You Can't Go Home
Home is where your doppelgänger replaces you
Welcome to Day #18. Earlier episodes are listed below.
This little series intersects with other tales based in the world of Nevicata devised by Maryellen Brady 💗📚 for her 24-Day ADVENT-ture 2025. She’s invited us all into her world.
PROMPT (#18): How will your character meet the Light of Letting Go?
Day 1: Welcome to Nevicata
Day 2: A Light Snack
Day 3: Breakfast of Impolite Champions
Day 4: Case of the Nightmare Scarf Lady
Day 5: Ferrel versus the Princess Posse
Day 6: Life Takes Practice
Day 7: Hide-and-shriek
Day 8: Happiness is a Warm Bath
Day 9: Open Mic, Open Heart
Day 10: Disasterpieces
Day 11: Disastermath
Day 12: A Matter of Temperment
Day 13: Stage Fright
Day 14: Nyxie’s Choice
Day 15: Utter Otter Madness
Day 16: The Unbearable Height of Tradition
Day 17: Double Vision
The masquerade festival was well underway, and the city had shifted into something louder, looser, less interested in personal boundaries. Masks laughed too close, strangers brushing past as if they were long-lost friends.
They were not.
Ferrell ran.
In panic—controlled, but real—slipping between revelers as the masquerade swelled around him. He had seen himself. Not a reflection. Not a trick. Himself, moving without him, happy in a way that made no sense.
He ducked under a ribbon of lanterns, slid between a laughing pair of trolls, and flattened himself against a wall as a knot of teenage wood elves surged past at a tempo that suggested collective poor judgment.
And then—gradually—the sound began to thin.
Find Solaine, he told himself.
She’ll know.
She always knows.
The thought steadied him.
He moved faster, paws barely touching stone, tail low, ears slicked back—not hiding, exactly, but threading the seams of the crowd the way water finds cracks. For all the joy humming in his limbs, something tight had lodged in his chest.
Seeing himself had done that.
Not fear, exactly.
Dislocation.
He reached the café street just as the music dulled behind him, swallowed by walls and distance. The roar of the festival softened into a muffled pulse, then faded almost entirely. Windows glowed warm and crowded, fogged with breath and sugar and chatter. He slowed, heart pounding, and crept closer.
Carefully, Ferrell rose on his hind legs and peered in.
The café was packed.
Sound rushed back in all at once—laughter overlapping laughter, mugs clinking, voices calling orders. Tessela was a blur behind the counter, lacquered arms flashing, carved joints creaking as she poured, shouted, and waved a ladle like a conductor who had abandoned both dignity and tempo. Customers pressed shoulder to shoulder, joy spilling everywhere.
And there—
near the hearth—
Ferrell sucked in a sharp breath.
Him.
Small. Coal-black. Wide-eyed. A Cerberus pup with his face, his posture, his mannerisms—sitting on the rug like it belonged there.
He watched the pup lift its head, sniff, then—horror of horrors—steal a sugared almond off a nearby table and devour it with obscene delight.
Ferrell recoiled from the glass.
“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no.”
That was wrong.
Ferrell did not steal sweets.
Ferrell did not eat sweets.
Ferrell barely tolerated jam.
This was a trick. A glamour. Something Mr. Shade had done—or something the night had done to him. He leaned in again, watching as the pup wagged its tail, crumbs dusting its nose.
That is not me.
The pup’s head snapped up. Its eyes went wide. Locked—directly—onto Ferrell through the glass.
For one frozen beat, they stared at each other.
Recognition detonated on the other side of the window. The Cerberus pup barked. Joyful. Piercing. Immediate.
“Oh no,” Ferrell breathed.
The pup launched itself toward the door.
Ferrell bolted.
He spun and ran, paws scrabbling on stone as the bell over the café door exploded into frantic ringing behind him. He didn’t look back. He didn’t need to.
He could hear the pursuit.
Claws. Weight. Breath too big for the body chasing him.
“NO NO NO NO—” Ferrell hissed, darting left, then right, skidding around a corner and vaulting a low railing meant for decoration, not escape. Laughter followed them—patrons thinking it was part of the festival, thinking everything was part of the show.
He ran harder.
The streets narrowed. Lanterns thinned. The city’s warmth fell away, replaced by cold stone and echo. Somewhere behind him, the sound faltered—confused yips, a skid, a pause.
Then—
Quiet.
By the time he dared glance back, the street was empty.
The pursuit was gone.
So was the café.
So was Solaine.
Ferrell stood alone, chest heaving, fur damp with sweat and snow, the joy finally catching up to the confusion.
He stared at the empty street.
“What,” he whispered to the night, “is happening to me?”
And with no answers to be found, Ferrell did the only thing left that made sense.
He went looking for Angelo.
Nyxie ran.
Because running was good—but chasing was better.
The otter smelled familiar. Just right. Like a little piece of home. That made it the best game she’d ever played. He was fast, but Nyxie was fast and enthusiastic, paws pounding, breath whooshing happily as she tore through the streets after him.
Left.
Right.
Jump.
She laughed—an uncontained, barking sound—skidded around a corner, and—
The trail vanished.
Nyxie slowed.
She sniffed the ground, circling once, twice. The scent thinned, smeared by stone and cold air and too many feet. Her tail wagged, uncertain now.
That’s okay, she told herself, in the wordless way she had. That was fun, but it was getting late. She’d find him tomorrow and the chase would begin anew. Next time she would catch him.
She lifted her head and looked around. The city here was different. Quiet. Lanterns were fewer. Shadows longer. No laughter. No music. Just wind and stone and a low hum that felt… old.
Nyxie padded forward, cautious now but not afraid.
Iron gates rose ahead, half-open in invitation rather than warning. Beyond them: rows of markers, crooked and worn, names softened by time. Snow lay undisturbed between them.
A graveyard.
Nyxie wagged.
Graveyards were another little piece of home.
Graveyards were serene.
Graveyards were honest.
She slipped between the stones, sniffed respectfully, and found a patch of ground that felt right—warm beneath the cold, like memory without sadness. She curled up, nose tucked beneath her tail.
I’ll rest for a bit, she decided.
She closed her eyes and sighed softly. This was a good place to rest. She’d find her way back to the café after—
Nyxie fell asleep, the thought trailing off into a soft, contented snore.
Ferrell ran until the noise thinned again.
Until the lanterns grew farther apart, their glow warmer and less polite. Until the streets stopped pretending they were meant for parades and started admitting they were mostly meant for living.
He skidded to a halt in a narrow square that smelled of old magic, spilled ale, and bread dropped for the city’s smaller, furred and winged citizens.
Panting, tail low, heart still trying to crawl out of his chest, Ferrell did the only sensible thing he could think of.
He asked for Angelo.
This proved easier than expected.
“Frog?” a lamplit shopkeeper said, peering down at him over half-moon glasses.
Ferrell nodded rapidly.
“Oh. Yeah. You want The Wet Landing.”
“The… what?” Ferrell echoed.
The shopkeeper jerked her chin. “Down three streets, past the crooked statue, take a left where the pavement gives up. You’ll hear it before you see it.”
That turned out to be true.
The bar announced itself with laughter first—real laughter, the kind that didn’t care who heard it—the sound rushing back in before the light did. Then music followed, loose and off-tempo and pleased with itself. The sign out front swung lazily on one chain, hand-painted letters proclaiming:
THE WET LANDING
Where Slippery Is a State of Mind.
Ferrell nudged the door open.
Light spilled out.
Laughter came with it.
The place erupted.
“OH CRIKIES—IT’S THE OTTER!”
Glasses slammed down. Someone actually climbed onto a table. A cheer rolled through the room like a wave breaking against stone.
Ferrell stood, blinking.
The music lurched into a louder key. Someone rang a bell that absolutely should not have been rung indoors.
“MAKE WAY!” someone shouted. “LEGEND COMING THROUGH!”
Hands patted his head, slapped his back, and someone pressed a glass filled to the brim with warm amber liquid into his paws.
“On the house,” they said. “Everything’s on the house. Forever. Probably.”
And then Ferrell saw him.
Angelo sat at the bar, one leg hooked around the rung, baton nowhere in sight, a drink sweating gently in his hand. He looked relaxed in the way only someone who had nailed it could look—coat loosened, eyes bright, smiling like he’d been waiting.
He lifted his glass.
“You’re late,” Angelo said.