[ prp ] voices just burn holes ( lurks & holly )

[its me debz]

It was not quite the Weeping Forest, but it was close. Beneath a tree shedding its leaves in huge autumn and gold piles was a small figure, cloaked in black. He dove into them at random, emerging in giant leaps into the air, a flurry of shadows flying behind him. Sometimes, he just tossed them into the air with skeleton-bone arms, his shadows carrying the leaves up and up and up.

And then he caught sight of an observer, and waved wildly with both arms.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Hollandaise had spent far too many hours locked in her room recently, staring at her walls until her eyes burned with the memory of home. Her only compnay her singular cactus - fondly named Alberta. But that one plant had not been enough and the stone walls made her skin crawl sometimes. Even so, she had thought it somehow wrong to seek refuge in a forest not her own, but she could not bear it anymore. Deszeld's room had been her artificial forest, but she was not welcome there. She had to find an alternative.

Her feet crunched merrily in leaves as she walked along the edge of the forest. Ocassionally, she darted further in to press a hand against some large tree and feel the years coming off of it in waves. She felt happier then, with the greens and oranges pressing against her, although there was a lingering air of sadness - a reminder that she was not allowed back into her own home forest. An enthusiastic shuffling caught her air and she watched as someone dove into a rather large pile of leaves and then waved.

"Hello," she called out, a politely pleased smile on her lips. She stepped closer, toes touching the edge of the pile. "-shall I join you?"

cherno astra

 

[its me debz]

Lurks beamed at the newcomer, throwing back his hood to reveal a pale skull studded with a crown of black horns. Luminous orange eyes glittered at the student, focused entirely on her with a burning interest. There wasn't much skin on him: it was missing around his mouth, his ribs, his hands and arms, his legs.

"Hello," he said, and lunged towards her to circle around her, first clockwise then counterclockwise, inspecting her from head to toe. "Do you know the mother?" Lurks asked, and promptly began poking and prodding at her leaves.

The Semblance of Unity

f ur name

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Hollandaise flinched when Lurks threw back his hood. Dried out skin clung on unnaturally to bleach white bones. She clenched her teeth and stood still. Aisha had told her she was stupid, that undead were not disgusting, the she should just unlearn things the elders had said. So, she did not run away and simply stood there, her body stiff and unswaying.

"I am Hollandaise," she said, her voice squeaking out around a tongue that did not quite want to work. Then he moved towards her, fingers reaching, touching, stroking and she did pull back a bit. "Ah, please. do not poke me. Would you like it if I invaded your space and were to touch all of your bugs? And I do not know a 'mother'." She tried to turn her body to follow Lurks, keeping him in her sight. He was undead, and he was weird. She could, of course, still see the simple delight he had taken in the leaves in the way he moved - oddly, with an uneven enthusiasm.

"What is your name?" She would stay, she told herself, and not run or call him disgusting or any number of things she caught back behind her teeth. Abruptly, Hollandaise forced her hands to uncurl at her sides; she had not realized her fingers had made fists.

cherno astra

you could just c/p it every time 8'D

 

[its me debz]

"You sound funny," he remarked, not moving out of the way. "I would not mind. They are many many, and they are mine and me." Lurks yawned widely, and a spider fell out into his hands. He offered it to her, insistent.

"I am Lurks Beneath," he said, and his wings flapped gently behind him, steady and black with red-eyes peeping from within their shadowy darkness. "Hollandaise is a bad name. You are the Fussy Moss."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Her toes wriggled against the dead leaves, down past them, into the cold loam that spoke of plant's slumber. Lurks made her wildly uncomfortable and if she could just stretch out a hand and touch the tree trunks that stood so near, or if she were strong enough to focus and hear the small voices of the grass... It would change nothing, but she would feel better, a little more stablized. "I do not sound funny." But she did, and that caused her to tense further. Lurks yawned out a spider and she blinked.

What if he wasn't undead? What if he were a host - a shell for bugs to live and squirm and grow? then... he would not be so bad. He would not be a useless type of disgusting, but useful, like fertilizer nutures plants. Hollandaise's shoulders relaxed, just a bit, and the spider skittered up her arms to root tickishly through her leaves. Her nose wrinkled in a small amusement, although her eyes were still wary.

"Are you a bug host, a bug home, then? My name is not Fuzzy Moss, but moss grows even where it is difficult, so I would like to think the name sort of apt. I have a much, much longer name, but most cannot say it properly." Her head tilted and she looked at his bugs instead of his face, still unnerved by the bone and the skin and everything that suggested undead. No, Hollandaise thought, bug host, cocoon.

"What year are you? I met you briefly with many skittering bugs - that was before I came to school here." she did not realize it, but her body was still leaning slightly away from him, as if she were worried his dead skin might fall off and plop onto her arm.

cherno astra

 

[its me debz]

"No," Lurks said with a laugh, "sort of. Maybe! That is a piece of who I am, but I am very much more important than just that." He did not comment on her commentary on her name: it was given to her, and she was going to have to understand that's how it was. Lurks couldn't be bothered to explain why he was always right.

"I don't count years," Lurks confessed, blinking. "They are many many and go back before you were made, for you are so tiny for a bit of Fussy Moss."

Meanwhile, the spider moved to perch atop her head, like a proud conqueror. Lurks wiggled two bony fingers at it in greeting.

"I am Famine. We are the enders and the deprivers and the ones that live in all the sand." Lurks poked her again, in the side. "Do you like the sand?"

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"I may not be terribly gifted in stature, but I will grow and you are not exceptionally tall or large eit- ah!" Bony fingers prodded her side. "I have never been in sand. There is none here, unless you have decided leaves are your new sand." She raised one eyebrow at him, crossing her arms under her chest. She might have looked more stern if not for the spider swaying about on her head.

Famine, famine, famine. There were one of four - of the apocalypse - turned out of their lairs or something; the Elders had not seen fit to provide Hollandaise with more than the names of the clans. So, not undead, after all. Still kind of gross with the bones everywhere. Despite the surge of reassurance that tingle through her at the 'not-undead' revelation, Hollandaise had certainly bristled at being called tiny.

"Enders, deprivers - who is mother?"

cherno astra

 

[its me debz]

"Nooooo," Lurks whined, jumping up and down. "Tiny is small is young is teeny tiny baby." He pat her head with a heavy hand, and the spider disappeared in a plume of smoke, sinking back into his flesh-- or lack thereof-- seamlessly.

"NEVER BEEN IN SAND!" The horseman began to shake her from anything he could grab, like a scareling might with its rattle. "But the sand is so important. Like the Mother. She is the Famine one who leads, and creates."

Lurks gave her a beady look. "We should go to the sand place. Now."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

She flinched when he patted her head - she'd never had a branch broken from her head, but she imagined it would hurt. Possibly worse than one of her shoulder branches, and those were quite painful. Leaves were hot and stung, like a burn that bubbled up into a blister, but a branch was like... a bone, she supposed. She accepted that she was a child with ill grace, frowning at the thin horseman. When your species lived a very, very long time, then 50 years was a child. How many years did horseman live?

Opening her mouth to ask, Hollandaise instead let out a creaking sound of distress as Lurks roughly grabbed her and shook. Her teeth rattled in her head and his bony fingers were tight and unyielding. "S-stop! I will g-go to see the sand or the mother or a-anything at all if you stop shaking me!"

Abruptly, she decided she did not like him very much at all.

cherno pastra

>8|

 

[its me debz]

Lurks laughed brightly, almost manic. (Definitely, definitely manic.) "Fine! Fine!" He steepled his fingers, releasing Holly from his bony grasp. "It is not my fault you have never seen the sand. I do not think you can go to the outsides, because you are a tiny, but!" He chirped a little, wings fluttering especially hard. "You could come see the tower. Maybe. I do not know. Do you like heights?"

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"I live in forests, in cool green spaces - I do not know sand. And," She crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes at the very, very, very strange boil. "-I do not think I miss the absence of sand." And Hollandaise was not a tiny: the term rankled her even though she knew he meant it as a synonym for young. Her ears twitched.

"Heights? I love heights - to be tall and great and look down upon as thing move beneath you..." Her voice trailed off and suddenly, she darted forward and took his bony, disgusting hands in hers. Hollandaise's golden eyes fixed on his, unblinking. "Show me."

cherno astra

mO_____Om /intense stare into his eyes

 

[its me debz]

"Booorring!" Lurks shoved at her again, eyes alight with mischief. "Yes, yes. This is a good plan. I do not think the tower, but I will ask the Mother-- but I have a tall-tall place to show!"

And he began to drag her, his speed accelerating as Lurks popped them right out of Halloween, gaining in speed. His wings fluttered behind him, straining from the weight of another. Lurks could not fly: but he could glide, he could propel himself and hover when it suited him. And it was in this manner that he brought Holly to a mountain, lush and green in Mexico. They had come out of Halloween near it, and now they were weaving and bobbing through something she was surely to be glad to see-- trees.

Abruptly, they stopped on a plateau, grinding to a halt. It was above a valley-- and below, an old hunter base that was, perhaps, not so old. The trees gave way into a giant dust bowl of sand, a whirlwind taking shape nearby, whipping the sand into a frenzy. Lurks breathed in deeply, not minding the debris.

"It is not the tower," he said, finally, "but it is sand and very good."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Hollandaise did not have time to return his shove (rude!) before Lurks was dragging her along (also rude). But flying - that was new. It was a sort of flying: his insect glide. IT WAS TERRIFYING. Hollandaise clung to Lurks with all the tenacity of a barnacle, her eyes wide as her head swivled wildly to look at absolutely everything. They skimemd the trees; she almost reached out to touch them, to see what kind of stories these trees could tell her.

"Are we in... the human world?!" Her voice rose on a screech. She was not supposed to be here. Hollandaise knew that with a certainty - Lurks was going to get her in trouble. She let out a horrified giggle and shoved Lurks in retatlion. Even stevens and all that. Something caught her eye and she peered at the old abandoned hunter base. Her head titled and she pointed. "Hey, what's that down there?"

But, it was really pretty. Hollandaise found herself leaning over the edge of the plateau. Sand was... boring. But trees, human forests, those things were gorgeous.

cherno astra

 

[its me debz]

The Famine, who was not very rude at all and in fact charming, and kind, and generous in every way, simply beamed.

"Of course!" There was no one around for miles, not any more. "It was a place where hunters lived, before the bad time that ended it. It was many moons ago. Many many!"

And then, with an interested hum, tried to shove Holly off the cliff, to see what would happen.

The Semblance of Unity