applesaucedream | Falling [Open to Multiple]

Current Music: January 28th - 29th, 2013

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Falling [Open to Multiple]

The last time Daine so thoroughly exhausted herself was during the siege at Pirate's Swoop, so it's no great surprise that in her dream, that's where she wakes. She sits up on the cot they've set up for her in the stables, where the ponies could keep an eye on her. Her head swims, and she grips the edge of the cot until the sensation passes.

A familiar gray nose enters her field of vision, and Daine smiles as Cloud, her pony, sniffs her over. "I'm fine," she reassures the mare, reaching up to give her neck a pat.

You're no such thing, Cloud replies tartly. You've drained yourself again. I won't always be there to lend you strength when you need it.

"Good thing you're here now, then." Daine steadies herself against the pony as she rises to her feet, ignoring Cloud's irritated snort. "Where's Numair?"

It's trouble enough to keep an eye on you, let alone the stork-man.

Daine sighs. "Fine. I'll find him myself."

She makes it to the stable doors before the scene begins to disintegrate around her. Daine whirls about to look for Cloud, but the stable is gone, replaced by nothingness. Within moments, nothing remains but the planks below her feet - and then they, too, crumble away. Daine drops into the Dreaming with a cry of dismay, not knowing where she'll land.

[OOC: Daine's taking a two-day nap after the events in this thread, giving her enough time to drop into the minds of a good number of people. Go nuts!]

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How can she help him when she has all these books to stamp? Daine transfers her glare down to the desk in front of her. This is stupid, she decides, and she shoves another stack off the desk - on purpose, this time. This is stupid, and she doesn't have to do it.

Which means Andrew doesn't have to do it, either. She climbs over her desk, knocking a few more books to the floor and gouging the wood with her claws, and lumbers up to Andrew's. Are you stuck? She remembers how he'd struggled to get up before, but she can't see what's holding him in place. It just looks like an ordinary chair to her.

Andrew flinches again -- the books! She shouldn't be shoving books around like that, especially not the Master's books. He nervously stamps another one under her gaze, then nods.

"He's locked me in," he says, twisting to look at the chair. It's all polished wood and plastic casters, and he knows just from looking at it that it's hopelessly stuck in place. He squirms to demonstrate, rising partway out of the seat before the tops of his legs catch on the desk, too close in to twist and pull them up through the gap. Sitting back down, he grabs another book. "He's going to come back," he says, worried. "He always comes back."

Daine pats the chair with her paw, confirming what Andrew has already demonstrated. It really is stuck in place.

Then we won't be here when he does, Daine says. She sits beside Andrew's chair, checking to make sure there's enough clearance between his legs and the desk that she won't hurt him with what she's about to try. Then she rears back and surges forward, slamming her forepaws against the desk. It's heavy enough that Andrew might not have been able to move it, even if he'd tried, but it's not solid enough to withstand a polar bear's efforts. It scoots forward a few inches, books tumbling to the ground. Crossing behind Andrew, she repeats the gesture on his other side, grunting as she shoves the desk forward.

Andrew yelps and tries to get away from the bear suddenly slamming her paws into his desk. She doesn't hurt him, though -- but when she does it again on the other side, his attempt to claw his way out of the chair is less the result of rational recognition of the fact he's been freed than it is a general attempt to flee. He's rather surprised when he actually gets out, feet catching on the arm of the chair and sending him sprawling across the books on the floor.

Daine's quite pleased with her accomplishment, and it doesn't occur to her that Andrew's eagerness to scramble out of the chair is prompted by fear of her. She lets out a huff that's somewhere between amusement and worry when he lands on the floor.

Careful! she admonishes, padding over to him. She gently wedges her head beneath his arm so she can help him to his feet. Are you all right?

As soon as she's not hitting things or getting growly, Andrew remembers that Daine is Daine and calms down again. He lays panting on his pile of books for a moment, trying to get his bearings and wondering where his stamp has gone.

"I'm alright," he confirms, leaning on her to get up. Books slide from under his feet, and he hangs onto her fur to keep his balance. "You just startled me."

"I don't hear stamping!" calls a phantom voice from the stacks.

I'm sorry, Daine says, wrapping a paw around him to help steady him. I should've warned you it'd be noisy.

The Master's voice drifts through the stacks, and Daine instinctively tightens her grip, hugging Andrew closer as she snarls in the direction the voice came from. How do we get out of here?

And smoosh. Even when he's not split into itty bitty bits of himself, Andrew seems destined to be smaller than Daine. That's what it seems like at the moment, anyway. He sucks in a breath as best he can under the circumstances, thinking fast.

"The bookdrop!" he exclaims. "He can't have locked that. He needs the books returned." Lifting his chin, he indicates a path through the shelves. "That way."

Daine nods, then trundles off in the direction Andrew pointed out, keeping her pace slow enough to match his. It's a tight squeeze through the shelves, but she wants to be large enough to protect them if the Master catches up to them. Andrew might not want her to hurt him, but if the Master tries to hurt them, she's not going to sit idly by and let him.

Andrew follows along behind. It's too narrow for them to walk abreast between the shelves, and he finds himself hopping to see over her every few steps. He's about to ask if maybe he can ride on her when there's a sharp tug on his shoelace. Yelping, he thumps to the floor and grabs at Daine's hind leg to stop himself from sliding under the shelf with whatever's grabbed him.

Andrew? Daine lowers her head to peer back at him from between her forelegs. What...?

Her question is cut off by a tell-tale rattle from the next aisle over. Daine lifts her head as the shelves around them glaze over with frost, and her alarmed whuff makes a visible cloud in the suddenly freezing air. Through the gaps between the books and the shelves, she sees a flash of beaded skin colored in vivid, poisonous hues.

Andrew hadn't told her the Master kept a Coldfang.

Hold on tight, Daine orders, an edge of panic to her voice, and don't look at it! Digging her claws into the floor, she drags herself forward, trying to break the monster's hold on Andrew.

Edited 2013-04-23 01:07 (UTC)

"What is it?" demands Andrew, immediately failing to follow orders in that he twists and tries to see it. The angle's all wrong, though -- there's only a bit of movement visible through the shelves, and his head is too high to see the -- hand? paw? -- of the creature that's got hold of him. He tightens his grip on Daine and wriggles his foot and -- there! His foot slides out of his shoe, leaving the latter behind in the creature's grip.

Daine stumbles a little as Andrew suddenly jerks free, and there's an angry hiss from the other aisle. Coldfang, Daine replies, resisting the urge to turn around and check on Andrew lest she catch sight of the creature's eyes. They're thief-trackers, she adds, feeling a bit sick at the implications. She's no stranger to slavery, for all that she loathes the practice. Andrew is a person, but to the Master - and the Coldfang - he's stolen property. And she's the thief.

Climb on my back, quick! she urges. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see frost blooming along the spines of the books as the Coldfang drags itself down the adjacent aisle, its pace slow, but relentless.

On the one hand, there's an unknown (to him) monster trying to drag him under the shelves and apparently scaring the daylights out of Daine. On the other, Andrew has just received an invitation to ride on a polar bear. He's on her in a flash, somehow scrambling up her shaggy side, kicking at the bookshelves for footholds and sending hardbacks flying.

"I'm not a thief!" objects Andrew. He has to pause a moment and amend that. "I'm not a thief lately," he says instead. "Why did you say not to look at it?"

As soon as she thinks Andrew's settled, she breaks into a shambling run. Hopefully she can put some distance between them and the Coldfang, though she knows that unless they kill it, it'll never stop pursuing them.

I'm the thief, Daine says, suppressing a shudder. I took you. And if you look at its eyes, it paralyzes you.

At least it's in the next aisle over. But within moments of that thought entering her head, there's a loud crash from behind them as the Coldfang slams into one of the shelves between their respective aisles. Books cascade across the floor as the shelves topple like dominoes, and the Coldfang's tail rattles as it slides into the aisle behind them.

"You can't steal a person!" Andrew protests. "I give you permission to take me -- hear that?! She has my permission --!"

For all that he's been told not to do it, and for all that he knows precisely the reason why he mustn't do it, it still seems almost inevitable when Andrew looks over his shoulder to see their enemy and to scold it. His breath catches in his throat, eyes wide as they meet the creature's gaze. Its appearance hardly registers; he has only an impression of bright scales. His entire body goes rigid, and he panics internally as he feels his unresponsive hands and legs lose their grip on Daine. He slides off her back and lands hard on the floor, winded.

Winded, but unfrozen again. Gasping for air, he scrambles after Daine -- but hearing the Coldfang approaching from behind, he panics and dives through a shelf instead, ramming the books aside with his head and shoulders in his attempt to get into the next aisle over.

Daine's about to point out that Andrew's permission isn't worth much, given that the Coldfang doesn't take orders from him, when she feels him still on top of her, and then start to slide. I told you not to look! Daine cries as she skids to a halt.

The aisle isn't really wide enough for her to turn around, and she nearly gets stuck in the attempt. With a grunt, she shoves aside the shelves in her way - fortunately, not the same set as the ones Andrew's wriggling through. She sees his flailing legs - and then she sees the Coldfang.

Daine drops to her suddenly human knees, unable to focus on holding the polar bear shape - unable to focus on anything but the Coldfang. It drags itself toward her at a leisurely pace, head swinging from side to side, tail rattling as it bumps over the books littering the floor. Andrew is casually bypassed; the Coldfang is more interested in the thief than the stolen property. Its mouth opens, revealing rows of sharp, silver teeth and two hinged fangs, like a snake's. Daine shivers, her breath ghosting in front of her.

Andrew kicks, pulls, and squirms, finally pulling himself through and clambering to his feet, skittering across downed books. "Daine?" he calls, trying to figure out why he can't hear the sounds of a galloping polar bear. "Daine??"

He shoves books aside on a shelf near eye level, trying to see into the next aisle. Daine's no longer a polar bear -- and more importantly, she's no longer moving. Andrew's gaze ghosts over the body of the Coldfang before he remembers himself and makes himself look away.

The fact that he's not looking at it probably explains why the first book misses. Another one flies through the air almost immediately after it, though, and then another and another -- with Andrew throwing them as fast as he can, some of them are bound to hit the creature. "Get back!" he orders it. "Get away from her!"

The Coldfang doesn't react as the first book sails over its hindquarters, but after the second missile hits it solidly on the shoulder, it pauses, tail buzzing. It gets in another shuffling step towards Daine before two more books strike its body in quick succession, and then it swings its head towards Andrew, hissing in displeasure as more heavy volumes are sent winging its way.

Daine struggles to break free of the creature's hold, but she can't - until a wayward book deals her a solid enough blow to knock her over. She scrambles to her feet and runs down the aisle as quickly as she can, given the books littering the ground. "I'm okay!" she calls to Andrew. "Run!"

If Andrew knew he'd just hit Daine, he'd be rather sorry about it. As it is, he's got his face turned away and his eyes screwed shut, so he's just going off the sounds to tell him whether he's hit flesh or not. His legs tremble as he hears the thing hiss, not knowing whether he's get its attention firmly enough to make it actually attack him.

He leaps to obey Daine's instructions, not needing to be told twice. He bounds over fallen books, slipping and sliding but keeping his footing like some sort of ungainly gazelle. "Meet me at the book drop!" he shouts.

Daine glances over at what she can see of Andrew through the stacks. She doesn't even know where the book drop is, but that's not important. "You don't understand - it won't stop! They never stop!"

The Coldfang rattles its tail behind her, as if in agreement. Now that its quarry is on the move, it has upped its speed, sliding and scrambling over the books scattered across the floor.

The end of the aisle comes sooner than Daine expected it to, as if the wall had leapt forward to meet her, and she has to scramble to a halt to keep from rebounding off the rough, stone surface. Wait - stone? She glances along the wall, and her heart thumps when she realizes it's covered in weapons, as if someone pasted an armory wall to the rest of the library.

And there's a bow, already strung. Daine grabs it eagerly as the Coldfang closes the distance between them, hissing furiously.

Somehow, Andrew had not been expecting a wall. He does rebound off it in his own aisle, landing on his rear. Rolling over, he knocks some books free of one of the lower shelves. "Through here!" he hisses, not seeing what Daine is doing -- not seeing much of Daine at all, as a matter of fact, apart from her feet.

"Hush," Daine says as she grabs a few arrows. One goes between her teeth, the other goes on the string. Then she shuts her eyes tightly and thinks of Jasper and Stewart. Two large but delicate-looking bat ears sprout through her curls, and she turns to face the oncoming Coldfang, eyes still firmly shut.

The monster isn't even trying to be quiet. From its hissing, its claws scrabbling over the ground, and the rattle of its tail, she gets a clear enough picture of where it is and how quickly its moving.

The first arrow strikes its shoulder, and the Coldfang lets out a furious shriek, bearing down on her as she sets the second arrow to the string. Even without bat's ears, she could hear where to send her second arrow. She looses, and the Coldfang's scream is abruptly cut off. It collapses to the floor a few feet from where Daine is standing, the arrow tip protruding slightly from the back of its skull.

Daine shifts her ears back and opens her eyes, looking down at the Coldfang's body. "Well, there's that done," she says unsteadily. Then she turns away and leans against the wall, endeavoring to not be sick.

"Daine!" hisses Andrew, once again failing to get it. As the monster -- the Coldfang, he reminds himself, it has a name -- comes nearer, though, he draws back from where he was trying to reach through the shelf and encourage Daine to follow. When he hears it shriek he's up on his feet in a flash, just in time to hear the twang of the bow as Daine lets loose the second arrow. The Coldfang goes silent, and Andrew strains to see through to the other aisle. After a few moments of futile efforts to see through books, he drops down again and wriggles halfway through the bottom shelf.

This has the unforeseen consequence of bringing him quite a bit too close to face-to-face with the dead Coldfang. Andrew freezes for a few seconds before he realizes he's doing it only out of his own reflex, his eyes free to wander over it and see the arrows protruding from its head and shoulder.

"...You've killed it," he says stupidly, staring at it with wide eyes.

"I had to," Daine says. She slowly sinks to the floor, her legs too shaky to hold her up. "They never stop. I had to." Doesn't mean she's happy about it, though. Coldfangs might be nasty as a rule, but it wasn't just coming after them for its own amusement. It was obeying orders. And she's killed it. Daine draws her knees up and rests her forehead against them, squeezing her eyes shut so she doesn't have to look at it.

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