John
A biting cold swept the outdoors that afternoon, leading the beginnings of a thin film of frost amongst the otherwise dewy foliage. This spot seemed to repel activity at all costs; stagnating air and breath alike, and though total quiet seemed impossible in these confined premises, here it was forgiving: a natural lushness declining all signs of human interaction – relatively untouched by the facility. Jolie first approached this retreat in a moment of restlessness – rebuking those sterile, lifeless walls; unfit to house even the least sentient of insects, she thought – grabbing the nearest book and simply venturing to where everything wasn't. That was fifteen, maybe twenty minutes ago; that many minutes later, she found herself still leering at the cold architecture, having lost her bookmark at some point in her trance.

Was this truly the place that would arrest her? Was she not fit for any alternative containment? Her gaze slid up and down those slanted concrete reinforcements, rising bluntly from the ground; she wondered if, at night, the facility sunk into the soil as it appears to have adjourned. 

Her figure laid somewhat limp across the barren tree branch, resting her head against the trunk. Jolie hadn't taken the liberty to change much of her outfit from her day indoors; just one ill-fitting windbreaker she threw atop her black knit turtleneck, high-waisted olive pleated skirt, and long cream socks – possibly uncomfortable Mary Jane shoes having been abandoned at the base of the tree: to which one might speculate her method of scaling, as her resting spot of choice held considerably over the ground. 

However much the branch vied and yielded to the wind didn't seem to concern her. The question of safety seemed long from the forefront of her misty gaze, as did the chidings of her increasingly numb digits. "Give me a cold," Thought Jolie, addressed to the universe and the facility indiscriminately – "I dare you."
Iris
◇ Jolie wasn't alone. Not quite.

□ Perhaps out of sight – or perhaps not if the arboreal expert in the forest took a moment to look – the Cradle's resident pagan recluse was at work. Akvilė, in the midst of a clearing, had been working at an altar of some sort for the better part of the entire morning and into the after, a tendon poking out of the blood-streaked ball of her right wrist that seemed to be stabilizing the whole thing in its snowy post. It had been frosty work, but after roughly four hours of diligent work that took her back mentally to her days in the village she'd made some real progress.

▪︎ So, she began to wander out for firewood. That was when she realized she wasn't alone.

◆ "Įsibrovėlis." [Trespasser.] She scowled in her mother tongue, shaking her head. Her eyes shot up to the trees, and her extended tendon lay in wait, like a cobra about to strike. "Who lies out there?"
John
The facility sat idly in her irises as she felt its beguiling influence disperse throughout her body; starting in her eyes and seeping through their nerves, down to her chest, where it diverged to contaminate her limbs and digits. Contaminate – yes – this pox of permanence that quelled any ambition that the facility would grow legs and leave her life like a false alarm. To this feeling, Jolie was certainly familiar, and perhaps that was what kept her prisoner atop the bark: she wouldn't belong here as she did anywhere else, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Nothing had changed. 

It was a combination of her deep stupor and a skittish sort of nature that caused her to react with such velocity. The unknown advancer's wariness was met with an immediate squeal, positively ejecting the girl from her perch, who was sent plummeting an approximate twenty feet. It was a harrowing fall that would perhaps spur the stranger into action; however, the dry air seemed to animate and flourish, and a whirring sound emanated from her landing point.

Loose greenery and foliage swirled in a wide corkscrew below her, and as she reached the apex of the phenomenon, her descent began to slow and subside. Jolie managed to tuck the book into her chest – seeing as it already sustained noticeable damage. As she reoriented herself upright, her plain gray baseball cap began to depart from her head; she scrambled to retrieve it with her free hand, and when it finally met her grasp and returned to her head, the wind dispelled – planting her quite nicely on the ground. 

This affair seemed to tax her significantly; whether from the show of wind or from her surprise, it was unclear. Jolie stood there clutching her book to her heart, her capacity for observation staggering behind her perception as she took a moment with scattered vowels between breaths to study the figure ahead.
Iris
◆ "...Why are you up a tree if you are unsteady?" A little uncertain, a little stilted. A little harsh, honestly. "Because now you're ankle deep in powder snow fifteen minutes from the electric hearth. Might be frostbitten unless those socks are doubled."

□ Looking onward, Akvilė intently studied the figure ahead of her. A baseball cap, cream socks, a high-waisted skirt... She scoffed at the dubious warmth of such a get-up and erupted a patch of ligaments from behind her ear to hide the faint dustings of crimson across her own heavily freckled cheeks. Hiding it, she took another two steps, visibly steady and light on the unstable ice pack that had formed in the previous couple of days, never sinking below and barely even crushing it beneath her feet.

▪︎ Her free tendon still stood on guard, poised and ready to lash out if needed.

◆ "You must be cold. The wind blows right up you." Akvilė remarked once she was a little closer. Seemingly, though, she'd reached her own personal comfort zone, partially obscured behind a cedar tree with a few thorny branches pulled aside so at least part of her face – skinny cheeks, loads of freckles, greyish-green eyes, distinctively large copper-framed glasses, the like – was somewhat clearly visible. She didn't say anything else; really, she seemed to be a little timid despite how aggressive she'd been while out of sight.
John
Once she had finally grasped the features of the person before her, a certain look cascaded over her face for just a moment; notes of disgust and contempt between her wrist cobra and the matter of her plunge, surely – but primarily it was realization: she thought herself an outcast, but there were people here much stranger than herself.

Jolie remained quiet as the observer shot her reprimands, shambling to the base of her tree of choice to retrieve the deserted shoes. She held the shoe in one hand and lifted her leg, and in one downwards gesture, the majority of the snow particulates collected on her sock whisked away, collecting in a lopsided clump beneath her; which was then stamped upon as she clumsily jammed her foot into the black shoe – doubtlessly impeded by a mixture of cold and impatience. 

"It's not that cold. The wind isn't blowing anywhere," She spat as she performed the maneuver on her other leg in a tone that was audibly cold – if that were even possible. Blatant disregard, yes, though her statement was only half false. The twigs adorning the tree in front of her didn't seem to sway with the wind; nor did the fallen branches immediately around her poking from the snow, her pleated skirt, her windbreaker: all stood still as graves. 

However, her hair did seem to be moving, but not with the blowing gusts; the wispy strands still falling from beneath the hat instead floated straight up, and behaved in an ethereal manner not unlike an open flame; save for a few threads in the front of her face, pinned down so as to save her visage from appearing a proper ghost. 

As she finished fastening her shoes, her gaze traveled again to the stranger, fixed upon the slithering mass of flesh poking from behind the tree. There she froze – still bent downwards – looking forwards, studying its properties and mannerisms in a captured silence, the turning of gears reflected by a look of unsettled fascination.
Iris
◇ Akvilė simply stared back.

□ Threads of ligaments stretched across her cheeks like a cut-out scarf, she looked on at the other girl, her tendon still curiously posed as if it had a mind of its own. She was no genius with social interaction, but was this girl really just mean? Or was she simply returning the energy that she'd received? Whatever the case she looked onwards as frozen as the other, beads of nervous sweat forming on her forehead before being absorbed by the heavy knit toque wrapped over her head. Her hair, somewhat messy yet mostly straight, barely swayed, yet the tendon from her wrist still did.

▪︎ That was, it *Did.* Suddenly it detached, and in what was sure to be a peculiar sight, it slithered off away from her into the wilderness as if it had a mind of its own.

◆ "Y-you can stop staring." She called out from behind the branches, a mixture of annoyance and uncertainty underlying her heavily accented voice. "It is gone. Pushed into the woods."
John
It seemed the girl was deep in thought; when the fleshy snake detached and retreated to the wilds, it drew no immediate reaction from Jolie – though her eyes followed it, her chilled, brooding mind considered the event tertiary to the equation of the stranger's capability. 

It seemed this person could manipulate and weaponize flesh; her own, certainly, but others? She recalled scanning the documents given to her about the manners of parahumanity: an augmenter's power held domain over their own body. Perhaps the stranger couldn't disassemble her like an action figure, though should an altercation occur, she wouldn't bet on a strong breeze to keep her safe. 

When the other called for her to quit vacantly surveying her, it took a few seconds still for her to avert her gaze; her head moved but her stare didn't, eventually peeling away to look at the ground somewhere near herself. The question of returning to the facility flew innocently across her mind, but was immediately shot down like small game to a catapult. 

She assumed a squat, pulling the jacket over her legs, and reached for her crossbody bag that rested against the tree. "Uhm," She began, pulling her left arm back through the sleeve and underneath the windbreaker. "Do you have a fire o-or anything?" She would eventually produce a shoddy lighter from the bag – momentarily struggling to activate it – grasping at any feeble warmth it would produce. 

Jolie began to feel the consequence of the cold now; her mind squarely returned from the clouds and atop her shoulders, feeling the numbing cold take across her figure. Her nose reddened and her body trembled. It seemed after her moment of reflection, her tone had lightened significantly from the scathing dismissal – perhaps acknowledging that sheer will of rebellion would not fend off the elements, nor time itself.
Iris
◆ "See? Cold is inescapable." Akvilė awkwardly spoke back, gulping harsh and stepping out from behind the tree. Like a cottagecore Siberian she wore dainty, pretty clothes, yet underneath were multiple layers of very warm padding and whatnot meant to offset the chill in the air. "But, uh... I can-... I can build us a fire. There is a dead pine next to you; break off all the, uh... The small branches you see. Good kindling.```

□ The words kept on getting caught in her throat, but as she stepped out from behind the tree she figured it might be better to just let her actions speak. Someone was out in the wilderness while woefully unprepared, and that was enough of a reason for her survival instincts to kick in. Reaching out towards a nearby birch tree she began to pull dead and dying bark from it, uttering praises and thanks incessantly in Lithuanian as she did so. Occasionally she looked over towards the other girl, with the baseball cap atop her head and cute skirt, and sighed.

▪︎ Not only did she have to make a fire in the wilderness, she had to make it for a pretty girl. Naturally her forehead was sweating something fierce and her lips were cut into an uneasy frown.

◆ "How goes it?" She called out after a minute or two of bark collection.
John
Jolie listened diligently as she was given the order. When the other stepped away, she simply turned to the tree and began clumsily trekking the snowy forest base; which it was then made clear that the girl exhibited one, many, or all of the following plausibly observable qualities: uncoordinated, unfamiliar with snow, encumbered by footwear, losing jurisdiction of her legs, or inebriation via overexposure – somehow. To Jolie, however, she felt her diagnosis astute: when one is down in their spirits, so is their body: hunched shoulders, sunken expression, an anchored gait, sluggish movements, and tired words. Such outward signs of spiritual destitution are conveniently dismissed by the toll of winter exposure – at least, to the untrained eye. Trapped beneath a frozen lake, she hoped this new acquaintance would skate overhead, from one side to the other, leaving her to await the thaw. 

"How lucky," She thought to herself, "I'll just focus on *Sounding* Happy."

Finally, she stood in front of the dead tree. This pine was much smaller than her tree of choice. She remembered passing it by, imagining her apparition leaping up to rest in its crown, then being either impaled on its unfriendly branches or dropped to the ground floor; similar to her tumble minutes ago.

When she first arrived at the facility, she was assigned the P.E teacher as a contact. In her inhibited short term memory – so inhibited that the teacher's name escaped her in the moment – she recalled him stressing the importance of fluidity. Her powers of wind will only be as strong as she can manipulate physics to the minutia, factoring aerodynamics and force.

She stored the lighter in her pocket and raised her right hand, closed her eyes, and simply breathed for a time, until opening her eyes once more. The wind amongst the tree carried upwards, and the branches stretched to the sky; next, she thrust her hand downwards, and the healthy majority of twigs and thin branches snapped from the tree and collapsed to the ground, shrouding much of the dead pine in a thin cloud of disturbed snow. 

Perhaps this was when the other would turn to check her progress, to which she received no response; Jolie stumbled a bit to maintain her balance, quietly congratulating herself.
Iris
◇ No response? No problem.

□ Head turned to face the other gal, her eyes didn't fix themselves on her, or her head, or on any off-kilter details. Rather she stared directly at the girl's hands, and at the small pile of pine branches she'd managed to knock off with her blessing. "Efficient." She remarked before turning back to the nearby birch tree, continuing to pull off layers of bark and muttering to herself in her mother tongue the whole time. It was something she'd done a thousand times back home, and a solid couple dozen after she'd been sent out on her wandering decade, so she found it rather easy – and honestly kind of relaxing – to simply gather up quality bark, all the while thanking the gods for the light yet bountiful harvest.

▪︎ She once again turned to face the other gal, one hand full of branches and the other awkwardly toying with a button on her coat.

◆ "That, uhm... That might be e-enough." She commented once she noticed just how many sticks the gal had actually knocked down. "You must be familiar with your... Uh... Blessing, then. It beats handpicking them, that is for sure."
John
The distant remark warmed her for just a moment, spurring her on to get her bearings and begin gathering the sticks. Jolie couldn't remember the last time she received praise from a peer in earnest; occasionally one would forget her reputation, or otherwise forgo it for unmediated conversation, until a concerned onlooker reminded them of whichever moniker she was plastered with at the time. It was strange: she had never been so far away from scrutiny, yet she still felt their eyes looking; they would never find her here, yet still she hid.

She gathered around as many sticks as she could feasibly hold in her sluggish grasp, clasping them together at her side with both hands as if it were a dog slumped over her shoulder. Her face scrunched up when the other girl commented on her aptitude, prepared to decline the claim of familiarity; then she paused, her entire body softening with a shallow exhale.

"...No one's ever called it a blessing before." She spoke as if the cold hadn't been eating away at her for around half an hour, in a moment of clarity that transcended any worldly influence. It was an unedited thought of hers that just seemed to spill out of her lips, only realizing halfway through that she was speaking aloud; after it had already escaped her, the girl's countenance washed with subtle embarrassment, wishing the wind would carry her words of sudden vulnerability to some forgotten bush in the distance.

Jolie eventually rallied and pressed the bundle of sticks tighter against herself. "Do- uhm, do you know a place for a fire? Will the smoke be a problem?" She wished to get out of this stranger's hair as soon as possible. It was her fault for walking into the wilderness unprepared, and her fault for losing track of time.

"And t-thank you for helping," She shivered, her posture shrinking as her condition slowly worsened.
Iris
◆ "Words are weird in the.. In thee wider world." Akvilė remarked as she stuffed another handful of bark into a little basket she'd brought, along with various little branches that fell off as the other gal did her thing with the wind. "English is..
 It's a zombie language, I say."

□ Casually speaking, she finished patting down her haul for the fire and turned her sight towards the other girl. "The... Th-the smoke will only be a problem if you attempt to- attempt to avoid it." She spoke, beckoning the girl to follow with the languid yet fluid curl of two fingers. "And as for a fireplace...? I-I know a trick or two. Follow."

□ With that Akvilė strolled into the woods, practiced steps barely cracking the snowy crust that'd formed over the prior week's intermittent yet hefty snowfalls. Her boots, with their wider soles, seemed to aid in this, and as she walked into the treeline with a basket in the crook of her arm and the itching for a cigarette gnawing at her head she occasionally stopped to let the other girl catch up.

▪︎ It was in one of these breaks that she produced a small wooden case and fished out a singular cigarette, lighting it with a match and dropping the burnt remains into the same can she used for her cigarette butts.

◆ "So, uh..." Her voice quietly lurched to life, awkward and hesitant and weirdly hollow. "You look cold. I-I can make us a... Fire. Yes. Right here. But it is not ideal.```
John
By then, it was clear that Jolie was noticeably unfamiliar with snow. It was a rare event back home, and she took wide, wobbly steps, stopping every few steps to shake the excess off her impractical shoes. She wasn't walking as much as she was wading through. Frankly, it was embarrassing, and whenever the other girl paused to wait for her, she tried to conceal how much she was actually struggling. 

To the cigarette, it seemed only to rouse a momentary eyebrow raise. The girl was very familiar with them, permeating many of the spaces she grew up in; she even developed a taste for them by the time she was shipped away, but she was too nervous to ask her for one. She wondered if she would still suffer the consequences of smoking, given her affinity for wind had passively affected her breathing. She wasn't itching to speak to any of the counselors, so she figured there was only one way to find out. 

As they walked, Jolie pondered what she meant by 'zombie language.' Awkward, yes, perhaps not as awkward as what she'd said earlier to prompt it, but it was an interesting viewpoint – macabre as she was. The lengths people went to butcher the English language in the south was downright harrowing at some points. Somewhere deep down she shared the same pension, though masterfully concealed; yes, she'll just say she's from Virginia here.

"Well, I c-can't really afford 'ideal' right now," She chittered, resting the sticks beside her. She tried to respect the distance the other preferred, and became prepared to help in starting the fire. It was something she'd done several times in the past.
Iris
◆ "Then, uh... This will have to do. Drop what you've got by me."

□ A bit of an order, yes, but it was an awkwardly delivered one. Akvilė spoke it as she began to trample out a space in the snow, underneath an impressive conifer of some sort's lowest branches. She stomped and brushed branches out of her face, plucking needles out of her hair intermittently and periodically exhaling wispy smoke as if her heart were a steam engine. 

▪︎ Given how weird she was, it wasn't entirely out of the question.

◆ "Hand me, erm... Fuck. A. A few branches." She called out after a couple of minutes, words tangled over themselves messily. "I have a-a space prepared. Smoke will not be a... Problem."

▪︎ She looked up at the other girl expectantly, shifty eyes scanning the other girl for any sign of danger or menace. She hoped she wouldn't have to spill her own blood in self-defense.
John
Diligently, Jolie followed orders as instructed and helped when she could; in idle moments, she clasped her hands together and exhaled into them, slipping her arm into the sleeve of her other, pressing them against her body. The cold was claustrophobic, and she felt her mind muddle under the weight of it, feeling as if her heart had frosted over. Eventually, the fire was kindled, and the girl sat close on a clear patch of frosty grass. Her knees were pulled into her chest and under the windbreaker, enveloping her in an amorphous blob of tough fabric. Her conscience slowly cleared after a minute of rest by the fire.

"I *Hate* That place," She blurted out, her face twisted in all sorts of emotion. Jolie's southern accent escaped her, perhaps lacking the bandwidth to conceal it, or – more likely – she wished to speak some feeling of warmth into existence; excavating memories from home long since tainted and defaced in some subconscious bout for survival. Despite what had happened since, the feelings she felt then were as real as the ones she felt now; as real as the cold that sought to claim her, as real as the superpowers that sensationalized her. It was unfortunate: the memories that disturbed her were wired into the foundation of her most basic functions.

"It looks like some cartoon villain's evil lair refurbished into some hokey pokey daycare, and everybody's lookin' at me like a ticking time bomb, and all those damn reports, evaluations, forms, questionnaires, tests; I didn't think it possible, but I've never felt more alien." She tossed a shoe to the side. 

"I wish I'd known sooner that I was just gonna end up out in the middle of fuckin' nowhere across the ocean. I wouldn't have wasted so much time hating myself." She tossed her other shoe even further. "Really, I would've just done whatever I wanted if I knew none of it ever mattered."

Jolie spoke into the fire unwavering. Red lines developed across her face and blended into the orange light. It seemed her gaze traveled the dancing fire and caught the other girl, which roused enough self consciousness to leave a quiet moment for her to interject if she wanted, but not enough to quell her wave of unbridled frustration.
Iris
◇ And so Akvilė built the pair a fire, in the snow, beneath a pine tree and its umbrella branches.

```[——]```

□ Sitting quietly, she half-listened to the other gal speak. Regrets mingled with homesickness, and those mingled with a faint yet tangible sense of anger. Circumstances out of her control had seemingly banished her to this new existence, halfway across the world, with naught but the clothes on her back and whatever money her parents saw fit to gift her.

▪︎ She crushed a particularly dry chunk of bark in her hand and chucked the incendiary dust into the fire to watch it crackle.

◆ "I-I see." Was all she initially replied with. Brief, but even a simple glance at her face would show her in thought, left corner of hee lips curled ever so slightly as a cigarette poked out. "Hindsight may be... It is 20/20, but dwelling does you no- it's not. Fuck. It is not helpful." She forcibly sounded out her thoughts, spitting as she spoke and peculiarly pressing her knuckles into her throat. "But I suppose it's, uhm... It's n-new. New is worrying."

▪︎ She fell quiet for a few more moments, exhaling a few wisps of smoke from the smouldering cancer stick twixt her lips.

◆ "I presume you are... Y-you are aware that taking off your shoes is... It's not wise in winter." Not exactly cold in tone, yet clear in her concern. "And I - I agree. The Cradle is fickle." She continued. "But at least, uh... At least th-the poltergeist we have knows to fleece Catholics. I enjoy it. N-n-not as much as the woods, but it is still dinner and a show."
John
In the moment, she felt an overbearing sense that she was taking up too much space, and no matter how tightly she pressed her legs against herself underneath the windbreaker, it didn't seem to go away. Jolie felt a wave of emotion wash through her body; she hadn't cried since moving to the cradle, yet she was determined to continue to delay the inevitable for a little longer, suddenly feeling the searing embarrassment of oversharing.

She quietly listened to the other girl speak in full, omitting eye contact to stare into the fire, her twisted expression slowly softening. She only seemed to look over when she paused or stumbled over words, anticipating the end of her sentences like a leaky faucet. The casual mention of a poltergeist seemed to catch her attention – until seconds later, upon the mention of-

"Catholics?" Memories tore through her mind like a sped up movie, and however proficient the other girl was in the skill of reading faces, she swore that she could see them, too, flickering against her countenance. There was no way to ask the questions she needed answered to ease her anxiety without inadvertently compromising her own identity. Jolie subdued her look of surprise and deep seated fear, bringing the collar of the windbreaker closer to conceal her neck – the turtleneck sweater wasn't enough insurance. 

On her first day, she took all the necessary precautions: rushing to classes to quietly inform any faculty that had the responsibility of remembering her name to call her by the correct one, contouring her miniscule Adam's apple or hiding it altogether, wearing the most feminine clothing she had; it'd worked so far, but every moment of safety bought was shadowed by sinister insecurity and 'what-ifs' of life threatening proportion. 

Everyone had always known. She played the part well enough, now, but the stakes were paralyzing. If all else failed, this was the one secret she needed to protect.
Iris
◆ "Yes. Catholics – Roman, Eastern Orthodox, whatever. It... Is in my – in my bones, you could say, to despise them."

□ Akvilė was not one to run her mouth too deeply about most matters to do with home. Home was a swamp, it was off the map; it was in goddamned *Atlantis,* Whatever felt suitably plausible yet vague that day. She knew she missed home in a sense, but it was her ten years' time, and explaining that little detail would only invite further questions, deeper and more invasive, and she knew she'd absolutely withdraw – or even worse, kick snow in the fire and leave the other girl to figure her own shit out.

▪︎ And given how poorly she seemed to be doing, turtleneck tugged taut around her throat and eyes glazed and distant, she *Really* Didn't feel like doing that. She already had a body count, and was in prison for it; *In for a pinch, in for a pound* Was not precisely in her wheelhouse quite yet.

◆ "You must be from a... A warm place. S-*Sick*Eningly warm." She commented. "Because I have never seen the, uh... The cold give someone a-a thousand yard stare. It's like a deer within; you are not well."

□ Suddenly Akvilė rose to her feet and crawled over the top of the depression, chucking several sticks onto the now-cozy fire as she did so.

◆ "I-I know a cure for spiritual unwellness. I will be back... Whatever your name is. Stay put."

▪︎ Less an order, more a recommendation. Akvilė broke a few branches off from overhead and disappeared out of the clearing, back into the woods, as silent as an actual woods witch would be.
John
Despite her deeply religious upbringing, Jolie hadn't a clue what the difference was between the denominations of Catholicism; perhaps it was a subconscious rebellion, performing indifference in the face of reverence. This stranger's open condemnation of the church did little to ease the conflict rattling her mind now – the issue far overshadowed the two girls; at times she thought it immortal, and unbeknownst to her, sacred – though it did work to mentally orient herself by the other girl's side. She was hard-pressed to call the feeling 'safety' after watching her wrist tendon detach and slither off into the forest, but shared contempt was a boon she was glad to keep. 

She said nothing upon the comment of where she hailed. Alabama was hot – not warm. Shame permeated much of her mind since she came to the cradle, and with most of her personal anecdotes stuffed away in boxes and shoved into all the nooks and crannies she could find, she was left with one long, empty hallway, where any perceivable details of her past life were the lies she spoke into existence to keep it all standing.

She was never going to tell this girl where she was actually from, and she didn't care to enact whatever lie she'd planned before; her silence continued still as the other stood and left.

Jolie half expected the girl to never return. It did not bother her. She shimmied closer to the fire and brought her legs underneath her, tucking hair behind her ears. She warmed her hands by the flame – even if she did not return, she was more than thankful for this earnest little fire. She'd studied how she made it, and perhaps she'll replicate it in the coming days, appreciating how homely it was. 

In warming her hands, the wooden bead bracelet upon her wrist suddenly became obvious to her. She remembered who gave it to her, what they'd been doing – what they were going to do, at least – and in one quick maneuver, she slipped the bracelet off and into the fire. A twang of regret resonated through her body, but she was glad she did it; resolution was a premium currency that cannot be denied in favor of sentiment. Even if she did return, there would be no grand adventure – not after what she'd done.
Iris
◇ Despite what Jolie might have assumed, Akvilė had *Not* Abandoned her.

□ Rather, over the top of the shelter she'd carved out she worked away at a small pine in the clearing. Ice crystals fell from her needle-straight hair as she chopped away at its trunk with the same hatchet she'd been fashioning a shrine with earlier that day, almost as if her hair itself was snowing. The first sign Jolie saw of any of this would be a few large branches being tossed over head to serve as extra refuge, each landing with a resounding crackling thud and a faint huff from Akvilė before she disappeared again.

□ She wasn't done though, and she didn't return again until about ten minutes later. Ten long minutes after she'd chucked a few branches over top of the hole she finally hopped back down, effortlessly lowering herself into the pit and seeing that the fire was well tended, and less importantly, that she wasn't alone. She'd have understood if the other girl had taken off in the meantime; running out of town on a whim was something she was familiar with.

▪︎ She tossed a few bits of kindling on top, adjusted the pine branches, and looked back at the girl.

◆ "I am, uh... Back? B-but I have fashioned you... S-something. It is... It is over the, uh- the top, and it is a place to tell the void your woes. It is a - a bad thing to hold. A spiritual weight, I mean. It is up to you though; I only promised you fire."
John
On the confirmation that the strange girl hadn't left her in the small shelter, Jolie was glad; she was mysterious, yes, but she'd reminded her of a select few figures she saw roving around her hometown. There were plenty of people who rejected the church and were rejected for it. She was too different to be accepted by the church and too skittish to overtly condemn it: an in between spot defined by insecurity. Her gentle nature tended to a deep recess of thoughts and feelings she never showed anyone. On good days, it was a garden she closed her eyes and quietly walked through — something she now attributes to her parahumanity — and on bad days, it haunted her every move, waiting for her to close her eyes.

Sitting quietly by the fire, she occasionally thought to offer help to whatever the other girl was doing, but feared her own ignorance would be a hindrance. It was only then that she thought of what the girl was actually doing; she'd retreated into her own thoughts and memories a while ago, and there she remained for almost the entire duration she sat alone. 

Upon remembering that it had something to do with spirituality, she took a moment to ponder. Religion and spirituality were two different things, and it was entirely possible to have one without the other; for Jolie, she thought that everyone could benefit from being more spiritual. She vividly remembered the times she stood in the pews surrounded by exhausted, soulless folk, drawling unassuming gibberish in one bleak sphere of sound. She took quietly to herself and indulged only in mystical concepts she was drawn to – which admittedly wasn't much – but it was better than giving weight to scriptures that meant nothing to her. 

"O-Okay, uhm... What do I do?" She obliged, rising to her feet and brushing off stray dirt and frost from her legs. There was tangible anxiety in her tone; less afraid of what the other girl would have her do, but more so that she'll somehow mess it up and make a fool of herself.
Iris
◆ "It is a... It is a small ho- hole in the snow, directly to the dirt." She explained. "You, uh... You sp-speak into it. Whatever bothers you. Sp-speak it and then cover the hole. Nothing more. It might seem... It-it might seem stupid, but the... Th-the old ways don't make mistakes. It... Yeah. It has worked for me before."

□ *Snap, crackle, pop.* The fire burned a few feet away from the pair, digging itself an ever deeper depression from which to consume and to throw heat, and Akvilė seemed almost fascinated by the fire. She stared at it instead of the other girl, who'd risen to her feet and apparently decided she was going to listen to the woods witch's advice, and she stared as she prodded at it. "It-it may seem peculiar. The ground itself listens, though." She idly spoke as the other gal moved around the pit. Seemingly, she had nothing more to say.

□ Once alone for a few moments Akvilė quickly turned her attention back to the tree overhead. It was a beautiful pine tree, perhaps sixty years old, with plenty of needle-less branches near the bottom after decades of chronic sunlight deprivation and healthy branches up top. She knew in that moment that the tree had given the pair shelter, fuel, and warmth. It had offered up its own flesh and limbs, and now as the gal she'd been helping did her thing with the pit she'd dug – little more than an angled tunnel that punched *Through* The frozen dirt below – she took a few genuine moments to bless the tree.

Anointed with oil and thanked in a language somewhere between Lithuanian and Sanskrit. Hands laid upon the bark. A hug. She was more or less treating the tree – and the world around it by extension – with reverence and respect, and in this moment she probably wouldn't have even noticed if she was joined again by her acquaintance.
John
Collecting her shoes as she listened to the other girl, she eventually – begrudgingly – fastened the shoes back on and started on her way out the shelter without a word, pausing for a moment before her exit; half of her faced the exit to the biting cold, and the other absorbed as much warmth from the shelter as hesitation allowed, and soon enough her halves conjoined and she trudged out the pit. 

"The ground itself listens," She repeated as she clumsily traversed the distance to the hole, feeling whatever warmth she absorbed slip through her fingers. Jolie felt better now; the more she walked, the more she realized that it was only a marginal improvement – the shelter helped, as did the hospitality – but the facility still casted a heavy shadow.

However, it wasn't just the facility; only one thing came to her mind when she was given the instructions, and in her mind it stayed, growing heavier and sinking further into the depths of her mind than the cradle could reach. 

She remembered her last night in Alabama just weeks ago. The argument with mom – the incident that stopped it. Getting in the car with him – stopping on the cliffside road. Seeing that man reach for his holster –

Sweeping away the snow and branches by her feet, she kneeled on the ground and looked into the hole.

It was instinctual. Her fight or flight kicked in as it did hours before. Before she reached out her hand, she'd already felt the wind picking up.

Leaning into the hole, hair obscuring her eyes, she whispered: "Whoever you were,"

She heard his hip crack against the barrier and watched him stumble over.

"I'm sorry." 

On the walk back, she'd gotten used to the snow and her shoes; she imagined it were a dampened wheat field. Jolie lost track of time, but after a few minutes, she hopped back down to the shelter, taking little time to find a spot to sit and stare into the fire. 

There lay an empty look if there ever was one, but she took slow, deep, shaky breaths. Relief, perhaps.
Iris
◇ By the time the other gal got back, Akvilė had paid her respect and thanks to the natural world.

□ Back up against the tree, her steel-grey eyes shot up as a pair of shoes hopped down the hole, carrying her nameless acquaintance along with them. For a few moments she said nothing, simply observing, eyes first fixed on the girl's cheekbones, then the corners of her lips. It was as if she was giving the other first dibs on small talk or whatever lay in store. After a few moments of astute observation and noted silence, though, she cleared her throat with a percussive cough. 

◆ "Y-you look better. Less burdened." Her voice barely creaked out, like footsteps on old floorboards. Almost uncertain in a sense. "I do not know what, erm... Wh-what bothered you. But it s-seems to- seems to be gone. Good." She continued, raising a hand to her bangs and fixing them. 

▪︎ A few more moments of silence passed.

◆ "Was thinking while you were... While y-you were out. This place. The *Cradle...*" Her voice curdled like milk as she spoke. "I am only here because I-I... Because a- a *Man* Tested me in Poland and found himself lacking." She continued. "Heart attack. I-I feel no pity. How did you find yourself, uhm... The word. It escapes." She grumbled, face twisted into one of concentration before her eyebrows shot up and her face loosened.

▪︎ "Banished! Fucking word. I feel that we are... That we might not be so different. What sent you here?"
John
The wind around her rose and fell with her chest. Her eyes hardly moved from the fire even as the other girl made her observations, her body stiff; not tense, petrified in a relaxed state too scared to move even an inch. Jolie felt porcelain, wary still of the stranger; despite her warmth and willingness to help, it did not take much to shatter ceramics.

Eventually, however, she did move, feeling a tingle fly up her spine and nape, as if to literally shake herself out of her stupor. She sat cross legged and awkwardly searched for a place to put her hands – knees, the ground beside her, shins – until eventually pulling her arms out of the sleeves of the windbreaker, only to be met with the same quandary once again. When the other girl spoke up, she settled on crossing her arms underneath the windbreaker, the shape of them disappearing into the black knitted fabric. 

Jolie listened intently. Upon the statement of the man's heart attack and her lack of pity, she exerted the softest "Oh," Eyebrows softening and gaze dulling. There was remorse in her face; not for the man, but for the girl to have undergone such experience. It was a sickening thing to hold responsibility for one's death. Jolie would not be absolved from it, but she couldn't stop herself from trying.

"Uhm," She began quietly, slightly leaning over her arms crossed over her stomach. "My mom and I were fighting. About, uh, everything." There were hardly any traces of the southern accent that escaped her before. She wanted to tell her the things her mother said – pull them from her heart like ticks – but she didn't want to reveal anything too pertinent.

"I-I couldn't be her daughter anymore. She threw something at me, and the whole, uhm... Wind thing happened. I ran away, but she knew I'd be back. They didn't even go looking for me. They just waited." A troubled look washed over her before she continued. "I got the feeling that I wasn't her problem anymore. This was the only place to go."
Iris
◆ "And you- you simply went back." Akvilė parroted with a pang of judgment, looking first at the other girl then at the fire, and the beads of melted snow trailing down towards their steamy demise. "Y-you must have had no other options. I... I do not pretend to under- to under*Stand,*" She spat half of the word out after it'd apparently gotten gnarled in her throat, "Why you would return other- otherwise."

□ Equal parts monotone and confused, Akvilė tucked her back up against the tree a little harder as she spoke. She scratched her back this way, rubbing her spine against the tree's rough bark and letting out a long sigh of relief as she did so, and once she was done with this process she looked squarely at the other girl. It was intense yet almost vacant, as if her eyes were prone to steal the souls of any who gazed back, yet strangely nervous. 

□ Then came the slew of questions she mulled over in silence. What had the pair really been fighting over? And why had a simple parental spat ended so harshly for her? There was context she was lacking, she decided. Something was missing; a piece of the puzzle of sorts. Geography, relations, the general home environment. Whatever it was, there was something missing, and she could tell it was something she wasn't privy too.

▪︎ *Hm.* Her lips pursed in thought.

◆ "Th-there's something missing." Akvilė spoke matter-of-factly after a stretch of silence. "You don't. Y-you don't strike me as easily pliable. I presume the... Uh. Th-the thing. The missing piece. Yes." A hum. "That is... It- it's not something you really want to talk about. So what is your name? I. I don't believe I caught it."
John
It was obvious to her that her story wouldn't add up. Her lies could only cover so much of her fresh scars, but they would have to do, for now. Jolie was not intending to open herself up to blows she couldn't take – even if she had no reason to suspect the other girl. She instead began to think of plausible half-truths, sectioning what information she would free and what would remain captive; it would be easier, then, to hide behind a narrative of her careful craft. 

When she felt the other's burning gaze upon her, she felt her body shrink, instinctually bringing her legs in closer, shoulders raised and fleeing inwards, as if she were braving a terrible storm. Jolie always had a fear of being misunderstood, but in that moment she felt she was perfectly understood by this stranger: a girl too ashamed to own her past and too anxious to flee from it. It was almost worse this way – nauseating. 

"Jolie," She replied solemnly. Her gaze never left the fire, keeping the girl in her periphery. Though her face had brightened to a dull neutral since returning from the hole, it appeared to be slowly fading into the previous sullen picture, as if it were her true neutral state. 

A short silence followed after she answered her question where an onslaught of guilt overtook her heart. The other girl had established plainly that she was withholding information after freely giving the nature of her residence at the facility, and all Jolie had to offer was a patchy, unclear narrative. She wished she could divest more, and she tried; but when she opened her mouth, all that came out was:

"I c-can't. I'm sorry." The words escaped her like they'd cut through miles of thickets and brambles. Then, she became the smallest she had ever been, as if she would explode if she brought herself closer.
Iris
◆ "Jolie." She plainly spoke, like the other's echo personified. "Akvilė. H-hi."

□ And like that, she'd unveiled her name to another person. The mere fact sat unwell in her chest – *Spiritual phlegm* In a sense – causing her to reach for another cigarette. The distinct flick of a match sparked out over the crackle of the fire, which was by now in need of more wood. A tendon suddenly ripped loose from her knee with a pronounced wet noise and a very sharp inhale from Akvilė, and with this new appendage she began to set wood atop the fire, carefully manoeuvring it the best she could as she also focused on lighting up her smoke.

◆ "We should not stay out here to... Togeth- er." Her speech came out stilted, strange and sporadic. Her cheeks sucked inwards lightly as she dragged, and with it she exhaled directly through the top as her tendon finished piling up sticks the right way. "Th-this fire will only last so long. We... We get going soon. It is what I- what I recommend. Sun's close to down."
John
"Akvilė," She repeated quietly to herself, cementing the syllables like rocks in a fresh trail, "Hello." Jolie hadn't quite heard a name like her's before; she pondered on its origin and thought to ask for it, but feared she'd already owed this girl enough. It would be best to leave soon, before conversation travels any farther than it should.

When the fleshy appendage bursted from Akvilė's knee, there was certainly a sharp inhale through her nose and a bewildered look in her eyes, but it was eventually concealed. It was rude to stare – and she did see her power before. She wondered how one would even begin to develop such powers. 

A sense of relief washed through her body when the other girl presented the notion of leaving soon. She didn't trust herself to hold a conversation with someone in an environment like this without letting something slip – something she couldn't afford to share. Jolie thought herself vulnerable now.

"Y-Yeah, uhm," She slipped her arms through the jacket sleeves, "I'm pretty warm now." In truth, she was a little more than warm, and a shine of sweat on her forehead could be observed when the fire sparked the right way. "Whenever you're ready."
Iris
◆ "Then I... I guess we get going."

□ Shifting in place, Akvilė detached the tendon from her knee. Severing it with little effort and just a bit of knuckle-whitening pain, she commanded the thing into the fire while uttering something in a language that'd likely be unfamiliar to Jolie. Once the fleshy mass began to crackle and fume out terrible smoke she fully stood up, her head and torso poking way out above the small depression her and the other girl had left in their bid to stay warm out in the woods.

▪︎ Perhaps peculiarly, she didn't put the fire out as she hopped up over the top. Instead she left it to burn, almost as if she trusted the snow itself to do her a solid.

◇ Once topside she leaned herself against the tree and took a drag. Not out of the woods yet; her thoughts veered towards home and safety regardless.
John
The sight of the girl's burning knee flesh was nothing short of heartstopping. Jolie worked on the concept that the strips of flesh exalted from her body eventually came back later – like the wrist snake that slithered away some time ago – but the notion that they were casually disposable generated more questions than appreciated. Could she regenerate new flesh like a lizard? Was it even human flesh or was she composed of undetermined living meat? 

These thoughts manifested themselves only by the dumbfounded look on her face, widened eyes and slightly ajar lips. As Akvilė stood up and left the shelter, Jolie searched the area near herself with touch alone, her eyes glued to the crackling strand of flesh expiring in the fire before her. She eventually found her slouchy bag and followed suit, unable to pull her gaze from the fire until the very angle.

The walk back was silent, and from Jolie's perspective, agonizingly awkward. She simply followed behind the other girl; there wasn't a palpable air of worried caution in the berth between them, but she wasn't intent on walking side-by-side with her, either. The snow was impeding, still, but not of the embarrassing display before; the main culprit now was her lackluster shoes.

When they eventually arrived back at the facility, she said her goodbyes and nearly incessant thanks, returning to her dorm with a hurried solitude. She threw her awful shoes into the darkest corner of the room and paced restlessly around its lengths. It would be a night of whirling self-persecution, but she wouldn't forget the sight of the comfortable hearth – nor the ligament wilting within it.