DELTED293y5gds

shadows.

While it still fit into the rather rustic look of the rest of the hidden square of shops, Krazy Kandy still stood out from the others, in more ways than just one. While all of the shops were made out of basic red bricks which were dirty and faded after all of the years they stood there, Krazy Kandy's were painted a dull but eye catching pinkish color. It was chipping away practically everywhere, and much like the other shops, it was faded and covered in a layer of dirt and dust, but one could tell that back in the 80's or the 90's, this shop stood out among the others. Hell, it still did. There were small, hanging gardens coming from the apartment windows above the shop, filled with vibrant, blue flowers. There was no sign for the shop, it was simply hand painted onto the brick.

"Never been in there before." Tim said quietly, giving the shop a once over as they got closer. "I never really had a reason too, and, plus, like I said, I dont come here all that much... Is it cool?"

||Minor Differences|| [Narcotic Dollie & Fauxbot]

My replies havent been too up to snuff either, so its okay. We're both in a sort of writers block I suppose.

||Minor Differences|| [Narcotic Dollie & Fauxbot]

Avery, who was caught completely off guard, was thrown back onto the hard, linoleum floor of the flower shop as Lilith toppled on to of him. The pair narrowly missed a small, potted Japanese Pace Lilly as they landed, much to his relief. He didn't want to add property damage to the list of things he needed to feel bad about for the day. His camera clattered to the ground next to them, luckily unharmed by the unexpected collision. Aside from the stabbing pain shooting through his hip, he was actually fine. He looked up at Lilith, who was looking at him with a strange expression he couldn't quite place. He narrowed his eyes for a moment, trying to read her before she pushed away, apologizing profusely.

"Oh, Jesus Christ, I'm so sorry, sir! Is your camera okay?" She said frantically as she scrambled to her feet, brushing off a fresh layer of flower shop floor dust from her dress as she tried to apologize. He nodded his head, taking the hand she offered as he did so.

"Avery. Um, yeah, it's fine, it's a pretty sturdy old camera, it's okay." He said, a shy smile playing with the corners of his mouth as he stood next to her, brushing off some dirt from his pant leg. He was clearly standing with less pressure on one side of his body now due to the small pain, but he was fine. It was the most excitement he'd experienced in probably months that didn't involve him getting publicly ridiculed, so that change of pace alone was refreshing for him. He gave Lilith a once over, noting the length of her dress and the way it seemed to flow from her waist to the floor, elegantly.

"I'm just glad we didn't break the little plant." He said, motioning to the peace lily with his head. "It's so tiny still, we would have ruined it."

He let his eyes settle on hers for a moment, smiling, trying to let her know that everything was alright. It was strange, but he felt incredibly safe in her presence. People outside would have done bad things to him, but she was going out of her way to make him feel comfortable. A change of pace that Avery very much welcomed.

||Minor Differences|| [Narcotic Dollie & Fauxbot]

@Narcotic Dollie
Cheese is always welcome, it's okay :p

||Minor Differences|| [Narcotic Dollie & Fauxbot]

Avery could feel her eyes on him, sizing him up from the moment she turned to look at him. He could feel his cheeks burning, turning a deep shade of crimson as she stared at his antlers. She was going to get nasty with him. She was going to scowl and call him names. She might threaten him physically, grab his antlers, throw him to the ground. His confrontations rarely got physical, but it wasn't something he could rule out. That's happened before. Trust was hard for him to come by in Kingston, and he was very rarely able to find people who accepted him, completely, for who he was. He wanted to turn around and run back to his apartment. To his little plants growing in the window, to his shelf of old cameras, to the smell of baking bread and pies from the bakery beneath his window.

Anywhere but here.

But suddenly, there was a change in her demeanor. Avery looked up again, noting that she was no longer staring wide eyed at his horns, but instead she was staring into his eyes, giving him a warm, almost welcoming smile. She explained to him that they didnt usually let people take pictures in the building, but she was willing to make an exception, in his case, whatever his case was. But at that point, he honestly didnt care. He was just relieved that she wasnt going to harass him. He let out a breath that he didnt know he was holding in, laughing nervously as she regained his composure.

"Oh, um, thank you! Thanks!" He said, fiddling with the straps on his camera as he looked from her to his feet, and back again. "I'm sorry, people just... they dont usually make exceptions for me or anything, let alone... y'know, breaking the rules of their place of employment. Thank you so much."

He shifted on his feet for a moment, not sure of what to do next. His eyes scanned the rest of the shop, noting that it was, in fact, completely empty. He was probably the first customer of the day. He looked back at her, giving her a once over. She was wearing a colorful, floral dress of sorts. It kind of correlated with the floral pattern of his sweater, he noted. He looked down at his camera for a moment, then back to her.

"Um, I can show you how it works, if you want. You can see the pictures, if you want."

||Minor Differences|| [Narcotic Dollie & Fauxbot]

Avery was sick of the city.

The cars were constantly rushing by, scaring him every second of every hour. The forest was a thirty minute bike ride away, and he couldnt always make it there like he wanted to. The streets were crowded most of the time, which was a big problem for someone who was frightened of most people. Which brought him to one of the main reasons he hated the city: the overabundance of people. People were mean. People were scary. People were vicious and violent and bloodthirsty, especially when faced with things they didn't like or understand. And when you had antlers sprouting out of the sides of your skull, you sort of advertised yourself as different and not easy to understand. Oh, yes. Avery had had his fill of people for quite some time.

Avery had his eyes cast down, away from all of the eyes he could feel on him. He instead toyed with the old, Polaroid camera he had hanging around his neck, flipping the front of it open and closed, charging the flash up over and over again, trying his best to distract himself. He could hear a few people whispering as he walked by their groups, and while he couldn't totally make out what they were saying, he could hear a few choice words, ones he was very accustomed to hearing by this point in his life.

Weird.
Creepy.
Strange.
Fucking furry.
Target.

And they never got easier to hear. Avery sighed, letting out a long, shaky breath as he tried his hardest to focus on where he was going. The flower shop around the corner. There were lots of arrangements there. They were the closest to the forest he was going to be able to get to, for the time being, and he needed to make the best of it. He was going to go in and take pictures of the flowers, if he was allowed to. God, he hoped he was allowed to, he really needed to be able to take pictures, he really wanted to relieve some of this stress and nervousness.

Glancing up, he noticed that the flower shop was there, at the end of the street. He sped up his stride, keeping his eyes on the front door, trying his hardest to avoid the gaze of the general public as he practically pranced towards the door of the shop, tugging it open and rushing inside, closing the door quickly behind him. The defined sound of metallic jingling above the door signified his presence, and hopefully, his safety for the next hour or so. He brought hand to one of his antlers, tracing his thumb along a small, serrated, two inch deep gash near the base of it as he looked around. From what he could tell, the only other person in the shop was the girl who was working. His heart dropped slightly when he noticed that she didnt have ears, or a snake tongue, or tiger stripes, or some other animalistic feature. She, for all intents and purposes, was a totally normal human being who could absolutely see him and hate him.

"H-hello?" He called out softly, taking a step in, nervously. "Excuse me?"

He took a breath, then, trying to fake some confidence long enough to start a conversation, he looked at the woman running the shop, smiling kindly, hands grasping the straps of his camera as he walked towards the long table in the center of the shop.

"I, uh, I was wondering if I could take some pictures? Of the flowers? I'm a nature photographer, and the forest... I cant make it out there today, and I've really been itching to take some pictures with this camera I bought at the thrift store, and I just got film for it, and these flowers are so... pretty, and colorful, and I was wondering if I could take some photos of the Boat Orchids? I'll be quiet, I wont disrupt any other customers, or anything, I just really wanna take some photos."

||Minor Differences|| [Narcotic Dollie & Fauxbot]

Name: Avery Prescott
Age: 23
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 150
Background: Avery grew up in the small town of Blackwell with his mothers sister, his Aunt Clara. His parents died before he was able to know either of them, his mother being taken in labor, and his father taking his own life months later, and while Avery was never 100% sure about it, there was always something at the back of his mind telling him that it was because of his antlers. Clara took custody of him, and he grew up happily alongside her. She was a warm, kind woman, and despite the death of her sister and brother in law, she raised him well, as if he were her own. Because of this, Avery grew into a warm and kind soul himself. This, along with his antlers, are what lead to the constant bullying. He never fought back, so he was an easy target. "Sensitive" is what the principal and guidance counselor at school said he was when he told them what the other kids would do to him. Bigots, Avery came to realize, were all around him.

Despite his rough and patchy upbringing, Avery grew into a happy, quiet, and very kindhearted person. Because of his antlers, he began to study animals and nature in his spare time. He thought that maybe it would help him find out why he was the way he was. While he was never able to discover that much about himself, he did develop a very deep connection to the world around him. Nature was beautiful, ugly, multifaceted, always changing, inescapable. It was like him, he thought, because it was unexplainable. His studies turned to nature walks, and he found that he always wanted to capture what it was that he was seeing. Clara bought him a very expensive camera that year, and he discovered what it was that he wanted to be. So, two years after graduation from high school, he moved out, got a place of his own, and began a new journey of self discovery.

As a nature photographer, Avery was...less than happy with the location of his apartment in the middle of the city. It was a thirty minute bike to the forest, there were people everywhere, and he was a little frightened of all the noise, at times. However, as a collector of vintage Polariod cameras, he was more than happy to discover the various Pawn shops and thrift stores that were scattered throughout the city. He was scared by normal people rather easily, but he liked the people that ran the bakery under the apartment, and he was quick to become their friend when he discovered that they didn't discriminate against him. There are, of course, plenty of assholes in the city, as well. But for now, he was... content with it. As long as he could do what he wanted to do (sell his prints, take photos, go to pawn shops) and not get physically threatened, he was...okay.

||Minor Differences|| [Narcotic Dollie & Fauxbot]

It's 2016.

The earth, as we know it, is still doing alright. There haven't been any major wars in a while, nor have there been any acts of terrorism on any area in the world. There were no apocalyptic or cataclysmic events in the past 20-ish years. There were no radiation spikes, no strange astronomical phenomenons, no weird chemical spills over large areas of land, nothing. Everything is perfectly fine in the world, perfectly normal. Everything should be in perfect working order.

Except... something happened. Something completely unexplainable.

Roughly 23 years prior, some children were born under...strange circumstances. They weren't unhealthy by any means, that wasn't the problem. The problem is, they were born with features that aren't supposed to be on human beings. They were born with horns, or antlers, or cat ears, or they had strange lizard eyes, snake tongues-- and it just happened. No explanation whatsoever, there were just thousands of these children suddenly, this wave of babies, that had these features, and then it went away, and the phenomenon never happened again. And, of course, when humans are faced with something they don't understand, they panic, and they get scared, and they discriminate. And that's what happened to these children.

Fast forward. Modern day. Those children are now adults, and they are realizing--now more than ever--that while there are a lot of people who are very accepting of their... abnormalities, there are an equal amount of people who absolutely despise it. They face these problems every day, and they deal with it, in their own ways. They talk to each other, they become friends, they stand up for each other.They make c onnections. And sometimes, those connections can evolve into something more.

And this is where the story of Avery Prescott and Lilith Fairfax begins.

--:|Static|:-- [Fauxbot and Sunflower]

The front half of the store was separated from the back by a thick cement wall and a heavy, metal door with a single window in the center, reinforced by some sort of a mesh metal that entwined and twisted between the panels of glass. In terms of hiding places, the group could have done a hell of a lot worse, that's for sure. Sam, now convinced that the people in the back were at least relatively safe, had taken to wandering the isles of the store while Lee rummaged through the front of the store, behind the counter. She was searching for another gun, or maybe ammo for the gun. She had only been in the store twice-- once to buy some putty to fix her leaky sink, and another time to buy a hammer for something unimportant-- she had seen the man who owned it. He was big, he had a beard, and he wore lots of plaid. If he didnt have a gun behind this counter, she would be surprised.

She was surprised, and she made that clear.

"Jesus fucking christ..." she muttered under her breath, rubbing at one of her temples as she stood up. "Nothing..."

Sam was finding that his explorations were leading to much more fruitful results. Big, heavy pipes. wrenches, scythes, hedge clippers, bladed objects, blunt objects, they could all be found in the isles.

"Hey, I think theres stuff we can use here!" He said, calling out to Lee. "Like, a bunch of good stuff."

shadows.

Tim couldn't help but smile as she tugged him down the street, trudging through the snow in a desperate attempt to make it to the only candy store in town. It was adorable and fantastic and it made him incredibly happy and excited to be hanging around her. He let her lead the way, because god knows she knew exactly where the store was. She had probably been there hundreds of times. Hell, she was probably the best t customer they had at the store. They made their way through the station square area and down into a much more secluded area of the city, one that you had to search around for. It was almost like an alleyway of sorts that you had to go through to find this particular area.

"I've only been here, like, three times..." Tim said softly, looking around a the various strangely decorated stores and buildings. "It always sorta freaked me out."