Re: cottage; ren & adrian
He appreciated touch more than most, especially after so many long days and weeks in the endless idyll of the cabin. He tried not to think about his own restlessness, but it seeped in around the edges. Something about artificial suns had always made him anxious. False windows and false light. He knew enough now to say he had been in the facility when he was young - that there might have been false windows to make a small boy feel as if he wasn't hundreds of feet underground, that he had been just bright enough to understand they weren't real, take in that unsettling reality of endless soil overhead.
Why was he thinking about the past? He shook himself. "I know. I'm prepared." He was firm about it. It might take a long time. He had to be prepared for the idea that he wouldn't be out of the case soon. This year? Perhaps not. He hoped so, but hope could be so violently disappointing.
He cleared his throat. He was still more nervous than he had anticipated he would be. "I can."
There was a lump of rock protruding from the gentle lawn that rolled up to the cabin door, so he focused on that. It took him a few moments to really leverage his attention - to take himself out of his nerves and the anticipation of Ren watching him.
There was an almost interminably long time where nothing happened at all, and then the rock began to shiver, very gently. Adrian was completely focused on it now, his eyes intent, his concentration bent completely. The rock shuddered, vibrated, but couldn't seem to get itself free of the soil. His brow furrowed in frustration, and something at the back of his mind, and there was a release - a soft "Ha!" leaving his throat - as a razor thin whip of black mist materialized from somewhere near his back and grasped the rock like a vise, yanking it from the ground and throwing it in the direction of the distant treeline. It hit the trunk of a pine with a resounding thump, dislodging a flock of illusory birds. They rose as a black mass and fled for the imagined horizon.
When he looked back at Ren, he was still serious, but almost sheepish, an uncommon expression for him. His eyes were covered over in the mist that the Obscurus brought. "It's a crutch."