Summerwood (Monsterhearts 2)

Game Master neonblues

"Hmmm," Eva says, pausing in thought. "I do not think I enjoy larping then."

"Yes, let's just stick to the tabletop versions in the future," Deirdre agrees.

"Is there sufficient space on a tabletop?" Eva asks. "It seems like you would need a large surface."

Deirdre smiles back at Eva. "Well, you don't actually stand on the table. Instead of acting things out, you use your imagination and just describe what your character is doing."

The PCs all head back home, dropping off Isaac and Bonnie at their respective dorms. Bonnie urges Hayden to fill her in on all the details later.

You arrive back at Fitzhugh Hall.

"I'm gonna get Dee cleaned off and make sure everything really did heal. Ash, you should stay shirtless, just in case." Hayden gave her typically cheeky smile, but it was a little weary.

"Thanks for keeping Bob safe, E. I know I didn't bargain for that, but I appreciate it." Turning back to Ashton and JJ she continued, "And thanks for the whole come charging to my rescue thing. It was very sweet. "

With that she grabbed a high-backed chair, and headed towards the big shared bathroom, dragging the chair in one hand and trailing Dee in the other.

Hayden checked to make sure no one was lingering in any of the stalls and quickly jammed the door under the knob.

In a flash she was on Deirdre, wrapping her up in a long, hungry kiss. She held Deirdre very close as she chided, "You can't scare me like that. Dee? What happened to you out there?"

Deirdre returns the kiss with passion, then leans her head against Hayden and starts to sob. "I'm sorry! First Blaze turned all monstrous, and JJ and Ashton were trying to stand up to him, and I ran to try to find you but I got turned around and there was Sonoko feeding on Isaac... And she did something to me, and I tried to fight it... But I couldn't get away. She drew me to her and... She was going to..."

She breaks down in tears, unable to continue.

Hayden stroked Deirdre's hair, but insisted "Dee, I need to know. I'm sorry sweetie, but I do. What did she do?"

"It was just a little bite. Then Isaac hit her and she ran away."

Ashton:

When you're alone at the dorms, a nearby pencil rises and writes on a nearby piece of paper:

YOU GOT HURT. I COULDN'T DO ANYTHING. I'M SO SORRY.

"The burn? It really isn't a big deal. I've had sunburns that were worse," says Ashton, who does indeed have some aloe vera back at his dorm, ready to apply to his injury. "And there's not really anything you could have done anyways, other than help JJ with his pitch. Don't worry about it."

"Okay." Hayden pumped a few paper towels out of the dispenser and wet them to begin gently cleaning the blood from Deirdre's neck.

"Why couldn't you get away, Dee?"

"There was some sort of compulsion on me. I think it had to do with the character sheets they gave us? I just felt like I would be very badly hurt if I tried to run."

Hayden nodded slowly. "I know what that's like."

"There's something I haven't told you yet, Dee. That night at Gavin's wasn't the first time I'd seen some things that everyone knows didn't exist. I spent years? minutes? some time where those things are from. Across the veil, in the realm of faerie."

She looked at Deirdre, very seriously.

"I hadn't met any of these baobhan sith before, but I did make some enemies while I was there. It's hard for them to find us on this side, but they might."

Deirdre meets Hayden's gaze, trying to process what she's saying. "Faerie? So then you're... You're not human?"

Hayden looked up, honestly surprised. "What? That's not what I'm saying. I was born right here on earth, but a couple years ago I followed someone I shouldn't have, and ended up on the wrong side of the Looking Glass for... a while. Time's only a suggestion over there so it's hard to be precise.

"But that's why I knew how to get those contracts voided." She couldn't help but stare at the smooth skin on Deirdre's neck as she finished.

"Oh, okay," Deirdre says, apparently nonplussed. Ghosts, demons, vampires, fey... Each new revelation of the supernatural is less and less surprising.

"What was it like over there? And is that why... Um, you know." She gestures vaguely towards Hayden's pelvis. "We never really talked about that, did we?"

Hayden's eyes are sharp, and she's not grinning as she replies, "Nope, my dick was born right here on earth too. Same time as the rest of me. No magical faerie gifts required. Wait - what did you think before I told you about my trip to the Over There?"

"I don't know. We were so swept up in passion that first night together... I mean, it was surprising but it felt really good..." Deirdre blushes. "I just didn't think to ask about it."

"Okay. I guess we didn't really have the talk, but watch it with that s!*!, okay? I thought you'd already gotten a peek at the old built-in-strapon when we went swimming, or... I dunno. I thought you knew. It's not like it's some kind of mystery to solve."

Assuming that Xavier has nothing else to say to Ashton, he gets out his phone and texts Hayden.

Ashton: We need to talk. Meet me back at the woods later?

Deirdre lowers her eyes, properly chastised. "Alright, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I just... I guess I don't have a lot of experience. With a lot of things."

"I know you didn't meant to, I just... You caught me off guard with that. But, back to the faerie stuff. It's really beautiful and really horrible. And to get Lucinda to give up her contracts on you all, I had to offer her something that is going to make it easier for the horrible parts to find me.

"You didn't sign up for this; you're like a week into a fling with a cutie, and I'm going to have to light up a bonfire to contact one of the scariest lords of the fae I know."

She reached up to run her finger along the curve of unbroken skin on Deirdre's neck before walking over to pull the chair out from under the doorknob.

"You're cleaned up, and you're healed. You're safe. I'm going to head back to my room and call it a night. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't join me."

Deirdre follows Hayden to the door. She takes her hands and looks into her eyes. "I don't care how scary they are. I'm your girlfriend. I'm going to stick by your side, no matter what. If you're going to do something dangerous, you shouldn't have to do it alone. I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere."

JJ:

When you're alone, Xavier writes to you:

I COULD USE YOUR HELP. I WANT TO LEARN MAGIC. REAL STUFF, SO I CAN HELP YOU GUYS WHEN YOU'RE IN TROUBLE.

Hayden smiled, small tears in the corner of her eyes as she turned. You're just too much, Dee." Her words were teasing, but her voice was warm with wonderment.

"If you're going to help, I have some ideas for how to hold up my end of the bargain a bit more safely, but that can be later. Hey, how pissed would Coral be if we crashed in your room tonight?"

[B]Hot Ash: We need to talk. Meet me back at the woods later?
Hayden: Don't want to leave D alone tonight. I'll text again once she's asleep.

Deirdre laughs. "She'll get over it. Come on, let's go."

JJ addresses the post-it pad where Xavier wrote his message. "Well, the stuff I have access to is all demons and summoning and bargains. Pretty specific stuff..."

He thinks for a moment, idly stroking the spine of the demonic codex. "We might be able to summon demons to teach you things, or we can try to find something that doesn't put my soul more into debt. I feel like yours is already spent capital there, buddy," he jokes.

"Ahem. Sorry."

JJ:

Xavier writes back. "LIKE THAT IMP? THAT DOESN'T SOUND SO BAD. CAN WE SUMMON SOMETHING TO HELP TEACH ME?"

She was just going to have to torment Coral later, when Deirdre wasn't already bowing under the weight of new revelations.

So she'd made nice, ignored the glares and passive-agressive snips and snipes about whether Hayden might be more comfortable in her own bed, or when Hayden ended up borrowing a shirt to sleep in from her instead of Deirdre. (The fit was better, and it was still borrowing if you were going to give it back, even if you hadn't asked)

But right now she didn't have to worry about unanswered insults making her easier to find. She was going to be building a signal fire anyways.

Later.

Once Deirdre was thoroughly asleep, and Hayden had steered smiles into her dreams instead of the darkness that might have awaited her, she snuck out.

Hayden: u up?

Ashton: I am. You ready?

Hayden: sigh
Hayden: Ash, you've gotta learn to recognize a booty call.
Hayden: Forest is fine too I guess

Ashton: You're not really my type

When Hayden arrives in the forest, she finds Ashton leaning against a tree, his arms crossed, a gym bag by his feet. He nods as she approaches but he doesn't look at her, he just keeps staring up at the night sky.

"So. I'm thinking we have something we need to talk about," says Ashton. "We saw a lot of weird stuff tonight. Not the weirdest I've ever seen, but still. My grandma used to tell me all sorts of stories, about fairies and stuff. She even hung an iron horseshoe above our trailer's front door. Never really struck me as strange or anything - old folks in West Virginia are just like that. But one day, I asked her why she did that, and she said it was because fairies would snatch people's children and try to switch them with their own, but iron could keep them away."

"Now, I've never really been much of a skeptic, but fairies? That's pretty weird, even for me. Guess I was wrong about that, huh? Baobhan sith - that sounds kind of Irish to me. And you know how the Irish love their fairies. The Scotch-Irish too, if you're ever in Appalachia. And hearing you talk to Lucinda - I kind of get the feeling that had I asked you about fairies, you would've known all about them. The way you were with her - it was like she was your cousin, albeit a cousin from the side of the family you don't get along with," he continues. His tone is not accusatory - it's all spoken matter-of-factly, like he's recounting a semi-amusing anecdote.

"I've been waiting awhile to run into somebody - different. JJ doesn't count - as far as I can tell the first time he found out about any of this stuff was at Gavin's party," he says, finally stepping away from the tree and looking to Hayden. "I'm ready to lay my cards out on the table. How about you? You said that you wouldn't tell anyone something about me - what was it?"

Scottish, not Irish. Doesn't matter, we're not here to toady to them...

"Well, first off, your grandma was right; faeries are real. Very real. Lucinda wasn't the first one I'd met either. Now I've got some guesses about you and what makes you... different, but I'll tell you now and tell you true that I don't know for sure."

"I'm willing to lay my cards out on the table too, but only if this is a private game. There are worst thing in Faerie than Baobhan Sith, and I'd as soon not have my name and secrets ring out where they can hear."

"Scout's honor," says Ashton, doing his best attempt at imitating the scout's salute. "I was never in the scout's but I feel the principle's the same. Nobody needs to know anything that gets said - or seen, quite frankly - here tonight."

"I was born here on Earth, but I trusted someone I shouldn't have, and followed a hunch and a whim to Faerie. I don't know how long I was there, but it was horribly beautiful, when it wasn't just horrible. I know my way around it, and I learned just enough about how to survive there, and made just enough friends with the right kind of monsters that I eventually escaped back home to our world. I just hope the bargain I made for your blood and wills won't draw more of them. I was a favorite. Some would return me just to get a favorite's-worth of favor.

"So how about you. I know you're very tough; I know you're good at sussing out who belongs, when your temper doesn't get in the way. I know you're not hairy enough to be a bear." Hayden smiled mockingly, "Should I play 20 questions? Or are you going to tell me what's real and local to this side of the Veil."

Ashton bit at his bottom lip. Could he really trust Hayden? He'd waited so long to find someone - anyone - who was like him. But Trixie had been a literal demon and Lucinda hadn't been much better. There was Xavier, for sure but Xavier already knew plenty about him. Hayden seemed like she was halfway to figuring it out anyways; might as well beat her to the punch - and who knows, maybe they have werewolves in fairyland.

"That's the big question, isn't it? Well, the answer's pretty easy: I'm a monster."

"When I was thirteen I woke up naked in the woods one morning, for the first time. When I was fourteen people's pets in my hometown started disappearing. When I was fifteen - well, you don't need to hear that one, yet. Nobody bit me, the full moon does nothing for me, though I am not a fan of silver jewelry. What does that sound like to you?"

"Sounds like I was right to guess you had a super-snoot. If you're not all lune-y, what does turn you all tall, dark, and hairy. Or does it not work like that?"

"Mostly I can turn it on and off when I want. Any other questions?"

"You flirt a lot for a guy who's sure I'm not his type. I can't figure that I'm a less scandalous person to be into than whatever your type really is, unless uh, is your type some kinda weird wolfy thing? If so I don't need details."

"Why do you care? And aren't you and Deirdre a thing now anyways?"

"Just curious. After all, I'm much bigger than a cat, so that's probably safe."

"I don't get it," says Ashton. "But one of the benefits of being on the soccer team: away games. I like a little bit of variety."

Hayden shrugged, Don't tell me if you don't want to.

"So, you looking for a cure? Do you have a Van Helsing type looking for you? Or just using furry coin to trade for my secrets?"

"Well, there's one demon I could summon that seems to have a connection to ghosts and such.. How about we try that?" He flips to the page for the Ifrit.

"I mean, for most of my life I was the only thing that went bump in the night that I knew of. I figured that I couldn't be the only one. And after Gavin's party I knew that I wasn't the only one but Trixie seemed like a worst kind of monster than I am and so did Lucinda. It's been kind of lonely, being the only one. I figured we would have a lot in common," he says with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Not your type, and a monster too. Ash you sweet-talker, stop before I can't hold myself back." She rolled her eyes, but her voice was sincere as she continued, "I get it though. It sucks to be the only different one you know. It's easy to follow things you shouldn't, while you're looking for somewhere to belong.

"So there you have it: Evil pixies want to drag me back to Neverland. Partly to have torment-y fun, partially because of some of the things I know. You'd think I'd have gotten to fly in the bargain, but somehow that wasn't on the table.

JJ:

Xavier writes: "SURE. ANYTHING THAT MIGHT MAKE ME MORE HELPFUL. I TRUST YOU."

...I trust you. JJ looks aside for a second, momentarily guilty, but brushes the thought aside.

He gathers any necessary tools and prepares the ritual. He debates about notifying the others, but decides it'd best if they don't know.

"Okay, let's do this." He begins.

"That does suck. You didn't get anything out of it in return? No special fairy powers or anything?" says Ashton. As he does, he pulls up the sleeve of his right arm slightly and rubs his wrist with his hand; there's a flash of a scar there, barely discernible, an injury that must've been old - or maybe Ashton just healed fast. "Guess I at least get super senses with my stuff."