[MINGLE] Wendi-go-go to the inn

[sixthiteration]

WHERE: 6I Village and Inn
WHEN: 27-31 July
OPEN TO: ALL - Mingle
NOTES: The Wendigo threatening the village will be killed mid 28 July, with a Blue Lily, per these threads. Plot details here. Note: The final fight is close enough to be seen from the upstairs inn windows.
WARNINGS: Wendigo attack mingle, please warn in comment headers if discussing violence, gore, or related trauma. Possible mentions of character death.

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The urgent warnings come from villagers returning south from the lake: a creature twice the size of a man, antlered and voracious. Larger than any they've seen on the plains, stalking its way to the main village. Some might have their own names for this hunger in a skin of shadow; others might remember that it was the first to claim a life, in their village's short history.

Whatever context one has for it, best to secure all pets and loved ones before it arrives. With weapons and food stores at the inn, the call goes out to gather — And to bring back any tools, because there's no telling what doors and windows can do to stop such a creature.

Comments

[oorah]

He wasn't expecting her to, though now that his brain is catching up to the scene he probably should have been more worried about that? Maybe it's because she looks as scared as he does, though, in the end.

"In that case, mind company?" Frank lifts an eyebrow, but he's not moving towards her. It's habit by now to make himself as small and nonthreatening as he can.

[spoileralert]

That's a good decision, considering she's halfway to escape already. She eyes him suspiciously for a moment, trying to determine if this is a trap.

"I guess not."

[oorah]

With a nod, he's across the room and waiting for her to slip through the window before following after. The second the cool night air hits his face he feels 1000% better than in the stuffy, stagnating air of the Inn as he shared it with the whole village. He really will learn one of these days that crowds aren't his thing. You know, maybe.

"Where are we going?" he asks lowly from his crouch on the roof, strangely light on his feet considering his own bulk really. Apparently she's the brains of this operation now. Lucky for her, the standards aren't too high with this one.

[spoileralert]

Steph feels better once she reaches the roof, making her way to the chimney in case she needs something to hold onto. She glances back at him with one eyebrow raised.

“Nowhere,“ comes the surprised answer. “I just wanted to get somewhere up high.”

[oorah]

"Oh," he says with a tiny smile, easing himself to sit on the pitch of the roof below her like a bag of actual bricks. He feels better too. Freer. "How do you think they're making out?" The Wendigo team, or whatever they'd called that fucked up thing.

[spoileralert]

“They’ve been at it a while now,” she answers a little grimly. She doesn’t know any of the people out there fighting. She doesn’t know many people at all, these days, by design.

“I don’t even really know what they’re fighting.”

[oorah]

"Yeah," Frank agrees, looking away from her and out to the woods beyond the Inn. What if someone doesn't come back? What if none of them do? There's no Reset Room here, they would have no way of knowing what really happened. He has to keep reminding himself it isn't Reims. They're not Sound Eaters. He's realizing this world isn't as innocuous as he'd once thought, however. It's still a torture playground just maybe a little more subtle than where he'd been. Monsters kill you if you make a noise and then you wake up in the Reset Room two seconds later with no memory of them. Rinse, repeat, in perpetuity. He heaves a heavy sigh, letting a pitchy exhale carry it out this time. He's getting better at making sound, too. But now he goes quiet as if he could will everyone back safely, concentrating on the scene he can see and not the horrors they must be seeing.

[spoileralert]

Steph hums in response, not really communicating anything. The whole situation was very heavy, but she was a little afraid of trying to unpack it. Thinking about what she was feeling and why could only lead back to a dark place, and she doesn’t want to be there anymore.

“I’m still not used to the smell,” she comments after a moment of trying not to think about anything in particular.

“It’s so clean. And... green, I guess. It smells like pine trees and fresh air. It’s weird.”

[oorah]

He was used to it by now. Evergreens, rain, oxygen you could take gulps of. What he isn't used to is the everything else about this place. But he remembers when he first came to Reims without any reference point for shit like that other than maybe camping with his kids in Upperstate. The City is this place's polar opposite and Afghanistan is even more disparate, like a totally different planet. Maybe that wasn't just the landscape though, in fairness. Frank draws his knees up toward his chest and wraps his arms around them as he tries to convince himself he can see the shape of the Wendigo in the distance even though of course they can't. Not even from up here.

"Try not to get used to it for as long as you can," he advises seriously. The more authentic to herself and her home she keeps, he thinks it can only be for the better.

[spoileralert]

She raises an eyebrow in his direction, trying to figure out the joke. She doesn’t get it.

“Why not?”

[oorah]

"Because the second you do, this place wins." It'll change her like it changes everyone else, sure, but maybe not for a while. Maybe she can put off the inevitable and that has to be enough for him because he doesn't have any better words of wisdom for her. "That's bullshit anyway. It already did the second we got here."

Frank's voice is hoarse though not as bad off as when he first got here. Still, it sounds like he isn't used to saying that much at once.

[spoileralert]

Bad news for Frank. Steph considers this for only a moment.

“So what? Let it win. Not like I have anything of value left to lose. I’m already dead, and if I’m not I may as well be. What difference does it make if I start to get comfortable?”

[oorah]

Oh. Frank swallows, that he understands. "It's up to you." He was just trying to help, but of course, that always bites him. Better to sit here in silence instead.

[spoileralert]

She hums again, this time rejection the whole idea. She was changed the minute she escaped Black Mask. Just now, she didn't particularly care what shape that would take.

She lets the silence sit for a few minutes as the fight unfolds beneath them. She isn't really watching it. Up here, where she can easily escape if she needs to, a sort of calm has washed over her.

"How long have you been here," she asks at last, growing uncomfortable in the silence.

[oorah]

He too is staring listlessly ahead, almost startled when she breaks their silence, though he doesn't physically react.

"Uh," he says as a placeholder, doing a mindful calculation even though he already knows the answer. "71 days." He's already creeping up on the just-over-100 days he spent in Reims and he isn't sure how to feel about that. He leaves it in her hands to judge.

[spoileralert]

"Almost three months?" That's a considerable length of time, making him a veteran here compared to her.

"Does this kind of thing happen a lot?"

[oorah]

"No," he answers shortly, squeezing himself tighter. It wasn't supposed to happen at all. Not here. "But if not this... something else."

[spoileralert]

“Like what?” she demands with considerable frustration.

“People keep saying that, and they never explain.”

[oorah]

"Sorry," he admits because he is. "I'm probably not the best person to ask."

But that doesn't mean he won't try to answer. It just might take him a minute to gather his thoughts.

"People who had powers before... don't, but some of them get one back, just not the one they had. People without powers get 'em too, it doesn't really seem like there's a rhyme or reason to what you do or don't get. This whole month it rained-" Which Frank had liked, for reasons he won't disclose, but. "It came with lightning, and it got a few people. With the lightning came blue flowers that if you touched them you'd be immune for a time, but we also got weird static electricity powers. I don't know, then there were earthquakes. It didn't seem like they would ever stop. And now..." This. The Wendigo. Frank swallows. That was a lot of words for him, sorry Steph, he's tapping out for a minute to recover.

[spoileralert]

It’s an answer, at least, which is all she was hoping for. Details are better than vague generalizations anyway. She can figure out for herself how to prepare.

“You think it’s all connected? The weather, the powers, and the... whatever it is? At least the weather and the powers share a few themes.”

[oorah]

"Yeah, sweetheart. This stuff is always connected." Everything always, and forever. Take it from a paranoid guy who's been around too long and for too many rodeos. "Oh, and watch out for clematis vines. They'll put you to sleep then strangle you while you're under. And- and baby deer. They're not really babies and they've got razor sharp teeth."

[spoileralert]

He says that like it's so obvious, but she's too tired to ask for more explanation. If she stays curious she can ask about it when she has more energy.

"Duly noted. Uh... what do clematis vines look like?"

[oorah]

"Oh," he says, remembering not everyone around here is a botany buff. He'd only become one because he'd had to. He turns to glance over his shoulder at her. "They're real pretty actually. Like a blanket of ivy and purple flowers on whatever surface they're livin' on. We ran into 'em in the greenhouse so just be careful."

[spoileralert]

She nods her understanding.

"Okay. If it's cute or pretty it probably wants to kill you. That's easy enough to remember." She doesn't spend much time in the greenhouse anyway. Actually... she spends most of her time sleeping or scavenging for food around town.

[oorah]

He snorts, flashing a little OK symbol with his fingers before turning back around. It's a good rule of thumb, he supposes.

"Just don't rule out the ugly stuff either."