Deathling - Outsiders SMP

Dill Dip and Jackalopes: Apo

"Carrots are awesome," the girl said, taking another bite out of hers. She and another guy were currently having an argument about carrots.

Apo was currently questioning life.

The girl appeared to be in her mid teens, but something about made her seem much older than that. She had a very messy dark brown bob cut, sparkling green eyes, and fair skin. Her nose definitely wasn't human, it resembled a rabbit nose. Her mouth was normal, but her ears weren't where they're supposed to be. They were popping out of the underside of a wide brimmed mushroom hat (as in, it was a literal mushroom) in the form of long, furry, gray bunny ears. She was wearing an overall dress and big rain boots. There was a necklace around her neck, and it had a green charm and a mushroom design in the silver frame. And she had a bunny tail.

"I mean, you've got to have at least a decent dipping sauce to enjoy them," the guy argued back. He appeared to be in his late teens-early twenties, and he had tan skin. His black hair hung to his neck, but most of it was tied back in a bun on his head. He had a brown headband wrapped around his head, too. He was wearing a rather sooty gray shirt, and orangish armor on his legs and shoulders. He had a similar necklace to the girl's, but it was orange and the frame had a fire design on it. Matching orange earrings hung from his ears.

"You better mean like, ranch." the girl retorted, nodding her head. "Ranch is supreme with any vegetable."

"Although ranch is good, vinaigrettes are superior." the guy said back.

"Dill dip you can eat with potato chips."

"What's dill dip?" Apo asked.

The girl looked at him like they were some kind of rabid animal. "You've never had DILL DIP?!" she asked, exaggerating the last part.

"Um... No?" Apo said cautiously.

"Hold my carrot, I'm going to go make some dill dip." the girl said dramatically, handing the man the carrot and walking away towards a complicated platform thing that had vines holding onto it. She pulled a lever. The vines lifted her up, up to the overhead bridge that let people onto the floating ship. Clever, Apo thought.

As soon as she was out of sight, the man threw the carrot into the lake.

"Blech. Anyway, my name's Jay. Yours?" Jay asked.

"Um, Apo?" Apo replied, still confused.

"Hello Um, Apo." Jay replied, mockingly.

Apo laughed.

"I can't thank you enough for scaring Daisy away," Jay said, sitting down near the shore. "Now SHE'S the one who has to go get you clothes. I can just stay down here." She and Jay had been arguing about who had to go get Apo a change of clothes. Which is how they ended up arguing about carrots, if you can believe it.

Jay sat on the sand, looking up at the sky. Then he got a funny look on his face. "Wait, she's getting dill dip..." he collapsed on the sand and groaned. Then he got up and walked over to the elevator thingy, accepting his fate. "You coming?" he asked.

Apo ran over to the elevator, marveling at the way the vines worked when Jay pulled the lever. Then something occurred to him.

"Why were both of you so reluctant to come up here and get clothes?" Apo asked.

Jay laughed, clearly realizing how weird that sounded. "Because Emmy made them, and she put them in the study, which is freaking CREEPY!" Jay said, and then looked at Apo. He smiled. "But it won't be that bad with another person there. I guess the thought never occurred to us that we could just take you up there with us, we would need to eventually." he said, laughing to himself.

After a long ride on the elevator, it finally stopped on the bridge. Apo and Jay walked along the bridge, Apo admiring the architecture of both the bridge and the giant airship.

Jay led him onto the airship (which, by the way, got bigger the closer you got to it), and into a room that would have been the captain's quarters.

But it wasn't.

Apparently, the world decided to confuse Apo further.

Because inside that room was a gigantic library. It shouldn't've been able to fit inside the tiny exterior it had. It was a maze of shelves 30 feet high filled with books. Ladders allowed access to the high shelves. It had a window on the side opposite Apo that resembled the window on the side of the ship, letting sunlight stream in, giving the room a dusty glow.

And it was cold. Something about that room made Apo shiver. The shelves looked dusty and abandoned, and the sunlight cast a gray look on the books. It almost seemed haunted.

Jay clearly saw the look on Apo's face. "It's a room-expanding charm, or something like that. Makes things bigger on the inside than on the outside," he said, reassuringly.

"Why is it so..." Apo started, lost for words.

"Cold? Creepy? Dead? Because this is the room where most of the ghosts and spirits hang out."

Apo was going to ask about the ghosts, but he thought better of it.

"Anyway, if you ever want to know anything about magic, this is the place. It seems a little creepy, but after a while it gets better." Jay said, leading Apo through the library.

All of the shelves really were full. The few titles Apo saw were: A History of Satyrs; Spineweed, Through the Ages; The Adventures of Sage Wilson. They passed a door.

"What does that go to?" Apo asked.

"That door," Jay said, pointing to the door, "Goes to the cells. It's where we keep people who want to hurt mortals," he added, seeing Apo's face.

They passed another door, this one they went through, and it was even more creepy, if that was possible. It looked like the actual captain's quarters. There was a desk in the middle, with all sorts of sewing supplies on it. There were papers everywhere, which was surprising to Apo because of the little candles all around flickering. These people clearly don't worry about fire hazards, Apo thought. There were even more bookshelves, with older looking books with no titles on them. All sorts of oddities also filled the shelves where books weren't. There were chains hanging from the ceiling, some with creepy looking dolls hung by their necks. Even more dolls (some strikingly resembling Squidney, Oeca, and Mohwee) sat on a small scale airship that looked like the one they were on.

And sitting in a chair behind the desk, was the same girl from before.

She had gray-white eyes, with no pupils as far as Apo could see. Her skin was so pale it reminded him of Oeca, and she had long, frizzy, dark hair and long, pointed ears. She was laid across the grand chair (that looked too big for her) with her head on one armrest and her feet propped up on the other. She was wearing ballet slippers and fishnet tights, a white skirt, and a white shirt with a black scarf wrapped and sewed around her waist. She also had a necklace, but her's was had a opal in the middle. If she turned one way, it was plain white, but if she turned the other way, it was full of color. She was sewing red buttons on a black waistcoat.

"Took you long enough!" she said, sitting up.

"You were still sewing on buttons!" Jay said, defiantly.

"I got bored waiting for you and found a really fun red button I wanted to add." she said, folding the waistcoat and laying it on top of a fancy white shirt and black pants. She pushed them towards Apo.

Apo looked confused.

"Oh, wait!" she said, getting out of the chair and walking over to a cabinet on the far side of the room. She opened it and brought out a pair of boots with red embroidering, and a leather bag. She gave the boots, satchel, and clothes to Apo, saying, "Jay can get you to the washroom, and when you're done, you can give me your clothes and I can mend them and get the blood out of 'em."

Apo looked down. He hadn't realized how dead he looked. The wound that should've been there wasn't, but the hole in his shirt was clear, and blood was splattered around every other part of him.

"Then I can get you a spirit charm, and Daisy can explain stuff to you over dill dip." Jay said, and the girl gave him a weird face. "It's a long story," he said.