Tender Lumplings Everywhere, Life's No Fun Without A Good Scare [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

The woods are dark and deep, but not particularly lovely. If anything, they feel dangerous, as if something terrible might come lurching out from behind any given tree and tear into the nearest warm body. What that terrible thing might be is anyone's guess. A cat with hands? Slenderman? Stegosaurus? Actual cannibal Shia LaBeouf? All of the above in a horrible mob? It's anyone's guess. But every dreamer will be absolutely convinced that there is something unspeakable out there, and that it's after them.

The dreamers have two things on their side. The first is that there is actually nothing dangerous lurking in these woods (with the possible exception of other dreamers). The pervasive terror the dreamers are feeling is just that: a rift-given feeling, nothing more and nothing less. That snapping twig or rustle in the undergrowth is almost certainly just a squirrel or something else equally harmless.

The second is that no dreamer is alone. They all will be reunited with - or introduced to - their dæmons, a source of comfort in this dark, intimidating wilderness. However frightened the dreamers might be, at least they have someone with them who definitely doesn't want them dead.

[OOC: as ever, any and all are welcome! You don't have to be in the game to join the fun. Dreamers can remember or forget the events of the dream at the players' discretion. And the party only stops when you want it to; feel free to backtag forever.]

Comments

[etherthief]

Now that he's standing up and she's settled a bit, Iman has a moment to appreciate him in return. Clothes are a little fucking all over the place - actually the whole everything is kind of all over the place - but it works on him. What an adorable sleepy-voiced punk-moppet.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine, just, you know, lost in slasher film woods with a talking bird," she says. "No big. That's, uh, that's Aqil, apparently. I'm Iman." She adjusts her hijab a little, not at all self-consciously, and gives him a wry smile.

"She thinks you're cute and she's pretending she's cool," says Aqil out of fucking nowhere.

"Wow, you are some kinda wingman, Bird," she says with almost alarmed irritation. Seriously, who the fuck does he think he is.

"Notice that she didn't contradict me," he says, cool as a cucumber, but gazing off into the woods. "We should keep moving. Something might still be on its way, we don't want to be around when it gets to us."

"Is that your scientific opinion?" Iman mutters.

[imashinyboy]

Vince laughs aloud at her grumpy assessment of the woods, bopping a little in place, rocking back onto silver stack heels to take it all in again. Not that he knows a whole lot about slasher films; not his sort of bag at all, but there's a definite vibe to this place like every tree might have a mad axeman lurking behind it. That she thinks he's cute he takes easily in stride, with only a slight widening of his smile, because, well, he is cute, isn't he?

'Alright,' he dips his chin in cheery greeting. 'I'm Vince, and this little nutter,' he jerks his head sideways to where the hummingbird is perched on his shoulder, 'is Slightly.'

It's probably a good suggestion, moving on, and Vince nods up at Aqil. 'Cool, yeah,' he agrees, sliding his hands into tight pockets and casting around for a direction to start off in. He picks one at random as he continues talking. 'Keep moving, yeah? Duck and weave, throw 'em off the scent, I know how it goes.'

Slightly chimes in in explanation, darting up off his shoulder again to cut sporadic angles through the air. 'He used to play hide and seek with the leopards back when he were a nipper.'

[etherthief]

"Leopards," Iman echoes dubiously. "Okay."

She follows him a bit warily, part of her thinking you just found your slasher, but come on, he's harmless, just weird. Look at that cute little bird he's got. Anyway, strange company's better than no company. This place gives her the goddamn willies.

"So what do you suppose these are?" she asks with a vague gesture at their birds.

[imashinyboy]

People often doubt the stories Vince tells, but he doesn't much care. He knows they're true, which is the point, so he just shakes his head, chuckling a little as he tromps on through the undergrowth.

'Dunno,' he admits, looking up at Slightly curiously as they dart and buzz about. 'Thought they were just a normal bird at first, seems like most of the hummingbirds I've met, but I dunno.'

'Reckon I probably wouldn't know about his childhood, either, if I were just your normal garden variety bird,' Slightly adds, which is a good point, Vince thinks.

He pivots on one heel, swinging around to walk backwards for a step or two, eyes flicking between Iman and Aqil. 'Also usually other people can't talk to animals. Maybe they're like, like, I dunno, like familiars, yeah? Like shamans have, summat like that.'

[etherthief]

"Oh yeah?" Iman raises an eyebrow at Aqil. "You know about my childhood?"

"You don't want to know what I know," says Aqil coolly.

Suppose that answers THAT, then. Iman looks back at Vince, a bit sullen about being constantly outwitted by her own whatever-it-is.

"Do you know a lot of shamans?" she asks, somewhere between skeptical and curious.

[imashinyboy]

Slightly snickers faintly at the interplay between Iman and Aqil; they've got their banter properly down, they could be a double act just the two of them. They flit up to bump gently into Aqil's glossy black breast, just a friendly little bop with the top of their head; even if Iman's busy being grumpy and dubious, he seems well cool.

'A few,' Vince replies easily. 'Well, mostly one; I work with him. But I've met a few of his mates.'

He's considering expanding on the subject, launching into one of the juicier tales he's got about Naboo's mad shaman pals, when he hears something a ways off, a sort of unnerving growling noise, and he stills, putting a hand out. 'Hold up, d'you hear that?' Slightly flicks back down to land on his sleeve, clinging sideways to the fabric, and Vince shifts a little closer to Iman out of something like habit. 'Actually, do you know where we are?'

[etherthief]

"Uh-huh," says Iman, grinning indulgently, an expression that slips right the fuck off her face as soon as he and the hummingbird flip out. She stiffens and stares off toward the growling - shit yeah she heard that, much as she really did not want to. She steps closer to Vince in turn.

"I have no fucking idea," she says. "You wanna see if we can get outta here?"

[imashinyboy]

Iman steps in a little too, and Vince feels a little bubbling of comfort that he's not the only one who's a bit freaked. She could probably take care of herself, though, he reckons; she seems like a tough bird, and crows are well brainy and all. Vince wonders suddenly what sort of animal Howard would have if he was here; maybe a big old burly Northern bear to match his big Northern self. Or really, probably somethin' all tiny and soft and sensitive, one of those animals what puffs itself up to look all impressive, but when it comes right down to it, legs it off sharpish.

Slightly gives a squeaky little fizz of sound, apparently quite pleased with the notion of having to protect a little Howard-animal, and Vince gives them a little flick. It's not exactly like hummingbirds are great brawlers themselves.

'Read me mind,' he says, to the suggestion that they get out of here. 'I know you can tell directions from, like, where the moss grows on the trees? But I ain't sure which direction we've gotta go in, so...' He finagles a hand into one of his trouser pockets and produces a €2 coin, hefting it. 'Pick a direction, flip a coin?'

[etherthief]

Iman ignores the suggestion of a coin flip for a moment, tilting her head this way and that, trying to pick up sounds, light, movement, anything that might be useful. Of course nothing is; all directions seem expansively the same.

"Fuck it," she says, and gives him a jerk of her chin. "Heads that way, tails, that way," with sharp gestures forward and back. "One way or another the woods have to stop eventually, right?"

"Depends on the nature of the universe we're in," says Aqil oh-so-helpfully. "Got an inkling it's not the regular ones." Man it is so amazingly awful having a creature sitting with you who just spouts all the shit you don't want to say out loud.

"Yeah, yeah." Iman dismisses the crow with a gesture. "Make like usual and shut up."

What's 'usual' about that? She doesn't care to consider the implications of that particular instinctive thought just now. Not while there's proactivity afoot.

[imashinyboy]

Vince flips the coin, up in the air and spinning quick enough that for a second it looks like a levitating sphere of dull silver and gold before it comes down with a thwack on his palm. Vince slaps it over onto the opposite hand.

'Tails,' he announces, tucking the coin away with a little shimmy; his pockets accommodate coins well enough, but once you stick a few fingers in there as well, things started getting a little tricky. Slightly buzzes up from their position on his arm to hover in midair, zipping back and forth like they're anxious to get going.

'That way, then, yeah?' Vince nods back in the direction they came from.

The mist's creeping in again, all tickly fog-fingers that want to get under Vince's shirt and jacket, and he swipes idly at it as they set off, sending little eddies of cold air spiralling away under his hands. 'What were you running from?' Slightly asks after a moment, curious in their piping little voice. 'Or, well, d'you know what it is you thought might be after you, or did you just think, whatever, this woods is well creepy, there's probably summat here what wants to crunch us down like a Twix?'

[etherthief]

"Uh," says Iman, as Aqil says, "The latter, I guess?"

"Not in so many words," Iman follows up, looking askance at the crow as he flaps from branch to branch overhead. "I don't even know how I got here, it might just be that I don't like being lost in the woods at night with no idea where I am. And a talking bird who knows me intimately."

"Company helps," says Aqil breezily, dropping down to settle on her shoulder.

She really wants to brush him off, but something holds her back. She frowns sullenly. Not really like her to acknowledge something like that, but okay then. It's out now.

"Yeah." She folds her arms tightly, sort of hugging herself against the cold. "Pretty much I'm just hoping some bear doesn't decide it's hungry. Or that there's not anything worse out there. You?"

The whole idea of the question is weird - why does there have to be a thing she's running from anyway? Couldn't she be running to somewhere? But somehow it seems the thing to ask.