#and neil is huddled under a cold stream of water

[swampthingking]

neil probably hates weed

i bet the first time he smoked, he smoked a joint like a cigarette and got Way Too High, greened out, and ended up fully clothed in the shower that andrew had deposited him into

and he never touches it again after that

[wulfrann]

Sensory Prompt 2 - Digging Your Fingers Into Fresh Dirt (TFC Fantasy AU)

(You can read the first installment of this challenge here and the list of prompts I’m using is right here)

Can you believe I finished this in time? Me neither, and I didn't - I just finished it today, actually. In my defense, I was away for the whole week-end, and my week was pretty full, so, there.

I made this sensory prompt about Andrew Minyard's life in the TFC Fantasy AU I'm writing. It's set right before Neil finds him in the clearing, and delves into Andrew's relationship with Aaron, Nicky, and the Palmetto Forest.

If you'd be so kind as to give me some feedback, I would love you forever!

Andrew wakes up, and for a split second he can hear the other kids shuffling around him, talking quietly and shooting glances at him, daring each others to go and wake him. Then he feels the quiet seep into his bones and the orphanage slips away - kids and beds become trees, and the forest surrounds him. It would be comforting, if it weren't for Tilda's magic polluting the air like a pile of fish left rotting in the sun.

Someone knocks on the door. When silence is the only answer they get, they try again.

"Andrew?"

Nicky's voice is too cheerful for the morning, so Andrew doesn't answer.

"Rise and shine, grumpyhead," Nicky sing songs through the heavy oak door, "I brought tea and it has a whole jar of honey in it."

Andrew glares at the door for a few seconds before reluctantly stepping out of bed. He takes his time dressing, muting Nicky's morning chatter out as he does. Tilda's rotten magic is a weight at the back of his skull, taking up more space with each movement he makes.

Nicky immediately stops talking when Andrew swings the door open.

"Good morning!" he beams. Andrew grabs the flask of tea from his hand without a word and steps back inside the room to sit at the small table pushed back against the wall opposite his bed. He lets the door open, so Nicky follows him in with a smile.

"Glad to see you're still half-asleep as always," he says, and takes a chair. Andrew takes a long swig out of the flask. The hot, sweet liquid rolls down his throat, easily replacing the disgust swirling in his stomach with its warmth.

"How's the headache today?"

Andrew gulps down more of the tea, then lets his body lean back against the chair. "Getting better," he mutters. "What's Aaron doing by the river?"

"Fishing our lunch."

Andrew taps his finger on the table, twice. Nicky's smile tightens, but his voice doesn't lose any of his cheer.

"He said he wanted to be alone for a while. You know how he gets when -" Andrew's look stops him mid-sentence. The delivery is a little strained when he starts agan. "Anyway, he'll be back before midday."

Andrew takes another swallow of Nicky's willow bark tea. When the silence keeps stretching out and he shows no sign of breaking it, Nicky gets up to leave.

"Well, time for me to go hunting. Enjoy your morning, Andrew, and try to be awake by noon."

"Go East," Andrew tells him before he's closed the door. Nicky smiles, nodding, and then he's gone.

Andrew downs the last of the tea, then reaches out to the forest, sending the request to watch out for his brother and cousin. The forest welcomes him, extending its embrace to soothe, and the world around him ebbs away.

Everything is muffled by the leaves layered over years and years and years upon the forest's ground, a denser, older canopy, a bustling graveyard craddling infinite lives with remains mirrored by the roof rustling under sunlight, singing the day as it shines through; coursing amidst the corpses and the births is a cold, clear breath that flows and gurgles with a cheer not unalike Nicky's.

It takes a few minutes, but when Andrew comes back to his own body he feels awake.

*

They grill the orfe Aaron caught for lunch, along with some vegetables from Nicky's garden and the last of the black bread. Nicky's chatter filling the silence is inane, but it makes the tension between the twins a little easier to bear, so he keeps at it. By the end of the meal Andrew has said maybe two words, but Aaron is offering half-hearted replies whenever Nicky directs some kind of question at him, which isn't too bad. Andrew leaves as soon as his plate is empty though - it's not his turn to clean up.

"Where you going?" Nicky asks after him.

"Berry picking."

"Okay - ah, Andrew?"

Andrew turns to look at his cousin.

"I'm gonna send a letter first, but I need to go to Columbia this afternoon since we're a little low on, well, everything. You need anything?"

"Honey cakes."

"Are you sure we don't have any left-"

"Yes. Get three," Andrew says, and turns back.

"I will if you leave some for the rest of us to taste," Nicky calls out, grin eating at his voice.

Andrew doesn't answer. One cake is already more than one person can eat, even for him.

*

Stepping into the clearing feels a lot like coming home. Andrew pauses for a split second when he reaches the edge to process it - the fading, imperceptible, of Tilda's magic; the water running beneath his feet; the quiet embrace of the trees huddling close, a living curtain he trusts more than he ever will any wall. Andrew walks into it with a sigh.

He stops in the middle; slightly to his right the pond sleeps on, diffusing its cold, fresh breath into the clearing's heart. Water to a forest is a lung - it flows, moves corpses to replace them with seeds, brings a soothing chill to the roots and parched throats of the forest. Andrew crouches and digs his fingers into fresh dirt, feeling the water permeate from the earth to his skin, soaking it in. He plants his toes into the dirt and melts, diffuses into the ground. His mind runs through roots tunnels streams and the forest fills him the whole forest his home body heart and the water is a lung breathing through him and he is moving and still and growth and his bones are the rocks buried soaring and the wind is a friend and he -

He needs to go back. Not back, not completely, but he needs - a center. His body - toes and fingers deep into the ground, coursing through the forest - is his core. Gravity. He lets it pull back, barely - enought that he won't dissolve into the roots. Then he spreads out, not loosely, with a purpose this time - focuses on human and mine and Nicky - and he finds him.

Kneeling with his hawk next to him. He's rolling a piece of paper into a small tube, tying it to the hawk's leg, whispering. The name is a tiny smile on his lips and a distance in his eyes.

Andrew gathers himself. He brings the trees closer, a wall to keep eyes out and away from his cousin. The hawk flies off with a loud beat of its wings. The leaves craddle its flight out of the forest, brisk and hurried - a flap of wings rips a leave off its branch. The leave rises up, up, up until the forest pans out underneath, further than it has ever been and getting further still - until the hawk beats its wings and the leave falls down, down, down and back into the forest, swallowed by the rich, dark ground.

The hawk flies on, alone.

Andrew comes back to his body. It feels like waking up, for the second time that day.

Submerging himself in the pond's clear water isn't enough to wash the bitterness at the back of his throat - until a lost boy wanders too close, wild with questions Andrew doesn't want to answer and secrets Andrew feels compelled to puzzle out.

Everything about Neil spells danger, but Andrew was never inclined towards self-preservation anyway.