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fandomweekly2025-11-30 09:21 pm
ecto_one_spengler) wrote in fandomweekly2025-11-30 09:21 pm
Entry tags:
[#281] recuerda tu muerte (Puss in Boots: The Last Wish)
Theme Prompt: #281 -- Mirage
Title: recuerda tu muerte (remember your death)
Fandom: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (ft. references to Puss in Boots 1 + Shrek Forever After's alt timeline)
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 (thanks, Death and Puss' canonically awful mental health)
Word Count: 813 words
Author's Note: Oops! All Emotions About Spanish Orange Cats! (aka I rewatched Last Wish last week and now I am thinking about Puss' wack ass relations to Death / Lobo lol)
Bonus: Yes (kind of)
Summary: Puss and the various times he has seen the bounty hunter so dead set on ending his last life.
--
The first time Puss faces Death, he is completely alone in the main part of a bar, not knowing the wolf’s true identity nor his own. He still thinks of the legend, until the moment the illusion is broken and the painful strike of a marked sickle reminds him the fight is very real. So he runs as far as he can, his fur on end and his heart pounding, still smelling blood and tasting rotting leche even as he runs through the forests outside Del Mar in the cold night.
–
The second time is not a fight, but a flight. Puss knows damn well the meaning of the coins, but nobody else has heard the whistles or seen the blood-stained cloak, so he just pauses there in the cart, the cheering muffled, the sudden concerned gaze of Kitty completely, utterly missed in the moment. He can only let out a strangled plea for the weird perrito to move faster, not quite able to calm himself until it’s sunrise and they’re comfortably far away.
–
The third time has to just be some effect of his exhausted mind – after departing from Mama Luna’s, Puss hasn’t had sufficient sleep, and he feels so faint in the seconds after dropping to the ground, his ears ringing just like when the bell crushed him in Del Mar. Then there’s the whistle, the mirage of the then-assumed bounty hunter standing in a forest beyond. Dust and confetti fall in a facsimile of slow-motion around his head as his fur stands on end again, his heartrate so high the faintness almost makes him pass out right then and there. That.. god-forsaken.. WHISTLE.
He can’t hear his own heart anymore. He can only see the wolf, over and over and over and over and over-
Puss has to stop running. He has to stop but his mind won’t stop won’t leave won’t quiet won’t stop please stop please stop –
It’s too much, too much, too much–
“Puss? Puss? What’s wrong?”
A distant, echoing voice.
– Es solo un sueño.
(It’s just a dream.)
For a moment Puss dismisses Perrito, dismisses it’s real because nobody would follow a coward, nobody would, not Kitty not even an enemy, just death and misery and death and misery and death and horror and forgetting and nobody will know him nobody would care if he died today tomorrow or a hundred years in the future –
The gentle pressure slows things down enough that he can sort of focus again. Perrito is no mirage, but he isn’t speaking much either, laying his little head down on Puss’ chest as if it were completely normal. Puss doesn’t choke as much on his own lungs, so that makes it easier to hear himself and the forest around him, setting a shaky paw atop his younger friend’s head. His eyelids droop a little, but he makes an effort to keep them open to more calmly force air back into his overactive system.
Deep, slow breaths, that’s it. He sort of remembers Perrito trying to teach him those on the way to the Dark Forest. His heart doesn’t thud to the point of being audible anymore, although the trade-off is that his breaths still tremble a little and his mouth is dry and he’s just so tired now.. But Puss lets out a little sigh, and glances down at Perrito.
“...Thank you, Perrito.”
–
The very last time he and Death meet for the time being is maybe no more than a few hours later. In flames and stardust the two face each other. In unspoken wishes and terror, Puss remembers the blood and the sickle and the failed bar fight.. But then he also remembers all the good. In his first life he had a loving mother. In this one, just the lengthy end of this life, he remembers a mirage of kindness. Perrito’s efforts to help his aching heart. Kitty trusting in him again.
Puss doesn’t quite manage a smile when he opens his eyes again, but he knows all of that is very much real.
– What’s the matter? Lives flashing before your eyes?
“No.” He finally lifts his head with real pride for the first time in a very long time, even distantly feeling the pride of Puss in Boots selves he has never been more than once. “Just one. I’m done running.”
– Deseo una vida vivida contigo. No se requiere magia.
(I wish for a life lived with you. No magic required.)
That one heartfelt wish is what pulls him along, gatito blade and all, and he perhaps thinks Death and him have come to a real understanding when he slides the sickle over at the end. Although he senses Death’s frustration, the wolf leans in, shaking but understanding.
“I came here for an arrogant little legend who thought he was immortal!... but I don't see him anymore.”
Title: recuerda tu muerte (remember your death)
Fandom: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (ft. references to Puss in Boots 1 + Shrek Forever After's alt timeline)
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 (thanks, Death and Puss' canonically awful mental health)
Word Count: 813 words
Author's Note: Oops! All Emotions About Spanish Orange Cats! (aka I rewatched Last Wish last week and now I am thinking about Puss' wack ass relations to Death / Lobo lol)
Bonus: Yes (kind of)
Summary: Puss and the various times he has seen the bounty hunter so dead set on ending his last life.
--
The first time Puss faces Death, he is completely alone in the main part of a bar, not knowing the wolf’s true identity nor his own. He still thinks of the legend, until the moment the illusion is broken and the painful strike of a marked sickle reminds him the fight is very real. So he runs as far as he can, his fur on end and his heart pounding, still smelling blood and tasting rotting leche even as he runs through the forests outside Del Mar in the cold night.
–
The second time is not a fight, but a flight. Puss knows damn well the meaning of the coins, but nobody else has heard the whistles or seen the blood-stained cloak, so he just pauses there in the cart, the cheering muffled, the sudden concerned gaze of Kitty completely, utterly missed in the moment. He can only let out a strangled plea for the weird perrito to move faster, not quite able to calm himself until it’s sunrise and they’re comfortably far away.
–
The third time has to just be some effect of his exhausted mind – after departing from Mama Luna’s, Puss hasn’t had sufficient sleep, and he feels so faint in the seconds after dropping to the ground, his ears ringing just like when the bell crushed him in Del Mar. Then there’s the whistle, the mirage of the then-assumed bounty hunter standing in a forest beyond. Dust and confetti fall in a facsimile of slow-motion around his head as his fur stands on end again, his heartrate so high the faintness almost makes him pass out right then and there. That.. god-forsaken.. WHISTLE.
He can’t hear his own heart anymore. He can only see the wolf, over and over and over and over and over-
Puss has to stop running. He has to stop but his mind won’t stop won’t leave won’t quiet won’t stop please stop please stop –
It’s too much, too much, too much–
“Puss? Puss? What’s wrong?”
A distant, echoing voice.
– Es solo un sueño.
(It’s just a dream.)
For a moment Puss dismisses Perrito, dismisses it’s real because nobody would follow a coward, nobody would, not Kitty not even an enemy, just death and misery and death and misery and death and horror and forgetting and nobody will know him nobody would care if he died today tomorrow or a hundred years in the future –
The gentle pressure slows things down enough that he can sort of focus again. Perrito is no mirage, but he isn’t speaking much either, laying his little head down on Puss’ chest as if it were completely normal. Puss doesn’t choke as much on his own lungs, so that makes it easier to hear himself and the forest around him, setting a shaky paw atop his younger friend’s head. His eyelids droop a little, but he makes an effort to keep them open to more calmly force air back into his overactive system.
Deep, slow breaths, that’s it. He sort of remembers Perrito trying to teach him those on the way to the Dark Forest. His heart doesn’t thud to the point of being audible anymore, although the trade-off is that his breaths still tremble a little and his mouth is dry and he’s just so tired now.. But Puss lets out a little sigh, and glances down at Perrito.
“...Thank you, Perrito.”
–
The very last time he and Death meet for the time being is maybe no more than a few hours later. In flames and stardust the two face each other. In unspoken wishes and terror, Puss remembers the blood and the sickle and the failed bar fight.. But then he also remembers all the good. In his first life he had a loving mother. In this one, just the lengthy end of this life, he remembers a mirage of kindness. Perrito’s efforts to help his aching heart. Kitty trusting in him again.
Puss doesn’t quite manage a smile when he opens his eyes again, but he knows all of that is very much real.
– What’s the matter? Lives flashing before your eyes?
“No.” He finally lifts his head with real pride for the first time in a very long time, even distantly feeling the pride of Puss in Boots selves he has never been more than once. “Just one. I’m done running.”
– Deseo una vida vivida contigo. No se requiere magia.
(I wish for a life lived with you. No magic required.)
That one heartfelt wish is what pulls him along, gatito blade and all, and he perhaps thinks Death and him have come to a real understanding when he slides the sickle over at the end. Although he senses Death’s frustration, the wolf leans in, shaking but understanding.
“I came here for an arrogant little legend who thought he was immortal!... but I don't see him anymore.”
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