Chocolate in the Neon Shadows

Chocolate in the Neon Shadows

The GodForsaken City rotted under a broken moon. Comet dust sagged heavy in the atmosphere, staining the crumbling skyscrapers sickly shades of bruised blue and oily grey. Acid rain wept from the heavens, hissing where it struck rusted metal and bone-white asphalt. Trash snaked through the cracked alleys, carried on a putrid breeze that reeked of fried circuitry and rotting meat.

BoomFuzzy’s food truck was set up in an alley choked with graffiti, defiant and stubborn, like a stubborn wart on the festering corpse of the city. The polished blue paint fought a losing battle against layers of grime. Strings of flickering fairy lights buzzed around the roof, casting sickly yellow halos in the toxic mist.

A chalkboard leaned against a rust-stained trash barrel, smudged but still legible:

FUDGE PUPPIES — 5 SHARDS

(Chocolate Waffle On A Stick. More Chocolate Than Ye Can Handle.)

Inside the cramped kitchen, thick with the heady perfume of melted fudge and scorched batter, Quaraun perched on a pink silk cushion, his long silver tentacle-hair coiling lazily around his gold-plated mechanical fingers. He shivered beneath layers of heavy pink velvet, delicate nostrils wrinkling against the noxious city air seeping through the cracked doorframe.

GhoulSpawn slumped into the opposite bench seat, knees banging clumsily into the wobbly table. His shaggy golden hair hung into his eyes as he clutched a battered can of Moxie, looking lost and out of place, like a runaway draft dodging hippie scholar dumped into a Mad Max hellscape.

BoomFuzzy whistled low, an eerie, lilting melody as he dipped fresh chocolate waffles into a vat of molten ganache, thick as tar and twice as deadly-sweet. He rolled the sizzling waffles in crumbled cocoa nibs, speared them onto jagged wooden sticks, and crowned the wobbling towers with splats of whipped cream, bruised bananas, and a single bleeding-red cherry.

Outside, the neon-lit shadows twisted and snarled. Bikers rumbled past, engines coughing smoke, their gang patches stitched with crude designs: bloody knives, mangled skulls, broken chains.

Two Humans peeled away from the pack, swaggering toward the food truck, cheap leather creaking, cybernetic implants glinting in the smeared neon. One had a missing eye replaced with a cracked red lens; the other clutched a gut-hook knife, twitching fingers dancing over the blade’s serrated curve.

BoomFuzzy watched them through the cracked service window, a slow, vicious grin unfurling beneath his grey dreadlocks.

The one-eyed man leaned on the window ledge, breath fogging the glass with rancid alcohol.

“You cook fer us, old man,” he slurred. “We’ll make you rich. Protection, too. This city’s a bitch. Need friends.”

BoomFuzzy did not look up from his work. He plopped a fudge puppy into a battered tin tray and said in a voice colder than the comet storms:

“Ya dinea ken who I am, eh?”

“You got a name I should know, old man?”

“King Gwallmaiic. Elf Eater of Pepper Valley. Lich Lord of Fire Mountain. King of The UnSeelie Court. Ruler of the entire planet. Now, mind yer tongue, ye filthy meatbag. I dinnae cook for scum.”

The second Human slammed his knife into the truck’s doorframe, the blade quivering inches from Quaraun’s silk-wrapped knee.

GhoulSpawn yelped and nearly dropped his soda.

“Uhh… Boomie? I think they mean business.”

Quaraun flexed his crippled fingers around the Rainbow Wand hidden in his lap, blue eyes narrowing into poisonous slits. A single flick of his wrist, and he could atomize these cretins into greasy smears on the pavement.

BoomFuzzy rolled his shoulders, joints cracking like gunshots, his gold-plated teeth flashing in a wide, feral smile.

“I dinnae do business wi’ flesh-eaters,” he said, voice thick with disgust. “Nor with cowards who think a knife makes ’em men. I did nae come here tae fight, but I guarantee, ya start a fight with me, ya WILL lose.”

The gangsters shifted uneasily, sensing something ancient and predatory coiled behind that battered food truck counter.

A third figure — a child, barely skin and bone, ribs poking through a tattered shirt — peeked from behind an overflowing rubbish skip. Eyes wide. Mouth watering at the chocolate scent wafting through the alley.

BoomFuzzy leaned down and scooped a fresh fudge puppy onto a stick. He pushed it through the service hatch toward the boy without ever taking his eyes off the two thugs.

“Here, lad. Free for the wee bairns. Tell yer mum. Free puddin’ for children. Death for the bastards who try tae take it from ye. Death to the eejit who piss me off. Worse for them what piss off me Elf.”

The boy bolted into the night, clutching the dripping dessert like a treasure.

The Humans hesitated.

The knife man growled.

“You’ll regret this, old man.”

BoomFuzzy leaned out the window, grinning wider.

“I regret only that Humans breed faster than cock sucking cock roaches.”

Quaraun tilted the Rainbow Wand just enough for a thin beam of white-hot light to kiss the ground between the thug’s feet, scorching a smoking line into the asphalt.

The thugs backed away, muttering curses, glancing nervously over their shoulders, melting back into the poisoned city fog.

Inside the bus, BoomFuzzy barked a laugh so loud it rattled the pans.

“Fucking Humans. Always think they can bully a king.”

GhoulSpawn rubbed his temples, still wide-eyed.

“That escalated fast.”

Quaraun sipped his absinthe, voice smooth as velvet and venom.

“Glinta, everything escalates fast in a world so plagued by stupidity.”

BoomFuzzy stacked another pile of fudge puppies, humming an ancient war tune as rain sizzled against the steaming pavement.

Outside, the neon shadows shifted and seethed, but inside the rolling fortress of fudge and fire, the three lovers were untouchable, wrapped in warmth, chocolate, and the taste of defiance.

This story is published in:

• Three Wizards and a Food Truck

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Includes the following stories: Wishing For Lobster Rolls: A Lesson In Why One Never Makes Wishes In The Presence of Wizards The Food Truck's Warm Protective Embrace Absinthe Slushies: An Ode to Frozen Green Fairy Wine Sticky Rice, Bare Fingers, and Slippery Chopsticks Kiss Me FA: Just Another Day in the Ice-Laced Ruins of The GodForsaken City The Bridge of Doom Zwodder: A Drowsy Stupid State of Mind Head Cheese: A Story of Cauliflower, Cruelty, and Carnage Apple Tart and Stargazing Sheer Terror: Rotten Fruit The Candy Corn Cult Vendetta over Vittles Coleslaw To Go With the Lobster Rolls, of Course! BoomFuzzy's Chowder Dilemma Eels Beneath the Ice Why You Should Never Insult the JellyElf in a Street Market Blueberries and Bravado The Curse of the Cloaked Crustacean Dystopia, Doom, and Dark Romance with Custard Pastries in the Parking Lot Snowstorm Sabotage Sea Slugs and Clam Chowder Bread Bowls The Price of Generosity A Mess of Porridge Chocolate Bliss Springtime by the River Springtime by the River: Evening Stolen Midnight Magic Cracked Carnival The Apple Stall in 3 Perspectives Chocolate in the Neon Shadows Mint, Madness, and Motor Parts Spinning Dreams in Silk Quaraun & BoomFuzzy: The Ultimate Power Couple

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The Pink Necromancer, Moon Elf silk weaver & merchant: Quaraun on Noodle Beach. His master chef Phooka turned Lich husband: BoomFuzzy with his 1968 VW Bus Beach Noodle Food Truck. And their on again/off again mad scientist Sheep Demon lover: GhoulSpawn with his 1974 AMC Gremlin time machine. Time Travel setting swings back and forth between 40th century Maine after a comet hit the moon decimating the planet, and the 1970s, Maine. Quaraun in the main character, he and BoomFuzzy are a married gay couple. GhoulSpawn is their shared live-in lover. Art by Wendy Christine Allen.

BoomFuzzy King Gwallmaiic aka BoomFuzzy the Unicorn: Quaraun's husband, BoomFuzzy aka King Gwallmaiic, a Scottish Phooka, who is King of The UnSeelie Court. Quaraun is his court mage and advisor, as well as the only Elf in The UnSeelie Court. BoomFuzzy is a "classic fantasy type" Necromancer who uses sorcery to raise the dead. Being a Faerie he is also an illusionist and master of trickster magic. By profession, he is a Master Chef, owning the global monopoly on restaurants, taverns, pubs, and food trucks. Until his death, BoomFuzzy was regarded as the world's most powerful wizard. He is now a Lich. BoomFuzzy is also half-Human. His mother was a Mongolian/Chinese Human, which is why he wears distinctively Asian outfits, along with a great kilt worn as a cape. Known as BoomFuzzy the Unicorn, he often takes the form of a purple Unicorn. BoomFuzzy's exact age is unknown, though he was well over two thousand years old at the time of his death, and Quaraun resurrected him as a Lich around 500+ years ago, making him close to 3,000 years old. In his BlackBird form he is fifteen thousand years old. Art by Wendy Christine Allen

Quaraun Quaraun the Insane aka The Pink Necromancer: The F2M transgender Persian Moon Elf main character: The Pink Necromancer, Quaraun The Insane, with BoomFuzzy the Unicorn. F2M for those unaware = Quaraun was biologically born female, but transitioned to live as a male; this is why there are stories where Quaraun is sometimes pregnant, in spite of being male and using he/him male pronouns. Quaraun is a Necromancer by the actual dictionary definition of the word, meaning he is a psychic medium who sees and hears ghosts, and uses tarot, spirit boards, and seances to communicate with the dead. By profession he is a silk weaver/tailor/silk merchant. Quaraun is an Elder God JellyFish who takes the form of an Elf to blend in with society. His 12 foot long hair is made out of venomous, stinging jellyfish tentacles. Quaraun is BoomFuzzy's apprentice and regarded as the world's most powerful still living wizard. Quaraun's exact age is unknown, but he is somewhere around 750 years old. In his SunTa form he is twelve thousand years old. The Scared Pink JellyFish that lives in him, is stated to being over two million years old. Art by Wendy Christine Allen

Faeries vs Elves (In The Quaraun Series) A Pink Necromancer World Lore Post

Main characters: The Pink Necromancer, Quaraun (A Moon Elf) and his husband King Gwallmaiic aka BoomFuzzy aka The Elf Eater of Pepper Valley, Lich King of Fire Mountain (A Phooka/Faerie).

BoomFuzzy is King of The UnSeelie Court;

Quaraun is his Court Mage;

GhoulSpawn (not pictured) is Quaraun’s apprentice.

They are the world’s three most evil super villains, though they do not see themselves as evil. They own the world’s only functioning BioDome and thus hold the world’s monopoly on crops, food, livestock, and fabric, holding the Human population at their sadistic mercy.

These stories are told from their point of view.

 — — Art by Wendy Christine Allen

Meet The Characters

Books By Wendy Christine Allen
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An Index of the more than TWO THOUSAND Quaraun Short Stories on Medium

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Index of the Quaraun short stories on Vocal

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Index of the Quaraun Merch on Zazzle

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This page was written by Wendy Christine Allen of 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

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