pyrighteous | [OOC] Folkmore IC Inbox

[Casey's quick to shake his head. This is why he'd wanted to clean the place, but his dumb weak body kept wanting to pass out. Lackluster. He should have done better. The bloodstains on his back that get Hunter's focus are all dried and a little crunchy at this point, centering near his shoulder where the stump had rested, and there are no injuries to be noticed aside from his arm.]

No... it's not mine. [Certainly not all of it.] Sensei- Leo- the fae cut his arm off... I brought him back here. [He's rambling a little, thinking of a half-dozen different things that still need dealing with.] I'm sorry- it was the closest place, I didn't know where anyone else was...

[He's sorry but also not sorry for turning Hunter's newly-gained home into a war zone. Nothing to be done about it now; with confirmation that Hunter also got hit, he starts trying to tug at the armor to see those wounds. They'll need more bandages- his supplies are dwindling after Leo's treatment but they should have enough, it's almost morning, they can get more- but he makes a frustrated noise trying to do this one-handed. Why won't his arm move yet!? He's so useless right now.]

I need to- Hunter, help me, I need-

[He needs to keep working, he needs to fix this. Everyone needs to be okay.]

[ Crunchy bloodstains are gross, sure, but they're much better than fresh. And certainly better than ... well. Hunter goes pale at that. ]

Leo? Is he - alive?

[ Forget their home, Leo is Hunter's third confirmed friend and if the turtle is DEAD he's never going to forgive himself. The arm is clearly going to be bad enough if it's gone. Hunter's seen his fair share of prosthetics in the Isles, but he's not sure he could make a replacement? Heck, he's VERY sure he can't make a replacement without his uncle's notes. He really needs to get a lot of things soon.

Anyway, he jolts refocuses on Casey's more imminent panic. Awkwardly, he starts to strip out of his outer layers. The cloak comes off first, and then the (now caked in mud) gold metal armor plates underneath. ]

Right - I'm really okay, nothing hurts -

[ He has two dried bloodstains, one on his torso and one on his right arm. For the arm, he pulls up his sleeve to show Casey - and stops short as it reveals something unexpected. It's still Hunter's, of course. All the tattoos are still there. But ... his skin is covered in swirls of thick blue-gray bark. ]

-- What the heck?

[ It's not painful at all, just stiff. ]

Edited 2023-11-16 12:13 (UTC)

He's alive. He's resting. [At least he can offer some good news. Or less-bad news. He'll take what he can get right now. Those with Leo in his room would have told him if something else had gone wrong. Leo's alive. He'll be okay.

Taking care of Hunter is a welcome task, literally anything to tend to his circle and stop his mind from spiraling is a good thing for him to be doing right now. His plan had been to check the injuries, fetch whatever supplies were needed to treat them, get them sorted. All those plans are derailed when the state of Hunter's arm is revealed. He stops short as that strange bark-like appearance emerges from beneath his sleeve, and Casey's hand lifts to tentatively brush over it, to make sure it's actually attached and not just some very stuck mud. Sure enough, though, it's skin. That's... it's not an injury, more like a transformation.]

Did- did they do this? I've never seen anything like this...

[His voice is hushed, horrified and worried. What did they do to Hunter? After everything else-

He doesn't know how to fix that. Bandages are useless against- what, magic? Fae spells? Rue might know...]

Alive is - is a start. Yeah. We can fix everything else, right?

[ Except maybe, you know, a missing arm but. Details.

Speaking of things that can't be fixed right away ... Hunter carefully removes his glove as well, exposing the rest of his hand. It's bark all the way down all right. Shoving the sleeve further up shows the same thing, as does tugging down his collar a little. Looks like the treesformation stops at his neck but presumably affects everything else.

He winds up twitching his fingers, morbidly fascinated. Becoming an illusory tree is one thing. This? Is totally different. ]

They - they must have. I wasn't like this yesterday. It doesn't hurt, though.

[ He'd been itchy and stiff all day after the daytime parade. Was that when it happened? He hadn't noticed when he was gearing up for their nighttime problems. After all, he's usually dimly treelike ANYWAY, so he frankly hadn't noticed the more obvious problems until they got like this. ]

[Casey's eyes are fixed to Hunter's hand, slowly turning it over, feeling the bark-like texture with his thumb. It doesn't hurt, he says, and he can still move, but that's a cold comfort when they don't know what this is, what the end result will look like. If it's reversible. If it can even be stopped. If it's going to continue until Hunter is entirely consumed by some kind of bark disease or spell or- or whatever this is-

He is trying, desperately, to repeat a mantra of calm over and over in his mind, but it's hard when what he sees in front of him could be yet another worst case scenario, when the problems of the night have compounded upon each other, and hours of fear and stress have done a number on his nerves already. This isn't in his wheelhouse of experience. Wounds he can mend, cuts and bruises can be cleaned and stitched, pain managed. He doesn't know what this is. He doesn't know how to stop it. He doesn't know how to fix it.]

Are you... turning into a tree...?

[His voice is quiet and small, wavering as one more problem is dropped on top of the already significant pile, an unsteady tremor passing through his body. Leo's hurt so badly, Donnie's mad, he rejected Rue, he can't reach Peter, can't fix any of this, he can't move his arm so he's been rendered all but useless in battle because he fights with a two-handed weapon- he can't even clean the damned floor properly- is he going to lose Hunter too?

Why can't he help anyone?]

I - I don’t know, I -

[ It sure looks like it, doesn’t it? The bark seems to be a part of him, and it wasn’t there before, and now that he’s thinking about it, Hunter is CERTAIN he feels himself getting more treelike by the moment. What happens if he turns into a tree? Will Casey have to plant him in the forest? Can he still go to school???

Breathe, Hunter. He wheezes a bit as the panic starts taking him over. He twitches his fingers against Casey’s hand as he brings the other one around and tries gripping a bit of bark that’s sticking up. It’s too hard with both hands being gnarled up right now, though. ]

H-help me! Get it off!

[ It looks like it might come off? Hunter’s clumsy tugging isn’t resulting in any immediate bleeding … ]

[The good thing (hah, good thing) about growing up as a child of endless war is you get very, very good at compartmentalizing your own trauma. On the edge of losing his own fragile calm, Casey watches Hunter begin to panic and it's a powerful motivator to keep up his own flagging forward momentum. he can't lose it now, Hunter needs help. And- and maybe he can't fix this, but- he has to try. He has to do something. And if he can't, then he'll find help. He can't fall apart now. He can't give up.

He swallows hard, stubbornly shoving his own self doubt to the wayside, and wraps his hand around Hunter's to keep him from tearing at the bark. That's a bad way to remove a scab. (He hopes it's just an effect. Just a simple effect or illusion or surface damage. Maybe they can- they can try-)]

Not here. Come on.

[He pulls, insistent, and leads Hunter to the washroom, pulling the other against him to let their proximity keep him calm, since he can only use one hand right now. He lets go just long enough to get warm water running in the sink. Once the flow is sufficiently warm, he plugs the drain and tugs Hunter's hands forward to dip them directly underneath the water- first one, then the other.]

Don't scratch it... if it tears your skin, you'll get infections. Let it soften up, keep it clean. Don't move for a few minutes.

[ Hunter follows obediently. Most of the time his instincts are bad for this kind of thing (thanks Belos), but this time? Shutting up and letting himself be led along is definitely the best thing he can do. He still twitches as they go, mind whirling around in the same frenzied circles. What if it doesn’t come off - he’ll do what he has to as long as it GOES -

It takes all of his mental strength to just keep his hands in the water and NOT claw at the bark with everything he has. He winds up trembling against Casey as he waits miserably. ]

Okay. Okay, I can wait. Waiting’s easy. Nothing easier!!

[ Thankfully they don’t have to wait long. After about a minute or so, the water starts to turn the same blueish gray as the bark. And then… a bit of bark floats to the surface from where it detached on his own. There’s a matching patch up at the top of Hunter’s wrist with fresh skin underneath. It’s a bit raw and a bit gray underneath, but it’s flesh and not tree. (Well. Hunter’s normal level of flesh to tree ratio, anyway.) The effect only appears to be skin deep for him. ]

[Casey's right there with you, Hunter. It's a terrifying thing to wait for, and he doesn't move even an inch from his spot, feeling Hunter tremble against him and quietly praying to whatever entity may or may not listen that it does something. He focuses on breathing, slow and steady to try and calm himself down, and for Hunter's sake he lifts his hand a little and silently counts his fingers off- 1, 2, 3, 4, then back down to zero before repeating, like the exercise he'd walked through the night they met. Calm, calm. They just need to try. All they can do is try.

When the water changes colour, and a bit of the bark splits away, Casey feels a sudden rush of shaken relief. It's... working? Maybe? It's helping, at least. Okay. Okay, they can do this. He stops counting and drops his hand under the water, very carefully rubbing his thumb over the softening bark to coax more of it loose. His breath hitches a little as he speaks.]

It's coming off...

[It's so slight, such a little thing, but feeling even the smallest weight shift off of his shoulders feels enormous right now. It might be okay. Maybe- maybe just this one thing... might be okay. They only need to take it slow and work through it together.]

[ The bark sheds gently under Casey’s fingertips, for the most part. There are a couple of stubborn spots - mostly around the joints or where Hunter’s fingers meet his palm - but between the warm water and that gentle amount of scrubbing, it all begins to come off.

Hunter just about slumps in relief himself. Once Casey’s got most of the bark off the one hand, he uses it to scrub at the opposite one, sending more softened pieces of bark floating in the water. Occasionally he winces whenever he accidentally picks off a piece that’s slightly more attached. But mostly? Casey’s quick thinking means this doesn’t hurt at all. ]

It’s - it’s working. Yeah. How’d you know to do that…?

[ He dunks in as much of his arm as the sink will handle. ]

[Casey shakes his head slowly, scooping up the loose bits of bark out of the water and setting it aside so the water can be drained and refreshed clean. It would be bad for the sink to get clogged, especially with people injured and coming in and out of the apartment while Leo's recovering. How did he know...?]

I didn't know... it was just a guess. Plants go soft in warm water. Wood breaks apart. [A quiet noise escapes his lips, almost a laugh, but brief and somewhat sad. Today sucks, but the thought that comes unbidden is, at least a little bit, gruesomely funny.] Like we're making tea.

[Nasty skin treebark tea. Maybe don't tell Rue.]

[ It’s SUCH a gross image. Hunter doesn’t like tea much to begin with - don’t tell Rue - and the thought of making out of wood chips that came off his arm is just. Awful.

But he can’t help but snort too. ]

The - the worst tea in the world.

[ the snort leads to a helpless, teary giggle of sheer relief. A few minutes ago he thought he was going to turn into a tree and maybe die. This… is a much better outcome.

He keeps laughing helplessly as he soaks his arm under the water and gently scrubs away more bark. ]

[Morbid humour is the occasional lifeblood of the apocalypse, sorry Hunter. It feels good to laugh, though. Even just a little bit.

He stays close for a bit to keep helping, either clearing out the water or scrubbing at one area while Hunter works on another, or even just giving Hunter something to lean on as he struggles with it, but it's becoming increasingly evident that the sink isn't going to be enough help for very much longer- it's already too tight to fit a full arm in there, it's not a large bowl. He gives Hunter's shoulder a squeeze before stepping back and crouching by the tub and starting to fill that instead. If the bark is covering most of his body, he's going to need a full soak.]

I'm guessing you don't know when all of this started... did you feel anything before you got here? And how long?

[When did it happen, he wonders. Where did it happen? Hopefully this isn't a widespread issue.]

[ Oh. Right, bath. That’s a way better idea. He’s not going to get far soaking just pieces of himself in the sink like this. While he doesn’t think the bark extends too far down his shoulders, his back is starting to itch again. A bath is going to be AMAZING.

He manages to stop laughing and gives Casey a grateful look instead. This is… good. This is nice. It was an awful night - and Hunter can tell Casey has had so much worse - but for Hunter, at least, it’s turning out okay in the end. ]

I’ve just been stiff since yesterday afternoon, I think? Since the parade in the daytime. Maybe they did something to me then.

[ The fae HAD seemed awful mad about Hunter refusing to give them a gift.

Hunter gently scrapes more bark off his arm with a towel and dumps them into the waste bin. Still weird. But almost a pretty color too? It looks like palistrom wood. ]

[The parade... Casey makes a face at the mention. It had been kind of fun at first, but ever since he'd been stolen away by that changeling and replaced, he'd wanted nothing to do with it. Seems as if both day and night versions are terrible, even if night wins at the awfulness contest.

He put up with this for a whole day, though? It must have gotten worse overnight. Poor Hunter.]

They probably did. Don't... don't accept anything from the fae. None of them are safe. Rue's the only one we can trust right now.

[If Rue said another fae was safe, then that would be fine, but at this point even Rue has shown their fair share of caution around them. Better safe than... well, lost forever, as was almost his case, or a tree, as is Hunter's. Thankfully it seems like both of them have been saved.]

[ Hunter looks up at that tone in Casey's voice. Something happened, didn't it? It must have.

He brushes more flakes of bark off as he hesitates, trying to figure out the best way to approach this. He wants to know - of COURSE he wants to know. But he knows this is just one of many, and he doesn't want to trigger a flood if Casey isn't ready. ]

... What did they do?

[Something sure did happen. After last night, it feels so... so minor in comparison. But now that there are two instances of the fae doing something terrible to their family even during the day, he's not going to keep it to himself. He should have brought it up sooner.]

One of them tricked me into a trade. Then he stole me away and sent me to their realm. He took over my body, pretended to be me... Rue called it a 'changeling'.

[It's much easier to talk about this than the attack of last night, at least. As far as he knows, there'd been no great or long-term damage dealt, just some distress and a rescue from Rue.]

[ UH. That sure isn't minor to Hunter. Then again he doesn't have the whole picture yet, so he may yet change his mind. Still, the thought of being replaced by an identical copy of himself is such an instinctive, visceral horror for him. He can't help but shudder. ]

Were - were you there the whole time? Inside your body...?

[Easier to dismiss and bury terrible things that happened to him versus the more recent horror of witnessing (and remembering) the harm done to his loved ones, that's the major reason. It's still... intensely upsetting, though, considering the Krang situation back home and all the people they've taken control over, so it takes a long moment for Casey to answer, just quietly watching the water fill the tub, like somehow the flowing water will answer for him.

Finally though he shuts it off, his hand sliding back to grip the porcelain tightly.]

I wasn't... I was just- gone. I was running through this weird fog world, but there was no way out... and the whole time he was walking around with my face. He could've- done anything. Hurt people. And I wouldn't have been able to stop him.

[ Is that better? Or worse? Hunter isn't sure; it's all bad as far as he's concerned. And to be replaced in front of Rue too? He hasn't been adopted by them, but he's still very fond, and would probably murder a couple people on their behalf if necessary. ]

How'd you get out? Was Rue okay?

[ And then, as a horrid thought occurs to him - ]

You're here now, right?

[At that second question, everything else Hunter asked is immediately forgotten: Casey spins about so quickly he very nearly falls over, eyes wide, his expression stunned and quietly wounded.]

It's me! I... it's me, I'm...

[He trails off, lowering his gaze. He can't be upset about that, it's a fair question. Anyone would wonder, right? Knowing it's possible, now... and they haven't known each other for that long yet.

"You think I would not recognize my own son? They had your face, but they were not you."]

You can ask Rue. If you trust Rue... they'd know if I wasn't me.

I-I believe you!

[ It comes out of Hunter's mouth immediately, accompanied by a wince. Darn it, he shouldn't have said that. That was an INTERNAL thought, Hunter, not an external one. Casey doesn't need any more worries in his life this morning. ]

I just meant - I want to make sure you're safe. That's all. I believe it's you.

[ He ducks his head a bit, indicating all the bark bits in the waste bin and probably scattered on the floor. ]

A copy wouldn't have saved me just now.

[Casey looks at him for a moment, then follows his gaze towards the scattered bark remnants, and finally slumps back against the bathtub, shoulders hunching. Okay... okay. That makes sense. He really hadn't wanted to risk disturbing Leo by going to get Rue, so he's grateful to be believed. He wasn't sure how else he might've proved it's really him.

Would Rue have been able to vouch for him, though? He hasn't acted much like himself all night. Wouldn't even hug them. He's barely done anything helpful. And now this-

...no. Rue would have known. And Hunter's just... looking out for him. Looking out for all of them, really. If Casey was a changeling again, he'd be a danger to everyone here. Just like a Krang zombie.]

Yeah... [A changeling probably would have let Hunter become a tree. They'd probably be laughing about it. That's pretty good evidence right there.] ...I'm safe. You don't need to worry about me.

[ All of them, yes, but mostly Casey. Hunter hates the thought of Casey being lost in the fog with no one even searching for him, or noticing that he's gone at all ...

But that's NOT happening. Casey's here. Casey's safe. That's incredibly important. Hunter nods sharply at that. ]

I'm worried anyway. But - you're here. That's the most important part. We can fix everything else.

[ Except Leo's arm but shh. ]

[He doesn't want Hunter to worry about him, but it's touching that he does, enough to help Casey muster a small smile. First one he's managed in hours, so that's something.]

R-right. Starting with you- the bath's all set, so strip down. Let's get the rest of the bark off you.

[A totally normal thing to say to someone.]

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