SCOOB!
THE MISTS WILL CLEAR
WRITTEN BY ZARIUS
Authors Note: Had to write this after seeing the latest clip. There appears to be a lot of Shaphne moments in this film, which is encouraging. Hope you enjoy.
Some days everything's so blurry and everyone's so fake.
Daphne had heard that in a song once, she was sure it was from that artist who butchered Nirvana's About a Girl
Still, it rang true in this instance. Those particular lyrics had been an earworm gnawing away at her cerebellum when she, Fred and Velma talked to the almost detached and disinterested Goth girl at the reception booth of the bowling alley letting them know what had happened to their friends, how they'd been taken, abducted, but more to the point, how down they had felt just before.
How they'd been rejected by their friends.
The weight of guilt had hit Daphne the hardest, how could she have been so self-centred and gone ahead with what the rest of the group had wanted? Was she more concerned with the business of solving mysteries?
Or was it a way of sparing Norville Rogers from her breaking heart?
An alcoholic father, a persistent crush on a jock who cared more about traps, mysteries and his own van, she had toxic, destructive relations and if it became too much, then it was also possible she would look to Norville for solace and bring him face to face with all those issues, how ill prepared was he truly for her own harsh realities? He could barely keep it together around phony ghouls and goons.
The concerns were real; the questions were persistent, questions about her own character, her own sense of morality and commitment as a friend, her feelings as someone more.
And through it all, the worry remained, and the pressures persisted as she thought back along her own timeline, reflecting on just how much he and Scooby meant to her.
This was a man she'd known since she was a child, a boy she carried in her arms when he received his first true fright. A boy who's puppy had chosen her to run up to and treat the least like a stranger when they first made eye contact.
Throughout their days growing up together, solving mysteries, being chased through endless corridors, eating stacks upon stacks of sandwiches and remarkably rarely putting on any pounds, Norville 'Shaggy' Rogers and Scooby had been both the most fragile and most endearing of the group. Everyone else was more logical, straight laced, all business. Cold to the touch.
It was an ill fit for Daphne, which was why she appreciated how needy Shaggy and Scooby were, how she could bring out the best in them just by tempting them with the food they crave, a snack specially made for Scooby, and ones Shaggy found particularly scrumptious as well.
That's all it took, a little care, a little attention, and what you got in return was a lot of devotion to the cause, a lot of courage.
Why did all that they meant to each other become so hard to see in that moment of rejection?
She could barely breath, she found herself hyper-ventilating. She had to find them, her dog, her friend, her very best friend, the ones she had the most empathy with, and the ones who brought warmth to a colder climate.
In time she hoped they would forgive her.
She assured herself of this.
Somehow the mists will clear.