Re: Woods: Patrick/Mary
Dude, no, that's a copout. You made up shit because you wanted to make up shit. [All right, man, so Patrick hadn't told her about his sis being a skeleton who sometimes howled at the moon, but that was different and not his secret to share. And he hadn't known about the ears then, or he would have likely regaled her with every confusing detail. Patrick was an open book, man. He'd been open so long that his spine was permanently cracked. The stuff he hid, dude, it was stuff he'd tried to hide from himself, and he decided that stuff couldn't count.
He did laugh at the liberated Brownies, and he didn't have any problems with navigating. Since he was a kid, these woods talked to him. He didn't need paths to know where to go, and he felt safe here in a way he never did in houses or buildings.
Dude forgot to let go of her hand when they stopped, but she helped him save face by doing it herself And, all right, dude was not expecting a bear. Nope. There weren't enough words in the English language to explain how much he wasn't expecting a bear. He wasn't scared, because Patrick had come face to face with nearly every animal in this forest at some point in his life, but this was some surreal shit, friends. This was weirder than a British dude with a suitcase, and it was weirder than his stormcloud of a bro. All right, she was friends with a bear.] It understands you?
[Like the arrows, this brought back memories of his time with the pointy-eared assholes, but he wasn't scared of the bear.] You talk to bears, and they listen to you. Yep. All right. [He waved at the bear awkwardly.] Dude, bear, don't eat me. [He looked over at her.] The wolves will still eat you, man, they aren't real wolves. Just saying, bear whisperer.