Lunamor

“Sure!” Jenny hopped up, excited at the excuse to move around. Trains involved a lot of sitting. They’d also moved on to an area with less animals standing in fields, so the view out the window wasn’t as interesting anymore.

“I love you too.” Jenny smiled, still a little confused. She leaned on Ed a bit, fighting off the urge to sleep. She’d have time for that later. Right now, she needed to destroy all of her friends at a card game.

“I don’t think so. I’d like to play some more Uno, though.” Fortunately, her excitement for that hadn’t been quashed. She still wanted to win. She carefully picked up her cards, noting that her movements were weirdly stiff. Strange. That was probably just a result of her injury. She should be fully up and running by the next morning, thankfully.

Her cards seemed fine, thankfully. Ed suddenly hugged her. What was that about? Did she look sad? Maybe she still looked upset from earlier. She did feel a little funny, but couldn’t pin down exactly why. Things felt off, somehow. It looked like everything was a little too saturated. It was comparable to the result of someone overcompensating with the brightness of their paints after being criticized for creating washed-out looking art. Maybe her eyes had dried out too much or something. She rubbed them, but it didn’t do much. The experience left her looking slightly confused.

Having now sat back down at the table, Jenny felt rather proud of Terrance. He’d done a pretty good job of consoling Elsie. It seemed a little out of character for him, in a good way. She carefully inspected her cards lying on the table, trying to see if they had been tampered with or moved. @Weaver of Lights

Jenny stood there awkwardly for a moment. Should she leave too? She didn’t want to leave Terrance alone. She settled for walking very slowly back towards their group, trying to see if he was following or not.

As soon as Jenny locked the door behind her, she regretted what she had done. It was selfish to flee. They had needed her, and she’d run away like a coward. They didn’t need you. She should go apologize. Tell them it wasn’t their fault. Poor Terrance was probably feeling even worse now. She reached to unlock the door. Don’t. She froze. Her head started to ache and her vision began to turn white. Not again. It was happening again. Again, again, again. In that little gap between moments, she remembered what had happened before. With the last of her autonomy, Jenny threw open the door. That was rather annoying. Now it would look suspicious to the other passengers if she immediately closed the door again with that stupid, terrified expression on her face. So the control over her was lessened. Not completely, but enough that she wouldn’t get another nasty headache and get too suspicious. Jenny blinked, and everything seemed normal. She didn’t remember stepping outside, which was odd. She was feeling oddly put together. She walked back over to Terrance and Elsie. ”Sorry for leaving. Do you guys want to go play Uno? Terrance, you can watch if you want. Or you could be on my team.” She whispered to him conspiratorially. ”I could use someone to help me spy on everyone else’s cards.” @The Aspiring Archivist @Random Bystander

Jenny’s voice was barely above a whisper. She wouldn’t have made eye contact even if she could. ”I’m not terrified of you. Most of this was already there.” She forced a pitiful smile and gave a wry chuckle. “It’s not that bad, anyways.” Liar, liar, liar. She shook her head. Her smile only managed to survive for a few seconds. She could leave again. Not physically, but mentally. Accept those glassy eyes, float in nothing. But she couldn’t risk not being in control. So she decided to leave physically. ”Thank you, I’m gonna go.” Jenny’s voice shook slightly as she addressed no one in particular. She then fled to the bathroom and locked herself inside.

Jenny quickly averted her gaze, gritting her teeth. He said he was a monster. She was a monster too. How long would it be until she lost control? Until she killed again? Until she gave in? Not long. The voice was right. She was a danger. Monsters needed to stay away from everyone else. Terrance had the right idea. Even after she was no longer making eye contact, the dread lingered. Her eyes remained wide, staring at nothing. She tried to shake out of it, but something in her mind was refusing to let go of the terror. The dread dug its claws into the surface of her thoughts and scraped gashes through them each time it was yanked back from its attempts to flee. She nodded, not reacting to the hug. ”You’re not a monster, Terrance.” Who are you to be the judge of that? Jenny whispered to herself under her breath. She somehow managed to hold back the tears trying to well up in her eyes. ”I’m not a monster.” LIAR. It was right. She didn’t believe what she had said.

Aww, thanks!

I’m good with this.

“Not on purpose. You aren’t a bad person because you happened to be born like this.” Jenny almost tried to pat Terrance on the back, but remembered that he didn’t seem to like that. So she just crouched there, awkwardly not making eye contact, instead. It made her feel pretty useless.

“Why do you think that?” Jenny crouched down next to Terrance. She knew that he wasn’t a monster, but just asserting facts like that hadn’t seemed to do her much good when trying to persuade people. Maybe she could rebuff his reasoning. She felt like she’d been getting a little better at that- Ed had certainly given her lots of practice.

Jenny looked back to Terrance. He was speaking, that was good. He apparently wasn’t injured enough to need ambrosia. She wasn’t sure if he was downplaying his injuries or not, but he didn’t seem to be actively bleeding out, so she opted not to push it. Putting the ambrosia back in her pocket, she was quite relieved that it hadn’t been used. They were running out. ”Is it ok if I ask what’s wrong?”

Jenny turned to Elsie instead, speaking in a whisper. ”Is Terrance ok?” She pulled out some emergency ambrosia from her pocket just in case. Seeing him bleeding and on the floor crying terrified her. Terrance hadn’t cried like this when he’d gotten injured before. @Random Bystander

Jenny’s eyes widened, and she dashed over, too concerned to worry about scaring Terrance away. She managed to keep her last few steps to a walking pace, however. ”Are you ok, Terrance?” She tried her best to speak softly and calmly, but a little bit of panic crept through. Was he hurt? It looked like there was blood on his arm. Has he been attacked? She quickly glanced around, scanning for threats before turning her attention back to Terrance. @Random Bystander

Not spotting Terrance, Jenny walked down the aisle with footsteps so soft that she was completely silent. She kept her face tilted slightly downwards and put her hair up into a bun with one of the many hairbands on her wrist. She intended to continue on until she saw someone familiar. With each step she took further away from the rest of her friends, she grew more and more anxious. Where was Terrance?

“I’m pretty sneaky. I’ve had lots of practice.” Jenny was experienced both in hiding from monsters and spying on elderly satyrs. She wavered for a moment, looking at her cards, then placed them face down on the table. She gave an impressively intimidating stare at the other players, focusing on Ed in particular. She managed to conjure a few shadows both for dramatic effect and out of genuine intensity. ”No one touch my cards.” She then walked to the end of the train car and stood to the side of the door, barely revealing part of her face as she glanced down the other car. @The Aspiring Archivist @Random Bystander

Jenny held her cards up in front of her face again, but this time it was in an attempt to hide her panic. Would Terrance run away if he saw people he hated come to bother him? Was he already trying to run away? Should they stop him? It was dangerous to be alone, but it was also dangerous to be on the quest. She hoped he’d stay, though. ”Maybe we can try and see how he is without letting ourselves be seen.”

Jenny peeked out from over the top of her cards. Terrance was missing. He’d left a while ago. How had she not remembered that? She always did this, got too fixated on something. She never could pay attention to what was actually important. ”Should we go try and check on him?”

I’m good with using a google doc.

Messy

I reverse the direction of your toilet paper rolls and steal the sandwich while you frantically run to fix them.

Here’s a whisker. I have a whisk.