applesaucedream | We Are Awakened With The Axe [Open to All]

Current Music: September 29th/30th, 2013

We Are Awakened With The Axe [Open to All]

photo zombie dream party_zpsbb0hfksu.jpg

The city has been abandoned.

Its infrastructure has been slowly deteriorating for quite some time, now. Traffic has long since ground to a permanent halt, taxis and trucks rusting by the curbs or abandoned mid-intersection. Most of the ground-floor windows have been shattered. Electricity is spotty, if it can be found at all. The eerie silence is broken only by the wind, the calls of crows, or the gentle collapse of some structure or other. And, of course, the occasional screams.

The city has been abandoned, but it is not empty.

What caused the various outbreaks hardly matters. Viral infection, fungal infection, some new or ancient bacterium suddenly released into the general populace - who knows? What does matter is that the city has become home to thousands if zombies, some slow, some fast, some mindless, some retaining a savage kind of intelligence. And they are all so, so hungry.

There are weapons to be found or improvised, and places to hide if you're lucky enough to come across someplace well-fortified and otherwise empty. Others have clearly had the same idea, leaving hastily constructed barricades in some places. You might even take those as a blessing, if the conspicuous absence of the original builders doesn't bother you. ~~They're probably living on a nice farm somewhere.~~

One thing is certain: if you don't want to succumb to whatever plagues have ravaged this place, you will have to fight for your survival.

[OOC: usual dream party rules apply; all are welcome to participate, and characters can remember or forget at the players' discretion. Also, usual zombie rules apply: if you get bitten, you'll be turned into the sort of zombie that bit you. Whether your characters deal with comically dim shamblers or the terrifying sprinty variety is up to you.

Finally, let's just go ahead and say tw: violence and gore for the post as a whole, because it's gonna get messy, folks.]

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"I'm not really sure..." the Balladeer responds hesitantly. He's never really thought about the most defensible locations around the city, or whatever the criteria might be for something like this. Honestly, he'd probably just panic and hide at home. He doesn't consider himself especially nervous; his experiences have prepared him very well for smaller calamities, violent attacks on individuals, things like that. This is all just very much outside his wheelhouse.

"It couldn't hurt to check. I'll notice if we pass close enough to anyone, even if they're hiding." On a normal day, the background noise and his own inattention don't let him hear every single individual he passes by, but those problems don't exist here.

The Balladeer must have some sort of power she doesn't know about, but that's just as well, if it's helpful.

The Park, she suggests. It's open - maybe too open - but if those dead folk are after other people... she lifts a forepaw and sets it down in the canine equivalent of a shrug. And more of my friends will be there. That might be a more sheepish admission under different circumstances, but right now, they could use all the allies they can get.

The Balladeer just shrugs. "Sounds good to me." He's not sure how many other people would go there - it IS very open - but he's pretty familiar with it himself. He can make a better chase there, he's sure. Plus, getting a few more animal comrades couldn't hurt.

He turns to head in that direction, glancing warily along the alleyways. "I can hear people - their lives," he explains belatedly, gesturing towards his head again. "Those things aren't alive, so they're just quiet. It's...unnerving." He's seen dead bodies before. He knows how it sounds when someone goes silent. They just don't usually get right the hell up again afterwards. "Anyone else is gonna stand out in this."

Hear people, Daine repeats bemusedly, looking up at him. Is it anything like the 'hearing' she does when she's trying to find one of the People? If so, she understands his uneasiness a little too well. It's like those animals she raised using the Graveyard Hag's gift. They'd acted as if they had minds, and they could certainly understand her, but she couldn't hear them.

And they'd been nice to her. These folk - it's not just as if they've been woken up, it's like something's turned them nasty.

Well, she says, let me know if you hear anyone.

There's a harsh, warning caw as they approach the next major intersection, and Daine stills, nose quivering. Wait, she tells the Balladeer before slinking forward to peer around the corner. Her ears flick back, and she carefully withdraws and creeps back to the Balladeer's side.

We have a problem. There are lots of them.

The Balladeer waits obediently as Daine scouts ahead, pressing his back against a wall and crossing his arms uneasily. Whatever's going on up there, he doesn't hear anything. He can find the living, but he's not going to be much help dealing with the dead. Undead. However you wanna put it

"Are they coming this way?" he asks when she returns, gaze darting up past her. "We could go a few blocks down, take a different route."

Daine huffs out a sigh. The street's too open. I think they'll see us for certain wherever we try to cross. Cutting down a few blocks might buy them some time, but they might just as easily run into a second group of them while trying to avoid the first.

We might be best off just making a run for it. She looks up at the Balladeer. He's certainly tall, but he doesn't look too heavy. Have you ever ridden a horse before? she asks.

"Never." Is she going to turn into a horse? In another context, that would be really exciting!

...admittedly, it's still slightly exciting now. It's just that riding into a horde of zombies is something that gives even the Balladeer a bit of pause. "I've seen people do it, but I guess that's not very helpful," he adds frankly. There's a big difference between seeing and doing, and he has a feeling that his knowledge of things he's technically never experienced (like, say, picnics) doesn't extend as far as that.

The odds of him being able to hold on while she carries him seem a bit higher than the odds of them outrunning all the dead folk if they're limited to a two-legger's top speed, even a gangly two-legger's. Well, let's give it a try, she decides, growing into horse shape and giving her mane a settling shake. There's a toppled newspaper bin that could do for a step-up, so she stands beside it and turns to look at the Balladeer.

Climb on, she says. You can hold onto my mane at the bottom without hurting me, and it'll help keep you from falling. Not as much as having a horse who actively wants to keep him aboard will, but that probably goes without saying.

The Balladeer may be nervous about the entire prospect, but he certainly doesn't show any hesitation in mounting. Granted, it's obvious he's never done it before, but he's still quite alright hoisting himself up onto Daine's back.

"Alright," he confirms, carefully curling his fingers into her mane. "I'll try not to pull too hard." He's not going to promise. This is going to get messy, and while he trusts that she'll do her best to keep him on...well. Things happen. After a moment, he figures he's about as settled as he's going to get. "Ready when you are."

Let your legs hang down as straight as you can, elsewise you'll cramp she advises. Squeeze with your knees if you start feeling unstable, but I'll do my best not to drop you.

That, she figures, ought to be enough for what they're about to do. It's not far to the Park, but Goddess knows how many of them might be after them by the time they reach it, or how fast they'll be.

At least her unshod hooves are fair quiet on the pavement. She walks toward the intersection, ears pricked and nostrils flared. She's not sure how these monsters would react to an animal - once she dropped two-legger shape, she tried to stay well out of their way - but with a human on her back, it might not matter whether they'd be interested in a horse or not. It's the Balladeer they'd want.

Well, they won't get him.

Daine doesn't bother with a trot; that would as likely jostle the Balladeer loose as anything else. Instead, she surges straight into a canter, crossing the intersection - and catching the monsters' attention.

They come at a run.

The Balladeer corrects his legs, which he had been bending, but otherwise sits silent and straight-backed on Daine as they turn to approach the intersection.

Okay. Okay. Here we go.

The sudden burst of speed startles a gasp out of him, but he holds tighter to her mane and doesn't feel as if he's about to fall. A glance over his shoulder shows the crowd, as big as he'd expected, but he didn't anticipate them breaking into a run as well. What the hell? He hunches over her back again, gripping tighter with his legs. "They can run now!" he states breathlessly, for no one's benefit.

So I see, Daine replies, flattening her ears back. Huzzah. Hold on tight. And she breaks into a gallop.

It probably wouldn't be much of a chase if the streets were less cluttered with stalled cars and debris, or if there weren't so gods-curst many of the things - not just behind her, but coming from the sides, too. As it is, Daine has her work more than cut out for her just to stay ahead of the mob, and things only get worse when she reaches the borders of the Park and realizes someone's barricaded the smaller pathway she'd been aiming for. She pulls up short with a grunt of dismay, then lashes out with a hind leg, catching one of her pursuers in the knee and sending it sprawling.

This is bad. They're pinned against the Park until she finds another way in, and there are enough of the monsters now to pen them in if they're not careful - or if they don't get help. She wheels around and surges up Fifth Avenue, casting her magic out like a net in a wordless, desperate plea. The crows answer, rising out of nearby trees and swarming around her and her passenger in a raucous mob and flapping into the faces of their pursuers. It buys them a little space, and Daine takes it, lengthening her stride as she gallops down the sidewalk.

Their luck doesn't hold. A toppled food cart blocks the way - she could jump it, but she might lose the Balladeer in the process, and more of the monsters are closing in.

Really, there's only one other direction she can possibly go.

Hang on until we're in the air, she orders tersely, and then go limp. Trust me.

That's all the warning she can give him before she turns towards the wall bordering the park, gathers her haunches beneath her, and leaps.

The wall itself is a bit too high for her to clear, and topped with a crooked coil of barbed wire for good measure. But she doesn't stay in horse shape; once she's launched them both upwards, she twists and shifts, prehensile feet gripping the Balladeer's arms and large pteranodon wings dragging them both over the barrier. He's still far too big for her to carry, though, and they hardly clear the wall before they're both dropping down into the underbrush and tumbling down a hill, Daine hastily shrinking herself into ermine shape to counteract her own momentum.

By the time she finally rolls to a halt, she can hardly tell which way is up. Balladeer? she calls, staggering to her feet, fur askew.

Hold tight, the Balladeer does.

He leans over Daine's neck and grips her mane tighter than he ever meant and even draws his legs up against her orders as zombies start approaching from the side. It nearly sends him flying when she pulls up short, but a hoof takes out the nearest zombie and he manages to right himself. He's never been afraid like this before. Assassins are one thing - he knows people, he can deal with people. But this!

"The air?" he yelps, but doesn't get a response before they're in the air. It's obvious they won't make it over the wall, and he shuts his eyes as he presses himself down against her back -

- and then she drops out from beneath him altogether, and he barely has time to shout before something grabs his arms. The Balladeer, luckily, has enough presence of mind to just go limp instead of thrashing.

As quickly as the new form appeared, it's gone, and he's tumbling through brush and down a hill. He lands on his back, hard, knocking the wind out of him for a moment. It takes a few moments after Daine calls out before he wheezes back, "Did you just turn into a dinosaur?"

Briefly, she admits, hopping slantwise towards the sound of his voice, stumbling and nearly somersaulting more than once, twisting to keep herself upright despite only having a vague idea of what 'upright' is. Ultimately, she doesn't reach his side so much as collide with his ribs and rebound into the grass. Are you all right?

The Balladeer doesn't seem inclined to move just yet. His head's still spinning, his entire body aches, and as long as there aren't any zombies around he's just gonna take a minute. Luckily they don't seem to be good at moving quietly, even if they're silent to his other senses.

"Fine. I'm fine." He opens his eyes and turns to look at her. "You?"

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We Are Awakened With The Axe [Open to All]

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