doomed.

Your name is Dave Strider, but you are most commonly referred to as Davesprite. You were once 'another future Dave' and have prototyped yourself, helped your alpha Dave along, and since been liberated, only to find yourself tied down on a battleship for two years of absolute boredom.

You have tried to make the best of a bad situation, as Striders are taught to do. You helped John prank the daylights out of a number of different consorts (mostly the nakodiles; you hold a special grudge to them), you have watched bottom of the barrel movies and you have even broken the heart of one dog tier girl. And yet you still find yourself bored. Waiting.

Waiting for more than they would ever know.

As a Sprite, you have gained immense knowledge of the Game. SBURB is not nearly as mysterious and grand as it once was, but this is probably more of a curse than a blessing. You have restrictions on what you can and cannot share and because of this you have had to try your hardest to put easy to find tidbits into everyday conversations or, even worse, the shittiest riddles known to mankind. Why riddles were ever invented, you will never know.

You are not sure if it is your past standing as Knight of Time (or if that is even a thing anymore) or if it is your current standing as a Sprite, but you have come to terms with the fact that no big change comes without premonition. Whether it be a creeping feeling or a full-on vision, though, seems random. You percieve it nonetheless and have avoided a number of catastrophes thanks to it.

This does not mean you have been freed of blame. Jade can no longer stand to look at you (some day she will understand why you had to break up with her) and John has finally pulled the wrenching 'real Dave' card. It hurts, but you're a Strider, so you will never fess up. That shit's going to the grave with you.

At current you are seated on the rails, tail twirling and snagging in the breeze. The Yellow Yard stretches on for miles and miles in either direction, dark space with a bright band, and you sigh. A fiery orange feather whips free of your wing and flutters off down the boards of the ship and off into the void you are traveling through.

They honestly do not understand. Jaspersprite does. Sometimes, when he can withstand his stupid cat instincts to jump you the second he sees you, he comes out on deck and simply sits at your side. You're two of a dying breed, but you cannot let the others know. Why the Game gives two shits, you only wish you grasped.

Your bright tail flickers and for a second it distorts; the shimmering gold of the outter hull is visible through it and then it reforms. It leaves you feeling tired and drained, as if it had taken your energy to replicate itself. You duck your head in response.

It's easier this way, for them. You have been a man of sacrifice; you doomed yourself from the get-go. You abandoned your timeline to come back and save Alpha Dave's ass, then you prototyped yourself, and now you have commited social suicide in the highest all to make life better for the oblivious idiots around you.

But they're not idiots. Not really.

You wouldn't sacrifice your life for idiots.

The flickering has been growing increasingly worse over the last week. Jade never noticed, thank God, but you did. It was only the tip when you broke it off with her, but you knew it was coming. It has crept a good foot up now, slowly bleaching the life from your skin. In its place it turns a pale, sickly yellow that you have managed to keep under wraps.

This time when it flickers, it is near where your knees would have been. You shudder and gasp for air as it binds itself back together, dripping a translucent lemon-colored fluid that is far too similar to your blood. You look away in disgust.

No, they would not be able to comprehend the entricacies of being a Sprite. Destined to die from the moment you are thrown into that shitty kernel. It hurts, but you tell yourself that it can only hurt for so much longer.  You are not quite sure where Sprites go when they finally kick the bucket (all puns intended), but you know it isn't where everyone else goes. Nary a single Sprite has ever been witnessed floating around in one of the dreambubbles and you doubt it would start allowing it for your sake.

Sometimes when it gets quiet, you can hear the HorrorTerrors.

The door behind you slides open with a grinding of metal and you square your shoulders and casually dunk your tail low over the side of the ship so it will not be seen. A few popping sounds and you relax, glancing back toward Casey. Her scarf and hood flutter as she approaches you, bubbling and gushing just like she always does when she sees a potential for some attention.

Not a man to turn a pretty lady down, you lean back with your tail balancing you over the railing and pluck the little salamander up. Of course you would never treat her so tenderly in front of the others, but whatever. They never come up here anymore.

She wriggles in your grasp and foams in your face, big baby browns all squinched up in delight, and you let a slight smile tweak at your lips. She notices and her bubbles about suffocate you as they pour out of her flapping little mouth and just as you open your mouth to say something, her forehead bumps your jaw and clicks your teeth together.

Casey obviously thinks this is the best thing ever as she starts letting out this bubbly little noise you have come to recognize as salamander giggles.

You calm her down with a pat on the head, forcing her to flop down into a sitting position on your coiling lap. You can tell why John holds her in such regards; she's not half bad. Shenanigans worthy of a fit-prone toddler aside. Her skin is smooth and chilly beneath your fingers and it, too, reminds you of lemons.

You are lost in a world of lemony goodness, it seems. A golden ship, crossing the Yellow Yard, toting some squiring little lemondrop. She nibbles at the edge of one of your neckfeathers and you huff, shooing at her. She squishes her little eyes shut in determination and pulls one free with a chuff in return.

She seems at a loss as to what to do with it now and the wind nearly rips it clean out of her mouth when you suddenly double over her little body with a tremor running down your spine. That flicker was a hell of a lot stronger than the others. It was a lot higher up, too, and it hurt like a bitch. Usually they only tired you; you'd never actually felt it.

This did not bode well.

A worried wash of spitty foam wakes you from this crippled position and you right yourself. Casey has the soggy feather pinched in little fingers as she gazes up at you with apathetic, though curious eyes. She was probably more concerned about losing your attention, but you like to make yourself belive otherwise. At least she's positive when she's around you.

You take the feather from her and she squeals in distate, but you calm her with a pap on the snout and reach for her hood. It covers her eyes momentarily as you use the sharp end of the feather to poke it through the fabric; giving her an accessory Pupa Pan would envy. A bright orange feather to compliment her black and purple garb.

She obviously does not comprehend what you've done and starts to complain and wriggle in your grasp. You reach back and let her scramble back down onto the deck and toward the door. Part of you doesn't want to do it-

Part of you doesn't want to die alone.

But you're a man. You've watched yourself from so many timelines, dropping like flies around you, so you know other Daves had been able to handle the parells of dying. Still, when the shock comes hard and fast, siezing your chest in a painful, fiery grip, you find yourself asking if you really are a Dave.

The point has been raised again and again. You're DaveSprite. You are no Dave. You may have been once, but now that you have pale orange skin, your legs have been replaced with this bullshit tail and you've got feathers, that obviously means you are far from human. Dave Strider is the name of an unmistakeable human.

Perhaps you have lost the right to call yourself a Strider. The revelation burns like the putrid lemon blood that gushes into your throat and all at once chokes you. You fall backward off of the railing and hit the deck. Hard. It jars your bones, brittle bird bones, and you are positive if you weren't tied up at the moment that you would have noticed your dislocated shoulder.

This time the flickering reaches past your belly. It doesn't go away, either. It creeps farther up, tingling at your fingertips and in an instant scorching your shoulders. It tears mercilessly at your very core, pulling and jerking, disecting you and all you are.

You're not a Strider. You're not even a real player. You're a pawn and nothing more. Your ex-best friend hates you, your ex-girlfriend hates you and by now you're sure even your little lemondrop buddy hates you. Dave never really liked you. Everyone you grew up with came to a horrible fate on their timeline. You ran, you ran like hell, but every doomed player gets their happily never after at some point.

You writhe as blood trickles and gushes in convulsive patterns out of your mouth, your ears, you're pretty sure your eyes, too, if you could open them. Your wings spasm and beat the deck, feathers flurrying around you like that crow you killed so many years ago. The healing bit around your middle rends open and, for a second, you are that bird. You can only watch in parlayzed terror as its death plays out before you like every other loved one's; you throw the sword, you throw it and laugh, it pierces, so slow, everything goes slow when you are dying, and it goes through you right down to the handle.

And then you're falling. And falling. And falling. You hit the ground in a pile of panicked feathers and now you aren't even sure if you are yourself or not but what you do know is that whoever is screaming is making a gogawful racket and- and you realize it's you when you and the noise both stop to choke on gobs of blood.

You are smeering and screaming and convulsing in a puddle of your own lifeblood and feathers and there is no one to see. No one to care. Your body is disappating before your very eyes and all you can do is scream in agony. Complete and utter agony.

And for a moment you think it's ironic. The Knight of Time, so quick to backtrack, could only stand back and watch as he died a ridiculously slow death. No turntables to conjure for help now. Only the cold hard truth you had fled hell and high water to avoid.

Your name used to be Dave Strider and by the time John comes up on deck looking for you, he only finds Casey playing in a lemony substance with a bright orange feather sticking out of her hood.