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It was a fine night when Fundy woke up and decided to cause some mischief.
In fairness, this was not unusual. Most times the fox god woke up it was to carry some little or large devilry. What was unusual was he had no target in mind.
As the god of scams, cons, ploys and general craftiness, he had fooled many marks over his existence, both mortal and immortal. Usually, he was happy to revisit the same quarry. But tonight, he wanted something new.
Fundy wanted a challenge.
He could go and find a worthy mortal, one who could match his wits, but there was no guarantee he would find one. Which meant his best chance was an immortal, one he had not tricked before. A group, admittedly, with very few members. Members who, for the most part, retained membership by being very hard to find.
Undeterred, Fundy started his hunt. It did not take long for him to stumble across the dirt den of Tommy. The raccoon god was furiously tearing at some fabric, his ears and tail bristling.
Tommy, as the god of theft, often crossed parts with Fundy. By the turns of moon, they were ally and rival. As a consequence, Fundy had tricked him many a time and vice versa, making him useless as a mark. Fortunately, however, they were in the phase of being friends, which meant he had some usefulness as a source of knowledge.
“Tommy!” called at Fundy. “What’s got your tail bristling?”
Growling, Tommy continued stabbing at the cloth in his hand. Fundy could now see that he was mending some piece of clothing. It was a frequent occurrence; every child knew that if you did not use something, then the racoon god would take it, and nothing was used less than torn clothing.
“A certain green dickhead, that’s who,” Tommy spat. “Complete and utter bastard.”
Fundy’s tail stood up straight. The night was still young, and he had already caught a scent.
“Who’s this green bastard?” Fundy asked. “Someone who needs to be taught a lesson?”
“He’s not worth the effort,” replied Tommy, not entirely convincing in his dismissal. “Dream has a stick so far up his ass—”
“Dream?” Fundy interrupted.
“Yeah. Found his clearing. Boring place, if you ask me. I didn’t even try to steal enough – just leave a little gift behind – but he freaked the fuck out, and kicked me right off it. That fall hurts, you know. Couldn’t move for days.”
The cogs in Fundy’s brain turned. Dream? The Dream? The god of order, who was said to have once been mere moral but now is among the strongest – if not the strongest– of the gods?
Oh, Fundy was excited.
“And where was his clearing? Just so I know where to avoid.”
“It’s just past the fifth star,” replied Tommy.
“Thanks,” said Fundy and then, because right now he and Tommy were friends, “and good luck with the shirt or whatever!”
“It’s a skirt, dickhead!” yelled back Tommy, but Fundy was already gone.
Fundy’s mother has long ago taught him how to swim through the sea of the night sky – it wasn’t too different from swimming through the rivers of the overworld, after all – and so he arrived at Dream’s clearing just as the moon reached its peak.
Turning into a fox, he snuck into the clearing. It was green. Very green. The only thing that wasn’t green was the brown of the tree bark and the blue of the sole river, which fell over the side and down to earth in a great waterfall.
There was, however, not a single god in sight, green or not.
Disappointed, Fundy paced the clearing. It was notoriously tricky to scam someone when that person wasn’t present. He could lay a trap, but in his haste he had left his tools at home and the clearing didn’t have much to work with.
Then Fundy saw it. The gleam of the golden. Sitting on one of the trees were golden apples. Not just that. Enchanted golden apples. He could see their faint pink sheen. Fundy salivated, but at the thought of their taste – nothing else, moral or immortal, compared – and at the thought of their opportunity.
It was clear. He wouldn’t just take the apples. He would take the whole tree. Then… the options made Fundy giddy. He could hide away the tree and then sell Dream’s apples back to him, claiming them to be from Fundy’s hoard. He could gift it to another god and then snitch to Dream. Maybe Sapnap, god of fire. A century ago, he had killed one of Fundy’s sacred foxes. It had been settled with a duel, but Fundy had never quite managed to forget.
Delighted, Fundy became humanoid again and reached for an apple, only to have something slam into him.
Thrown to the ground, Fundy could only stare up at the person who tackled him.
“Well, fox?” asked Dream. A mask covered his face. White porcelain, with a simple smiling face engraved into it. Around the edges of his mask, black smoke and green light snaked out from under it. “Come to steal my apples?”
Fundy’s heart fluttered in his chest. He didn’t particularly care for being unable to move for days. And that was assuming Dream just threw him off and didn’t dole out a worse, harsher punishment. Tommy hadn’t actually tried to steal anything after all.
“You’re mistaken,” said Fundy, scrambling for words. “I’m not here for your apples.” Desperate, he let his tongue outrun his brain. “The only thing I’m here to steal is your heart.”
Dream’s mask stared at him.
“Platonically!” corrected Fundy hastily. “Which is to say, I’ve heard a lot about you. And I think we’d make good husbands. For tax purposes.”
“I don’t pay tax,” replied Dream.
“Neither do I!” said Fundy quickly. “Wouldn’t really be the god of scamming if I did. When I said tax purposes it was a metaphor. For godly duties.”
“I am the god of order,” said Dream. “And you’re, as you just pointed out, the god of scams. I wouldn’t call our godly duties compatible.”
“I’m also the god of craftiness,” Fundy pointed out. “To be able to uphold the rules, sometimes you need to know how they can be broken. That’s where I can come in. I can make sure the rules are broken in small, harmless ways so you can patch up those exploits before they’re broken in big very-much-harmful ways.”
It is perhaps no surprise that, once computers were invented, Fundy would become the patron god of hackers.
Dream’s mask continued to stare. “Very well,” he said at last. He sounded almost humoured by Fundy’s hastily constructed lie. “I’ll give you a chance. You have until the moon reaches its peak again to bring me three courting gifts. If they impress, I’ll marry you. If they don’t…”
Fundy only had a second to celebrate before he was thrown off Dream’s clearing.
As he fell, Fundy managed to angle himself so that he hit the waterfall. As soon as he touched, he ceased to be a human or fox and instead became a salmon.
As he swam down the waterfall, the fox god, who was currently a fish, cursed his tongue. He could hide from Dream, but that would make pulling of his scams far more difficult. And if he got caught… if a fish could shiver, he would. So, finding three courting gifts it was.
Three courting gifts, great enough to impress Dream. Dream, the god of order. Dream, who would be his husband if he succeeded.
Was it ethically wrong to scam your husband?
Fundy thought about it, and as he did so his fear turned to excitement. He apologised to his tongue. If he could pull this off, he was in a golden position to commit the scam of this age. All he needed was three gifts by next moon’s peak.
Fundy kept swimming until he hit the bottom of the waterfall. And then he stills swam yet, weaving through the rivers of the underworld, until at least he found another waterfall. Fundy dove down it and emerged in the underworld.
The underworld, like the overworld, had its own sky and earth and sea. They, however, were far larger than that of the overworld. They had to be. After all, everything, including rivers, eventually leads to the underworld. Usually, said everything had to be dead, but there were certain perks to having your grandmother be the goddess of death.
Taking on his humanoid form, Fundy pulled himself out of the river and started to head to his grandmother’s castle. It didn’t take long to find her, sitting in the garden his grandfather had built for her.
“Grandmother,” called Fundy. “I need help.”
Mumza smiled at him and gestured for him to come sit beside her. Fundy obeyed.
“In trouble again, my grandson?” she asked, amused.
“I wouldn’t call it trouble,” lied Fundy. “I may or may not have asked to marry someone. And they may or may not have told me I needed three courting gifts by moon’s peak.”
“Marriage? My grandson is getting married?”
“For tax purposes,” clarified Fundy. She let out a laugh. “And only if I can find three gifts. You wouldn’t happen to have any suggestions?”
“Oh, Fundy,” she said. “My son’s little champion. I wish I could help. If you came just moons ago, I could have given you a book to revive the dead. Even the most snobbish betrothed would be impressed by that. But Schlatt, the sheep god, came and convinced me to give it to him.”
Fundy thought for a second. “Where is this Schlatt now?”
“I believe he is imposing himself onto Tubbo’s hospitality right now,” she said.
“Thank you,” said Fundy and stood up.
“Good luck!” called the goddess of death, but Fundy was already gone.
It did not take long to find Tubbo’s home. Tubbo and Tommy were each other’s greatest friends, despite or perhaps because of their domains, and so Fundy was also Tubbo’s friend right now.
As always, the god of hard work was surrounded by his bees. Tubbo appeared to be gardening, cleaning up some bruised and battered flower beds.
“Oh, Fundy,” he greeted, his goat horns just poking out from his hair. “What’s brought you here?”
“Can’t a fox god just visit his friend without a reason?” asked back Fundy.
“Sure, but—”
It was at this point that a crashing sound came from the house, quickly followed by a very drunk god emerging from it.
“Tubbo. Tubbo. Tubboooo,” drawled Schlatt. “You’re out of mead.” ,p> Tubbo looked at Fundy, embarrassed. “Sorry about this—”
“Hey! Who’s this?”
Fundy grinned. “I’m Fundy, Tubbo’s friend. I just came here to tell him the news.”
“The news? What news?”
“Dream’s giving out favours.”
Schlatt immediately perked up, just Fundy hoped he would. “Favours? What kind of favours?”
“Oh, powerful ones. Very, very powerful ones.” Fundy could see Schlatt taking the bait. He just had to reel him in without him catching on. “But as I was about to explain to Tubbo, you have to go about gaining his favour in a very particular way. See, he wants to award generosity. So, you have to go to his clearing, and leave behind a gift. No strings attached. And I mean that. He can sense that kind of thing, and won’t take it.”
Schlatt swayed. “Do you think… do you think he likes books?”
Fundy resisted the urge to punch the air. “I think he really, really likes books.”
“Where’s this... this fucking clearing then?” demanded Schlatt.
“Oh, just the fifth star. Can’t miss it. Just make sure he doesn’t see you! He has to think you think it’s an anonymous gift, but don’t worry he has ways of figuring it out.”
Without another word, Schlatt stumbled away.
“Thanks, Fundy,” said Tubbo. “Dream seems like bad news, so I think I’ll stay away. But at least Schlatt’s gone for a while.”
“That was all bullshit,” whispered Fundy back. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Really?” asked Tubbo, but Fundy was already gone.
That was one courting gift down. Which meant Fundy still needed to find two more. Returning to the rivers of the otherworld, he swam around looking for inspiration. Nothing, however, came to mind. And the moon was slowly but steadily slipping from the sky.
As dawn arrived, Fundy noticed Quackity resting against a tree. Curious, Fundy left the river and became a fox. It seemed he was laying out cards.
Quackity looked up and locked eyes. “Fundy?” the god of luck called out. “What are you doing here?”
Fundy sat across from him. “Trying to come up with a courting gift. You?”
“Just setting up a game.” Quackity looked up at the sky. “Courting gift, huh? I remember doing that. Me and Karl and Sapnap had been betrothed for ages, but I just couldn’t think of anything.”
“What did you end up doing?” asked Fundy.
“I eventually realised it didn’t have to be complicated. Just something that showed you cared for them. See these rings?” asked Quackity. Fundy did see them, mainly because Quackity was holding them right in front of his face. “It’s made from gold I won in the most difficult poker game I ever played. You’d thinking wearing masks would be considered cheating, but some people apparently didn’t get that memo.”
Fundy nodded and then thought.
“Thanks, Quackity,” he said, and then ran off.
Quackity returned to his cards.
Fundy returned to his den and dug through his hoard. Finally, he found it. An emerald, taken from the home of the god of blood himself, and a diamond, taken from the deepest parts of the earth. Then he grabbed a pile of bars and ran to the home of Skeppy. If anyone could shape them, it would be the god of precious materials.
That only left one gift.
The more Fundy thought about it, the more he realised he wanted to succeed. Not just to scam Dream. Thinking on Dream, he was powerful and smart and beautiful. Granted, he hadn’t actually seen what he looked like under the mask, but he could just tell.
Also, according to the stories Dream had been quite a trickster as a mortal. Maybe a marriage to Fundy could bring that old spirit out.
This final gift was important. Which meant there was only one god to go to for advice.
His father was singing when Fundy arrived. Some song he had written centuries ago, still beloved by the mortals to this day. A melody that could only have come from the god of music.
“My little champion!” cried out Wilbur. “What brings you to visit dear old dad?”
“I need advice,” Fundy admitted. He sat down next to his father. He wrapped his tail around himself. Just being around Wilbur was enough to make him feel like a young godling again. “I need a courting gift, by midnight. And it’s important to me that it's actually a good one.”
Wilbur put down his guitar. “In my experience, the best gift you can give is a gift no one else can give. A story that comes from you. That’s how you ended up being born.” He sighed wistfully. “Sally really did love that song.”
“And that’s enough about you and my mother,” said Fundy before Wilbur could share any details. “So, you think I should write him a song?”
“Doesn’t have to be a song. Just a story.”
Fundy thought hard. He wasn’t a storyteller like his father. He doubted anything he could come up with would be impressive. Fundy’s mind flashed back to his favourite book and all its illustrations. But maybe he could still tell a story he could tell. Or, rather, tell a story in a way only he could tell.
“Love you,” said Wilbur, but Fundy was already gone. It was an hour from the moon’s peak when Fundy finally returned to Dream’s clearing, and Dream was waiting for him.
“An hour early,” noted Dream. “Well, show me your courting gifts then.”
“My first gift actually should have arrived here a little while ago,” said Fundy.
“So, you’re the one who sent Schlatt here with the Revive Book?” asked Dream, not needing an answer. “Interesting. What’s your second courting gift?”
Fundy handed over a golden ring with half a diamond and half an emerald, perfectly merged, embedded in it. “A ring, with gems taken from the hardest to reach places across all the realms.” Fundy brought out another ring, hanging from a chain. “I also have one.”
Dream took the ring without comment. Fundy tried to not take that as an ill omen. “And your third and final courting gift?”
Fundy took a deep breath. “There’s a book named Treasure Planet. My favourite book. And I wanted to show you it in a way it hasn’t been shown to anyone else before, mortal or immortal.” Fundy held out his hand. “Will you follow me?”
Dream took his hand and did follow him and so Fundy showed Dream the first-ever movie.
As the story ended, Dream looked over to Fundy.
“Very well, fox,” he said. “I’ll marry you.”
And so came about the wedding of the god of order and the god of scams, but that is a tale for another night.