My great grandmother had a little bit of wisdom that she wished to impart to each and every soul that she encountered. You know what that was?

“All toasters toast toast.”

Wait, no, that was Mario, not my grandma. Sorry, I have trouble remembering things like this.

My victim doesn’t respond to me, muffled, tears streaming down their face. They grunt, and pull against the rope tied around them. I throw them down in disgust.

I pet the lion’s mane. He paces back and forth, clearly anxious about what’s to come. I look him dead in the eyes and say, “Listen, listen Aslan, you got this.” The lion shakes his head, tears starting to form in his eyes. “I’m gonna fuck it up. I’m gonna try my best and I’m still going to fuck it up. That’s how it always goes. FUCK, why do I even have to do this, I hate this responsiblity.” I close Aslan’s snout shut, and look him in the eyes. “You know why. And I know it’s hard, but you have done this before. You can do it again.” “But that wasn’t me! I’m not… that Aslan, I’m me. I hate that I even have to share his name.” I shake my head. “You are your own Aslan. And you’re a fantastic Aslan in your own right. Trust me. It’s going to go fine.” Aslan gulps, but that seems to have calmed him down. And slowly he saunters on stage.

You decided to go into the jungle alone. You thought to yourself, “I can do this! I can find the Azul Emerald all by myself!” But you did not google what the word “azul” means in Spanish, you did not realize you were on the errand of a fool. And now you are out of food, hopelessly lost, weary and delirious. But still, you refuse to give up. That much, I suppose, is admirable. A foolish tenacity, one that has gotten you this far. But you will not go further. You get your foot stuck in a small hole filled with mud. You try and pull it out, but can’t quite get it out. You continue to try, worried now, as you see a pair of eyes in the underbrush. You pull, and pull and pull… But you fail and are consumed. Both by hubris and by ocelots.

In summertime it’s far too hot -- you know this, I know this, it’s obvious, right? The sun beats down upon its children mercilessly.

Damn, I’m sweating up a storm here. I brush away some of my sweat with my paw. Yeah, I’ve got paws, what of it? That’s what I thought.

Back behind the house, it opens up into woods. It’s a rather untamed forest. No real trails, easy to get lost in. Sometimes when I’m bored I’ll run into the forest, not paying attention to where I came from, and get completely and utterly lost. Usually I find my way back fairly quickly, but once I got so lost I had to spend the night sleeping in the forest. It was kinda scary, but in that muted sort of way everything is when there aren’t really stakes.

I’m building a boat right now, did I mention that? The reason I mentioned the woods, well, it’s because that’s where I am right now. And it’s in the name, “woods” -- signifies that, hell, there’s gonna be a lot of wood, right? Good material for building a boat.

Though I am not good at building boats. I’m rather shit, to tell you the truth. This is the first boat I’m building -- in all likelihood, it will also be the last, or at least I hope so, because damn am I exhausted. I dug out this old book from, uh, somewhere or other. What’s important is that it tells me how to build boats. So I’ve got a saw, and I’m getting splinters, and this boat is getting built.

“YOU STOLE THE FIZZY LIFTING DRINKS” I scream, I cry, I slam my fists into the wall in frustration, blood flowing down my knuckles.

They were to take us away from this hole, this prison in the ground I had been trapped in for ages. The dust from the walls chips off and blows into my lungs, the poison in my body reflected by the poison of my mind, unsatisfied from my enclosure.

I had spent SO much time getting them. Secretive trades, bribes, deals, I was willing to do anything to get them. But of course, Joey Smalls, he had to drink them.

Just guzzle them down, thinking it was booze. And he floated -- up, up, and away. Only to fall right back down to his death. No planning, no thought. All my hopes and dreams, gone in an instant. Stolen by a fool without imagination.

Morgana opened the door, the light creeped in, with Liam nestled in a nest of pillows, staring absently at the wall.

“Liam-”

“This isn’t interesting, Morgana. Subject to the worse fucking trope in the world, having a girl I love die to fuel my character development. But even with this monologue, I’m making her death ABOUT ME. It’s utterly inexcusable.”

Morgana tried to think of a response, but he didn’t know how to deal with Liam’s tendencies to fall into meta.

“And growth stemming from tragedy is fucking stupid!” he shouted, burying his face in his pillow. “I could’ve grown without it! So I’m going to defy fate and just fucking regress. Regress away from being the protagonist, just be some dumb footnote husk in the margins.”

Torulf examined his fingernails – he had let them get quite long. He imagined scraping away the faces of his enemies, his rivals, everyone that stood in his way in the fingerboarding league. But to professionally fingerboard, you need short nails, so he begrudgingly began to clip them.