Needle and Thread

Spinnerette

[Fandom+ (1)]

Lyra woke up to find that overnight, the crows had picked the Boss's carcass dry. Nothing but bones and spines remained.

Benny was already up, and walking around amongst the bones.

"Hey," Lyra called, running up to him despite her aching muscles. "What's up?"

He turned towards her, looking surprised. Tears were running down his face. "Oh, hey Lyra."

"What's going on? Why are you crying?"

"Uh..." Benny wiped furiously at his eyes. "I must have an allergy." He grinned weakly.

"Wow," Lyra said. She punched him in the arm. "Come on, friend. I know you're a better liar than that. Seriously, what's wrong?"

"I was kind of hoping that she'd come back," Benny said softly.

Lyra nodded. "Oh. I. Um. I don't think I'm the best one to handle this. Maybe I should just leave?"

"No, you can stay," Benny replied.

They sat down on the ground, side by side. Benny leaned over and set his head on her shoulder. Lyra softly patted his hair. "It'll be okay," she crooned. "It'll be okay. Hey, you want to hear a story?" She got no reply, so she continued. "When I was little, I used to play with my dolls, and I'd pretend that I was the cool knight coming to save the princess. And, like, for the longest time I had about fifty dolls. I'm telling you, I came up with some crazy plots. They'd make one of your big fancy epics look simple. But the one I always remembered was this super simple one, where I was just fighting all my dolls. Even the princess doll, because she turned out to be a mean princess. And the day my the old idiot left, I played that game. I tore the head off the princess."

"Is this supposed to make me feel better?"

"I don't know," Lyra said cheerfully. "Does it?"

"No."

"Oh. Well, anyways, I was super sad. And my mom was in the kitchen, drinking and stuff. I dunno. I think she was drinking? She was crying, anyways. And I come out and she's crying and I'm like, 'Mom, my princess is dead.' And she's like, 'Well, let's fix it.' She's still got makeup all over her face. I guess I didn't notice she was crying, but whatever. She got up and helped me fix the doll, and we brought the princess back to life. And my mom was like, 'You shouldn't fight your princess anymore. Maybe she had a reason for betraying you.' And I thought that was a good idea. So after that the princess always had a reason for being mean. And we made up. It was fun."

"That... was the least comforting story I've ever heard," Benjamin mumbled.

"Ah. But you're not crying anymore."

"What's going on?" Roxy asked. She looked tired, but okay.

"Benny's got the blues," Lyra replied."

"Oh. I guess this is a bad time, then."

"Nah, you're good," Lyra said. She pulled Roxy down to sit next to her and hugged her two oldest friends close. "Mm. I love you guys."

"Thought you loved Andesine," Roxy laughed.

"That's a different thing," Lyra replied. "Plus, I've known you guys longer."

They sat there in silence for one moment. It was almost as if they were back home, sitting in Benny's minimalistic room and talking about school. Of course, the silence quickly shattered when Ananda screamed.

Roxy was near the faunus within seconds. Benny arrived shortly, with Lyra coming in last.

Winter sat up and blearily rubbed his eyes. "What's going-- oh, my God."

He scrambled to his feet and stepped back towards his friends. Andesine shortly followed. They stood in a circle, staring at the glowing crack that had appeared in the ground.

"I'm, uh, pretty sure that's a crack in the universe," Benny said.

"Oh," Lyra said faintly. "Right, the whole of this universe is slowly unraveling. Reality's dissolving, etc. etc." As she spoke, they all turned into giant hands, then into beached whales, and then back into humans.

"Let's speed this up a little," Winter said, as they became yarn-creatures. "This is starting to make me a little nauseous."

"Awright," Lyra said. "So, in order for this to work, I've got to open all the universe gates at once, which I guess includes the Death key. You've still got that, right, Andy?"

"Yeah," Andesine said. "I don't know if I can use it, though. It's cold. And it feels weird. Like I shouldn't be touching it."

"Since you're alive, I'm going to assume that's normal," Lyra said cheerfully. "So, what else did Circe tell me... all the keys... uh." Lyra looked helplessly up at her friends (which, at the moment, consisted of a bunch of skeletons). "Haha, what d'you know! I, uh, forgot. There was some sort of incantation?"

"Lyra!"

"Sorry," Lyra yelped. "I don't remember! I just remember that. I mean, she told me something else, but..."

"It's fine, it's fine," Benny said, as they all suddenly grew to fifteen feet high, "I'll jst look into a timeline where she remembers."

"Do it fast, before I throw up," Winter groaned.

Benny sat down on the ground, a safe distance from the weird crack, which had slowly started to enlarge. Everyone watched as he closed his eyes for a second. When they reopened, they were glowing and throwing off flickering lights that seemed to flash with images. The ones that Lyra could manage to make out were gory.

After about five tense minutes, Benny blinked and stood up, returning to normal.

"There was literally one timeline where you remembered," he said. "Honestly, it's almost funny. You should start writing things down, Lyra."

"Just tell us what it is," Lyra said, but she was smiling.

"Okay. So, Lyra needs to open those eleven gates. Then Roxy needs to move all the gates together into one big gate and enlarge it enough to the point where it swallows the universe."

"And what do the rest of us do?" Winter asked weakly. They all became 2-D, and he began to retch. Lyra was starting to feel a little nauseated, herself.

By the time they were three dimensional again, a drawing of vomit had drifted gently to the ground.

"Nothing, I guess," Benny said. "You and I were dead in that timeline, and then they died trying to leave... so, uh. Yeah..."

"Well, we ain't gonna die here," Lyra decided. "So don't worry about it, friend."

"Hasn't it ever occurred to you that we have the choice to not do this?" Benny said desperately, turning into an emu for a split second.

"No," Lyra said. She already had her keys out. "Come on, man. I thought we've done this already."

"Also, she's cursed," Andesine said, and explained what happened at the Gravity Temple. "I don't know if she even has survival instincts anymore."

"Never had them to begin with," Lyra replied. One of the gates was already open, but nobody had stepped out. Lyra didn't seem perturbed by that. She seemed to be in the process of remembering something.

"Andy, get out your key," Lyra said, and began to open the second gate.