Your blue skies fade to grey (Tuck)

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Plum was feeling off. It wasn’t a magical malady, she just felt different. Some crazy part of her mind thought that it was due to the changing of seasons. She had always felt connected to nature on some level, but she knew that wasn’t it. She was feeling different. She was feeling like she had changed. It bothered her and frightened her at the same time.

She had been here too long. The magic of this place had changed her. Perhaps it was time to go home. But Plum couldn’t help but feel that her home was here. She felt at home here. A part of her never wanted to leave. Honestly this place was slowly becoming home. The Kingdom of Sweets was supposed to be her home. She had been raised there and it felt like a betrayal to think of Trenale as home. But there was so much magic here. It was all around her and for the first time she felt like she was fitting in. She had always stood out back in her kingdom, but she had to. She was the Sugar Plum Fairy. She had a job to do. She was well known. But here she wasn’t and she could be anyone she wanted to be. She didn’t have to be the woman she needed to be. She didn’t have to be the person-the ruler that someone else told her she needed to be.

She couldn’t help but feel a little lost. She didn’t know what she was doing. She could be anyone she wanted to be, but she didn’t know who that person was. Who was she? All her life she had been defined by her title. Even the name she called herself was just part of her title. It was still a part of her and who she was, but she was just confused. She almost wished that Door was here, but she had left. She had disappeared without a trace. She hadn’t even said goodbye. Plum missed her. She was someone to talk to about all of this. Other than Door, Plum didn’t really have anyone to turn to.

Usually dancing helped when she needed to think things over, but this was something more than she had bargained for. This was not something that dancing could fix. That was probably why she had ended up sitting in the courtyard, staring into the fountain; the bag with her books slung over one shoulder. The question was now whether or not the fountain held the answers she was looking for.

[tuck]

If Plum was feeling off, well, Tuck was feeling like his world might be ending. This wasn't like every other year, where he drank and tried to forget on that one day, and tried to tell himself that it was alright, that he was really doing well all the other days of the year. This was nothing short of him self-destructing from the inside. He kept up the calm exterior, handed out advice, made plans, did his coursework, and gave off the appearance of someone who had himself fairly well under control.

Somewhere underneath it all, though, there was an empty place, there was something dark and broken and it was eating away at the parts of him that were still healthy and whole, and inevitably, it would reach the outside. It was only a matter of time, a person could only pretend to be stable for so long if they really weren't.

He felt like everything he did only set down another layer of the filth that corrupted his heart, that had been darkening his soul since the moment he'd left the monastery. There were moments of light, like performing Robin and Marian's wedding, and there were moments when he forgot how dark the darkness really was, but on the whole, he felt like he hadn't been clean in a long time. Perhaps ever.

He walked towards the fountain, and he didn't stop. He stepped over the little brick wall, into the pool of water at the foot of it, and he kept walking until he was inside of it, under the water that poured down on him, let it wash down on his skin until it fell free into the pool below him, and when he was thoroughly soaked through to the skin, he sank down onto his knees and he closed his eyes.

Symbolic, yes. In an utterly cliched and useless way, most likely. But regardless, he could have stayed there for an age and still felt as though he were no cleaner than he had been before (and not just because the water in the fountain was probably filthy).

[Deleted]

She was looking for answers to questions, but the answers weren’t here. Of course they weren’t here in this fountain. She wasn’t going to find the answers to her questions in a fountain of all places. Plum was disappointed, more than she should have been if she was going to be honest with herself. Fountains did not magically give wayward fairies answers out of the blue just because they needed to work out major changes in their life. No, that was not the way of things, but a piece if her almost wished it was. Then her problems would be easier to solve.

Fountains did not bring answers, but they did apparently bring young men who were attempting to bathe in them. Plum watched him for a moment. She recognized him. His name was William and this was their third encounter. To some the number three was significant. In Celtic mythology it was a very significant number. Water was also significant as it was a way to get to the other world or magic world of sorts. And here stood one of the Fae folk ready to help this mortal man.

This was probably a silly thing to think at a time like this, but she had to help William. He seemed as wayward as she felt and perhaps they were not so terribly different. She would do what she could for him, if there was anything she could do at all.

Without thinking or hesitating Plum stepped delicately over the little brick wall and into the fountain. “William,” she said, walking to him and laying a hand on his shoulder. “William, what are you doing?”

[tuck]

He wasn't expecting to be saved. Perhaps that was the saddest turn of events of all - that he had gone from preaching the graces of salvation to having lost any real hope that anyone would come along and rescue him. He wasn't hoping for a miracle here, he was looking for some way to escape the guilt, some way to wash it out of his soul so he could have a moment of peace and quiet conscience. He had been fighting his demons for so long, and he was just so tired of fighting.

Her hand on his shoulder was unexpected. He recognised her voice, in spite of the fact that he couldn't look up without the water running into his eyes. As it was, his downturned face was sheltered ever so slightly by the curtain of his dripping hair, which hung down far enough to keep most of the splattering droplets out of his vision.

She called him William - most people didn't know his name was William to even call him that, and he couldn't recall what he'd been thinking when he had offered the name to her in introduction. Had he wanted her to call him that at the time? It felt...different. Better. He had been brother Tuck, had been training to become Friar Tuck, but right now, he was just William.

"I don't know," he said, and it was perhaps the truest thing he'd said in years. He had no idea what he was doing, where he was going, and what of it was even right anymore. "I honestly don't know. I'm praying that someone will show me what I'm doing, what I should be doing."

[Deleted]

Plum felt for the man. Somewhere along the way he had gotten off his path and now he was looking for a way to find it again. She didn’t know if she could help him, but she was going to try. She really wanted to help if she could find a way, and when one has wish magic almost anything is possible.

She knelt beside William without a moment’s hesitation. Her dress would most likely get ruined, but there were more important things at stake here than the state of her outfit. Clothes didn’t matter in the long run anyway. What was important was the number of lives you touched and helped and the number of people you mattered to. And right now Plum was reaching out to help another individual who was lost. She was going to help him find his way again, and perhaps it would help her find her own way in the end.

She put and arm through his and sort of hugged it since she couldn’t very well hug him unless she stepped directly into the fountain. “I think we’re all looking for someone to show us the way,” she said softly. The moment seemed to call for softness. “Perhaps it is the nature of beings to look for a leader when we are lost.”