Reincarnated as an AXE! - Book 1: Chapter 17: The Honeydew Meadow Massacre (1).
Wow, landing is harder than it looks!
I think I’ll get better at it with practice. It’s not that complicated a process, you know? All a landing really is, is a controlled fall. Anyone can fall! It’s easy! Sure, sometimes you have to push them from the ledge of a high rise or throw them off a bridge to get the process started, but once gravity got its hooks in them, only good things were bound to happen!
Still, I don’t think I went about doing it the right way. When I decided to land, I just cut off the magnetic field and let myself drop from the sky. I fell pretty quickly. Much faster than I thought I would. Ha, I can laugh about it now, but man, it’s a good thing axes don’t have bladders!
You know, you can think about a surprising number of things in the fifteen seconds or so it takes you to plummet screaming to the earth. Friends, family, foods you haven’t had in a while, movies you’d like to see again, wondering if you remembered to lock the door when you left for work that morning, oh wait, you got killed, it’s not your apartment anymore, oh gosh, I sure hope no one checks my search history when they get their hands on my computer…
“Good, goodness! Sunshine and sparkles! This fruity-toot thing nearly took my bumbling head off!” said a slightly squeaky voice. “Where did it come a’bumbling from?”
“It done come a’bumbling from the sky, Papa!” said another voice. “I saw’d it! And it nearly got your head!”
“A’bumbling from the sky, you say? Well, that’s not a’normal!” exclaimed the first voice. “Axes don’t fly from the sky in Honeydew Meadow!”
Okay, I didn’t know who these strangers were or why they spoke with those odd accents, but in that moment, it didn’t matter to me in the slightest. Because…I loved them! I loved them and I wanted them to keep speaking like that forever!
By generating a smaller magnetic field, I plucked myself from the ground and turned around to give these people a good look. And I was amazed by what I saw! They were mice! Gigantic, anthropomorphic mice, about three feet tall and wearing clothes! Big, talking, farming mice! WITH ROUND BELLIES!
Was this paradise?
“Oh, Papa! That bumbling axe is a’bumbling through the air!” squeaked a little one in a dress. She definitely had to be a girl, because she was dressed in a very gender-affirming shade of pink and even had a ribbon on her head! RAAAAAGH! I wanted to hug her until she burst into shapeless chunks in my arms!
“I see it, Lucy! You just’n let your pa handle this!” said the older one before he turned to face me. He dropped to his knees, cut himself with a pocketknife, then held his bleeding paw towards me and said:
“Ooohhhh souless dweller of the forest, I beseech thee! Spare my young’n! I have no offering of flesh to give other than my own! If’n my lowly blood might sate thee, oh dark one, then partake of it and go in peace!“
Oh, gosh, what a silly little mouse-man!
“Hey, you nutter butter! I’m not a demon, I’m an axe!”
“B-but you’re an axe that floats! Are you not held aloft by an invisible power that seeks to devour the innocent and profane the holy?”
“Gosh, no, silly! I’m a magical axe! And I think you’re wonderful! What’s your name?”
“Well, now, I’m Billy! Billy Bubblebelly! And this’n little one here, she’s my littlest daughter, Lucy!” he said, as he arose and tied a bandana around his injured paw. “Oh, that bumblin’ stings it does! Heh, wish I’d known you was friendly sooner!”
“Hi, Billy! Hi, Lucy! I’m so happy to meet you!”
“Well, gosh, Mr. Axe? Ain’t you got a name to call yourself?” said little Lucy Bubblebelly.
“Hmm. You know, in all my travels throughout the land, I’ve never even thought about it! Hmm…a name, a name, a name. Well, you know what? I just can’t think of one!”
“Oh, that’s so sad!” said Lucy. “Why, everyone should have a name of their own! Oh, can I give you one?”
“W-what! You’d give me a name? For real? A n-n-name of my very own? Yippy! I’ll take it! Give me a name, Lucy! Give me a name! Gimmie-gimmie-gimmie!” I happily demanded.
Lucy laughed in delight, then said: “Okay, Okay…mmm. Oh, I know! Max! I’ll call you Max! Do you like it?”
“Do I like it?” I asked her. “DO I LIKE IT? No, silly! I LOVE IT! Hurray! Hurray! I’m MAX THE AXE!”
I spun merrily though the air, pleased as could be with my brand-new name!
Lucy clapped her hands and cheered as I flew around. Then she turned to Billy and asked:
“Oh, Pa! Can’n we take Max home with us! I love him!”
“Hmmm, I don’t know, Lucy. A magical axe sure must be a big responsibility! They’re people not pets, yon’derstand? Maybe it’s best we just leave him be.”
What the Hell, Billy? Lucy said she wanted to take me home! We want to play and sing songs and go on adventures and stuff! Why are you screwing with our newfound friendship? You think you’re a big man or something? I could spread you over the ground like fresh jam, and it would be the same color too, you worthless piece of—
“Oh, but Papa! He looks so bumbling lonely now! Are you sure?” pleaded Lucy.
Billy tried to stand firm, but he was clearly no match for her. “Awww, pet, I can’t say no to you! All right then, Max! Why don’t you come on home with us? Always more room at the farm in Honeydew Meadow!”
“Really? Oh gosh, do you mean it?” I asked him.
“I do,” Billy said with a nod and a smile.
“Hurray! Lucy, we get to be friends!”
“Hurray for Max!” she said.
“Hurray for Lucy!” I replied.
“Hurray for us!” we both said at once.
Now, come on you two! Homes a bumblin’ while away!” Billy said as he led the way.
And that was the beginning of my time in Honeydew Meadow!
It was a magical time!
