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

[joan_of_bark]

"Yeah," Pam said, wryly. "Harley got one, too."

[witchoftheflesh]

"Who was that? And why did he have a flamethrower?"

[joan_of_bark]

"Red Hood." She sounded less than impressed. "One of Batman's boys."

[witchoftheflesh]

"One of whose?"

[joan_of_bark]

"The Batman." You could tell how Pam felt about him just by how tense and flat her tone got. "He's a vigilante who patrols Gotham for criminals every night. He loves recruiting teenagers and twenty-somethings to back him up."

[witchoftheflesh]

"Why is he called the Batman?" Adrian asked, because he hadn't quite internalized that pretty much everybody's name was stupid in Gotham.

[joan_of_bark]

"Because he dresses up like a bat when he goes out every night," Pam said dryly. "I'm sure there's some kind of psychosexual explanation for that."

[witchoftheflesh]

"That...." Adrian trailed off. "Okay, how is it that after everything that happened yesterday, I can still get thrown by the idea of a grown man dressing up as a bat to...fight crime?"

A pause.

"And you said he recruits teenagers to help?"

[joan_of_bark]

"Yep," Pam said. "We've always wondered how legal any of that is, but..." She shrugged. "It's Gotham."

[witchoftheflesh]

"Legality and Gotham are staring to sound like nodding acquaintances at best," Adrian muttered. "And Slaughter Swamp? Is it just a place where resurrections happen? Very ironic, considering the name."

[joan_of_bark]

"I wouldn't have said resurrections, plural, until yesterday," Pam admitted. "Grundy was murdered there a long time ago. I think he became... intertwined... with the swamp. It keeps bringing him back."

[witchoftheflesh]

"Oh, so he's come back multiple times because of the swamp," Adrian said. Honestly, he wasn't sure if that were more or less odd than only the once. "Will it keep doing that for you, too?"

[joan_of_bark]

Pam shrugged. "I don't know," she said honestly. "The entity I met at the bottom of the swamp... I've seen it once before." She looked out into the trees ahead. "It's what saved me when Woodrue nearly killed me. The first time, I mean."

[witchoftheflesh]

"The...entity?"

[joan_of_bark]

"There was... something in the swamp," Pam said quietly. "It stripped me of the lamia. Gave me back my powers, my life."

She shot Adrian a wry look. "Apparently I'm one of the 'troublesome' ones."

[witchoftheflesh]

"Oh, I am so surprised," Adrian deadpanned. "I never would have guessed." He softened a bit, though. "I'm really happy for you. Even now you feel a little more..." He looked for a good way to phrase it. "Comfortable, I think. In exactly who and what you are."

[joan_of_bark]

Pam held up her arm and watched the moss play along her skin. "It was traumatic, for me," she said softly. "When I was stripped of most of my connection to the Green."

A little marigold sprouted right over her wrist.

"It took me months just to stop... wanting to end it."

[witchoftheflesh]

"I understand," Adrian said. "Or, at least, can empathize. I don't know what I'd do if my connection to my Grove was stripped away. That's...that's one of the things I struggled so hard against being a warlock. Because it would take away all my magic and fill me with his." He pulled a face. "And, you know. The enslaving demons part. Um. Not to make it all about me," he added hastily. "Just saying. I can see where that would leave you traumatized and like part of you was stripped away, too."

[joan_of_bark]

"It's fine, Adrian," Pam said softly. "I'm glad you managed to get out of that. Having yourself stripped from you.."

[witchoftheflesh]

He nodded. "I just don't want to lose sight of the fact that while it was hard for me to watch, it actually happened to you."

[joan_of_bark]

"And I didn't handle it well," Pam murmured.

[witchoftheflesh]

"Can you name someone who would?" he countered.

[joan_of_bark]

"I think most people wouldn't lash out the way I did," Pam said quietly, "Or create the situation that I did."

She tugged on her ponytail. "But it's over now," she said. "I'm whole again."

[witchoftheflesh]

"You gave your life to stop it," Adrian said, just as softly. "Maybe that doesn't mean much to you, but it does to me."

It was funny, how he could have hated something so much but respected it at the same time.

"Now I'm excited to see what you'll do, whole and fully who you are."

But maybe just a little less eating people?

[joan_of_bark]

Adorable.

"I'd love for you to come see the marsh next week," Pam said, with a little smile. "Once we get more of a sense of what it is now."