Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This is weird, surely she couldn't be the only one who thought so.

The heavy wings felt like weights rather than feathers.

Paul said that all Watcher's have them, but Lizzie just doesn't understand why.

They can float, for pete's sake! Why do they even need these things? Preening and cleaning, such a hassle! And why're they just purple!? 

The young goddess huffed, twirling one of the many feathers to fall out between her fingertips.

Certainly not hard to find, considering they're all over her house.

She stood to her feet and flapped her wings. Well, tried to flap her wings, the two appendages barely fluttering off the ground.

Luckily, Paul did teach her how to tuck them! 

"You're gonna have to if you'll be running around with the mortals like you say."

Of course, because having giant dragging wings would be silly and impractical!

Silly and impractical.

She took a deep breath and tucked them away into her back, nearly falling backwards from the loss of weight so sudden, quickly restabilizing herself by spinning her arms.

"Woah- no! Ah, nailed it."

And with her newly given inconvenience now safely hid away, she stepped outside her fairly odd house to start the day.

Chapter Text

"Do you know how long I spent working on this stupid villain base?"

Joel was surprisingly huffy and puffy as he wove flowers into Lizzie's hair. If she hadn't asked him to do so, she's sure he'd be gesturing wildly as he vented.

"I know, but I feel like a world like this should end with a BANG, y'know?"

It's been a few months now, maybe a year, since Lizzie shared her secret with Joel. Honestly, she thought it'd be bigger.

The conversation wasn't nearly as hard as she thought it'd be. Maybe that was because she wasn't a "typical case," as Paul said.

Filled with lots of reassurance, Joel reminded her that nothing really changed anyways, she was still the same cute-loving and chaotic girl she'd always been.

With that, the conversation closed, as things were good. Great even, now that he knew, she could talk about her ideas!

"Fifty hours, babe. Fifty blummin' hours!"

She laughed at his quiet outrage, sitting up as he stopped his delicate work.

"C'mon, it'll be so cool!"

Her husband sighed in defeat, crossing his arms.

"Fine, but we get to do something I want next universe."

She hummed in consideration, leaning her head on his shoulder.

"I suppose that's fair enough."

Chapter Text

"What do you think? Good, right?"

"Paul" looked around at the world devoid of player life, bunnies hopping everywhere and a blob of pink grass a bit off in the distance.

"What happened to that other world you have, the one with your.. mortals?"

Lizzie waved a hand with a smile.

"That's still ongoing, but this is just for me! Isn't it cool, it's my own dimension!"

They gazed around, feeling slightly ill from the sight of what they hoped to God wasn't a real cave.

"Why?"

The younger one turned to them, smiling brightly.

"Why not?"

They blinked at that answer and took another look, feeling their eyes shifting in every which way, looking for something to see. To feed is to watch, after all.

Speaking of..

"How do you plan on eating from this world with no players at all?"

Lizzie floated on her back, twirling. She'd been moving much more comfortably since ridding herself of the standard wings, but it was still uncanny to see.

A Watcher without wings.. how peculiar.

"I don't, like I said, this is just for me! Like a break from all that, y'know?"

A break from eating?

"You can't just.. take a break from eating, you need it to live."

She looked at him and floated down to the ground, creating a steak between her palms, holding it up proudly.

"I have all the food I need right here!"

"Paul" stared down at her before flapping their wings, landing on the ground next to her.

As she showed them around, even showing them how to hold a bunny, a peace fell over their mind.

It was nice.. not looking for once.

Strange, but nice.

Chapter Text

"Where, where, where.. ah!"

Lizzie ran through the field of grass, hopping over the other sleeping patrons, and dropped to her knees next to Jimmy.

She reached out, fingers gently brushing over the sprouting yellow feathers under his eyes.

The goddess felt a prick behind her own eyes, tearing up a bit and quickly blinking to fight off the tears threatening her dignity.

"I'm sorry, Jimmy.. I'll do better. I'll get you out, I'll get us all out and- and we can all play something new..!"

She laid down next to him, lacing their hands together with a sniffle.

"I promise, I'll get you all out somehow.."

She took a breath to calm herself and felt a weight being lifted as she split herself, floating up and turning.

She gazed down at the physical form left behind, tears rolling down her cheeks without her effort there to stop them.

"Whatever it takes."

She drifted off to do just that, leaving the little fairy and little canary to sleep, waiting for whatever hell was happening to end.

And if she hugged Jimmy a little harder the next time she saw him, so what?

It's totally normal for a raccoon to hug a thornling that hard, shut up.

Chapter Text

"Oh no, Lizzie! What happened!"

Lizzie blinked in confusion as both Jimmy and Scar looked at her, concerned.

She quickly did a 360° to find whatever was the issue.

"What? Is there an arrow stuck somewhere? I was just fighting a skelly-"

"Nonono, what's happened to your wings!"

Jimmy pointed to the red ivory wings draped along her back, feathers puffed and unkempt.

Lizzie glanced at them and looked back at them, just as confused as before, if not more.

"Nothing?"

Scar stepped forward, his free hand holding up one of the unruly wings with a small hiss.

"Yeesh, not even Skizz let's them get this bad!"

Jimmy huffed in annoyance at the careless grab, looking back to Lizzie with gentle concern.

"Have you not been preening them?"

She hummed, fluttering her wing out of Scar's grip.

"No, but does it matter? We can't use them anyways."

Scar clicked his tongue in disappointment, shaking his head and laying a hand on her shoulder.

"Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie. You have to keep up maintenance, it's not a good look for the theme park!"

As he yapped about good looks and nearly jumped to Star Wars, Jimmy quickly whistled, a good distance away now.

He'd sat down in the grass on the mountain top, patting the space infront of him.

"C'mere, I'll do it for you!"

Lizzie was given the opportunity to hesitate for about one millisecond before Scar ever-so-gently shoved her along the way.

"Yay! Bamboozlers bonding!"

And so, that's how she ended up here, sitting next to Scar with Jimmy behind her.

Despite what anyone might say, she found Scar's voice soothing, a white noise if you will. So she had no trouble drifting into her thoughts as Jimmy worked.

She never did learn how to preen, despite the purple nightmares that once grew from her back.

Paul tried to teach her, but she refused.

Maybe it was out of principal, maybe it was because she hated them all together, even without thinking about who they represented.

Whatever the reason, she didn't care about them back then. Honestly, she didn't care about them now.

Oh well, never too late to learn.

And Jimmy was already happy to be her teacher, who was she to say no?