#cinn

[Art Fight] #7 Toastaur Strudel!

The literal sweetest taur evarrrr!!  *nom*

(Revenge) Art Fight Attack #7 on @taursrus!  Squeeeeze!

- @cinn-cinnamon

Ow…

Does he end up telling them about being a shadow knight? Or does that… reveal itself (rubbing my hands together menacingly). If so, how does that go down? What’s the reactions? The circumstances? mwahaha

Does he get to visit Cadenza? What’s that like? For that matter, are his dads alive in this universe? (AUGHEUGHEU) Does he ask Cad about them?

Oh now that's an idea...

He 100% would want to keep it on lock down. Even if these alternate versions of his friends are surprisingly chill about him being from another dimension, they even ask him questions about it, there's some stuff he refuses to tell them. Idk where he would start living, maybe with MyS Garrance who knows, but whoever first sees him without a shirt on would no doubt notice the amount of scars across his body. There's a difference between "I come from a dangerous world" and "I have scarring of multiple stab wounds and burn marks that would have easily killed someone."

If anyone tried to ask him about it he would just dodge the question, tell them that it's nothing, just wounds from a battle he's already won. I don't think his calling would fully be able to act up in this other dimension, but it would try to. He'd be hanging out with everyone, getting to know them, and then when he looks over at the now second alternate version of the woman he loves so much, it just happens. In an instant his hands become shaky, his eyes start to cloud over, and all his thoughts are filled with the urge to kill.

And let's remember, at the point he got yoinked out of his original timeline, Laurance has just barely if at all started to come to terms with his condition and what it does to him. He's still in denial about how bad it is because he doesn't want Aphmau to worry or Garroth to distrust him. He doesn't know or understand different symptoms because they just started, and now he's surrounded by people who don't even know what a Shadow Knight is.

I imagine the calling acting up would make Laurance run away, like physically run the fuck away from Lover's Lane with no way to track him because boy has inhuman speed and no phone. The thing that gets him to come back is when they find him hiding in the woods that line the city. And the person who finds him is this dimensions version of Cadenza. The one person who no matter what situation Laurance was in, is able to talk him down.

She's not the same as his sister. When he sees her he can see the difference in them. His sister is a little taller, carries herself differently, and is obviously dressed differently. But her voice sounds so similar, her laugh is the same, and the soft way she talks to a freaking out Laurance is enough to ground him to some sense of reality when he's spiraling. Cadenza was always able to talk Laurance down from a bad decision when they were kids, and now this alternate version of her is able to do the same.

MCD Laur and MyS Cadenza become absolute besties after this. Like forget his budding brotherly relationship with MyS Dante that reflects the same one they had in MCD, he's found someone he can consider family here. He never talks about what happened, just tells everyone it was some warrior instinct that went haywire. What do you mean his eyes sometimes change color when he looks at Aphmau for too long? You're making things up again Travis.

Fun little aside, Laur would 100% tell most of the cast about their counterparts, and Travis would be so upset to learn that he doesn't have one (as far as Laur knows).

And one day Laur goes to Cadenza's house so they can talk and she can figure out a way she can properly dress him. Everyone else lives alone or with another adult roommate, so he doesn't even think to ask about who she lives with. When he knocks on the door, there's nothing that can prepare him for who opens it.

It's Joh.

His dad. His real dad, or the closest thing he had to one. The man who first took him in, and the first person Laurance failed to protect.

Emotions take over logic and he just hugs this man. He doesn't know if Cadenza's informed him of the situation, he doesn't know if he's supposed to pretend to be the other Laurance, and he doesn't care. In a precious moment he's able to hug his father and maybe break down crying while he's hugging him who knows.

I do think Cadenza tried to explain to her dads that the man coming over is an alternate version of Laurance from another dimension. And while Hayden is a sci-fi nerd and can actually wrap his head around the concept, Joh was sort of nodding along for the conversation. He gets that this man looks and acts a lot like his son, but isn't his son. Yet this doppelganger hugs him the exact way his son did when he came home from college, with so much love that it crushes him.

And for Laurance, even if he knows this is no doubt an alternate version of his father, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because for just a sweet sweet moment he gets to hug his father and pretend like he didn't completely and utterly fail him. When this now very awkward hug breaks, Laurance has to come to terms with reality, see that this man is indeed different from the one he failed to protect.