NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 29.5: A blast from the past
The following happening happened some 20,000 years ago, long before most of the children came into existence. Only a handful of them had been created at this time: the twin dragons, the older fox, and however many faeries and spiders the Faery Queen and Queen Arachnae decided to make by then.
A rather lengthy amount of time ago on a planet somewhat close by, there was a mountain. It was a fairly empty mountain, for little wildlife existed upon it save for some grass, a handful of trees, and whatever critters decided to live amongst said grass and trees.
Located on that mountain was a simple cottage. It truly was simple: one floor, one bedroom, one regular room for all other activities (such as living and cooking), and an outdoor bath. And in that cottage lived a mother and her twin daughters.
That was it.
No other inhabitants, not even a garden. If you were to ask the mother why she chose to located their home in such a place, especially with two children, she would respond that it is a nice and quiet place. That, or she would give you a pat on the head with a rock.
Now then, on this oddly specific day where a specific sequence of events about to be specified with a series of specific details takes place, the mother could be found standing at the front (and only) door. It was slightly ajar with her hand still on the doorknob. A quick peak through the crack reveals two adorable little creatures who were speaking with the mother.
"Sol, you sure you girls will be alright? I won't be back for a while." [Corinna]
"We'll be fiiine, Mom. We're big girls now!" [Solestia]
The other tiny one was silently standing beside her sister, her mind in another place.
"Mhm, 'big' until an oversized fox or faery shows up and tries to kidnap you two again. Speaking of which, what should you do if you ever see either of those?" [Corinna]
"Run away!" [Solestia]
"And if you can't?" [Corinna]
"Whack 'em until you can!" [Solestia]
"And if that doesn't work?" [Corinna]
"Uhh, call for Mom!" [Solestia]
"Yes, that's right." [Corinna]
*pat the head and no one gets hurt!*
"Yup...that's right..." [Corinna]
It had been no more than 12 or so years since the little tinies hatched from their egg.1Because they are (technically) identical twins, they come from the same egg. Just a slight squeeze, no big deal.
And yet, the girls were already forced to experience such a traumatizing event...
.....
'Twas a bright and sunny day then; almost as sunny and bright as the smile on the bubbly twin's face. It was so bright, in fact, that even the naturally gloomy-looking other twin was a bit shiny as well.
The reason for those smiles was simple: the two adorable little creatures would be visiting their one and only friend of the same age and size as them. It was supposed to be a great day, a wonderful one! But then...that happened.
With one child in each of her arms, the mother carefully took to the skies and make her way to a certain set of islands due east and slightly south. It took but mere minutes for the mother to reach her destination, traveling a few thousand kilometers like it was nothing. An unstoppable mother she was and still is.
Their arrival was met with a grand welcoming by several floofy maids. Though unlike the friend they were visiting, these floofy maids only had one tail each.
The real star of the show made her appearance soon after. With a great big floof tackle of death2By snu-snu of course~., the twins were subjected to the floofiest of hugs. Close behind this floofy menace was an even bigger floofy menace: her mother.
The two mothers exchanged quick greetings before taking the children inside for some tea and snacks.
So far, the day went quite well by the dragon mother's standards despite it having only been less than an hour since it began. But then, she appeared.
She came out of nowhere and snatched all three children in one fell swoop. With their movements restrained, the children could do nothing more than watch as the panicked mothers ran toward them.
But they were too late, she had already escaped. The young ones were nowhere to be found. All that was left of them were leftover sparkles from her magicks.
If there was one singular speck of hope remaining in the hearts of the two mothers, it was that they knew the children would be reasonably unharmed. They needed to act fast, though.
Fortunately, the two mothers knew exactly where she went with the kids, so they made haste.
A bit more to the East was the mainland, and within the mainland was a fledgling forest with a number of tree houses. Their destination was the central tree, which happened to also have the largest tree house.
The normally peaceful atmosphere of the forest was soon broken by the abrupt arrival of a dragon and a fox whose children had been kidnapped minutes before. They spared no time for greetings or the like, marching onward to meet the devil who committed such a vile act.
Upon entering the tree house, the two mothers were greeted with a horrendous sight! There, at the center, sat the horrid offender who kept the innocent children at arm's reach. She was holding them hostage, ready to strike at a moment's notice should the mothers try something!
But the worse act was not even that, for she was feeding the little ones...OATMEAL COOKIES!!3Dundundun!!! AND WITHOUT RAISINS, EITHER!!! Everyone knows that children are allergic to all flavors except for chocolate chip! How dare she?!
That dastardly faery and her wicked schemes! As if she didn't have enough children of her own, but then she attempted to kidnapped others?! OUTRAGEOUS!!
Fortunately for the two mothers, they managed to rescue their beloved daughters from the clutches of the false-cookie creator. They quickly retreated to their respective homes, postponing the play date for another time...
.....
Oh the huma-er, dragonity~. Those poor little souls, how could they ever recover from such a thing~? The dragon mother made great efforts after that to keep an eye on her twins, lest they succumb to the lure of the false-cookies once more. She even ventured out, foraging by the World Tree for a source of proper cookies.
She found one in no time: a baker whose passion for the craft was dwindling after doing it for so many years. It had been a few centuries since he started baking, after all. As compensation for the cookies, the baker asked the dragon mother for recommendations in a new craft. She suggested barkeeping.4Gasp, the origin story of the ridiculously large cookie jar?!
Back to the present, (kinda) the dragon mother was due for another foraging trip by the World Tree. It would be too dangerous for the little ones to go out on such a journey, so they needed to stay home alone for the next few hours.
But given a certain past event, she could not help but worry that the moment she stepped out, something, or rather, someone may try something.
Oh wells~. What could she do?
Set up a few traps to catch anyone up to nefarious deeds? What if the girls are the ones that run into them? What then? No chance.
What about finding a reliable babysitter for the girls who could protect them from kidnappers? If such a person existed, the dragon mother would have ensla- given them life-long employment ages ago!
There was just no other option. She had to take the risk.
If there was any source of consolation, it was that the ordeal would serve as a good test of the girls' capabilities at being responsible...the thought of which still scares the dragon mother to this day.
She begrudgingly closed the door as she ventured out, the girls waving behind. They continued waving until the moment the door catch clicked into the jam.5If you don't know your door hardware (how uncultured!), the 'catch' is the little thingie that moves in and out when you turn the knob, and the jam is the hole that the thingie goes into on the other side.
From that point on, the girls were officially on their own for the next few hours.
Silence swept through the house. It stayed there for a minute or two. After that...well, they were free, were they not?
Once the realization set in, the more vibrant of the twins carefully creaked the door open slightly and peaked through. Her eyes needed a moment to adjust to the sudden change in brightness, but there were no mothers in sight. The little tail of hers was wagging so much that the cottage finally had some air conditioning.
She couldn't contain the excitement any longer and ran back to grab her sister.
"LUUUU!!!" [Solestia]
"*cricket noises* <I am Death, Destroyer of Worlds!>" [Cricket]
"Lu?" [Solestia]
Fumu. The other twin was suddenly nowhere to be found. She was not behind the couch, she was not under the couch, and she was not one with the couch. How interesting.
The little dragon rummaged through the house (while cleaning up after herself like a good child!), but no sisters were found. She took a second to stop and think. Then another, and then another. After a stunning 77.7 ticks passed6Shoutout to the game developers, smiley., a light appeared above her head.
She had figured out what happened to her sister! The answer was simple, so simple that the little one couldn't believe she didn't figure it out sooner. Her sister...started a game of hide and seek, and the countdown was already over!
"Kekeke~, you think you can run away? Well not this time!" [Solestia]
One stretch, two stretch, three stretch, four. The little dragon tied the little laces on her little boots, her little tail swinging around, and she embarked on a little journey to the outside world.
.....
The rules were simple:
- No leaving the mountain.
- Anywhere on the mountain is fair game.
- If you go down the mountain, you have to say hi to Auntie and the spooders.
- No changing the day to night.
- No changing the night to day.
- No solar eclipses.
- No lunar eclipses.
- No random gravity wells without adult supervision.
- No hiding in a gravity well.
- No eating snacks in the gravity well unless you share.
Simple, yes? Yes. Quite simple.
First things first, the little dragon went down to the mountain to say hi to Auntie and the spiders. She also decided this would be a great time to practice flying, so the wings were brought out.
...
Her flight was still a bit unsteady since her stabilizers were a little more than half functional while the afterburners were unable to turn off. She did manage to make her way to the spider cave in a couple minutes and struck a somewhat decent landing...at the cost of her landing gear.
"MY KNEES!!" [Solestia]
Thanks to her youthful springiness, she quickly recovered and headed into the cave, her legs still a bit wobbly but functional nonetheless.
"HELLOOOOOO?! AUNTIEEEEE?!! CAN ANYONE HEAR MEEEEEE??!!11" [Solestia]
<Yes yes, loud and clear, now quiet down, child. How many times have I told you that you don't need to shout?> [Arak'sha]7A reminder that the words in brackets <asdf> reprsent telepathy.
"Hmmm, a lot?" [Solestia]
"Exactly." [Arak'sha]8And the quotation marks "" of course represent spoken words.
"WAHH?!" [Solestia]
Gasp! A talking spider appeared out of nowhere behind the little dragon!
"Why do you kids always react like that? I'm not that scary, am I?" [Arak'sha]
<Yes you are~.> [Spooder Child 1]
<So scary~!> [Spooder Child 2]
<Spooooky~.> [Spooder Child 3]
"Go back to your room!" [Arak'sha]
Scatter!
"Ahem. So why'd you come here? I know it wasn't just to say hi. Did you poke a hole in your dress again? You know what, get over here. Let me take a closer look." [Arak'sha]
Without waiting for a response, the spooder auntie reached down and picked up the child to inspect her dress that was rather impressive. Not in the sense of appearances, but in the fact that the dress is still intact.
A simple 'S' on the front with a cute sunflower below it9Now doesn't this sound familiar?, the dress, much like the twins, was part of a duo collection, with the other one having an "L' on the front with a moonflower below.
As cute as they were, the twins often had to come back to the spooder auntie to patch up any and all holes that were poked into the dresses.
But for once, the little dragon wasn't here for that and instead came to check if her twin was anywhere to be found.
"No no, not that, Auntie, not that!" [Solestia]
"Then what is it?" [Arak'sha]
"It's Lu! Have you seen her? We're playing hide and seek!" [Solestia]
"Hm, that game you two always play? Nope. Haven't seen her. Though your mother did stop just a moment ago and told me to keep an eye on you girls." [Arak'sha]
"Nuh-uh, don't need it! We're big girls now!" [Solestia]
"Yup, that's what I told her, but you know how she is. If you don't need anything else, hurry up and get on with your day, hm?" [Arak'sha]
"Kayy~." [Solestia]
With a graceful jump and even more graceful landing, the ltitle dragon exited her auntie's arms and ran out of the cave to continue her little journey.
She circled around the mountain once. No sisters to be found. Then, she circled around the mountain again! No sisters. Then, she sat on a conveniently place stump and waited 10 minutes. Her consciousness returned after those 10 minutes, and she did the thing her sister would never expect: circle the mountain once more!
This time, she was feeling a little tired and decided to just walk instead of flying or running. In other words, she took the scenic route. And unlike the first two trips, the little dragon decided to open up both eyes and ears, making this part of the little journey a bit slower but more cinematic.
However cinematic it may have been, the third time was not the charm, sadly, for the little dragon still could not find her elusive twin. Strange. Her twin was indeed quite skilled in the art of hide and seek, but she wasn't that good. There must have been something missing, something that the little dragon did not consider.
If only her line of thinking wasn't so-
"Mehhh~." [Sheep]
-hey now, no need to be so rude. She tried her best, okay?!
"mehhhh~~." [shhheep]
"MEHHH~." [SHEEEP]
"Blehhh~." [eeeep]
Ah, so that wasn't criticism of the child's critical thinking skills and just some sheep? All is forgiven. Wait a minute, sheep?
""*moar sheep noises!*"" [A bunch of other sheep]
Oh my...run for your lives! IT'S THE AR-MEHHH-GEDDON!!
They must have been summoned to protect their culture considering how fierce their forward march was.10Before you accuse me of something that isn't very nice, look up Shelby's Canada on YouTube/Tiktok. Shawarma Man always brotects za culture, smiley.
*count the sheep~*
One sheep after another hopped over the toppled tree that used to sit atop the stump the little dragon was using as a chair. If asked about this event in the present day, she would swear on her tail she heard an oddly bouncy noise every time a sheep hopped the log.
By the time the sheep count passed a dozen, the little dragon was halfway there to dreamland. She was moments away from crossing over when her tail suddenly spiked up, taking the child with it to stand tall and proud!
"IIIII'VE GOT IT!!" [Solestia]
The remaining sheep were all spooked by the sudden exclamation and scattered to the wind, protecting their culture a bit quicker.
Meanwhile, the little dragon took to the skies once more and made a bee dragon-line back home. She had done it! She figured out where her twin was hiding!
Of all the places she investigated, there was only one location that wasn't checked. It was so simple, so obvious! The little dragon still can't believe she didn't think of it to this day!
She landed outside the house and only slightly damaged her landing gear that time.
"MY ANKLES!!" [Solestia]
Poor girl. At least her youthful springiness allowed her to recover quickly from that landing as well.
In any case, she entered the house and stood in front of the bedroom door. Of all possible hiding places, she never once thought to check under the bed. So that's what she did.
The little dragon courageously slammed the door open, unhinging both the door and her personality!
But rather than her twin, she saw...a massive ball of fluff! But not just any fluff either...it was a massive ball of rainbow fluff!! There was so much fluff, it could barely fit on the bed. Some investigation was needed.
Slowly but carefully, the little dragon checked the ball of fluff from all angles.
No twin was found.
Then, she remembered her original plan and checked under the bed.
No twin was found.
Suspicious. Truly suspicious.
The little dragon was left with no other choice; she had to eliminate the outlier!
She huffed, and she puffed, and she gave the ball of rainbow fluff a mighty blow with her tail.
It budged slightly.
"Hmph!" [Solestia]
She backed up, rolling her shoulder around to loosen up, and gave the ball of rainbow fluff with a mighty blow from her tail and elbow this time!
It budged slightly more.
"REEEEEEEE!!" [Solestia]
Anger and frustration took hold of the little dragon, consuming her mind whole as she proceeded to dragon-punch the immovable object!
"MEEEHHHH!!!! <My people need meeeeee~>" [Ball of rainbow fluff that was apparently a rainbow sheeeeeep]
Like a shooting star, the rainbow sheep soared through the air and touched the skies. That day proved it all: sheep can fly!
What remained was a somewhat dusty bed, and atop it was-
"LUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!11!1!" [Solestia]
-a sleeping dragon. At least, that was the hope. There was no easy way for the child to check if that was the case since they were of a species that did not require breathing, eating, or even a beating heart for that matter. But that wasn't to say she didn't have any ways of doing so.
"I'LL SAVE YOUUUU!!!!!" [Solestia]
Nothing like a good dragon-hug to do the trick.
However, that would require the other party to remain completely still so as to avoid disrupting the hugger's trajectory head on-
*Le bonk~*
-which is exactly what the formerly sleeping dragon did.
Because the two dragon had the exact same mass and the collision can be assumed to be perfectly elastic, they both felt the same amount of recoil, sending each dragon to an opposite side of the bed.
The sleeping dragon had fully woken up by then, and unlike her sunny counterpart, she was not particularly happy.
"..." [Lunestia]
"YOU'RE ALIVEEEE!!1!exclamationmark" [Solestia]
She charged forth with another hug with success that time. But because the other twin did not move that time, her upper torso was left hanging off the bed while she received a great big hug from her sister.
Their embrace(?) remained for a period of time, but it was eventually broken when the nightly dragon made her move.
She wrapped her arms around her clingy sister. Then, she carefully lifted their bodies up, bringing the two of them into a standing position atop the bed. She took a moment to secure her stance, making sure to lock in her core. And then, in one fell swoop, she lifted her sister into the air and brought her down with a grand slam!
But that wasn't all, because she followed with an elbow drop right in the gut, knocking the air out of her sister's non-existent lungs!
And to top it all off, she flopped the sunny dragon onto her belly and pulled the tailed back while putting her sister in a tail-lock of her own!
ONE!
TWO!!
THREEE!!!
And she's down! With the Dragon as their witness, she was broken in half!
Good thing there were no foldable chairs in the room, or else the scene would have lost its PG rating.
The situation did not last long, though. While reaching out for anything in...reach, the sunny dragon found the perfect weapon for her counterattack: a fluffy pillow. A bonk to her twin's head was all that was needed to free herself from the scaly prison.
There was a slight problem, however. She too was caught up in the moment and put a bit more force into that bonk than intended. So rather than just bonking her twin back to her senses, the sunny dragon ended up bonking the wall out of existence as well.
Commendations should be given to the house though, for it was somehow still standing after losing two entire wall's worth of structural integrity. Perhaps they were not load-bearing walls, in which case the sunny dragon was incredibly lucky to hit them.
That luck would quickly run out because the nightly dragon immediately recovered from the impact and prepared her own dragon-punch as retaliation. The sunny dragon braced for impact and received it, but she felt that something was off.
There was no power behind the punch. There was no audible bonking sound to be heard. Instead, the nightly dragon's fist rested gently against the sunny dragon's clavicle. She had brought their faces close to one another, and a quick peek revealed that...she started to cry?!
"UWA?! U-Uhm, L-Lu? A-Are you okay? Did I hit you too hard?" [Solestia]
"*sniff*" [Lunestia]
Panicked and distressed, the not-as-sunny dragon quickly attempted to make amends. She patted her sister's head, dusted off her tail and dress, and blew on the area impacted by the pillow. But alas, none of those efforts were successful. Not even a glass of room temperature water helped.
The nightly dragon moved not once from her punching position. Her fist was still in the air while her twin ran around like a headless dragon.
It took a couple minutes, but the nightly dragon eventually resumed showing signs of life by approaching her distressed twin, who was cradling her head in the corner by that point, and plopping a hand on the shoulder.
"...huh? Lu? Are you okay? YOU'RE OKAY!! I'm sorry for making you cry earlier. I-I'll try to fix it if you tell me what I did wrong." [Solestia]
"You..." [Lunestia]
"I?" [Solestia]
"...took everything from me." [Lunestia]
Uh oh. It was too late. There was no time for the sunny dragon to react, for the nightly dragon's star-scaled tail had already began shining bright as a star.
Within a matter of microseconds, the house and its surrounding area were all subjected to a gravitational wave whose epicenter was the nightly dragon. She still maintained a bit of reason, though, keeping the maximum area of effect to only about a 1 km radius around them. Nevertheless, the aftermath would be too much for the sunny dragon to handle.
The last time the twins did something like that, their mother handed out only the most excruciating, most inconceivable punishment of all: she forced the twins to sleep in separate beds for a week!
And because her twin had already shaken her tail, it was up to the sunny dragon to stop the abrupt spatial distortion lest their mother make them have separate bedrooms as well! Her luck was once again put to the test because the nightly dragon was generating the wave with the same frequency they always use when they play: 100 Hz.
They once attempted to play with higher frequencies on the kHz scale, but the dragon mother quickly banned them from doing so after they accidentally cracked the planetary crust open.
So, her plan of attack would be to generate the exact same wave at the exact same frequency and the exact same amplitude, but she would invert it! The waves and their opposing amplitudes would destructively interfere with each other, hopefully resulting in a net amplitude of zero. She just had to put her plan to the test!
The next moment, her own starry-scaled tail began shining just as bright as her twin's. Then, a second spatial distortion was created, generating yet another gravitational wave with a frequency of 100 Hz.
Now, before the results of the sunny dragon's approach to the problem are revealed, there are two major points of error with the sunny dragon's execution that should be highlighted.
First and foremost, she did not start from a small amplitude and slowly increase it. She instead opted to go in, tails blazing, full 0-100.
Second, and perhaps the most importantly, she forgot to invert the wave. All she had to do was add a phase shift of 180 degrees since the wave function was sinusoidal. Or, she could somehow create an amplifier that could affect a gravitational wave. OR, she could have just grabbed her twin's tail and stopped it from vibrating and generating the wave in the first place.
But alas, she did none of those, and the house was then subjected to two completely identical waves that created a rather annoyingly large earthquake. The quaking of the earth went from being large to annoyingly large because the two waves resonated with each other, which jacked up the amplitude to an annoyingly large level.
Needless to say, the house became a not-house in mere moments. All that remained was a crater of dust and the twin dragons. The earthquake subsided as the gravitational waves were no longer generated.
The nightly dragon was still upset, but the soft rumbling of her tummy took priority. She had spent a bit much time on her nap(?) with the ball of fluff and forgot to have lunch. Not a second later did the sunny dragon's tummy also made some noise. She too forgot to have lunch when she was flying around the mountain.
So, the twins were both hungry, tired, and covered in dust. Without sharing any words, they decided that the conflict would settled at a later time after they found food and came up with a plan to distract their mother from the (NOT!) natural disaster that just happened to precisely affect the house and nothing else.
A quick hug and a pat on the tail with a tail were exchanged before they took to the skies and made their way to the World Tree to find some food. And like any responsible pair of children, they chose not to leave a note describing what happened at the scene of the crime, because who would possibly swing by the house while they were gone?
It's not like their mother would came back home not even a minute after they left...right?
.....
Over at the World Tree, the twin dragons definitely did not 'land' through a castle window and definitely did not rob some sandwiches from the fire bird-dragon couple who were having an afternoon snack.
The couple would have loved to keep the girls over for longer, but they learned that the mother dragon did not know about their whereabouts and, in an effort to preserve their favorite appendages, sent them home immediately.
Thus, the twins nommed their sandwiches in world record time and flew back to ground zero. Their landing was obviously very graceful and did not result in a large poof of dust.
A figure snuck up on the twins while they were waiting for the not-poof-of-dust to settle. Luckily, it was a friendly figure who gave each twin a pat on the head with a tail.
The figure was a tall female dragon whose eyes were as deliciously golden as the twins'. Her appearance was also a great resemblance to if the twins were older.
Surely that couldn't be their mother, right?
""Mom!"" [Twins]
"That's me~." [Corinna]
Ah, so they had a mother. That was clarified a long time ago, though, so it shouldn't be any surprise to begin with.
The mother left no room for the twins to respond before she took them into her left arm while her right hand extended a pointer finger. Around the pointer finger was a majestically glowing clock that popped up out of nowhere. The pointer finger then spun the clock hands counterclockwise.
By some miracle born from the deepest and darkest of magicks, the home and its surroundings were wound back in time. Dust became sand which became dirt which ultimately became grass and foliage. The more special bits of dust turned to wood and plaster and finally, a house, furnishings and all.
There was no longer a crater of doom. Instead, a cottage stood once more atop the soil.
With her day's worth of work done, the mother dragon took her tiny dragons inside and had a chat with them.
