With shaky hands, Sally looks down upon the bleeding body of the person she despises the most. She doesn't care how many terrible people she'll ever come across: nobody will ever surpass him when it comes to how much Sally hates him. That bigoted, arrogant, son of a bitch will never be able to piss her off as much as he did. At the start of their relationship, she already knew he was like that, and still, she married him. Maybe it was the peer pressure of her family, maybe it was his great amount of money and powerful political position, or maybe she just overly romanticized him and chose to ignore the red flags in the process. She doesn't know. But she does know that it was her biggest regret. Her decision to ignore led to the death of the one she loved the most. Her own son.
And now, he's dead, and she blames her husband – now ex-husband – for it fully.
"I know you and he didn't agree with each other in the politics, Sally, but the citizens are still going to punish for you for being married to the enemy, you do realize that, right?" Sally knows who the Grim Reaper is. She looks at them, hoping that they'll take her soul with them and sent them to Hell immediately, and talks.
"Please," she begs, tears in her eyes as her voice breaks down, the one thing about herself that she's always been proud of. "Kill me. Reunite me with my son."
"I can't bring back Floris, neither can I bring you to him, Sally. It's not your time yet and even if it were, your son will not find the peace he may or may not deserve." Sally sobs, hanging her head against the wall as she's still holding the gun in her hands, considering bringing herself onto the same fate as the one she forced her husband to face. And as Grim Reaper notices the way her face shifts, they come closer, grabbing the gun with one hand. "Don't do it, Lachs. It's not worth it. You still have the ability to change your life, but once you're dead, the suffering will only be worse."
"Don't call me Lachs, Reaper," Sally commands them, looking at them with hostility. "I don't want to be associated with my family anymore."
"But neither do you want to be with his, right?" Grim Reaper points at the corpse on the other side fo the room, making Sally look away from him immediately. "I happen to know that the Kabeljau family is in contact with an elven family, who in turn happen to have some interesting information about a certain place for people like you."
"What? Women who made mistakes? Who went with the wrong men? Who stayed silent when they should've screamed?"
"I'm talking about non-humans, Sally. The end of this void that is the accidental existence of humanity and nature. The beginning of the finale: a place where the apocalypse will start one day, or rather the satisfying destruction of this Hell. You'll be able to find love there, and who knows? Maybe you can make sure that you forgive yourself before I'll finally take your soul."
Sally stares at them confusedly. What are they talking about? A place? A happy place?
"Where is it?"
"I can't give that information away for free, Sally Lachs. You'll have to give me something."
Sally falls silent for a moment, before responding. "Salmon. Call me Sally Salmon." Grim Reaper nods, as she continues. "What do you want me to give? What is it I have to do?"
"One day, the skies will be torn open and a child will fall into this world. The child themselves will be found by someone else, so that's not something you have to worry about, but they too will arrive at the town where you'll find yourself surrounded by people just like you. This human, who does not come from here, must be protected at all costs and I want you to watch them."
"Watch them?"
"Make sure nothing too bad happens to them. Maybe you consider them to be divine or untouchable, but they are a lot more fragile when it comes to the future of this universe. They need to be alive, Sally, and I'm hereby trusting you with that responsibility." Sally hesitates. Should she? Should she accept this odd deal? Or should she hope that she'd be killed without too much suffering?
And now, Sally is indeed standing there, watching over you while singing a song in her mother language as she watches you interact with Jared and a less confident Dream. She still watches some of the others look at the werewolf and spirit enviously, while only feeling bad for you.
When she's done singing, she leaves the microphone behind and sees how Fundy too has already found his way closer to you, but she doesn't greet him like she normally would've done. Instead, she stands in front of you now, a weak smile on her face as she ignores the paining memory of the murder on her husband. She doesn't have to close her eyes now and remember that terrible event.
"Hey Y/N!" she says with a smile, standing next to Jared as she takes your hand in both of hers. "I saw you dancing. Did you enjoy it?" You're thrown off by her unexpected question, but you answer it nonetheless.
"Yeah, I suppose it was pretty fun." Sally keeps asking you all kinds of questions to prevent anyone else – besides Jared and Jack – to talk to you, but when the whole crowd falls silent and the music stops playing, she too is distracted by the arrival of the remaining Protectors. Drista flies down and Crimson stands on the balcony where she held her speech a week ago. Philza, meanwhile, follows the Erinys, who has already found her way towards the food. He gestures to the people to continue what they were doing, although quite some of the people present approach him, likely to ask whether or not it's true that you indeed could be harmed now without any consequences. And judging by their reaction, it's indeed a positive reaction.
Sally sees that you know and notice this, but your aunt seems to be the life saver you needed, appearing out of nowhere as she puts her arm around your shoulder, startling you in the process, and stretching her terrifying wings with a smirk on her face.
"So, cousin, how's life been going ever after our last encounter? Learnt a lot yet?"
"I learnt that my cat shouldn't eat chocolate," you respond, Drista tightening her grip on your shoulder as she laughs, sending a glare towards someone who Sally cannot see without turning around.
"Having a black cat always helps, although I bet that cleaning up his puke is a lot less fun, huh?" she laughs. "I've never actually had a cat before, as you know. Onyx seems a lot easier to handle than this dog I had a while back. He vomited trice as much!" She then looks over at the spirit, who's looking at her afraid. As a reaction to this, the Erinys simply laughs and throws her other arm over him, laughing hard and excited as well, even when he lets out a short scream at the sudden touch. "Come on, Casper. No reason to be intimidated. I'm here to have fun as well, not to torture any unfortunate souls."
"I've never seen you at any of these, Drista," Sally comments and she laughs.
"That's because I usually found them to be dull and uninteresting. But now that my cousin is here, I suppose I have to keep an eye on them and make sure they don't get too drunk, don't you agree?" She seems to mean something else. Sally can only guess what this is.
"I suppose I get what you mean," the siren answers with a faint smile. "I'm a mother too, you know."
"I know," Drista laughs as she glances over at the fox standing behind Sally awkwardly, "but the beloved vampire family is surely not that much in danger as Y/N is, right?" You don't like that she insinuates that, and Sally notices it easily. However, nobody says a word about it. "In any case, would you all like some champagne? I can get it for you, if you'd like."
"I'm not thirsty," you say quite immediately, feeling a bit paranoid at the thought of being poisoned. But then again, why would they poison all of the champagne?
"I'd like some," Sally smiles and Jared simply shakes his head, before glancing over at the clock. You do the same, although the siren can't guess why either of you would want to leave the festival earlier. Sure, she can assume that Jared wants to be home in time – which is the convenience store to him, she's pretty sure – but she can't think of any reason for you to go before everyone else, especially not after what happened last time when you left alone.
When Drista is off to go get the drink, Fundy joins the conversation, although both he and Dream are standing there awkwardly and not exactly being welcomed into the conversation despite their many efforts, thanks to both Sally and Jared attempting to exclude them. This seems to throw you off, confusing you and making you wonder whether there's a reason for their behaviours.
"Would you like me to walk you home today, by the way?" Sally asks you suddenly and carefully. "Especially after all that shit that went down with Wilbur, it's okay to say if you do." She catches his glare, but ignores it.
"I could come with," Fundy suggests and Dream immediately nods as well.
"You know I could protect you as well."
"As much as it sounds lovely to be walked home by two furries and a milf, it really won't be necessary," you jokingly answer, your eyes hiding something way darker behind that bit of comedy. "I'm able to protect myself, I think."
"You think?"
"Yeah. It's pretty rare, I know."
Jared opens his mouth to say something, but is immediately interrupted when Dream speaks up. "Sally isn't wrong, you know. You should have someone go with you to reassure your safety."
"I never said they should, I just suggested they would."
"In any case, I really think I should come with." And thus, you continue arguing with them. Sally can see how annoyed you get by their insisting, but you keep smiling and acting as if it's alright. The only thing that eventually saves you, is Tommy crashing into the punch.
The loud and sudden sound of a bat changing mid-air back into the vampire he is, breaking both the table and shattering the glass of the bowl because of how rapidly he fell, breaks everybody's eardrums and ruins everyone's previous conversation. The ghoul and satyr with whom he was messing around, are standing by the side nervously. Schlatt bursts out laughing, the only one there who does so, while Drista and Philza, who are standing by the drinks and have gotten a little bit of the punch on their clothing, have their eyes wide open, neither of them having expected this to happen. Quackity and Charlie's clothes are wet, and so are Niki's and Foolish's, who happened to be standing too close to the bowl. The glass shards thankfully have not hurt anyone fragile, but the event still angers the energy who had been a mere observer before.
Crimson, trying to look as demonic as they can, move down to the ground, causing everybody to back away, as if Crimson as some anti-gravity, preventing anybody from touching them. With arrogance, they look around, though their eyes are fixated on the youngest vampire.
"Who would have ever thought that the vegan vampire is the one to ruin the fun?" they snarl, though they don't approach Tommy as Sally expected them to. "You can see how low he's fallen, and that all because he's become closer to humans than any of us." Tommy is obviously upset by the fact that his little secret has come out. Sally knows that it was not meant for the public, merely being a part of his personal life that he prefers to only tell trusted people about. Thankfully, considering Tommy is unable to respond to that in a way that Crimson would tolerate, Techno steps in.
"He's vegetarian, not vegan."
"That doesn't make it any better, Blood God," Crimson scoffs, the red energy that they are touching a few of the candles to make the fire red. "Vegetarian, vegan, whatever he may be, he's still enabling humans to live amongst us, which is a threat to the safe and accepting society we have now."
"What the fuck are they on about?" Sally can hear you whisper in Jared's ear, who too strongly disagrees with Crimson's words, but they don't notice the discontent on your faces and if they did, they ignored it.
"Don't you see, Philza? We built this town to protect ourselves from the cruelty of humanity, so why are we allowing a human in our midst? Can't you see how their culture is going to take away our pride? Our identity?"
"Hey!" Jared suddenly shouts, receiving all the eyes on him in the process only for him to swallow and regret the decision immediately. Crimson looks at him in anticipation, but he has nothing more to offer. It was an action based on impulse, Sally bets. Something for which he had not prepared himself.
"Of course," Crimson sighs, approaching Jared as they do not look away from him. "Of course, it's the sweet, little, naïve ghost that wants to interrupt me. Our insignificant ghostly friend, who trusts nobody but himself."
"Hey!" you now yell at the same volume as your friend, taking a step in front of him as you angrily stare at Crimson. "Don't talk to my boy Jared like that. It's not him you have a problem with, but with humans, right? Well, there is one right in front of you."
"Cute," Crimson growls, their chin high as they look down at you, back straightened as their form quickly changes, their red body and veins going from an unmatchable height to yours, before they look exactly like you, the only difference being that red is the only colour in their appearance now. "Your presence here is intoxicating, little one. It's not welcome." Sally watches as Drista's eyes darken, a fury on their face appearing while Philza seems to be hesitating and rethinking everything.
"Oh? Want to have a debate about it, Eggman?" you spit, taking a step forward as you put emphasis on the insult. "Because I can assure you, I have not studied philosophy to end up under a bridge with a bunch of dogs and I am going to debate you as if my life depends on it."
"Well, it does, little one," Crimson only responds, before Drista is the one to intervene.
"You are not going to do anything!" she screams, the flames visible in her eyes as the Crowfather eventually speaks up as well.
"There's no reason to do anything, Crimson. They're free from the law anyway." Both Crimson and Drista look up at his words, both being shocked and seemingly even in disagreement of that decision.
"What?!" Drista's voice echoes against the wall as Crimson seems to have difficulty processing the vampire's words, but he does not show any regret over his decision. Sally keeps her eyes on Crimson, who seems to feel conflicted about the choice, although she cannot guess whether they're upset because it was not told to them or because they genuinely think it goes too far. In any case, the Protectors were obviously not involved in the process of excluding you from any protection that the town offers the other creatures, instead opening you up to dangerous creatures and thus most likely death.
Drista approaches Philza, pointing her finger at him with hostility as she squeezes her eyes slightly. "How dare you make a discriminatory decision like that? How dare you call yourself a good man when you're ruling like a tyrant?!"
"This was not based on discrimination, Drista. It is for the safety of the people."
"Bullshit! Y/N wouldn't even be able to hurt someone, no matter how much they wanted to."
"I almost lost my son because of their actions, Drista!" he furiously shouts, his wings stretching out only for Drista to do the same. They're bigger and way more terrifying. However, Sally wouldn't want to stand against Philza either. Crimson lets out a sigh, approaching both the Protectors: an unexpected event.
"I agree with Drista that this should've been discussed, Philza," they speak. "But I also agree with you that they bring the town in danger. And still, out of all the ideas you could've had, this feels like the worst." Both their wings fold back on their backs. "What about we talk this through after the Festival? This is not something that will be easily settled." Drista scoffs.
"Of course, Crimson," she spits. "I hope the two of you have fun not having to worry about your cousin's safety. Just watch what happens when XD finds out about this."
"You're actually going to tell them?" Philza chuckles incredulously, possibly calling her bluff, and she nods.
"He deserves to know that his child's been put in danger because of you, Philza. And I can assure you, that's not going to lead to anything positive either." Sally giggles, a sound covered up by the whispering of the crowd as she is already prepared to turn to you and Jared, only to find the ghost talking to Jack while you've disappeared.
Smart. Leaving when nobody is paying attention. But all of that, just to avoid having to walk home with someone else?