OPEN to all - robin hood comes home to roost

[callmeemily]

"Hey! Stop!"

Raleigh's walking Oscar - it's a long walk today, even though it's definitely making her leg regret it - and she doesn't even pause when she hears somebody behind her yell. It's the beginning of tourist season, and the sidewalk's full of people she doesn't know, and she's so worn out from the last week that she doesn't really have the energy.

"I said stop! I know you!"

Huffing out a breath, she keeps going; she hates it when people yell in public. She's got that Southern mentality, the one that keeps disputes behind closed doors where it's between the two of you and everyone else listening at cracks to figure out the gossip.

The last thing she expects is the rough hand on her arm that yanks her around. Stumbling, she catches herself on the parking meter that's next to her as the guy - mid forties, handsome in that New-England-Polo-Shirt-and-Sperrys kind of way - stares at her.

"It's you! It is!" Oscar's exploded into a barking, growling, half-grown dog between them, and the guy steps back as he raises his voice. "You know what I'm doing? I'm calling the cops. This is the girl who shot me! Back when we were medieval or whatever? She shot me and took all my money! She's a thief!" The tourists had backed up into a circle around them, with Raleigh, Oscar, and the guy in the middle. "She could have killed me!" He's pulling out his phone even as Raleigh protests and tries to explain as the people who're just staring at her shake their heads, and a phone, then another gets pulled out to film the whole thing.

"It's not- I'm not- I'm not a thief, I- It wasn't me--"

OOC: Raleigh's Fairy-tale shenanigans have come home to roost! Open to anybody. :D

Comments

[just_another]

Joel's flinches when she talks about people getting grabbed, just the slightest bit, and it surprises him just how much he doesn't want to talk about what happened to Spencer and Davin. It isn't the first time someone has tried to hurt his husband and he's terrified it won't be the last, but the whole time they were gone he could barely say two words about it with anyone. The police had questioned him over and over again, and when it had come time to talk about it with other people he just hadn't had the words or the energy. Talking about it more seemed so difficult, like the worst possible thing they could ask of him.

Some of it had come out with Coop, but he knows that's due to having been in the dream with him. Coop had seen Spencer's refuge, the place he'd gone in his unconscious to find some peace, and it had been almost impossible not to let some of it out there.

But he can't talk about it now. Instead he does his best to focus on what Raleigh is saying about being rattled and he nods, but he's also never been on to dwell in possibilities and what ifs. Yes, it's possible he might not have been walking down the street, but it's equally as possible the demon might have killed him and it hadn't. He knows not everyone works that way, though.

"Well, if he comes back, I want you to call me," he says. "At least he doesn't much seem to like me."

[callmeemily]

She didn't really try and bring them up, it's just that it happened, it happened and she's acutely aware how the whole grabbing people in broad daylight goes, and it scares the shit out of her - but she won't talk about it obliquely with Joel; he's not the one for that, she knows that, and that's one of the reasons that she tries so hard not to bring it up.

"I will," she promises. It's an easy promise, because Raleigh trusts Joel more than almost any other person in this town. "I promise, I'll call you." She's trying not to think about the last time, when she'd tried to get ahold of someone--

This isn't like that. This is just a guy who wants to call the cops on her, it's not anything violent or kidnapping. She knows that, and she takes a deep breath. "Thank you," she says again. "I know-- I mean, hopefully it doesn't even come up again, and he's figured out that he's being an idiot." Even though, that voice that she tries to ignore provides, You did do it. She did, she had, but she's got to wrap her brain around that thing, that person that she was-- it's not a part of her.

[just_another]

"He is," Joel says firmly. "He's being an idiot. Please don't doubt that for a second." Raleigh is one of the best people he knows. She tries so hard for everyone, so much harder than he ever has for anyone except Spencer, and she works so hard. If anyone gives her a hard time, Joel is more than willing to put them in their place, because he knows there's nothing Raleigh wouldn't do for most people. She doesn't deserve that, no matter what happened during that spell.

And he's still so angry with Nerium. He wishes he didn't have to be, but there's really nothing he can do about that. The spell was cruel and he's angry and he's hurt.

And he doesn't know what to do with any of it.

[callmeemily]

"I won't doubt it," she says finally, with one last nod. She won't. It is what it is, she knows that, and even though the guy's not wrong, that... probably doesn't mean that he's got the right to be mad at her about it. Nerium, apparently, but Raleigh? No.

"Why did she do it?" Raleigh looks up at Joel, her brows furrowed together. "Why did Nerium-- I mean. Les said that only super powerful people could do that sort of thing. Is she?" She's asking more than one question at once, but she's got a hundred more bouncing around in her head.

[just_another]

"I don't know," Joel says and he can't hide the hurt or disappointment in his voice. He really had thought they were becoming friends and having that conversation with her in the forest that day had felt a bit like a knife twisting in his ribs. Somehow he'd found himself caring for her and she doesn't understand friendship. She only understands magic.

"She said she wanted to bring wild magic back to Siren Cove," he says. "And when I tried to explain to her that she can't speak for all magic users, that she can't alter memories or violate people in such a way, she just... she doesn't understand." Which doesn't excuse it at all, it just makes it frustrating to try and communicate, but he wants to. He still wants to talk to her, he wants her to be able to understand why he'd been so hurt. "I don't know. Nerium has never really had the sort of life either of us have had. Even with all the awful things we've been through, at least we've been relatively normal and she's never had that. I'm not excusing what she did, I'm just... I'm trying to understand why she doesn't understand."

[callmeemily]

"What? But that's not-- I mean. What about the tourists? Or like, people coming into town? What about--" She has to stop herself, because she hates talking about people who don't have magic with people who do. Even Joel, Les, and Coop - men she trusts with her literal, honest-to-god life... they just don't get it. They just have zero frame of reference for completely having no powers. It's understandable, but that doesn't make it easy.

All three of them, when she'd admitted that she was afraid, because she was powerless - had said some form of You don't need to worry, there are people who have magic who'll look out for you. Mira'd said that she'd sort of gotten the same thing, and it completely makes sense, and it did put Raleigh at ease some, but it's just a disconnect that she can't really think about right now - and she doesn't ever want to really push, because they really do want the best for her and it's just a fundamental difference between those who have magic and those who don't.

"I mean, you don't have answers," Raleigh said after a second, rubbing the back of her neck with her hand as she looked away. "Is she the most powerful witch around here? Could somebody else do that again?" That's the thing that Raleigh's the most concerned with. It's not the speaking for all magic users or Nerium understanding that bothers her, it's that she'd had the sheer ability to do what she had and it seemed like nobody'd known.

[just_another]

"I don't know," Joel says again. "It was wrong. This town isn't run by witches, it shouldn't be run by witches and it shouldn't be run with only witches in mind. Is she the most powerful witch here? No, probably not." Certainly not anymore, not with her powers diminished by the breaking of the spell. But people can't be forced to come out about their powers if they're uncomfortable with it.

"Could somebody else do something like that again? Very likely," he continues, rubbing his hand over his beard. "But that's not unique to Siren Cove. People like Nerium exist all over the world."

[callmeemily]

"It's not run by them, but the people who don't have--" She hadn't really wanted to go into it - she's freaked out enough, and she doesn't actually realise that the conversation with Joel wouldn't necessarily go the way the talks with Les had gone. But then he says that Nerium's not the most powerful. She'd done all of that, but she's not the most powerful, and it makes Raleigh blanch, the color just fading from her face-- And then?

Raleigh yelps as Oscar lunges forward, and she grabs Joel's arm to stop herself from falling forward off the bench with sort of choked sound on her part and he's barking his head off.

A squirrel, some twenty feet away, chitters at him as it turns an acorn in it's tiny paws. "Oh, my god," Raleigh wraps Oscar's leash around her wrist. "Oscar! Stop it." He's losing his tiny mind, and while Raleigh's let go of Joel, she can only manage to brace herself with one leg, because the other one - after all of it, it's not really anywhere near functional.

"She's not?" And then he says that somebody could just do it again, and Raleigh's shoulders just sort of droop, and she sucks in a breath, pinching the bridge of her nose for a second.

"Not like they do here," she finally says, faintly. "They don't exist in other places the way they do here. I mean. Exist like-- it's not so open. You know? It's not.... God. Uh." She hates that it scares her, that it scares the shit out of her, because she's both been inches from being sacrificed for a spell, and with what Les told her... "This- we don't need to talk about this," she finally says abruptly, her brows furrowed together.