Inktober 2025 - 16 - Blunder

Two hooded silhouettes are walking along a muddy path in a dark forest, hands in their sleeves.

"'Oops'. I cannot believe that you said 'Oops'," grumbles one.

"It just came out…" mumbles the other, apologetic.

"It did. And is that not precisely the main cause of our current predicament? The fact that you just let things out of your mouth?"

"What else do you think I should have said?" asks the accused, to which the accuser throws their hands in the air.

"Pretty much anything would have most probably been better than 'Oops', including not a single word at all! This is the kind of onomatopoeia one lets out when spilling coffee, or salt, or sugar. Maybe a jar of pearls, or buttons, or something of the sort. At most when knocking over a knock-off vase, or rubbing shoulders with a stranger in a crowded street. Those are incident worthy of an 'Oops'."

"I did say I was sorry. You did hear me apologise profusely, did you not?"

"Yeah, like that is going to cut it…"

"I made a mistake. It happens!"

There go the hands in the air again.

"No! A mistake is calling a twin by their twin's name. Or taking a wrong step during an elaborate dance, fumbling when curtsying, getting the words to a song mixed up. Those are mistakes. Do you see the difference?"

"I also said I would fix it."

"And how do you intend to do this, pray tell?"

The arms are crossed, now, and the tone at its snarkiest.

"Oh, so you do want me to speak, all of a sudden?"

"In case you had not noticed, now is really not the time for jokes."

"Fine. I do not know what I am going to do yet. But I will figure it out; I did promise."

"Yet another thing that crossed your lips too quickly."

"Clearly, there is nothing I can say or do that will redeem me in your eyes, so maybe I should just quit trying."

Both figures have their arms crossed now, confrontational.

"Dude. You took one look at the Princess's white hair and decided she was possessed - despite the fact that you should have known that gifted royals of this land are very often albinos. Then, without consulting anyone, you tried to exorcise her under your breath, which only ended up banishing her pet demon dog to the underworld, making the souls of her departed subjects unavailable to her for who knows how long. You are lucky we were allowed out of there with our necks!"

"She was certainly more understanding than you were, that is for sure."

"She is a diplomat of the highest order! Of course she is going to be gracious even when facing such absolute incompetence! What else could she do? Stoop to your level? Say the first thing that came to her mind in that moment? Because I assure you that was definitely not what she did say to us."

"If you are so talented at reading minds, maybe you should have been reading mine."