"Oh, hey there, Cream!" A voice called out as Cream sat at the beach with Cheese, building sandcastles with her little friend. She turned her head to look at the person who was speaking and noticed a very plant-like being with sparkling blue eyes, a green and white leafy body, and delicate-looking hands. She had a red gem on her chest and had little "buds" on her head to act as small ponytails of sorts.
"Ah, Cosmo, how are you doing? You sure do look pretty!" Cream remarked, looking Cosmo over and putting the blue bucket she was using down.
"Oh, and how THIN you are, Cream!" Cosmo remarked, placing a hand on her chest. "I MUST learn your secret!" The actress said. She was a famous actress for a show based off of Sonic and his friends, an "adaptation" of sorts of the adventures they'd had called "Sonic X", which had been funded by a friend of the gang, a human named Christopher Thorndyke who happened to be super rich...and thanks to the success of Sonic X, super famous.
"Mmm." Cream mumbled.
"Mmm." Cosmo agreed.
"Still nippin' those buds, eh uggo?" Cream thought.
"Eat death, you overweight little tart." Cosmo thought.
"Can't you do something about our honeys...hatred?" A yellow-furred being asked. He had a tuft of hair at the front of his body, a rather large tail, a white belly and blackish/blue eyes. This was Ray, the Flying Squirrel. He was sitting with a two-tailed orange/yellow fox...Tails himself.
"Sonic always says the only things you can bring to a catfight are popcorn and drinks." Tails insisted, shaking his head.
"I just realized something. I've never seen you working with spells of any kind, only technology. Why do you not tap into your magical roots?" Cosmo asked as she walked over to the two of them with Cream, knowing perfectly well that Cheese was making faces at her, and also knowing that Cream was not going to stop. "Foxes are natural magic-users."
"I don't need it. Ah, but sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I'd gone the way of my ancestors...it was a simpler time, I guess." Tails admitted. "A time where there was no such thing as an anime, so there was nothing that a fanfic could rip off, for example...and three people getting killed during a sporting event was a "tragedy" not, say, the natural outcome of a heated Red Sox/ Yankees game..."
"Love was probably simpler then too..." Ray sighed.
THE BUTTERFLY AND THE DOG
It was an ordinary day for the Dog. He wasn't anybody special, and he was fine with that. He was a "dime-a-dozen", a hard-working drummer boy who happened to spend most of his time looking after wild sheep and just writing in his diary-er, journal. He put pen to lip, brow furrowed, his tawny fur glinting in the morning light as the sheep took a nap around him.
"I think that I shall never see...a dog as inaccurately drawn as me." He decided, putting it into the diar-journal.
To be truthful, he didn't really like his job too much. Yes he could eat one or two wild sheep each week if he did a good job and tonight was that special night. Yes, he had lots of time to himself to be "creative". But what he really wanted was the hand of this lovely little Hyena girl in town. They had chosen to be funny and clever when the time had come to pick their "Gift", but they'd been cursed with cruelty. Still, the Dog, Dodger, was sure that love could cure his girlfriend Hattie.
He decided to write down another poem. "I see when I...look into the sky...something flying very-huh?" He blinked, putting the pen down into his dia-journal.
A butterfly floated down to him, looking rather cheerful. She had orange and black wings...Monarch's wings. She had a small little brown cap atop her head and slightly baggy yellow pastel pants with a light blue shirt that was tight-fitting to match. And...her eyes...they had that same orange/black blend. Combined with the prettiness of her wings and her clothes, she fit the "Gift" that her species had been given...she was beautiful just as he was loyal.
Then she opened her mouth.
"Howdy-do, stranger." She said in a grainy kind of voice, all chipper and cheerful. "Watcha-doin'?" She wanted to know.
"I'm guarding these wild sheep." He said as one of the sheep awoke, sniffing the butterfly over. "Who might you be?"
"Call me Dew. As in Dew on the Morning Grass, that's my full name. We're all "artsy", but I think that being called by my full name sounds too stuffy, so just call me Dew."
"Alright, then "Dew" it is." I'm Dodger." Dodger said, taking her hand and shaking it, grinning kindly. Dogs also had the gift of Friendliness. It was very hard for somebody not to resist their cheerfully big grin.
"Is that...poetry?" Dew asked, looking at the di-journal that Dodger kept.
"Yes, this is my Poetry Diary." Dodger explained, holding it up. "I mean, journal!"
"Can I see?" Dew wanted to know.
"Well...okay." Dodger agreed nervously, handing it over. Dew looked it through, looking rather amused.
"I can tell you really like this girl named "Hattie"." She said. "I have a very good friend with that same name! And just LOOK at all the poems you've written about her. "H is for the Happiness she brings me, A is for the Amazing-"
"Okay, please, not so loud, you'll make the sheep wake up." Dodger said, though he was really saying this because he was blushing like a ripe tomato.
...
...
...
...that night the two of them sat together, eating wild sheep roasted over a hot fire, flavored with wild garlic and pepper as Dew sucked away on a big batch of cherries she'd picked from the nearby fields. "This is very good." She said. "But...do you always eat alone?"
"Well, sometimes Hattie comes up to visit me. And we talk. Mostly about my job and how she works at the butcher shop in town." Dodger remarked, chewing on a leg of wild sheep.
"...does she talk about you? I mean, you personally?" Dew wanted to know.
"...why would she? My job IS me." Dodger said, shrugging.
"Does she ask about your dreams? Or talk about what she likes to do? Do you, like, lookit the stars?" Dew wanted to know. She seemed bothered.
"Well...what do you mean by "dreams"?"
Dew looked at Dodger and felt sad. "C'mon, you know!" She insisted, not really wanting to believe what she was hearing. "What you plan to do someday."
Dodger looked confused. "This IS what I plan to do someday. Tomorrow I'll write some more poems. Then I'll go and talk to Hattie about building a home nearby so we can watch the sheep together."
"...that's...it?" She asked. "You just wanna get married? Be close to her?"
"Making that hyena happy is what I want to be best at." Dodger insisted proudly.
Dew felt very sad as he said that. "...did you say...hyena?" She murmured.
"Yep!"
Dew tried to look cheerful. "Well, that's...good for you! I...I think I'll just be getting to sleep." She said, lying on the ground on a blanket Dodger had brought. He smiled down at her and then rested his own head on a different blanket, though Dew was not truly asleep. She sadly looked over at him, wishing she could tell him the truth.
...
...
...
... "Why can't you tell him?" She wanted to know of Hattie as the hyena put some makeup on her lips, her frizzy hair bouncing.
"He's someone to kill time with and I get all the roasted wild sheep I want when I visit him every week." Hattie explained, shrugging as she put the lipstick away and turned to look at Dew, who had gone to see Hattie in her room, which she had in the attic of the town's butcher shop. "Why shouldn't I take advantage of a good deal?"
"You don't get it, do you?" Dew remarked. "He worships your face. He thinks your nose should be displayed as a work of art. He wants you to be his steady sweetie!"
Hattie blinked a few times. Then she began to laugh that horrid, cackling "HEE-HEE-HAA-HA-HA" hyena laugh.
"Well I ain't tellin' him!" She insisted at last, wiping a tear away. "You wanna wreck his world, go ahead!" She sneered at Dew. "But if you do that...you'll have to admit what you are. EXACTLY..." She stood up and began inching closer, licking her lips. "WHAT...YOU..."
She grabbed ahold of Dew's arms and pulled her close. "ARE."
And with that, she placed her lips on Dew's, kissing feverishly, and Dew couldn't resist. She returned the kiss as the two moved over to the wall, bumping into it slightly as they snogged away.
...
...
...
... Dew nervously bit her lip as she approached Dodger, who was closing his d-IT'S A DIARY, okay?!? It's a friggin' diary despite whatever the heck Dodger said!
"...Dodger...er...listen, there's something I need to tell ya." Dew said. "The thing is, Hattie can't really...stay with you." She murmured. "Not because she doesn't like you, but because..."
"Why?" Dodger asked, confused.
"Because it would be a lie. She...she likes GIRLS."
Dodger blinked a few times, rubbing his head. "...oh." He remarked. "Well...gee. I never thought it'd end like this, just because I've got no tits." He mumbled.
"Yeah, I know what you mean." She remarked, sighing as she sat down near him, folding her hands in her lap. "Sometimes I just wish I was a guy instead of a girl. Then Hattie wouldn't be attracted to me anymore. She's just so...NASTY to me. But...but she sure can kiss, can't she?" She asked Dodger.
"I wouldn't know." Dodger mumbled.
"Well...what're we gonna do?" Dew asked.
The two thought about it for a long, long time...and began to look at each other, leaning in and...
Then they stopped. "What're we doing?" Dew asked.
"...I dunno." Dodger commented, shrugging. "I guess...you tried to kiss me?"
"Woah, hold up. YOU tried to kiss ME!" Dew insisted.
"Nuh-uh!"
"Yuh-huh!"
"Nuh-uh!"
"Yuh-huh!"
This went on for quite a long time...so much so that the sheep actually wandered off while the two were arguing, and Hattie, grinning to herself, decided to make off with them. One by one she snuck up behind the wild sheep and stuffed them into a sack, bringing them to her butcher's shop. It was the perfect crime.
...
...
...
...the next day, Dew walked into the butcher's shop to talk to Hattie about Dodger, only to find that everyone in town was going crazy about how much better Hattie's new meat tasted than her normal fare. In fact, they said it was as delicious as the wild sheep that Dodger raised and roasted out on the hills.
If Dew had been a smart girl, she would have realized the truth. But, sadly, she and Dodger shared stupidity. She just shrugged and decided to go tell Dodger about the new meat. He was confused too, but didn't make the connection either. He decided, since the sheep were gone, that he was going to become a professional poet instead.
And it was a good thing he did, because what happened next would have ruined the sheep-ranching business. People began falling sick due to Hattie's poor handling of the sheep meat. She'd never properly cooked sheep before...thus, though made delicious by herbs, the meat was too raw. In their fury, the townspeople threw stones and chairs through her butcher shop's windows, and Hattie ended up on the street.
And, surprisingly, Dodger's poetry, while simple, got him a job at the local elementary school, teaching young children with Dew becoming an art teacher. They would sneak off during lunch period to kiss, and both were unaware that once, just once, their curse of stupidity had helped them rather than hurt them...though they thought back to that "Day the Sheep Went Missing" sometimes, and ALMOST made the connection between Hattie and the sheep.
But hey, almost isn't the same as "did". Just like Dodger's poetry diary wasn't the same as a journal...despite his protests.
It WAS a diary, dammit. :(
