We're Cool

Charity is more than ready to leave Wolfpine for college.

It’s not that she doesn’t have fond memories of growing up here. Of course she does! She loves the tall, arching pine trees with branches so thick they seem to block out the sky, the old stores that have been here for ages, and even the frequent rain.

But she also has a lot of memories that she can’t talk about because things happen in Wolfpine and no one talks about them lest more things happen. For example, she can’t talk about the not-quite-human shapes everyone pretends not to see roaming around the woods after dark. And she can’t talk about the people who walk silently into the woods and are never seen again (not that she wants to, really.) And she can’t talk about the Vortex. Nobody talks about the Vortex, even though everybody’s seen it in their dreams, which gets really frustrating. She wants to live somewhere without a constant atmosphere of mild doom.

Her mother suggests she go someplace at least a little eerie, just to make the adjustment easier. Her father says he always wanted to go someplace where everything was black and white and detectives walked down alleys in the rain, pondering. But in the end she goes to Taradiddle University, which is in Massachusetts but reassures its applicants that its location is highly normal and there are no supernatural, superheroic, or otherwise dramatic occurrences there.

In some ways, it is almost perfect. Charity does like not having a slight prickling of fear down her back at all times, but it’s also hard to get used to not constantly looking over your shoulder for Something. And she starts to feel sort of silly for jumping at shadows so frequently. 

Mainly, though, it’s just sort of lonely. Even if she didn’t like all the unspoken happenings of Wolfpine, there was a sort of comfort in how everyone knew what not to speak of. Here, it feels like there’s almost nothing that everybody knows. Getting to meet people from such a range of backgrounds was part of the appeal, but it also makes college feel even more disorientating.

Celaeno’s eyes are what catches Charity’s notice. She looks, and then she looks again (which she knows is always the way to spot something strange), and yeah--they’re completely black, all the way through, and a little sparkly. Like looking at the night sky.

Someone else might have been alarmed. Charity is almost relieved. She switches seats to sit next to xem and introduces herself.

“Charity.” She offers a hand.

“Celaeno!” Celaeno says, waving to her and then returning to scribbling on the desk.

Wait. On the desk?

“Er, I don’t think we’re supposed to write on the desks,” Charity says.

“Protective runes,” Celaeno says with a shrug.

Charity smiles.

---

Celaeno turns out to be very friendly. The day after Charity introduces herself to zer, ze enthusiastically waves her over to zer lunch table, and then launches into a rant about light pollution the second she sits down.

“Have you heard of this, Charity?” xe says. “It’s awful! You can’t see half the stars around here! How are you supposed to know which ones are stars and which ones are friendly invaders and which ones are hostile invaders? It freaked me out so much my first night here, I thought it was like the time with the Vast Encroaching Darkness all over again.”

Charity freezes with her fork halfway from the plate. Half of her really wants to say “you had a Vast Encroaching Darkness event happen too?!” The other half is reminding her that nobody speaks of the Vast Encroaching Darkness. She settles for just turning to zer and nodding intensely.

Celaeno very angrily bites into xer sandwich, and then completely loses the look of anger and starts waving at somebody else. “Hey! Juniper!! Over here!”

A person with extremely bright red hair turns to look at them, grins, and maneuvers their way through the crowd to the table. “Hi!”

“Charity, this is Juniper,” Celaeno says. “Ey’re in my Environmental Studies class and ey also hate light pollution and…that’s all I know about em. Juniper, this is Charity, who…was nice to me about drawing protective runes on the desk.”

“Hi,” Charity says. “I like your hair.”

“Thanks!” Juniper says. “It’s, uh, it’s not natural.”

Charity tilts her head. “I did assume that. Are there people with hair naturally that color?”

Juniper looks mildly embarrassed. “Where I used to live, yeah. I mean. Magically-naturally that color. We had a problem with shadow creatures, and there were these girls with colorful hair and magic powers who fought them. I thought they--the girls, obviously, not the creatures--were really cool, so I…dyed my hair.”

“I think that’s really cool,” Celaeno offers.

Juniper shoots zer a finger gun. “Thanks. So, uh, where are you guys from?”

“Solaris,” Celaeno says, with a weird sort of hiss on the last s. “It’s in the desert. You’ve probably never heard of it, because its name in most official records is a black smear of ink.”

“Coooool,” Juniper says, nodding slowly.

“I’m from Wolfpine,” Charity says. “It’s up north, very forested, very…” She pauses. “Sort of like Solaris, it seems like, maybe. I don’t really want to talk about it much.”

“Alright,” Juniper says, and so they don’t talk about it for a while. 

They talk about other things, though. Classes, obviously, but also monster movies, and which cool boots Juniper should buy, and Pac-Man vs. Space Invaders, and at some point, it clicks in Charity’s head that oh, these are my friends now.

There are some kinks to work out, obviously. Juniper likes places with people and noise, and Celaeno likes places with noise but is not so enthused about people, and Charity likes people a lot (and is better at talking to them than Juniper) but is not a fan of noise. So eventually they decide that if they're all going someplace together any one of them can make a slashing motion with their hand at any time to signify "I want to get out of here.” And Charity has to ask Juniper not to affectionately punch her in her prosthetic arm, and it takes a couple days after that for Juniper to start affectionately punching Charity's non-prosthetic arm again.

But they make it work. And even though they’re all still adjusting to their new location, having each other makes it easier.

---

Juniper: hey cherry when u have time could use some help over here

Juniper: not sure if u noticed but its kinda snowing

Juniper: i dont think celaeno has seen snow b4 and xes freaking out a bit

Juniper: xes in the closet

Charity: Heck. The closet? It’s been a while since ze felt like ze needed to hide there. 

Juniper: ikr :(

Juniper: also i dont wanna distract from our friends distress but i think its really cute how u dont swear

Juniper: o no youre not typing

Juniper: were u embarrassed

Charity: No! I was just walking! I’m here now!

In truth, Charity was embarrassed, but she tries to put that aside as she enters Celaeno’s living quarters. She remembers the way to the closet from similar incidents before, and finds Juniper kneeling outside at a safe distance should the door suddenly open.

“Hey, Celaeno,” she says gently, kneeling down as well. There’s no response from the closet. “It’s snowing outside.”

“I noticed,” Celaeno says rather bitterly.

“It snowed a lot in Wolfpine,” Charity says. “Not so much in the desert, huh?” 

“No.”

“It’s just weath--”

“I know,” Celaeno says. “I--okay, yeah, I was kind of scared, because strange particles falling from the sky is usually bad, but now I’m mostly just…embarrassed.”

“Oh,” Charity says softly.

There’s a muffled sniffle. “I’m sick of being scared by things that aren’t actually dangerous. Back in Solaris, I was well-prepared! I was smart! Now I’m…just someone who hides in the closet a lot.”

“Not a lot,” Juniper says. “You hide in the closet way less than you used to!”

“We’re all still adjusting,” Charity says. “I still can’t…talk about things. Sometimes.”

“Yeah, and the other day I got worried that Ramona in Ethics was having her energy drained by a shadow creature and it turned out she was just tired,” Juniper says. “At least no one can see that you’re in a closet.”

“Except you guys,” Celaeno says.

“Yeah, but we’re cool,” Juniper says.

“...You are cool...”

“Yes, we are,” Charity says proudly. “Now seriously, come out of there or I’m going to get you a plaid sweater.”

The closet door swings open with a crash, and Celaeno emerges. “Don’t you dare. I hate plaid.”

“I know.”