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Language:
English
Series:
Part 10 of Cluster's Miscellaneous Vignettes
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Published:
2026-04-22
Words:
373
Chapters:
1/1
Kudos:
4
Hits:
31

Doomed, No Matter

Summary:

A very short oneshot covering Talon's time in Neverend, and the consequences of his following actions, with many references to the only cat to have ever been in space.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

On the first day, Talon was really just impressed. A bit annoyed that he'd fallen for such an obvious trap, sure, but his curiosity won over that with ease. Neverend was a marvel. How R4T had even found it was a mystery, and he wanted to know more.

It reminded him of the early days of his research on End Dust. That, he wasn't much of a fan of.

He spent the first few days wandering around with his new son, and avoiding the next level of the dimension.

On the fifth day, though, reality set in. He had heard nothing from anyone since that first day. He was trapped, and nobody was coming. Desperation set in, and for the next few days, he died over and over and over and over

Talon found nothing new, and he wondered if it was even worth it to escape. He didn't really have any friends left after his disastrous debut. There was nobody waiting for him, and for all he knew, there may not even be a way out. He wouldn't put it past R4T to throw him into a portal with an unknown endpoint.

He would have expected better from Lux, once, but clearly he'd been wrong about that.

The days went by, and soon, it had been two weeks.

341 hours, to be precise.

That was when someone new arrived. Someones, in fact.

Blake Winsweep and Noxintrus, in the same boat as him, and R4T and Lux in literal boats. They knew what they were doing. They knew what Neverend was like.

In the end, Talon was left by them once more. It wasn't so interesting, this time.

He had tired of the endless pools.

Despite the three's best efforts, despite death after death after death, they made it out. It took 13 weeks, but they made it. Talon had never been so happy to see his base in his life.

He retrieved his gear, made peace with what had happened, and then came the decision.

Talon told Moriya.

2 days later, Winsweep stabbed him through the heart as a twisted warning.

5 days later, he knelt in the ashes of his Folly Tree, wondering why he had bothered to return at all.

Notes:

Félicette, the first and only cat in space, oh how I love you. Formerly known as C 341, a designation meant to help the scientists remain detached, she survived a 13-minute flight where she was in zero gravity for 5 minutes. 2 months later, though, she was euthanized so that the scientists could study her brain, despite the fact that prior to the flight they had already inserted electrodes into it before the flight.

Laika has been dubbed the Patron Saint of One-Way Trips. Félicette, conversely, has been called the Patron Saint of Doomed Returns.

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