HalfOfLancelot — Roleplayer Guild

Location: Okada's Clinic/Office >> Riverview Gardens
Interactions: Alice@Undine, Fox@HalfofLancelot, Malcolm@McHaggis

Alice blinked at the sudden new person in front of her. When was the last time she met someone new? In a town like Verona, you literally knew everything about everyone. She was a bit taken aback by the slightly panicked introduction, but quickly managed to lift a shy, sweet smile upon her face. If this was an anime, she would have one of those sweatdrops.

“Uh, hi Foxtrot! I’m Alice,” She spoke soothingly, hoping to calm his nerves. “You must be new, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around before.”

“Uh, yeah, just moved here a day ago,” Fox stepped back slightly and reached for a cookie. Honestly, there were much better ways of making an impression, but that was too easy. Too simple. He just had to do it the hard way.

Smack into someone, Fox, yes, that’s a great ice breaker. “Want a cookie?” he tried, with a forced smile.

Her phone buzzed against her leg, so Alice fished it out.  Normally, she wasn’t the type to be on her phone around people—especially around someone she’s never met before… Probably.  Once again, she’s never really met someone new. 

To: Alice
I’m grounded & not allowed to see King. Also headache of a lifetimeMal

Alice’s brows knitted together in concern. Part of the reason why she came to the clinic was in hopes of running into Mal here. The being grounded part was understandable, but not being allowed to see King was probably going to torture him—the two were inseparable.  With a quick “sorry!” directed to Fox, she tapped out a reply.

To: Mal
Take some aspirin! Chamomile tea also helps with headaches. King looks fine, I just dropped by. He was asleep, but the nurse said he should be fine. I have news about how he got hurt though. We gotta talk later. <3Alice

To: Alice
I’m climbing out the window I’ll be there in 5Mal

To: Mal
To the clinic!? Bad idea. Too many people here. I’ll meet you at Riverview Gardens?Alice

After that brief exchange, Alice looked up at Fox and gave a hasty smile. “Sorry about that! And sure, I would love a cookie. You brought them for the kids staying here, right? We could find a nurse and have them distribute them to everyone. They’re beat up, so I’m sure that they would love to have some too.”

Mal was coming in a few minutes, and Alice had so many things she needed to talk to him about. But at the same time, she couldn’t leave the awkward new guy to fend for himself. He looks so lost and scared. She had slight inhibitions about inviting Fox, she really wasn’t the most lively person to be around, after all. She was afraid she would bore him or something, but again, she couldn’t leave him alone. “Um… I actually have to go meet a friend soon. Do you want to come along? I could show you around town, and you can meet so more people.”

In this situation either his mother would be proud or would kill him. Go hopping around town making friends while there’s a serial killer on the loose? Fox weighed his options for a moment before decided, what the hell? If he dies, at least he wouldn’t die alone.

“That doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” Fox said, almost forgetting to set Scout’s cookie beside her. Hopefully, she could… uh… eat it. “I was kinda lucky this place was so obvious to find. Not sure what I’d do if I ran into, uh…” he coughed, and scratched his head before looking around. He sneaked back out to where the receptionist should have been—ecstatic to see her—and slide the basket over the desk with toothy smile. “Hi, my mother made these wonderful cookies for all the hurt teenagers from that... thing last night and she wanted me to drop 'em off. So, uh, here and there's plenty for left overs, so no need to ration them; treat yourself," he forced out with as much aplomb as he could muster, then slid back toward Scout's room with a curt wave.

“Alright, I’m all good to go.”

Alice led Fox out of the clinic and decided to take the scenic route--or as scenic as Verona could get, which was still pretty. Just the same everywhere—pointing out some of the more notable locations of the town. Alice was trying really hard not to be boring, but due to her shy nature there was a lot of “um’s” and pauses in her speech as she struggled to find words. “So, uh… What brings you here to Verona?”

Well, not the entirely best way to spend the afternoon, but definitely not the worse. Alice’s lack of demanding presence made roaming through Verona a helluva lot easier. Like a nice, relaxing stroll through a park. Fox smiled and nodded along with Alice’s tour, letting himself fall in step just behind her.

“Uh,” Fox paused, stopping slightly before picking up the pace to walk next to Alice, “it’s complicated, really. Um.” It might have been a great idea to come up with some kind of explanation for moving to the ass end of nowhere, Washington. Small 2000 population town where everyone knows each other? That’s tough to pass off as just ‘Oh, uh, we have family nearby’ or something equally dumb.

“Just a change of scenery,” Fox tried, not quite believing himself, “after my dad died, it’s been tough on my mom keeping up with the community in our old town. They were, uh, extremely religious.” At least that wasn’t a total lie. They were thinking of moving soon, or at least his mom was once he headed off to college. But, the unseen incident, the eclipse, everything put a halt to their previous plans. Not a fun time.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Alice murmured, looking down at her hands awkwardly. Dealing with a friend’s loss of a loved one had become rather routine for Alice in the past few years, but if there was one thing she never quite learned how to do, it was responding to the news of a death. Alice was grappling for another conversation topic desperately. She despised awkward silences. They seemed to follow her around, though. “Well, I hope you like it here! It’s a really small town that had a lot of troubles, but everyone here is really nice. I’m sure that you’ll find people here that you’d like.”

Small conversations came and went as the two continued their walking tour. There really wasn’t a lot to show off about this unassuming town, so Alice did her best to throw in little anecdotes here and there to keep things interesting. Thankfully, they had finally reached the park. Hopefully Malcolm would get here soon, so Alice wouldn’t be alone with this stranger. Fox was a very nice stranger that she could easily become friends with, but being around new people made her nervous.

“This is one of my favorite places here,” Alice spoke, leading Fox through the large, open field. It wasn’t a playground park, although there were a couple of swings and slides placed around the area. Riverview park was mostly gardens, picnic tables tucked into a spacious patch of green grass. Ironically, there was no river anywhere in sight.

“I volunteer here on the weekends to tend to the gardens,” Alice said with a soft smile, trailing her fingers against some flowers. Speaking of flowers… Alice had forgotten all about her new found power for a bit, and there was a small trail of pink flowers poking through the tall grass where she had stepped. There were definitely not there before, of which Fox narrowed his eyes once they’d caught his attention. Suspicion inked the back of his mind, yet he wasn’t prone to saying much. Though maybe he should; it’d make living here a lot easier if he had people to relate to.

After a moment of silence, walking quietly behind Alice as they made their way to a small bench, Fox cleared his throat. “So, uh, anything weird happen lately?” he attempted to change the conversation once he sat down, giving Alice the best disarming smile he could, “Aside from the—sorry, touchy subject I’m certain. Anything that’s not that happen recently?”

“Huh?” Alice felt her posture straighten when Fox asked his question. Why yes, literally everything that’s happened in the past two days have been weird. Which one would you like to know about? Alice gazed back at Fox’s smile, nervously running her fingers through her hair in indecision. If he was going to live here, he might as well know… But then again, Moon had said that it would be better to keep everything under wraps. “Um, well… What do you mean by weird?”

Fox decided why not try his luck? He pointed at the trail of flowers stopping just short of the sidewalk, though some pesky pink poseys stubbornly popped through the cracks all the way to Alice. “What about that kind of weird?” he said, turning his arched eyebrow toward Alice, “can’t just be a coincidence that you walked in a flower trail pathed exactly to your footsteps, right?”

Oh no. She had been trying so hard to stop that from happening until now. Alice hastily plastered a sheepish smile on her face as her fingers continued to come the front part of her hair. How was she going to explain this? There was no way she could tell someone she’s just met Oh hey, I can make flowers grow, hahaha crazy right? And expect him to stick around. “I guess not?” She managed meekly.

“Small town drama, huh?” Fox said. He tried his best for a charming, ‘don’t worry ‘bout it’ smile, however, he was pretty sure it came off more forced than he’d intended. Can’t say he didn’t try, though. “So, uh, wanna explain that?” he needed more than just ‘haha yeah, right?’ to even think about diving in with what he could do. Maybe the recent move did more to his anxiety than he’d have liked it to.

“Um, um…” Alice’s feet were swinging anxiously now as if she were a young child. A small sound of protest bubbled to her lips as her eyes flickered between the flowers and Fox. The poor, timid girl was never great at thinking on the spot, and in the end she stared down at her now still feet before murmuring in a very small voice, ”You’re not going to believe me if I told you.”

Fox strained to listen, leaning down further to hear her better. He chuckled and scooted closer, “Wanna try me?” His voice softened as he tried his best to reassure her.

Alice bit her lip in indecision, before bursting out, “Icanmakeflowersgrow”, all of her words flowing out in a sudden rush. Fox burst out laughing, rocking back slightly.

“Can you say that one more time? All I got was ‘I can shower so’?” he asked, biting his bottom lip to keep from grinning.

Alice gave a soft “ehhhh” before steeling herself. She turned a wide-eyed gaze on Fox, anxiously waiting for his reaction. “I can make flowers grow,” She whispered, much more slowly this time.

Blinking, Fox tilted his head to register her answer. Well, not the weirdest thing ever. Okay, no, to a regular person that’s kinda freaky. But, hey, he can… he honestly didn’t know what to call it. “That’s… something, definitely,” Fox arched his brows and nodded his head as he looked directly at Alice’s display in power, “Well, I guess I can do something too.”

“Really!?” Alice’s expression suddenly blossomed into a bright, relieved smile. She was so happy that he didn’t really seem to think of her as a freak. She let out a breath, not realizing that she had been holding it in anticipation. She noticed Fox looking at her flowers, so she gave a delicate flick of her fingers and they burrowed back into the ground without a trace. It probably wasn’t a good idea to leave them on display. It also gave her a chance to show off.

“Wait, you can do something too? So it’s not just us…”

“Yeah, look,” Fox turned around so that she could see the side of his face and put on the most determined look as his ears started wiggling. “Amazing right? We’re practically twins.”

Alice let out a peal of good-natured laughter at that. “You’re right, I can’t do that at all.”

To be honest, Fox didn’t expect this entire Verona thing to turn out a whole deal better. For all it was worth, his mother’s gift basket idea didn’t seem half bad as it did when she handed him the gaudy basket. Of course, the sweater still needed to be addressed, but Alice didn’t look like she minded. Maybe it helped his cute factor. Or something as superficial and stupid.

“But, really,” Fox said, lowering to a breathy huff, “I might be just a tad weirder. I can’t really explain, so I guess I’ll just have to show you?” He turned to watch a few strangers jog down the path and then averted his attention back toward Alice. “Um, is there a more private area in the park?”

“There’s a little hut over by the gardens. It’s kind of small, but it’s really cute.” Alice got to her feet and scampered ahead towards the hut before she spun on her heel and beckoned Fox over. The hut wasn’t too far away. It was nestled within the flower garden like it was some sort of fairy tale cottage--probably one of the reasons why Alice loved this park so much. It could probably fit in 4 to 5 people comfortably. She opened the door and made her way inside before turning around and looking up at Fox expectantly.

Once the door shut with an audible click, Fox faced Alice with a deep breath, “It’s kind of weird, so, please don’t freak out. We’re kinda practically strangers, so I honestly wouldn’t hold it against you.” After a moment of preparation, deep breathing, and psyching himself up, Fox raised both hands in the air and gave Alice a scrunched up look. Wiggling each finger, he plunged his hands forward with closed eyes and quickly imagined the space in front of him seizing, pulling toward a focused point and then wrinkling, expanding, and pulling apart to reveal a sizable chunk of just distorted space. From Alice’s vantage point, a spherical bubble wrapped around Fox’s arms, engulfing his hands in the space around it and further distorting his body from the neck to his waist. He yanked both out to reveal a pair of cookies and hoped to Jesus that no one saw the hands that took them in the clinic (cue Scout freaking the fuck out).

“It’s… I honestly don’t know what to call it,” Fox started, the spherical portal fading in a small wave that further flattened their physical world, “Um, but it’s not really just limited to that. I guess? I may have sent my cat inside and he’s still stuck in wherever the hell I put him. Freaked my mom out. It’s why we moved here; we weren’t too keen on being called Satan worshipers or the like, you know? Or getting arrested. Or dissected.” He advanced toward Alice with a cookie extended in offering, while he bit into his own.

“I promise that whatever they went through doesn’t emit radiation, so no poison cookies,” he said, trying to smile as reassuringly as he could.

Alice blinked multiple times in surprise. The surprise quickly wore off though, it definitely wasn’t the most surprising thing that she had seen. She reached out to accept the cookie and bit into it with a smile. “That was really cool, and this is really good.”

“I’m ninety percent sure that my mom made that,” Fox scrunched his face slightly, “otherwise I’m a thief. Anyway.” He busied himself with eating the rest of the cookie and moved to look out the hut’s small window.

Mal made his way across the park, pristine white trainers getting muddied though it was clear from his furrowed brow and his lips that were set into a thin, pressed line that he had more important things on his mind. Despite knowing that it was bad, and that he’d regret it later, he scratched at the neat puncture wounds from vines on his forearm, the plants having dug in the night before while he was healing other people. His dad hadn’t noticed, and his mom trusted him enough to deal with it himself – which he had. Sort of. He washed it to get rid of the dirt at least.

Shuddering from the light chill in the air as he stepped into the hut in the park with the beginnings of a rant, “Alice, I swear to god if anyone finds out what I did for Dani last night, I’m dead. Experimented-on dead. Marvel of the medical world dead– Who’s that?”

Alice moved forward to give Mal a quick hug. She had been worried sick about him after they got separated from each other. “Mal, if anyone finds out about what any of us can do… We’re all dead. Don’t worry, your power is one of the more subtle ones. And as long as we’re careful, no one is going to know.”

She stepped back, releasing Mal from her arms before glancing back at her new friend. “This is Fox, he’s new here in town. We were bonding. And it looks like he has abilities too.” Fox gave a stiff wave and a quick smile, choosing not to say anything in favor of Alice’s introduction. From the way Alice talked, Fox judged that there were likely more like them and maybe they thought it all centered around the town. Way to burst that bubble. He shuffled his feet and took a few steps behind Alice.

Mal pinched the bridge of his nose and paced. “Great. Even people from out of town are getting powers. Why isn’t this plastered over the news yet?” he muttered, before grimacing. Eyeing Fox up and down, he ended up saying, “Sorry – it’s not you; I’ve just been having a bad day and I really want to get King out of the clinic, like, right now, but that’ll just make everything worse and, aah.”
He shook his head. “You said you had news?”

“Mal, calm down. Your boyfriend was fine when I checked up on him. All he needs is a bunch of rest and he’ll be fine. It’s definitely not the first concussion that the clinic had to fix up. So just, deep breaths, alright?” Alice said as soothingly as she could, trying to calm her friend’s nerves. “Besides, if you go to the clinic now, you’ll heal everyone. Not only will it be incredibly suspicious, it hurts you, doesn’t it? Just relax. Everyone is going to recover. We’re all going to be okay.

“But, yeah.” Alice grimaced and fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. Her voice faltered there and she fell silent, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

“I probably gave him a cookie too, so,” Fox chimed in, giving a tiny fist pump, “yeah.” Mal’s lips quirked up into a smile at that, no matter how tentative. Better to keep things looking up than wallowing in grief. At least, that was what Fox supposed. He smiled, nonetheless, and took his little victory with pride.
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