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 Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2016 7:46 am
Rabbit slept largely undisturbed in a back corner booth, two red, one green, and three brown M&Ms on the table near his hand. Other Darlene's was quiet, the only sounds in the last half an hour the even hisses of the man's breaths.
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Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2016 1:43 pm
Undisturbed? Oh, not for long. The first clue that someone (something?) else was there was the skittering of the m&ms across the tabletop. (in another world, someone was very confusedly watching one of their jalapeno poppers dart across the table.) The second was the voice: "Hey! Sleepy! Wake up!"
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Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2016 1:58 pm
He wasn't that deeply asleep, so when someone told him to wake up, he did just that, gasping and leaning back in his seat as if he'd just been goosed by a dragon. While he had been aware he was about to fall asleep in this place as he'd been doing it, it somehow hadn't seemed as dire as waking up here, especially given the fact that someone had joined him.
"Oh! Hey!" he said a little too loudly, quickly lifting a hand to cover his mouth once the greeting was out of it.
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Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 9:01 am
That someone was a bird. A corvid of some kind, with its wings tightly tucked against its sides, big colorful eyes staring blankly at Rabbit. "You can't sleep here," it squawked, "That's how They get you!!"
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Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 1:00 pm
It felt odd to be speaking to a bird and not too terribly concerned with that aspect of the conversation, but after Pax and Smol, this animal was normal by comparison. Pretty eyes. Rabbit was far more worried about this "They" the creature was talking about. His heart continued racing after his abrupt awakening, though he dropped his hand to the table again after the initial shock.
"Yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean to. I don't want to be taken by Them, and I'll be out of your way so quick if you just show me the door. Do you know the way back to... Earth, I guess?"
He had a feeling this was probably Earth too.
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Posted: Sat Apr 16, 2016 3:59 pm
The bird blinked and mantled its wings up close, like a human intending to whisper a secret. "You mean... the other place?" Then it raised its voice again. "Sure, I guess," it said. "But can you help me with something first?"
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Posted: Sat Apr 16, 2016 8:10 pm
The other place? Really? He could see things so clearly in his mind's eye: disagreeing with the bird, countering with 'No, this is the other place,' then it replying with 'No, this is,' their conversation devolving into an endless loop of contrary arguments, leaving him too distracted to resist being kidnapped by talking bears and locked away forever.
Rabbit wisely chose to hold his comments on that part of the conversation. He carefully folded his hands, nodded once very slowly, and said, "Yes. I can."
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Posted: Sat Apr 16, 2016 8:43 pm
It hopped across the table and then fluttered its way up to Rabbit's shoulder. "Ok, sleepyhead, time to go! Up! Up!"
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Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2016 7:18 pm
He didn't flail.
Rabbit held his breath and remained very still as the animal got settled, then carefully rose to his feet as if he was a waiter balancing a tray. He started for the door.
"Which way?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2016 10:49 pm
"Sun-ways," said the bird. It bumped its head against the side of Rabbit's. "C'mon! Gotta go!"
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Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 7:53 am
Sun-ways. All right. Rabbit pushed outside and continued walking back the way he had originally come. Alternate universe Ashdown wasn't all that sunny in his experience, but this would have to do.
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Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 9:41 am
"Why were you sleepin', sleepyhead? Don't you got a nest to go back to? Maybe a tree? You can't sleep there. I mean, you can. Obviously. But you shouldn't. Bad things come out there. You're just, all, nestin' and pokin' at things, looking for materials, and then A RAR RAR RAR RAAAR suddenly you're dead and your eggs are also dead and also your nest is eaten too." The bird sounds a little haunted at this. "Not that it ever happened to me. But it could. The face-taker lives there."
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Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 10:22 am
Any falter in his steps could easily be attributed to how much he tended to twitch forward rather than walk sedately, but even so, there was a brief but distinct stop-and-start following the words face-taker.
"I was killing time." What a horrible turn of phrase. "I couldn't figure out how to leave. I thought if I took a nap, someone would find me and send me somewhere else. And, okay, I kind of wasn't thinking too. I was mostly just tired? But, um, thanks for the warning." His pace picked up and he looked around, his cheek softly colliding with the bird a couple of times. "The face-taker lives in Darlene's? Or just the more general... there."
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Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 10:36 am
"Well what did time ever do to you I mean what is Time to you other humans d'you, like, even know Time? Hey. Sleepyhead. You can't just kill people 'cause you're stuck." The bird flapped its wings and hopped from side to side. "In that place! What is a Darlene? Hey. We gotta go faster. C'mon c'mon c'mon."
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Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 2:01 pm
"I didn't really kill anything," he said, switching to a jog. "It's just something humans say. And Darlene is a woman. Borr's wife, I heard? That place was called something else when I came to town, and then I guess she died and he renamed..."
Rabbit slowed again, already slightly out of breath. "Where're we going? Why do we have to hurry?" He hadn't thought he'd ever be in a position to miss teleportation, but he would take at least two visits from steak voice and one from marshmallow voice to get where he needed to go without running across the whole damn city.
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