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 Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 11:05 am
Quote: 6. You awaken in a thicket of things that are not quite trees but seem as though they might be related to trees. Flowers in strange, unsettling shapes blossom, and although the clamor of insects and bird is immense, you do not see any of them. You are beset with a strange sense of urgency and wanderlust. You may stumble across a strange, smooth-sided tower that glows from within with a light like the sun. It is surrounded by strange symbols half-overgrown with the alien vines, but touching it hurts--unless you are a Legendary, in which case it triggers an aching moment of insight that is gone as soon as it arrives. You feel as though you have learned a great and vital secret--but it is gone.  The last thing she remembered was falling asleep - she always did so in a perfunctory, all-or-nothing manner, closing her eyes and staunchly blocking out everything in her mind until she deigned to get up. If there was one thing she inherited from her mother, it was her defiance of accepting anything not on her terms (though it was sadly accompanied by her pettiness and despair). Today's nature noises, however, were obnoxiously loud, permeating her ears, unwelcome chirps and cries filtering into her consciousness. They gradually grew in volume, pounding into her head, and she gave up, eyes flying open and snapped: " WHAT?!" There was no response. She blinked, highly annoyed, as her voice echoed and faded. Her vision was foggy and as it gradually cleared, the unsettled feeling seeped deeper into her core. She did not recognise this area, nor these plants, nor this sense of genuine unease that gripped her. She blinked again, slowly, feeling her heart thudding in her chest, before she ventured a sharp, harsh query of " Sleepless?" to mask her fear, eyes sweeping across the unfamiliar landscape.
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 11:08 am
“Five more minutes…” Sleepless slurred, turning over to get away from the noise. The ‘great epic orange battle of the century’ they had engaged in, no holds barred, yesterday had exacted its punishing toll, and, unused to extreme physical exertion, Sleepless had the muscular equivalent of a hangover. ...But there was getting away from the noise: Bitter End might have sparked her consciousness into stirring, but the relentless, oppressive chirp and chirrup of the birds and insects about ensured there was no going back. And besides…”Is that the mating call of the rare double-spotted blue-eyed ridgeback cicada?” she asked, blurry-eyed as she pulled herself upright.
She blinked once, twice, and as their interesting surroundings wavered into focus, gaped.
“Oh...my…”
If that, indeed, had been the mating call of the rare double-spotted blue-eyed ridgeback cicada, she wasn’t seeing it. Her eyes darted back and forth, keenly sweeping the lush thicket - the bird and bug calls echoed through the copse, close and dense enough to almost deafen, but not a feather nor feeler were in evidence, nor did the trees move...if they were even trees.
“I don’t recognise any of these plants,” she whispered, hushed through sheer astonishment - and a strange reverence for the oddity of it all, “and I study plants.”
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 11:11 am
Sleepless' revelation did nothing to soothe her nerves. Skittish and angry at being skittish, Bitter End said, "Well, that isn't helpful at all. I have no idea where we are...and I doubt you do either." She glanced over at her wondering face, and was mildly offended that she seemed to be the only one fearful of the situation, so daringly took a step in the lush grass, towards a gap in the brush before pausing again. "Should - should we just...walk? Maybe we'll find someone else who knows what's going on."
To be honest, End already had her own theories as to what was going on, but was still too worried for her mind to descend wholly down that path. She took another step and peered at the bizarre branches that reached out and locked about themselves, so vividly green it was startling.
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 11:13 am
“Of course I don’t know where we are,” she said, eyes wide and rapt as they pored over each twisted limb, each alien flower, “we’re nowhere earthly - or on earth - or something like that. Something must have happened,” she paused - that should honestly be a more unsettling prospect than it felt in that instant, but the scientist in her (which was most of her) was much too excited to dwell upon that.
The truth was: she could feel it in her pounding chest - this was something...something big. Something that felt remarkably like...an answer, even if she didn’t know the question yet. Every specimen she examined, every plant she marked, every note she made - every new discovery gave her a touch of this feeling, just touching the edge, just on the precipice, almost but not quite knowing…
It gripped her heart, it pushed her hooves: she had to move, to look, to find - more.
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 11:14 am
She had waited for Sleepless to go first, before she followed and edged ahead ever so slightly to maintain the illusion she was leading, in case they did run into another kin...but also behind enough to run away lest that other kin turned out to be a monstrous creature dealing retribution. Though her chest had tightened in terror at her companion's opinion of the situation, her complete lack of concern and overwhelming curiosity of the landscape dulled her own fear, lowering the panic to acceptable levels of sickness in her stomach, and her thoughts turned to other more insidious things.
What if they did encounter not someone, but something, and died? Even if they didn't, would they die in this sea of strange flora? Would she not touch them, and die of starvation? Would they simply waste away, to join the earth and fertilise the oddities that populated this land? Was that what the Motherfather planned? Was she not worthy of being someone, and meant only to meld into the landscape after a horrible, excruciating end?
Her body was, unbeknownst to her, crouching as she moved, pale eyes wide and wary as she considered these philosophical questions of life and death in this parallel swamp. Now that she seemed closer to retribution, she was quiet. She did, however, keep going at a steady pace - her legs propelled by the desire to move and find answers, but she held back from touching more than she had to in precaution of getting eaten by one of the alien plants.
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 11:17 am
“It’s remarkable,” she muttered, hooves ever moving, head whipping from side to side as she drank her fill of newness. Offhandedly, she remembered her companion, and raised her volume, “it’s remarkable, all these plants...they should be impossible.”
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 11:18 am
"What does that mean?" She asked sullenly. "I thought you'd be more help in a situation like this," not that she'd ever thought they'd be in a situation like this, "there's no point bringing along someone as clueless as I am at this sort of thing. We're both going to die." A grim proclamation. She was pretty sure they could not be saved
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 11:19 am
“I don’t think you’d find anyone who’d know more about this,” she replied, too excited to take offense, “anyone...well…usual, anyway. When I say impossible, I mean impossible - look at those flowers! At least, we assume they’re flowers. Look at those shapes! Some of those shapes I’m pretty sure we don’t even have names for. Look at these trees! Well, they’re almost trees...what else could they be but trees? And yet...I’m sure you feel as well as I do that they’re not what we know as trees. We don’t know anything about any of this!” That proclamation sounded much too gleeful for the sentiment.
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 11:22 am
Her indignation had turned to a sort of resignation, and as she looked at Sleepless' delight, she sighed. She hadn't seen her like this before.
"At least you're happy," she moaned. "so you can have some joy before we expire, however we do." The fatalism had reached its saturation point, the point that said 'yes we're going to die but what did I expect.' If anything, she would have the satisfaction of knowing she was right.
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 11:23 am
“In fact,” she mused aloud, her mind running in a million different directions at once, “if ever there was a place the Swamp Root could be found, it would be such a place. But that -”
- and there she shut her mouth, on the verge of saying would be impossible - because I made that all up. They might be in a completely impossible place, she might be more excited than she’d ever been in her entire life, but still she did not wish to expire via angry doe hooves.
“- isn’t important here,” she finished smoothly.
Casting an eye back, she noted her companion’s mood, “What’s important is...to find out more about what’s going on. Maybe we’ll find a way back to - to where we came from.” Hopefully that prospect would distract her enough from her slip-up…
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 11:24 am
The fighting spirit in her was stirred, for there was nothing like the wrath of a spurned doe, but also mitigated by her conviction of their dooms. "We may as well do anything, whatever we can," she opined, striding, "unless I get too tired of doing things that are pointless. If we manage to make it back, I'd still like to kill him."
Her head swiveled round at the walls of noise, the intense ebb and flow of insect and animal cries. She lost her head in the sound for a while, before coming to a realisation that snapped her out of the momentary trance.
"I think we might already be dead." For that would explain the urge, that felt removed and strange, to keep moving, and the bizarreness of the landscape about them. "That - that actually makes more sense than anything around here."
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 11:25 am
Sleepless was silenced for a while, mulling over Bitter End’s pronouncement even as she studied each leaf she passed. Finally, she said, thoughtful, “I don’t think we’re dead. For one, we’re still together, and I doubt we’d share the same afterlife - or if so, lots of Kin should be sharing the same afterlife, but it’s just the two of us. That seems awfully convenient.”
Unless it really is some eternal punishment for me to be stuck with you forever, and I don’t think I’ve done anything so terrible to qualify for that.
“Something’s definitely unusual, but I don’t think we can draw a conclusion about what it is yet - oh!”
She stopped short, drawing up before the tower. It felt like it had risen before them, but had also always already been there, so bright it felt like looking at the sun, glowing beneath the tangled maybe-vines.
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 11:25 am
"I might have dragged you with me with the depth of my vengeance," she stated very seriously, "but even if we aren't dead yet..." the glittering structure beckoned to them, "...that thing will probably kill us."
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 11:27 am
"Don't be silly," she said, absently, circling the smooth stone, "what is it going to do, chase you down?" She peered at the myriad symbols, but could not make head or tail of them, "I don't recognise these symbols either."
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 11:29 am
"It was nice knowing you." She warned.
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