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I knew my weakness
Topic Started: Nov 19 2017, 12:52 PM (41 Views)
Magnolia May

Magnolia had always dreamed about something...more. She was never entirely sure what, though, but it wasn't what she was living in those moments. It wasn't living in a house with a mother and a father who constantly yelled at each other and who clearly weren't all that fond of each other. It wasn't living in a house with four sisters and being the baby of the family so she was constantly being told that she didn't know anything. It wasn't watching her sisters getting married off and being introduced to a man that, once she was eighteen, she was going to marry and the age gap be damned. It wasn't in a place where her value was her skill with cooking and sewing and keeping a clean house and how "maternal" she was. That was her life, but she didn't feel like she had been destined for that. When she had mentioned it to her sister Daisy, Daisy had laughed. It had been a betrayal because Daisy wasn't that much older than Magnolia and the man Daisy had married drank a lot and Daisy just always looked so sad. She had still looked sad when she had told Magnolia that there were some people out there destined to do great things, but they weren't them. Oh if Magnolia had brought that up to her parents, they would have said the raising a big family, having lots of little kids, and keeping her husband happy, <i>that</i> was her destiny. That was her purpose and it was a noble purpose at that. Daisy, on the other hand, knew it for what it was – there was nothing great about raising a family in the same town that you had been born in, that your parents had been born in, that your grandparents had been born in. There was nothing great about telling your daughters that they were women and that meant cooking and cleaning and taking care of the house and telling your sons that they were men and that meant no crying and no apologizing and they had to carry all the "real" work. It wasn't a destiny, she knew, but that was their lot in life. That was what they were suppose to settle for.
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But Magnolia had struggled. It wasn't what she wanted and it didn't feel <i>right</i>. She had talked her sister Briar, she had gotten yelled at because she just <i>kept talking</i> with no real substance. Briar had demanded just what, exactly, she was meant for. Did she think she was going to go out and save the world? Did she think she was going to move to a big city and be a movie star? Did she think she was going to be a doctor, a lawyer, a college professor? When Magnolia had quietly said maybe, she hadn't grown all the way yet, Briar had sighed in that way that older sisters did that said she was tired of trying to explain things but she did because, God bless, this was her little sister. If Magnolia didn't have a clear idea of what her life was meant to be, she said, then how did she know that raising a family with her future husband wasn't it? She was awful young and when people were young, they got a lot of ideas. She couldn't know what her future held, but Briar didn't want her to be disappointed. Big cities were filled with sin and bad men who wanted to take advantage of naïve little girls. And school? They didn't have the money for that to waste on a girl; girls just weren't smart enough to go to college, the words had been repeated throughout their family. The sort of girls that went to college were ones that had a lot of money and were going to find a husband that was going to also make a lot of money. The television was lying, just like it always did; girls didn't go to study. And the May family? Well they were a simple sort and they preferred honest, hard work to anything fancy like schooling and the like. She thought she was going to be trapped forever with people who didn't understand her...until she met Tuck. Tuck was bright and cheerful and energetic and always off doing things and he made her feel like she could be all those things too. He made her feel special, he made her feel like there was something out there in the world for her that wasn't just marrying a man too old for her and having a lot of babies.
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Her parents hated Tuck of course. The Devil didn't always make himself known, they kept saying. Did she really expect that the Devil would appear before her as a terrifying beast that said it wanted to bring her right down to hell? No, no the Devil would come on light feet with a handsome smiling face. He'd come with promises of fun and temptation of things she had always wanted to do but as a good girl knew it was wrong. He'd come with whispers that it would be okay, it would be fine, they weren't hurting anyone. She didn't think his family particularly liked her either and she was pretty sure that them disliking the two of them that had made them want to be friends more. How could she resist Tuck who made her feel like she wasn't meant for this small down life? That she wasn't just for making babies and cleaning a house? He took her on all sorts of adventures, exploring a town she had never really veered off the normal paths. He took her to experience things she never really got to – a Halloween party, a full blown Christmas party, picnics and...so much. The biggest thing, though, had been the carnival. Carnivals, her parents were convinced, were big cities that had the ability to move. Essentially a place brimming with sin. But she had always wanted to go to one, she had wanted to experience it and Tuck had wanted to experience it with <i>her</i>. They had gone. They had eaten more food than she probably should have, he won her prizes that she wasn't entirely sure how she was going to hide, and they laughed. They laughed and had fun and dragged each other all around. There had only been one time when they had been separated, when she had been looking at the "amazing half bear, half human", that had told her he was actually a werebear and this was a good place to get money. They had even chatted for a bit before Tuck had come barreling through and said they needed to talk – but it was too late for them to talk in those moments, it would wait, he told her.
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It waited until the next day when they had gotten to their secret spot of the hollowed out tree and he had a darkening bruise on his cheek. He had dismissed it, though, and the concern she had for him by showing off to small vials of what looked like water. It was a potion, he said, and last night a witch had given it to him. It was going to make them <i>immortal</i>. when she had asked how he knew, he had just given her this blank look and just said it would work. He wanted her to go traveling with him, they were partners in crime after all...but then she had seen the way his face fell when she said that it seemed like an awful big step to take. He said he understood, he knew she was nervous because he was too, but he wanted to get out of this town and see the world and he wanted her at his side. He would let her think, but he was leaving sooner rather than later. And a few days had passed. They communicated with notes at the tree and Tuck had seemed almost distant in his messages – quick little things about how he was almost packed and then finally the day he was leaving and exactly at what time. Magnolia felt like it still wasn't enough time to decide...but then she had thrown her stuff into a bag – her clothes, the hat Tuck had given her, the little wood carving, the little wooden charm, and of course Lulu and all her cat's needs – and she had run off to the meeting point. A part of her wondered if she had dawdled too long, if she had taken so long that Tuck had had to leave. A part of her wondered if the longer he waited, the more he thought he'd find a different partner to explore the world with, someone who was enthusiastic as him at all times. But as she got to the clearing, she could see him, just standing there and waiting for her. "<b>Tuck!</b>" she cried out eagerly, so relieved that he was still actually waiting.
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Tuck Starling
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Tuck had been born with the need to move, his mother had always said. She said the words quietly, tiredly, in a way that said she was exceptionally tired of having to deal with said trait. She would hug him against her side, but the hug was never overly warm and there was a distance to her gaze every time. His father said he was troublesome, born with the devil in him. His older brothers and sister didn't think much at all because most of them had moved out when he was still little. The one brother that had stayed was much the same as his mother - always seemingly tired of his presence and his being around. It was no big surprise, then, that he spent most of his time outdoors. He wandered roads and forest paths. He fished for extra food on their table and he had learned when he was very young to tell the difference between mushrooms and the types of berries. He picked up cans to sell and odd jobs to add a little extra money to his funds as well as those of his parents. The more he was out of the house, the less likely it was that his father would get angry at his being loud and in the way. The more he was out of the house, the less he had to deal with the sighs of his mother and brother. The more he was out of the house, the more he got to see. His family had never seemed to care about things like that, but Tuck knew the best spot to take a swim. He knew the best tree to climb, where to take shelter from a thunderstorm. He knew where there was a den of fox kits, where there was good hunting land, where you should never go for fear of a curse being laid on you, and even though most of his time was spent in the woods rather than the small town, he knew plenty of the town's gossip and things that were going on around their little town. He knew when there was going to be a festival or a competition, he knew when the Johnson's barn had burned down or when someone had gotten a calf that looked very promising. Tuck was interested in everything and he soaked it all up because he liked to learn about everything, even if he wasn't very smart, and he liked to do it all because it helped him feel a little less lonely.

Tuck was very good at making friends, but despite that he didn't have many at all. Mostly that was because his family had moved around several times. The official reason had always been 'we have land back in Valley Springs, we're just heading back that way' but Tuck had never been so sure. Often times, it seemed like his father was just angry at the growth of a town. There would be 'less jobs' and 'too many people' and then they would pack up and move somewhere else. His parents both seemed to think that the land in Valley Springs was their answer. He had voiced - stupidly - once the question of what happened when that town got bigger? His ear had been ringing the whole day and his head had hurt something fierce. He had kept his mouth shut from then on, even as they had rolled into the small town and taken up residence in a small, old, rickety cottage that had seen better days. His father's temper had never been higher than while they were there, although Tuck couldn't quite see why. They were where they had said they wanted to be, so why be angry? He didn't understand it and he had let it fall off of him like water off a duck's back. He had spent his time exploring the woods and the land that was their own. It apparently joined up with their closest neighbor's land at some point, but it was a decent stretch with no real marker to really tell where that was and so Tuck had plenty of land to explore. That was how he had met Maggie. He had been swimming on a hot day, swinging off of a tire swing and plunging into the cool waters of the pond that he had found, when someone had appeared and she had been startled by his being there. Ever the soul of good nature, he had invited her to join him and she had seemed almost scandalized by the concept. He had coerced and cajoled until, suddenly, she had plunged right in. They had both laughed and splashed one another and swam together in a long, hot day. He had walked her back towards home, both of them dripping wet, and along the way they had found an old, hollowed out tree - probably done by the weather or even a bear - and it was big enough to seat two at a squeeze. It was also, it seemed, right in the middle of both of their lands. It would be their meeting place, he said. He would leave her something to find the next day and she should do the same. They had parted as friends and he had whistled a tune the whole way home.

From there, they were as close to inseparable as they could be. Every day, he would sneak down to the tree and leave her a note, a pretty pebble he had found, anything so that he would make her smile. He would come back later in the day and find something in return; another note, some pressed flowers or the like. They exchanged plenty of silly little stories and gifts and they spent most of their days together. Their families hated them, though. The one time he had shown up on her doorstep, her father had slammed the door in his face even though he hadn't said or done anything except to take his hat off and ask if Magnolia was around. His own parents had only seen her from the yard where he had told her to wait, but his father had said something about trespassing and his mother had gotten a thin lipped look and said something about young women leading men astray. It was a good signal to never bring her there again and he took great pains to do so. They didn't need to have their parents' approval because they had each other. Tuck knew part of the reason they hated him was because he was encouraging her to do what she wanted. He wasn't the smartest, but he could see that her family wanted to keep Maggie under their thumb. They kept her locked up and stifled and what kind of way was that to live? He knew what they were doing was dangerous because if they found out he had snuck Maggie out to go to a Halloween party, a Christmas party, a small play in town they would keep her even more under their thumb. They might never let her outside at all again. The look on her face of wonder when he had dressed her up in boy's clothes and took her to the party made him want to keep doing it, though. The look on her face at the Christmas decorations and the snow and the hot cocoa as someone sang a carol around them, the way she had clutched the small pamphlet given out at the play as she watched intently... how could Tuck just stop doing these things? She was his best friend. It was why he gave her his hat, why he had carved her a little cat figurine and a necklace, why he left her notes and got them into all sorts of antics in the woods. She was important to him and he wanted her to smile and laugh and enjoy life as much as he did.

The carnival had actually been mostly Maggie's idea, surprisingly. She had always wanted to see one, she had said. He had never seen one so properly big before and he could think of no one better to go with than with her. So he had agreed and had done something monumentally stupid that he had brushed off to her. He had taken his father's truck because there was no way they could walk there and back before people woke up. She had slipped out of her house, dressed in the clothes he had given her, wearing the hat that had once been his, and they had both grinned at each other the whole way. The carnival had been everything they had thought it would be. Bright, loud, exciting. They had spent much of the night together, running around, playing games, riding the few rides, watching the few shows. Tuck had won her more presents than was probably a good idea, since she would have to hide them, but he had been proud and she had been wide-eyed and ecstatic at it. They had been practically glued to one another the whole night until they had both gotten distracted. It was a small tent, just proclaiming about getting your fortune read. His mother had always said that was the devil's work but it made him want to try it even more. He had handed over the money and the woman had looked at him long and hard, enough to make him squirm, before she had looked at his palm. She had told him, with no prompting of questions, that he would have no great education or career but that he would have adventure and happiness, that he would have many hellos and even more goodbyes, but the most important thing would be with him forever. It had been cryptic and even a bit frightening, in a way, and then the woman had gently placed two bottles in his hand. They were small, smaller than a soda can, and the liquid in them was clear, like water, except he was certain that there was a shimmer to them if you turned it just so. She said it was a gift, an offer of a life immortal with the right person and to think carefully about all that entailed. Then she had shooed him off and he had bolted right to Maggie, eager to tell her - except it was late and they had to get back home. He had left a tired but happy Maggie back at her home and driven to his.

His father, predictably, had not been pleased when he had crept in after parking the truck. Tuck had known he was in for it the minute he touched the truck, though, and he just kept his head down and apologized and escaped to his room with his cheek stinging once his father had finished yelling. He had lain awake, cheek still stinging, staring at the ceiling and holding the bottles in his hands, turning it over and over in his mind. When he had woken, he had rushed to their meeting spot and sat down, waiting. Eventually, Maggie had come picking her way through the woods and sat down, giggling at first and then a look of concern had flashed over her face. She had reached out to touch his cheek and he had ducked his head, telling her not to worry about it, he was fine and he had something important to ask her. He had expected excited agreement but, instead, Maggie had asked how he knew it would work and had said that was an awful lot to decide right away. Tuck had agreed, but he had finally dropped the news he had been holding for months. He was leaving. He couldn't stay here anymore because the world was calling and he was tired of life at home - tired of getting slapped for just existing - but he wanted her to come with him. The response was cautious and lackluster and he felt his shoulders droop before he forced himself back into a smile. She could think. He wasn't leaving today. They parted, but he felt unease for the first time because he had always just assumed Maggie would come with him. Though he left her plenty of notes, she never said yes or no; she just said she was thinking. He had started packing the things he would need and take, started taking on a few jobs here and there to earn a little cash as he made his final plans. And finally, he had left a note for his friend because they hadn't been able to see one another the past few days. He would be leaving and she was welcome to join him. He would wait for her, but if she didn't show he loved her and he'd come back around to see her as much as he could. His heart had hurt a little writing that because he knew she was supposed to marry some old guy who likely wouldn't want Tuck showing up at all and being alone while he saw the world had less merit than it once had held for him. Still, he needed to leave. He had taken some money from his parents - not all of it, because they needed it - but enough to get him a good distance away and he had taken the truck. He'd drive it until he needed it then leave the key and a phone number with someone to call his dad to come get it. Then he was on his own.

As he stood, waiting, he told himself just a little longer. She would come. She would come and they'd be together. Just a little longer. The time crept slowly, the hours passing, and he had to admit that maybe she wasn't going to come. He had to be on his way, he couldn't keep up the disappearance of the truck for a long time if he wasn't moving. He had to accept that maybe they weren't as good of friends as he had thought or that maybe they were, but they weren't the type of friends that ran off together to have adventures. Maybe she wanted to stay here and maybe, despite her words, she did want to be married or her family had tied her up with a long conversation and had browbeat her into agreeing that they knew what was best. He shouldered his bag up higher and turned away from the direction of her home and gave a sigh, telling himself he should probably start going even when his feet felt like lead - but then he heard her calling him. He turned around so fast, dropping his bag and staring with wide eyes. He took a few steps towards her and then stopped, just holding his arms wide open. Maggie took the invite, running to him. He caught her up in his arms and swung her in a few circles before he set her down, burying his face against her neck. "You came," he said, softly. He tightened his arms around her, squeezing her in a hug. Finally he leaned back, grinning at her. "Are you ready to have the biggest adventure of your life?"
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Magnolia May

She could turn back, a voice whispered in her head. It was the voice of Good Magnolia May, who knew her parents did what they did out of love, who always agreed with what her parents said, who knew her place. Good Magnolia May whispered that she could turn herself right back around right now. She could sneak herself back into the house and no one had to know what she had done. If she just...put her all into things from now on, all would be forgiven. If she didn't go complaining about wanting to go outside for long hours, if she didn't daydream, if she got to know this soon to be husband of hers, then who was to know she had strayed? She usually tried to listen to Good Magnolia May because she was...well, good. Magnolia was suppose to be a good girl, that was what all daughters were suppose to be. But she felt like she had been trapped in a too small cage and she was growing and it hurt to stay in the same box. She wanted to see what was out there, she wanted to think she had a purpose that wasn't just raising a family. Good Magnolia May said that was just her being stupid and she needed to go back <i>right now</i>. She was going to find Tuck gone, not having wanted to wait for her and then where would she be? Except he was there, he was waiting, and he looked so <i>happy</i> to see her. Had anyone ever looked so happy to see her?? He held open his arms and she didn't even hesitate, running into them and half leaping off the ground. It worked out well because he swung her around as if they had been parted months. It had felt like it. "<b>Of course I did,</b>" she said confidently, as if she hadn't spent days waffling about it. "<b>You can't go off without your partner in crime, can you?</b>" That was what had sold her on it more than anything; more than the idea of seeing the world, more than of finding her purpose in life. Tuck needed to have someone at his side to share the adventures, to be there to support him. No one should be on their own in that and especially not Tuck. She moved back a tiny bit, moving to pick up her cat, who seemed indifferent to Magnolia dropping her. "<b>Is it okay if I bring Lulu? She was my best friend before I had you,</b>" she admitted, "<b>and I'd worry if she stayed at home.</b>" She was pretty sure her parents would just let Lulu out into the outside and forget about her, which they couldn't do. Lulu was an inside cat, Lulu was lazy, she needed to be fed and brushed, not left outside where a coyote or worse could get her.
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Then the question came, the big one, the one that a part of her (that good old Good Magnolia May) said no, no she wasn't, she still needed to think. She pushed it away. She pushed that thought away because she wanted to see the world and she wanted to see it with Tuck. "<b>More than ready. I feel like I've been waiting my whole life for it.</b>" That wasn't a fib, she felt. She was sure someone might call her on it, say she hadn't been waiting for one, but when she thought back on her life, maybe she had. When she thought back on her life, there was just always that feeling of something more being out there and it was in her grasp but she couldn't get it. She hadn't noticed before because her world had been a wash of black, white, and gray, with no real color. Not a bad life, but a simple one. But she had had color since the moment she had leapt into the water and began swimming with him. Everything had suddenly become vibrant and full of life...and she had realized what she had been missing. He handed her the little container of what looked like water. Shouldn't it look different? Shouldn't it sparkle, shouldn't it...swarm with sparkles or colors or mist or something? It looked just like normal old water. But Tuck was lifting his, so she lifted hers and he even clinked the things together. And then they drank. She drank quickly because she expected some taste, some knee jerk feeling that it was poison or something more, but it tasted of nothing, really. "<b>I don't really feel any different,</b>" she said slowly. Because she didn't. Again, she had expected to feel <i>something</i>. She had expected to feel the effects of poison in her system. She expected to be gagging or throwing up. She expected to feel like she was filled with this amazing power. She expected that immortality had a feeling that she could describe. She still just felt like Magnolia and that was that. Was it going to be a gradual thing? There was a part of her that said that it was all a big hoax, that Tuck had wasted his money (had he spent money?) or worse: they had been tested on their faith and they had failed because they had listened to someone they weren't suppose to.
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But Tuck was Tuck and he was enthusiastic to the end. He seemed excited and just like always, she felt herself getting excited too. He was always so good about that. The way he talked, the way he told people about things...it made them sound so exciting, so fascinating, and when he took whoever to see them, they never disappointed. He was amazing at that and the way he chattered as they gathered up her stuff and got it into his truck, she felt like this really was the start of their first real adventure. She hefted Lulu up into the truck, watching the cat settle down before she climbed in after her. "<b>I can't believe we're doing this,</b>" she told Tuck, her voice unable to contain her excitement. "<b>I always wanted to but I never thought it would actually happen.</b>" She wanted to but she had always had the idea that she wouldn't be able to do it on her own. Women weren't safe alone, her father always said and her mother agreed. Men got weird ideas about women alone; they recognized that women were weaker, that they weren't as strong and they would take advantage of that. Sometimes it would just be the kindness of their hearts. Other times it was...worse. She had asked what 'worse' was and they wouldn't ever tell her. When they had announced that she was going to get married, she had said maybe <i>then</i> she'd be able to travel. Her parents had laughed as if she said the funniest thing in the world. First of all, they said, if anyone would be doing traveling, it would be her husband; she had a house to keep up after all. Second of all, why would she ever want to travel? Didn't she have all that she wanted right here? What more did she need? Traveling opened the doors to sin, but Magnolia was beginning to realize that with her parents, anything she enjoyed lead to sin. If she had been excited and talked endless about marriage, would they have called it a sin and pulled her away? She wished she had thought to try.
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Tuck drove the truck with practiced ease, the same way he had the night of the carnival. "<b>You use to live else where, right, Tuck?</b>" she asked. She had pointed out when they had first met, when they had been lying wet on the grass and staring at the sky that she didn't think she had seen him around anywhere and Valley Springs wasn't exactly a place one could hide in. He said he had moved there not too long ago and she had been so fascinated. It seemed like everyone who lived in Valley Springs had been born there; no one moved in, no one moved out. Tuck was an oddity. "<b>What's it like...out there?</b>" She must sound so silly, she must have sounded foolish, but she had never left Valley Springs. She wasn't suppose to be leaving Valley Springs. Yet here she was sitting in a truck with all her worldly possessions, her cat, and her best friend in the entire world. That was the stuff dreams were made of.
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Tuck Starling
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She had come. He had been sure, so sure, that she would but there had been the long hours of waiting until the time and then forever had seemed to stretch out once the time had come and she hadn't. For the first time in his life, he had felt well and truly alone. Maggie had become his best friend, the person he shared his secrets with and told stories to. His whole world had seemed to revolve around her somewhat. All of his years, he thought the world had been as it was; muted. There were shades of grays and blacks and whites, there were even what he now realized were very, very muted shades of colors here and there when he was around some people who were kind. The day they had met, though, the world had become one vibrant, blinding world of color that he couldn't get enough of. She had done that to him, for him, and to think that he might not have that brightness in his life anymore had weighed him down. Her arrival, her running to him and leaping into his arms, had proved that he had been wrong to doubt in her. The absence of a few days, he realized, had been almost heart rending and he had distracted himself with things he needed to do... but only now was he realizing how much he had missed talking to her and being around her. He smiled wide at her - wide enough that she could probably see the missing tooth towards the back of his mouth - at her words. "Of course not. I need you by my side. Who else am I going to share this all with?" And he meant it. Tuck could make friends easily, he had done so before, but Maggie was different. He wanted to share everything with her. The prospect of adventure and traveling had excited him his whole life, but he had suddenly found that the idea of traveling without Maggie was a bleak seeming prospect. Maggie pulled out of his hug after a moment, taking a few steps back to scoop up a cat that he honestly hadn't even noticed because he had been so focused on his friend. She held the cat up for him to see and asked if it was okay to bring her. "The more the merrier, right?" he questioned with another grin. He wasn't quite sure how to factor a cat into traveling the world but for Maggie he would do it. Besides, it wasn't as if he disliked cats or other animals.

When he asked if she was ready for a big adventure, she seemed to just straighten up a little. His friend was a bit shy and a bit nervous about big things, he knew, but she seemed ready to face this head on. She went on to say that she was more than ready, that she had been waiting her whole life. "I have, too," he said softly. It wasn't even false because he felt like he had always been chomping at the bit to go. He had always been wandering ever since he was old enough to be allowed to do so. His feet would carry him places and there was a desire to keep going, to go and see what lay beyond the woods or the hill, to see what was in the next time. When he had met Maggie, the desire hadn't died down so much as it had just changed. He felt like he had always been meant to travel the world but now he was meant to travel with her. They were supposed to go together and there was no questioning of it in his mind otherwise. Tuck reached down to pick his bag up again, shouldering it and opening one of the many pockets on it to dig around for a moment. Then he pulled out the two small bottles that the fortune teller had given him at the fair. They still seemed utterly normal, like nothing more than a bottle of water, but Tuck thought he could feel the promise radiating off of them. He gently handed one over to Maggie before he uncorked his own. "On three, Maggie?" he questioned, trying to bolster the courage he could see somewhat slipping away. "One, two," he counted slowly, holding her gaze, making sure she was focused more on him. Then he brought his forward to very lightly clink against her own in a gesture he had seen people do in television. "Three." They both raised their bottles and drank. So far as he could tell, it tasted like nothing - or, more accurately, like water. There was no tingling or pain or any sort of thing you might expect. Maggie almost looked disappointed as she said that she didn't feel any different. He carefully put the cork back in his bottle, sticking it back in his bag and taking her own to do the same. "I sure do because I got a whole hundred lifetimes to see the world with my partner in crime," he gave a small whoop along with his words, reaching out to grab her by the waist and twirl her around once, grinning again. Sure, there didn't seem to be anything grand about what had happened but did it have to be? Did it have to have explosions and loud noises and feelings? It was just making them immortal and that wasn't changing much about who they were at all, right?

Tuck reached out to squeeze Maggie's hand just once, then he bent down to pick up one of the bags that she had brought, shouldering that one along with his own. Then he held his hand out to her again, taking her hand to hold as they made their way down the path to where he had parked the truck. He was practically vibrating with happiness and excitement, ready to begin the rest of their lives, ready to see everything together. He could feel Maggie picking up on his enthusiasm because there was a spring to her step now and a light in her eyes that she got when she was feeling excited, too. When they reached the truck, he opened the door for her and went to toss the bags in the back of it for the moment. He closed the door behind Maggie as she and her cat got in and then practically ran around the front of the truck to clamber into the driver's seat. And just like that, they were off! Though the rest of the world was still, quiet, it seemed so much brighter and louder than ever before. He hummed happily to himself as they drove. He turned, grinning widely as Maggie spoke with uncontained excitement. "I always knew it would, Maggie. The day we met I just knew we'd do somethin' amazing together." He hadn't quite known what, but he had been able to feel it in his bones and see it in the way that the trees and the sky and the earth around them all had such bright coloration. He and Maggie were going to be something amazing together and it didn't matter what anyone else said. She was his partner in crime, she was someone who just seemed to understand him and Maggie never seemed bothered by his restless energy or his chatter. In fact, he tended to calm down around her more than he did around anyone else. That had to mean something, right? They drove along in an excited sort of silence for a bit longer, passing by a few farms as they wound their way out of their town and towards the next. He blinked slightly at the sudden question. "Uh huh," he said in response to the question. To him, it had felt almost... shameful. Not that he had lived there but simply that he hadn't lived here to find Maggie earlier. They would have been friends from the get go, just like now, and he would have had so much more to explore with her and show her. The small bit of common sense told him it would have opened up more doors for him to get her into trouble, but he tried to dismiss it because he wanted to believe he'd never get her into so much trouble that it would be a problem. Maggie went on to ask what it was like out there. "I didn't really see that much," he admitted somewhat sheepishly. "Bigger is the best word to use, I guess. We kinda kept to ourselves like we do now so I didn't see everything but the few towns we were in were bigger, more people. But we drove by a couple even bigger cities and Maggie they're so.... alive," he said, the excitement bubbling out of him as he spoke. He didn't know any better way to describe it than that. Valley Springs was small and sleepy and Tuck had vastly preferred the woods - and Maggie - to the town but the rest of the world held so much more for them to see and they were finally going to see it.
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Magnolia May

She hugged on him, held him tighter than she had ever hugged anyone before. Tuck was her everything, a part of her realized. Tuck had made her feel happy and things she had never felt before so she couldn't describe them. She had hugged people before – her sisters, her mom, rarely her father – but they had always been expected of her. It had been the "hug this person because of this relation", even if she hadn't wanted to. They had all felt...hollow and she had been uncomfortable, even as she told herself these were her sisters, her family, she should be hugging on them more. But with Tuck, it was different. She hugged him and it was warm and comfortable and she couldn't get over the fact that he smelled like how all of outside seemed to smell – something outdoorsy and filled with sunshine and maybe leaves freshly fallen of their trees. She pressed her face hard to his shoulder, squeezing him just a little bit more and she felt happy. "<b>Exactly!</b>" she beamed right back at him. Maybe he didn't need her, maybe he was only hindering himself by taking her along – after all, hadn't she stopped him from having fun before? Hadn't she pulled him back by saying this wasn't a good idea? Once or twice, it had turned out to be the right thing; the not so good idea would have lead them right into where a bear was living or down a path that could have broken both their necks, but sometimes, she felt like they had missed out on some different and grand adventure because she didn't think something was a good idea. "<b>I don't want to just...wait around for letters hearing about how great something is. I want to be there with you.</b>" She didn't think Tuck would write, honestly. Oh he <i>could</i> write, she had lots of proof of that from when they had been parted, but he seemed to not necessarily enjoy it, or maybe there was some issue with it, the same with his reading. Good, but not the best. Add to that that when one got elbow's deep in adventure, it was hard remembering that you were suppose to be writing someone. He would say he'd write her and maybe he would, but the letters would trail off after awhile and what happened once she got married? Who would tell Tuck where she lived to send her letters? No, this was better. She felt relief as Tuck said the more the merrier. "<b>You hear that, Lulu? You get to see the world too!</b>" The cat gave a wide, long yawn to show her own excitement for such an adventure.
<p>
She was grateful for Tuck, she knew. She knew that if he hadn't been there, she would have chickened out. If it had been anyone else, she would have backed down or talked herself out of this. If she had been alone, she would have set the little container aside and told herself she was thinking about...only to realize that she had forgotten and wasted her life or something. She gave him a small smile as he said he had waited his entire life for this too. That was Tuck, though, he had been so much like her while nothing like her. They were same in so many aspects but he also represented who she <i>wanted</i> to be. She wanted to be free and open and wild and so at ease with the world around her. He put the vial of water in her hand and he posed the question to her. Still one last chance to back out, Good Girl Magnolia May whispered. Spitefully, she lifted her chin against that voice. "<b>On three.</b>" She could have just nodded, but it felt more real, more solid to say the words out loud; it felt like she wouldn't chicken out. She wouldn't. It was her and Tuck all the way. But with each number, she felt her nerves play with her heart and stomach, twisting and turning it. Then he said three and she wanted to throw hers away, throw into the bush because this was different, this was something that there was no turning back. But she drank it because she wanted to get out of this town more than she wanted to stick with safe things. She wanted to see the world and she wasn't going to be doing that if she shied away from trying things. He took the bottle from her when they were done, corking them and putting them away in a way she remembered her mother doing for reasons unknown. She was saving them, she always said, just in case; she never said for what, though. Then tuck was speaking, saying he felt different, and then he whooped while spinning her around. It made her laugh loud and happy, the sort of laugh she really only had when she was around Tuck. "<b>A hundred lifetimes!</b>" she found herself saying, "<b>Gosh, we're going to be able to see the world five times over then!</b>" Because she wanted to see everything, she knew. She wanted to visit every state and every city and she wanted to visit every country. Good Girl Magnolia May was angrily whispering to her now, saying that this was all some trick; she was never going to see everything because she had been <i>tricked</i> and she wasn't immortal. But she pushed that voice away because she realized she didn't <i>need</i> to be immortal. Maybe she was tricked and was going to grow old, but...she was leaving this town, she was taking her first steps out into the world and she may not see everything, but she was going to see more than if she stayed put here.
<p>
HE squeezed her hand and that little squeeze pushed back the lingering thoughts she had of this not being a good idea. She told herself that even though she was worried, it was an idle thought. It was just her nerves wanting to take over, but they were <i>doing</i> this and they were going to be happy with this and they were going to have adventures. He grabbed her bags, hauling them up and she stared just a tiny bit. She stared because she didn't remember seeing someone who was able to do that before. Tuck didn't look like the type that could just pick up heavy things with ease. The thoughts drifted away, though, when he held out his hand and she took it with no hesitation. Tuck, she was beginning to find, was the one thing in her life that she could most things with no hesitation. If held a hand out to her, she'd take it without question. The only problem was that when he let go of her hand, when they were part for even a manner of seconds, the doubt tried to creep in, the feeling that she was making mistake. She pushed it away so hard that it felt like it should have been violent and focused on Tuck's grinning face. "<b>You got a lot more confidence in this than I did,</b>" she laughed. But that was Tuck. He had always had a lot more confidence, he was always more rebellious than her. Oh her parents would bemoan the fact that she got something stuck in her craw and she would be all sorts of frustrating, but she could be beaten down. She could be pecked at until she would just sit quietly with her sewing and pretend the world wasn't passing her by. But she liked the fact that Tuck seemed confident in that they were going to do some grand things together. It made her happy, it made her feel like she wasn't making the wrong choice. A part of her wished she had left a note, something along the lines of she would come back once she had seen the world. She'd be back when she had grown as a person. The problem was she knew she could never come back. She'd be full of sin according to her parents, she'd be ruined. That wasn't even thinking about how long it would take her to get back and if her parents would even still be alive. It made her feel...kind of sad, honestly. Her parents were all she had known for so long and here she was, running off to potentially never see them again. They hadn't always been the nicest, but they were her parents, right? She watched the farms that she might never see again and tried to understand how she felt about it. At least she was distracted when Tuck said he had lived other places. "<b>Tuck Starling didn't go exploring every second of the day?</b>" she asked a little dubiously because that didn't sound right at all. Tuck was the person that if she had moved to every city he had been in, he would know everything everywhere. "<b>It sounds lonely,</b>" she said quietly when he said they kept to themselves. That was something that had always been so curious about the Starlings, Tuck specifically. Tuck was the sort of person that thrived on meeting and chatting and exploring. How could his parents have kept him from that? She grinned a little at his next comment. "<b>That's the way it always looked in shows,</b>" she said, "<b>They got places open on Sundays and places open past six in the evening.</b>" That was the big thing for her because the town shut down so early. If you were willing to drive, you could find places that opened later, but most people in town didn't really want to drive.
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Tuck Starling
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There was something perfect about when Maggie hugged him. It was like... nothing could go wrong. It was like the world righted itself. He had always felt that way since the day that they had met but this felt different. Maybe it was because, since they had met, they had rarely been apart. He and Maggie would spend time together, even a few snatched minutes, to talk or go on an adventure. Now they had only seen each other through letters and through seeing each other in their memories. This was much better. This made everything feel just fine, just right, and like the world was back on track. He tightened his hand just a little in her hair as Maggie pressed her face even more into his shoulder, her own grip on him tightening, and he pressed his face into her hair. She smelled wonderful, he realized. She always did. This mixture of the soap and shampoo she used combined with the scent of home and the scent of the outdoors. It was perfect, honestly. When Maggie pulled back and beamed at him, he felt his grin widen even more. "I'm glad you agree! There's nobody else I wanna see the world with more than you, Maggie." Sure, sometimes she said no to things... but sometimes he needed to hear no. Sometimes, Maggie was his voice of reason that he willfully forgot in light of an adventure. She needed him to give her little pushes to do this or that, but he needed her to restrain him from plunging off the side of a hill or jumping in the middle of a pond that they'd never been in before. He felt his face soften somewhat as she said that she didn't want to wait around for letters, that she wanted to be there with him. Not for the first time he felt something - good? bad? - that made his heart do a flop in his chest but he dismissed it for the moment in favor of just smiling at her. "I can't imagine seein' everything without you there. I'd come back and tell you everything but..." He trailed off for a moment. But who knew when he'd get back? Who knew where she would live since her parents wanted to marry her off to some guy? Some guy who probably wouldn't want Tuck around, dropping in randomly to regale Maggie with tales of his adventures. This, in his opinion, was much better. He watched as Maggie brightened even more at his acceptance of the cat. So far as he was concerned, what he had said was true; the more the merrier. And he knew it would make his friend happy, which was always important. He laughed a little at the wide yawn that the cat sported after the news. "I can tell she's thrilled," he said with a quick wink for Maggie. He reached out to gingerly take the cat's paw - he'd met his fair share of cats in his travels and most of them were not pleased with casual touches - and gave it a brief shake. "Pleasure to meet ya, Lulu," he told the cat, mostly because he knew it would make Maggie giggle and smile.

A part of him still expected Maggie to back out, honestly. He loved her, she was his best friend, but he knew he was asking an awful lot of her. Maggie wasn't precisely what you would call timid - no one who yelled at his father was timid - but she was reserved and shy and nervous at times. He was asking her to leave behind everything that she knew to go on a grand adventure with him. He was asking her to trust him, believe him, and know that he would make sure she was okay as they roamed every part of the world - and that was an awful lot to ask of a person. Even more, he was asking her to drink with him - something that would change their lives forever because they would live forever. He knew it was a lot and he supposed he couldn't blame her if she did decide to back out, even if he would be disappointed. Maybe he should have remembered that Maggie was made of much tougher stuff than she let on, though, because she just lifted her chin up and firmly agreed with him that they would go on three. There was still three long seconds where she could say no, where she could change her mind, but she didn't. Maggie just stared at him, watching him and following him as he clinked the bottles together and then he drank his. He saw her drink hers, saw her grimace just a tiny bit as if she were expecting a strange taste. There was none, though. He wasn't sure if he was pleased or disappointed about that, honestly. Something that magic should at least have a little bit of a different taste but, well, it was what it was. For a moment, the silence held between them as he stored the bottles back in his bag. He didn't know why he did, honestly. Sentimental reasons, maybe, or maybe it was the feeling of magic and how they might be beneficial to them some day in the future. When he whooped and spun Maggie around, she laughed in the way that he had hoped she might. "Of course we are! Everything, Maggie! We're gonna see everything! he crowed at her. The very tiny voice in the back of his head, the one that once in awhile told him he shouldn't be doing this or that, said he was a fool, they weren't going to be immortal... but it didn't matter to him. Sure, he liked the idea of it but in the end what mattered was the fact that they were striking out on their own, they would go together and they would see the things they had always dreamed of seeing. That mattered to him more than an immortal life or a life that ended.

For a moment, he had to wonder if he had done something wrong or if there was something showing on his face, on his clothes, because Maggie was just staring at him in a way she had never done so before. The young woman didn't say anything, though, and he was pretty sure he saw her just shake her head in the way that you did when you were coming out of a bit of a daze. When he held his hand out to her, there was no hesitation whatsoever. Whatever that was, he figured it didn't matter all that much if she was content to take his hand and walk along with him. "I think some people say that means I don't know any better," he said with a flash of a grin at her laugh. Some people had said it very unkindly before, of course. His parents and his siblings, mostly. His father had said it with more than just words. In many ways, he knew it was true. He rushed into things and just took leaps of faith without looking... but also he knew that you never got anywhere in life without doing something like that. Sure, sometimes you needed to stop and look but sometimes you just had to leap. It was scary to leave what he had known all of his life, to take money, to borrow something that he knew would get him hit, to drink the unknown and step out into the world. They were taking their leap. He kept a hand on the wheel in a lazy, confident pose, his other hand resting just lightly against her own in case she needed to hold it. He felt his cheeks heat up a little as she asked her question, not quite teasing him. "I mean, I did, but... you know I generally like explorin' the woods rather than the town. And my folks..." He paused for a moment, quiet. "Generally, they liked me bein' outta the house but they didn't want me in town." They had never quite said why but he was pretty sure they were afraid he was going to talk. About what he could never quite figure out. They always said "it was nobody's business" but they never clarified what that meant. "I made friends, y'know, but most of them kept to themselves." He didn't understand his parents or his older siblings. His older brother, who still lived at home, was a little easier to get along with and more open than his parents, but even he didn't really seem inclined to want to talk to strangers. Tuck had no idea, honestly, how he had come from the family he had. It was like he was always destined to move on and leave them in the dust. "I've seen 'em, Mags. And, the thing is, I know there's bigger ones! These towns are like nothing compared to the ones we're gonna see. We're gonna see the way people live. We're going to have adventures." They would see stores and venues that were open well past midnight, some that were open twenty four hours; bright lights and big cities and everything that the world could offer them was going to be laid out for them now.
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Magnolia May

Being in Tuck's arms...a part of her felt almost wrong, she almost felt like she needed her father storming over and grabbing her and taking her away because Tuck was a boy and she was a girl and maybe Magnolia had never thought of them in terms of boy and girl, but...But looked what happened with Dahlia. She had been the one sister Magnolia had felt closest to because she had only been a little bit older than Magnolia. She had sat with Magnolia and sewed and knit and she would lean over to tell Magnolia some joke or sigh with her over something their father had said. Then she seemed to have forgotten what it meant to be a boy and girl because she had come home one night and it was like everyone knew she was pregnant. This, her father had ranted after Dahlia had been whisked away by a guy that Magnolia didn't even know the name of at the time, was why men and women couldn't be friends. Women had urges – they couldn't help themselves, it was their basic nature, they were the weaker sex. But then he had turned around and said that it was the men who had the urges and it was up to the women to refute them. When he had finished ranting, Magnolia had still been confused and just agreed. All she had taken with it was the boys and girls couldn't be friends. They just couldn't. But when she pulled back and looked into Tuck's bright eyes, she didn't feel like there was anything wrong. She didn't feel like she was on some road to ruin. Or no more than she usually did and honestly? Honestly she thought that was just her normal feeling. Everything new was scary and a road to ruin, the only thing that was bound to keep her safe and grounded was Tuck. Even when he said those words and he smiled at her, she didn't feel what she thought she might have felt one a road to ruin. Had Dahlia? Dahlia hadn't seemed all that bothered until the night their father found out that she had been fooling around. She pushed the thoughts away. "Really? I'm not use to that kind of talk," she laughed. It was true. She was use to being the person that was okay. She wasn't the worst person but there was always going to be someone else that was preferred – a sister that had better skills, a friend that had funnier jokes, a friend that was smarter. She had never been bothered by that, honestly, because she was...content. She was happy enough and she wasn't outcasted. At the same time, she had been worried. She had worried that because she said no so much to Tuck that he might have found her more of a drag to bring along. But she had always felt...justified in the times she had told him no. There had been times that she had said no and they found out later that a coyote had become a man eater because it was sick in the area or the pond they had wandered to looked deep, but it just barely went to the thighs. It had been enough that she felt like she had been okay being a killjoy. When he continued on, she gave him a slightly weaker smile. "But who knows where I would be in life, huh? Knowing my daddy...he would have me married off and we might move and-" And who knew? Maybe Tuck would have met someone else. Some young woman that was an adventurer like him, a woman like him that didn't balk at the challenges thrown at her. Magnolia figured she would be as she always been – a good girl. She'd be a wife and mother and take care of the house and maybe her husband would be fine with Tuck coming to talk to her, but they'd be different. Tuck would have all these grand adventures where he had done this or that and then this as well and her? She'd tell Tuck about other people's achievements – her husband got a raise, he got a promotion; her child made the honor roll, they aced a test. They wouldn't be...this and Magnolia was afraid of losing this. It was better for them to go together and grow together. She shifted her grip on the cat, lifting her just up a little bit more. "Oh she's just lazy. I interrupted one of her hundreds of naps." She couldn't help rolling her eyes. Her sister Daisy said that cats had to sleep a lot but Magnolia didn't think it was true. She watched with careful eyes as Tuck reached out, as he took Lulu's paw, and said it was a pleasure. It made her laugh, which only bubbled up more as Lulu seemed to give an answering meow. "I think she's saying it's a pleasure to meet you too."

Think about her family, the voice of Good Magnolia May whispered. Her father, her mother, her sisters; think about them because here she was planning to just leave them all behind. And...she was sad, she couldn't deny that. A part of her felt sad that she was thinking this. Even when her father had been so mean sometimes – he had also been really sweet; he was gruff and strict, but she still remembered how when she was little, he had tossed her in the air and sat her in his lap to read to her. He had always been her father. And her mother was so sweet and had been so patient with her. If she left now...if she left, she would be saying goodbye to everyone she knew without saying goodbye. If she got in that truck, she wouldn't ever be able to come back, that was something she knew for sure. Her father, as much as she loved him, dealt in absolutes. Magnolia running off to "adventure" with some boy? Even if she didn't come back with a baby of her own, her father would assume she had put the baby into the hands of someone else and that she was just trying to get in his good graces. She was abandoning all of that in favor of running off on some adventure she didn't need to have. But as the potion – water? - made contact with her tongue, her throat, she found that no one needed adventure, she knew that. Just like no one needed fancy clothes or expensive gadgets or a nice car; they didn't need books or movies or art supplies. All anyone needed in their life was food and shelter and water...but what kind of a life was that? What kind of life did one have where they only had what they needed? She knew her father would scold her that wanting things opened the door for wanting more. Once you started wanting things, you were suddenly never happy. It was like a landslide; it started out slow and grew and grew until it all came crashing around your ears. But Magnolia didn't want to spend her entire life thinking of the "could have been"s while she sat in a chair sewing up clothes for the children she had with a husband she had been arranged to marry. She didn't want to have the television on and see stories of people who got to do all these adventures she could have done. She was giving up her family, it was true, but...but she could write them. After all, she hardly ever saw her sisters once they were married – she hadn't seen or heard from Dahlia since she had fled into the night with that man named Frankie. Her parents probably wouldn't have seen her much after she was married anyway. She would write and she would comfort herself in thinking that they read the letters rather than tossing them out. Besides, maybe she'd get to see Dahlia again now that she was going to be traveling. All of that seemed so...simple and small when Tuck was acting so excited, swinging her around like they had all ready been on the greatest adventure. "We are!" she declared happily. "We're going to get to do [i[everything[/i]!" And the concept of that excited her. The idea that she would be able to do things she only saw others do...It didn't matter that she might not actually be immortal, she was going to live like it.

Her nerves were constantly at war with her right now – nerves that said she was so excited to do this and nerves that said this was the stupidest idea she had ever had. This was how people got caught up in bad situations, right? But she wanted to be excited, she wanted to try. If it failed...if it failed, she knew she couldn't go crawling back home, but maybe she'd find where Dahlia lived and she and Tuck could stay there until they got their feet about them again. They had options. Nothing was so final that they couldn't come back from it, right? She shook her head at the grin he shot her. "Well, those people don't understand confidence at all then." Maybe they were right. A part of her said that, yeah, odds were good Tuck didn't know any better. There had always been a safety net under him, so his confidence had something to fall back on. But it wasn't a bad thing to not know better – look at her, she knew better most of the time and what had happened with her? She was hesitant, she avoided doing anything because what if something bad happened, and she just couldn't handle the thought of things not being okay. Was that really what was better? Was that really what people wanted to exchange Tuck's easy confidence for? How was "knowing better" a good replacement for someone who could take on the world? She liked this. She wanted this. Tuck's hand on top of her's as they drove...she never wanted Tuck to "know better" if it meant he'd lose this ability to go out into the world with gusto. She'd be his knowing better, pulling him in so maybe he'd never lose it. She made a soft noise as he said he preferred exploring the woods. "I would have liked exploring towns," she offered, trying to ignore the other words. They were away from their parents and they were never going back (at least for now), so it didn't matter what Tuck's parents had done to him. They were their own people and that was what mattered. "It probably sounds silly, but I wanted to just...go to all these stores and look at things and try on things and all that. But we never lived close enough to the town." They were a bit rural, she knew. When you lived in a town that didn't even have a hundred people, you knew you'd have to drive and she had always been at the whim of her father. If he wanted to go to town, he would. Sometimes he'd take her but it was mostly just him going or maybe her mother going. She made a soft noise as he said he made friends, but they kept to themselves. "Still...not that I can really judge. My family didn't make a lot of friends either." Her father knew people, but she never would have called them friends. The fact of the matter was that he just had people he knew, associates, colleagues, those sorts of things. Her sisters all had girl friends, but they just never really spoke of much more than that. "No way there are bigger," she scoffed, even though she knew it was true. She knew that there were great big cities because she had seen it when the news talked about those places or the TV shows she watched were set there. She wanted to hear more about them, even before they explored them, but did Tuck know anything more than she did really?
Edited by Magnolia May, Dec 27 2017, 01:41 PM.
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Tuck Starling
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Having Maggie wrapped up in his arms felt nice. It felt right. It felt... well, it felt like getting to see his friend for the first time in days. It felt like warm laughter that they had shared together. It felt like lazy summer days climbing trees and splashing around in ponds. It felt like things hadn't changed at all. He and Maggie were still who they had always been, they were still Tuck and Maggie, still best friends. Now, though, there was an excitement added to it all. Now things were the same and yet they were different because soon they weren't just going to be Tuck Starling and Magnolia May of Valley Springs. They were going to be Tuck and Maggie, adventurers. They were going to be well versed travelers of the entire world and nothing was going to stand in their way. Things hadn't changed and yet they were completely, one hundred percent different at the same time. The core of their being and of their friendship, though, was still there and that was the most important part. Tuck couldn't imagine going off on a world tour without Maggie at his side. "Aw, don't you know you're the most important person in the world to me? Why wouldn't I wanna take my partner in crime along with me?" Tuck was being entirely serious, too. Maggie had become his best friend in the world, the person he looked to and sure, sometimes she said no. Sometimes she scolded him or held him back but usually she had good reason for it. Her intuition about dangerous situations was usually right and Tuck had learned to be disappointed but to also trust her judgment because if Maggie said no there was usually a reason rather than her trying to just drag someone down. He didn't like the somewhat weak smile on Maggie's face but he could understand it, because thinking about that possibility made his own smile feel a little weak, too. He shook his head a little. "It wouldn't be easy, let's just say." It might even have been impossible - and he didn't want to think about that one bit. He didn't want to think about never being able to see Maggie again because it hurt something inside of him, made him want to shrivel up and curl in on himself to even consider it. No, that wasn't something that could happen and thank God she was coming with him instead of... all of that. He let himself be distracted by his friend lifting her cat up. "That's just part of bein' a cat, isn't it?" he asked with a laugh as Maggie said she'd interrupted her one of her many naps. He grinned widely as Maggie laughed - the most beautiful sound in the world in his opinion - and as Lulu meowed in response to something, whether it was Tuck's words or Maggie's laugh he didn't know. "Well, I should hope so since we're gonna be traveling partners!" He let his grip on the cat's paw loosen finally as she settled content in Maggie's arms, still grinning at the cat and at the young girl happily.

Tuck practically vibrated with excitement because this was happening. He had thought he would have to go alone and the world had seemed a little darker, a little grayer. In fact, it had felt like it was going back to how it used to be before he met Maggie. He was sure that some flowers had seemed a little less colorful, that his surprisingly bright clothes had dulled to a paler color and he hadn't liked it. The whole light had seemed to dim on his life a little with the thought of going off on these grand adventures but leaving the one person that he wanted to take with him behind. Everything hadn't seemed quite as exciting or fun but now... now things were different. He was going to see the whole world with his best friend. They were going to live forever and they would have each other and what could be more perfect than that? A tiny part of his mind said it wouldn't be perfect. He had a family didn't he? And while he and his father had most definitely never seen eye to eye and most of his siblings had long forgotten about him, his mother at least somewhat cared about him and his older brother sort of did, too. And Tuck liked them, even loved them in a way, but he had a feeling they weren't going to miss him all that much in the long run. A sad thought, but it alleviated a majority of his guilt if he were being honest. They wouldn't really miss him and so he was free to begin his new life. It was easy to forget about it all, too, when he was swinging Maggie around and she was just giggling and smiling so widely, when she was agreeing with him and saying that they were going to see everything. "We sure are," he crowed at her happily with another laugh and another great big swing, practically holding her up in the air above him for a moment before he set her down gently on the ground.

Tuck held tightly to Maggie's hand because it felt to him like she needed him to - and because he wanted to. He was excited and the only way to somewhat curtail that excitement was to hold onto someone... and Maggie didn't seem to mind in the least. She just held his hand right back or let him put his hand on top of her own and she seemed nothing but content with it. That was good and fine and it made the night feel even warmer. "Confidence or foolery," he said with a small laugh. That was something his sister had always said. Not about him, really, just in general; was someone displaying confidence or foolery? Tuck had never much cared to find out but he was sure plenty of people would consider his confidence nothing more than foolery. He never much let what others thought of him matter but he certainly hoped Maggie would never think that about him. He drove on, one hand on the wheel and another on top of Maggie's hand - for confidence, he told himself. To help her feel all right and not because it just felt like the perfect thing. "Well, we're gonna explore us some towns then, aren't we?" he said at the offered words. It was that simple in his mind. They would have to stop places for food and jobs and the like so why not see everything, woods and towns alike, when they were on their journeys? "It ain't silly, Maggie. It sounds like fun!" And it did sound like fun. Not that Tuck had ever been a clothes hound or anything like it, but there would be something fun in going into a store and looking at all the fancy things, trying it on for a moment to pretend like you could afford it. There were so many things to see and to do in the world and they had missed out on a lot of them... until now. Tuck was silent for a moment as Maggie agreed that her own family hadn't made a lot of friends. "I never understood why but I guess it's their ultimate choice." His family always seemed preoccupied in keeping their land out of the eyes of any stranger. He didn't know what the reason was for Maggie's family. None of it made sense to him but... well, it didn't matter anymore, did it? He gave a delighted laugh as Maggie scoffed at him. "Just you wait and see," he crowed at her. "There's places that the city never sleeps at all, Mags. Can you even imagine that?" Tuck could. He could imagine the bright neon glow of cities he'd seen in television and walking to a store that would have been long closed if it were in Valley Springs. He could imagine all sorts of things and it made the whole situation all the more exciting.
Edited by Tuck Starling, Jan 3 2018, 12:26 PM.
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