Like white wine and seafood or the two main constituents of a PBJ sandwich, lazy summer days and sprawling trashy trailer parks were simply made for each other. The stifling suffocating heat and the tinny monotone of singing grasshoppers made for lethargic unproductive minds, encouraging the park's residents to park themselves out front on lawn chairs with glasses of powder-flavored water and call it an early day under the idle blue skies. These lawn chairs did not rest on actual lawns, mind you. This is a trailer park, after all, with no (front)back yards or gardens of consequence for residents to mow or tend. Where there would be square lawns and cubed hedges in a more upscale neighborhood, lopsided piles of random knickknacks and rusty junk lay strewn about on dirt, crabgrass, and dandelions, often next to a patchy and poorly maintained automobile usually indistinguishable from the rusty junk itself. On some days, the trailer park trash bemoaned their ill luck and lousy jobs, wishing they had real homes with real lawns and not-dirt driveways. Never during these lazy days of summer, however. On days like these, they were content to just sit there in the shade, sipping the hours away and watching the weeds grow out front.
There is one particular trailer, however, where the owner never parks herself out front on a summer day. For she was originally an arctic fox kit who used to frolic about in powdered snow, and she prefers to stay indoors and enjoy the luxury of her window air conditioner: a giant bleached dinosaur of an appliance which blasts chilly roars of air and inspires immense jealousy among her sticky sweaty neighbors. She is usually no further than ten feet away from her beloved air conditioner on such days, and today is no exception as we find her lying belly down on an antiquated cherry-colored divan with chipped wooden legs. Her chin rests on a poofy marshmallow of a cushion and her hands prop up an opened book for her vaguely inhuman and overwhelmingly exotic eyes of golden amber. She learned how to read maybe two months ago tops, and she is now absolutely addicted to these amazing bundles of paper. Already abnormally inquisitive during her days as a fox, she cannot stop picking up tome after tome now that she is a human, turning page after page with these incredibly useful opposable thumbs of hers. On hot summer days like these, her thirst for undiscovered worlds and immersing character studies cannot be slaked.
Somewhat reminiscent of pre-rework Sejuani's character design, this arctic fox girl is dressed in the naughtiest of cutoff denim short shorts and a tiny cotton white halter top so she can better feel the rush of familiar arctic air against her skin. Her perfect lower legs flail against the divan with excited thuds and her nine bushy tails sway like the fronds of a palm tree as she giggles madly at the latest development in her latest book. Her soft pink lips, which have never worn or needed lipstick, whisper in a naturally sultry and breathy voice that many men have literally died for, as she repeats the last sentence out loud for the benefit of the furry cornered ears perched on top of her raven-haired head.
"Would you eat them in a box? Would you eat them with a fox?"
Literature references to foxes never fail to crack her up. Learning the letters of the alphabet had been both the easiest and funnest part (she sings the quick brown fox mnemonic every morning in the shower). She cackles under her breath as her golden eyes absolutely eat up the whimsical pictures of oddly simian men arguing over an omnipresent platter of green eggs and ham. She is dying to find out if the resistant man will ever capitulate to eating the contents of the platter. She is quite sure he will, but she is on her guard this time around; she has found out recently that some books come with surprise endings.
Her bare stomach suddenly growls against the divan, its noisy complaints reverberating threefold through said divan, chilly air, and the sinuous trunk of the fox girl's body. While green eggs and ham may not appeal to the tastes of this story's antagonist, they sound pretty damn appetizing to this fox girl who still raids quail nests for their little periwinkle eggs. And although she does not have green eggs in her refrigerator, she does have a dozen or so fresh brown eggs sitting in her cupboard, delectable unborn babies just waiting to be savored and swallowed. She buys freshly laid eggs every week from Farmer Nasus, the ever polite and genteel dogman down the road a few miles; she generally avoids buying the "fresh" meat and dairy from the local supermarkets, because they are anything but. She tried a grocery's top grade steak over half a year ago, and she ended up throwing the whole thing out after one tentative bite and swallow. It was far better than, say, scavenging a rotting carcass, but the flavor was still off-putting to her newly picky palate. The age. The stagnant blood. The plastic and styrofoam shells it had been wrapped in. The chemicals the animal had been raised with.
Although she dearly wants to chug onwards and finish the book in one sitting, her animal instincts are still too strong. Food first. Always food first. She obeys her instincts and sets down the book for now, planning to finish it after she has addressed the clamors of her stomach. Now that her mind is no longer engrossed in the fantastic world laid before her by the one and only Dr. Seuss (her favorite author), she is now vividly aware of the true world about her. The powerful yet hoarse roar of her air conditioner. The firm support of the divan beneath the entire length of her body. Cold air rushing up the small of her back and underneath her top, embracing her within its lecherous tendrils. The slightly stale scent of accumulating dust due to her lackadaisical housekeeping habits (she has yet to discover vacuum cleaners).
From the adjacent kitchen, an ancient tape cassette plus radio boombox blares music from its surefooted perch on top of a neglected microwave. It is a cousin of the air conditioner dinosaur, a smaller yet similarly stocky beast of gray hue and anachronistically boxy proportions in this day and age of sleek smooth hextechnology. It is her third most prized possession after her air conditioner and books. After overpaying the delighted oaf at the nearby pawn shop (basic arithmetic was still beyond her at this point in time, unfortunately), she spent ten hours straight just rotating all the mysterious knobs over and over, wincing and laughing at the screeching static and lovely melodies. Behind a sheer strip of clouded plastic, the stenciled row of radio station frequencies makes little sense to her amber eyes and foxgirl brain; but she is bright enough to determine that what really matters is the vertical tangerine bar which zips left or right depending on how she spins a certain knob. The bar dictates what comes out of the huge circular wire-lattice speakers; a certain style of music will always play while the bar rests at a certain position. Her mind is boggled by the astonishing variety of music offered by the radio. In the forest, one had no choice but to listen the songs of birds by day, and the violins of crickets and tubas of toads by night.
She usually leaves the bar resting at a position which guarantees a style of music called "oldies". There are many oldies stations, but this one is especially dear to her heart because it has an unabashed proclivity for the easygoing genre of surfer tunes. The mellow singsong melodies resonate within the very core of her body and soul, both soothing and uplifting the beast within her in ways she never dreamed of. Whenever she is in the kitchen, she often spontaneously breaks out in dance, usually a slow-motion shimmy which keeps pace with the placid tunes. She tries to sing and hum along as best she can and, since she has a talented voice and superhuman hearing, she does very well.
Today, the surfer station just happens to start up her favorite song, a surfer's anthem originally written and performed by a classic yordle band called the Beach Cubs. And the tantalizingly familiar guitar intro wafts into her bedroom, sealing the deal. The book falls by the wayside. Pointy ears wiggling with the unruliness of children fighting in the backseat of a car, she flits into the kitchen like a moth tragically drawn to flame as brass instruments now gently nudge their way into the song. Her bare feet are already off and dancing, pushing off in a delightfully slick manner on the clean enough linoleum, making that cutsie wubba-wubba sound you hear in-game whenever she walks around. Her fully extended arms windmill about with a deliberate grace, dipping down with a right-angled hand to her hips with each beat of the drum. Her pretty whiskered face, with the slightest remainders of baby fat on her adorably dimpled cheeks, is the picture of bliss as she dreams of warm sandy beaches and rolling waves crested with foamy white.
The Beach Cubs finally start singing, a quintet of male yordle tenors and baritones with pleasantly smooth voices cultivated by years of experimental drug use. Only four of them are still alive today, and so, as she slowly saunters over to the egg pantry with windmilling arms, she joins in as a temporary fifth with her breathy soprano...
"Well Noxus girls are hip, I really dig those styles they wear..."
"And Demacian girls with the way they talk, they knock me out when I'm down there..."
"The Piltover police girls really make you feel alright..."
"And the Freljord girls with the way they kiss, they keep their boyfriends warm at night..."
"But...
The chorus! The cupboard of eggs awaits her, but they momentarily join her book in the land of the forgotten. For she has swept all nine of her tails into her arms with a tender hug, and she now dances a slow hip-swaying dance with her impromptu nine-headed partner as the song (and she) break out into chorus:
"I wish they all could be Bandle City..."
"I wish they all could be Bandle City..."
"I wish they all could be Bandle City girrrls..."
She spins around with herself at the wonderfully drawn out "girrrrrls". It is a rather typical surfer song. Simple and slow in notes and lyrics. Waxing carefree about all different types of girls from around the world. Most importantly, they wish for a type of girl in particular. She adores this song because she knows the Beach Cubs were singing about a girl like her. Wishing for a girl like her. She feels this way in no small part because her boyfriend used to sing this song for her every other night, his nimble little paws masterfully doling out the song's bars and chords from his lute as he rocked back and forth in his seat beside her in front of the campfire. His squeaky voice was a warbly tenor, barely passable in how it held a tune, but it was the sweetest thing to her ears nonetheless. And his normally wicked squinty eyes, whenever he belted out the main chorus, they always broke open into huge vulnerable puddles while he looked up to her, serenaded her. For while his lips said Bandle City, his eyes said otherwise. He didn't want or need no Bandle City girl. All he ever wanted and needed was her.
Those had been the best days. Her spinning stops, and she stands still for a moment, burying her face into the hushing comfort of her tails as her eyes began to tear. As a torrent of unwelcome human emotion sweeps through her from furry ears to bare toes. Yes, those had been the best days. But they also were long ago days. Almost forgotten by her if not for the occasional reminder by the Beach Cubs. Most certainly forgotten by him.
And as fate would have it, as she stood alone in her trailer with her head bowed, a bird's eye view outside revealed a boat of a ludicrously purple and orange Cadillac navigating its way through the silvery sea of gleaming unpainted trailer roofs. The thrice-polished-this-morning Cadillac shines so bright in the sun, it hurts. The massive pitch black tires, sides unscuffed and unmarked, slowly rotate one way, crushing gravel and wayward children toys beneath their vulcanized rubber; the bladed spinner hubcaps go the other way with the glinting shimmer of a brisk pinwheel. The occupants of the car are ominously concealed inside opaque tinted windows rolled up all the way, but the music booming from inside is irrepressibly vulgar. The car's speakers and woofers are so powerful, the windows of nearby trailers and the teeth of the trailers inhabitants rattle. Unlike the gentle rhapsody of the Beach Cubs, this song is vilely aggressive and lewd with its throbbing bass and crass lyrics. It is by a yordle rapper named Too Short, and this vertically challenged rapper (challenged even by yordle standards) wants you to "Shake That Monkey".
Bounce dat ass up and down to da flo!
Shake that **** till you can't no mo!
Twirk that monkey, let me see ya get low!
Freak that yigga till ya **** get sore!
Yigga being the yordle version of the N word, of course.
Normally, her sensitive ears would have pr1cked up at the approach of the loudly painted car and its even louder "music", but she is lost inside her tails and the haze of the Beach Cubs' serenade. She does not hear the car slowly pull to a stop before her trailer, and Too Short suddenly shuts up. A calm settles down over the trailer park again, but this time, the grasshoppers are silent. For even they are afraid of the predator that now treads within their midst. This calm is a dreadfully deadened calm. A portent that reeks of impending violence and inexplicably savage brutality. The air grows heavy and pressurized, tingling with static. The lull before a terrible thunderstorm begins to strike. And strike.
While the spinners are still going strong, the driver's door swings open. And a pair of yordle feet drop down to hit the pavement with a thud of finality.
"I wish they all could be Bandle City..."
Having let go of her tails by now, Ahri stops singing and reaching for her cupboard when a rapping (no, not that kind of rapping) is heard at her front door. Oh, what's this? A visitor?
"I wish they all could be Bandle City..."
Sixth sense dulled by the easy voices of the Beach Cubs, she sonorously calls out to her visitor, "Coming!" And the fox girl flounces to her doorway like how a field mouse unknowingly trots towards a cobra lying in wait, completely unaware of the danger she is in. She is humming to herself as she opens the door only partially due to the chain lock which she keeps habitually slid home (it is not a particularly good neighborhood, after all) -
She screams as a yordle foot slams into the door with unbridled fury, smashing it open in the blink of an eye as wooden splinters and the still-intact brass chain of her door lock explodes into her face. The door swings inward and slams to a halt against the wall it is inlaid in, doorknob punching clean through the paper and plaster and holding itself fast. She staggers backwards, coughing as a new layer of dust settles over her furniture, and her eyes, once filled with dreams and long ago love, are now filled with animal terror. Her stomach knots up into a panic, and her feet suddenly turn clumsy as they trip over themselves. Her nine tailed rump hits the floor as she instinctively begins to scrabble away with all four limbs, wishing nothing else but to flee from the short and stocky shadow looming before her.
"I wish they all could be Bandle City girrrls..."
The roof of her mouth runs dry as she stammers, "T- T- Teemo, what do you - "
His eyes had been closed. But now they open, two beady bloodshot orbs, burning reddened white against the backdrop of his head's silhouette. A silhouette as blackened as his shriveled heart.
His mouth flares open now to snarl at her. Two rows of sawtoothed pearls embedded in fleshy gummy pink. His guttural growl rumbles with malevolent thunder, threatening to strike her at any moment.
"B1TCH! WHERE'S MAH MONEY?!"
Poor girl. She should have finished the book while she had the chance.
TO BE CONTINUED
I am totally stuck on my other stories. So I wrote a doodle instead. My stories are generally happy go lucky stories, since that's kinda how I roll, so I'm trying to write something darker instead. A challenge to myself. The weather is also really freaking hot where I am, so I wanted to write about hot days, lol.
The Beach Cubs are a reference to the Beach Boys and their song "California Girls", of course. Too Short is a reference to, uh, Too Short. No, I don't live in a trailer park.