RP:The Sudden Vanishing

This is a Bard's Guild RP.

Part of the Vakmatharas' Jar Arc

Summary: Hudson and Alvina's house guest Emily vanishes, causing a panic that reveals their neighbor Kam East has also vanished. The incident ends up in the Cenril paper. No one knows what's happened but the vanishings are wide spread and the only clue is that magic is involved.

The Landon Estate

The next couple days, following Hudson’s drunken embarrassment at the Celebration of Life get together, Alvina was doing her hair. Yes, yes a little late for all that fan fare but she’d recently seen an article in a woman’s magazine that detailed some elaborate braid and she confessed to Emily (her friend / live in house guest since her recent Husband’s more recent affair) that she was -dying- to try it. Emily, being a notably less awful house guest, agreed to give it a shot and set to work mimicking the step by step instructions that were not step by step. “Does it look like a mermaid tail yet?” Queried the anxious bard, lofting her brows to test the tightness of her hair along her scalp line. Emily hissed at her to quit moving for the hundredth time. “It looks like a fat braid,” She complained. “And my hands are cramping, can we take a break?” Alvina offered her a hair tie. “I can do yours while we wait?” The bard offered happily, but Emily shook her short blonde hair in denial. “I’m afraid you won’t get much out of this…” Her tanned fingers gestures to the messy bob that’s just started to exist in that weird inbetween phase of short and long hair. “I forget that still…” Alvina admits, remembering when (pre husband incident) Emily’s hair had been just as long as hers. And just as often tossed into a loose braid and left alone. “Do you want me to dye it…?” This conversation continues. Hudson was due home from work but no dinner had been prepared. A new box of cheese puff like snacks were conveniently on the counter as a distraction tactic. Marge was with their daughters, playing giant building block ninja wars...which meant Luna and Harper built small obstacles and tested their strength under their chubby feet or against their body weight if they lost balance and fell into it.

Hudson has engaged in enough braid action for a lifetime when he offered to fix one of Luna's braids the other day and succeeded only in undoing it whereupon he was mercilessly cackled at by Alvina and Emily. Like his failed braiding attempt became peak entertainment for the evening as the women kept spontaneously remembering it and laughing at him until he grumpily commented that at least he tries and Alvina was forced to bake cookies to soothe his ego. Emily is cool sometimes, but the permanent house guest situation is generally not ideal. Emily is highly emotional about her impending divorce and obsessed with his wife and they always hang out The Three Of Them, and sometimes, dude, you just wanna hang out with YOUR wife by YOURSELF and not feel obligated to include her clingy friend who is moody and makes you look at dumb banter letters between dudes that she's met through personal ads. (This is Emily's new thing, and it's awful.) Anyway, he dares to hope that Emily has plans for a change, plans that take her out of the house, but of course the annoying truth becomes apparent the second he tosses his keys onto the end table by the front door and hears her voice from the kitchen. "Hi, baby," he greets Alvina first, kisses her, and then reaches to palm some cheese puffs. "Hi, Emily," he greets her friend, pops the cheese puffs into his mouth and crunches them noisily, looking at the general situation with passive interest. "Your hair looks cute," he tells his wife, going into the ice box for a beer. "I don't see any dinner happening," he notes, opening it and considering them. "I SUPPOSE... I could grill something? If you guys are just having some sort of woman pow-wow." He drinks. Yeah, grilling sounds like a pretty ace way to escape having to listen to Emily dramatically read the pseudo-sexts she gets from the randos she's been matched with.

Alvina beams when Hudson compliments her hair. It’s not cute though, he’s sweet to lie to her. Emily’s pulled her hair too tight and it makes her forehead look too wide. Maybe he didn’t notice because of the cheese puffs. Good call, Alvina. “I was going to make something when we finished…” She gestures to Emily, who is holding her hands out like they are cramping and flexing her fingers with wild hand like exercises, if such things really exist. When he hints at grilling, she rolls her eyes. “You love grilling.” She complains, as if it’s really some deception on his part. Emily pouts at this, flinging her fingers and lofting a lazy gaze in his direction. “Can you get me a beer?” She ask / demands, before starting to get back on the subject their daughters are too far away to hear about. “He use to play some kind of game where you write to each other stuff that happens.” She continues, where Hudson had interrupted her. “He said that’s how he met his wife but they’re getting divorced. He wants to know if I’d be interested. What do you think, his writing is pretty good.” Emily hands Alvina a letter that makes her flush so they can cackle over how descriptive this guy is. “I wouldn’t know what to do in that situation…” Alvina advises, scrunching her brows silently at Hudson in a ‘Really??’ fashion. Can you believe Emily? She’s like the friend everyone likes but also rolls their eyes at because, come on, writing stories through letters with other people? What was she thinking? That’s so lame. “I could make some salads to go with whatever you grill?” Alvina offers, moving to stand and join Hudson in the kitchen, possibly get Emily the beer in the event Hudson doesn’t feel generous enough to do it.

Yeah, Hudson doesn't particularly care about this braid - if you asked him, he'd say he likes Alvina's hair "how it normally is" - but is making a deposit in the bank of marriage by paying his wife a compliment. "Must be nice to have a husband who makes dinner sometimes," he replies to Alvina without missing a beat. He moves to get Emily her beer, deciding that he'll make his escape soon because she's commenced a summit on her latest match. Whatever they're reading has embarrassed Alvina, who is now wearing her disapproving mom face. Hudson is picking through their mail. "Don't get my wife involved in any weird chain letter please, Emily, you're a bad enough influence," he comments, picking out an illustrated catalog for lingerie and sliding it across the kitchen counter at them. "Use your powers for good, help my wife spend my money." Everyone's pretty cozy in the Landon household. Emily's been here a while, that's why. Hudson is looking in the ice box to see what he's grilling (chicken, probably). Emily has just drank some of her beer, opens her mouth to respond, when she simply vanishes. There's no noise to announce her departure, she just isn't where she was anymore, and her beer hits the counter. It makes the harsh sound of glass striking marble before rolling toward the edge, its contents spilling.

Alvina continues to roll her eyes into outer space with this comment from Hudson. “So what I never cook? Don’t you like grilling? Isn’t that why we got a patio…?” She’s next to the ice box, fussing over things that could be sides in the island cabinets while Hudson looks for the main course. “Emily do you think we should use this rice or - “ That’s when it happens. Emily’s on the couch, curled up over one leg with her beer, nose scrunched in distaste (she didn’t like rice, too many carbs) when she’s gone. The beer clattering to the floor doesn’t register. She just freezes, trying to stall the impulsive thought of WITCHES due to Larket Propaganda. It rolls off her but she waits, silent and still, for something else to happen. The scent of beer wafts up next to the island, Marge and the girls are still playing in the other room. It’s so overwhelmingly present Alvina thinks she might be sick. “Huds-” She’s swatting air, increasing in motion and strength the longer he isn’t looking. The magazine he’d sent across the counter was still there, pages hanging off the edge and threatening to fall into the beer puddle. She looks to him, between sideways glances at the spot formerly holding Emily, all the blood drained from her face.

Hudson recognizes the sound of a dropped beer immediately. "Party foul," he says, and at Alvina's urging straightens and looks over in the direction he'd last seen Emily. Except she's not there. Her beer however is leaking everywhere. He's confused. He bends down to fetch it, puts it on the island and then reaches to get a dish towel to contain the mess. "Where'd she go?" he asks Alvina, who looks like she's seen a ghost. "Babe?" he tries to prod her into responding. He's having a hard time understanding how she can have vanished, when she was there a second ago. "Emily!" he calls out, and then all of a sudden he's feeling the onset of a bad feeling. "It's not funny, Emily," he tells the room. "I'm sure she's around, it's a dumb joke," he adds, a beat later, to Alvina. He's thinking about his work. Is this some kind of magically executed coup he hadn't seen coming, is this how it ends for them? But why Emily? "I'm going to go check around the house," he tells Alvina. He feels an itch rising on his forearms, he'd like to take himself outside for a second to get his bearings. Stop overreacting. Emily's playing a prank. It's not a funny one. "Can you check on Marge and the girls?"

Alvina’s hand is still hovering mid-swat by the fridge even though Hudson’s moved away to clean up the beer. “She just vanished….” She whispered guiltily. This is their punishment for being so cruel behind her back. She’s their friend! Of course she can stay however long she wants! Interrupting all the parent time! Clearly she isn’t thinking straight. “She wasn’t doing anything. She was just drinking her beer and then...she wasn’t.” The clammy feel of her skin does not withdraw even as she scurries past him to go check on Marge and their daughters. When she arrives in the doorway, neither Luna nor Harper are paying her any mind. There’s a new game to be invented, where the building blocks are stacked impossibly high and the girls perform low key karate chops on them so they tumble. Marge is supervising to make sure it doesn’t get too tall or too dangerous. She’s also scoring their kicks and chops on a glossy board that lets her erase and re-write numbers. At the moment, she’s holding up a 6 and shaking her head at the girls while they laugh. Back to rebuilding the tower. Marge looks towards the door, expecting to see Alvina leaning casually against the frame to watch them for a minute or two as she so often did. She’s shocked into standing by the expression on her face. “What’s wrong?” Marge whispers, trying to keep the girls from noticing their adult panic. Alvina helplessly shakes her head. “I don’t know if anything is wrong, Emily just...vanished? Hudson thinks she’s playing a prank but I wanted to make sure you were okay in here first. I’m sure it’s fine.” She lied, trying to reign her concern in for the girls. If they saw any uncomfortable adults, they’d be cranky for the rest of the night. “Just, keep an eye on the girls and call for us if anything weird happens…?” On second thought, she really wanted to be able to watch the girls herself. It isn’t rational. Some ‘mom’ thing where she thinks she’d be able to stop them from vanishing with her keen eye for detail and her mom senses. So she waits, lingering uncomfortably in the hallway, out of sight while Marge goes back to helping the girls pick up the blocks and rebuild a tower. She dares to sprint down to Emily’s room to look inside but no one’s there. She feels the panic resurfacing and looks down the hallway expectantly for Hudson to magically reappear with Emily, loudly scolding her for making his pregnant wife worry.

Hudson heads outside, his arms ablaze with the itch to turn now. Normally this is something to be done late at night, when nobody can see, but to hell with all appearances. Something has invaded his proverbial castle, he's going to find whatever it is and subdue the (...) out of it. Or at the very least literally sniff out where Emily's gone. He becomes the wolf, his nostrils flaring as the night time smells of his property suddenly come to him in bleeding color. His awareness and self-control in this state have gradually improved over the years. His children had been key factors, though he'd not mentioned it to Alvina because they hardly discuss this part of him and it's not something he particularly wants to test yet. He can feel their presence now, he assumes because they're part of his pack, in the house. He completes a circuit around the place, his russet coat catching moonlight. Emily's smell is fading, he can't place her location like he can place Marge and his wife. He doesn't feel them like he feels his children, but the wolf knows them on some level to be informally part of his pack, necessary, to be protected at all costs. There are no new human or animal smells, though there's a certain acrid tang of magic all over. The smell extends to the adjacent property, and he makes himself small behind an azalea bush, watching his neighbor Kanze stalk around by his pool, shouting with increasing panic for his wife. Hudson doesn't process this just yet, it's too complex for the wolf, he just watches. At some point he realizes that he's started to slaver, that he feels the violent impulse to tear the rapper's throat out, and he expends a Herculean amount of energy keeping himself very still, from doing just that. The man's just a shadow in this state, after all. It's a relief for this part of him when Kanze goes back inside. Hudson pads away from the property, making his way back to his. He forces a painful premature shift back to human on the pool patio, recovers his clothes, and goes inside to find his family. He's still feral-eyed when he gets hold of Alvina, lurking in the hall. He pulls her into Emily's room with him, shuts the door, and throws her against it. He doesn't get to do anything else, his mind suddenly explodes with pain, and he crumples on the carpet, clutching his head. He passes out.

Alvina’s heartfelt wishes are not realized. Her hands clutch at the fabric inside the sleeves of her oversized maroon cardigan, studying her bare feet and black jeans like they held the answer to this mystery. Her lame clothes reveal no insight into the vanishing of Emily. Hudson returns alone, with an altered stride and a scowling stare. “Huds-” She starts in a low whisper, before she’s pulled into the room and throw back against the closed door. Her pupils dilate to small, lightless orbs and her hands grasp blindly at the door, searching against the grain to find the handle or some decorative thing she could use if she had to. If she had to. Her hands feel numb, shaking with uncertainty. Didn’t he know it was her?! Was this a wolf thing or was it related to Emily? She couldn’t be sure, as she shrinks down to her knees and wishes, for the first time in along time, that her arm was still silver instead of this glittering gold replacement. Then she could... her thoughts shift as Hudson goes down into a pile of Emily’s dirty clothes and becomes dead weight. He’s passed out. “Gods…” She exhales all the air she’s trapped in her lungs just in case…(In case what? She had to scream for Marge? How could she…?) Alvina’s already on the floor, so she shifts to check his pulse. He’s still alive, his breath is evening out but his skin is on fire. He’s almost too hot to touch. Did she dare wake him? What if he was seized by the same madness and tried to resume whatever violence he’d attempted before? It’s dicey. She can’t leave him here, Emily is still missing. Alvina tries to think of something to make her brave. Their children, their friends...the soft way he sometimes looks at her and tells her he loves her. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t him. Her mantra repeats as she starts to shake him, urgently exhaling his name. “Hudson..! Hudson..!” Her hands pull against his shoulders, barely moving his limp, muscular body. “Hudson please…” She pleads, shaking with all her strength to revive him.

Hudson isn't out long. He wakes to confusion, and a pounding in his head. He's in a pile of Emily's sweaty gym clothes. Eleanor's protection spell is murdering him. (Better than the alternative.) Alvina is touching him, he realizes, and with that awareness shame begins permeating his consciousness. Eleanor's magic has put the wolf away, for a moment. "Please, no, get back," he tells his wife, waving her off of him. He won't look at her, he has his head in his hands. Here are some thoughts he is having: He'd misjudged. This is why he doesn't just go wolf whenever, because he can't control him. He knows now he'd shifted back too soon, the wolf hadn't been finished. How can Alvina touch him after that. He hates himself. He shakily pushes himself to his feet. He wipes his face, he'd shed a couple tears of frustration just then. He's been so good about this part of himself for so long now, and to mess up like this is humiliating. And scary, even with Eleanor's spell. He can barely look at Alvina. "I shifted back and shouldn't have," he says. "I'm sorry. I'm such an IDIOT." His arm strikes out, sweeping a pile of things off of Emily's dresser. Some of these things were somewhat fragile, so the noise they make when they land on the carpet is harsh. Likely their children can hear it. Hudson releases a stream of curses. He can't, with himself, right now. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he's saying. "Don't, don't touch me," in case she's thinking about it. "I need to be outside right now." He opens the door, still won't look directly at her. "Something happened. Kam is also gone," is what he says, prior to leaving the room.

Alvina stands there, a porcelain doll full of fear and the uncontrollable urge to help with things she can’t possibly understand. He pulls away and it twists her heart in a vice, hands reigned back in to clutch her sleeves and bite her lower lip. Nothing she says now will get through, she’s seen it before, though it felt like a lifetime ago now. She stands with him, pressing herself into the door until the assorted crashing of Emily’s things startles her away, into another corner to avoid his path. Her mouth hangs open dumbly, thinking reassurances she isn’t brave enough to say, hands trying to extend to reach him. Pull him back in, calm him down but he’s shooing her off with rough gestures and poison warnings. Don’t touch me. The door opens, creating a barrier between that provides instant (and shameful) relief. She hates herself for the knee jerk reactions caused by these events. She focuses instead on the fact that Kam is also gone and that Marge and the girls might be concerned. Should they leave? Where would they go? Hudson’s heavy footfalls vanish down the hallway. She hears the patio door slam closed and flinches, adjusting her wrinkled shirt as she goes in and reassures Marge and their daughters. Luna’s crying without reason, startled by the noise or distress hovering over the household. Harper’s crying because Luna is crying, and Marge is struggling to contain them both. There are no words exchanged between the adults, but Alvina shakes her head at Marge when she offers a questioning look. Did they find Emily? No...And now Kam is gone too? What’s happening?

His daughters' cries pierce the air. Hudson is filled with hate for himself. His heart had been in the right place, but he'd been stupid. The only thing that will help him now is giving the wolf want it wants. He strips down by the pool and shifts, only then feeling release. He howls, it sounds sad because it is. Tomorrow they'll learn in the papers that Emily and Kam aren't alone, but many in Cenril had vanished. There's no current explanation.