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a shrimptastic picnic | wren & felix

TIMING: current

LOCATION: the common.

PARTIES: @asirenscream & @recoveringdreamer

SUMMARY: wren's bad attempt at potato salad leads her to the lions & lambs picnic and felix is kind enough to taste test, until they're interrupted by a man insisting they learn more about the well respected shrimp. a totally normal picnic, right? right!

CONTENT: mentions of the potential of food poisoning.

The Lions and Lambs picnic seemed pretty daunting to Wren. Well, not just because she had to subtly find out that there weren’t actually going to be any lions or lambs, but because of how many people would be there. Standing in the grass of The Common, Wren tried not to sweat too much. Her fingers were gripping the tupperware container she had put her potato salad in. She hadn’t ever made potato salad before, but someone had mentioned how that was a common picnic food. She had taken hours attempting to boil the cubed, unevenly sized potatoes and mixing them into the mayo mustard mixture. The website on The Google she had found said that anyone could put what they wanted in potato salad! The comments were very helpful so Wren threw onions, celery, raisins, and walnuts in it. Hopefully people liked it.

Shifting on her feet, Wren tried to coax up the nerve to approach the crowd of people in The Common there for the picnic. This would be a good way to step over her anxiety and fear of humans—of people in general. Should she have brought forks or spoons? She didn’t own many of them… Or plates. Or bowls. Should she have brought those, too? Oh, she was definitely spiraling now. Brown eyes squeezed shut as Wren tried to take a steady breath and ignore the racing of her heart. Maybe if she pretended people weren’t there for a minute then it’d be okay. It’d be fine. Right? Right!

Wren slowly opened her eyes and tentatively started walking across the grass, the slightest tremor in her form. She accidentally bumped into someone and squeaked, looking up with wide eyes. “Sorry! I’m—wait. I know you, right?” She got out in a rush. She felt like she remembered him from online. “You have the cat? Um, right? I’m not misremembering.” Cats didn’t tend to be birds' biggest fans. Wren hadn’t met a cat before so she wasn’t sure how they’d in turn take to her. “I’m Wren! I think we talked before, hi!”

—

For years, Felix had felt fairly isolated. First, they’d had their father as their well-meaning warden in that house in the woods. Then, there’d been Leo and his less-than-good intentions in the apartment they’d shared for years, where Felix made themself smaller and smaller by the day in order to allow Leo space to be big. Felix had never really had the chance to branch out and meet new people until after their breakup with Leo and, by that point, they’d been so nervous that it seemed a herculean task just to start a conversation. But they were working on that. They were doing better now. They were reaching out to people, they were making friends.

They were going to picnics.

It had seemed like a good idea, in theory. They’d even managed to talk themself out of the tempting idea of dragging Mona or Natalia along for the ride, reminding themself that they needed to be able to meet people without the security blanket of someone they were already close to being there to help. They could do this on their own. Just Felix, the muffins they’d brought, and… a whole lot of people. Like a lot of people. Were there always this many people at things like this?

Someone bumped into them in the crowd, and Felix stiffened a little. “Sorry,” he said, at the same time that they apologized. Then, blinking down, they realized they recognized the girl. “Oh! Hi! You’re, um, the bird girl. I mean, the girl who likes birds. I mean, person. Bird person. Person who likes birds.” All right, Fe, reel it in. “I’m Felix! Um, what did you…” The trailed off, looking down at the tupperware in her hand and what they could see of the… substance inside. “...make?”

—

Bird girl. Well, they weren’t wrong. It caused Wren to let out a high-pitched, nervous laugh. That felt a little too on the nose, even if they didn’t realize it. “Yup! Yeah, bird girl seems… fitting.” Her laugh strained just a tad bit more before she reeled it in. “Big fan of birds! That’s me, yes. Um, anyways!” She rocked onto the balls of her feet as she tried to ignore her own anxious, awkward tendencies. “Hi Felix! I’m happy to see a friendly face.” He really did seem friendly from their brief conversation. It did little to ebb her already overwhelming anxiety, but it was something at least.

Looking down at the container, Wren had to take a moment to remember the name. “Uh, potato salad!” She looked back up and smiled. “The recipe said to just add whatever I wanted! So I did that. I’ve never made potato salad. I didn’t even know what it was! I had to search what picnic foods were, because I don’t think people would like my go to foods.” Raw meat, raw fish may be more accepted, but she didn’t know how well either of those would hold for human consumption.

There was plenty of activity around Wren and Felix. It was overwhelming, so Wren did her best to ignore the push, push, push of it all. “Um, did you bring anything? Or just come for the fun? Would you want some potato salad? I didn’t bring forks! Should I have brought forks? I don’t know how picnics work, I’ve never been to one. What do you think?” She blabbered on. Wren could tell when she was spiraling and it was definitely happening. “Oh god, sorry. When I start I just kind of can’t stop! Ha.” She winced.

—

She seemed nervous, and Felix wondered if they’d said something wrong. They had a habit of that, they knew, of speaking out of turn and generally making a mess of things. They were trying to do better, trying to improve, trying to… be the sort of person that people wanted to talk to, but it was an uphill battle. Spending most of your teen years living off the land in a murder cabin tended to make social interaction a little more difficult. Trying to save the interaction, Felix nodded. “Uh, yeah! Birds are great. I like birds, too.” They didn’t. Not more than the average person, at least. In fact, some birds freaked them out a little. But, hey! They could pretend, in the interest of friendly conversation. “Yeah! Yeah, it’s nice to, uh, know somebody.”

Glancing back down to the container again, Felix tried not to let their… surprise show on their face. That was not potato salad. Felix had seen potato salad. Felix had made potato salad. Felix had even enjoyed potato salad. That was not potato salad. But it was her first time making it, and she’d found a recipe that apparently wasn’t very helpful, and wouldn’t it be unnecessarily mean to point that out? “It looks great!” Felix lied, flashing her a bright smile. “I can’t wait to try it!” They hoped they had remembered to put anti-nausea meds in their jean pockets.

“I brought muffins,” Felix replied quickly, holding up the muffins and offering one to Wren. They liked to think they were some quality muffins, but they might have been a little biased. They glanced back to the ‘potato salad’ Wren was holding with a forced smile. “Oh, yeah. I’d love some potato salad. I think, uh — I think there’s forks where the other food is. So we can go over there and get some forks. And then. Eat this potato salad!” They felt a little like they were tying a noose for their executioner here, but it was fine. “No, hey, it’s okay! I kind of do the same thing. It’s cool. Come on, let’s… go find a fork.”

—

Wren’s smile was shaky at best, but it was getting easier to breathe through the anxiety when she just focused on Felix in front of her instead. They seemed really nice and dealing with one person in comparison to several was always going to be preferable to Wren. Especially when they seemed to be as kind as Felix was. “I don’t do this kind of stuff often,” a pause as Wren tried to figure out how to word it, “go out, I guess. Being around a lot of people kind of freaks me out.” An understatement, but she could lighten it a tiny bit. There was no harm, right?

“Thanks! I tried really hard, so I hope it’s good.” Wren smiled, holding up the container briefly to observe the potato mixture in there that had taken her way too long. Humans were really strange in what they could eat and couldn’t. She didn’t want to make something she’d enjoy, but would make humans sick. That was the quickest way to give away the fact that she was very clearly something else entirely. The constant fear and itch to not be found out was persistent enough.

Baking! That was another thing that Wren was eager to try. “Oh wow, these look amazing! Thank you!” Wren took the muffin excitedly. “Do you bake a lot? Or cook in general? Baking seems really hard, but so fun. Do you have a favorite thing you like to cook or bake?” She practically bounded alongside Felix to go near the other food. Someone was going to eat her food! She was way too excited. “Fork adventure! Hah,” Wren giggled almost nervously and could feel the heat from her embarrassed blush travel all the way up to the tips of her ears.

There was a table full of other dishes and cutlery, plates, anything you could think of. Wren made work of setting down the tupperware container and popping off the lid. It didn’t look awful, at least. Or to her, anyway. It looked like vegetables and sauce? That was normal, for sure. “If you hate it, it’s okay! Don’t worry.” Wren added quickly, resisting the urge to grimace. “Rome wasn’t painted in a day or whatever the saying is. I heard that one on TV.”

—

Given her overall demeanor her words — that this wasn’t a thing she did often — felt unnecessary to really say. It was clear that she was uncomfortable, out of her element. But that was okay. Felix was a little out of theirs, too. So they smiled back at her, they shrugged their shoulders. “I don’t really do this often, either,” they admitted, wondering if they were this obvious. Being around a lot of people was pretty scary, but they’d found it was a lot better when you were around one you trusted. They could be that one for Wren, they thought. Or… try to, anyway.

Even if it meant eating her potato salad. They spared it another look, careful not to let the uncertainty shine through in their expression. They weren’t sure she would have picked up on it, but they didn’t want to take any chances. “I’m sure it’s great. I think, um, the first step to cooking and being good at it is to try your hardest. Right?” Wrong. Very, very wrong. The first step to cooking and being good at it was not making anything like what she had in her hands. Felix’s stomach was not going to be happy with them after this.

But Wren was happy, or seemed to be. That made it feel kind of worth it. She took a muffin, and Felix offered her an encouraging smile. “I love baking. It’s something I do a lot. Um, I do more of it when I’m stressed. I like to think I’m pretty good at it, because of all the practice.” They paused. “Baking, I mean, Not being stressed.” Though they got plenty of practice at that, too. “Yeah! Yeah, let’s go on a fork adventure.”

It didn’t feel like much of an adventure. They walked to the table and grabbed a fork, trying not to sigh as Wren popped open her tupperware. It smelled… interesting. Like a lot of things at once. Felix, unsure where to start, stuck his fork in. “Yeah. That’s — That’s totally how it goes. Um, I think.” They tried to remember that meal at the Raven, the one that looked terrible but tasted fine. They did their best to convince themself that Wren’s potato salad would be the same as they brought the fork to their mouth.

—

Wren swallowed hard around the small lump that formed in her throat. Ever since all but crash landing at Wicked’s Rest she had been endlessly surprised by the kindness people showed her. She hadn’t ever really considered before that this may be the norm for humans and their society. Felix was offering her kindness simply because they wanted to. She couldn’t say it made her any less perpetually terrified of those around her, but at least it was comforting to know that kindness was the go to for a lot of people she had, thankfully, already met.

“Oh, yes! I think so, too. Something about being bad before you can be good at it,” Wren agreed cheerfully. She peeled carefully at the wrapper around the base of the muffin before taking a bite. One of the things that Wren had also come to love was all the various foods humans had to offer. The muffin was sweet and the sugar went right to her head with how ready she felt to bounce all around. “Wow! This is amazing, Felix!” Maybe baking was something people were just good at off the bat. Felix seemed to be at least.

Nodding along, Wren took Felix’s words into consideration. So they weren’t good at it off the bat then. Practice was the key. She’d have to keep that in mind for herself. All wasn’t lost. “I get that, though. I’m always stressed—especially about things I can’t control, which I’ve been told isn’t great for me, but it’s hard not to and all. Do you make cookies or anything? Or cupcakes? Those are baked goods, right?” Okay, reign it in, Wren. That wasn’t a normal thing to ask someone—a fellow human. It took her best efforts sometimes to not look like a fish out of water.

Wren clapped her hands together and smiled expectantly. She hoped that they didn’t feel too pressured right now, but this was a big step for her. Cooking and trying to offer it to people without having an anxiety filled meltdown. She thought she was doing pretty well so far. “So? Thoughts? Concerns? Comments? Questions?” She asked, trying to do her best to not look over eager, but failing.

—

She was right about that, at least; the first step to being really good at something was being really bad at it. Felix’s mother had been particularly fond of that saying, smiling each time one of her children came to her to admit to some mistake. That’s how you learn, she’d tell them. So… maybe Wren’s potato salad was effectively poison. Maybe Felix would regret eating it. But this was how she was going to learn, wasn’t it? Their mother had helped them with that, so maybe it was their duty to pay it forward and help Wren.

They smiled as she took a bite of the muffin, pleased that she seemed to enjoy it. “I’ll give you the recipe, if you want. Um, baking is — It’s about being precise, but knowing when to improvise. My mom used to say it was like jazz music. There’s notes, but some of it is you making it up as you go.”

It was easy to see themself in Wren. In her stress, her anxiety. Felix had a pretty good idea how she was feeling right now, and they wanted to help. If that meant eating bad potato salad, they’d eat it. “Yeah,” they confirmed with a nod. “I make cookies a lot. Cupcakes sometimes, too, but I’d rather just make a normal cake. I don’t know why, but I like normal cakes better than cupcakes. Those are baked goods, yeah.” Man, Wren wasn’t kidding when she said she was new to cooking. Maybe she was a sheltered kid, someone who’d just moved to town for college or something. She was about the right age, and Felix had heard that some college kids didn’t even know how to do laundry when they first got to their dorms.

The potato salad sat on their tongue, and it was… wrong. All of it was wrong. The texture, the taste. It was hard not to make a face as it settled, and when Felix swallowed, it was… a little too hard of a gulp to pass for neutrality. They opened their mouth, now blessedly free of “potato salad” and tried to think of something to say.

Luckily, they were rescued by an approaching person. The man wore a red shirt and red shirts, with a red had sporting claws on either side. He came to stand beside Wren, the smile on his face a little too wide. “Shrimptastic day we’re having!” He greeted, and Felix, eyes wide, nodded.

“Um. Yeah?”

“Have you seen our booth? We’re just over there. We have pamphlets. Would you like a pamphlet?”

—

Jazz music. Wren wasn’t quite sure what that was, but she could figure it out. The website Google had been her best friend since stumbling right into the thick of human culture. “Sure! That would be really nice.” She nodded, “improvise… kind of like how I did in the potato salad!” She supplied, looking proud of herself. The website did say that you could throw whatever you wanted into it and it’d more than likely work.

“A normal cake! Like the big ones with a bunch of layers? I saw that on a TV show.” Wren gasped, trying to refrain from getting more muffin crumbs all over her sweater. She wasn’t entirely successful, but that was fine. “Do you have a favorite flavor or anything? I’ve heard that you can’t go wrong with chocolate. I like chocolate loads.” She informed them. Taking another bite of her muffin had her head bobbing along happily as if there was music she was dancing to.

Mouth full of muffin, Wren didn’t get to hear what Felix thought of her potato salad when someone came up beside her. She did her best not to choke on the baked goods in her startled state. Thankfully with that came not shrieking out loud like the impulse had been. Wren quickly chewed and swallowed, wiping at the crumbs on her face. ‘Shrimptastic day’... what did that mean? Shrimp were delicious, she’d allow that.

“Um, yes?” Wren wasn’t sure if that was the right answer. “What is your booth about? Shrimp?” Someone did say that they had been given a bunch of shrimp they didn’t want. Her brown eyes flickered over to Felix to see if they had any earthly idea what could be going on with this shrimp enthusiastic person. “I didn’t realize so many people here liked shrimp that much.”

—

Felix didn’t want to encourage more potato salads like this one. They really didn’t. But saying, no, nothing like what you did with the potato salad, do the opposite of whatever you did with the potato salad would probably hurt Wren’s feelings, and that wasn’t at all what Felix wanted. So they grit their teeth together in a forced grin and nodded their head. “Yeah! Like that!” Surely not every attempt would be as bad as this one, right?

“Yeah, like that. I like chocolate a lot, but I have to be careful how I make it. I’m lactose intolerant — uh, which means I don’t process cow’s milk well — so I have to, you know, use other ingredients instead. But you can make it work! And if you don’t have allergies to worry about, they make a lot of boxed good cake mixes. Pretty much all you have to do is add the wet ingredients!” Maybe that should be Wren’s first stepping stone if she wanted to be a baker. It was hard to mess up a boxed cake mix, wasn’t it?

It was strange, feeling grateful for a stranger approaching to talk about shrimp. After their experience at the theatre with Mona, Felix had little desire to talk about shrimp at all. But talking about shrimp would give them time to think of something nice to say about Wren’s potato salad, wouldn’t it? It was… was sticky a compliment? No, right? She probably hadn’t been going for sticky.

The man smiled at Wren, something strange behind his eyes. “Isn’t everything about shrimp? If it isn’t, it should be.” His eyes flickered down to the potato salad. “I spotted you from across the way. Your food looks very good. I think we might have similar ideologies.” He reached out, putting a hand on Wren’s arm in a way that was strange; like he wasn’t quite used to having hands. Felix blinked.

“Um, actually —”

The man continued as if they hadn’t spoken. “Of course people like shrimp. Who would deny shrimp? You wouldn’t, would you? Would you deny shrimp the respect they deserve? The fear? The awe? Be honest.”

—

“My friend Van is like that! She offered me medicine once when I cried at her work then got raw meat.” Wren informed Felix. You’re supposed to share stories with friends or people who would become friends, right? She was totally nailing this. Boxed mix sounded a lot easier than trying to bake from scratch. Maybe she’d have to give that a try. She could make something for her friends and hopefully they’d like it! “Oh, that sounds like a nice idea, thank you! I’ll give that a try. I can follow instructions, for the most part. Sometimes I like to do whatever I want since that’s more fun, but I’ll do my best to try to follow it all without too much change.” Jazz, jazz music. Had to follow it to make it work best, but with some changes is what Felix said.

The man had a certain look in his eye that was making the hair on the back of Wren’s neck stand up. She didn’t have a good gut feeling, but when did she ever? This could just be her anxiety talking, knowing her. Poppy always poked at her mercilessly for her fear over the smallest things that she wouldn’t be able to sense real danger if it smacked her in the face. Was this one of those situations? She wasn’t equipped to be able to handle this, she was sure.

“Oh, ha! Um, thanks!” Wren laughed nervously, the brief grimace on her face quickly being hidden by an equally as uncomfortable looking smile. “I didn’t think everything should be about shrimp, to be honest. Isn’t there other things to enjoy like… I don’t know? Nature? Um, stuff that isn’t shrimp? Right, Felix?” She quickly looked at them with a wild look in her eyes. She didn’t want to do this alone.

Shaking the man’s hand off as casually as Wren could manage, she looked at a loss for words. “Aren’t shrimp usually just eaten instead? Is that what your pamphlet is about? A shrimp eating contest sounds like fun!”

—

“Oh, hey, I know Van!” And… they also knew that humans weren’t supposed to eat raw meat. Felix could handle it — the jaguar was built for digesting raw meat, and they did share a body — but it made human sick. Maybe Van didn’t know that, or Wren didn’t, or both; either way, Felix felt it was their responsibility, as an adult in the equation, to say something. “You cooked the meat, though, didn’t you? You really need to cook meat before you eat it. I mean, um, there are some kinds you can eat raw, I think — like sushi and stuff — but for the most part, you’re really supposed to cook it.”

At least she seemed willing to accept boxed cake mix. Felix thought it would be a big step for Wren, the kind of thing that could really push her in the right direction. Boxed cake mix would be so much better than this potato salad, because anything would be better than this potato salad. Not that Felix was going to say that. They were not breaking kids’ spirits. “They usually put the instructions on the box with the cake mix. But, um, you know, you can still add stuff to it! Like… chocolate chips.” And not onions, they wanted to add. Definitely not onions.

They wondered what had drawn this shrimp-loving man their way. Surely he didn’t really want Wren’s potato salad, did he? He kept looking at it, something like hunger in his eyes. Felix moved to grab him a fork when Wren spoke, drawing their attention away. “Um, yeah. Shrimp is cool, but it’s not everything. Haha.”

It was like a flip had been switched. The more Wren spoke about shrimp, the less friendly the man seemed. His hand dropped from her shoulder, his eyes narrowed. “Eaten? You would eat them? Shrimp are to be adored! Worshiped! Eaten, perhaps, but only after a natural death. Only to keep them close, to make them a part of you.” He reached into his pocket, retrieving a pamphlet which he shoved into Wren’s face. “You will educate yourself. You must.”

“Hey,” Felix took an uncertain step forward. “Look, you’re being a little —”

The man turned to them, reaching out and shoving them. It wasn’t a particularly hard shove, but it caught them off guard enough to send them stumbling backwards and make them drop the tray of muffins they were holding. “You cannot possibly understand,” the man mumbled, seeming to grow more and more frantic. “You could never. But you!” He turned back to Wren, gesturing again to the potato salad. “You must! Come with me. Come with us.” As he said it, he reached into his pocket again, this time producing… a shrimp.

—

“Oh, wow! She’s great, huh?” Wren smiled happily. Oh. Right. Humans didn’t eat raw meat. Sometimes she forgot how far away from human she was the longer she was in her human form. Though, then stuff like this would happen and she’d be very much reminded how human she wasn’t. “Um, sure! Yes. I definitely cooked the sausage. Don’t worry. I am very much a food safety expert. I watched two videos on the site YouTube about it. Especially since I didn’t want anyone getting sick from my potato salad!” She looked it up after realizing that human stomachs couldn’t handle what a siren’s stomach could.

Wren really wished that they were still talking about boxed cake mix instead of shrimp. Which, that was something she never thought she’d think. She loved eating shrimp. This whole shrimp loving man seemed to take it to another level than her casual enjoyment. Casual enjoyment of shrimp was also another thing that Wren didn’t think she would ever think to herself before. The longer Wren is in Wicked’s Rest, the more she is convinced it’s an odd place to live. It worked out, though, she was pretty sure she also was considered odd to most people.

Blinking owlishly, Wren merely stared at the man with wide eyes. This… was so bizarre. She flinched back with the pamphlet being shoved in her face. At least this wasn’t as distressing as Regan taking her to see a dead bird. Wren had almost transformed in front of the woman with how upset she was, so she would take the building anxiety over that any day. Especially when it was with some man insisting that she educate herself on the worship of shrimp.

“Hey!” Wren said sharply the moment that he shoved Felix. “That was mean! Don’t touch my friend!” She shook her head rapidly as he seemed to get more frantic and set his sights on her instead. Snatching the shrimp out of the man’s hand, Wren bit off the shrimp leaving only the tail. She chewed thoroughly and shook the tail around, “that’s what I think of your shrimp! Go away! You touch my friend again and I’ll claw a chunk of you and your shrimp! Again!” Wren scowled at the man, shoving his shoulder hard to get him away from the pair. “Get out of here, weirdo!”

—

“Yeah! Van is great. And, um, so is cooking sausage. Before you eat it. Which you should do!” Did watching two YouTube videos make you an expert on something? It was hard to judge without knowing the length of the videos, Felix supposed. They’d seen videos on YouTube that were up to eight hours long, though they’d never ventured to watch any of them. There was every possibility that Wren was an expert on food safety, even if the content of her potato salad made them doubt that she was an expert at food anything.

In any case, she was probably better with food than… this guy. This guy who was so angry at the prospect of them eating shrimp, a popular food item! Felix didn’t mind the shove, really — they’d suffered far, far worse, after all — but it was nice that Wren was so upset about it. They offered her a small, grateful smile. “I’m okay, Wren,” they assured her, glancing down at the muffins. At least they’d managed to let one person eat one before they were ruined. And Wren had said they were good!

They glanced back up, away from the muffins and back to the situation at hand. The situation which saw Wren… eating the man’s pocket shrimp. That couldn’t be healthy, could it? It had been in his pocket! Shrimp needed to be stored at certain temperatures, probably! Felix took an uncertain step forward, faltering when the shrimp man’s wail cut through the air.

“You would dare? What makes you think you’re worthy? What makes you think you’ve earned this?” He pointed a finger in Wren’s face, wagging it around. His own face was red with fury, growing impossibly redder as he was shoved away. He looked from Wren to Felix and back again, eyes narrowing. “We won’t forget this,” he said lowly. “You’ve made our list now. You!” He pointed to Wren. “Are an enemy of the shrimp.”

And with that, he turned on his heel, stomping away and tossing the pamphlet behind him.

Felix knelt, picking it up and flipping through it. “Um, that was… weird,” they admitted, shoving the pamphlet into their pocket. They’d find a garbage can to dump it in later. “It was nice of you to stand up for me, though. I really appreciate that. Are you okay?”

—

Felix insisted they were okay, but Wren felt so angry. How dare this man think he could just shove people around because they don’t like shrimp? All Felix’s hard work was on the grass. It made Wren’s heart hurt and that only increased her anger. She let out a shaky breath and managed a small smile in Felix’s direction. “I’m glad you’re okay, Felix. That wasn’t okay what he did! I’m very sorry for your muffins. That’s so mean of him. Mean people don’t deserve good things!” She turned her sharp glare to the man in question.

“I would dare? No, you dare!” Wren threw back in return. Though it wasn’t the best comeback, but she was too mad to think of anything better. “Get your dumb finger out of my face, weirdo! I hope you stub your toe every morning when you wake up and every night when you go to bed! It hurts really bad and you deserve it!” Wren shrieked back at the man. “That shrimp wasn’t even that good so I’m not that worried about being on your list! List of bad shrimp recipes and storing, I bet!” She huffed. “Watch some long YouTube videos and maybe you’ll be a better person after!”

Enemy of the shrimp. Wren would eat shrimp for breakfast if it meant telling that man what’s what again. She huffed and knelt down to carefully pick up the now ruined muffins. “That was really weird. I don’t think normal people keep shrimp in their pockets.” Her head shook as she held the muffins with a sad sigh. “I’m sorry about your muffins, Felix. They were very yummy and he ruined them.” The younger girl sniffled, feeling the tears start to well in her big, brown eyes. “I’m fine! Sorry, I cry at everything.” Wren hiccuped weakly. “I’m just so sad that he was so mean to you! Maybe we could make muffins some other time? Ones that won’t end up on the grass.”

—

The anger on her face was a familiar thing. Felix didn’t get mad often, didn’t tend to rage against any machine or whatever it was that people did when they were upset with the world at large, but the jaguar did. They felt his anger in their chest sometimes, burning and directionless, upset at a situation he had no control over but was stuck in all the same. Did Wren’s feel similar? Felix wondered, sometimes, how things felt when your body was only yours. Was it preferable? Or was it good to have that ‘out,’ that thing inside of you that you could point the finger at if things went too far?

The shrimp man stormed off, not bothering to respond to Wren’s words. He’d said his piece, it seemed, put them both on some… list that Felix hoped wasn’t a literal thing. (He didn’t know their names, did he? Felix had called Wren by hers, but only her first name! You couldn’t do anything with just a first name. Could you? Anxiety ebbed in their chest.) Felix watched him go, unable to relax even after he’d disappeared into the crowd.

Turning to Wren, they tried to offer a comforting smile. They wanted to be a force of good, a steady thing to lean upon. It was hard; Felix hadn’t felt steady in years now. But Wren was clearly upset, even if she said she was fine. “I can make new muffins,” they assured her. “And, um, yeah. You could help. If you wanted to. Um… I don’t know about you, but I’m not really… feeling the picnic anymore. If you want, we could go back to my apartment, and I could show you how to make muffins? Maybe we can come back tomorrow and bring them. Does that sound okay?”

—

Using her free hand, Wren wiped beneath her eye where a tear had escaped. She felt like a tsunami inside right now. Everything was a swirling mix of chaotic emotions that she was having a hard time tampering down. She couldn’t remember a time she felt so angry and so upset in one breath. That man was just mean and he was mean to her friend. That wasn’t okay. She didn’t want her friends to be upset or hurt because other people didn’t know how to be kind. Part of her contemplated actually going flying for the first time in… well, ages, but immediately decided against it. She wouldn’t be any good flying like this, even if she already wasn’t the best flier there was.

Wren managed a small smile in return. “That would be fun.” She agreed after a moment and a small sniffle. “I don’t think this picnic sounds very fun right now, either. That sounds like a lot more fun.” She sighed shakily, standing to her feet to reluctantly throw away the newly ruined muffins. Wren wiped her hands on her jeans and contemplated whether or not she wanted to take the potato salad with her to Felix’s apartment. Maybe people would enjoy it and she could come back for the tupperware container tomorrow when they brought the new muffins.

“Okay! Okay, muffin mission time. We got this.” Wren did her best to be optimistic after the torrent of emotions that had been swirling throughout her. “I’m thinking we make sure to taste two of them, one each, that way more than just one person gets to have them.” She reasoned, practically skipping beside Felix as they headed away from the picnic. The picnic definitely hadn’t gone like Wren envisioned, but she got something out of it regardless. More time with a new friend and apparently on the list of the shrimp… Whatever that may mean she could only hope for the best and be optimistic for what could come. Not everything had to be scary, right? Right.

#para: a shrimptastic picnic #wickedswriting #para: felix #recoveringdreamer

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