Work Text:
Cleo carefully carved the detailing on her snake’s eyes, creating a careful illusion that they would follow someone around. The perfect capstone to her ruined monument.
“Howdy, Cleo!” Cleo heard the faint sound of something breaking as Joe crashed directly into the wall next to her. She’d taught him how her build worked, which meant he could fix it himself, later. Which meant it was fine, and also not her problem.
Cleo finished one eye, readying herself for shenanigans, madness, and possibly fun.
“Do you think snakes have particularly good yawns?”
Cleo shrugged. The snakes on her head hissed, loudly.
“See, I was thinkin about it earlier today, and given that snakes can open their jaws particularly wide, you’d think that they’d be able to really get a full yawn. You know how sometimes you yawn, but it just doesn’t feel like you’ve yawned enough? I bet snakes never feel like that.”
Joe hopped up on top of Cleo’s snake. She stared at him for a long moment. He looked at her, then moved away from the spot she was working on.
He started pacing around her ruins. “Oh, that’s a really gruesome statue, it looks really good. Actually, Cleo, do you think you could swallow something as relatively large as a snake can?”
Cleo paused. “Joe, I’m not–do you think I’m actually a snake?”
“Well, you’ve got your lovely snake friends, and I wasn’t sure if any traits overlapped.”
“They don’t, and I think if I tried to unhinge my jaw, even though that’s not what snakes actually do, it would probably hurt. I do have flesh, even if it’s more dead than normal.”
“Hmm, that’s true. Wait, do you actually use your muscles, or are you more like a ghost possessing your corpse?”
“...I’m not actually sure.” Cleo finished the other eye, and moved on to artfully positioning a statue near Joe.
“Hmm. Given as you don’t regularly drop your corporeal form to go through walls, which is very useful, I’d guess you aren’t a ghost possessing your own corpse. How do you think your muscles and tendons stay functional, if most of your bodily functions don’t work anymore?”
Cleo shrugged.
“Obviously your digestive system still functions, similarly to other zombies, since they’re clearly driven mostly by hunger, otherwise they wouldn’t be willing to bite…but, y’know, you don’t eat human flesh most of the time…”
Cleo turned towards Joe, ominously. “I need to make a statue of you. Hold still.”
Joe nodded. “Can I keep talking?”
Cleo pulled out a notebook, working on the blueprints and sizings for a statue of Joe. “No.”
A few minutes passed, and then Joe asked, “Do you think if you could unhinge your jaw without feeling pain, you would feel less human?”
Cleo paused. “...if that was the only thing, maybe? To be honest, with everything else, I don’t think it would come up much. Except for now, apparently.”
Joe nodded thoughtfully. Cleo threw a rock at him. He stopped nodding.
“What if you had a snake jaw, though? Since unhinging your jaw would just be doing something that humans normally can’t do without injuring themselves, but snake jaws work differently.”
Cleo sketched, thoughtfully. “I think I would probably scare people with it.”
“Yeah, that makes sense. You might not want to bite people much, though, since most people have diamond armor and you might break your fangs. If you had fangs. I guess you could just have normal teeth, but it would be a little boring to have a snake jaw without fangs.” Joe looked at Cleo, contemplatively. “I think you would probably be venomous, but mildly. Something that stings a lot, but doesn’t kill you.”
“How dare you suggest that I wouldn’t have the world’s deadliest venom,” replied Cleo.
“Well, you might! If you were a zombie snake, it would probably be extra dangerous, since rotting flesh has plenty of nasty microbiology in it.”
“My flesh is very clean, apart from all the rot.”
“I’m sure, but normal human mouths are full of pathogens and infectious microbes too! It’s really fascinating. Maybe that’s where zombies come from. When normal humans bite other humans really hard. Maybe humans come from humans biting zombies, and the zombies actually came first.” Joe put a hand to his chin in thought.
Cleo looked at him thoughtfully. “Look more terrified. You look too thoughtful. This is a gorgon’s garden.”
Joe looked appropriately horrified, and continued. “Maybe vampires actually came first, but then they got doused in holy water, and then they turned into zombies, and then humans started biting them. Wait, no, the humans have to come from somewhere, and Mumbo really doesn’t feel like an ancient lost race, you know?”
“Mhm.”
“So, if we continue with the basic theory that humans originated before zombies–wait, yes, we have evidence, because the first zombies are noted to have come from human necromancy! How did you become a zombie again?”
“You were there, Joe.”
“Yes, but we’re having a dialogue, and it’s important to engage other people. Have you ever needed to swap out one of your bones?”
“Yes. They don’t heal very well.”
“Hmm, okay. Could you trade out your jaw for a snake jaw, or would that require too much muscle exchange and modification?”
“...why would I know that?” Cleo finished sketching, then got out her chisel. Joe started to move, and she held up a hand to stop him. “No. No moving.”
He continued to stand looking horrified. “You could test it. Or you could try to capture another zombie and see if you could swap out its jaw. I bet Zedaph or Doc would help. If you invited both of them it might just end up as a snake, though.”
“I am not going to do that.”
Joe nodded. “That’s probably a good idea. Zedaph doesn’t usually deal in organic science, even if he could give you some good advice about unethical science, and Doc might be able to do the actual jaw replacement, but he’d definitely get bitten.”
Cleo nodded. “We don’t need more zombies on this server. I have a brand to uphold.”
Joe nodded. Cleo threw another rock at him. “Hmm, you could try it with a skeleton…but they don’t have muscles anyway…”
“Joe, I think you’re missing the key point here that I do not want to let any kind of snake undead onto this server.”
“Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Probably smart. If you did, though, and then you replaced all of the zombie parts with snake parts, do you think it would still be a zombie?”
“In terms of still being undead, or being the same zombie?”
“In terms of still being undead. The Ship of Theseus is fascinating, but we’ve talked about it before.”
“Yes. We have. Extensively.”
Cleo’s communicator buzzed. She glanced at it. “Jevin’s trying to threaten me, I need to go deal with him.”
Joe nodded. “See you later?”
Cleo smiled. “Obviously.”
Joe flew away, the characteristic puff of green light signifying that he’d run into Bdubs’ monolith along the way, and Cleo put down her notebook in exchange for a sword.
She loved Wednesdays.