[WP06] Sleepless & Bitter End

[Jun D]

Quote:

6. The vines abruptly begin to move and shift in a way that suggests that they are alive, and one of them suddenly snakes around your ankle, and then another. No matter how you struggle, you are pulled back towards the standing stone. The vines are gentle: they do not hurt you, but they cannot be beaten. When you touch the stone, you are swallowed up by instant sleep and a lingering moment of awareness, if you are not a Legendary. If you are, you experience an instant of what it must be like to fly higher than the highest bird, and higher still: you see the hazy curve of the edge of the world, the rivers and oceans spread below you like threads and puddles. And then you begin to fall, peacefully and without fear.

“Maybe if that line means...oh, but then that other one would be...” for the past goodness knows how long such pointless speculations had been all that issued forth from Sleepless, humming and absent, like the mindless babbling of a brook, all almost inevitably curtailed by a hopeless (nonetheless well-humoured), “oh, no...that can't be right at all.” For better or worse, Sleepless was happy. She was a scientist at heart, through and through, and she was never more happy than when she had a mystery to solve. One might argue that she would be happier actually having solved it, but inquiry felt its own reward.

So absorbed was she in her pursuit, pausing only to flip her falling hair back behind onto her shoulders from time to time, that the first sharp movement passed her by undetected - the arching vine, suddenly uncurving from the base of the tower, and swerving upwards like a seeking snake.

“Hmm...interesting,” had been her only contribution right at that point of time, contemplating the difference between two tailed symbols.

But then, even an absent-minded scientist could not have failed to notice when all of the alien vines criss-crossed around the tower came to life at once.

“UhhhHHHHHHHH,” she said, for Bitter End’s benefit, the rising urgency near the end of her pronouncement coinciding with the escalating undulations of the vibrant vines, “we might have a proBLEM,” she relented, very nearly squeaking in that last word, as one of the vines abruptly shot out to curl around her ankle, tightening.  

[Maxx D]

Bitter End had started to doze lightly with her eyes open, head shrunken back onto her shoulders in a staunch refusal to touch the weird grass for more than necessary. She has busied herself by running all sorts of dystopic, apocalyptic, philosophical theories through her head as she'd idly watched Sleepless peer about the tower until she reached the limits of her mind, and her interest ran low. In all honestly, it was also too worrisome for her to absorb, and slightly too sentimental for her thoughts ran, unwillingly, towards the family she had. She wondered, for a while, how her siblings were and whether they were stuck in the same predicament. She considered whether they would mourn her, if she were truly dead, or merely presume her missing in her wilful runaway manner. She imagined very indulgent things, but with the emotional stuntedness of much of her family, realised that they would probably presume her missing. She did, however, think of her mother, and thought of how she would have approached all this in her no-nonsense way, and despite her doom-gloom thoughts, how her mother would probably have found a way out. It was then, she felt ashamed of her lack of achievement and character, and it was then, that she let go of these thoughts, and rested her head back with her eyelids lazily left open.

The trails of Sleepless' voice barely reached her - it was the scrabbling that had infiltrated her mind instead, and her eyes finally rolled back front and focused.

"Hmm...?" End said, as her view gradually stabilised, to the very unwelcome sight of the tower - well, its vines - having gained sentience and attempting to eat her companion.

"THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR TRYING TO FIGURE IT OUT" she cried and bolted up and away.

A vine shot out just as swiftly as she had turned heel, and locked itself about one ankle. She kicked at it with the other hoof, and the vines - much like her no-nonsense mother, subdued her tantrum by winding around both her back legs, pulling them out from beneath her. She landed with a thump, only because she was struggling, and essentially countered all of this with violent screaming.  

[Jun D]

"I swear it's not my fault," she cried, dancing backwards in a tangle of limbs, trying in vain to kick off the clinging grip, "I didn't touch anything!" Well, anything more than she already had. Truth be told, she didn't know if it was her fault, but empirically speaking, nothing had changed save the passage of time, ergo she considered it a safe assumption. That, and, on the very slim chance that they survived this, she wanted her defence as watertight as possible, in case of potential murder.

Her frantic skipping had stretched the slack of the tether around her ankle a decent distance from the monolith, but as another joined its companion, choosing a different limb - and then another - the insistent tug was too much for her woeful attempts at escape. She stumbled and flopped unceremoniously onto a side, hooves skidding uselessly against the smooth, dense grass. Resistance was futile. She was being reeled in.

"Wait, I don't think they're...trying to hurt us," she clarified, weighing up the force and momentum, "they're being pretty...gentle about this. I think - I think they're just...trying to pull us towards the tower."  

[Maxx D]

"THAT IS NOT HELPFUL OR COMFORTING AT ALL"

The screaming continued, but this time since her hind legs were vine-occupied, she flopped onto her back to minimise the amount of dirt getting into her open maw. It helped the projection, of course, and if she was going to be eaten by a massive tower, gentle or not, she was going to make damn sure she was obviously not happy about this. She flailed her free limbs uselessly in the air and her struggling body left an unsightly gutter in the pretty carpet of alien grass.

"I HOPE YOU DIE FIRST" she declared, as the sky and foliage went past in a slow blur, "I TOLD YOU SOOooo"  

[Jun D]

Bitter End was really very trying.

”Of course I’ll die first,” she snapped, piqued, ”I’m closer, aren’t I?!” and then she realised, indeed, that was not helpful nor comforting at all. Nevertheless, she was relatively sure a giant stone tower was not actually going to eat them...though, if the vines were seeking to eventually crush the breath out of their bodies, it was...going to be a very slow process.

Nope, not helpful nor comforting at all.

In the light of such unpleasant conjectures, it was actually almost a relief when her frame finally came into solid contact with the smooth, cool stone, and -

Never in her life had Sleepless, who usually lived up to her name, ever fallen instantly to sleep before.

”Well,” she thought, vividly, in the strange, split second her mind had to itself in that deep, silent void, ”that’s interesting.”

- then, nothing.  

[Maxx D]

She was not looking anywhere but up, though still able to hear Sleepless' voice and the slick slide of her hooves across the grass, almost obscured by the rustling of the vines through the blades. Then there was a thump of when her body, presumably, was pulled to the tower at last - and there was nothing, not even a cry.

Her own captors seemed to speed up, as she screamed ever louder, insistent on announcing to the Motherfather and world at large that this was the ignominious way Bitter End's end was to come, and so she would face it with defiance, even though she knew it would end this way. (She did not know it would end this way, vines and all.)
When she hit the tower, her scream quickly ceased with a weak-willed whimper, subjugated like the times her mother told her to 'shush.'  

[Jun D]

Wakefulness slammed into her head like a tidal wave, and she sat bolt upright. Struggling to catch up, her eyes blurred and refocused, till the trees before her stopped wobbling.

...Trees.

These were real trees. Wood, trunks, branches, leaves, and all. In fact - orange trees. She was right where she’d remembered falling asleep the night before, barely a sprinkling of paces from the grove, where they’d fought it out over gathering oranges.

...Real trees...that looked almost alien now.

”That’s...not right.”  

[Maxx D]

All that came from Bitter End's side was a lazy yawn and stretch. She straightened up and looked over, shaking her hair out. "What isn't?" She asked, almost obliviously, but her wild, wide eyes betrayed a hint of unease, a sense that something was not right, but she wouldn't be the one to admit it. Her knees were dirt-stained...but of course they would be, she had been sleeping on the ground. But she wasn't dead, she was fine, and that was all she really needed.  

[Jun D]

Bitter End’s voice jolted her to her hooves - but the instant ache and creak of joints lowered her again to the ground.

”You were there too,” she said, in between complaining groans.  

[Maxx D]

"Yeah, I dreamt about you too. We've been spending too much time together." A wan, uncertain smile. "We should really find that root soon."  

[Jun D]

”Not, not like that,” under any other circumstance, she would have seized upon that pronouncement to try and wriggle her way out of their ridiculous arrangement, but the drive to know was too strong to be quenched, ”we were - somewhere else. Somewhere wrong...there was a tower…”

Strange how hard it was to remember...there were flashes of clarity, and if she closed her eyes and searched, she could almost conjure up the images of...flowers? Vines? Symbols… Almost.  

[Maxx D]

"You liked the place," She said sharply, and now she'd said too much. She remembered green, she remembered fear, she remembered resignation, the tower...and Sleepless. She has the impression they might not have been meant to be there, and one...near-death? encounter was enough for her. "I don't remember much."  

[Jun D]

”It’s hard to remember,” she conceded, but her eyes were still bright and faraway, ”but I know it was exciting.”  

[Maxx D]

She looked at her genuine excitement and allowed a little smile that faded quickly, for she was still confused about its purpose and consequences. One thing she was sure about, however, was: "we have work to do," she declared, working her tired hooves, "so let's go.

Slowly."

END