2020-03-10 - Between Pages Two and Three

Isabella is gone. Bennie is not entirely gone, but she's well enough that she's not confined to the bed, or the bedroom, and she's probably as eager to get out of there as Alexander is to have the house to himself again for the first time in months.

At first. But after a few hours, Alexander becomes restless, prowling through the place, followed by the cat and with the bird on his shoulder. Nothing has Isolde's signature on it anymore, there are no academic texts strewn across the coffee table, there's no teasing remarks from Bennie, or curses, or amusingly bizarre swears. Just quiet, even when he turns tturns the TV on. And the nagging feeling that Isabella might never come back, that all his friendships are just an aberration, and will fade out of his life just as quickly and inexplicably as they happened. He needs distraction.

Which means deciding to cook. He hasn't been doing that much, since it was rather more important to make sure that Bennie got something edible than to practice his culinary skills. But now she's better, and maybe he'll feel better if there's something that he made waiting for her. Something that proves he's worth having around for some reason. So he heads into the kitchen to take stock of the fridge. Everything is very neat, always. It's also very empty - lots of take out means no grocery shopping, so the fridge doesn't have much in the way of...edible items. But he froze some of the things that August brought last time, so he reaches for the freezer, opens it, and starts to take out the dove.

Then stops and stares at the edge of a white feather streaked with darkness sticking out of the very back of the freezer, as if someone tried to hide it behind the ice cream. That should not be there. And just like that, Alexander goes from bored and worried and distracted to alert. One hand reaches for the butcher's block, taking the nearest knife. He looks around for changes, but it doesn't feel like a Dream. Did he put the bird in the freezer? Did Bennie? Some sort of drug thing? Or Isabella?

But why? He goes to pull it out to examine it.

"The fuck is this?" Alexander vaguely remembers something involving a bird at the hospital - but to be frank, he had a pretty significant concussion and there were a lot of people making noises. He doesn't remember a whole lot about the whole affair. So he's half-way wondering if Isabella hit a bird or...something. But white is not a color crows usually come in. He can't help but remember a brief other encounter with a corvid. His lips go thin. He puts the knife aside, and strokes the carcass through the plastic.

The gore, frozen or otherwise, doesn't bother him, but his heart speeds up anyway. "Isabella's gonna hate this," he mutters to himself. But he does it anyway, opening himself up to whatever emotional impressions might be left on the creature.

It's usually a tide that threatens to overwhelm him, the emotions and memories he gets from objects. He was expecting the bird's last moments, possibly to be the bird, so the quietness surprises him, and makes him wary. But he's still not prepared for the second crow, and he jumps backwards, away from it, never even noticing that the conure is gone from his shoulder. The name in its voice is like a punch to the gut. "No," he tells it, as the emotions rise. "No, no, no."

And the flood rocks him, his hands going up to clutch at his head as he goes down in a defensive crouch, trying to find himself in the tide of dark emotions.

Alexander goes to his knees under the weight of it, crying out with pain as he feels that sundering, that breaking. It threatens to bring back memories of other times he's been broken, of other not-healings (of Zachary), and he tries not to cry as he gasps for air, conscious of the change of venue, but not yet ready to face it.

Eventually, though, he does look up, stand up, and lick lips to taste the salt on the wind. He shivers in the wind, the landscape alien and lonely. "Offer what," he murmurs, remembering that last piece of feeling from the...whatever the fuck that was. There's a shake of his head, before he focuses on the possible oasis. He heads in that direction with a grim lack of hesitation. The only way out is through. He knows that.

Alexander walks carefully. He's never walked on a salt flat in real life, and the crunch of the salt beneath his feet is unusual and worrisome. Almost as worrisome as the monster looming before him with its pale chorus and its names screamed out to the heavens. He raises one hand to shield himself from the noise, his left, but doesn't dare do it for both. He walks slow and steady, eyes skimming the crowd but then orienting on the larger creature. He stops, just out of arm's reach. "Hello," he says, staring into those orange eyes. "You've been sending messengers."

A glance at the crows, then back to creature. "Names of the lost. Why? What do you want?"

"Names." Alexander ponders that, studying the pond, the crows, and the stones that glow at the specific caws of the crows. "Names have power," he agrees. "And they stay when most things don't." He frowns at the spark, the creature's recoil. "Each stone is a name? A kept name?" He looks at the crows, and then at the creature. "Kept for you? Or kept from you?"

Alexander lifts an eyebrow. When it draws a little closer to him, he takes a small step away, just enough to keep about the same distance between the two of them. "So you can only trade for a name from the pond, and you have nothing to trade." He frowns at the creature when it points at him. "Maybe." He doesn't often have the Dreams that aren't all about death and betrayal and torture, so he's more than a little wary about agreeing to anything. But he takes a step closer to the pond to look down at the stones. "Is there a specific name you want?"

Alexander looks up at the trees at the cacophony. "So many names." He looks back at the creature, fighting with his urge to take another step back when it raises its wings at the crows. "What is the trade? And how will we get your name out of," a nod at the pool, "out of there?" Then he flinches at the roar, and loses the battle not to take a step back. "Why do they go out? Looking for people, shouting these names at them? Do they not...are they not yours?"

"How did you lose your name?" Alexander asks. He was half-expecting the answer to his question to be what it was, and he bites down on his initial response. It can still be read on his face, if the bird-monster is any good at human expressions: no. Alexander has opinions about names, and those opinions do not involve giving up his name under any circumstance. But he doesn't say it. Not yet. Just watches the monster thoughtfully, warily, watching for its temper to turn.

Alexander stares back. He makes no secret of the defensive set of his posture, but he's also careful to make no threatening moves. He just waits for the beast to decide one way or another. It doesn't stop him from taking a relieved breath when it chooses not to bite limbs, though. "You shouldn't have to trade for something that was stolen," he tells it. "If it's yours, we should find a way to get it back that doesn't involve paying for it. Paying for stolen goods only legitimizes the theft." He turns to regard the pond, steps closer to it, close enough to crouch carefully by the surface and extend a hand to it, to try and touch the water.

"NO!" It's an immediate cry of horror, and his power slashes at this thing that is trying to TAKE WHO HE IS. He scrambles back on his palms and feet, backwards. "NO! That's MY name! I am ALEXANDER! You can't HAVE IT!" He scrabbles his way back to a ready, fighting posture, glaring up at the bird-monster. "That's not a TRADE, that's THEFT! You can't have it unless I say YES, and I didn't! Back off!" He bares his teeth at it.

Alexander's hands come up to cover his hands, cover the pressing scream of the names. "I'M NOT A THIEF, DON'T YELL AT ME!" he yells back, and at that wing sweep, which he was half-expecting, he dives to one side, rolling across the ground under the tar-smeared thing. He comes back up to one knee and glares up at it. "Stop it! I want to help, but you don't get to steal MY name because someone stole YOURS! Now calm the fuck down!"

And he reaches out, intending to impose that calm before he gets his head bitten off. Literally.

"YOU TRIED TO KNOCK ME IN THE GODDAMNED POND!" Alexander shrieks back at the creature, not exactly of the most stable temper himself. Maybe the accusation of selfishness and cowardice hits a little too close to home, but he doesn't get to defend himself further because that ear-splitting wail makes him cringe and howl, diving away from it to try and protect himself. And then there's the thunderclap, and the bolt of lightning. His back bows and he convulses to land on his floor.

And there he lays for a while, still twitching involuntarily from the lightning, the smell of his own burning hair in his nose, the sound of ringing in his ears.