spacegrandma (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spacegrandma) wrote2019-01-02 10:44 pm
spacegrandma) wrote2019-01-02 10:44 pm
Entry tags:
june elsewhere // the raven cycle
Y'all, the first fanfic I write in three years and half of them are my characters.
Here's a series I'm doing to explore June's character in different situations without messing with the novel too much. Let's start with The Raven Cycle.
2912 words
June wakes up in a forest and her first thought is, Fuck me, I’ve landed in Fairy Land.
The trees whisper at her. It’s disconcerting as fuck.
June pushes herself up to her feet and brushes off the dirt that clings to her pants. She looks around. Nothing seems familiar about these trees. She’s definitely not in Hexham.
There’s a taste to this forest too, and it’s different as well. She can taste in on the wind that filters through the treetops. It’s not similar to home, she notes, but it also doesn’t feel like the place fairies call home.
“Fuck,” she swears out loud.
“Language,” someone replies, somewhat sternly but with a trace of a laugh. “You’re as bad as Ronan.”
At first she thinks the voice is from the trees, but that can’t be right. The trees have been murmuring in Latin since she woke up - maybe even since before she woke up. June whips around and almost misses the faint outline of the boy at the edge of the trees. He’s pale headed, nearly opaque but not quite, and there’s an enormous black smudge across his face.
“Who are you?” June asks. Gathering information is always a pertinent pastime, especially for situations one wakes up to. “Where am I?”
The boy steps closer and he glimmers in the sunlight. “This is Cabeswater and I’m-”
“Dead?” June interrupts.
The boy laughs. “And I’m Noah.”
He gives his name away without a thought. How lucky he must be to be dead.
Noah wears an prep school uniform, slacks and a blazer for a school she’s unfamiliar with. His tie loose around his neck. He slouches like she does, but the way he carries himself is freer. An unspoken joke hangs about his mouth.
The trees pitch their voices louder and June can pick up a name out of the din: Greywaren, Greywaren, Greywaren, Greywaren.
“How did you get here?” Noah asks her.
She shakes her head because she doesn’t know.
“Did Ronan dream you up too?”
That’s the second time she’s heard that name. She wonders if it’s as important as the name the trees keep murmuring. “I’m not a dream,” she says instead.
“No, I guess not,” Noah says. “You don’t belong here, do you?”
June wryly wonders what gave it away.
There’s a crunching coming through the forest, like a herd of animals too careless to worry about keeping quiet. As the sound comes closer, the trees get even louder: Greywaren, Greywaren, GREYWAREN!
“What’s that?” She asks Noah.
He smiles at her and his expression gives her no indication of whether what’s coming is good or bad.
June doesn’t like that. She stands a little straighter, gathers up her magic underneath her sternum, and shakes out her hands. The forest stops its constant murmuring and June feels like ten thousand eyes are all on her.
Noah cocks his head at her. “That’s interesting,” he points out. “This’ll be interesting too.”
Which is, of course, when the nearing footsteps stop and four - God, June thinks, what is it with all these children? - teenagers stumble out of the forest and into the clearing.
June swirls a sigil in the air and eyes it as it shimmers to life before blinking out. Its protectiveness settles around her shoulders. Magic, she thinks, must be a lot more physical here, wherever here is.
June moves so her back is to the mystical talking forest bullshit and watches the group watch her.
There’s a slight one, a girl, whose short bob contains so many hair clips that June doesn’t think she could count them all. She’s dressed in a lacy knitted sweater overtop a tank top and shorts that end at her thighs. There’s a dubious set to her mouth. June quite likes her already.
Behind her is a sandy looking boy with strong cheekbones and beside him is a shorter, squarer boy with dark hair who wears boat shoes. Boat shoes, seriously? Who does that besides people who own boats and the pretentiously rich?
The last of them, the last boy to round out their group, is a tall boy whose presence June is drawn to. He’s taller than the first boy and June can see the edge of a rough cheekbone and a snarl. He’s wild in a way that June is familiar with. He wears a black tank top and she can see the edges of tattoos peeking out from underneath it.
He looks similar to Bart, if Bart were a teenager and angry and tending to a festering open wound.
“Who the fuck is that?” He asks.
Noah laughs and says, “See? I told you that you were like Ronan!”
June grimaces. The others look curious, but Ronan just looks angry.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Coca-Cola Shirt says. He frowns. June thinks he must do a lot of frowning, the way his face is so natural at it. “How are you here?”
June shrugs. “Beats me,” she says. She bounces on her feet a little, like she’s testing the give of the ground, “but I bet this ley line had something to do with it.”
That gets their attention. “How do you know about the ley line?”
“Mm,” June hums. “Can’t you feel it? It’s really loud.”
They mutter amongst themselves. June lets them go for a moment before interrupting. “Anyway, what are your names? I can’t keep calling you ‘Boat Shoes,’ ‘Coca-Cola Shirt,’ and ‘Girl.’” She points at Ronan. “You, though, Ronan, I might call ‘Bart Part Two.’”
“How do you know my name?” Ronan growls.
For a moment, June is very confused. She looks back at Noah. He smiles and shrugs and says, “They can’t see me anymore. Nobody’s been able to see me in a while.”
The entire group stares at her suspiciously. June can’t believe the clusterfuck she’s woken up to. The forest starts up again: Greywaren! Greywaren! Greywaren!
June takes a leap and hopes she’s right because Noah is of absolutely no help in this situation. “Because you’re the Greywaren, right? That’s how I know. Because of the forest and the ley line.” She’s bullshitting by this point. She hopes it’s working. “You really can’t hear the ley line? Also, these trees? Really fucking obnoxious. At least when the trees back home speak, they have mouths. And hands. And are kind of person-shaped. And they don’t speak Latin, they just speak English.”
Ronan doesn’t relax. The others do, sort of. Coca-Cola Shirt says, “I speak for Cabeswater.”
Like that makes any sort of sense. Ley lines don’t need people to speak for them, unless… “Fuck,” June moans. “What kind of backwater place have I gotten stuck in now?”
Back home, in Hexham, in the whole world, the ley lines don’t need to speak because anyone with even the slightest shred of magic in them knows at the very least where the ley lines are if not what they want.
The girl says, “You’re in Virginia.”
June wracks her brain, but all she can come up with is, “What the hell is Virginia?”
“Like, Virginia? The state?”
June looks at her blankly. “The state of what?”
“The… United States?”
“I’m so confused,” June whines.
“How can you be confused about the country?” Boat Shoes finally asks. He sounds political. It’s giving June hives. “The United States of America.”
“I need you not to talk out loud, Boat Shoes,” June says.
“Gansey,” Boat Shoes offers. At her blank look, he adds, “You can call me Gansey.”
“That’s somehow worse.” June sits back down on the ground because the entire situation has become entirely too much for her to handle standing. “Hey, ley line, Cabeswater? Take me home now.”
Unsurprisingly, it does not. She could cry. Noah drifts closer to her, but she swats him away. She probably looks a sight, but she could care less about it.
“What are the rest of your names? If I’m going to be stuck in an unknown land, the least you could do is tell me your names.”
“That’s Adam,” Gansey says, pointing to Coca-Cola Shirt. “You somehow know Ronan’s name, which is not suspicious at all. That’s Jane.”
Jane pushes Gansey. “I’m Blue, actually.”
June laughs, something stringent in the sound, and says, “Nice to meet you, Jane,” she says, “I’m June.”
She flings herself backward onto the dirt and then curls into herself, trying not to laugh hysterically. Way to make herself not seem suspicious, yeah, great going.
“You know,” Blue says, “she really reminds me of someone.”
“Please say you mean that Gwenllian because I’ve been thinking that this entire time,” Adam says.
“Yes, that’s it,” Blue says emphatically. “They even kind of look similar.”
June sneaks a look back at Noah. He looks entirely too amused about this situation.
“Tell me about magic,” June says. They’re all obviously touched by magic in someway. She can smell it on them. “I know it’s a thing here, obviously, but is it a capital-t Thing?”
Blue goes a bit funny. Adam rolls his eyes heavenward. Ronan still just looks angry. That’s definitely got to be a Thing.
Gansey says, “Oh, hm, well, yes, magic is a thing-” this kid talks like an old man and it’s both the best and worst thing June has ever heard in her life “- but it’s not a particularly common thing.”
“So what you’re saying is that not everyone has magic?”
“Well, no.”
“But you have magic?” June prompts.
“Who can really say who has magic?”
“I have magic,” June says firmly. If there is only one thing June can say for certain, it is that she definitely has magic. She has so much freaking magic. Magic dances around her person all of the time. “You don’t, apparently. It’s still around you, though.”
She points up at Adam. “He apparently speaks for a ley line, which mean he’s touched by magic. Jane-”
“Blue,” the girl in question corrects.
“-should probably stay away from me if what I’m feeling about her is correct. No offense, dear, but I have plenty of magic,” June sing-songs. “I know what happens when it tangles with other people’s magic. Bad things. Bad, bad things.”
Blue acquiesced by taking half a step back.
“Ronan can apparently dream things up, which makes him magic in my book,” June says, thinking about what Noah asked her earlier: Did Ronan dream you up too? “And there’s this dead kid following me around, which means ghosts are a thing here too. Pretty fucking magical, if you ask me.”
“What ghost?” Blue asks, brows curving in concern. “Noah?”
Noah sighs. “I’m more of a ghost of a ghost, actually.”
June can feel Ronan’s eyes digging into her, gouging out a hole like he’s trying to see what parts she’s made of. She bares her teeth at him. “He says ‘hi,’ by the way.”
“I did not!” Noah yelps. “This isn’t nice, don’t do this to them!”
June turns to him and, quicker than a flash, grabs him by the wrist. He looks shocked that she can touch him. “There is nothing nice about me,” she says to him, reaching deep into the place where her magic dwells.
The pressure pops in June’s ears and in a moment, she’s got a fully-fleshed out boy standing next to her.
His eyes are round and he keeps looking at his hands. He pulls out of June’s grip and stays person-shaped. The smudgy bruise remains on his face. “How did you do that?”
“I can do anything I want,” June says unkindly. “I think it, and then I can make it happen.”
It’s a gross oversimplification of how her magic works. She’s not interested in specifics, though. There’s not enough time in the world to explain to five kids from an apparently different mostly-magicless world that her magic lies in the in-between and that crossing those in-between spaces is easier than breathing. There’s not enough time to explain that the biggest, most obvious in-between is death to life, is crossing from one world to another.
“Noah,” Gansey breathes.
Blue’s eyes are wide and her hand comes up to cover her mouth. She looks like she might cry. June does not do well with those who cry.
Adam looks just as surprised as Noah does.
Ronan touches Noah first, clasping his shoulder. His hand connects solidly. He looks less angry for a moment, the first June’s seen him express actual emotion, before the anger ratchets back up at her.
“What are you?” He asks, equally unkindly.
“Haven’t you been paying attention?” June grins, wildly, with teeth like a predator. “I’m magic. I’m a whole lot of magic.”
Ronan tugs Noah away from June and his group envelops him like he’s meant to be there.
“I would keep him on the ley line, I think,” June says thoughtfully. “Cabeswater, did you call it? I would keep him in Cabeswater. He’s tied to it, isn’t he?”
“I’m right here,” Noah says. He’s pressed between Blue and Adam. Gansey keeps looking at him like he might disappear. “You can stop talking about me like I’m not here.”
June hums under her breath. Her attention has already flitted away from them. She’s got to get back home. She touches the ground with her hands, feels out the pulsing of the ley line. “Maybe if I go back to sleep, I’ll wake up back in Hexham. I mean, it worked in the reverse, didn’t it?”
She lays back on the forest floor, ignoring the group around her, and shuts her eyes. Between the humming of the ley line, the murmuring of the trees, and the group of teenagers talking above her, she’s never going to fall asleep. This is a bad plan. She stubbornly keeps her eyes shut.
“You’re not bothering the locals, are you, June?” That’s a voice she recognizes. June’s head pops up and she whips around to stare at Bart. Beautiful Bart.
The teenagers peer around her to look at the newest arrival. He stands with his hands clasped behind his back, in a sharp navy suit with a button-up underneath covered in - oh, good Lord, June traces the protection sigil in the air again, winces at the sparks that fly here and there - tiny flamingos. He’s ridiculous. He’s a ridiculous almost-human being.
“Have you come to save me, dear?” She asks, a hint of a grin in her question.
“Please,” Bart demurs, “I’ve come to save them from you.”
“Who are all these people?” She distantly hears Ronan say. He’s awfully confused, she thinks. “Where do they keep coming from?”
June stands up and picks her way carefully across the clearing to where Bart stands. “Is it time to go home now? But I was having so much fun.”
“Well, I much prefer you in Hexham, as it turns out.”
“That’s so sweet,” June says wickedly. “You’re going to regret saying that in a few days.”
“Undoubtedly,” Bart agrees, offering her his arm.
She slips hers into his easily enough. “However did this happen? I’m sure the class would love to know too.”
June gestures to the group who collectively all try to look like they weren’t just listening in avidly. They’re sort of precious.
She continues, “I, for one, would like to know how you magicked yourself here, when you said and I quote, ‘I’m all magicked out. I’ll never be able to be magicked again.’”
“I said I was all summoned out and you know it. This isn’t technically a summoning anyway.”
“Well, what is it, then?”
“Fairies,” Bart says succinctly.
June immediately crows, “So I was right! I knew it! I knew this had something to do with fucking fairies.”
“Language,” Bart mutters.
Noah giggles into Gansey’s shoulder.
“Well, fairy, if we’re being technical,” Bart clarifies. “In a half-thought out attempt to steal your magic again.”
“Ugh, they’re the worst,” June complains. “How are you here, though?”
“It’s a joint effort between Fox and Lucien, although Lucien voted to leave you here. Fox said you’d upset this magical balance if we left you here too long and overruled him.”
June eyes Noah and then Ronan. “I have definitely already upset the magical balance.”
“I am not surprised by that at all.” To the group, he says, “I apologize on her behalf.”
Gansey nods. Blue says, “No problem.”
June smacks Bart on the chest with the back of her hand. “No, I take that back. He can’t apologize for me. I’m not sorry about anything.”
Bart dips his head and gently starts to lead June off. She babbles at him, “Did you see that tall, dark, and scowly one? He’s like you if you were very angry about things and didn’t wear colors. Bart Part Two! Bart The Sequel!”
Bart pats her hand. “You are unusually chatty today, June.”
“Rude,” June says. “I think it has something to do with the magic here.”
“In addition to the fairy magic, I’m sure,” Bart agrees. He leads them off back into the trees, teenagers forgotten behind them as they chat between themselves.
The trees whisper as they go, Qui ambulat inter se huc illuc.
They step once, twice, three times and then disappear.
Here's a series I'm doing to explore June's character in different situations without messing with the novel too much. Let's start with The Raven Cycle.
2912 words
June wakes up in a forest and her first thought is, Fuck me, I’ve landed in Fairy Land.
The trees whisper at her. It’s disconcerting as fuck.
June pushes herself up to her feet and brushes off the dirt that clings to her pants. She looks around. Nothing seems familiar about these trees. She’s definitely not in Hexham.
There’s a taste to this forest too, and it’s different as well. She can taste in on the wind that filters through the treetops. It’s not similar to home, she notes, but it also doesn’t feel like the place fairies call home.
“Fuck,” she swears out loud.
“Language,” someone replies, somewhat sternly but with a trace of a laugh. “You’re as bad as Ronan.”
At first she thinks the voice is from the trees, but that can’t be right. The trees have been murmuring in Latin since she woke up - maybe even since before she woke up. June whips around and almost misses the faint outline of the boy at the edge of the trees. He’s pale headed, nearly opaque but not quite, and there’s an enormous black smudge across his face.
“Who are you?” June asks. Gathering information is always a pertinent pastime, especially for situations one wakes up to. “Where am I?”
The boy steps closer and he glimmers in the sunlight. “This is Cabeswater and I’m-”
“Dead?” June interrupts.
The boy laughs. “And I’m Noah.”
He gives his name away without a thought. How lucky he must be to be dead.
Noah wears an prep school uniform, slacks and a blazer for a school she’s unfamiliar with. His tie loose around his neck. He slouches like she does, but the way he carries himself is freer. An unspoken joke hangs about his mouth.
The trees pitch their voices louder and June can pick up a name out of the din: Greywaren, Greywaren, Greywaren, Greywaren.
“How did you get here?” Noah asks her.
She shakes her head because she doesn’t know.
“Did Ronan dream you up too?”
That’s the second time she’s heard that name. She wonders if it’s as important as the name the trees keep murmuring. “I’m not a dream,” she says instead.
“No, I guess not,” Noah says. “You don’t belong here, do you?”
June wryly wonders what gave it away.
There’s a crunching coming through the forest, like a herd of animals too careless to worry about keeping quiet. As the sound comes closer, the trees get even louder: Greywaren, Greywaren, GREYWAREN!
“What’s that?” She asks Noah.
He smiles at her and his expression gives her no indication of whether what’s coming is good or bad.
June doesn’t like that. She stands a little straighter, gathers up her magic underneath her sternum, and shakes out her hands. The forest stops its constant murmuring and June feels like ten thousand eyes are all on her.
Noah cocks his head at her. “That’s interesting,” he points out. “This’ll be interesting too.”
Which is, of course, when the nearing footsteps stop and four - God, June thinks, what is it with all these children? - teenagers stumble out of the forest and into the clearing.
June swirls a sigil in the air and eyes it as it shimmers to life before blinking out. Its protectiveness settles around her shoulders. Magic, she thinks, must be a lot more physical here, wherever here is.
June moves so her back is to the mystical talking forest bullshit and watches the group watch her.
There’s a slight one, a girl, whose short bob contains so many hair clips that June doesn’t think she could count them all. She’s dressed in a lacy knitted sweater overtop a tank top and shorts that end at her thighs. There’s a dubious set to her mouth. June quite likes her already.
Behind her is a sandy looking boy with strong cheekbones and beside him is a shorter, squarer boy with dark hair who wears boat shoes. Boat shoes, seriously? Who does that besides people who own boats and the pretentiously rich?
The last of them, the last boy to round out their group, is a tall boy whose presence June is drawn to. He’s taller than the first boy and June can see the edge of a rough cheekbone and a snarl. He’s wild in a way that June is familiar with. He wears a black tank top and she can see the edges of tattoos peeking out from underneath it.
He looks similar to Bart, if Bart were a teenager and angry and tending to a festering open wound.
“Who the fuck is that?” He asks.
Noah laughs and says, “See? I told you that you were like Ronan!”
June grimaces. The others look curious, but Ronan just looks angry.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Coca-Cola Shirt says. He frowns. June thinks he must do a lot of frowning, the way his face is so natural at it. “How are you here?”
June shrugs. “Beats me,” she says. She bounces on her feet a little, like she’s testing the give of the ground, “but I bet this ley line had something to do with it.”
That gets their attention. “How do you know about the ley line?”
“Mm,” June hums. “Can’t you feel it? It’s really loud.”
They mutter amongst themselves. June lets them go for a moment before interrupting. “Anyway, what are your names? I can’t keep calling you ‘Boat Shoes,’ ‘Coca-Cola Shirt,’ and ‘Girl.’” She points at Ronan. “You, though, Ronan, I might call ‘Bart Part Two.’”
“How do you know my name?” Ronan growls.
For a moment, June is very confused. She looks back at Noah. He smiles and shrugs and says, “They can’t see me anymore. Nobody’s been able to see me in a while.”
The entire group stares at her suspiciously. June can’t believe the clusterfuck she’s woken up to. The forest starts up again: Greywaren! Greywaren! Greywaren!
June takes a leap and hopes she’s right because Noah is of absolutely no help in this situation. “Because you’re the Greywaren, right? That’s how I know. Because of the forest and the ley line.” She’s bullshitting by this point. She hopes it’s working. “You really can’t hear the ley line? Also, these trees? Really fucking obnoxious. At least when the trees back home speak, they have mouths. And hands. And are kind of person-shaped. And they don’t speak Latin, they just speak English.”
Ronan doesn’t relax. The others do, sort of. Coca-Cola Shirt says, “I speak for Cabeswater.”
Like that makes any sort of sense. Ley lines don’t need people to speak for them, unless… “Fuck,” June moans. “What kind of backwater place have I gotten stuck in now?”
Back home, in Hexham, in the whole world, the ley lines don’t need to speak because anyone with even the slightest shred of magic in them knows at the very least where the ley lines are if not what they want.
The girl says, “You’re in Virginia.”
June wracks her brain, but all she can come up with is, “What the hell is Virginia?”
“Like, Virginia? The state?”
June looks at her blankly. “The state of what?”
“The… United States?”
“I’m so confused,” June whines.
“How can you be confused about the country?” Boat Shoes finally asks. He sounds political. It’s giving June hives. “The United States of America.”
“I need you not to talk out loud, Boat Shoes,” June says.
“Gansey,” Boat Shoes offers. At her blank look, he adds, “You can call me Gansey.”
“That’s somehow worse.” June sits back down on the ground because the entire situation has become entirely too much for her to handle standing. “Hey, ley line, Cabeswater? Take me home now.”
Unsurprisingly, it does not. She could cry. Noah drifts closer to her, but she swats him away. She probably looks a sight, but she could care less about it.
“What are the rest of your names? If I’m going to be stuck in an unknown land, the least you could do is tell me your names.”
“That’s Adam,” Gansey says, pointing to Coca-Cola Shirt. “You somehow know Ronan’s name, which is not suspicious at all. That’s Jane.”
Jane pushes Gansey. “I’m Blue, actually.”
June laughs, something stringent in the sound, and says, “Nice to meet you, Jane,” she says, “I’m June.”
She flings herself backward onto the dirt and then curls into herself, trying not to laugh hysterically. Way to make herself not seem suspicious, yeah, great going.
“You know,” Blue says, “she really reminds me of someone.”
“Please say you mean that Gwenllian because I’ve been thinking that this entire time,” Adam says.
“Yes, that’s it,” Blue says emphatically. “They even kind of look similar.”
June sneaks a look back at Noah. He looks entirely too amused about this situation.
“Tell me about magic,” June says. They’re all obviously touched by magic in someway. She can smell it on them. “I know it’s a thing here, obviously, but is it a capital-t Thing?”
Blue goes a bit funny. Adam rolls his eyes heavenward. Ronan still just looks angry. That’s definitely got to be a Thing.
Gansey says, “Oh, hm, well, yes, magic is a thing-” this kid talks like an old man and it’s both the best and worst thing June has ever heard in her life “- but it’s not a particularly common thing.”
“So what you’re saying is that not everyone has magic?”
“Well, no.”
“But you have magic?” June prompts.
“Who can really say who has magic?”
“I have magic,” June says firmly. If there is only one thing June can say for certain, it is that she definitely has magic. She has so much freaking magic. Magic dances around her person all of the time. “You don’t, apparently. It’s still around you, though.”
She points up at Adam. “He apparently speaks for a ley line, which mean he’s touched by magic. Jane-”
“Blue,” the girl in question corrects.
“-should probably stay away from me if what I’m feeling about her is correct. No offense, dear, but I have plenty of magic,” June sing-songs. “I know what happens when it tangles with other people’s magic. Bad things. Bad, bad things.”
Blue acquiesced by taking half a step back.
“Ronan can apparently dream things up, which makes him magic in my book,” June says, thinking about what Noah asked her earlier: Did Ronan dream you up too? “And there’s this dead kid following me around, which means ghosts are a thing here too. Pretty fucking magical, if you ask me.”
“What ghost?” Blue asks, brows curving in concern. “Noah?”
Noah sighs. “I’m more of a ghost of a ghost, actually.”
June can feel Ronan’s eyes digging into her, gouging out a hole like he’s trying to see what parts she’s made of. She bares her teeth at him. “He says ‘hi,’ by the way.”
“I did not!” Noah yelps. “This isn’t nice, don’t do this to them!”
June turns to him and, quicker than a flash, grabs him by the wrist. He looks shocked that she can touch him. “There is nothing nice about me,” she says to him, reaching deep into the place where her magic dwells.
The pressure pops in June’s ears and in a moment, she’s got a fully-fleshed out boy standing next to her.
His eyes are round and he keeps looking at his hands. He pulls out of June’s grip and stays person-shaped. The smudgy bruise remains on his face. “How did you do that?”
“I can do anything I want,” June says unkindly. “I think it, and then I can make it happen.”
It’s a gross oversimplification of how her magic works. She’s not interested in specifics, though. There’s not enough time in the world to explain to five kids from an apparently different mostly-magicless world that her magic lies in the in-between and that crossing those in-between spaces is easier than breathing. There’s not enough time to explain that the biggest, most obvious in-between is death to life, is crossing from one world to another.
“Noah,” Gansey breathes.
Blue’s eyes are wide and her hand comes up to cover her mouth. She looks like she might cry. June does not do well with those who cry.
Adam looks just as surprised as Noah does.
Ronan touches Noah first, clasping his shoulder. His hand connects solidly. He looks less angry for a moment, the first June’s seen him express actual emotion, before the anger ratchets back up at her.
“What are you?” He asks, equally unkindly.
“Haven’t you been paying attention?” June grins, wildly, with teeth like a predator. “I’m magic. I’m a whole lot of magic.”
Ronan tugs Noah away from June and his group envelops him like he’s meant to be there.
“I would keep him on the ley line, I think,” June says thoughtfully. “Cabeswater, did you call it? I would keep him in Cabeswater. He’s tied to it, isn’t he?”
“I’m right here,” Noah says. He’s pressed between Blue and Adam. Gansey keeps looking at him like he might disappear. “You can stop talking about me like I’m not here.”
June hums under her breath. Her attention has already flitted away from them. She’s got to get back home. She touches the ground with her hands, feels out the pulsing of the ley line. “Maybe if I go back to sleep, I’ll wake up back in Hexham. I mean, it worked in the reverse, didn’t it?”
She lays back on the forest floor, ignoring the group around her, and shuts her eyes. Between the humming of the ley line, the murmuring of the trees, and the group of teenagers talking above her, she’s never going to fall asleep. This is a bad plan. She stubbornly keeps her eyes shut.
“You’re not bothering the locals, are you, June?” That’s a voice she recognizes. June’s head pops up and she whips around to stare at Bart. Beautiful Bart.
The teenagers peer around her to look at the newest arrival. He stands with his hands clasped behind his back, in a sharp navy suit with a button-up underneath covered in - oh, good Lord, June traces the protection sigil in the air again, winces at the sparks that fly here and there - tiny flamingos. He’s ridiculous. He’s a ridiculous almost-human being.
“Have you come to save me, dear?” She asks, a hint of a grin in her question.
“Please,” Bart demurs, “I’ve come to save them from you.”
“Who are all these people?” She distantly hears Ronan say. He’s awfully confused, she thinks. “Where do they keep coming from?”
June stands up and picks her way carefully across the clearing to where Bart stands. “Is it time to go home now? But I was having so much fun.”
“Well, I much prefer you in Hexham, as it turns out.”
“That’s so sweet,” June says wickedly. “You’re going to regret saying that in a few days.”
“Undoubtedly,” Bart agrees, offering her his arm.
She slips hers into his easily enough. “However did this happen? I’m sure the class would love to know too.”
June gestures to the group who collectively all try to look like they weren’t just listening in avidly. They’re sort of precious.
She continues, “I, for one, would like to know how you magicked yourself here, when you said and I quote, ‘I’m all magicked out. I’ll never be able to be magicked again.’”
“I said I was all summoned out and you know it. This isn’t technically a summoning anyway.”
“Well, what is it, then?”
“Fairies,” Bart says succinctly.
June immediately crows, “So I was right! I knew it! I knew this had something to do with fucking fairies.”
“Language,” Bart mutters.
Noah giggles into Gansey’s shoulder.
“Well, fairy, if we’re being technical,” Bart clarifies. “In a half-thought out attempt to steal your magic again.”
“Ugh, they’re the worst,” June complains. “How are you here, though?”
“It’s a joint effort between Fox and Lucien, although Lucien voted to leave you here. Fox said you’d upset this magical balance if we left you here too long and overruled him.”
June eyes Noah and then Ronan. “I have definitely already upset the magical balance.”
“I am not surprised by that at all.” To the group, he says, “I apologize on her behalf.”
Gansey nods. Blue says, “No problem.”
June smacks Bart on the chest with the back of her hand. “No, I take that back. He can’t apologize for me. I’m not sorry about anything.”
Bart dips his head and gently starts to lead June off. She babbles at him, “Did you see that tall, dark, and scowly one? He’s like you if you were very angry about things and didn’t wear colors. Bart Part Two! Bart The Sequel!”
Bart pats her hand. “You are unusually chatty today, June.”
“Rude,” June says. “I think it has something to do with the magic here.”
“In addition to the fairy magic, I’m sure,” Bart agrees. He leads them off back into the trees, teenagers forgotten behind them as they chat between themselves.
The trees whisper as they go, Qui ambulat inter se huc illuc.
They step once, twice, three times and then disappear.
**
“Seriously, what the fuck just happened?” Ronan asks his friends at large. He turns to the spot June and Bart disappeared into and asks, “That was weird, even by my really, really bad standards.”
Blue ignores him and turns to Noah. “I’m glad you’re back,” she says softly.
Blue ignores him and turns to Noah. “I’m glad you’re back,” she says softly.
* Qui ambulat inter se huc illuc. -- I put it into Google Translate as "She who walks in between here and there," and it spit this out at me. When I translated it back for funsies, it translated it back as, "He that goeth about hither and thither among themselves." I thought, hey, close enough, why the heck not?