========-< << Wilderness - Thousand-Corners Trail >> >-=========
At some point in its glaciated past, the rocks of this area were worn and cracked and split into a broken-mirror maze of shallow canyons, the bridle trail disappearing amidst the colloquially known 'Thousand Corners'. Short enough for a standing rider to peek up over the edge in some places, others are a good fifty feet high with no rhyme or reason, and the area covers a good half-mile of the slope.
Scrubby pines and saplings cling amidst the weather-worn schist bones of the mountainside, mosses and lichens growing wherever a scrap of green-grey stone has built up enough soil to support them. For the most part, the trees are confined to the upper reaches of the cracked canyons, but growth is sparse, true forest not resuming until well past the canyons end.
While there are many ways in and out of the Corners, there is only one safe to bring horses through without too much risk to their footing. The occasional bit of litter proves the dangerous paths' appeal to those of younger generations.
It's summer or what passes for summer in Vermont, so it's not at all weird that there's a hiker out on the trail. Sure, she's not really dressed for this - cut offs, an oversized t-shirt, and trainers that aren't really about hiking. They look so new, like she just cut the tags off at the trailhead for another. And by hiking, she's walking slowly and looking at the compass on her phone, occasionally looking upwards into the tree canopy, and then apparently assured no one is around, she picks up a rock and hurls off the trail. The clunky, thumpy fall of it rendering nothing, she sighs and marks another tree with a piece of chalk she's got in her backpocket. This isn't at all weird or suspicious.
This area is a maze of boulders and gnarly trees and general amazing fun for a hiker - least experienced ones. The Hedge gate is located in one of these twists right off the path itself. The afternoon lengthens the shadows a bit, but it's a pleasant day.
That rock goes right through the gate itself, in a manner - and she wouldn't have even seen the man suddenly /just/ standing there if she HAD not hurled that rock and followed its path. This giant crazy looking man wasn't there when she threw it, and then he steps out of nowhere in one long stride and a shimmer of air; and behind him the landscape is completely different for a few lingering seconds. A Gate. Into another world.
Seven stops dead in his tracks, very surprised.
Audrey is busy joining Seven in this moment of surprise. The pure difference is that while Seven is looking surprised; Audrey is being surprised in the form of a shriek. It's not even the good, cinematic kind. She's stumbling backwards, tripping over her own feet and falling with uncermonious accomplishment straight on to her ass. The shimmerene nature of the air? Oh, yeah, she saw that. "FuckfuckFUCKFUCK-" She following it up with a littany of swears. Whatever she was doing, it appears to has worked too well if there was actual aim to it. But now there are other problems, perhaps Seven-sized problems that with the current on-the-ground problem creates a much more towering effect than he perhaps intends.
Seven has a predatory mind - he can't help that - and the reaction here is to deal with the problem immediately and in a hands-on manner. So he takes one long stride over and makes a grab for Audrey; an arm or the shirt, something to grip so she won't be able to run off too quickly. However, that rather aggressive approach is belied with his words. "Yes, 'fuck' as you Americans like to use about everything," he rasps out, voice coarse and quiet but not unpleasant. It's exasperated, like he could do without this trouble. That accent? Decidedly British, almost posh - it doesn't fit with his appearance. "Now what am I going to do?"
Fight or flight? Fight, it seems. Seven reaches, even out of problem management and predatory instincts, to gain control of the panicked American on the ground doing her best to reassure the stereotypes about loud and vulgar stay well fed for another few months and Audrey kicks back. Her leg shoots out reflexively ready to defend herself even if the odds are overwhelmingly against her. The British accent coming out the really tall man who just appeared out of nowhere seems to startle her out of her recoiling last stand. And she sort of hitches - leg poised to kick out again - but she's staring up at him. "Do you know Cross?" The question asked with a breathlessness that's as much from her former state of panic as it is this fragile note of hope, as if the answer is going to fix some much larger problem.
Seven's shin is kicked. "Ow," he protests - it doesn't hurt him much, but he makes the appropriate rote response around a human. His skin is literally armored against such things. He backs off, because he's not going to start an /actual/ fight - it'd be even worse - his hands going up in the air in a 'I'm not doing anything!' sort of gesture. Conveniently forgetting he was grabbing for her a few seconds ago, it seems. "Who the hell is Cross?" Nope. That's not going to fix this problem. Still exasperated, Seven crosses his arms over his chest and glowers at her, like this is ALL her fault, getting HIM in trouble. Least his eyes aren't quite as dead - they're animated and cunning, looking her over. "There's two ways to sort this. One: I sit you down for a serious talk and there'll be some promises made. Two: I sit you down with someone else who does the same thing." So the choice seems to be only one, but with different people.
Crushed. That's the expression on her face. It passes through like a cloud getting in the way of the sun and then disappears, scuttled away from the man who offered a sensible 'Who the hell is Cross?' to her very important question. For a brief moment, the girl on the ground looks like a puppy that's been delivered a soul crushing kick before she's swallowing the emotion whole. Her gaze drops off Seven's face for just a moment and then flickers back, in time for that animated and cunning look.
She says nothing for a strong beat to his proposal. From her involuntary seat in the dirt, she leans to the right and looks past him to the place where he just came from as if checking to see something. The trees- the normal Vermont trees- are that's there and she looks down at her own knees, one showing a healthy scrape for this introduction, and then looks at him again. "Are you from Faerie?"
Once more, Seven gets surprised, eyebrows shooting up and that cunning half unpleasant stare disappearing, replaced with another 'oh shit'- sort of look. "/Faerie/?" he asks incredulously. He groans and crouches down, glaring at her again with that 'what have you gotten me into'-sort of expression. He rubs his face with his big hands, as if hoping that when he looks at her again, she will be gone. Figment of his imagination. But nope, she's still there. "Who the hell told you about that place? You shouldn't know about that." He pauses, suspicious. "Can you... see me?"
Audrey starts. It's more of a flinch, really and tiny at that. She arrests it as Seven crouches, watching him with a carefulness that seems to be calculating that options she has left if this goes bad. "What?" She asks, the stress in her voice thready in that what. "Am I supposed to say something else?" And that, arguably, doesn't probably make the situation better.
She was more prepared, she thought, to answer these questions when the time came. And she had, she thought, been prepped for that time to come soon. But the time is here and... and- "Do your fingers turn into razors too?" She asks, carefully. It's not a 'yes' but more distressingly perhaps, that's also not a 'no'.
"You're not supposed to be here, that's what. Or know about fairie OR hands turning into razors." He eyes his clawd hands. Not razors, not exactly. But, as she asks this Seven realises she can't see his true appearance, which is something, although if she did, that'd sort of make things a bit easier too. Her question remains unanswered, and he sullenly keeps glaring at her. "I don't know how you know this, and I don't know how it is that you're here right when I come out of the gate, but it seems to me that fate is conspiring. And then there's nothing to do but to roll with it. So." He considers her thoughtfully, much less intimidating now. "You need to make promises. It's the only way. But once you've done that, you can know more."
Audrey can't see whatever version of Seven is behind his mein by the way that she's likely not reacting to what lies beneath. His mein is likely enough in this situation, at least for now. The height, the subtle suggestion that he can perhaps rip a parking meter out of the sidewalk and toss it a block down, the dead quality to his eyes - they seem to be doing a solid job of keeping her contained where 'no sudden moves' are concerned. She pushes out a sigh, thready again in its quality as he chest rises and falls with a sluggish drop of her shoulders.
"...okay," she says with a quiet resignation, the tone matching the way everything seems to deflating in her slightly. Her eyes settle directly on his face. "Just-" She begins like there's something more to say but another drop of the shoulders by another degree and the rebuttal or retort or whatever that was going to be just collapses. "Okay."
"Okay," Seven's response is, much calmer and said with some empathy. He stands up, and offers his hand to pull her up from there too. "My name is Seven," he introduces himself. "I have no intention of hurting you - all I want is for both of us to not end up in trouble. The solution is simple - all it takes is a promise to not reveal Faierie information to outsiders. We could do it here and now and that'd be the end of it. Or if you know of someone, someone you'd rather pledge to - you can tell me and we will find this person." He raises an eyebrow at her - perhaps he's hoping she knows of someone.
Audrey takes his hand with a reluctant air and stands, favoring the knee that isn't currently enjoying a blood scrape across it. "I'm Audrey," she offers in return, reaching down to chase the dust away from her backside. A question forms in her expression as she takes in his face once more, but whatever that question was meant to be it seems to replace itself with a statement. "And if I do? Am I gonna drop dead? Go blind? Go crazy?" The air there - one that seems slightly suspicious of fae deals - seems to understand something about pledges. That's also probably distressing.
"You will go crazy - for awhile. A month. The duration of our pledge would be a month," Seven explains, more willing to explain than most Lost would be. Perhaps he's not very good at this and she was lucky meeting him? Or unlucky. "That would only happen if you broke the promise. And it's not terribly hard to keep your mouth shut, is it? In return, you'd be able to see us /and/ you would be able to learn more. You're already in the know and it's not good for anyone having a girl running around being nosy. You might end up somewhere you don't want to be." He grins without humor, at that. "Like fairie."
"Maybe I want to get in there-," Audrey indicates the shimmering previously present just behind Seven with her chin briefly, she leans slightly in its direction. Her delivery is quiet, thoughtful but seems to evade being a request. Even so, she seems to understand where 'there' is. "I'm not going to say anything, though," she admits, looking less willful. Her expression softening as well, the defensive rind to her demeanor coming apart. "I know that there's stuff out there that wants to hurt you. So. It'd be pretty shitty of me to do taht to you." Her eyes flicker beyond him again, checking to make sure nothing actually harmful is stepping through at this very moment.
"Uhuh," Seven says, quirking one eyebrow. He could ramble on about the dangers, but choses not to. Instead, as she accepts the upcoming pledge, he nods firmly and then starts moving about the area, searchingly. "I saw wild roses somewhere." He ducks behind a boulder, and returns triumphantly, holding up a wild rose twig with thorns on it. "Can't do this without a rose. All bollocks if you ask me, but I'd rather not risk it. Best stick with what I know, right?" He takes a deep breath and then he speaks and now, now there's power in his voice - the air shimmers again.
"On this rose, we pledge - you pledge that you will not speak of the fae to anyone but the fae, or anything related to the fae, to any but the fae. In return, you will see with True eyes, what's on the other side of the veil. For one month, this will be true. Break this promise, and you will be struck with madness. To seal this promise, you must prick your thumb on this thorn and so must I; the blood must stain the petal of the rose. Do you swear it?"
He pricks his thumb, having to press the thorn in hard - he then holds that rose out to her, raising an eyebrow. She has one more chance to say no.
Audrey watches Seven disappear around the boulder, her mouth poised to ask some sort of question. It was probably along the lines of 'what's the rose part for?' but then he's back with a wild rose vine. It's distracting enough that she's looking at it until Seven speaks and the air kicks up that strange sheen again. Her head picks up, look around at it before she forces her eyes on the rose. It may not really do much to stare at it but it seems to feel important by the way she's looking at it. When he stops speaking and the instructions are made clear, she looks up at him again. Her expression can't seem to find its footing, stuck somewhere between sad and resigned.
She doesn't choose the out. "I swear it." She says it almost immediately, her thumb taking up the other end of the vine and pressing the meat of thumb into a large thorn. Just a mortal that she is, the skin gives way immediately. She winces, it more a flinch than anything particularly painful before her thumb is applied to the rose petal. The red of her blood smearing into the petal.
There's an almost audible pop - like something settles in - when Seven also smears the blood on the petals of that pale pink small rose. The rose itself it begins to dissolve into little tiny stars that soar up before their eyes, glamour filled and wyrd-fated; and then they disappear entirely. It is done. It settles in Seven's gut, and she will have a much more visual proof that this worked; she can see him now.
He flexes his fingers, that little prick to his thumb already scabbing over. He eyes her curiously and tilts his head. "That was new." He's never done this before, not with a human anyway.
Audrey's wounded mortal thumb doesn't close immediately. Instead, she sends it into her mouth trying to siphon away the blood for a moment before she pulls it out to inspect it. The looming horizon of Seven, visibly jogs her out of any reverie that the rising tiny stars had captured. She doesn't recoil, but- there is a moment of adjustment, the outward limits of Audrey's sanity knocked on as if someone's testing the mettle of the walls.
"You're not-" She begins, and then shunts off whatever observation she was going to make. It's likely best not to be mistaken as rude to wolves. Or any Changeling in general. "You're-" That's probably not necessarily better. "I like your fur?" It's the best she can settle on, in this moment of less than prepared for the sight of Seven without the packaging of his mein. Her mouth offers a smile, troubled and sad around the edges but she doesn't shift away from or recoil, even if menace that comes with his mein is causing a slight vein above her eye to pulse.
This is also kind of new - he's never revealed himself to a human before. So her reaction is watched with a mix of amusement and worry. Will watching him make her scream and run away? Or make her go nuts, anyway, despite that the pledge isn't broken? When she holds it in and finds a good medium ground to stand on, Seven relaxes and grins at her. Very toothy, that smile. "Thanks?" he says with dry humor. "Alright. I got to go. But - leave a message to me at the Oak and the Thistle and we will meet again sometime soon. Just keep your promise, and you will be perfectly fine. Try not to go all shocked when seeing someone like me."
And without further ado, he lopes off into the wild with supernatural speed, leaping off without a care in the world; he doesn't have to act normal around her after all.
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