Today, on the beaches of Fontaine, a crab poacher faces a force greater than divine will; he faces Furina, Enemy of Meat Eaters and Hater of Pescatarians.
"Unhand the phylum arthropoda!" A thunderbolt strikes as Furina shoots her hand towards her prey. It is not raining.
An absolutely massive crab is being assailed. It's as big as the poacher. Footsteps hammer the sands of the beach, Furina is ahead of me and on her head, Mademoiselle Crabaletta poises a pincer like a pirate captain directing her squabbie's cannons. And, by the archons, they're fast. That poacher wants to get away with the giant crab, that creature could be his whole month's salary with the right seller, and he's sprinting like he knows it.
But Furina has a secret technique, passed down through generations of crab tamers. She scoops Crabaletta into her throwing arm, points out her other arm, measures the distance, the wind direction, wind resistance, gravity, the poacher's movement speed, the coriolis effect, and reads her horoscope, and with those simple calculations finished, Furina hurls Crabaletta in a tornado of wind and sand.
The Crabaletta-frisbee smashes its target's knees with the might of a thousand shotputs. The impact is heard around Teyvat, the rangers of Sumeru's forests and the bards of Mondstadt alike all spin around in confusion as the cracking bones and rampant screams echo around them. His knees explode and Furina throws up both arms in a celebratory roar and Crabaletta rolls around in the sand, and I finally catch up. It's for the best that I get my two credits in before anything drastic happens.
"Please just give us the crab, my man," I lean down over his pained face, "Furina's gonna spend the whole day announcing that meat is murder. On a less important note, she might try to get you sentenced to the maximum extent of the law."
Seeing my pleading eyes, or perhaps seeing Furina end her victory dance and rush on over, the poacher starts fiddling with the straps securing his catch. One unlatched, two unlatched, his giant crab tumbles off his back and rolls against the sand, back on its feet. The big boy crab gives his kidnapper a pinch on the thigh like a massive pair of scissors cutting a twig. It visibly hurt.
"Nothing in this world can outrun a crab!" With her beaming smile, Furina holds up Crabaletta. A beam of sunlight strikes her watery friend like a knight glistening in radiant rays. Crabaletta has no emotion. She's a crab.
Speaking of, the gigantic crab that's as big as a normal human is pinching at the sand as it waddles towards us. It doesn't seem to understand the implications of what was happening to it; because it's a crab. It just seems to know that there's a tiny blue crab peering up at it.
"Madame Furina, crabs are food, not pets." The poacher slinks backwards, scrambling away on all fours. The fear of God is scrawling through his eyes, and Her wrath will be righteous and swift.
"Poachers are crab food, not people." Furina rolls up a sleeve.
He actually shoots me a look, as if he's asking me what's wrong with her, but when I give a blank stare and a shrug and sip my coffee flask, he just shakes his head in disbelief.
"I don't understand your obsession, blue woman." The poacher takes the giant crab and shoves it towards her like some kind of peace offering.
I stand between them, I let the 'phylum arthropoda' and Crabaletta get behind me. Furina is trying to physically phase through me to get at her prey. I just snatch her warm hands and look into her fuming little face. Her hat has fallen.
"Furina, you can't teach some people, okay? The idiot let go of the victim. Let it go."
"But I'm right!" She huffs. Her limbs are wrapping around me in a vice grip. Think of a snake coiling a kitten.
The poacher is out of here. He saw his chance, he took it. Look hard enough, and you can see the ravine in the sand from how hard he sprinted.
"Yeah, you are," I pick her up by the underarms like a stray cat, "and attempting to arrest him yourself with an unreasonable use of force might get the case thrown out of court. I hear Fontaine has something of a complex court system, you should read up on it one day, Ms. Du Fontaine."
"Oh? Truly? Why, I was unaware." Furina feigns shock and brings both hands to her chest. "I've been living under a rock for the past several centuries."
Crabaletta and the big boy crab we rescued are peering at each other. Pinching at each other. Tapping at each other. The larger sentient is standing on his taut legs, over the tiny little water crab as she gazes up at him. They pay no attention to us.
"You ever heard of the crab mentality?" I say, apropos of nothing. "Where all the collective crabs in a bucket pull each other down so no crab gets to the top?"
"There is no, so called, col-lec-tive," she stresses that word in that typical, haughty Furina-esque way, "This appears to be you taking the moral high ground and attempting to force me to do the same."
"You're right, but physically, the crab mentality probably looks like this."
I pull her down into the sand, where the struggling stops and she cannot escape my loving grasp. In the strong wrapping of my arms and legs, Furina's small body rests against mine. It takes little convincing or wrestling to pull her close. Overhead, seagulls are squawking, and before us, the ocean tide laps at our feet. Behind us, the two crabs are poking and bonking at each other. A silent breath glides with the winds as Furina's heart slows down, my grip loosens, and the wave recedes.
As the tides come and go, peace returns to Furina. The red mist has cleared. Her breathing normalises. Her first homicide has been delayed for another day. She rises within my grasp until she's sitting between my legs, back to my front, and we overlook the waters and skies. She presses both palms to her cheeks, squeezing out the frustration. She almost looks like a healthy and well-adjusted human being again.
"Thank you, Aether. I'm sorry." She breathes out and pinches the bridge of her nose. Vague embarrassment shadows her face. "My display was unseemly."
"Cool as a sea cucumber?" I give her body a warm squeeze, and we smile at each other.
"Plenty cool." She hangs her head back and against my chest, she looks into my eyes and faintly pouts. "But I shan't be that sorry about this sordid affair. I shall be wearing a grumpy face all day long."
"No you won't." I slide my hands down her flanks and tickle them. A spasm and a squeak shoot through her and the smile is immediate, and so is mine. Torrents of giggling erupt out of her as her limbs defenselessly splay out and let me poke wherever I please for almost a minute.
"No, I'm sorry!" Tears peek out of her eyes. A hot exhale shoots out of her grin while she pulls away my hands for a brief reprieve. I almost dread the day she gets used to being tickled and becomes capable of actually fighting back.
She pulls herself up to me from my shoulder and shoves me down. Her soft body weighs down across me. In the glorious sun, hugging the woman I love, I know that nothing can ruin my life. Yup, nothing. Even as Furina's head lies on my chest, looking off to the side.
"Look at them." She says with a satisfied smile. She indicates the crabs.
The giant crab and Crabaletta are embracing. It's a very crab-like embrace, more like they're just mushing their faces and shells into one another. If you can think of another way for crabs of disparate sizes to embrace, feel free to use your imagination here.
But there's something strange going on. Because here I thought there were only the four of us. Yet, something has snuck into the scene. Not just one 'something,' but many 'somethings.'
"Aether. Look around." Furina's voice is seeping with nascent panic. My arms slip off her while she rises off of me.
We're surrounded by crabs. Crabs, crabs everywhere, of every shape, of every size. I feel that the world of Fontaine is no longer Fontaine. It is a Kafkaesque hellscape where the sands and ocean fall away to a sea of encroaching crabs. I see no mountains, I see pincers melding against the sky. I see no waterbuses, I see bony legs sprawling through the world like a spider web. The crabs are so numerous that they seem to distort reality and I cannot tell where the crabs end or begin. This is only a partial embellishment.
"What, what the f..." I mumble in panicked breaths. This is how we die.
For some reason, I hear maracas and bongos. This frightens me in strange and unknowable ways. In the middle of this madness, the crabs are swaying, raising their claws and pumping them side to side, as much as crabs can while they perform their little sideway waddles.
"I'm scared, Furina." I hold her tight. We kneel together and her warm body is my only anchor to the world of sanity.
"Me too, hold me." We cuddle up in a puddle of fear. We are small and weak before their numerous majestic figures.
They aren't attacking. They're celebrating. We're in the middle of some kind of tribalistic crab ritual dance. They aren't surrounding us. They're surrounding Crabaletta and her new boy toy. We are mere peasants to the spectacle of their kin. In the midst of their rampant dancing, I see the maracas and bongos being played by a pair of blue crabs. How they are accomplishing this demands that the mind be capable of comprehending eldritch horrors. I am not capable of this.
Furina scuttles towards Crabaletta and her new friend. She's on her knees, looking up at the new handsome crab on the block. On her face, the fear and trepidation are melting away, as though the crabs' hypnotic dancing have instilled her with a new perspective on life. Good for her. Comparatively, my life perspective is worse.
"My goodness. You see Crabaletta as real, don't you?" Her hands are almost joined in prayer. There's a twinkle in her eyes as she takes in the crab legion. "All of you do."
"Is she?" I cough.
"Of course she is," Furina proudly presents Crabaletta as though the little water construct were a work of art, "she is no mere ersatz crab."
"Okay." I have no real response to this. This is silly.
Furina rises to her feet. For a moment, in the burning sun, she wields a holy aura of virtue, she stands tall within the crab army like a pariah come to deliver unto them salvation. Whatever the hell salvation would be to these crabs, she sure seems to have an idea. She raises a mighty arm to the large crab as it picks up Crabaletta in a loving embrace.
"Giant one, I shall dub thee King Crabdric. One day, you shall have a beautiful ceremony with Crabaletta and live your lives together in peace and harmony."
Oh. Of course. I should have expected this, really. Has she not stopped to wonder what's happening here? This almighty army appears out of nowhere as the giant crab is saved, the army starts ritualistically celebrating with a dance number not meant for mortal eyes, and Crabaletta is now in the embrace of who appears to be the king of these commoners. And Furina's first thought is to get some rings to slap on those pincers? She's going to get their marriage initiated?
"Furina, they're crabs."
Furina's head grinds a full 180 degrees. The light has left her eyes. There is no smile, but a silent and screaming fury welling from within. The crabs around us cease their new-age dance routines, for they all watch me, and there is no emotion in their beady eyes, but I feel the weight of a thousand judgments.
"And? What say you about crabs in love?"
Her voice is louder than Neuvilette rendering his verdict. Her voice is colder than the tundras of Snezhnaya.
"Nothing?" I squeak.
And she's smiling so sweetly, once again. The crabs resume their celebration.
"That's right. Now, how do we arrange a crab marriage?"
The poacher was right, what is this blue woman's obsession?
A/N- Current 'crab' word count, including 'Crabaletta' and 'Crabdric'- 67
This number will escalate at an inhuman rate.
