Bluffington, Minnesota

C a s s i u s

Diving into the lake, freezing water shocks my warm-blooded body. Holy fuck, I wish it was summer. I mean I could set the water on fire that would warm it up. It would also piss off everything else in the water. Nah. Bad idea. I’ll have to deal with it. Slipping hands one after another in an easy free-style, I start losing feeling in my toes and fingers. Lazily kicking across the lake I end up on the other side and flip onto my back. Damn is the sky blue. At least clouds dot the sky to disrupt all that blue. Hmm, right now seems like a lovely opportunity to think of some deep thought or something. Nah. Why entertain mind-readers with thought provoking shit?

Fingers brushed against my calf causing me to flail, sink, and push away from whatever caressed my poor leg. Oh. Just a dumb water nymph. Glaring at the stupid nymph, he beams smugly for startling me. Rude jerk.

“Go seduce some fishermen and drown them ,” I grumble.

“That’s a misconception, luv. ‘sides they never set a lake on fire,” he retorted.

“Okay, that was one time! One!” I scowled pulling myself up onto sun-warmed rocks.

I only want to unwind without interacting with people. High school already shoves enough of that down my throat. Luckily, something else caught the dumb nymph’s attention, don't really care what did, leaving me to lay on the lovely warm rock. Mmmm, warmth. I stretch out my arms and yawn. I could use a nap after a lengthy string of nights dedicated to scrambling to finish homework instead of sleeping for a sufficient amount of time. My eyes shut with delightful relief from being open for who knows how long.

"Are. You. KIDDING. Me." Flynn yelled as he fell facefirst in the mud and rubbish after tripping over the root of a tree, stumbling, staggering, and losing balance before greeting the ground with his face. He kept lying there for a while, ranting about how stupid and dumb forests were before getting up in shock at a weird sound he couldn't really place. With his face covered in dust and his hair decorated with leaves, the boy watched it's surroundings before realizing it was just one of those stupid dumb animals that probably laughed at him for tripping over something like a root.
"I swear to god. If I find that deer I will tell him who rules the forest here." He ranted more and more, rubbing off the leaves and dirt that he took with him during the fall. And like nothing happened, Flynn skipped further, towards god knew where.

Lola was meditating to try and find out more of her past lives, and so far, got nowhere. Maybe she needed to ask her master for help... No, he would be too busy with his work. Her master worked as a doctor and used magic constantly, so when he wasn't working, he was resting.

Lola sighed contently, when BAM! She heard some one ranting far below her. She looked down, and saw some pointy-eared guy skipping away after ranting about stupid forests for a while. As she climbed down carefully and continued watching him, he seemed... Odd to say the least. Her years of knowledge told her this was a forest elf. And as Lola watched, she began to straighten her sweater.

Nothing compared to the soothing sound of earth beneath Ollie's boots. After parking her bike next to a tree and covering it with the tarp, she'd set out through the forest, backpack in hand, stocked with a lunch of fruit and sandwiches, a blanket, several machine parts, a construction manual for a miniature robot figurine, and tools.

Swinging the bag lazily, Ollie shifted into a skip-step, not fully skipping, but not at all walking. She hummed a cheerful tune, running her fingers across the tree trunks. She was at ease within the depths of the forest, peacefulness radiated around her. Her feet carried her to the edge of a lake, where she sat down to spread out her blanket before unloading the rest of her pack. Ollie collapsed onto her back, picking up a sandwich and cracking open the construction manual. Ollie nibbled casually on the ham and cheese as she read, putting headphones in and setting her iPod to shuffle.

C a s s i u s

“Cassius, you should wake up. You’re getting a sunburn,” a voice murmured near me as a finger prodded my sides. Eyes snapping open, I jerk up into a sitting position, which caused me to almost slide into frigid water, if it weren’t for my delightful familiar to save me from my cold, watery demise.

“Woah, what did I say about startling me?” I said while simultaneously rubbing my eyes and yawning my soul out. She rolled her Caribbean sea eyes.

“Not too, but you’re skin’s turning pink and I don’t think over exposure to sun is good for a human.” Finland said before standing up. Oh, woah. She. Goddamnit. Finland.

“Clothing! You need them! You’re not a fish right now!” I shouted scrambling up; motivation surged through my veins as I dived into cold fucking water. Stupid fish. He probably swam here somehow. I don’t know. By the time I’ve reached the other side of the lake, Finland decided to borrow my jeans. Okay. Genitalia out of sight. Thank the heavens and hells and everything merciful.

“Do you do this to shorten my life span?” I asked mournfully. Dragging myself out of the water, I collapsed on the gross dirt with gross little bugs running all over. Ew. Ew. Ew. Abruptly standing up, I wipe off dirt clinging to my chest and flailed around hoping insects didn’t crawl onto my body.

“Yes. Although, you basically do that on your own sooooo,” he laughed at the spectacle that I am.

“Oh shush your face. I’m awesome,” sticking out my tongue before shaking out my wonderful Spiderman-symbol shirt and tugging it on. He nodded with fake sympathy and patted my arm.

“Come on. There’s more people heading over to the lake and I don’t think you want to be around them, plus you have a history test tomorrow,” he said. I placed my hand over his mouth and shushed him soothingly as if calming a tense animal. Finland didn’t seem amused.

“You know me so well dear, but we should get food instead. I like food.”

“Or you could do homework. You did bring your backpack with,” she said.

“But but but food. It’s essential to living!” I said.

“Homework.”

“Food.”

“Homework.”

“Food.”

“Homework.”

“Food.”

“Homework.”

“Food.”

"Food."

"Homework...Damnit! That's cheating," I said while he preened smugly.

L E O P O L D • P R A T T

Leopold was half tempted to keep walking, but instead he slowed to a stop and updated his Twitter account. ’Ugh. Another hippie prick thinks he’s gonna save the world. FML #fuckinghippies #treehugger #nobueno’ Rolling his eyes, Leopold turned to face the irritating voice and audibly groaned. An elf. It just had to be an elf. Of all the species in Bluffton, it was a tree hugging, nature fucking, elf. Just his luck.

Leopold let his irritation show and cocked his hip to the side, “Now listen here, kid. I come from a long line of powerful satyrs, you know, forest deities, so don’t you go lecturing me on how to treat my own goddamn domain.” Yeah, if one could call a gross-ass forest they spent as little time in as possible their domain. “And for the record, I don’t care about your little Snow White issues; just ignore the vermin if you don’t wanna hear complaints.” He shifted his weight to the other hip, brushing his bangs back from where they stuck out of his beanie before resting his hand on his jutting hip. “’Sides, a squirrel or some shit’ll eat the cig before it causes any damage, See? Problem solved.” The ‘like, duh’ was heavily implied in his unimpressed stare. “Now go hump a tree or something.”

Arlathina Dalisia

I couldn’t believe that the ride from hell was over. I brushed a few stray, blonde hairs behind my ear and stood, walking from the interior of the escape pod. Before me, there stretched a forest, very similar to the ones on Isteria, but there was something different. The colors here were less saturated. On Isteria, the hues were so vivid that you could practically taste them, making this environment pale in comparison.

My pointed ears twitched at what sounded like speech, a short distance to the west. Given what had just happened to me, I was not sure whether or not I could trust anybody, but remaining alone was not an option. My assailants could be tracking the location of the escape pod right now. Frantically, I weighed my options.

ΩΩΩΩΩΩ

The earth delighted to feel my bare feet, or was it that my feet delighted to feel the bare earth? Either way, the crunch of leaves would have exposed my location to any enemies. This was intentional, of course. As I crashed through the troublesome branches and undergrowth, I began to moan and feign a sob. The halt of the aircraft had resulted in some minor abrasions, and I knew that I must play them off well. They were right ahead of me now, a group of—according to my best estimates—three people; two male and one female.

They spoke in a language that I could not understand, but this did not deter me from seeking their aid. One of the many special qualities of Isterians was their exceptional skills in the craft and understanding of language. After these beings spoke a few sentences to me, she would be able to analyze, deconstruct, and then reconstruct the language, thus learning to speak it—or at least be able to get my general message across.

They were very close to me now, and this was when the true actor began to shine. A tad bit overdramatically, although I honestly wasn’t that worried about it, I crashed through the last wave of foliage. Upon seeing the trio, I crashed to the ground in a limp pile, my body shook by fits of coughing. I was hoping that my performance would illicit the appropriate reaction.

C a s s i u s

Huh, Finland packs more muscle than she looks. I should probably walk like a normal person instead of letting myself be dragged by my familiar, but homework is her goal. Homework is the enemy. She is the enemy. But she is my friend. No. She is the enemy. I am conflicted. I sob. “Where are my shoessssssssssssssss?” I whine because that is the only option, to annoy so much she abandons me in favor of sanity.

Finland simply waves my lovely, old-as-fuck oxford loafers. I should purchase more shoes; only owning one pair of feet-protectors that are older than my father does not produce functional citizens. Hah, like I am a functional citizen. Finny, wonderful Finland carries all my stuff, drags me over gross dirt and probably massacres bugs with my poor body. “Ya know. One time, I saw a snake vomit a half-digested bird into the lake. I don’t know why I still swim there. There’s also those stupid nymphs, well one of them is really stupid and annoying and has freckles. I like his freckles. They’re cool. Freckles are cool. Why don’t I have freckles? Why don’t you have freckles? Why is everyone at the lake? I’m tired,” I ramble fluttering the arm that isn’t being dislocated from its shoulder spot.

“Cass.”

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

I follow her suggestion because I am an obedient friend. The ground kisses my legs with scraps and cuts; the air pollutes my ears with people talking then coughing. Who coughs anymore? That is so overrated. Trees. So many trees, trees are everywhere. I miss the lake. Dirt is replaces with dried leaves and rocks, sufficiently increasing the pain of the foliage grating against my princess-sensitive-soft-precious skin. Birds chirp pleasantly, squirrels did squirrelly things; it is all very pleasant and nature-like. I hate it.

One moment it was just Finland and I accompanied by people noises and nature white noises, then it was a bunch of people and Finland and I. Awkward. “Finland,” I hiss totally discreetly, “I forgot to wash the paintbrushes,” which is code for “we need to leave now there are people here and I don’t like people”.

Unfortunately, my darling Finny felt some motherly urge to help the person coughing and abandoned me, I quickly pick myself up paranoid insects would swarm my prone body. How could he do this to me? She pats the cough pile of person’s back, asking in her sweet tone, “Hello, do you need to go to the hospital?”

Rolling my eyes, I note besides coughing girl, lingering the area are pointy-ear guy, sassy gay satyr hipster, and creepy looking female. Lovely. Goddamnit. Leo is here to stalk the stupid nymph no doubt. I hope he loses interest in whatever this is. I hope Finland loses interest actually. Silently, I will him to flounce over to the lake, but, alas, my will is not powerful enough.

Lola sighed and sat down, not paying attention to the two males. Until a female came over, she paid no attention whatsoever until she came coughing up dust. Lola asked the person patting on the girl's back, "Shall I take her to my father? He is a doctor." She looked at the girl. "If that's fine by you."

Xavier entered the scene. Looking around, he immediately ran over to Lola, embracing her in a tight hug. "Lola! What are you doing here? Why didn't you leave a note when you left?"

"Woah, Dad! I DID leave a note, I left it on the fridge." Lola sighed at her overly protective father, forgetting the girl for a minute.

Arlathina Dalisia

Arlathina looked up to find a pair of blue eyes greeting her. "What happened? You look pretty beat up." Arlathina opened her mouth to answer, but the man standing over her interrupted. He revealed himself as Dr. Xavier Goodman, and the being radiating magical energy behind him was... Lola.

Arlathina liked that name, how easily it rolled off the tongue. She tested it out with her own mouth silently, her lips savoring the strange feeling that lingered. The man gathered her up off the ground, informing her that they were heading towards his office. Arlathina wasn't sure what an office was, but it sounded nice; better than lying on the damp forest ground. She didn't struggle as the man looped his arm around her waist. She let her limp head swivel back and forth on her shoulders, occasionally offering an incoherent mumble to the pair escorting her.

Events had moved so quickly that Arlathina didn't have the time to observe the other members of the group. In the corner of her eye, Arlathina could have sworn that she saw a goat/human hybrid of some sort, but then she let out a snort. What a silly thought. It mattered little now. They were all fleeting, like a distant dream. All Arlathina cared about was that the pair were taking her away from the escape pod. Away from her assailants, her history.

When Arlathina was very young, she was instilled with a strong sense of morality. One of the sins in her planet's ecopagan religion was duplicity, but she felt that she had little choice. Verolissa. That will be my name. And I have no memory of what happened to me before I came to this planet. The decision had been made.

Ferinel watched the people in her woods. 'What are they doing here?' she thought. She had just finished her breakfast of a plump brown rabbit when she smelled the newcomers. Curious, she had climbed into her favorite tree and saw all she could see. She wasn't too far away from them and she carefully observed their actions. There was a strange girl, and a man. Fen smiled with delight, for she didn't think they had seen her.

L E O P O L D • P R A T T

”Now go hump a tree or something.” His glare was interrupted by a loud and ear-abrading noise. Which is unfortunate because that was a pretty impressive glare. Leopold, doing his best to look a mixture of irritated and sexy, the latter not that difficult considering, turned his glare to… Another elf. Nope. Nope nope. Two elves in one day? Leo needed another cigarette. “No way. I am having none of that. I’m outta here.” He lifted his arms and ducked his head before turning back to the path towards the lake. It was his ‘I-give-up/surrender-please-let-me-be-I’m-so-done’ pose.

Now he was going to the lake, hopefully uninterrupted, to bask on a sun warmed rock and watch the sun set (and hopefully maybe watch his favorite shirtless-nymph swim around). That was his intent anyways, until he walked straight into a fleshy blockade. Leopold stumbled back and threw his head up to find the receptor of much of his disdain; Cassius. His body was smeared in mud, it hung by clumps in his hair, leaves stuck out in impossible ways from improbable places, he looked utterly atrocious. Leo didn’t know whether he wanted to laugh or puke. He did neither, instead looking down at his own shirt. He blanched and a shrill and gaspy whine pulled itself from his throat. His shirt, his favorite white V-neck Solid! Smeared with ungodly mud and filth! Leo sputtered, tugging hopelessly at his shirt and pointed at the devil’s spawn. “I-you where’d- I- You!” Fucking hell! How could he face his hunky nymph looking like this? “You-you hooker!” His face flushed with anger and his face scrunched in unpleasant ways. The anger practically oozed from his soul and Leo wished uselessly for it to pierce through the witch’s body. And of course his ears chose that moment to twitch and shoo away the disgusting winged insects that infested the air. Leo wanted to stomp his hoof in frustration, he hated when they did that. It completely shattered his menacing appearance.

Leopold wanted to scream. Or cry. Or maybe both. Just, damn it all! All he wanted was to watch hot, dripping wet men in peace. Was that too much to ask‽

C a s s i u s

One moment I stood happily waiting for Finland to stop helping the elf lady, the next moment my face was smashed with hair and disgustingly perfumed horns. I stumbled back and gagged theatrically. Oh, it was the hipster looking moderately ruffled by my oh-so-sudden appearance. His features crumpled up into a nasty look and an ear-splitting noise erupted from him. I cringed. Why was the satyr so angry? I arched an eyebrow; eyes flicked over him…oohh, the mud that clung to me migrated onto his shirt. Eh, it gave the shirt more character.

“I-you where’d- I- You!” he spat out waves of anger crashing against me. Jeez. He needed to chill out.

“Me!” I exclaimed pointing at myself nodding. I grinned as if encouraging a toddler to recognize me. Leopold was hilariously fun to rile up and provided fantastic blackmail when he was angry. Too bad Finny had my cellular device blocking my ability to capture this wonderful moment photographically.

“You-you hooker!” he snarled, face crimson with fury that should alarm my sensible being, but the insult was laughable—I mean—I snickered a little. Scrapping some irritating dirt off my cheek, I flicked the residue onto his splotchy face with utter nonchalance.

“I don’t remember getting paid for having sex. I don’t remember having sex with anyone,” I furrowed my eyebrow in mock contemplation. Shaking my head, a few leaves fell to the ground. Man, I feel gross and in dire need of a shower—I wondered if Finland was done being a good citizen helping the “sick” person. The female elf’s aura sure didn’t feel tinted with illness.

The cold chill of the lake sent shivers down Ollie's spin, tingling her fingers and toes. Her short brown hair fanned out around her head but when it began to tickle her shoulders and neck, she swam back to shore, dug a hat from the recesses of her bag, and, after furiously shaking it to be sure there were no bugs, tucked the wet strands inside as best she could. She could tell it looked sloppy, so instead she took it off, shook her head a bit to get the wet hair back in its rightful place, and put the hat on backwards, its flat rim pointing towards the ground. The ants had cleared away from what she could tell, so, she slipped back into her shorts and boots, but not before emptying the contents of her pack, shaking everything off, and putting everything back so she could make her way back to her bike.

Her toes felt slimy and cramped in her boots and Ollie made a mental note to dry her feet before ever trying to wear boots. She enjoyed the scenery though. It was unlike life on the road; picturesque, breathtaking. There were downfalls to the scenery, like the irritating feeling of bugs crawling across her skin, despite the fact that there was probably nothing there at all. It made her think about all of the little skin crawling things that were more or less a fragment of the imagination. At least on her precious motorcycle, the wind was too ferocious for her to hear her own thoughts, much less daydream. It didn't matter much to her, because she was often sure that her mind played tricks on her, like, for instance, she was positive she could see a boy sitting by the edge of the lake cleaning the hooves that extended from the furry mass of his legs. The closer she got, the more realistic it looked. She felt compelled to at least say hi.

Someone's obviously never heard of a razor, she thought, picturing a razor getting tangled in the thick fur and giggling foolishly.

"You look like you've had a rough day," Ollie said, plopping down beside him. It briefly occurred to her that she probably looked a mess, but it was nothing compared to his dirty shirt and the hatred and anger that radiated from his persons.

Lola followed Xavier to the clinic he worked at. Xavier eventually arrived at the clinic and set the pointy-eared girl down in a room, putting her on the bed. "Looks like I'll need to call up the beekeeper. We're out of honey to make potions." He said as he turned to Lola. "Try to not dissapear on me again. Also, try to make this girl feel at home." Lola nodded and stayed in the room as Xavier walked to his office to make the call.

"Hi. Are you feeling any better?" Lola asked the girl on the bed, standing against the wall next to the bed.
-
Xavier called David and waited for an answer.

The varnished oak chair supported the solitary creature's form quite nicely, the cushions preventing his circulation, what there was, from being impeded. This same feeling of comfort could not be said to be shared by his mind. Tax forms, bank receipts, and inventory lists filled the top of the poor creature's desk like a flood and were boring him to no end. Each letter addressed to 'David LeFleur, Pacific Fields Apiary' was another dull piece of paper sent by people who seemed to take pleasure in making others miserable with boxes to fill in, lines to sign, spaces to leave blank, and formulas to follow.

Leaning back in the chair, teetering on the edge between falling forward or backward, David scanned his office for the umpteenth time to try and purge the phantom sight of black and white from his eyes. It went from the walls painted a baby blue to the shelves lined with curios and knick knacks to the grandfather clock sequestered to one corner with both digital and analog clocks surrounding it. The window let in the light of a bright sunny day, still in the bright light of a mid-day sun. A curse, being beautiful while David was to be held prisoner by bonds of ink and graphite.

The ringing phone brought a welcome distraction from the multitude of papers that David was filling out. He had finally glimpsed a rescue helicopter that would take him away from the flood. Surely he should not ignore possible business.

Not even bothering to get up from his desk, a slick tentacle darted towards the cordless phone and whipped it back into David's other hand. Punching the button to answer like a self-medicate button on a morphine drip, David put it up to his ear and tried to sound like he wasn't thrilled by the diversion from the current monotony.

“Pacific Fields; Bluffington, Minnesota. You have money, we have honey. What can I do for you today?”

Ferinel jumped down from the tree. "Sup?" she said to the group of strangers. "The name's Ferinel, but you can call me Fen."

"Hello, I will need 1 large bottle of honey delivered to" Xavier said the address of the hospital. He was hoping that they delivered, and if they did, soon.

“So that's the local hospital and... Xavier? Did something happen? You sound worried.” David stopped writing down the receipt for the honey delivery, hand still and hovering over the box to indicate the tax. His gaze slowly turned to a shelf of leather bound tomes worn by centuries of use and easily recognized by a label-maker sticker underneath each. 'Exorcisms' was taped to the shelf underneath a few books that stared at David with accusatory runes.

“I called you earlier to make small talk and you were out. Is Lola alright?”

"Hey, I thought you'd recognize me sooner or later, David. Lola is fine. I found an elf in the woods, who I'm trying to heal. But for the potion I need honey. Sorry I missed your call." Xavier scratched the back of his head. "But that's what I was doing, looking for Lola in the woods, and I found an elf."

“You found an elf in the woods? Well, I'd be surprised if you hadn't. I'll be there soon, I've got some fresh honey just processed and ready to ship. I'll grab a bottle of that so your potion will be a bit more potent and then deliver it personally. Stretch the legs and all that. I'll be about... ten minutes. See you then.” After allowing Xavier to give some passing good-byes before hitting the 'End Call' button on the cordless phone, David left his desk in it's messy state and walked out the door into the employee lounge.

An unplugged air hockey table sat in one corner, unused for weeks and dusty as a result. Two old and worn couches sat near a television that showed nothing but the snow of static and a large icon showing that it had been muted. A lone employee, human by appearance and wearing the company vest with 'Mark' on the name badge, sat on one cushion and was slumped backward with drool slowly leaking from his mouth. David nudged the employee's foot with his own to rouse the sleeping youth, smirking as the boy woke with a start.

“That's for the princess,” he said, still half way in the dream. Looking around the room before finally seeing David, Mark remembered where he was and immediately looked nervous.

“Yes boss?”

“Mark, I'm going to be making a delivery to a Dr. Goodman. Anybody comes trying to find me, you tell them I'll be back in thirty minutes.”

“Uh, sure boss.” The boy, a new hire, looked nervous about the responsibility laid upon him but nodded in understanding.

David continued on into the storage area and plucked a bottle of honey from where the fresher batches were being stored before being shipped to fill orders across the state. The bottle was shaped like a Faun, specifically Pan playing his flute. That Pan would use his likeness as the bottle of his brand of honey still struck David as overly narcissistic to this day, but that wasn’t something you argued with the boss about. You just used the bottle and tried to make the best damn honey you could.

Finally reaching his car, David opened the trunk and removed a fold-up bicycle that he used for deliveries, putting the honey into a messenger bag and putting that over his shoulder. He mounted the bike and pushed off, heading for the hospital and towards Dr. Goodman. It was only a mater of minutes.

Xavier waited outside for the honey. As soon as he saw David come up, he got out the money from his wallet and began to walk over to David.

Seeing the good doctor at the entrance to his practice, LeFleur slowed down and hopped off his bike. Pushing the red fold-up along by the handle bars and trying to catch his breath, LeFleur closed the fleshy hole behind his shirt collar he had been breathing through during the bike ride so he wouldn't be wheezing after the speed run. Never fun to swallow bugs, he had thought to himself when he came up with the idea.

“Good day Xavier. Who needs the potion? Anyone I know?”