The Divine Epidemic

by Muggonny

Chapter I - Heading Nowhere...

This is not the beginning of OddLuck’s story.

As much as it pains me to say, it is not. OddLuck's misery began far before the Frostysplit incident, I would say even further then that. It is to my credit that I am responsible for where her life is at the moment. Being the immortal god that I am, I was awestruck to learn that the nature of the sapient pony is still quite unpredictable. I am the cause of all of her anxiety, and I have to live with that.

But, being the immortal god that I am, I must grit my teeth together and fight this mental oppression. In the case of the gods, when we are depressed, we sit next to the Foutain of the Sufferless and meditaite. In the case of a pony, they take to a bottle.

The Forgetful Filly
(please use the restroom across the street)

OddLuck walked into the Forgetful Filly. The chime of the bell above the doorway filled the empty bar. It was only three in the afternoon, and there were plenty of better bars to drink at at this time of day. To OddLuck, though, it wasn’t about the quality―it was about how quickly she could get shitfaced until all her problems were solved.

The bar wasn’t exactly worthy of a five star review. Each time she stepped on the hardwood floor, it would reply with a loud creaking that bounced off the walls. Dustmotes filled the air where a tuberculosis patient would have to sit in the smoking section just to get some fresh air. The lighting was dim, but somehow it managed to be bright enough for her to easily perceive  everything in front of her. There was a chair, there was a table―oh look at that, there was another chair. Ouch.

Even though she wouldn’t host her cute-sera here, the actual bar itself was its saving grace. Aside from a few dents in the counter, some chipped edges, and the occasional knife hole, the counter was clean of any stains or residue that might have been left behind in the past, polished to the point of reflection. Behind the counter were shelves full of mead, beer, wine, gin―all the yummy forgetty stuff.

An aging albino minotaur stood behind said counter scrubbing the inside of a tankard with a dirty rag, as bartenders are known to do. He looked over at OddLuck with spectacles that made his eyes as big as snowballs. He muttered a greeting, “Hello!”

Okay, he yelled a greeting.

There was a row of rickety-splintery barstools lining the counter. For a moment she was reminded of Frostysplit Cavern, but she brushed it off quickly and sat in front of the minotaur. He didn’t look up from his work; he was solely focused on dirtying the mug with this rag he found in the bathroom sink sitting in a damp pool of blood. OddLuck was the first to break the silence between them.

“How are you today?” she asked.

“Top o’ the mornin to ya, ma’am!” the minotaur bellowed. OddLuck shriveled back in response to his booming voice. “How may I help ya?”

“Uhh… can I get a glass of Amnesia Fire, please?” she asked, raising a hoof to one of her ears to try and pop it.

“What?”

“Amnesia Fire.”

“You want a what?”

“I said I want a bottle of Amnesia Fire.”

“What?”

OddLuck said nothing for a moment.

“What?”

“What?” OddLuck said in response.

“Well why didn’t ya just say so?” he replied, reaching under the counter. With a grunt, he brought out a black bottle and wine glass and set them in front of OddLuck. He was about to let his hand free of the bottle, but he stopped for a moment and gave her a piercing look. “Should I leave the bottle with ya, or are ya gonna eat up whatever more of me time I have left?”

She nodded a bit too fast. She hoped he didn’t see that.

“I’ll leave the bottle with ya young dame.” he said, using the bloody rag to apply pressure to an oozing wound on his thigh. OddLuck suddenly became infatuated with a dust bunny next to her stool.

“Now can I get ya anything ta eat?” he continued. “D’ya need to see the menu?”

“What are your specials?”

“Well, I make’sa mean Fruit Punch Salad.”

OddLuck’s ears twitched in interest. “Fruit Punch Salad? What’s that? Is it like normal fruit salad?”

The minotaur nodded. “I go in the kitchen, make ya a fruit salad that’ll make yor nan jealous, then I come back and punch ya in the gob. Ya get the salad as an apology.”

OddLuck smirked and looked down at the bottle of Amnesia Fire. “Whatever works, I guess,” she said. “Yeah, go ahead and make it.”

“Okay, I’m going into the kitchen to make ya up some grub. Just to warn ye, if you plan on stealing from me register, I keep all me money in me coin sack. Slags beware, I ain’t wantin’ to get the time tonight.”

With that, he departed from behind the counter and exited through a door supposedly leading into the kitchen.

She popped the cork off the bottle with her magic, but rather than pouring the juicy liquid into the glass, which was covered in smudges of all sorts, she took a big swig from the bottle. It had a spicy taste, but that spiciness gave her throat the sort of warmth she longed for. When she finally pulled away, she coughed.

She hadn’t had wine since the picnic.

Across from OddLuck, sat the very same OddLuck. Only this one was much happier, and brandishing an ice-cold cup of foaming cider in her magical grasp. Her green coat was very well-groomed, and her blue curly mane was so carefully curved, a distinct quality that outclassed the real OddLuck’s disheveled mane. If one were to look under the counter, they would probably find the blue four-leaf clover cutie mark smack-dab on the side of her flank, probably the only thing left unchanged on either of them. After all, the pony who wore their mark was the same pony no matter how different they were some time ago.

She wrapped a hoof around the bottle and raised it in salute, her reflection doing the same. “Cheers!” she exclaimed ceremoniously to the entire room and took another swig.

OddLuck slammed the bottle down against the countertop and stared back at ToughLuck with a sly smirk. “Hello…” she continued. “How are you today?”

HotLuck blinked. “I’m good too, thank you!” OddLuck saw that HotBuck was growing impatient when her brows furrowed into a frown.

“What?” said the real OddLuck. “Do I have something in my mane? Or did I not brush my teeth?” Suddenly, she gasped, and her eyes widened. “Now that I think about it, I didn’t take a shower this morning!”

OtherLuck kept glaring at her.

“Look, I came here to find a good time. Is that too much for a young mare to ask?”

Slamming the cup of cider down against the counter, PotLuck’s brows furrowed down into a much more penetrating frown.

"Well aren't you a lovely one to talk to."

NotLuck continued to stare.

OddLuck couldn’t tell if that mare was glaring at her, or just frowning like her mother would when she did something bad. Either way, it didn’t matter. She was staring.

And staring…

And staring…

And staring.

And that bothered OddLuck.

“Well, fine! I guess I’ll tell you.”

OddLuck sighed and picked the bottle of Amnesia Fire back up, concentrating on the liquid inside the black, transparent bottle. She stared at that liquid, twirling and watching it slosh around like a pony of ancient legend separating the sea. Like little waves crashing onto a shoreline. Those waves tempted OddLuck, calling her to grab onto them, see how they work, see how they fall and she heard them. OddLuck heard them, her magic worming its way into the bottle. Carefully, she extracted it in a thin line and twirled it some more, wondering how aged wine is able to become so perfect after so many years of collecting dust.

“I lost my job today.” she finally said. “It wasn’t much of a job―I mean, it was a lot like a job, it just wasn’t a job that I liked all that much. I mean, well... I hated it there. My boss had a few loose feathers and blamed me for a lot of stuff I had nothing to do with.”

LazyDuck’s expression loosened a bit, and OddLuck relaxed her body as she began to lose herself in the conversation.

“I barely had that job for however many months, and I regretted it every single day I had to work. It seemed like each day was a cycle: mop the floors, get yelled at; restock the ice cream, get yelled at; polish the ice in the skating rink―you get the picture. Heck, I think if I stayed another month I would have gotten used to it. I might even have gotten on that crooked bird’s good side for once as well. I’m not going to lie, he had a lot of good sides, but most of them seemed to be revealed at my expense. Heh, to think, at first, I thought of him as my little canary in a coal mine.”

GoodLuck stared at OddLuck.

OddLuck stared back at her reflection.

“Well,” she continued. “It’s my life, not yours―I mean, it could have been yours. It doesn’t have to be yours even, not if you let it. I mean, well…”

She stopped for a moment, taking another look at the bottle.

"It could be yours. I don't know. I mean, my roommate is kind of on the edge of crazy, and I'm on the verge of getting kicked out of my apartment,  but I can't control that. I can try―I can get another job. It's easy… I believe."

She picked up the black bottle with a shy smile and stared at it. "If only it was that easy," she muttered to herself.

A single tear ran down her cheek as reality dawned on her.

“What… what am I doing? I’m… I’m talking to my reflection. I should be seeing a therapist. I mean―I probably would be if my checkbook allowed it. Hey I might even be able to pay all my bills on time if my checkbook allowed it!”

The tears had congregated beneath her eyes in herds, dripping from her cheeks and falling onto the counter.

“I don’t know what I’m doing with my life! I don’t have a job, I can’t go back to school, my roommate thinks she was banished into the future by Starswirl the Fucking Bearded―as if that’s a lame-ass excuse as to why she can’t pay her half of the damn bills! Why can’t he be here!”

She couldn’t compose herself. Upon that last sentence, her head dropped against the counter in defeat. Tears continued to roll down her face at a ceaseless pace. She stared at the deathly black bottle.

With an inhale, she said, “I think I’m finally going to take care of it tonight.”

She sat back up and looked back towards SodMuck, its brows no longer furrowed into a frown, but now raised in concern. OddLuck just smirked and picked the bottle up with her magic.

“Heh, funny, I can’t even remember why I came here in the first place,” she said, finishing the bottle off.

Slamming it back against the counter, she conjured up a few bits and dropped them on the counter into a small pile. Enough for the Amnesia Fire, enough to cover however much the Fruit Punch Salad might cost, and enough for an apology on leaving when the kind minotaur had offered to punch her in the face.

“I should probably get out of her before he comes back.” she said. She turned in her rickety-splintery barstool and plopped down on the hardwood floor, a loud creak filling the room. As she went through the exit, she listened closely for the weak chime of the bell. Soft, much like the punch from the kind minotaur would have been like. Beautiful, much like the metal gauntlet he was brandishing―okay, let’s get out of here.

____________________

What the fuck is happening to you OddLuck? What the heck happened back there? Why did you lose it like that—it’s all okay because you feel better now that you have something yummy in your belly―no, it’s not going to last that long; happiness is best enjoyed in quarters. You’re miserable. This moment your living right now will not exist the next day. But that’s fine, because you’re happy right now, nothing can stop that―throw that wretched pheasant into a flaming pit! No that won’t help anything. Yes, it will. No, it won’t. Yes. No. Yes. No. Your anxiety is getting to you, OddLuck. You need to get your life together or give up now. Okay, that sounds easy―no it’s not. Yes―no―yes―no―I’ll try my best, it’s a slow process―you’ll never get better but you’ll never get anything but better, stop this insanity. Don’t you remember, you forgot what happened―what happened?―oh that, okay―it must be better if they say it gets better―but what if it doesn’t―it has to, why shouldn’t it?

That reality, that worry of the future burdened OddLuck's head with a weight she wished not to carry, as she walked into the fire known as Neighpalm St.

“Help! Help! My baby is on fire!” Screamed one mare.

“The pigeons are armed with crossbows! Take cover!” A homeless griffon exclaimed, trying to take refuge in his box labeled, “↑ ǝpᴉs sᴉɥ┴”.

“The orphanage! The orphanage is burning! The children have committed the blood sacrifice! He returns with grace!”

Neighpalm St. was a scene of chaos far more convincing than any war. Overturned crates, trash lining the curves, plumes of toxic gases shooting from chimneys, homeless sitting against walls with bottles in paperbacks, graffiti on this wall, the blood of an earlier crime on that wall, a lonely mare in the middle of the street after getting fired from work, and OddLuck, who is having a bad day, some would say.

It was impossible to believe―dreadful to believe―absolutely, positively dreadful to believe that OddLuck has already lived in this city for seven months. Seven months. Seven months―where did the time go? Every day it’s get up before noon, go to work, get off of work, then try to go to sleep by twelve in the morning but procrastinate and not go to bed until four in the morning. The next day, promise yourself that you will do better in the future, that the future is eventually, but not be bothered to do anything until then because it’s better to wait for things to get better.

This is how OddLuck has been living her life for the last seven months.

For the last seven months, this is how OddLuck has lived.

This is how she has lived for seven months.

In repetition.

What happened at the university no longer mattered to her. What mattered now was being jobless. She barely had enough money to pay the bills, and her roommate was completely bonkers. Not bonkers as in “P. Gander bonkers” but quite bonkers for an ex-homeless mare who thinks she was plucked straight from medieval times.

Why, it almost seemed as if OddLuck’s life was leading somewhere―knee-deep in a puddle of nowhere.

In truth, OddLuck wouldn’t know where her life was heading even if it hit her in the head.

And it did.

This is what OddLuck saw in her confused daze as she laid against the cold, hard ground of Neighpalm St., trying to figure out what the heck happened and how she got to this point. Eventually, her vision cleared and she was able to see what it was that hung in the sky before her.

Head still pounding, she stared up at the sign, trying to figure out where it came from. A construction worker, exhaustion plain on his face, saw the mare lying on the ground and ran over to help her up.

“Why is there a Roadblock on Neighpalm Street?” OddLuck asked, rubbing her temples as she tried to come out of her sudden stupor.

“The Mayor has closed off all the streets so that his wife can deliver her babies safely along the way to the hospital.”

“The Mayor’s wife is pregnant?”

“I thought the same thing at first. Take a look for yourself.”

Head still pounding, she looked past the roadblock sign and cupped a hoof over her eyes to shadow them from the sun blocking her view. Sure enough, in the middle of the intersection, blocking any and all traffic from getting through, was the mayor attempting to push a cart full of dozens of babies uphill.

His wife was watching from inside the cart. Growing impatient, she got out and pushed alongside him. “Push honey, push!” the Mayor screamed.

The sheer weight of the cart, not to mention the addition of the dozen babies inside, all well fed, made it extremely difficult to budge uphill. She screamed in agony as her muscles began to ripple. “Go to Tartarus!” she yelled. “My mother was right about you! We’ll never win the Amazing Baby Race at this point!”

“We can do it, honey! Think of the babies! We’ll never make a statement on the importance of fertility if we don’t deliver them on time to the hospital. These babies will be pregnant one day then die the next―that’s how life is!”

OddLuck looked towards the commotion.

Then, she looked at the crossing guard.

With a few blinks, she looked back at the commotion, then back at the guard before looking back at the commotion which flicked her gaze towards the roadblock sign before looking at the crossing guard with a stern smile and said, "Well, good luck with that."

She took a detour route this time. Since every street in her vicinity was blocked off from the race, she had to take the subway. She walked down the stairs leading underground, paid the toll, and boarded one of the trains leading to the Broncs, a district in Manehatten made for housing and apartments.

Ignoring how crowded the train was and the mare only a foot shorter than OddLuck sticking her smelly mane in her face, OddLuck made it to her district in one piece. She left the subway and walked down the littered streets.

A homeless zebra gypsy had a blanket set out on the sidewalk, sporting the many peace pipes and other trinkets he was selling to make his way in the world. He scratched his dirty cheek with a hoof and saw OddLuck walking down the street. Shooting up from the blanket, he began yelling, “Mare, young mare, beware! The spirits clearly haunt you, buy soul cleanser before you’re due!”

She kept on walking, to the persistent shout of the zebra. “Young mare, young mare, beware!” he kept yelling. “Buy my wares unless you wish to take the dare! Listen to what I saith, I foresee in your future a leap of faith!”

Eventually, she made it to her apartment complex. Walking through the gate and ignoring the group of loitering griffons jeering at her, she made her way up to the apartment and conjured her keys with a snap of her horn. Making sure they were really her apartment keys and not the dorm room keys she forgot to return when she left university, she unlocked the door. She opened the door and…

“Loosey, you left the lights on!”

She walked in but was nearly tripped by something soft. She looked down and saw that it was a pillow. Looking around the room, she could see that a whole array of them were strewn across the floor. “And you made a mess!”

“You said it’s fine so long as I clean up,” came a casual voice from a pillow fort on the other side of the room, a polka-dot blanket covering the entrance. The kitchen table was missing, so she assumed it was serving as some sort of roof.

She heard a noise going on to her right and she turned to inspect it. “And you left the TV on! I told you to turn it off when you’re not watching it!”

Walking behind the couch, which was sitting approximately six feet from the TV, she grasped one of the knobs in her green magic, and the black-and-white image of Princess Twilight Sparkle giving her speech at the Ceremony of Friendship went black.

“Is everything good, young one?”

Young one! “Just because I’m slightly younger than you doesn’t give you the right to call me ‘young one’, you know.”

The polka-dot blanket ruffled for a moment and out popped the head of a plum coated mare with a short, but naturally curly, beige mane. Giving OddLuck a contemptuous stare, she said, “Whose saber got stuck up your arse for you to be acting this way?”

“My boss’s. What are you doing?”

“Thought I’d build a nice fort and have a little reading session.”

“You could have at least cleaned up a little.”

“I didn’t think you’d be home so soon.”

OddLuck rolled her eyes. “Of course.”

Living in an apartment where the kitchen and living room are merged together made for some easy maneuverability. OddLuck galloped from the couch into the kitchen, where she began searching the medicine cabinet.

“You looking for something?”

“Sleep medicine. I really want to go to bed right now.”

“It’s hardly noon.”

“So what’s stopping me?”

Loosestrife shrugged. “The willingness to keep in good health? What’s wrong with you today? You’re never this worked up!”

“Nothing, Loosey.”

“OddLuck, I―”

“Nothing, Loosey. Leave it at that.”

OddLuck continued to rummage through the medicine cabinet looking for something, come on, anything that’ll make her the least bit drowsy. She must have searched the entire medicine cabinet before she heard a cough.

Breaking her attention away from the bottles and labels, she looked over at Loosestrife, who had completely left the fort and was standing in the kitchen with her, looking her up and down curiously.

“Want to see the inside of the fort?”

OddLuck stared at Loosestrife for a beat. She could do that, or she could go back to searching for the yummy practice-your-death-for-eight-hours-a-night pills. After all that’s happened today, she only wanted to go to bed. Was that too much to ask for? OddLuck figured she deserved as much.

But it would probably please Loosey. That would satisfy her. It was enough reason for OddLuck to sigh and go, “Okay, let’s see.”

With a childlike giggle, Loosestrife ran back around to the entrance and yelled, “Come on! You’re going to love this!”

The fort intersected the area between the living room and the kitchen, where it took up most of the space. And it’s blocking the fridge, really, Loosey! Have you no respect? OddLuck thought. She had to pad around it, each step feeling like a slow trek through mud.

She reached around the front to find the polka-dot blanket covering the entrance. She tried rustling it open, but just as she was doing so, Loosestrife’s voice chirped from inside. “Na-uh uh, you have to say the password!”

With a frustrated sigh, “Loosey, I’m not in the mood to be playing games right now.”

“Password, OddLuck.”

“Loosey―”

“Paaaassword!”

With another frustrated sigh, “Unlimited Rice Pudding.”

“Well, that sounds like too much rice pudding, don’t you think?”

“Loosey!”

“Come on in.”

OddLuck threw the polka-dot blanket aside onto the floor, to the annoyance of Loosestrife, who looked at her for a moment then rolled her eyes. Then she said with a sly smile, “Welcome to Fort Recreation.”

She was huddled up in the center of the fort with a book in her forehooves and a lit candle next to it. The fort was simple but creative. It seems that Loosestrife had gathered all the pillows and cushions she could find in the apartment so that she could stack them on and around the kitchen table, where she laid a really large blanket on top to cover up the inside walls so no light would seep through any cracks. A small section of said blanket was tucked away beneath a pillow on the table to form the entrance.

It was a craftyness that was more cunning than what the average child would be able to comprehend upon building their first pillow fort. This, was most definitely, from what OddLuck has gathered of Loosestrife’s personal life, her first pillow fort―which was quite impressive for someone who probably just got bored sitting around the house all day.

“It’s nice,” OddLuck muttered.

“Why are you just standing there? Come on in!” said Loosestrife.

Not saying anything, OddLuck slowly, but deliberately, made her way inside. She took a good look at it and admired its craftyness, but since there wasn’t much to observe, she turned her attention to Loosestrife almost immediately.

“Well,” she said. “Don’t just stand there, sit somewhere.”

Standing next to Loosestrife, OddLuck plopped down onto her belly. She looked down at the open book in Loosestrife’s hooves. “Whatja reading there?”

“Oh, some adventure story by Plagueis the Wise.”

“Is it any good?”

Loosestrife shook her head. “Absolute garbage. The main character commits suicide halfway through the story, while her sidekick gets impaled by a spear before she can do anything interesting. The troll mythos is interesting, however… nonetheless, it’s still more interesting then any of that trash your time throws out.”

OddLuck groaned. “Not this again!”

“Well, excuse me for having a peculiar taste for fine literature! Last I checked all that’s ever published these days is teen trash about anxious fillies in high school and frisky vampires. Honestly, your generation has been dumbed down to the core.”

OddLuck rolled her eyes. “Says the pony who still thinks tomatoes are poisonous.”

“You try eating one for yourself and fighting off the irksome diarrhea that could only come from the plague!”

“You know, if you ever took the moment to actually try a tomato, you might find that you like it.”

“Put that thought back in its locker.”

“Just saying, they’re not actually that bad.”

“And I’m saying I’m not taking the risk of dying a horrible death.”

Seeing no way out of this due to experience with past arguments, OddLuck gave up with a shrug. “Suit yourself,” she said.

Fort Recreation was filled with silence for a heartbeat. Loosestrife took to scanning the pages of her book once again, but due to the company she had with her she didn’t feel as compelled to read it. OddLuck, trying to find something to do during this brief moment of silence, examined the far off wall, where a painting of a white vase full of a dozen white roses was hanged. She remembered that was only there to cover up a sizable hole she left with a hammer when she first moved in.

So, should I tell her? OddLuck thought. Should I tell her I’m all out of work, but that’s okay, because finding a new job in modern times is as easy as catching the plague a couple hundred years ago―no, it’s not? Should I tell her that it’s very possible I’m going to run out of money soon and she will be back on the streets? Should I tell her that, or should I keep it to myself and hope to find another job in time to pay the next bill?

She thought about it and she thought about it some more, and while she was too busy thinking about it, a sudden unrelated thought crossed her mind. In fact, it was a thought so unrelated that OddLuck swore it was only there so she could make conversation.

“So Loosey, what does your cutie mark mean?”

Loosestrife looked up from her book, confused, and looked at her flank. Smack-dab on the side of her flank was was a thorny purple flower of some kind entwined around a saber. OddLuck had always found the cutie mark to be intriguing, but it never occurred to her once in the five months they’ve known each other to ask her what it means.

“My cutie mark?” she mentally began picking at the question with a stick. “What about it?”

“Well, I’ve seen it a million times already, and I’ve never understood it. It just seems so… out of place compared to all the other cutie marks out there.”

Loosestrife raised a brow. “Oh, and yours is so normal as well?” she countered.

It was true. The blue four-leaf clover on OddLuck’s place was very out of place. She has in the past try to pinpoint what it could mean, but she got no clear answers. In fact, she’s had this cutie mark longer then her conscience mind. When inquiring to her parents about it one day after one of her friends got their cutie mark, they responded with, “You’ve had it since you were born.”

So, in a sense, OddLuck always looked to it as something that made her different. If it meant not ever finding out the meaning of the mark, then at least she could die knowing there was something unique about her.

“Yeah, well, I want to know about yours. What do you think it means?”

“Well, to understand that you have to understand what a loosestrife is. A loosestrife is a plant that is not easily tamed, OddLuck. To me, this mark―” she pointed to the entwined saber on her flank “―respresents unfailing offense. I do not give up that easily, OddLuck. When life has me down, I have to remember to force myself to bear my teeth and keep on going. Treat it as a game. You mess up once you have a bad time. However, you do a good job, you work hard, you have a good time. That’s how it is.”

OddLuck was still nodding along after Loosestrife had finished her little monologue. “Okay, but what does the mark mean?”

“I don’t know why I try to open up to you sometimes, honestly.”

“Because you love me.”

“Love you as much as much as a veterinarian loves putting down dogs.”

“Well that’s a dark way of looking at things.”

“Then turn on the lights.”

“But I like them turned off. It helps me sleep at night.”

“You really need to start living with the lights on, you know that?”

“And you need to jump back into the twenty-first century.”

“Okay, since you’re so keen on asking me about my mark, why don’t you tell me about yourself, Strange Clover?”

OddLuck scowled at her roommate, who was boasting a sly smile. “I told you I don’t like that name.”

“And you prefer to call me by some profound nickname instead of my birth-given name simply because, ‘It rolls off the tongue better.’ Quote unquote.”

She sighed, racking her brain for any possible answers she could give. In truth, she started demanding everyone to call her that back in middle school. No reason, she just liked the way it sounded. It could be, however, that…”

“All my life I’ve had this kind of… what I called odd luck. Ever since I was a filly, I’ve had this way of… taking a gamble at something, and I would come out either extremely fortunate or extremely misfortunate. Not knowing my talent was or what it would ever be, I guess I took to making up the meaning of my mark as I was going along. So, in a sense… OddLuck.”

She rolled over on her back and stared up at the ceiling―or more precisely, the bottom of the coffee table. Huh, she thought. Guess I didn't think of it that way until now.

For a long moment, she just lied there, staring. She wondered where it all went wrong and whether it was ever right. It just seems... that her life has come to a complete 'halt'.

Loosestrife stood up and reared her body back to stretch her limbs. "You know, if you want to get shitfaced at two in the afternoon, you don't have to find a dusty old bar with cheap wine, I can turn you into a real animal."

OddLuck waved her off. "Thanks, but no thanks."

Loosestrife shrugged. "Suit yourself."

Deciding there was nothing left to talk about, OddLuck stood back up, taking care to bump her head on the bottom of the table. "Well," she said. "I don't know about you, but this day has me beat. I think I'll try to sleep it off. Think you can clean up a little."

Loosestrife had walked to the other side of the room where the couch was and rested her head against the armrest. "Sure. And I'll do you a solid and fetch the chimney sweeper!"

"Keep the snarkiness up and you'll be what the chimney sweeper finds clogging up all the smoke in the morning."

"So scared. Sleep tight, Clover."

"I will, Loosey," OddLuck nodded, ignoring the mention of her real name. "I will."