Head tilted back, America considered the lack of rain. The bench was dry and cracking with it, the branches above swaying gently instead of dripping down. It was comfortable and a little awful all the same. To some it was welcome, but the quiet drizzle and pounding storms and the damp of fog had become tied so closely to magic in her heart that it felt wrong without it. It left the world a little uglier, a little emptier. Except through a bird's eyes, of course, and so she sought them out more and more on this side of reality.

The world turned to patchwork popups, color blooming strangely and fine details digging into the landscape below. How could any world ever be ugly when seen through these eyes? And how terrible, what an unknown loss it would have been to never know what sights there were, all around.

Learning the streets and houses and odd little areas of No Entry was a definite work in progress. It was a bit slow going, all said, when she tried to wrap her mind around the conversion of what she knew from on high to places she could reach on foot. But progress was made nonetheless, even if she did lose herself for hours either way. It was the exploration of a secret place, a treasure she could dip herself into, more than even magic that had her enamored with this Other Place. She thinks that maybe Taym's realized it, maybe sees the bit of her that wants to simply get lost in this place and live moment by moment in the strange and magical. The bit that maybe never wants to come back.

It's a small piece of America Jones, but it's of the sort he has eyes for.

Inhaling deeply, America's eyes slid open and she focused on the thrum of her heart, the warning p***k of splinters under her fingers. She let the world melt and flatten slightly, it's colors lessened and details dulled down into something more ordinary. In this moment of reacquainting herself back into the lines of her own existence, it's easy to hear the faint voice in the distance. With focus she can pick out the word.

"Please!"

America is up and running between one breath and the next and as blue feathers flash over her, she begins switching back and forth between his eyes and her own, seeking out the voice.

"Please!"

Something pale was glimpsed below the limbs of long dead trees. Something moved and again...

"Please!"

A child's voice, terrified and close.

"Help me!"

A child's voice but different, were there two?

"Help me!"

Bursting into a clearing, America skidded to a stop, every limb ready to to fight, to protect, to do something to help...

"Help me!"

The mouth was small and rosy and childish.

"Please!"

The mouth beside it was too, though missing several baby teeth. The other mouths varied and there were so many. So many and America couldn't understand what she was seeing at first, but there was no child. There were simply mouths, moving and twitching across a stretched expanse of pale skin. One licked its lips and she took a step back.

It was thin and shaped like a person. A head and a torso, four limbs that moved strangely, like the bones and muscle underneath didn't know where they ought to be. No eyes, though. No nose or hair or ears. Just mouths. They whispered and there were so many she couldn't catch all of what they said, it was all different. The body was a crowded room full of people murmuring until suddenly one started to scream and the body moved toward her.

America turned to run and then they were all screaming, all shouting at her.

It was an awful sight, but the sound of it was worse. She was a fast runner, but the sound of it kept at her step for step. She couldn't run faster than the sound of those voices. She needed a place to hide and she knew, she knew there was someplace nearby, she knew it.

There was place right within the reach of her hand.

There was a place just ahead and she couldn't think. She couldn't remember past the sound of those ******** voices and then she was in the clearing again, turned around and flushed right to where she started. The voices grew closer and then a hand grabbed at her wrist, and later, in the luxury of silence, she'd recall the brush of teeth against her forearm, the sickening wet warmth of tongues against her fingers.

But right now there is only sound and she can only join it, can only shout back, panicked and mad with it.

"SHUT UP!"

Her voice rises sharp and frenzied above the din.

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP!"

She tries to shout it again but can't. The clearing grows quiet, and maybe it's that thing, that magic thing about will, except the thing begins groaning, even as it lets her go, its pale, strange limbs twitching and straining, its many mouths drooling. America should run. Above her a bluejay issues a hawk's cry, a demand, a warning, a plea.

She doesn't run.

Transfixed, she stands there and watches the figure contort until a piece of its chest tears open, white teeth glimpsing through ragged pieces of flesh that peel back and back until a familiar pair of lips smile back at her, ******** You red lipstick only just beginning to wear off. The mouth opens and shouts

"SHUT UP!"

Her voice. Her words.

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP!"

Finally, America runs and this time the only thing following is her own voice behind her. With distance, it fades, but she keeps hearing it anyhow, even after she's left the Other Place. It stays with her in silence and safety and comfort. It shouts the words when she tries to tell someone and that one phrase is gone for her, taken by some strange awfulness in the forest.