Valentines Day with Wolves

Happy Valentines Day, ladies and gentlemen. Hope you kissed and made out already, or maybe even fucked.

I decided to spend my Valentines Day productively, not that I haven't been spending my days unproductively, I murdered lots of people, I cut down Dimir's resources a bit, I keep dragging Incogny by the nose, I've been very busy, so I wanted to take a day off on Valentines Day and visit one of my most favorite readers. Can you guess who?

Knitty was busy cooking up some good ol' smelling cookies, when I decided to pop in (unannounced of course) I was hoping of surprising her, but alas...

She took out the cookies out of the oven, turned to me and said "Hello".

I was slightly disappointed "Awww and here I was planning on surprising you" I noticed the cookies next "Those smell delicious, what's the occasion?"

She smiled at me, picked up a cookie from a previous batch "Heh... Check your calendar, dear. It's Valentines day" and then she gave that cookie to some sort of kid, whom I never even noticed "Sweetie, go tell the others that we have company" and then he walked off.

She turned back to me "So you thought you'd pop in and surprise me, hm? Really now, how could I be shocked to see you? You told me that you'd like to meet me and you have made a habit of appearing behind people as you did just now- but on that note tsk tsk where are your manners, dear? Didn't even knock first! What if I had just gotten out of the shower or something?".

I had to look around at her question "Manners? Me?" I couldn't sustain the laughter after that I looked at her "And naked? Why Knitty, if I didn't know your heart belonged to someone else, I would assume you were flirting with me" I looked around the surrounding area "Nice Eden you got yourself here, by the way".

She laughed playfully “Funny you accuse me of flirting when you’re the one who just appeared in my home and whose mind has skipped straight to naked, without even considering that I might have meant that I didn’t want you to see my shabby old bathrobe” (Yeah right) “But no, no, it was just a further prod about your manners- though on that note, I should remember my own” and then she gestured to the cookies “You compare this place to Eden? Then allow me to maintain tradition by tempting you with something to eat. Please help yourself to the chocolate chip cookies. Would you like-”

And then she was rudely interrupted, by the infamous motormouth we all know, love and want to wash her mouth with soap “What the shit is this?!” Fell barged inside the room holding a tomahawk in her hands, with good ol' Hart following behind her, holding a crowbar, he was slightly nervous “What the fuck are you doing here?!”

I was already chewing a cookie "...Eating a cookie?" I swallowed it "Why? You have something against Knitty's cookies?" I turned to Knitty "Which are delicious, by the way".

"Son of a bitch!" she was storming towards me, ready to attack, I was smiling all the time, seemed to piss her off even more.

But Knitty interfered "That's enough, Fell!" those words stopped her dead in her tracks “Calavera and I have just been having a relatively civil conversation. I would like to maintain this level of civility for at least a few minutes more, so please calm down” she moved closer towards Fell and asked her once again, politely this time.

Fell’s expression changed to disappointment “Okay Wolf. For you” then she glared at me, pointing her tomahawk at me “But if you try to hurt her I’ll fucking kill you!” I was still smiling, trying to sustain my laughter.

I was about to say something to provoke her further but Knitty interfered “Wonderful! Now why don’t you all have a seat at the table while I make some tea and coffee, hm? Now Calavera, which would you prefer?"

"Tea for me please" I raised both of my hands, showing a ten with my fingers "Ten spoons of sugar, please. I take my sugar very seriously" after that I started walking towards the table, as I passed by Fell, I decided to push more buttons "Cheer up Motormouth, I come in peace" sticking my tongue out at her and showing her the peace sign.

It obviously pissed her off, as I could see, she was practically ready to attack me, but was able to restrain herself by taking a deep breath. She joined me at the table, still gripping her Tomahawk and glaring at me, Hart followed her example, sat down next to her, gripping his crowbar, but instead of a pissed off glare, he was obviously nervous, that brought a smile to my face.

And the last one to join us was Knitty, setting the cups on the table “This probably can’t compete with Rose’s tea, given your description, but I do hope you’ll enjoy it anyway” she smiled at me “So, what brings you all the way out here today, Calavera?”

The mention of Rose, caught me off guard and brought a sadness upon me "...She made the best tea ever" but I was a guest, I didn't come to depress everyone, so I slap on, one of my many smiles, look at everyone behind the table "Why? It's Valentines Day! I told you I'd visit you, and realizing full and well that you and Fell had plans for this day, I made it my duty that I pay you a visit on this very day..." I looked at Fell and gestured with my finger in a naughty way "In order to make sure you kids don't do something stupid with your lives" I chuckled "But in all honesty, I came here to finally meet you Knitty, simple as that" I grabbed my cup "Now I tell you, getting into this place was no easy picnic..." took a sip of the tea "But those are the benefits of living on the board, my limits slowly disappear".

I looked at Hart, who was still eye balling me "Jesus kid, cheer up, I ain't going to, pardon my French, fuck everything up in here, besides, I doubt you'll do that much with that Crowbar" I looked at Fell and gave her a smile "Same goes for the tomahawk" after that I looked at Knitty "I'm also visiting here on business, but that can wait until later, right now, I want to simply talk and catch up, don't do that a lot these days, not ever since..." the thought of Rose got me sad again, my darling, Fortissimo, she wrapped the sleeves around me, trying to comfort me, I love her "Rose was killed".

“I might not be able to do much but you’re really fucking making me want to try anyway, cunt face” the lovely Motormouth kept her usual repertoire.

Knitty's face expression was a mixture of depression and confusion, to my reaction of Rose, but that didn't stop her to move on to the next topic "You know, I figured someone was going to eventually find a way in here with out mine or Ritter's help.... Seems about right that you would be the one to do it.... So,  catching up eh? Well, most of the significant stuff is on the blog already- I’ve continued my knitting and drawing, we’ve been training fairly hard, Carmine is long dead and… well... not buried… Carmine is dead and making for a decent lawn ornament… So how about you dear?".

The change of subject made be happier "Me? Well I am slowly ascending beyond fabrics of time and space, me and my darling..." feeling that I was feeling better, my darling reverted the sleeves back to normal "We become stronger with every second and much, much more closer" I looked at Hart who was being silent for a while now "Incognito is following my clues, soon he and I will meet and we will have the grandest dance ever!" I was getting over excited "Forgive me, sometimes I get carried a way, the thought itself, of the day when we meet, just makes me want t jump in the air!" had to actually sip some tea to calm down.

“Oh good. You and your boyfriend can finally fuck and get it over with!” Fell's sarcasm showed it's ugly head.

Knitty tried to sustain her laughter by hiding her face inside a cup of a coffee, I honestly don't understand why she'd do that, I wouldn't take offense, it's really hard to offend me “Hm.. ahem… Myself and Skein have also been getting along fairly well, though it’s a little confused and curious at the moment” as soon as she mentioned Skein, I could see the veins in her neck turning slightly darker, no doubt Skein wanted to get out and attack me “It is wondering why I don't just flip the table and attack right now, since it regards you as a direct enemy” bingo.

“I can fucking relate” Fell's very valuable input into the conversation.

“It expressed similar when Roy was here…” She was talking about Romeo, who just can not find the strength to confess his love to Juliet “At the same time, it’s following my lead, but growing curious about you due to the mentioned lack of attacking and because of Fortissimo”

“How could you not know?” It's a MIRACLE! Hart was alive all this time! In fact, he stared me right in the eye “About Rose I mean. You named her on your blog where all your enemies could see, dude. How come you were so surprised when someone killed her?” there is so many things people don't understand about Rose.

I wanted to address, Skein's desire to attack first "Of course it would regard me as a direct enemy, I mean you, Skein and this place are connected, like an big blood vessel" I sipped my tea "And when an outsider like me, just busts in, it becomes confused and since "attack" is the only course of action it is mostly familiar with, that is what it wants to do when confused, like an animal".

After that, I addressed Hart "You underestimate me Softy" I knock on my head lightly "I'm not stupid, if mentioning her was dangerous, I would never do so. See, Rose, she had abilities beyond mine, the pawn shop she stayed in, just like this place, was a "Special" spot, no random schmo could break in and if they tried, they would die. However, recently, she made a sacrifice, a sacrifice which destroyed the barrier she had" Anger overcame my gaze "Dimir cashed in on that, he knew about her long before I mentioned her on the blog, she knew that she would eventually die, so she made a sacrifice..." this is was really painful for me to say "...a sacrifice to me, she gave me access to the board..."

“Why the f-“ Fell started but was cut off by Knitty, I was wondering what she was going to ask, but it doesn't matter now I guess.

“Could you please go check on Monster, dear?”

Fell didn't want to go, but Knitty gave her a stare of a thousand daggers and Fell complied with the request and left the room. Me and Knitty were about to resume the conversation but, we were quickly interrupted by the same Motormouth that just stormed out "The little shit has been finger painting!”

I turned to see Fell dragging the same kid I mentioned earlier, covered in rotten blood.

Knitty sighed “Well Calavera, I need to clean him up. Feel free to follow if you want to keep chatting" soon everyone were in the bathroom, while all three of them were taking care of the kid, I just leaned against the wall, showing no real desire to help. Then I hear Knitty lecture the kid “I don’t want to crush whatever bit of creativity you have left, Monster, but if you want to paint like that you should use FRESH blood. Don’t pick at that corpse anymore because you’ll make yourself sick. Kids these days!”

I decided to finally ask about the kid "So this is one of your new "students"?" then I decided to give my opinion on the kid's choice of "paint" "Have to say, kid's got talent, don't yell at him, he decided to take a different approach, rather than using Fresh blood which is always red..." I sniffed in the smell of rotten blood, I love the smell of rotten blood during the day "He decided to use rotten blood, such a mixture of dark colors, don't you think?"

Knitty laughed “You could call him that but, I’m not sure how aware this ‘student’ is of the classroom, if you see what I’m getting at" she gestured at the kid, but his face was expressionless, apparently the kid was brain washed. “The colors are fine- they are not the problem, nor is the medium itself really. But he doesn’t have the sense to wear gloves or clean himself up after and I don’t want this tracked all over the cabin and potentially making Fell and Hart sick. Also, I’m honestly not sure how susceptible he himself is to illness, given his… condition. So while I’m trying to get him clean…” she was scrubbing the kid pretty hard “Is there any chance of you elaborating a bit about this board that you keep talking about?”

Her curiosity sparked my smile "I just love when people are curious" I got comfortable leaning against the wall "I can't tell you much, but I'll try to level. The board is a place, from which I can observe every game piece I want, I can see anyone, anywhere, at any time. I can even transport to them, no matter where they are, however, I can not stay in this world for too long, otherwise I slowly start losing my blood."

I took a sight from the long explanation and continued "The board is protected from any game piece, nobody can enter, not even Marshmallow" I got closer towards Knitty "I had to sacrifice my free will, once I complete my purpose, I will become a puppet, in the hands of an outsider, not a Fear, a different entity" I looked at the kid "...A mindless puppet" I sat down to level with Knitty and whispered to her "...At least that's what "he" thinks" I laughed to myself.

I saw her veins turn dark again, I know what that was all about, she was having a conversation  a feeling I'm familiar with all too well.

She looked back at me, gave me a smile and asked "'He'? Hm?" she started cleaning the kid's face “You know, my frame of reference is limited to Ritter here, but keeping yourself from being hollowed or coming back from that state is not easy… I wonder what you will do to avoid ending up like Monster” the kid was now all cleaned up, she gave Hart the cloth to dispose of and asked Fell to get the kid a shirt.

"He's out of clean shirts!" Fell was yelling across the rooms.

“Well get him one of mine” Knitty yelled back.

Soon Fell came in with one of Knitty's shirts, she put the shirt on the kid and said “There. Hope you like Alice Cooper” who the fuck is Alice Cooper? She was obviously referencing a picture of a man on the shirt, covered in some nice looking face paint “Please try not to ruin this one, immediately"

"Here" Hart came back to join us again, handing a hand made Marshmallow Doll to the kid “I thought he might want this” the kid showed first spark of life and grabbed the toy immediately snuggling it, it disgusted me, how much the child was imprisoned in someone else's world.

“Looks like you thought right” turning her attention back to me “But you didn’t come here for a lesson in babysitting. You said that you were here on business too?”

"Business, right" I gave her a complicated stare "But we need to talk in private about this.I understand that you trust your companions, but I don't, the only person I trust in here, is you and I can't afford to let them hear what this 'business' is all about" I looked at her with a more confident look "It's less of a business and more of a favor to be honest..." my stare changing into a sinister glare "You said that Carmine is still 'hanging' around, maybe we could go see him and discuss this near him?"

“Fuck you if you think we’re going to leave you two alone together!” Motormouth jumped in, she was ready to attack me “She doesn’t owe you any favors!”

“Fell…” Knitty started.

“Wolf no! Don’t you remember what happened with Carmine?” Fell cried, I was smiling the whole time, it was fun to see her almost cry.

“Yes I do” Knity said rather quietly and coldly, no doubt her mistake still haunting her, good, that's the only way to learn from them, take notes Minxie “You need to remember something too…”

“Oh yeah and what’s that?”

I don't know what kind of look Knitty gave her at the time, but apparently it was able to convince her to stop this discussion “Oh…” Fell was tightening the grip on the tomahawk “I don’t like this”

"I know" they made out and then Knitty turned her attention to me again “Come on then, Calavera” and we went outside.

And then I saw him, Carmine, still impaled on the bladed sex toy and looking very much like a bloated, rotten doll with his missing sex organs, his crudely stitched limbs without hands or feet and his patchwork of scarred and stitched flesh. His mouth had been stitched shut, making him look like he bore a doll’s smile. Holes from little prying fingers can be seen in his side. This is why I admire Knitty, she has an approach to this kind of stuff, an artistic approach.

She started looking at me, thought she had a look of curiosity on her face, but wasn't sure why. “Alright dear, here we are" She says with a grin "So what was this super secret favor you wanted?”

"The favor, right..." at that very moment my darling was trying to rip through the bandages, through my right eye hole. my darling doesn't like the bandages, so sometimes I must give her some freedom,so I started ripping off my bandages in front of Knitty, once I was done, my darling was free to stick out of my right eye hole.

"So the favor..." I looked at the ground for a second, then back up at Knitty "You shouldn't be worried that this will end up like with Carmine, in fact, I am the one in danger by trusting you..." I reached inside of my trench coat, my darling wrapped around a jar that was inside of my trench coat and got it out for me, Fortissimo held the jar between me and Knitty "Skein's attack meter must be going off the charts right now"

My darling threw the jar in the air and I caught it with my hand "Earlier you asked me what I would do to avoid ending up as a puppet, right?" I smiled at the next thought "I will die. And then, through this, I will come back" I look at Knitty "This is my request, I want you to store this jar exactly at those coordinates, I can't do it myself, since "HE" is looking over my every move, except right now"

I could see the joy in her eyes when she saw my scars, but she got back to the discussion rather quickly “Well that’s convenient. How is it that ‘he’ can’t see you right now?” I saw the veins turn black again, she looked down at them and the veins went back to normal, then she looked back up at me “And why would you trust me with something so important?”

"See, this little Eden you have here, I'm sure you know that it is part of Marshmallow. And that means, that Marshmallow protected it from an outside eye, however, not from the board. But when I appeared here, the frequency of the whole place changed a little, this is what happens when the frequency of the board collides with the frequency of any other Fear" I clapped my hands together "In result, those two collisions isolate everyone's view, do you know why Marshmallow isn't here yet? Because, just like "he" it can't see us right now"

"As for, why do I trust you?" I pointed to Carmines body "This is why. We understand each other, both of our minds work in our own way that no one can comprehend" I pointed at her "Both of us, we live in our worlds, which we built, we are one of the few people that have the will power and the smarts to do something like that" a smile appeared on my face "We might not understand each other's worlds, but we do understand the importance of our worlds and thus..." I raised my hands up in the air "Respect is born" I spread my arms to both sides "That is why I trust you, because you understand and thus respect me and I understand and respect you, which is why I doubt you will betray me" I pointed to the jar full of black substance "This doesn't get in the way of your goals, if it did, then you would betray me"

Knitty paced around for a few moments, obviously thinking over what I just said “God damn it Calavera…” she gave me a smile “Alright. I’ll do it” then her smile turned slightly evil “But what would you have done, had I said no?”

That caught me off guard, I didn't consider a back up plan "...I would ruing your sculpture?" I pointed at Carmine's body "To be honest with you, I didn't think about that, I guess I wouldn't let you see the scars? I don't know" as I said I was caught off guard.

Knitty's smile turned into a grin “Oh” She started to laugh “Well I’ve said yes, so I suppose you don’t need to worry about that now, hm?”

I handed her the jar with the coordinates, but I wasn't done yet "Always a pleasure, however, it is a bit unfair don't you think?" I crossed my arms "You've never showed me yours..."

Knitty looked down, her mischievous smile coming back “You want to see? Okay” she let skein slide down her sweater, revealing a short sleeved shirt under it. She held her arms out revealing a bunch of cuts and even some stitches.

I looked through them and couldn't sustain a whistle "Not bad..." I payed close attention to her scars "I hope you keep a track of these, I used to do it myself, but was quite impossible..." I started walking around her, admiring the scars, she wasn't a human to me anymore, she was a painting at an exhibition "Damn I'm jealous, must feel good to feel them, wish I could feel mine..." I looked at my hands "Sometimes I hate my numb body"

“I remember which ones I made and which were made by others” She smiled “They do feel very good… The pain helps in its way” She lowered her arms “On the other hand, at least you will never find yourself hindered by it” Meh

"Yeah..." a minute of silence and then I saw it, my blood hitting the ground, I was bleeding out from the nose and the ears, my time was running out "Oh great, I hate this..." I looked at Knitty "I'm afraid I must take my leave now, thanks a lot for agreeing to help me out, I will remember that and I will return the favor, for when I return" I extended my hand for a hand shake "It was finally nice meeting you, Knitty"

She returned the smile and shook my hand "It was great to meet you too dear. Good luck, Calavera"

And then I took my leave.

Now obviously you're already jumping at me yelling, "Hey Kelevra, now that you posted about this, your secretive plan, doesn't seem so secretive anymore, to top it all off "He" knows about your plan." Calm down bitches. Knitty already hid the jar, so there ain't nothing that can find it. As for "Him" it doesn't matter, he made a deal with me, and he will honor that deal, otherwise his existence will crumble, so I thought of everything here, no worries.

So I spent my Valentines Day, pretty awesomely. Got to piss off Fell, meet up with my favorite reader and in a sense colleague, saw Carmine's dead body hanging from a sex toy. All went well.

She also drew this for me, isn't that great? Thanks a lot Kntty!