Chapter Text
“So what’re we playing?” Chase glanced over his recording software, his chat, his video game feed, and his Discord call with DiamondDiva. “‘Sup, chat?”
“The Giant and The Sylvan on Steam,” DiamondDiva answered as the two playable characters of the game swayed in an idle animation on the game start screen. “It’s a two-player puzzle 3D platformer co-op published by Yuunko Studios. It’s been fairly popular lately.”
“They sponsoring us?”
DiamondDiva’s tongue clicked, and he then muttered, “Missed opportunity.”
Chase snickered.
“No, we’re not sponsored. I just saw it was popular, and I read up on what type of game it was.” DiamondDiva clicked through the game start screen to the character select screen. “One of us will play the human-sized character, and one of us will play the mouse-sized character.”
“Mouse-sized?” Chase questioned as his controller icon passed back and forth between both characters. His thumb flicked his joystick back and forth for the idle stim. “I dunno. They looked a little bit bigger than a mouse.”
“My mouse ruler is broken. As a result, I haven’t been regularly measuring mice, so it’s up in the air what animal you want to compare to the tiny character.” DiamondDiva’s joking tone was indistinguishable from his serious one.
“Dude,” Chase held back a laugh, “computer mouse?”
After a pause, DiamondDiva released a soft laugh. “Whatever. We’ll see how tall the tiny character is when we’re moving around in a three-dimensional space. Which one do you want to play? You seem to be….” DiamondDiva watched Chase’s controller icon fly between characters. “...Indecisive.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll be…the tall guy.” Chase’s controller icon settled on the human character who wore plain clothes: a white cotton t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Chase selected the human character, leaving DiamondDiva’s controller to shift right over the tiny character who wore a sash of borrowed fabric wrapped around his body like a short toga and secured in place with a button the size of the tiny being’s head. The tiny character had unkempt dark hair which flicked every which way, large elf-ish ears, and a long tail with a fluffy tuft of hair at the very end like a lion’s.
“Alright.” DiamondDiva selected the tiny character, and both he and Chase selected the confirmation choice to set the game in motion. “I suppose you’ll need my help the whole time, hm?”
“Better hope it’s not a race.” Chase chuckled and leaned back as the opening cutscene played. “Oh, hey, look. There you are now.”
DiamondDiva’s tiny character jogged between plant stalks and rocks with his tail whipping behind him. “Hm,” DiamondDiva hummed, “I look terribly nervous.” The tiny character glanced around with a concerned determination in their eyes before they snuck over to a patch of clovers and began to pluck them from where they grew. “All this fuss over clovers?” The camera view slowly zoomed out and up. “Oh. Uh oh.”
“Hm? What’s up?”
“The camera’s moving up and out. Something bigger is com—.” An overturned jar fell into the shot, landing on the tiny character and trapping them within the rounded glass walls. “Ah. See?” The camera changed shots to show the human character squat down beside the jar. “Oh, it’s you. Chase, why’re you trapping me? I thought we were friends.”
Chase laughed. “I dunno. Guess I just think you’re all helpless out in the forest all alone. Aw, hey. Lookie at your eyes.” The tiny character’s eyes were wide with panic, and they pounded their little fists on the glass jar wall. “Poor lil guy…. Yeah, I’m definitely picking you up to save you.” The human character watched, eyes wide with curiosity, until something else caught their attention. They lifted their head, and the camera shot changed to show the human now surrounded with a circle of men in seemingly military uniforms.
“Oh, great. You’ve got the army on my tail.” DiamondDiva huffed out a laugh. “Nice going.” The camera then faded to black. “That’s it?”
“Nah, give it a bit.” Chase grabbed a glass of ice water on his desk and sipped it before placing it back down. He glanced between his chat—roasting him as usual—and the game’s cutscene.
The new scene came into focus with the tiny character slowly blinking and then pushing themself up to stand. They looked around, and their eyebrows pulled together with worry. The camera continued to zoom out to show that the tiny character was trapped within a different jar.
“Oh, what? Is it my fate to live in glass jars the whole game? Prison after prison after prison,” DiamondDiva muttered.
Chase snickered. “Is this where our chats find out you’re a jailbird?”
DiamondDiva let out a startled laugh. “What? No. I just want to do more than be trapped in glass jars.” Finally, the cutscene ended, allowing DiamondDiva to walk around within the jar and punch the glass wall. The tiny character flinched and shook their hand. “Ugh. Well, I’m doomed.” DiamondDiva faced Chase’s human character. “What sort of situation are you in?”
Chase moved his camera to take stock of the bare room around them. His human character sat on the floor against the wall with a chain bolted into the wall beside them. The chain led to a locked cuff around their ankle. DiamondDiva’s jar sat on a table a few feet away from Chase. “Let’s see….” Chase flicked around his joystick and clicked a few buttons, urging his character to stand. “M’kay. I can stand up.” Chase walked around his space but forcibly stopped once the chain’s length was reached. “Can’t walk to the door or window, though.”
“Can you reach me?” DiamondDiva tried to punch the jar again and received the same animation from before of the tiny character shaking their hand in pain. He looked down to see a long rectangle affixed to the outside of the jar. “Oh, wait.” He turned his camera to get an eye on the sticker label. “Height: 12.7 centimeters. Tail Length: 10 centimeters. Weight: 0.9 ounces—This isn’t helpful. I’m just reading about how useless I am.”
Chase laughed softly and walked towards the table. “C’mon. I doubt that you’re just here to be a damsel.” He scooped up the jar, sending the tiny creature flopping around inside. “Oops. Sorry.” Chase then unscrewed the lid riddled with breathing holes and set the lid aside. “Lemme just.” He set the jar down on its side on the table, and then stepped back. “How’s that?”
DiamondDiva’s character crawled out of the jar and then pulled themself to stand. For a moment, DiamondDiva’s walking was wobbly, and dizzy spirals floated around his head before disappearing. “Okay, next time you break me out of a jar, don’t use it as a maraca first.”
Chase let out a laugh. “Yeah, okay. Got it.”
“Okay….” DiamondDiva slowly turned his view around the room. “Window…, plain wall, plain table, plain chair. You’re chained to the wall.” He paused when his sights fell on the door. “I’ll try over there first.”
“Sure.” Chase moved to sit back against the wall.
DiamondDiva jogged over to the side of the table and then hopped down to the seat of the chair. “Nice. No fall damage. At least, not at this height. It’d be nice if I didn’t have any at all.” He then walked to the edge of the seat and hopped down to the tile floor. “At least I can run,” he sighed as he jogged over to the door. “No gaps…. Oh.” DiamondDiva walked near a crack in the wall, and then proceeded to climb up it all the way to the door handle. His tail idly waved back and forth as he perched on the door handle he’d hauled himself onto. He lifted his head to get a view of the world around him. The cold tile floor, the colorless walls, and the stark ceiling light which flickered every so often made for a terribly inhospitable environment. “Now that I think about it, this doesn’t look anything like the Steam page advertisement. Maybe…. Could you try to get to that window? Maybe it’ll let you now.”
“Eh.” Chase glanced around the room. He tugged against the chain that connected his ankle to the wall to no avail. “Hm.” He pushed himself up to stand and attempted to walk to the high-up window set in the wall opposite of him. Again, he made no progress past the short length of the chain. “Guess the first level is Breakout City and then we can run around doing whatever we want in the forests and frost places and stuff.”
“This isn’t an open world game, Chase.” DiamondDiva scanned what he could see. “It looks like you’ll have to lift me up to the window.”
Chase looked down to his ankle. “Nah, you’re gonna have to get over there yourself.”
“Right, yes. What button do I press to sprout wings?”
Chase chuckled. “Alright. 3D-platformer, right? So there’s probably platforms for you to jump across to get to the window.” His focus fell to the rough-looking table in front of him complete with splintering wood, nails which bent every which way as they stuck out of the partly rotting wood, and a missing leg.
“I’m telling you I don’t see any.” DiamondDiva watched as Chase tried to reach for the nails and failed. His gaze drifted around the room again. “Oh. Wait.” The sound of buttons clicking faintly played through Chase’s headphones before DiamondDiva hopped down from the door handle, crumpled down to wince and take fall damage, and then forced himself to stand. “Ugh. Alright. I have fall damage at that height. Won’t do that again.” He hurried across the room and stood beside one of the table’s legs. “Are you going to let me…?” DiamondDiva reached out and yanked one of the crooked nails from the table leg. “Yes!” He looked to Chase with a smile. “I have a sword.”
“You got a nail.”
“I’ve got tetanus. Potentially.”
Chase snickered. “Alright, cool, so you got…what’s that? Chemical warfare?”
“Yup. Don’t tell the cops. Or.” DiamondDiva looked to the locked door. “Scientists? Orderlies? Whoever locked us in here.” He walked over to Chase’s ankle cuff. “Will it let me…?” His words trailed off as he jammed the crooked nail into the keyhole opening and fussed with it. The cuff clicked open, releasing Chase. “It worked! Hunh. That was…worryingly simple.”
“It’s the tutorial, dude.” Chase squatted down and grabbed DiamondDiva before standing up again.
“Ah! Hey!” DiamondDiva squirmed in Chase’s grasp as his arms were pinned to his sides. “My health’s going down! Don’t grab me like a baby grabs an iPad! Hold me like a person!”
“Oh—,” Chase set DiamondDiva down on the wooden table. “Sorry, DD. Weird.” Chase looked down at his hand and attempted different button presses to see if he had a different grabbing option. “Hm. Oh. Thanks, tutorial hint.” Chase clicked a combination of buttons and held his hand out in front of DiamondDiva, offering a ride instead of snatching him up. “Hop on the magic carpet, DD.”
DiamondDiva walked forward before falling to his knees on Chase’s hand and wrapping his arms around Chase’s thumb for stability. “This should do.”
“Great.” Chase paused before releasing a soft laugh. “Not gonna lie. I’m hoping there’s a lil dress-up side game.” He headed over to the window and hovered his hand beside the window sill.
“I’ll be sure to dress your hand in the loveliest ball gown before you get the chance to stuff me into anything.” DiamondDiva released his hold on Chase’s thumb and then stood before hopping over to the window sill.
“Oh, my god.” Chase attempted to keep his enthusiasm at bay. “I can’t get over your cute lil tail! And your lil elf ears,” he chirped and curled a finger against the tufted fluff at the end of DiamondDiva’s tail.
“Health! Health points!” DiamondDiva turned and yanked his tail out of Chase’s two-finger grasp.
Chase’s hand fell to his side. “Really? Just from that? Geez.”
“Is it because I’m so small?” DiamondDiva’s gaze drifted left and right as he caught sight of his very few stats. He sighed. “That’s pretty imbalanced.” He turned to the window and yanked on the locking latch. When it didn’t budge, he stood aside. “Could you try it?”
“Sure, pipsqueak,” Chase chuckled.
DiamondDiva huffed.
Chase tugged the latch open and yanked one side of the window inward, revealing a wooden plank blocking his path out the window. “Hm. The window looks just barely big enough to fit me, and I look like…regular-human size.” He clicked a few buttons, but none of them allowed him to punch the wooden plank out of the way.
“Let me check.” DiamondDiva yanked on the other side of the window and shoved it open before crawling onto the thick wooden plank. He peered out at the scenery: large swaths of dirt and sand were separated by streaks of unkempt grass, and a chain link fence sat in the distance around the secure property. Beyond that was a lush forest. “Wow…, that looks more like the Steam page listing.” He turned his attention back to the wooden plank and gasped softly. “Hey, it’s being held in place with those crooked nails like the ones in the table. I bet I could pull them out.”
“Go on, then.” Chase waited at the window as DiamondDiva crawled down the wooden plank.
DiamondDiva tugged a nail out of the wooden plank and tucked it under his solitary button on his clothes. “One done. One to go.” He turned around and carefully crawled to the other end of the plank before tugging out the second nail. “Okay, now to—ChaSE—!”
Chase watched as the wooden plank fell from the window at breakneck speed with DiamondDiva shooting out of existence with it. “DD!” Chase adjusted his camera to lean out of the window to see that they were locked up on the second floor of the research facility. Right below the window was a larger expanse of wild grass, and a worry of insect enemies invaded Chase’s thoughts. “Hang tight, DD!”
“Where am I?”
“Are you awake? If just touching your tail is gonna bring down your HP, then that fall’s gotta wipe out a life or something.” Chase climbed out of the window and carefully maneuvered his way to a crumbling ledge.
“My screen went black, and there’s stars circling.” After a pause, DiamondDiva spoke again. “Oh. I’m awake now. Standing up. And I have…one health point left. Great. What’s the benefit of being tiny in this game?”
“There’s probs something. I mean. If you couldn’t use the nails, we wouldn’t have made it out of the locked room.” Chase eased his way down the ledges. “You focus on getting to the end of your part of the level, and I’ll see you at the end of it.”
DiamondDiva sighed. “Alright.” He took note of the second nail he had dropped before picking it up and placing it beside the first one behind his button. He lifted his head to view the level around him. “Okay….” His eyes widened as he saw a particularly fluffy white rat not that far off. “Excuse me? …Sir?” DiamondDiva walked over to the rat and selected the dialogue option that popped up.
The rat sat up, almost towering over DiamondDiva. She quickly rubbed at her sparkling eyes and watched DiamondDiva with an interested gaze. “Greetings!” She sniffed. “You’re a curious little thing. Did you wander out of the pointy place?”
DiamondDiva frowned and glanced back at the looming dull gray building behind him. “I just escaped with a friend, but I fell into tall grass. And….” He begrudgingly admitted, “...and I’m too small to be able to find my way out on my own. I don’t know if my giant friend will be able to find me.”
“Oh, my. You do seem lost.” The rat circled DiamondDiva and inspected him. “Oh! You have a tail like I do! But you walk so strangely.” She sat in front of him and tilted her head. “My name is Addi. I graduated from the pointy place a few days ago.”
“‘Graduated’?”
“Oh, yes. I think that’s what it’s called when your cagemate bites the ever-lovin’ stuffing out of the head scientist and you both make a break for it.” Addi sat up and glanced away from the imposing building. “She said she’d meet me at the fairy fountain in the forest, but I can’t find my way there. Perhaps we can help each other! You saw where everything was before you fell, right?”
DiamondDiva nodded. “Yes. Um.” He looked back at the building. “I can find where we need to go, and we can meet our friends together.”
“Wonderful!” Addi walked around DiamondDiva again before settling on all fours beside him. “Hop on my back, and I can carry you to the forest!”
“Thank you.” DiamondDiva hooked a leg over Addi’s back and settled in. Once he was settled, he directed Addi through the forest of tall grass, hopping over crevices as he went.
“How’re you holding up, DD?” Chase stepped carefully along the building’s ledge. His tongue curled as he focused on holding a combination of buttons. “DD?” He asked again after a few silent seconds.
“We’re apart right now, Chase.”
“Yeah?” Chase grasped a storm drain and climbed down it to settle on the dirt patches of the surrounding land. “Doesn’t mean we can’t talk.”
“It means that if we want to stick to the bit of being separated.”
Chase pouted and tilted his camera to get a good view of his surroundings. “Maybe I don’t want to stick to that bit.” With a glance left and right and a judgement call, Chase headed forward towards the chain link fence. “Maybe I wanna still talk. How close are you to the fence?”
“We’re supposed to meet at this fairy fountain. The rat said so.”
Chase paused and titled his camera back towards the unruly patches of grass between the fence and the building. “‘The rat said so’?”
“Yeah. She said she and her cage mate escaped some days ago and needed help to find each other again at the fairy fountain, so I imagine we have to help them.”
Chase hummed in thought as he approached the fence. “I haven’t seen another rat yet.” He tried a few button combinations at the fence until he came across a rusted piece of it. “Oh. Probably need this to come down.” After an attempted punch, Chase tried a kick, breaking the fence post and pulling that part of the fence down altogether. “Hey! Alright, door’s open.” He looked around and released a sigh. “Kinda can’t believe the scientist people aren’t sending out guys to get us back.”
“Perhaps we only needed the facility for the tutorial.” DiamondDiva reasoned as he was carried by Addi the rat out from the long stalks of grass. He looked up at Chase. “Hi.”
Chase’s gaze fell to the ground to see DiamondDiva and Addi. He knelt down and released a laugh. “Oh my goooood. This is so cute.” He clicked a button and offered his hand, palm-up, to Addi and DiamondDiva.
Addi leaned close, sniffed at Chase’s hand, and then scampered onto it. She then squeaked out a thanks and settled down as Chase stood.
Chase chuckled. “I can’t get over it. You’re just missing a cowboy hat and a saddle.”
DiamondDiva unsheathed a bent nail and waved it in Chase’s direction. “Keep laughing at me, and you’ll get a taste of my iron.” He tapped the rounded edge of the nail against Chase’s thumb.
“Pfft—!” Chase shook his head and walked over the knocked-down fence. “You gotta sound more joking when you joke. People are gonna actually think you’re mad at me for real.”
“Ah.” DiamondDiva sheathed his nail. “Chat, I’m playing the part of a small person who would be annoyed at being treated like a toy. For all intents and purposes, I am not actually peeved.” After a pause, DiamondDiva looked up at Chase. “That didn’t sound at all convincing, did it?”
“No,” Chase laughed as he walked farther down the forest path.
DiamondDiva huffed. “So this is the true downside of having a serious voice. The lack of comedic effect.”
“Nah, you can be comedic, but you gotta be the straight man or…. Wait, what was that thing called?” Chase turned to the side to sidle between a set of trees and then step down some mossy stair-like landings. “It’s in anime. I think. Deadpan thing.”
After a pause and a few taps on DiamondDiva’s end, he spoke, his voice a couple octaves lower in disbelief, “The deadpan snarker?”
Chase snickered as the forest gradually grew more shaded around them despite the sunlight dappling through the leaves along their loosely-defined path. “Yeah, the deadpan snarker. That’s comedic relief, and you’re good at snark. Win-win.”
DiamondDiva sighed and leaned forward, partly lying down on Addi. “Born to sparkle, raised to snark.”
“No reason you can’t do both at the same time,” Chase reasoned. “That’s, like, your whole thing.” He paused at a fork in the path and adjusted his camera to look down each trail. “Hm. We’ve been walking for a hot minute, but the forest still looks the same.”
DiamondDiva lifted his head and eyed both paths. “...Chase, sparkles.”
“There we go, DD. Sparkle on.”
“No,” DiamondDiva stifled a laugh. “No, no. The path on the right. There are sparkles that I can see when I tilt my camera.”
“Maybe the shadows help,” Addi squeaked.
“Maybe,” DiamondDiva mused.
“Hm? Maybe what?” Chase glanced between the two beings settled on his hand and the paths.
“Addi said something. She said something about the shadows helping. Now that I think about it…. Chase, stand in a shadow-heavy part of the path. Walk down the right side.” DiamondDiva sat up at attention and kept a lookout.
“Who’s Addi?” Despite the confusion, Chase walked on, following DiamondDiva’s instructions.
DiamondDiva leaned down and patted Addi’s side. “This is Addi. Her name appears whenever she speaks. It doesn’t show up for you?”
“Nah. Whenever she squeaks, it just says ‘Lab Rat’.”
DiamondDiva scoffed and muttered, “Judgy dialogue tags.”
Chase snickered and walked on. As he proceeded down the path, the shadows grew more numerous, darkening the forest around them. The few blinks of sunlight through the tree leaves diminished as they approached another set of branching paths. “Mmmmmnah.” Chase adjusted his camera down both paths. “I can’t see anything. It’s just kinda the same kind of dark.”
DiamondDiva glanced down each path. “On the left. There’s sparkles on the left. You can’t see them?”
Chase headed down the left path. “Nah. I’m starting to think that the only power I got is being tall.” After a pause, Chase gasped. “Oh, yoooo. DD, I think you’re a fairy.”
“Ach, a short joke?”
“Hear me out.” Chase ducked between two close-together trees again. “You can talk to the lab rat. You can see the sparkles. We’re on our way to this fairy fountain thing, so the sparkles—that I can’t see but you can—are probably the fairies showing the way to you so you can direct us to the fairy fountain.”
“Hunh. I wouldn’t expect a game like this to have a little mystery in it.” DiamondDiva slowly turned his camera to take in their surroundings for clues. “It’s nice that it isn’t whacking us over the head with it. A nice storytelling feature.”
Chase gasped. “Oh my god. Was that a compliment about storytelling?”
“I’m not allergic to them.” DiamondDiva eyed another fork in their path. “Go left.”
Chase followed DiamondDiva’s instruction without stopping his pace. “Nah, not allergic at all, Mr. Facet Friday.”
DiamondDiva snickered. “I enjoy a good story and well-done narrative techniques. Complaining and coming up with creative insults are fun, but I love a good story, too.” He heaved a sigh. “Makes me pissed when I see a good set-up handled so badly. Go right.”
Chase headed down the right path. “It’s getting so dark that I can’t really see anything anymore. Oop—” Chase’s character walked on without his input. “Guess we’re still going.”
The screen darkened for a few moments, and a white and gold loading animation popped up in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. After a few seconds, the screen brightened to show the true heart of the forest: the fairy fountain. The camera’s view panned over the scenery, showing the large, lush trees bursting with green leaves, populated by plentiful mushrooms, and sequined with hundreds of flowers glistening with dew. At the center of the scene rested a pool of crystal blue water, rocks and gems carefully placed on an altar at the back of the pool, and smooth stones pressed into the sand at the front of the pool for a gathering plaza and walkway. All sorts of little humanoid creatures of DiamondDiva’s size floated between the ground below up to leaves above and twinkled between splashes in the pool.
“Oh, what the hell. They can fly, and I can’t?” DiamondDiva huffed. “Be careful where you step. There’s loads of fairies near your feet.”
Chase halted and looked down at all the fairies flying and running by his feet. “M’kay. I’m just gonna be real careful and sit down so I don’t knock anything over.” As slowly as his controls would allow, Chase moved to squat and then sit down just before the stone plaza. He hovered his hand, palm-up, just above the stones.
Addi jumped up and scampered off Chase’s hand, giving him another squeak of thanks as she did. “Could you help me find my cagemate?” She lifted her head and sniffed at the air in an attempt to find the trail. “She’s my size, and she has dark gray fur.”
“Sure.” DiamondDiva balanced himself on Addi’s back. “Chase, do you see a rat around? She has dark gray fur.”
“Checkin’.” Chase scanned the tiny horizon. “Geez. S’like a Where’s Waldo video. Hey. Fairy guys? Could you guys, like, …I dunno—stop for a minute?” He slowly dragged his view all around until he spotted a little mass of dark gray fur. “Oh! Hey, it looks like she’s over by the water. Town center? I guess?”
DiamondDiva directed Addi between fairies who rushed around in their daily lives until the two reached the pool of water at the center.
Once the gray rat was in view, Addi scampered freely over. “Selena,” she squeaked happily, “Selena, it’s you!” She nuzzled a fluffy cheek against the gray rat’s—Selena’s—cheek.
DiamondDiva dismounted and stepped back to give the lab rats space.
“Addi!” Selena chattered and nuzzled back. “I was so worried when I arrived and you weren’t here!”
“I’m sorry.” Addi turned and settled beside Selena, leaning against her. “Thankfully, I had help from two heroes.” She nodded to DiamondDiva and then towards Chase. “They helped me through the forest to the fairy fountain. Without them, I would’ve never found my way.”
“Thank you!” Selena nodded to DiamondDiva and then to Chase. “Thank you very much!” She directed her attention to a particularly extravagantly dressed fairy. “Lady Brynne, look! These two helped Addi across the Field of Decay and through the Lost Path!”
A fairy who stood a mere foot away from the lab rat couple gave Selena a warm smile. Her gossamer silks burst from her waist like nearly weightless petals. Beads of dew glittered along her bodice and down her outermost spider silk skirt like stars in the night sky. Her twinkling lilac eyes drifted to DiamondDiva and then up to Chase. “How wonderful,” Lady Brynne chimed. “Please accept these gifts for your good deed.”
A ruby red berry appeared to float in front of DiamondDiva and Chase, one for each of them. DiamondDiva reached out and grasped the fruit that was nearly the size of his head. “I wonder if I can finish it?”
“I haven’t seen you eat yet.” Chase took his berry between his thumb and forefinger and then popped it into his mouth. Once he gulped it down, a new heart appeared alongside his three previous hearts in the upper left hand corner of his screen. “Oh, nice. It’s gonna give you another heart. You needed as much as you could get, right?”
DiamondDiva huffed and then stuffed his face with the berry, gobbling it down. He rubbed his fists against his cheeks as his new heart appeared on his own screen. “At least I get another health point.”
“Now that that’s settled….” Lady Brynne’s gaze slowly traveled up and down, taking in DiamondDiva’s outfit. Her smile pulled tight as it still tried to be polite. “It seems that you’re lacking…clothes.”
DiamondDiva turned his camera in silence. All around him were fairies in tailored silks, petal and leaf skirts, branch-boned corsets, and acorn accessories. “...Excuse you. This is the finest mechanic’s rag I could find.”
Chase let out a laugh.
Lady Brynne’s smile shook off its cringe. “Please accept these garments.”
A draw-string bag made of sewn green leaves appeared in front of DiamondDiva where the berry had appeared mere seconds before. “Oh?” DiamondDiva reached forward, touched the bag, and watched it fly into sparkles. “Oh my god.”
“What’s up?” Chase glanced around the border of his screen. “Wait. There’s actually a dress-up part of this game?” Excitement and the promise of laughter bubbled in his voice. With a quick click of a couple menu buttons, Chase pulled up a window displaying DiamondDiva’s character standing and staring straight ahead along with a set of five outfits to choose from in a side menu. “Oh. Oh. C’mon, let’s dress you up.”
DiamondDiva sighed and flicked through his options. “A few of these are so ostentatious…. Very impractical.”
“Okay, we got a rose petal ball gown, a super frilly royal court costume, this dark asymmetrical dealio, a cool lil leaf suit with an acorn capsule beret, and a kinda fabric romper thing.” Chase flicked the joystick to scroll down. “Oh, we can probably earn more outfits as we go through the game.” He moved his cursor over the potential selections. “Aww, you’d look great in the rose petal dress, but you’d probably wanna be able to move around.” His cursor flicked between the leaf suit and the romper.
After a pause, DiamondDiva released another sigh. “Have you decided?”
“Hm? What d’ya mean? You didn’t tell me what you want yet. Do you want the dress, the Shakespeare collar, the dark look, the leaf suit, or the romper?”
“I choose?” DiamondDiva asked with genuine confusion in his tone. “It’s not giving me the choice to. I can see myself in the different options, but I don’t have a way to confirm my selection.”
“Hunh. Weird. Maybe it’s a glitch. Anyway, which one do you want?”
DiamondDiva hummed in thought. A pen scribbled against a notepad before being set aside with a soft clack. “Alright, then. Put me in the dark asymmetrical look.”
“You got it.” Chase selected the dark asymmetrical look and watched DiamondDiva’s character spin in a circle as bursts of sparkles covered his body before disappearing to reveal the selected outfit. The dark iridescent silk began at DiamondDiva’s neck, stretched down his arms to a point just above his hands, and stretched farther down into his knee-length boots. Wine red petals trailed from his upper left shoulder down his chest to layer at his right hip before bursting from his waist, creating a half-skirt of black dahlia petals. “Whoaaaa, DD, you clean up nice!” Chase selected the confirm option, and the dress-up window disappeared, allowing the cutscene to continue.
“Of course I do. I absolutely made the right choice.” DiamondDiva turned his view to admire his new outfit from different angles.
Lady Brynne continued on, unbothered by how long it took Chase and DiamondDiva to choose new clothes. “And finally, please accept this brush.”
“Hm?” DiamondDiva watched as his character flinched away from the toothbrush that spontaneously appeared in front of him. Judging by the fact that it was taller than he was, he assumed a human had left it in the forest a long time ago. “Thank…you?” The toothbrush disappeared into sparkles, and a new icon appeared in DiamondDiva’s actions menu.
The cutscene ended, leaving Chase and DiamondDiva to wander the area if they liked.
“What’d you get?” Chase tilted his view to try and see among the bustling crowd of fairies.
“A toothbrush….” DiamondDiva wandered over to Chase and climbed onto his knee. “I’m wondering if it’s supposed to work like a spear?” His gaze flicked between the icon and his buttons. Once he clicked the correct combination, DiamondDiva watched as his character pulled the toothbrush out of thin air and held it up to Chase. “What? What am I? Your messenger?”
Chase laughed as his character accepted the toothbrush. He brushed a thumb along the soft bristles, and then DiamondDiva’s character flopped down to stretch out on Chase’s thigh. “You catching a nap?”
“I’m not controlling it.” That said, DiamondDiva didn’t argue. His character folded his arms and rested his head against them.
“Then…?” Chase clicked a button and watched as his character gently dragged the bristles down DiamondDiva’s tail. “Oh.” With each brush down DiamondDiva’s tail, a few sparkles shined around the toothbrush and then disappeared. “Enjoying your spa day?”
DiamondDiva was quiet for a moment. “Interesting…. Oh. It looks like this brushing brings my health points back up and gives me an extra bonus health berry heart. Whatever they’re called.”
“Dang, this indie company really just made Nintendogs for fairies.”
DiamondDiva broke into a laugh, accompanied by Chase’s snickers.
Many thanks to leejeann on Tumblr for making this magical landscape fan art for this chapter!!