Tales from the Multiverse

Living and Breathing - wirrow

The animations are my friends. I make them, but in a weird way they make me, too.

I'm drawing a fox right now. I saw one outside the window and now I have a fox friend spilling out of my pencil, forming on the paper without really being fully imagined first. Sometimes that happens: the characters demand to be drawn, and I don't have any choice but to let them push their way out of my hand and into existence.

"Hello, friend," I say to the fox as he appears.

"Who's come knocking this time?" my little one inquires as she pads through in her socked feet, carrying a mug of steaming tea. Come to think of it, I'd kind of like some tea.

"A fox," I tell her. "His name is Vladimir, I think. Vlad for short, of course."

She comes over, places the mug carefully on my desk, and leans down to nestle her chin in my shoulder. "I rather like the look of this Vlad fellow. I think Patricia will take quite a shine to him, don't you?"

Patricia was the little cat-girl I'd doodled for her ages ago. It was just a spontaneous thing on the edge of a napkin that I scribbled next to my number the first time I'd met her, but she absolutely adored Patricia, and asked for her again and again. It has become her mascot, almost.

"I dunno, do cats and foxes mix well?" I ask.

She shrugs. "Patricia isn't a cat, though, is she? She's a girl who wears cat ears."

I tap the end of my pencil against my chin and chuckle. "I don't rightly know, to be honest. She's whatever you want her to be."

My little one makes a slight pouty face. "You always know the story, though. The elusive wirrow is letting me down!"

I turn in my office chair and take her hand, playing with her fingers happily. "Patricia's story is your story, little one."

She balances on the arm of the chair precariously. "What d'you mean?"

I smile and kiss her knuckles lightly. "You mean you haven't figured out yet that Patricia is you?" I laugh.

She gasps. "You're joking!" I shake my head, still chuckling. She sits for a moment, pondering this newfound information. "How'd you know I loved cats just by looking at me? Do I look like a cat lady?"

"No!" I laugh again. "I am just incredibly intuitive and all-around impressive," I declare with playful bravado.

She snorts and shakes her head. "Well aren't you quite the catch, then," she comments drily.

"Yes," I agree, pulling her into my lap and earning a giggle. "I really am."

~

Don't ask where I got "Patricia" from, it started out all lovely and deep and ended all silly and romantic but I feel like that's sort of how wirrow might be. A little bit of normal and abnormal all swirled into one beautiful nebulous.

I was really stuck for oneshots. Sorry if this is shite.

virtues