Memories for Deerington's February Event

[spiritwalks]

I. A Crush(!?)

Nestled in Vyng's arms is a round halfling boy — the size of a house cat — with red hair and rosy cheeks. Face buried in the druid's fluffy cowl, he doesn't notice the the shk-shk-shk of a coin belt jingling from the tent in front of them. But Vyng does. And he turns toward the flaps just in time to see her emerge:

A belly dancer. Seven feet tall. Dark, smokey eyes pierce right through Vyng — made all the more electrifying by the mysterious veil covering most of her face.

She's painted bone-white. But her other features are what ensnare Vyng. Big, broad shoulders. An enormous, well-endowed chest. Thick waist and hips accentuated by billowy pants. His gaze wanders further down, imagining steel thighs capable of making a man weep...

Dazed thoughts are shattered by the startled yelp slipping from his arms. Because he just dropped Billie.

"Oh!" Vyng crouches down the ground, immediately fussing over the boy and checking for injuries. "I'm so sorry..."

The boy stands, brushing dust off his clothes, and assures Vyng he's fine. At the same moment, the shk-shk-shk of the woman's sensually gyrating hips snags Vyng's attention all over again.

“Oh my god, Billie," he whispers. Reverent, almost, like he can't believe his eyes. "Do you see that woman? Who is that? She’s beautiful...”

Billie's face twists into an incredulous look. Like his dad just admitted to not knowing what color the sky was.

“Are you fucking—?" Catching himself, Billie gasps. He claps both hands over his mouth. Vyng's stern response is automatic.

"Language, Billie."

"Sorry..." He boy looks at the dancer again, eyebrows furrowed with confusion. "Isn't that Tuck, though?"

A beat of silence. Vyng stares at the woman again. Those shoulders. That jiggling chest. And her firm ass...

His eyes widen like dinner plates. Snapshots of their first year together flash through his mind: Vyng's earliest, near-desperate bids for Tuck's approval and attention. How starry-eyed and awestruck he sometimes was, when he saw those muscles ripple with feats of strength. And fever dreams of getting pinned between two thighs, with Tuck leaning over him...

“Ohhhh-ho-ho." His expression is frozen in a half-mortified smile. The tips of his pointed ears are turning red. But the pieces are falling into place now. "Ahhhh-haaaaaah. Ah-haaah. Aahah haha haha haaahh!”

Billie's eyes narrow.

"...What’s that in your loin cloth?"

"That is..." Vyng hastily stands, adjusting the hides hanging around his waist. "A story for another day!"

He points toward the tent and valiantly marches ahead.

"To our friends!”

Billie waddles after him. But not before shaking his head at how dense Vyng could be sometimes...




II. A Breakup

The only word to describe this scene is bizarre.

Vyng is half-kneeling on top of a gigantic mound of snow, having clearly just dug his way out. Meanwhile, a polar bear, an elk and an owl are standing behind him. And in front? A majestic eagle.

It almost looks like the set-up for a joke. But it soon becomes clear that this is no laughing matter.

"How dare you..." The eagle's words — marked with the haughty, regal bearing of a noble — drip with righteous indignation.

Vyng, clutching his stomach, woozily blinks at the bird.

"...What?"

"How dare you sully the form of Eagle!”

"But you—" Vyng wretches mid-sentence. Stubbornly, he shakes off the need to vomit. "You came to me!"

Clearly affronted by the mere notion, Eagle rears their head back and aggressively opens their beak.

"I did no such thing! I was under some sort of thrall. I would never willingly muddy myself with...your disgusting human form!”

The elk uncomfortably whispers something to their owl companion, who murmurs something back in agreement. But, aside from this, nobody comes to Vyng's defense. And Vyng, horrified by the eagle's words, begins to tremble.

“Look at me!" shouts Eagle, puffing their chest out. Hateful eyes seemingly pin the druid in place. "I’m beautiful. The very vision of predatory instinct and skill! A hunter unsurpassed! In sky or on land!”

Vyng swallows hard, blinking. Something hot and wet rolls down his cheeks. Voice small but so terribly earnest and sincere, he makes one last attempt to appease his friend:

"But...you were the vind beneath my vyngs..."

Eagle's gaze turns icy.

"That," they hiss, "makes no sense to me. And you know it makes no sense to you."

Some of the indignation fades. But only because they now regard Vyng as somebody beneath them. Not worthy of their time. Like he's just an insignificant bug in their eyes.

"I will go now," they abruptly announce. "But know: Henceforth, no eagle shall answer your call.”

Those words are like a dagger to the heart. Vyng recoils and screams in anguish. Eagle, wholly unmoved by the pain he just inflicted on this poor man, spreads its wings.

The sudden display draws a shaky, watery gasp from Vyng.

With a grating — and objectively stupid — high-pitched screech that punctures the creature's otherwise powerful showboating, Eagle soars off into the sky with a mighty woosh woosh woosh.

“No!” Vyng sobs, reaching out for the bird. “Come back! Eaaaaaaagle!”


III. Growing Pains
Vyng, a pointy-eared adolescent boy, hair shorn down to a simple crew cut, rests on a cushion in front of the hearth. Pale neck fully exposed — and no gills to speak of.

His mother Iliana sits next to him...rounded, human ears framed by long, dark wavy hair. She's bundled in layers of wool, along with white polar bear fur tightly fitted around her shoulders.

Flickering lanterns dimly light the rest of the room, casting a gloomy glow across mother and son. Iliana prods some of the logs with a poker, sending a small flurry of embers into the air. The cold air snuffs it into nothing.

"I didn’t shapeshift my first time, either," she softly says. "Did I tell you that?”

Vyng tears his sullen gaze away from the fire, eyebrows raised.

"No," he quietly says. "You never told me."

"I went on my Winter Walk, just like you did.” The flickering flames cast an unsteady shadow behind Vyng's mother as she speaks. "And I came close to dying. But...I didn’t change."

Vyng shifts on the cushion, eyes bright with curiosity. "...What was gonna kill you?"

Her dark eyes grow distant. Like she's being transported to some place far beyond their cozy, rustic home.

"The cold. There was a point where I was out there for so long, I just didn’t think I had it in me anymore. I'd barely had anything to eat or drink. And I fell asleep. Just closed my eyes for a moment. I woke up, almost completely buried in the snow. Half-frozen to death. I thought, that was it for me. But then..."

His mother — normally so calm and self-assured — actually hesitates.

"...Well. You know what happened," she finishes instead. And Vyng's elven face darkens, because he knows she means to say I met your father.

Iliana straightens her back, as if trying to shrug off the heavy silence his dad always brings.

"I didn’t change for another two years. And even then, it was...you know. A surprise." When her son wordlessly tilts his head, she elaborates: "Ice fishing. Fell through a flow. Boom."

Vyng's eyes widen. He leans in closer, eager. A hint of desperation in his voice: "Did you feel it inside? What did you feel? Because I don’t feel anything."

Iliana tears her gaze away from the fire, settling into the present now. Focused on her son's uncertainty.

"I always felt a connection to the land," she says. "To the people. To the beasts."

"You’ve given that to me," Vyng says, dissatisfied.

"I didn’t think they lived in me, though," she patiently explains. "I just thought I was part of them. It wasn’t until I was underneath four feet of ice, and realized...I was going to die. That’s when I realized we were all one."

She rests a pale hand against her chest, and she continues.

"I was in the water. The water was in my lungs. The division between me and the natural world was almost non-existent."

Another stretch of silence. Vyng chews on his bottom lip in thought. Straddling that line between life and death — the material and spiritual — is an inescapable part of becoming a druid. But unlike his mother's harrowing Winter Walk...Vyng's trial wasn't brutal enough. What did that mean for him? Waiting? For what? Some ice to cleave off the side of a mountain and just...crush him?

His hands ball into fists in his lap.

"I think I’m gonna race," Vyng abruptly says.

"What do mean?" His mother’s face pinches in concern. "What race?"

"The Diamond Plains Invitational. I think I’m gonna..." Vyng flounders, struggling to explain a plan he’s only half-formed. "I dunno, I'll enter through the lottery system.”

"Vyng, no." She turns to face him more fully, eyebrows furrowed. "People die every year on this thing. It’s a silly game."

"People die every year going to Shear City," he shoots back, teenaged petulance creeping into his tone.

"If you could wait for your Winter Walk," his mother firmly answers, "you can wait for another opportunity."

"You’ve prepared me all my life for the Winter Walk. You’ve prepared me too well for the Winter Walk. And...I did it." Vyng's hands unclench, and he grows quieter. "I survived. I never needed to change."

Suddenly, his tone turns more pleading.

"Let me do this, Mom. You’ve prepared me. You bought me that Blade Sailer when I was a kid. I’m good at it. I know what I’m doing."

"That was a toy!" she says, incredulous. "That was something for a child to ride around in idle play. This is not the same thing. I forbid this — this is too much. You just need to be patient. I was patient. You can be patient.”

"Mom, I know—"

"No!" She sharply cuts him off. "Vyng, no. You’re not going. That’s the end of it."

To prove her point, Iliana gets up from the fire and walks out of the room.

But to anybody watching, it’s clear she’s only cleared the way for a reckless teenager to do something stupid. Because after only a few minutes, Vyng swiftly starts packing a bag — so he can run away.


IV. A Family's Love
Vyng sits perched on top of a gargantuan oak tree, sandwiched between a seven-foot bear of a man (who some Sleepers will recognize as Tuck) and...a round, two-foot, rosy-cheeked halfling boy dressed in a raccoon skin.

Jagged, snow-capped mountains rest far in the distance. And above? Is a chaotic, unpredictable display that boggles the mind. Individual clouds move through the sky — seemingly without any rhyme or reason, as if each one has a will of its own. Night and day co-exist. Patches of dark and light shift, grow and shrink, based on the Sun and Moon's eternal chase across the stars.

But the trio's attention is focused on the stunning sight beneath them: Countless smaller oak trees bursting from the ground, churning through decades of growth in mere moments. Like water colors running across parchment paper, the new forest spreads across the great plains. A raging Dust Bowl is quickly quelled by the new, massive growth. And for now, all is right in the world.

"This is kind of a nice moment," says Tuck. "Should we stay and watch this happen?”

"Yeah," says the tiny child, who's flopped on his side. "I think I need to have a little rest, if that’s okay.”

Tuck shares a concerned glance with Vyng. "...Are you alright, Billie?"

"I'm okay," their kid assures them with a quiet smile. "These leaves are just so soft..."

Both men relax. Because if nothing else, Billie loves creature comforts.

And somehow, Billie's words bring comfort to Vyng. Because it turns trekking through this treacherous dreamscape — without his family — into a distant memory. Makes being kept prisoner — barely conscious and hanging by a thread — feel like a fuzzy nightmare. Keeps his self-loathing — getting worse by the day — buried underneath a pile of warmth, safety, and...

Love.

“It’s...so good to see you guys,” Vyng simply says. Happy to set all that aside for his two favorite people in the universe.

"Can I cuddle you, Vyng?" Billie asks, once their eyes meet. "It’s been awhile..."

"Yeah," Tuck agrees, wrapping his tree-trunk of an arm around Vyng's shoulders and pulling him tighter.

"Please," Vyng murmurs, letting Billie scurry up his side and burrows himself into his feathered cowl. At the same time, he presses into Tuck's side, and closes his eyes. "Please..."