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The deepest woods can be a magical place, even with no magic involved. It's a lovely place for the wildest to go to feel at home, feel themselves, to bask in how They mingle with This, this world around them. Did the Fox seek out the Birch? Did the Birch come to find the Fox? It's not clear which came for who, but whenever- and however- Johnnie and Fox meet, Johnnie's willowy form is bedecked with- visible!- birch leaves and papery bark, her skin split around those everpresent fissures in birch bark. It looks at once uncomfortable and extremely natural.
Fox hangs out in trees sometimes, though not a lot of the time. She's optimized her body for the cold night: while her breath curls into the air, sending plumes of white mist up toward the night sky, she relaxes in a tank top and shorts, totally barefoot, about six feet off the ground, laying along an oak's sturdy branch. "This is a new look for you," she offers with a lazy yawn. Not that it seems to bother her: one of her idols has pedipalps, after all.
"It is~" Johnnie admits. "I've been trying new things. Like taking on water and lazing around in the rivers, or wandering the caves and taking on stone. It's nice, feeling like the real me isn't hidden behind a curtain. When I explore, the world sees it." She looks up at the comfily dressed fox and smiles faintly. "Will you come down and say hello properly?"
"Isn't that something you could already do?" Fox asks before rolling herself off of the branch; she grabs on by both hands, lazily swinging herself down to the ground and landing with both bare feet in the crunchy snow. Yeah, someday a mortal will spot her and then there will be video of the weird long lost lady from the news stomping around in the snow at midnight but that hasn't happened yet, OKAY VASHA?
Ahem.
Anyway. Fox closes the distance between Vorpal and herself in a few bounding steps and flings herself at Johnnie with the sort of heedless trust which will probably get her killed someday. "Hello!"
The Birch closes around her with infinite gentleness, cradling the fox as she hurls herself, coughing out a laugh. "Oof! Watch out, tackles like that are liable to snap a few branches on the way down~" She teases, of course, even as she folds down to sit in the snow herself. "It's different. If I let the world see -me-, then everything knows where I am. I am... particularly unsubtle."
"So... wait." Fox frowns slightly, and wrinkles up her forehead, thinking about that very seriously. "This is different from the bit when I saw the shadow you? Like the you-you? Also I want to see that again because it was pretty but if it's dangerous I can make a bubble." She sniffs at Johnnie's cheek curiously, possibly not even aware that she's fox-sniffin' to check out the new Johnnie Look.
"It is," Johnnie acknowledges. "That's just-" Pause. She has to roll back from saying a name she can't take back. "-like you said. Me-me. This is a gift." She pulls aside a few folds of birch paper to show off the necklace on her chest. Inside roils familiar, recognizable shadows. Hers, of course. "If you'd like to make a space-beyond-space again, I can release this and reclaim my own easily enough," she offers.
"I want you to be happy. If you're trying out your new thing! That's okay!" She finishes her sniffing at Johnnie's cheek and barely stops herself from sniffing at the necklace. "Ooooh. Shiiiiny." Fox, don't start immediately poking at the Fancy Faerie Magic. "But I can do that. The little palace."
"I'd rather be me," Johnnie says gently. "This is just as close as I can get... responsibly," she admits. "And I am trying very hard to remain very responsible. A lot of people I adore very much will be particularly worried about me if I'm not responsible. In specific ways that matter, like this way."
She wrinkles up her forehead in thought, as if puzzling through something, or trying to get it to fit into her frame of reference somehow. "Vasha gets like that sometimes," Fox finally agrees, as if she's just sorted out how she feels about that, or has just decided to move on.
Disentangling herself from the Birch, Fox throws her slim-muscled arms upward, blowing a gout of mist up toward the sky, and then her grubby little fingers work the night air until a little portal pops into existence. Then? She sketches a bow.
The birch bows back, one of those spooky-elegant moves of pure fluid grace, and she slips into the portal, gone from the world entirely into a new one of Fox's make!
Fox follows after, and the portal closes behind both of them. Well, it constricts, anyway. Nobody's keyed to get in but the two of them. As per the usual, Fox's spirit manse has a pleasant spring warmth, the hammock she loves, and a sort of gentle fishbowl effect where those inside can look out at the wandering midnight spirits while not being seen from outside.
Oh right. And then Fox flops into her hammock, making it swing a bunch. "Why birch?"
"Will you laugh if I admit that it's because I watched a scary short flick?" Johnnie asks idly, making herself comfortable as the roots and leaves of her self settle while she peers out of their fishbowl in that never-ending fascination with the spirit realms.
A little rabbit-spirit pokes its head out of a hole underneath the roots of a tree, roused by something at this strange late hour, and pulls itself back in when a spectral owl swoops down. This far from humanity -- relatively, anyway -- few emotionals or abstracts spend much time. Perhaps one or two waldensamkeit emotionals wander this deep. Perhaps not.
"No," Fox answers, kicking her leg so the hammock continues to swing, and rolling her head to one side so she can watch Johnnie settle herself down. "Sometimes I get all excited about something I saw on TikTok and then I try it. What did you watch?"
Slender, delicate roots splay and search for hold, tangled with vibrant autumn vines gently at odds with the Sping vibe. "It's just called The Birch. About this kid who's bullied, but his family has a protector, and his mother passes the truth on to him and the bully brings his own mess onto his head."
Her sharp little teeth flash in brilliant amusement, and her stubby toes brush across spirit-grass. (What is spirit-grass, really?) "Are you going to be someone's family protector, Johnnie Drexel?" Fox seems delighted by the concept, absently scratching the back of her head and yawning just a little.
"Many family's protector, if I have my way," Johnnie murmurs quietly. "It's one of the best uses for what I've cultivated. To put the fear of something greater into the corrupt preying on the innocent. Leave them terrified that the next predation might be the time their luck runs out."
One corner of her mouth curls up as she watches the uber-Wyrd changeling with a sort of gentle diffidence. After a while spent hanging around double- and triple-Masters, one learns comfort with an awful lot. "I'm not criticizing," Fox answers mildly. "I spent my free time looking after Old City's pigeons. We all have our purposes and reasons."
"Oh, I didn't dream you were," Johnnie admits softly, a calm level to her tone. "It's important to me, I suppose. Having spent so much time and energy learning to keep my own impulses and power in check- I have little patience for those who cannot be bothered to do the same."
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