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Fundy is dead. Or he thinks he is at least. He's heard his father and Uncle's descriptions of limbo, and while they're all different, they're also all the same.
A space carefully crafted for each individual to be their own personal hell.
So yeah he's pretty sure he's dead. What else could this stupid little girl's room be but his limbo. Really, it resembles his childhood bedroom before he left with his family for the dream smp, before he knew that he possessed a name that didn't belong to him.
Sometimes someone else comes into the room but they always leave, he's stuck. Stuck in this too small, girly, wrong room.
Fundy doesn't want to admit it, but he wants his dad. He wants the man his father was before the elections. Fundy knows that man is long gone.
Instead he sits alone, curled up in the room of a little girl far more dead than he is.
He's alone. At least he thought he was alone.
There's a tap on his shoulder from a hand too small to belong to anyone else he knows in limbo. Fundy looks up, surprised, and finds a small kid. She has tiny horns sticking out her head, little wings folded against her back and tiny clawed hands. Her cheeks are sprinkled with scales.
If he didn't know any better, he'd guess that she's an elyctrian, but he's the grandson of one and she isn't one.
One of his ears twitches. The girl waves shyly. "Where-" Fundy's voice comes out rough, it's been a while since he's last spoken anything that he hasn't screamed. "Where did you come from?" He asks. The kid frowns and starts petting down her clothes and digging through her pockets before huffing in frustration. She looks around the room before her eyes land on a crayon on the carpet.
She picks it up before pointing to a wall and tilting her head, like she's asking. Fundy fights down a smile. "Can't you speak? Do you need to write?" He asks.
She nods and points to the wall again. "Go ahead kid."
On the wall she writes, i'm from The Island. Where am I?
Fundy watches as she writes. "You're in limbo, well my limbo. If you're here, you're dead." Fundy answers. After a moment, "My name's Fundy. What's yours?" He says.
She turns back to the wall and writes, Tallulah and Fundy freezes. He's sure all of the blood has left his face. He knows that name.
That's the name of a girl who he killed and buried in a grave next to his loved ones. A girl who died peacefully and happy before she could learn the meaning of death or war, pain or abandonment. It's the name of a girl he took the place of to keep her family happy yet lost all of them.
That name is the name of the girl he used to be. The name that he borrowed that never quite fit right.
He thinks that maybe the name was really hers.
"Hey kid, do you know a man named Wilbur?" He asks though he thinks he already knows the answer.
Tallulah writes (the name never felt right for Fundy, and while it's weird to think she has it, he thinks it fits her perfectly), deadbeat. Bastard. She crosses her arms and lets out an angry puff of smoke from her nostrils.
Fundy can't help but laugh. He laughs at the situation, at the fact that Wilbur is alive and apparently fucking up more kid's lives, at the fact that he has a sister (because at this point there's little to no chance that they're not siblings), and at the fact that someone else than him knows that man really isn't anything but a deadbeat.
Tallulah is grinning back at him when he catches his breath again.
"Yeah, he really is, isn't he?" Fundy says. "So he really left the server." He mutters with a little scoff.
"Well forget about him, you got me! Big brother Fundy, we don't need him!" Fundy puffs out his chest and puts his fists on his hips, like a superhero. Tallulah copies his pose and huffs out a puff of smoke.
Fundy would think it's strange how quickly they're both accepting this but they're dead so it really doesn't matter.
Tallulah rushes forward and grabs Fundy's hand, tugging like she has something to show him. Like they have somewhere to be. She pulls him towards the door and he stops. His ears flatten against his head.
Tallulah's leaving.
She's trying to bring him with her but he can't leave. She'll leave and he'll be alone in this godforsaken room again.
"I can't leave." He says simply. Tallulah stops tugging and looks up at him, tilting her head. "This is my limbo. I can't leave, I've tried."
Tallulah huffs and stomps her foot. "It won't work." He tries explaining but she just stomps her foot again. "I've tried ." His voice cracks. "Only you can leave."
She simply glares at him.
Fundy's ears are fully flat now. He feels like he's going to cry. He can't leave and he doesn't want Tallulah to leave but it'd be wrong to stop her. The least he can do is let her go through the door, show her he can't leave. He thinks that when he's alone again, he will cry.
So Fundy lets out a shaky sigh and keeps walking with Tallulah. He expects to be stopped by an unseen wall when he reaches the door, instead he walks straight through. Fundy's eyes widen in shock.
He's out. He left limbo.
He feels something settle around him. It's warm and comforting, it feels like safety and home. He's felt this before, he thinks, he's not sure when but he has. Tallulah seems to know what it is.
Grandma. The word appears in his mind and it clicks. He's heard the story of his birth, how his heart didn't beat for the first five minutes, how he was born with completely red hair but five minutes later strands of his hair turned white and he wouldn't stop crying afterwards.
His birth had scared his mother until they'd received a crow from Fundy's grandmother with apologies for the fright, how she just wanted to see her first grandchild.
She's here now, she's here and Fundy and Tallulah are safe. She's here and they're home .