Holiday Crush: Boss Fight Present? Prompts: Navigating the Horde

Prompt 2:

The suspicious caretaker is only a little reluctant to hand over your package. As you start to return home, you realize that your pickup has put you right in the middle of holiday traffic! The streets and skies are teeming with travelers, many overloaded with their own shopping burdens. Draw or write about your character navigating holiday traffic. Do they have an air ship that can take them above the worst of it? Do they dig beneath the ground? Do they cast a spell to frighten people out of their way?

 

“Jeeze it’s like trying to navigate a deep sale at the shops or something out here.” Trigger wrinkled his nose, trying to peer over the crowd. “I remember my mom talkin’ about the days when there used to be these huge holiday sales and people would I guess actually get knocked down or worse…” He balanced the package on his shoulder and held it tight, trying to lead with his other shoulder as they made their way through the throng. It wasn’t the case but it -felt- like everyone was going the opposite way that they were trying to. Everyone seemed to be in comparatively good spirits, albeit maybe less so every time one of them collided with him and caused ripples of distress around them as he and his companions made progress. “I guess they used to be -oof- some of the -damnit- best deals around and then the companies figured out they could just print fake signs and pretend to mark things down and try and get the number of sales and the record profits both and now I guess they just don’t bother wasting money on sale stickers.”

“That sounds…” Kyanoko wrinkled her nose. “Unpleasant. And no one did anything?”

“Stopped falling for the buy fest I guess.” Trigger shrugged. “But then most people didn’t have the money for it and the people that do like showing off how much they can spend so it doesn’t matter, I guess. You got what you were looking for?”

“I did.” Ginger was close behind the curvy but powerful Tanuki and her human companion, taking advantage of them breaking a path and trying to protect the enormous wasp perched on her head. Spicy added a remarkable sort of ‘scary dog’ privilege, but there was a fragility to him that Trigger had learned to appreciate. “But I’m making some things with these so it might have been a little easier.”

“Thought about doing that, I remember one of our neighbors used to pass out soup jars with dried ingredients and stuff but then I realized I don’t remember what used to go in them and uh… I probably know less about some of the dried ingredients in these portals and that could be kind of a bad scene.” Trigger grimaced. “Hang in there I think I see a side street we can cut into and maybe catch our breaths, see if this mess thins out.