“So what brings you here?”

Silence is what they get in return from the now dreamless walker, staring into his cup of tea. It’s a moment before he can muster any sort of response. The floating island is vexing, entirely, and there’s little Vin can do or say about it. He’s tired, and he’s been tired since waking up. Had it not been for the circumstances of his arrival, he might have rolled over onto the grass, convinced he had walked into someone’s dream on accident or wound up having his own for once. He’s never had any normal ones, but he can glean what’s unreal and what isn’t, and the island seems very unreal.

“I don’t… know,” Vin offers, his hand trembling in rest on top of the table. “I was just brought here, I’ve never seen this place or anyone l- like the people I’ve seen here. It’s… I’m not crazy, I know other people are the same here.”

There was a strained silence. The cup of tea was on the house, because the little cafe owner had taken one look at the guy and decided ‘he really needed it’. He’d cup the small teacup and bring it up to his lips, taking in more of the warmth than anything else. He’d seen people out there that had made him run in fear, and there’s only a select few groups in the world that can make him turn and run the other way. That was a lie, anyone could make Vin turn and run if they were scary enough or convincing enough, but none of them had looked so different at times.

It was enough to make the man shudder just thinking about it.

“You’ll have to find out more about that yourself,” The cafe owner replied, averting their gaze and focusing on cleaning a few dishes. Their resistance to speak on the matter was enough for Vin to bristle. He was one of the few people in the world who had all the reason to believe that the supernatural existed— he was one of them! As long as he didn’t die he was fine, sure, but this… was too much. His life was a miserable thing, but it was his, by gods! Draining the cup of tea, he set it back onto the saucer with a small clatter.

“Who can I go to? Who’s safe to talk to?”

At that, someone had rested a hand on Vin’s shoulder with a soft, but serious gaze. “I’m a priest, actually, and—“

Those first four words were all he had to say to leave Vin tearing out of the cafe, dashing into the cold and leaving nothing behind but the jingling bell above the door.

Funny, he didn’t remember lightning being part of his powers. The more alarm it caused him to have electricity shooting from his fingertips like a painful static, to the point where everywhere he ran— a most painful shot of static electricity would bite at them.

“Sorry! I- I’m sorry!” was all he could stammer on the way out, running at full speed towards somewhere— somewhere safe, somewhere he could calm down, a nook or cranny or some kind of hidey-hole where his panic attack could simmer and settle down, as lightning crackled over him as sure as the electricity his brain was shooting through his body, the impulse of fear and panic as raw as a cheetah within breadth of a gazelle’s loin and whether or not that’d be dinner or starvation.

Fear ruled everything. It ruled his life, and it apparently ruled the way he’d teleport from his own world to a new one with things like apocalypses and emotions on display for everyone to see, arguably a worst nightmare for him. Running down the steps to a little cove where a blessed statue remained, he hid and he breathed and slowly, the blue crackles on his skin, tracing like a static orb around his hidden tattoos began to fade. The statue, looking rather like a lovely deity, was taking on the brunt of his anxiety now. It quivered and cracked as he did all the steps Nella taught him. Count backwards from ten and then back up, bouncing up and down the numbers like a unique little stress toy.

Unfortunately, Vin himself was a bit of a stress toy. He was easy to toy with, and he was quite handily made of stress.

The statue shattered in such close quarters of his panic attack that he let out a little scream, quickly gathering up the pieces and trying to arrange them only for them to crumble within his grasp.

“No no, no, no… oh god, why today.” The little length of grass outside the small altar-type cove provided a place for him to crash upon the ground and twitch with the remnants of lightning.

“Of all days to be kidnapped, why today?”