[open] apples and quinces, lemons and oranges

[nedofpies]

Who: Ned, open to all
What: Here be species-swap logs involving Ned the unlikely fertility god.
Where: Anywhere (preferably outdoors).
When: Duration of the event (58 - 61); put date in header, please.
Warnings: Blood, kidnapping, creepiness and general Ned-terrorizing? [will add more as necessary]

Ned wanders the town barefoot, leaving a path of fruit and flowers and vegetation behind him. There are daffodils and bluebells, hyacinths and crocuses, irises of all colors, primroses and poppies and periwinkle in profusion. When he stops to sit quietly under a tree, by the edge of the woods, the vines spread out from his body like paint creeping through water. They slowly wind their way up the trees, or else sprawl across the ground, swelling with strawberries and blackberries, grapes and kiwis, passionfuit and cherries.

He doesn't understand why it is happening, but from the sound of the messages over the communicator, everyone has been going through some strange changes. As far as Ned's concerned, being some kind of plant conjurer is better than some options.

Since he can't think of much else to do with his time, Ned lounges in the dappled shade and makes bouquets. All he needs to do is rake his hands through the soil and a few minutes later, up come the snapdragons, up come the cala lilies. He finds that, if he focuses on a particular kind of flower as he does it, sometimes it is mixed amongst the others. As he sits the hydrangeas are bubbling up around him, shielding him from view.

Ned isn't worried about resting in the woods, despite all the dire warnings he's heard in his short time here. He is at the very edge, just in the shade of the first few trees; the lions and tigers and bears can't possibly have any objections. So he lounges in his cozy bower, hazy, half-awake (he hadn't exactly slept well, the previous night), weaving crowns of camellias and garlands of gladiolus.

Comments

[nedofpies]

"I'll be fine." It is Ned's stock response, rolling off his tongue without prior thought. He doesn't want to worry Erik, to seem weak.

Because now that Tony has gone the shame starts to creep up on Ned, slowly and steadily. This is the second time Erik has seen him completely helpless. What must he think of Ned? Battered and terrorized by everything bigger and stronger than he is in this place? The fear is receding, but it leaves Ned shaking like a leaf in its wake. He crosses his arms tightly, fingers digging into his arms, willing his body to stop.

There's something fascinating about Erik, in his current state. Something solemn and still that Ned doesn't understand. He does his best not to stare. "I really can't thank you enough," he says, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck, "I owe you. Again." Ned doesn't know why he feels the need to justify himself to Erik in particular. He has an innate desire not to let him down, not to seem beneath his notice. Like there's much chance of that, now. "He just came out of nowhere."

[violenthearted]

Erik's eyes - the only really human feature in his face - turn piercing at the response that Ned will be fine, but he doesn't press. The singular difference between that and the answer he would have given himself is that he'd claim (and believe) to already be fine. "Not himself," he assesses of dearly departed Tony, more of that Saharan wit in evidence. At least Ned can count that as normal, for the handful of times he's spoken to Erik.

The rest of Ned's gratitude he doesn't shrug off, exactly, it just seems to soak into that dry clay and vanish under the skin. There's something--he can't pin it down and it's too frustrating to try, but something about Ned as he is now sets prickles at the back of his own neck, makes everything sharper, and in a time where he feels as dull as dust, that's hugely compelling. "Why should you thank me?"

A beat where he seems almost to blink, and then cracks - in a very little sense - a smile. "Money where the mouth is. What's the expression."

That takes it out of him for a second, shoulders visibly squaring. "You're American, you'd know."

He is ...referring to his straightforwardness in regards to being exactly the tank that he currently is when it comes to Ned, but if it takes a minute for him to suss that out Erik won't hold it against anyone except his own stratospheric standards for himself.

[nedofpies]

"Put your money where your mouth is?" Ned guesses. It's curious to him, the difficulty that Erik seems to be having in speaking. He never struck Ned as the chattiest guy (though he had had a few glimpses of that glacial wit of his), but there seems to be a genuine struggle, now. Probably a consequence of being turned into a clay, giant version of himself. A little side-effect, like Ned's trances. "It means following through. Not just saying you're gonna do something but actually doing it."

It clicks for Ned, then, that Erik is referring to his earlier offer of protection. He feels his face flush with a mixture of gratitude and embarrassment that he had cause to back up that offer so soon. What Erik doesn't know (or at least, Ned hopes he doesn't know) is that not so long ago, River was making good on her promise to keep him safe. He's somehow, in this time and this place, become a burden to those around him.

He doesn't want to think about this anymore, doesn't want to dwell on his own uselessness. If he does, he's worried that all the leftover adrenaline and intensity from his encounter with Tony will make him weepy and fragile, and that's the absolute last thing he wants right now.

So with a force of will he focuses his attention outwards, on Erik, on his rather fascinating new shape. "Do you mind if I...?" Ned, rendered strangely tactile by his own transformation, reaches out towards Erik with one hand. He watches the other man, gives him every opportunity to move away or shake his head if he wants, before resting a hand on his forearm. Ned starts the first time he does it. He hadn't expected him to be so warm. But then, getting past the shock, he repeats the motion. It's not a trick of the light - he really does feel like clay, rather than flesh.

"Do you know what you are?" Ned asks, simply. After all, he doesn't have a name for what he's been turned into, so Erik might not, either.

[violenthearted]

The overwhelming flash of memory Erik experiences at the phrase Ned uses, the way he approaches that simple curiosity has almost nothing to do with the man himself--suddenly it's as warm around him as if the sun has come out or he's in the presence of a thousand candles; he can feel an autumn wind at his back and the burn of overuse in whatever muscle memory governs his mutation, even if it's--

It's like having it back, just for a second, and it's like feeling that light-accented voice in his head where it belongs, like--it's just like being warm, on the inside as well as the outside that Ned can feel himself. That memory that Charles had coaxed out of a place he hadn't even realized he'd forgotten stays with him; it's paralyzing in its loss at the same time it loosens everything, makes his limbs almost like they should be again, and there's an instant where he doesn't know what to do with himself at all.

Ned's question lets him recenter himself; if his voice catches it was already doing that anyway. "A golem," he returns, just as simply. He knows his folklore, but it's too difficult to explain, so he summarizes as best he can: "A protector. A monster. Brought to life by faith."

Since they seem to be having a conversation now, even if Erik has moved his arm out of Ned's reach, letting them hang at his sides not loose, but ready, it seems like in polite company they ought to sit down. But he hasn't, really, since the change; his new height is strange, but not horrifying. "Some irony, I don't have any. What are you? Besides edible."

....sorry, Ned. Erik is, uh, still the same jerk in many respects.

[nedofpies]

When he touches Erik, the other man gets a look in his eyes that Ned wouldn't possibly know how to describe. It's odd that, despite how inexpressive the rest of his face has become, there can be so much in his eyes. He doesn't look frightened, or upset, but he moves away nonetheless, and Ned lets him. He feels ashamed of himself for being so rude, wonders if he ought to apologize, but then Erik is answering his questions. Erik's lack of faith is another small similarity between the two of them: one that does not escape Ned's notice.

A golem. Of course - he should have realized. Ned is familiar with the concept from various science fiction incarnations, though the precise details escape him. It seems fitting in some way: the two times he's interacted with Erik, he has been protecting people or else offering future protection in the future. This is just an extension of one aspect of himself, in the same way that Ned's power is an extension of a certain aspect of himself, too.

The remark about being edible stings, but Ned knows he deserves it. He answers sarcasm with more sarcasm, "Very edible." After all, what hasn't tired to eat him, these last few days?

"I don't know what I am. Again," Erik will perhaps be able to see the bitter humor in that. Just as Ned, who'd spent most of his life looking for a name for what he is, had found one, he'd been turned into something different. "But all this-" he gestures all around them - to the rows of fruit trees, to the blanket of bluebells and buttercups and a hundred other kinds of flowers, "is me. I make things grow, and heal things."

In demonstration he bends down, straightens out some of the mashed and snapped patches of flowers where Erik's feet had been. The stems knit together again under his touch, the petals straightening and becoming whole, the leaves that were torn regrowing from the stem.