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

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

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.]

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"Oh..." Bee didn't even think to check that Sunshine would have a little companion as well, but why not? She grins excitedly when she catches a glimpse of its shape against the mild glow coming off of Sunshine's skin, but it isn't the moment for introductions just yet. She grips Sunshine's hand and follows her through the trees.

"I wish I could see in the dark," says Bee in a faint attempt at lightheartedness. "What about you, Simon?"

Easier to say that Simonides, but he curls inward, expressing a sort of blush at being addressed with a nickname in front of someone else.

"Simonides," she corrects gently. "Sorry. It's just Sunshine, she's all right."

"I know," he says eventually. "I know Sunshine just as you do."

"Oh." She smiles and glances over at Sunshine. "You have a very lovely, um, companion. Is it vain to say so?" More jokes. It's all she can muster in the face of continued abject terror. Simonides doesn't seem to like it; he curls up tighter against her.

Sunshine tries for a smile that comes out as more of a wince. That brand of shrill, desperate humor is a little too familiar. And also easy to lapse into, now that Bee's set the ball rolling.

"Yeah," she says dryly. "It works pretty well in the actual dark. It's only in daylight that it's a pain in the ass."

"Wouldn't daylight be a shame," Modomnoc deadpans, antennae quivering. He edges out from behind Sunshine's hair a little, looking (to the extent that he can) at Bee and Simonides. "Modomnoc. And thanks," he says, his focus shifting to Simonides entirely. There's a ruminative pause. Then, in quite possibly the kindest tone Sunshine's ever heard from him, "Hey, Simonides? Can I come over there?"

Sunshine gives her bee a baffled sidelong glance - is this really the time? - but she's not going to argue with him.

Simonides raises his head in surprise at being addressed. He looks up at Bee as if asking permission, and she nods almost distractedly - he can do what he likes, of course! She's a little busy hurrying along with Sunshine, after all.

Simonides clambers up to her shoulder and settles around the back of her neck, his tail wrapping around like a little scarf, and, hesitantly, holds out a tiny claw to invite the bee over. "Okay," he murmurs.

Sunshine keeps half on eye on the path ahead and the other half on her bee as he carefully navigates the little distance between her shoulder and the outstretched claw. There's a tense moment where she worries he's going to miss and end up tangled in Bee's hair or something, but Modomnoc errs on the side of caution, flagging behind Simonides for a few moments before coming in for a landing on his claw. Satisfied that he's not about to fall off, Sunshine shifts her focus back to the path ahead.

Her bee, meanwhile, extends a foreleg and combs it through the fluffy golden fur on Simonides' paw (or hand or whatever). "You're all right," he says approvingly, somewhere between a compliment and a general reassurance.

Well, that's nice of him. Weird of him, too, but whatever. "So, this is," Sunshine starts, intending to follow it up with something along the lines of 'the worst frigging forest ever,' when she feels an unpleasant and all too familiar prickling on the back of her neck. "Bad spot," she says instead, tugging Bee to the right so they can work around it.

"Oh," says Simonides quietly, sounding mild and surprised, but deep down Bee feels his pleasure at the compliment. She wants to smile and stroke his fur, but she's distracted by Sunshine's increased tension, and the tug to her hand. She stumbles along, wincing slightly. She really wishes she had some shoes.

As though sensing her discomfort, Simonides rubs his head against her cheek, taking care to hold Momodnoc at a distance. An instinctive precaution, it seems.

"Wh-what is it?" Bee whispers to Sunshine.

"Sorry," Sunshine says, noticing the wince. She knows what it's like to get hauled through the woods in your bare feet, and she checks her pace a little, even though it increases the oh-gods-run-you-idiot tension between her shoulder blades. "Bad spot, off to the left. Can you feel it?"

"They showed up after the Wars," Modomnoc says, returning to Sunshine's shoulder. The feeling of his little legs pricking through her shirt is a little comfort. "You don't want to walk through one."

To be honest, this entire frigging forest has that about-to-walk-into-a-bad-spot feeling to it, making it difficult to judge whether an actual bad spot exists and where it might be if it did. But regardless, traveling in a straight line probably isn't a good idea, so Sunshine just goes with the impulse to veer off to the right. They seem to be going downhill, now - a welcome boost in momentum - and a moment later, she hears running water. A creek?

She knows better than to think that running water would actually deter anything bad that might be after them (it doesn't do squat to stop her universe's vampires, as she well knows), but it still seems like a good thing to aim for. Creeks lead to rivers, rivers lead to towns, and towns have warded buildings.

"Come on," she says, pointing towards the little stream. Even Bee should be able to see the moonlight glinting off the surface. "That might lead us somewhere."

Bee looks to the left as though trying to see the 'bad spot', but she has no idea if there's anything to see, or what this even means. What Wars? Like from Sunshine's world? She remembers seeing some kind of broad-world-chaos in Sunshine's patterns, but... is that where they are now?

Sunshine would know, Simonides seems to be thinking, nudging at her. Follow them. She keeps a tight grip on Sunshine's hand as they hurry down the slope toward the creek. Even the sound of running water makes her feel nervous - it seems everything here does - but it is marginally better now that she can see a little.

"I hope so," she whispers, hugging Simonides close. The ground is softer here, a little nicer on her feet. She hurries alongside, linking her arm fully through Sunshine's to be a little closer. It feels safer this way, like they're armoring one another.

"Do you know these woods?" she asks after a moment.

It had been months since she'd been in the woods around the lake, and that was even before she came through the rift. She doubts she'd recognize anything unless they hit the lake itself (which would be a mixed blessing, because it's not exactly a safe place to be at night and it's a good twenty miles from town). "I don't think so," she says. Then, for the sake of honesty, "I'm… not even completely sure I felt a bad spot. This whole place feels too close to a bad spot." She pats Bee's arm distractedly (though not so distracted that she doesn't double-check to make sure she's not too close to Simonides).

"I dunno," she mutters. "Anything look familiar to you?"

"No," she says softly. "I don't know where we are."

"I don't like it," whispers Simonides. "Not safe."

Bee's instinct is to shush him soothingly, but she can't do that, when this is the most he's said at a time so far. She scritches him gently. "We'll be okay" she says with only partly forced determination. "At least we're not alone! We've got Sunshine, and Modomnoc." She glances over at them, hoping they have some confidence to offer as well, at the same time wishing she were better at soothing her own friend, whatever he is.

Edited 2014-11-02 01:20 (UTC)

"Well," Sunshine starts, but she pauses as she feels a a little hum of wingbeats from her bee. "Hey," Modomnoc interrupts, and she can frigging feel the way his focus shifts to the pocket where she keeps her little knife. Gods, that's weird. He has a point, though, presuming they're both on the same mental page (is it even possible for them to not be on the same mental page?), and she only hesitates for a second before digging into her pocket.

"This might not be the best idea," she admits before pulling out the little knife. To her eyes - to a vampire's eyes - the sudden glow is almost overpoweringly bright. But it's a sunlight sort of glow, warm and friendly and reassuring, and she rubs her thumb over the little knife before passing it to Bee. "Take it. It'll help you see, and it's… sort of a ward? I don't know if the blade would do you much good, but if anything, um… creature-of-the-night-ish comes after you, it might… help."

What a sales pitch. Well done, Sunshine.

"Oh!" Bee's eyes (almost literally) light up when she sees the knife, and she takes it shyly. "Oh, that's - thank you!" She feels a little surge of warmth for Sunshine - the knife is clearly something very special, and here she is giving it up for them.

"Thank you!" she says, sounding almost awed.

Simonides, feeling a little more courageous and wanting to express his gratitude as well, crawls over gently to reach out and brush his soft snout against Sunshine's cheek.

"You're welcome," Sunshine says. Honestly, she's not sure how much of a favor she's doing Bee, here, because that glow is going to announce their presence to anything close enough to see it. But then again, they're not exactly being subtle with the way they're galumphing through the leaves, and--

"Hey!" Modomnoc says, launching himself up off of her shoulder and landing on Simonides's head, which is suddenly a lot closer than it should be, oh shit--!

Sunshine sidesteps hastily, arms raised, and Modomnoc buzzes back over to her shoulder. "Whooooa damn," she says, eyes widening. "Sorry. I mean," she says to Simonides, "you're adorable, don't get me wrong, but, uh--"

"--you don't want to touch other people," Modomnoc finishes.

Sunshine nods. "It's… not pleasant."

"… Generally," Modomnoc amends, earning himself an embarrassed, tight-lipped glare.

Simonides darts back, startled and embarrassed, and Bee drops the knife and catches him in her hands, not even sure what just happened. As Sunshine and Modomnoc dole out their hasty explanations, she realizes, though the little anteater doesn't respond, hiding himself in, what she recognizes, all too easily, as shame. Oh, the poor darling - so much like her when she was younger, or when she's having trouble maintaining her outward behaviorisms. He can't stand having almost done something wrong, something that would have made them all uncomfortable.

"Sweetheart," she whispers, "it's okay." She presses him close, nuzzling at his fur. "It's okay, they forgive you. See? They just wanted to protect us."

She gives him a little kiss on the head. "It's okay," she says again. "I promise."

She crouches down to recover the knife, easy to spot, fortunately. "He'll be okay," she reassures her friends. "He's very shy." She rubs a finger down the scruff of Simonides' neck, trying to coax him to look back up. Eventually, sheepishly, he does, peeking out at Sunshine and Modomnoc.

"Sorry," he mumbles.

Sunshine starts a little as the knife drops, but it's not like they're going to lose it in the darkness, so she keeps her distance while Bee reassures her little - what is that, even? - that everything's okay. She feels bad for reacting with so much, uh… vehemence... but this is probably less embarrassment than they all would have felt if he'd actually succeeded in his attempt to nuzzle her (objectively cute as that would have been).

When Simonides finally lifts his head, Modomnoc risks flying over. There's not as much space for him to land as before, but the light from her knife at least allows him to see what he's doing, so he's able to alight on Simonides's head. "It's fine," he says, thrumming his wings, warming the other dæmon's fur. "Really. Could've been worse."

Sunshine pulls a wry smile at that. "Spike accidentally smacked Dom halfway across a room last time. This was nothing."

"Oh, wow." Bee can't help but giggle at that. "See, Simonides, you're all right."

Simonides looks up at her, making a small purring noise in response to Modomnoc's attention.

Reassured that he feels better, Bee looks back at Sunshine. "Well, now we know that," she says. She reaches out and recovers her hand. "Shall we continue? Everyone all settled?"

Sunshine shrugs, belatedly embarrassed. Bee knows how that turned out, which is just as well as far as increasing the impact of current reassurances goes, but… well, that episode in the elevator wasn't exactly something she looks back on with pride.

"Yeah, we're sheer," says her bee. Modomnoc stays on Simonides's head as Sunshine and Bee resume walking. It's closest to the light, and it allows him to continue reassuring the shy little guy, either by thrumming his wings or combing a foreleg through his fur.

The glow of the knife seems to be helping Bee, for all that it makes Sunshine a bit nervous. On the bright side (ha), she can devote more attention to the surrounding trees instead of keeping it on the path before them. There's plenty of movement of the wind-tossed branches variety, but she's not seeing anything else. That's good, right?

"So," she says eventually, because silence is making her more nervous than talking did, "what kind of animal is Simonides, anyway?"

"He's a little anteater!" says Bee excitedly. "I forget exactly what this kind is called. They're so cute!" She smiles down at Simonides, who is still shyly enjoying Modomnoc's attention.

"I wonder what determines their shape?" she says. "You... you said you've met Modomnoc before?" She frowns, a little confused by the question for reasons difficult to pin down. Something's not right here, but she's not sure what.

An anteater. Okay, yeah, now that Bee mentions it, Sunshine can see it. He's just a lot smaller than she would've expected an anteater to be.

"I… yeah," Sunshine says, brow furrowing. It feels like she's had Dom around forever, but that's not true. It was only one other time, one other…

"Oh, for - Shiva wept," Sunshine mutters, coming to a sudden halt. Modomnoc leaves Simonides, buzzing back to Sunshine before Bee can put any real distance between them. "This is a dream," Sunshine explains, rolling her eyes.

Bee blinks, then bursts into a relieved laugh. Simonides curls closer to her, a little wary of the sound even with this new revelation, but Bee can't help herself.

"I should have realized!" she says. "I was so busy being afraid, and getting to know Simonides, I didn't realize - I can't sense patterns like I usually can in dreams, that usually makes it so easy to tell. Gosh!"

Her giggling finally dies down, and she covers her mouth with her hand, a little sheepish. "Well, that's a relief," she says, though she's still not entirely comforted.

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

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WARNING DANGEROUSLY CUTE

FOR REAL THO

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