pris and the angry wind make art -x- open

[priscilla grace]

when it wasn’t her turn to work the reception desk at the clinic but her precious duck was still on doctor duty, donald always urged the most magnificent and strange miss pris to do something other than stick her face in her drawing pad and get lost in her colors.  that was something she could do anywhere, he said, whether at the clinic or the castle or in mister planet’s blue box.  he said it was good for her, since she spent most of her time in so many unconventional places, that she explored the area to do some things that were normal for a young woman her age to do.

whenever he said that, pris commenced her protest whining.  what wasn’t normal about the doctor using his gadget on her so she could be a fox person with lumie, or dressing in her dark and spookies to skulk around the dracula castle and have princess practice with adrian?  nothing, if you asked the now twenty-one-year-old, nothing at all.  those things, along with compulsively painting over her mural on the wall behind her desk at the clinic, felt much safer and more comforting to her than buying a cup of coffee at a coffeeshop so strange people who were also drinking coffee could stare her while she drank it.

which is why she wasn’t going to get coffee.  the petite ball of color that was priscilla grace preferred walking instead, even though walking was all she’d been doing since her precious duck had shooed her out the door over an hour ago.  walking down this street, walking down that street, walking on the other side of the street when there was someone coming her way...there weren’t that many people on these streets today, though.  it wasn’t because of the time of day, the sun was still hugging the horizon and the shadows were still hiding...and it wasn’t because of the winter, because there wasn’t a single flake of snow in sight.

it was because of the wind.  it was air with an invisible and angry mission.  as it raged down the street, it knocked over anything that wasn’t bolted to the ground or heavy enough to resist, even jostling the barely over five feet tall miss pris when the gust was particularly strong.  as for the trees, they were having a tougher time than she was, their branches waving all over the place in protest as they cracked their wood like they were trying to call mayday.  but despite the howling wind, despite the mayday crying trees, and even despite the various flower pots and other things that were falling and rolling down the street, pris enjoyed this afternoon more than she’d enjoyed any other around here because this afternoon felt quiet. to her and her warped mind, because there were hardly any people in sight, this angry afternoon was as serene as a still life.  

there was no way the trees could keep all their pieces in weather like this.  the next corner pris turned, the walk and street were littered with branches big and small, and one of the shorter trees was tap tap tapping its lower branches against a chain link fence that separated the road from a big important marble building that was set far back on an otherwise empty property.  slowing her pace, pris’ great green eyes stopped shifting here there and everywhere and focused on the piles of tree detritus in front of her.  a normal young woman would have seen an annoying mess that she had to step around, but not miss pris, no not pris.  she saw art.  

so any onlookers would see a petite figure in a bright orange coat - so puffy she nearly looked like a pumpkin out of season - walking from this place to that to pick up different branches of all shapes and sizes.  careful not to snag any of the twigs on her precious tights that were green with yellow stars, she was creating a pile of perfect pieces by the fence, and it was growing by the minute.  before long, she was making swishing sounds like she was attempting to talk to the wind - sounds that were only interrupted by the spitting dissatisfaction of her tongue when the breeze blew strands of her long blue and green streaked hair into her mouth.

once the pile was in a state to her satisfaction, the strange and wonderful miss pris got to work.  which started with weaving.  her fingers working the branches like they were yarn and she was the loom, before long she had a two foot long and perfectly woodsy eyeball, pupil and all.  with the help of a long sinewy twig that sort of behaved like twine, pris fixed the eyeball to the fence and thus began her sculpture.  the next body part was more complex, and it took twice as long to weave - including a special trip to seek some twigs that would make for perfect fingers, but the extra time was worth her great success.  pris spent a long and careful time threading the base of the self-portrait of her arm through the links of the fence, fixing it firmly so that even though it flapped in the wind just like she wanted it to it wouldn’t fly away.  

so that was how pris decided she was spending afternoon.  ignoring how the angry air was chilling her fingers as she bent and wove branches, humming along with the angry air as it howled in her uncovered ears, and adding more curious parts to her strange and wonderful chain link canvas sculpture by the minute.

[NotSuperman]

“Oh yeah, this place is fun as hell... You wouldn’t believe just how easy it can be sometimes...” Clark had given Kiesah a call in his ample free time. Given he was on vacation he had ample free time, given that he had been able to get by on his good looks he hadn’t really paid for anything since he arrived. This land of Rhy’din was a wonder for the Sidhe man, a open buffet for him to gorge himself upon “...People here don’t even know what toasters are... I feel like I could open a best buy and make a killing.” His conversation continued along those lines with his lady of winter Kiesah who had been spending a bit more time with Kelda of Asgard. They were together relishing in the joy that winter brought them, for the native Californian winter was already something he didn’t enjoy. As a Sidhe of the summer court of Faerie it was anathema. So he let the Asgardian teach Kiesah the finer points of her control over the winter weather. He could enjoy this land here for a time.



“How’s the kitten? is she behaving herself?” He smiled, fond thought of snuggling on the couch with the cat curled up in his lap while watching TV with Kiesah lounging with them filling his mind. “ Well good, I’m glad... Yes, I’ll be bringing another home with me. Jade owes me a favor...” He strolled past the park and plopped down on a bench, sipping his warm beverage and producing a small wooden pipe from the interior pocket of his blazer. “Okay... give her belly rubs from me...You two have fun.” He lowered his phone and dropped it into a pocket and he brought the pipe to his lips and sparked it to life with a lighter, Drawing deeply from it the man’s eyes wandered the park. It was mostly empty as it was rather cold for someone who didn’t have the inner fire of Summer keeping him warm. Something caught his eye though. An orange puffball running across his field of vision and then back with some twigs right back out of his line of sight. Shaking his head Clark took another hit from his pipe relaxing back into his bench as he let the familiar and wonderful feeling his hobby brought him fill him to the brim. warming him from the inside out. As he pulled a small medicinal jar from his pocket to replace what he’d just finished in his pipe the Orange ball ran by again,and once again it disappeared outside of his field of vision. Shaking his head he finished his business and finished refilling. He was about to relight it when the puffball ran by again This time though he rose, Watching as it carried its twigs away. With a shrug he ensured his glamour was in place, masking his appearance to that of a human, it put people at ease for the most part and rose, It was something that warrented more investigation. He wasn’t a detective anymore, but the itch never really left.



With his Faerie gift of speed he followed behind. Watching where the child was going, it had to be a child to be playing with sticks. But who was he to judge? He spent a good portion of his day playing video games with his cat. He stood back at a distance and watched the child work. bringing the pipe to his lips to pull a nice long drag from it. enough to get a nice buzz going before he put it away, hands in his pockets. Blue eyes watched her run off for more twigs, and on her way back, he spoke up. “ Hey... What’re you making there? Looks neat!” He gave the small girl his most friendly smile, It was different then his usual one. Guileless and cheerful, he was filled with the cheerful exuberance and curiosity of a man who’d just took the hit that took him from a 5 to a 7.

[priscilla grace]

by the time clark asked his question, there were two more gigantic woodsy eyeballs attached to various parts of the fence, and pris had moved onto building the central canvas for her artwork.  a whole network of twigs and branches woven into a three foot tall, four foot long web through the chain links, so that she could anchor the featured structure off this sturdy branchy base.  an onlooker would be hard-pressed to tell what the currently formless shape she was building was meant to be, because it was still early on in the construction process.  with how quickly she was working and how confidently she selected particular twigs from the pile at her feet, however, there was no doubt she was enacting a vision in mind.

“wind-sweeping.  duh.”  even though pris was a teenager no longer, she hadn’t yet grown out of that matter-of-fact tone that teenagers were so well-known for.  “duh duh duh,” she added those words at the pace that others might click their disappointed tongue.  even though she shook her head with a swish swish swish pace that matched the blowing wind, never did she look away from her creation to see who it was that had asked her the question in the first place.  for all pris knew, it could have been the tree that had earlier been tap tap tapping on the fence.  but then again, the voice didn’t sound barky enough to belong to a tree.  “it’s not neat.” the words were uttered for the benefit of silencing her own obsessive mind more than anything, so that it would let go of its nagging disagreement with clark’s statement. “the angry air is knocking everything unclean, turning over flower pots while arms flap flap mayday in the breeze.”  the arm she’d sculpted onto the fence was still doing just that.

it wasn’t until pris looked down at her dwindling collection of branches and didn’t find that she was looking for that she paused. “hm.  hm hm hm.”  time to collect more - except that she stopped short as soon as she stood up and turned around.  green eyes widening at the sight of clark.  staring at her just like the people in coffee shops stared at her, except he was missing the cup of coffee that gave him permission.  at least that’s how pris’ warped mind chose to explain why people were always staring, anyway, the hot hot liquid sending meanie messages to people’s eyeballs through their tastebuds.  

as soon as her eyes landed on him, pris looked away.  looked here there and everywhere, in fact, a pattern that was much different than the deep focus she’d been giving to her sculpture a moment ago.  she didn’t like looking at people directly, most especially people she didn’t know, because she never knew what she was going to see.  as for what was seen, that had only grown more substantial and strange, because the illness that seeded her ability to do so strengthened with age.

now for what clark could see.  long straight hair that was mostly blue and green, with a few streaks of her natural deep dark brown, blowing all willy nilly in the wind without her being bothered by it one bit. and eyes lined dramatically in black kohl pencil, with eyeshadow curled and swirled in shades of green and yellow that were a good match to her tights.  pris was not the type to do makeup to blend in, and she was not the type to dress to blend in either, even though most of what she wore was obscured by her big puffy pumpkin coat.  only the bottom of her thickly layered green tulle skirt peaked out, making it look like the pumpkin was upside-down and her skirt was her stem.  

she was short, she was strange, and she was definitely on the young side, but pris was no longer a child.

[NotSuperman]

Wow, She certainly told him didnt she. to her 'duh duh duh' the incredibly high man bobbed his head along in agreement. "You're right..." He looked over her artwork and then gave a nod. " I really should have seen that. " He stepped back and out of her way as she went on with her work. Listening intently as she described what she was doing and why. There was a frown that crossed the Sidhe man's face then. "The wind sounds like an asshole... I mean, what the hell did flower pots ever do to it?" His tone was genuine, he was right there with her on the mean and angry wind.

When she looked up at himhe smiled again. A real genuine smile because he was being friendly to a child, and well. She wasn't a child, definitely not a kid and she was really very pretty, double bonus. And then she was off again and he looked after her and she might have been tripping balls that could have been fun. While she was off gathering more twigs. Clark decided to do a good deep for the day. He utilized his Fae gift for speed to dash about and gather a whole bunch of twigs. Which he would have added to her pile by the time she got back.

He took another pull from his pipe and put it back into his pocket. "I found these ones for you too, I made sure the wind didn't carry them off... that dick..." said as he gave the blowing wind a dirty look. It was also that it was cold and wintery. he didn't like it for that one either.

[priscilla grace]

clark's smile, his tone, these things weren't lost on her even if she didn't respond to or reciprocate them directly. pris was very watchful of person clues like that, they were some of what told her whether she was going to be safe or unsafe in a situation. "yup," was her one word reply to the fact that he should have seen it. her lips making a pronounced pop on the 'p', putting the same brazenness in that single syllable to match the matter-ot-fact lesson she'd taught him a moment ago. pris' eyes were so strange but specific in what they saw, and the girl ping-ponged between being achingly aware and blissfully unaware of the fact that no one else could she what she saw on a daily basis.

to try and keep up with the world that everyone else was seeing, her brain played a constant game of connect the information dots. so when she finished gathering a fresh armful of sticks and headed back to her fence perch, what she saw was equivalent to a mental swarm of unconnected dots that were having huffy tantrums. the first dot: the time that passed, which pris could see by the single armful of sticks she held because she knew how long it'd taken to collect them. the second dot:  the sudden sticks now piled by her fence canvas, which was a much much bigger pile than the one in her arms. the third dot: the man without a coffee cup, standing beside the stick pile. even an unconventional mind like pris' knew those dots couldn’t connect without an additional dot she clearly couldn’t see.

that missing dot made her eyes stop hopping here there and everywhere.  pris’ gaze stilled. focused, on clark.  as he explained his role as a helper her head slowly tilted to the side, a gesture she did often when she was fox-person with lumie.  she was trying to decide what to make of him.  and she didn’t speak until she’d started to see.  “there’s a green field under your skin sending lots of SOS sparkles.  is that why sticks listen to you, because you’ve swallowed up spring and won’t let it out?”  her emerald eyes focused on him until she was done asking her question, and then she was quick to look away.  like onions, pris’ sight knew that people had lots of layers and seeing his first layer was enough. it’d helped her connect to the missing dot and now she could move on.

back to her artwork, back to her pile of sticks.  fingers going back to weaving, there were two arms she was building to come out of the web of branches she’d woven - arms seen only above their elbows, as if the rest were trapped in the fence.  the next work was building the torso that connected them.  how she was threading sticks and twigs together to make that connective base for the chest was probably fascinating to watch.  she was so sure of what she was doing, although she’d never done anything quite like this before.  “what does an asshole sound like?”  it wasn’t uncommon for pris to answer a person’s first words last, and she did so now without bothering to look up from her making. “to me the wind sounds like whoosh, hoowwooooo, swish swish swish.” the funny part about the middle sound was that it was the most accurate.  pris could be quite a mimic when she put her mind to it, so it was a very good representation of girl calls wind.

[NotSuperman]

Clark was looking rather proud of himself and his twig pile. It showed on his face with his exuberant smile. It was clear that this girl was tripping on something that was making her see some cool ass shit. Maybe he could ask her for some when she was done with her art. He was a big fan of the physical vices, especially the ones that resulted in some fun sensations.

When she looked at him , he held her eyes for that moment and then the look of surprise on his face."You, can see that?" That was definitely interesting. Unless she was bluffing, she could be bluffing. But then how did she know about the green? that was kind of on the nose. He crouched down, watching her as she did her art."No, that wind is winter's fault... It's why the spring is only spring and not summer..." he was weaker now that winter was in full swing.

He then sat back a good distance away, watching along with her. to her question though he knew exactly who he was calling an asshole for the wind "In this instance? a seven foot tall nordic woman... " And then he shook his head. "That's not fair... She's usually pretty nice, but still... winter wind is the worst..." He pulled his phone out and used it to snap a picture of the thing she was making. it was really pretty good. Maybe what she was on, was helpful for creating art. " You know, I can make that sparkle, when you're done..." she had asked about letting the sparkles out.

[priscilla grace]

"yup," was her confirmation that she could indeed see that, with the same pronounced pop on the 'p'.  pris didn’t look away from her artmaking until he crouched down next to her, and even then she only watched him for a few seconds.  “that’s just your top layer, onion. your second layer tried to snatch me before I looked away. underneath it there’s a - " instead of words she made a gesture, wriggling her fingers in a witchy way a few inches in front of his face. “it’s slippery sneaky and hard to see because it’s keeps - " wiggling, apparently, because instead of using a word pris made that gesture again.  

as pris continued weaving her twig torso she was trying to unravel her way through his wind riddle.  muttering to herself as she had a conversation with the dots in her brain.  “...why the spring is only spring and not summer.  but the spring is always spring and the summer is always summer.  hm.  hm hm hm.”  pris chewed on her bottom lip as she finished the last rows on her hollow body, knitting her brows in a frown to frame her focused eyes.  more mutters followed.  “because you swallowed up spring and won’t let it out?  no that wind is winter’s fault, it’s why the spring is - your spring, onion?” pris finally stopped recounting their conversation to ask that eureka question, eyes darting over at him and immediately back to her twigs.  “winter’s made the summer that you swallowed a spring, and that’s why all your sparkles are saying help help dot dot dot dash?”  she never got the dots and dashes of morse code quite right, always getting lost in the middle and finishing it up differently each time.  whether she was right or not never really mattered to pris.  all that mattered was that her mind dots had stopped grumbling because they were satisfied with the answer she’d come up with.  

by now pris had finished with her twig torso, which was securely attached to the two partial arms she’d built out of the woodsy web in her fence canvas.  a keen eye might catch that the torso was female in shape, but the two rounded portions which represented breasts were on the side of the torso that faced the ground, so they might be hard to notice at first.  at the bottom of the torso she’d attached a circular shape not very different from a thick and loosely woven wreath.  not only would it end up looking functionally like a belt, but it provided her with the necessary structure to start building a wild and flowy skirt made of longer branches.  each long long stick threaded through the wreath not once but twice to make sure it was secure, and then she let it hang loose and however it wanted.  

while she constructed the stick skirt, pris was shaking her head.  “no. no no not fair.  you can’t call an asshole seven feet tall because i bet it knows that it’s really short.”  when it came to pris and her questions, they tended to be literal, even if they were strangely asked.  a thoughtful look followed.  “but it does make wind….warm wind, though.  unless farts become cold if a butt’s on ice?”  if only she knew that this man thought she was on some sort of drug, and that her odd statements and questions really weren’t helping him dispel that theory.  but his demeanor was so full of smiles and interest that she this was one of the moments that she was blissfully unaware, and she believed they were having a mighty dandy conversation completely on the same page.

“sparkle?” that word perked her interest, pulling pris’ green gaze away from her sculpture of sticks.  her questioning look searched his face in a here there everywhere fashion, not staying on one spot for more than a second or two.  “to make it a dress of lights lights lights?  i wore one of those once, to go to a cinderella ball.”  but she never made it there, sad sad sad.

[NotSuperman]

“You know, I never really thought of myself as an onion... I’m more partial to being a pie, or a cake. Because not everyone likes onions, but everyone likes cake and pie. “ And they had layers as well as onions did. “ Now that I think about it, pie is probably a better analogy... because the second layer is usually better then the first one. “ He looked thoughtful for a moment and then gave a nod. He came back to the world when she was making her wiggling fingers.HE smiled at that, she was definitely tripping balls. Or maybe not, maybe she just wasn’t all present...” He took a moment to glance around and see if she had any minders. In his days as a beat cop he’d heard of minders leaving folks with a condition alone while going to tend to their own business. He gave a shrug and leaned forward.

“Well, That’s an interesting way to think about it.... “ He bobbed his head in understanding then. listening as she went on, and then watching as her eyes moved around and then she came back. “That’s exactly correct!” He said excitedly, it was impressive that he was able to catch that and then put it all together. Whenever he did shrooms he could barely remember how to work the television, yes this girl was able to grab finer points of conversation. “ I don’t know that much about farts really... Aside from the fact that my dad always said it was the best punchline to a joke... But, I can say the persona responsible for winter is not a very nice lady sometimes.”

“Yeah, I can let it out, to make the dress sparkle with light. “ He wasn’t as proficient as Jade was with that sort of thing but he could make a girls night by making her stick figures dress sparkle. He sat up from his leaning and rose. starting over towards the young lady and her stick person. AS he moved he let his glamour fade away, and reached a hand out to spread his Fae dust over the things skirt. brushing it off until it coated the stick figure lightly. “ Whenever you’re ready... just say the word. You tell it to sparkle and it will... “ because he could trigger the dust at will, he could let her have that little bit of power.

[priscilla grace]

“no.  no no no.”  it didn’t matter that clark was still talking, while he went on about cakes and pie, pris was already shaking her head in disagreement and interjecting those ‘no’s wherever there was room between his words.  “you’re an onion.  an onion who can’t see his own filling and doesn’t realize we don’t get to choose our insides.”  firmly spoken without glancing away from her stick skirt making, pris knew that to be the truth and there’d be no convincing her unconventional mind otherwise.

speaking of minds, clark would find no minders in sight. he’d find no one in sight at all, in fact, this didn’t seem to be a very popular street - at least not today.  he might find the words she uttered more peculiar by the minute, however, as his mention of ‘dad’ flared some of the more unsettled dots in her mind and put a frown on her face.  “my daddy always said, ‘hands, do what you’re bid bring the balloon of the mind that bellies and drags in the wind into its narrow shed.’” while it was a poem, pris recited it like a run-on sentence without any particular rhythm or inflection.  “those were his words to try and keep himself in his driver’s seat. he recited them a lot, i don’t think he had a lot of time to think about farts.” sig ganesvoort had a much harder time controlling his illness compared to his daughter, which is why his struggle had ended in death.

while she spoke her fingers wove and worked, wove and worked as quickly as the whipping wind was blowing to wherever it was going.  what was once a large pile of twigs and branches was soon barely a pile at all, and what started as a few long sticks flapping in the breeze had become a full-blown skirt with an underlayer that poofed out and gave shape just like a petticoat.  when she was finished, she stood and step step stepped back, into the street where she was far enough away to see if the woodsy experiment worked.  sure enough, the next big gust of wind that swooped through the area picked up the twiggy skirt of the sculpture with a whoosh and briefly lifted it up off the ground, giving the effect of a woman who was clinging to the fence for dear life as the wind tried to blow her away.  “swwwisssssh,” said pris with a great and beaming grin of victory, a rare thing to see on the face of this odd young woman.

that smile was promptly swept off her face when clark leaned into her line of sight to sparkle the dress, her wide green eyes stretching wider when she saw that his green field was actually real.  “swwwhoa…” she said as she stared, stared in exactly the same way she hated others to stare at her.  she couldn’t help it, though, not when his SOS sparkles were real, too, and he was spreading them over her sculpture like a coat of sparkly glaze.  “swhoa swhoa swhoa.  you’re real...your spring is real, i’ve never seen the same overlayer and underlayer when i’ve stared.”  which was pris speak for the fact that she’d never seen a person whose insides looked almost exactly the same as their outsides. not in the strange and disturbing way that she could see into a person, at least.  

it was a fact that was confusing, fascinating, and something the dots in her mind couldn’t explain.  it made it hard for her to stop staring.  he’d told her to just say the word, though, and her compulsive mind wouldn’t let her focus on anything else until she closed the loop of that request.  “skirt sticks.  sparkle?”  she said the word, right, even if she said it uncertainly?  her eyes and focus finally free to trade between looking down at her sculpture and up at her own personal green man.

[priscilla grace]

(( we all remember how michael and i get lazy and finish threads in IMs right? eleven magical years....-halo- ))

CLARK:  Clark smiled at her father’s words, nodding along as she spoke. "Your father seems like he was a very wise man."  His tone was a bit softer and his smile was warm. Watching the young girl after her story, he gave a nod of understanding.  He was now only like seventy percent sure she was tripping balls. "Oh? yes... I am."  He said, with obvious pride in himself, offering his best most charming smile.  Glancing over at her sculpture.  The dust he'd spread over it sparkling to life.  Like the twinkling of distant stars, they twinkled, and faded before lighting back up again in surreal pattern.

PRIS:  his words about her father pulled her attention momentarily away from her winding and weaving.  pris first turning her large green eyes upon him, and second she gave her head a slow slow tilt to the side.  considering him, considering what he said, and letting the dots in her mind try to bang out an answer before she gave up and asked.  "does he?"  her tone softened in a perfect mimic to how his tone softened.  she had a habit of mimicry, especially when she was nervous or didn't know what to say or do in a situation.  she didn't mimic his smile, however.  pris smiles were rare occasions, like comets.  once clark had lit the skirt of sticks up like the night sky, pris found herself suddenly torn about where she wanted to stare.  because she wanted to stare at him, and how he'd turned green like the spring inside him, but how could she not stare at the field of twinkling blue stars?  her response was shifting.  taking a side step and another side step and another side step until her green man was on one side of the sculpture, and she was on the other, putting both clark and sculpture in her staring view.  "a spring that's out in winter...that makes wood skirts sparkle...is my wood woman going to bloom?"  the dots in her mind told her that the sparkles might result in buds or flowers since he was a man of spring.  now that her art was complete, clark had the full of her attention - and he was the one of the few strangers that she'd ever stared at without looking away to watch here there and everywhere instead.

CLARK:  "If my sister were here, maybe..." Clark said, his smile faltering. He didn't have Jade’s affinity for growth and or healing. It wasn't his gift. It was a bummer, because clearly this kid had issues, and she wanted to see her wood woman bloom. "...I can't make her bloom, but i can do..." He motioned her attention over to it, and the sparkles popped and ignited, sending out bright sparks as the dust ignited.  Maybe that could count...sh-t, it might be something he'd try later to the music of Pink Floyd.

PRIS:  "your lip petals fell. like mine did when you mentioned dads."  an acknowledgement of the shift in his face.  pris was more observant than most people realized, and it didn't take much to notice a man's smile fall when that man had been grinning nearly every time she'd looked over at him.  a shrug followed when he confirmed that he couldn't make her bloom.  "it's probably for the best anyway, what's the use of blooming when she's going to be swept away all her buds would just break off in the wind and fall to the ground, a bunch of flower tears that never get to be flowers."  there was probably something behind what pris said, maybe she was associating the female figure hanging on to the fence for dear life with herself.  she watched the wood skirt though and her face lit with surprise when the bits of dust, "snap crackle pop.....sparkle crispies.  like the fourth of july."  which meant that she was american.  pris looked up at him, up into his eyes, as she added suddenly, "you poof things.  your," here she made that tentacle gesture, "poofed these to life.  i knew someone who could do that once. he wasn't a green man though like you.  he was a grandmother-what-big-teeth-you-have.  grrr."  pris punctuated that reference to benjamin by baring her teeth and making a wolf face.  well, wolf face to pris, anyway.

CLARK:  "Oh I'll be fine... I just..." It wasn't anyone’s fault that Jade got more and cooler powers. He'd have to talk to his mother about that someday.  Which was probably going to be a bit difficult considering the last time he’d spoken to his mother." That’s a good point...We'll see how it is when the spring is outside as well... I can do more then as opposed to when the winter takes over outside..." He was watching the sparkes when she made the comment about the other person. "You've met another Sidhe? Wait.... was he the big bad wolf?"

PRIS:  "you just?  you just?  you just curl up like upset toes when the wind blows cold?"  clark didn't finish the sentence, so that meant that pris had to or else her mind would fixate on his unfinished.  the dots in her mind didn't mind nonsense answers, especially ones that sort of made sense and rhymed like poetry.  head titled to the side at his middle words, her eyes leaving him to look at the area.  "outside outside.  not just outside your inside."  she was clarifying what he meant, for herself, just to assure her thoughts that they were on the right train track.  "another...sidhe?  she?  she was a he."  and clearly pris didn't know what a sidhe was.  "his name was poof.  benjamin."  she still put great emphasis on the second syllable.  "his insides were a wolf that growled, baring big teeth as his eyes glowed red.  a big bad wolf.  the big bad wolf.  i'm not sure which.  he never sparkled.  but his teeth were white white white, they glowed like the moon."

CLARK:  Clark smiled at that. Bobbing his head in a nod. "You could say that..." Not an outright lie. Because Pris could absolutely say just that, a fact demonstrated by the fact that she did. "Yes, Sidhe. Fae creatures...Sounds like he was a terrifying man. What happened it him?”  Clark’s question was innocent enough. A basic information gathering question, One like any number of questions he would have used as a police officer when questioning a victim. More and more he was guessing this girl wasn't on something. But maybe the big bad wolf had done something to hurt her.

PRIS:  she blinked at him, looking momentarily baffled and matter-of-fact in the same instant.  "i did say that.  you're the one that didn't say." while pris had an odd way of putting things, and an odder way of seeing the world, she was very literal sometimes.  "you just said just.  just and then...."  during the silence she made follow, pris leaned in and leaned in with an expectant look on her face as if the air was going to tell them the words he didn't say.  and then, when he used a different word to describe himself, recognition flashed across her face.  "oh!  fae.  yes yes yes.  like the glittering spider with her holly hair.  her tiny princess is starting to sparkle now.  she didn't when she was a baby but you can see them if you look close enough, her sparkles are starting to show.  silver, all silver."  donald was the young princess' doctor, so pris had seen both eisa and her mother a number of times, nearly every time spider brought the child in for a check up.  a shrug followed as a first response to clark's question about benjamin.  her eyes dropping to watch the sparkling skirt as a gust of wind picked up the female form and made it wave in the breeze.  "he poofed.  poofed for good, i guess, because he was caught red handed up to no good, the kind of no good that you can't hide the carpet over and pretend isn't there."

CLARK:  "You are correct, I apologize."  Sincerity was clear in his words, as he leaned in to hear whatever whisper she may have been about to offer forth.  And then her exclamation made him jump a bit as he wasn’t expecting it. Leaning back, he looked a little confused. "Wait, you know the queen of Asgard?  I also know the Queen..." Which was true, again as a fae he couldn’t lie at all. That was a nice coincidence, maybe he could ask about the girl the next time he wanted to make an ass of himself in front of the queen. "He was caught red handed." That made sense. Probably was part of the reason for her condition.  "Maybe it's good that he's gone then. since he couldn't even hide it under the rug."

PRIS:  pris didn't realize he was leaning in to hear the finish of her whisper, because she was leaning in hoping that he would finish his 'just' sentence so that she could properly connect the dots in her mind with something that made more sense than angry curling toes.  brows furrowed when clark used spider's title to ask questions, technical things like titles were things pris sometimes got tangled in, though she tried her best now not to get all knotted up in the fancy words.  "yes, the spider queen."  it was hard for pris to associate spider with anything else when she had so many webs inked into her flesh.  "her princess sparkle baby comes to doctor duck for her checkups and sometimes the spider queen lets her help me answer phones even though sparkle baby usually wants to just pick the phone up and sing songs to people."  as for clark's comments about benjamin, it resulted in a slow shrug from pris and a face that puckered up like a lemon and sighed out in a huff.  "poof poofed.  they all poof, once they realize that i have to work at keeping the walls from whispering and me in my driver's seat and that i don't want pills.  except my most precious duck, he's duck the dad now that poof failed at being poof the parent."  not that pris wanted him to be duck the dad.  she just wanted him to be her most precious duck.

CLARK:  "That sounds fun. I'm told that she's a sweet girl." He'd heard a lot about the baby and even saw her at a feast once.  But he'd never had the pleasure to sitting with the girl, probably because she was a small child and he was a grown stranger.  He looked thoughtful as he listened to her, nodding along in understanding. "Well, I suppose I can relate... my parents kind of poofed on me too. Good to hear you have a dad who won’t poof." He had parent issues as well, but his were different. Poofing for other reasons and they probably weren't evil in any real way.

PRIS: "mmm.....mhm.  mhm mhm mhm."  she had to think a moment before confirming clark's notion that it was fun to play with the princess.  it was hard for pris to figure out how she felt about the tiny people.  children didn't make a lot of sense to her, and that was saying something since she often didn't make sense to most people either.  green eyes snapped to look very briefly into his own when he said that bit about his parents.  clearly he'd caught her full attention, and that was as rare as a unicorn when that came to the strange young woman.  "your parents poofed?  how?"  the topics of poofing parents and fathers pulled her inward into her thoughts, and her gaze strayed to watch her stick statue being tossed about by the heavy wind.  "i want my skirt to sparkle too. and snap crackle pop like a firework."  she said it firmly, with resolute expectation.  she'd never shed the strategy of speaking with total demanding as a way to increase the chances of getting what she wanted.  

CLARK: "They were... working...Like, all the time..." he said with a shrug. Clark's parents were famous people in the 80s. Big comedians, lots of movies meant not a whole lot of time for raising a kid. But whatever. He snapped back to the moment when she demanded that her dress be made to sparkle. He looked impressed by her tone and then gave his bright smile. "I think that would look amazing. What would you trade me for it?" He was a fae after all, the desire to make a deal was always there.
   
PRIS: the fact that clark's parents were work-poofers, pris made a big face at that including sticking out her tongue with dissatisfaction, a huge eyeroll and an even huger huff following. "that's how dommy dunderhead poofed.  we both had the same mom and he was supposed to be my guardian but work ate him up."  out of all the people who had poofed in her life, there was totally no question that she missed dunderhead dommy the most.  he was one of the few people in the whole wide world who totally understood her and never bat an eyelash or made any weird faces at the things she said or did.  he made her feel normal.  "how do you think that?  you don't even know what dress i'm wearing, green man, all you can see is the bottom of my skirt fluff."  pris fluffed said skirt fluff, which was of course the yellow tulle under layer.  it made her dress bell out, even if that really couldn't be seen since her dress was currently trapped under her gigantic orange puff coat.  as for what she would trade him for it, pris bit her lip, chewing on it thoughtfully as she said her usual, "hm.  hm hm hm."  green eyes darting here there and everywhere for something proper to offer before she bent down and swooped up a good long stick that didn't have any little branches sticking out anywhere on it.  this she held out to him as she proclaimed, "marshmallow holder."  you know, for when you were toasting them.  said in that matter-of-fact way she had about her sometimes, so maybe it would be hard for him to tell she was joking.  when her way of looking at and articulating the world was so eccentric, sometimes it was hard for her to make jokes land because people thought she was just being...well, her.

((. . .to be continued . . .))

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