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[Kit and Vinyl's AWESOME ADVENTURES]
There is a path behind that old church, the one with thick juniper bushes around the fence. The path leads up to a gap in the juniper, but there's nothing at the end of it but a wall, most of the time.
Except when the moon is high enough that you can see it in the gap between the bushes (like you could right now, if there weren't so many buildings in the way) and the juniper has berries poking out of its needles. Those times, the wall is still there, but it leads somewhere, if you need it to. If you need to get into that place... Or, more rarely, if you need to get out.
I have to get home - and it's a familiar need, so familiar, the guide to a name and a place and an experience, another time running though a swampy maze. And he isn't sure how he knows what to do - I lost a part of myself then and so he does it again, cut out the music and the parts that are important and takes them with him. Somewhere in the haze of revelation he knows there are others, knows he should tell them, but that's precious time and risk away from his escape.
He's cut out people before, too, sliced them down and out of himself so that he doesn't waste time regretting it. He kills the sound, puts the music on pause, and bolts, bundled in a giant scarf that catches on thorns and leaves silk threads as large as yarn in his wake.
And he remembers a city with a church, a church he grew up in, hated, would like nothing more than to see again, because at least it's something like home. Every step gives him a little more, makes the picture a little clearer, but it's not clear enough to bring him home, to the right home. Just clear enough to get him out, to some kind of freedom.
Silence falls out of the hedge with a sound like so many cartoon dropped instruments and muffled, musical cursing. One dangling end of the scarf stays hooked in the juniper from where it trailed behind him as he ran; the rest is wrapped loosely around him, and he's glad, when he feels the winter chill of this city, that it's at least something to wrap himself in. But it's a good kind of cold, at least; it feels real, like - sunset on a summer afternoon, and her hand in mine - like not even the memories feel real.
He doesn't laugh, but the music might as well be doing that for him.
Except when the moon is high enough that you can see it in the gap between the bushes (like you could right now, if there weren't so many buildings in the way) and the juniper has berries poking out of its needles. Those times, the wall is still there, but it leads somewhere, if you need it to. If you need to get into that place... Or, more rarely, if you need to get out.
I have to get home - and it's a familiar need, so familiar, the guide to a name and a place and an experience, another time running though a swampy maze. And he isn't sure how he knows what to do - I lost a part of myself then and so he does it again, cut out the music and the parts that are important and takes them with him. Somewhere in the haze of revelation he knows there are others, knows he should tell them, but that's precious time and risk away from his escape.
He's cut out people before, too, sliced them down and out of himself so that he doesn't waste time regretting it. He kills the sound, puts the music on pause, and bolts, bundled in a giant scarf that catches on thorns and leaves silk threads as large as yarn in his wake.
And he remembers a city with a church, a church he grew up in, hated, would like nothing more than to see again, because at least it's something like home. Every step gives him a little more, makes the picture a little clearer, but it's not clear enough to bring him home, to the right home. Just clear enough to get him out, to some kind of freedom.
Silence falls out of the hedge with a sound like so many cartoon dropped instruments and muffled, musical cursing. One dangling end of the scarf stays hooked in the juniper from where it trailed behind him as he ran; the rest is wrapped loosely around him, and he's glad, when he feels the winter chill of this city, that it's at least something to wrap himself in. But it's a good kind of cold, at least; it feels real, like - sunset on a summer afternoon, and her hand in mine - like not even the memories feel real.
He doesn't laugh, but the music might as well be doing that for him.
I had no idea there was even tea that came with figures
He has to think about the answer, and takes a sip to cover the pause. It doesn't help him make any progress. "About as well as I can be," he finally says.
He wants to go home. It's a feeling part of him recognizes as new, because he didn't want to go home before, he wanted to be anywhere but there, but... There's a sense of being finished that he can't explain, the music winding down as he just sips quietly from his mug for a few minutes. The urge to go charging back into the Hedge until he gets to the right place is strong, but...
What's his hurry? He needs time to (recover and resupply) figure out what's going on in his own head before he tries to go anywhere else.
"I can adapt," he says into the teacup, not sure that he wants to.
no subject
It comes over and sits at the other end of the couch, or rather, it kicks off its shoes and climbs up to sit on the arm of the couch with its feet on the cushions. "I'll be honest, I haven't ever heard of anyone coming out of the hedge into the wrong world, but I've only been home a few months myself and lemme tell you, the Autumn Court is totally chock full of nerds. I can ask around and see if anyone knows anything?" It laughs a little, a self-deprecating kind of chuckle. "I'm kind of intrigued, myself, really."
no subject
"It wouldn't be the strangest thing about that place," he says, then represses a shiver and sticks his face back into the mug, tilting it a little to damn near chug a bit of the still-near-scalding tea. It's somehow satisfying. "Even if I'm the only one, knowing anything would be helpful about now."
That's the closest he's going to come to admitting how ignorant he is, though Kit's probably already caught on, given the way he boggled at things like smartphones, streetlights, and plastic, not to mention the fact that he's still wrapped in a giant ridiculous scarf instead of clothes.