Boots 3.1 (ver 5) (Patreon)

Here's the inserted scene. Some text came from scene 3 and some from older versions.

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Ykahi swiped at the giant’s strand, scrolling past photos on the website’s gallery. “Yeah, yeah,” she grumbled. “These are all crap.”

“Crap?” chortled Botabriask. “I recognize some of those. They’re masterpieces!”

The tiny ringel shrugged. “Maybe for those of you who can see infrared and ultraviolet,” she huffed, “But to those of us limited to the visible color spectrum … well, there’s just not a lot to appreciate.”

Bota muttered into his beer, “Infrared and ultraviolet are part of the visible color spectrum … for those of us with decent eyes.”

Ykahi’s scrolling slowed when she advanced to the website’s landscapes and portraits galleries. “These I kinda like,” she admitted. “2C talked a lot about these, and I really enjoyed her perspective.”

The krakun touched a talon to the screen and clicked a link. “Each of the listings includes a link where you can read more about the painting,” he explained. “The artist, the era, the influences. And there’s additional links under there if you want to know more. You could get lost for days just learning about a single painting.”

The ringel shoved her shoulder hard against Bota’s talon, pushing it away from the screen. When it was finally clear, she beat angrily at it with the flats of her paws for several moments before shouting over the music that blared perpetually from the apartment’s television. “Stop that!”

Then, hitting “Back” on the browser, she returned to her trip through the photos. “You don’t understand, Botabriask. 2C wasn’t telling me about history and other boring facts! She was telling me about what she felt while she was standing there, looking at them. That’s what I’m missing out on, lizard. I can read facts all day long, but I’m never gonna experience that feeling if I’m not allowed to go look at the paintings myself.”

The krakun rolled his eyes. His mouth opened to speak, but then something else caught his attention. “What are you doing out?” he screamed as he launched from the table. “Is this daytime? Am I at work?” Without setting down his beer, he brought one boot down over and over, smashing it against the linoleum with crash! after crash!

Ykahi raised her paws and shrunk in upon herself, terrified but unable to look away. Each time Botabriask raised his boot back up, she was certain it would reveal a huge, bloody mess. But instead, the terrified geroo on the floor kept shrieking and dashing out of the way just in the nick of time. At long last, the furry creature bounded across the carpet and dove into the inky black hole in the side of the cleaning crew’s shoebox.

“Damn mammals!” the krakun spat. He flopped back down, slamming his beer hard enough on the table so it foamed up and out the bottle’s top like a tiny volcano.

Ykahi glared at him for a long while before he eventually shrugged. “Not you, Ykahi,” he finally amended. “You’re great.”

She hrumphed and turned back to his strand. “Yes, I am,” she agreed before sliding on to the next photo.

“It’s just the damn cleaning crew,” he grumped. Laying his claws down on the table and resting his chin upon them, he added, “They really piss me off.”

When Ykahi’s browsing reached the natural history section of the museum’s site, she began bouncing excitedly in place. “This is my favorite part!” she shouted.

Bota looked at the screen while she scrolled by photos of dioramas and taxidermy until she finally reached the fossils and skeletons. He barely stifled a laugh. With the back of a talon, he gave her a nudge where the stripes on her chest looked like ribs. Though he pushed at her gently, she was so much smaller than him that his touch nearly bowled her over. She turned and hissed at him just as loudly as she could manage, looking like a tiny, angry skeleton.

“You like looking at bones?” he asked. “I could never have guessed that.”

“But look at this!” Ykahi shouted at him. “Look! 2C said that these bones are so old that they actually turned to stone!”

Botabriask nodded absently. He took a swig from his beer bottle and set it back down—more gently this time. “Fossilization, yeah,” he said.

She glared at him. “You’re old, Bota. Like, ancient!” She climbed up his arm and hopped repeatedly in place, her grabby paws landing right where the least meat padded his bones underneath. “What about your bones? Have they turned to stone yet?”

The krakun snorted and pulled his arm away, dumping her on her tail. “I don’t think they do that, Ykahi,” he said. “I don’t think bones can fossilize before they get buried in the ground.”

She looked at him with a dubious expression and pointed at his snout. “You don’t know that!” she shouted. “You could be all stone inside and not even know.”

The bright blue krakun leaned close, his face just meters from her. “I do know lots of things,” he said with an enigmatic grin. His expression softened, and he spent a moment looking her over, studying her pelt. “I meant to ask you before, what’s up with the paint?”

“Huh?”

“You’ve got paint on your face that makes you look like a skeleton,” said Boots. “Why do you do that?”

Her ears beamed a smile. “Because I’m a voodoo priestess!” she announced.

Boots scowled and moved his face a little closer to her own. “Yeah?” he asked. “Kinda like doing magic and shit?”

“Kinda exactly doing magic and shit!” she laughed. “Curses, hexes, and magic potions.”

He opened one eye wider. “Magic isn’t real,” he said. “It’s all—”

Her fur standing on end, she glared at him, pointing right between his eyes. For many long seconds, she held him there in silence. “Don’t cross me, krakun,” she warned.

Pulling slightly away, Boots spoke from the corner of his mouth, “Actually … I’m rather fond of the look,” he said. “It reminds me of one of the Dead Gods gluppets they give away at Burger Meal.”

“Oh, the gluppets!” she sighed, swooning back down onto the table, her coat relaxing into its normally sleek look. “I’d do anything for one of those glove-puppets. I’d eat a whole WhelpMeal!”

He stifled a snorted laugh. “You’re about the same size as a WhelpBurger—smaller maybe. Finishing one would be quite a feat.” Then, he encircled her with his thumbs and index talons to illustrate the size.

Ykahi grabbed one of his thumbs with both of her paws and shoved angrily at it, but it didn’t move. “Well, I would if I could! But of course, I’m never going to Burger Meal.”

He grinned and returned his attention to his beer. “Too big for you. I could eat one.”

“That’s right!” said the ringel, her eyes growing wider. She bounced on her toes. “You could! You could get a WhelpMeal for lunch!”

He snorted with derision. “Fast food. So nasty.” He eyed her a moment, and the silence stretched thin. “You weren’t actually expecting me…”

At that, she deflated a bit. “No, of course not,” she said. “It was only a thought.”

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Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GtdNNTm3ghAhHA2UWh9Vw0bgYtJdeJlYEAQlInzuGUc/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?