If a tree explodes in the woods, does anyone even care? [open]

Oliver took a deep breath, wiping away sweat from his forehead. He’d been out here for hours, punching a tree to hone his gift. The only reason his hands were decimated was the fact that he was using well-timed micro-explosions. They weren’t enough to destroy the tree, but he was making a sizeable mark in the wood. It was blackened around where his fists impacted. After he took a break, he reared back his right fist, and brought it to the tree, setting off an actual explosion. It tore clean through the tree and then some, singeing the surrounding trees behind it. Oliver sidestepped as the tree fell and he smiled, satisfied. His stamina in using his gift was slowly getting better, but he was still feeling exhausted. He sat on the recently felled log and took a drink from the water bottle he had brought with him. Today was a good day.

Sun shining. Birds chirping. Trees exploding? Light slanted through gaps in the leaves, making sunspots dance and ripple across the forest floor with every breath of wind that rustled the branches. She wasn't an outdoorsman, not a camper or a backpacker or a hiker or any '-er' hobby for that matter. Some people had physical gifts, others didn't. Cailin got winded going up and down the stairs. But she couldn't resist the lure of the woods, the cologne-like musk of damp and rotting leaves, the bracing air. Mom and dad met in the Autumn dorms, and now she was an Autumn too. This year, now that she was on her own, she felt like she was on the cusp of something... crazy, auspicious, amazing, and more and more she let herself be ensnared by these fey moods, wandering new places with her head in the clouds. Hey, a walk in the forest sounds nice. It doesn't even matter that everything's going to be muddy and full of bugs. Something might happen.

The best way to describe it was waiting for the gunshot, like at the opening ceremony. She still hadn't shaken the blood-rush from holding the bullet in her fingers, and she wanted that fairy tale catalyst that would spiral her off into some grand adventure where everything would maybe just finally possibly straighten out. That was the number one pathway to a happy ending, by every metric and measurement she knew. that being mostly zelda games.

And there was the explosion, the groan and split of wood, a great snap that rustled all the birds from their roosts. She didn't play the moment off half as well as she bragged to herself she would. A yelp leaped out from her throat, and her hands went flinging over her head, ducking a splinter the size of a two-by-four

At the exact moment Oliver sat down he had shot back up at the echo of a yelp. His explosion must've been more powerful than he thought. "Sorry!" he called out, unable to spot the source of the person's scream. He scanned the trees but they were too thick to see anything through."Are you okay?" he asked nervously, hopeful that was a yelp of surprise rather than a yelp of pain.

She popped up, electric currents shimmering and snapping an inch over her skin, lifting her hands from up over the nape of her neck. "What was that?" Cailin's eyes flicked up to the boy, first softened with concerned, but a moment later, narrowing ever so slightly. "Was it you?"

Oliver blushed and shrugged sheepishly. "Maaaaaybe it was. Maaaaybe it was a new species of exploding tree. The world maybe never know." he responded, smirking slightly, while still avoiding eye contact. He was embarrassed. He didn't think anyone was around. The boy was almost... ashamed, of his gift. For the longest time, he just wanted to be "normal," whatever that meant. Slowly, but surely, he learned to accept his gift, but he still didn't like displaying it in front of people.

"Cheeky." Cailin did this little huff, shifting her weight irritably. She didn't let any sparks rise to her skin, but she could scent the taint of singed air, taste copper on her tongue, strands of hair lifting ever so slightly on her head with static electricity. It was a familiar sensation when she got flustered. "What the heck are you going around blowing up trees for? Squirrels probably live in those trees. That's not cool."

Oliver blushed. "I... I hadn't thought of that." he mumbled. "If it helps ease your anger, I didn't hear any rustling as I was practicing earlier, plus they would've scattered long before I had completely obliterated the tree." At least, he didn't think he heard any rustling. Oops. "So.. what's your name? I don't think I've seen you around the school much." he asked, attempting to drag the conversation away from his gift.

"Have you ever thought if your gift is just to blow things up, maybe you shouldn't use it?" she pressed. It came out harsher than she intended, and she immediately averted her eyes, flushed. "Sorry. I'm just startled. My name's Cailin."

Oliver's blush deepened as she continued to scold him. He looked up at her, however, when she let down her guard for a moment and told him her name. "It's nice to meet you. I may be the one who can literally blow things up, but you're the one who seems really explosive." he said, hoping his pun didn't go over poorly. He had a habit of doing that and it's caused him more than enough dirty looks from his friends.

She short-circuited. Sparks spat out from her bangs, head cocking sideways like fried machinery, color spreading across her face. "Huh? I—..." Cailin hid her mouth behind her fingers and angled her gaze to the carpet of leaves now. "Um, thanks? I—I think?" Her insides simmered. Did he have any idea she was a literal walking bomb, or was that a lucky guess?

Oh fuck. he thought, taking a step backwards. His pun failed horribly. ”I didn’t mean that in a bad way, I was just trying to be funny. Sorry if that’s not what came across..” he shuffled his feet and put a hand behind his back. He created small pops and crackles with his gift. It helped him calm down despite his poor history with superpowers.

Now they were both flustered. Cailin shook her head, brushing her bangs from out of her eyes. Her voice was choked. "Don't be sorry. I've just heard that one before." It wasn't exactly a lie. Go ahead and jam a fork into a power outlet. If you really want to get it, wash your hands first and don't dry them off. One hundred and fifteen volts conduct up the stainless steel tines and into the flesh and soft tissue up your fingers. Your elbow locks with screaming tension. Crank that up another hundred volts. The skin blackens and prunes around where it wraps around the hilt. Red meat sears and glues to the steel. The current passes through the fork, but you literally can't pull away. Another hundred volts, the current surges up your arm, webbing a tangled map of your burst capillaries into your flesh, and at another hundred or so the heart clamps and stops beating.

Cailin wasn't an A+ student in these subjects, but she knew these things. An electric field stretched over her skin. Keep calm, and it wasn't harmful. When she used her power, she became a literal live-wire. There was always a metallic tang of copper, like cooked blood and singed hair and the choking sulfuric taste of burned rubber, so she kept the lightning bottled up inside of her.

You can imagine another hundred volts after that, and another hundred volts after that. Imagine ten thousand volts. Fifty thousand. Go ahead and grab her hand.

She didn't know him, but she could tell they had a lot in common. "You still haven't told me your name."

Oliver breathed a sigh of relief. At least it was because he was unoriginal, not because he wasn't funny. His eyes widened and he smacked himself on the forehead when she mentioned that he never said his name. "My bad, my bad. It's Oliver." he responded. "What're you doing out in the woods? It seems kinda boring to be out here without some sort of reason, at least in my opinion." He was awful at small talk. much like the puppeteer controlling him. He had tended to shy away from people once his gift developed, causing a severe lack of social development. He had always feared that if his gift "activated" while he was around others he'd be called a freak and relentlessly bullied for it. That, or he would've just been feared and burned at the stake. At least at Beata, he could at least try and make some friends, since everyone who attended had powers as well.

"Oliver," she repeated. Some kind of reason? Like blowing up trees for fun? Cailin pursed her lips, hands folding behind her back. "Just a light stroll to unwind. That probably is boring, for you." Y'know, peace and serenity of the forest and all that, and the clean air was good for her disposition. Students had been testing the limits of their gifts in these woods for forty years, and fire and frost and lightning had left scabs across the landscape, unnatural gullies grown over with new coverings of gorse and bramble, new shoots sprouting from the broken spines of long dead leafless elms and white birch. She supposed that made her the one out of place here. But to each their own.