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Puffy is walking through Snowchester when she sees him, trudging with her boots through the snow. He wears a yellow sweater and holds something blue in his hands. A maroon beanie balances on the top of his head, close to falling off but never actually quite drifting towards the ground. Puffy imagines it falling to the snow and sinking slightly. It would be quite the contrast, dark red against the stark white.
Wilbur has never visited Snowchester before. It was not here when he was alive and even now since he is dead, there is no reason to. The only 'family' here is Tubbo, and Puffy doubts he remembers much about Tubbo. Ghostbur does not go here and she does not go wherever Ghostbur is. That is almost a guarantee.
Puffy looks at him with some disdain. A part of her, neither the knight part nor the captain part, but the Puffy part, wants to make him feel half of the pain that he inflicted on Niki. She wants to scream until her throat is raw and punch and kick until her hands and feet are bloody because how dare he, how dare he, how dare he. She is not going to do what she wants, though. Puffy has never seen Wilbur alive, though, and Niki did not and does not know about Ghostbur.
(The last time that Puffy saw Niki, her skin tone was only a few tones brighter than Ghostbur’s. Niki’s skin had been pallid and greyish, a stark contrast to the bright bubblegum pink of her hair. The contrast was almost sickly. But so were the crimson vines creeping around her home.)
“Hey, Ghostbur!” she forces out with a nervous smile, making her voice sound cheery, "Whatchu' got there?"
Ghostbur only stares for a few moments in what Puffy thinks is disbelief or maybe in questioning. Puffy tries to figure out his motives through his eyes, but they stay in a confused
“No,” he whispers under his breath. Puffy furrows her eyebrows. Despite her ill-will towards Wilbur, she had not interacted too much with Ghostbur to warrant a reaction like this.
“This?” he asks, pointing to the blue thing that he has in his hands.
"Yeah!" she replies, "What's that blue stuff?"
“Friend?" Ghostbur asks tentatively, seeming distracted from the main subject, "Is that you?"
“Huh? Yeah, we’re… we’re friends!” Puffy replies nervously, trying to figure out what in the world Ghostbur was talking about. He only remembered happy things, happy things when he did not destroy someone, let them put their faith in him, and stab their faith with the sword Phil used to kill him too.
"Friend!" Ghostbur exclaims happily, with joy filling his pallid eyes, "Aw, Phil was right! I finally found you! I missed you so much, Friend, you have no idea. How did your fur change? Your voice sounds a bit different, too."
"Um, nothing changed, I don't think," Puffy responds, looking at her hair. It's white with a slight technicolor shimmer in the sunlight. Nothing too special. She has it tied in a low ponytail that doesn’t quite capture all of the strands that are in her face but nonetheless keeps it out of the way of her neck.
She wonders what happened to make Ghostbur say that. Is “Friend” what he always calls his friends, all formally like that? Perhaps his acquaintances? People he sees once in a while and whose faces he remembers?
“Your fur was blue,” Ghostbur says sadly, “Don’t you remember, Friend?”
Puffy isn’t sure what game Ghostbur is trying to play here. She just knows she hates it. Memory, against me of all people. Is it his fault? Does he know what he is doing to her, shocking her with pain while she is at the sea? Water makes electricity flow and it goes straight to her heart.
Ghostbur smiles. "No matter! We can fix that right away."
"Hey Puffy,” Sam calls, “I love the new hair color. Real nice."
Puffy can tell Sam is being sarcastic, mostly because of the snickers he attempts to hide. It’s probably not the blue (which she actually doesn’t hate too much), but instead the messy way it’s been applied. The blue thing ended up being dye; the dye stains her forehead, her jacket, and her pants, which means it would take forever to get out. She already is dreading going to wash the jacket and pants back at her home and she is not sure if she wants to just continue chatting.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Puffy replies grumpily.
She is not mad at Sam. If this happened to Sam, she would probably react the same way. No, she’s mad that she let herself be so vulnerable, mad that she couldn’t let herself stop being Therapuffy and instead couldn’t scream like she wanted, mad that she couldn’t reply to the communication Niki sent to her because of the stupid fucking egg, mad that everything is converging all into one point and boiling over because she needs to keep control in order to keep everything okay, she is a knight but she is tired of being a knight.
“At least it looks good?” Sam responds, trying to find the light in this situation.
Puffy raises her eyebrows (thankfully mostly spared from Ghostbur’s crusade of blue) in disbelief. “It looks good stained all over my face and my clothes? Really?”
She swishes her tail around irritably before recalling that Ghostbur got that too and retracting it back towards her so that Sam does not have to see it.
Is it shame? Is that what she is feeling? It is white-hot but she cannot tell whether it’s fury or embarrassment. She only knows that she wants to scream, wants to run far, far away from where anybody and anything could ever do anything to her again, wants to swim on the seas she had once sailed over. The waves of the white-hot feeling crash over her in her stormy disposition; her rationality is barely holding onto the steering wheel to keep control and she is going to drown. She is going to drown in a storm of her own creation just from getting her hair dyed.
That wasn’t all that was happening, but she can’t process it all right now. Puffy misses her, she misses her so badly that it aches in her chest, far below where Ghostbur’s blue dye could ever stain.
“I need to go home,” Puffy murmurs, “I need to wash everything. Oh God, I’m going to be stained in blue dye and ineffective trauma recovery methods for a long time.”
"We could dye it," Sam suggests, "Is there a particular color you wanted to try?"
All of a sudden, Puffy is hit with a wave of nostalgia and pain that reminds her of one of the last times Niki spoke with her.
("If you were to dye your hair," Niki asked one day, "What color would it be?"
They were in their flower shop that day, the one they had built together with their own hands. It was a slow day at the register since many people did not need or want flowers, so they passed the time together like they always did. They talked and they talked and every time it seemed about something small but big, always able to make Puffy smile.
"I dunno," she answered, looking at her hair to assess the color at the time, "Maybe a deeper rainbow. What about you?"
"That would be so much fun!" Niki replied, "I used to have pink hair, before the blonde. I might do that again."
"We'll have to do it together," Puffy stated, not knowing what would happen a short while later.
"We'll do everything together," Niki added and Puffy had smiled wider than she could ever muster now.
A few months later, Puffy saw Niki for the last time since. Her hair was bubblegum pink and her skin was only a few tones brighter than ghastly grey.)
"Maybe a deeper rainbow," Puffy repeats in the present, ignoring the ache in her chest.
We'll do everything together.
She wants to ignore how it hurts, wants to ignore the pain in her chest. Puffy is a therapist, a knight, a captain, a leader of the resistance, all of the things that say that she should not feel this way. Then again, Niki was, is, a whirlpool who sucked Puffy in and then threw her out to deal with the mess of it all, but the little bits of Puffy’s boat were still with Niki too and Niki had to deal with this too.
Why had Niki made promises that she couldn’t keep? Niki built towers of dreams and had burnt it all with one spark, the same spark that lit the bakery oven. And Puffy had made the mistake of trusting the fire. She paid for it now, choking through the ashes. Everything reminds Puffy of Niki.
"Do you have spare dyes at home and a pair of shears?" Sam asks.
Puffy nods.
"What are we waiting for?" Sam continues.
"Permission to enter my home," Puffy jokes dryly, but it doesn't land. Sam only blinks at her in response.
They go into the mushroom house. Sam has been here before, albeit for more formal, pro-omelette business. Puffy hasn't just invited him to her home like a friend would do.
She's been a wreck since Doomsday. Well, when she thinks about it, hasn't everyone been that way? When was the last time she laughed? When was the last time she did something fun?
She doesn't even know.
Puffy absentmindedly searches through her chests for the required dyes. She has red, orange, yellow, and white. That should be enough as long as Sam dyes on top of the already dyed hair.
Snip. The soft sounds of the sea. Snip. The smell of bread from the bakery. Snip. The warmth of Niki's smile. Snip. Sacrificing, and for once, feeling worthwhile. Snip. Hearing an echo of the egg's voice creep into her head.
"That's enough," Puffy states.
“You are distracted,” Sam claims. It’s a statement, not a question. An observation, but one that makes her feel like he shaved her head instead of just dyeing it.
“I am,” Puffy replies coldly, “Does it matter?”
“Cut the bullshit, Puffy,” Sam responds with a harsh tone.
Puffy blinks startledly. “I’m sorry?”
Sam sighs like he has had this talk with her many times before, but he hasn’t. He’s never talked like this before. “I’m worried about you, Puffy. You’ve been distant lately.”
“Worry less, then,” Puffy says, feeling an angry flush come to her face, “I’m fine. I’ve had a long fucking day, a long fucking week, a long fucking month, a long fucking couple of months. But I’m fine.”
“You need to stop pushing everybody away, Puffy, you know this!” Sam pleads, “You’re hurting, Puffy. Please let me help.”
“Did I push her away? Did I do that?” Puffy whispers, “Shit, maybe I fucking did. But I didn’t push you away even when you fucking laughed at me - do you really think you can help? Do you know who did this to me?”
“No?” Sam questions, “You didn’t want to talk about it.”
“It was the man who ruined her. It was him! And he had the fucking audacity to come over to me and I couldn’t muster up the courage to be mean. So I’m making up for then now, I want to be mean and I want to set my shit up because I’m tired of being nice. I want to muddle through my own things and do it at my own pace and I have the right to be bitter, don’t I? So I’m going to be bitter right now because I want to be.”
“You don’t need to be an asshole to heal.”
“You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do,” Puffy replies, “I’m fucking tired of it.”
“I don’t get to tell you what you can’t do,” Sam repeats.
Puffy nods over-exaggeratedly.
“But,” Sam continues, “I know what happens when you let anger take you over. And you do, too. You know what happens. You know the price we pay.”
Something in Puffy’s house ticks. A clock, a furnace, just a random noise.
“My hair,” Puffy says, “How does it look?”
“Good, I hope,” Sam jokes, “No, but seriously. I think it looks good. It’s even, as far as I can tell. The blending worked out nicely.”
After a few seconds of silence, Sam asks, “You miss her?” A question this time, not a statement.
Puffy swallows. “More than anything.”
If I could see her and follow her, I would. I want her to say at least one last thing to me. I don’t care what it is, just as long as she says something this time. “I love you.” “I miss you.” “You are the worst thing that’s happened to me.” “You have a piece of hair in your eyes. “I hate you.” “Why me?” Anything, just to hear her voice again. If she has questions, I’ll answer them.
“Because that’s what love is,” Puffy adds aloud, “It’s a little bit of hate and warmth and tears and happy and everything in between, and I want to go back to when I had that in my arms rather than dealing with the mess in front of me. Is that so wrong, Sam?”
Sam blinks once. Twice. “I miss someone too, you know. You are not alone.”
Puffy inhales deeply, feeling the air flow through her lungs, then exhales, feeling the hot air in front of her face.
“You don’t need to suffer all of the time, Sam,” Puffy replies, “It’s okay to be angry, okay to be upset or irrational. Just don’t do it like I do, okay? Make sure it’s healthier. Make sure you remember why you’re angry, make sure to be productive with it. Make sure to throw it away once you’re done with it because you can’t keep it close to your heart and you shouldn’t.”
“Therapuffy?” Sam jokes.
“No. Puffy Puffy. No captain, no therapist, no titles. I’m just being Puffy right now.”