{open} How Much Chuck in a Woodchuck?

The grass was cool and springy against Harper's feet as she strolled down the slope of meadow. Behind her, the schools highest towers could still be seen, and that was fine, so long as no one saw her. Or disturbed her. What she was about to do usually made people squeamish and she just didn't have the time for lectures on animal rights. She found a place suitable and sat with her legs tucked under her long skirts. It had become officially cold enough for Harper to do away with summer dresses. Now she just had to be more cautious with blood splattering her long sleeves.

Out of her shoulder bag, Harper withdrew some herbs, her knife, a tea towel, and a fat woodchuck. She plopped the dead animal onto the towel and sliced its belly open. Blood seeped out and bits of stringy entrails followed. Satisfied with how they fell, Harper pushed up her sleeves to the elbow and began reading their insides. There had been an interesting shift in the air, one of intrigue and fear, and she wanted to know exactly what had caused it and what the outcome would be. Small rodents weren't the best animals to use, but it was the only thing she could find out here on short notice. It would have to do.

Unseen by her, a man with a hangdog expression and a flat, dark suit watched her. Agent G had been developing a funny habit of knowing when the gifted would wonder away on there own. He had crossed paths with this one before and understood she would always be self serving. If he could use that to his advantage, all the better. He stayed tucked away behind the curve of a well used path, where a short saplings and a row of bramble could disguise him enough if he ducked down.

    The day had not necessarily been a long one, but after a solid morning of classes Tucker found himself a bit worn out. School had never been such an intensive experience for him, at most an hour a day, and in most subjects he was woefully unprepared. He could keep up intellectually, but only for as long as his mind could work at full capacity. There were too many subjects he had never even heard of, too many topics therein that he had been ignorant of, for him to learn everything at the pace it was being given. The expectations newly placed on him contrasted with the ease that some of the other students seemed to absorb it all and that made him feel isolated. The mask and gloves helped none, though it was surprising to him how quickly people learned to look past them. It varied from person to person.
    After such a day, feeling a bit exhausted from lectures and immobility, Tucker made his way into the great outdoors. The meadow had been a choice without clear direction or intent. The forest, for some reason, did not feel inviting. Perhaps it was merely the dark unknown hidden in its shade. With frail figure and bare feet, his steps were soft and quiet in the damp grass. The wet clung to his toes, the blades tickling between them, and his pants soaked again, though he had become careless of it. The fresh open air, enticing and refreshing, urged him to remove his mask momentarily so that he might actually enjoy it. It was placed again, calmly, when he found himself in the company of another student. At least, he assumed she was a student.
    At some point he had noticed her in the meadow, but had made no effort to avoid her. By virtue of subconscious leading, Tucker found himself at Harper's side, curiously overlooking the display she had laid out. His approach had been nearly silent, by no intention of his own, and he positioned his back to the Academy, preferring to keep his eyes set forward towards the edge of the trees.
    "Hungry?"

While not normally one for delinquency, the recent stress that had been lain upon Zak (and the accompanied anxiety and panicking) had caused him to skip school for the whole day. He had woken up at ten in the morning, not gotten out of bed until an hour after that, and once up and awake, had almost immediately snuck away from the sight of any school officials, and had wondered his way alone into the forest. While at this point he was slightly more organised (both in thought and gait- the numbness in his extremities had faded since the morning) he still stumbled and wandered with little thought, only paying attention to the many and constant words of the birds that flew around him.

A few of the birds that he had often made contact with flew close to him as he wandered his way through the forest, keeping him in check and constantly chirping at him to confirm his safety. Zak appreciated the company, even if, in this state, he wasn't prone to responsiveness. Through the passage of time some of his companions left and some joined, the colours of those nearby cycling almost in unison with the colours in the slowly shifting sky.
However, as soon as Zak's clumsy feet reached the edge of the meadow, two faint figures at what was an undetermined distance, all those around him scattered, going upwards and south and east and ducking into the grass to hop off in secret. While peculiar, Zak's muddled brain thought little of it, continuing to march forward blindly until he finally reached the two he had seen from a distance. When he was close enough he stopped, his eyes first gazing at the endless grass, then shifting onto the bloodied animal and the girl beside it. He stared blankly at it for a few moments before his brain finally awoke, slowly registering just what he was seeing.

As he finally came to realise the murder set before his eyes, Zak stumbled backwards and took a loud, inward breath, almost like a hollow gasp. Following a few more moments whistles and chirps escaped his lips, then, once he realised that birds were no longer his company, clumsy, shocked words formed-
"What are you doing?"

The skin under Harper's henna began to prickle with the cold and the added slick of blood that flecked her forearms. With a huff, a thick strand of hair that had come away from her loose bun, flopped and fell back over her eye. The fates were being vague again. There had been a time when they spoke to Harper so succinctly, but now they only spoke of change, treading on a sleeping tiger...indistinct nonsense. Although she had seen Tucker out of the corner of her eye when he had first reached the meadow, Harper had steadfastly ignored him. Now, frustrated and blurry eyed, she looked up at his question. "Not in the way you might think," Her swift glance had turned quickly into thoughtful examination. A grin flitted when her eyes rested on his mask. How would he react if she flecked a little blood near him. Would it be as funny as she hoped? Lately she'd been feeling a little regretful about pressing into people's sensitivities. Only a little, but it was a dreadful annoyance, this...what? This guilt? The word was a curse, something unholy to utter out loud.

Harper wiped her blade against the knee of her leggings, then rolled down her sleeves. The other boy approached and she noted that he was darling when in shock. "Don't worry, I thanked it for it's use to me," Harper said coolly. She had, of course. Despite the ritual being a private affair, it was sometimes best to explain that upon death she showed gratitude for the life she took. At the same time, the rodent had presented such a vagueness that Harper was thinking on recanting that gratitude.

Again she examined the first boy and then the other. Although the second looked healthier, he seemed much more ridged. "Hmm. Three makes it a party," she said, drumming her thin fingers over her thickly painted lips. "but what will the truant officer say? We should probably make this worth while, all this school skipping. So...any ideas?" Harper would let the woodchuck lay there for the carrion birds and the foxes. She could do no more with it but remove it from the cloth she had used.

    He pondered her words briefly, she must mean some abstract usage of the term that he simply was not familiar with. He had been discovering rather quickly how narrow his vocabulary appeared to be. Sure, he had grown up around doctors and crazies, so it could not be said that he had no vocabulary. Just that in some cases the terms were used in their literal sense, and in the other they were never really words to begin with. He refocused his attention on the young woman, realizing his thoughts were wandering much too rapidly. That had never proven good in social context.
    Of course, he was appreciative of the company. Unexpected, certainly, but in some way he had led himself towards interaction. Even the third's presence would be welcome, even though he had not taken the venture into the meadow in pursuit of socializing. Somewhere, there lay mixed feelings about the whole affair. Out amongst strangers, in a place he did not yet trust. Decidedly, he had enough of being isolated. At least he had made some casual acquiantances on the campus. The more he built on those relationships, the more he might be able to see what kind of people operated here. If he could gain their trust, maybe they would gain his.
    To him, the likelihood of meeting two separate people... No, he realized, it's three people meeting serendipitously. Zac's reaction to the bloody display garnered little reaction from Tucker. Simply observing, no judgement or surprise in the matter.

    "Don't mean to press, but is this something to do with your ability?" He prodded, ignoring the given question.
    In context, his question was aimed at the small corpse, but he hoped to discover something deeper. More detailed. The parameters and purpose of this person's abilities. Zac, unfortunately, took a backseat to Tucker's considerations. He had become occupied with his own curiosity about Harper's actions, deciding to keep himself from forming assumptions needlessly. His gaze shifted briefly towards the treeline even as he asked the question, thinking that she might have deliberately situated herself to face it. Not quite, he corrected, she had simply been facing away from the Academy. He could not blame her, he had his own reluctance to turn his back on the thick woods.
    He had lived in white, bright rooms his entire life. Nature felt so free and inviting, which defined his reason for venturing into the Meadow. But, it also had a dangerous feeling to it, and the dark shade of the forest did not help. This line of thinking would bring him no answers about his new acquiantances and might just complicate things. With vague realization, he made a small gesture, but did not risk extending his hand for a proper greeting.
    "I'm Tucker, by the way." He turned his hand over and looked at it with an apathetic gaze briefly, debating on tagging his ability onto his introduction along with his name. He decided against it, returning his look to address Harper and Zac respectively.

After another moment of mental processing, Zak finally contextualized the situation he was in and, pairing that thought with Tucker's question, finally decided that this event was far less severe than he had initially thought. After noticing he had stopped breathing for the moment, Zak sucked in two lungfuls of air and slowly exhaled, trying to return his mind to clarity.

And that was when the panic reset itself.

He- Zakary Crowe- was skipping school! For no reason! He had things to learn, work to do, things to make, and here he was, out in god-knows-where, speaking to two strangers and looming over some dead animal. His breathing went from deep and slow to fast and short in almost an instant as he began to panic, clenching his fists at his sides and forcing his eyes shut.

"Dammit! Dammit dammit dammit!" he erupted, far louder than he had intended. He could hear the few birds that found themselves in the meadow screeching angrily at him, fleeting away from the vicinity. Not only was he missing class, but he was also making an embarrassment of himself, he realized- which just made him panic more.

While one part of him was trying to calm down, the other was continuing his panic. He wanted to stop and properly introduce himself, make the best of this unfortunate situation. But he couldn't, because his dumb brain wasn't letting him.

With a smile Harper said, "Hello Tucker. I'd shake your hand but..." she indicated the woodchuck leavings on the blanket. "One moment please." All the dresses she owned, Harper had made sure they had pockets. If they didn't, she always stitched into the skirts little compartments to hold her materials. It didn't take her long to find a wet wipe, and she cleaned off her hand with quick efficiency. She collected his hand up in hers. "I'm sure the pleasure of meeting you might be all mine."

Harper was about to confirm that part of her gift was reading the entrails of animals, an old but usually accurate way of soothsaying...if the signs hadn't been evading her, dammit, but stopped. Mouth still open for talk, her hooded eyes darted over to Zakary and his freak-out. That made so much since now. The new runes she had been testing a few weeks ago had mumbled something about a panic in the meadow. Maybe this was it. Or it could be coincidence. Reading the future was funny that way. "Back it down," she said to Zakary with a calm tone. "What is freaking you out? Play should never be a thing of worry!"

She flicked her large mess of curls off her shoulders and straightened her jacket. Maybe it was the dead rodent that was worrying this kid so much. With a flick of her boot, Harper covered it up with the edge of the blanket. "What's your name anyway?"

    There was a brief moment of calm as Zak seemed to take control of himself, recovering from his initial shock somewhat quickly. Tucker had adjusted his attention to the boy, expecting a similar introduction in the wake of his own, but Harper responded first. She took his hand, and Tucker's nylon-gloved hand grasped gently in response. He lacked the cordial experience to shake properly by reflex, but was appreciative that she had taken the consideration to clean her hands first. As a result, the light grip was an agreeable, friendly, inviting, inhuman, alienating, and plastic touch. Tucker's head canted slightly and his eyes read curious. Her words felt smooth and eloquent, not so sharply practiced as the prim and proper staff tended to speak. His tone immediately sought to emulate her style, his voice practiced in speaking through that mask.

    "We shouldn't be so quick to forget our friend, here..."
    As Tucker spoke his head turned to acknowledge Zak, an invitation to bring the young man into the clandestine meeting, but his intention derailed with realization that the other had descended into a panic attack. The outburst had been brief and exclamatory, neither brought Tucker discomfort, but it was apparent that his fellow student was broiling inside over an unknowable anomaly. Harper then aimed to take control, but Tucker proved more direct.
    His gloved hand, freshly freed from Harper's care, shot forward to place itself on Zak's chest. The light impact aimed to jolt Zak to his senses. To bring his attention to the present. To drag his consciousness out of internal worrisome thoughts.

    "You are among friends, now," He began, seeking the source of anxiety through words and direct eye contact. "The animal is at peace. You are not in danger. Breathe. Hand on your diaphragm, raise it slowly, and breathe."
    Normally this kind of physical contact would be beyond Tucker's comfort, but in this moment he relied on what he had witnessed under the indirect tutelage of doctors and physicians to calm particularly stress-filled patients. He hoped it worked.

Zak was clutching at his head, pulling at handfuls of hair and breathing at varying paces as the two finally seemed to pay their attentions to what was going on. Oh god. Now he was the center of attention. He hoped these people didn't hate him for that, despise his presence, want him to go away. His chest hurt beyond belief, and he found himself nearly bleeding his bottom lip.

As one of the two- Tucker, he managed to remind himself before the pain took over again- made physical contact, trying to calm him down, a part of his brain returned ever so slightly to reality. "I feel like I'm going to die," he managed through clenched teeth. However, most fortunately, his heart started hurting a little less, his mind felt slightly clearer, and his legs felt far more able in their attempt to support him. But this still wasn't an end. He tried to breathe as he was instructed, and after a few moments, finally managed to hurriedly reassure, "I-I'm not like this because of you two, or that... animal." His breathing once more returning to a panicked irregularity, he stated, "I'm going to die now. I know it."

Although this was a common thought he held during his panic attacks, for whatever reason it felt even stronger this one. Sure, he was in a fairly average amount of pain for his attacks, and it definitely seemed to him that having the presence of others was doing no harm, but for whatever reason- maybe it was the circumstances around him being here in the first place, or the odd lack of avian creatures in the vicinity, or maybe even the changing of seasons- this time his mind was set on his own demise. And it wasn't like he was seeking an end in any way- in fact, his desire to remain living at this moment was the strongest it had ever been- but for whatever reason, he felt a demise lingering on the other end of this attack.

"I-I'm sorry about this," he stuttered out, trying to take control of his breathing again as he finally noticed his hands were clutching his heart. He wanted to introduce himself, say his own name, but his mouth wouldn't work with him any longer.

Harper watched Zak half interested in his struggle to speak around the panic attack. Then she turned her attention yo the cuticles on her right hand. Tucker was Performing words of comfort admirably and Harper saw no need to step in. She did, however, let out an impatient sigh. "Are you done? Or do you think you will be soon?" The tone she spoke with wasn't necessarily rude, but it lacked sympathy. 

Noon was slowly creeping upon them and Harper wanted to explore a bit while the child air was still dry, but she wouldn't include these boys if they were planning on being boring the whole time. Her gaze flickers up to the thickening clouds and she sighed again. 

"Look sugar, if you're worried about getting in trouble for skipping class, the easiest way to avoid any punishment is just this... don't get caught." A drop of rain fell on her cheek,and Harper brushed the damp away with another impatient sigh. It wasn't supposed to do more than mist today, but she was always forgetting the temperamental students that played around with the elements. "So! What sounds fun to you guys?"