abraxaslogs | [open] I was tame, I was gentle, til the circus life made me mean

Wilhelm is only a little late in marking his second anniversary in Thorne. Two whole years and he hasn't died yet. Not only that, but he thinks he actually might have grown. He doesn't see it until he looks backward and remembers how hard everything was that first year.

So, he decides that the best way to commemorate it is by doing something his mom would have killed him for: he gets a tattoo. Inked in crisp black lines, two frogs climb up a fern on his right bicep. And of course he sprung for the ink that glows in the moonlight.

With his skin angry and red after being stabbed with needles hundred of times, his next move is to search the market stalls for the healing salve the werewolf tattoo artist recommended. Maybe you can help him track it down — it's obvious he's looking for something, not just browsing for fun. Once he gets his hands on some, he's finding a bench and slathering the stuff on.

Marking something important like not dying was definitely an event that Will understood. Every year the demigods got their own camp bead. Another year marked. Maybe they should start doing something like that here. Since they were brought without their camp beads anyway. Will felt naked without them.

Will had been searching for another that might be medicinal or be useful in a battle, he'd been taking Wille's news to heart. Having been through 3 already, he'd gotten pretty good at knowing what to get. That being said, a lot of the items here were less familiar than they would have been if he'd been in Long Island. It was difficult searching for exactly what he needed.

Spotting Wille, he hung back for a moment. It didn't take him too long to spot the new tattoo on his bicep. Cute. It was cute. He wasn't sure what Wille had about frogs but, if he liked them, Will liked them. He waited until Wille was slathering on the salve before he plopped down next to him.

"Nice ink. I can fix that for you, you know--but I get the feeling maybe its your first war wound. Is there an occasion or do you just like frogs?"

He looks up when he sees from out of the corner of his eye someone approaching his bench, flashes a smile when he realizes it's Will. The other boy looks better than he did the last time they ran into each other in the square. He's upright, for one thing, instead of slumped against a lamppost.

"Hey," he greets, spreading the salve over the last bit of his new tattoo and getting rid of the excess by rubbing his hand together. "It's okay, I think I'll be fine with this. Besides, shouldn't you be conserving your energy?"

This last remark comes with a pointed look. He knows that the permanent twilight of Nocwich, while great for the native werewolves and vampires, poses a bit of a problem for Will, being that he's the son of the god of light and all that. And to answer his question—

"I've made it two years here. I just felt like I should...honor it somehow." A grin pokes outs, and he bobs his head in concession. "And I like frogs."

Suddenly Will looks super guilty, like he'd been caught stealing for the first time. He blushed, bringing some color to his face that he could probably use. "You caught me. Actually I've been taking keeping my time here short. Or taking sunlight bathroom breaks. You know, so I don't accidentally kill anyone?" Cause that was the last thing he wanted, to hurt someone else to keep himself going. Or cause an international incident. They already had plenty of those.

So, yes Wille, you'd caught him. The teen who had a tendency to stay up for days on end, work until he literally collapsed, was yet again gallivanting around Nocwich. Not soon after being confined to the bunker for an entire week with everyone else in the Free Cities. That had been awesome. Lots of sunlight in an underground bunker.

But at least he'd figured out it ran in the family? Apollo seemed to have the same trouble. Which was concerning on a whole new level being his dad was a freaking god. "I think if I pass out again Nico is going to chain me somewhere outdoors with a skeleton bodyguard." Will was only half joking really. He totally trusted Nico to summon him a skeleton bodyguard with instructions to not let him out of the sunlight.

"But two years here, that really is something. I'm glad you found a way to honor it. Do frogs symbolize something or do you just like them?"

He hasn't known Will for very long, but he's very familiar with the other boy's tendency to put everyone else before himself, to literally wither away before leaving anyone untended or inconvenienced. It sounds like Will has adopted some accommodations to make his time in Nocwich less hazardous to his health, so Wilhelm won't harangue him about it. He'll just keep an eye on his friend to make sure he's not on the brink of passing out.

"Let me know if you need an emergency doughnut, okay?"

Sugar had seemed to do the trick last time, like it was a sunlight substitute.

Stretching his arm out to give Will a better look at his tattoo, he continues, "Frogs go through metamorphosis. At different stages of their lives, they look like completely different creatures." His eyes trace the lines of the frogs inked into his skin. "So...I thought it was fitting. I'm not the same person I was when I got here."

Will appreciated being looked after. At least, from a friendship point of view. He normally would have protested heavily that he was fine and would be fine, except, well. He knew not to be stupid. And that Nico would probably kill him. At least Wille wasn't likely to just care. And not in the normal demigod way. It was weird. But nice.

The demigod gave him a wink and smiled. "I promise." He pressed his fingers to Wille's wrist, almost to get a good angle and see the tattoo, but, no, he was cheating. And of course, he didn't need to even check. The other boy was fine. Better than Will was doing at the moment.

"I like it. It's your way of memorializing your time here, and how much it has changed you. For the better?" He assumed he wouldn't ink himself for something horribly traumatic but....maybe?

Will gets away with his sneaky vitals check, because Wilhelm is busy admiring his tattoo all over again. He is, in fact, perfectly fine. Only, his arm is a little sore, having been poked with a needle hundreds of times.

"For the better," he agrees. "It...hasn't always been easy."

A vast understatement. He struggled from the very first day, still grieving his brother and cradling a broken heart, suddenly thrown into a world where everything was new and nothing made sense. He'd been haunted by nightmarish entities and possessed by old gods. He'd watched a city engulfed in flames, watched a town burn, and felt the weight of all those ashes that used to be lives. He'd gone mad in the belly of a mountain, scrabbling for survival amid heaps of corpses that he was terrified of joining, decomposing before he was even dead. He'd lost people he'd gotten used to building his day around.

And nevertheless, he's still here.

"But I think it's because I had to fight so hard that I've made it to where I am."

Will didn't need his vitakinesis to know that Wilhelm was going through something -- had gone through something during the two years he's been here. Pulled from a world he had called home, gone through trial after trial, while trying to find his own sense of self in his alien world, coming through it and becoming his new self. Changing, metamorphosis.

"Change is always hard. But it sounds like you've done an amazing job, fighting for yourself. The tattoo is beautiful, and it suits you." Will let go of Wille's arm. "Why did you get it now? Just felt right?"

To have his efforts acknowledged feels like a weight lifting from his chest. It was hard as hell, but that's okay. Little by little, he got there — he broke the surface, and now instead of thrashing, he can float. Ducking his head as a smile splits his face, Wilhelm busies himself with replacing the lid on the jar of healing stuff and slipping it into his messenger bag.

"Thanks." For validating his struggle, and complimenting his tattoo. "I guess it just felt right, and I finally thought of something I want on me for the rest of my life. If I'm going to do something my mom would kill me for, I needed to make it worth it."

This last part is only half joke.

Will knew Wille meant it as a joke. Kind of. Still, it made him think of a couple things. Just how different their life was. Wilhelm's mother would have been upset he got a tattoo. Will's mom helped him pick it out. And.....was there any further meaning to it? Did Wille expect to go back home? Or was it just a saying, a phrase that slipped out.

"Your mom sounds like the strict type. Would she really be upset over it?" With parents like Naomi and Apollo, Will almost found it hard to believe. "Still, it sounds like you got the tattoo for all the right reasons. And it's really lovely too."

"She'd be furious. She's not big on individuality."

But the way he says it, it's almost like he relishes her fury. He doesn't have to bend to his mother's will anymore; he's strong enough now to not only have a will of his own, but to follow it through. Before, he would have shrunk at the thought of his mom's cutting stare and disappointed mouth, but now he can't help but laugh at the thought of her fretting over how he'd cover it up, how they'd spin the media coverage of the Crown Prince's rebellious phase.

He lifts his eyebrows at Will, lips curling with a hint of teasing.

"Are there wrong reasons to get a tattoo?"

"I suppose the only really wrong reason is one that doesn't sit right with you. Although I'd argue that if you choose words, use spell check." Not necessarily a reason to get a tattoo but, a sound practice? Especially for someone like Will who was super dyslexic.

"Not big on individuality? Wow, she'd hate my mom. And my dad. Like my entire family. Growing up sounds like it was rough with a situation like that." He couldn't imagine. Well, he could. Will knew what other kids had gone through with their mortal parents, the ones who just wanted them to fall in line, and they simply, couldn't. But it wasn't something he himself experienced.

He nods with exaggerated solemnity for Will's sage words — use spellcheck. Then the humorous air disperses, settles into something heavier. His eyes flick away.

"I survived. Well...I got to come here."

A part of him still feels like he has no right to complain, not when his parents provided him with every necessity, comfort, and advantage possible. But there was something missing. Their support, the sense that he could always come to them with his problems and they would listen. The sense that they loved him unconditionally for who he was, and not because he was the only heir left. He shakes his head and slants a look at Will next to him.

"So your mom's cool?"

"Yeah, my mom is cool. She's a singer," Chris decided to leave out the 'alt-country' part since the last 2 times he mentioned that to people they had actually gagged. Maybe alt-country was an acquired taste? Either way, he knew Apollo liked it and Will thought that counted for a lot. "So she's kind of all about creativity and individuality. She took me to get my tattoo herself. I told her I wanted to do something in honor of Apollo and she kind of went in head first. So, she's cool. When I get to see her. She's usually not around, on tour and stuff."

Or when he was there he was backstage and it was lonely. In a way, Will and Wille had similar but opposite problems. Will grew up with his mom in the spotlight, hiding backstage, feeling alone and neglected.

Yeah, Wilhelm knows something about feeling alone and neglected. He would be surprised to learn that Will, who's so upbeat and sunny, has spent his upbringing feeling the same way. But he can feel a shadow crossing when his friend says, when I get to see her, and he wonders if it was hard for Will to have a mom who was always busy with something else.

"My mom was really busy with work too. I get it."

Since they're sitting side by side, he nudges his shoulder against Will's as a show of solidarity.

"That's cool, though, that she supported your decision."

He had nearly forgotten that Will has a tattoo too — it's not like they ever hang out shirtless. He'd only seen it at that festival the vampires hosted in Ikorr, and...Wilhelm had been less than sober that night. Much less than sober.

[open] I was tame, I was gentle, til the circus life made me mean

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