Danny, Blue, and Some Other Wisps, Too

Written for Phanniemay '16, Day 11: Folklore

(inspired/requested by sarasanddollar)

Danny woke up slowly, rising out of the fog of sleep as one only does when truly rested. He cracked an eye, surprised to see that his room was still dark. Strange, he thought. The only times I wake up like this without an alarm are when it's almost noon and…

A faint blue glow from the window caught his attention along with a series of very soft thuds. And that, he finished his thought, groaning as he sat up in his bed and pushing the covers off of his legs. He swung his legs off of the bed to rest his bare feet on the cool carpet. He stood and stepped to the window, smiling and shaking his head slowly at the source of the glow.

A tiny blue ball of light was bouncing off of of the glass over and over again. Danny reached down and lifted up the bottom pane, sliding it up over the upper section of the window. The tiny spirit zoomed through the plastic screen into the room, emitting soft chirring noises as it whizzed around Danny several times, stopping to tuck itself under his ear.

"Hey, Blue, nice to see you too," Danny whispered, taking the wisp into his hand and bringing it down to let it float over his open palms. The wisp flashed a few different colors in response, bobbing up and down in the air excitedly.

"Hey, hey, hey, no need to get crazy. Gotta keep a low profile when you come over here, remember?"

The wisp stilled suddenly and stopped flashing, settling on its usual blue and dimming a little. It let out a sulky chirp.

"No, I didn't say that! You are a wonderful will o' the wisp and your colors are very alluring. I just can't have you waking up my folks," Danny said, gently stroking the wisp with the tip of a finger.

The wisp chirped again and brightened, pleased by the complement.

"Of course, you're welcome. Now, what did you come over here for?"

A flash of green and a few hoots. "Help? Again? What did the others do this time?"

Blue flashed a veritable kaleidoscope of colors in response, whistling several notes in accompaniment. "Woah, woah, woah, you know I can't read you that fast yet. I'm still learning!" Danny said. "Can you slow down?"

Blue went yellow for a moment, seeming frustrated. "Too much to explain?" Danny asked, resigned.

Blue whistled. "I getcha. Lead the way," Danny said, touching the cold spot in his heart and letting the change wash over him. The wisp chirped excitedly as the white rings appeared around his waist and began to move in opposite directions. Blue flew in tight loops around one of the rings as it traveled, weaving figure eights of blue around the white. It hooted disappointedly as the rings disappeared and flew back to float in front of Danny.

"I'm sorry, bud, I don't know how to keep 'em around any longer," Danny said, patting the wisp again in consolation. "I'm working on it, okay? I know you like 'em."

The wisp gave a particular whistle that Danny'd learned to mean something along the lines of "Yeah, you'd better!" and was out the window in a second. Used to sudden departures like this (wisps didn't seem to have any concept of waiting. If they were about to do something, they were doing it already) Danny phased through the screen followed Blue out into the warm summer night.

Blue was playing games like it always did. It liked to keep at a speed just barely faster than Danny could fly so it disappeared from sight every few seconds, forcing Danny to put on a burst of speed to catch back up. Danny didn't complain; it was a good exercise and he'd actually gotten a lot faster since he'd started tagging along after Blue. It wasn't difficult to figure out where Blue was going, anyways.

The Amity Park Public Park - known to most locals as simply "The Park" - was a surprisingly large plot of land for a small town like Amity Park. Most locals wisely kept to the grassy hills on the outskirts where picnic tables and small charcoal grills were located and kept out of the central, forested portion of the park. No local could tell you why they didn't go hiking in the forest, just that it wasn't done. Danny had been of this mindset for his entire life up until almost a year ago, almost a year after he'd been in the accident with the Ghost Portal.

That was when he'd first met Blue and the rest of Amity Park's resident will o' the wisps.

Blue whizzed through the trees, bobbing and weaving in what Danny was sure was an attempt to lose him. He'd been lost in these woods several times before; there was just something about the trees that made humans lose their way beneath their dusky leaves. Luckily, he wasn't entirely human, so once he'd been around the woods a few times he could usually keep his sense of direction.

Blue always came back to get him whenever he got lost, anyways. It would appear out of nowhere, whistling and chirring like Danny getting lost was the funniest thing in the world. Danny had figured out wisp laughter pretty quickly; laughter seemed to be fairly constant even across species.

He managed to keep up with Blue pretty easily today. Either he was getting faster or Blue was distracted. Probably some of both. Blue came to get him to come play now and then, but it was more agitated tonight than it usually was. That meant someone had gotten themselves into trouble.

They flew passed the grand old maple tree that stood at the center of the forest. Wisps crept out of the branches and leaves to see who had come to visit. Recognizing Danny, they flew out of the tree all at once to surround him in a blinding tornado of color and light, hooting and chirping their greetings. Danny held out his arms away from his body to let the wisps loop around his limbs. Wisps were inherently extremely curious creatures and liked to investigate him head to toe each time he visited.

Blue circled Danny a few feet away from the mob of wisps as if trying to make sure he was okay. It hooted indignantly twice. "Sorry, Blue, you know they do this every time. If you didn't want to be delayed, you should've taken me another way," Danny laughed, trying to shake the wisps off. Blue circled the crowd again and whistled loudly. The wisps stopped and Danny could tell they were listening to Blue as it hooted several times and flashed through a series of reds and oranges.

It's scolding them, Danny thought. "Jeez, Blue, what has you tied up in knots?" He said aloud, quietly. At his words, the wisps dispelled in all directions, disappearing into the surrounding trees and leaving Danny and Blue alone under the branches of the maple. Blue gave one bright, short hoot, sounding rather pleased with itself.

"I hope they're not mad at you later," Danny said. Blue whistled and brightened defiantly.

"Yeah, but I'm not the one who has to live with them," Danny replied. "Being friends with me isn't going to help you if they decide to shun you."

Blue dimmed a little then brightened again, chirping as it launched off through the woods again.

"'Oh well'?" Danny repeated. "Things really don't shake you, do they?" He followed after the wisp. After a few minutes of playing "Where'd Blue go?" Danny started to see the faint glow of other wisps ahead, multicolored balls of light dancing through the trees. Excited chirps and whistles met his ears as he got closer. The wisps were dancing around a fallen tree in a sort of celebration, bobbing up and down and all around.

Blue whistled for their attention and they stopped, pausing in their merriment to start whirling around Danny much like the wisps of the maple tree. It took several stern hoots from Blue before they stopped their spinning, giving Danny a moment to blink and clear the spots from his eyes. Blue circled Danny's head once to get his attention then flew over to where the roots of the fallen tree stuck up out of the ground. The roots had long been stripped of their coating of dirt by the wind and rain of the summer storms. They stood stark and bare, glowing eerily white in the moonlight.

Danny floated over closer to Blue and realized that the depression where the roots had been had turned into a deep hole; the roots remaining in the ground must have rotted away, allowing the surrounding earth to collapse into the ground. Blue hovered over the hole, bobbing twice and hooting urgently. Danny peered into the gloom of the hole, eyes widening when his ghost-augmented eyes saw what lay at the bottom.

He turned to face the rest of the wisps. "Guys, what is this? Did you do this?"

The wisps jittered around excitedly, chirping in a way Danny read as "Yes, we did! See what we did?"

He put his hands on his hips, settling into what he hoped was a stern gesture. "I thought we worked this out. No more luring humans into dangerous places, right?" He waved an arm back at the hole. "There's an unconscious guy in there! How'd he get there?"

The wisps stilled suddenly, then swarmed over to look at the hole, all delight thrown out in the favor of concern and sorrow. Their bright yellows, greens, and pinks dimmed into somber purples and blues. Danny sighed. Once he'd gotten to know the wisps, he'd worked through Blue to help them to understand that it wasn't good to lure humans into the woods to 'play' and they agreed not to trick people anymore. Being the ephemeral beings they were, however, they often forgot this promise.

"It's alright, guys. I can get him out. You guys can help if you want, though," he said, descending into the hole. The wisps whistled and brightened a little, eager to help to make up for their mistake. They whizzed into the hole after him, surrounding the fallen man carefully. Danny worked his arms under the man's torso and legs, going slowly enough to allow the wisps to get under the man and give him a little extra lift. Once he got the man in his arms, he slowly rose up and out of the hole and set the man on the ground, leaning him against a tree root.

Blue flew through the man's pocket, returning to Danny bearing a weathered leather wallet. Danny accepted the wallet, brows furrowed. When had Blue learned what wallets were? He hoped Blue hadn't turned into a pickpocket. Having Blue unlearn that habit would be tricky. Deciding to worry about that another day, he flipped through the wallet and pulled out the man's driver's license, committing the address to memory.

"We're in luck, Blue," he said, sliding the license back into its slot and handing the wallet back to Blue. "He's only a few blocks down from my place. Put that back, would ya?"

Blue hooted in affirmation and replaced the wallet. The man would never know it'd been handled by a tiny forest spirit.

Danny turned back to the wisps and shot them a thumbs up. "Good job, guys. We did it," he said. The wisps usually needed to have things repeated a few times. They flew around, whistling and transitioning back to tints of pink and green. Blue, of course, remained resolutely blue, though it brightened from a royal blue to more of a teal for the occasion.

"Alright, so what did we remember today?" Danny said,speaking slowly as if he were talking to children. His efforts weren't too far off; wisps were fairly simple creatures as ghosts went, though they were higher on the intelligence ladder than ectopuses. Blue was an odd one, it seemed, but the other wisps for the most part appeared to respect it for this.

The wisps chirped and flashed a few more somber colors and Danny figured they had learned their lesson for the time being. "Thanks for coming to get me, bud," Danny said, holding out his fist. The little ball of light bumped into it proudly, whistling.

"'Someone had to get these fools in line?' Blue, they can hear you," Danny mock-whispered, trying not to laugh.

Blue chirruped. "Yeah, like you care," Danny repeated, chuckling. He raised his voice so the rest of the wisps could hear. "Alright guys, it was great to see all of you but I've got to get this guy home, yeah?"

The wisps whistled and whirled around him in a parting gesture before dancing off into the trees. Danny turned back to Blue. "Shall we?"

Blue chirred, tucking itself back under his ear as Danny lifted the man up with a grunt. "Time to get this dude home," Danny said. "If we have any luck, he won't remember anything but a weird dream about walking in the woods."

The wisp hooted in agreement and the two took off, heading back into town to the unconscious man's house. It turned out he lived in one of the many apartment buildings lining that block. Danny counted the windows from top to bottom and phased through the outer wall and into the hallway. Once he reached the number that had been on the man's license, he entered and awkwardly set the man down on the bed. He made to leave, then had a second thought and phased the man's shoes off of his feet. The man might believe that he fell asleep in his day clothes, but maybe not that he'd left his shoes on, which were now caked with mud and pine needles from the forest floor.

He set the shoes down by the front door as quietly as he could and left the building, flying back home. He flew back in through his window and let himself change back into a human with a sigh, flopping down on the bed. Blue whistled irritably when Danny's sudden horizontality dislodged it from its perch on his shoulder. Danny sat back up, holding out a hand for the wisp to rest on.

"Sorry, Blue," he said, patting the wisp gently. "It's late and I'm beat. Come back day after tomorrow? I've got a test in two days so I shouldn't be up late tomorrow night but after that I'm free."

Blue lept up from his hand, chirring in agreement. The matter decided, it zoomed out the window and back out into the night.

A/N:

Sorry for the delay with this one, but I drove back up for school yesterday and was pretty wiped. Also, no internet at my apartment yet. Hooray, campus computer labs.

This was partially inspired by sarasanddollar's own submission for this day of Phanniemay - it's pretty cute, look it up on tumblr!

-attu