rey (firststeps) wrote in noexits, @ 2021-07-26 20:31:00 |
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Entry tags: | the magicians: fen, ₴ inactive: rey dameron, → week 017 (a sizeable problem) |
sizeable problem | day four
Fen hadn’t ventured out on the green yet, knowing there were giant squirrels now, larger now that she was probably half the size of a chair. Dying via squirrel didn’t sound like a great way to die. Plus, she had already had to go through that once already. Ghost life fucking sucked.
Thankfully, for the first few minutes, she was able to avoid anything from trying to eat her. She was going to chalk it up to the fact that she had managed to find the lightest of her daggers and had strapped it to herself in a manner that made it look like one helluva bulky sword. She’d be able to swing it around if anything came at her but this was also one of her favorite daggers so it was probably good luck.
And then finally, she came across another human being in the Green, someone more normal sized. With a pang of her heart, she realized it was the newest arrival to Derleth, someone who seemed to have a lot of history with people here and they didn’t know of it. Ugh, it was like that week she’d been murdered and everyone’s memories were gone, except one person who remembered everything. Well, this situation was worse because it wasn’t hypothetical.
Fen knew she should have just steered clear, maybe to avoid making things worse for her but...
“Hey!” she called out, deciding to head toward her. “I usually enjoy these woods too. When I’m my normal height.”
--
Rey was sitting underneath one of the trees with her legs crossed and her head down. Her gaze was fixed on the grass beneath her and every so often, she would pull a blade of grass up between her fingers. Next to her side was her satchel bag. She knew it was silly but the idea of leaving it behind in the dorm room hadn't set well with her. What if she was suddenly thrust somewhere else? She wanted to feel it close to her as a reassurance. Something familiar and from home.
Her eyes were fixed on an ant that looked far bigger than it ought to have been (which she chalked up to the sizes being distorted in this present space they resided) and her focus was on ignoring the familiarity of individuals in the distance. She didn't want to think of how if she focused just enough she could feel her friends nearby. It wasn't a comfort like it once was. Unfortunately, by ignoring it, she missed Fen's approach entirely.
Eyes lifted and she looked across to her.
She'd never really considered Ben and Eliot's wife as one of her own friends. She'd been polite to her, happy for all of their major life events, but never as close to her as she was with Alice or Margo. Lifting one hand in greeting, she gave a meager smile. "I like the trees," she said, probably lamely, but it was true.
Tilting her head just slightly, she raised a brow. "You weren't kidding, were you?" She was so tiny at the moment.
--
Well, it wasn’t a dismissal, so that was a start, Fen decided. She took a few steps closer, realizing that she was probably at eye level as Rey sat and she stood. So she was just going to keep standing instead of sitting down herself and having to crane her head up. “Yeah, you should have seen the trees a few weeks ago. The whole ground was just… really small. But there was a week where Julia turned into a dryad and the whole thing just erupted till we had these woods here.”
Despite wanting to stand, the dagger on her hip was starting to get a bit heavy, so she decided to take it off and place it down on the ground. “I just hope this only lasts for the week. I cannot imagine being this size forever!”
--
Rey's attention shifted to look back and upward at the tree she was sitting under. There was the smallest smile as she thought about how Julia had ushered in these trees. "I hadn't realized Julia was here," she said softly, even though it didn't make much of a difference. She was positive now that there wasn't going to be a singular person who remembered the things she remembered.
It felt like it had the first days on the space station. Even though she'd rushed ahead to enjoy Corellia and to fly an actual ship finally, with Poe at her side, she had been informed no one knew what CARV was. It just stung more now.
Her attention came back to Fen. "Is it usually always weekly cycles?"
--
Fen felt another pang of guilt at her mention of Julia, realizing that she really did know all the Magicians in this world she had been in before. She so badly wished she could have had another outcome here. Rey seemed like a sad woodland creature and Fen just wanted to scoop her up in her arms and hold her and tell her everything will be okay, she can have a new start here, and all.
Even though, realistically, if anyone was being scooped up by the other, it would be Fen and her measly twenty inches.
“So far, it’s been just seven days of random shit before we fall asleep at a certain time and wake up the following day in our dorm rooms with whatever clothing we were wearing when we came through. It’s usually not too bad but I forget I actually have my daggers on me, so I’ll turn and the hilt just pokes into my thigh at a weird angle.”
--
"Oh, goodie." She recalled the times in the past when they'd felt the ground shake beneath them or they'd fallen asleep only to wake and find themselves on a Cruise. It didn't seem so entirely different from that experience.
She cast a downward glance at her bag. She'd fallen asleep with bags against her plenty during her time in the resistance. She could manage waking with it beneath her in her dorm room. There was a brief chuckle. "Are they in sheaths, at least?" Rey certainly hoped they were.
She looked at her and motioned to the patch of grass. "Did you want to sit?"
--
“Oh, yeah, definitely. Better the hilt than the blade. It’s not a very nice feeling getting stabbed.” She knew from both doing the stabbing and being stabbed. Ugh.
Fen hesitated and realized it would be a bit silly to keep standing when Rey was sitting. After a moment, though, she nodded, but decided to take a few steps back and then plop down. “Just want to make sure I don’t give myself a stiff neck looking all the way up at you!”
--
"No, it's not," Rey agreed and it sounded suspiciously as though she might have experience with the notion.
A flash of realization went over Rey's features. "Right!" That couldn't be very pleasant for Fen. She shifted, uncrossing her legs and pivoting her body so she was turned the other way. Then, rather carelessly and without ceremony, she turned on her side on the grass, propping her head up with her palm. "Better?" She asked, raising a brow.
--
Fen’s eyebrows went up in surprise at her change in position, and then she smiled at Rey. Before the smile devolved into laughter. “Oh, yeah, definitely,” she said, taking the chance to get a little closer, crawling on her knees for a moment. “I know this whole situation is so weird.”
--
"The big versus the small? Honestly? I've seen it before." There was a flash of a cheeky grin. She didn't know if that was exactly what Fen had meant. She could have been referring to truths unspoken but she chose to acknowledge the more literal. "One of the last places we went had these mushrooms that would make you grow tall. And there was a whole world that was disproportionate with size." She gave a slight shrug of her shoulder.
"But weird is basically the best descriptor of...everything."
--
“I wish this was just a situation with mushrooms,” Fen said, sighing as she stretched out her legs in front of her as she propped herself on her hands behind her. “Then it would actually wear off and we’d all be back to normal by day three!” But it was already day three and the only prospect they had in going back to normal was probably a few minutes of whatever the heck Rick and Scott had done.
“So… would talking about this world help? The one you’re from? Tell me about the weird stuff that happened, specifically? Since we’re talking about weird!”
--
"I'm not sure how long it would take to wear off, honestly. I didn't explore much during that leg of our trip." She gave an inquisitive look for a moment before her nose scrunched up. "Could have been less than three days, I reckon."
But the easy expression faded and there was a hint of sadness across her features. "No. We don't need to do that." Even if it was easy to reference events from the years prior, if she lingered too long? Her mind would stray. "But you can tell me about the weird here if you want?"
--
Fen nodded, suddenly wishing she hadn’t breached that topic at all. “Right. You’re right. I’m sorry.” She looked down at the grass next to her, the blade being twice as longer for her than it usually was and normally, she’d have ripped out a few herself if she was feeling down and didn’t have knife-making equipment with her… but she didn’t want to risk trying and looking like a fool when it didn’t pull out. She opted, instead, on a topic-change.
“Did you try getting food from the kitchens yet? It’s a collaborative effort at this point because the kitchen is bigger than literally the tallest person here. Can’t even reach it being normal-sized.”
--
"I appreciate you offering," Rey reassured her. It was tempting. Rey could have easily pulled her phone out and showed Fen many of the buildings of Tumbleweed. Her friends, even. But...no.
"Oh. No." She shifted, stretching her foot out to slip it through the strap of her bag. She yanked it towards herself and then shifted to push herself up on her elbows so she could snatch it in her hand. "I had some food so I didn't try to go yet. Are you hungry, though?" She started rummaging through the bag and pulled out a RX bar. Instead of handing it to Fen, she slid it in her direction. "I could get the food down?" She then added as an afterthought.
--
Fen lifted an eyebrow at the RX bar before crawling closer to look at it and pick it up. “Probably will get hungry at some point, though not right now.” She looked over the packaging, the thing looking like it was a super-sized version of it in her hands.
“Can you?” she said, lifting up her head to look at Rey. A part of her wanted to ask her if she was a form of a magician too but that would lead right into the situation that was making her sad to begin with, and she didn’t want to go into that again. Plus, she would have already said so if she was. “The countertops are really high, taller than the buildings here. We’d need to have some teleport us up there or something first. Unless… you can do that too?”
--
"You can have it. I usually have a box in my plane. The coconut ones are the best," she said with a small smile before another thought occurred to her, "Though, you aren't allergic are you? If you are, I have jerky." She couldn't recall Ben or Eliot ever mentioning allergies but she also hadn't asked.
There was a nod of her head. She nudged her head over towards her bag so Fen's focus would go that way and lifted her hand. Without even touching it, the bag opened up wider and a yellow tennis ball rolled towards the opening before lifting out of the bag and straight into the air. Rey let it hang in the balance between both her and Fen, with her hand extended out as she did this, before it dropped down into her palm. "I don't teleport," she stated after a moment, her gaze looking back to Fen. "I could climb though. Or jump."
--
“Not allergic,” she confirmed before staring in complete awe as Rey levitated the ball.
It was never not impressive when anyone used a form of magic or their powers. All Fen could do was turn into a werewolf, and that was definitely not that great of a thing. Besides, it had been several weeks since that had even happened. She was convinced it was never going to happen at this point. There was just no typical moon here.
“I definitely miss my week of magic,” Fen sighed. Despite the wistfulness in her voice, she was giving Rey a smile. “Do you want to see what we can get down from the kitchen counters then?” If anything, maybe it would give Rey a distraction from her sad thoughts even for a moment.
--
"Good. It's yours then," she affirmed.
She fidgeted with the ball once it was in her palm, turning it over and over. "You'll have to tell me some more about your magic one day," she encouraged, even though Rey felt she had a pretty decent grasp on what all the physical magicians could do. Some of them had surprises, however, and she wondered if that same had been true for Fen. With a smile, she nodded her head and moved to stand.
A hand extended out to Fen to assist her in climbing to her feet. "Shall we?"