hello! been playing around with a cozy comedic fantasy kind of idea, which is a bit difficult since i tend to write very un-funny and un-cozy things. just kinda sent it and wrote part of ch 1 to get a feel of the style :)

ch 1: The Jig is Up

Jig Clemativy was at the tavern because they desperately needed money.

To someone who has never had a desperate need for money, this might seem like the last place to earn some. But to the seasoned pickpocket, a slobbering, roaring mass of folks who were all too eager to decrease both the thickness of their purses and the capacity of their sight was a very delightful find indeed.

“Scuse,” Jig muttered as they ducked around a howling pack of Callagordian laborers, foggy mugs clutched in their calloused fists and blushing revelry boasted on their paleish faces.

The group's jovial discussion faltered slightly as the men watched Jig pass. They had gotten used to the funny looks, as someone who was darker than the Callagordians and Wkerkoans, lighter than the Tôl-Vásànii, and shorter than most any of them. Jig quickly shook the men from their mind. There was much, much more to process in the tavern, after all.

Even after visiting Finkel’s Den dozens of times, Jig was always struck by how everything seemed specially designed to kill someone. Fat candles danced within wax-encrusted holds that dangled from the comfortably sunken ceiling. Every wooden table and chair screeched as if with its last breath every time it was jostled about the place. Surfaces frequently boasted several inches of grime, the sticky touch and vomitous stench chalked up to some delusional and intentional “charm”. Finkel himself guffawed endlessly behind his bar. He was an aged and brass fellow shaped like a berry bush with a breadloaf stuck atop it. His wife Polla- herself more like a windling sapling- busied herself with the cleaning. She had approximately seven teeth and, apparently, even fewer washrags.

Jig ducked their head low, gripping every trinket in their pockets and holding their skirt fabric close to their body. Crowds, smells, and screams were not their favorite things, but little round stones and scraps of fabric served as powerful tools. And they needed to find the ideal victim.

~ 

I'm not really sure what this is at all..... 

~~~

There’s an inherent power in places and familiarity. A power to make you feel safer or comfortable or even loved. Do you love the house that you grew up in? Because it loves you.

Waking up in the morning, the comforters heavy and hard to move, keeping you pinned to the mattress. Whole room dark even though you fell asleep with the lights on yesterday. The house took care of that for you, you know. It wants you to sleep longer. Just ten more minutes.

When you go to the bathroom in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror, that’s not you looking back. That’s the house. It stares back at you with the same sleep-logged expression, yawning when you yawn and rubbing your eyes when you do. The person in the mirror isn't you, but it might as well be. 

The house can sense you always, but to truly see it uses the paintings, the posters of idols on your walls. Looks through the eyes of your brother and parents in photographs, following you up and down the halls. 

Making breakfast, you notice there is a brand new loaf of bread on the counter, the kind that you really like. You take two pieces of it and slot it into the toaster, humming a bright, beginning of the day song. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, you know. 

Your toast is ready. Of course it’s baked to perfection, because the house just wants you to be happy. There are roaches in the refrigerator. They hide behind the butter and milk, chattering and clinging to the walls. They should be dying, right? They should freeze. Right?

You go to your office and power up your laptop, which is fully charged despite not being plugged in for a few days. The desktop is a picture of a serene landscape, windswept meadow dotted with poppies. You start your work for the day, typing away and humming. There is quiet music playing along in the background, coming from everyone and nowhere at once. It fills your head with peace and static, making everything feel heavy and light at once. It’s pretty.

This day is a good day, just like yesterday and the day before and every day before that. 

Think, really hard, about when the last time you left the house was. Yesterday? Or perhaps last week. Maybe earlier than that. Maybe never.

Dinner is steak with mashed potatoes and green beans. Or maybe asparagus. Actually, the potatoes might not have been mashed. The plate is a blur of colors and muddy shapes, tastes like stale bread when you chew it. You wash dishes in lukewarm water and soap and stare at the window, which you can’t see out of. The panes of glass are black or maybe white or maybe all of the colors of the sunset.

That night, you go to sleep with lavender in the air and dreams in the horizon. The horizon is small and fits into the seams of the walls of this house, this house that loves you so, so much.