psychoshenanigans | Gathering Seeds // Canon

After her impromptu "lesson" on shape-changing, Trixie wandered through the park for a while. She felt restlessly empty and her face was a mess, so it only took a couple of near-misses with other humans and ten minutes of sitting on a park bench for her to realize that all she really wanted was to go home.

She didn't want to be around anyone, but she also didn't want to be alone. She wanted room to think, but didn't want too much room, otherwise she might just spend the rest of the night crying.

So she patched up her makeup as well as she could, hoisted herself up onto her glittery platform shoes, slung her purse over her shoulder, and headed out to find Irahl. She knew he was having a hard time too, for different reasons, about different things--but he was quiet, and wouldn't try very hard to cheer her up, and maybe he wouldn't mind hanging out with her a little like they used to do, when it was just the two of them.

She eventually found him chasing squirrels, or whatever, in a remote part of the park. Just her presence was kind of the antithesis of a noble hunt, so it wasn't hard to get his attention and convince him to come back home with her. It helped that she promised there would be blankets, a peanut-butter Kong, and absolutely no shenanigans for the rest of the night.

The only interruption was a quick stop at the grocery store for some steaks, gummy worms, and canned coffee, but that was totally worth it.

So now they're both settled into Trixie's pink-and-purple apartment. She tries to keep it pretty clean, but she hasn't been able to help the multiplication of blankets and pillows, or the perpetual dog smell, or the scattering of toys and bones that never quite make it back into their pretty pastel baskets--but she secretly kind of likes it this way. Since it's just them, she's changed out of her costume and into a t-shirt and too-short shorts. She scrubbed her face and retired the day's wig, and now she's semi-sprawled on her bed with her phone and the gummy worms from earlier.

After a couple of hours of relative quiet, she finally puts down her phone, sending Irahl a quiet little mental "hey", in the hopes that maybe he'd be up to talking a little. Or letting her talk while he listens. Or even just humoring her and pretending to listen--she'll take what she can get.

"...So, uh, can we... talk a little, about yesterday? I know it's been really overwhelming, but I don't want to just leave you on a really awkward note."

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So that's... basically a yes, then. She laughs and pets his head, scratching affectionately behind his ears. Her pink lacquered nails really come in handy for things like this.

"It's fine, Irahl. You didn't do anything wrong, all right?"

That's another thing that she really wanted to get across... Though it's much easier to do so now that she's in a good mood.

Okay... he maybe finally glances over at her, because he maybe would like to shake the feeling that he had somehow done something wrong. Or, at the very least, he has no idea how he should be reacting and that is something that he needs to know at all times.

Not that he trusts Trixie's opinion or anything, but... he might trust Trixie in this case.

She doesn't laugh at him for glancing over, because she was already secretly worried that the others had filled poor, new-to-being-a-human Irahl with all the insecurities and societal pressures that most humans don't get until they're teenagers. She remembers going into all of this and feeling like shit for most of her adolescence, and she does not want Irahl to have to feel like that too.

"Yeah, don't worry. Seriously, you were fine."

And she really was watching out for him, to make sure nothing too embarrassing happened to him. Her mind-tone is playfully self-deprecating as she shrugs up her shoulders.

"I mean, if anyone knows about the wrong stuff to do, it's me."

There's a mental grunt of agreement (did anyone know that could even be a thing?) because she does make a good point. When he glances forward and away from her this time, it's thoughtful instead of avoidant.

"I just didn't know..." Anything, really, and maybe that's what is digging at him the most.

The alcohol had been new, the freedom and fun of it had been new, letting himself follow what had caught his interest because he was being mindless about it... and then that had led him into a talk that he definitely had not expected. He'd had no idea that there were implications and social clues and facets of living layered into everything going on that night. He feels stupid that he'd walked blindly into what had apparently been a minefield. He feels embarrassed that he might have given signals about himself and his intents that he hadn't meant to. And he feels mortified that he might have to consider it further.

If all of that could be summed up into vague clouds of impression, that's what he finishes his statement with in her head.

She gets it, or at least the gist of it. She was there, once.

Now she pets his shoulders again, partly for her friend's comfort--but largely so that she has something to fidget with while she tries not to stumble over any of her own feelings. She doesn't usually have "real" talks with people without lots of drinking, first.

"That's okay. That's why we practice. I mean, I didn't know anything about anything when I started going to clubs and stuff..."

She was very small, then. For some reason, that's the feeling that gets attached to everything else she's saying: subtle notes of helplessness in a sea of much larger, louder, confusing things.

"...But I caught on pretty fast, and I think you would too. Eventually you'll know everything. And then it'll feel pretty good to be, like, in control of the situation wherever you go. You know?"

Which is her end goal, even if it is not what other people normally go for.

"Besides, the nice things about spaces like that is that everything is really impermanent. So even if you fuck up really bad, it won't actually matter because everyone's already moving on to the next thing."

The New-Moon does her job in knowing how to speak his language, at the very least. He follows her path of logic better than he's followed any of the other advice he's been receiving lately, and is finally able to relate it to anything at all from his own life experiences.

The settings and goals might be completely different, but the process is familiar. There's a long pause, full of thoughtful space, before he breaks the mental silence again.

"You would make a good hunter.

Her reaction to that, after all of that quiet space, is a sputtering laugh. Earlier today, she would have shot that down immediately--and she almost does, because she does not consider herself traditional "hunter" material.

But after today, she's inclined to look at things a little differently.

"I guess I'm good at, like, hunting for cheap drinks?" She scrunches up her face, "Does that count?"

"You know the land, the habits of the creatures there. You know what to look for. You know how to get what you need from it."

So, in other words, yes. And he must be serious about it if he's using so many words, very intentionally put together like that, in her head.

"Wow," she says out-loud, mostly because that is a lot of words for her quiet friend to have used all at one time. He must really feel strongly about it.

And while that could have kind of horrifying connotations to a normal human, Trixie just smiles and pats Irahl-the-good-dog on top of his head.

"See, with an attitude like that, you'll be just fine! And I'll show you the ropes." She stretches out her arms and flops playfully over Irahl like a tiny, ineffectual pillow. "I wouldn't just send you out there to drown."

Don't worry, he'll make up for all those words by going silent again... mostly because he is not about to answer that statement with anything definite. Disagreeing would invite an argument, and agreeing would invite outright chaos.

So, he just groans as she flops on him--the complaint equal parts about what she is proposing, and melodrama over the weight she's physically dropping on him. Trixie really brings out the vocal curmudgeon in him, apparently.

"Uh-huh..." She kicks her little feet from where her knees are propped on the ground. She's already made up her mind, of course, that they'll try it again with a different mindset and a little more knowledge of how everyone interferes around here.

Which reminds her of her own intervention meeting from earlier today, which was the other half of why she abandoned her gummy worms to come flop over onto a wolf twice her size.

She might as well tell him. It's the perfect time for a segue-way, and who knows when they'll get another chance without Belle and Nef listening in on them... But despite all of that, and her newfound perspective on the whole thing, it still just... kind of... makes her a little sick to her stomach to think about.

Irahl can feel her deflate a little as she changes gears, eventually slinking back to resting her head on his side.

"So, speaking of embarrassing things..." She fidget-pets him again. "Guess what I did today..."

Gathering Seeds // Canon

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