The Preserve, Monday After Classes

[dark_slippy_thing]

After leaving a message on Will's answering machine (wild piece of technology, that), Valentine waited for her in that particular clearing under that tree by that rock which he had mentioned.

And he waited. Bored. Perhaps his directions weren't specific enough.

To pass the time, Valentine found a trio of stones and alternated between balancing them on the back of his hand and actually juggling them.

(ooc: For notawitch! We love us some slowplay tonight, oh yes.)

Comments

[notawitch.livejournal.com]

Will who is so very on slowtime today got Valentine's message, and after rolling her eyes a couple times, finally decided to head out to meet him. There were a whole bunch of places in the preserve that looked exactly like the place that Valentine had described, so she only found him after a long round of searching.

"Hi," she said, slightly out of breath, when she finally found the right clearing.

[dark_slippy_thing]

"Why hello there, Will," Valentine said with a grin, a little tower of stones laid out in front of him, "didn't I tell you, this is the perfect clearing?"
Even if it was exactly the same as about a dozen others.
"I found it the other day while I was out walking."

[notawitch.livejournal.com]

"What makes this one more perfect than all the other ones?" asked Will, somewhat annoyed. "It looks exactly the same as the 14 other ones I had to look through to find you here!"

[dark_slippy_thing]

Valentine crossed his arms and pouted a moment. "This one if farthest from civilization, so there's less a chance that people will stumble in during filming, for one." He paused and grinned. "For another, you try describing this one in a way that will make it stand apart from the rest in voicemails. 'This one has one tree more than that other one three miles back' doesn't help much."

[notawitch.livejournal.com]

Will rolled her eyes and sighed in annoyance.

"Fine, fine. Whatever. Why did you leave me a message to meet you out here in the rain in the middle of the woods, anyway?"

[dark_slippy_thing]

Valentine looked up at the sky for a moment, letting realization strike.
Oh, yes, rain. Most people were inconvenienced by that.
"I really don't notice the rain. Too much like home to be odd. It gets dark, it gets nasty, it just seems normal. Plus the wet, of course." He shrugged and pulled an egg from his pocket, idly tossing it into the air and catching it again. "Really, I just wanted to see what you thought of the locale. No harm, no foul, right?"

[notawitch.livejournal.com]

Well, Will really wished that she'd remembered to bring an umbrella with her, but she couldn't complain too much aside from that.

For the moment.

"It's ... nice? As random rain-soaked clearings in the woods go, it's a pretty good one. Is that what you wanted to ask me about?" When he pulled an item of of his pocket to juggle, she noticed that it wasn't one of his usual juggling balls. "What's up with the egg?"

[dark_slippy_thing]

Valentine tossed the egg in the air again, and caught it once more. "I'm thinking of calling it Clementine. Has a catchy ring to it, doesn't it? She's my Ethics project. While everyone else is running around with clingy little squishy things, I get an egg." He grinned. "Clementine likes the locale, too."

[notawitch.livejournal.com]

Will decided to ignore that last comment.

"Clementine sounds like a good name. It's weird how like a hundred kids just popped out of nowhere the day after prom, isn't it? Where did they all come from? How did they get here? Why didn't I end up with one?" Her face palled at a sudden thought. "Will all the new parents expect me to babysit for them?"

[dark_slippy_thing]

Valentine shrugged a little. "If you inform them that you're actually a cannibal and are likely to turn the intestines of their children into sausages, I imagine you'll be off the hook. It can't be that much different from wanting to eat your Ethics project, anyhow." He chuckled to himself and tossed the egg in the air. "Funny that they showed up right after prom. Makes you wonder what they were doing that night."

[notawitch.livejournal.com]

Will stared at Valentine. "I am not telling everybody that I'm a cannibal!!"

The rain pushed some wet bangs onto her face, and she looked away to brush them back. "Makes you wonder if whatever's responsible for all the invasions around here has a sense of humor and irony."

[dark_slippy_thing]

Valentine shook his head a little and tossed and caught the egg Clementine a few more times before pocketing it her.
"Suit yourself, then. Makes you wonder why some people get hit by these things sometimes, and left alone others. Greater powers and all that nonsense never really appealed to me, but there must be some reason for these things to happen when they do, right? People turning into other people entirely for a weekend, things turning into food items, gender swaps... It's a wild place, isn't it?" He leaned back against the rock under the tree in that clearing and mused for a moment. "I mean, the cupcakes made sense, at least. Cause and effect-- I ate it, it was filled with some crazy hallucinogenic drug or something, and I went insane. But randomly sprouting breasts overnight... what's up with that, anyhow? For as crazy as my own home is, things like that never happened there."

[notawitch.livejournal.com]

Will leaned back under a tree. It was somewhat less wet under its branches than standing out in the open clearing.

"I don't know if anyone's ever really come up for a reason for that. I'm used to some pretty weird stuff myself -- after all, I do use a magical sparkly crystal that I keep inside my palm to turn into an older superheroine version of myself with wings who fights evil on other worlds. But all the random craziness here... When I got to Fandom High last fall, they told me that it was something about the island or the school itself that does it. I don't think I've ever heard anyone give a more detailed answer than that."

[dark_slippy_thing]

"The island itself is the scapegoat for that sort of thing? That's a pretty sorry explanation, if you ask me. I mean, there must be more to it than that. I don't know why the things that are tearing my home apart are doing it, but nobody is going around and saying that it's just because that's the sort of place that it is, you know? I've heard talk about a princess or something, and that's where that ends-- but at least it's something. Not like here, where people find things askew all the time and just chuckle and brush it off saying that it's Fandom. Seems like the easiest way to avoid an answer, if you ask me."
He moved some rocks about and reorganized his little tower with a scowl. "I'm not a kid person anyhow. Didn't have a functional family growing up, wouldn't know what to do with a child if it bit me in the arse. The rest of the island can keep them. I'm a very important man. I don't need any."

[notawitch.livejournal.com]

"Until a better explanation comes up, blaming the island's about all we can do. It's not like there's a better answer than that floating around."

Will's expression got more serious at Valentine's mention of the destruction of his home world.

"Like I said, if something's destroying your world, you need to find out what it is and how to defeat it. I bet the Oracle would listen if I took you to see him and tell him about your problem. You need to at least try fighting back in order save your homeworld and the things you love there." She looked up at the cloud-covered sky and smiled, mostly to herself. "Or maybe that's just me. 'Saving other worlds from destruction' was the mission that got forced on my friends and I, so I'm a little gung-ho about stuff like that."

She kept on staring off into space. "My Dad's a huge creep, and my Mom and I had to move towns to get away from him. My Mom loves me loads, but she's such a workaholic. To be honest, coming from that, I'm kind of scared of what I'd be like as a parent."

[dark_slippy_thing]

"Don't you be going and worrying about what you'd be like as a parent-- at least you have some sort of family background. My mother bought me from a man. And then kicked me out. And I wanted to eat Clementine. Call me crazy, but I don't think that a responsible parent is supposed to want to eat their--"
Valentine froze and craned his head around, looking at the bushes.
"Did you hear that...?"
Silence. Nothing.
Odd.

[notawitch.livejournal.com]

Will was going to make another comment about how cannibalism was bad when he told her to listen for something in the woods. So she did.

"I can't hear anything out there," she said.

[dark_slippy_thing]

"Must have gone away," Valentine decided, because there was no way he was going to suggest that he had been hearing things and that he had the capacity to be mistaken. "But as I was saying- Clementine is an egg. Granted, she's a cute little thing, but she is still an egg, and therefore she is just as subject to become a meal as any other egg out there. The fact that she travels in my pocket doesn't make her safer, it just makes her more convenient if I get a case of the munchies, so really, I-"
He glanced at a weetiny deer for a moment as it made its way toward them from the local flora.
"- Told you I heard something. What in the world kind of creature is that little thing anyhow? All teal and... deer like...?"

[notawitch.livejournal.com]

"You don't eat your kids!" an exasperated Will yelled, before noticing that she and Valentine had some company.

"I think it's one of those teal deer," she told him. "They're supposed to live in the preserve. I haven't seen one before, but I've heard that they're kind of friendly. It's pretty cute when you get to see it up close."

[dark_slippy_thing]

"I imagine teal deer don't eat their kids, either. What do they eat, anyhow? Not jugglers, I hope. I'm too rugged and dashing to die tonight." The deer came right up close and attempted to stare Valentine down.
"He really doesn't look hungry. And there's plenty of grass about to eat, if your a deer who happens to be into that sort of thing. I, for one, am not a fan of grazing. Gets in my teeth. Too much roughage, you understand. I wonder if he's alone, or if he has any friends."
As if on cue, several more deer peeked their wee little heads over the shrubbery and peered at the duo sitting in the rain.

[notawitch.livejournal.com]

"Oh hey, there's more of them," said Will, pointing at the deer who'd popped in the bushes. "Maybe a whole herd is going to shop up if we keep hanging around here. You'd think they'd hate the rain, but I guess they don't."

The deer were pretty nifty looking, but in Will's opinion they still weren't as cute as frogs.

[dark_slippy_thing]

"They're probably indifferent to the rain, like I am. I imagine for a herd of thingers like that who live outside their entire lives, something that happens all the time in the wild isn't going to bother them much at all. Oh, look, they're coming closer. They are kind of cute, I suppose. I wonder what makes them that particular shade of teal...?"
Valentine found himself standing up as the first deer leaned in dangerously close to him.
"Not so close! You'll hurt Clementine! She has to survive a full week, you know, and it would look bad if she was squelched by a green-blue thing the very first day I have her, don't you think?"

[notawitch.livejournal.com]

It was about at this point that Will took a good look around the clearing, and realized just how many deer there were, and how close they were moving in.

"Uh, Valentine? I think they've got us completely surrounded."

[dark_slippy_thing]

Valentine was now backed up between a rock and a hard place tree, and was frowning a great deal. "Are we not supposed to be here? Because I can leave anytime, honestly. Just say the word like wee ... bleaty... do deer bleat, or is that just goats? Like little mute teal things and I can pack up my things and head right back on to the dorms where I'll be safe and you won't have to look at me and-- Will, they're getting really close."

[notawitch.livejournal.com]

The more Valentine talked, the closer the heard of teel deer seemed to be coming.

"I think your talking is just encouraging them to come closer."

[dark_slippy_thing]

Valentine did a double take at will, and then down at the little herd of deer that was congregated around his knees.
"That's the most nonsensical thing I've ever heard. What kind of animal would actually be attracted to long, run-on conversations? Not that I'm saying that this is long or run-on, but seriously! Most animals try to avoid human banter at all costs, so I don't think that's it." He paused for a moment, then flailed his arms about. "They want Clementine, I bet! That has to be what it is! Well, they won't be getting her- not from me! It will take more than a pack of wee greenish things to take any fake-child-slash-food-item away from me!"
This would be about the point that the deer started to ignore Will entirely and decided to single Valentine out from the wee babbling herd of two.

[notawitch.livejournal.com]

And since Valentine was babbling on and on while Will was being quiet, the redheaded girl soon found herself pushed out of the ever tightening circle.

"Do you need help?" she called.

[dark_slippy_thing]

"Find somebody who knows what to do when endangered greenish deer thingies attack," came Valentine's agitated reply, which tapered off into him systematically breaking down for the deer every single reason why they should not be interested in either him or Clementine, because, although he is very interesting, he's also a very important man who has a tower and-- so on and so forth.

[notawitch.livejournal.com]

Since the deer swarm seemed to show no sign that they would stop mobbing the talky meat that was Valentine, Will decided that the best thing to do would be to head back to school and get help.

"I will be back to save you," she said before running off.

And promptly getting lost in the woods. Again.