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Lacklan · (08-29-2019)

"Lacklanland" Maine

She giggles with her head pressed into his chest. But then the girl freezes as a particular sound breaks through the trees. A high-pitched sound of clicking and clacking. Sarah pushes away from him and looks towards the sound further along the trail. She lowers herself into a crouch and moves forward slowly in that direction. The man nearly laughs as he sees the girl, who he had held in his arms the day her father befell that horrible accident that left him a charred mess, entered into her “ninja mode.” She moves forward silently with grace and precision, a skill which earned her many late night sweets nicked from the kitchen when she was younger.

“Tch tch tch tch”

He follows the girl as she mimics the sound they hear. They both knew what it was, though he had not seen one of them in quite some time. They travel down the trail a bit and then turn off as the girl makes the sound and it is returned. Before long, they find themselves at the hollow of a tree where Skeeter rests with his medicine pouch around his waist.

“Brunhilde? Are you sick?”

The girl’s voice is full of question which turns to worry as she gets closer. Turning a small bend, they approach the tree and see that Skeeter is sitting before the terrifying image of a giant black spider. Normally smooth in the body, this one seemed to be fuzzy.

“What is-”

The girl’s voice trails off and she suddenly squeals as the fuzziness of the spider moves and shifts. But the squeal is not of fear or revulsion, as the Writer’s own might be in her place, but one of joy.

“OH EM GEE! YOU AND THORVALD HAD 😍BABIES😍!”

Indeed, the fuzziness on the spider proves to be a flock of tiny baby spiders. Sarah skips over to the mother...the Writer could never tell the difference between Brunhilde, Thorvald, and Boudicca...and gently places a hand on her. Within seconds, one of the babies crawls onto Sarah’s arm and up to her shoulder, where it nests snugly.

“Oh! Oh!”

Her mouth falls open.

“Do you want to come home with me? Want to live in Lacklanland West with Auntie Sarah? Oh, yes you do! Yes you do!”

She picks up with spider and places it into her purse. The ears of Lil' Has stand up in alarm for a moment but then recede.

“Oh! Oh! They’re snuggling! Oh God, my heart might burst!”

She looks up at the Writer and Skeeter with a stern look on her face.

“Don’t ANYONE tell Kenzi! Not until we’re home and she can’t say no! Do you understand? NOT A WORD!”

The Writer and Skeeter can only shrug at one another as the girl looks back into her purse with pure adoration on her face.

West Hollywood, California

The sound of a woman sighing in passion makes Sarah jump in surprise on the couch. She rolls her eyes as Kem Dynamo “gets a semblance of payback,” as the announcers put it last year, as she eliminates Sarah, as she knows that, no matter what, no one will ever be able to argue against the fact that, guess what, she was right all along about the kemapotomus. Sarah reaches over to the side table and grabs her phone, still on odd fit in her hand with less than a week of experience with it, and turns it own. The screen’s brightness makes her sensitive eyes slam shut in pain for a moment, but she is able to adjust. She smirks as she opens her text messages, or her #DigitalPigeons, as she likes to say with Angelica, knowing full well who it was from. It annoyed Kenzi outwardly that she used a recording of her in the middle of lovemaking as her personalized notification sound, but she was sure it warmed her on the inside.

Kenzi: Are you doing unnecessarily detailed research on a minute point no one will appreciate for your next match in there?!

Sarah sighs at the message. Someday, people would appreciate all the work she did. Someday when everyone was cool like in Ironman. She had a vision.

Sarah: ...no?

Kenzi: 😒

Sarah’s fingers go to respond with a gif...perhaps that one of that old cartoon dad backing away into a bush...when a scream rips through the air. Sarah sits up on the couch, her back stiff, her blood rushing with painful sparks across her body.

“KENZI?!”

They were alone in the house...the entire staff was given a few days off before the duo were off to busy travel days of Minnesota to Texas to Illinois for a busy weekend of wrestling...and her wife’s scream of terror was undeniable. Visions...dark visions...fill Sarah’s head as she leaps to her feet and runs for the door, the images of last year’s Outlast nowhere near her consciousness.

Fuck...fuck...it’s the Hooded Man…

Running through the small hallway from her “media room,” and toward the staircase, worries over a man stalking her within the universe of Vinnie Lane’s wrestling company fill her mind. The man had somehow arranged for two of her lockerrooms to be ruined, as well as an attack on her person in England, and the Mad Rhymes Protection Agency, the duo of Bobbi London and Maxine whom she hired to track him down, were nowhere near the West Hollywood abode.

..fuck...fuck...it’s Jacob…

Ice fills her veins and she finds trouble breathing as she runs up the stairs and to the main living space of their home. Kenzi’s screams are loud in her eyes, screams of horror, of terror. Could it be? The man was in a coma. But that didn’t spot evil men in movies or books, did it? Or maybe Redmaine? Had her step-mother finally snapped completely and wanted to see the family broken beyond repair.

“Mackenzie?!”

Sarah bursts into the family room, the source of the screams, and sees her wife standing on top of a chair, the caramel starlet’s arms wrapped around her, and her face so ashen as to nearly seem white. Time seemed to move slowly for Sarah as her eyes darted about, trying to absorb everything. Their couch in front of the television set, where a doppelganger of Kenzi was on the screen, footage of Hexx the angel that Kenzi as reviewing. A bowl of pork rinds on the glass tabletop, Kenzi’s favorite. Sarah’s most recent purse, the black one with the light blue highlights that Kenzi surprisingly liked.

“KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!”

Sarah looks around with desperation, her head moving with such force that her platinum hair whips painfully against her face, but she cannot find an attacker. Nothing. No one.

“Kenzi, where-”

“THERE! OH GOD! YOUR PURSE! ITS IN YOUR PURSE!”

Sarah’s eyes whip towards her purse in full confusion.

“ITS MASSIVE! SO GROSS! BIGGEST I HAVE EVER SEEN!”

And then...understanding.

Well, shit. Fuck ME in the goat ass.

Sarah’s anxiety falls slowly, the sweat on her brow beginning to cool, as she slowly makes her way over to Kenzi. She holds her hands up and moves them forward and back, trying to calm her.

“Its okay! Its oh...kay…”

Kenzi shivers in uncontrollable revulsion, her bad leg shaking dangerously in its brace.

“God, I HATE spiders. Freakin’ CREEPS! We need to call an exterminator NOW!”

Sarah breathes out with a slow and measured rate.

“Axly…”

She wets her lips, feeling every bit of their dryness without any of her usual lip balm, and her eyes dart between Kenzi and her purse on the table.

“...we don’t.”

Kenzi shakes her head, her forest of micro braids brushing back and forth on her chest and shoulders.

“What are you-”

“Remember how you said I could have ONE more animal? Well, I-”

Kenzi’s eyes go so wide that they would make Margaret Keane blush.

“No! No no no no NO NO NO! I said NO spiders! God DAMNIT, Sarah! I SAID NO FUCKING SPIDERS!”

Sarah slowly moves towards the table with her purse, keeping her eyes away from Kenzi’s.

“Well...TECHnically...you said no spiders TODAY...but...well…”

Reaching her purse, she makes an odd ticking sound with her tongue and places her hand next to her purse. After a moment, the two bunny ears of Lil Has pop out, followed by her nose, and then for small black lines next to her. The lines pull upward and turn into a small black ball, and as it moves forward, the expected for lines on the other side pop free of the purse and the entire thing plops down onto Sarah’s outstretched palm.

Which makes Kenzi scream again.

“AH HELL NAH! THERE IS NO GODDAMN WAY! WHEN DID YOU? HOW DID YOU?”

Sarah giggles as the spider scurries up her arm and ultimately rests in the crook of her shoulder and neck. She turns to face Kenzi, her eyes never quite reaching up to meet their brown counterpart.

“Look...I was in the forest...speaking to Godfather...MINDING MY OWN BUSINESS...when this SUPER DUPER CUTE little girl just FELL into my purse! And she has been UBER quiet since then, and-”

“WAIT A DAMN MINUTE!”

Kenzi’s eyes dart back and forth rapidly in a familiar fashion to Sarah’s when she is thinking hard.

“Forest...forest…”

Her eyes go wide again.

“Do you mean to tell me that that...THING...was in your purse...which was RIGHT AT MY FEET...for the ENTIRE plane trip from Maine to Chicago to L.A.?!”

Sarah’s eyes go even lower and Kenzi shivers in uncontrolled revulsion again.

“Damnit, babe! DAMNIT DAMNIT DAMNIT!”

She stomps her feet, her eyes squinting in momentary pain from her leg, and shivers again.

“God! I HATE spiders! They’re CREEPY!”

Sarah keeps her eyes away from Kenzi and puts them on the spider nestled on her shoulder. She lightly strokes the top of the bulbous body and a tiny, barely heard cooing sound can be heard.

“Isn’t she just the CUTEST thing? Her name is Lael!”

Kenzi groans as Sarah finally turns her eyes back to her, and she can swear that those red-hued eyes had little hearts in them. She slowly lowers herself down from the chair and then sits it in, her full weight bearing down in a slump.

“Why are you like this?”

Sarah doesn’t bother to answer the rhetorical question and instead continues to gently stroke the newest member of the Grey-Lacklan Menagerie.

“Lael is drow for ‘Eight,’ bee-tee-dubs. Its as pretty as she is!”

Kenzi shakes her head and sighs.

“How do you even know its a she?”

Sarah’s eyes open in surprise.

“Her beautiful eyelashes, of course. Here, let me show you-”

“NO!”

Kenzi’s outburst stops Sarah in her tracks before she can even move. Kenzi sighs again and then leans forward, her hand falling into her hands.

“...those things hurt you, babe.”

Sarah is silent as she takes in the pain and worry in Kenzi’s voice. She licks her lips again before speaking.

“No...HE did. But...well...its about learning from our mistakes, right? That’s how we get better? She can’t hurt me if I make her mine.”

Kenzi looks up at Sarah, clearly locking her eyes on Sarah’s in order to avoid looking at the thing on her shoulder.

“wut”

Sarah gives her a small nod.

“We succeed by learning from the past. She’s MY weapon, now.”

Kenzi shakes her head again.

“...guess that explains all the new spider designs you’ve been making…”

Sarah gives this a thoughtful nod. Indeed, quite a bit of her newest dress designs had included spider webs. Kenzi shakes her head again as her hands dig into and pull at braids in frustration and resignation.

“...better than babies, I suppose…”

Sarah gives the top of Kenzi’s head the flattest look she has ever given. Yet another sigh and Kenzi raises her head.

“Don’t expect me to feed that thing!”

The matter clearly settled, yet another victory attained, Sarah claps her hands in joy. And much to the utter revulsion of Kenzi, she could swear that Lael clapped a few of its legs together at the same time.

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