Not Until We Are Lost

Starting the day by running off in short shorts to stop someone from being eaten by baby allosauruses was stressful.

Happily, once that was over, Destiny was able to go back to her cabin unscathed. Once there, she had some time to poke around her living room area and see what was left for her.

There were a lot of things here she could use, and right away Destiny started to grab herbs and liquids off of the tall shelf left for her, gathering them into the crook of her arm. She might be stuck here, but that didn't mean she couldn't do a little bit of folk magic to find out what was going on with people she cared about. At worst, it wouldn't work. At best, she'd feel better about everything. Likely, she was going to need a drink. But she had to know what was going on in Hemlock Grove without her.

Destiny ground some of the herbs with a mortar and pestle, then started some water for tea. She took the blue liquid that had been on the shelf and poured it and the herb mixture into the tea once the water boiled. She opened a drawer to see how good these alien captors were gonna be to her... and it turned out pretty good. She didn't have everything she needed, but it was close.

She grabbed the cup of tea and sat down in one of the nearby chairs to drink it. Almost instantly, she could see Lynda in Romania. That was good. She was frustrated, but safe. Trying to grocery shop not knowing the language. There was something hazy about Roman, and Destiny wasn't sure if that was because she didn't really care about him or because she was missing some ingredients. There was nothing about Miranda. No further information about the guys in the masks, but she didn't care about them, either, so, Destiny wasn't surprised.

Then it was like she got hit by lightning.

Peter.

She could see Peter, and he was in the old west town they'd all just been in. He was turning against the moon--again. He was out under the stars smoking a cigarette.

"Ooooh, you motherfucker," Destiny said. She took another long gulp. He was here, too. And apparently he was sitting outside one of the cabins, just in front of the front door.

Smoking.

She was out the door like a shot.

Phaedra shifted and stretched.

She was very, very comfortable. With eyes still closed, she couldn't quite place why. There was light behind her eyelids, but maybe she had forgotten to snuff out the lamp next to her bed. It was that warm glow.

She felt cool sheets, and before opening her eyes, she knew the planet had changed. Her bed in the abandoned house wasn't that great. This mattress had springs, and support. And the sheets were cleaner than they'd ever get with a washboard, soap and a river. She moved and her foot touched warm flesh.

Phaedra sat upright, fast. If her heart could race, it would be racing.

Peter was asleep next to her. Peter was asleep next to her. Her mind raced. He should be dead, he should be at least seriously injured, crushed, bleeding. She looked at him, lying there, trying to parse why he was able to lie there in that sunbeam--

Sunbeam.

Phaedra got off of the bed as quickly as she could, not at all taking care not to wake Peter, and started closing the blinds. She was too panicked to pay much attention to the fact that the sun wasn't hurting her, wasn't singing her, that it was morning, true morning...

Until she got to the last window.

Then she opened the shades, and the window itself, and stood there in the black tank top and underwear. Her black pants were at the foot of the bed, and her boots were, too. This was more clothing than Phaedra ever slept in, but that didn't matter.

It didn't matter what was in the closet, though she would bet her clothing was--the corset, the coat, the skin-tight stuff that she was so comfortable in.

Just under the window, there were tropical flowers reaching for the sun, and something that looked like a hummingbird.

She couldn't talk. Or move. She had to be wary of this, but... Phaedra could not stop smiling.

Peter had slept. A lot. A lot a lot. He wasn't entirely sure he hadn't lost a day or two in the darkness, there. He felt a hell of lot more human - heh. Funny. He looked better, too, though his ribs still ached like fuck. He'd scrounged a shirt from the house but it was already kind of stretched out at the neck; obviously whoever the house belonged to hadn't exactly been a big guy. Not that Peter was overly muscled himself, but he had broad shoulders for a teen. Hell of a lot more body hair than your average teen, for that matter.

He hadn't bothered shaving, stubble tipping the line into a full beard as he padded through the house barefoot. The sun was nearly set, light in broad slashes across the floor. Almost made it look like the floorboards were on fire.

He fixed himself a cup of coffee, poking through the cupboards for something to eat while he waited for it to brew. It wasn't really a surprise that he didn't find anything, but he had still kind of hoped there'd be something edible. His stomach growled agreement, loud enough to wake the dead. Well. Some of them. The rest seemed to be pretty sound sleepers.

Peter was no stranger to waking up in unfamiliar places. Normally those places were the middle of fucking nowhere, curled up butt-naked at the base of a tree somewhere with mud and pine needles under his fingernails.

That, he was used to.

Waking up butt naked in dry dirt, with the fading warmth of the sun radiating off the ground? That was a new one. He pushed himself upright on arms that felt little better than the bendy straws you got on cheap juice cartons, flimsy and thin and sure to give out at any moment. His hair was hanging in his eyes, his skin gritty with sweat and dirt. He'd been lying out here long enough that his pale skin was prickling, sweat still drying on his skin. Getting his legs under himself, he crouched, his eyes flicking around as he took in his surroundings.

Welp. This was fucking wierd. This....was not Hemlock Grove. This was a very, very long way from Hemlock Grove, from anything familiar at all.

It looked like he'd walked on to the set of a fucking cowboy movie. Any minute now, Clint Eastwood was going to stroll down the middle of the road, spurs clinking, stale cigar hanging from his lips.

As post-moon fever dreams went, this was shaping up to be a doozy.
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Of all the worlds she had been to so far, this was Phaedra's least favorite. It was an easy thing to decide; here she'd awoken at the end of a rope, relying on Winchesters to save her.

The horror.

She did not like the human beings in this place. Or the aliens posing as humans. Whatever. They were the type to hang their kind. And anyone that wasn't.

She couldn't be sure since she'd woken up already in the noose, but Phaedra tended to suspect the worst of people when it came to their open-mindedness.

Which is why she didn't trust the situation unfolding before her.

Some of the locals--one whose thoughts she seemed to recognize from her time on the gallows-- were approaching this new arrival. She couldn't blame them for THAT fact: he was naked in the street. They were going to have some questions.

She watched and waited to see what they would do, hidden in a shadow. After all, to at least one of these men, she was dead. They'd watched her die, commented on how strange it was that her neck didn't break, taken her pulse.

"Hey, you," one of the men said, as he approached. "Boy!"
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Oh boy. This was a good start.

Peter shoved himself to his feet, unashamedly naked, making no attempt to cover himself as he brushed his hair back from his face with both hands.

"Evening," he said, a disarming smile on his face. "I seem to have gotten myself a little turned around - you know how it is. One whiskey too many at the..." he glanced over, briefly, "...saloon, and suddenly you don't even know what day it is." Or year. Or century. He was really hoping there was an elaborate practical joke being played on someone that wasn't him. The alternative reasoning of 'time travel' was a little too wierd even for him.

"I don't suppose one of you fine gents would be willing to lend me a pair of pants?" He lifted his eyebrows, trying to look as unthreatening as he possibly could. The advantage of being scrawny and average height - it was easy to appear defenseless, even if you weren't.
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The man that'd called the newcomer 'boy' looked him up and down, turned his head, and spat tobacco juice. "We got rules here about public decency."

He shook his head.

"And we got an empty cell over in the jail since we hung the last person who couldn't follow rules. I think you should sleep it off. Maybe your pants'll come back. Whatddya say, Wyatt?"

Phaedra half hoped it was Wyatt Earp, but Wyatt turned out to be a redheaded skinny guy with a tooth missing. He'd bee part of the group that strung her up.

"Let's take 'em in before one of the ladies sees," Wyatt said.