deercountry | 'Cause I got issues, but you got 'em too

Entry tags:

'Cause I got issues, but you got 'em too

Who: Varian and you
What: Closed prompts!
When: Throughout February
Where: Around!

Content Warnings: Probably nothing, will update if needed!

Closed to Fern- early Feb

Varian's recovery through January went pretty well, all things considered. Sure, there is still a lot to work through, he knows his multitude of issues won't be resolved in a few conversations, but he has the support in place (and more importantly, the willingness to USE that support) to navigate it better now. It's made him a little more hopeful that history won't repeat itself.

This month, however, he feels even better- or rather, he feels even better when he's around Fern. He's definitely been more tactile than he normally is in their relationship since the month changed over. He's been more attentive, too (possibly a little TOO attentive) giving Fern plenty of little gifts- nothing huge, things he's cobbled together when he's been thinking about his boyfriend. Which has admittedly been a lot this month.

He has another little gift with him- along with a big fancy book which is the main reason he's seeking out Fern this time. So wherever Fern might be, Varian will be coming up behind him to wrap his arms around his middle with a romantic smoothness he normally doesn't possess. He leans up over Fern's shoulder to press a kiss against his jawline.

"Hey~"

Closed to Ariadne

It's not been hard to miss the entire...chocolate fiasco going on. Varian's marked this as one of those usual shenanigans with cursed food that they saw all the time in the dream. He's avoided it himself, but it's only a matter of time before he ends up eating one of the damn things- careful as he is in usually avoiding them.

Regardless, now he's well on his way to healing after the mess of January, he's making his rounds- checking on his friends, making sure they're okay, while admittedly taking care of himself, too- shutting himself off is the opposite of what he should be doing, and he knows now connections are what matter. Ariadne is his next stop off, and he heads to her orchard, calling her name as he enters.

"Ariadne? You here?"

Closed to Klee

With the new store opening on the horizon, Varian's been trying to gather his supplies ready to make some bombs to sell there- perhaps a little more extreme than the potions Melius will have from his stock, but likely needed in a place like this all the same. Still, he needs a little more to make his own bombs if he's going to sell them wholesale, so he's in Willful Machine, heading to one of the stalls there when he notices the younger girl trying her best (and failing) to get what she wants from the shopkeep. He realises he recognises her from the network- the kid who likes bombs.

"Uh...hey?" he slides on over. "Everything okay here?"

Closed to Usagi

Varian's all about encouraging Usagi with her crafts. He really wants her to find some worth in herself beyond Sailor Moon, and if getting her to see how good she is at a thing she enjoys helps her get to that point, then he will happily do it! So when she asks him to drop by with a paint sealer, he's very eager to do so.

With his corruption gone by now, he's keen to reach out, strengthen his bonds with the people - which is another reason he wants to talk to her, thinking about the heavy tome he also has sat in his backpack. That's something he hopes to bring up a little later. As always, it's easy to find Usagi's Pink Monstrosity of a house, knocking on the door.

"Usagi? I'm here."

Closed to Luna

It was pretty inevitable that Varian would end up being trapped with chocolates eventually. He has a pretty good run of avoiding the weird drugged magic food, but even he isn't infallible. The fact there was a compulsive bent to eating the damn things meant he couldn't avoid it forever.

And so, he ended up eating a strawberry chocolate- and honestly, he was pretty grateful the worst of it was that his emotions were on show now. After the month he'd has, it might be a good thing for him to be a little more open about the entire thing. Varian's emotions are a little calmer than they have been recently, but there's still a swirl of colours as he moves- gold flecks into the occasional swish of blue. Purple streaking through as some idea for an invention pops into his head.

He's keeping his head down because he doesn't really want to attract TOO much attention to this weirdness- which means he's not really looking where he's going when he bumps into someone.

"Ooof! Sorry, that's on me I wasn't looking where-" oh, and now he sees who it is and the colours swirl, confused, unsettled. "...Oh. Hi, Luna."

Closed to Luca

Varian's been pondering about his relationships with people in the house since he found that book in the library explaining the bonding process. No, that's not true. He's been thinking about it all month. How the people closest to him saved him, brought him back from beasthood and if he didn't have those...well. He'd probably have had to have been put down. Finding the book was a godsend, honestly- and he wants to strengthen those unions he has. He doesn't want this to happen again. But he's also aware it's a big ask, and he doesn't want to put undue pressure on the people he cares about the most.

So he dithers for a while, before finally heading to Luca's room, knocking on the door.

"Luca? You in there?"

Closed to Fern- later in the month

It's been a relatively easy month for Varian, really speaking. After last month, any month could be seen as an easy one, but still. Aside from all the mess with Maul and the whole beasthood of Luca and Luz, it's been pretty good. He got to do a lot of bonds, and more importantly, he got to make a bond with the person he loves the most. Even if that bond means they're kindasorta married now. That's fine, it's not like he was planning on being with anyone else anyway. This is a long-haul thing for him.

The 'hilarious' gift from Reaper had been horrendously embarrassing, but it had given Varian plenty to think about. There was a conversation he'd wanted to have with Fern months ago- but everything went terrible and he'd been more focused on his ever-increasing corruption than on anything else. But now that things are calm and good again, he's starting to think about it again. And maybe...maybe it's time to talk about it.

So for most of the day, Fern will have gotten some nervous, unsettled feedback from Varian's mind- nothing really obvious, it's clear Varian's trying to mentally block him out of something, while he mulls down the best way to bring it up. Eventually, he chooses when they're turning in for the night, before he gets changed into his pyjamas- knowing if he made a grab for them Fern would turn around to give him privacy because he's good and decent like that.

"Hey...Fern? I um- I wanna talk about something."

[[OOC: If you want a closed prompt with Varian this month, give me a holler on

teeff or PM me and we can do a thing! Will match style always!]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"People are...complicated."

Naturally, it was Ariadne's immediate inclination to defend the fact that people didn't always have kind words for her. It's not that they were bad or evil or wicked. They just had a lot going on in their lives. In their minds.

Kindness, as she'd come to understand it, was a habit. One that you had to get into. And sometimes, people didn't have the time.

She gave a dismissive wave. "Anyway, you know how it is in royal courts."

"People are really complicated. All the time. But my point still stands."

He wants her to be happy and he desperately wishes people in her own world treated her better. She's been nothing but kind to him and she deserves so much more than what she's got. He snorts lightly.

"Yeah, okay, that's a good point. They are pretty catty there, huh?"

"I'm glad I wasn't born to power."

There was, of course, plenty to be said for it. She liked the thought of having the authority to change things, to get good work done. And, selfishly, it would be fun to wear gowns and listen to stories from foreign ambassadors all the time.

But there was so much more to it than that. Most of it bad.

"I'm not sure how much fun it would be to be surrounded by that, all the time..."

"Me too, honestly. If the kingdom my dad served hadn't fallen, I might have and it's not a comfy thought."

Maybe he would have had all the funding and space to do his research. Maybe he would have been stifled into a noble life. He tries not to think about it, it makes him uneasy. He likely wouldn't have made the mistakes he made back home- hell, he might not have ever even met Rapunzel. Eugene wouldn't have either if the Dark Kingdom had remained intact. Would she have ever have been freed? Who knows.

"I'm glad I can avoid it as much as possible- and I don't have to worry about it here at all. Which is...nice."

"Nice," she said, "but still a little strange."

She ran a fingertip along one of the spines of her wings. Even the Alastrians, who didn't have a monarchy or nobility to speak of, had a hierarchy, at least. They knew who was in charge. They fought about it sometimes, but they still knew. And when the leader of the pack gave an order...it was expected to be followed.

Or so her mother told her anyway. And since she was the leader of the pack, it was difficult to argue.

"Sometimes...though...sometimes I wonder about us. The Sleepers. If we should try to have some kind of...I don't know. Leadership?"

Varian lets out an unsettled hum. He's thought about this too- he saw Wu's attempts at a council and it all made him feel uneasy. He's seen what happens when the power balance is unsettled in a place- heck, he was the driving force of one. It's the people who suffer most.

"I don't know. I think that would end up with a grab for power," he rubs the back of his neck. "We have so many people from different worlds- where ruling would mean different things. Where they'd have different laws and what they think is acceptable. A lot of loud and powerful people too. I think it would get really messy, really fast."

"You mean, like democracy?"

She was vaguely aware of it as a concept. Beigor had once been a democratic kingdom. Well, nation. The only one in the realm. From what little she'd learned about it, it was just a slightly-less-noisy version of anarchy, most of the time. An idea that sounded good, until snarly egos came into play.

Ariadne nodded. "You're probably right. I guess...its's not even leadership that I want. It's...I don't know. Guidelines? Like, how when someone disappears, returns to the sea...if no one tells you about it, how do you know?"

And yes, she was thinking of someone very specific who had slipped through her fingers.

"Sory of like that, yeah. Except...probably more messy."

He only have the vaguest idea of how it works- he's only known a monarchy until he came to Deerington. But Wu's been explaining things to him. Giving him a good idea of it..

"Yeah! That's a good point. Like...I don't know, having people set up to keep an eye on those things, we're supposed to be helping each other out after all. That would be a good way to go about that."

"And maybe we should all take to writing out our wishes. For our belongings, I suppose. Just in case...you know..."

It sounded a little too much like writing a will, actually. And Ariadne immediately made a face. She liked being pragmatic. But she didn't like being fatalistic. There was a fine, fine line between the two, at the moment.

Definitely not the kind of talk she wanted, while celebrating her wings.

"Guess I'm still not over Sam just disappearing..."

"...Yeah," as fatalistic as that was, she was right. "We'd want to make sure the things we owned went to...the right people. Even if it's...just to hold onto it until we come back."

Because that was something to try and hang onto. That people would come back here...eventually. That was supposed to be how this all worked. He frowns softly, reaching out to put a comforting hand on her arm.

"I'm sorry. I never knew him, but I heard about him, around. Was he a good friend of yours?"

Ariadne allowed herself to touch the back of Varian's hand. Palm-to-palm was a terribly intimate gesture for Alastrians. But the back of the hand? Well, that showed a different sort of closeness. Deep friendship, kindness, care. Many of the things she felt for Varian.

Especially when he was being so nice.

So she just nodded, ever so briefly, in reply. And then decided to change the subject. After all, she had her wings back. She didn't want today to become about solemn things.

"Would you like to see something neat?" she asked, stepping away from him. She glanced up and down. "Do you have anything made of glass? If so, keep it behind your back, so it doesn't break." And with that ominous warning, she started to move a few paces away from him, out into a small drift of snow.

He offers a brief smile at the contact- he doesn't understand the importance of it, but he appreciates it all the same. At her question, though, his smile turns into a grin.

"Always, I always want to see something neat."

He definitely has glass on him, but it's nice and safe in his backpack, so he's pretty sure it'll be fine. Regardless, he does take a step back anyway, clearly interested in what she's about to do.

"Okay, all set."

That was the wonderful thing about Varian. His curiosity. It made it very, very fun to talk to him.

"All right," she said, turning a quick circle to make absolutely sure there was no one else in the area. It would probably be fine. It was only close contact that made it dangerous in any way. But she wanted to be sure.

And she felt pretty sure.

"Cover your ears!"

Varian will try just about anything out of curiosity, it's both a charming plus and also a terrible flaw- given how little he thinks about the consequences before he dives in, feet first. He grins, doing as asked, putting his hands over his ears.

"All done!" he might be shouting now, just a little. "What're you gonna do?"

She was about to answer him, but then realized the silly futility of that. Since his ears were covered and all. So she just waved her hands, gesturing to herself.

Watch. Just watch.

Ariadne spread her wings out, like the top half of a heart. And then she turned her face down into the snow and let out a scream.

Not just a scream. A Scream.

An Alastrian scream was as much felt as it was heard (or mercifully not heard). It rippled the air, powerful enough to shatter glass, under the right circumstances. But she was aiming down. So when she let loose, the snow all around her flattened. In a full, perfect circle. And the force of the sound hitting the ground propelled her up into the air, like a cork popping out of a bottle.

Look, look, Varian definitely didn't think far enough ahead to realise he definitely couldn't hear her answer his question. Foresight is a weak spot of his thinking, it's true. He looks up to watch the scream (thankfully not heading it) watching everything flatten around her as the air expels from her.

Okay, so that's fucking cool

"Oh wow!!! That's like- almost wind control! That's amazing!"

Ariadne was only able to hover for a few seconds, before she had to flap. Her movements were languid, bringing her slowly and lightly back down to the ground again, in the newly pressed snow. She would have turned in a little pirouette, but it was probably too slippery. Why risk it falling on her face, after such a fun, little trick?

"Thank you," she said, her voice hoarse from the Scream.

It always was.

She dipped into a curtsy. "I didn't know I could do that. I sort of figured it out by accident."

No need to fall on her face and throw away all the cool points she's just amassed after all!! He Steps forward again once she lands, grinning from ear to ear.

"Okay, but there has to be a good story behind finding out you could do that by accident."

She shrugged one shoulder. "Well, to be honest, I don't usually do a lot of screaming in Trench. I mean, I had to a few weeks ago when an angry man tried to attack my friend, Usagi. And then I kind of did it again by accident when I discovered my wings and I just went whoosh!"

The second experience had been decidedly more enjoyable than the first.

Honestly, she wondered if she would have figured it out as a teenager, if she'd been able to keep her wings. Surely, she couldn't possibly have been the first Alastrian to do it.

"Someone tried to attack Usagi?" sorry, Aridane, this is a big distraction, his tone is definitely worried. "Who attacked her? What did he look like?"

He cares about Usagi a damn great deal and the fact someone attacked her is not something he expected to hear today.

" I'm- I'm glad you were there to help her, thank you...for that."

Ariadne was mostly just startled that Varian knew Usagi. And then startled that she was startled at all. They'd been through a couple of worlds, together. They were bound to know each other. It was a wonder that every Sleeper didn't know every other Sleeper. As it was, there were probably connections among all of them. She just hadn't tried to map it out.

Nevertheless, she shook off her surprise, crossing over to Varian to take him by the shoulders. "She's all right," she said, looking him in the eyes to make sure he knew she was telling the truth. "It was some local."

She decided not to share his name. Just in case Varian got any Anakin-like ideas.

"I screamed at him and he passed out." And she broke about a thousand glasses in the tavern. Whoops.

She'd be surprised to know he doesn't just know Usagi, but she's family to him at this point. About one of the closest people in this entire city to him after Fern and the people from his own world. He'd do absolutely anything for Usagi, without a sliver of hesitation.

"Some local? I don't- why would they attack her?"

Usagi is about as gentle and sweet as possible, he doesn't understand. But he does manage a smile regardless.

"Thank you for helping her. She...she means the world to me."

"I'm sensing that," she said, giving him a compassionate smile. She gave his arms another squeeze. Of course, she would help anyone. But the fact that it was someone Varian cared about made her feel better for her--admittedly rash--decision. "Don't worry," she continued, giving Varian a little hug. "She's fine. The hunters picked him up. They're going to help him."

Well, she hoped.

Ariadne stepped back. "I think he was a disgruntled customer. Or paramour of a customer. Love makes a lot of snarly males behave like buttheads, I've noticed."

He returns the hug, thankful for it- for her. And not just for what she's done to help Usagi. She's a good friend, and he genuinely feels lucky to have her.

"Good...that's- that's something at least."

Because he knows damn well Usagi wouldn't tell him if she wasn't fine. She'd brush it off as nothing, even when it wasn't. He snorts lightly.

"I guess it does. Still, maybe he should have learned to be more polite about things."

"I don't think the Corruption leaves much room for manners," she said. And quickly, she held up her hands. "Which isn't an excuse. I just...prefer to believe that he would have been nicer if he'd been in his right mind."

She did like to believe the best in people.

Even in the worst people.

Especially in the worst people, most of the time. Although she would make an exception for Anakin Skywalker, right now.

"Are you going to tell Usagi I told you?"

'Cause I got issues, but you got 'em too

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