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“… We can dance if we want to
We can leave your friends behind
‘Cause your friends don’t dance, and if they don’t dance—
Well they’re no friends of mine…”

Mack’s step was light and his head bounced slightly with the music in his ears. In the musical intervals, his step slowed and he broke it down for a moment, grooving on the pavement before he resumed his step as if nothing had happened. He wasn’t even noticing the glances from strangers as he watched the screen of his iPod, slashing fruit with his finger as best he could while also grooving to his music (thank goodness for ‘zen mode’).

“... And we can act like we come from out of this world,
Leave the real one far behind;
And we can dance!”

He rounded a corner, pausing briefly to swivel down to the ground, and then back up again. He passed a few store fronts before finally coming to his destination and, without looking, opening the front door. He tugged the plugs from his ears absentmindedly and exited Fruit Ninja before looking up – to see a bunch of leaves blocking his path. Leaves? He was halfway through the door and confused. He may have not been looking, but he took this walk once or twice a week, at least, and had been for several months – there was no way he missed the building.

Mack backed up a bit and squinted his blue eyes at the store front. The windows were the same as ever – guitars behind the glass and promises of a sale coming, etc. He looked up attempting to see the sign over the store, but would have had to crane his neck more than was comfortable, so he shoved at the door and took a few steps back to check – ‘Guitar Works’ – before walking up and catching the door again just before it closed. He was at the right place… He stared at the closed blinds of the nearly-shut door he was holding and shook his head before opening it wide again.

The plants were still there… Maybe they were redecorating. Should he come back later? He shifted the guitar on his back and his messenger bag, checking the store times to the side once more. They were supposed to be open! Well, they could always throw him out if they had an issue.

Mack sighed and resolved to continue on his quest for new strings. He pushed at the door again so that it would hang open for a moment while he struggled through the wall of plants – seriously, there wasn’t even a space beside the door to squeeze in, what was happening? He finally managed to find some branches around a seemingly natural space that were supple enough that he could push at them a bit and squeeze himself sideways (reaching back to lift his guitar slightly, realizing that a branch could easily break one of his strings and he really wasn’t looking to have to change them just yet).

With a grunt and an exasperated sigh, the brunette finally found the other side of the bushes, looking back at them entirely flabbergasted and shaking his head. They needed to move those plants soon. That was almost dangerous, what he just had to do, and seriously more than anyone should struggle through to make it into a guitar store. Though the new carpet was n—grass… It wasn’t just nice and plush, it was grass. Not astro-turf, either. He was staring at it in wide-eyed wonder beneath his grey sneakers, and it was definitely real grass, with what felt like real dirt underneath? Dude, this was more of a renovation than was entirely necessarily for any shop, what were they thinking?

As Mack turned, though, it was clear that there was no renovation, and he was somehow in the entirely wrong place. Rather than racks of guitars, he saw luscious branches. There were no counters, there were only hedges. What should be the sound of rock music was instead the sound of nature and twittering birds and a breeze. Where guitar picks might have accidentally spilled on the floor, there were hundreds of flowers. The beautiful blue sky above took place of sub-par florescent lighting.

“Dude…” What was happening?! He had somehow walked into the Botanical Gardens rather than Guitar Works! He took an awkward step forward, and then back again, somewhat drunkenly. He looked around him, monstrously perplexed, and reached out to touch the bark of a nearby tree as his steps again tried and took him to it. His slow gaze followed the trunk up to fluttering leaves and listless clouds.

“What the… Where the <********> am I?!”

Mack was poking at the bushes and trying to figure out exactly where he had popped out. He couldn’t have walked that far. And doors can’t just… appear and disappear? Then again, a door to a guitar shop shouldn’t pop him through to a random garden. Even if he found the door, who was to say that he wasn’t just going to walk into some other place – and it was possible that even a possible new place could be much worse than this. At least he seemed in a nice place… But gardens always seemed nice. Maybe it was a lure…

No! He was going to find the door, and it was going to be fine. It had to be one of these hedges… Did his hedge have flowers on it? Ugh, he couldn’t remember.

When a voice called behind him, Mack froze. He was suddenly stuck in indecision. To turn, or not to turn? So many thoughts ran through his head debating the issue; trickery was a constant theme. In the end, he decided to continue his searching, even more fervently, thrashing through the bushes. He responded to the voice, but only under his own breath, “Not for long…”

But the voice came again. It was a friendly voice – but such things could be deceiving! He thought about the fact that seeing the thing might help him determine its motives, but looks could be deceiving as well, as a well-known saying went. A safe place, it said – but did that mean a safe place for him, or for the thing talking to him? When it asked for his name, he opened his mouth almost as if to answer, but closed it and lowered his head, blowing out a long breath. It was the next part that caught his attention – the ‘True Gods’?

He hardly hesitated to turn, finally, with a confused, but intrigued gaze as he asked, “Gods?” He found himself watching what was… human? But it wasn’t. There was green in the skin, and a—was that a tail? His face changed from confused to nearly mortified. He started shaking his head, “Man, this is too much. Where the ******** is that door?” He started thrashing at the bushes once more, “I gotta go home! I need sleep or something…”

The fragment gathered memories to herself, struggling against the force... the mysterious voice... that would have seen her unmade.
Her? It was something, an identity, that the fragment clung to, something to stick all of the memories in like glass fragments in putty.
She struggled against the inexorable current like a guppy in a stream.
And...
Miraculously...
Something gave. Some sort of... reprieve? from the pressure of unmaking. She kept going and...

POP

A swirling spill of silver... gas? vapor? foam? Fell into the garden near the feet of the two others.
It splashed, wavered, and coalesced into a young woman in tattered rags.

She stared in half panic, half confusion at the blue sky above her and at the scene of relative peace around her. She gasped suddenly, her lungs taking in air for the first time.
Surely it couldnt be the first time though?
Could it?

She marveled at her heartbeat. She marveled at how everything... felt so... vivid.

She worked her mouth, the panic subsiding somewhat. It took her a while to figure out how to talk again.
Her nerves sang. It was a very odd feeling, having your every sense vibrate at the NEWness of everything. It didn't help her confusion at all.

She would have said something witty, maybe. Something to calm her shaking, ringing nerves. Maybe, if she could only hold onto the memory, she would have said something about this not being the first time she had been poofed somewhere and landed on her a**.
She didn't remember that occurance.

She didn't get the chance to say something witty, though, because she had noticed the other two people.
The strangeness of the man with the things in his ears and the man with the tail was lost on her. Things just didn't seem strange. Interesting, new, but not strange. Why would they be strange? The fragment had no idea what was and wasn't strange.

For a moment she was unsure, not even sure if she was all there. She got herself together a little bit more, bringing in the fading cloud of silver until it was no longer there.

She worked her mouth again, finding everything in place. Oh! That was how to work her tongue! That made sense!

Finally she managed to get a word out.

"Hello" she said, lying flat on the ground.

((And because I suck at Non B/C RP, Imma just gonna toss a description over here
She is a woman with wavy brown hair she probably cut herself with garden shears. It appears to be tangled with leaves and twigs and stuff. Currently mostly whatever makes up the hedges and moss. It just ends up there and she forgets to take it out.
Clothing is unremarkable except for a golden silk shawl with bitty silver leaves hanging off of it.
Eyes are green.
She may or may not be named Sap. We'll see XD))


Just appear?
Ohhh!
So thats what she just did?
That explained why she suddenly was assaulted by things and stuff! Like senses?

Wait, was the man scared of her? The one with the bludgeoning object? Why was he scared of her?! She was harmless.
At least she thought she was.
What was she?

A second of contemplation before she decided it didn't matter. She was whatever she was and she was harmless.

She sat up with some effort and thought. It seemed like the thing to do. Newly existent muscles delighted in the strain of pulling her up.

She looked between the scaled and tailed one and the terrified one, frowning to herself.

"A door?" The man had said a 'Door'? right? Did he 'just appear' too? Cool!
"I don't remember a door." She didn't really remember anything from before two seconds ago but that wasn't the point.
"Is that how I got here?" She had no idea. Also, no idea where here was, or what sort of there she had come from. She decided to take that part in stride.

She frowned at the frightened man. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but why are you so scared?" She felt great! Alive! Not something to be afraid of, really. At least not in the backing away sort of way, at least that was what she thought.

She turned to the man with the tail.
"Did you scare him"
She was trying to put things together. So many things that didn't make sense, but that wasn't really so new because everything was.

House manners?! This had nothing to do with house manners – besides, a garden isn’t a house! Sod on house manners, throw them to the wind which was blowing freely through the garden which they occupied! (As if that really changed the situation; Mack had apparently no tolerance for figures of speech at the moment) Mack certainly had not the mind to realize that the thing before him was joking. Though Mack almost laughed when it said “Dragon King”. What did he walk into, real life Dungeons and Dragons? Not that he knew anything about the game, but where else would you hear something like that?

Mack would have made some sort of wise crack, but the other new arrival was finding her voice more and more. Mack shook his head – yet again – and his guitar lowered slightly from his distraction. Why was he afraid? Oh, so many reasons. A better question was why she wasn’t afraid. Mack had already stated his reasons for panic, in his mind, but his mouth moved absently as if he were going to try to list them again, his eyes narrowing and attempting to search for new words to make her understand.

But again, he was too late. The girl was talking to the Dragon King now. Mack was about to yell, ‘ONE OF JUST MANY FACTORS,’ but the dragon answered instead, and Mack only gestured to him and nodded in a strange, absent, still fearful but also flabbergasted sort of way, making a ‘t’ch’ sort of sound as he did so. He realized that he was letting his guard down, and blue eyes slid over to the dragon before Mack lifted his guitar once more.

Mack looked offended at being told how to breathe, and released one hand from the guitar, pointing at the green being, “Okay, now, hold on--! I know how to breeeathe, okay?” The word was drawn out and a smooth gesture accompanied it, hand flat on the air and sliding, “But certain situations do not warrant calm, clear breathing. This situation, is just a little bit ABOVE AND BEYOND what I would consider such. SO, if you’ll kindly excuse me, I will breathe however I damn well please! And continue to be a bit panicked, as this is beyond just a little bit out of the ordinary!” He actually succeeded in speaking fairly calmly and clearly throughout his speech despite his statements, until the end when his voice began to crack. He had resumed pointing (because clearly pointing helps you to make a point), but at the end of his statements, shrugged his shoulders to loosen up a bit before (surprisingly) calmly resuming a firm grip on his guitar.

“Now, if you would please show me the way out of here, or let me resume searching, I would appreciate that.” His eyes were still clearly screaming from within, though his voice had clearly calmed and softened.