well, i got one foot on the platform [open]

[awooligan]

🧙 WHO: Cliff Norman, OTA!
⚔️️ WHAT: Not-so-local teen wolf's first world-hop.
🕒 WHEN: idk, March.
🗺️ WHERE: Typical arrival locations and Camelot.
⚠️ WARNINGS: uh cursing, that's all for the time being.

[ a - aaaargh. ]

[There’s one thing worse than swimming in jeans and shoes, and it’s crawling out of the water in soaked jeans and not shoes -- not barefoot either, just no shoes. Socks. Squishy, drippy, muddy socks. Because the night hadn't been hard enough already. Also feeling a little drowned? Been there, done that. Cliff coughs as he falls back and glares at the sky, trying to figure out what the fuck. He’d been at Oscar’s, and exhausted, but that was more emotionally than anything, and then the next thing he knows? Weird grassy sea cows are bullying him. There’s some shitty staircase, some biker-rancher dude, and a wardrobe apparently named exactly what Cliff would have named it. At least it means he has his shoes now, even if he's reluctant to wear them over his damp socks.]

Okay… Okay. Think. [In an effort to act rather than panic, Cliff peels his shirt up over his head and swaps it out for the red hoodie so he can be at least somewhat dry and warm. He'd pace, but his jeans are squeaky. And his phone…

He has to groan as he imagines Oscar’s stupid grin as he makes the best of it with, ‘No shirt, no shoes, no service! Think they allow dogs?’ Not helpful, imaginary Oscar!] Fuck. I can't even get Eliza…

[Oh. Wait. If he was here -- ]

Kevin! Kev, hey, are you here?!

[Sorry about this panicking, frustrated redhead yelling around! Maybe looking like he’s going to dive off the cliff's edge and search the water instead!!]

[ b - bzzt. ]

Hey, cut it out!

[Having accepted that it was only him brought to this place, as little sense as that made, Cliff had been more than ready to find someone who knew enough that he could berate them. But it seems life had one more surprise for him in the form of a tiny, wispy shadow child that rasps out a laugh and latches onto his shoe -- which he'd finally gotten to put on, thank fucking christ.]

PUPPY-PUPPY!

You -- shut up? Hey! If you’re not going to leave me alone, then find a way to contact that stupid bear and get us out of here!

HEE HEE...PUPPY-PUPPY, SIT! STAY!

Think that's funny? How about this one -- FETCH.

[And Cliff grabs hold of the Thunder Child, rears his arm back, and chucks the thing as far as he can. This results in some instant regret.]

Shit -- watch out!

[Because that's a giggling little ball of darkness and sparks heading towards some stranger, and if it hits them? That’ll be a stinging shock, thankfully more surprising than painful.]

[ c - like three prompt opportunities idk. ]

[He wouldn't call himself any calmer or more settled, even when assured that things back home wouldn't be happening without him and he wouldn't be worrying his family. For once. It does help a little, just like the fact that the stupid Thunder Child had scampered into the woods with a giggle, finally leaving him alone.

...Turns out that being alone, while good for his introverted nature, kind of makes you lonely! And bored! So Cliff decides to try and go around the city with a curious look and his hands calmly in his pockets rather than a glare meant to scorch the path ahead of him. The busy city part feels weird...but interesting, and he watches stores and businesses through windows to distract himself from the sound of families out and about. Happy or arguing, each of them make his chest ache.

But eventually he finds a bench to sit on for a nice little break and scrolls through that weird quest-request or whatever app. It all sounds like things that are not at all his business. His thumb does pause as he reads through one of them, though, brows furrowing.]

What the… Oh, come on. They've got to be fucking with us. Find some horny bunny jackass cheating on his bunny wife? [Who somehow doesn't know about this, despite it being a publicly posted job?

Well. On the offchance, this isn't bullshit, he does have a way of finishing this one pretty easily. A wolf should be able to find a rabbit in no time, right? Once he's had an opportunity to shift without having to worry about anyone seeing or suspecting something -- even with animal magic existing, it felt like a risk -- Cliff sets out to put his nose to work in bunny country.]

Ugh. Why can't I smell anything? It's all just city and food…

[Speaking of which: damn, some of that food looks pretty good.]

[ d - we went off the alphabet theme. ]

[And everything else!! Just getting his foot in the door, so to speak, but if some fun, specific idea pops up, feel free to toss it here or plot with me over on plurk at goblinhood.]

Comments

[wolfhunted]

I'm Robyn.

[She probably could have introduced herself before she introduced her companions, but...oh well. Rowena, for her part, seems a lot calmer now that the Thunder Child isn't bothering her anymore.]

Really? Falconry's done a lot where I'm from. You can train a falcon like Merlyn to hunt small birds and animals for you. We'd both help me father hunt for food back home.

[At least, they did until they moved to Ireland and her father insisted that she stay in town instead of going hunting with him.]

[awooligan]

[Animals are better than people, usually. If Robyn hadn't been a kid he was inconveniencing, he might not have bothered to introduce himself at all. He reaches back to cover the Thunder Child over his shoulder as it pokes out and starts playfully growling at Rowena. Seriously, why can't this thing just be normal?]

Oh, yeah. People don't hunt for food much in Oklahoma. I mean, they do eat it, but it's mostly for sport. Sounds like it isn't just a stupid hobby where you're from.

[wolfhunted]

Where's Oklahoma? Is it part of the mainland?

[...yeah, she's from long before any of the United States were formally established.]

[awooligan]

[Mainland... He doesn't pay enough attention in school to know what she means, but the accent is hard to miss.]

It's one of the states.

[wolfhunted]

One of the states of what?

[...wait.] Are you one of those people who are from much later than I am? I've met someone who told me that.

[awooligan]

[One of the states of what -- ]

Uh. That sounds completely stupid, so: yeah, probably. Man, I hate this place, it makes no sense.

[wolfhunted]

Well, the people who are brought here are from all kind of places. And times, too, I suppose. I met someone who said he's from the year...2012, I think? And that's hundreds of years later than the year back home for me.

[She still doesn't really get it, but by now she's not too surprised that there are people who could be from a later time period than her.]

[awooligan]

[Hundreds of years...]

Nope. Way too weird to think about.

[...Though he has to admit he'd be a little curious to hear her thoughts on witches. They did all those trials and stuff back then, right? He's never been the greatest at history, or...school in general...]

It's weird enough there's all this magic stuff here. None of it's really normal where I'm from. You're...handling things okay, though?

[wolfhunted]

Yes, I think so. It helps that there's some magic where I'm from, even if most people don't think it's real.

[She certainly wasn't expecting to become a Wolfwalker, much less get caught up in any actual magic like in all the stories she'd heard.]

I never thought I'd come to a place where everyone has magic, though.

[awooligan]

[Cliff nods, finding himself in pretty much the same situation. He should probably be better about how he acts in front of these younger kids... It wouldn't be good to freak them out because this place is stupid and doesn't deserve to be taken in calmly. Okay, Cliff, toughen up.]

You do have magic, then? Uh, where you're from, I mean. You don't have to talk about you if you don't want.

[wolfhunted]

[Robyn hesitates for a moment. She's been able to be a bit more open about what she's become since she got here, since magic is so much more commonplace, but it's still a little weird for her to tell someone who won't dismiss it as a story or pagan nonsense.]

Sort of. I'm a Wolfwalker. Or, well, at least somethin' close to it, because it doesn't work exactly like it does before I got here. Back home, I could turn into a wolf when I went to sleep, but here I can do it whenever I want.

[awooligan]

[He barely hears the further explanation, sound suddenly seeming to be drowned out by the hammer of his heart, which seems to have moved into his throat, somehow?]

You're -- what?

[Another Animal Person? She did have those bright blue eyes like Raven, and a bird name to boot. No, no she said she was a wolf, and it didn't work like that anyway. Only when she went to sleep... Reminding himself of that, Cliff manages a steady breath again.]

It doesn't work the same here? Why is it different?

[wolfhunted]

A Wolfwalker. They're people who live in the woods with wolves, and they leave their bodies and become wolves whenever they sleep. I mean, I didn't live in the woods with wolves before, but after Father and I moved to Ireland, I met a girl who's a Wolfwalker, and she bit me by accident, and she healed the bite, but...now I'm one, too. [That last part comes out in a bit of a rush.]

But when I got here, I don't only become a wolf when I fall asleep anymore. And I don't have to leave me body behind, either. I still have to practice turnin' into a wolf on me own, though.

[awooligan]

[He shifts uneasily, not paying mind to the Thunder Child crawling back out of his hood to look between the two and giggle. Biting was this whole other issue, the importance drilled into him even before he knew why it was such a big deal... It seemed...okay, though. Just regular werewolf rules, not anything like what he had to worry about.]

That's weird... So it's just because you have animal magic now that you can do it? Or -- I don't know how this shit works. And that girl that bit you didn't just ditch you and make you deal with it on your own, right?

[Because that would be pretty shitty?]

[wolfhunted]

She tried to make me leave her alone at first, and she was pretty annoyin' about it, too. But we're friends now.

[It helped that Robyn could eventually sense that Mebh was actually pretty lonely, in spite of everything.]

She's not so bad as a friend, really. After we moved, I couldn't make any friends in town. [Since none of the kids wanted anything to do with the English who had colonized everything, which is understandable, but still.]

[awooligan]

[Oof. That bites. He's not very good at making friends even after being in the same place his whole life, so he can't imagine having to do it after going to a different country.

...Or world. Hm. Maybe he'll just box up those scary thoughts to examine later when he was alone and free to feel as lonely as he needed.]

Wait. She really did this thing to you and didn't try to give you any help? You said most people didn't think magic was real, so what were you supposed to do? Just not talk about it? Even if that's nothing new, it still sucks. What was her problem?

[wolfhunted]

Oh, no, she's helped me. She just didn't want anyone findin' the den where she and the wolves live. Most people...don't like wolves much, back home.

[Which is an understatement, of course. Especially when her own father tried to shoot her the night she first transformed since he didn't recognize her, but she'd rather not bring that up right now.]

She did show me how to be a wolf the first time I became one.

[awooligan]

Oh.

[Well, okay. He's significantly less grumpy about it, then -- or at least less grumpy about Robyn's werewolf chick. Now he's just reminded of his own disappointment, frustration, and bitterness at never having anyone else like him around until that pack of jerks and Raven. Cliff shifts his weight a little and sticks his hands into his hoodie pockets until the Thunder Child reaches and tugs at his ear with a tiny shock for good measure.]

Ow! What? [But he's not very interested in hearing what it's got to say and covers it with a shielding hand.] Hey, so... Sorry about that monster thing I said. You're okay, obviously. I, uh, kind of get it, too.

[wolfhunted]

Really? What do you mean?

[Robyn's not too offended by the earlier comment about monsters, since at one point, she was one of the majority who didn't like wolves either. After all, her father was called to Ireland in the first place to hunt down the last of the wolves there. With how much she'd wanted to help him, she never thought she'd end up becoming a wolf herself.]

[awooligan]

[Even having brought it up himself, he's reluctant to elaborate more. It goes against every instinct he's had since...as long as he can remember, really. There'd been no one like him, growing up. Even now, with witches and old men with magic relics, talking bears and ghosts, he wanted to keep what he was to himself as much as possible.

She's a kid, though. One in a strange world after just being introduced to a strange world back home. She'd had trouble making friends even before having such a reason to feel different.]

Look, just... Don't tell anyone, okay? I mean it.

[She was able to keep the wolf den back home a secret, right? So hopefully she wouldn't be like Kevin and just blurt out any information he came across, even if she's closer to his age than Clifford's.]

I'm not a Wolfwalker, or anything. I've just always been able to do it whenever I wanted. Turn into a wolf.

[wolfhunted]

I won't.

[She was pretty careful about keeping Mebh and the wolves' den a secret, but the possibility that they could all be wiped out was a pretty good incentive to keep quiet. Still, she's usually pretty careful about not giving away just any information to people, even if she can be more open about being a Wolfwalker here.]

You have...? But if you still have to keep it secret...do they hate wolves where you're from, too?

[awooligan]

Nah. We don't really have wolves in Oklahoma.

[Regular wolves, not-so-regular wolves...]

My mom and my brother aren't like me. They're both normal humans. I didn't even know there could be other people like me until half a year or so ago. It's all just dumb stories, so...it's better to just keep quiet about it if I want to keep doing what I want.

[wolfhunted]

Oh...

[Even if Robyn has embraced being a Wolfwalker, she can understand where he's coming from. She does have Mebh to confide in, but most people back home are fearful enough of regular wolves as it is. She may have more freedom here to be herself, but it's clearly not the same for other people.]

Alright, then. If you don't want me to tell anyone, then I won't.

But...if you ever feel like talkin' about those things, we can always go out to the forest, if you like.

[She's not exactly offering therapy, she's too young for that, but she knows that you should have at least one person to talk to about stuff like this.]

[awooligan]

[He has to scoff a little at her words.]

Shouldn't I be the one saying that to you, kiddo?

[As the older werewolf around here. His turn into teasing wouldn't be happening so quickly if he wasn't grateful to have heard her say that -- both the promise of secrecy and the offer. Cliff shakes his head and lets his eyes go back to Rowena instead.]

I don't get it, though. You're saying that being a wolf is different for you now that you're here?

[wolfhunted]

Well, they don't want all the wolves gone from here like they do back home. Or at least, they don't give out rewards for every wolf you shoot dead.

[At least none of the jobs offered here so far have been about hunting wolves.]

If anyone in Kilkenny saw me as a wolf, they'd cage me if they didn't shoot me first. But so far I haven't met anyone who hates wolves, and some people even have animal magic like I do. So...it's nice.