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 Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 3:50 pm
Two days in a row. He'd done two hellish things in two days, and he was having a little more trouble coping with it than he was willing to let on. That's why Roch was sitting on a branch out in the middle of the forest, silent and still. He seemed to blend into the territory, which seemed weird, considering he was definitely a city based fellow.
He wasn't crying. He was reliving it. Each step, each thought, each person that he'd seen--or even their hands. He knew those hands well, the ones coming from the well, he could place a name with almost all of them--as they reached for him, wanting to hurt him, or to use him. Was that how he'd always felt?
Yeah, yeah it was. And that boogey--the one he'd seen at first. He knew him. And he needed to deal with that problem sooner or later, too.
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 4:02 pm
A purple-haired ghoul wandered out into the forest, away from the village, away from where she thought she would run into anyone, Halloweener or Horseman. She wasn't sure what to make of what had happened to her, wasn't sure she could put it into words, wasn't sure she could even cope with it. She'd spent the time since the Trials admiring the Horsemen, looking forward to learning from them; she was in some ways glad for what they had done, showing the threat the Hunters posed, if not glad for how they did it. But now...
Finally she felt like she could walk no further, and she collapsed next to a tree. She curled up, back against the rough bark, her knees pulled up to her chest as she hugged them. She found herself rocking just slightly; her emotions were in too much turmoil for her to do anything more, even cry.
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 4:32 pm
Roch watched her sit down at the base of his tree for a long moment, getting his brain back together as quickly as he could before he dropped down. For a moment he hung from a limb, then he dropped into a crouch in front of her. He had a clue of what had happened--or at least he thought he did. It was possible he was wrong.
Without saying a word he moved to her side, sitting down next to her without touching. She would pick what she wanted, he figured.
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 5:20 pm
The sound of him landing on the ground brought her head up, her eyes wide and slightly wild. One hand fell down beside her, as for a moment it looked as though the ghoul might push herself to her feet and run. When she saw who it was, though, she settled back against the tree, her arm coming back up to wrap around her legs. When Roch sat down beside her, she leaned over to rest her head against him. She found that she couldn't speak, but she did feel tears p***k at the corners of her eyes, although she did her best not to let them fall.
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 5:36 pm
Roch reached down, tugging her hand away from her legs and lacing his fingers through hers. "It's okay," he said quietly. "It's okay now. It's over." He would have played for her, if he didn't have the feeling they were being watched.
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 5:45 pm
She simply sat there for several minutes, curled up next to him, as she tried to get herself under control. She mostly succeeded, only the occasional sniffle giving her away. She did manage to squeeze his hand, silent thanks for being there.
Some part of her suspected that he knew or at least suspected what she had seen, but she still felt like she owed him an explanation. So as soon as she thought she would be able, she said, "There was this doorway, at the base of the observation point. Something about it felt weird, so I went to check it out, and... and..." She found herself choking up again, and stopped before it was bad enough that she couldn't keep from crying, but it was a close thing.
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 5:51 pm
He turned, reaching up with his free hand and wiping at her tears. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I know." He pulled his hand out of hers, then tugged her into a hug, holding her close. He'd wound up spending the night in the same hammock as Rikki and Danny because of that jackin' room. Now he was trying his hand at comforting Mitzi.
What about him? An evil little voice was whispering that he needed comforted too--
No he didn't, he thought a second later. He went through this sort of crap so many times that it was a strange week when it didn't happen at least once.
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 6:31 pm
As he brushed her tears away, she looked up at him, and blushed slightly. She thought that she'd had it under control; it seemed like all she had done since she got here was fall apart on him. He'd been more patient with her than she probably deserved. When he pulled her into a hug, though, she wasn't about to turn it down, and snuggled up against him.
"Did you...?" She trailed off, reasonably certain he'd understand what she was trying to ask, and still struggling a bit to hold back the tears. She didn't want him thinking she was so weak that the least little thing would break her.
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 6:37 pm
"Yeah," he muttered. "Is it any surprise? Any mess there is to get in, I'm gonna get into it," he told her, a dry smile pulling at his lips. He reached up, petting her head gently. "There's also this cave that they're challenging us to go into--some sort of trial. They feed you a mushroom and you start living out your worst nightmares. This clan... they're jackin' psycho. It's no wonder my group was one of the winners."
As in, he and his pals were a bit psycho as well.
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 7:11 pm
"Why would they think we should do something like that?" she asked, frowning slightly as her brows knit in confusion. It did seem crazy. At least the place she had just been, she was reasonably certain was not somewhere the Horsemen had intended for the visiting students to find. And as she thought of that place again...
"The place, by the observation point... Do you think they really...? That they would do that, to, to humans?" To anyone, really. She flashed back again to Imryn talking about how the Hunters had cut her apart, and how upset the other ghoul had been, and there had been more than one similar image on the walls in there.
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 7:16 pm
"Yeah, probably," he said honestly. "But y'know, I figured some stuff out from facing my nightmare--one, that jackin' well would DEFINITELY not hold me now. And two... there's a boogey that I... I think I need to talk to again," he said quietly. "Never thought I'd say THAT before," he muttered.
Then he thought about the pictures of humans. "Were you in the DETH class?" he asked abruptly.
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 7:24 pm
She frowned again, thinking. "So... it probably is worth doing?" she asked. Right now, she really didn't feel up for it, but if she went into it with some idea what to expect... then it probably wouldn't be quite as bad.
Then he suddenly seemed to change the subject, and she glanced over at him. "DETH class?" No, she hadn't seen anything like that even offered, and she had no clue what he was talking about.
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 7:32 pm
"There's a group of halloweeners--" he said, lowering his voice. "They lead this... feel good human huggin' group called DETH--no A," he said. "They think the best way to deal with humans is to practice safe scaring--not to fight them. But they don't deal with hunters I don't think," he said.
"They're the exact opposite of the horsemen. And I'm like... right in between, I guess. I dunno what we should do, but we can't... we can't let the hunters do what they do to us. It's not right. So maybe--maybe the horsemen are right, to an extent."
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 7:43 pm
The sick feeling in the pit of her stomach was back, just thinking about it, and this time she knew it wasn't from that strange, twisted FEAR. "What the Hunters did, what they do... we can't let them do that to us. But those didn't look like Hunters. And even then... I thought that what they did to us, there couldn't be anything worse than that. But some of those pictures... and what I saw and heard..." She trailed off, somehow growing even more pale. "No one deserves that," she murmured, closing her eyes as she tried not to remember.
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 7:47 pm
"Yeah, but doin' what the DETH guys said--tryin' to make friends with the hunters--It ain't gonna work. If that dream was true, and hell, it probably would have been close--then we gotta learn to fight back, to shoot first ask later. Just... just with the hunters, though. I don't think humans deserve that sort of treatment unless they're hunters," he told her.
But he would have been fine had the people in the pictures been--no, he was lying.
"Jack, I don't know," he admitted. "I hate them. I really, really hate them. I just--"
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