[prp] ...halp (daws/meri)

[medigel]

That was essentially how the text went, albeit with more words and perhaps more than a handful of emoticons that attempted to properly highlight Dawson's stress about the new timeline. He at least looked calm as he took a seat on the park bench, the image betrayed only by his feet occasionally tapping and his hands wringing and twining and fiddling with each other.

(The park was Safe. It always had been, even before he started living in the van. This much at least hadn't changed.)

He gave her a big bear hug when she arrived, unabashedly relieved to see she didn't look much different. "Ahhhhh, Meri," Dawson said, drawing it out like a sigh. "C'mere, youuuuuu."

lizbot

 

[lizbot]

Dawson at that familiar bench, being very much Dawson was a sight that was nearly as comforting as the hug that followed. Laughing, she hugged him right back. "Feels like it's been forever, Daws!"

She hugged him again, real quick and ******** hard before stepping back to settle in on the bench. "Sorry I haven't been 'round here for lunch. Only pick up a couple shifts a week now. I guess the other me was still living off Pa mostly." She made a face, "Spoiled." As far as small talk went, well, it got right into the weird didn't it. Realizing this, she sat back with a sigh and got straight to it, "You musta woke up to a shock."

medigel

 

[medigel]

Not even catching the otherness of it just yet, as basking in the normalcy was far more important, Dawson took his seat by her and produced a bag of donut holes from The Sweet Spot, if she was hungry. He certainly was. Or maybe he was just anxious. Both sort of intertwined unfortunately.

"Pfya, no kiddin'," Dawson said with a snort. "Practically fell outta bed, I got so shook. Knocked the alarm clock to the ground, n' now I gotta go get a new one." He popped a donut hole into his mouth and chewed with a frown. "Tell me you did it better."

lizbot

 

[lizbot]

Pilfering three and shoving them all into her mouth at once, America chewed and nodded and then chewed some more and nodded harder. Finally swallowing them down, she gave a small laugh. "I didn't wake up at all, I stumbled home from the forest and found a dead girl had broken in to tell me that we did a good job and now I had some responsibilities because of it."

She waggled her eyebrows at Dawson, all top that. "Then I went to bed, so I guess you beat me to it by at least half a day." There's a pause, and any humor washes out, leaving her pale and all of 19, huddled on a park bench in January. "How much did you find out 'bout the..." she glanced around and saw only a few hardy pigeons for company, "magic and stuff, after we went to the Other Place last year?"

medigel

 

[medigel]

Dawson stared at her like he could make out the park bench behind her, like she was glass and foreign. And then he pushed another handful of donut holes into his mouth.

"Nah much," he said around the food, scooting closer. It was cold out there, and she looked so small. He chewed and swallowed. "Honestly tried t'ferget about it."

lizbot

 

[lizbot]

"Well this town was magic, and most of it was in that Other Place. Maybe you kept dreaming about it, even if you were trying to forget. And you probably noticed the weird things going on later, like those weeks of rain and the waters 'round here changing color, washing up odd stuff. Magic was...breaking out into a world not ready for it. So the rules got changed and the world could handle it. Worked a bit too well, though, I suppose."

America ventured a look over at Dawson, stealing another donut hole.

medigel

 

[medigel]

His brow furrowed as he took it all in. He had dreamt about that place a few times after their...irregular adventure in the rain that one time, but Dawson had thought it was just a regular dream. You know, just a random mishmash of things he had experienced recently. And there had been a bunch of random s**t happening recently...(Recently? Previously? Man, he hated time traveling and time warping crap.)

"How'd the rules get changed?" he asked.

lizbot

 

[lizbot]

"Well," she sighed, "...some of us went and made a new sigil, new set of rules, to replace the ones that broke and try to fix what went wrong. They went from containing and controlling magic to...guiding it, allowing it to be a natural part of the world, giving it a way out that might not need anything broken by force or killing the keepers."

medigel

 

[medigel]

"Okay," Dawson said slowly, trying to digest those simple sentences. "So y'all just went godlike one Sunday mornin'? Wait, who even is the y'all here?"

lizbot

 

[lizbot]

"Folks who could do magic, were part of it all. Like you n'me. You wanna know more about them, you gotta step into it all a bit further, Daws." There was a huff of laughter, a puff of air around her face. "We didn't go godlike, a friend did. They're...they are magic, in a way. All of it, maybe. They were in danger and dangerous as ******** all at once. We all felt the pull there, where it was happening; got a big biblical Come and See and everything."

Sighing, she added, "The first sigil was just three teenagers try to fix something. Same for us. There wasn't time and none of us know enough to find another solution. Yet."

medigel

 

[medigel]

"Okay," he said again, chewing through one of the last donut holes thoughtfully. Dawson mulled it over. "So...There was three people before tryna make the rules, fix somethin'. Now it's someone else's turn? That right? What they tryna fix?"

lizbot

 

[lizbot]

"I dunno 'bout the first three really. There was some big Enemy, I guess? But this one was trying to fix magic. So you know, the world didn't break apart 'cause it had gotten freed." She sighed, "At some points it felt like we were trying to defuse a bomb, if that makes it any clearer. Nobody knew it was gonna change the world like it did though. Or that the first sigil had done the same, but most of us never knew."

Scuffing a toe into the dirt she looks up at him after a moment, apologetic, "World you remember is just as real as this one. It is real," her voice turned firm, "but probably was something else before, something me n' you can't remember."

medigel

 

[medigel]

Enemy. The word stuck in his craw for some reason; he hoped it was just the sweets.

"Who's this Enemy dude?" Dawson asked. He couldn't touch her statement about things before being real. He wouldn't. He didn't want to suffer another breakdown in public. "Should I be worried fer these sigil people? 'Cause if the first time didn't work..."

lizbot