thismaskiwear | A Corner of the Park, Sunday Late Afternoon

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A Corner of the Park, Sunday Late Afternoon

After Emma's funeral arrangements had been taken care of, Katchoo had headed straight back to Fandom, too preoccupied with ~~moping~~ ~~feeling sorry for herself~~ formulating a way to explain this to Francine to be aware that she'd been spotted.

She felt like her suitcase looked, and from the looks of it the trip through baggage handling had been rough (and what the hell was that black greasy looking stain, ew). In a stellar example of brilliant social interaction skills, avoiding Francine for a couple of hours seemed like a good idea, so here she was. Sitting on a bench in the park ~~where it is not snowing despite the icon~~ with her feet propped up on the suitcase, staring off at the duck pond in the distance.

Totally not moping, except she was.

[OOC: Expecting one, conversation NFB.]

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Taking Brynn on her usual walk--okay, she was mostly dragging him, but it was still exercise for the dog!--Merlin paused at seeing Katchoo, looking around to see if anyone else was about before approaching.

"Katchoo?"

Don't --" she began reflexively, then looked up. "Merlin? Figures," she said, no energy left for any crankiness even if she was. Which she wasn't, actually.

And now he was thinking back to what Francine had said about their last fight. "Are you alright?"

Yeah, she was wondering what Francine had told him about that, actually.

"I'm alive. Could be worse."

Dear god, did she just almost sniffle?

She might have.

Which made Merlin look around again before tugging on Brynn's collar to sit next to her and offer---yup, his neckerchief.

When Katchoo realized what he was doing it got a tiny, awkward laugh out of her. "Thanks, but . . ." She shook her head. "Is she really pissed at me?"

"I think more worried than anything," Merlin replied. "But... angry, yes."

"Don't blame her." Katchoo rubbed a hand over her face and . . . yeah, okay, that was a sniffle. "And there's no way to explain this to her without explaining everything else. I said I would, yeah, but . . . god. It's a mess right now."

"Why can't you explain it to her?" Merlin asked, trying to tie Brynn's leash to the bench.

Maybe it was easier to say things like this with a puppy around. Yeah, that was her story and she was sticking to it.

"Because I'm scared to. I'm tryin' to work out a way to say 'Hi, Francie, I can explain where I've been, but to do that I gotta tell you all about how I lied to you about huge chunks of my life, so I hope you're sitting down.' Y'know, without making her more pissed off at me than she already is."

That . . . might kind of be impossible at this point, Katchoo.

Merlin looked down, sighing once at that. "It may not be easy, but it will help."

"God, don't let her hate me," Katchoo muttered, only half to Merlin. ~~Unless he was God and she just hadn't gotten the memo?~~ She took a deep breath, looked away, and ventured, "I . . . just got back from a funeral."

"I'm sorry, Katchoo," Merlin said with a wince. "Are you alright?"

"I'm not the one who got put in the ground." Cheerful, Chewie. So cheerful. "So, relatively, guess you could say I am. Kinda screws with my headspace for heavy conversations though."

"Were you close?"

"She saved my life, so . . ." Katchoo shrugged one shoulder, gave him a crooked smile. "Yeah. We were."

Merlin offered her a faint smile back at that. "What happened?"

"I was living on the streets, starving, and she took me in." It was kind of soon, and talking about it in much detail might be difficult, but she was trying. "Besides Francine, she was the sweetest, most loving person I ever met."

"She sounds nice then," Merlin replied, pulling Brynn over as if that would help. "Was that a secret?"

Puppies always helped. (Kittens were a different story. Katchoo was not a cat fan.) "Yeah," she admitted guiltily. The least scandalous part of it, granted. "See what I mean about trying to figure out where to start?"

"I doubt anyone would begrudge you going to pay your respects to a friend."

"No," Katchoo considered. "Explaining how and why I know her, that'd be a bitch, but that part at least. . . hey, look. A starting point."

She leaned forward, watching Brynn for a few moments before glancing back to Merlin. "Thanks."

"For what?" Merlin asked, giving her a confused smile. "You're my friend."

Katchoo figured she could count on one hand the number of people who'd voluntarily say that to her. (And Adora, but she was pretty sure Adora would call a stampeding herd of wildebeests friends.)

Mostly she thought they were crazy.

"Yeah," she said. "For that."

"Come on. Help me with Brynn? She's--very fond of dragging me when she sees a squirrel."

"Yeah, sure." Katchoo huffed a laugh that wasn't actually all that huffy (and it wasn't terribly laugh-y either, but it was something) and got to her feet. "She's the hunting dog," she guessed.

"Sort of," Merlin admitted. "Though Francine and I--haven't exactly been the best at not spoiling her."

"I'd trust you two for that," Katchoo replied. She'd met Muffins. She could also picture the look on Arthur's face, and just for that they deserved credit. "Pretty name, Brynn. You ever actually taken her out hunting with you yet?"

"Well, to find those little blue men. She did rather well!"

"Those little bastards who made off with half my paints? Good girl," Katchoo said approvingly.

Merlin grinned and nodded, offering the leash since... let's face it, Katchoo stood a much better chance at holding Brynn back.

"Would you like to get ice cream?"

BECAUSE THAT FIXED THINGS. ASK MERLIN.

Katchoo took a second to grab her suitcase and wrapped the leash around her hand twice -- she was better with dogs than cats, not that a cat would let you put it on a leash, but she could swear those things hated her. It was mutual.

"Why the hell not?" she agreed. "Seems like half the island believes in the almighty fix-it power of ice cream, right?"

See, she had to ask now. The power of the narrative is compelling.

"It's very good," Merlin admonished with the utmost sincerity. He smiled and nodded, leading the way just a bit. "Arthur once came home with me, you know."

"We'll see how well it works when we get there," Katchoo retorted mildly, tagging along a pace or two behind, which she couldn't really help being shorter and all. "Yeah? How'd that go?"

"My village, Ealdor, was under attack by bandits. My mother had come to Camelot to ask King Uther to help as they were near his lands and their own king didn't care for the outlying regions," He continued. "So, I left Arthur's service to protect her. Arthur followed to 'protect' me."

It was still a mental adjustment, going from what she was slowly becoming convinced were the crazy-ass fictional liberties to hearing about these things firsthand, but Katchoo nodded. "By himself, or did Camelot actually send help?"

"Just him." A beat. "And then Lady Morgana and Gwen."

He smiled once at that part.

"I had been planning to use my magic to take care of the problem, but none of them knew about it then."

Well, this was sounding kind of familiar. "That," Katchoo said, looking at him thoughtfully, "sounds like a problem waiting to happen. Not to mention a crazy heroic stunt, but seein' as three of you are here you pulled it off. Somehow. Did you end up having to use magic?"

She was sort of assuming so. Geez, when did she start talking about magic so normally?

"Yes." Merlin looked at a tree in the distance with more focus than needed. "My friend--Will--knew about the magic since we were small. And when Arthur asked who did it, he took the blame."

Katchoo whistled softly. "I take it that didn't go so well for him." Considering Merlin had kept that a secret from Arthur for a while . . . she almost sounded like a nice person now. Curse you, sudden burst of empathy! Shh.

"He'd taken an arrow. It was the last thing he did," Merlin replied, closing his eyes for just a moment. "He died because I was too much of a coward to tell Arthur the truth about me."

"I'm sorry," Katchoo said quietly. (See, she could do quiet sometimes.) Oh, hello there, twisty stomach of completely deserved guilt. "I swear, I'll tell Francine the truth, but just in case anything -- keep her safe for me? I trust you two to do that."

[Why didn't you post, comment?!? WHY????]

"I will," Merlin promised.

"Good. Thank you," Katchoo told him with as much sincerity as she ever gave anyone.

Oh my god, was she actually accumulating male friends here? Emma would be so smug.

"Come on, then. I'll buy you something with those very red cherries on it," He said, nodding seriously.

"I think you've got yourself a deal there, pal," Katchoo agreed. Amiably, even. Shocker? Probably.

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A Corner of the Park, Sunday Late Afternoon

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