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 Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 3:18 pm
Ashdown was a small town. People talked. Rylan couldn't remember the last time gossip had been useful to him, but ever since Lara Lupin had found him, ever since that episode at Thorne's apartment with the bird... he'd started listening.
Because somewhere, sometime, he knew he'd heard talk about a woman who was known for talking to animals, wearing flower crowns, posting outrageous selfies on Instagram with... strange creatures. And he thought, maybe. Maybe she could help.
He finally picked up her name from one of the guys at the station - Autumn Smith - and done a little Googling. Saw her blog, found where she worked. Which was, admittedly, a new level of stalkerish for him, but these were desperate times. There were only so many things he could deal with, and waking up with blood in his mouth and a dead goddamn mouse on his window was way past the breaking point.
Hell, maybe she couldn't help, but he had to tell someone.
Usually, after a shift, he would have gone home and taken a long nap, but today, he didn't want that. Hadn't really slept, in fact, in his house in the last two days. Anything to avoid waking up realizing he'd eaten a creature in his sleep again.
Instead, he went looking for Autumn Smith, hoping she'd be an easy find. Hoping she'd listen to the rant of a man who may or may not have started to lose his mind.
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 3:21 pm
Autumn was, in fact, terribly easy to find. Today had found her in the park with Rosalinde once more, the cat laying on her lap as she enjoyed the sun. She was trying her damndest to enjoy life a little more, take things one day at a time. To really appreciate the people- and the animals- who were making her life beautiful.
She was still afraid. Deathly afraid, if she were honest. But if her experience with the fae had proved one thing, it was how fallible they all were. How much danger they were all in. And how much this town needed her. Autumn had been kidnapped, yes, but she had lived. And that had to count for something, in the grand scheme of things. She could heal now, she could send warnings through the birds...
Slowly but surely, she was becoming something this town needed.
At the approach of footsteps, Autumn pulled down her sunglasses and offered the stranger a smile. She was done up in makeup, of course, as she always was. It wouldn't do to make new friends who didn't see how on fleek she was. So she sat up, pushing Rosalinde down from her chest to her lap so she could sit, and she waved.
"The birds told me you were trying to find me. Glad to see they weren't wrong," She teased, clearly amused by whatever the ******** she was talking about.
"You go by Rylan, right? It's nice to meet you."
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 3:21 pm
"Uh..."
He was so shaken by everything that had happened in the last couple of weeks that, for once in his life, the fight-or-flight response in him leaned toward flight. These weren't things he knew how to beat, after all. In fact, he knew nothing about them, which made it both foolish and terribly irresponsible to try to tackle them head-on.
Rylan was well aware of this, so when Autumn greeted him before he'd even had a chance to introduce himself, he almost turned around and hurried away.
But a thought stayed his feet: You'll never know how to fight them if you don't know anything about them. And maybe, just maybe, Autumn knew something he didn't.
"Yes ma'am. Pleasure's all mine," he managed to say. Then he lapsed into a silence, trying to decide whether to sit or stand, whether it was polite to just launch into an explanation of why he'd been looking for her.
"So, did the... did the birds tell you why I was looking for you?" A small shudder ran down his back at the mention of birds.
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 3:21 pm
"Ma'am? Jesus Christ man, I'm only twenty six. I'm so goddamn on point and you just made me feel like a grandma," she snorted derisively, but she was still smiling. Rosalinde looked up from her lap and blinked, welcoming the stranger. Autumn gestured for him to take a seat on the blanket.
"They said a lot of s**t's going on in your life. They referred to you as one of Lucas's ********," she paused, "And yes, I'm sorry I taught the babies the word ********, and that you seemed upset. That weird people were talking to you. So I figured, this town's probably got its hooks into you, and I'd best give you a rundown before you get kidnapped by faeries or some s**t."
She laughed, coming to terms a bit more with her kidnapping. It was a bitter pill, but... it could've happened to anyone. Especially with how bad she'd been tricked to get ******** over. This time, it wasn't actually her naivety that'd ******** her over. Just... genuine ********. It made it a little bit easier to handle.
And besides that, like s**t. There'd been a buttload of people trying to save her. Autumn reached into the cooler she'd brought out, and offered Rylan up a bottle of lemonade.
"So, hit me. You've got a lot of questions, I'll do the best I can to answer them. And congrats on bagging a hottie, I might add!" Autumn raised her own bottle, with a s**t-eating grin.
"Lucas is hot. Can't say I blame you there."
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 3:21 pm
Birds. Watching people. Like he'd been watching himself.
Of course, it made so much sense. They were everywhere, after all, and there were so many of them. Only, suddenly, knowing that made him think the winged creatures were all the more creepy. And know that they were spying on him - well, it seemed, Lucas? Even creepier. What if he'd been inside one of those very birds?
He searched his mind for words. "Your birds watch people ********? I mean, not that we-- Nevermind." Not important. He shook his head, feeling like he was in a haze. The confusion did not sit well with him, made his stomach feel twisted.
"Okay," he said, trying to organize his thoughts as he sat himself down cross-legged on the blanket. Folding his long legs under him was not always easy, and on a regular day, Rylan would have avoided it. But lately, it seemed, being smaller was reassuring. "Before I even ask about the kidnapping comment... I'm going to lay it all out here:
"I woke up with dead things on my window for days. Then a professor at the college, Lara Lupin? Said I was dreaming them onto my window. Then I was in a ******** bird and watching myself through a window and couldn't do anything except squawk like a... well, like a bird, I guess. And then two days ago, I woke up with blood in my mouth and a mauled mouse on my window. What the ******** is happening to me? Do you have any idea?"
The words came out in a tumble, racing each other to get out. He hadn't really breathed a word of it to anyone, had kept it all building up in his chest for weeks.
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 3:22 pm
After listening to him, Autumn sighed. Her cheerful demeanor slipped, just a hair, and she shook her head. Her suspicions had been right, then. All this WAS tied to the magic of Other Ashdown. Taking a sip of her lemonade, she debated how best to voice her thoughts.
"I met with Lara, actually. Point blank, I don't think you dreamed them there. I think there's some real s**t going on," she mused aloud, setting her bottle back down. "I haven't seen the show, but how'd she describe it? I think... Yeah. The guy from Game of Thrones who sees s**t through other people's eyes? That's probably what's happening to you. Whether she did it to you, or you all have some freaky-a** mind link, I couldn't say."
She tapped her bottle thoughtfully.
"My personal theory at this point is that this Ashdown and Other Ashdown are bleeding together something fierce. If you don't know what that is, it's another world like ours, but with magic. Complicated s**t, I can give you the full rundown if you'd like. But whatever the ******** is happening, that's where it's coming from." Autumn shrugged a bit.
"I could be talking out my a** here, but the best thing you can do is talk to people. Build a support network- people you know have your back no matter what. I don't know ******** about Lara, she seems nice, but I'd keep an eye on her. ********' weird that she just shows up to talk to you about dead mice."
She paused a moment, thinking.
"But s**t, then again, I'm not doing much for myself, having birds watch you and eating spiders. I can give you my word I'm not trying to ******** you over, 'cause I like Lucas and that ******** deserves to be happy, but... you have to make of it what you will."
"...And yes, I got kidnapped by a fairy. It ******** sucked. And they don't actually watch you ********, they're just stupidly excited about learning human words that they use them wrong all the time. They just think you WANT to ********, so, you're ********."
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 3:22 pm
Even through the half-panicked ramble, Rylan made a mental note to make sure the curtains were closed whenever he and Lucas actually got around to ********. Just in case.
"So... what has all that got to do with me?" He said finally, after listening to her answers and doing his best to organize the thoughts in his head. "I'm just... a regular guy. I don't know about magic, but I sure as hell don't have it."
Or didn't anyway, and really, really wanted to keep it that way. He'd lived in Ashdown almost all his life. Why now? What did it want?
"So I'm... controlling other things with my mind? Or just along for the ride? It felt like I was trapped in that bird... How do I make it stop?" He never wanted to feel the way he'd felt that day again. It terrified him to think he might have gotten stuck like that forever, unable to return to his real body. Who knew what could have happened?
"So... what, does this Other Ashdown place just like to ******** with us?" He caught her eye, and there was a look of appreciation on his face for her. In part because she was answering his questions, in part because she showed some level of concern for Lucas and he couldn't help but agree - that ******** did deserve to be happy.
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 3:22 pm
“I know I pull of the black Hermione thing pretty well, but I didn’t jump into this either. I’ve look around, and there’s no real rhyme or reason to who got picked. I know an eighteen year old in this, a police detective, a school teacher… it’s all just normal people.” She really had asked around. Had sought out Pax, had done her research, and there was nothing. As far as she could tell, it was only the fact they’d all done it before that had brought them together again. A previous Autumn had probably wondered this, too. They all probably had. Why them?
She couldn’t say.
“I don’t know that there IS a stop. Your problem… isn’t exactly mine,” She admitted, frowning a bit. “I’m not turning into animals or seeing through their eyes so much as talking to them. I think it’s affecting everyone differently.”
Not even Chris had the same problems as her. He was plant-proof. Zac could disappear. So far, she hadn’t heard of anyone seeing through an animal’s eyes. Not even with her affinity for wildlife did she see as them, or get their scents or anything. THAT was a new one.
“As for why? Best as I figure, it’s some time s**t. I’ve been told a past-me has done this before and failed. I think all of us, everyone involved… has sung this song, danced this dance countless times over. And we’re gonna KEEP putting on this show until we win, or we’re permanently killed.”
She shrugged.
“Best I can offer is be careful. If something weird happens, don’t pretend it didn’t. Set up systems so that SOMEONE, someone you trust, knows where to find you. Someone who can reach out to you if they can’t find you. Give yourself failsafes, you know?”
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 3:22 pm
"Failed?" He said, frowning. "At what?" The idea of having to encounter this lifetime after lifetime wasn't exactly appealing.
"So... okay, apparently we're all caught up in this Other Ashdown stuff and it's different for everyone. But what, really, are we up against? What should I expect? Am I going to end up somewhere I don't want to be? Or get stuck in a damned bird?" He didn't like being caught unawares.
It wasn't easy for him to think about setting up failsafes. He had people he could trust, sure, but to tell them to check up on him was tantamount to telling them something was wrong - with no good way to explain what exactly was happening. That would just worry them.
"And, more importantly, what can you do to prepare for it?" Whatever it was. "What do I do if I get stuck in a bird again, or get caught elsewhere?"
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 3:22 pm
“Failed at beating what we’re supposed to beat. It’s a hell of a complicated mess,” Autumn sighed, pursing her lips. She really had moved here to escape drama. It was kind of funny now, in retrospect, that she’d unintentionally become a pseudo-guide to everything involving Other Ashdown. The chief would probably find it just as amusing, if she ever told him.
“You might wind up somewhere you don’t want to be. A good buddy of mine wound up in a garden, there. I went to the hospital, and it was decayed beyond reason on the other side. You never… really know what to expect,” She admitted, still being caught off-guard by Other Ashdown herself. The bird thing was a loop, though. Autumn sat up, looking at him.
“Gimme some details about being stuck in the bird here. Like, you just turned into it? One second a man, one second a feathery a*****e?” Autumn asked, really intensively looking at him. He hadn’t particularly struck her as a bird kind of guy, but… s**t, she hadn’t struck herself as a witch either. People were just full of surprises like that.
“As for prepping, it’s like I said. Get people aware of where you are, and ready to react if you disappear. Maybe connect with a few of the other Visitors- it’s the title apparently, I didn’t make that s**t up- and…” She frowned.
“s**t. I promise this is totally no sketch, but are you willing to walk to my apartment? I have a few potions in the fridge that might be able to help you out.”
‘Potion for everything except getting a mate,’ Rosalinde meowed, hopping off her owner’s lap and wrapping herself around Rylan’s leg. Autumn scowled at the cat, and began gathering her things.
“I don’t know if being a bird helps you speak cat, but if it does, just ignore her. She’s trying to ruin my life, I’m convinced of it.”
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 3:23 pm
So there was something to beat. The look in Rylan's eyes started to change - change from confused and lost to determined. Because that right there, no matter how abstract their opponent might be, was something concrete. He could hold onto that, tell himself there was a purpose to all this. There was someone to beat, and that was something Rylan understood all too well from the years and years of competition drilled into his very being.
"Yea, one second, I was... singing and hanging out with people, and the next second I was somewhere else, looking into the apartment through a window, watching the rest of them and myself," he said, frowning at the thought. He would have liked to never revisit the incident, but if he'd learned anything from his return to civilian life after leaving the Marines, it was that talking healed better than time. "I couldn't really move, but I could see and hear the way the bird did, and I could feel it. I had a ******** beak." It was insane.
"And what if..." Here, Rylan paused because the thought truly scared him. "If I can't control it, what if I get pulled into something while it's hurting someone? All I can do is watch it happen? I already ate a mouse, for god's sakes. I don't want to... I can't..." He'd never wanted to hurt another undeserving being again after coming back.
He took a breath and shook his head to clear it. This was not the time to get shaken again.
"How many others are there? Visitors, I mean. Not that I've ever visited... Other Ashdown." He wouldn't mind a potion or other, either. With a nod, he stood and helped gather the items up around them.
"Oh, hello," he said to Rosaline. "I'd probably speak dog a lot better but... cats have been reacting... not too poorly to me lately." Which was new.
((ROSALINDE. FIRING SHOTS. DAMN GIRL))
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 3:23 pm
Autumn listened, just to make sure she was getting the right idea of everything. She nodded, thoughtfully, and then pulled out her phone for some immediate googling. Along with Rylan’s description, and that word from Game of Thrones Lara had used…
“Okay. So like, the wiki page for Game of Thrones Wargs, which is that word Lara used. Wargs are people with the ability to enter the minds of animals and perceive the world through their senses and even control their actions.” She read aloud, eyes scanning over the page. Autumn glanced up, eyebrows raised at Rylan.
“Pretty dead on the money, if you ask me. I mean, if Lara met you, and her dog told me that while she can see through his eyes, they can’t talk…” This had to be what they were dealing with, then. Autumn pocketed her phone once more, and gathered up the blanket.
“If it makes you feel any better, on the whole eating a mouse thing, I ate a spider.” Autumn grinned, heading off in the direction of her apartment. It was- thankfully- not a long walk from the park at all. She glanced over her shoulder at Rylan, figuring he was following.
“Me personally? I don’t think you’ll get stuck. I think the magic is all just kinda shitting itself right now, and none of us know how to process it.” That was her theory, anyway. Could be a complete crapshoot, but until she was proven wrong, it was what she was operating on.
“Uh, s**t. I’d say around… thirty or so of us, off the top of my head,” She hedged a guess, shrugging. Autumn could confirm a set amount, but beyond that, who really knew? “Lucas isn’t one of us. Not yet, anyway. Thorne is.”
And s**t, that was something she desperately needed to work out. In her mind’s eye, she could see him- sobbing, broken, miserable. She closed her eyes at night and she was the spider, tearing into the poor man’s soul and laying it bare for the world. Honestly, she’d meant to go see him. Really. She just…
Wasn’t strong enough. Not for everything she’d put him through.
“Anything else weird happen to you lately?” She asked, voice strangled as she desperately tried to push herself away from that topic.
Way, way too many nightmares about that lately.
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 3:24 pm
"Did Cerby tell you anything else?" He said curiously. Rylan had a sneaking suspicion that the animals knew more than they could say, but with Autumn, that was different. They could actually converse with her. "Say... do you think my dog could tell you anything useful?" He wasn't sure. Fidget, for the most part, had seemed blissfully ignorant of the fact that strange things were happening - with the exception of the mouse-eating night. That one he'd seen, alright.
"Thorne is one?" Rylan added. "How do you know?" How did anyone, really, know any of this? He assumed it was the result of getting caught up in it - maybe in an even more involved and unpleasant way than he had. It wasn't particularly encouraging, but the more he talked and thought about it, the less rattled he felt.
As long as he kept his wits about him, he could deal with pain and unpleasantness. He'd spent eight years of his life gearing up for 5 am practices, races that he knew would tear him apart, would send unbelievable pain through every muscle in his body, stroke after stroke, and yet he'd faced all of that with a grin and dare it to undo him. Because it couldn't. And here, whatever this unknown threat was, it would not consume him either.
"Apart from the dreaming and getting stuck in animals? Not really. My dog's become really well-trained... that's about it." His life had been exceedingly normal, considering his occupation, and if there had ever been a time when he'd wanted to keep it that way, now was it.
"What about you?" He added, noting the way her voice had changed. "Don't think I didn't notice. Eating a spider seems to be the least of your worries."
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 3:24 pm
“I don’t know about useful, but I could definitely get some good information from your dog. As to like, best pet spots, favorite food, all that. Animals… aren’t always the best at catching what’s going on.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “My birds, like. Really like to tell me who’s wearing what shiny thing. Or what they ate. Rather than, you know. Helpful s**t.”
Too many times. Too many times Autumn had been told about the mAGICAL SPECIAL SHINY THING people were holding, only for it to be a button, or something equally stupid. She loved the birds, she did. But seriously. Attention was something they were having a struggle with.
She stopped in her tracks. There… wasn’t any sense in lying about it. Autumn turned back to Rylan, her face pained.
“I suppose you haven’t heard it from him. My body got stolen by a fairy. Not fun or anything, she ripped my spirit out and tried to come here. I… tried to defend myself, in Other Ashdown, with monsters. Built around my friends.”
She winced painfully.
“I was just gonna turn everyone away. Tell them to get home safe, and just… leave me. But she took my monsters, and made them awful. The- the spider. I had built it around Lucas.” She could not meet his eyes, could not even look in that direction. Her voice was quieter, pained as she continued.
“And the fae took it. Used- used my mind, and the monster, to push into Thorne’s mind and try to break him. I’ve… I’ve seen it all. What makes him tick. What scares him.”
Autumn swallowed heavily and looked up.
“I don’t know if. If she made me break him. I can’t face him. He’s all I see at night, just. There. Broken. And it’s all my fault.”
She did not look back to Rylan, could not. But she continued to walk to the apartment, calling back.
“He deserves to hate me. For all of it. But… if I can help anyone else. If I can stop anyone from falling like that. It’s what I’m going to do.”
The stairs were taken slowly. Painstakingly. Autumn was back in her own mind, seeing it. Feeling it. Screaming in horror as she tore a man apart in the safety of his own mind, in dreams she never should have seen.
“You don’t have to come in, if you don’t want. You don’t have to talk to me ever again, I won’t blame you. But at least… let me send you home with something. To keep yourself away from monsters like me.”
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 3:24 pm
He did not know how Autumn must feel. If he was lucky, he never would. The amount of guilt that must come from hurting someone that way... Rylan wasn't sure he'd be able to shoulder it. Physical damage was one thing, but to try to break someone like that, to know everything that could undo a man and to use it against her will... Not a single person on earth would be able to convince him he deserved to stay after that.
And yet, he knew, it wasn't Autumn's fault.
"You know," he said, following her up the stairs, showing no sign that he wanted to leave or stay away from her. "We all think we're monsters. We all know we have the ability to hurt people, and it's terrifying, so we ask people to stay away. Maybe it's safer that way. But real monsters, they don't think that way. They don't try to protect people."
In the absence of true evil, Rylan did not fear her.
But he did make a mental note to check on Thorne.
"Don't let it eat away at you," he added, watching her carefully, concerned. "The guilt. You can atone for it, and do what you can to show you've learned from it, but if you spend too much time hating yourself, it'll swallow you. I've seen it."
He'd never tortured anyone, or been forced to try to break someone like that, but he knew what war could do to people. He knew all too well.
But at least she was willing to talk about it. Keeping that guilt bottled up was the worst thing she could do, and Rylan was glad to see she'd chosen a more restorative path.
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