Hunting the Fairy Tale

Chapter 50 - Running from Bears

Hunter

Tanner and Willow are seated shoulder-to-shoulder on beanbags in front of the TV, and I know I must be dreaming because it really looks like Willow is playing Skyrim. 

No, it's not just Tanner playing and Willow watching, which would've been so much more normal. 

She often watches me play but always refuses when I offer to teach her how to play. She told me that she loves the beautiful open-world graphics and the music and finds the story interesting, but she's terrified of even trying to play; she says being in control of another being, even a painted one, freaks her out too much. 

I've told her many times that the worst that could happen is that she forgets to save at a good place and, when she dies, has to do many things over again. She just gave me a narrow-eyed look and said she'd rather just watch me die and have to start over instead. 

How did Tanner make this happen?

Seeing Willow sitting this close to him is also pretty strange. Until recently, she looked as if she was going to faint whenever the guy even glanced her way. I'm not sure how I should feel about this budding relationship of theirs. Tan could really do with a friend like Willow, but if she loses her heart to him, she could get hurt. I don't want Willow to get hurt. I'm pretty sure Tan doesn't want that either. The idea of her falling in love with Tanner is really hard to swallow. 

I'm not jealous. I'm just protective. That's all!

I'm about to greet them, but I stop myself because I'm hearing the weirdest conversation ever involving Willow.

"Come on! Kill the bear, Priss, it's gonna kill you!" Tanner tries to take the remote from her, but she pulls away, swatting at his hands.

"I don't want to kill the bear, Tanner! Bears are nice."

"This bear is not nice; you're losing health!" He has a point; if she keeps this up, her character is going to be dead soon. Those Skyrim bears are relentless.

"No! I cannot kill the bear; it's too awful!"

"Let me get this straight," Tanner says, looking at her as if she's some alien species he cannot figure out... She might actually be one; I often look at her that way too. "You don't want to shoot with a bow and arrow because you like the close-up action of using a sword, and you have no problem massacring scores of people with that sword, but you have issues about killing a bear. Does that sound about right to you?"

"Yes, but only if those people attack me first."

"Oh! I see!" he is totally being sarcastic now. "I'm glad to hear that you have some kind of weird-ass moral code, but the bear is attacking you first, so..."

"It's an animal, Tanner, it doesn't know what it's doing," Willow makes what she might think is a reasonable argument, but she's talking about an animated bear in an animated game. No real bears are being harmed in the making of this conversation. 

"Why isn't the fast travel working?!" she sounds quite desperate now.

"Because you're under attack, Snowflake!"

"In real life, people specifically fast travel when they're under attack, Barbarian."

"Really, you can fast-travel in real life?" Tanner scoffs, grinning at Willow.

"Only when I'm travelling with you on your motorcycle," her tone is downright accusing now, making me wonder again why the hell she chose to come home with Tanner on the motorcycle instead of in the car.