Windingnights - WindingPaths

posting it here: my secret santa gift for @iamrealiswear !! act 5 sif, from the prompt “please torture siffrin”. I went thru like 50 different ideas but settled on “the act 5 scene where Siffrin holds themself is pretty tormenting I think”.

non-glitch version below the cut, + the stomach/period cramp Siffrin I drew as a warm up for this gift that also fit the prompt.

@isat-secretsanta-2024

OUUGH THIS IS SO GOOD!!! FEEDING MY HUNTED ADDICTION RN THANK U SO MUCH :3

I hope this is the final part of this weird thing I’ve made. Originally based on this art post and then expanded in this short write and followed up by another art post

Edit: I linked them incorrectly, shit. I’m not fixing it, deal with it

Now we’re here

It would be incorrect to say Hero was angry, because he wasn’t, he was furious.

It took only a few hours for Cheated to sound the alarm when he couldn’t find Paranoid. Then Contrarian pointed out that Broken wasn’t around either and everyone’s concern doubled.

Paranoid being missing was one thing, at worst he passed out from exhaustion somewhere they hadn’t thought to check, now Broken being missing meant he might be trying to hurt himself.

Everyone was rushing around, Hero remembered hearing the utter storm of swears from Cheated as Smitten tried to calm him. Stubborn irately stomped about as he called out for their two missing members, and Skeptic was pulling an indifferent Cold to his feet to get him moving. Contrarian muttered words of encouragement to Hero, who had placed his face in his hands, stressed.

Weirdly enough, Opportunist hung back, rubbing his talons together in a repeated, nervous motion. He only sprung to action once Cheated snapped at him a loud “Get moving!”

At one point they saw Hunted, who looked out of his element with the chaos surrounding him, he clutched a few bowls of food in his arms, feathers puffed out in mild alarm.

Contrarian perked up. “Hunted! I know you said you’d get all loopy during winter, and all of this usually makes you…” he gestured vaguely to the discord of avians running about. “…queasy, but do you think you could lend us a hand? You’ve got a strong sense of smell, yeah? Think you can sniff those voices out?”

Hunted curled in on himself, instead of responding he scuttled backward into the dim hallway where their rooms were.

“Strange, generally he’s pretty protective of us all, I thought he’d be the most active in this. The cold weather must really be getting to the guy.” Contrarian scratched the back of his neck, Hero hummed in agreement.

The search eventually expanded outwards of their home once they realized there was nowhere left for Broken or Paranoid to be inside, and then further out when they couldn’t find them in the front or backyard.

They eventually had to call it quits, as their energy left them, made quickly evident once Smitten conked out the second he hit the couch. They’d all have to give in and rest before continuing.

By then it was morning, Hero was rubbing his eyes, bloodshot and tired from the day spent running around, but too drowned in worry to rest. A twitchy Opportunist was wide awake, the bags under his eyes made it apparent he had also failed to find sleep. He was still twiddling his fingers away with hiked shoulders. Both sat against one of the couches in the lounge, where the others were strewn about, snoring away their sleepiness.

“Got knots in your neck?” Hero mumbled out, unconsciously pressing into the sore spots on his back, sighing with minor relief.

Opportunist jumped, ears pinned as he looked up at Hero. He was uncharacteristically anxious, or at least being more obvious about it, less able to put on his mask when wrung so thin.

“I- well yes, but no. That’s not why I’m so…”

“Tense?” Hero provided.

Opportunist sighed, “Yes, tense.”

“What’s up then? You can be honest with me.” For once, the bitter part of Hero’s mind thought. He waved it away.

“Oh! Well um-“ Opportunist looked back and forth, as if waiting for something to pounce on him. “I may have… kept something from everyone.”

Hero squinted, trying to see more than just the blurry shape of his fellow bird folk through his groggy vision. “Go on.”

Opportunist pursed his lip, looking nearly as jumpy as Paranoid, a far cry from his relaxed form. “Look I wanted to tell you guys, but Hunted caught me every time he left his room and glared so harshly I near convinced myself that beastly form of the princess was in front of me, it was like-“

“Hey, calm down!” Hero scooted forward, placing a reassuring hand on Opportunist’s shoulder. “She went with Quiet, remember? Now what’s this about Hunted?”

Opportunist forced himself to breathe in, Hero wondered if this is how he prepared himself to put his false act on. “You remember how Hunted said he was going to sleep most of the cold away?”

“Mmhm. What about it?”

“Well earlier today he started a rampage in the lounge, I asked him what he was looking for and he didn’t respond. I was about to go grab Stubborn or Smitten or maybe even you! To, you know, wrangle the guy under control. Obviously something was up and he wasn’t making a peep! Plus, I wasn’t really one for him tearing apart all of our furniture. However, I didn’t get the chance to before he lifts up the couch, and what do you know, there behind it is Paranoid!”

Hero blinks, brows slowly furrowing. “Say that again?”

“Paranoid was hiding behind the couch, from Hunted himself it seemed. Hunted throws the poor guy over his shoulder and scurries out of lounge, sending me the most chilling look when I tried to intervene.”

Hero blinks, slowly, vision clouding with red.

“But that’s not all! I go in his room to see what’s up, and Hunted’s… uh… nest thing, has two of the guys in it. I didn’t get to see all of their body behind his wings, and he basically pushes me out with his voice alone, but I think it’s them! I just uh- uh…” Opportunist slowly shrank under Hero’s gaze, never before, not even at the Narrator, had Hero been so vexed.

“Why didn’t you say anything?!” The sheer pointlessness of their search crashed onto him like the weight of a thousand bricks. All of the concern and confusion and cursing could’ve been so easily avoided if Opportunist had just said something, but the one time he doesn’t run his mouth is when-!

“Hey- hey! Look- I thought he’d go all creature like and start- well I don’t know, doing whatever creatures do. Like hissing or climbing on the ceiling!”

Hero resisted the urge to bury his fist in the frazzled bird’s beak and instead took a sharp breath. “You know what, no. I’m not going to be mad at you. I’m angry at you often enough as it is, I need to channel this newfound rage at the real problem here.”

Opportunist flinched as Hero stood up, before scrambling to his feet. “Yes! Do that! I’ll even come with you. I’m good at picking locks you see.” Hero didn’t even question it.

And all of that led to now. They came to Hunted’s door, Opportunist got on one of his knees and stuck a clawed talon into the keyhole. The second Opportunist was done, Hero burst through the door, glaring holes into the puffed up form of- “Hunted!”

The avian shot to his feet, his ire fixated on Hero’s. From the mound of what looked like randomly placed pillows and blankets out popped the heads of Paranoid and Broken. Hero couldn’t prevent the small wave of relief that hit him; after searching for hours and hours and assuming the worst, seeing the two alright made it feel like he could finally breathe again. They looked well preened, a sight Hero thought he’d never see on the two, yet somehow they looked more tired than Hero was. Paranoid squinted through the darkness and dazedly looked upon Hero and Opportunist.

“Guys…? That you?” He slurred, looking like he was about to fall over immediately after he sat up. Broken wasn’t fairing much better, his blinks slow and fluttering.

Hero turned his gaze back to the prickly, instinctual bird, who looked near ready to pounce.

“We’ve been worried sick looking for Paranoid and Broken for the past day and a half, only to learn from this one-!” he pointed and accusing finger at Opportunist, who let out a timid “Eheh, hey…”, at the attention, “-you’ve had them holed up in here!”

“Day and a half…?” Broken croaked out, voice layered in sleep.

“It can’t have been that long… right? All I remember is being led to and from the bathroom, like a… a royal and his guard.” Paranoid provides, trying and failing to rub the drowsiness from his eyes.

“I remember Hunted bringing us food, but it’s all vague and fuzzy.” Broken adds, running a hand through the feathers on his head, letting out a deep hum of surprise when he found them soft and straightened out.

The hell was wrong with them? “You’ve turned their brains to mush,” Hero gawked, turning to Hunted once more, “you little shit.”

“It’s called hibernation and it’s perfectly natural.” Hunted proclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at Hero.

“Don’t try me right now, I’m utterly livid over being worried for nothing.” Hero returned the pointing gesture.

“Okay! While you two argue this out, I’ll go grab the others to help solve this, yeah?” Opportunist says, clapping his hands together. “We’re all agreeing I’m being incredibly useful right now, hah… right?”

No one answers him.

“Right, right…” Opportunist sucks in a breath, “I’ll be back.”

—

It took the combined strength of Stubborn, Smitten, and Contrarian to hold Hunted down. He had stopped thrashing at some point, but Hero could still hear the foam hissing out of his mouth as he laid prone on the soft lounge carpet they had to drag him onto.

“What’s wrong with you two? None of us got a full eight hours and yet you’re the only ones that can barely keep their eyes open.” Skeptic prods, staring with obvious concern at the two other voices, who had to be held up by Cold and Cheated so they wouldn’t fall over.

“It’s ironic, isn’t it? Usually yours is out seeking attention in the dead of night.” Cold says in a wispy voice, looking at Cheated and Broken. “And this one is too fearful to get any sleep.” He continues, looking down at Paranoid, who was mostly limp in his grasp.

“It’s coming back to me now, slowly. Still I can’t remember why… why we were in there.” Paranoid speaks out, struggling to stand to his full height. Cold eventually adjusted his grip to where Paranoid couldn’t move as easily, so he’d stop squirming.

“He wanted us to hibernate with him I think.” Broken mumbles, not even trying to stand, instead allowing Cheated to hold him however he pleased.

“Hibernate? I thought birds didn’t do that?” Cheated’s ears pin to the back of his head as he pulls Broken further up, inching himself and the dozing avian slightly away from Hunted, despite his less than mobile state.

“They don’t.” Stubborn grunts out.

“One species does I think, but as far as I know, birds won’t if they don’t have to. Oh give him to me Cold, you’ll hurt him like that.” Opportunist rounds the corner, taking his ponytail out. He reaches for Paranoid, who is given to him by Cold without fuss.

Skeptic snaps his fingers. “Ah, I get it. Hunted is most of our survival instinct. When winter was coming and we weren’t migrating somewhere more warm, he dug in. His instincts probably told him our weaker members couldn’t stand the cold, so he brought them to his room. If I had to guess, he’d eventually have us all in there as winter progressed.”

“But we’re not that much like wild animals, we can’t actually hibernate, right?” Contrarian said, looking at the others in the room with an unsure smile on his face.

“I’m not so sure about that. Our friends seem quite out of sorts.” Smitten counters, looking at the two troubled avians with a gentle, worried frown. “They’ve done nothing but sleep and yet can hardly stand!”

“Might be because hibernation isn’t truly sleep, even if it seems similar. I’d say Hunted succeeded, he somehow got them to start hibernation.” Skeptic says, putting a contemplative hand under his chin.

“How though? How is that possible?” Hero says, looking at the two main subjects of their conversation.

Skeptic shrugged. “Beats me, you’ll have to ask him, and he doesn’t seem up for a nice chat at the moment.” He jutted a thumb in Hunted’s direction, the feral bird was still growling beneath the dog pile holding him down.

“Huh, didn’t know he could make that noise. How agitated do you think he’ll get if we tease him with his charges?” Cold remarks, reaching over and plucking a feather from Broken, making him let out a surprised chirp that transitioned into a pained keen. Hunted froze at Broken’s faint cry, before resuming his struggle with double the effort, snarling at Cold like a bear that just had its cub taken away. Smitten and Stubborn are quick to up the pressure, while Contrarian flails to quickly get Hunted’s legs back under control.

Hero pushes Cold back. “Nope, bad, bad idea. You’ve lost speaking and doing privileges this discussion.”

Cold sits down on one of the chairs. “Pity.”

“Now what?” Stubborn huffs.

“What do you mean ‘now what?’” Hero questions.

Stubborn snorts impatiently. “Exactly what I said, now what? What are we going to do with him-“ he looks down at Hunted, “-and them?” then Broken and Paranoid.

Hero brings a hand to his eyes and drags it down his face, his head was killing him, and the adrenaline from the fight with Hunted was wearing off.

“Just-! Okay. Stubborn, Smitten, and Contrarian, you three are on Hunted watch duty. Lock him in his room and don’t let him out, he’s slippery so keep your eyes peeled. Skeptic and Cheated, you two are going to try waking Paranoid and Broken up some, until they’re back to normal if you can, they can’t stay like that. Cold, warm up the house, gather more wood for the fireplace and make sure the windows are closed, we need Hunted’s instincts to calm down.”

“What about me?” Opportunist says as Paranoid is passed off once more, this time to Skeptic.

“Me and you haven’t slept, so we’re going the fuck to bed.” Hero finishes, whipping around and trudging to his room. He’ll tell Opportunist and Hunted off later, right now, he needed some shut eye.

I present to you: The short quiet

please can we do inbox trick-or-treating this year. can we make that a thing on tumblr. please please please please please

You can spam boop me!

reblog if you let people spam boop you

WAIT omg the Voice of the Smitten as an aromantic who overcompensates. He's not in love with the Princess. He's in love with the idea of loving the Princess, because that's what he's "supposed" to do. He wants so badly to make it work and be in a conventional romantic relationship, and he really does want her to be happy, but he holds the traditional idea that an important part of masculinity is protecting a woman and providing for her and being both her knight in shining armor and her devoted husband. He expresses love weirdly because that's his idea of what love is "supposed" to look like. He doesn't understand romance, but he's fixated on the storybook projection of it, allegory of the cave style, so he leans strongly into that archetype and gets it all wrong. I really think the Smitten just doesn't want to be alone. Poor boy, unlearning heteronormativity and embracing relationship anarchy would've saved you

Being a slay the princess fan is stupid as fuck because I’m like yeah that disembodied voice is my blorbo. Yeah I know he’s an abstract semisentient representation of a thought but he’s my favorite character. Embarrassing.

Tiers with an explosive spear

wonder how he got it

it took 5 hours to finish the stupid little spinny Ferris wheel and it's not even close to finished :(

im proud of it though! This is my second ever animation :3