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The June Detective [Open]

A: Everyone's a critic

The only negative thing about his promotion was that Heiji really only had a select few people he could even tell about it -- mention you weren't really a human in casual conversation, see how long till you ended up under psychiatric evaluation. Still, Heiji could hardly conceal his good mood. Thus he had rewarded himself with the latest moderately detective-themed airplane novel by a decent writer that he could find, and was rapidly making his way through it on the train, in the park, wherever.

"I dunno. I can understand likin' a writer a lot. I don't see why anyone would commit murder because of it, though. Ain't that goin' a little too far?"

B: I've just had a little fae experience

Provided they slipped through just the right set of trees, someone might just find the rest of London fade away -- the noise of traffic, the noise of the crowd. Dense forest would press in from all sides, but a stone walkway would lead up below a long row of brightly-painted red wooden gates of some ceremonial significance.

At the top of the stone steps: a small shrine, with two guardian fox statues on either side. How curious...

C Other! Open to suggestions and such; Heiji will also just be outright barging into the personal space of whoever he's friendly with and starting up conversations during the month, so that's a thing, too.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Fake? You hopin' I'm a hot chick or somethin'?" Heiji had to think the question over for a moment, because people rarely asked him how shapeshifting worked and he did it instinctively.

"When I change shape, I turn into whatever it is."

Was that. Helpful?

A pause, Stiles' face shifting as if he's about to say, "Well..." in response to the question. Great. Now he's imagining Heiji as a hot chick. Or, rather, trying to; the other boy isn't exactly effeminate. Distracted by his imagination, he doesn't quite understand what Heiji means initially.

"So...the shapeshifting is real then. But if you wanted to, you could make an illusion to look like a hot chick? Or, just shift into one?"

"I guess so, yeah. But I don't usually do it. It's kinda like... you could put on a dress and makeup, right? Dress up like a girl? But that wouldn't really be you, and you'd probably be more comfortable after you put your normal clothes back on."

He paused. "...Wait, are you imagining me as a hot chick?"

This conversation is giving Stiles way too much food for thought. Expression blank, he stares out at the lake and pictures himself in a dress with makeup. Yeah, that definitely wouldn’t really be him. He totally doesn’t have the figure for it.

“Um.”

Technically, he’s imagining himself as a hot chick at the moment, but a few seconds ago…

“May…be? Can you blame me?!”

You never know, Stiles. With the right makeup and a good cincher...

Heiji crossed one paw over the other, suddenly interested in this topic of conversation. "Oh, oh! Can I be Beyonce? I wanna be Beyonce!"

Well I mean... if he was going to be a girl.

"Dude, you are too narrow and flat to be Beyonce. Dream on!"

Sorry, Heiji... It is an unobtainable dream...

"What?" Now he just sounded affronted, like how dare you Stiles. How dare you question his Beyoncetude. "I am not! You take that back!"

Heiji shifted then into human form -- but not his usual appearance. Instead, he was a girl who did indeed look like Beyonce. But not entirely. Maybe a Beyonce impersonator? He looked at his reflection in the water and frowned a little. His hair still had the flowers in it.

"Okay, I need a little practice. But I could get it!"

“Yes,” Stiles says faintly, eyes huge and nearly popping out of his skull, “yes, you could get it.”

If you’re under the impression that he isn’t talking about mastery over the illusion, you are correct. Damn! Lady Heiji can totally get it. Stiles is a little confused over whether or not it’s weird to not-so-objectively think your guy friend makes a hot girl. Ultimately, he decides it’s not weird. It’s just a testament to how good Heiji is! Clearly.

“Okay dude, shift back, this is bizarre.”

And back to fox form, clearly proud of himself because it was a compliment if you made a hot girl, right? Right...?

"Yeah, so I don't do that too often. Oh, check it out!" As the sun disappeared over the horizon, small glowing lights emerged from the grasses, flitting above the surface of the lake.

"Pixies," Heiji said quietly.

Startled from his thoughts by the observation, Stiles turns his attention to those tiny, luminescent lights. He’s about to ask if they’re fireflies when Heiji supplies him with the correct word.

“Pixies?” he echoes, just as quietly, in case the pixies were sensitive to disruptions or something. “I’m guessing not like the straw candy you suck…”

"Yeah, you know. Those little fairies. Not all that dangerous unless you rile up a bunch of them." Then it was kind of like sticking your hand into a swarm of angry bees.

Since they were being quiet, one of them ventured over to the two, flitting this way and that. Once she got close enough, it was possible to see that she was not actually a light, but a tiny winged humanoid. She gave Stiles a brief curtsy.

“Oh my god!” he whispers frantically, his excitement bleeding through the hushed tones. “She…she totally just curtsied to me! Am I supposed to curtsy back or something!?”

Traditionally, the male equivalent is to bow, but this is Stiles so he doesn’t even think of that. Reaching over, he plucks out one of the flowers he braided in Heiji’s tails to offer it to the pixie. Sorry, bro. Ladies first.

The pixie took the flower, straightened it a bit, then used propped it up on her shoulder as a sort of parasol. With a dashing little twirl of its petals, she flitted off down to the surface of the lake, where she walked along on the surface of the water like a lady going marketing.

"Nice going," said Heiji. "They like presents. They might like it if ya curtsy, too, but I never tried it before. They tell me in the old days, folks used to leave food out for 'em. You know, like in those fairy tales."

Utterly charmed by the pixie, Stiles watches it with a fond look while Heiji explains.

“Ugh, can I just live here forever?” It’s an offhand, flippant comment that he probably shouldn’t make in the realm of the fae. “Do pixies bring good luck? Like kitsune."

Here he gives Heiji a sly look. BE PROUD OF HIM, HEIJI. He did some research!!

"Some of them do. 'Specially the kind that help out with chores," said Heiji, looking inordinately pleased when Stiles named him. "Hey, you looked me up! That's pretty good! In Japan, pretty much everyone recognizes us, but the same ain't true in London."

"You should be careful, though. Not all fae are friendly to humans. And some of them are friendly, but hanging around with them's still not good for ya."

He shrugs off the advice indifferently. Though well meaning, Stiles' life has been filled to the brim with things that aren't good for him. Though it does beg the question.

"Does that include you?"

That was an incredibly broad question, one which Heiji wasn't really sure how to answer. "I'm... I dunno. Guess it depends what ya mean. I'm not out to hurt people... but maybe sticking around me might land you in trouble, anyway. Like that case at the mansion? Probably would've been safer if I hadn't taken ya along."

He certainly wouldn't have gotten possessed and punched out by Apollo, after all.

"That ain't what I meant, though. I meant that some fae don't really mean ya any harm, but it's their nature and they can't help it."

Stiles is about to reassure Heiji that he would have found trouble himself, with or without the company, but is distracted quickly by the explanation. His gaze slides away from the fox to find the pixie again, still dancing along the surface of the lake, and he frowns.

"Like the scorpion and the frog, right?"

Heiji considered the question. "I hate that story, so I'll tell ya a different one. There's a type of youkai called a hone-onna. It's the spirit of a woman who dies, but doesn't know she's dead. So she returns to her lover every night, appearing as beautiful as she did when she was alive. She does it out of love, because she can't forget him.

"But every time she embraces him, it slowly drains the life out of him, until he joins her in death. Sometimes it's even after he knows what she is -- he just can't resist the temptation to open his door for her. Even with the best of intentions, sometimes it's best to stay apart."

This was a topic that Heiji had been turning over for himself recently. It was easier in a land of peace to entertain the idea of different worlds existing side-by-side, without the denizens of one unduly harming the other. But at other times, it seemed that a bit of distance might make for better neighbors...

For a teenager who suffers from ADHD, Stiles manages to remain impressively still and attentive during the story. Once it has concluded, his gaze slides away to skirt along the distant horizon. He’s quiet, reflective; humor doesn’t feel appropriate here, even when countless quips bubbles up and die in his throat.

After all, Stiles understands intimately what it means to not only open the door, but keep it open.

“Sometimes,” he agrees with a shrug, head lolling back on shoulders so he can squint up at the sky. “Who gets to decide what’s best and what isn’t, though? It’s not really so one-sided. Her lover gets something out of it too, even if it eventually kills him.” A pause, shoes kicking at grass. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, it should be judged on a case-by-case basis. Some things are worth the risk.”

Heiji laughed. "That kind of attitude is probably why you're hangin' out here. I just wanted to make sure you knew. Sometimes people come expecting us to be fairy godmothers, and that ain't true. Or they think they'll find a bunch of monsters, and that ain't right, either."

Grinning helplessly and without an ounce of shame, he shrugs again.

“Nah, look at you! You’re too adorably fluffy to be monstrous. Unless you’ve got another form you’re not showing me. In which case, I don’t know if I wanna see it.”

"I'm not too fluffy, I'm just the right amount of fluffy." Apparently, Heiji didn't mind being called as much -- at least not enough to protest, anyway. He flopped over on his side in the grass.

"I do have another form, but it's just a smaller fox. It helps gettin' around London."

"Travel size Heiji! Convenient."

And also adorable. Why couldn't Scott be this cute? Wolves weren't fluffy. They were coarse and mean and bloodthirsty...

"Hey...are you colorblind in that form?"

T... Travel size...

"Nah. I do see a little differently, though. It's not totally like being a normal fox you'd see in the wild. They're kinda dumb and they don't care about a lot of things. Like naming colors, for instance."

He tilted his head to look at Stiles. "I can hear and smell a lot better."

The June Detective [Open]

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