#knoppegarten

Not-Ryan is still screaming profanities, pressed against the passenger door to maximise the distance between himself and the clearly unhinged, dog-faced Fae who just hijacked his vehicle, and is now attempting a clumsy, grunting dance with the uncooperative clutch.

The chaos rattling around inside the cabin is interrupted by a thunderous tremor, vibrating up from the ground beneath them.

Then another, boom. Scrape; boom; scrape, rhythmic, as something titanic approaches from the rear on claws and legs big enough to disrupt the surrounding traffic.

Both occupants turn to look through the back window, in time to shriek in unison at the serpentine figure bearing down on them teeth-first.

CRASH, as a spidery, articulate hand the span of the entire car slaps down on its roof, cracking every window and irreparably buckling both axles. “REX, YOU SQUIGGLY FUCK” the serpent howls; Rex and not-Ryan redouble their screaming, before the driver’s side door is pinched in half and ripped from the hinges.

Another, similarly arachnine hand reaches into the car and wraps around Rex in his entirety, squeezing just enough to deflate his mania with a little squeak! He kicks formlessly as he’s pulled from the driver’s seat, leaving nothing behind but the thumps and honks of his bullet-like feet striking at least every square inch of the front console.

By now, it’s all not-Ryan can do to hyperventilate; the air hitches in his lungs as the serpent’s colossal face makes its appearance in the gaping void left by his car door. Human features, unsettlingly soft and smooth around those horrible pointed teeth, regard him with a matronly kind of exhaustion.

“I am sincerely sorry, he has a seizure condition. Let me get you my details, for the… the car stuff. I have a guy.” Its voice is too smooth and lilting to pick a gender, unlike Rex, who looks and sounds like a bogan vampire — despite his petulant screaming having returned at a helium pitch.

In all the confusion, not-Ryan latches on to a concept more foreign to him than the existence of Fae at all, which is barely news in the era of camera phones. “Wait—Fae can have seizures?”

The serpent’s statuesque face was withdrawing, but the promise of an impromptu lecture brings its aquiline Germanic nose front and centre once more. Huge, pale yellow eyes peer into the rumpled cabin. “Oh! Yes, and Rex is right from the taproot of our tree, so actually his spasms hit all of us. It’s quite fascinating, in fact—”

Not-Ryan half-listens, figuring himself more or less a captive audience, while his wider awareness registers the rest of the serpent’s pied coils compressing into a more catlike form under the initial forty-or-so feet of muscular neck.

“— And I’m forced by necessity to bear down on mine, so of course I have constant pounding headaches while I have to deal with his dissociative episodes—”

“Dissociative episodes, uh-huh,” not-Ryan mutters, eyes flickering around for signs of where the serpent stashed its prey. He hasn’t decided which one is the more present threat: the titanic Sphynx making a resting spot of the entire highway while it vents its frustrations; or the tiny, hyper-manic dogman who seems to be some kind of literally spastic escape artist, smuggling a frightening amount of lean muscle and compacted rage.

“—I could go into the nitty-gritty of Fae physiology, all the interlinked psychic viscera, the somato-sensory homunculus, shapeshifting and dysmorphia, etcetera—”

Actually, the long-winded hyperfixation is helping not-Ryan locate his own  frantic pulse again, and he’s able to start absorbing specific details — like the serpent’s magpie-styled fur and disturbingly graceful fingers, as it gesticulates with (he counts briefly) at least eight arms. He finally spots the captive hijacker, and breathes a sigh of relief; it’s far more comforting that ‘Rex’ is visibly accounted for, lest he airdrop on a less experienced driver.

“S-sorry,” not-Ryan begrudgingly interrupts, “you said something about—about fixing my car?”

The Sphynx-Fae blinks a couple of times and makes an exasperated “nguh” noise, shaking off the word-vomit. “Of course, I’m so sorry. My name is Weaver, let me just— uh. Hold on, I have no pockets—” two or three arms disappear into the fur… feathers… coat of Weaver’s neck, which begins rustling around like they’re looking for something. One arm darts back out and places a pair of low-profile spectacles atop that proud nose.

Not-Ryan points a hesitant finger at Rex, who has since stopped thrashing and looks suspiciously limp in Weaver’s sinewy grip. “He okay? Or uh. Alive?”

It pauses in its rifling and turns its attention to Rex, who has been absent-mindedly compressed for the last few minutes. Embarrassment flashes across its ambiguously feminine features. Sitting upright, Weaver relaxes its grip and examines Rex for a moment, well above not-Ryan’s field of vision.

Rex appears well and truly unconscious, his limbs dangling uselessly from between Weaver’s fingers. It takes a moment to appraise him; consternation twists up its features briefly. A free hand gingerly rises up as if to poke him awake, before prod, prod, prod, precisely ten times at random spots on his torso, and Rex’s floppy ragdoll is lifted to one side of Weaver’s head. They release a frustrated little huff from the nostrils, mouth pressed into a thin line.

Not-Ryan squints his confusion at the weird silhouette before him.

BR-R-R-R-INGGG

“Agh fuck me, Jesus!”

Bones is shocked alert by the brassy ring-tone, which seems to come from everywhere in the treehouse. They plug one saucer-sized ear with a pinky, and raise a piece of yellow fruit to the other.

“Banana phone, what’s up.”

“Can you check Rex’s vitals for me?” Weaver’s exasperated voice bounces around in Bones’s primordial skull.

“Chrissakes, did he take off again? Hang on,” the banana phone is lashed under a convenient headband for hands-free correspondence, so that Bones can start tapping away at the immense console built into their work station. “Swear to fuckin’ god, lose track of that cunt for five fuckin’ minutes—”

“I got him before he caused any serious damage, but we owe somebody a new Camry and there’s some havoc on the motorway.”

“I call an entire fuckin’ car ‘serious damage’!”

“Not compared to the first incident.”

Bones pauses in their tapping and sets their jaw for a moment, conceding that point without argument. Hiding the carnage from the police was a day-long job. “I suppose as far as cars go, a Camry is pretty easy to fix up. His vitals are fine, looks like an adrenaline crash.”

Weaver heaves out a sigh of relief. “Good, I was worried I squeezed a bit hard… he’s gone very limp, normally he doesn’t sleep this well.”

“Just hard enough, apparently. Crush his soul back into his body, all that good autsy shit. Anyway.”