Blackwood Grove, Saturday Afternoon

[witchoftheflesh]

Adrian turned in a slow circle, examining his Grove from every angle, his brows drawing together and his shoulders slumping. The damage was...extensive. Not catastrophic, thank the Forest, but not far off, either. 'Devastated' might be about right.

Naked branches clawed at the sky. Tree trunks were withered and twisted. The grass was dried and yellow under his feet, crumbling to dust wherever he stepped. The soil was thin and powdery and several of his reservoir rocks had split or shattered. Even the air felt thin here. He laid a hand on his heart tree, the acorns all paper-thin husks scattered across the ground.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to the great oak, which seemed a little diminished under his touch. "I was a poor steward to you. You are my responsibility and I failed. I'm sorry. I'll do better, I swear. Just..." He looked around again. He wasn't even sure where to begin to fix the damage he'd caused. "Just keep going. I'll swear, you'll be strong and healthy again."

"Adrian!" A yowl as a black blur streaked from the cabin to his side. "Adrian, what happened? How did this happen? What did you do?"

Adrian looked down at the accusatory face of his familiar and winced a bit. "C'mon," he said, holding his arms out to Boston. "I'll explain inside. We've got a lot of work to do."

[Open, though Pam's thread is canonically last!]

Comments

[mustbeawitch]

"I do hope Kitty will be able to come visit next year for Parent's Weekend," Lydia said, because she could do inane chatter to fill an awkward silence with the absolute best of them, thank you very much. "Not least because I would love to see her, of course, but I fear Mr. Boston shall become intolerable. I already had to threaten him with your mother this year."

[witchoftheflesh]

"Wait, you threatened him with my mother?" Adrian asked. "He didn't say anything about that to me."

This may, uh. Not be the best time to talk to Boston about not mentioning something, though.

[mustbeawitch]

"Well, he was making the most awful racket outside my window, as toms are wont to do, of course, and you weren't answering your phone," Lydia explained as she chivvied him in the direction of the house.

Speaking of things Adrian probably didn't want to talk about right now.

[witchoftheflesh]

"Oh damn it all, my phone," he groaned.

He was pretty sure it was at the bottom of the swamp somewhere.

[mustbeawitch]

You could have just sacrificed your phone if you were going to chuck it down a swamp anyway. Lydia's whole modern life was in hers, she was reasonably sure it was worth a fairly large amount of magic.

"Your phone?" she echoed, because she couldn't read narrative.

[witchoftheflesh]

"I'm pretty sure it's still in Slaughter Swamp," he groaned. "I was tearing through my pockets to find something to fight the zombies with and I'm pretty sure one of the things I tossed away was my phone."

[mustbeawitch]

Lot to unpack there, Adrian!

"And did your phone do a useful amount of damage to the...zombies?" Lydia was guessing no.

[witchoftheflesh]

That was barely even the surface of it!

"No, just dropped it, I think," Adrian said. "I was using exploding acorns and magic stones to fight off the zombies. To middling effect, really. There were just so many, converging on us."

Well, Pam. And Fluoride Guy.