Market

Content Warning

This page describes or alludes to topics that may be uncomfortable or upsetting to readers. Please avoid this page if you are sensitive to descriptions of things such as black markets, imaginary curse words, and an old woman harassing a random kid..

Firecracker - by the onyx
- river and his grandma

- 11 years before the events of TATOK

written in between watching a truly stupendous parody of Harry Potter in which two of onyx's friends were in and was mindblowingly hilarious. who cares if she got back and finished this at 11pm-

"Ma'am?"

"Ma'am?"

"Ma'am, can you help me?"

A little boy walked up to an older woman's market stall, his brown fur puffy and his bleached blue eyes wet and reddened. His voice was cheerful but he was clearly holding back tears.

Christine sighed, peering over the stand to face him. She had seen the kid before. He was a pain.

"What is it?" She grumbled. He walked around the side of the stall to get a better view of her, sliding past a menacing-looking biker gang whom secretly she hoped would have attacked him, but nothing of the such happened. One of them, a fearsome crocodile, did bare their teeth as he passed, peeling him like a carrot with their gaze, but it didn't seem to frighten him either.

Sigh. Christine still dreams for the moment to come.

"I-I lost my mommy and daddy-"

She snorted. "So? Buy new ones! They're really cheap near the organ stand, if you want a tip."

He looked flustered. "N-no! I love my momma. I don't want a diff-rent one!" He shook his head. "I was looking at sungthing and I heard them call for me but I wanted to look a little longer and then when I turned they were gone-"

"I hope you weren't looking at anything not for your age." Christine hissed.

The boy looked terrified, flinching, his eyes widening. "N-no! I-Y-I-I'd-NO! I was looking at this painter who was painting sungthing kinda spooky and cool with this guy in a garden by a moon wolf man thing being bitten by the moon wolf man thing and exploving out jam. I said he must really like jam but my mommy said "That's not jam" and tried to get me to go with my sister and brother but I thought it was so I kept looking at it but then she was gone-"

Christine groaned, pushing his soft little body away and folding her arms. "I don't deal with morbidity, kid. Find someone else."

She grinned evily, pointing behind her. "I bet that croc would help you find your parents."

The kid looked wide-eyed up at the crocodile, who was proudly donning a black vest that said on the back in bright red stitching "I eat children for breakfast"

"they would probably take you under their wing, turn you into a fine young sociopathic sadist like everyone else here." She added. "You'd have a lot of fun being an orphan and pickpocketing everyone dry, maybe spending some time in jail or working blacker markets than ours- maybe riding a bike or two." She could almost imagine it now- finding the cute little face melted into a smirk and a glare and barging in with a knife and keeping her in a headlock until she coughed up all of her money.

She'd had that happen before. It was quite enjoyable, supporting the local community. What a blast it would be to see this little puffball involved in it.

He just stood there for a moment, unspeaking, before mumbling "What's morebirdeety?" and, louder, wiping his eyes "No, I think I'm fine. But I was still wonder-ring if you could help me find them."

She sighed, and after a moment's pause, groaned and hissed "Fine. I'll help you, you little freak."

His squeak of joy was adorable. "Yay!" Then he stopped, fidgeting with his paws. After being spat on by the crocodile as they passed, he said quietly "Do you have a piece of paper? And a marker?"

Christine blinked, cocking her head. "Yes?"

"Can I have them?"

"For what?"

He laughed. "I'm going to draw them! Duh!" His laugh dropped abruptly. "Just know I am horri-bowl at art though."

An eyebrow still raised, she handed him a piece of paper from under her stall and an inky blue pen from the counter, and he wobbled up the the counter, shoving away everything for space to put down the paper and in the process almost knocking down Christine's favorite handmade vat.

She watched as he drew so patiently, so happily, with his eternally shaky paws.

Gods! Gods! He STUNK at drawing! He was maybe six, and she understood six-year-olds were not necessarily the best artists... but GODS! This kid- all she could see was jagged squiggles, legs and anime-style eyes. She couldn't help herself- when he looked up at her, pointing at one of the squiggles, his eyes shining, saying with a little smile "That's me-" she burst out laughing.

He frowned as she laughed so hard, almost falling over. It was hard to breathe.

"You're a COTTON BALL? Wow, are you some kind of shapeshifter?"

His face fell, but he continued, pointing to a different squiggle, his voice sunken in slightly. "That's my momma, she has white fur-"

"SHE LOOKS LIKE A CAMEL HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-"

The boy looked annoyed now, biting his lip like he was trying not to cry. "That's my daddy, he has black fur-"

"HOW DO YOUR PARENTS LOOK SO DIFFERENT FROM YOU?? THAT'S A FROG!!!"

"He's NOT a frog!" The kid cried. "He's an awesung dad. Not a frog."

She cackled. "You're wrong, frog-camel boy! HAHAHAHAHA! HE'S A BIG 'OLE FROG."

"Stop!" he whimpered, sinking his claws into the paper, looking angry. "Y-"

"What is it, cotton ball? You going to ribbit for me, like the little frog you are?"

"Y-y-" his face was alight with barely mustered sobbing, his face red and his eyes shiny. "Y-"

"Can't even speak! Mute lil frog camel shapeshifting cotton ball! What kind of noises do you even make, being a weird mutant thing like you are?" Not her best choice of words, but it got the job done and the petty ire on the kid's face was spectacular.

"Ca-"

"No wonder nobody buys from you and you're POOR!" He finally shrieked, tears streaming out from his icy eyes. He jutted an accusing finger at her. "It's beecause you abssaltutely STINK!"

Christine froze, unmoving. The boy huffed, his cheeks wet and his nose running. "And I bet YOUR art skills are- are a burging trashcan like mine TOO!"

...

She got up from her folding chair with a stretch, her eyes blazing torches. She took a creaky step towards him. A chorus of 'oooooooooh's from the biker gang rung through the air, and she watched his ears flatten against his head with satisfaction. "Now listen here, you son of a spaceship-"

"RIVER!!"

She stopped, still bent over the boy who she had had lifted by the scruff and was wailing horribly loud, when she saw a spry, middle-aged black cat race towards her- no, the boy, whom she presumed was "River" and-

Gods! that was her son! She hadn't seen him in a decade!

He ran up to the kid, but she interjected, grabbing him and pulling him in for a tight hug. "Tom!"

Thomas (Tom) blinked, startled, when he realized who it was. Christine tried to ignore the displeasure in his voice as he said "O-oh. Ma. It's you."

She grinned. "Yep! I've been missing you dearly! What have you been up to? Why haven't you visited?"

"I-"

"Oh" she added. "Can you help me with this bugger? He's been driving me nuts!" She looked back hatefully to the boy -(as well as smugly, considering she had backup now) who apparently was crying but didn't look sad anymore, his eyes bright- "He's the most disgusting artist I've ever seen, he called me poor and stinky, can't say any of his words right and he keeps whining like a little wi- ...uh..." She watched the kid-er, River- run up to Thomas, wrapping his arms around him and cling on tightly, and Thomas hug him back, giving her the iciest, most quietly enraged expression he had ever seen.

"Uh-" Christine began "-what am I missing here?"

Her son fixed her with a horrible look. "This is your grandson, Ma."

Everything jerked to a halt. FRUIT, she thought. DEAR GODS.

"W-wait!" She cried as Thomas and River began walking away. "I-I'm sorry! I didn't know!-"

"Forget it." She heard her son snarl. River poked his head around to face her, his fur- which was almost identical to hers, dear gods- bristled and his eyes- which had the same brightness of Thomas's- narrowed. "Yeah! You're mean!" He called squeakily.

"I'm sorry!"

But there was no use. Soon she was gone, left alone with her creepy vases and her next-door biker gang.

\_\_\_

"Someone messed up big." The crocodile sneered.

"Shut up." She growled.

1. ↑ I hope this doesn't come off as suggestive! It isn't. It's just that this town has a lot of not child-friendly things- such as biker gangs :,) and organ stands :,) who knows what gorey things you might find there-
2. ↑ A perfect example of the previous note- someone was publicly painting a detailed drawing of a werewolf eating someone.
3. ↑ Another prime example
4. ↑ Prime example- they're in a freaking black market
5. ↑ An even more prime example
6. ↑ \*\*insert au where instead of going to the Sunken Kingdom River is taken in by a biker gang\*
7. ↑ \*insert him doing the same, just in the Sunken Kingdom\*
8. ↑ Book two: little River strikes back
9. ↑ spaceship- the equivalent of the b word in the Rotating Lands. Gives you another example of how horrible this place is. Spaceships are foreign objects in their world, making it the perfect cuss, as it's never going to be used for anything else but angry old grandmas in black markets selling scary pots with faces.
10. ↑ Be more observant next time, old woman >:(
11. ↑ Shush. liar.