genessia | [action]

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Who: Jefferson and YOU!
Where: Genessia City, near the Bay
When: April 19th
What: The Hatter is here, and he's kind of mad about it.

--

He couldn't stop thinking about it.

Those first moments, seconds, minutes, that he had awoken in this place; they played in his head over and over, making less sense each time. It was as if his brain was stuck in a hopeless pattern like a broken record, reliving it all again and again as if somehow the 100th attempt at recollection would somehow bring meaning to the madness. But nothing did. How he had gotten here, why he had woken up in that strange contraption, what purpose the necklace served, what purpose this entire place served... he just didn't know. None of it registered as reality.

The only solid concept he could grasp was that he already hated Genessia.

Jefferson had so foolishly thought that he would finally get to live his life happily. To have his happy ending with his daughter who he had so long fought to have at his side again, but no. Of course a man like him could have no such ending. Not forever. Only long enough to trick him into thinking it would be.

He sat on the sidewalk outside the Bay for a very long time with his mind in that perpetual state of circular chaos, and he didn't care to pay much mind to what was going on around him. Occasionally he would lift his head and hope that he would see his little girl there, only to curse himself for daring to wish she was ripped from her home again just to be with him.

To anyone passing by, he likely looked a mess. He didn't have a clue as to how he would react to strangers at this point. In fact, there was only one damn thing he did know: again, he was trapped in a realm where he didn't belong, and it made him insane.

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Airy actually got that a lot though it was usually with a condescending tone telling her that she was far to trusting. She's rather trust someone who didn't deserve it than not trust at all. Even if that has already blown up in her face once before now.

She pulled her knees to her chest as she spoke, her emerald green eyes watching him curiously. "It must be hard for you. I'm so sorry." And she meant it. Airy couldn't imagine losing a child. She had always dreamed about being a mother so while she didn't have any kids, she could easily imagine what that pain must feel like. It hurt.

"I'm sure you'll see her again and you'll get nervous because you'll think she'll fall for the wrong sort of guy." She was trying to comfort him but she didn't know how well that was going. After a second she chose to talk about herself, in case he didn't want to talk about Grace anymore. "I ran away from home... just before arriving here. I don't know if I'll ever see them again. I mean I'm nineteen... it's about the time I leave home anyway." And go to college. "But I didn't say goodbye. I just disappeared." She regretted it every day since.

He nodded his acknowledgment. He wasn't as convinced as she seemed to be about getting home to his Grace, but he wasn't going to lie down and give up. He hadn't the first time, even though it had cost him so much.

"Maybe." He chuckled faintly at the scenario she had created. "I think she already has a crush on a boy from school, even if she won't tell me about it. But he's a good kid. I trust him."

He shook his head, wishing he could know what she was doing. It was hard to know what to imagine what with the bizarre timelines and all that.

He looked back to Airy, his eyebrows furrowed. Memories of his own parents were some of the few that he wouldn't mind forgetting entirely, but the way she talked about it made him think her story wasn't so simple.

"Why did you leave?" He asked gently, his concern rather obvious. Apparently fatherly instinct didn't die so easily.

Airy was very much an optimist. They could be trapped in a cave on the other side of the world and she'd try to find a positive spin on it. Lately it's becoming more difficult but she's stubborn enough to keep trying. "That's good... I mean that you trust him." She closed her eyes realizing she should think before she speaks.

"Ah, that is a surprisingly short but long story. Like I can sum it up but the sum up might not make sense and the long version might not make sense."

She paused, looking over at Jefferson with a slight frown on her lips. "Okay, short version first. I found out I wasn't normal and I accidently hurt my friends so I ran away before I could hurt anyone else." She'd been running from herself since.

As someone who also didn't always think before speaking, he could relate to her dilemma.

"I've heard and seen a lot of things that didn't make sense." He shrugged as if hoping to dismiss any worries she had, but he wouldn't blame her if that wasn't any help. It sounded like whatever had happened was painful and complicated.

Jefferson studied her face while she attempted to explain, sympathy emerging as she continued. His expression shifted at her story, both concern and a sense of understanding mingling with his features.

"I think you're probably more normal than you realize." His voice was soft but firm, like he spoke from some sort of personal experience. "You don't have to be afraid of yourself, Airy. Whatever you did is in the past. And whatever you can do? You can learn from it. You can use it for good."

Or bad things. But he wouldn't let that happen. Once upon a time he had selfishly led someone down the path of using their power for ill intent, but he wasn't that person anymore. He refused to be.

Worry was a natural state for Airy so it wasn't really a bother to continue worrying. It was what she was used to. She really couldn't turn off her brain which was part of her current problem.

With a heavy sigh she looked over at Jefferson and then back at the sidewalk and then back over at Jefferson. True, she didn't know him but in a way it made talking about it easier. It was like talking over the internet but in person, so really nothing like that.

"Well, I think being different is normal here but it isn't where I'm from. There isn't magic or crazy things that happen. It's just... I lived in a small town." She sighed again, trying to figure out how to explain it. "A lot of people tell me that no matter what I can do I am myself. That I just have to control it but I don't know how..." It was easier now but she still had accidents; usually only her roommate had to deal with them.

"So..." Airy fidgeted awkwardly for a moment before holding out her hands in front of her. "I can do things like this..." A figure begins to flicker into existence, held in the center of her palm. What looks like a crystal bird stretches it's wings and then takes off from her hands and circles around them. Another second and it flickered away as if it wasn't there. "I don't know what it is... I just create stuff." As long as she holds the thought in her head.

Jefferson didn't expect her to give him the details. They had been nothing more than complete strangers only hours before. Sure, they were beyond that point, but they were still in the realm of barely knowing one another. Admittedly, he was surprised that she had continued on, but he wouldn't stop her. Maybe talking to someone outside of the situation was what she needed.

Her little presentation, however, caught him completely off guard. He watched the delicate bird as it formed in her palms and took off into the air as if it was a being with its own intent. He knew it wasn't, but it was mesmerizing all the same. When it faded back out of existence, he looked back at her, his expression still showing his astonishment.

"You can manifest objects from your mind. That's what your power is?" He was stating and asking the obvious, but he sort of wanted to make sure what he just saw was real.

“Yes?” She really shouldn’t answer a question with a question but she didn’t really know all the specifics of her own powers. “Magic doesn’t really exist in my world though.” Not that she was aware of anyway. “So I don’t know how. I just… can.”

It sounded like the lamest explanation ever.

Airy suddenly felt very nervous. Jefferson reminded her a little bit of Antonio, but then she’d met Antonio on the streets and accidently caused a panther to go running at him… So this meeting was technically going better than that but she couldn’t help but wonder what he thought. Maybe he didn’t come from a place with all this weird stuff.

“Ah, yeah but that’s why I ran….away.” She didn’t think she could mention the details but everyone sees shadows in the dark. Airy’s just happens to turn into real things that can really hurt someone if she wasn’t careful. “I can’t control it all the wall.” Her voice trailed off and her gaze found an incredibly fascinating blade of grass to focus on.

"Maybe not yet." He contemplated, a very familiar situation coming to mind. "Maybe your world needs magic, and you're the messenger."

Jefferson could sense her nerves, and he didn't blame her one bit. Accepting that something so alien was now a part of her life must have been hard enough, but saying it out loud? Sharing that fact with someone? He imagined it was frightening. It probably made her feel ashamed too.

"I know someone who used to be like you." He said abruptly, his eyes following her gaze. "She was scared of what she could do, too. It took her ages to even admit she had magic."

He laughed quietly. The memory wasn't really funny, but he wasn't so great at comforting people. It was a nervous habit.

"But things changed. She became a hero. She got it to work." He leaned forward into Airy's line of vision, a sincerity in his eyes that people didn't often see. "I think you can too."

Airy wasn't sure if the world needed her or not. She's only just begun to learn how big and scary the world really was. It was hard to admit and his advice was hard to hear but she didn't think it was bad.

"Someone like me?" She was a little happy, just a little, because it meant that maybe she wasn't as alone as she felt. Magic might be common here but it wasn't in Maine or New York or wherever else she might end up next. "I think... It started when I was thirteen..."

It took Airy six years to realize that it wasn't just her imagination. Then she ran because it wasn't something she could face. Genessia had a way of making her face it and she hadn't liked it. She still had the scars from it.

Airy met his gaze when he leaned forward. It was startling, not in a bad way but she hadn't expected it. For a moment she couldn't find the right words to say. "I'm not a hero..." Was the first thing out of Airy's mouth. "But I'm going to try... to at least control it." She didn't want to hurt people by accident.

Oh, if only she knew how big of a deal magic was in the little Maine town he lived in.

"That's a long time to deal with that kind of thing on your own." He sympathized. He didn't know how old she was, be she was definitely late teens to early twenties. So, it wasn't 28 years or anything, but it was still a long time to keep your demons to yourself.

Assuming she had, that is. But most people tended to hide things like that.

"You don't have to be a hero if you don't want to be." He responded gently, his steady gaze still on her. "Trying despite your fears, though? If you ask me, that sounds pretty heroic."

"You make it sound like a fairy tale."

Airy didn't think that real life was anything like a fairy tale. Fairy tales always had a happy ending, but life didn't really end and when it did it was because you were dead. She wasn't sure if that really counted as happy.

"I'm..." She bit her lip, trying to figure out what to say. "Are you used to magic? Do you know how to control it?"

She couldn't stop her mind from wandering.

"Probably because I've lived a few of them." He said it casually, like it wasn't a strange thing to say. Admittedly, those fairytales likely weren't as she knew them to be, but rather versions that were very much real life to him.

"The place I'm from..." He thought carefully. How to explain it?

He took the top hat that had been on the sidewalk at his side and held it in front of her.

"I used to have a hat almost exactly like this. The difference? That one had magic. It worked." He flicked his wrist and tossed the hat out onto the street, watching it teeter and fall back into place.

"The world I'm from thrives on magic. It's at the heart of everything, and my hat was no exception." He paused. He didn't mind talking about the Enchanted Forest, but his own past was a bit harder. "I was a portal jumper. A traveler between lands. The hat is what got me where I needed to go. Some of those places had magic, and some of them didn't. Same went for the people I met."

Jefferson exhaled, am uncomfortable sensation crawling up his body. He had seen both sides of the coin as far as what magic could do to a person.

"I don't have magic of my own, but I've seen the paths it can take you down. I already told you about Emma. She was the hero. But the other woman I knew? She was the queen, and she was driven to darkness because she lost hope. She became the villain. What I learned too late is that she never controlled her magic at all -- it controlled her. That's what you have to avoid."

He stared at the hat, unwilling to admit his role in the queen's descent. He had gotten to the point where he didn't know if his ramblings conveyed his point, but if it did then he hoped Airy realized that she couldn't let herself become a person without a reason to be good.

Airy didn't know what he meant. She sat back slightly and listened, her eyes remaining on his as if to read the emotions that occasionally reflected in his gaze. He had very pretty eyes.

"Are there a lot of lands? Like this one..." She assumed there were and as he continued she couldn't help but think of Alice in Wonderland. She had grown up with all of those tales, both the Disney version and the more depressing stories that were often written in books. Her mother was obsessed with Disney and a little piece of that love had rubbed off on Airy. She knew not every story had a happy ending. It depended on where you decided to end it. "Um.. don't answer that. I'm pretty sure the answer is yes."

Emma, Airy decided to remember that name. It wasn't as if they could meet but it was someone that she might be able to look up to. Emma can be a fairy tale all on her own.

"I don't want to be evil... or do anything bad." Airy didn't know this but it just wasn't in her to be evil. She trusted too much and had to much hope. "But bad things sometimes happen... they haven't here... well they had but not in the same way... it's really hard to explain..." She sighed softly, turning her gaze up towards the bright blue sky. "You see, I was kidnapped and forced to face what I was running away from. Which was myself and my powers... that shadow hurt my friends and me..." She pushed up her sleeve showing four large bite marks that have been scared into her shoulder.

"I don't want that to happen again..." She had no idea what to do though. Her world didn't have magic. "I just feel like a freak." She wanted to be normal.

"There's more lands out there than even I could tell you." She'd said not to answer, but he did anyway. "I imagine you've probably heard of a few of them. Sometimes fiction is based on fact."

Not that he would delve into specifics.

When it came his time to listen, he took in her words carefully. As her story was laid out he thought harder about what to say to her, what could possibly help, but when she showed her scars every thought dropped out of his mind only to be replaced with sympathy and a tinge of guilt. Jefferson didn't feel that he deserved to know all that Airy was telling him, especially when he was so reluctant to offer much of his own story.

"You are not a freak." He spoke like his words were indisputable fact, but they weren't said too boldly. His voice was soft and, he hoped, reassuring.

"We all have bad things to carry with us," he began, hoping and praying that he would be able to say the right thing, "but I've seen dark hearts. Yours is so very the opposite that I know evil is never the path you'll choose. Start believing in yourself, kid. You are going to get this thing to work."

Airy glanced over at Jefferson, her mind turning over thoughts. She didn't mind sharing things about herself and she'd never ask for his story in return. She didn't think that was how friendship worked. It was easy to talk to him nonetheless and she didn't mind showing the discoloration on her shoulder. What she didn't know is that she'd have many more scars before her story was through.

"I think if I tried really really really really hard..." She paused looking over at Jefferson. "I could be a bad person." Except that when she said this she was smiling. Airy shook her head, her fingers lacing together in front of her. "Okay... I don't think I could take myself seriously if I really thought that."

There wasn't a bad bone in Airy's body and she had trouble thinking poorly of anyone.

"I'll keep trying though... I mean to control stuff. Thank you... I realize I wanted to help you but I think it happened the other way around... I'm sorry."

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hey look i finally replied

I'm so proud of you!!!