About that trollery...

Noah knew that he wasn't going to understand a lot of the week's events for a while.  The more he considered it, though, he thought he might be able to wrangle some more answers out of Cecilia about how her father fit into all of this.  

It took a lot of effort to find the right time to talk to her, wanting to avoid being overheard.  He had to wait almost two days, but on Thursday, at the end of their Urban Ecology class's trip over to the college visit the Environmental Science lab and community garden, he noticed she'd hung back from the rest of the class group on the walk back to the high school.  He slowed his stride until he was roughly in step with her.

"Interesting stuff, huh?" he asked casually.

Given how horribly the school year had started, Celia did not have high hopes for it ending particularly well. She was disgusted by how callous some of their classmates were being. While most were properly worried and supportive, a few of the crueler ones were already opening betting pools on when Matt would be found and grossing everyone out with gruesome scenarios of what might have happened to him. Her vehement objection had some of her fellow cheerleaders asking if Celia and Matt had started secretly dating over the summer. She stormed off in a fit of temper and very pointedly ignored those friends for the rest of the day, opting to walk alone at the back of the group when the class returned from the garden trip rather then listen to them.

When Noah drifted back to join her, she was grateful. Not only was the company of someone who understood comforting, but the other girls would assume that he was on her side and hopefully drop the whole star-crossed lovers idea. It was disappointing that he wouldn't let her just pretend the whole thing had never happened, but she'd never really expected him to let it go. Noah was tenacious like that. She gave him a little smile when he broke the ice and shrugged.

"Yeah. Interesting enough, anyway. Anything's worth getting out of the classroom, right?"

"Half the appeal of class," Noah responded with a grin. He took a moment before continuing, making sure they had room between them and the rest of the class.

"So, the stuff earlier this week, that happen to your family a lot? You seemed pretty okay with everything, and your dad totally looked like he knew what he was doing. More, uh, put out than surprised or worried."

"Pfft!" Celia couldn't help but smile at the absurdity. As if her parents would let them stay anywhere that the Fae hunted regularly. Then again... It's not like SHE would have any way of knowing if someone was a changeling. Something to consider later, when she wasn't blowing smoke up Noah's ass. "Could say the same about you! But no, not even remotely. It's just that it's not the sort of thing that you can really hide from family. Or at least with my dad it's not. He's always going 'HaHA, I found such and such a book and it's in better condition then Whats-his-face's copy, yay I'm awesome' and then Mom goes 'that's nice, dear' and we roll our eyes." She shrugged again.

"I know stuff's out there, but I was never interested so Dad didn't exactly share much. Well, beyond getting confirmation that there weren't any monsters under my bed, but that was when I was five so it totally doesn't count. The other part of this whole thing? Yeah, so not okay but I'm trying to, y'know, compartmentalize? Save my freak outs for later? Otherwise I'd never stop thinking about it and just go right off the deep end. Which was probably why Dad didn't want me to get involved. That's why he was mad, y'know. Well, not so much mad as Very Disappointed in me for sticking around anyway. Like I was gonna just leave you two."

She rolled her eyes, all teenage superiority, then wilted a little after a moment of silence. She was feeling a little too guilty and sorry for herself to keep the Smokescreen of Babble and Truthiness going. Celia kicked the ground, looking a bit defensive as she muttered. "I hate his Disappointed Face."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure my mom's Disappointed Face is weaponized."

Noah kept quiet a moment as they walked, giving her a second to recover.

"Look, I don't want to push, but could you expand a little on the 'stuff' that's out there? It's been recently pointed out to me that maybe I should be a little more curious about all that, being part of 'stuff' and all."

"There's not really much expanding I can do. That whole 'never interested so never bothered' thing. But a good rule of thumb is that if there's stories about something then it's probably out there in some form or fashion but the details are probably wrong. Like you and the silver. That holds true with just about anything. Demons, vampires, whatever. But the legends get twisted and whitewashed, so you gotta get as close to the original source material as you can. And the more original sources you have saying the same thing, the more likely it is to be true and not some asshole trying to find explanations for what he thought he saw. Like if I wanted to know about your kind of stuff, I wouldn't go reading Twilight."

Celia smiled teasingly up at him, trying to gauge his mood, then continued in hopes of making him laugh.

"At least I hope Twilight's full of shit."

Noah gave a short bark of laughter before responding.

"Well, we see anybody sparkling, we'll know to be worried. Right after we stop laughing."

"For me, though, I mean, I honestly don't know. I know there's some difference between people who catch it and people who are born with it, but I'm not sure yet what that is. Granddad says I gotta wait 'til I'm eighteen, and my mom's not talking. Its weird. Its almost like they got more concerned about telling me things after they knew I'd, uh, inherited the family legacy."

He shrugged.

"Hell, I can't even really fully change yet. What you guys saw the other day, that's about it."

Celia laughed softly at the truth in his return joke. If they did see someone being all sparkle-vampire, they were all going to laugh their heads off.

"Coming of age seems like it's always a big thing. Makes sense that it would make a difference for this too. David and Lil are gonna ask Dad for access to the, ah, rare books so they could probably do some research if you didn't want to wait out the year. But for what it's worth, what you did was really cool. And I don't just mean the, y'know," she gestured in vague circles towards her head, "game face. You could have just let it drop after the first time, but you stuck around when they wanted to dig and protected us. A lot."

Celia turned her head back towards the rest of the class, smiling and blushing a little as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

"I just wanted to say thanks."

For a moment, Noah was at a loss. He likewise looked away awkwardly for a moment, processing.

"Uh, you're welcome. It didn't seem like people were going to let it go, and I figured we owed it to Matt...who, um, I guess wasn't actually Matt."

He frowned.

"I still feel kind of bad about hitting other Matt...real Matt, I guess. It was like hitting a really big little kid. Do you, ah, do you know if he's okay?"

Celia nodded. "Last I heard, he was doing better. Getting healed up and reintegrated and such. I was gonna ask Dad if they might let me visit him when his head is in a better place. Cause yeah, I'm feeling kinda guilty about the whole thing. Sure, we kinda owed it to our Matt to try and keep him safe, but both of them were and weren't Matt. It wasn't the scarecrow's fault that he was made, he probably had no idea he wasn't the original. But at the same time, poor Real-Matt. Stolen away as a kid and twisted by these utterly alien beings, and when he does manage to get home someone's taken his place. I know I would've been heartbroken."

"Yeah, that was messed up," Noah replied somewhat lamely. "I wonder how he got there. Like, did he wander into the door, or did they come get him, or what?"

Noah made a concerned look.

"So, you said he was being 'reintegrated.' More people like your dad, folks who keep an eye out for this sort of thing? Are we supposed to, like, report this stuff if we see it again?"

Celia shook her head, smile dropping into a grim little frown. "I don't know. Judging by what we heard about Matt Before, I'm willing to bet it was a combination of Them coming up here to hunt and him being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

She shrugged and shook her head. "He wouldn't say anything definite, but I got the impression that they were people like Matt. Real-Matt, I mean. But Dad did say that he wanted me to let him know if we stumbled across anything weird again and stay well away from it." She rolled her eyes at that. "Like the others wouldn't go charging in and drag us along with them."

Noah gave a resigned smile.

"Yeah, David's pretty fired up about all this, and I've got his back, so I guess I'm involved whether I want to be or not."

He cocked an eyebrow at Cecilia.

"So, why weren't you interested in all this? I mean, you don't seem really bothered by it or anything, so I know you're not scared. Why the, what's the word...apathy? Ambivalence?"

Celia blinked; this one had her a little nonplussed. "Well... I kinda grew up with it? And Dad's a librarian, what kid wants to be a librarian when they grow up? That was the filter I always saw it through."

She shrugged lightly, raising her eyebrows at him. "Besides, I never had the time or the energy. By the time I was old enough to have started training, schoolwork and ballet were taking everything I had to give."

"I guess that's fair. I don't know how I'm gonna fit all this in, but I have this feeling this isn't going to be the last we'll be dealing with this type thing."

Noah gave a slightly bitter smile.

"If nothing else, David seems pretty hoo-ah about the whole thing, and I have to admit, I'm getting more and more curious. I'm just hoping its manageable, you know?

"Some of the others might not care that much about, you know, grades, or sports, or social lives, but, well," Noah gestured between Cecilia and himself, "some of us have standards to maintain."

"Not to mention the community service hours. God, I hope those three calm down quick. Juggling everything until they do is going to be a nightmare."

Celia tilted her head back and closed her eyes as she whined in the back of her throat.

"They don't know how lucky they are to not have so many expectations to live up to. I don't even want to think about how they'd react if something Interesting happened during a football game. Or Homecoming." A horrified and disturbed expression twisted her lip and widened her eyes. "Oh God, definitely don't want to think about that. They'd expect us to ditch everything and run off. Well, Madison wouldn't, but I'd bet anything that the others would rather gargle razor blades then show up."