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belethlegwen · 1 year

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The Faerie Spell - Chp 8

Chapter One: Click Here

Previous Chapter: Click Here

Chapter Directory: Click Here

Words: 10,339

Summary: Daphne slowly comes to the realization she isn't dead, but she's in an unfamiliar place with people she doesn't know: A literal nightmare. Who are these people? Where have they taken her? How hurt is she, and how is she going to get home? As she gets help with her injuries, Daphne begins to get a peek at what kind of help and treatment she *needs*, and hasn't been getting.

Content Warning: Blood, mentions of pain and physical injury.

[Major MAJOR thanks to @adjacentperception for the RP that was used to write this chapter, and for the use of their characters and setting <3 You are wonderful.]

Death had more smells than I was expecting.

Probably should've been my first hint, huh?

But nope, before anything else hit me-- before any other experience or feeling or thought of the idea of existing had managed to make it's way through my thick skull, smells were what was doing it.

I mostly just noticed that the overwhelmingly nauseating smell of garbage was suddenly… gone. Everything else in terms of smell was just a game of 'is this better, or it is just less?', which, either way, was a relief of some kind or another.

That thick skull started to pound as I managed to identify the familiar smell of the pews back in the church at home, and then I realized I probably wasn't actually dead. Only probably, though-- if I had any amount of a body at all, it sure as hell wasn't interested in moving. Maybe I didn't have a body? That'd be a pretty novel experience, honestly. I hated that even body-less though, my head was pounding away like there was a hand inside of it, gripping my brain directly with sharp-nailed fingers.

It took a moment to figure out what had happened. I had been flying before I crashed into solid concrete. I had been hit by a car-- weird car, lots of colors-- before I had been flying. I had been running before I had been hit by a weird car. I had been--

Oh fuck

I had been grabbed and tossed around by a kid before I had been running.

It wasn’t a car that hit me, it was a foot.

I was shrunk again, and I was in a lot of fucking danger.

Or... I mean, I had been in a lot of danger. I was still only probably not-dead right now, so, maybe those were problems that didn't actually matter. Sounds. Sounds were a part of being alive, right? I only just now was tuning into the extreme humming and ringing in my ears. Did I have ears? I still couldn't tell if I had limbs, at this point, so trying to touch my pounding head to see if there were ears on it was out.

Noises were slowly… slowly coming back to me. It was mostly just a droning sound beyond the high-pitched ringing, the pounding of my own pulse— I guess, anyway— putting little hiccups in it. The droning was interesting, changing pitch, changing rhythm, changing volume a little…

I was just finally accepting that I was very probably alive, wondering when the very very slow return of feeling to my limbs would finish happening, when... well...

To be fair, it was cold. Whatever had touched my face was wet and textured and cold and weird, and considering I had only just come to the full conclusion that when last I left my mortal coil, it was extremely and dangerously tiny, I think I can be forgiven for my reaction to something that my brain immediately told me was the tongue of a rat or a raccoon or a bird or a bug or something trying to eat me.

Oh hey look, limbs. We have those, might as well flail them, I guess?

I was screaming-- as much as I could in the moment anyway-- as my voice tried to come back to life, my eyes snapping open blearily and just seeing this... horrifying shape of an inhuman colour coming toward my face again. My legs started kicking to try and scramble away, but I was on something soft that just shifted under my efforts, and all I managed to do was to twist and flop my body onto it's stomach as noises-- massive, indecipherable noises for the first few seconds-- surrounded me.

Great. Basically deaf, practically blind, and as I tried to reach forward to grab whatever I was on for purchase to launch myself forward and run away, one of my shoulders seized in so much pain that I fell back onto that side with new, more expressive yelling.

Something shifted, the light above me being blocked out as I fell onto my back, hoping that the pressure of my weight on that shoulder-- on whatever I was lying on-- would ease some of the pain, and all my body could do as I looked hopelessly up was pant through my attempts to process the only things I seemed to know, now: Hurt.

Hurt, and a giant, unfamiliar face.

Initially, before my focus really came back through the blur of pain and panic, I thought it might be Mak, only because the skin was similar in color; a brown I probably would’ve thought was beautiful if it wasn’t, y’know, the size of a billboard. The hair wasn’t dark enough and… I mean I couldn’t really make a guess on the eyebrows. I never really got to look at Mak’s face much while I was zonked. Knowing now that it was because he was… weirded out is the nicest way to put it, about my whole thing, if I hadn’t already guessed it wasn’t him by the hair, I would’ve guessed the second two gargantuan hands had started to put up a wall around me as I was scrambling around.

Didn’t know how I felt about any of that. Kind of a bummer to have Mak come up at all in my mind, honestly, in the middle of all of this, now that I think about it. Thanks, brain.

The massive, blurry hands coming into focus as they dropped around me were enough to make me yell again, though I wasn't sure if the yelling was the first reaction, or if it was in response to the first reaction of me trying to squirm away again. A lot was happening, ok? Like... you try it and see if you would've done any better. Nowhere to run to, I just lay still again.

Another gargantuan form slid into view over me from somewhere behind. Not like... directly over, thank god, but my eyes jumped up all the same to stare at it and try to determine what the fuck it was doing. God I wish they hadn't. Beyond the big round shades and the messy hair, the guy looked like he had fallen face-first through a barbed-wire and broken glass factory.

Why did they seem so much bigger right now? Stars, my heart was practically choking me and every rapid beat made my vision go slightly fuzzier as my head pounded more.

The first one, the one with their arms making a wall around me, started talking and between the heavy breaths and my brain screaming two thousand different instructions at me at once, I could barely make out what she was telling me. Somethingsomething, scare, it's fine, not monsters, my eyes shut tightly to try and focus on the words though it just made my panic scream more inside of me to not be watching whatever the hell was happening. 'You're safe, just want to help.'

I took in a gasping deep breath as yet another voice entered the ringing, exceedingly loud soundscape, and while I was trying to figure out why a ‘sewing kit’ was being talked about I started to realize that everything seemed to be coming from my left. Was my right ear deaf or just... worse than the left one? No idea.

"Wait, wait--" God, would they even be able to hear me? My voice was wrecked, and I could barely push words out past the pain in my... shit, can everything hurt? I'm pretty sure every single thing was hurt, somehow, especially my ribs. They were the next part of me to wake up to this fun, fresh hell. "Wait, I-- Ah!"

A shout of pain left me as I tried to sit up to get a better look at what-- and who-- was around me, but my ribs weren't having it. I collapsed back, uselessly, my eyes watering as I stared up at the closest face again. Maybe I should just focus on her until I could work out some actual words, maybe just pretending there's only one person looking at me while I'm like this would make me feel better.

Blinking caused my whole vision to become an abstract painting. I felt hot tears start streaking down my face. Hahahaha, of course I wouldn't feel better. Great. Fantastic. I should've aimed to fall into the trashcan or something. Death would've been so much simpler than this, right?

"Sorry, I'm so sorry you have to wake up to this, oh no..."

Her voice was so quiet compared to everything else. Like, it was still big, everything about everything that was happening was big, but… she was trying? The guy with the glasses and the intense scarring dipped back while it was too blurry to see if he was making a face, and I was just… alone, with whoever this was, the memories of that horrid screeching the kid had made, or all of the other noises I had gone through kind of just fading.

"Tell me what you need, it's okay, we're here to help." A deep breath entered me, like I was gasping for it, as her words hit me. There were a lot of questions, but those weren’t as important as everything else my brain was screaming about, apparently.

Do we really have to be crying at a time like this?! I thought to myself, trying to force the damn tears out of my eyes faster with hard, squinting blinks-- my eyelids probably the only part of my body not too hurt to move, honestly.

I was panting, trying to assess if every part of me was online yet or if I was going to need to expect more pain as other parts woke up. She was waiting... god why did that seem like so much? Why did that feel like the greatest gift in the world that I had managed to stammer out a 'wait' between shouts of pain and that this person listened? If I wasn't so mad about the crying I was already doing, I'd probably do more just for that.

Between the blinks, I saw her moving, getting lower and my stomach did flips at the idea of her coming closer. I don't know why the idea upset me, it was already too late-- this person was extremely aware that I was this pathetic lump of idiot laying on a...

Turning my head only enough to look at what I was on-- whatever primal animal-part of my brain was trying to take over not wanting to take my eyes off of this person in case she... I have no idea. Wanted to eat me? Probably not, I probably looked like shit. I certainly felt like it. Either way-- I turned my head to take in that I was on a green sweater or something, and the other half of my brain that was not trying to consider how fast we'd be able to bite someone if they tried to touch us right now just felt incredibly guilty; there was a damp piece of napkin or paper towel or something that had some blood on it, and as I looked down at my sleeves to assess, it was pretty obvious it had been my blood. This person was trying to help, she was trying to help me and I shouldn't need help, this should never have happened.

"Wh-where am... Where a-am I?" I stammered out, gritting my teeth as I tried to look around what I could see past her incredibly massive form, both of my hands rubbing on the soft clothing I'd been laid on. My voice was pathetically quiet, I knew that, I couldn't summon the energy or the focus to try and shout loud enough for her to hear, and I was trying to restrain as much of the pained shouting as possible. Why did I even start with that question? There was so many more pressing things, but my brain couldn't bring any of them up at the moment to try and prioritize.

One of my hands, stiff and sore, started to try and reach into my pocket, digging for my stone so I could try to talk louder, fingers greeted by whatever remained of my shielding stone, I presumed. Great, finally have pocket-sand on hand and I'm too small and battered to actually use it effectively. Digging further, I just grunted and grimaced with the pain of the movements, trying to fish out anything useful that I might still have.

"You're in a bar. I mean, it's closed right now, there aren't like... people here or anything. Customers. No patrons. Just me and the owners, and we want to help."

She was so… reassuring? Comforting? Hard to say I fully felt either of those things in the moment, but it was definitely something that was helping immensely in the meantime.

Trying to curl my fingers enough to scrape out the stones was proving too hard, and I'll be honest-- the fact the woman seemed to be able to hear me well enough without it seemed like a blessing. Thank god it was quiet here, in--

"A bar?" I choked out, trying to sit up as another wave of panic came over me. I managed to get myself propped up on my least-janked elbow this time, at least, so I wasn't completely flat, but my heart felt like it was going to be the straw that breaks the camel's ribs as it took a moment to calm down, even as I focused on the information that she had given me that it was at least a closed bar.

I didn’t even really flinch too much as this giant woman’s hand slid in from behind somewhere and pressed fingers lightly to my back. It was too much of a relief to pass up, though I couldn’t bring myself to really lean my weight against it fully out of fear it was some kind of trap.

My eyes managed to catch a glimpse of the other two gigantic strangers from around her fingertips as she mentioned them, but that primal rat-brain panic-mode was still telling me to keep watching her, and what she was doing, as the most immediate threat.

"My name is Zora, so you don't have to think of me as a stranger. Could you please tell us where you're hurt, or do you need another minute?"

I just stared for a while, trying to click into what she was saying. "Zora?" I asked, trying to manage enough energy to shout and just flinching from the effort. Did she look like a ‘Zora’? Her hair was short, wild and styled, and she had piercings in her nose and an eyebrow. One of her earrings kept catching the light when she moved. I shook my head quickly, getting back on track. "I... shoulder is bad... just feels hot and I can't like... move it very much? Ribs also bad, this whole general--" I used what limited movement I had of my bad arm to gesture at the whole front of my torso, taking a moment to pant from the effort. "I'm Daphne," I tried to speak slowly so I hopefully wouldn't have to repeat, or try to shout again.

"Daphne. I'm glad to meet you Daphne,” she hummed, nodding along and repeating what I said quietly. It took me a second to clue in— literally until she looked at them— that she was doing it for the other people in the bar and not for me. "Okay, hot shoulder doesn't want to move, ribs aren't feeling great, general much pain all over."

I heard the other two start moving and doing things behind me… I think one of them left the room, but I was too busy focusing on Zora.

"You were in the stairwell,” she said quietly, “or that's where I found you. I have no idea how you got there, but I can't imagine it could have been easy." I watched her wince as she thought about it. ‘Oh you have no idea,’ I thought. "I don't want to crowd you, but I also don't want you to hurt yourself more, so my hand is behind you if you need to lean back on it.”

'Stars, am I smaller than usual?' I kept thinking as the presence of her hand just kept setting my cardio into a state like I was Usain Bolt or something. It didn't look much bigger? Was it just because it's a different hand? One I don't know? Was it because the last hand that had touched me damn near killed me? I had a thought to just fall back on it after she had moved it there. It was tempting, god I could use it, but that stupid rat-panic brain was still envisioning us touching it and the thing snapping closed around us like a bear trap, crushing us.

I didn't even have a shield spell anymore. What would that even feel like now? How fast would I break? I--

'She's just trying to help, she's just trying to help, she's just trying to help...'

Yeah, sure, toss a mantra or something in here. Maybe that'll help. My brain was just throwing things at the wall at this point to see if anything would stick.

"I was kicked," I stammered out. I don't know why I needed to say it, why I was compelled to tell this woman what happened, but... there it was. "They didn't see me, they-- it just... happened."

Her massive face winced again, sympathy all over her face. "I'm so sorry you went through that. That's terrible and should never have happened." She said softly. God, I felt like such an idiot for having this happen and having to bother this woman with it, and everything else. She was being so kind; she had no idea how this all happened.

The pain of it all was making me just want to hide somewhere. Disappear until I was big enough to walk out of here and either take myself to a hospital or throw myself in a river, whichever came first. I don’t know if it was because she saw I was spiraling or anything, but she spoke again and took my mind out of it. At least… for a little bit.

“My friends are good people, they're already working on helping us out here, okay? Do you need us to call someone for you?”

I grunted through pain as my hand went instinctively to check my pockets, patting them, my eyes finally tearing away from the woman to look around me. I didn't have my phone. It wasn't here. It had been in my hand and then I got kicked, so it could be anywhere, smashed into dust with no one even able to tell what it might've been.

And who? Who would I call? My family? They still had no idea this was a fuckin' thing with me, I refused to tell them! I was supposed to have this cured or broken or whatever months ago now and they were never supposed to find out about it. Sheridan? Absolutely not, she'd tell Gem, who was also very much a 'no, never' right now because I could only imagine the reaming I would get from her. No, no way, I couldn't let either of them know. Mak wanted nothing to do with me like this. That left Cal, and I-- oh my god I don't know anyone's number.

All of their numbers were just... in my phone, I had never memorized any number but my own and my job!

It had happened without me even realizing, my body leaning back until it had made contact with one of her fingers, and it was just kind of... automatic from there. Her fingers moved closer, pressing me up. My body sagged from the relief of not having to try and hold myself up on limbs and ribs that, for all I fuckin' knew, would've hurt less if they had been broken.

"I don't... I can't call an-anyone..." I choked out, tears already coming out like I'd turned on a faucet. "I l-lost my ph-phone, and-- I don't know a-anybody's n-number..."

"It's okay, it's going to be totally okay." She cooed, fingers twitching around me, like they wanted to wrap tighter or hold me up more but wouldn’t.

She was so gentle.

She was so gentle, and that just made this all so much... harder to handle, honestly.

She was gentle and she cared, and my brain was telling me right now that she was the only person I knew who would be like this with me, after I had been such a colossal fucking moron.

You know that feeling when you start to cry, and you really, really don't want to be crying over whatever it is you're crying about? Or when you're crying about it? Or where you're crying about it? Or who you're crying in front of? And you know how that all compiles and just makes you cry harder and want to crawl into a hole and die?

There was a moment, right when I started to bawl my eyes out, where I felt like that was going to happen. Where my stupid panicked brain, splintered into a thousand different stupid voices all trying to tell me different things and all but the stupid rat-brain getting drowned out in the confusion and the headache and everything else, wanted to do nothing but scream and thrash and go run until I found a crawlspace where no one could reach me and I could just cry until this was all over.

But when I realized that her fingers weren't snapping shut around me...

...when I realized that they weren't disgusted by me and wanting to get away from me...

...when I realized that they were just there, supporting me, the way I needed without trying to just do what they thought I needed, then it really hit me that I was safe.

So, I just let myself cry. She let me cry, soothing me quietly-- as quietly as she could-- and just telling me everything was going to be ok. I had every reason to believe it wasn't going to be ok; I was an idiot, after all, and I'd manage to fuck up everything for everyone already this much and the day probably wasn't even over yet, but... something about the way she said it made me actually kind of believe it.

Zora didn't know me. Zora had no idea what a moron I was, but I don't know... I didn't want to argue with her and tell her she was wrong or anything. She was being so nice, and she had no reason to be. I could've just been left, but she decided to let me fuck up her day too.

That felt like it should be worth at least me not arguing with her... at least for a moment.

"We'll circle back around to the calls, for now we're gonna get you cleaned up and put back together alright? It's gonna be fine," she continued to soothe me while I just… sobbed. Her eyes glanced up to someone somewhere behind me, and I heard another woman whisper something but was too wrecked to try and turn around and watch.

"Is everything okay?" The stranger was asking.

"She lost her phone. No idea where it is." Zora whispered in reply.

"You said you found her by the bins?"

"Yeah, but she was kicked down from the street by someone who didn't see her, so there's no telling."

"I'll take a look,” the unknown woman said before suddenly she was leaning into my periphery to put something on the… I guess the bar, that I was on top of. A glass vial most of the size of my body. "I'm going to tell Arthur we don't need the ice. We thought we were out, but this is the stuff you can just rub on the spot to numb it out."

"Oooo" Zora grinned, "We love that stuff here. Thank you Madge."

Madge. I had a Great Aunt named Madge, rest her soul. Everyone always called her the family weirdo and ever since I was young, I always kind of wanted to be the next Great Aunt Madge on the family tree. This woman was obviously much younger, and still very much alive, but something about the way her smile had tugged up one side of her mouth more than the other made me feel like if she wasn't 60-odd feet tall, I'd really really like her.

God it was so nice to be around quiet people, holy shit. Even aside from the screaming banshee hell-spawn child that waved me like a flag earlier, nobody ever bothered to whisper around me before. While I was wiping the snot and tears off of my face, Madge locked eyes with me a moment as she nodded, the wall of hand still doing a good job of making me feel safe, protected.

Also warm, which I very much appreciated.

Madge slipped away and I could kind of make out what she was saying to Arthur-- I guess the guy with the uh... the face from earlier-- if I focused hard enough, but mostly I just turned my sniffling, sore face back to Zora as she fiddled with the bottle with her free hand. I was finally getting to the 'everything-is-less-jarringly-huge' stage of my Small Self Bullshit, but it was still hard for me not to fixate on her working with the thing.

"Madge is good at finding stuff,” the voice just above me got my attention again as I wiped at my eyes more. “I spent an hour looking for an earring once and she found it within five minutes of me asking for help."

Zora smiled, using her free hand to uncork the bottle and glance inside, "You okay with using this, or would you prefer the ice? I personally love the cold goo, but I know not everyone is happy and willing to just apply random potions to their skin."

Fucking hell. A potion? A real-ass magic potion? Normally I'd say no, normally I'd prefer to be like... a trip-sitter and see how everyone else handled a 'potion' first before I dove in, but I was less than six-inches tall and bawling my eyes out in a bar with a bunch of strangers and I was very, very hurt.

Also, ice sounded horrible. Rat-brain told me if I had ice put on me, they'd harvest my organs.

Me and rat-brain are not friends.

"I... yeah, I, um..." I stammered, sniffling myself stupid as the crying finally started to slow down a little. My head felt better, at least. The release really did help a lot, though something told me I might actually be far from done. "I don't think things can get much worse than this, so... so long as it doesn't make me smaller, I'll be fine."

Couldn't even bring myself to laugh. Guess my head wasn't feeling better enough for a joke. Oh well.

"I can promise you, they wouldn't keep a shrinking potion in the first aid box. This'll just numb the area you rub it in. Keeps it cold, helps with inflammation without having to hold an ice pack." Zora chattered quietly, using one hand to tip the little vial onto the end of her finger, a small bit of light silvery blue goo oozing out onto the digit.

"It looks like toothpaste," I blurted out, though almost as a mutter as it wound up on her finger. It was a bit more watery than toothpaste? But just barely. The chatting was actually helping calm me down more than I probably would've wanted to admit. Explaining what the goo was gonna do to me also helped. She put the vial aside carefully and then went right back to helping me. It just… it seemed so natural to her. It reminded me of how I used to think of Gem, for a flash, before she distracted me out of that particular bubble of thoughts.

"Here, let me know if you need help with any of it. I've used this stuff on people here more times than I can count at this point." She offered, holding the little blob out for me. "It takes a few minutes to settle in, so you've got time to get it off of your hands before they go cold, and we've still got the wet napkin handy."

My eyes moved again to the damp napkin with my blood on it, shuddering a little.

"Sorry about that by the way, that probably wasn't a nice way to wake up. We were just trying to clean you off and figure out what we could do."

"I... didn't know I was bleeding," I said, looking down at my sleeves and seeing the tear-watered stains on them faintly. It looked like she had gotten most of it before I woke up, and touching my face I found my nose was tender and my lip had definitely been split. Great, must've landed on my face. Bet I looked stellar right now. I sighed and nodded, trying to flash a smile as I focused on her saying that they were just trying to clean me up. "Thanks," I managed, trying not to show my disappointment as I thought back to how great I had felt after getting a haircut.

It was just a stupid haircut. Why did I have to take this stupid gamble for a stupid haircut?

I stared down the blue goo and nodded to myself. Couldn't be worse than this, right?

Again, I felt like I could trust her. It was... it was nice to have something to cling to, honestly, and I think that might've been the whole deal. It wasn't that I believed her because there was a lot of reason to, I just needed to have something to keep me afloat instead of going completely rat-brain, and trusting someone else was a good place to start on that.

Leaning away from the fingers behind me was rough enough, but as I tried to figure out where I'd need to put the goo, I realized it was the least of my problems in the immediate moment. Slowly I started to try and work my way out of my jacket, and honestly? Probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Between the pathetic grunting and the urge to cry, I managed to get my bad arm out but couldn't use that arm to help me shrug off the rest.

"I don't... I don't want to bug you..." I managed to grunt out, looking up at her and her very, very concerned face. The words died in my throat, and I just kind of vaguely turned my body as much as I could to let the coat hang off of me.

Not going to lie, this was one of my nightmares. Like, literally-- since this stupid bullshit had happened with this stupid faerie, the idea that I'd be picked up and handled like a doll and stripped was something that would have me wake up sweating in the middle of the night. Especially since that shit with Gem. My stomach was preemptively rolling at the idea as her hand started to move, and I fought the urge to close my eyes simply because I'd rather be aware of what was happening to me.

I can't describe the relief; the absolute rush of almost elation as her fingers pinched the coat-- just the coat-- and just kind of... held it for me while I wiggled out. Once the tiny jacket was in her hands, it seemed like without even thinking about it Zora used the fingers of her free hand to fold it, setting it delicately to the side when finished.

I'm so glad she didn't know what kind of a person I was. Glad she didn't know what kind of massive, stupid idiot I was. It was nice to be treated like someone who deserved this level of just... gentleness? No, beyond that. It was like she trusted me to just... know what I needed.

"Thank you," I said, louder than I had been now that I was feeling just a little more put-together, and I didn't want her to get sick of like, straining to hear me or whatever.

"You don't need to shout." She stated simply, tilting her head to the side and using her pinky to point towards her ears, the cold little blob still at the end of her finger. I watched such a massive, fluid motion and shivered, feeling pathetic that this was still just... shit I wasn't used to. Would it have been better if I was used to this by now? I had been intentionally trying not to feel like this shit was normal, I didn't want it to be normal but now it just made me feel worse and worse. I blushed, hoping my shouting didn't come off as rude.

"I've got really good hearing, there's no need to worry about that,” she continued. “I haven't had trouble this entire time." She slid her hand back toward me with the blob extended, and I caught myself staring at her. I blushed so much I felt a bit dizzy. I was so caught up in the idea that someone was just... handling me (ugh) but not like... staring at me like I was a toy or a weird bug or something like Gem and Cal did, that I didn't really pick up on how I was just kind of... zoned-in on her face so intensely. I went back to dealing with the goo and my bruises as best as I could, feeling a little guilty about taking up so much of her time with how slow I was going.

I had just been wearing a tanktop underneath the jacket, which was good for needing to smear magic goo all over me I guess, but also showed me exactly how red my shoulder and arm was, and how bruised it was starting to get. Jesus, I felt like the last apple at the grocery store.

"I'm sorry if I ruined your day."

The words just kind of fell out of me as I dipped my fingers into a god damn magic potion and moved to lean my less-hurt side against her hand again while it was here, spreading it with some pained and uncomfortable grunts over the shoulder and under the back of the tank top. "I... I really didn't think this was gonna happen, today, and I just... I'm sorry."

"You haven't ruined my day at all." She said quickly, nearly cutting off my apology as her eyes went wide and her eyebrows began to knit together, "It's not like I'm pressed, I was only here to pick up a check for working last week. Even if I had big plans though, I still wouldn't consider helping someone to be something that ruins my day. I'm more than happy to assist, and I can safely say the same for my friends." The hand behind me straightened a bit, and I wasn’t sure if it was intentional or not but it gave me the support I needed to help me reach certain angles with less strain, but she was still careful not to jostle or move me too much.

"Please don't be sorry. You need help. Everyone needs it sometimes. I'm more than happy to offer mine, however you might need it."

"Yeah, but--" I stuttered out, taking more of the goo and finishing smearing it as far as I could reach on my shoulder, knowing it was just... all over my shirt and my bra. "I... I'm glad you want to help, but you shouldn't need to. This shouldn't have happened and I shouldn't have done any of this."

Waterworks were building up again, god, this day though. I lifted my shirt and started to smear the potion on my abs, hoping to warm it up before I put it on the very, very sore ribs, as much as I could reach. I grunted and-- unintentionally-- leaned back a bit more against her hand. I was happy it was here. I was happy that she was here, doing all of this for me, but... I don't know, my brain also turned to Gem a bit? Like, I was so happy to be treated so much more gently by Gem and then it just kind of became... weird.

Was this woman going to resent me for getting all of this help if I wasn't going to give her what she wanted after? At least she didn't seem like... fixated on me, outside of the concern, which was a nice change if I really really had to be honest about it. I guess that's why I felt I should be honest about my own stupidity. "This is all my fault."

"I doubt that very much."

Well, shit.

I don’t know if I had ever had someone disagree with me so nicely before. I honestly don’t know if, in the entirety of my whole life, if anyone had just been this kind to me before when I needed it like this. I was sniffling like a pathetic little baby and this person, despite how weird this whole situation had to be, was just… helping like it was the only thing they knew how to do.

"No one does anything with the intention of getting kicked through the air,” her voice continued as I went about the continued smearing, blinking back tears with red and sore eyelids. “I imagine you would avoid that scenario if you could. In any case, should vs. shouldn't really doesn't mean a lot. It did happen, you need help, you deserve it as much as anyone else. That doesn't equate to a burden."

I took the edge of the napkin as she nudged it toward me while she spoke, letting me wipe my hands off as I opened my mouth to try and reply to her. "You're really good at this," I said, probably a bit bluntly. It was true-- she was really good at making me feel less like I was bothering her, at the very least, though I was still pretty set on the fact that this never would've happened if I had just followed the plans everyone had made for me and didn't take such a stupid risk for a bit of fun. Fun and freedom. And a really good coffee-- god, I wish I hadn't spilled that coffee.

"Thanks, I have no idea what I'm doing." Zora laughed while she recorked the bottle of magic potion. The laugh was quiet, like she was really trying her hardest to hold it back. I actually laughed myself at the admission. I suppose that might explain it; she hadn't grabbed me, or seemed comfortable with just doing what needed to be done with me. I guess that was the kind of shit that came with familiarity of dealing with this sort of stuff.

I appreciated it. If that was the case, god I hope she never got an idea of what she was doing. I liked this, for all the horrible shit that was surrounding it.

I was going to elaborate as I rolled my shirt back down, when the sounds of someone reentering the room caught my attention. The guy with the scarred face was making an exit, or... he was going to, before I guess his wife stopped him.

"Where do you think you are going?" Madge asked.

"Jasper's putting some medicine together for us." Arthur responded simply, the deep quality of his voice would’ve probably made it impossible for him to ever actually whisper, but I could tell he was trying to be quiet. "I was going to run over to grab it."

"No, no no no you are not." Madge chattered, and I could see her shaking her head and nudging his arm to turn him back towards the bar. "You'll get over there and talk to Jasper for 45 minutes before you remember there was a reason you were going. You do this every time."

Arthur was already grumbling some sort of muttered response to her, but he didn't ultimately argue with her.

"Give this to her,” Madge instructed, handing him something. “Be incredibly careful with it. Six steps from the corner. I'll be back in a mo'." And just like that, within the span of a second, Madge was already spinning around and whooshing out the door and up unseen stairs with rapid, echoing footsteps while Arthur lumbered back over to where he had been directed, palm out and ready.

"Special delivery. No tip necessary." His voice was flat, not necessarily loud but with a timber that sent a shiver up my spine from this close. He rested the back of his hand on the counter, sliding it forward until Zora intercepted.

"You are most appreciated. I'm sorry you don't get to play with Jasper today." Zora laughed, delicately taking something out of his palm and placed what was, unmistakably, my phone next to me. My hands picked it up, multiple cracks across the screen, and trying to press any buttons seemed to elicit no response. I didn't know if the screen was broken, if the battery was dead, or if the whole thing was toast and I felt like I was curling in on myself a bit as the realization of how well and truly I had fucked up started to set in.

"Eh. He'll be around after he closes up tonight," Arthur shrugged, as the two of them continued to banter above me. "Need anything?"

"We might need a drink here shortly. Standby." Zora smiled, redirecting her attention back to me for the moment and squinting her eyes at the busted shape of my phone. Obviously, it was too small for her to tell what was up. "Is that it? Is it alright?"

I shifted uncomfortably as Arthur drummed his fingers on the wooden surface I was on, the sound and feeling making me jump. I didn’t know how to feel about the fact that he seemed… notably blind? Is that the nicest way to say that? I was glad Zora was here to keep his attention, and only kind of glad he probably couldn’t see what kind of a state I was in. I was considering mentioning the finger drumming being a bit much— I mean, neither of them likely knew it was huge to me, or anything— when he suddenly ducked out of view, I guess getting something from under the bar.

"It's uh..." I stammered, looking up at her. "I don't know if it's broken or the battery is dead. What... what time is it?"

Zora whipped out her own phone, unlocking it as her eyes danced around the screen as it shone some light up at her features. "We're at about 3 o'clock,” she said, and I felt my mouth open a little as it went slack.

Three fucking PM.

"Oh god I was... I was out for hours," I breathed, cold chills coming over me. My hand slipped in to fetch my two remaining stones and came back out covered in glittery sand. The loud-stone was still bright and I could feel something with it, but the minor invisibility stone-- opaque white quartz-- had gone from bright white to a dull, dreary gray and felt almost... not cold but dead? Does that make sense? Was I just imagining that because I knew it was out of magic or mana or charge or whatever?

"Zora," came the flat, muffled voice of Arthur from below the counter, making my jaw snap shut again and my body tense with a pained grunt. It was then that the magic goo started to really hit, and I was happy it did. The cold, numbing feeling was very needed. "Which set does your friend need?"

"Which set..." Zora muttered quietly to herself, her eyes dashing up and away from her phone while she thought. "Oh! Oh, box three is probably about right."

"Got it. Thank you," he replied, followed by the sound of cardboard scooting around below like he was casually just moving boulders around.

Set? Box three?

Probably surgical tools to harvest my organs.

I shook my head with an annoyed grunt I hoped neither of them could hear. Fuck off, rat-brain. We're fine.

Zora’s eyes had moved back to her phone when it seemed like an idea had struck her. "Do you remember any logins for like... social media, messenger app, anything? Do you think that could work?"

I shoved the dead invisibility stone back into my pocket but kept the loud-stone out and not activated if only to use as a worrystone for the time being as Zora asked for my logins. Oh god yes, I knew my passwords-- it was so risky to try and like, stick those on notes around.

"Yeah, yeah, I can log in to basically everything. I'm good with password memorization, I do individual salts for each login on a pretty long base-- I work in CompSec."

...Why did we tell her that? Why was that suddenly a brag? God damn it, brain. Don't make me let rat-brain back in here, rat-brain wouldn't brag about our stupid boring deskjob.

Embarrassing info-dump aside, I could see the giant woman brighten significantly at the news that I could log into my stuff. She started tapping away on her phone screen, and before my pounding head could piece together what exactly was going on, she turned the thing around for me, propping it up.

"Log in to whatever, tell me if you need help. I don't you to strain anything further with sweeping arm movements, and I can promise you my memory is garbage enough to never remember whatever you tell me to type in."

She smiled at me, and I felt such a wave of like… hope. Arthur had reemerged from underneath me and was rooting around in a box, but I was busy pushing myself to stand.

You know what's dumb? How comforting a phone the size of myself was. God. I managed to push myself to my feet with a few grunts and took a second to catch my breath before approaching it and starting to tap away on the screen.

This. This I was used to.

I pulled up the messenger app, using a few extra seconds between a few letter-smacks to rest and to also just... hesitate. It's 3pm. If Cal swung by the apartment before they went to work, or if Sheridan decided to take an early exit for the afternoon, they might already know that I was gone. I mean... car was gone. They'd know I had dodged out. Someone would've tried to message me maybe, might've tried to call me...

Shit. If it was Cal, or if someone had flagged Cal, they had access to my Find My Phone services. They might've tried to ping it, maybe they had gotten a read on the area I was in before the phone died? God... if I logged in now and they were actively looking for me I'd be fucking in for it. So, I felt it best to take it slow with the typing.

"Seeing as you work CompSec, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that this isn't an always thing for you," Zora muttered gently to me from above, her eyes drifting back down to meet with mine. I blushed a little, nodding.

"Yeah," I admitted, shifting my weight on my legs. They were... well, they were less hurt than the rest of my body. Sore and bruised around the knees obviously, but... y'know. "This is a... uh... relatively new development, for me. Three months, off and on. Guess it's pretty obvious that this isn't... normal, hey?"

Might as well fess up to some of this. I mean... they had potions, probably weren't totally out of the loop on magic stuff and curses. What were those things I was supposed to say did this? Curse Bitches? Curse Hags?

"You'll have to tell me if this looks okay,” Arthur’s voice interrupted me as he held something up for Zora to try and look at. I couldn’t make it out from here and just went back to typing in my login.

"You've got it my man,” she had replied.

"Water. If you need it." The bartender's voice almost made me duck, I just hadn't been paying attention while I was lost in App UI. “I can get you something stronger but.. yknow. Something something, hydration is key.” Shivers came up my spine as his hand slid closer and closer until it bumped the hoodie, then he lifted up a glass of water. Just... a regular glass. A regular glass for me, anyway.

"Thanks," I said, almost in awe as I took it, looking the thing over. It was... basically perfect. God, it was cold, and fuck, did you know bodies need water? Apparently my ass had forgotten. I chuckled at the offer of something stronger. "I might take you up on it once I'm a bit more sure I don't have like, a frontal-lobe bleed or something happening," I replied, looking up at him just in case he could see me. I didn't want to be rude. "I hope you're ok with small bills."

A chuckle bubbled up in Arthur at the 'small bills' comment, deep and low and caught in his throat, though still perceptible in its reverberations. I smiled as wide I could manage with my lip busted, the barkeep seemed like an alright guy, despite the pretty cool demeanor. Maybe it was because I was standing and felt-- don't laugh-- bigger, but I was feeling a lot better about this situation despite, y'know, The Horrors.

"Don't worry about that." He chuckled with a gargantuan wave of his hand, moving now to get Zora a similar glass of water. "We're not here to exploit someone in a situation for needing a stiff drink."

"Even if they weren't going to cover you, I would have you taken care of." Zora nodded, her hand still stiff on its side behind me.

"Listen, you don't have to foot any bills, this is more than enough," I said, finally finishing my email address and moving on to the twenty-four character password, Christ why do I do this to myself? "Besides, you don't know, maybe I'm an expensive drunk."

I hoped my laugh didn't sound as nervous as it actually was as I tried to cover my worries regarding what might be waiting for me beyond the login screen with humor. I took a moment a few characters in-- I had to alternate to the numbers and special characters keyboard, and varying amounts of capital letters-- to step back and just lean against Zora's hand again. It was still there, just waiting, and I figured she was being nice enough about it, it seemed awkward if I kind of just ignored it.

I couldn't tell if it might be like, cologne or something she put on her wrist, or if she had some kind of lotion... maybe it was just a really nice soap? Her hands smelled nice.

Hey, look, I found the new weirdest thing I could notice about a person. This stupid curse was a fresh hell every single moment, huh? I made the easy decision to never say it out loud as she offered genuine sympathy for my stupid condition. I took another drink of water.

I was going to comment on it. I was going to just straight up say it was nice to have a glass my size.

Then I realized what it obviously meant.

Beyond just... magic potions in the first aid kit, this place was obviously the kind of bar that might cater to uh... well.

They might know a guy who's neck I wanna wrap my hands around and squeeze.

Probably not the best time to bring that up, though.

I continued to type, taking breaks to let the throbbing in my hand and shoulder subside a little before going back for more. Above me, Zora looped back around to my earlier comments.

"Three months of sporadic shifting sounds like an intense pain," she said. "It's only really obvious in that you have a phone and don't seem to have wings or pointed ears or... anything else that would set you apart from just being a human person. Well, that and that you probably hadn't planned your day around ending up in a footpath."

"I'd be way less mad about it if I had wings as a trade-off," I muttered with a dark chuckle, moving back to hammer in the rest of the password. "Shifting is probably a better word for it. Me and my friends call it zonking, it happens kinda fast. I didn't know there was like, a term for it."

"Mm, the words we use are important." Zora nodded, being pretty polite about but it still watching me punch in letters kind of intently. I guess I couldn’t blame her, Cal and Gem also loved watching me do things. "Zonk feels like a shot fired at you. Something that yanks you down and keeps you there. Shifting would imply that it's a state of being you go back and forth between. It probably feels more like the former, but language used will eventually shift your perspective."

Arthur's voice caught my attention fully as I slapped the log-in button, only remembering afterwards that it probably was disrespectful to do that to someone else's phone.

"We've got a few people who kick around here with similar problems." Arthur added in, sliding a frosty tumbler of water over to Zora, the vibrations and movement causing me to tense and shiver. "I mean, different reasons as to why they have those problems, but same general flavor none the less. Either way, you're welcome to join the Set 3 club if you want."

"A few?" I asked, blurting it out as the rumble of the glass of water sent another shiver up my spine. He had good aim at least, for a blind guy. "I... I had no idea anyone else had ever gone through something like this."

Shit, maybe they really didn't have this glass for faeries or whatever. Maybe there were people dealing with bullshit like me! Maybe there's a whole damn support group of Completely Innocent People Victimized by Faerie Bullshit just hanging out in this bar on the reg!

"Are you really trying to businessman yourself into having a new regular?" Zora was kind of scolding him.

"Never in my life," He responded flatly, unamused by the implication, "-but I can understand the value of knowing there's a place out there with a chair ready for me if I need it."

I had no idea how to take the information, honestly, but I didn’t have a lot of time to try and make a road map to what I wanted to say before Arthur seemed to clue into what I had said.

"Wait, you didn't know anyone else went through things like this?" He asked, head tilting a slight as he considered that idea. "Shrinking and variations thereof is like.... there are a good number of curses that will have that in as an element if not the main show. I'm not saying you see it every day but we've got.... what... maybe three? ..Is it three?"

"Four if you count that temporary thing that happened to Yancey,” Zora chimed in.

"I don't. He got over that quickly, but... yeah he was happy for set three." Arthur chuckled, "It's not a formal club though, I think only two of them even know each other."

"We could put you in touch if you needed someone to talk to." Zora added in, "Knowing people who are similarly afflicted can be a real godsend.”

I stared up between Arthur and Zora as the little spinning loading wheel kept doing it's thing alongside me, my neck benefiting greatly from all the cold magic goo I smeared on it earlier. "It... I mean... if there's a club of people who have to deal with this horseshit, yeah I'll happily sign up. He can businessman me into being a regular all he wants, though I might need to look into carpooling."

“Welcome to Nakahara’s Cellar, then,” he replied flatly but with a faint hint of a smile. I smiled back, even if he couldn’t see it, and then the thought really slammed into me.

"Aw, shit," I swore, groaning loudly. "My car. Oh damn, she's not getting home today." Poor BillTron was sitting in the work car garage-- at least it was free parking, I guess?-- and the keys were about 12 times too small for the ignition. Damn it. "I'll need to find a way back downtown once I'm not small anymore and--"

The sudden, aggressive vibrating of the giant phone next to me sent me jumping back against Zora's hand with a gasp and a few uncomfortable grunts of the force of the, admittedly soft, impact.

My absence from the apartment had uh... been noted.

"I am... I am so sorry about that. I'm usually so much better at leaving the thing on mute,” Zora said, her own voice sounding like it was coming down from the fright of the phone going off as well as her arm reached over me carefully, the other hand curling around me protectively as she muted the phone entirely.

"Explains a lot." Arthur muttered, prompting a snap and unseen point response from Zora.

"Are you always this wildly popular or... is it to do with the obvious?" Zora asked me.

I stared at the screen from the comfort of her hand, not even really aware that I was just... letting it hold me like that. If I had had a moment to get my senses about it, I might've realized that I was being super awkward to her or something, but instead I just... stared.

The notifications just kept rolling one after the other as this phone dealt with the new log in and trying to catch up. The group chat had 47 new messages, I had dozens in each of the individual chats from Cal, Sheri and Gem-- Cal and Gem really racing for the top there, apparently-- and even had a handful of messages from Mak, which was... I think it might've been the first time Mak's ever private messaged me outside of a group chat.

"It's... uh... I--"

I felt myself just sinking back into her hand more, my legs just wanting to give out underneath me. They were pissed. They were already pissed and they were going to be so much more pissed when they found out what happened.

I didn't even want to go back to the phone to read any of the messages, the short couple-of-word previews were... more than enough.

"I... didn't tell anyone I was going out today," I managed to admit after rattling my tongue uselessly around my mouth for a little while. My mouth had had no interest in forming any words and my mind didn't seem to want to try and let our thoughts out.

For a second, anyway.

Then...

"I didn't think-- It's been months and I really didn't feel like I needed to because normally this doesn't happen again so fast after the curse ends and I thought I had at least some days before this happened again, but I just-- It only ended this morning, I should've had time! I should've been able to just go get my haircut," I started blurting out, staring at the stupid bubble icons of my friends' faces and the stupid meme we had used for the groupchat like they were all about to start yelling at me personally.

"I should've had time to be able to just go out and be normal and not need some babysitter who doesn't even want to deal with me or something and this-- and I know! I know it happened anyway! I know I fucked up but like... I thought I could have just like, one day, you know? But they-- they don't get it they don't know what this is like, they all just feel annoyed-- I know it!-- they're all annoyed that they have just deal with this and they don't even think about how bad it actually is."

I reached up to wipe tears away out of instinct, only to find they weren't there. Maybe I was finally done, maybe I was finally out.

"The fucking bastard that did this to me better be choking," I snapped bitterly, stepping forward to switch myself to 'appear offline' as fast as I could before they all saw me online. They were apparently out looking? Or at least Cal was. Cal's message preview mentioned something about 'heading there as soon as...' so I could only assume.

My body sagged, eyes finally dropping to the bartop as I wrapped my arms around myself. I had had so many questions and so many other things to ask. For a brief, beautiful flash, the idea that these people might know something or actually know somebody who might know anything about what I'm going through and could maybe help... hell, even knowing this place might be someplace I could come even if this happened again??

But now I was staring at the static faces and one dumbass pixelated meme of the people who were going to spend the next eon yelling at me about what an idiot I was.

And I felt like I deserved it.

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