[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.

---

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]

"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."

[spoileralert]

She waves off this concern.

"I'm from the city, I have a healthy distrust of most wild animals."

[oorah]

"New York? I'm from Hell's Kitchen." Or- was. "Once."

He's used to it now, the weird disproportion of people from where he's from. Little does he know he's preempted her this time.

[spoileralert]

She snorts.

"I wish. I'm from Gotham." She's still at that point where she assumes most worlds have a Gotham, and they're all awful.

[oorah]

That just gets a shrug. "Never heard of it." That's new, but not really all that strange, honestly. Alternate realities, timelines... whatever. The whole spiel he used to give that he's so never giving again. Funny how he was the speech guy in silent town, and the quiet weirdo in this village. Or ironic, maybe.

[spoileralert]

Ah, right. She did get the memo on alternate realities.

"It's in New Jersey, which is bad enough. But it's also the crime capitol of the world, according to journalists. We've got a crazed environmentalist with plant powers, a psychotic mass-murdering clown, a guy who calls himself Killer Croc and seriously looks the part, an obsessed psychologist who developed something called 'fear gas'... and that's just a few of the big names."

[oorah]

"Killer Croc... All we've got are some fuckin' rude alien guys. Oh, and Nazis. I dunno how we still have those in 2016 but there you have it."

They could probably do this all day, honestly.

"My friend Kamala keeps better track, you know, you should ask her. She's probably about your age. And she's from Jersey, too."