn't extend its courtesy to her poor broken bones, it at the very least amends them so they're not in tatters or full of holes like a pair of tattered old socks. It takes time, but they're certainly looking better than before. Too bad that Juno's bone magic is so selective, hm? (Lame!) And even then, the faerie's rightfully skeptical if that's even the honest to goodness truth. Like, she's not blind. She totally sees Juju manipulating her bone weapons with her stupidly buff arms all the fucking time! She's personally had to dodge the attacks countless times now. There's also the existence of the skeleton crew to account for as well. So, yeah. Excuse her for putting on her skepticals!

If there's anything positive to take from their new 'routine', Lettie guesses it's the consensus between them that they won't dare to mention anything they had seen or heard on that wretched illusionary world. They speak with their fists more than anything these days. While her face doesn't appreciate it very much, she supposes she can live with it if it means sidestepping all their traumatic personal biz. Some heartaches and losses hurt worse than bruises and, yes, even broken wings.

Even so, Lettie has to breathe a sigh of relief when she lands on top this time. (Landing flat on her back is always a special type of agony, especially when their combined weight crushes her poor, poor wing.) The faerie expects to be shoved off, because the pirate will always be the pirate, and sits up as she surveys their new surroundings. Nothing is trying to kill them (yet) which is always a good sign. There's a crisp chill in the air and the leaves on all the trees range between earthy browns and vibrant, fiery reds. (Some of them are decorated with hanging ghosts and spiderwebs.) The sunset ignites everything it touches. It's pretty. She stands slowly, instinctively drawing glyphs to give herself an appropriately warm autumn look to compliment their surroundings. Where are they this time?

"...Ma'am? Do I look like a ma'am to you?" Lettie purses her lips, setting a hand on her hip as she turns to face whoever it was that tapped her on the shoulder. Then she blinks bewilderedly when she realizes she has to look down to see them. (Um. It's admittedly unusual for her to meet anyone shorter than her on the worlds cubey takes them to.) When she looks behind the cloth pumpkin, she notices that they're on a street of some sort, where simple houses are lined down the road in the simplest possible way. There are many similarly small creatures (humans?) in varying costumes running amuck, laughing and screaming with sacks and pumpkin-shaped buckets clenched in their tiny hands. Some of them overflow with candy. Many of them run to doors and chorus the words that the pumpkin said before. "Trick or treat?"

"Do you have any candy?" The pumpkin (?) rephrases. It really sounds like a child. And it's only because it sounds like a child that Lettie hesitates to question the 'trick' part of this 'trick or treat' phrase. If she doesn't have any candy, does that mean she'll have to prank all of these children? Somehow that doesn't sit right with her. (Probably a weird, sacred tradition. If she refuses, this pumpkin may grow into a pumpkin giant monster and try to eat them. Better to sidestep that potential catastrophe, since Juju hasn't had the chance to punch it and piss it off yet.) For that reason the faerie shrugs, opens her pocket dimensional purse and produces a piece of her starlight gum. She drops it in the child's sack.

"Does that work?" Lettie asks. The pumpkin doesn't seem as interested in the candy as it does in her, though.

"Wow! How'd you do that!? With the-- with the circle!?" The pumpkin exclaims. Heh. Looks like she just blew somebody's mind with her magic, because they trot off to inform another group of small costumed humans and point excitedly in her direction. Suddenly they're all crowding around the faerie and the pirate.

"Samantha's shy... but she wants me to tell you that she loves your costume." A little princess informs her. An even smaller girl with floppy, lopsided faerie wings peeks out from behind her friend's poofy dress. "And I do too! You look like a real fairy!"

"Costume? Oh no, no, no. I am a real faerie." Lettie insists. "See?" She gives an elegant twirl and her wings sparkle like rubies in the sunset. The children around her collectively gasp and she beams at the attention. Huh. So is this confirmation that they're all in costumes after all? Goodness, what kind of world has cubey taken them to this time? She can't say she totally hates it, though, when the children clap and praise her for her beauty and for being the 'bestest faerie they've ever seen'. Some of them even offer her their candy and bid her a happy halloween! (Whatever that means.) And if this 'trick or treat' world's currency is candy offerings, then she's already doing something right. Ha! Take that, pirate.

"And what is she supposed to be?" A child in a skeleton onesie with a glow-in-the-dark bucket asks Lettie, looking bemusedly at Juno standing behind her. "Some kind of punk? She looks so angry."

"Oh... I'm afraid that's her default state. She's always a grump." Lettie nods solemnly at the child. "Steer clear or she might--"

"Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat!" A tiny astronaut with a nasally sing-song voice (and a death wish apparently) proceeds to run past her and tug at Juno's sleeve. Lettie's stomach drops for the stupid, stupid child. "If you don't I don't care, I'll pull down your underwear!" Oh no. Ooooh no.

"...Juju." Lettie coaxes in a soothing voice, sensing the oncoming storm. She waves her hand frantically at the astronaut, hoping to get them to run. Unfortunately the child does not receive the message (maybe because of the clunky helmet-- and in a way it is a good thing they're wearing it) as they wait by the pirate with their pumpkin bucket outstretched. "Remember, these are children, Juju."
 
They're totally getting mugged. It's not a very good mugging attempt, granted. Like, this fucking pumpkin isn't brandishing a weapon of any sort or threatening them with magic, and yet this is an honest to goddess attempt to fucking rob them. There's no other possible interpretation of this pumpkin approaching them, making an entitled fucking demand, and then opening up a sack for them to toss in all of their valuables. Well, it sucks to be this fucker because Juno has it on good authority that neither herself or the faerie have anything of value! (Except for a fucking 'relic' that people keep fucking hounding them about.) It doubly sucks for this fucker that they tried to mug captain fucking Juno who––

"Candy?" the pirate repeats, finally getting up off of her ass to stand. She scratches the top of her head trying to remember where she's heard of this before. When she finally remembers, she’s not too fucking pleased, as her last run-in with candy involved a certain furry elephant who tried to dredging up her (and Olette's) mommy issues. (Yes, at some point the faerie had tried to explain to the pirate that not all candy is like that, but honestly? That memory is hidden behind a big wall of blah, blah, blah, look at my pretty wings, blah, blah, blah. Most of the conversations that Juno has had with the faerie sound like that in her head.) Honestly, she cannot fathom why anyone would want fucking candy when it's all evil as fuck. Perhaps the denizens of this planet are more hardcore than their silly outfits imply? (Are their outfits some sort of enchanted armor?)

As it would turn out, all of Juno's assumptions are wrong. Shockingly enough. Rather, she soon finds out that whatever candy this pumpkin wants, it's not evil. It's just wrapped in some silver foil. Weird. She also quickly finds out that the fuck is wearing a costume and that she probably shouldn't refer to the pumpkin as 'a fuck,' because apparently they're also a child. Admittedly, the child's voice probably should have given that all away but, knowing the cube and the weird shit she's seen, it's not impossible for there to be a planet full of children or something. And is Juno even wrong in assuming that such is the case now that they're fucking surrounded by the little fu––children? There's a lot going on for the pirate to process. Without intending to, she shuffles closer to Olette as the costumed brats circle around them, apparently charmed by the fucking faerie. This causes Juno to roll her eyes while Olette is showered in praise. She smacks some kid's hand away from her whip and then crosses her arms. Ugh. "Yeah, but ask her if she can fucking fly," Juno mutters when the faerie shows off her precious wings (that she totally could heal). "Flightless fucking wonder."

She's about to pull on Olette's arm so that they can ditch this horde of children, but then one tugs on her sleeve. Tugs on her sleeve and fucking threatens her. "What the fu––" The fucking faerie (thankfully) interrupts Juno before she can finish that statement, reminding her that these are children. Children. Not fucking monsters or guardians or pissed off gods. Children. (Not that children can't be fucking evil and murderous...) The pirate grumbles something under her breath and sighs. "I don't have fucking candy and I'm not going smell anyone's fucking feet and you're not pulling down my underwear. Piss off, kid."

"I want. Candy," the helmet kid stomps their little foot. Actually, they smash their foot down on Juno's foot and while Juno doesn't feel it, because the child is a fucking child, it does piss her off. At this point, no amount of coaxing will get the pirate to back down and this kid has signed and sealed their fucking fate. The necromancer glares at the helmet kid. Juno can't see the expression on their face, but given that the child backs away and then falls onto their ass, she guesses that the kid is (rightfully) scared shitless. The pirate crouches down and touches the asphalt, connecting with the necromantic energy buried below and pulling it up towards the surface. As she rises up, she keeps her hands at eye level and all the hidden dead bodies that were buried beneath this otherwise boring suburban neighborhood, start to sprout like daisies––a half rotted fist, a skeletal foot, a head. The dead bodies claw, writhe, and pull their way up from below; they grunt, screech, and snap their jaws. The children run away screaming, scattering like ants, and dropping all of their candy. Juno grins wildly, laughing at the children while her zombies chase them. "Haha! Fuck you and your fucking candy, you––"

Splat!

"Hey!" The pirate growls, feeling around the back of her head where she was hit. Her fingers slide through something cold, wet, and sticky with some hard crunchy shit mixed in. She pulls her hand down to examine her fingers, scrunching up her nose. "Ah! Gross!" When she looks up, she locks eyes with a group of snickering teenagers. Oh. Oh, okay. It's fucking on. This stupid fucking world is going down. She snaps her fingers, getting the attention of her zombie squadron and sends them after the teens. It takes them a second to recover, but when they see the undead running towards them, they scramble and run away screaming. (They also drop their sacks of candy.) The necromancer looks at the faerie, checks her belt for her bombs (half out of habit, half because she has a (bad) idea), and announces, "I'm going to the graveyard. This place fucking sucks."
 
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Lettie holds her face in her hands as Juno proceeds to raise the dead. Because of fucking course she does. 'These are children, Juju.' She can repeat this indisputable fact until her face turns as blue as her hair can get, but she knows well enough by now that this will not stop the pirate once she starts raising hell. The screams of innocent children must sound worryingly like music to the pirate's ears-- as nothing else seems to be able to make her smile quite like this. Geez. Why is she so terrible!? Who hurt her? Actually she might kinda know-- (No wonder she can't appreciate the artistic genius of Lettie and the Skellies enough to concede that the faerie won their challenge when she has such horrid taste!) Peace is never an option and the faerie would be a fool to think that it is after all of this time. Mainly because Juno does not seem to grasp the concept of what peace is. (The pirate still doesn't understand when she tries to explain that being pelted with snow balls, water balloons, and oranges are not attempts on her life. And yet with every harmless trick she plays, she can be sure that a new death trap will be waiting in her bedroom that night in retaliation.) Eventually she accepts that the pirate will always be the pirate no matter where they end up. She decides to shrug it off and reap the benefits of the chaos as she begins collecting the discarded sacks of candy for herself. More candy offerings for her, then! Maybe they'll crown her candy queen if she collects enough of it? Too bad the children are gone. She could've gotten some precious intel out of them! Curiously, she begins to paw through the stolen sacks to see what types of candy this world has to offer as Juno proceeds to terrorize the local teens. There is a wide and colorful variety. Thankfully, none of it is sentient, which means that it's perfectly safe (and ethical) to eat! Contentedly, she unwraps a cherry lollipop and pops it in her mouth, slinging her favorite sack (it has a print of skellies and ghosts wearing cute bows!) over her shoulder.

Lettie proceeds to check the sacks that the teenagers left behind (these ones are especially heavy-- they must be some top-tier candy collectors) sorting through their abandoned stashes and adding the ones she deems exciting to her chosen sack. One of them has a plastic bag full of tiny, rubber spiders! (Or are these candies, too?) How charming. She can think of numerous ways to use these cute little guys later... provided cubey doesn't turn them to ash within the next thirteen minutes. (Sometimes if they meet their chaos quota fast enough, cubey will hightail them out of there before they fucking die. Thanks to Juju, this often happens quickly. She has already started a zombie apocalypse.) Which, boo! She kinda likes this world, where the children praise her just for being a faerie and candy is easy to come by. It's not bad as far as worlds go.

"The world doesn't suck. You're probably just hangry, Juju. Besides, it looked like you were having fun a second ago!" Lettie says wisely, giving her lips a satisfying 'pop' as she removes her lollipop to speak. She wags it between her fingers at Juno, sensing the beginnings of a bad idea the minute she mentions graveyards. Is a handful of zombies not enough for her!? "Instead of actively seeking out more trouble for once, why don't we find a place to eat instead? We've got plenty of candy offerings. That's probably currency here, right?" It's a safe guess as far as the faerie's concerned. Cubey has taken them to weirder worlds in the past.

The sun is going down and house lights are beginning to flicker on. A few adults begin appearing on their porches, peering out into the distance. Oh, shit. Probably concerned parents searching for whatever monstrosity made their children cry. (The zombies are disappearing down the street, going after the teens, but... Shit!) Lettie shoves Juno so that they're hiding behind some bushes. Who knows what the humans on this world are capable of? What if they want their candy back? She doesn't want to stick around to find out. They should leave, but... ugh. The graveyard? Seriously!? Come on! Juju is no fun. (And does she have a graveyard radar attached to her or something? Because sometimes it certainly seems like she does.)

As she weighs out their options, the faerie distractedly sifts through her candy sack once more as they hide. She's curious! There is so much of it. Every time she digs through it, she discovers something brand new. These people are clearly very passionate about their candy and candy manufacturing. Then she finds one piece in particular that causes her to light up. Maybe because the wrapper evokes a serious challenge.

"Oh, look! This candy says it's extreme. Are you extreme enough to try it, Juju?" Lettie mischievously flicks a tiny piece of candy (apparently called a 'warhead') at Juno. If there is anything she knows the pirate can't resist, it's competition. "...I bet you're not. Tell you what. If you can handle the 'extreme' candy then we can go to the graveyard or whatever. Which sounds totally lame, by the way! And if not, we'll go grab a bite to eat instead. How's that sound?"
 
Needless to say, they're at a restaurant. Juno doesn't want to dignify what happened with a story, but let's just say she's thinking of several ways to get her revenge on the faerie after she obviously attempted to melt off her tongue with acid. Not only is that fucking evil, it's like she doesn't know that tongues are fucking important for a lot of mouth activities. Olette is real fucking lucky that Juno had the sense to spit out that 'extreme' fucking Warhead after three seconds. (If that's what black cherries taste like, Juno would never like to fucking try one because that shit was nasty.) Had any permanent damage been done to Juno's most important muscle, there would have been Hell to pay three times over for the faerie.

As it is, she's just glad there had been no witnesses (aside from the faerie) who saw her face twist so tightly it looked like she was trying to impersonate a toilet flushing. 'Hope she got her fucking jollies off with that one.' (The pirate wishes she could say that the faerie wussed out on attempting her own dare, but, Juno hates to admit it, she handled it like a fucking champ.) After that fucking embarrassment Juno has mostly kept quiet, only saying about five words to ask, "Does this place have fries?"

It does, so they sit down and the waitress brings them 'coffee.' Juno's heard of this before, but the stuff is rare on her planet. Only skywards really have access to it and here? It's bottomless. "What..." It's smells like liquid crap. Home, otherwise. She drinks it straight, not realizing that you can actually make it a semi-pleasurable experience using the creamer and sugar that's on the table. Though it doesn't seem like the pirate minds. It's disgusting. She can't stop drinking it.

"You better split that fucking candy with me," Juno finally says, her words smashing into each other now that her brain is going faster than her mouth. (This shit makes her feel like she can do anything. She feels so powerful––and they just serve this drug bottomless here?? Juno cannot and will not get over this. Alright, so maybe she is warming up to this planet––and this definitely has nothing to do with Juno seeing several scantily clad women on the way over here. Obviously, she's seen far more revealing outfits before but on this planet? It seems to be the norm for women to show off their assets.) She hurriedly continues, "I did all the hard work in getting those kids to drop their sacks of money. I should get, like, eighty percent." Just outside the window, behind Olette, the zombies are still chasing those teenagers around. While their screams can’t be heard over this song about ghost-busting, Juno can imagine it perfectly. "Plus, you owe me a fuck ton for room and board for this past... I don't fucking know––ten years it feels like." Regardless of agreement, she swipes the bag from across the booth and pulls out a few pieces at random. Something in a bright orange wrapper, another thing in a red wrapper, and a Warhead. She glares and catapults the Warhead at Olette, the fucking faerie. (She's got to get back at her.)

The waitress comes back with their food and refills Juno's mug. Damn, this stuff really is bottomless. (She can't get more than three sips in before the woman comes rushing back to refill.) She's tempted to dunk her fries into her coffee, just to see what it'd taste like, but most other patrons are settling for that weird ketchup crap. (Are the 'jelly' cubes for fries? Doesn’t appear so.) She shovels the food into her mouth and leans back in the booth, going to pick up one of the pieces of candy she had grabbed earlier. It's the one in the orange wrapper. She doesn't bother to examine it too closely, she only makes sure it's not fucking sour, and tosses the brown lump into her mouth. It's squishy/crumbly. Sweet, but not obnoxious. Salty, but only vaguely. It's fucking good. She fishes through the bag for another one and immediately tears the wrap open, popping the second peanut butter cup into her mouth. As good as this all is... the pirate is restless (thanks to the bottomless coffee). Is Olette really going to make them sit here all night just because she's scared of having fun?

"Hey, level with me here," Juno puts her elbows up onto the table and leans forward, staring the faerie down. Shockingly, there's nothing threatening about her posture even if the look she gives is as serious as ever. "Are you just too chickenshit to go to a graveyard? Is that why you tried to melt my fucking tongue? So that I'd fucking lose and we'd come here?" She raises her brow. Obviously nothing is going to stop the pirate from doing what she wants and she definitely doesn't need to do this with the faerie––like, she hates her so it'll be fine if the faerie refuses. Preferable, even! She just, uh, wants to test if the faerie is a weenie or not. It’s important information to know seeing as they’re stuck together and have been on a strict diet of Life Threatening Situations since they met. Now that she knows the faerie can hold her own (her ribs and face know this especially), she needs to know her limits. Nothing strange about that! It's for survival, duh. "I don't think eating some fucking fries will take all night. So you're either chickenshit or a wuss."

"And what makes you fucking think my idea was going to get us into trouble?" Not all of the pirate's ideas are murderous and going to the graveyard didn't have (inherently) murderous notions behind it. It's not her fault if people get hurt and die because they didn't avoid the (unannounced) blast radius. "You're the one who's the disaster magnet. I'm just a fucking victim." It's hard to tell, but Juno might actually be joking.
 
"What? The children were giving me candy offerings by the handful before you scared them all away, Juju! My charms alone are worth at least a hundred percent of the candy. I'll let you have five percent since I'm so nice." Lettie offers generously (she thinks so, anyway) happily kicking her legs in the booth (the cushions are raised high enough that her feet don't quite touch the ground) as she lines up the different candy pieces on the diner table by size and color. In rainbow order, naturally. As she sorts through them, she changes her hair to match the different color schemes. She's still trying to figure out what kind of vibe she wants to go for on this world. (Seeing the gorgeous women on their way to the diner, she knows she needs to up her own game and fast.) Eventually she settles on some mysterious, violet hair and a black corset dress decorated with some spider web lace (because spiders seem to be a thing here, wonderfully enough) complete with matching spider web tights and pointy heeled boots. (Hm, hm. Will Juju stare at her newly completed outfit the way she stared at those women before? Not that the faerie wants her to stare or anything-- it's-- it's just for science! To see if she's exceeded them in elegance and hotness now that she's showing a little more cleavage.) "Can you even handle the candy? Seeing as we're here and not in the boring old graveyard, I think not."

Naturally, this is the moment that the Warhead hits Lettie square in the face. Glaring and maintaining meaningful eye contact with the pirate, she pinches the small sour candy free of the wrapper and pops it in her mouth unflinchingly to assert the fact that she is the winner of their bet and deserving of respect.

"Huh. Could'a sworn her hair was red before..." The waitress murmurs to herself after serving their food, rubbing her head as she walks away.

Rather than go out of her way to correct the woman, Lettie scoops the candy on the table back into the sack sitting next to her and stares eagerly at the stack of strawberry pancakes she ordered. She begins to munch on them, the rhythm of her leg-swinging becomes happier yet with every delicious bite she takes. It's not on par with the food on Avangeline, but... Ah! Nothing quite like warm food that melts in her mouth. She needs to treat herself and appreciate this precious moment while it lasts, before they're stuck surviving on berries or-- stars forbid-- wasps again. She also receives a limited edition 'spooky milkshake' that comes with a complimentary plastic spider lodged in the dollop of whipped cream on top. (She appreciates this world's love for spiders quite a lot. So cute!) Unhesitatingly, she dips her own fries in the milkshake and watches curiously as Juno tries a piece of candy. Miraculously, it's a piece of candy that she doesn't hate. (If she knows anything about the pirate, it's that she's picky about her food.) Deciding that Juno might be more agreeable to live with while her hunger is sated, she nods at the orange candy.

"Well, fine. You can have all of those orange ones. How about that?" Lettie offers. That seems fair enough to her.

A catchy song about a witch casting a 'spell on you' comes on the radio next. (Oh. That'd be a fun one to sing for karaoke.) Lettie finds that she's actually starting to enjoy herself (as much as she can with the pirate in vicinity anyway) for the first time in a very long time. She's been so fucking stressed lately. It's nice to take a distracting little breather from time to time! This is when Juno asks her to 'level with her'. The faerie expects the worst from this, because they never seem to be on the same level about anything (whether that be because of their height difference or difference of opinions) but when the other woman keeps talking she finds that it isn't so bad. Like, aside from the fact that she's calling her chickenshit. No fucking way!

"You don't know how to relax, do you Juju? The coffee's certainly not helping, either." Lettie acknowledges as she dunks another fry in her milkshake. (...Like she can talk with the massive sugar high she's going to be riding.) She's not saying this to be petty-- she means it in a way that's surprisingly genuine. She knows enough about Juno by now to understand that the concept of 'relaxing' is not in her vocabulary. There's a reason why she has no chill, why she's always so guarded. (Even if the faerie wishes that she doesn't know these things about the pirate... she does.) "Sometimes I get tired. When I see an opportunity to take a break from all the chaos I gotta take it." The faerie purses her lips and stabs the next fry into her milkshake. "...I am a disaster magnet, after all. My life would be a non-stop disaster if I didn't hide away from the spotlight now and then."

This is obviously a joke too... unless? Yikes! Honest much? Lettie shoves the implications down and shrugs it off.

"I can hang with the skellie crew! Stars, a ghost totally lives in my sink back home. What would I have to be afraid of in the graveyard? Psssh." Lettie raises a curious brow of her own, mirroring Juno's expression back at her. "...So what are you suggesting, then? I wanna approve this 'idea' of yours first. Like... it doesn't involve punching anyone in the face, does it? 'Cause that always ends in a battle to the death. Or fire. Or both. Which-- okay-- can be fun depending on the day. But I'm not feeling that tonight, Juju! So I'm warning you now... if something ends up on fire I'm not going to be happy."
 
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This stuff (coffee) is awesome. Had Juno had (bottomless) access to this shit while on the ground back home, she coulda rid the entire world of the nightmares, she's pretty sure. She takes another sip. No, she's absolutely fucking certain. Just her and one swift punch––BOOM! The storm would be destroyed and maybe death wouldn't cling so fiercely to Desdemonia and they could actually live for a change. Ah, that's a bit of a downer topic. She should think of something else. Like how she might pick up the group of hotties breezing right by them. Yeah, Juno can–– wait a second. Distracted by the the faerie rapidly changing her hair color through her peripheries, she looks over at her and has to do a double take. Her gaze lands just as Olette completes her look for the evening (more like the next thirty minutes, knowing her). Okay, Juno's not that observant but she knows the faerie had not been wearing that outfit a second ago. Juno would have noticed because she would have been staring like she is now. (Another babe walks by and Juno doesn't even turn her head.) 'Shit. Tits. Look up, dammit! Her eyes, her fucking eyes look at those not her... Not her fucking cleavage!' "I can candy the handle. Handle the candy." Um, that sentence splice is obviously because of the bottomless coffee and not the result of her brain frying because she's got the best view in the diner. Wait, strike that from the record. Juno didn't just think that at all. She's just delirious from the coffee. She takes another sip.

"The candy is currency––I don't need to fucking eat it. I just need it to get better shit. Shit we actually need. Like another fucking dining room chair since you fucking stole mine." Yes, she is totally accusing the faerie of theft and she isn't wrong to! But she's also not threatening the faerie. In fact, acknowledging that she needs to get a new chair for herself is a sign she's accepted defeat on that particular battle. (Olette is insane if she thinks she can win the mirror war, however.) "I'm taking eighty-five percent of the candy now. My method for getting the currency was way more efficient. You would have had us out there all night twirling like fucking pansies for children. At least with my method there was some fucking dignity and respect gained."

Juno watches with mild interest as Olette dunks her fries into that frozen beverage she ordered. Again, the thought to dunk her fries into her coffee does cross her mind but she still hasn't seen anyone else using their coffee as a dipping sauce. She has seen one other person using their frozen beverage as a dipping sauce, however. She will never understand fry sauces. Why do they even need sauces? They are fine on their own. She quite likes this flavor. "How about you just take all the sour shit and I get the rest?" That seems fair to the pirate.

"And I can totally han'le my coffee," the pirate says, totally not slurring her words together. Okay, maybe she needs to lay off the coffee. But it's so good and bottomless and she can't stop!! She tears open another peanut butter cup and tosses it in her mouth, shoveling fries into her mouth a second later and not realizing she's mixing the two foods until it's too late. This actually isn't bad, so she continues chewing. "I always am relaxed too. Who the fuck told you I'm not relaxed?" Honestly, Juno doesn't see how she's not the most chill person ever. "Also, relaxing isn't that fucking necessary. Anyone who needs more than five minutes to themselves a day is wasting time. Time is fucking precious."

"The only reason I punch people in the face is because they fucking threaten me. It's not senseless." She's insistent on this one and, to a certain degree, it is true. The reaction does arise when she senses danger and it's not her fault that she senses danger far more often than it is actually there. She doesn't remember a time in her life when she hasn't had to be so jumpy and with the cube taking them into unfamiliar situations every other hour, the pirate is extra alert. She doesn't think Olette is alert enough––she's way too trusting. Like, she's always trying to talk her way out of trouble and it's never fucking worked once (because Juno has literally ruined all of her attempts). "But I guess I have appreciated the break from getting punched in the ribs," she shrugs, rubbing a faerie sized bruise on her jaw. It's nice having a small break from the battles. (Even living on the ground hadn't been nearly as intense as the lifestyle the cube is having them live.)

"It doesn't involve punching anyone in the fucking face." Not anymore at least. Her hand drops to her belt to count her bombs again and she unclasps three and sets them on the table. "No fire, either." She won't part with all of her bombs, however, because she never knows what kind of emergency might occur where she'll need them. Two seems more reasonable than five and this will at least ensure that she's wise with them. The pirate is a lot of things, but she isn't wasteful. "I just wanted to, uh, invite the dead denizens of this little town to the party to say hello. Totally innocent intentions. I mean, okay, I thought it'd be funny to have them destroy some houses but I'm past that. Scouts honor," she pats her right hand over her heart and holds her left one up solemnly. Then she makes an 'X' over her heart. "If setting shit on fire is a hard fucking no––you're a buzzkill for that, by the way––let's see who can steal the most shit. I've got my graveyard team and you have your," she does this little wiggle finger gesture, "butterflies."

When the faerie mentions a ghost haunting her sink back home, Juno appears dumbstruck. One, she can't imagine why anyone would willingly haunt the faerie––she's annoying as Hell (doesn't matter that she's also fucking hot as Hell). Two, what kind of ghost haunts a sink specifically? Three, Juno's reminded that Olette has a home. That her home isn't Lady. That she, also, has a home and she hasn't seen in it in goddess knows how long. It's not an ache that settles in her chest; she can't say that she misses Desdemonia. It just occurs to her that she doesn't know if she'll ever seen it again. The faerie probably wonders the same thing about her own home. Huh. The pirate idly twirls one of those tiny spoons in her coffee as she thinks about this. (And tries not to think of those unmentionable memories. It doesn't quite work. She keeps thinking about how eerie and haunting and beautiful Olette's planet had been. She'd be a liar if she said she didn't have questions. She does. So many.) "What do you think you'd be doing if you were home right now, eh?"
 
Lettie purses her lips as she hears Juno out, the razored edges of her skepticism softening by the second. Is the pirate... actually compromising with her on this one? "For the record, it's not that I don't like setting things on fire. There's just a time and place for it. This world's not that bad, you know?" As she listens, she spears a strawberry with her fork and pops it into her mouth. Then she continues working at her food, chewing silently but quickly because she senses that they're going to be heading out soon and she wants to make sure she eats her fill before that happens. No violence, no fires... just some good, wholesome thievery! Now this is something the faerie can get behind. (Although she has to wonder if Juno will actually be able to stick to this 'scout's honor' that she's promising. That itself sounds like the challenge to her.) She confiscates the bombs that the pirate offers over as a truce, nodding sagely. "There are lots of nice children on this world and none of them were trying to kill us. Better conserve our energy and ammo for the bastards who deserve it instead of terrorizing the innocent." While she says this, the screaming teenagers run by the window again. This does not phase Lettie. Despite everything she's just said, she believes that Juno is teaching them a valuable life lesson about hurling globs of ick at strangers. Gross! They're seriously lucky that they hadn't targeted her. They might've ended up flaming chunks of gore on the pavement for ruining her hair and that's a mess she doesn't want to carry on her conscious.

...And Lettie calls the Juno homicidal for retaliating a snowball with a bomb? Isn't... isn't that essentially the same thing? Shit! Is the pirate starting to rub off on her or has she always been this way? She's always been touchy about her hair, of course... but then again, she's been jumpier now more than ever when it comes to watching her own back on the street. Life back home's not always safe or easy by any means whatsoever. But she doesn't have to be prepared to kick ass during every waking moment. For all she knows, cubey could be preparing to toss them into a den of bloodthirsty monsters as they speak. Life has becoming a whirlwind of physical exertion like she's never experienced before. She's liable to go off like a bomb herself one of these days because of it.

"Well..." Polishing off her meal, Lettie glyphs her pocket dimensional purse to grab her mirror and make up kit. She summons a butterfly to hold the silver mirror up for her as she selects an appropriately dark shade of lipstick to go with her outfit. Applying it with confidence of a faerie who knows her own assets (and knows a certain pirate is paying attention) she smirks mischievously at her reflection. Another pretty woman waltzes by their table and Juno's gaze is no longer wanders after them. (Because of course-- her eyes are on her. As they should be! Wait... what?) "I hope you know what you're singing yourself up for, Juju." She pops her lips when her work is done and proceeds to apply some sparkle and dark eye make up. What? She's gotta look good for the heist! The hotter she feels, the better her performance is. That's just how it is. "I hope you're ready to fucking lose, I mean. I'm a heist queen if you haven't noticed yet." Filing her belongings back into her purse (and double checking to make sure that cubey is still there) sparks of a challenge ignite in her eyes. "I'm not even going to insist that you having extra sets of arms is unfair." Which, it totally is unfair. "That's how confident I am. I'm so fucking good that I've become something of an urban legend on Avangeline."

Oh. Speaking of home... Juno brings it up? She's asking questions. Asking questions about her. This is new, isn't it? Normally, the pirate doesn't seem to care what she's doing (unless she's throwing knives or wearing a sexy outfit, apparently) and for a second she doesn't know what to do about it. Then she actually thinks about the question itself. Home. The competitive fire in Lettie's eyes glazes over as she thinks about Avangeline. She crosses her legs and then uncrosses them restlessly, leaning back in her seat. Probably the sugar. She can't sit still anymore. That's all it is. When she thinks of all the shit she's left behind-- all the shit she needs to do, would do in a heartbeat if only she were there... it works her up into a frenzy she's been actively trying to ignore.

"...I'd be trying to get my life back together." Lettie admits thinly, actively pushing against the floodgates of her panic. She twirls a strand of hair around her finger and idly looks out the window. Not that her life was ever together. Now, however? It's got to be in shambles. Like, everyone must think she died in a freak accident at work by now. They've probably emptied out her shitty place and sold it to somebody else. That'd be a nightmare to sort out. That's only a small fraction of it. Doesn't even dig into the heart of what she's actually concerned about. Time is for sure precious. And it's been trickling through her fingers like sand in an hourglass every second she's not on Avangeline to sort shit out. Probably lost all of her jobs. And who knows if the corp will compensate her for all this time she's been away, investigating their stupid relic? She sighs, playing up her dramatics to dissuade the pirate from thinking to hard about her admission. (Instead, the faerie only manages to look very tired.) Geez. She could've easily said something chill or-- or fucking shallow. Like she'd be hanging with friends (something she never gets to do anymore) or lounging in bed painting or nails or some shit and she went with that? (The weight has been crushing her for what feels like an eternity, though. Maybe she needed to get a little of it off her chest to help her breathe.) "I don't want to think about home, Juju. I die a little on the inside every time I do. And it'd be a shame if I started losing my hair when it looks so good, don't you think?"

"But... Oh! You know what? My first order of business would be to get my fucking wing fixed. I think it's been getting worse." Lettie rolls her eyes. Her poor, mangled wing twitches. The stab wounds have healed, but not her bones. "Landing flat on my back isn't helping. Cubey should really be more considerate." She traces the edges of her napkin, playing it coy as she glances at the pirate through her long eyelashes and gets an idea. "You have an advantage for that, too. Me, the flightless wonder... and you with your stupid buff arms and a whole army at your disposal. Oh well. It'll feel even sweeter when I win like this, I guess."

Lettie proceeds to shrug it off as if it's no big deal and she's not working any, ah, magic over the pirate. Putting a spell on her like that song from before. (Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. It's hard to tell.) Either way, the moon is high in the sky and it's heist time. That's sure to take her mind off of all of this shit. The faerie's lips twitch into a winning smile and she tosses her hair around her shoulders with a flourish. She's all good. She's fine. She dumps what she deems a reasonable portion of their candy offerings on the table to pay for their meal and brings herself to her feet, striking an eager little pose. (Despite her outfit, pumping her fist into the air probably comes across as more cute than sexy. It doesn't occur to the faerie to amend this when she's so excited, though.) "Come on, Juju! Let's go commit some crimes."
 
Surprisingly, talking to the faerie isn't that bad. Juno's definitely not as annoyed as she thought she'd be––in fact, she might not be annoyed at all, and that probably doesn't mean anything. It probably just means that she's gotten inured to the faerie's brand of annoying is all. It would have happened eventually even if Juno is surprised that it's happening now. Even so, she lets this information sit before deciding how to act on it. For the time being, she doesn't mind. (Let's see how long this lasts. Thirteen minutes, maybe?) Olette does seem to be testing her when she defends children (once again) and this time, she knows it's only because those little shits called her pretty. Pfft. Desperate much? (Not that Olette even needs to get all her validation from children, of course. She's a total babe––especially right now, with her smoking corset, spiderweb lace, and dark make-up. This is a look she can get behind and she might as well enjoy it while it lasts, because she's pretty sure it's going to be gone before the night is over.)

"Please, they called me ghost hands for a reason back at the academy," she scoffs, rolling her eyes. Like, wow, the faerie actually things that she can beat her? Like, Juno is a professional fucking criminal. (She hasn't caught on that Olette is as well.) This is going to be cake. She stuffs the rest of her fries in her mouth and washes it down with her bottomless coffee while the faerie pays. (Juno does swipe the peanut butter cups from the pile, because those are fucking hers.) "I don't need my fuckin' skeletons. I could beat you without the graveyard workin' for me. Just me 'n my stupid buff arms, the only heist team I fucking need." She smiles smugly and raises her stupid buff arms, flexing her biceps. (This actions earns her a rightful amount of stares from that group of hotties in the back, but they are not the hotties she is trying to impress so she doesn't really take note. Wait. Alright, yeah, the faerie is totally getting to her. Fuck.)

Even if the pirate can admit that the faerie is attractive, simply because she has a working pair of eyes (as always is her excuse), does the faerie really think she can bat her pretty little eyelashes and the necromancer will snap her fingers to fix her fucking bones? She's fucking delusion. It takes more than a great pair of tits for her to waste her magic on another person. "It's a real fucking bitch that you've gotta suffer being the flightless wonder. Honestly," the pirate grins in a way that says brace yourself, "I don't even believe that you can fly." She jabs the faerie's shoulder just as they step out of the restaurant. The cold night air bites her cheeks, turning them red, and she shoves her hands deep into her pockets. "But, I'll tell you what, since I know you're going to throw a fit over this later when I totally fuckin' wipe the floor clean with ya, we can have ourselves a little fucking do-over once you're healed up. That way, you can confirm that you're the heist court jester."

When Olette answers Juno's last question, the pirate listens, stunned. Shards of what she (has never) seen flash in her mind's eye and she shrugs. Yeah, she wouldn't really want to go home either. There's nothing for her there anyway. (Not that there's anything really here for her on any of these other worlds that they've been to.) She might not know much about Olette's situation, and even if they grew up on totally different worlds (literally, figuratively), she got a good enough read to know the faerie wasn't fucking pleased to be reliving all that shit. The pirate cannot be too certain, but she assumes that those nightmares were her life's version of James and that? That kind of agony is something the pirate can understand. So if she wants to take her mind off home? Juno can play distraction––not because she cares about Olette and wants to see her smile or anything fucking gay like that. It'd, uh, be good for morale and, shit, she hates admitting it but they are a team now. Juno's not ready to kick the bucket yet and if survival means relying on the faerie, they've gotta be on their best. That means keeping the faerie's spirits up. She rolls her neck, several painful pops sounding off, and takes a deep breath. Wearing the biggest shit eating grin she can muster, she shoves the faerie and runs off laughing, "Later, flightless!"

The shit eating grin on her face? She makes sure that Olette sees it specifically, before she turns around and barrels forward as fast as she can towards the graveyard. (What? Did you think Juno was going to break out her fucking notebook and ask Olette when all her troubles started? Pfft, no fucking way! Lifting her spirits is going to be done Juno style because it's the only style she's familiar with.) She's not going to the graveyard because she's going to recruit some henchmen, but because she might as well start by robbing graves. Yeah, the bodies will be digging themselves up, but Juno doesn't think it's going against what she said. She's not gonna use them to swoop on the rest of the town's treasure, she'll ash them right after they hand over their goods.

Now, all of that would have been well and good had the street leading up to the graveyard not been littered with slaughtered corpses. Ah, Juno's not familiar with this planet's customs but she doesn't think that this is normal. The way the temperature drops around the area is an all too familiar sign that something is off––the asphalt itself is starting to spread with ice. If Juno pretends it's not there then it's not real, right? No, and even she knows this. She sighs, her breath billowing out as thick frost. Well, she's not going to play detective because this isn't her job so she turns on her heel and marches back to find the faerie. At least to warn her that there's a mass murderer casually strolling through the streets. (For all Juno knows, this is part of the planet's customs. Even if it felt off to her, maybe it's just her own cultural bias or some shit. Also, the only reason she is going to give the faerie a warning is because she has their ticket off this planet trapped in her magic circle. The very circle Juno has not been able to figure out and it annoys her to no end!)

When she finds the faerie, she grabs her shoulder and casually starts talking, "Avoid elm street. Saw a lot of fresh corpses so I'm pretty sure the people here have pissed off their goddess or something. Crystal lake drive looks promising? Heard some fuckin' kids saying the people on that street have king sized candies." Not that Juno knows what that means at all, but it has to be good––the candies there are appropriately sized for kings and everyone knows those dickbags are always overcompensating. However before Juno can race Olette over to the street and before she can even realize she's accidentally helped her enemy with this tip, both their names echo through the neighborhood.

"Juuno."​
"Olette."​

The creeping fog that's starting to roll over the hills and calls their names? Probably ignorable. Totally ignorable. As are the children who are fusing with their costumes and becoming whatever thing they had dressed up as. (The fabric pumpkin, for example? Now a real sentient pumpkin.)
 
Lettie pouts and rubs her jabbed arm as Juno completely sidesteps her attempt to get her wing fixed. She's not even insulted because she refuses to heal her (despite all her claims about having 'special bones'-- that's got to be totally bogus!) that's not really a surprise. But it's more so because of the continued claims that the faerie doesn't actually know how to fly. Stars, she's a faerie! Like this, though, there's no way she can prove her wrong. Not yet, anyway. And so the pirate got a free compliment about her stupid buff arms-- which aren't that buff, by the way-- (and that her mind drew a blank while the pirate flexed is entirely besides the point!) while she sunk to calling herself that devastating nickname! (That's it. She's officially keeping a tally now. Every time she's called the 'flightless wonder' she's adding onto it... and then the day her wing does finally heal? Oh, she's going to get her revenge.) When she checks her reflection in one of the diner windows as they exit, she finds she feels a bit better. Damn, she does look good. Nothing like seeing a perfect ten in the mirror to boost morale! Geez. She really is too pretty to struggle like this, isn't she? Alas.

"Oh, please! You'll be the one throwing a temper tantrum when I beat you! Then when we have the inevitable rematch that you insist upon to restore your wounded pride, you'll be freaking the fuck out when you realize my beautiful wings will help me soar to victory a second time." Lettie insists, twirling a strand of hair around her hair with a huff. She's steaming enough that she hardly feels the chill in the air. The heist jester!? As if. She may not be able to prove that she can fly (yet) but for now, she can prove that she's the better fucking thief! "I hope you're ready to lose twice, Juju."

Unsurprisingly, Juno doesn't say anything in response to Lettie's admissions. The faerie doesn't really expect her to. (Although she hadn't expected such a question coming from her in the first place. Typically the pirate's questions range between 'what the fuck?' or 'where the fuck's my fucking mirror, you fucking faerie!?') When has she ever deemed anything she had to say even remotely interesting? (...Is it the corset? It might not score her healed wings, but maybe it's inspiring some interest?) There're depths to this, probably... Lettie is content to believe it's her hotness for now, though. It's easier than the alternative, just like it's easier to think about just about anything other than home right now. Either way, she doesn't have much time to investigate this any further when she's shoved and called the flightless wonder. Again!

"Hey!" Lettie stomps her foot when Juno races off too quickly for her to retaliate with a shove of her own. One glimpse of that shit-eating grin and sparks are flying in her eyes. She runs in her heels, an impressive feat to be sure (she's gotten exponentially better at this now that her wing is broken and she runs more often, too) but doesn't quite manage to catch up. Shorter legs and whatnot. Does she even need to go to the graveyard herself? Like, she doesn't need to raise a zombie army herself. So shouldn't she be scoping out nearby stores? (She really does want to shove the pirate back, though.) Apparently there's no need to catch up, though, when Juno closes the distance she created between them herself by... coming back? What?

Lettie purses her lips and gives Juno the shove she feels she's rightfully owed when she grabs her shoulder. (And she kind of regrets this afterwards. Not because she likes it when she touches her or anything like that! The pirate's hand was warm on her skin, which she's realizing is ice cold now that it's gone. Brrr. What the fuck? It wasn't this cold out here before!) She wraps her arms around herself and shivers, not quite willing to part with her new outfit yet. Okay, right. First thing she needs to nab is a coat. A black, faux fur coat will match this style and keep her nice and cozy in this downright brutal weather. Then she raises a brow as Juno speaks about corpses and king sized candies.

"Are you scheming? How am I supposed to know you're not--" Not leading her astray specifically to fuck her over!? Then again, the pirate has never been one to try and con her way out of situations when she can just punch her way through them instead. That's not even what causes Lettie to pause, though, when the rolling fog calls their names with a mysterious voice. Um. What? Briefly, she glimpses between Juno and the fog. Then she proceeds to roll her eyes. "Wow. Even the creepy fog learned my name before you did."

And yeah, Lettie's totally judging her! She feels she has the right to do so, given the fact that the pirate required fireworks and flashing arrows to put together the fact that her name is Olette. (And even then, she's unsure whether or not she has committed it to memory. Not when she goes as far as to call her obviously wrong names like Olevender.) Okay, okay. She should probably be a little more concerned about the fog knowing her name. And about the costumed children turning into everything from pumpkins to... faeries? (Of course their fake wings are fully functional to add insult to injury, allowing them to fly around along with the angels, the witches on their broomsticks, a few oversized insects and a fucking dragon? Oh shit!)

"We want our candy back!" The sentient pumpkin, along with more of the children, begin to chant this phrase like zombies. "We want our candy back!" They're turning their sights on Lettie and Juno, creeping closer and closer in preparation to corner them. Shit. Their candy offerings! They need to make a break for it! When Lettie tries to run, however, she wobbles in place and discovers that her feet are locked firmly in a webbing of frost along with the rest of the asphalt. It's even colder and the ice climbs higher by the second. "Stars." On instinct, the shivering faerie glyphs her shoes into skates, and then into bulky platforms-- changing their shape enough that they eventually manage to crack through the ice encasing them. (Fashion magic deserves way more credit, all right?) The dragon is swooping down, mouth opening (presumably to breathe fire at them) so she sends a butterfly down to the ice at Juno's feet and has it ignite to a bright orange. Rather than commanding it to explode, she keeps it in the phase just before that so it heats and melt the ice around the pirate's feet. (Why is she doing this? Don't ask her why! It's just a spur-of-the moment decision. She's still riding a sugar high! Besides, allowing the captain of the ship she's been living on to be incinerated is just-- silly! Friggin' bananas!)

"This is exactly what happens when we do things your way, Juju!" Lettie comments as they run to narrowly avoid being reduced to ashes by dragon breath. While the warmth of the flames is indicative of danger, it does feel kind of nice in this cold. "You say 'no fire' and there's fucking fire!" The further they run, the thicker the fog gets. It becomes very difficult to see what's ahead of them or behind them at this rate. It's just them and the mist that knows their names.

"I was so close to thinking this world was cool, too. Bummer." Lettie breathes out when they've run far enough, her breath puffing indicative of 'cool' weather. (She doesn't mean it like that, though!) She inches closer to Juno. Mainly because she's the only source of heat in this weather and it'd also be impossible to find her again if they get separated out here. "Where'd your zombie army get off to? Can't you have them fight those... kids?" Okay. It sounds bad, yeah, but do they even qualify as 'kids' anymore? The dragon almost burnt them to a crisp!
 
Juno would consider mission: Get Olette's Mind Off of Home a complete success judging by the way the faerie shoves her once she returns to her side. Good. She still snarls when she's pushed back, just in case the faerie suspects anything. Not that there's anything to suspect, of course, Juno did this for purely practical reasons! Making sure the faerie doesn’t read past that is just a preventative measure. Anyway, she must not suspect anything (thank goddess) since she's bitching about the fog knowing her name before Juno just because Juno didn't bother to learn hers until, like, a few days into knowing her. (That is very reasonable, by the way, since you never fucking know when someone is going to leave you. Waste of time to know someone who can leave at any minute.)

"Fuck, you know your name is hard to remember.” She rolls her eyes. “Who the fuck names their kid Orinda anyway??" Oh, Olette is not hallucinating the grin coming from Juno's tone. Or the one that's plain on her face. Yeah, she's purposefully trying to get under her skin by refusing to acknowledge her actual name. (That she does know, against her will. It pretty much echos in her fucking brain every time she closes her eyes at night. For totally murderous reasons, obviously.) Besides it's not like the faerie ever calls her by her actual name. In all ways, this is the faerie's fault because she started the whole fucking nickname business the second she fucking found out her name. (Because Juno sure as Hell never told it to her.) Before Juno can carry on further with her inner monologue, the dragon grabs her attention. Right.

Like the faerie, the pirate has the same instinct to run and, like the faerie, she quickly finds out that her feet are frozen solid to the ground. 'Shit, shit, shit!' Why couldn't necromancy come with fucking ice powers or fire powers or anything to help her break out of this in three fucking seconds!? She's about to make a futile effort to make an icepick out of a bone shard or something, but the faerie... comes in for the save? (It doesn't even occur to Juno to think that Olette was going to explode her feet. For once, she straight up trusts her and that's probably just because of the peril of their situation. This trust will (hopefully) dissipate in the next ten seconds, because trust and relying on others is for suckers.)

Naturally, even while they run, the faerie decides that it is, in fact, time for antagonism. Juno rolls her eyes, though part of her is relieved that there's something else to focus on other than that fucking dragon who is chasing after them and burning down houses, other costumed monstrosities, etc. That's not good. “You’re acting like I’m personally fucking responsible for turning that kid into a fucking dragon! You should be talking to its fucking parents!” (Parents are apparently universally terrible, as Juno has learned, so who knows if that would even work.)

She slows her pace once they're in the thick of the fog and looks around to see... more fog and by the time she's done spinning around, she's not confident which direction they came from. Shit. She rests her hand on Olette's shoulder, since she's not going to fucking hold her hand or link arms like they're fucking besties or whatever, but they do need to stick together. "My zombie army is..." she closes her eyes and concentrates on those threads connected to her soul. Images flash through her mind of the zombies chasing down the kids, then the teens, and now they're–– "The dragon just fucking burned them." She cracks her neck and pulls out a handful of shards. "I suppose you don't have a fuckin' issue if I punch some faces now, eh?" Regardless, it doesn't seem that they will have a choice when the dragon does eventually catch up to them, landing directly in front of them (along with an army of former children who are know pumpkins, demons, angels, faeries, ghosts, etc.). The impact of the landing clears away some of the fog and Juno wishes that could have been nice. She really, really wishes it could have been, but instead it only draws out more worry because no longer are they in that suburb. Instead, the asphalt has turned to a dirt road and on either side of them are fields of corn and pumpkins. (What is this planet's obsession with fucking pumpkins??!!)

"I won't punch them that hard, but just remember that they fucking started it," because she doesn't want to hear the faerie's lecture about punching children. Yeah, ordinarily Juno would agree that most children don't deserve to be punched in the face, but these one seem to be infected with murder disease. Regardless of what Olette thinks, she fans the shards in front of them and wills them to spring into fully formed skeletons. Skeletons with knives for hands, to be precise, because that seems like it'll be fucking useful. Already, Juno's pulling out her whip and transforming it into baton (because they're fucking children and they probably shouldn't fucking murder children even if it would be easy as Hell). The dragon tilts its head back to indicate that it's about to hurl flames at them and when it does, Juno notices a black spore sitting at the base of its neck; a spore that writhes on the dragon's underside, like it's fighting to claim more territory and seep beneath the surface. "Shit," she mutters, side stepping the flames and letting it eat some of the skeletons she just created. She quickly looks over the rest of their miniature assailants (well, to Olette they probably aren't that miniature) and notices similar spores splotched on various parts of their bodies. One kid, who had apparently dressed up as a machete wielder in a hockey mask, is covered in thick inky looking spores. The child looks especially murderous and its going straight for the fucking faerie (Olette, specifically, since there are at least three other fucking faeries now). Juno would help her, since she has the cube and all, but the dragon takes advantage of the pirate's distraction and sweeps her feet with its tail.

Juno falls onto her back (how is she not already used to this specific kind of fucking pain!?) and is quick to right herself, turning her baton into a sword. (Look, the stakes just got raised and going into a fireball fight with a fucking stick is stupid.) The fireballs come at her almost nonstop and she tries to direct the fucker's attention away from the original fucking faerie, for purely strategic reasons. One of the flames catches onto the end of her coat and she's quick to shuck it, tossing it into the dirt. 'Shit.' She needs to get closer to that fucking spore, because she's got a fucking feeling if she can peel that sucker off this will go back to normal. Should she tell Olette this since they're kind of have to be a team now? Well, regardless of the answer, she's too busy dodging claw strikes and flames. The pirate scatters more enchanted bones across the field, setting them up so that they impale anything that steps on them. She does find the time to warn the original faerie about this. "Watch the bones!" Not totally helpful, but Olette has probably seen enough enchanted bones carefully placed throughout the ship to know what they are/what they do.
 
"Yeah, yeah! Just don't kill anyone." Lettie agrees, waving her hand in a 'whatever' gesture. They're still children (presumably) but she's not going to tell Juno that punching a child-turned-dragon (that's trying to incinerate them!) is off limits. If the choice is between that and burning alive, then there is no choice. (A little voice in the back of her mind wonders why the pirate acknowledges her former conditions at all. She tells the little voice to keep quiet.) Knowing the pirate, she wouldn't have listened to her even if she had reservations on the subject and proceeded to do whatever the hell she wanted anyway! It's not like she actually cared about what she thought in this instance. And okay, she does feel bad that they're kids. (And nice kids as far as kids go, too. She recognizes the ones that called her pretty and gave her candy among the murderous group approaching them now.) Even so, this situation has clearly evolved into a matter of self defense! She already looks hot enough as is in her dress-- she doesn't need a fire breathing monstrosity to turn her into a fried faerie. That aside, who knows who else might get hurt with a fire-breathing dragon traipsing around town? Geez. What could've happened to these kids? Is there a way to change them back somehow?

Lettie watches carefully as the pirate preps herself and creates skeletons to help their odds against the wave of monsters. Juno had a valid point that she couldn't have been the one responsible for this. Not that she even took her own accusation that seriously back there-- but the point is that something caused these kids to transform. Something that's not the pirate, who'd been too busy downing stars knows how many cups of straight black coffee in the diner when it happened. (Which... yuck!) So is this a normal occurrence for this world? (Based on their dramatic reaction to the zombies awakening, she kinda doubts it. And the houses they passed definitely weren't equipped to sustain this kind of damage either. Are their memories are wiped after they transform? Maybe the whole town just resets at daybreak? Sounds weird, but it's not that far-fetched, is it? There could be all kinds of rules and systems to this magic that she just hasn't discovered yet!) Could it be some type of curse? If that's the case, finding the caster should put an end to this. In the fog, surrounded by stalks of corn and pumpkins and these children-turned-nightmares... they'd have better luck hoping that cubey takes them someplace else before they find the perpetrator. (Someone in the fog had called their names back there, too. There's a someone at the heart of this issue for sure... and a someone that isn't Juno. Obviously because she wouldn't have used her name, which is apparently 'too hard to remember!' Yeah, okay.) Whoever it is, they're the one that deserves to get punched. More than the poor kids. But just because they're kids doesn't mean that they get a free pass to kill them without a fight. This especially becomes relevant when the dragon prepares to breathe more flames at them!

Lettie sidesteps the fire just in time and gulps when she (presumably?) locks eyes with the kid in the hockey mask. What's with that rank energy swirling all around them? There's no time to stand around and find out because they're charging at her like a bull seeing red. Determinedly, the faerie stands planted firmly where she is. Just as the hockey player throws all of their might into swinging the machete at her, she glitches her body through the attack and appears on the other side of him. A flash of light, a flash of ribcage and... With their target gone, the hockey player stumbles with a noisy 'crunch' into a nearby corn stalk. While they're down, she tilts her head and tries to get a closer look at the dark ick sticking to them. What's up with that? It seems like a curse to her, if... a bit off somehow. When she sends an experimental butterfly down to touch against one, it turns the same shade of black and crumbles away like charcoal. Then the kid is up again, almost too quickly for her to react, and the faerie quickly backs away and dodges down and sideways as they wildly swing their machete at her. She's getting gradually backed into a skeleton (and not one of Juno's) and a witch.

That's when Lettie notices the bones sticking out of the ground and hears the warning. And yes, she has indeed seen enough of these by now to know what they do. (Every time she sees them, she realizes how her life would have been so much easier with her wing fixed. Alas...) Phasing herself away from the trio, the faerie glitches herself tauntingly along the path, skating around in tricky zigzag patterns to specifically lead her pursers into Juno's bone traps. (A faerie's light is made to be particularly enticing. Of course they follow without hesitation!) She watches when a bone spears through one of the hockey kid's spores and dissolves it away. This slows his pace slightly. The more spores that get taken out this way, the less murderous he seems.

"The spores... Juju, that's it! We need to get rid of those!" Lettie sends a few more butterflies out. Knowing what will happen this time, has them stretch their wings and crystalize into little orbs that encase the spores and squash them before they can react. The witch is now a little girl dressed as a witch again. (Rather than cry at the frightening sight of the other kids, she looks vaguely fascinated.) The skeleton, too, is turned back into a child in a skeleton onesie. This endeavor takes a lot of focus on her part, though, and she accidentally steps on one of the traps in the process. "Fuck!" Quickly, she dives down to narrowly avoid being impaled through the chest. (She's had plenty of practice at this point, but her heart pounds as fast as ever. Fucking bones!) Scrambling back up to her feet, she continues to focus on guiding the children-turned-monsters through the minefield of traps.

"If my wing were fixed I'd be able to scout ahead." Lettie notes bitterly. All their efforts will be in vein if more spores float by and attach themselves to any kid in sight. "...We need to find out where these things are coming from, right? Otherwise they're going to keep coming. Where'd we leave Lady again?"
 
Yeah, yeah, murdering children is "wrong," but what are the ethics of killing one who has turned into a fucking dragon and is currently trying to fucking eat her (and Olette, she guesses)? There has to be some ethical look away, because it's self-defense! (She supposes that knocking the not-so-little-shit out is also an option. Ugh. It's just not the most efficient option! But she's gotta think about the kid's future and shit. Fuck. This exhaustion shit is making her soft. Blech.) Juno runs her hands through her hair, pushing it back, only for it to fall forward (like always). Alright, she can figure this out. She's Juno. (And she happens to be watching the faerie and getting ideas. Yeah, she saw how the faerie was able to neutralize those murderous children using her traps and that zippy raver magic of hers. It was, uh, impressive. She'll give her that.) Following a similar thread of logic, she strategically skips over her bone traps, activating the stakes so that the dragon ends up tangled in between them. The dragon thrashes around against its bonds, even trying to bite and burn them, and as a result, the bones start to splinter and crack.

Not wanting to find out what'll happen if the dragon breaks free, Juno slides in and cuts off the growth on the kid's neck with her bone sword; the spore puffs away into the air. Similarly, the dragon poofs back into a fucking toddler that Juno has to dive to catch before they fall to the ground. (Alright, alright so in this specific instance aiming for the kill isn't always a good option. That could have been a fucking disaster for her conscious. She's still not over that civilization they toppled. Fuck. They're fucked.) The kid smacks the pirate in the face and runs off towards the little witch. 'I fucking hate kids.'

Still, that doesn't mean the cursed kids are going to just disappear just because Juno hates them. That's not how this fucking works. If anything, knowing her luck, they'll just start multiplying. (She really shouldn't tempt the goddess with these ideas.) While Olette has "cured" most of the kids, a few are still on murder mode with spores sitting on top of their heads and faces. Juno turns her sword back into a whip, splitting it into three sections that all reach to wrap around the remaining monsters, holding them in place.

The pirate scratches her head when the faerie asks about her ship. "Uhh," Juno thinks while she cuts through spores. (Weird, the faerie's butterflies couldn't withstand the spores, but her bones can? This doesn't comfort her.) "We didn't land on Lady this time." Should they be worried about that? She can't recall a time where they haven't land on her airship. It's probably nothing. "Here," she hands Olette a bone knife, "Take care of the rest and I'll see if I can get Marjorie on the radio."

She takes a few steps away from the group and reaches for her pocket radio, turning the dial. "Hey, Marjorie, bonehead, you there?" She waits a few seconds. Nothing, just static. "Hey! Fuck, where the fuck are you, Marjorie? Did you give the radio to Abigail again!?" Still nothing. She looks up at the sky, maybe hopeful that she can spot her ship, but it's getting hard to see again. Without all the action from the battle before, the fog is slowly creeping back in; wisps stretch out like they're trying to reach for them, forcing the pirate to turn away and run back towards the faerie. "Don't know where the ship is parked, but that fog is a fucking problem." Crap, do they need to watch out for the children? She hates that she knows the answer to that question. (It's bad enough that they have to babysit a fucking cube, but also these children!? Really? Why.) "We gotta round up the fucking kids. Here," she hands the faerie one end of her whip, while she holds onto the other end. "So we don't lose each other." (Fuck, why did she say that!? Now the faerie knows she thinks of them as a fucking team and ugh. She's going to need to do damage control after this fiasco is over.)

Thankfully, there are the wandering children to focus on, so she shoves away her concerns and starts rounding up the former skeleton, witch, devil, and a couple of the angels. Once she's collected the children, she tugs on the whip and starts following it back to the faerie with her tiny pack of human children. (She is very uncomfortable with this development.) "Are we missing any?" She looks around at the group, but honestly she doesn't remember how many kids had been chasing them. She only really remembers that fucking astronaut pumpkin. (Yes, she is combining two costumes together.) When they're certain they've got all of the children, she tries to figure out where to go from here, but it's hard to see. They could try finding the edge of those cornfields and use that as a path to follow in some direction, at least?

Before Juno can direct the group, the witch pulls on her shirt and smiles up at the pirate. "Can't you hear it?" she asks, tilting her head to the side. "Don't you hear the thump, thump, thump?" Juno swallows and looks up at Olette, just to make sure this isn't as creepy as it fucking sounds. Though before she can even utter her signature catch phrase, the faint sound of a heart beating sounds from the left. Juno turns to face it, and as soon as she does it starts coming from behind her; no matter which way she turns, the direction of the noise keeps changing. 'What the fuck?' "Uh, uh... Dude, can you hear that?" She's too freaked to come up with an obviously made-up 'O' name. She places her hand on the faerie's shoulder.

The former dragon tugs on Olette's hand, peering up at her with little flickers of light dancing behind their dragon mask. They pull her in some sort of direction and quietly and very measured, they say, "Just follow us. We know the way. Adult hearts are too confused."
 
"...Aye aye, capn'." Lettie concedes without further remark when Juno hands her the bone knife. For now, it feels like they're on the same page. (Yeah, her heart nearly jumped out of her chest when she noticed from the corner of her eye that the dragon had been a toddler all along. The revelation nearly convinced her to abandon her own task to intervene before it was too late... but then the pirate dove in to catch him without hesitation. The warm sensation she felt while watching this endearing moment transpire was not worth studying, okay!? But it did set her at ease enough to trust Juno to handle the rest of the kids without turning them into kebobs on giant bone stakes.) There's also a lot on her mind. Namely, freeing the remaining children from the spores. Wondering where the fuck the spores came from. And then there's also the fact that they didn't land on the Lady, like Juno said. (Yikes. Could cubey have turned the ship to ash this time around? Maybe it was only able to sustain so many worlds before it finally dissolved? Did that mean someday their bodies would get disintegrated, too? Then again, figuring out why cubey roasts the things it roasts is a challenge itself. Like Carpet and all of those zombies... and then there were the instruments, which cubey decided to keep.) There's a larger mystery to all of this. If she can come up with some answers before she makes it home, then maybe there's still hope for her yet.

Lettie shoves these thoughts aside for the time being, weaving around the traps and cutting off spores whenever she can. She's learned enough from her training sessions in the gym to effectively take care of the ones on the ground without any magic. As for the faeries, though? She glyphs the hilt for absolute accuracy-- tossing the knife at the spores and commanding it back to her hand like a boomerang. She rushes forward to catch them as they fall out of the sky, lining them all up around her. Many of the kids are distraught, rubbing their eyes, complaining about being tired. 'Me too, kid.' Lettie wipes at her brow, allowing herself a moment to breathe when she's sure she's helped all of them.

When Juno mentions the ship again, Lettie considers the repercussions of voicing her worries from before. The idea that the Lady could be a pile of ashes somewhere out here... no. Better not to say anything until they confirm it. It freaks her out enough as is and she has a feeling the pirate might flip. And nothing's been confirmed yet, all right? No need to disrupt whatever weird flow they've found here. Especially when the lives of children are at stake. This especially becomes relevant when she's offered the other end of the whip and Juno prioritizes the kids again. The faerie bites the inside of her cheek to stop herself from smiling at the sight of Juno, tall and badass (wait what?) stalking over and juxtaposing the tiny children following behind her like a line of adorable ducklings. Are we missing any? Remembering to stay present, she checks around her to make sure she still has the hockey player, the pumpkin, princess and faeries in her own little group. "No, I don't think so." It's hard to tell, though. She looks at the princess, who seems older and a bit more responsible then the others. "...Hey. Is this everyone?"

"Uh huh." The princess says and gives one big nod. Well, okay. That's what they're going with, then!

Rather than setting off to take the kids home, though, Lettie watches with dismay as the fog crawls closer and listens to the witchy little girl mention the 'thump, thump, thump'. Now that she's heard that? She's totally aware of it. It's like the earth has a heartbeat. A moment later, though, it's like gravity shifts and the sky has a heartbeat instead. Then it comes from the east, the north, the west, the south. The look she trades with the pirate says she's absolutely resting at the same stage of creeped out on this whole thing. She's so creeped out that she doesn't even acknowledge that the pirate is calling her 'dude' of all things.

"Sure can." Lettie manages through a nervous, breathy little laugh. (She knows she's in trouble if she's laughing. She laughs when it gets bad.) The faerie inches closer to the pirate, gripping tightly onto her end of the whip. "What... what do you think--"

The way Lettie nearly jumps out of her skin when the toddler grabs her hand does not bear description, repeating or remembering. These are special circumstances, okay!? Not to mention that this same toddler nearly incinerated them all just moments before. Not to mention the cryptic stuff these kids are starting to say. Adult hearts? It doesn't seem like either she or Juno are confused, though. (Or, okay, yeah... they are. But for valid reasons!) Like, those spores were sticking to the kids and controlling their minds. If anything, they were the ones who ought to be confused! Instead, they're acting like this is an average Tuesday. And maybe it is just an average Tuesday for them?

"You know the way to where?" Lettie asks warily.

"The heart. Don't you hear it? It's the thump, thump, thump." Yeah, this isn't getting any less creepy. The more it sits with her, the worse it gets.

Something about following the kid who just tried to incinerate them doesn't sit right with Lettie, though. So she holds out her hand expectantly. "...Okay. But give me your mask first. In fact-- all of you. Take off your props and put them in the sack. I'll give them back when we take you home." She opens her candy sack to collect them. Some of them are fine with this. Some of them grumble and complain with having to take off their masks. The faerie pinpoints the kid in the hockey mask in particular and confiscates their machete. "And you shouldn't have this, anyway."

Lettie sighs and tosses the machete into her pocket dimensional purse for extra safe keeping. This is just a precaution. If the spores turns the kids into whatever they're dressed as-- maybe removing key parts of the costumes will help at keeping that from happening again? She's not necessarily in the mood for round two against a dragon, after all.

"What about you? You should take yours off, too! It's only fair." The hockey kid tugs hard on one of Lettie's wings. Her broken wing, to be specific, and she hisses through her teeth.

"Ouch! I'm not wearing a costume, kid. I'm a real faerie." Lettie swats their hand away, blinking hard. Hurts like hell but no way is she going to cry over that. 'No such thing as real faeries' the kid mumbles under their breath, bitter. Another pitches in with a 'I thought she was supposed to be a demon, with the spider dress.' Ugh. "Are you sure you kids don't want to go home...? Go to bed?"

The children chorused disapproval at this. "No. We need to see the heart first!" One complains. "Don't you hear it calling us?" Says another. Shit.

"You're not taking my hat." The witch girl complains, tugging down on the brim. "It's my favorite hat. Now let us go! The heart awaits!" Before either of them can protest, the little weirdo is marching ahead into the fog. Lettie shrugs and exchanges another hesitant look with Juno. This is what they're doing now, she guesses. They have no other leads and have to keep the kids safe. Even the weird ones.

When the fog clears, Lettie finds that the children are leading them to a big, strikingly open field. The earth is all shorn and brown, sprinkled with browning leaves. There is one scarecrow sticking out in the field, smiling and tilted at an ominous angle. And behind it? Behind it is a big, pulsing black heart. It oozes and bulges out of the earth. It's not that bad, is it? Eerie as hell, but...

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" The scarecrow leans one way, then another... and then the stake it's on rises high into the air so it looms over everyone. The drawn face moves jaggedly as it talks. "Juno, Olette! We're so glad you could join us." We? The faerie swallows hard as the children all around them morph into little black fiends with beady red eyes. (What!?) In a flash, the sky turns a deep, wine red and the silvery fog framing their surroundings darkens to black as if they'd been transported into some mirror hell dimension. "Don't just stand there! We're throwing a party. Won't you join us?" Uh oh. The fog is starting to cough up spores... spores which are floating menacingly towards them both!

"Shit." One attaches itself to Lettie's leg and she cuts it off herself before it can reach her mind. (Horrifyingly enough, one second is all it takes. It fills her with the intense desire to wring Juno's neck. While this isn't necessarily an unusual feeling, it never comes on like this-- not this strong-- and never strong enough to convince her to outright kill the pirate.) When the spore dissolves, so too do those thoughts. She discovers that she yanked the whip from Juno when she hadn't been herself and quickly tosses it back to her by way of apology. "Watch out for the spores, Juju. They're... intense." She mentions shakily. "...It's like before, isn't it? We have to stop the heart."
 
Juno grew up fighting nightmares. She's just had to relieve her life's worst moment. Now she has to deal with creepy kids, spouting creepy bullshit about hearts and how adults don't fucking know how to follow theirs. Great. So they're definitely being led to their death. Juno almost asks Olette if she's out of her damn mind for agreeing to follow this fucking child, who is a toddler (in case anyone has fucking forgotten), but fuck if the pirate has a better idea. Like, yeah, logically they should avoid danger, especially with their hoard of children, but that won't rid them of their problems; the enemy will still be out there and Juno would rather neutralize the threat now than let it live a second longer.

She looks at the faerie and shrugs. Yeah, they're doing this. She also supposes that they shouldn't let these children go get slaughtered by that heart, seeing as they're marching into the fog whether the faerie and pirate approve or not. She takes a deep breath and steps forward.

As they follow the children (goddess, this is such a bad idea), Juno trots a few steps behind the faerie so that she can take a look at the mangled wing. (She saw that murder child tug on it and nearly punted him into the sky. She only resisted the urge because the faerie would have probably frowned at her for that. Not that she cares about what Olette thinks of her or anything. It's just that if they're working together now, they need to sort of... piss each other off less?) Admittedly, the pirate is being stubborn about not healing the wing. She does have her reasons, of course, and one of the main ones is that she doesn't even know if she can. When the faerie first cornered Juno about this, she let on that her wings have bones so, theoretically, the necromancer supposes that she could. Except she doesn't know anything about faerie wing anatomy and she could seriously fuck up. It could be as fucking disastrous as it is dangerous. (So why doesn't she tell the faerie about this? It's obviously a valid concern for her to have, but she doesn't want to admit that it's possible she can't. What good is a necromancer who can do a lot of things half-well? She already feels like that fucking necromancer and the faerie doesn't need to know that.)

Before she can get too wrapped up in her own head, they finally enter a clearing, allowing Juno to distract herself for the nth time tonight. The pale moon hangs in the sky and is the only thing to illuminate the dead field, the black beating heart, and the stuffed person on a stick. (Honestly? What did she expect? A fucking tea party? Get real.) As the children morph into demonic shadows and the night sky transforms to look like it's reflecting off of a battlefield, the pirate jumps closer to the faerie. She'd have drawn her sword if the faerie hadn't yanked her whip from her hands. "What the fuck!? Do you want us to die? You under––oh." She finishes flatly when Olette offers some type of explanation. The pirate nods, worry running across her brow. She doesn't say anything and instead straightens her whip out into a sword and turns so they're back to back. (She doesn't know whether to thank or curse the ground for giving her the ability to ignore the common sense in her body screaming at her to run. These days, it's hard to tell if it's helping or hurting.)

The spores encroach upon them and Juno is careful to keep them from touching her after seeing what happened to Olette. But they don't stop coming and Juno has a feeling they won't stop coming. Fuck. "Cover for a sec," she taps on the faerie's shoulder to make sure she knows that she's talking to her.

She then grabs a dagger from her belt and slices open her palm, collecting some blood on two of her fingers and drawing the fluid out like threads. She forms her blood into a net shape that she uses to create an encasing around them. Once it's covering them, she sets the ward and the net adopts a soft red glow to protect them. Any spore that tries to get to them fizzles against the barrier. This won't hold forever, but they only need long enough to get to the heart and destroy it. She pushes her arms out to move the bubble with them as they move closer to the heart.

"Oh, interesting choice, Juno and Olette!" the scarecrow sings, shuddering with delight on its post. "Do you wish to meet your dark heart? Beware, beware––"

Juno doesn't hear the rest of the warning over the thunder of the heartbeat from up close; the thump, thump, thump bounces off of the ward and creates a reverberating effect. The sound is powerful enough that Juno can feel it worming its way into her bones, even causing her own heart to sync with the dark heart's pulse. (Does the faerie feel this too? Or is only the necromancer affected?) The heart starts to speed up, sending the necromancer's own heart into overdrive and overwhelming her. She clutches her chest and gasps out, feeling as though all the oxygen is being ripped from her lungs. The veins at the side of her neck bulge; she keels over just as something starts to creep over her eyes and cloud her vision. From the outside, it appears to be a mirror film over her eyes and once it sets in, the pirate is released from the spell. She gulps in several breaths, coughing, and rising up from the ground. "Sh-shit!" She blinks a few times, rubs her chest, and it's almost as if nothing's happened. (Save for her mirrored out eyes.) Nothing seems to have happened?

Except then, she looks over at the faerie and sees. No. A chill runs down the pirate's spine and she's quick to draw her sword, charging towards Olette. (Technically, this isn't unexpected behavior from the homicidal pirate but if the faerie were to catch a glimpse of her reflection in Juno's mirror eyes, she'd see the Shrike.)

Where she expects to see the faerie, there's a monstrosity––a woman-bird hybrid that has a sharp hooked beak, a long feather neck, and wings instead of arms. Juno has to kill it. It's why James is gone.
 
Lettie nods as Juno asks to cover for her. They're back to back and she can't see what she's doing... but at this rate, they're smack in the center so much shit that she can't really bring herself to study the pirate's tactics or argue with her. It's all over if those spores get to them, she knows this firsthand. Narrowing her eyes, she raises both her hands and summons up a whirlwind of butterflies to circle around them. Considering how they fared against the spores earlier, she doesn't expect the razored wings to cut through them as well as the bone daggers did-- but maybe they don't have to? She commands them to swirl faster, faster, faster so that the wind as well as their wings are fierce enough to at least push the spores backwards and dissolve some of the smaller ones. Gradually, the butterflies begin to flicker and glitch. Shit! They can only last for so long like this. Before the faerie can worry about that, though, a red net surrounds them? (Her heart drops for a split second. Is this it? Did the scarecrow trap them? But... no. She watches spores dissolve when they float near the net. Wow! And this is Juno's work? Interesting.) Lettie allows the rest of her butterflies to dissolve, slumping slightly and allowing herself a second to catch her breath. Only a second, though, because now they're moving forward, steadily approaching the heart...

Experimentally, Lettie tries to envision herself a stage, a band and an oversized amp again as they trudge forward. Damn. As fun as it'd be to blast through this heart with the power of kickass music, however, it seems like this world doesn't work exactly like the other one did. (The faerie's not sure whether or not to feel relieved about this.) They'll have to figure something else out. Imagination-- or rather the mind must have something to do with this, though. Why else would those kids have transformed into whatever their costumes were? Hm. What's the plan when they make it to the heart, anyway? Stab it? Throw a bomb at it? Juno seemed to catch on earlier than her in dream world (which, yeah, shocker!) so maybe she has an idea. Knowing the pirate, though, she figures this is going to end in fire no matter what. Specifically because she said earlier that she didn't want to set anything in this world on fire. Because the universe loves to spite her this way.

'Do you wish to meet your dark heart?' The voice taunts and jostles Lettie from her explosive thoughts. (Speaking of music, those would make decent song lyrics. Provided she still has a band... Ah! Later, Lettie! Later.) Your. The word indicates that whatever adversity is coming for them is going to be personalized somehow. Of fucking course it is. Fits the pattern and everything! Beware, though... beware what? Although she wants to hear the rest, she clamps her hands over her ears when the vibrations of every heartbeat in the vicinity skyrockets. The sight of the field, the heart, it all shudders around her like a fraying reality in a simulation. (For a moment, her vision is all phantasmic figures swarming the field, all ghoulish faces trapped in permanent screams. The core of this place is restless, it's in pain. There's a reason why nothing is growing here. The earth beneath their feet is lifeless and barren.) Noticing the pirate has keeled over next to her, the faerie panics. "J--Juju, hey..." Except she's slipping too, trying to hold on... and with the last bit of her concentration, she sends a cluster of butterflies towards the scarecrow. Boom! Flaming chunks of hay fall from where it stood... but it's too late. The magic is already inside of her, forcing her own heartbeat to conform to it's frantic rhythm. The sugar in her system turns this energy into something manic and she trembles with it. 'What the fuck,' Lettie's inner voice is a hyperactive, sing-song catastrophe. 'What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck!'

Noticing movement in her peripheral, where Juno is supposed to be, Lettie tenses when she sees the reaper in her place. Towering, billowing night-colored smoke. He comes after her like lightning, with a crooked smirk and those empty, empty eyes that hungered for her soul. Stars help me. "I-- It's not my time yet! Stay the fuck away from me!" Turning to run, the faerie faces the red net that the pirate created around them before. (The net is there, but no pirate? It doesn't occur to her to think this through because she needs to get away.) She braces herself and glitches herself through it, proceeding to bolt as fast as her feet can carry her across the field. Passing through the net burned her skin, left tears in her clothes and skin that she can't mourn now. The reaper takes precedence. It's not her time yet, is it? (But what if time moves differently on other worlds? What if her time is already up? What if, what if, what if--) It's not supposed to end like this. Not here, not now.

Lettie resents the fact that she can't fly away. She would move faster if only her wing weren't broken. If only that stubborn Juno--

Juno...? The sound of the pirate's name causes Lettie's head to throb painfully. Huh. Where did Juno go, anyway? She'd been right next to her before--

No, no, no! The reaper's coming for her blood, she's got to keep running! Lettie phases her forms in patterns, relieved that she's had so much practice dodging the pirate's bone traps. (Bone traps? Wait. That's not how the reaper...) The discrepancies blur her vision over and a ringing sounds in her ears. Thump, thump, thump. A distant heartbeat pounds. For a while, she couldn't hear it over the sound of her own. But now? Now it starts to creep through. Something inside of her tells her to hold onto it. Why is it so significant, again? (Deception. Illusion. The truth, the looking glass. Mirrors. Something is obviously wrong. She needs to figure out what it is.) Lettie traces out her purse and frantically grabs for her hand mirror. This attempt at multitasking causes her to stumble and roll onto the ground, down a small slope and into a patch of brambles. Not bothering to stand, she traces another glyph, determinedly holding the mirror up to gaze at her own reflection. And no, she's not checking her make up-- which, ugh, is totally smudged-- but to check for signs of deception.

The glass shines brightly, reflecting Lettie's mirror eyes for a split second. And then they shatter to pieces, revealing the natural white hiding underneath. When this happens, the 'reaper' that'd been chasing her all this time turns back into Juno. Juno, who is still coming at her fast and hungry for blood. Lying flat on the ground, Lettie braces herself for impact and flips her mirror the other way-- holding it out in front of her to show the pirate her own reflection before she can land a potentially killing blow. "Juju, don't!"
 
The Shrike is trying to fucking kill her all over again. (Except the Shrike never tried to kill Juno or James. That is not her purpose.) She doesn't question how it found her––rationalizing her situation is not exactly one of her top priorities when faced with the horrors from her childhood. (Even that acknowledgement isn't enough to stir the pirate's rational side.) Gran used to always say that doom and misery would follow her wherever she went, so why not assume that the Shrike has somehow found her even though she's... even though she's... (Fuck, she doesn't know where she is but she sure as Hell knows that this isn't home. It might be baren and lifeless, but it's not decayed. This planet's death is far too fresh to be her own.) It doesn't fucking matter, she has to charge this monster. She's not going to run. She's Juno and Juno doesn't fucking run. Besides, she has to make sure those kids and the fucking faerie don't get killed. (Wait, what kids? What faerie? She has a feeling she needs to concentrate on this discrepancy.)

Concentrating on anything, however, is difficult with the enemy running towards... Towards something. (The Shrike wouldn't run though. It doesn't have the need to run from anything.) When the Shrike glitches through the blood ward, that does strike Juno as odd. Yeah, the legends around the entity are numerous and there are fewer questions regarding what it can't do versus what it can, but never has she ever heard of it glitching. In fact, something about the action does have her slowing her pursuit with brows furrowed together. She knows that fight style. She knows that she's seen it recently, even, back when she and––

THUMP, THUMP, THUMP!

The dark heart doesn't just echo through the field, the chords rip through her chest and forces her heartbeat to go from puzzled to panicked. And when she looks up again at the monstress, she remembers her fear and squeezes her sword for comfort. Goddess, she could use some of those fucking bomberflies...

Bomberflies! Where the fuck did the faerie go, though? That she can't puzzle out and she doesn't want to think about the Shrike having possibly already gotten to her while she was fucking frozen in her fear. The faerie will turn up, she always does, and the pirate has to fucking make sure the Shrike can't get to her or those kids. (She definitely doesn't remember that those children turned into shadowy fiends.) She narrows her gaze across the field, searching for signs of movement and when she catches the monstress dipping below the hillside, she follows. With her sword raised over her head, she drops to her hip and slides down towards the beast who is cowering behind a mirror, of all things.

It all happens so fast that Juno has trouble keeping up with the order of events. She remembers seeing her (admittedly) murderous reflection in the mirror the Shrike had been holding up and then, at the last second, the Shrike turned into the fucking faerie. Olette. "A-agh!" she confusedly cries out, dropping her sword and then, unable to stop the momentum she had gathered, flips over the faerie and gets caught in the stupid plant. "What the fuck are you doing over here? You were the Shrike and then..." Juno trails off, thrashing against the bushes that seem to be clinging to her clothes. She grabs her discarded sword and starts hacking at the bush to create an easier path out. "Fuck," she mutters, once she's out of the bush. It's not even one of Juno's usual 'fucks.' This one seems to be more introspective and sounds almost remorseful. Appropriately so, since she nearly fucking murdered the faerie. (And, yeah, Juno's almost murdered the faerie plenty of times, the difference now is that she hadn't meant to attempt murder! Herself and Olette are, for better or worse, a team and surviving the shitshow that has become their lives means not murdering each other.) While she doesn't apologize for her behavior, she does help the faerie up and is careful to do so slowly since her hair got stuck in the bushes. (She doesn't even want to look at the state of her wings.)

Once they're trekking back up the hill, Juno looks over at Olette. "Any ideas on how to destroy that heart?" Honestly, Juno would be fine with finding another diner with bottomless coffee and calling it a night, but she just doesn't think that they're going to be left alone for as long as that heart is out there calling their names. More than that, she doesn't even know if they're still in the same town as before––like, she's pretty sure that the neighborhood they were in before was a, you know, neighborhood and not a fucking field of tall grass (corn). Not to mention, she can't even radio the ship. She can't even get a clear signal on anything. "Or, like, how to not fucking let it get in our heads?"

Except, getting into their heads wasn't even the issue. It got into their hearts. Yeah, the beating heart had been deafening, but Juno doesn't think it was the noise getting to them but the actual rhythm. That had made thinking difficult when it was messing with her heart, juxtaposed with the image of the Shrike. (She wonders what, if anything, Olette might have seen but that's not her business.) "It also called us specifically," she thinks, trying to recall all the details she's gathered since the children led them into the fog. (Oh, fuck. The children. ...She decides against mentioning this. She has no idea what happened to them, if they had even been real, and does not want to think about that. It's not helpful to their problem solving.) A small seedling of an idea begins to take root and, before she can even start to articulate it, the heart booms once more, "Juno! Olette!"

Like a fist has wrapped around their hearts, something pulls them forwards back to the blackened, beating heart. "Join us, friends! Your little pack is misses you." Without much more warning than that, black veins reach towards the duo and pull them into the muscle, sending them falling into a deep dark abyss. When they land, they don't land stacked on top of one another and instead land on something soft; what they have landed on is a mystery and remains one as everything around them appears completely pitch black. Strobe lights then activate and in the flashes, Juno can make out the kids from earlier all lying on the ground sleeping with those disgusting spores growing all over them. More concerning than that? The large face hovering directly over them with a sharp-toothed smile and blood shot eyes. If Juno's hand reaches for Olette's (it does), it's entirely understandable.

"Become bigger than you are! Let me feast on your nightmares."
 
Lettie pants for breath, clutching the mirror tightly to her chest as she waits for her heartbeat to slow to a bearable rhythm. Juno sees her reflection just in time and goes stumbling into the bushes with a noisy 'crunch'. Whew. Too fucking close! (A twinge of something rises in her chest as she watches the pirate's form somersault over her. There's something about the way her first instinct was to come to a halt so suddenly that she outright crashed to keep herself from running the faerie through with her sword that stirs something up in her. Something, something, something. Somethings that are better left undefined, for all extents and purposes. It's something she feels again when Juno offers her a hand.) The faerie is too stunned to do anything but accept her hand shakily as she climbs back up to her feet. (Her expression softens a touch when she considers the explanation. She was the Shrike? That name sounds very familiar... for reasons. Reasons that she also choses not to dwell on now.) Her whole body buzzes with adrenaline and the tingling, burning sensation of every fresh cut and scrape she's just endured. As for her wings? Lettie just tries not to think about her wings. She's better off that way. If she focuses on them-- the pain they're in, their current shape-- it'll be impossible to think about anything else. (Landing on her back this often is not doing her any good, that's for certain. She doesn't even want to consider the long-term effects of an untreated wing.)

"I don't know. Blow it up...? It worked last time." Lettie suggests noncommittally, bitterly picking twigs out from her hair. Damn. She looked so hot tonight, too. They're dealing with some pure evil right now. "I know we said no fire, but I consider these special circumstances. Fucker deserves to burn for eternity after ruining my outfit." And whatever entity they're dealing with now deserves to be set aflame for messing with the faerie's hair and outfit. Oh. And the children too, of course. Obviously the children! (And maybe also for ruining their competition. Not because the pirate's idea sounded fun or anything... she'd been looking forward to proving she's a master thief! Oh... that said.) "Oh right. Your bombs." Lettie offers Juno the bombs she gave her at the diner, as well as the remaining ones she had secretly swiped from the pirate's belt when she hadn't been looking. Hehe. (What? If she's going to promise no fire, she has to commit by giving up all the bombs!) At the other question she purses her lips. How not to let it get in their heads? "Looking glass magic is designed to shatter through illusions. That's what helped us back there. My mirror's so tiny, though... and there're a lot of variables to consider. It'll take time before I can work out a surefire solution." Ooof. Nerd alert! Geez.

Still, Juno seems seriously inclined to puzzle this out with her. Turning to Lettie for legitimate input without throwing any snide remarks at her. So she pushes past any feelings about revealing her closet nerd to consider it on an even deeper level. "That's true." It spoke to them and knew them, yes. The way that hellish dream world gave tangibility to their thoughts and memories, and on some level the same way Mammy figured out that they had mommy issues. The creatures on Juno's planet, too. Instead of monsters, though, this magic is trying to get them to turn against each other. Stars. This mind-reading magic is seriously sinister. Like this, it can pinpoint nearly any weakness. (Nothing can be that powerful, though. There has to be some kind of weakness. It's just a matter of finding out what that weakness is.) Can they use the thing's own tactics against it to trick it somehow? Is there a way to protect themselves beyond constantly staring at their own reflections? They know the trick now, but the faerie has a feeling that will not be enough to protect them when the haze comes back for their hearts. Like the spore from earlier... it's all too intense. Furthermore, it's all way too complex to figure out in the time they have now. They're better off blowing this one up and working this out on the Lady. Provided the Lady's still around.

They're out of time. The heart pounds, calls for them, and then they are tossed into darkness.

Ooof. Lettie's thankful for the fact that the landing is soft... not so thankful for anything else that's going down in this situation. Ugh, seriously!? What a creep! Stalking them with fog, calling their names, messing with children, ruining her outfit. Squeezing tight to the pirate's hand for stability, to remind herself she's not alone in the dark, she blinks frantically as the strobe lights activate and peers around the floor through the lightning-style flashes. She quickly discovers that the contents of her candy sack spilled everywhere during the fall. (...Taking her offerings, too. What a bastard!) Sticking her lip out in a determined pout, she grabs a black cherry Warhead and pops it out of the packaging, relying on her knife-throwing expertise to throw it directly into the disturbing creature's open mouth.

"What are you talking about? Nightmares are so overrated!" Lettie proceeds to grab more Warheads, sending them flying one after the next. She throws the thing the bird for good measure, feeling like a badass. She might die, sure, but at least she'll go out feeling like a badass. "Feast on these, douchebag! This is for my fucking outfit!"

The monster howls out with a severely offended scream of agony at the taste of the 'extreme' candy. The heart shakes and the strobe lights begin to pop with pink, purple, blue-- all resembling the colorful sour candies that Lettie threw at it. It's really hard to say at this point whether this development is good or bad... but the faerie does experience catharsis hearing the thing's wails. This triumph only lasts for a few seconds before a shadowy, evil fucking goose waddles towards them. Oh no. Not...

"Follow, Lettie. Follow goose!" It gives an ugly squawk, flapping its wings. Ugh. Because of course this sinister place has to take notes from her weirdest recurring nightmare ever. More shapes are beginning to take form around them under the strobe lights-- bizarre and sinister. Things she recognizes, things she doesn't. Bracing herself for a fight, she pops a piece of candy in her mouth. (Chewing gum always has a way of helping her focus on her projects, after all. Huh. Focus. Candy, focus, taste, senses...)

Hm. Lettie rolls the candy around on her tongue. "Psst. Hey Juju. Have a piece of candy. A really sour one." The faerie whispers to avoid drawing any attention, bracing herself as their army of absurd adversaries crawl towards them. "This thing is attacking our senses, right? Maybe having some kinda anchor will make it easier for us to see through the bullshit?"

There's no time to chat any further on it, though-- because along with the shadowy army of nightmare entities barreling towards them, there are also a fair amount of spores floating around like motes of dust, glitching towards them gap by gap beneath the strobe lights. Shit!
 
Interesting how exploding shit is back on the table when it isn't Juno's idea. After that huge fucking stink she made earlier about no fires, no punching people, no everything blowing up because the pirate is homicidal (she's paraphrasing here) it's Olette Licorice Rathaus who suggests that they blow the bastard to bits. (Goddess, if they survive this she is going to figure out a way to rub this in the stupid faerie's fucking face. Too bad it's hard to be fucking smug with danger smiling and threatening to eat them. Fuck.) Alright, well now that she has her bombs back (she swears she is going to start wearing enchanted bones to keep the faerie’s hands off of her shit) she guesses that she can probably lob some explosives at it. That would be the logical thing to do––you know, attack their enemy in a way that makes sense.

Instead, guess what the faerie fucking does? Like the little idiot she is, she starts hurling candy at the giant face in the sky. Obviously that's going to solve their problems and totally get rid of the fucking spores and shadowy figures that are rapidly closing in on them. (If she could afford to have one more enemy right now, she would strangle the faerie. Gone is their temporary peace. Now it's time for violence.) "Are you fucking kidding me?" the pirate doesn't even sound angry and perhaps that is worrying enough on its own if only because that means whatever she is feeling is something undefined and who knows how to predict her reaction now. "You're concerned about your fucking outfit? Not that it tried to get you to turn murderous? Not that it probably showed you something you don't wanna fucking see? For goddess's sake! It fucking attacked children and turned them against us and you're fucking concerned about your fucking outfit?" The pirate doesn't know whether or not to smack her past self for thinking the faerie could be trusted as a competent member of her crew; more than that, she just can't believe someone's head is so far up their own ass they can't fucking prioritize. (That Juno has, once or twice, used these near death moments to antagonize the faerie rather than puzzle out the mess that is their lives is entirely not relevant.) "Butterfly the fucker, you nitwit!"

Honestly? Her attitude doesn't improve when Olette suggests they eat sour candies to combat the nightmare. She actually wants to throw the faerie into the fucking mouth for that piss poor idea. Juno just stares at Olette in complete and utter disbelief––does she really think some fucking sour candy is going to cure them of a fucking nightmare!? (Oh, goddess! And to think Juno was starting to fucking trust that little piece of shit faerie.) "You're fucking insane. Do you want to fucking die or something?" There is no fucking way she's going to put her mouth through that kind of Hell when she needs her mouth for important mouth activities. Like eating. She can't. She won't.

The monster above them howls, forcing the thumping walls to pound like jackhammers; forcing the pirate's own heart to pound like jackhammers. The world is starting to transform around her, even, as the mirror film slides over her eyes. Fuck. She glowers at the faerie, but notices how she doesn't seem affected by the magic. Maybe it is the sensory overload. Maybe.

Fuck. Does she have a better idea? Unfortunately, not! She grabs a blue raspberry one this time and frowns before popping the worst thing she's ever eaten into her mouth. It immediately sears her tongue and forces tear from her eyes––she wants to hunch over and beat her fist to the ground––it's only out of sheer spite and force of will she remains upright and standing, feeling like there's goddamn steam coming out of her ears or something from the fucking sensation. (Could Juno have gone for a different sour candy like the sour Skittles, Sour Patch Kids, or the Lemonheads? Well, maybe, but honestly the thought never occurred to her. Why would she wuss out on a lesser candy?)

In her battle against this fierce candy, she misses a lot of the shapes morphing around them; taking on the likenesses of all her (literal) childhood haunts. Yeah, she's not sorry that she missed that. "Fuck," she whines, still not through the worst of this sour little fuck. (She hates the faerie so much, but this wasn't a terrible idea. Like, it's hard to be spooked by the lord of the liches when her face wants to invert into a butthole. (This is so not attractive. Not that she cares about being attractive or anything. Not like she's trying to attract the faerie.)) "Shit, why the fuck do you like this shit? I can't feel my fucking tongue!" Right, right––she catches herself before she can get too distracted with chewing the faerie out. She should probably pay attention to the army coming after them.

Fighting through her tears, she flicks her wrist and snaps her sword back into a whip. The swarm of figures are endless and going to be impossible to defeat on their own. That much is for certain. She only has five bombs left and her shards. The faerie has those butterflies and raver magic (Juno does assume both of these are sorta limitless). She starts first by tossing the shards into the thick of figures and spores, creating large skeletal arms that sweep away the assailants, puffing them to ash, and giving them a wider radius to work within. She also creates a handful more skeletons to cover for them. Then, she grabs one of her bombs and takes aim at the face––that weeping, screwed up face that's spitting out those Warheads. 'Relatable.' She's about to launch the bomb when she notices the children resting on the battlefield (the fiends and spores, gently pass over them but do not disturb the children). They're resting and they aren't resting peacefully–– their faces are streaked with tears and twisted up mirroring...

Quickly, she tosses the bomb away from herself, the faerie, the face, and the children. Without explaining why she chose a different target at the last second, she collects some ash from their fallen enemies and blows it up towards the face. The face reacts by coughing and choking and pressing its eyes shut, but Juno watches the reactions of the children, noting how they do just the same. She purses her lips together. "I hate to fucking say this, but we cannot bomb or butterfly that piece of shit. Look at the kids," she nudges Olette's shoulder. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." There isn't the time to make rational decisions and, to be honest, this should be where the pirate excels given her face-punch-greeting track record; yet right now she's worrying a hole into her lip. It's more than just her life to consider. "I've never fucking done this," Juno starts, pulling out her last bone piece and creating an exoskeleton armor around her body. (Gross, her nose is starting to bleed.) Since the things tend to crumble when met with bone, she figures this puts her in a good position to free the kids; then Olette can light the place on fire. If she wants her fuel to be her anger over her fucking outfit, the pirates decides that she doesn't care. As long as it gets them out of this mess. "I think if I snuff out the spores on those kids, it'll be safer to blow up this joint. Think you can defend yourself and prep for something big? The skeletons will cover for you." Several turn around and give Olette's the universal gesture of good faith––a.k.a., a thumbs up. One blows her a kiss.
 
Lettie watches with an unimpressed expression as Juno goes between completely shitting on her idea to following her lead when she sees that she was actually going somewhere concrete with it. (Sure, it wasn't guaranteed to work-- and there was no telling what'll happen in the long-term, if the spores and shadows will eventually break through when the flavor wears. But for now, the punch the sourness packs keeps her focused on the present moment she inhabited instead of any of the nightmares that deserved to stay in her head or, you know, preferably fuck off.) She wears a vindicated smirk when the pirate reacts to the extreme candy, twisting her face and punching the ground in the most melodramatic way possible. Pfft. And everyone calls her dramatic! This strategy could have probably worked with a tamer sour candy... but apparently if Juno wants to go for something, she has to go all out. Heh, fucking pirate. This moment almost makes up for the fact that she will never admit that Lettie is right. (And she never will-- never-- because as far as anyone knows, the faerie is a faerie and therefore her head is stuffed with cotton candy and rainbows and pretty clothes. Even when she sneaks to the engine room to apply much-needed fixes and offers her life-saving advice in plain sight. Still, she says nothing to argue this interpretation of her character. There's no reason to defend herself to anyone-- let alone the pirate! What does she care what she thinks? Since Juno putting a sour candy in her mouth is the closest she will ever get to an admission that she had a good idea, she decides to appreciate it in all it's hilarious glory.) "That's kinda the point, Juju!" Lettie sings joyfully, high on her valid contribution. (Not even killer outfits beat the shot of dopamine she gets from solving puzzles. But, uh, that's a secret, kay!?) "Betcha can't feel the nightmares either, can you? Anyway, I don't wanna hear it from someone who drinks straight black coffee." She doesn't understand anyone who drinks coffee at all, for that matter. She sticks out her tongue theatrically. Bleh!

Gracefully, Lettie shifts back into fighting shape as she refocuses on the accumulating shadows. Rather than study them for familiar faces and silhouettes, she focuses on what moves might make her look best as she kicks their asses. She primarily fights with her bedazzled daggers, which will not expend quite as much of her magic. She has a feeling she'll need to conserve it for the main event. (That twisted up face in the sky and the heart entity itself.) While she has always carried herself with a practiced sort of elegance, the faerie finds herself trusting her footwork more than ever in a fight. The benefits of this non-stop fighting, the training, avoiding the pirate's death traps across the Lady... it is starting to pay off. Gone are the days where she throws herself over the side of ledges to avoid hits, forgetting that she can no longer rely on her wings to aid her. Let it be known that if Lettie's focus hadn't been fixed raptly on the fight, she would've absolutely changed her outfit to reflect her feelings of inner growth. She's so absorbed in what she's doing, on taking care of the shadows closest to the kids namely that she doesn't really catch onto what Juno is doing until she wastes a bomb (that's not like the pirate) and blows ashes at the face.

Lettie is tempted to quip with a 'what are you trying to do, get the thing to sneeze us out?' or something-- but judging by the expression on Juno's face, she thinks better of it. Now is not the time for quips. She doesn't know about the pirate, but she's starting to get tired. They've both used up a lot of magic and they need to end this soon or this isn't going to end well for them. (Them, them, them. When did this become a them? No. There's no time to think about it now. It's all cubey's fault!) When she's told to look at the kids, she's tempted to snap that she has been (because of course she cares about the kids more than her outfit-- she's been keeping tabs on them in her peripheral this whole time!) but then she gets that Juno means to really look at them-- piecing together the connections between their expressions, their coughs, with the face in the sky. Oh. Fuck, fuck, fuck indeed.

"So what do you propose we d..." Lettie stops, stunned when she turns back to the pirate to see her decked out in some badass bone armor. Wow. Um. Is it getting hot in here or is it just her? Because she looks... damn. Reboot, Letts, reboot! (Sure, the faerie doesn't like entertaining the narrative where she's a princess sitting on her ass and waiting around for rescue or anything... but she wouldn't mind being rescued from a tower going up in flames by a buff knight wearing armor like that. The pirate is not a knight, though. The pirate is still the pirate, obviously, and-- shit!) Needing to scrape her awe away with something that will piss Juno off and distract her from the red in her cheeks, she smirks when she thinks of something specifically designed to get under the other woman's skin and gives the armor a playful poke. "Aw, Juju. I didn't know you had fashion magic, too!"

As fun as continuing to tease Juno about this would be, Lettie frantically waves her off with her hand. "Go, go, go! Help the kids. I can handle myself just fine." She urges with an impatient little huff. (There Juno goes again, asking her opinions and checking up on her! Ordinarily the pirate would've just... acted. No checking to see whether she could 'handle it' or not. Because if the faerie happened to pull an oopsie and die in an explosion, it wasn't going to matter to the pirate. Hell, she'd be more than happy to have her out of her hair-- out of her life altogether. Now, though? Now things are different and... nope! Again, not the fucking time!) With a resigned little sigh, the faerie winks encouragingly back at the skellie who blows her a kiss in effort to feel a little more like herself. "Alright. I'm counting on you guys! If we make it out of here, we can throw another rager!"

This is obviously a popular and incentivizing idea based on the way the skeletons pump their arms in the air and dance around with excitement before determinedly getting into position around her. Assuming that Juno has gone to take care of her own side of things at this point, Lettie scours her mind for a solution. Prepare something big. Something big. Remembering the way her unaltered butterflies crumbled when they got too close to the spores, she isn't sure if she should rely solely on them to accomplish this. Whew. Looking glass magic it is. Her small hand mirror will take some... convincing. But she doesn't have any other choice, does she? Raising her arms, the faerie summons a circle of butterflies around her to give herself an extra layer of protection along with the skeletons before reaching for her mirror and goggles, kneeling to the ground over them.

Lettie locks herself in the zone, her fingers moving automatically as she traces a complicated symbol into the surface of the mirror. Like the first night she showed the proof of other worlds to Juno, the mirror's surface glows and liquifies. Instead of sculpting it into an orb, though, she stretches the mirror's shape until it's about the size of a small pond beneath her, circular and large enough to serve its intended purpose. The glamour magic this requires gradually siphons the pigment from her eyes and hair both, draining them both into near-white shades of violet. There. That's step one. Next, she gets to work drafting a glyph similar but larger than the one she used earlier, convincing herself and Juno to break free of their own respective nightmares before. (If the face and the children are connected, shouldn't this break through all of their nightmares at once? That's the idea, anyway. Once the monstrosity's power is severed and it can't feed on anyone anymore, she imagines it will be weaker and therefore much easier to explode with her butterflies.) The faerie has to keep her hands flat on the glass to keep the glyph intact. Thankfully, the team of skeletons and butterflies is protecting her well enough. But this does become an issue when the sourness of her candy starts to wear off and she can't reach out for another one.

"Olette, you're so cute! Won't you let me see your wings?" Voices that previously fizzled out into white noise begin to creep back into focus. Lettie tries desperately to shut them out, pressing harder to keep herself from outright clawing at the glowing mirror beneath her hands. The saccharine voices begin to turn cold. "You know your mother is only able to raise you because of us! Because of her fans support. We just want to get to know you! Aren't we owed that? You should really be more grateful."

"Fuck off." This sinister magic's trying to make Lettie feel like a little kid again. Leaned over the giant glowing symbol, sweat dripping down her brow, she doesn't dare to look up or risk shattering her focus on her magic. If it shatters, it's all over. "Okay. Okay, Juju-- I'm ready!" Her brow twitches with the exertion. She can't see what Juno's doing like this. She just needs to trust that she's done her end of things and will answer her soon. "Just tell me when! Stars, be quick."
 
"Fashion magic!?" Goddess, if this were the time or place, Juno would send that stupid fucking faerie flying backwards either with her foot colliding with her keister or with a conveniently tossed bone shard. Would this break their Marjorie-says-no-magic truce? One hundred percent and that is almost the point for an offense and insult so biting, so fucked up that Juno feels it rattling the marrow in her bones. And, no, the necromancer isn't being dramatic. This is the perfect amount of melodrama needed for the situation. "I'll show you some real fucking fashion magic when I get back, punk ass little..." she mutters, batting away a spore that gets way too close for comfort. Right, right the spores. ...Still, she determines that she has time to finish that threat. She continues, "Hope you like wearing your skin inside fucking out!" Ha! Nailed it.

Okay, with that out of the way, Juno returns her attention to her task: saving the fucking children. This isn't something she thought she'd make a regular occurence in her life and yet here she is, saving children once again. (At least the first time she ever did this it had been to impress a girl. Now she's just doing it to be, like, a good person or something. Ugh. It's not like she's hellbent on being immoral or anything like that but she does tend to prioritize herself before others. So all this thinking about the safety of the faerie and the children is just fucking a lot for Juno. She kind of hates it. But it beats the guilt of toppling a city and she has a feeling she will be repaying that debt for the remainder of her doubtlessly long and spiteful life.) She sucks in a breath, as if to make herself smaller, and navigates the minefield of spores and nightmares that don't quite scare her. She can make out the outlines of multiple lord of the liches (each distinctly a wrong shade of puke), various hybrid creations that used to terrorize her during the day, the nightmares at night, the stewards, etc. Without the sour to take her out of the experience she really would be on the ground, curled in a ball and cowering. 'Alright, the faerie had a good idea. I'll give her that.'

The pirate pops another Warhead into her mouth (one of the many sour candies she scooped up beforehand), winces, and fights through the pain and tears. 'Children, children, children. Focus on saving those pieces of shit!' She darts over to the nearest child, the former hockey-mask-murderer, and grazes his spores with the serrated edges of her armor. As with the others, the spores puff to ash and release the child from whatever spell he had been under. The kid blinks his eyes a few times, bleary eyed and groggy, then rubs them and stares at the pirate for a few seconds; he seems okay and that knowledge lifts a weight off of Juno's back. She hands the kid a pack of sour Skittles. "Savor these, kid," she orders and the kid, who is still too fuzzy for questions, accepts the candy with a shrug. While he enjoys (how!?) the candy, Juno picks him and carries him back over to the faerie and the skeletons. When she sets the kid down, she thinks about making another quip, but notices Olette working on something with that magic mirror of hers. She only lifts a brow before turning to repeat this process with the remaining children. (Each time she comes back, she notices the pigment of Olette's hair becoming lighter with each pass. It doesn't strike her as normal since she knows the faerie can change her hair in an instant, so seeing it leak color instead of entirely transform does tell the necromancer something. What that is, however, remains a mystery. Even so, it seems important enough for her to take note.) During one of her passes she offers a quiet, "You good..?"

As the children are freed of whatever curse had been feasting on them, the nightmarish figures that had been swarming them become fewer and fewer. The spores still remain an issue, and without the ghosts of their pasts materializing in front of them, it becomes more manageable. Most interestingly, without the children to feed on, the face starts to twist and morph––becoming less human and more puppet like with each child rescued. Juno only assumes that it's becoming weaker as well (she can only hope).

When the faerie's demands that she be quick, Juno doubles her efforts without hesitation. (She just doesn't doubt that Olette has reason to rush her. With so much on the line, there's not even a second to question her.) The final child, the former princess, is roused but before a piece of sour candy is in her mouth, Juno scoops her up, presses the child's face into her so that she can't see the nightmares, and shouts, "Now! Fucking now!" As the faerie works out ending the last part of this nightmare, Juno sprints back towards the group, turning her head only once to look at that sinister face's grin. 'Creep.'

Once she sets the princess down, she hands her a sour Skittles packet and gives the same instructions as she has the rest. With the princess settled with the rest of the group, she turns her attention to the faerie and focuses on defense. She touches each of the skeletons she had made earlier and concentrates on molding them into a barbed cage to block out the remaining spores. Blood and sweat bead across her brow as dark spots speckle her vision; her fuel is running out, but this is fine. This isn't her limit. (Not yet, at least.) She grits out, "Come on! You got this!"
 
The voices hiss like vipers around Lettie, but they don't matter. She drowns them out, telling herself they don't matter, they don't matter-- that she just needs to listen for Juno's signal. The last of her candy dissolves on her tongue and she clenches her eyes shut tight, blocking out the familiar shapes forming around her. They'll feed on her the instant they find an opening. The faerie's breaths get sharper and sharper, her brow furrowing deeper. 'Juju's signal. Hold on and wait for her signal.' The voices try to dissect her, to interpret her, to turn every expression-- every subtle twitch-- into a story. (As her glamour fades, they whisper their theories about who her father is. But they're not on Avangeline, are they? Of course they're not. No one on this world fucking cares about any of that shit.) Thankfully, the pirate has taken her request to be quick seriously as it isn't long before she gives that signal she's been waiting on. Alright, showtime! Time for this monstrosity to feast on the nightmare that is it's own fucking face.

Lettie brings herself to her feet, peeling her fingertips off the ground last. The edges of the mirror glow and illuminate her like a spotlight in the darkness and her hair blows back as it sparks and activates. 'Come on! You got this!' (Seems like the faerie doesn't have to make up any mental cheerleaders to encourage her this time around. Juju's got that covered. Juju's got that covered!? No, no, no! Focus!) With a grunt, she lifts her arms in the air and her oversized mirror follows the movement. The similarly sized glyph she traced lights up and sparks as it follows behind the mirror. It floats in the air like a magical gazebo over her head. This position leaves her open for an instant... and while the shadows and spores encroach around her space, they seem somewhat cautious of the bright lights around her. The faerie's staring right ahead, though, not paying them any mind. Nothing stands between her and the creepy puppet face.

"You got anything left to say?" Lettie taunts it. "Before I fucking end you, that is." Some of the children chorus with a scandalized 'oooh' from Juno's protective cage as they watch at the sound of the f-word. (Despite the fact that the pirate herself uses the word frequently. That they might associate their heights with their ages is completely irrelevant right now.) Some are transfixed by the pretty light show. Some suck on their sour candies and hide their tiny faces in their tiny hands. One hugs onto Juno's ankle.

"Useless faerie. You're worth more in the ground than you are alive." The monster's eyes narrow into slits, it's blocky jaw unhinging too low to be natural. "Allow me to put you there." Lettie ignores it, watching as an orb of inky black smoke forming inside it's mouth. It grows bigger and bigger by the second and the faerie readies herself for it. With a guttural scream, the monster spews what looks like a black fireball from it's mouth. At a breakneck speed it comes right for the faerie, but she doesn't look particularly concerned about this. With the flick of her wrists, her mirror and glyph tilt so they stand in front of her like a shield. The force of this causes the fireball to split in half around it-- the remainder of the attack bursts at her sides and effectively takes out the remaining spores and shadows that had gathered around her on the sidelines. Once the entity exhausts what remains of it's power and destroys everything that it built in the process, there is nothing left for it to do but stare into it's worn and hollowed reflection in the mirror.

Bit by bit, the face begins to flake away. The pieces float away and get sucked into the mirror like a vacuum. It screams out again, but this time the sound is pathetic and doesn't accompany any magical flames. Gradually, the voice sounds less like an all-knowing entity and more like an outdated robot. Larger clumps of their environment begin to join the smaller ones as the magic picks up momentum. Eventually the world within the heart itself warps thinner and thinner as it gets pulled into the mirror. The glyph burns bright and brighter and then explodes in a brilliant white light. When it fades, they all find themselves in the field again.

Lettie's mirror lowers to the ground and then rapidly shrinks back down to the usual size. She lunges for it, unhesitatingly wrenching her hand in through the glass as if reaching into a pool of water, and yanks a flimsy puppet out from the depths. (No way is she letting that thing live rent-free in her mirror. She learned her lesson with the ghost in her sink.) Covering the cursed thing in butterflies, she proceeds to chuck it far away from everyone before willing it to explode in the air. Once this is taken care of, she allows herself to flop onto the ground on her stomach, spent. At this point, her hair and eyes are both pure white. Even her glamoured clothes have started to morph into a strange amalgam of the dress she glamoured and the white button down shirt she'd stolen from Juju's closet. Ugh. She doesn't want to face the kids who once viewed her with adoring, starry eyes while she looks like this...

Unfortunately, kids are kids and a few of them don't hesitate to circle around her when all is said and done. Lettie opens her eyes again to find the kid with the hockey mask leaning over her. His face is so close that he should consider himself very lucky that she didn't deck him. (The pirate would've been so smug about that, too. 'Blah, blah, look who's punching people in the face now!') She rubs the side of her head and forces her to sit up on her knees, in spite of the fact that every inch of her body is begging her to lie back down. The chill in the air is gone, she notices. It's still crisp enough to turn her nose red, but it's not threatening to freeze her to the ground.

"That was freaking sick!" He exclaims in his pitchy little tone. "How'd you do that!?" He hyperactively proceeds to reenact everything that just happened with his friends, his words jumbling together.

"Are you a snow faerie?" The little witch is touching Lettie's natural hair. The faerie puffs her cheeks and swats lightly at her hand to get her to stop. "Or maybe a ghost faerie?" Geez. Where does this world's faerie knowledge even come from? She's talking about faeries as if they come in flavors, like ice cream. Then little girl grins wickedly, as if she's particularly excited about her next idea. "A demon faerie?"

Okay, that's it. Lettie frowns and winces as she brings herself to stand. "You children seriously need to go to bed." She looks over to find that the pirate has been taken hostage-- with the princess latching with an ironclad grip onto one of her legs and the dragon clinging to the other. She has to bite the inside of her cheek again to keep herself from smiling at the sight. There's just... something about it, okay? A something she doesn't need to define because they've got other shit to do. She also notices the pirate is bleeding. "You good, Juju? We ought to take the kids home... then we can focus on finding Lady."
 
Juno doesn't want to miss a second of this. She can't. It's not everyday that she trusts someone else to take care of such a crucial part of their survival, so she has to see how the faerie fairs. Begrudgingly, she admits that she cannot do this all on her own. There's too much at stake to risk it and the faerie's proven herself. Sorta. (This is insane.) With everything that fucking cube has thrown their way, Juno's going to break if she keeps going as she is. (The pirate won't acknowledge this sentiment later. This is all just a heat of the moment fluke. She would never fucking, in her right mind, assign the faerie such a task. Yet here they are because... adrenaline? Sure–– point is, they're in too deep for the pirate to take over. She has to fucking trust the faerie and she really, really hates it. It's fucking uncomfortable.) The pirate is as still as a statue, temporarily taking her eyes off of the children to give her full attention to Olette.

It's a mess of mirror, sparks, and dark flames. It's raw power. It's sizzles and crackles through the air, prickling over the pirate's skin and sending shivers down her spine. Juno's scared to breathe wrong, lest she fuck it up somehow. Even she can see how fragile this moment is despite all its potential.

Still, she's completely mesmerized. Enraptured.

Her mouth is left hanging, brows raised up to her hairline, only moving to turn her head away from the heat. What. the. fuck. 'She's been capable of this the entire time?' To be honest, the necromancer half believes that she is having an out of body experience, because what she is seeing does not align with what she thought she knew about the faerie. Past tense, because clearly she had been fucking wrong. Yeah, she's been giving the faerie more and more responsibilities and been impressed, but this, as stated before, is fucking huge. (She didn't just impress. She fucking blew Juno away.) 'The faerie is fucking powerful' She closes her mouth before the faerie can see her dumb look (the kids totally saw, unfortunately). 'Olette is powerful.'

She swallows hard when the explosion goes off in the air, her stormy eyes landing on the faerie just in time to see the flames illuminate her. She––

"You liiiiiiike her," a tiny voice from below sings before Juno's thought can finish. When the pirate looks down, she's staring right into the shit eating grin of a former faerie. The former faerie leans in conspiratorially, "I won't tell if you give me a piggyback ride."

Probably hearing that rides are being negotiated, the princess, followed by the dragon, rush to cling to her legs like magnets. "We call feet seats!"

"Wait, wait, wait––" and before Juno knows what's happening, another child is trying to get onto her shoulders (much to the upset of the faerie who "called dibs"); all of these children trying to climb on Juno like she's a jungle gym cause her to stumble forward and she only barely catches herself. "A-argh!" ("Wow, she's a real pirate!") "Off! Get off of me you little––" she catches herself before she calls them "little shits" to their faces, "––tiny fuckers" (So close.)

Before the pirate can start flinging kids off of her, Olette's question pulls her attention, causing her to freeze while something bubbles up in her chest. She doesn't know what it is, but she does know that she's confused and she holds onto that familiar feeling. When she lifts her head to look directly at Olette, not even flinching when she notices those white eyes, she kind of just stares at her dumbly. Her expression basically reads, 'Are you talking to me?' (as if there is another Juju).

"Uh, I am?" Naturally, that's when a droplet of blood sweat slides down her face, reminding her of her exertion. ('But I've fucking bled like this before?' In fact, Juno's pretty sure that she's pushed herself much further than tonight and done far more damage to herself in the past but for some reason the faerie Olette is concerned about this instance? Fuck, maybe she went further than she thought? It's somewhat hard to regulate these days when everyday feels like surviving a near death experience.) She adjusts the child on her back and straightens up, running her hand through her hair, and then resting it on the back of her neck. "I mean, fuuuck... I sure am," she shrugs and scratches her cheek. "It's fine. This happens. It's normal."

"Yeah, we should head back. I wanna get rid of these... nerds." She huffs and tries to shake the children off of her. That only succeeds in getting them to hold onto her tighter. Ugh. Fine. They weigh, like, three pounds and they can't be too far out from the neighborhood.

They are, in fact, very far out from the neighborhood. Juno figures this out after they walk about six miles without seeing any-fucking-thing. What's worse is that the children are getting tired and bitchy and honestly? So is Juno. Thank fuck it's only another excruciating three more miles before Lady blips in out of nowhere and no one questions this. They're all too exhausted. Marjorie asks a million and one questions about their adventures and Juno tells her to shut up and take the kids home so that Juno can pass out. She makes it all of three steps before she collapses.

The coming days are, well, surprisingly quiet––proving that anything really can happen when your fucking life is at the mercy of a fucking cube. And, to be honest, Juno is at least thankful they haven't been kicked across the galaxy in at least seventy-two hours. Granted, the planet they're stuck on is kind of boring, because it is only puffs, ploofs, and swirls of pastel colored clouds and pink skies. The air is crisp and sweet, like an apples. As far as Juno can tell, they're the only ones here and she has no idea what the cube is keeping them here. It sucks!

Pretty as it is, Juno got enough of it the other day and the boredom is straight up killing her. She doesn't even think her routine fight with Olette is going to help. Now, don't be fooled, that doesn't mean she's going to stop herself from seeking her out. Doing something is still better than doing nothing, duh. Except, Olette isn't in any of her usual spots? Juno even checks the fucking gym where she's seen her practicing her knife throwing.

As she wanders aimlessly through the ship, she does eventually find the faerie–– right in the fucking engine room. "What the fuck?" Is she working on her fucking baby!? "Olette?"
 
Lettie chews her gum, blowing a large bubble and popping it in her teeth as she finishes marking off the last item on her maintenance checklist. (Cubey is mysterious as ever. It disintegrates treasure... but for some reason instruments and candy are cool? They cannot survive on candy, the faerie knows, but she'll take it over roast wasp. Still, she hopes they go somewhere new soon. Despite the sweet smells, there's no food to be found in the pastel world they're on now.) The engines, the pumps, the propeller shafts and electrical wiring... she's seen to it that they're all working properly. The faerie has gotten into the habit of sneaking here when she gets bored to take notes and fix any issues she might find in the process. The Lady is technically her home now and she needs to make sure she's the best she can be to withstand whatever cubey throws at them next.The skellies are still given credit for these fixes. But you know what? Whatever. At this point, she doesn't really care. If Juno knows about this alongside the fact that she can kick ass, her life is going to get all the more--

Ah. Well, Juno has always had perfect timing. (And by that Lettie means to say that she has the worst timing ever. Come on!) The faerie squeaks and ducks down by the equipment, instinctively hiding behind her maintenance notebook. And in retrospect, she realizes that it really should be the notebook itself that she's hiding instead of herself. Then she could have come up with some kind of cover for the reason why she's tinkering in the engine room and not... like, painting her nails or ogling herself in a mirror somewhere. As it is now, though, with her notes and tools exposed? It's unmistakable what she's doing. (...Well, unless the pirate assumes it's sabotage. But at this point, sabotaging the Lady would be the equivalent of self-sabotage for the faerie.) "Shit." She hisses under her breath, whacking herself on the head once with the notebook.

And-- and wait a fucking sec! Did Juno just call her Olette?

Lettie's heart totally isn't fluttering in her chest like a butterfly's wings or anything. Heh. No way, who said anything about that!? (So Juno does know her name. The faerie figured that no one could genuinely be that oblivious... but suspecting that and actually hearing her name from the pirate's lips are two separate things entirely. She's never said it like that before. No, she's never said it period.) Still. It's just her name. No biggie, right? Then can someone deliver that message to her heart and tell it to chill the fuck out? Olette, Olette, Olette. Her mind repeats the memory to the point where her own name sounds strange. Knowing the pirate, this might be the first and last time she ever hears it from her.

"Oh, Juju! Sup." (Sup? Sup!? Why the fuck is she talking like a fucking nerd!?) Lettie flops from her hiding place into a dramatic, leggy pose and quickly glyphs her mirror into her hand. Tossing her notebook haphazardly behind her, she pretends to examine her reflection. "The lighting in my room totally sucks today, so I was just... uh, checking to see what it looks like in here." Batting her eyes, she proceeds to make pouty lips at herself in the mirror. Welp. She might be awkward as hell but at least she looks good. It took two days of rest to restore her glamours after exhausting so much of her magic the other night. Now her eyes and hair both are a comfortable shade of blue and she feels better being out and about on the ship in places where Juno can see her. (Sure, she's not trying to impress the pirate or anything. But even Lettie doesn't want to look at herself in the mirror when her glamours have faded.) Well, scratch that. Now the faerie is comfy with being found anywhere but here. Juno used to be easy to throw off with her antics, but she has a gut feeling she's not going to buy it this time around.

Lettie awkwardly shuffles to her feet, collecting her notebook from the floor.

"And maybe I'm checking on Lady." Lettie rolls her eyes as if this is no big deal. 'Maybe'-- more like 'definitely'. "What's it to you? You never noticed before." She doesn't have to sass Juno for this-- technically she hasn't even yelled at her for anything yet. But this is comfortable. Familiar. "Look, I'm just making sure cubey's not having any negative effects on the equipment." The faerie blows another bubble and pops it in her teeth, checking over her list again. "We used to land on Lady whenever cubey took us to new worlds... and that didn't happen last time. Moreover, Lady straight up vanished. I just wanted to run a maintenance check to make sure everything's okay."
 
It doesn't immediately register that she's just said Olette's name out loud for the first time since learning it and it probably won't occur to her for another few minutes. Right now, there's some form of sensory overload taking over her system just seeing the faerie in the engine room. Like, technically Juno has seen her here before––the first night on the ship, she had to do some quick repairs and had the other woman follow her––so it's not like this is a new image for her per se. What is tripping her up is that she caught the faerie actually tinkering with her fucking baby! (The realization that it's the faerie who's been doing all the major updates? It does dawn on her and the connections slowly start to come together. And to be quite honest, it's not like Juno genuinely believed those boneheads were improving Lady––she knows exactly how smart they are and what they are capable of since she motherfucking made them. It's just that she also previously assumed the faerie was about as useful as a sack of broken bolts. It's not even like the pirate can be blamed when all she's ever seen Olette do is give herself and the skeletons makeovers, steal her gym mirror, use her gym, and just generally sap away the few precious resources that she has. Or they have, she supposes, since it's infinitely clear by now that they are a unit whether they like it or not. Fuck. Ugh.)

Juno isn't even sure if she's angry. Anger is there somewhere, because it always is with the pirate, but she isn't confident that this is the predominant emotion. (That in and of itself makes her uneasy and more liable to get angry.) Not knowing exactly what to do, she stands there at first, waiting for an explanation, but when the faerie ducks down and tries to pretend she's not actually there? Oh, Juno knows she's about to discover something either very good or very bad. For Olette's survival, all can only hope the homo pirate deems whatever mischief she's up to as good. "Uh, I'm not a fucking child and I know what fucking object permanence is so stop fucking embarrassing yourself and explain." Her tone is stern, but her usual anger is restrained. Again, for now.

As the faerie tries to pretend that she is only using the engine room for lighting (and that's laughable considering the best lit room is either the gym or the kitchen), the pirate crosses her arms over her chest and rolls her eyes, obviously not buying it. Like, even if the pirate were going to play along, because it is easier to believe the faerie is an airheaded ditz, the tools are lying around everywhere and that notebook of hers looks suspicious as Hell.

When the faerie finally does fess up?

It's honestly kind of easy for Juno to believe. Olette has proven herself capable already so to believe she might be full of other hidden surprises? Not incredibly difficult. (She's also somewhat grateful and relieved that Olette is addressing her in such a combative way. Makes this discovery less weird, somehow.) "Right, maybe," the pirate scoffs, looking over the engine and noting the repairs and improvements. ('When the fuck did she learn to be a grease monkey while at that fancy fucking prep school of hers?' Not that Juno is thinking of that fucking bizarre classroom from that nightmare hellscape. Just, in general. Because obviously Olette is some fancy-ass person.) "And I did fucking notice," she just decided to give credit to Marjorie and Phillip. Whatever. "Hard not to notice when the ship is accelerating faster."

As Olette buries her head in her notebook, Juno quickly swipes it from her hands and holds it over her head while she reads the notes. Her eyes widen as she scans through the pages. While she does this, she also walks around the engine room to compare the faerie's notes to the maintenance she's done. Part of her is impressed, the other part is pissed––mostly because she hates that this more or less proves she's a shit mechanic. She does (or did) pride herself in her ability to take care of this ship on her own and do just about every important task by herself (with some skeletal help). She'd chew the faerie out, but she's kind of too bewildered to latch onto anger.

"Fuck," she mutters, scratching the top of her head. (Admittedly, some of the faerie's notes fly right over her head.) She lowers the notebook and points to something on the page––something about increasing Lady's maneuverability––and addresses Olette, "You really think you could do this?"

Then the pirate refocuses, remembering the other points that Olette has brought up. Incredibly fucking valid points, at that. She hands the notebook back to her and rubs her chin. "Yeah, 've been wonderin' that too." When Marjorie tried to explain where the ship and the skeletons ended up, Juno had to seal her jaw shut because she spent way too much time trying to create a mental image when the pirate's question did not warrant that kind of longwinded answer. Juno only took away that they were also on that weird candy currency planet and were just glitching all over it until they ended up where Juno and Olette were. She sighs. "So has the cube been messing with the engine?" Juno hasn't noticed, mostly because whenever she's gone to check, any issue there might have been has already been addressed by the mystery mechanic (Olette). "And have you fucking figured anything out about that piece of shit?" Juno really wants this breakneck life to stop so if the faerie is apparently smart, why not lean on her expertise? "I can't fucking figure out how it imprinted on us, 'cause I assume that's why we can't fucking escape it." As they discovered with all of the faerie's escape attempts. "Just reminds me of a combination of spirit and summoning magic, but I haven't figured it out."
 
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