I wrote this. I thought it was funny, but that's just me. So, fellow Scribble Hubbers, is it funny?

HarryGarland said:

This is an excerpt from the 3rd Arc of my story, Heraldry: The Sapphire Among Vines.
It's not published yet, so I'm giving you all a sneak peak.
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure, Comedy

Spoiler: The Cast that contains spoilers.

Starring:

1. Herald, 12y Human boy, a sealed Wingly.
2. Natalie, 13y Felid girl (catgirl), Herald's sworn sister. (ACK! That's a spoiler!)
3. Sylvester 16y Felid boy, the Elder's son.
4. Moy, 15y Felid girl, the Elder's daughter who has a crush on Herald.

Spoiler: Text here: ~2.6k words.

"Oh. *Oh.*"

"Here we go again," he muttered.

Beyond the hedgeline, floating at chest height in a small cluster, were a handful of plants unlike anything in the local undergrowth. They were roughly eggplant-shaped, purple-brown, with trailing fronds where roots should have been — the roots themselves still anchored in the earth below, the tendrils stretching upward like tethers on balloons. They drifted in the still air with a kind of drowsy, self-satisfied peace.

"What are those?" Natalie said, already moving toward them.

"Frilly Floatcaps," I said. "Magical fungi. They're used in levitation potions — they're common in Lumina, though the ones there are white-purple. I've never seen this purple-brown variety."

Natalie turned to me with the expression she reserved for things she intended to learn everything about immediately. "Tell me more."

I did. Sylvester's eyes drifted skyward. I kept going. "When they're still growing, the caps stay rooted close to the ground. When they ripen — when the levitation compounds have fully developed — they fill with whatever it is that makes them buoyant and rise to the end of their tethers, exactly like this."

"So they're floating because they're ripe," Natalie said.

"Yeah."

She looked at them for a moment. Then she reached out and patted one.

It jiggled. It bobbed. It swung gently back toward her hand.

"Aww~~~ So cute~~~!"

She patted it again, harder. The cap shivered and emitted a small, lazy puff of spores — barely visible, a shimmer in the slanted afternoon light. Natalie leaned in, deeply interested, and breathed deeply.

"Natalie... Don't."

"I feel... lighter," she said.

I began moving toward her.

"Funny, actually — kind of pleasant—"

PHIAK!

She slapped it.

"Natalie—!"

POOF!

The cap released a full burst of spores. They hung in the air for one suspended second.

"ACHOO—!"

"Don't inhale those—!" Sylvester shouted. But it was, as warnings go, a little late.

My body went light in the way that feels, for one brief and pleasant moment, like simply being well-rested. Then I noticed the leaves of the canopy were a lot closer than they had been before.

"...Uh, Herald?" Natalie's voice had gone carefully neutral.

I turned. She was floating at approximately leaf-canopy level. When I looked down, I understood why she sounded the way she did.

So was I.

And it doesn't seem like we were stopping anytime soon.

Below, Sylvester and Moy stared up at us. Sylvester's expression was the particular blank of someone watching an outcome they had no framework to address. Moy's hands had flown to her mouth — less out of horror, I suspected, than to contain something.

Natalie reacted first. She drew her greatsword and drove it sideways into the gap between two branches, catching herself with a grunt of effort. She locked her arm over the flat of the blade, stabilized, and grabbed my wrist across the gap between us.

The branches scraped against the steel. We weren't going further up, but we weren't going down either.

"Ropes!" I called. "In the backpack — hurry!"

Moy threw herself at the pack. I heard the buckles open, heard the sounds of our various equipment hitting the ground: the dull thud of our tent canvas, a thunk of something wooden, then the unmistakable clang of cookware—

"The rope, Moy!"

"I'm looking!" Moy yelled back, "Mreowh! Where is it?!"

"Im—im—" The words scrambled in my throat. "Imagine the rope! Picture it in your head, and it'll come!"

A frying pan sailed past Sylvester's head and hit the dirt with a flat thump.

"Oi—!"

"Not working!"

The branch groaned. I tightened my grip on Natalie's wrist.

"Move." Sylvester planted his shoulder beside Moy, reached into the pack, and pulled.

He had the rope in four seconds. He threw. Natalie caught it one-handed, the muscles in her arm going taut.

"Hold tight, Herald!"

"Like I needed telling!"

Sylvester planted his feet and pulled. Moy seized the rope behind him and pulled. We came down slowly, in increments, in a way that had very little dignity but arrived eventually at the ground.

Now, thanks to Natalie's unrelenting curiosity, I was floating approximately three feet above the ground, tethered at the waist to Moy, who had apparently decided this was the best day she'd had in recent memory. Natalie was tethered to Sylvester, who was working through a visible internal debate about whether to be annoyed or quietly impressed. Based on the way his tail hung, annoyance was leading.

Moy circled me with obvious delight. Every few minutes, she'd reached up and pushed my shoulder. I drifted sideways and swung back. And she'd giggle at my scowl.

"Moy. This isn't funny."

She pushed me again.

"*Moy.*"

Sylvester picked up his pack and started walking, pulling Natalie's rope over his shoulder.

"So much for dignity," he muttered. Then, without turning: "And if you two start fighting up there, I'm cutting the ropes."

We bounced along behind him, heads too high, feet barely committing to the ground. Moy skipped at my side and gave me the occasional experimental nudge.

I looked up through the canopy — green and gold, light threading down between the leaves, sky somewhere far above it all.

*Closest thing to flying I've had in a while,* I thought.

And I wasn't sure whether to be happy or sad about it.

We continued our journey, Natalie and I still floating like poorly-designed balloons. Moy was having the time of her life, treating me like a floating plush toy — pushing me just to watch me drift away and drift back, or pulling me close and wrapping her arms around me.

"Moy... I'm not your pillow."

She didn't bother with an answer. Just rubbed her nose against me like the toy she'd decided I was.

"Moy." Sylvester and Natalie said it in unison.

She groaned and let me go. I floated back to about head height.

Natalie, meanwhile, was having the time of her life. She paddled through the air in breaststrokes, using her tail as a rudder, her ears pinned back with delight.

"Look, Herald," she said. "I'm a cloud."

"You are an accident waiting to happen, Nat," I glowered.

"Nope! Na-uh!" She turned to Sylvester, who was trudging ahead with the silence of a teenager reconsidering every life choice he'd ever made. "Hey Syl, whaddya think? Are my strokes correct?"

She attempted a dive as though she was really swimming. It only annoyed him more.

Sylvester watched her for a moment.

"Your form," he said, in a carefully measured voice, "is acceptable."

His tail lashed once and he kept walking. The back of his neck had gone an interesting colour, which Natalie couldn't see, and which I chose not to mention.

We arrived at a deep crack in the earth, the bottom shrouded by mist. The only way across was a suspicious-looking rope-and-plank bridge, or a trip around the edge for who knows how long.

We weighed our options.

"Daddy didn't tell us about a bridge."

"Did we go the wrong way?"

"Herald, you've been to Kuching once," Natalie said. "Did you cross this bridge?"

"Kaelen raced across the treetops..." I said, crossing my arms. "So I don't know. I do know there's a wide stretch of plains further on."

"Some help you are." Sylvester muttered, tail lashing.

"I heard that."

Sylvester sniffed the air. We weren't alone. But he was confident in what we could handle. Moy suggested going around the cliff. We almost agreed — until I pointed out that if whatever was prowling around wanted us, the route wouldn't matter much.

Sylvester thought about it. Then chose the bridge. Faster was better.

We crossed. Axes drawn. Sling loaded. Two balloons, hopefully combat-ready.

Halfway across, the prowlers emerged on both ends. Like something out of a book.

*Well. The classic setup. I've read enough of these,* I thought.

Some were stocky, some were thin, but all of them were definitely short. We couldn't see their faces though — each one wore a mask, carved or painted into various expressions. Smileys, screams, angries, confuseds. You name it, they had it.

They were armed — unfortunately — though the way they held their weapons made us genuinely question whether they knew what weapons were *for.* One of them gripped his short sword by the blade. His hand was bandaged. Very thickly. Another was holding a farming implement the wrong way around. Fortunate.

"Humph. Pucklings." Sylvester said it the way you'd say *of course.* He lowered his axes and straightened — the same posture his father used when addressing a crowd. "No wonder the smell wasn't sharper."

He took a step forward.

One of the bigger Pucklings, who wore a neutral mask and had the practiced poise of someone used to being listened to, shoved through the others and stepped forward too.

They stood across ten feet of swaying planks.

"This! Our bridge!" The neutral-faced Puckling announced, pointing at the floor. His voice was high and whiny. "Pay! Pay!"

"Wow," I muttered, rubbing my chin. "They speak Common. Who taught them, I wonder?"

"Figure that out later, Herald," Natalie said beside me.

Before Sylvester could answer, the Neutral Face pointed his knife at me. Then at Natalie. Then at the enchanted backpack Moy was carrying.

Our future Elder glanced between us. None of us needed to say or do anything to even know that the answer was a big, flat no.

Sylvester delivered it.

"No pay! No go!" Neutral Face said.

"Then we won't use your bridge," Sylvester said, turning toward the horde behind us. "Let us pass back."

"No pay! No go!" Neutral Face shouted again, stomping. This time, he drew a finger slowly across his neck.

The air thickened. My throat along with it. The corner of Natalie's eye twitched.

"H-how about—" Moy dug into the enchanted backpack and produced the bundle of food our mothers had packed. "We give you these and you let us go?"

She peeled open the leaf-wrapping, sniffed it, and made a face that said *very delicious,* then held it out. "It's very tasty~!" Her tail twitched nervously. But then, whose wasn't? Even Sylvester's fur was bristling.

The Pucklings muttered among themselves in their clipped language while we held our breath.

Then Neutral Face turned back. "Food! Balloon! Bag!"

Sylvester made a sound that was either a spit or a scoff. "Now what...?"

While the standoff dragged on, Natalie and I watched as a few of them casually walked towards us while their heads were turned towards the jungle scenery. Sylvester and Moy were occupied with the negations in front.

We exchanged a nervous glance.

*What do we do now?

One of them made for the backpack — and me.

I was tethered to Moy's arm. That sneaky Puckling had a knife. But instead of cutting the rope and making off with me, he yanked it —

"KYAH—!" Moy screamed and spun around.

— as though that would accomplish something. Which, in a way, it had. He got Moy's attention.

Moy looked at him. He looked at her. Sylvester looked at both of them. We looked at them.

The bridge went silent.

For a very long time.

All I heard was the wind rising from the chasm below, and the beating of my own heart.

Somewhere far away, a bird quacked.

"Get away!"

Moy shoved him. The Puckling staggered off the bridge.

"AAAIIIEEE———!"

Another silence followed as everyone watched him vanish into the fog.

Sylvester groaned and raised his axes.

The Neutral Face pointed.

"Attack———!"

Chaos.

The Pucklings surged forward. Several tripped immediately; their friends trampled over them. Sylvester dispatched the first wave with his axes like he was clearing brush. Natalie swung her greatsword, but without the ground to anchor her, she was more hazard than help. One of her swings nearly took off my arm.

"NAT—!"

"SORRY—!"

The enemies closed in. Moy resorted to shoving and kicking. But whenever she moved her arm, I got yanked with it, floating directly to in between her and the Pucklings. They tried to grab me, but their stubby fingers couldn't get a proper hold, so they ended up batting me away instead.

I didn't enjoy being handled by forty stubby fingers. So I fired a Mana Bolt, knocked one out cold — and the recoil nearly yanked Moy off the bridge.

"HERALD——! DON'T!" she screamed, grabbing the rope with both hands.

"Herald," Sylvester hissed, planting his axe across the mask of the Puckling in front of him — it dropped, and the one behind it just stepped over, "if my sister falls off this bridge, I will rip you to shreds!"

"SORRY!"

Amidst the fighting and thanks to my height, I spotted them from the corner of my eye: a cluster of Pucklings huddled at the bridge anchor, trying to drop the bridge. Not by cutting the ropes. By *untying* them. Fumbling, retying, fumbling again.

*Idiots. Good for us.*

"Moy! Shoot those ones at the bridgehead!" I shouted, charging my next bolt. "You take one end, I'll take the other!"

I fired. The recoil still yanked her, but she was braced for it this time. A sudden updraft from the chasm slammed me sideways into Sylvester and knocked him off-balance. He cursed, flailed — and in his attempt to right himself, his elbow caught a Puckling square in the chest.

"YAAAHOOHOOHOOIEE———!"

And down the chasm it — he, whatever — went.

"That was an accident!" he shouted at the sky.

Moy put a bullet through one of the rope-fumbling idiots. Natalie bashed another Puckling's mask with the flat of her greatsword — the recoil yanked Sylvester backwards, and he accidentally ducked a slash from the sword-held-by-the-blade Puckling.

"Humph! Thanks!"

"Count on it, Syl!"

Moy dropped another one who was in the middle of an argument with his friend about the best way to untie the knot.

"Hah! Those idiots!" Moy huffed. "They could just *cut* it!"

"DON'T TELL THEM!" All three of us screamed in unison.

The battle froze.

*Oh no.*

Silence again. With only our heartbeats and heavy breaths audible.

The Pucklings looked at the ropes. Then at their knives. Then at the ropes again. The ones on the bridge looked between us, their friends at the anchor, and then down at the chasm below them.

Sylvester muttered something that wasn't a word.

They cut the rope.

"UWAH!"

I felt a painful jerk like my heart was trying to exit through my mouth. A scream beside me said Natalie had the same experience. All around us, the screams of Pucklings faded downward into the fog.

I thought we were dead.

Then I realised I wasn't falling, and there was a very specific, very painful pulling at my waist.

I looked down. Moy was dangling from our tether, legs kicking in open air. Same scene to my left: Natalie grimacing, Sylvester holding the rope above her with white knuckles.

"Wh—wha—?" Moy gasped, a few octaves higher than usual. "Th-that was super close!"

"Well. That's an unexpected ending," I said, despite the pain.

"Good thing I tied the ropes to us," Sylvester said. His voice was at a pitch I'd never heard from him before.

"Ow! Syl! You're *heavy*—!" Natalie strained at her tether.

We paddled clumsily across to the other side. Sylvester and Moy collapsed onto the ground, shivering and gasping for air. Natalie and I were stuck air in the air, rubbing our skin where the ropes had chaffed.

I looked back at the carnage. The bridge lay stuck to the cliff face on the other side of the chasm.

"We're going to have a hard time getting back now."

"Don't worry about that, Herald!" Natalie chirped, showing me a few of the levitation fungi. "I harvested some Floatcaps. We'll just float across." *When did she pluck them?

"If we don't float into the sky, that is," Sylvester grumbled.

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Bimbanana said:

Even in writing, comedic timing matters. It’s like a stand-up comic explaining the joke for too long, the punch loses some impact. But if you put too much punch next to each other, it loses some impact too.

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