Anyhow this is a response to @raevenlywrites reading their characters did for Kaithr a while back and I mean I was joking in my tags but only also partially so like. This happened.

 So I guess happy birthday Raev! don’t feel you gotta respond in kind lmao

(the original reading is here, I didn’t want to make it too long a post haha)

~

Kaithr swings the flute case idly by its strap, attention more on their surroundings than the path at their feet. They amble along, relieved to be out of the rush of the city and back amongst the trees. “This doesn’t look the same,” they say, although they don’t sound too concerned. They push their sunglasses up onto the top of their head, now that they’re out of the sunlight.

The trees were bigger, taller and broader, and the path was more grass like it hadn’t been walked as often on. It was still open and airy, but it felt more like a backdrop to something unspeakably ancient. They get the feeling that if they left the path, they’d be lost in a far different wood.

“A few hundred years does that to a place,” their companion replies.

“We didn’t change that much.” Kaithr glances at it. “Well. I didn’t.”

Their companion offers a sharp toothed grin; it looks like the idea of a human, assuming a creator who’d only ever had nightmares of them. Limbs a shade too long and fluid, teeth too sharp and too many, skin far too smooth. “Perhaps that makes you dead.” Its features were changing, too, although it seemed to favour cat eyes until it blinked sideways, like a lizard.

“Even the dead change, Mal.” They look away again, finding that (as always) staring at Mal too long made them feel sick.

It shrugged and capered at their side, flickering through the shadows like it wasn’t entirely there.

The wide path spread out further into a clearing and there, just as it had been all those years before, was the caravan.

Kaithr stops, gazing at it. Maybe they’d been joking. Maybe they wouldn’t remember.

“Do I have to push you in again?” Mal asks, hanging from a tree behind Kaithr.

But no, they were here as well, and Kaithr didn’t think they stayed here all the time. They’d remembered.

“No.” Kaithr shakes their head and clears their throat. “No, I just- how… do I look?”

“Like a tourist.”

Kaithr snorts. They’re wearing combat shorts, a tank top, and a flowery short sleeved shirt; a far cry from how they’d been dressed the last time they’d been here. “Probably deserved that.” They adjust the sunglasses on the top of their head and slide the strap of the flute case up onto their shoulder.

“Why does it matter?” Mal cocks its head, stepping fluidly onto the grass beside Kaithr.

“I don’t… know.” Kaithr frowns. “Maybe I just feel like I should’ve changed more.”

“There is a way you could change more,” Mal says in a singsong voice, leaning its chin on Kaithr’s shoulder. It has to crouch slightly to do so, and smirks sidelong at Kaithr.

“Bit warm out for fur,” Kaithr replies, unperturbed by the teeth so close to their face.

“Then boost. If you want solidarity, I too can look like a tourist.” Mal turns about Kaithr to stand in front of them, and is now wearing an outfit identical to Kaithr save for the inverted colours.

Kaithr blinks at Mal. “I really look like a dad that’s trying too hard, what the fuck.” They flip the thin plait back over their shoulder and run their hands back through the rest of their short hair.

“Very young dad. Dad in training.” Mal pats their head. “Now come on. I can come in this time, right?”

Kaithr walks forward and knocks on the caravan door.

“You didn’t do that last time,” Mal murmurs.

“Because you pushed me in,” Kaithr says, but they take the hint and step in. “Uh- hey? I came for a reading a couple hundred years back and I- ha, I guess I’m back with that update.”

“Nice place,” Mal says appreciatively, looking around. “Great vibes.”

Kaithr elbows them. “It helped. I mean, I stopped… running from it all? And the place where I live, it was only meant to be a stopping point for the others while they acclimatised, so it… became that. More of a holiday point. Made it easier.” They shrug.

“Also I’m there, which they forgot to mention last time.” Mal grins, leaning its elbow on Kaithr’s shoulder. “Somehow I didn’t factor into the everyone’s growing old and dying around me scenario, which personally I find a little rude.”

Kaithr elbows Mal again. “If you were serious about that update.”

“We may have taken it as an excuse for a holiday.” Mal’s got a slushie cup from somewhere and sucks at the straw. It may have just warped it there from the nearest shop, because Kaithr’s fairly certain there hadn’t been one in the caravan before.