The sun shone beautifully through the leaves, and Sue couldn't stop watching.
The grinding of recently crushed grass under the wheels of the cart, combined with the gentle ambience echoing through the woods, made for a perfect backdrop to stop thinking for a while. Sue wasn't sure how long she sat there, recovering after the visit to the next village over, just letting herself not ruminate on anything whatsoever. Not knowing was the point; that much she could tell. Along with the fact that, now that she'd consciously thought of her thoughtlessness, its meditative trance was well and truly done for.
Assuming it had been such a trance and not an anxious bind in the first place.
Either way, no matter how little she'd spent thinking in the last few hours, few days, few however long it took for the cart to orient itself in such a way as to have the sun snipe her directly in the eyes, she was awake now. As close as she got to awake, at least. Not full consciousness, not yet, but enough for her to notice her surroundings. And to her relief, these were some comfy surroundings indeed.
The cart almost looked like it had enough space for her to lie down, but only almost. She'd have to contort herself in such a way that just sitting up was the much better option—and that's without even considering everyone else she was sharing it with. Spark lay on her lap, pressing her quietly panting snout into her stomach, trying to keep her aching under control. Her pain was perceptible, but so uniform in its intensity that Sue had unknowingly tuned it out until then.
Thistle sat leaned against her, her massive hat-shaped growth surprisingly soft even as it pressed into her ribs. Beside the little psychic, Pollux was taking a nap. Either that or he was just keeping his eyes closed; he was the sole member of this ragtag group Sue could not know for sure short of poking him to test.
On Sue's other side, Bluegrass was splayed across the length of the cart. Most of his body was hidden under the tarp bunched up in the corner, and his snout rested next to Spark's tail. Whether intentional or an accident, Sue didn't know, but the faint smile the sight brought to her face would've been the same either way. It also would've been just as effective in making Thistle perk up. The girl stretched her mostly hidden body, let out the highest-pitched yawn Sue had ever heard, and... said nothing. Maybe she needed to first link up with Sue; maybe she just had nothing to say yet.
I can at least try to find out one of those things, though.
The Forest Guardian closed her eyes and did her best to tune out everything her sixth sense perceived aside from her invisible connections with others. She wasn't sure whether she saw anything, but after probing the air between herself and Thistle with her mind, she most certainly felt it. More than she'd bargained for, at that. The link reverberated through both of them like a plucked guitar string.
If she'd remembered anything from her grade school music classes, she would've even been able to tell what note it had made. Not anymore, though. Not unless 'pleasant' also somehow qualified, hiding between the stave's lines all along, away from the prying eyes of C's, D's and other G's.
Thistle turned to give Sue a look like she'd been slapped awake with a crossword puzzle, cutting off that thought before it could degenerate further. "Sorry," Sue whispered instead.
The little psychic found the response satisfactory, sitting back down and leaving Sue's wandering mind free once more. Content with examining everyone in the immediate vicinity like the still life they were, her eyes turned elsewhere. Daystar and Snowdrop flanked the cart, having run out of topics to chat about ages ago and now just handholding. Palpable excitement emanated from the icy performer, tangled in so many other ideas that Sue had no hope of telling them apart at a glance—Daystar aside, of course.
Daystar, for her part, was just kinda hungry.
Even though the weasel choosing to place Snowdrop down instead of carrying her the entire way home hurt the romantic part of Sue's soul, the sight directly ahead of her was there to help offset that unimaginable pain. Granted, Lilly was even prettier from the front, but between the grace with which she dragged several hundred pounds of wood and critters, the gorgeous bloom on her head, and other assets, there was more than enough there to soothe Sue's gaze.
Thinking of it as a gaze made her then feel self-conscious in turn. She was unsure whether this would count as already bad staring, even worse leering, or something more uncouth still. Before she could include the ever-important factor of how the target of her attention actually felt about her in her calculations, her mental formula had swerved to another target altogether.
Namely, herself, in all her vaguely disappointing self. Well, maybe not disappointing. Maybe just tense and in dire need of stretching joints after sitting motionlessly for north of an hour. The subtle stretches and shoulder rolls that followed had succeeded in loosening her up, while also utterly failing at the 'subtle' part. How Daystar had noticed them while looking away from Sue, the Forest Guardian had no idea. How Pollux also did so with his eyes closed, she wouldn't even dare theorize on, lest thinking about the conundrum blow her head clean off her shoulders. To her eternal and unwavering gratitude, neither of them reacted with more than amused glances, at least.
Now that Sue had shaken off most of her bodily funk, she could actually pause and examine the parts of it that still remained. The ones that would need more than just five minutes of exercise to work through. The ones that were kindly waiting to be consciously engaged with, passively bringing her mood down in the meantime.
Conscious engagement with herself was a tricky thing. Sometimes even impossible, depending on how thick her mind had layered the various coping rituals and dissociation on any given day. For whatever reason, the latter two hadn't woken up yet, giving Sue the perfect opportunity to focus on herself. Not just as a person, but also as a magical flesh puppet sitting in the back of a cart being dragged by a very pretty plant lady she was crushing on.
I still don't like these hands.
A part of her had hoped she'd get used to them in time; that the choking cloaks of routine and normalcy would eventually smother that particular strain of bodily dysmorphia. Either that hadn't happened yet, or it would never happen. And of the two, Sue was betting on the latter. The lack of a well-defined distinction between her wrist and her hand was annoying, and her hands being this thick was inconvenient, but it was the fingers that were actively upsetting. And of them, the fingertips were the worst.
Having the green, pointed skin bend at the slightest force applied to it felt wrong, deeply so. There were bones in her fingers, but the final one ended almost an inch short of the actual fingertip. It was almost like she was wearing oversized gloves, except here she could feel the slack material hanging past the end of her actual fingers in loathsome detail, her human mind constantly shouting that she had broken half the bones in her fingers.
The more analytical splinter of her psyche chimed in with reassurance that this was actually fine. Both because this was just how this body worked, and because psychics would limit her need for physical, manual dexterity. The rest of her wanted to throw this entire cart at said splinter to shut it up, and scream that the adults in the room were actually trying to discuss things now. One adult, really. Who didn't really feel like an adult. Or like a Forest Guardian. But she was both now.
Three-fingered elephant in the room aside, the rest of her current body ranged from ignorable to intriguing. The third bend in her leg was odd, but then again, it was roughly in the same spot as her ankle would've been back in her human body. She barely felt the additional ribs she'd had all along. Her upper arms looked very flimsy but had just about the same range of motion as her human arms had, maybe a bit more. Her brain was doing such a good job at censoring the unruly green hair in front of her face that she'd forgotten it was there until she'd reached to feel up said face. The massive horn piercing her torso was inconvenient, yes, but if she got one of those slatted back chairs that Sundance had for herself, ninety percent of her complaints would disappear overnight.
Some parts she had been consciously ignoring, true, but others she genuinely cared little about either way. Acknowledging the distinction was helpful. Going from one extreme of ignoring all her discomfort to the other of blowing up every single difference between the bodies into a Big Problem would've been even more distressing.
And then, there were the parts she was unsure about. For all her twenty-two-and-change years of being a girl, then a woman, it wasn't something she'd ever given a lot of conscious thought towards. Sex-ed classes made that fact unavoidable, and annoying classmates in secondary school made it occasionally intolerable, but for the most part, it sat in the same part of her head as the knowledge about which city was the capital of Scotland. A fact so banal it might as well have been a dusty axiom sitting on a shelf.
However, just as she wasn't in Scotland anymore, she wasn't in a human woman's body either. Hell, she had no idea how feminine this current body even was in the first place. It was female, that much she knew for sure, but feminine according to the Forest Guardian beauty standards? She had not a shred of a clue. Then again, neither had Lilly—she hoped—so maybe worrying about that entire topic was just a mental strain best avoided. At least, that seemed like an obvious conclusion until she'd redirected the question inward. Not how feminine she was to the eyes of other Forest Guardians, but how feminine she was to her own, markedly human gaze.
Less so than she'd remembered, honestly. Sue blinked afterwards at how instantly the answer came to her, as if she'd been subconsciously keeping track of something she has been overlooking, intentionally or not, for however many days she'd spent in this body. In truth, she was afraid to even prod the already-present answer, lest it spoil her mood even more. But after all, better a landmine detonated safely than tossed into the nearest sandpit for someone else to handle in due time.
I can't even pretend to be angry at myself for coming up with these dumb thoughts anymore. That's just who I am, isn't it?
Either way. She was less feminine than she used to be, but it wasn't like that 'before' had ever been much to write about to begin with. Her personality hadn't ever been girly, her looks were often androgynous at best, her bodily curvature was firmly in the second-lowest quintile. And yet, she still missed the latter more than she had consciously realized until now. Not even just the usual bits that stupid boys went crazy over, either. She missed her thighs, that bit of pudge on her stomach, being able to grasp her arms and feel something more than just skin and bone. She missed the softness. It was so much better for physical affection, the little of it she'd had in the past, than her current angularity.
But it wasn't like the other parts of her hadn't become more typically girly either. She felt a pang of guilt at the thought, at realizing that she'd gone from pining for a career as a code monkey in some startup that would go under before it was old enough to read, to spending so much of her time interacting with children, especially her—her own children. And then a second pang at realizing she genuinely liked this better. An internalized voice screamed at her she ought to feel bad about this; that this was a betrayal of all the freedoms the suffragettes had fought for or whatever.
Thankfully, just this once, she was confident enough about what she wanted to toss that entire errant strand of thought so far into the distance that Thistle's eyes followed it as it flew over the nearby treetops. Because, yes, she wanted this more than what her past life was shaping up to be. It was her right, her choice to want this, just for herself.
There was a purpose to all this she'd so sorely missed in the past; the knowledge that she was actually helping others instead of just contributing to a piece of shitware before dipping with her paycheck. And who knew? Maybe, if she were to stay here long term, she'd come up with more to do for herself than just looking after her kids as well.
She knew better than to assume that coming from an industrialized society meant she was smarter than anyone here. If anything, she felt just about ready to make the exact opposite assumption. That didn't mean she knew nothing useful, though, or that she couldn't learn something practical during her stay here.
Duck, maybe I'll even become the very first construction safety inspector in Moonview.
The thought made a smile creep onto her face as she slowly stroked Spark's stomach, soothing the girl's pain at least a little. She was still so torn about whether the kit was doing alright, with everyone else acting so blasé about her pain, Pollux aside. If that group hadn't included Sundance, Sue would've considered raising a lot more noise about it, but she trusted the older vixen enough to wait and see. Even if it was growing increasingly difficult.
Who knew, maybe this was the part of the whole woefully misnamed 'evolution' process that Sundance had described to her in the past.
Not something to worry about just yet, either way. Sue's hand continued on autopilot as she thought inward once more, trying to wrap a bow on this entire messy mental thread. Physical changes weren't the best; environmental ones were pretty good. The question remained: would she choose to go back to her old body if given the opportunity, all other things being equal? Why, of...
...
'Yes' had made it all the way to her throat before becoming caught on something, making her whole body go still. There were, after all, things she hadn't considered yet, and which threw a curveball into this entire calculation. One of which was her very point of view, her sightline looking over the heads of everyone walking around the cart.
Sue realized she quite enjoyed being tall.
Granted, her current height in this world was more analogous to being seven or eight feet back in her world as opposed to six, but she was hardly unique in that regard either. Half the builders were easily taller than her; Sundance just barely peeked above her; and Astra downright dwarfed her, but she was still taller than most beings here. And that ruled. She sure preferred that over being just a crumb over five feet in a world where ninety-five percent of her outdoor existence involved people looking down at her. Physically, not figuratively. Okay, maybe figuratively too, but definitely physically.
Really hope Astra is doing alright.
Once the somber thought had passed, Sue looked downwards. For all her silent pondering, there had been one rather large part of herself she'd overlooked entirely until now, one that would heavily play into her mental calculus of which body she preferred. Why of course, that unusual skin, dress, thing. It was hard to avoid with it taking up so much space, and all four of the kids around her laying down on it to some extent, but her conscious mind seemed eager to just pretend it wasn't there, evidently unsure with how to think about it.
It was weird. It was kind of gross depending on just what exactly it was made of; dead skin wasn't exactly the most hygienic material. And yet, it was also quite pretty, especially on Solstice. She hadn't had a chance to really examine her own dress, but if it looked half as nice and half as feminine as her mentor's, then it was definitely something she didn't want to let go of easily. No matter how inconvenient it might've been sometimes.
The star symbols carved into the pleats were far from the most glamorous things that could be done with it, if what Solstice had told her was right. Neither the older Forest Guardian nor the even older Forest Guardian that had paid them an unwelcome visit were good examples of that, though. In hindsight, she wasn't sure what Solanum's dress even looked like. Considering she didn't remember any of it, however, it was probably also plain.
Wonder why.
For how conflicted every other part of herself had made her, her psychics were unusually easy to reason about. She liked them. She loved them. It took mere days for her to grow so used to their presence that her first visit to Newmoon left her uneasy about being unable to sense its inhabitants' moods. The realization made her empathize a tiny amount with the Pale Lady devotees who had made so many night kins' lives hell, but she shunted that feeling well into the locker at the back of her mind. She'd dealt with it, so could they if they hadn't put their own comfort above the lives of other living beings.
Once she'd mastered them, her psychics would serve as a decent replacement for so many other parts of her. Telekinesis would take some pressure off her hands, which was nice and all, but telepathy would let her connect with other people better, something she'd been missing for oh-so-long, in this world and the past one alike. The flicker of excitement she'd felt at that thought didn't come without its own followup, though. Would telepathy itself be a kind of crutch? She knew it wasn't a full replacement for speech, but that wasn't the only part of it she was second-guessing. It let her easily walk around her own avoidance, her social anxiety, all the parts of her that had left her so disconnected from others back on Earth. Was that good?
It was helpful, sure, but was it good? Was it enough? Was it healthy for her to rely so much on that, and not on trying to work through those mental woes in the typical, gruelling way? Probably not, but did she even have a choice in this body—
*Chirrr, squeak SQUEAK!*
The loud cry coming from the side of the path jolted Sue out of the remnants of her focus, forcing her, and everyone else's, attention onto the being that had made it. They jumped from the nearby tree and landed on the stretch of path ahead of them, staring down most of their group with more than a little suspicion. They were also, to the amusement that Sue then forcefully tried to suppress, a squirrel of sorts. A sizable squirrel by Earthly standards, but still smaller than even Spark.
Most of their body was pure white, the fur surprisingly clean considering they had just landed on dirt. The only other colour on their body comprised blue ears and an equally blue, jagged stripe going down their back and tail, culminating in a few points.
That must be such an intimidating sight if you're like three inches tall.
Their beady eyes were jumping between Daystar and everyone else as they awaited an answer to whatever they'd just asked. For once, Sue wasn't alone in not knowing what in the world just happened, with most of their group radiating a similar level of confusion. The only exception was the one-armed once-bandit, her prosthetic hand tapping against the claws of her other hand as she tried to parse the other creature's words.
Wait, were they a wildling?
"No, no," Daystar finally spoke up after some more prodding from the squirrel. "No attack. Only..." she trailed off, sighing in exasperation. "Only food and other. No attack. Good good."
Sue had no idea whether it was Daystar's speech or Thistle's translation that was malfunctioning here, but judging by Lilly blinking repeatedly while trying to process the weasel's words, it was probably the former. Its intended recipient wasn't spared of trouble in response either, but instead of further confusion or annoyance, they started thinking hard about what to say in return, almost as if they were trying to crack a puzzle.
*Chirr. Squeak.*
"Yes," Daystar reasserted, gesticulating.
With that confirmation, the squirrel gave the entire group one more drawn-out, suspicious glare, and dove back into the underbrush beside the road without a second word. Daystar was similarly eager to get done with the conversation, gesturing for Lilly to get going again after leading by example. With everyone else—her girlfriend included—still unsure about what had just happened.
The group's collective conscious confusion churned and boiled, desperate to be free and find an outlet. Said outlet turned out to be the Forest Guardian at the center of the cart, her red eyes staring at Daystar as she verbalized the enigma on everyone's mind:
"Daystar, what was up with them?"
"Hmm~?" the weasel mumbled, looking over her shoulder as if she'd spent the last half hour daydreaming. "They just asked me what was up with all the commotion and folk coming from Moonview, and if it was some kinda attack."
The answer made grammatical sense and was even coherent, and Sue's mind was content to settle on it. At least, for the approximate seven seconds before her brain began poking holes in it from all the things that didn't make sense. That question would've only made sense if they lived in Newmoon, but Sue hadn't seen them on either this or the previous visit, and judging by Snowdrop's reaction, neither had she. The same was even true of the two kids coming to beside Sue, with Thistle giving Pollux a quizzical look and the latter shrugging in response.
"Do they live nearby?" Sue asked hesitantly.
"'Nearby' is a decent way of putting it~" Daystar chuckled under her breath. "They're one of the wildlings that moves about this wider area. I taught 'em just enough of our language to ask basic questions, but for the most part they're only content to stay away from either us or you."
Sue had to suppress a grim chuckle at being identified with Moonview, but that was a tiny, unimportant tangent compared to what Daystar's words implied. "Are there many wildlings like that around?"
"Why wouldn't there be? Getting to hang out where there are fewer predators without having to interact with those weird stationary people is pretty much a dream come true for 'em. You'd be surprised how many of them you can even recognize if you start paying attention~."
"How many can you recognize?" Snowdrop prodded, rhetorically and physically alike.
With our most recent guest, I can confidently say I can recognize two, one of them against my will.
Her girlfriend narrowed her eyes at being forced to put numbers to her bluster. However unimpressive they were. "At least a dozen, thank you very much~! Though then again, I only really keep track of the ones that want to have anything to do with us, even if it's just checking up on us or Moonview or barter. Sure didn't frickin' sign up for being our ambassador, but guess I've got no choice now, eh."
Sue chuckled at Daystar's words, though there was an element of genuine surprise in her tone. One that Lilly might not have consciously noticed, but had something to say all the same. "Awww! Trust you they!"
"Fuckin' beats me why me out of everyone else!" the weasel frankly admitted. Sue remembered enough of Daystar's backstory to share in her surprise; her own knowledge about the locals was far from sufficient to come up with a likely explanation. Could it be that they knew enough about townfolk to understand that any predators living among them must've given up their ways to join? But even then, there had to have been other, more suitable candidates, like—
"^Why not you, Miss Daystar?^" Thistle sheepishly asked. "^You're very nice!^"
"I shall take the compliment while continuin' to disagree about the fundamental point in question, thank you very much sweetie~" Daystar cackled. "Cuz even though that's true, I sure wasn't always like this, and I sure wouldn't have expected wildlings to assume I was their friend and not their reaper."
The point about the weasel's predation was unpleasant, but it was also well-familiar to most gathered. Bluegrass reacted to the news about as well as could be expected—namely, by curling up tight under the tarp and hiding to the extent his anatomy allowed. Lilly fared better, not exactly surprised considering the sheer size of Daystar's claws, but still put on edge somewhat. Daystar avoided commenting on the farmhand veering the cart just a bit further away from her, even though she really, really wanted to.
"What if they just don't know they should be scared?" Pollux brought up. "I don't think I've seen any others of your kin around here, Daystar!"
"You better not have, otherwise we'd have one hell of a threat on our hands~. But ya do raise a good point. S'pose they don't know how much they oughta be scared of me, while knowing enough about others to not show themselves. Ha, the Dark Lord knows Heather would be much better at this kinda stuff, at least if the wildlings didn't run for the bloody hills the moment she creeps over the horizon~."
Thistle could no longer even pretend not to understand why others would have such a reaction to her mom. It sure didn't make her any less bad to hear her discussed like this, though, however accurate it might've been. Sue's hand that crept under the brim of her hat to comfort her afterwards helped, as did Pollux's tickly fur pressing into her front, but they could only do so much.
Bereft of telepathy, Snowdrop had to make do with lesser senses, such as functioning eyeballs and situational awareness. With their power, she decided that nudging the conversation was in order. "Maybe, just maybe, they know you are trustworthy~"
Try as Daystar might to shrug off the comment, a faint blush still made its way to her cheeks. "Nah, can't be."
"But you are!" Pollux reasserted.
"That's true!" Rainfall added. Suddenly hearing her caws hadn't startled Sue nearly as much the fourth or so time it had happened, but she still yanked her head upwards in search of the bird. Her gaze jumped from branch to branch, squinting as it focused on the shaded parts. The crow-alike had to have been somewhere there, but where—"What are you looking for?"
This time, Sue could place the source of the sound much more confidently. Quashing her embarrassment, she checked the one place she hadn't thought about yet, and looked over her shoulder. And indeed, there Rainfall was, staring her in the eyes from head-on, directly behind her. "Uh, you," Sue mumbled, before swiveling her eyes back around towards the front of their group, including but not limited to Lilly's very pretty self. A self that was clearly trying not to laugh at what she'd just seen.
Of all the people to be a clown in front of, I think Lilly is one of the best choices. Heh...
With her face losing the battle against its blush this time, Sue tried to look at their surroundings some more, this time purely for distraction. A distraction that was only tenuously effective, but which also clued her onto something. "We're getting close, aren't we?" Sue whispered, recalling the trees around them.
"Very!" Lilly squealed. "Happy back Moonview?"
Sue was about to answer affirmatively before stopping herself. Would it come off as weird in front of the Newmoon guests? 'Oh yes, I'm so glad to be here again and not in that shithole' was just about the last thing she wanted to imply. The only reason for her to feel that way would've been Juniper's continued presence there, and it's not like the owl was limiting herself to any town in particular anymore—
"Yes!" Snowdrop happily answered, not shackled by a compulsive need to second-guess herself. "Can't wait to show you around Daystar, I'm sure it's changed so much since you were last here!"
Daystar smirked. "Oh I'm sure it's changed alright, but for any better? I—" she cut herself off, reminding herself that the only reason this was even happening was because Moonview had regrown some of its spine about the cruelties they had inflicted. "I hope so," she answered, her voice unusually quiet and pensive.
"Y-yeah, i-it's been growing so much!" Bluegrass hissed from underneath the tarp. He then whimpered, just realizing that he had given his own position away to the nearby hopefully-really-former-predator.
Said predator then proceeded to close in on him, and yank the edge of the tap from over him with her prosthetic hook. "Speak up, little guy, wouldn't ya~?"
"Y-y-yes I will! S-sorry!"
The contrast between Daystar's amusement at the scene and Bluegrass's seemingly genuine fear left Sue uneasy. She wasn't the only one who found the exchange unamusing, with Snowdrop giving Daystar a flat, half-lidded look once she'd turned around. Followed by a faceful of fresh snow at the weasel still not taking any of this seriously.
Her growled squeak at the prank was the perfect backdrop as the cart took its final turn, Moonview's edge emerging from behind the treeline. And more than anyone, Sue really needed to check up on how one particular kit was holding up. "Spark, how are you feeling?"
The kit exhaled through her nose, as if startled awake by Sue's whisper. She tried to pry one eye open in the Forest Guardian's direction, but all the light made her close it soon after. "H-hurts..." she whimpered.
Desperately trying not to worry, Sue picked up the lil' fox into her arms. Pollux gave her friend a concerned look and huddled closer to the Forest Guardian.
"Don't worry Sparkie, it's gonna be over soon," Daystar attempted to reassure. Sue was not reassured.
The bumpiness of the path getting replaced by a smooth ride of thoroughly packed soil perked her up—they had arrived. "Here we!" Lilly cheered, letting go of the cart and stretching her thin, leafy arms. The sight made Sue almost trip and fall face-first onto the grassy dirt below while she climbed out of the cart, but only almost!
She had successfully maintained at least that shred of dignity. "Thanks, Lilly."
One of the few I have left.
"^Thank you for the ride, Miss Lilly!^" Thistle quietly cheered, with Pollux and Bluegrass following in tow.
Once she'd shifted her grip of Spark to something more comfortable for her noodly arms, Sue was ready to head off back to Sundance—before her body interrupted her. Her leg ached. Not in the same excruciating way it did when she still had her full cast on, but it was still unpleasant, amplified further by their overlong march to where Heather had been hiding a couple of hours ago. It was bearable, just about. Sue wasn't sure if it was any better than continuing to lug the crutch around with her, though.
Too late for that now, isn't it.
Shaking that uncomfortable realization off, Sue steeled her mind for the remaining stretch between herself and the kit's home. Said steel then thoroughly rusted in an instant once she'd realized that walking alone wasn't the best of ideas right now. Not with the other group of guests around. She looked back at the rest of the group. Or at least, where the rest of the group had been moments earlier. The kids were gone; the cart was gone; even Lilly was gone. All that remained was Snowdrop and Daystar, the former busy excitedly talking about something with the latter.
Sue was about to link up with Daystar before remembering her reaction the first time she'd tried that. Not wanting any more claws shoved in her face, she steered the extension of her mind a bit to the left, touching the icy performer instead. The sensation made her perk up towards Sue, putting a pause on her excitement. "What matter, Sue~?"
"Yeah, uhh, where's everyone?"
"Places to go, think," Snowdrop laughed, the sound crunchy like fresh snow. "Lilly and Bluegrass cart to farms; Pollux and Thistle not wait with curiosity. Rainfall..." she trailed off, looking around. "Doing Rainfall things. I almost start show Daystar off. If others good it, I could her watch practice for next performance!"
The thoughts about the cuteness of said idea had to take a backseat to Sue's growing restlessness. She nodded anxiously, looking to the sides just in case as her breathing grew shallower. "That's, that's very cute, yes—"
Daystar's hisses and growls cut Sue off, drawing Snowdrop's attention. "Awful impatient someone not eager come here~. Apologies, Sue, she want us go. See you~!"
Sue's mind screamed at her to be a bother and interrupt the couple for the sake of her own safety. Alas, it lost against more than a decade of her self-imposed silent conditioning, leaving the words half-formed in her throat as she watched them head off. The knowledge that she was little more than a sitting psychic if she'd just stayed where she was kicked her butt into gear, though. A hiccuping, rusty gear that definitely needed someone to come in and inspect the transmission, but a gear all the same.
The racing thoughts reverberated in her head, making her simultaneously stuck in her own head and hypervigilant. Despite her best attempts to keep an eye out for the trio of looming threats, she'd almost walked into someone more than once. She knew where Sundance's dwelling was; it was just a few minutes of aching march. She could get there, especially if she stayed close to the busier paths. Sue could swear she heard people raise their voice at her a few times; what were almost certainly greetings were lost in the noise, only adding to how deafening it'd become.
She held Spark closer and closer in her shaking arms, the kit's complaints similarly unheard. It was only after she'd spotted a colourful fixture on the side of a building that she finally paused, if briefly. If for all the wrong reasons.
It was one of the shrines she'd watched Kantaro put up a few days ago. Most of its tassels were quite worn; some were even outright missing. The wood remained in good condition though, especially the figurine of the goddess herself, prominently displayed and just so happening to be angled towards Sue. She locked eyes with the wooden Duck, deflected the stray thought wondering whether it could even float on water, and tried to get going again—
But she was just a little too late.
Sue flinched at the intense, freezing sensation of a psychic link being forcefully established with her, almost falling onto her knees there and then. Her body turned, trying to find the source of the connection, but it didn't have to. The words that followed spoke for themselves.
"^If it isn't the broken mutt Snowmoon is clinging so pathetically to.^"
Solanum's gaze was intense and flippant alike, a spoonful of hatred mixed into a cup of careless disgust, the excess spilling onto the rest of her face. Sue took a step back once she got her bearings, stunned at the intrusion and then at the words that followed. For what it was worth, she could take insults, especially from someone so loathsome. Her anger and fear fought for control, but the latter was still much too powerful to be undermined, leaving her staring like a deer in the headlights.
"^Oh dear, it appears it noticed~^", the other Forest Guardian continued, her venom making Sue's limbs feel weak. This place's laughable shrines were much, much less interesting than examining her errant daughter's scavenged find—and even that was perhaps too generous a description for the shambling moron at the other end of the narrow path.
Sue barely had the presence of mind to notice the absence of Solstice's other parent, utterly failing at coming up with anything in response, her feet thoroughly rooted to the ground.
"^What does Snowmoon gain out of it, I wonder. Out of this... thing pretending to be one of Her chosen?^"
However easy the earlier harassment had been to dismiss, this one chilled Sue to her very core. Her body froze solid as she dared lock eyes with Solanum for but an instant—a trespass she was swiftly punished for with a scalding pain in her eyes and forehead, forcing her to look down onto the dirt and bend a knee. Even that pain paled compared to the realization those cruel words implied.
Solanum knew what Sue really was.
And for whatever reason, didn't particularly seem to care about Sue's blossoming anxiety, continuing her dispassionate, smug harassment. "^She probably thinks that can make up for her sins, doesn't she.^"
Sue had no way of knowing what Solstice's mother meant by 'sins', but there was one idea her own mind was more than eager to provide. And as much as she wanted, needed to dismiss her mentor's treatment of her as just her wanting to make up for what had happened to Aurora and the night kin, she couldn't. That shallow, cruel, transactional lens was a possibility, however disturbing. However repugnant. She couldn't know, only hope—and so she hoped, the intensity of her thoughts forcing an amused chuckle out of Solanum.
How incredibly pathetic.
"^Solanum, dear, wouldn't you say this is a tad harsh?^"
The much softer, masculine voice distracted both Forest Guardians enough to let Sue recover, holding Spark closer to her chest as she forced herself onto her feet again. She barely made out the few people around her, worried and afraid and lacking the confidence only a good mob provided. Certainly not brave enough to intervene there and then.
With her eyes no longer burning, Sue could focus on the intruder and confirm the hunch she'd had earlier today—her skin dress was entirely plain, a clean trim aside. However brilliantly the blue tattoos on her top half shone, they couldn't make up for the emptiness of her bottom half. Especially not without the understandable reason Solstice had for why her dress was empty, one she put up with despite the obvious pain it'd brought her. Maybe it was just the older Forest Guardian's preference.
Maybe it was something else.
"^I apologize for my wife's strong words,^" Luneth said calmly. "^You obviously aren't some night kin beast deserving of scorn.^" However mild his delivery was, something about it still left the once-human on edge. Sue tried to sense if there was any genuine warmth in his words or soul, a wellspring of care from which actual concern could flow.
The yellow-furred psychic wasn't done yet. "^And even they, loathsome as they are, are merely an unfortunate plaything of Fate, are they not? Deserving of the Pale Lady's wrath, surely, but also of pity—for they were merely cursed to be this way. And you, stranger, were not. However muddled your blood might be, it is blessed and priceless all the same.^"
Solanum left Sue angry, but Luneth left her disgusted. She wasn't even entirely sure why that was, in the absence of his wife's active, inflammatory vitriol. Perhaps its lack was even worse, though; a cruelty motivated not through basal feelings but with calculated depersonification. Through treating them, and her, like goods, like slabs of meat being measured on an antique scale with built-in skull calipers, whose value and owed respect was determined solely through the price they could fetch.
Like father, like son.
And yet, there was still a crucial difference between the two of them, a deference that Luneth dripped and Nightbane demanded. Whether it made anything better, Sue didn't know.
And Solanum didn't care. "^Hmph. Hardly. It is not even a mutt, truly. Something else, something hideous wearing a Pale Lady chosen's flesh, and which will never be anything more than that. Disabusing it of its pretenses would be the merciful outcome here.^"
Sue shook, desperately hoping nobody else heard Solanum's words. The fringiest of silver linings was that Luneth had clearly taken his wife's words as hyperbole, his exasperated sigh born only of the intensity of her vitriol rather than any actual disagreement.
"^And you're enjoying it, aren't you?^"
Sue's breaths grew shallow at being directly addressed by the other Forest Guardian, her eyes affixed to the worn grass underneath them.
"^Enjoying being treated like a doll for Snowmoon to cope with the punishment she'd justly earned—^"
*caw, CAW!*
The croaked, piercing sound startled all three of them, freeing Sue's mind from several tons of pressure she hadn't even been consciously aware were present. Rainfall was there, perched on the edge of a nearby roof, and capturing Solanum's attention whole. Sue watched as the older Forest Guardian's eye twitched, her smugness souring into a grimace more vile than she thought their species could even put on.
All the while, all the anger Sue'd felt build up earlier surged. She was afraid; she was terrified. But more than anything, more than her being treated like living garbage, she was furious at how these two, Solanum in particular, were treating someone she held so dearly. Her breaths grew faster, her fists clenched, even if she was in no position to throw any punches.
"^How. Dare.^" Solanum's fury built up, brilliant energy lighting her eyes and shoulders.
And then, it was diffused, redirected. "Her name is Solstice." Sue's words were quiet, a bitter murmur rather than a boastful cry, but their recipients heard them all the same.
The sneering scoff she drew from Solanum was all Rainfall needed to get out of there, her cries echoing through Moonview's quiet streets. "^That brat might very well think that, but it is not, you mockery of Her chosen,^" Solanum muttered, downright growled back, all the earlier pain and pressure on Sue's body returning. Her knees buckled underneath her, forcing her onto one knee, then the other. "^No matter how deep her delusions run, Snowmoon is her only name.^"
Despite the ratcheting tension, despite the pain, Sue wasn't ready to yield yet. Not with Spark's warmth, not with the righteous wrath in her heart. "It. Is. Not!"
This time, there was no hateful response, not with words. The burning, crushing pressure silently intensified, and before Sue knew it, she was being laid out on her side, mouth open in a mute cry of pain, barely able to even cling to Spark. She felt her tormentor's mind as easily as it felt hers, saw every strand of her resentment in vivid detail, heard the echoed, angry cries of the onlookers—
And then, much closer, much clearer words, no less cold than Solanum's had been. "Don't. Touch. Her."
Sue pried her eyes open. Daystar's claws were less than an inch away from Solanum's neck, her body wound up and ready to spring. For a split second, the fear that Sue had felt was mirrored on the older Forest Guardian's face, a fleeting understanding of just how close she'd come to death. Only for that split second, however.
The snarl that replaced it sent Daystar reeling with an agonized cry, her natural and prosthetic paws alike leaping to her head. However rebuked the weasel's action had been, it was enough to get the bystanders moving again, and Solanum knew better than to overstay her welcome in such circumstances. "^This entire wretched place will regret its heresy, and that I promise.^" Her words were roaring, fading into loud, manic laughter—before it disappeared in a psychic flash, together with both of the intruding psychics.
The hunting, panicked cry that followed couldn't have belonged to anyone but Snowdrop. Sue watched as the weasel leaned against the nearby wall and then on her partner. Meanwhile, she regained feeling in her own body, aching as it still was, before picking herself up onto her feet with the bystanders' help. She looked down at the fiery kit in her arms, finding her no worse for wear—however little that reassured her.
Snowdrop expressed her own share of concern towards Sue too—and to her surprise, so did Daystar. She was even less keen to make a mistake while her temporary language teacher was recovering from a psychic attack, connecting to the floating ice lady again. Said lady wasted no time. "You okay, Sue!? What they do to you?"
"I-I'm fine," Sue half-lied, regaining her steady breaths. Her body still hurt, especially her side and knees, but she felt the pain fade by the moment. "Th-they startled me, and I was too terrified to run." It was an admission Sue would've felt a lot more ashamed of normally, but considering the circumstances, not even her own mind could afford to go hard on her. "Sorry you had to intervene like this, Daystar."
After first waiting a moment for her partner to respond, realizing she couldn't understand Sue, and then passing the words on the verbal way, Snowdrop forwarded the answer. "She not mind, neither I. We glad they not hurt you, pieces of..." Snowdrop let out a haunting, angry cry, the air immediately growing colder around them. It didn't last long, deflating into her usual, uncertain calmness moments later. "Apologies, I... nevermind. Either way. Where you headed to, Sue~?"
A part of Sue wanted to reassure the freezing ghost, but she'd need at least twelve other parts of equal magnitude to manage the mental breakdown she felt building up inside her.
Sorry Snowy, all hands and psychic tendrils on deck.
"Straight to Sundance's den. W-would it be okay if you—"
"Of course we accompany you~," Snowdrop cut her off. However shaky and emotionally turbulent her smile had been, it was genuine. That much Sue could tell for sure.
She just wished knowing that had made her feel better. "Cheers."
With the shambling quartet getting their move on, there was nothing that could stop Sue from delving into not just what Solanum had said, but also what she knew. The accusations towards Solstice were reprehensible, the disdain towards Sue was shitty, but it was the thinly veiled implication that Solanum was aware of Sue's real identity that made her heart race. The only silver lining was that she clearly thought little of it. Not as something that she could use as a rhetorical weapon against Moonview as a whole, at least. She would've definitely used it with the bystanders just now, if so.
That helped precariously little. Even if she was too preoccupied with Solstice to use that knowledge as a deliberate attack against Sue, that didn't mean it couldn't inadvertently leak out. And that raised the question: what if others knew? Not just Solstice and Sundance and Willow, the latter of whom she at least trusted not to hurt her, but the rest of the town? She didn't know. But at that point, it was just a matter of time. And maybe, just maybe, it was time to take that harrowing truth into her own hands, even if just to preempt Solanum.
The idea terrified her, frankly. However much she knew Moonview would either learn on Solanum's terms or on hers, that didn't change the reality that she could only speculate about what the consequences of that knowledge would be. She remembered Heather of all people reassuring her that most wouldn't care aside from Solstice's clan, and if even Solanum only saw it fit to use as a rhetorical jab, then maybe she was really blowing it out of proportion.
At the very least, she should probably be more open with people she already trusted. For how much Solstice and Sundance had grown to know her, she still hadn't been entirely honest with them. They knew about her once being a pink, hairless ape, but not about the visions she'd been having. The oh-so-important dreams, with asshole deities, other asshole deities, and some divine schmucks that were actually helpful.
For all her worries about interfering in the reconciliation between the two villages, that seemed to be more or less a done deal by now. No matter what rhetorical fumble she could even theoretically make at this point.
Ducking fuck, this leg smarts.
And her two mentors were hardly the only people that deserved more honesty from her. Spark, Lilly, Joy, Twinkle, the very couple beside her. No matter how much the younger members of that group even could understand the full implications, they deserved to know. Deserved Sue not lying to them anymore, by omission or not. Would she actually manage, have the spine to confess right away? No, she wasn't in the mood to kid herself like that. But sometime soon, that was more likely, if also hopeful. She could do this. She trusted them.
She didn't trust herself particularly much, though, and that was where Solanum's other comment had struck true. For how easy everything else she'd said was to dismiss as seething bigotry, the assertion that Sue would forever be an imposter hit her right in the soul. No matter how much Solstice cared about her, that wouldn't make her a real Forest Guardian, would it? Wouldn't bless her with the symbols of their bond with their goddess. Truthfully, Sue couldn't care less about the deity in question, but Solstice did.
Would Solstice forever think of her, at some level, as a weird stray and not a real Forest Guardian?
"Sue, we here."
Snowdrop's mellow voice shook Sue out of her bodily autopilot. The shadow of Sundance's elevated dwelling steadied her heart somewhat, and she turned to the couple beside her. "Thank you both so much for, for looking after me. And earlier, f-for giving me a hand with, w-with—"
The sentence was cut short by Snowdrop's ear-hand gently grasping Sue's shaking one, its cold unusually pleasant. "All good Sue, promise~. Daystar told me while walking over, she would love much more that fucking bitch than just stick claws out. Stay safe, Sue~."
"I-I will! See you around!" Sue's enthusiastic wave made Snowdrop giggle, the sound especially pleasing to Sue's ears. She'd suppressed the blush that threatened to show up because of it, but it was a narrow, nigh-pyrrhic victory.
Right as she was about to get over herself and make it up the stairs to Sundance's dwelling, something yellow in her peripheral vision caught her attention. Not Luneth, no, something with much, much nicer associations. A handful of dandelions were shyly peeking out of the grass right against the wall of Kantaro's house. Sue thought back to the ones that Twinkle had picked out for them yesterday. Theirs was in a rough state, Joy's had been destroyed, and her own moved to replace it. Some fresher, less damaged ones were in order—especially with Twinkle hopefully waiting for her in an entirely new outfit.
Sue's leg and back ached, but up the dandelions went. One for Joy. One for Twinkle. One for herself, however easy it was to overlook herself in... everything. And last, a snap decision, one for Lilly, the next time she ran into her. Granted, it'd be nothing compared to her all-natural flower, be it in appearance or the pleasantness of its aroma, but it'd be a cute gesture. Something in common between all of them.
Beyond them all having wound up in this place from far, far away.
With the flowers in hand, Sue made it up the stairs. She was about to pry the door open a bit and see what her kids had been up to, but Spark's ever-more-audible pain made her just go for it and walk right in.
Twinkle's new outfit was mostly complete, though still missing some parts. One of the ears wasn't finished yet, Sundance's orange psychics still in the process of putting it together with the help of a couple needles and spools of thread. The tail similarly hadn't yet been stitched into the main body, but at least it was already finished, lying next to the sleeping Comet on a nearby pillow.
For all the parts still missing, though, the costume already looked great, especially the kinda-bobble head above Twinkle's main body. The ghost themself was itching to get into the new outfit, even if they went back to their previous one right after because of Sundance's gentle words.
"M-mom!" Joy's hoarse voice called. The girl picked herself up along with her drawings and took off towards her. Sue's thoughts bounced to thanking Sundance for immediate translation, and then back to the toothy tyke beside her, excitedly running up to her with several sheets of paper in her tiny hand. "L-l-look!" she forced out, sticking the paper as far up into the air as she could. Still too far from Sue's eye level to make out most of the detail, but a charcoal drawing of a group of figures didn't leave many possibilities for who said figures could be.
As excited as Sue was about her kids' antics, the other child in the room needed more immediate attention. "These are great, sweetie! I-I'll look at them in just a moment, okay? Spark is feeling really bad right now," Sue calmly responded, looking up at the kit's mom.
"Welcome back, Sue. Took you a while, didn't it?" Sundance knowingly greeted, picking herself up into a seating position and patting a free pillow beside her. "Close the door and get comfortable."
The thud of the door to her mom's den, the many steps on its stone floor, the creases of fabric and fluff as Sue first sat on them and then Joy and Twinkle sat in her lap—Spark heard them all, increasingly delirious, too pained to even rest. And then, she felt her mom's warmth around her, her sore self carefully laid down on her legs.
Followed by her gentle, loving touch. "It's time."