deercountry | September & October Catch-All

"That's a beautiful name," he earnestly says. "I'm Vyng. You've been most kind and generous with your smokes, Willow."

The gentle declaration is punctuated by a gust of wind. Involuntarily, the tendrils of flame lick toward Willow.

"Whoops," he quickly adds. "Sorry. Careful, there. I'm a fire."

(As if that's not apparent.)

Edited 2021-10-10 23:23 (UTC)

"Oh, thank you. Vyng is a cool name too," she answers with a smile. "The incense? Oh, it's pretty easy to get anyway. I really don't mind sharing - I mean, it helps both of us anyway."

Willow leans back as the wind fans the flames towards her. "It's okay - I think we can blame the wind for that, not you."

Most people who remark on Vyng's name point out its elven origins, which is generally a good way to get on his bad side. But Willow seems to be giving a genuine compliment, so he accepts it with a quiet "aw, thanks".

"That's true," he says, in response to her rationale for sharing the incense. "We're helping everybody keep the beasts at bay."

At least Willow is forgiving. Vyng used to have finer control over his movements when taking other shapes — even something as volatile as fire. This new kind of shapeshifting, purely for its own sake and without any real end goal in mind, is a new experience. He's still settling in with it.

"So, what's your story?" Vyng asks. "Were you in the Dream too?"

"Yup, exactly," Willow agrees. "And that's especially important here with the new arrivals coming to shore."

She nods at the question that comes from the flames. "Yeah, that's right. I was in Deerington for... well, I guess it would've been a year next month if it hadn't fallen apart when it did. You know, give or take all the squid time. What about you? Were you from Deerington too, or have you always been here, or..?"

"I was a Deer Towner like yourself, yeah," Vyng answers. "It looks like we're Trenchies now, though."

For better or for worse. As soon as Vyng stepped through the lighthouse and woke up inside the Hither and Yon bar, he knew deep down he couldn't stay. He was too different, had changed too much, to settle back into his old life. Not without aggressively ignoring the way reality was falling apart at the seams, anyway. It wasn't sustainable.

So here he sits. A lone fire crackling in this corner of the beach. But Vyng doesn't want to think too hard on all that. Instead, he focuses on the bright presences in front of him.

"How're you holding up?"

"Yeah, it looks that way. At least the locals are nicer here than they were in Deerington."

Willow hadn't made it home. She had gone to the lighthouse out in the Edge, and in the end decided that it was too hard to say goodbye to the life she had in Deerington, and the friends she had made. Especially recalling Cynthia's assurances that things would carry on as they should at home, with another her that would just wake up from the dream as though nothing had ever happened. It wasn't exactly a novel idea for her. In high school, she met a version of herself from another Earth that had been turned into a vampire, but it still had been a strange and freeing realization.

Trench has presented her with a brand new set of challenges, though, and a lot of overwhelming changes all at once. Between the loss of her magic, suddenly separating from her human body and becoming a wolf every time she tries to sleep on top of the standard challenges they're all facing. It hasn't been easy.

She says none of this, though. No one outside of her housemates and now Mebh know about her turning into a wolf, and Mebh only knows because the same thing happens to her. Her inability to use her regular magic, she plays even closer to her chest as it makes her feel particularly vulnerable.

Instead she just shrugs and pulls the cloak a little closer around her. "Oh, you know. It's not so bad. What about you?"

"I don't know. Could be worse, I guess."

Mainly because "I broke my ability to shapeshift into animals" isn't a great conversation starter. Neither is "I miss my kid" or "I'm worried about my best friend slash life partner", apparently. Each of those circumstances are complicated in their own ways, knotting up in his chest as a tangled mess. It's difficult to tell where one clusterfuck of feelings starts and the other ends.

Vyng can't find the words to talk about it, let alone in terms another person could understand.

But he senses plenty of other things going unsaid on Willow's end too. It's probably not just him.

"Do you have any friends here?" he asks instead.

Friendship is a far happier topic, for both of them, hopefully. There's no shortage of people Willow has come to consider friends here in Trench, and even some she would consider family as well.

"I do, yeah," Willow answers with a nod. "No one from home, but most of the people I knew from Deerington are here. I live with some of them in a big place in Gaze - Ozpin and his people, if you know who they are."

She counts herself lucky that, while there's some people who don't seem to have made the journey across the ocean that she knew from the dream, the ones she's closest to all seem to have arrived safely.

"You? Are any of your friends here?"

"Oh yeah," Vyng says, flames growing higher in recognition. "The Clockhouse! I know those guys. Hope you're not allergic to flowers, ahahah..."

Hard to forget such a gaudy, green exterior. Even as a fire, he remembers it well (and still side-eyes the shit out of it). But if Willow is happy there — despite Vyng's questionable enhancements to it — then that's the important thing.

"My buddy Tuck is with me," he answers her last question. "We've been camping out near the boardwalk in our magic tent. Kind of lonely without our kid, but...we manage. You know?"

"No, no, thankfully no morning glory allergies here," she answers with a laugh. She doesn't share Ozpin's taste in decor, but Clockhouse has become a very comfortable home, and she's far happier sharing space with people she cares about than she was living on her own.

Willow nods in understanding. There's no kids at home for her, but there's no shortage of people she misses, even more so with than usual with the influence of October. "At least Tuck is here? I mean, that's something right? And maybe your kid will still show up?"

It's a slim hope, probably, but the chance of someone from home eventually turning up on the shore is what drives her to keep visiting the boardwalk and the beach regularly.

"Yeah..."

Vyng doesn't sound entirely convinced, though. Tuck is miserable, leaving a trail of crumpled poems about how empty his soul feels. At the same time, they're Billie's parents. They only want what's best for Billie — even if that means never laying eyes on their kid's chubby little cheeks again. It's awful. But wishing he'd show up in Trench, when they both know Billie is living his best life back home...that doesn't feel good, either.

"You know," he suddenly points out, "I'm talking about having a kid and living in a tent with my partner, and you don't even bat an eye. Are you sure you've never struck up a convo with a fire before? You're very good at it."

He might be changing the subject. But it's a genuine compliment, too. It speaks to Willow's open-mindedness, a life of crazy adventure, or a wild mixture of both.

"I'm sure I've never talked to a fire before," Willow confirms. "And I'm pretty sure no one I know from Deerington has ever mentioned it either. So I'm guessing you're not always a talking fire?"

She's come to a few conclusions from their conversation so far, but she is absolutely certain that if there was a talking fire in Deerington that also knew the rest of her housemates, someone would have given her a heads up at some point - at least a 'hey, heads up, there's a fire visiting, but don't worry, they won't burn down the house.'

"Besides, it's kind of hard to judge your family situation. After my best friend died, me and my girlfriend moved into her house to look after her little sister, so she wouldn't be taken away." There's a few details being left out of that story, but the gist of it is there. It seems like a lot to dump on him that Buffy's death was only temporary, and that they had a robot look-alike to help maintain the illusion that nothing had really changed. "I mean, sure, the tent thing is a little unconventional, but if you guys are happy that way, that's what really counts, right?"

"Your guess is as good as gold," Vyng affirms. "Indeed, I am not."

If there's anything he's learned about most other Sleepers, it's that they have a surprisingly high tolerance for the absurd. Making friends has never been easier — a boon, in a world where you need relationships to stay grounded and survive. He and Tuck would be screwed, otherwise.

"Sorry about your friend," he softly adds. "Sounds like her sister was lucky to have the both of you looking after her. You're right, though. Family takes many different forms. Literally and figuratively."

He punctuates that statement with a small, pretty shower of sparks that float into the night air...and gently fade into nothing.

"Is it blood magic, or could you always turn into fire?" Willow asks curiously. Given the issues Ruby had with randomly becoming on fire when they first arrived, neither answer would come as a particular surprise.

"Thanks," she answers with a nod. "We got her back eventually, but it was still a rough time for everyone. She was in Deerington for a little while too, she left not long after I got there, though. But yeah, she and the rest of our friends, we were always like family."

"It's something I could always do," he admits. "Not just fire, either. But my shapeshifting's mostly about vibes these days, you know?"

Vyng still hasn't fully adjusted to it. But he's trying his best. For now, he's got to trust everything will work out in its own time.

"It's tough, losing family." There's a quiet sincerity to his words. "You seem like you've got your shit together, though. Have you been giving yourself time to miss them? Or is shit-gathering mainly how you deal?"

"That's really cool." Willow's quiet for a moment. He knows the rest of her housemates apparently, and he seems okay. He's probably trustworthy, she decides. "I used to do magic. It doesn't work here, though."

She has not been giving herself time to miss anyone here in Trench - mostly, she's been trying to ignore it. She chose to come here instead of going home, after all. "I've been missing them since Deerington. It's kinda hitting a little harder lately, but it'll be okay."

Willow isn't the first person he's met with that problem. Apparently Vyng isn't the only one adjusting to lost abilities — though, in his case, he brought it on himself. Other Trenchies don't necessarily have the luxury of a root cause outside of something changed it, now it sucks.

"A bunch of people ended up with new powers instead," he points out. "Is that what happened to you too?"

He thinks of the people, like Oscar, who were ready to put their lives behind them. For them, the difference must feel like a new beginning. He's curious where Willow falls on that spectrum.

Of course, even if she's ready for her new life, that doesn't make leaving loved ones behind any easier. He and Tuck know that all too well.

"Did you get to say good-bye to them, at least?" he softly asks.

"I think it's just a matter of relearning the magic here instead," Willow answers with a little shrug. She does indeed have new powers, but she doesn't quite understand them yet. "It's a little... unnerving, though. Blood magic at home was pretty serious stuff, and shouldn't be taken lightly."

Dark magic at home had deeper consequences than she thought. It had the potential to be a corrupting influence, and led her to nearly destroy the world, after the death of her girlfriend. She has not been home since going to England to recover, and learn how to control her powers from a coven of witches there.

"It's complicated," she answers with a little shrug. "But no, I didn't get to say goodbye."

"Yeah, I relate to that," Vyng sympathizes. "Being kinda unnerved by blood magic, I mean. It can be rough. But I'm sure we'll figure it out."

He doesn't like to think too hard about why blood stuff bothers him. For the time being, he just knows it does, and that's enough. It'll work itself out on its own time, he's sure.

But when Willow mentions she didn't get to say good-bye to her friends and family, parts of the fire dim.

"Sorry to hear it," he says.

Only a handful of people got to say goodbye on their own terms, it seems. But even still, it doesn't guarantee you won't miss home. It only adds a little closure to an otherwise fucked-up situation.

"It's not much," he adds for the bright presence in front of him, "but...you're welcome to chill out here as long as you want. Roast some s'mores, even! I won't mind, I just burn stuff 'cause I'm a fire now. It's pretty great."

"I don't think there's much choice - we'll have to figure it out," Willow admits. Magic is clearly an important aspect of life in Trench, and potentially a life saving one as well. "It's just gonna take some time, I guess."

She smiles a little when he offers her his sympathy - it's appreciated, and sometimes she regrets not going home to tie up loose ends, but what's done is done and there's no going back from it now. It's fine. Really.

"Thanks for the offer. Yeah, I can hang out for awhile. I don't have anywhere pressing to be or anything. And it's kind of nice to be able to sit and relax for awhile."

"You're welcome. Everybody needs a little be-time, you know?"

With those words, Vyng settles into a warm, steady burn to keep Willow comfortable. For much of his life, he's used shapeshifting as a means to an end. Now, if he wishes to commune with the elements the same way he once communed with animals, he must slow down and simply allow himself to exist in the moment.

It's a good reminder to take time of himself — and, in this case, a nice way to help others do the same.

September & October Catch-All

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject