Here You Are, Stick Figure and a Busted Grin [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

The first thing that the dreamers of Manhattan might notice is that the ground is a good deal closer than it normally is. The second thing they might notice is that their surroundings are larger than they might expect. The playground looks almost daunting. Of course, there are other ways for the dreamers to occupy themselves on this hot summer day: a charming fountain bubbles away a little distance from the playground. There's an ice cream stand with treats free for the taking. Beyond the paved area is a meadow, covered in wildflowers and dominated by a huge, sprawling tree, perfect for climbing.

It's all prime entertainment for children. So really, it's just as well that 'children' is what the dreamers will find themselves to be - once more, for those who had childhoods, or for the first time, for those who didn't.

Perhaps you'll remember everything: the Rift, Manhattan, the friends (and enemies) you've made since your arrival. Or perhaps you'll only remember who you were when you were young, and find this an opportunity to forge new friendships - or new (and probably pettier) animosities. Run around, get dirty, have a good time. It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

[ooc: usual dream party rules apply. All are welcome, whether they've been apped to the game or not. Characters will remember or forget the events of the dream at the players' discretion. Mental and emotional regression is optional, but physical regression is mandatory: your character is in the body of a little kid - human, or human-ish - regardless of who or what they are in the waking world.]

Comments

[andhiswife]

Out in the meadow, not quite under the branches of the great tree, but close enough to take advantage of its shade, there's a little girl in a cotton dress, her dark gold hair frizzing out of its braid. She's singing in a clear voice, with the uncomprehending good cheer of a child who knows a song well but hasn't ever had cause to really think about it:

Fare you well, my dear, I must be gone,
And leave you for a while;
If I roam away I'll come back again,
Though I roam ten thousand miles, my dear,
Though I roam ten thousand miles.

As she sings, she fiddles with a little heap of wildflowers she'd gathered into her lap. By the end of the second verse, she's made herself a little circlet, not quite a crown but close enough. She settles it on her head with a grin - it lists a little, but only a little - and starts in on another one. Maybe someone else will come along to play Princes/Princesses with her.


[ooc: Greta's about six and fully regressed and adorable.]

[etherthief]

[Iman is in the 7-8 range and also fully regressed]

A little girl in a hijab scampers through the meadow wielding a stick like a sword and looking for trouble. She's never seen a place like this before, it's certainly not her home in Tehran, but that's okay. There's so much to explore!

And now there's someone singing. She hurries toward the voice and sees a little girl sitting under a tree some short distance away. Iman creeps closer, keeping herself hidden behind the tree - she doesn't want to scare the kid but she has to make an entrance. She clambers up as quietly and quickly as possible until she's standing on a sturdy, low-hanging branch, one hand braced on her staff, the other against a higher limb. She can see the little girl has a flower crown and grins. She can play this game!

"Ahlan, pretty lady," she says in a big voice. She looks like she probably speaks English, so this'll be a great time to practice. "You look like you need a, um, uh..." What's the English thing for fāris? She falters with embarrassment. "Sword person!" she decides, holding up her stick like this will help.

[wentdowntogeorgia]

[Lucifer's pre-Fall, which is about as young as you can get an angel, but his vessel's in the 12-13ish age range.]

He stands on one of the far branches of the tree, barefoot and draped in white linen, closest to the girl and her flower-weaving, so that he can see what she's doing. This is a new creature to him, this bipedal little hairless ape-thing, and she uses words. None of his Father's other creations had used real language yet, like the angels do, so that makes her especially curious.

And she puts flowers on her hair. Why would anything put flowers on their hair? If she's trying to hide herself, it won't work well. There are some animals that hide themselves in foliage, but they do it much better than she does.

The angel flicks his fingers, a little come-hither motion, and the crown disappears off of her head and reappears in his hands so he can look at it.

[lostthebeansagain]

A pretty young girl with rich blue hair climbs down from the crown of the giant, twisting tree, her elegantly arranged curls fraying from the activity and gauzy skirts and blouse looking in need of a wash. But her mother isn't here to scold or punish her, and so she's free to do as she wants, where she wants, and in any case she's still very pretty, so she's less concerned about her disarray than she is interested in the sweet song being sung below her.

She follows the branches as far out as they'll bear her weight, and crouches to watch the other girl, looking at her braiding the flowers and planting the circlet on her head.

"That's very pretty," she says, voice a little loud and brash and not near as elegant as her hair and clothes. "The flowers. Who taught you that?"

[enter: The Witch, age nine. Hi.]

[postictal]

This isn't his room. He knows his room, it's got four walls and no windows and a nurse who comes in three times a day, and this isn't it. It's not the park either, but he doesn't recognize it.

Where did he go this time? He feels like he'd remember if he ran away again, but sometimes he forgets and he doesn't know what he's meant to remember anymore. The playground is terrifying in ways he can't enunciate, so he hides instead.

He hides, but it'll find him. The tall man always finds him.

All alone at the base of the tree is better, because maybe he can hide for a little longer. He's supposed to be alone, he's meant to, can't anyone see? There's a tall man behind him. He can't see it now and it disappears every time he looks over his shoulder but it's there, he knows it is. It whispers. It tells him horrible things. Things he doesn't want to do.

There's a lighter in his pocket, and he doesn't know how it got there. Maybe it got put there. The tall man makes him do things, and if he says no it makes him hurt and cry and scream, makes him cough, makes his nose and mouth drip black gobbets of blood, makes it so the pressure builds behind his eyes and his head until he wishes it would stop.

Tim is eight years old and sitting with his knees drawn up and his head buried in his arms because he doesn't want to remember the screaming.

He doesn't want to play with the tall man anymore.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine doesn't realize there's anyone down by the base of the tree until after she's knocked a few shards of bark loose on accident, and hears one of them hit something that isn't ground. She leans out a little precariously to see what she's hit, and frowns when it turns out to be a boy. Boys, in her experience, aren't very nice. She caught three of them tormenting a cat just the other day, and had to throw rocks at them to get them to stop.

But this one's different. He has darker hair, like hers - not anyone from her village - and he looks scared. And Ma didn't raise her to be rude.

"Beg pardon," she says quietly, her frown more thoughtful than disapproving. "I didn't see you."

[singthesong]

The playground's fun and all, but that tree is very enticing. He's running over, mind abuzz with thoughts of maybe climbing all the way to the top, and it's not until he's only a few feet away that he notices the other boy curled up by the bottom.

He stops, stumbling a little as his momentum carries him over some stray roots. What's wrong with him? Everyone else here is having fun. He can't remember seeing this boy around before. Of course he's still gonna check on him though. Who just goes and plays while someone else is sitting all sad on the ground? "Hey!" He takes a few steps forward to lean over the boy. "Are you okay?"

[wildmage_daine]

Daine hates wearing skirts, especially in summer. They're too heavy and too hot, and they make climbing trees harder than it ought to be. At least this tree's easy. It's almost like it wants to be climbed. She'd be tempted to ask it, but trees never talk to her. And she can't take the squirrels at their word that of course it wants to be climbed, because squirrels think everything wants to be climbed.

She can hear them giggling at her as she makes her way along a branch, far more slow and clumsy than even a young squirrel. It's a friendly sort of giggle, though, like they're pleased she's trying. They're not jeering, like the children from the village do, sometimes. So it's with a lopsided grin that she tells the nearest one, "You'd be slow, too, if you was wearing these," and gives her skirt a pointed flap with one hand.

[ooc: Daine's about eight and remembers nought of the Rift or Manhattan.]

[biscuit_powered]

Oh no. Oh no. Climbing the tree had seemed like such a good idea when it came to her, she'd be able to see everywhere and watch for when the children left and she could go play. It's not until she hears a girl climbing up from below that she remembers that the trouble with climbing up somewhere high is you can't get down again without running into whoever's below.

Asmodia huddles as low as she can in the crook of the big branches, all her limbs curled in tight as she tries very hard to breathe quietly. Maybe the girl won't come up this high, and maybe she won't see Asmodia and yell and bring grown-ups that'll ask questions and want to know whose she is and why she's somewhere that's meant for citizens. Maybe. And maybe Asmodia will suddenly learn how to make herself invisible like she's always wanted. Neither seems very likely.

She shouldn't even move, but she has to see. Quietly, slowly, she peeks over a branch at the girl below. She can't see who the girl is talking to, but she doesn't dare keep her head out in the open long enough to really look, and quickly retreats back into the little hiding place that no longer seems so secure.

[imashinyboy]

There's a boy crouched up in the tree several branches above Daine, looking like a small and strangely rock'n'roll monkey-- and indeed, he's nearly as ease in the tree as a monkey might be, bare toes curling to cling to the bark. He's heard her talking to the squirrels, and is frozen listening to her progress, caught between delight and curiosity and apprehension. He's never met a kid before, not a human kid, and he doesn't know what this one's doing here, but he knows he wants to meet it. Or her. Or him. Or whatever. He's not actually entirely sure how you tell with human people; an upbringing whose only human contact has been with glam rockers hasn't given him a very clear idea in that regard.

A leap and a scurry, and a few moments later, a head swings down through the foliage to peer at Daine, wild sandy mullet and eyes that seem to take up a good half his face, and a twitching smile at the corner of his mouth, attached to the body of a six year old Vince Noir, hanging from his knees from a branch. He looks nearly painfully skinny, and his t-shirt has his own name in glittering pink rhinestones across his chest.

'Alright?' he offers hopefully. 'Who're you?'

Despite the improbability of it, his accent is still thoroughly Cockney urchin.

The squirrels in the branches chitter their laughter, wanting to know why she's got all that stuff around her legs, she can't hardly climb in it! and Vince waves a hand at the nearest of them. 'It's clothes, people wear them, you know that.'

[lottawork]

Nick has appropriated the slide as his own, because no one else would think to use it for its unintended if unquestionably superior purpose. The interplay of gravity and friction buried in the twist of the downward slope is not a particularly revolutionary undertaking but it is far more worthy of his time than any alternatives a distinctly uninteresting playground may provide.

Obviously this is not Glasgow - Glasgow is gray and full of rain, and this place is neither of those things - but Nick is still in possession of a pocket knife. He scratches studiously at the wood paneling beside the slide, chipping in his sprawling, untidy script;

mgh = (1/2)mv²
He stands back to scrutinize his completed work with a scowl, arms crossed over his chest.

[ooc: Rush is in the 10-11 range and he doesn't remember anything about Manhattan, the Rift, etc. He's also going through a difficult time in his life regarding gender and identity, so be warned.]

[etherthief]

Continuing on her quest, Iman adventures over to the slide, which appears to have been conquered by some pleb who doesn't even know how to USE it. She scurries up the slide (ladders are for wusses), all ready to pick a fight, and stops short as soon as she sees what he's doing.

"Is that physics?!" she says excitedly.

[rae_of_sun]

Rae feels terrible.

She hates that she and her mom had to move away - away from her dad, and her grandmother, and her house and her room and all the things that were hers and aren't anymore. She hates how her name has been chopped in half for reasons her mom can't or won't try to explain. She really hates their new apartment, which is dark and gloomy all the time. It's like the shadows in her new bedroom have been creeping into her while she sleeps and taking pieces of her away, important pieces that she needs, and she wakes up feeling sick and empty. School is too much - first grade is too old to be sent home crying, but she can't help it.

She should probably be scared because she doesn't know where she is, but it's sunny here. Sunshine is the only thing that makes her feel better anymore. So she's lying on her back in some tall grass, eyes shut against the heavy beat of the sun against her face. After a minute, she hikes up the hem of her shirt so it can shine on her belly, too. This is nice. She'll just stay right here being a tripping hazard.

[bibliophale]

WHAT is THIS.

Aziraphale looks down at himself with immense displeasure. He's in a similar body to the one he's been wearing in Manhattan, but it's so low to the ground. And his hands are small and pudgy, his belly is even rounder than usual, and he feels all - soft and tiny. Cherublike, one might say.

This is the body of a CHILD.

Okay this is just a bridge too far. Of all the indignities the Rift has put him through this has to be the worst.

He stalks through the meadow looking like a little ball of fluffed up cat, so annoyed he nearly trips over a pale little girl.

"Oh-" he blurts, and then he takes another look at her, agog. There's no mistaking her, even as different as she is, a person is always the same throughout life to the eyes of an angel.

"Sunshine!" he says, immediately plopping down next to you. "Are you all right? You look terrible!"

Well, that could have come out better.

[biscuit_powered]

Asmodia is obviously not allowed to be here. She's been warned more times than she can remember about wandering away from the inn and she knows full well the scolding that's in for her whenever she gets back. For now, though, the prospect of an afternoon away from chores and away from Lusana's bossing sounds really good, and she's not too fussed about finding her way home. She knows better than to approach the playground where she can see citizen-children climbing and playing, a playground bigger and better than any she's ever seen in the city, even though she aches with the desire to try it out. Maybe if she waits long enough they'll go away and she'll get to climb and slide and swing by herself for a little while without anyone noticing.

Climbing the tree had felt risky and daring, especially the part when she almost fell out of it, but she's proud of the hiding place she found where a bunch of branches come together in a big knot up high. The idea was that she'd watch and see when the children leave, but that got boring quickly and she's since occupied herself by pulling bits of bark and twigs and leaves off the tree around her to make into what might be generously deemed a doll. Her brow is furrowed in concentration as she ties it together with a bit of twine from the pocket of her smock -- and, in a fit of half-daring, leaves the end of the twine trailing off from its middle to be a tail.


[Asmodia is somewhere around eight and fully regressed. She looks like a bitty version of her adult tiefling self, though her horns are just little stubby things at this point.]

[singthesong]

Asmodia may want to be paying closer attention, because there's another child coming to the tree. The boy steps up onto one of the large, low-leaning branches and stands with his hand resting on the trunk, peering up into the foliage. How high does it go? Maybe there's bird's nests higher up he could look at!

He obviously hasn't noticed Asmodia, but after a few seconds he starts pulling himself up onto the next branch. He's not going away.

[fucking_ebay]

This is a pretty great playground, and Peter has already done a lot of running and shrieking up and over and down and around to get the lay of the land. Now that he's explored, though, he's already getting bored of playing by himself. He could climb to the highest spire and be a dragon surveying his castle, or he could crawl into the lowest, darkest little hiding place and be a badger in its den, but if he doesn't have anyone there to see that he's being a dragon or a badger it won't be as much fun as he really thinks it should be.

That's alright, there are lots of other kids here. Peering over the railing of the high platform he's scaled, he spots someone down on the ground and calls out to them without the slightest hesitation or shyness. "Hey!" he shouts. "Hey, yoo! Wanna play tag?!"


[Peter's maybe five or six and does not remember a dang thing. Mmyep.]

oh lord I hope I can get this right

[apidae]

She is very busy. Busy little Bee! That's what momma says.

This place is very pretty but it's not home, and she doesn't know any of the kids here. Other kids are scary and they never want to play games her way. So she's on her own, waiting until momma or granddaddy come to fetch her. They'll come, surely.

She's making a circle of pebbles. It has to be perfect and nice. Otherwise it's ruined and she has to start over.

Someone's talking to her! Oh no, oh no. She covers her head with her arms, curling into a little ball, then peeks out, looking up at him. What's tag? What should she say? Maybe if she doesn't say anything he'll go away.


[Bee's around 4 or 5]

[unpurify]

Maybe playgrounds are for normal kids, but playing is the last thing on Sam's mind, like always. Dad hammered it in his head as soon as he was old enough to talk, told him over and over never to go off unarmed, and while he's pretty sure that's not a normal thing dads are ever supposed to say, he has to acknowledge with a sinking twist in his gut that Dad's right. He's always right. He doesn't have a sawed-off or anything, but at least he's got one of Dad's hunting knives in his pocket. Just in case.

Sam's staying away from the playground, away from all the other normal kids. Maybe eight-year-olds aren't supposed to be morose and lonely, but it's not like Sam even really counts as a kid anymore. Maybe he wasn't ever. Freaks don't get friends, just knife collections and a long, long list of grisly things they know how to kill.

The swing-set's a cliché, but it's empty, and that's good. Sam kicks at the ground, hands wrapped around the swing chains, puffing up little swirls of sawdust where his sneakers scrape over the stuff.

[wentdowntogeorgia]

He knows this boy.

The unassuming little brown-haired boy with the shaggy haircut and flannel is like a metaphorical weight on the fabric of the universe; he feels his presence like gravity, like nothing else he's ever felt expect possibly his Father. His name is seared across his mind like it's branded there, deep and permanent.

He could stay away from him no more than he could stay away from God.

His bare feet are quiet as he walks up behind him and reaches for the swing beside him; he sits, facing the opposite way, and hooks his elbows around the chains.

"Hello, Sam."

[omnomnom_feels]

Nhodd cannot remember why he manifested in this place. Full manifestation is difficult enough not to be done except under exceptional circumstances, and none of the bright little flashes of life around him seem in such dire need as to justify it. In addition, this is a strange manifestation -- it is most unusual to take the form of one of the mortal sapients' young. How is he meant to convey a sense of authority when he appears to be so very small?

Perhaps it is not authority he is meant to convey, but comfort. Even so, he does not know who is his target, and it is troubling that he cannot remember on what plane he was last situated or on what task he is meant to complete. He tilts his head and stares up into the sky, stock still, as his aetheric essence expands and reaches out for his brethren, seeking contact so that he might make the necessary inquiries before taking action. That he cannot immediately sense them is unexpected but not outside the realm of possibility. Perhaps he should dispense of this physical body and leave this place to seek them out? But if he made the effort to put himself here in this form, surely there was a reason and it would be wasteful to undo it so quickly, and wastefulness is abhorrent. Frozen in indecision, he remains where he is, his little form unnaturally still, as he considers the options and their consequences and waits for someone who may give him instruction.


[Rashad is pre-fall and is very confused about why he has manifested as a nine-year-old child. This is a celestial automaton more or less how he was before he got broken the first time.]

[singthesong]

This is the best playground ever, and he's gonna use all of it.

There's one little boy happily running and climbing and crawling all over the giant wooden structure. Not entirely in the intended ways, either - you probably aren't meant to walk along the upper railings like that. He's got both arms out to his sides like a tightrope walker, and despite the occasional wobble he's comfortable enough to be humming to himself while he does it. He doesn't really remember how he got here, but that doesn't worry him. There's plenty of other kids around, and it IS a playground - so obviously he should be playing on it!

Maybe later he'll go down and get some ice cream, too. He's pretty sure it's not normally free, but he's been watching the stand for a while now and no adult's come back to run it. That means it's free now, right...?

(( OOC: He's about seven or eight and fully regressed, if that is indeed the right word for it. ))

[andhiswife]

Greta's not happy when she reaches the playground. Her nice crown is gone - she hadn't been able to bring herself to make another one - and her face is all red from crying. Plenty of other children are enjoying the giant play castle, but she can't bring herself to join them, either. So she plops down on the ground beside a wooden bench and hugs her knees to her chest, her back to the fun, and sniffles miserably.

She wishes her mother was here.

[has_a_horn]

(ooc: Gabe is about as regressed as an angel can get. He's pre-humanity. The vessel looks about 12)

Gabriel wanders through the little meadow covered in wildflowers, enjoying the breeze, but only until he realizes that he's not alone here. He looks about 12 and is draped in a white linen gown. These creatures around here are strange and new- like small upright apes, but there's more to them than that. They've got a special spark to them that he doesn't quite recognize.

It's strange that he looks like one of them. His Father must have done that, and he wonders why. Is he supposed to learn something here? Probably. He props himself behind a large branch of the great old tree and watches, half hidden. He doesn't think he's quite ready to interact with them yet, but he's very curious.

[wentdowntogeorgia]

His older brother appears on a branch above him with the sound of wing beats. He lets his legs dangle down and kicks them idly, letting their own kinetic energy swing them back and forth.

"Hello, little brother."

What odd little forms these are. They're small and fragile and strangely shaped compared to their Father's previous creations.

"Are you going to talk to one of them? They use real language, like we do, except it's ugly and crude."

[erratic_hematic]

(NOT regressed, looks about 9)

"No. Agh! What in the buggering hell is this supposed to be about. Fucking-"

He's a child. Obviously, a child. And wearing fashion that went out of style a couple hundred years ago. All in all, this feels utterly ridiculous.

He plops himself down at the little fountain and crosses his arms over his chest. Nothing to do but wait for this whole thing to end.

[fucking_ebay]

Hope you like peace and quiet, Spike, by which I mean the opposite thing. A screaming whirlwind of a five-year-old child comes tearing straight through the midst of the fountain on his way from somewhere exciting to somewhere with the promise of something even better. Spotting an older kid already there, Peter reaches out a hand to slap against the other boy's torso as he runs past. "Tag, you're it!!"

[powerdealer]

[Seth is about 10, and fully regressed - though he has his powers, but he probably won't realise unless they become necessary.]

Seth is so overwhelmed by the scope of the playground that for a while he just kinda stands there gaping at it. They don't have anything like this where he lives. There's a lawn and some unclimbable trees, and that's about it - and the lawn is usually full of either people (always older than him) or trash or both. There's a swing-set at his school, but they're either all broken or taken up by people (again, always older than him).

He cautiously starts exploring the playground. There are other kids running around too, and Seth finds it's almost just as fun to watch them play as it is to climb the fort. It doesn't quite occur to him yet that he could approach one of them.

[all_the_gifts]

[Melanie is just as she is in the waking world, sans regression of any kind.]

This is one of the strangest - and oddly thrilling - dreams Melanie has had, yet. None of the children here are hungry children; she checked carefully, half hoping and half dreading seeing someone from her class, or one of the others she'd discovered later, in what was left of London. These are all normal children, though. That's exciting, too. She's seen normal children before, but never really interacted with one.

Would it be safe? Probably, she thinks; the hunger is shut tight in its box. She just doesn't know how to go about it.

When she spies another child more inclined towards observing than playing, she decides he might be a good place to start. Maybe he's more interested in books, like her. So she approaches him directly, making sure to walk at a normal pace and stay within his line of sight, so he doesn't think she's trying to sneak up on him. A few feet away, politely out of arm's reach, she stops. "Hi. I'm Melanie."

[timeladylost]

This is so cool.

She's not used to being able to play so openly. Nyx loves to run around, she loves to jump and shout and play games in the fields, but the other students at the Academy think that it's unseemly, or messy, or that they'd get in trouble. And yeah, maybe they will, but who cares? But her arguments tend to fall on deaf ears, and she's left to run around on her own.

But this? A whole structure made for playing on? Forget using bogs or fields or fruit-stalls, or trying to climb up the smooth walls of one of the libraries in the Capitol. She could do whatever she wanted here. She didn't even realize it at first, not until she watched a couple of the other kids.

And so there's a rambunctious, blonde Time Tot racing around--spinning the tic tac toe board, jumping off of the more moderate platforms, and swinging from the hanging bars. Just wait until Keikophnyxol finds out what a slide does.

[not in the game (yet???), so fully regressed to about 8 or 9.]

ohai thar, it's cully!

[imashinyboy]

Vince, like Nyx, has never seen a playground before, but Vince, unlike Nyx, is pretty much used to everything being for playing on. So while the structures are new and strange to him, what's even stranger is all the people! Vince hasn't hardly ever met any people-- human people-- other than Bryan and Andy and Other Brian and Phil, and they're all adults, so that's different.

He's skipping haphazardly along a long wooden bar that's clearly supposed to be used as a railing but which is much better utilised as a balance beam when he sees Nyx spinning the tic tac toe board, and prompts launches himself in her direction. He lands like someone who's spent a lot of time launching himself at things (he has; comes of growing up in the jungle), a crouch that he springs up from easily.

'What's that?' He points at the spinning board. They're letters, he thinks; Bryan has sporadically been trying to teach him to read, but Vince isn't much good at it.

He's an incredibly small child; skinny enough that ribs can be seen under his t-shirt (decorated in pink rhinestones with his own name: VINCE), and short for his age, but his hair and eyes seem to be trying to be big enough to make up for the rest of him. His feet, when he stands, point in, a pigeon-toed stance that betrays some of his nerves at the unfamiliar situation, despite his decided lack of shyness.

[driftseeker]

There's a little girl in the fountain, really truly in it, giggling over the way the water tickles over her fingers when she blocks the streams of water with cupped hands. This isn't her father's workshop, but that's okay. It's bright and sunny but not in the humid way like at home, not like it's about to rain. And best of all, there aren't any ominous echoes on the radio, no hush-static voice murmuring about the deep dark things from the sea crawling their way out onto land.

Here is bright and pretty and peaceful, and Mako likes playing in the water even if she's well and truly soaked by now. No more caring about things she hears on radios, not today. She's having way too much fun to worry about that.

[ooc: Mako is about 10 and is also probably still learning English.]

[anguiform]

Well, this is odd. Zaphkiel... doesn't know where he is, and that's rarely happened. Yeah, there was the Beginning, but things get nebulous that far back anyway, and since then there's been the spheres of Heaven, which are all well-trod and known, and-- more recently-- the Earth. Which is pretty excellent, Zaphkiel thinks. He knows some of his stodgier brethren are a bit dubious about the whole thing, but it's so, well, excitingly wild! He's been down a few times and had a wander-- just for the purposes of observation; he's not in the business of guarding or shaping or any of that.

This has got to be Earth, strange though it is that he can't remember how he got here, nor how he ended up in this body, which-- he looks down at his hands-- seems uncommonly small. He spares a frown of thought, but puts it down to ineffability with the shrug of one who is perhaps already getting slightly cheesed off with that whole concept. The structure that dominates the field looks like a sort of... crude imitation of some of the palaces of Heaven. Funny. But it merits exploration, he thinks, and he sets off curiously to do some poking about.

To those dreamers who hail from Manhattan, they might recognise this particular boy as looking much like an aged-down version of the demon Crowley. Or, at any rate, what that body would look like if it were about twelve; weedy, with wild hair and-- unusually-- dark and entirely human-looking eyes. But Zaphkiel wouldn't know anything about that; he's an angel, and demons haven't even been invented yet.

[bibliophale]

"Oh, thank goodness," Aziraphale says upon spotting his small, awkward-looking compatriot, nearly tumbling over himself in an effort to get to him. "Crowley! Over here!" He waves a chubby little hand at him, then slumps to a halt beside him, bending over to catch his breath. "This is a right nightmare, isn't it? I can't get over it. No one even remembers who they are!"

[stronglikebear]

This is, like, infinity times better than all the other times he's been a bear. He's not in a cage! There's stuff everywhere! There was a fountain! There's food!

A very damp (and very round) bear cub can currently be found pawing open the door of an ice cream stand someone went and left unlatched. He very studiously pries it open, shoving his nose into the crack so he can use his face to push it the rest of the way open and clamber up inside. He is going to wreck this place until he gets the ice cream he can smell, and possibly wreck things some more after that also.


[Shut up it's close enough to the full moon, I do what I want]

[wildmage_daine]

Oh, no. A bear shouldn't be this close to folk, and it's a young one, and he feels sick. Where's his ma? Daine looks around, both relieved and troubled not to see or hear any other bears. But there aren't any grown-ups, either. She's not sure she can handle a bear, but she's probably got a better chance of it than any of these other children.

"You shouldn't be in there," she calls, twisting her hands together. "There'll be a fuss."