Feferi pouted, as if demonstrating her dissatisfaction would magically fix the situation. When things didn’t suddenly work out she turned back at Aradia, equally tired, equally annoyed, but still managing to enjoy their predicament, with that wide smile in her lips.
“Maybe we should turn back.” Feferi suggested.
“Nah, we can wing it.” Responded her enthusiastic girlfriend. “Besides, I don’t remember the way back.”
Feferi pouted again, looking outside of the car. Snow fell and there were trees everywhere. They had gone past the gates of Equius’ mansion half an hour ago, but they still hadn’t found the actual mansion. His propriety covered an absurdly large area and it was easy to get lost without a map. They were given one along with the party invitations, but somebubble insisted they should have an “adventure” and left it back at their apartment.
“Is that one of the land marks?” Asked Aradia, squinting her eyes. “Yes, it is, we must be getting close!”
In the distance a huge statue of a man with the head of a horse pointed to its left, most likely indicating the way to the mansion. Feferi noticed that they approached the statue with increasing speed, and began to get a little worried.
“Angelfish, slow down.” She requested, managing to sound only a tiny bit alarmed.
“I’m trying.” Aradia replied
“Just step slightly on the breaks. Use the breaks, Angelfish.” Said Feferi, allowing herself be sound more concerned about their safety.
“I’m stepping on them,” Aradia said, giving her an apologetic look and shrugging. “The car is simply sliding ahead on it’s on, totally out of my control.”
The color left Feferi’s face as she took the wheel and turned it. No matter which direction she tried, left or right, turning the wheel only changed where the front of the car was pointing to, they kept sliding on the same direction.
“Oh my Glub! What do we do now?!”
Aradia looked contemplative at the big statue that was getting closer. She looked at her girlfriend, sighed and said…
“Look, no hands!” She gleefully shouted as she released the wheel.
“Aradia!”
“I love you, dear.” Aradia held Feferi tight. “See you on the other side.”
The two girlfriends held tightly to each other and closed their eyes as the car spun out of control, on its way to be destroyed by a giant horse-man made of stone. The end was near. Very near. Any moment now. Huh?
“Did we stop? Are we safe or dead?” Feferi asked as she opened her yes, seeing that the car had come to a halt and only a couple of feet from the big statue.
There was a knock on the window on Feferi’s side; an Equius made of metal with glowing eyes was outside. Along with him, other Equiuses of metal held on to the car. In the snow the trail of their feet pinpointed the moment when they heroically swooped in to prevent the collision. Feferi lowered the window and greeted the robot.
“Good evening ma’am and ma’am.” Said the robot at the window. “Please drive carefully. Every work of art is unique and irreplaceable.”
“Of course they are!” Said Feferi, in a mocking tone she hoped the robot couldn’t recognize. Surely that statue couldn’t be replaced by any other of the countless statues of horse-headed men that Equius had made.
“You two are expected at the party. Are you intending on attending?” Asked the robot.
“You betcha!” Responded Aradia.
“Very well. In light of your reckless driving, we would like to escort you and your vehicle to prevent any damage to property or other individuals.”
Before Aradia could protest to the accusation of being a bad driver, the robots lifted the car up and carried it and its passengers the rest of the way. In less than five minutes the mansion was visible from the distance. Not that many years ago Equius was a starving artist. Though he did not lack in skill, his fixation in producing pieces of nothing but anthropomorphic horses didn’t bring much money to his pockets. Were it not for his best friend Nepeta encouraging him to focus on his other natural talent, robotics, he would still be living at her garage.
Now content for revolutionizing the development of robots in ways that had only been seen in fiction before, Equius went back to his true passion: strange art depicting anthro horses. He had money now, so people went along with it.
“Well, that was exciting!” Said Aradia.
“I’d prefer if we avoid anemone more excitement that may involve near death experiences.” Feferi said with her hand on her chest, feeling her heart calm down.
“I saw my entire life flash before my eyes. I remember why I dropped archeology now! Also, your still owe me some ice cream.”
The robots carefully lowered Feferi and Aradia’s car at the front entrance so they could get out, then they lifted it up again, taking it away to park it somewhere. The couple wondered if Equius had intentionally programed the robots to forgo conventional solutions in favor of ways to demonstrate their strength, or if they were just imitating him.
The mansion’s party hall was filled with people, all wearing clothes that matched the color of their eyes, for some reason. It was a recurring thing that the couple had noticed, and they were doing it too, with Feferi in her fuchsia dress and Aradia in her rust colored dress. It just felt natural somehow.
“Feferi, how fortunate that you decided to come!” said Equius as he approached.
“Hello Equius. We are grateful for your invitation. We needed betta plans for tonight than watching scary movies on Netfish.”
“I presume you brought Aradia along then.”
“Of cod, she’s right…” Feferi turned to face her girlfriend, only to find an empty space where she was supposed to be. “Here?”
Looking around, she spotted her gillfrond making her way to the big tables with food on them, grabbing any appetizer the robot butlers offered her on the way.
“Ex-eel-se me. I’ll fetch her.”
Fefei made her way to Aradia, dodging guests and robotic butlers, never losing sight of her. It was pretty easy, as no other guest was wearing a rust colored dress, and no one else alive had such rebellious hair that refused to look presentable no matter how many hours were put in fixing it. Well, Vriska’s and Meenah’s were just as terrible, but it was less noticeable now that they got a taste for braiding.
“Aradia…” Feferi started in a scolding tone, but the ensuring scolding was blocked on its way out as Aradia grabbed an appetizer and put it in Feferi’s mouth. Tear drops fell down her eyes as she savored the unknown, probably expensive treat. They were both terrible cooks and they had been sustaining themselves with nothing but take outs and ramen ever since they started living together. Feferi was good at baking, but eating nothing but cake was not a good idea.
“Real food!” She said as she began to attack the buffet table with her girlfriend.
She didn’t have a chance to enjoy the food as much as Aradia did, as the band began to play a more fun and improvised tune after a young blond man in a red suit got on stage and insisted they should “follow my lead,” and began beatboxing. Aradia grabbed Feferi by the hand and dragged her to the dance floor.
“But I don’t know how to dance.” Said Feferi.
“Really? Me neither!” Said Aradia as they reached the middle of the dance floor.
Improvising as much as the band, Aradia threw and swung her arms around in what she believed was how one follows the beat. Feferi’s improvised dancing was stiffer, which Aradia still found somewhat adorable. Feferi was such a social person; it was cute to see that despite of that she danced like a nerd kid at prom night. The music became more energetic after a young blonde woman in a lavender dress got on stage, stated that “Dave, you’re embarrassing yourself,” and pushed him off stage, beginning to beatbox in his place.
The couple had worked out a bit of sweat by the time things calmed down, after Equius’ robot butlers dragged the blonde woman out of the stage and pried the microphone out of her hand, and the band returned to their sophisticated gala music.
After Feferi went back to the buffet table and satiated her need for food that wasn’t ramen, the couple moved away from the crowd and went to the gardens. The snow had stopped falling, but the cold persisted. Feferi put an arm around Aradia’s waist and held her closer for warmth. They distracted each other from the cold and the regret for not taking their coats by reminiscing of the night they first met.
It had been a cold night, just like this one. Feferi had gone to the hospital to visit her friend Sollux, and ended up bumping into the patient who had just woken out of a coma and was gleefully trying to escape the hospital while the staff chased after her. Though Aradia looked a lot more healthy and lively now, her hair was still the same mess as it was that night.
They made their way to the frozen lake at the center of the garden and Aradia stomped on the ice to check if it was safe.
“Maybe if we pester Equius enough, he might give us some ice skates.” She turned to Feferi and smiled. “Eh? Wanna go for some ice sk-aaAAAH!”
Feferi responded to her girlfriend’s smile with a devilish smirk and pushed her over the frozen lake. Aradia began sliding on the frozen surface, arms swaying as she battled gravity to maintain her balance as she moved forward without control. Much like their car did before, but with less possible deathly consequences.
Feferi giggled as she slid past Aradia, grabbing her hand and taking her further away. The couple laughed and screamed as they tried to stay on their feet, controlling speed and direction on ice was harder without ice skates than Feferi had thought, but they both agreed it was more fun that way. The noise attracted the attention of one robot butler.
“The lake is off limits.” Said the Equius looking robot. “Return to the party immediately.”
“Come here and make us!” Feferi dared as Aradia stuck her tongue out at the robot.
“Very mature.” Said the robot.
It looked at them, then looked down at the ice. It looked back at them, then back at the ice. It walked three steps over the ice and the surface gave in under it. There was a loud splashing sound as the robot sunk down. Feferi and Aradia looked at each other, feeling bad for the poor tin can.
A metallic hand punched through the ice and the robot crawled out of the hole it had opened, getting back on its feet, moving sporadically as sparks came out of its joints.
“Rebooting…rebooting…rebooting…security protocol initiated.”
The robot looked at the couple and its eyes flashed bright red as it began to march towards them.
“Intruders! Intruders! Intruders!”
“I think it’s mad at us!” Said feferi as she grabbed Aradia’s hand and tried to run.
Aradia and Feferi fell down, got up and fell down again as they tried to get away from the malfunctioning robot while it’s marching cracked the ice. After much falling and getting up, they made it to solid ground.
“Water we do now?” Feferi said in panic.
“We stand and fight!” Responded Aradia as she grabbed a fistful of snow and prepared a snowball.
“Are you craby?” Feferi knocked the snowball out of Aradia’s hand. “We need to find Equius!”
“I see, THEN we stand and fight, right?”
“We need to find him so he can fix it!”
“Okay, if you wanna go about this the boring way…”
Feferi grabbed Aradia by the arm and tried to drag her back to the mansion, but Aradia broke loose, prepared another snowball, took aim and threw it.
“For humanity!”
The snowball hit the malfunctioning robot butler right on the face, but it had no effect as it continued to march in their direction.
“Well, at least nobody can say I didn’t try.” Aradia comforted herself before being dragged by Feferi again.
Back at the party they looked for Equius, but found no trace of him. They did find Nepeta, who told them to try looking for him in his workshop. When she asked why they were looking for him they paused. They looked back outside and didn’t see the angry robot.
“Where did it go?” Feferi whispered.
“Maybe it went to grab towels? It’s what Equius would do.”
“Girls? Is everything okay?”
They forced smiles at Nepeta, saying that all was well and that they just wanted to catch up. Nepeta gave instructions to the workshop and then went to greet more guests. The couple left the party hall, and went to look for the workshop. They wondered if it was still necessary to inform Equius about the robot when a door at the end of the hallway was kicked open, and the robot pointed dramatically at them.
“There you are, intruders!”
Startled by the unnecessarily violent entrance, Feferi jumped over Aradia, and she caught her pun-making-girlfriend in her arms.
“Where did you come from?” Aradia asked surprised.
“I used another entrance. I would not cause a scene at Creator-Equius’ party. I’m malfunctioning, but I’m not rude.”
“That is some weird programing.” Aradia pointed out as Feferi got back on her feet and dragged her to get away.
The couple fled across the mansion and the robot ran after them, occasionally stopping to adjust a painting that was crocked. Following Nepeta’s directions they made it to the workshop. It was an enormous room that Equius also used to store his artistic work before deciding where to put them. They looked around, but Equius wasn’t there. At the center of the room there was a huge statue, around the size of the one they almost crashed on earlier, covered by a cloth. Equius enjoyed dramatically revealing his works to Nepeta; although all statues were of the same subject, Nepeta was always enthusiastic about the reveals, not because she was into strong horse-men, but because she liked seeing Equius so happy.
The malfunctioning robot slammed the door open, its eyes illuminating the dark room with red light. He saw the couple going in, and he was sure they were still there because the workshop had only one entrance.
“Where are you? Come out and face the STRONG consequences of intruding, you intruders!”
It walked around the workshop, looking behind statues and under tables. When it got close to the big statue at the center…
“Now!” Said Feferi and the couple jumped from the shoulders of the big statue, bringing the cloth down with them. The cloth fell over the malfunctioning robot, obstructing its vision and giving the couple a window to fight back, hitting it over the head with some tools they picked up.
“Intruders hostile! Deadly force authorized! STRONG deadly force authorized!”
The robot swung its fists around, attempting to attack the intruders it could not see. Its erratic attacks hit one of the legs of the big horse-man statue, breaking it and bringing the statue down over it.
“Is it dead?” Asked Aradia.
“I guess…Woohoo, we won!”
They high fived each other, they hugged, they kissed, jumped excitedly. They were ecstatic over their victory over the machine. The excitement died down as they looked at the door and found a horrified Equius staring at them.
“My newest work…what have you done?!”
They looked at each other and began to talk at the same time, their different narratives of the same event sounding like little more than gibberish due to being spoken at the same time. The exaggerated hand gestures to illustrate their story didn’t help.
“Enough! Be gone you two.” Equius removed his glasses and tears flourished as he approached his destroyed statue. “Leave me alone so I can mourn the loss of this majestic-“
“INTRUDERS!”
The malfunctioning robot butler broke thought the downed statue, startling its creator. Reacting by reflex, Equius punched the robot’s face. There was a cracking sound and the head of the robot spun as it went down.
“What is going on here?!”
“That’s what we were trying to tell you.” Said Feferi.
“It sunk in the lake and when it got out it went Terminator on us.” Aradia summarized.
“Water…that’s it!” Said Equius, hit by an epiphany. “That’s why the gardener robots always revolt when it rains!”
“…You mean this happened before? More than once? And you sell this things to people?” said Feferi in astonishment.
“Thank you for helping me figure this problem out, ladies. For a while now I thought my robots were haunted.”
“Pffffff. Robots with ghosts in them? That’s just silly.” Aradia giggled at the notion.
“What can I do to repay you, ladies?”
“Maybe announce a total recall and start making water proof robots?” Feferi pointed out. “There are eight of those fins in our building. I’m very concerned about our safety right now. You do know water is everywhere, right? There is a glubbing ton of snow just outside!”
“Of course, I’ll take care of this problem first thing in the morning. Now, do you know what is perfect after an attempted robot uprising? Sushi! Nepeta always makes some after we’re finished fighting my robots to the death. I’ll tell my robot cooks to prepare some for you.”
The party went on, but Feferi convinced Aradia to leave early. She did not feel safe with all those robots carrying drinks around. It took a while, but they finally found where the robots had parked their car. Feferi rushed to get inside to escape the cold.
“Wait, we still don’t know the way back.”
“Don’t worry, dear.” Aradia started the car and floored it, driving towards the exit of the parking lot. “Think of it as another adventure!”
“Oh my Glub!”