The Wild Child and Peter Pan ride again (Humanity optional)

”Oh, i’ll keep that in mind then,”’ He was pretty good at taking the form of a scorpion, even if he preferred something large and furry like a wolf. He wondered what kind of ideas they could come up with and Silus tried to explain the idea. Shael nodding along despite not knowing what  he meant exactly.  He chewed on his lower lip, thought a little more and then nodded again. ”That makes sense...sorta,” He said with a tone that suggested he didn’t completely get what he was trying to say but here he was trying. Sounds more like the trick inclined person would  understand.

He thought over the next suggestion, about him taking on the form of something terrifying.  ”I saw something in a movie….an on some youtube videos I could probably turn into.” he stated trying to draw the images from his head as he flopped out of the water and shook his all too human looking body dry as if he were a dog. Allowing his body and clothes to shift into a large, black chitaned creature with a long segmented tail with a sharp looking barb and slavering teeth with long sharp talons which dug into the soft soil. It all lasted a few seconds until he returned to the same shape  with him in the swimming trunks.

”Yeah, I know a few fae. My friend lives in our house and cleans it up because I guess he has an arrangement with my sister, ” He shrugged, with a toothy smile. ”I have a half fae friend too, though he always puts those...glamor things up to cover his pointy ears. He does sing pretty well,” He might have been talking about half elf but then again those two always seemed to get mixed up.  ”So was  I scary enough or do I need a few more oozing sores?”

“Seems like a cool person. I’ll have to meet ‘em sometime.” Silus said happily before taking in the new and foreign form that Shael had adopted. Silus had never seen one of those creatures before, yet it seemed oh so similar. He had seen it before, hadn’t he? Not here, but somewhere else. He needed to focus on trying to figure out where he had seen this thing. He had sorely missed Zell at this point, typically if he had visions of other universes, Zell could at least direct the vision to pinpointing the actually existence he was thinking of. But alas, that was not to be. After a defeated sigh he looked to Shael and nodded with a genuine smile.

“Yeah, That’ll work. I’m all for it. Do that. But it’s gotta be seamless and natural. No on the oozing sores though.” Silus said, finding himself even a little grossed out by oozing sores. The barbed tail was enough for horrifying features. Especially the eyeless nature of the beast. His friend’s synesthesia always made him paranoid of losing sensory, so incorporating that into the design of the prank would be great.

“So we got a plan. That’s good...but when do we enact it?” Silus wondered to himself. He knew that his mutual friend was spending a lot of time with Mike, doing whatever it was they did. Causing crimes while solving other ones. Curing cancer or causing it. He could never be real sure about that. “It’s super peaceful here...what is this place...exactly?” He said, finally changing the toe from his personal mission of pranking to Shael’s marvelous little world. He had mentioned how beautiful it was and marveled at it, but now it was time for him to process it. He could see and feel the spirits and the presence of other beings blissfully communing all at once. But he was still unsure of the place itself, or how it came to be.

”Oh yeah, i’m sure he would like to meet you,” He stated with a wide smile before shifting into the strange, monstrous form he thought would scare. It felt strange to take on the form and the different senses that came with it. Eyeless, though he could see and turned towards Silus with what felt like an expression waiting a reaction. He wanted to see what his Councle thought of his transformation and if it was good enough.

He wondered what caused Silus to fall in expression for a second but all he did was shift back and smile wildly. He didn’t need oozing sore, though he assumed Silus might have liked something scarier. He nodded however at the mention of no oozing sores and listened to the speculation about how they should enact the plan. How to go about it, which made hi little Shael brain begin thinking. Had to be something that he could do that would help them. Prove the naysayers wrong that he wasn’t smart.

It all changed when things came down to his world. ”I call this my Druids Grove. I know i’m not like a druid or anything, but I like the sound of it. Well...I am a druid but that’s mostly in Jordan’s campaign,” He shrugged, cannonballing back into the small pool and paddling on his back. ”guess it’s a sort of pocket space or whatever. Can’t come in here without the right charm or knowledge which I guess is a magic thing. Permission also helps, since I gave you that,” He sounded like he was explaining something he heard from someone else.

All Shael knew was that he liked being here. ”Me and my friend mostly spend time here because he hates big cities.”Shael paused as if remembering something. ” So, how we doing that plan of yours? Like actually doing it I mean.”

Silus smiled and began to explain facets of his plan. He told Shael that he would need a few hours to prepare the trap for his friend. Their discussion ranged mostly from Silus telling a base description of the area into asking for Shael’s input. Their plan had to be solid enough that both of them could improvise if they had to. So far they knew what Shael was going to be, but they needed to decide what Shael would be DOING and how he would stay hidden when it was seemingly impossible to fit down the rabbit hole.

   “Okay so small tunnel leading us to this little wonderland like area and we can totally investigate it. But the second that it turns night, you gotta take that form. Since that’s like..not a real thing can you actually do anything with it? That doesn’t look very anatomically sturdy...” Silus asked, as he began to realize that Shael’s powers shouldn’t allow him the capacity to just randomly make up his own creatures. While his soul certainly had the potential and capacity for such a thing, it was more of a concern for when he was dealing with drawing the unwanted attention of others.

   “Then of course we smack the cake into his face at the end. So the areas will be small and dark, so you might need to shift into other things...ones that don’t make too much noise. His senses are sharper than any animal I've ever seen. So I’ll make sure we’ve got a lot of water in the air, a mist or haze. That’ll remove smell...for you too sadly. Sorry. What do you think? You think our own made-up Narnia turned horror-story will work?” Silus asked, trying to make sure that their plan was concrete enough to start preparing for. Given everything being okay, he figured that Shael would have his own inputs, but before they got started, they’d need one last thing to be fixed…. And Silus could begin the project very, very soon.

Silus went through the details of his plan and Shael like the plan. Sounds like it was thought through pretty well, enough that he didn’t have too many questions.  His part in the plan seemed pretty simple. ”It’s pretty sturdy. I saw it someone on the internet so had to guess what it could do but I think I did pretty good,” He nodded to himself, as if his explanation made sense. Fera even tried out seeing how tough it was and found that a baseball bat bent before it did any real damage to him. The strength was reasonable even, if he could only throw one of those cars around and even that used more energy than he cared to use.

Fera said that he should focus on mixing animal attributes instead of just taking on full forms but he never took an interest in that. It all sounded like something that required more thought than he wanted to use.  Finally he nodded. ”yeah, I know a few animals I could turn into that don’t need smell,” He could be a bat but didn’t know how quiet that might be. Would anyone even take notice of a bat flying around? There was some logic going through his mind, though it didn’t come together as well as he would have liked it to.

”Sounds like our plan should work,” He said with absolute certainty, nodding as his swimming trunks and form shifted into a more clothed Shael; mostly the clothes he had been wearing when he first visited Silus today. ”Any other plan stuff we need to do or is it all good?” He questioned thinking about what else he could do. Anything that didn’t accidentally kill anyone anwyay.

Silus smiled as he explained the scene to Shael, though the explanation was just the beginning of it. He quickly began to get to work. He had to leave the Druid’s grove before making his own way into a subspace. They needed to choose a place that they could almost obscure themselves from sight, allowing them to disappear. Silus had chosen a tree, having Shael take the form of an animal of his choice for the job, hollowing out a section of a massive tree. The hollowed out section was just enough for a child to fit inside, making Silus smile as he began to paint the interior of the log, his fingers sliding across the wood gently as he left black streaks of pain behind where his fingertips trailed. Thirty minutes and two splinters later, Silus finished, making it a reality that stepping into this tree brought you to a whole new place.

   Taking Shael, he lead them to a forest outside across the world. From California to outside Chicago, in a dense forest, that was quite a jump. Silus worked painting on the area, seeming to leave streaks in the air, the entire world turning into a bright and colorful area, as animals of unique nature and never seen before creatures seemed to spawn to life. He was being so intricate, even copying the smells to life as they arrived. The world was fantastical, it was truly like something out of C.S Lewis’ magic cabinet. There were trees of unknown origin, they seemed to be alien in aspect. Fruits and flowers that came to life, gloeing in magical colors and dancing as little cartoonish snake-like creatures with flowing whiskers, feline ears and stupid smiles popped up as they wiggled back and forth. The small beings were disappearing whenever someone looked to them, leaving only the strange green furred deer-like creatures with ram horns and iguana tails.

    “Okay so, Shael… I’m doing my best, but I need you to tell me if there’s anything I’m missing, or if I should make something. Remember, when the sun goes down, we’ll need to make all new creatures too so.... Might need your help with that.” Silus said, recalling that the plan of vengeance would be delayed by a day. The plan being they would create this place, and Shael would help him make it as immersive to the senses as possible, and help him make terrifying predators for the night.  Then tomorrow they’d drag Silus’ friend to this place in the afternoon. It was likely a whole new world for Shael to explore as it was being created, and would likely be something quite new.

Once everything was explained, that meant having them actually put things into motion. Shael making sure he was actually dressed though he needed to shift, hollowing out a tree  which was pretty easy. He worked through a few to see which one worked, one of those being a beaver because that felt pretty obvious but eventually  he made one large enough for Silus and maybe even himsel.f. Once that was done he crawled from the tree and allowed Silus to do his thing, rolling around in the lush grass and waiting for him to do whatever that was. Maybe something interesting and magical, because anything he didn’t understand could be called that in his own mind. Even the most well understood of science by anyone elses metrics.

Once that was done he followed Silus’ lead through into what felt like a new world entirely or maybe a new place. The plants smelled differently, and the air itself had a different feel about it.  Not the same comfortable sensation he got when moving through his own grove, instead foreign and unknown in the way that made his hairs stand up on end.  The new area grew more interesting with a little color however, something that was worked on by Peter Pan while he just watched with nothing else to do in that respect.  Aside from playing around with a vine he grew, snaking and winding around him in arcs much like a snake of some kind.

There were some strange creatures added too, ones that he practiced taking the forms of but only long enough to get used to the sensation that came with it. ”How about...giant rats with top hats and canes? We’re going cute right? Because...I dunno if we were doing cute or scary,” He looked confused for a moment but shrugged, scratching the side of his head  in a gesture that might have looked like thinking, but that was assuming he has a posture of something like that.  Still he would offer as many suggestions as he could, mostly ones that came to mind and those that felt like they fit the theme they were trying to go for.  He suggested a few ideas to the place, mostly creepy crawly things that would make the place potentially even scarier because that was what they were going for afterall.

Once that was done he could spend some time relaxing until the next day, mostly making sure Fera knew he was alright and checking to see if Matt had returned from his supposed hot date because he was the curious little Shael like that. Maybe even to bother him about how it went and going with the assumption that all adults typically ended up bringing their dates home.

Bringing something new to life was always an experience. The way that lines intersected with others, some of the more subtle and intricate markings and details escaping for a only a moment before the boy's tongue slipped out and he bit down on it gently. His focus was fixed on building and making this new world as realistic as possible as he then began to add more fantastical colors and floral effigies. Each thing seeming to be hand colored and crafted. He began by making a single one of everything he would expect to find. He couldn't help but laugh as Shael said about crating rats with top hats and canes.

"We're doing both actually. It goes from cute to scary. That's where you come in. After the cute draws him in, you'll be the scary predator." Silus explained as he slowly began to vibrate, his image blurring for a moment as not one, two or three, but ten versions of himself seemed to all step outside of him. Each of the images of him beginning to hum in a very soft and subtle tone as they began to run about in a seemingly chaotic pattern, dragging their hands across the ground and leaving trails of paint from their fingertips. "Okay, once I've got one of everything done and in detail then I can do most of this without really thinking about it." He said with a sigh, wiping sweat from his forehead as he looked at the beautiful pieces on his "pallete" He was going to be interested to see how Shael played the part.

Eventually they'd end up going home. They'd laugh and talk along the way home. Mostly Silus wanted to know how Shael had been. It was an interesting prospect, as far as conversation went. It had been a short while since Silus had been uplifted from his home and placed with Matthew. The "new" Zell had been showing no signs of adapting to this world well. His random and potentially "fatal" attacks against his children to "keep them ready" was proving to be quite a point of contention. Sean had others that he would rather Silus have stayed with, but deep down the child really only felt "at home" with Humanity. It wasn't like he would have done well with his grandmother or grandfather. He had to have tea with them once. Paternal grandfather and well...other paternal grandmother. He hadn't been that embarassed since he turned himself into a female to help Diana.

They'd end up home on the later part of the hours. Most others had been in bed, but Silus and Shael were still wandering on home. By the time they ended up to the doorway, Silus wrapped an arm around Shael and hugged him. He was genuinely happy to see his nephew, even if he absolutely abhored the fact that he was old enough to be someone's uncle. He wasn't like the others in that regard...despite his "Etheral" nature as some might call it, he was still overly sensetive about his age. They stepped into the house but Silus was rather perplexed about what he saw. The television was on and the old fire stove was lit in the worn down and shabby house. Matthew sat on a chair, plastic covering it as he seemed to work an elongated pair of tweezers, glistening strands of wire attached to a looped needle as he seemed to work at piercing through his own skin.

"Hello boys..." He said, looking tired but smiling softly as he saw Shael and quickly recalled his more acute sensory. He quickly stumbled as he took the bloody shirt he had and folded it over with one hand and placed it over the strong smelling disinfecting alcohol. "Witching hour's full of surprises... Thought you'd both be in bed by now." He chuckled, knowing full well that neither of them required sleep. But Silus seemed to like sleep, surprisingly enough. Though Matthew couldn't help but laugh as he recalled that sleep was the only time the poor kid could manage to create WITHOUT actually creating anything in the physical realm. Matthew winced a little as he pierced his flesh once more with the curved needle pulling the wire through as Silus walked into the house and took off his hoodie, folding it carefully and placing it on the chair he normally sat at. The way he did this, it was clear that this was nowhere near the first time he wandered in on a wounded human.