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there isn’t usually much that goes on in the void outside of players falling through and dying, but on this day, something new occurs.
“hey, guys,” forna greets the two other gods, holding up a device in their giant palm with a sharp-toothed grin. “check out what one of these mortals dropped earlier today.”
“what is this thing?” boötes raises an eyebrow, moving closer to view the tiny item. “it better not be some sort of a banned item.”
“not at all! you know all of that technology mumbo-jumbo that the surface guys have been developing, right?” forna waves out a hand, summoning a clear surface to gently slide the device on top of. “apparently, they call this a desktop. how cute! they can now do tasks on their desks!”
“what can an item as small as that possibly hold?” sculpt says doubtedly. “i can barely see the display.”
“well, we’re about to find out!”
the three gods struggle for about fifteen minutes trying to figure out how to get the computer to work before realizing that the little mouse-like item that it came with was crucial to its functionality. once they manage to open up the desktop, a wide screen of different apps greets the three curious deities.
at first, they attempt to open up an icon labeled “internet explorer,” but are met with the disappointment that it needs something called an “internet” to actually, well, explore . then, the next objective turns to a hunt for something that doesn’t require an internet to open which subsequently leads the gods to find an app titled “microsoft paint” in their search.
“ooh, paint!” forna giggles, navigating the little arrow clicker over to the app icon. “players carry paintings on them sometimes!”
“does that mean this desktop can also display paintings?” boötes wonders, pushing their face in towards the screen.
and so microsoft paint launches, opening to a blank canvas and a wide variety of color swatches on top of the screen. the three gods “oooh” and “ahhh” at the result, all delighted that the app isn’t blocked by a lack of an internet. unfamiliar as to how an art program works, forna clicks on the canvas and gasps when the arrow actually leaves a dot of black in its place.
“even better, boots!” forna exclaims, dragging the pointer around the screen to generate a snake of lines. “we can create our own paintings!”
“let me try!” sculpt elbows the two others away, grabbing onto the mouse. this time, the god clicks on the red color at the on the top of the screen and dots a few red blobs onto the already messy canvas.
the three spend the next ten minutes shoving each other out of the way and huddling around the miniature desktop screen, filling up the canvas with stray lines and random colors. any attempt at drawing something would instantly be covered up by the next mouse hijacker, and no progress was made between the three of them.
"alright, gang!" boötes hollers, slamming down on the invisible table. “stop shoving each other! sculpt, you’re about to drop the mouse into the void!”
“sorry, booties!”
boötes chooses the largest brush size and wipes over the canvas, covering the mess with a new layer of white. “okay, we need an actual plan or order if we want to experience this microsoft paint thing to the full. got any ideas?”
the other two glance at each other, shaking their heads and shrugging in realization that they don’t actually have any ideas for drawings.
“great!” boötes slides in front of the desktop, taking ahold of the mouse. “because i do! how about this: let’s build a mortal!”
forna and sculpt instantly begin chattering, throwing out different suggestions on features and colors, which boötes quiets down quickly.
“alright, let’s go in order. forna, give me a hair color.”
“brown!”
“sculpt, hair length.”
“short?”
“eye color.”
“purple!”
“shirt.”
“hmm… green.”
“nice! we’ve got our mortal! now we just have to actually put it down…”
but as it turns out, making random lines are easy; making articulate shapes are not. a tiny mouse and screen also do not work very well when trying to draw something, especially with two annoying voices backseat driving.
without knowledge of the undo button, every time boötes makes a mistake, there has to be a tedious back-and-forth of using a white pen to block out the slipup and then going back to the previous selection to continue. this results in their drawing having lots of jittery, different-sized pen strokes and a lot of unfilled colors.
besides just that, the drawing’s anatomy, to put it nicely… leaves a bit to be desired. there are some stray lines on the face, the poorly-drawn ear is pointy rather than rounded, and boötes didn’t intend to create a small figure, but the thing on the canvas looks more like a young child than anything else.
fortunately, boötes finally finishes coloring the mortal’s outline and moves away from the screen to admire their masterpiece. “there we go! that wasn’t too bad!”
“uh, i think you forgot the face,” forna points out.
boötes looks back to the screen where in fact, the drawing is missing eyes and a mouth. cue a comical face-slapping noise. “oh, for the love of dXD!”
“come on, you can just add it on right now!” sculpt reassures, patting their leader on the back. “it can’t be that hard, right?”
nodding, boötes places their hand over the mouse once more. “yeah, you’re right. it’s just some shapes anyway.”
on the screen, boötes moves the mouse cursor to the face region, but stops and freezes for a good few seconds. “actually.”
“what’s wrong, boot?”
with an embarrassed grin, boötes turns back to the other two and confesses, “i uh. we don’t have eyes, so i don’t remember what they look like… forna, can you help?”
“hey,” forna backs off, raising both palms in defense. “don’t ask me. i don’t know what they look like, either. go ask sculpt, or something.”
making a gawking noise of surprise, sculpt retaliates, “you’re literally the one who interacts with players! all i do is oversee server hub travel!”
“no, i slap them until they die. i never get up close. there’s a difference!”
“you guys are giving me a headache,” boötes groans, shaking their head, then proceeding to simply draw two purple circles where the eyes go. “there! finished!”
“there’s still no mouth.”
“ dX-Dammit! ” boötes slams the table again, gripping the mouse with a godly force. the god messily scribbles with a black pen over where the mouth region should be, and pushes away from the table in fury. “mouth! finished! does anyone have any objections?”
forna grins and gives two thumbs ups while sculpt only shrugs, but boötes isn’t planning to continue this drawing any further anyway, regardless of their opinions. the leader then moves to close the app and remove their combined monstrosity off the screen, only to be prompted with a save menu popping up in the middle of the canvas.
“it’s asking to save?” boötes furrows their eyebrows at the screen. “does that mean we can save this creation for later access?”
“do it,” sculpt adds. “could be fun to pull up in the future.”
and so the three save their image, then continue exploring the desktop’s functions as originally intended. however, after only five seconds, the computer begins to shake and glow unnaturally bright to the point where streaks of light burst out from its sides. unsure of if this is normal or not, the void gods all cautiously back a few feet away from the vibrating device, glancing at each other with uncertainty.
after fifteen seconds, the light that the desktop omits completely covers up any sight of its shape with a glowing ball of light. in addition to this, a high-pitched whirring sound now accompanies the increasing brightness, even piercing into the vast vacuum around it. and it grows brighter and brighter and brighter and–
suddenly, the light completely dispenses, leaving behind nothing but a normally lit-up screen and three very confused gods.
“...should we do something about this?” forna asks the others, poking the desktop with one sharp nail.
fortunately (or maybe, unfortunately) for the trio, this question does not go unanswered for long, as the computer jolts once and spits out a tiny being onto the invisible platform, leaving it lying face first. moving in closer, the three all lower to eye-level with this strange new creature, brimming with curiosity. upon closer inspection, the small figure seems to have the body of a child, complete with a tuft of brown hair, a large green t-shirt and black pants. for some reason, though, it doesn’t seem to move from its spot…
“ is it dead? ”
popping up in an instant, the creature confirms that it in fact, is not dead. for the first time, the void gods get to see the thing’s face– sure enough, it has acceptable eyes. purple, human-passing eyes. but the bottom half of the face…
“oh my watcher, it actually came to life,” sculpt whispers upon realizing where the being came from, then gets slapped in the back of the head by forna.
the microsoft paint child stares up at his creators as well, analyzing the massive gods with his round eyes while the three hold their breaths and wish for the best. to their dismay, they find out that this baby in particular gains sentience frighteningly quick.
touching the side of his face, the child makes a horrified, distorted gurgly noise when he discovers his own condition. “i have no mouth! ”
suddenly, a completely new situation faces these three young gods– none of them have ever properly interacted with mortals before, and now the being they’ve created is sitting right before their faces, freaking out about his lack of a mouth.
“hey, kid, it’s alright!” boötes attempts to reassure the wailing child, moving to be directly in front of the kid’s face. “look!” boötes pulls up their hood, revealing a void where the eyes should be. “i’ve got no eyes!”
despite this amazing method of soothing a distressed kid, this only causes the child to scream and cry even louder, now sending his distorted sobbing all around the void.
now, completely helpless in how to deal with this issue, the gods begin to panic as well.
“do you know anybody who could give advice about parenting?!” sculpt asks hurriedly, now carrying the child in their palm. “how about the watchers?”
“those old farts have never smiled a day in their lives,” forna mumbles, recalling how the elder gods scolded them previously for their goofing off. “they probably eat kids for breakfast.”
boötes, who has been pondering particularly hard for the past minute, finally suggests a viable idea for the first time since opening the computer. “ lady death! she deals with children all the time!”
––
unsurprisingly, lady death was not happy in the slightest with what the void gods had conceived.
“you three created a child from a drawing app?! ” she berates, holding the still crying boy close to her chest and away from the gang. they can barely see her face underneath her wide hat and her much shorter human form, but the sheer anger that radiates off the lady is more than enough to get her point across. “that’s– i don’t even know what to say! this is so immature and insensitive of you all!”
she takes another look at the child’s face, horrified at whatever happened to cause… that . “how did you even manage to mess up like this?!”
“um, we found him that way,” forna offers quickly.
“extensive void exposure?” sculpt says at the exact same time.
“oh yeah, a monster attack. horrible horrible scene.” boötes nods with a bitter frown, which only receives two looks from the other two that read ‘what the hell is wrong with you?’
scowling at the void gods, lady death continues, “regardless of which, this seems to clearly be your doing!”
the three can only hang their heads in shame as the goddess of death scolds them for their poor management and irresponsibility, occasionally dropping the “sorry” and “we didn’t know” here and there.
even while reprimanding the young gods, lady death still somehow manages to calm the child down with her slow rocking and hair strokes. near the end of her lecture, he has stopped crying completely, now clinging onto the lady tightly.
“do not ever start something you did not plan for again!” she finishes off the monologue, frowning at the three. “are you sure you can even handle this child?”
“we… can definitely try, i suppose…” boötes responds meekly, shrinking into their cloak.
the lady raises an eyebrow. “you suppose? ”
“we are certain!” forna assures, waving the other one away. “all a kid needs is food and an education, right?
lady death sighs, shaking her head ad the pure incompetence of this bunch. “you all have much to learn… sit down for a few moments, and i’ll just start you off with the bare minimum.”
as the goddess of death explains the most basics of parenting and childcare, the three void gods listen intently to the expert’s advice. while listening, they all unanimously decide that they would never pull a stunt like this again and agree to never open up microsoft paint again.
or at least, that was the original plan, anyway. as circumstances change, old agreements fade away with the increasing boredom that would grow, and everybody knows what happens when gods get bored.
––
“and that’s the full story!” boötes finishes off, clapping their hands. “you two were made on mspaint!”
“i…” xisuma stares up at his creators, face distorted into an expression that somehow manages to encompass a mix of shock and some form of being impressed, but in a distressed type of way. “i never knew about this…”
“well of course you didn’t– because we all decided not to tell you or the other one!” sculpt exclaims, patting xisuma’s back with a finger. “you were technically an accident anyway, but look on the bright side! you still turned out better than your brother, who we actually kind of had a plan for!”
“huh, so EX was meant to be an alternate version of myself…” xisuma realizes, putting all the pieces together. “are there any other creations of yours that i should know about?”
“ nope! ” all three gods shoot back instantly without even leaving a millisecond in between. “you two are the only ones!”
“got it. thank you again.” xisuma nods, placing the helmet back over his head. “i’ll just go back to look over the little one now, since he probably wouldn’t live out here as well as i did back then.”
“don’t forget that you’ve now got to bring him over for family dinners!” forna grins, revealing all of their pointy teeth. “it won’t be fun leaving him back home!”
shooting his creators a thumbs up, xisuma treads back towards the surface, leaving the three alone in the void again.
“i’m sure glad they’re not like that smiley knock-off,” sculpt brings up once xisuma is completely out of sight, and the two only groan exasperatedly in response.
rolling their nonexistent eyes, boötes says, “forget about that one! he’s not invited to any gatherings anyway!”
“speaking of gatherings, there should be one scheduled for next month!” forna reminds the two, grin spreading ever-so-wider. “are you excited to see the youngest one for the first time in years?”
it would be interesting, for sure. all three of them will not hesitate to admit that they haven’t exactly been the best parents in the slightest, but they were all excited to see the kids together again. asking if EX would be happy to see them would be another question, but they didn’t really care about that anyway.
and so the three gods sit in their spots, continuing their everyday duties, waiting for the time of their next meeting with their mspaint children.