deercountry | April/May Catch-All

Who: Willow Rosenberg (

frogfear) and you!
What: Open Prompts (Will add closed ones later)
When: Throughout April.
Where: Throughout Trench

Content Warnings: Themes of loss/grief, some werewolf body horror, will update threads as needed.

1. At Ritual Gig [Open]

[It's hardly been an easy few weeks. Stan's departure had been sad enough, and Willow found her thoughts drifting often to how the Pines family was coping with the loss. Then Glitch had left. Then John as well.

She had met John in her early days in Deerington, shortly after both Buffy and Giles had woken up from the dream. She had never experienced a real Maine winter before, and had been out enjoying the snow when he startled her, and she had nearly pelted him with the snowball she had been making. She thought it was embarrassing, but he insisted he was impressed with her aim.

They had bonded quickly, and easily, and his protective, parental nature filled a void she hadn't even really been aware of. Both of her parents had busy careers that kept them away often, and even when she was home, her mother in particular had never really been interested in what Willow did, aside from a brief period of time before the novelty of her relationship with Tara had worn off. John had never not been there for her.

She glances back at the counter occasionally, half-expecting to see him there.

Faith and Tara make things even more complicated between the confessions forced out of all three of them the previous month, and the pair moving back into the house for the additional safety it offers. It feels horribly awkward, but with the danger April has presented them, it also feels necessary. Willow copes mostly with avoidance. She feels ill-prepared for the difficult conversations she knows they ought to have, but maybe it can be delayed just a little while.

Ozpin had cautioned her that her reunion with Tara might present some challenges, and but she had never expected it to get so complicated so quickly. She certainly never thought she would find Tara preferring Faith's company over hers.

Time spent helping with the shop is a welcome distraction, and an excellent reason to spend time away from the house when she can't keep herself busy there. It's little easier to cope with her grief by funneling it into productively tidying the shelves that never seem to quite be free of dust, or studying a particularly interesting book she's found on the shelves.

Anyone entering the shop will be greeted with a little wave, and a small smile that doesn't meet her eyes.]

Hey.

1. Werewolf of Trench (With link to bonus dreamwalking open post) [Open]

[It seemed like an obvious solution. If her soul couldn't leave her body, then it couldn't turn into a wolf. If she didn't turn into a wolf, she could just sleep quietly in her bed at night instead of getting restless and feeling the need to get out and wander. If she didn't get out and wander, there was no risk of anyone else being hurt.

Her necromancer friend had seemed confident pinning her soul would work, and as far as she can tell it has. Mostly, anyway. She doesn't remember her dreams, and even when she gets a full night's sleep, she still wakes up tired. It's all easily explained away by the stress of an incredibly difficult few weeks, not to mention the adjustment of no longer changing forms at night. There's probably no cause for concern. Besides, she has already rediscovered she can use dreamwalking as a means to counteract the exhaustion.

Unfortunately, preventing her soul from leaving her body in place has done nothing to end the curse that came with Robyn's bite, but only changed the effect. Instead of leaving her human body behind to rest and taking a separate form, she changes. She grows fur that matches the colour of her hair, she grows sharp claws, and sharp fangs from a very canine snout, with ears that stand on top of her head. Muscle and bone that stretch and change in ways they were never intended to hurt. It makes it harder to think straight, it makes it harder to focus, and it makes it harder to act on anything beyond instinct.

When she changes, the urge to roam becomes overwhelming. She maintains enough sense to generally want to keep to the forest to avoid Sleepers who might mistake her condition for true beasthood and decide they need to take action, but nervousness of the area she was killed in, even if she doesn't consciously remember, drives her to linger near the edge of the woods where she may be more easily spotted. The nights she feels particularly restless, she can be heard howling by anyone nearby.

She will fight if provoked, and instinct might insist she chase someone who runs even if, deep down, she genuinely does not want to harm them. Sometimes her instincts can be mercurial, though, and she may protect another Sleeper from danger, particularly if it's someone she knows and trusts.]

Threaded | Flat

[ Ange still isn't feeling absolutely great herself. The effects of the way her world was completely turned upside down last month are still lingering, but Ange also knows that she can't afford to keep lingering in those when everything could start going wrong real rapidly during a month where everything stays completely dark like now.

And when she slowly tried to draw herself out of her own feelings, shoving them down, it started to become easier to notice other people's feelings again. Like Willow's. Even if Ange doesn't know all the details of what has gotten the other feeling off, she has noticed something is going on with Willow.

She has also noticed that the other seems to prefer to not spend time around the house as much, which means that Ange's idea of sitting down there with the other didn't end up seeming all that great to her.

So Ange has tried to kick her ass back in gear enough to actually go out again this month, rather than bundle herself up in her room or in the house. At least enough to make it over to the shop, carrying a bag with her as she enters, her eagle omen hopping in after her, wings tucked in to actually fit through the door. ]

Hey. [ Ange says, greeting the other in return before pulling a thermos out of her bag. ] I hope this isn't the weirdest place ever to suggest having some tea.

[ Especially since the shop seems to be quiet right now anyway. ]

[Michael tries to avoid the forest at night. It's a dangerous place, far worse than the woods back in Deerington used to be. But Eleanor's accustomed to their old strolls, and occasionally he does like to indulge her. So he's headed out towards the edges of the woods himself, riding on Eleanor's back.

The Warg catches wind of the other wolf first, stopping up short and letting out a low rumbling growl from deep in her chest. Michael frowns into the shadows. Human eyes aren't well-suited for this.]

...Bigby? That you?

[Mebh has lived with being a Wolfwalker her whole life, so she doesn't think anything of leaving her body as a wolf when she's fallen asleep. Even though she's more hesitant about going into the woods here, she still feels the need to stretch her legs, so she heads out with her wolves to leave the Waystation.

They've gone a little ways before Mebh hears howling in the distance. That's not something she hears often since she arrived here, so she can't resist answering with a howl of her own, with her wolves soon joining her.]

[despite Tinya's debutante past and her own naturally bubbly nature, one might think she wouldn't be much of a reader. but she'd met Willow while searching for books, so why wouldn't she go to a store with books?

when Willow smiled and waved, well...it didn't take much experience reading people to see that her eyes were troubled although she was trying to pretend she wasn't.

but she wasn't about to mention that. not at first, anyway, they barely knew each other]

Hello, Willow! Have any recommendations?

[It's taken Willow some time to figure out that the effort to cure her of wolfwalking backfired fantastically. She doesn't remember most of it - it feels like a dream. Most of the previous month, she thought it had been just a series of nightmares that kept her from getting a proper night's sleep.

It wasn't until after her fight with Luna after she fell to beasthood that she had suspected there was something more at play. Dreams don't generally cause most people to wake up with physical injuries.

She manages to maintain a state of denial for a little while - it's an all too familiar scenario that shouldn't be happening, and nightmares feel like a perfectly reasonable explanation for the majority of it. Worry overrides denial, though, and she doesn't want to risk hurting anyone, so she heads back to the same person who helped her in the first place.

She still wants to stop wolfwalking, and she's still sure her nameless Necromancer friend is the best person to help. So she makes her way to the house in Gaze where the skeletons don't even seem to faze her any more to find him.]

Hey, um. So. Update on the whole... furry problem... thing. I hope this isn't a bad time or anything, is it?

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Early May; for the Emperor