"It's time."
Sue scooted a couple of paces away from the mother and daughter, unsure what was about to happen. Joy and Twinkle first scrambled onto her lap, then tried to catch her attention, and finally spotted the scene next to them, mirroring Sue's focus. Her green hand gently stroked the toothy girl's maw and the durable canvas of the ghost's new outfit as the silence deepened in the room. First shuffling, then Spark's quiet whines, and finally, only deep breathing.
And then, light.
The sight made Sue flinch, but Sundance only smiled. Spark began to glow, brighter and brighter, utterly unlike any of the previous psychics and spells Sue had seen before. Instead of just a glimmering sheen, her entire body shone white, enough to light up the room—and then, to force the onlookers to avert their eyes. It was so unlike any other biological process Sue had ever seen that a part of her wanted to bear through the light and satisfy her curiosity. Thankfully for her continued ability to see, her eyes weren't one of those parts.
Sue's psychic senses were similarly barraged, though the 'glow' they perceived was far different. Sundance's overpowering joy intertwined with relief, the little ones' boundless curiosity, Spark's relief as the aching faded from her mind. Those were bright, but something else at the center of Spark's mind was incomparably stronger; Sue's tattered imagination made her think of a supernova.
And then, it died down. Sue's eyelids were clenched so hard she needed a moment to realize they were no longer needed. Once she'd turned back to the foxes and blinked the remaining daze out of her eyeballs, she finally saw Spark again.
Alright, yeah, this very much looks like a young Sundance.
Her quadrupedal frame had elongated to a bipedal one, with every part of her body except for her head having grown substantially. She was more than tall enough to dwarf the rest of her immediate friend circle stacked on top of each other now. A feat that was also, notably, accomplished by most fences back on Earth. Her uniform, yellow coat had separated into several layers, and between the white of her arms and shoulders, the yellow of her torso, and the black of her legs, the former looked by far the softest. It was hard to tell with them shaking so hard, but size aside, Spark's new paws looked to be like Sundance's.
"Sp-spark!" Joy exclaimed, stunned.
"^She's evolved, sweetie, yes.^" Sundance answered with a mental whisper, before addressing her daughter directly. "Spark? I'm so, so proud of you, sweetie. Try to get some rest now, okay?"
It was only then that Sue realized that all that hadn't knocked Spark out. She watched, wide-eyed, as the freshly expanded fox shook on her mom's lap, fiery eyes prying themselves open to take in the world anew. The kit shook her head and tilted her body away from her mom, elongated legs shaking with every little movement. "N-nnnn-not y-yet, mom."
Sundance let out a drawn-out sigh at Spark's efforts, but despite her best efforts, she couldn't squeeze even a crumb of exasperation out of her throat. Instead, she gently grabbed her daughter's paw, and then another, watching intently as she tried shifting weight onto her legs. Sue's babysitting experience didn't include infants first learning to walk, but she imagined Spark's struggles were a dead ringer for theirs.
Including, of course, the bright glow of first focus, then excitement, and finally joy at making one's first bipedal steps. They were less than half a dozen in number and culminated with the little fox half-hugging, half-falling onto her mom, but what they lacked in their own quantity, they more than made up for in that of Sue's tears.
"I-I love you, mom." Spark whined, trembling arms burying themselves deep in her mom's fur.
Sundance was only doing slightly better than Sue. "I love you too, Spark. My big, big girl..." The red fur of her arms swaddled her daughter's back as she gently rocked her to the sides, before moving her back to her lap. Or at least trying to, with the freshly evolved fox resisting her efforts, however weakly.
"M-mom, wait."
The older fox watched, taken aback, as her daughter let go of her and turned around, facing Sue. The red tip of her tail dragged across the stone floor as she took one unassisted step, then another—and ended up in her big friend's arms. Sue wasn't sure what to say, but she knew what she felt. And the feeling only deepened in her clumsy, affectionate embrace. "Congratulations, Sparkie."
She wasn't in pain anymore, but sheer exhaustion wasn't much better when it came to coming up with words. "Thank you. H-heh, tickles."
Sue looked downwards and failed to hold a smile at seeing Joy and Twinkle playing with the waist-high yellow and black fluff. At least, before the former scooted off her mom's lap to pull her friend's somehow-even-larger tail into a cautious hug.
"She's really soft, isn't she?" Sue joked. And then, smiled even wider, partly at the little ones' enthusiasm in answering her question, partly at Spark's drawn-out, guttural groan of disagreement. "It's true~"
"Indeed," Sundance beamed. "As is the fact that you really should get some rest, Spark." Her words elicited another groan from her daughter, but it was a far weaker one, destined to crumble before the unbreakable peer pressure of well-justified health concerns before long. She was well and truly done for.
Thankfully for everyone involved, Spark didn't object as Sue guided her back to her mom's lap. She let out a relieved whine as her legs were dismissed from their couple-minutes-long duty, but kept her eyes open, trying to swivel her head to look at Sue and the little ones.
"Well," her mom began, amused. "If you aren't keen on sleeping quite yet, I suppose we can get you something to drink to make your sleep more restful, whenever it finally comes. Sue, mind grabbing the ingredients for me?"
The Forest Guardian didn't have to be told twice. Not what to do, at least. Finding the right jar and satchel of all the herbal ingredients took a good few attempts each, especially with their names being about as useful as a graduate-level lecture on electromagnetism. In that Sue recognized some of the words, but was incapable of stitching them to any practical, olfactory, or even visual piece of knowledge in her head.
Not that I particularly care to find out what amperage smells like.
Before long, the brew was assembled. All that was left was heating it up, and the vulpine pyromancy was a far better fit for that than the Forest-Guardiany almost-utter-absence-of-bodily-warmth. Once Sundance's free paw began smothering the cup in dim, reddish flames, Sue took the opportunity to reposition, beckoning the little ones to join her in front of the two foxes, letting Spark observe them without straining her neck.
With the scene calming down following the big event, the littlest ones were keen to regain some of the attention the fox had stolen from them. Joy picked up her drawings again and sat down smack dab in the middle of Sue's lap, trying to stick the crudely cut pages right before her eyes. Twinkle wasn't far behind either, though they only had to show off their new, if incomplete look.
Sue giggled at their antics before cutting herself off. Amusing as it was, she should have been taking this seriously. She grabbed the bundle of drawings from the toothy girl and moved them so that all three of them could watch. The artwork itself was exactly as she expected it to be coming from a toddler who only had a single shade of black at her disposal and limited fine muscle control. And yet, it was important, extremely so. If her excitement about showing it off to her was anything to go by, Joy cared about it a lot.
"Wow, Joy, this looks great! Are these us?" Sue asked, pointing at the three scribbled figures in the middle, one of them larger than the other two. A part of her was wondering why she was bothering considering this was literally just a preschooler doodle, the same as the ones she had drawn hundreds of back in the day.
Seeing Joy's eyes light up at Sue taking interest in what she'd done was answer enough. "Y-y-yes! M-mom," Joy began, pointing at the biggest figure, "walk stick, and th-this Twinkle. A-and me!"
Because Sue remembered lighting up like that too, once. And then, not anymore, never again. If there was anything she'd suffered through that she could spare those little souls of, it was this, this disinterest. And she would, no matter what.I promise.
After doing enough translation legwork in her mind to connect 'walk stick' to her old pal crutch, Sue let out a quiet giggle and ruffled Joy's front head. "I don't think I'm gonna be using the crutch anymore, sweetie. Though..." she trailed off, thinking back to the aching in her leg that had temporarily left her alone. She shook her head at noticing that the older vixen was looking at her—not the topic for here and now. There were a few kids that deserved some comfort and attention around; her backsliding could wait.
In the meantime, Sue pointed to another figure on the drawing. "Huh, this really looks like you." The drawn maw was comparatively smaller than the real-world one pressing against Sue's side and back, but to make up for that, its teeth were much longer. It was also quite a bit more detailed than Joy's other half, her front body little more than a stick figure. Was that how Joy saw herself?
"Y-yes!" Joy squealed, and pulled out another scribble, this time of just herself and Twinkle. Her self-portrait was larger because of the extra space, but the distribution of details was much the same as before. Back-loaded, one could say. With the toothy girl's artistic skills acknowledged and rewarded through wrapping an arm around her and holding her tight, Sue looked at the other half of the sketch, and then at the snazzy ghost it depicted. It was somewhat out of date, with Twinkle's costume having gained one of the missing ears since, but it was undeniably them.
And they were undeniably enjoying themselves. "Liking your new outfit, Twinkle?"
The little ghost reached out several pitch-black tentacles from underneath their outfit and wiggled them excitedly, pressing the half-finished costume into his parent's stomach. "Yes, yes, yes, yes. Like me..."
"Just like you, yeah! Is it comfortable in there?"
Once more, the hauntling responded with their entire body, the head of their outfit jiggling like a bobblehead. Their tentacles grabbed Sue's free hand and pulled it with all the force they could exert—less than that of a stiff breeze—bringing it to feel the inside of their outfit for itself. Silk was predictably comfortable as a lining material, though Sue wondered if it would remain so after being in contact with their body all day long. Worst case, she and Sundance could tweak the design to fix that. It's not like this was their only chance to get it right. They had the resources and smarts to fix it, and Sundance also had the time. Sue, on the other hand,
Not the time to be thinking about this.
Sue shook off the thought, staving off the fear of her mortality one silly gesture at a time. If her kids had been thinking about anything scary too, their copycat shakes were no less effective in shaking it off as well. And in making their guardian smile, of course. Her expression grew brighter by the moment as she looked down at them, huddled on her lap, and they looked up at her. Massive metal teeth and a ghostly, mind-melting appearance hadn't just stopped being scary; they had become normal. Normal, cute, downright endearing. She cherished them, just like she cherished the rest of her kids.
"I love you both so much, you know?" In Sue's unending bravery, she endured asking that question without shedding a tear. And not a second longer once her little ones responded with their harsh cries and faint whispers, their ringing of teeth and otherworldly embraces. Sue hadn't forgotten about the dandelions she'd brought with herself, dropping them off on Sundance's chair so they wouldn't get damaged, and it seemed to be high time to tie them to their little makeshift family again.
Before that, though, Sue remembered that there was one more little person here who deserved to be appreciated out loud. For all the time they'd spent together. For being there when it mattered. The younger vixen's eagerness to stay awake was draining with every sip of her mom's herbal brew, and each blink was taking her longer and longer. Last chance to give her some kind words today. "Hey, Sparkie?"
The kit perked up, almost spilled her drink, and let out the biggest yawn in her life. Not necessarily in that order. "Hmm?"
"Just wanted to say. Thank you, Spark. So, so very much."
Sue couldn't see a blush on the fox's snout, but her sixth sense most certainly felt it. "Wh-what for? Did I do something?" If not for the kit being just slightly out of reach of her physical hands and the toddlers weighing her down, Sue would've reached over and stroked her head some more there and then. Her psychics were also an option, but she preferred not to play with fire at a moment like this.
...
Ha.
"You've done so much, sweetie!" Sue insisted. "You've been here for me since the very beginning. You reassured me when I had no idea where or—where I was, you kept me company even when I was at my absolute lowest. I can't overstate just how much your friendship has helped with everything that's been going on these past few days."
This time, Sue could definitely see the blush, however much the kit was trying to hide it. "B-but you saved my life! I-I was just, just happy and grateful and wanted to p-pay it back somehow."
"You have. Don't doubt that for a second, Spark. You might not have taken a bite for me, but..." Sue trailed off, looking down at the modest bandage wrapped around her still-annoying injury. "But without you, I'm not sure if things would've still been okay. If I would've still been... okay. Thank you, again, so very much."
Sue watched as the young vixen squirmed in her mom's arms, trying to come up with something to say in response. Between sheer exhaustion and there not existing adequate words in any language to describe what she was feeling, she eventually had to give up, only mouthing out a 'thank you'. As the silent words left her snout, so did the last vestiges of her wakefulness. Deep breaths turned to quiet snores as her arm fell limp beside her, before being scooped up into one big embrace by her mom.
A quite teary embrace too, taking Sue aback for a moment. Sundance was the very last person she'd have expected to see cry today. However composed she might have been ninety-five percent of her time, she certainly wasn't above those more intense, basal emotions.
"^Indeed,^" the vixen sarcastically remarked, whispering the word directly to Sue's mind as her emotions calmed down. "^I'm not that unemotional, I don't think.^"
It was Sue's turn to fluster at her thoughts being acknowledged and her being verbally poked for them, but she didn't let it get to her. And neither did Sundance, letting herself cherish holding her big, sleeping girl in her arms for as long as she could before they began to complain. As she laid the little fox in her lap, and Sue remembered the dandelions she'd brought, Sundance figured it was time to acknowledge the second-biggest change in the room.
"^I didn't quite manage to finish Twinkle's costume today, but I should be able to wrap it up overnight, assuming that nothing more pops up with Spark overnight. Sorry, Twinkle, you'll have to spend one more evening in your current outfit, I'm afraid.^"
The heads-up came approximately eight seconds after Sue had finished tying the dandelion around the one ear that was already present on Twinkle's costume. She immediately realized her mistake, chuckling at her mishap before reaching for the ghost's previous outfit and decorating that as well. Oh well, she would have to undertake the arduous mission of finding one entire dandelion if she were to accomplish her goal. One dandelion. That's less than two. And that's terrible.
Twinkle themself was disappointed at the news, but to Sue's relief, nowhere near as distressed as she thought they'd be. They even preemptively slipped back into their makeshift outfit once Sue had decorated it, letting Sundance take the textile work in progress away. Still, they weren't pleased, and clearly withdrew somewhat at the thought of having to spend at least half a day in a body that wasn't theirs.
Don't I know how that feels too, eh.
Just like Sue, though, they figured out something they could do to distract themself for the time being. And as opposed to adopting every small and vulnerable creature that came their way, this was even something sustainable. Granted, Sue had no idea why they had decided to climb onto her shoulder and start clinging to it upside-down, but it looked like enjoyable exercise if nothing else.
With the power of possessing the ability to engage her vocal cords and produce air disturbances in specific patterns that the others could interpret as sound, she could, however, ask. "Are you exercising, Twinkle?"
The ghost's full-body shake was enough to send them tumbling down and onto Joy, hitting her head like a bag of uncooked rice. Very, very light rice at that. The girl just nodded in shock before laughing at the sudden action and helping her sibling climb back onto their parent's shoulder.
Between the antics and having access to some insider knowledge, Sundance figured she could answer for the ghost. "^You could say that, but it's more like practice. The new outfit will let them sit on your shoulder much easier since there won't be a knot in the way, but it'll still require some balancing on their end. I figure if it's still too hard for them, I can try to modify it some more to make it a better fit for your shoulders. However, I might take a while to get to it—already got another crafts project lined up for my immediate future,^" she smiled, stroking her daughter's ears.
Another costume? "Oh? Whattcha got in the pipeline?"
"^Nothing for Twinkle, no—my own child's taking priority, I'm not at all sorry to inform~^" That explained the 'for whom' but not the 'what'. Once the vixen realized that, no, her inter-dimensional guest turned pupil wasn't familiar with the practices of her kin, she figured she might as well show what she meant.
A well-practiced flick brought a stick hidden in her long fur into her paw, the same one Sue had seen a few times by now. "^She's gonna need a wand of her own. They don't need to be ornate, the Sun knows mine isn't, but I still want to spoil her. Want to take a look?^" Sue nodded eagerly, reaching out her hand to receive the wand. It might not have looked like much at a distance the few times she'd seen it, but she was hopeful it would make up for that upon closer examination.
Said hope then took a thermobaric bomb to the cranium upon noticing the bite marks in the dark wood.
Sundance might've called it a wand, but to Sue it was closer to a piece of kindling in the making. Even if it had once been decorated, it was so thoroughly battered that nothing of said decorations remained. It wasn't just the bite marks, either—it had many notches cut into it without any rhyme or reason, an irregular, large hole in the side, and a meticulously carved channel on the not-burned end that reminded Sue of a crack pipe.
All of those were varying levels of unsightly, but one of them Sue just could not get over. "A-are those bite marks over here?" The ridges in the wood had been dulled through the passage of time, but even the ones that remained were concerningly deep. It only made sense for the biggest fox to have the biggest, pointiest, sharpest teeth, but it was a fact that Sue was entirely content never to think about again. Please. At least Joy and Twinkle were finding the item entirely interesting and not-at-all comedic, passing the beaten-down stick between each other.
After barely keeping herself from flashing her canines, Sundance answered as helpfully as physically possible. "^Yes.^"
Sue continued to stare at the wand in disbelief, before shifting the distraught expression up at the fox herself. "Wh-why?"
"^Well, I was hungry. I wanted to eat it,^" the vixen explained, putting increasingly more effort into not letting her amusement show.
The Forest Guardian could sense it perfectly clearly anyway, but that didn't help at all with just how confusing the sight was. "You tried to eat your wand?"
"^Nope. At that time, it was just a stick. I tried to eat it, realized I just could not bite through it, and thought 'Hmm, maybe if I used it as a wand it'd last a while.' Some eighty seasons later, and here we are now. No matter how much it clearly wants to give up on me, it hasn't yet.^"
With how much Sue had blown up the sight in her mind, Sundance's answer was almost comically reasonable. A remnant of Sue's human sensibilities shivered at the thought of wielding something she'd tried not just to bite but to eat, but she couldn't disagree with the results. As with most answers, though, it also gave her more fuel for further questions. "Guessing you want a fancier one for Spark since there isn't as much of a risk of it breaking?"
"^I suppose that is a part of it? Really, I just want to give her something pretty that she'll appreciate. I doubt that it'll last as long as my wand has, but that doesn't mean it won't bring her joy for the many years she'll have it. Ultimately, any stick can work for this. They aren't inherently special, we make them special by wielding them and caring about them.^"
If not for one tiny detail, this explanation would've almost made sense. "What about this... burnt channel over here?"
"^I will not deny that I got desperate and I might have had an episode of trying to smoke every species of plant I ran into after I ran out of hemp the first time, but that was a long time ago. Nowadays I still do that, but with my actual pipe,^" Sundance proudly informed, a smile cracking on her expression at the same time as on Sue's.
"Any, heh, any discoveries in that process?" Sue asked, handing back the 'wand.'
"^None whatsoever!^"
The enthusiasm with which Sundance had delivered that line made Sue laugh. This entire topic turned out to be much less serious than she'd expected, and with everything that had happened earlier in the day, she certainly wasn't against levity, however silly its source. As with all fancies and follies, though, it too had to meet its end.
"^Less jokingly, I hope getting a wand and growing more confident in her own abilities will help her be more social.^"
Sundance's sober tone dispelled the remnants of Sue's amusement, making the Forest Guardian hold her kids closer. She thought back to how frustrated Spark got when playing with other kids back at the daycare area, almost certainly at her lack of manual dexterity. Being shot down when asking to start learning psychics like Sue did couldn't have helped either. "I hope so too. She always felt... frustrated, with her limitations."
"^Picked up on that despite not knowing her for all that long, eh?^" Sundance sighed. "^That is true. Even though it probably didn't feel like that to her, I didn't start teaching her psychics for a reason, her previous form just wouldn't have been able to perform them safely, not without a focus that the wands provide.^"
Before Sue could ask what about herself, slowly picking up the ridiculous brain magic infused into her body without any wands of her own, she realized she had something even better for focusing—her hands. True, she wasn't thinking about them or setting them on fire, but they helped in a way paws couldn't.
The vixen before her only barely stopped herself from correcting that entirely wrong guess. Not the time for it.
"That makes sense," Sue commented, incorrectly. "Though, it's not like she'd been entirely antisocial or anything. I've seen her hang out with the Newmoon kids a few times." She smiled at the sleeping fox.
"^Aye. She used to do that even more, but with everything that has happened recently, she's been understandably much more clingy. I just hope that she won't feel like she doesn't fit as much anymore. It's just a personal hunch, but I've had the feeling that much of her friendship with Pollux and Thistle came about because they didn't 'fit,' either. Little wonder that the outsiders, tangible or self-perceived as such, flock together,^" Sundance whispered, before holding her daughter closer. Just as Spark's evolution was likely to help with her dysmorphia, so would undoing the banishment help all the kids from Newmoon. She was under no delusion that'd mean they'd start suddenly perfectly mingling with Moonview kids, but she hoped it'd be a start.
Sue, however, applied what Sundance had said to an entirely different group of people. "Indeed they do..." she muttered under her breath.
And the fox had a good guess who that group was. "^Guessing you ran into someone earlier?^"
"Multiple of them."
Sundance's keen interest was disturbed by a flash of genuine concern; her eyes scanned Sue's body for any injuries she might've overlooked. "^Do you want to talk about it, Sue?^"
Sue's mentor wasn't even the only one concerned about her. The comments flew over Joy's head, but the tone and shaking expression of her parent did not. She let out a quiet whine and gently tugged on Sue's arm. Said arm flinched at the unexpected motion before relaxing and pulling both the metal tyke and the bagful of ghost into another tight embrace. "I'm all good, you two," she giggled, before looking back up at Sundance. "Th-there isn't much to talk about," Sue began, genuine. "Not as far as the encounters themselves went, I suppose. Root talked to me right outside your house when I left earlier, made it sound like he'd gotten some f—frustrating idea, and then Solstice's parents harassed me on my way here."
Being psychically attacked and forced onto the ground probably merits a stronger description than that, but. No, not while the kids are listening.
"I don't much care about those incidents, but what you said made me wonder, just—just why are they like that? I mean, obviously Solanum and Luneth aren't outsiders where they're from, and I doubt Root counts for that either with how much sway he has, but it just weirds me out. He mentioned in the talk how his own people had been..." she gathered her breath; her brain rifled through increasingly understated synonyms for 'genocided,' "...mistreated in the past. Not at all unlike how the night kin were by him. I'm just lost as to why he is like this. Shouldn't he know better?"
While Sue managed to broach the discussion in a way that wouldn't be excessive for the little children in her care, any elaboration would demand specificity and seriousness that would prove too much for them. And despite Sue's own honest-if-inaccurate statement earlier, there was indeed a lot to talk about. "Joy, Twinkle, mind if we and Sundance talk about something in private?"
Joy looked up at her mom uncertainly, pressing her maw even closer against her body. Nothing wrong with what her mom had asked, but the last time she and the fox lady had talked privately, she ended up crying. "N-n-not sad this time?" the metal girl asked, concern dripping down her face.
Twinkle, for their part, was entirely okay with that idea. Their mom would still be there, and they'd still be able to climb onto her shoulder and rest in her hand when they got tired. They expressed their approval by wrapping their spectral tentacles around Sue's midriff without either the ghastly squeak or the anxiety that usually accompanied it.
Despite the dour topic ahead, Sue worried her current smile would never wash off with how wide it was. "It'll be serious Joy, but no, I don't think it'll be all that sad. I can't promise I won't cry, but if I will, you two and Sundance will be here for me, okie?" she answered. One hand gently pet the base of Joy's back maw, while the other stroked the canvas covering Twinkle's body, an action the ghost found surprisingly calming.
The seriousness of the topic didn't reassure Joy, but knowing that she'd be able to help her mom most definitely did. She let out a tiny gasp at the idea, nodding in excitement. Both at being able to help in general, and at being able to comfort someone who'd comforted her so much in the past already. "Y-y-yeah! S-S-Sundance, c-can have paper? Please?"
While Sue did a double take at the toothy tyke referring to her mentor on a first-name basis, said mentor gladly psychiced the girl a few more irregular pieces of paper, as well as the pebbles of charcoal to draw with. "^There you go, Joy.^"
"Th-th-thank youuuu!" Joy beamed, before looking up at Sue, hoping her mom would acknowledge her remembering the word Sue had taught her. And she indeed did, the damp-eyed kiss on the forehead and a proud, untranslated whisper making both of their hearts flutter.
With the kids given a heads-up, the translation was severed, letting the Forest Guardian and the fiery fox talk about the most horrible people either of them had ever met to their heart's content.
"^Before we go into anything else. You said that Root had gotten an idea?^" Sundance began, her voice serious.
"That's how it felt, almost like a eureka moment. He left right afterwards, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about that since. Especially with Solanum and others around."
The specific word that Sue had used was curious, but that was a tiny footnote. "^If it's any relief, I doubt that Solstice's family sees him as anything but a servile bumpkin. I'd be very surprised if they were planning something together with him. What was he talking about when he had his 'idea' moment?^"
The reassurance helped, but it could only do so much. "I-I don't remember exactly. I think it was his usual drivel about how the Pale Lady's chosen should be destroying her enemies and all that bullshit."
Not much to go off of. "^I see. For what it's worth, he would be terribly outmatched if he'd tried to get his paws dirty and enact said destruction that way. He's old and was far from a trained fighter even when he was younger. I wouldn't be surprised if even Pollux could lay him out without much trouble.^"
Despite the graveness of the topic, the mental image still inched the corners of Sue's mouth up, like an adjustable spanner sizing up against the biggest bolt it'd ever seen.
"^With that said, the possibility can't be discarded entirely. Just because he'd lose, doesn't mean he wouldn't possibly try. Best to keep an eye out for him, just in case.^" The reminder was sobering, resetting Sue's expression to a focused neutrality. "^Now, about everything else you wanted to talk about. I've spent some time thinking about it myself, I have some personal theories to offer, but I have to warn you in advance.^"
Sue blinked, taken aback. "What of?"
"^There is no satisfaction to be found in this train of thought. Even if my words will persuade you, even if you'll feel like you've arrived at an answer, you will not feel relief. At most, it'll embolden you to act, with force or even violence, because few other things truly work when dealing with evil people.^"
The Forest Guardian agreed entirely with that description, though it felt funny coming from the vixen. "H-heh. Sorry, just—I wouldn't have expected you to call people 'evil.' It feels—"
"^Too thoughtless for me?^"
Breath caught in Sue's throat before her second-guessing voice admitted to Sundance's guess. "Y-yeah, basically."
"^I will readily admit that 'evil' is not a very philosophically useful category. It is all too easy to use as a pretense against doing harm to others; it's the perfect excuse when demonizing an entire group. It's not rigorous, it's exploitable, it's often more of a reflection of the speaker than the subject of their words. However, I am not some perfectly unbiased, abstract thinker. I have a body and friends and family and acquaintances, many of whom have been injured or traumatized because of others' cruelty and prejudice, and I will not hesitate to call people who enact such harm 'evil.' It's far from the most rigorous description, that's true, but neither is the reasoning of those fucking people. To put it very, very lightly.^"
Sue nervously swallowed and nodded in silence. She might not have consciously described Sundance as the kind of perfectly unbiased thinker she'd described, but she felt that to some extent. Not anymore, that's for sure. "I-I see."
"^Rigorous thought has its place, but that place is not while people's lives are being threatened. Trying to remain perfectly unbiased in the face of injustice only enables it further. All that aside, however, I'm not even sure if I'd call Root 'evil.' Solanum, absolutely; Nightbane, without a doubt; Luneth, possibly. Root, I'm less certain about,^" the vixen sighed.
"C-can't say I'm as uncertain as you, h-heh," Sue chuckled, the sound weak as it left her crooked expression. "Especially with what I said earlier a-about my talk with him, and just how hypocritical he was about everything. How could he be so blind to the parallels between his own people and the night kin?"
"^He isn't.^"
Sue stared blankly for a few overlong moments before Twinkle tugged on her frozen fingers, stirring her out of it. "S-sorry, I don't think I get it. If he isn't, then why would he still be like this?"
"^Because that's how his internal hierarchy works. The injustice as he sees it wasn't that a group of people was lynched and slaughtered, it was that someone below them had committed the slaughter. If it had happened the other way around, I doubt it would've violated his moral compass anywhere near as much—as seen with the night kin.^"
"B-but why?" Sue demanded to know.
"^Because no amount of suffering can produce caring about others where there already wasn't any. I hesitate to use the word 'empathy' because it's not entirely correct. Having it does not preclude cruelty against others, especially the ones thought of as lesser, just like not having it does not guarantee that one is cruel. Empathy is merely one mental safeguard against cruelty, but there are others—laws, faith, not wanting to be treated cruelly in return. But if all those are absent, or worse yet, you're actively encouraged to think of some people as deserving of cruelty, as lesser, then no amount of pain you experience will change your mind. If anything, it'll only make you dig in more.^"
"But why?" Sue unknowingly repeated herself, her voice growing desperate. "Why even have that kind of hierarchy?"
"^I do not have any kind of overarching, satisfying answer to that. I do have a hunch, however, that some hierarchies are merely social bonds turned rotten.^" Sundance paused before closing her eyes and concentrating. Her paw shuddered as the drawers behind her rattled one after another, before finally one of them slid open, and out of it flew the same pipe Sue had seen a few times before. It was followed by a small canvas pouch, presumably containing the payload.
Right as she was about to fill it, though, she realized how keenly focused Sue was on the strand of thought she'd left at, and figured her mind could continue while her paws wrangled with the dried plant matter. "^It's very easy for the links that tie us together, that protect us against adversity, to grow infected with ingroup pressure, resentment, and extremism. To turn into the chains that bind our minds. I wouldn't be surprised even slightly if Root's people had all clung to the most extreme strain of the Pale Lady worship after what had happened to them, and that he, to some extent, thought of it as a kind of revenge for what he'd endured.^"
The Forest Guardian chewed on Sundance's words, torn. Some of it made sense in a warped way, and while she felt completely unable to empathize with that way of thinking, if she'd contorted her brain just enough, it just barely came together into an internally consistent worldview. A horrible—no, evil one, but still broadly coherent. But, as she realized right after, it wasn't universally applicable. Not even close. She supposed it made some sense for Root; it made a ton of sense for Juniper and to a lesser extent Alastor; it might've even made sense for the belligerent ladybug Sunrise; but it most certainly didn't make sense for Solanum and the rest of her sordid sort. "That's not all there is to it, right?"
"^Oh no, not by a long shot,^" Sundance shook her head before igniting her pipe with a spark from the tip of her claw. "^It's just the most 'satisfying' explanation I had in mind, I suppose.^"
That was just about the last word Sue had expected her to use. "Satisfying?"
"^Satisfying that it makes some amount of sense. That's what I was referring to earlier. I have other explanations, but they won't make as much sense, they won't make you feel you understand these people more, they will not provide relief. That doesn't mean I'm any less confident in them, though.^" The vixen put a dot on her statement by exhaling a modest plume of silver smoke towards the hole in the roof.
Sue had heard the warning alright, but had no choice but to discard it. She had to know; to make some more sense of it all. Even though the vixen had cautioned she wouldn't, Sue refused to at least try to understand those people. Even if they were evil. Exactly because they were evil. "Well, let's hear them, then."
Sundance let out an undignified chuckle and straightened herself. "^Sure thing. So, the disappointing truth, as I see it? So much of it, of their attitudes and even actions, just isn't grounded in anything. It feels like it should be, right? Like there should be some kind of profound reason, a deep hurt that then only propagates itself onto others, that these people had suffered in the past. But there simply isn't, not always. So much of the worst hatred imaginable comes from discomfort, from disgust, from those basal feelings that are then moralized and reified instead of challenged. From being uncomfortable about someone being different and deciding it means that someone is deserving of cruelty.^"
It can't be this simple. Right?
"^It doesn't even take everyone being this actively disgusted with others for atrocities to happen. It just has to be enough of them, especially in positions of authority. Everyone else just has to wash their hands and defer any and all responsibility to those higher up.^"
Sue replayed the sentence to herself a few times, trying to make sense of it, before verbally admitting defeat. "I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that."
The vixen laughed under her breath. "^Let me ask you this, then. Have you ever wanted for someone to come in and just, make everything right with your life and tell you exactly what to do?^"
The hand stroking Joy's maw paused for a while, switching tracks to gently tapping along its edge. Sue wasn't sure if she'd ever desired something like that exactly, but she was getting the gist. Someone who'd guide her through life, give her a concrete, specific answer to questions that didn't have any. That would free her from the fear of choosing the wrong thing, of doing what wasn't right. Probably in a more concrete, involved way than the Abrahamic deity's silent, judgmental stare, too.
She couldn't empathize with the desire to let go of responsibility and control—she was much, much too anxious about clinging to her own—but she could understand it. "Not really, but I know what you're getting at. I think."
"^Good! In my experience, it tends to vary between people a lot. Some yearn for that kind of control, see it as its own kind of freedom, some couldn't be more repulsed by the idea. It's not wrong in itself, not at all, but combined with letting one's disgust and discomfort dominate one's thinking, it can result in horrible things. In an unflinching desire for a big strong man to come in and put everything where it belongs. Including the people one sees as lesser.^"
Sundance's phrasing reminded Sue of something very relevant to the discussion, but before she could air it out, the vixen continued. "^For some people, that's enough, and they wholeheartedly believe in the superiority of the people placed above them. Some of them are simple opportunists, caring about nothing more than satisfying their desires and exerting power over others under the guise of hierarchical thinking. Some of them have enough going on in their head to realize all the horrible ways in which authoritarianism hurts people, but respond by trying to remain as high up the hierarchy as possible to minimize their own suffering. And for some others still it's a heady mix of all of that, self-hatred, and a desperate desire for control.^"
The once-human wasted no time connecting the dots between Sundance's description and the unpleasant people she'd had to interact with. She felt bile creep up her throat, disgusted with them all. "This all reminds me of something from my world. A few decades ago, there was this, this world war, and genocide was a part of it. Once all the dust had settled, there was this philosopher that had tried to figure out how all this cruelty could've happened, and she interviewed the people who had overseen the genocides. Her conclusion was that evil is just banal. These weren't villains or demons, just people doing their jobs. Following orders."
For once, it was the vixen's turn to ponder something her student had said, giving the latter time to check on her little ones. Twinkle was content pressing themself against her stomach, not asleep and merely relaxing. Joy was excitedly filling in the grass of the drawing she'd made, one off-black stroke of the charcoal stick at a time. Sue leaned in to make out the rest of the drawing, inadvertently drawing Joy's attention back towards her. The harsh squeak that followed wasn't translated, but it didn't have to be for Sue to physically feel the enthusiasm and love in it.
The drawing depicted their entire tagalong family sitting together on the grass, smiling. Charcoal sun and charcoal clouds hovered above them, and the unfinished character next to Joy could've only been Astra.
I love her so much.
"^I like that, though I think I'd personally restate it,^" Sundance finally answered, looking at Sue as keenly as possible despite her inebriation. "^I'd say it's the other way around, really. It's not evil that is banal; it is banality itself, that shallow, unthinking passivity, that lack of care about others or consideration for them in your decision-making, that is evil. Maybe—^"
*knock knock kn-croaaaaaaaak*
Sundance's spirited philosophizing was interrupted by the door to her den being nudged open. Every awake pair of eyes turned towards it in unison, and most of them smiled right away at who they saw there. Pollux had been shyly looking around before noticing all the attention on himself and freezing, while Thistle excitedly waved at everyone inside. Sue's eyes barely had the time to acknowledge Rainfall having made her way inside and perching on the opened door, before a loud, piercing gasp caught her entire attention.
"^Pollux, Rainfall, she evolved!^"
The Newmoon kids were about to take off towards their freshly changed friend before pausing at seeing her mom, uncertain what she'd think of them. Sundance needed a moment to realize what had happened, but once she did, she beckoned them over and re-established the translation between everyone, the latter with Thistle's help. "^Well hello there. C'mere. You two must be Pollux and Thistle. And you—^"
"Rainfall!" the teenage crow eagerly answered, before her eyes went back to examining all of the so many items in the room.
"^Rainfall! What a pretty name. You're all welcomed here anytime.^"
Pollux took his time walking up to the older vixen despite her eager greeting. It was hard to make out Spark's exact shape with her blending so much against her mom's fur, and in all his effort, he hadn't noticed someone else he'd never met before to his side. He flinched at noticing Joy so close to him, and then she flinched in return, clinging to Sue's arm as hard as she could. Twinkle was no less confused at the strangers, hiding behind their sister and their mom's arm.
Sue just giggled. "Pollux, Thistle, Rainfall; these are Joy and Twinkle, my—my kids. I've been looking after them for a few days now," Sue explained, her voice catching at being forced to put that terrifying truth to words, out loud and for everyone to hear.
"You have kids?" the night kin fox asked, dumbfounded.
"Clearly I do now," Sue chuckled, and picked both the tykes into her arms. Translation and the calm atmosphere helped calm Joy down, but she sure wouldn't be opposed to being held some more.
"^Not all children are related by blood, you know~^" Sundance teased. "^Feel free to come closer, though Spark needs her rest, so if you want to play I don't think this is the best place for it.^"
Despite the confusing reveal of someone he thought of as only a bit older than himself being a mom and the disappointment at not being able to play here, Pollux took it all in stride. "Of course, Mrs..."
"^Sundance. No need for any 'Mrs', either. My name is plenty.^"
"What is that?" Rainfall cawed, excited. Knowing her, the object of her momentary obsession could've been literally anything in the room, and Sue wasn't even slightly disappointed when it turned out to be the piece of charcoal Joy had just drawn with.
Sue lowered her kids down and slowly climbed back onto her two legs. Pollux and Thistle would likely beg for her to come along with them, and she wasn't even opposed to that idea—the state of her stomach was really catching up to her. She figured she could take a look around the room herself while she still had a moment of downtime, and as opposed to the scattershot bird, there was only one bundle of items that really stuck out to her.
What was the original purpose of the tall sticks piled up in the corner of Sundance's dwelling, Sue had no idea. Whatever it might've been, they were almost the right size to use as canes. Only almost, though. Most of them were just an inch too short to be comfortable, while a couple were equally too tall. The latter was by far the lesser evil, but still far from comfortable. While the vixen was distracted by talking with the youth, Sue gave the makeshift cane a test drive behind her. It was awkward, and it mostly just transferred some of the discomfort from her leg to her arm, but it was a trade-off she was more than happy with.
She had to cut her experimentation short when all the ruckus and excitement in the house had finally woken Comet up from his nap, with a startle at that. While Sundance calmed the groggy Moon Child down in her arms, Sue snuck around her and beckoned her own kids over. "Pollux, Thistle, Rainfall, wanna get going?"
The older kids were more than down for that, and the younger ones weren't far behind. Twinkle wasted no time climbing onto her shoulder and clinging to it with their tentacles, while Joy got excited at the possibility of being carried in her mom's arms before noticing the replacement walk-stick and pouting. It was hard to remain down for long though, not once she realized she faintly recognized the older kids that had come to visit, and followed them outside and down the stairs by herself.
Her mom was about to do just that as well, but she didn't quite make it out of the house in time. "^Sue?^" the vixen spoke up, making her freeze. "^Oh, don't worry, take the stick. Don't know if you'll be able to do so right away, but if you have a moment tomorrow, mind asking Orchid or Willow for an actual cane? I feel it'd be better for you than that piece of scrap.^"
Considering Willow was the one to originally take her crutch away, Sue doubted they'd be the right person to ask. Even with Orchid, though, she wasn't entirely convinced. "I don't know how receptive she'll be to seeing me backsliding like this."
Sundance's expression soured. "^You're not backsliding. If you feel you actually do need a walking aid in the end, then you're just correcting after being thrust too forward, too fast.^"
Sue wanted to debate the phrasing, but... couldn't. For once, she'd managed to grasp the self-critical strand of thinking before it could bloom, and swiftly crushed it under her newly acquired cane. "I-I will. Thanks, Sundance. Take care."
"^May the Sun hasten you, Sue.^"