The Necklace

Tika had seen the latest bounty on the TV screen at the bar, but it was her shift. She couldn’t exactly drop sure-thing money (plus tips) for measly maybe bounty money. Mujan, who was busy chatting up the customers, seemed oblivious to the latest bounty reports. Tika made her way to the end of the bar where Mujan had planted herself. “Did you see that?” Tika asked.

“See what?”

“There’s a new beast bounty,” Tika said, cleaning a glass.

Mujan rose a blonde brow. Oh, Tika wanted her to get off her ass. “All right, I’ll check it out,” she said, getting out of the stool and stretching. “What am I going for?”

“40 coon hearts,” Tika said.

Mujan hated coons. In the early days, when the cities were swallowing the forests, scientists predicted that raccoons would be extinct in a few years. But those little buggers adapted and used their tiny little hands to manipulate, scratch, and consume. And now, when the forests fought back, the raccoons were easily four times the size and five times as aggressive.

Mujan couldn’t remember the last time she saw a coon that wasn’t hissing at her. They were nasty and they were hard to take down. But Mujan would do it.

“I’ll do it,” Mujan said, determined.

Tika rolled her eyes, but smiled at Mujan as she left. Tika knew Mujan would likely end up at the bar halfway across the street when she hit twenty hearts, and then maybe they’d finish the last twenty together in the morning.

Mujan, however, had another plan.

She was going to do something nice for Tika. It’d be a surprise, of course. They were in that stage of their relationships where they were so comfortable with each other that they didn’t worry about surprises and sudden gifts anymore. But Mujan would give her one.

She kept more than the hearts. Mujan carved off their sharp little claws, the easiest part of the coon to sell. She didn’t head to the bar when she had finished the bounty, she headed to back to the place she shared with Tika.

With the loose fur from the coons and a knife with a fine tip, she weaved together the claws into an intricate necklace that would sprawl out across Tika’s chest like a web. When she tilted the necklace, the silver threads of fur shone. Mujan took a moment to admire the necklace

Truth was, Mujan knew exactly where she’d be without Tika. They grew up together, and they parted ways, but they were drawn back towards each other. Tika kept Mujan moving, and in their environment, Mujan really had to keep moving to survive.

Without Tika, Mujan would still be sitting at the bar, missing bounty reports. She’d be drinking instead of working. She’d follow the fate of the cities around them, fading and unable to thrive.

But Tika reminded her of the resourcefulness of the coon, to keep moving, to use what they had around them, to find a way to survive.

Mujan wasn’t sure how to say all of that to Tika, but she hoped the necklace would signify some of it.

Or that the necklace would show, at the very least, that Mujan loved her.




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This commission is for Ugliest Weenie of Gaia Online. The wonderful original characters in this commission belong to her, obviously.