3.4 Close Me Off

 

Someone is hiding nearby, trying to conceal their psychic presence. Reve isn't sure why he didn't sense it earlier, but the answer is probably simple emotional stress. Grief can be very distracting.

"You can come out of there," he calls out, sounding braver than he feels. "Creeping around like that is bad manners."

With effort, Reve sees through the simplistic invisibility spell.

The spellweaver's body language and psychic aura are both overwhelmingly frightened and confused, and that strikes Reve as weird, since Reve should be the one who is scared right now, but as the other teen—they have to be a teen, they're too small to be an adult—turns to run away, Reve realizes who they are.

It doesn't make any sense, but what does, anymore?

"Wait, stop!" Reve yelps.

Junpei doesn't stop, so Reve runs after him.

Junpei runs much faster than Reve, but is unprepared for the psychic jolt Reve sends at him. He cries out in pain when it hits and goes tumbling into the grass, where he remains curled in on himself as Reve approaches.





"F***, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you! Please, I just want to talk," Reve pants, out of breath, as he collapses to his knees in front of the other boy.

The boy who looks exactly like his uncle did as a teenager, fluffy hair hiding his face and everything.

Junpei whines wordlessly at him.

"I get it, I get it. Why do I look like your sister? Well, I could just as easily ask you why you look like a high schooler..."

Junpei narrows his eyes, and makes a more concentrated effort to hide his thoughts from the more powerful psychic.

"No no no don't close me off!"

Junpei shakes his head, with another feral whine.

Reve's heart sinks, impossibly further. "What happened to you?" he whispers.

There is no answer. 

"My name is Reve. I know yours is Junpei. You don't know me, but we're family."

Junpei meets his eyes with some reluctance. Family? So that's why this stranger was at his mother's grave, and why he looks so familiar. It makes sense.

Reve can only get fragments of ideas through Junpei's mental shielding. "You... you don't talk. Shit. You don't talk. How long has it been since you did?"

Junpei unspheres his body enough to sit up and shrug. 

"You're wondering where my adults are, and how we knew you were here. Um. I'm sorry, it's just me."

Junpei tilts his head, like a confused puppy.

"Are you actually a child? I don't understand how that's possible."

Stopped aging, Junpei thinks at him. Accident.

"So you were never kidnapped, and your mom never sent you to boarding school. She just wanted to keep anyone from knowing this happened."

She didn't want the suits to take us away. 

Mab had been sent to Hidden Springs by people who were still keeping tabs on her, and she didn't want them to know her children were special. 

After the accident... especially... they'd have wanted to study us. Or worse.

Reve heaves a sigh. "What the hell..."

Why? Junpei projects at him. As in why is Reve here, what does he want.

"It would be easier if you read my mind..."






"Whoa! You don't have to grab my face, we're not Vulcans..."

Reve was prepared for a negative reaction, or to be disbelieved outright, but what happens is, his uncle pulls him into a hug and sobs. Reflexively, Reve hugs back, sinking into the warmth of the embrace.

"Fin," Junpei squeaks.

Reve blinks back tears of his own. "I'm not my mother."

But she grew up in your reality. And that brings Junpei comfort.

"Y-yeah... she did."

June.

"Huh?"

I prefer June.

"Oh. Um. Alright. June, then." 

June takes hold of Reve's sleeve, over the wrist, and pulls him gently towards the cemetery's exit. Reve doesn't know where they're going, but he's willing to follow.

Reve thinks he understands, when June leads him down the road with the castles on it... then is confused when they pass Masterson's and go to another structure down the road.

June's mind—at least the part he allows Reve to see—is more of a mess of images and emotions than words, but Reve comes to understand that there are underground tunnels connecting the two buildings. They were once part of the same complex, and June's father did much of his work here at this second structure.

"This all burned to the ground centuries ago. It's just a big empty field, where I'm from," Reve says.





"When," June corrects.

"When I'm from," Reve allows.

Junpei—June, Reve reminds himself—seems to have a better understanding of what Loki said than Reve does. Or at least, he has accepted it more easily.

"You're taking this a lot better than I did. The universe restarting, over and over? That's... well that's crazy."

June frowns at him and does the head tilt thing again.





June gestures at Reve a few times until Reve takes his meaning. 

How could it be crazy, when Reve is standing right here as proof? 







"Do you live here?" Reve asks, as he follows June through the creepy old stone corridors.

June nods affirmatively. Reve senses June's sadness, sees in his mind that Mab and her children used to live elsewhere—in that big house next to Han's Tavern that was owned by the Riverhawk family in Reve's native iteration—but when Mab died, someone else bought the property, and June couldn't stay.

June hasn't interacted with anyone since Mab's death at all.

No wonder he's behaving so strangely.




Reve is jump-scared by a creepy painting of an extremely distant uncle. Reve doesn't know why the heck June would put this thing on display, but an identical one existed in Reve's original iteration. 

How can so many things be exactly the same, when so many other things are different?





After his mother's death June took a few things from home and fled here, where no one can find him. These grounds are thoroughly cursed—the structure is imperceptible to most sims. Reve and June's elvish blood gives allows them to see it for what it is.

June brings part of that curse with him, when he leaves. Not even the dryads are able to see him if he doesn't wish to be seen.





However, it isn't the place's hidden nature nor any ancestral ties that draw June to it. 

June stays here to protect his twin sister, Finley.

"Mom!" Reve chokes out.

He recognizes her features, but gets no psychic impression from the solid gold figure.

"The accident" went like this: a long time ago, a teenaged Finley Archer was playing around with her father's dangerous artifacts, exactly like her mother told her not to do.






She had turned several ordinary objects to gold already using some alchemical artificery, and she was trying to show her twin brother how it worked. June was nervous, because he was always nervous, but his curiosity often got the better of him so he didn't try to stop her from doing something that she said had already worked before.

So poor June got a front row seat, when Finley accidentally mis-aimed the focusing crystal, and turned herself to solid gold.





And because Finley cannot age, in this state, neither can Junpei.

Reve understands, now, without being told.

The Archer twins have always been connected in ways human twins are not.

__________________________

Etc.: In an unusual move as far as challenge rules are concerned, June is going to count as one of the 'help' for Reve's family structure roll rather than remaining in the legacy household as part of the prior generation. I feel this is only fair.

Junpei and Finley's place in the story was in limbo for years and years. Maybe Reve would never find them again. Or maybe he'd find versions of them he didn't like...

June is living in the Rowan Hill Manor. I'll be changing up the interior more and more as time goes on, but right now it's 98% Crowkeeper and Norn's incredible work. A billion kudos to them for sharing such beautiful things with us.

Masteron's home way back in the first few chapters was Monarchy by Flabaliki. I realize the architectural styles do not match, despite the two lots being connected in my story. I'm sure there's a Watsonian explanation somehow.

Mab's octagonal cabin doesn't exist for this legacy anymore, but has the potential to show up in another blog sometime, if I ever miss it too much.