LOST IN TRANSLATION → KALFAB
TAGGING → Fab Pepikrankenitz (@itzfabi) & Kalasin Ambrosius
TIMELINE → Monday, October 23, 2017
SETTING → Halloween Festival Corn Maze
SUMMARY → Being lost in a corn maze is like a bad dream. Being lost inside with your ex is like a full-blown nightmare.
Kalasin had thought that she could get through Halloween without being overwhelmed by it all -- just take deep breaths, pretend that it was some crazy commercialized mortal holiday and not something that witches and wizards more like her sister and father took super seriously, forget it was the first holiday where she wouldn't have an other half to dress up with... She didn't know why she thought it would be easy, but after a couple hours of fun at the carnival it seemed like every little thing started to be a trigger. The couples strolling arm in arm, winning each other carnival prizes, the people dressed up as weird mockeries of witches, it was like she couldn't escape, until finally she ducked into the corn maze, figuring some time alone inside would clear her head. Kally had been inside for nearly an hour, and it was helping, actually -- or it had been, until she turned a corner to what she thought was the exit and found herself faced with another dead end instead. "No, seriously?" she whined, huffing as she turned around to start retracing her steps... only to find herself face to face with Fabi, of all people, and her heart dropped into her stomach.
Fab had decided to hit up the carnival for the food, mostly. He wasn't really a Halloween kind of guy -- costumes didn't really appeal to him unless they were funny, and candy wasn't really his thing (all sugar, no flavor usually). But food was something he could deal with -- caramel apples, wild popcorn flavors, fun spooky-themed snacks. They were all enticing to him. So, wearing his jack-o-lantern t-shirt just to be festive, he went to the carnival alone. This was his first Halloween in Walt as a single guy. He should have been excited to go to costume parties and hook up with girls or something. But he was mostly just emotionally eating everything he came in contact with. He'd ducked into one of the corn mazes with a large bucket of popcorn to be alone with his thoughts and, after a while, realized he was lost. Fabwas about to call one of the attendants for help, but then saw the familiar brown curls of his ex. He was fully prepared to dive behind the nearest cornstalk and hide, but it was too late. She saw him. Locking eyes with her, Fab sucked his teeth, trying to wriggle any popcorn kernels out of his gums before smiling a slightly-forced smile. "Hey," he said. "You lost too? I tried to do the 'put your hand on the wall and let it lead you out' trick but I think I did it wrong."
Kally nodded her head, at a loss for words. If it weren't for Fairy Godmother making sure magic didn't work inside of Walt, she might have thought she'd accidentally drawn him to her, for all the thinking about him she'd been doing today. But that was impossible; it was luck, probably of the bad variety, that had brought them together, not anything of her own doing. "Hey," she echoed back, scuffing the toe of her shoes along the ground, trying to keep her eyes focused on him instead of awkwardly dropping them down towards the ground. "Yeah, I guess I wasn't really paying attention to where I was going, it was so quiet in here and everything outside was... too much." She shrugged, swallowing a lump that had formed in her throat. She didn't know how to talk to him anymore -- that was probably the hardest part of all of this, although it felt like she was changing her mind on what the hardest part of not being with him anymore was on a daily basis. "I haven't tried that yet, but I was hoping maybe if I looked at where the sun is I could like, guess which direction the exit should be in." She shrugged, feeling like there was no real polite way to split up now, and she awkwardly mumbled, "Um, should we try to find the way out together? Two brains are better than one."
Fab wondered if this was some kind of sign. It wasn't every day a guy got literally trapped with his ex in the middle of a corn maze, unable to escape. It was funny -- Seven months of weirdness seemed to overshadow five years of togetherness. It was almost impossible to figure out what to say when he'd done it with such ease for nearly half a decade. "I get that," he nodded, noting that the scarers and performance stuff the fair had to offer was a lot less fun by himself, and he figured Kally could relate. "Interesting technique!" Fab tried to say enthusiastically, and it maybe came out a little too enthusiastic for his liking. His mind was probably trying to overcompensate for the way he was feeling, which was 'awkward'. Clearing his throat, he nodded coolly at Kally, thinking her plan was a good one. The more brainpower they had, the faster they could get out of there and out of this situation. "Sounds like a plan," he said as he began to walk in the direction he came from. "So -- who you here with? Dagny?" he asked, knowing that if she knew he was there alone he'd look kind of pathetic. But Dagny was their mutual friend, so if he lied and said he was with her when she was actually with her, she'd know he was lying.
Kally tried to smile in response, but she knew that it didn't meet her eyes, and her cheeks were probably puffed out -- a usual tell that she was faking it. He knew that about her, too; she was sure that she couldn't fool him, even now when it felt like they were practically strangers. Her memories hadn't just washed away like a sandcastle hit by high tide, and Kalasin had to believe that his hadn't, either. If they had, life was just playing a cruel joke on her, making her remember everything while he was allowed to forget and move on first. "It probably works a lot better on like, a regular hike and not one through man-made walls of corn, but it was the best I had," she said nonchalantly, missing the days where they might have tried something sillier or more off the wall to get out... or better yet, they might not have even minded being lost, so long as they were together. She walked a few steps at a quick pace to catch up with him, jamming iher hands in her coat pocket to resist the old muscle-memory instinct to reach out and take his hand when they were side by side like this. "Dagny? Yeah, I'm -- " she started to lie, then shook her head, saying, "No, not Dagny. I'm with, um..." More lies rolled around in her head, ones to make it seem like she wasn't just kind of pitiful and lonely and unsure what to do with all the time she'd used to spend with him. But what was the point in tossing out names like Napoleon and Nate and Toby and anyone else when it wasn't true? "Just me. I'm with just me," she admitted, asking with a barely concealed hint of curiosity, "What about you? Your cottagemates seem nice."
Fab took note of the way Kally smiled at him. It was...different. Not exactly something he was used to seeing from her (at least not pointed toward him), and he didn't want to make any judgments but it didn't seem genuine, either. Maybe she was nervous around him -- it made sense that she would be. Or maybe she'd changed. He knew he had. Fabi gave a nod at her words, popping a fistful of popcorn into his mouth to avoid saying something stupid. What that was, he wasn't sure, but he wasn't about to wait around til he found out. "The corn is man-made?" he asked instead, furrowing his brow as if serious even though he'd always had a suspicion that it was. He just felt like joking...maybe finally breaking this tension. Fab had never felt so claustrophobic around Kalasin...It was so odd. From their first day as friends, it was like instant comfort. And now? Instant discomfort, sweating, and nervous-poop feelings had taken the place of that. He started to be very thankful that he hadn't said he was with Dagny when it seemed like Kally was. But then she fumbled over her words a bit, before finally admitting to being alone. Like him. He knew that little fumble was her trying not to seem alone, like him. Shrugging nonchalantly, Fab answered. "I'm with 'just me', too." There was a sadness in his voice that he hadn't expected, despite the fact that he was trying to show solidarity with her -- there was no shame in being alone. "I would've come with Kale or something but he's got his friends. Other than that, I didn't have many options to go with and I really wanted to try the food."
Kally nodded her head vigorously, curls bobbing up and down as she realized that for a change, this was a topic she felt fairly at ease talking about with Fab -- one that wasn't filled with painful memories or awkward tension, just something she felt comfortable giving an opinion on, something neutral enough that the weight squeezing on her chest made it feel like she could actually breathe again. "Yeah! At least, I'm pretty sure -- I mean, there's one too many suspicious 'don't eat the corn!' signs around for it to be real. And it's not like they just ran around sprinkling seeds and grew it up overnight... if it were back home where Gani could like, magically grow it, maybe, but here I'm so sure there's got to be an element of fakeness to it." She liked that, though; Kalasin took comfort in all the hokey mortal things that people did to celebrate Halloween, just like she took comfort in the fact that she had just said a few whole sentences without overthinking or second guessing. Baby steps, right? Maybe someday they could even both hang out with Dagny at the same time again... but her stomach was straight back to being in knots, trying to imagine something that still felt so far off and hard to picture. Still, her smile seemed a little more genuine after that, and she nodded. "The food's all right... I just come because it makes my sister mad, how inauthentic it all is. And I wouldn't be a good little sister if I didn't deliberately do things to aggravate her every once in a while, right?" she joked, finding it was easier to talk when she was staring at the maze walls, peering for holes or... clues, peering at anything that wasn't Fab's stupid, cute, distractingly sad face. "If we ever get out of here, are there any foods I should make sure I try before I go home and marathon weird claymation movies while I finish making my costume?" Kally finally dared to glance back at him, although she ducked her head back to look at her feet again almost instantly; costumes were like another gaping wound, since it was the first time in years she'd had to make something without him there as her matching other half.
Fab laughed out loud when she pointed out the signs. He hadn't really noticed how blatant they were, nor had he put together the dots that that meant the corn was fake. "Well, I guess it's a good thing I'm not a thief who was planning to make creamed corn tonight! I would've been in for maybe the worst surprise, ever," he chuckled, feeling his tense body relax just the slightest bit. Joking felt nice -- Maybe not with the same comfort as before, but not mortifyingly awkward either. "How I wish I had a sibling around to annoy!" he exclaimed, calling out into the sky with hopes of somehow shaking the cornstalks with his volume like it would in a cartoon. But it was looking like not even a Bugs Bunny-style gag could get them out of there, now. "How is Gani, by the way?" he dared ask, hoping that the question didn't stir the awkwardness back up between them -- it felt rude, to have been pretty much part of the family for so long and not ask how her sister was doing. "I mean, aside from you going out of your way to annoy her," he smirked. Fabi cocked a brow at Kalasin's question, his heart doing some weird flip when he realized she'd asked him about food. She still valued his opinion on food. "Ahh...Nothing to die for, really." Ba dum tss. "Except maybe a candy apple. Nothing special about them, except they're kinda cute for your Instagram or whatever," he chuckled, feeling a heat rise in his cheeks when she mentioned her costume. "What are you gonna be?" he felt himself blurt before he could really think about whether or not he wanted to know the answer. Either way, it was going to be without him.
Kally shuddered at the idea of Fab just eating melted down plastic corn for dinner; it sounded like a surefire way for a person to end up in the hospital for like, toxic chemical ingestion, and even though it wouldn't have done any good inside of Walt, thinking about the chance to protect someone she loved -- or had loved, at least -- from that kind of unfortunate mishap was one of the rare times where she wished she was brave enough to conquer her fears and learn to use her magic to help people. "Good thing you've got something better on the menu, then," she replied meekly, blushing when he asked about Gani. It had always felt okay to rant about her sister when they'd been together, when she could trust him with anything that crossed her mind, but now she scrambled to try and put together the polite version, the kind that you told to a stranger on the street who didn't really care how you were doing, they just asked as a pleasantry. "She's good, she started working at Le Pub right when she turned 21 and I think she's having fun with it," Kally guessed, although she was pretty sure her sister spent more time upset she couldn't take her cat or brew things magically than she spent having fun. "And, um -- yeah, she's good," she concluded, feeling lame as she pulled her hands back out of her pocket to hang awkwardly by her sides instead. "Have they set up stations to decorate their own yet? I've been saying they should do that since like, freshman year of high school," Kally blurted out without thinking, although she always felt like she'd stuck her foot directly in her mouth when she mentioned happier times like that. "Oh, um -- I'm going to be a cereal killer," she explained, adding for clarification, "Like, wearing cereal boxes and stuff. Um, what are you going to be?" she asked to be polite, fear flitting through her when she realized she was dressing up completely on her own and he might have a squad or even a new girl to dress to match instead.
Fab gave a shrug, matching her meekness with his own. "I always do," he offered. Maybe he meant that he literally always had something better on his menu -- because he did, and creamed corn was actually pretty gross to him -- or maybe there was some weird subtext to it that even he didn't quite understand. Despite all they'd been through lately, Fab still wanted Kally to know that he was doing okay. Not that he was in any way better after their breakup, but he wasn't doing bad. He always found a way to be okay. Nodding, he couldn't help but chuckle at Kally's update on her sister. "Sounds like Gani -- conjuring up drinks behind the bar seems like a great way to get out her witchiness here." He finished his popcorn and crumbled the paper bag between his hands, not exactly sure where to toss it, so he just kept the trash in his hand, hanging at his side. "No! I think they just don't want anyone to show them up on their treat-making skills." Fab shook his head with disdain, but also a bit of amusement. Because he agreed -- DIY was always more fun, and he could decorate a candy apple better than anyone at this carnival. Raising his brows at Kalasin's answer, Fab couldn't help but let out a huge laugh at the hilarity of the pun. "That's so good! I think I'm gonna borrow a prop stroller from one of the drama clubs and put a bag of sugar in it -- Sugar Daddy," he shrugged with a smirk, a little proud of his own pun.
Kally nodded, chewing on the inside of her cheek as she wondered if she was reading too much into Fab's statement or not. Did that mean he was better off without her? Did that mean they were literally just talking about food? These were all the kinds of thoughts that drove her crazy if she started to let herself think about them too much. Instead, she tried to force the smile back onto her features, but she was sure it faltered as she said, "Here's to hoping that whatever happens to her, she isn't bartending on my 21st birthday, I'm sure she'd try to slip something into my drinks that would like... force me to go back home and resume magical training instead of staying in Walt." She made a face, both because of the thought of her sister's pressuring and because she wasn't sure if she'd started to veer into saying too much, and she wished that she could go back to the casual conversation -- it hadn't been that hard, had it? Maybe she just needed to stick to safer topics like food and the carnival and whatever else. Or even just on getting out of this maze; she'd help up fairly well by normal standards, but it was far from the best conversation she'd ever had with Fab in her life. Kally kind of assumed that no conversation they ever had again would be all that great, and the thought depressed her all over again as she stepped closer to the corn wall, trying to hear the sounds of the outside of the maze or something that would get them out of her sooner. He caught her off guard, though, and she was shocked to hear the sound of her own laughter, bursting out of her at his costume. "Oh my God, Sugar Daddy's fantastic, you're going to have so much fun with that," Kalasin told him, and just like that there was another flash of the normalcy that she craved so much. Without thinking, she blurted out, "I miss talking to you like this. About like, normal stuff, you know?" Maybe it wasn't quite true to say they'd been friends firstwhen they'd jumped into a relationship fairly quickly when they'd gotten to Walt, but Kally knew that they'd been friends too, like any good boyfriend and girlfriend should be -- and maybe they hadn't been great at the end, but they had been once upon a time. "Do you think we'll ever be just like -- not weird anymore?" she asked bluntly, figuring things had already been awkward enough, she couldn't make it that much worse.
Fab let out a laugh. He could imagine weirder situations than being bartended by your sibling on your birthday, but knowing Kally and Gani’s relationship, if she did decide to go to Le Pub, that birthday would be a memorable one to say the least. “Hey, no spell or potion like that would work here. You can hide from the magic all you want out here and no one can stop you.” He never understood why Kally was the way she was about her power — he always thought it was cool. But that was, of course, an opinion coming from a mere mortal. He didn’t know what witches went through, or what kind of pressure they were under, so he always supported her. Besides, the best parts of her had nothing to do with her powers. He was happy to hear her laugh when he shared his Halloween costume plans, her smile eliciting his, as well. He mirrored her amusement, a bit of heat rising in his cheeks as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Thanks, I try...” Fab offered, before Kalasin finally addressed the elephant in the room — er, the elephant in the corn maze. The heat in his cheeks burned harder, but he was still smiling nonetheless. He agreed with pretty much everything she had to say. “Gosh...” he sighed, shaking his head, “Same. Like, it’s weird that I don’t have anyone to laugh with like this.” He gestured between the two of them. Sure, he had friends like Dagny and Kale, but Kally had to know that what was between them was different, romantic or not. “I mean...I really hope so. I miss you,” he shrugged, downplaying his own honesty. “But I think we will.” He nodded. Now that they both were on the same page, they could certainly try to make things not-weird.
Kally pursed her lips together, trying to stop herself from saying more about Gani or about her magic or about all of the things that felt too personal to blurt out to her ex boyfriend in the middle of a corn maze. They were definitely a lot harder to deal with these days without him there as her support system, though; even when they weren't talking about what was on her mind, it had been reassuring to just know that he was on her side when she needed him, and that even if he didn't get it he cared about how she felt about things. "Probably a good thing, I might have like blasted this corn maze down and ruined the fun for everyone by now," she grumbled, although things were starting to look familiar again to her... Maybe? Who could really tell when they were just surrounded by green and yellow stalks and treading indistinguishable dirt trails. She kept walking forward anyway, though, because it was better than stopping and dragging out the awkwardness any longer. Kalasin wrung her hands together as she listened to Fab -- and even as he mimicked back words similar to her own, she waited for the other shoe to drop, for some kind of but or reason that they could never be even close to the same. She had to swallow the nervous lump in her throat to even speak again, tucking a stray strand of hair that had been blown by the wind behind her ear. "Laughing's good," she agreed, remembering when his laugh had been one of her favorite sounds in the whole world. "And I miss you, too, I just... get so lost in my own head, thinking I'll do something to make it worse or make it weird and then I don't do anything and..." Kalasin sighed deeply, saying, "Maybe if we ever get out of here we could just try to do something like... normal sometime. I don't know what, but I'm sure we could figure it out, right?" Her brain screamed at her that that was asking for too much too fast, though, and Kally's hand went right up to the cornstalks, tracing gently along the maze wall and quickly rambling, "I feel like there's starting to be more like air coming through? Maybe that means we're getting closer to the outside."
Fab noticed the change in Kally when he'd started talking about her magic. Maybe he shouldn't have said anything -- he knew it was a sore subject, but he just wanted to show her he was still supportive. She must have felt all of the pressure from the entire world wanting her to be more into her magic, but he never expected that of her, and never would. He was always on her side with that. "Okay, ruin the fun maybe, but at least it'd get us out of here," he chuckled, inspecting their surroundings for what felt like the millionth time. Every cornstalk was starting to blur together to him, he couldn't keep track of where they'd been, so he just followed her lead. He never expected to be reconnecting (he used the term loosely) with his ex in such circumstances, but maybe it was some kind of sign. Fab had felt incomplete or something without her companionship, romantic or not. Maybe this was the universe's way of letting them know they belonged in each other's lives regardless. Exes did that sometimes...right? "Me too, like, I'm always thinking 'is this okay to say?', 'is this crossing a line?', 'can exes act like this together?'" He spoke fast, though it overlapped with Kalasin's rambles as well, so Fab was almost certain that he didn't really hear what she'd said anyway until she swiftly changed the subject. ".....Normal! Normal sounds good. We could get Dagny and go grab ice cream at Elsa's or something," he shrugged. That was something they used to like to do, as one threesome instead of two twosomes. "I think Dag would appreciate it." He rolled his eyes a bit, acknowledging the fact that Dagny was kind of their 'child of divorce' in this breakup, and it was silly that they let it shake their friendship dynamic for so long. Knitting his brow, Fabi felt the breeze Kalasin was talking about and nodded his head eagerly. "Yeah! I think so, too," he smiled, walking faster with his hand along the wall of corn. "Eureka!" he grinned, finally seeing the way out in the short distance before them.
Kally let out an annoyed huff at the maze and the way it never seemed to end. "This is even worse than freshman year when we got lost for a little while and I had to go to the restroom, but everything was still like... new, and I didn't want to admit that's why I was in such a hurry," she laughed; she'd nearly forgotten about that until right now, and she hoped that it would be an amusing anecdote instead of a weird one. She was never sure anymore, though; she hated that she was never sure, so instead she kept talking a mile a minute, like if she didn't give him much time to react it would be as if she'd never said anything at all. "Note to junior and senior year me: it might be time to let the corn maze craze die and not go inside." Kalasin let out a breath of air she didn't even know she'd been holding in when he said out loud all the things she'd been thinking; it was almost as if he'd read her mind, or could see inside of her heart into exactly how she was feeling. But they didn't do that anymore, right? He was just feeling the same things as she was, and it already felt like she could breathe a little easier. Even if it still took some time to adjust, maybe some good would come out of this stupid maze after all. "Uh huh, you're just saying that because you think I won't steal your ice cream anymore, but that totally doesn't go away just because we're just friends now," she warned, and though the words stung a little bit still they didn't have the same bite to them that they'd had since February. "But I never say no to ice cream, and I'm sure Dagny would be relieved that we're not like... splitting custody anymore, I felt so bad," she admitted, her smile brightening at the sight of the maze exit. Although she was glad to be out, she was also kind of glad she'd been trapped long enough to finally say what had been on her mind for months now to Fab. Maybe things worked the way they did for a reason; life didn't need magic to work in mysterious ways. "Well, uh -- I should probably get home so that my cottagemates know I'm not dead, but we'll do that ice cream thing soon, right?" she asked hopefully as they crossed out of the maze and back into the open air of the festival.
Fab couldn’t help the laugh that burst through his chest when Kally reminded him of Freshman year. “Oh, God — That’s why you wanted to get out of there so bad?” He clapped his palm over his face as he laughed harder, now pairing that new knowledge with his own memory of the event. They were so new then. And by the time the most recent Valentine’s Ball had rolled around, they had felt bored with each other and their new lives...But it seemed like he was still learning new things about her, even now. He waved off her statement, still a wry smile on his face. “Nah...If you stopped going in these things you wouldn’t have these kinds of adventures anymore,” he teased. Wrinkling his nose at mention of Dagny, Fab nodded in agreement. “Yeah, it’s so not fair to her. What were we thinking?” He sighed, realizing now that the last few months he’d been so consumed in his own feelings, he hadn’t considered his friends’. As they neared the exit, Fab sped up his walking a bit to reach the fresh air as soon as possible, and inhaled a breath that he was sure he needed after the incredibly awkward few minutes they’d had in there. “Yeah! I’ll text you or something,” He starter to back away from her, hugging his arms in defense against the slight breeze that he felt. The chill in the air said it wasn’t really ice cream weather, but he would be damned not to accept this little slice of normalcy.
Kally felt like a gigantic weight had been lifted off her shoulders, being able to see Fab laugh like that again around her. Maybe in the grand scheme of the hundred or more years she'd live it wouldn't be a big deal, but right now someone being a huge part of her life for the last five years meant a lot to her, and she wasn't ready to give him up yet. She nodded her head to his question, laughing along with him, glad that for the first time she really did see a sliver of hope that they'd be able to stay friends after all. "Ugh, you're right, I'm sure I'll be back next year -- who knows, maybe next time we'll bring Dagny and she'll make sure we never get lost in the first place, I trust her sense of direction more than mine." She didn't really have an answer to what they'd been thinking, putting Dagny in the middle like that; Kalasin still didn't have a lot of answers for things, but right now she felt like she didn't need them. "Well... see ya," she offered him a genuine smile this time, resisting the old temptation to hug him goodbye as she waved instead, feeling lighter than she had in months as she walked back in the direction of her cottage.
