morethanmyth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
morethanmyth) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
longestnight_old2013-04-27 07:49 pm
morethanmyth) wrote in longestnight_old2013-04-27 07:49 pm
Entry tags:
Once Upon a Time...
They likely felt the world shift, a fragmentation of all they thought they knew. It was the way a fictional character might feel if they could feel every page turn in the book they lived in. It was the beginning of a new story and that meant an end to an old one and they would each feel that.
To some it would feel like they had just died. To others, it would feel like they had just been born. To many, it would feel like both at the same time. It all really depended on who they were and what they were leaving behind.
In any case, this world had something New appear in it. After lightning crackled in the evening sky without any storm fueling it, they would find themselves waking up in the streets of a small town called Burgess. It was a perfectly ordinary Pennsylvania town, a place where the modern mixed with the old, American suburbia at its finest, making it all the stranger that something extraordinary would happen somewhere so ordinary.
[ooc: Make a subthread for each character and those of you that would like to toss your character at someone else before Bunny and Jack show up, tag a subthread already there.]
To some it would feel like they had just died. To others, it would feel like they had just been born. To many, it would feel like both at the same time. It all really depended on who they were and what they were leaving behind.
In any case, this world had something New appear in it. After lightning crackled in the evening sky without any storm fueling it, they would find themselves waking up in the streets of a small town called Burgess. It was a perfectly ordinary Pennsylvania town, a place where the modern mixed with the old, American suburbia at its finest, making it all the stranger that something extraordinary would happen somewhere so ordinary.
[ooc: Make a subthread for each character and those of you that would like to toss your character at someone else before Bunny and Jack show up, tag a subthread already there.]
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Howard waves his hands a little, still stuck on the 'you can't go home' bit, because he has never wanted anything harder than to leave the FAYZ, and yet he knows right now that he has to return. Orc needs him. He may have physically escaped, but it's incomplete. He feels like something is bursting in his chest, a little nuclear explosion that's vaporizing the air in his lungs, and he takes a quick breath, then another, then another, as if he's hyperventilating. He hunches over a little, sucking in air too forcefully, covering his mouth and nose with his hands.
He should be happy he's safe.
He should hate himself that he's alone here.
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"I'm not new to the battlefield. I've been risking my life on my own for over a year, and if you need that help to set this world right and even give us a chance of returning, it would be a waste to sit idly by."
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Howard's breakdown sent Bunny from gruffness straight to softness with rabbit speed.
"You can't go back yet," he repeated, walking closer to the pair, slow so as not to alarm them. Bounding over would be more efficient, but it definitely was not the time for that. "But we'll get you there, mate. Nobody's gonna ask you to leave your world behind."
Nobody except Manny. But that strangeness could wait for another moment, when a child wasn't in crisis.
"Look, until we can get you home, we'll keep you safe." Though the way that kid was emaciated, it would have made Bunny wonder why he wanted to go back at all, if he wasn't so versed in losing people himself. "You just gotta wait it out for a bit, right? This isn't hopeless."
As for the girl - her claim of battlefield experience gave Bunny pause. He thought schoolyard defender, at the most, and for a moment he looked at her with unmasked surprise.
"Little Sheila, anyone who'd ask you to fight is no friend of ours, and no friend of yours. We liberate child soldiers. We don't recruit 'em."
The few times they HAD recruited childrens' help, it was either the final hour, or they knew the kid in question meant there wouldn't even be a fight. Jamie against Pitch wasn't so much a battle as it was a defusing.
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He paused.
"Do you...do you need me to try to find a paper bag or something?" he asked Howard gently. "For you to breathe in?"
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"Don't - no - stay away!" he backs up from Bunny. "I'm fine! Just give me space."
He can talk, he tells himself, which means he can breathe, no matter what his instincts are telling him. He takes a few more deep breaths, now a little more controlled. He listens as Bunny talks to Mami, as Bunny tries to paint this as a nasty situation for everyone when Howard's feeling as if somehow, Jack and Bunny are at fault. He wants them to be at fault. It's easier to rail at things in front of you than intangible spirits.
"You can't keep me here. There's someone..."
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"We both need to go back, then. But we should learn all we can about the situation and plan, right?"
She bites her lip and looks over at Jack and Bunnymund, hoping she can trust them. But if not, she can defend herself regardless of their opinions.
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"Neither of us are gonna keep you anywhere, mate. But your best bet isn't running off just yet."
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Not that she'll trust them just because, but...
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"That, we didn't hear anything on."
He fell silent another moment before adding, "I'm sorry."
There just wasn't any consolation to not knowing if your loved ones were safe without you. None at all.
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And all he has to go on is Jack's promise that maybe Bishie Boy and the Bunny can get them back soon, if they sign on to fighting the forces of evil like some Saturday morning cartoon.
Howard wants to cry. He wants to laugh. He wants to run through the streets and count every adult and non-starving child he sees. He wants to just die so there isn't the illusion of free will.
"But getting us back home isn't your top priority. Saving this place is."
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"It will be mine," Mami promises him quietly. "I have people to return to as well. I've done research to find answers to difficult things before. If we can have access to information like theirs, then maybe we can? If we just go to their base..."
She's not thrilled about the idea, but she'll do it. For his sake as much as her own.
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"Saving this world isn't our biggest priority. Saving kids is. You shouldn't be here when it's this dangerous."
He shook his head. "It isn't like the people here magically matter more than people anywhere else. You're just as important to us as every other kid here."
Whether Howard believed it or not, it was the truth. They were children - teenage ones, but still children. They were in their world right now, near them, and that meant they were under their protection. Simple as that.
"No one fights unless they want to - and unless they're old enough -" he added to Mami. He turned back to Howard, "And no one stays unless they want to, either. We're getting you home."
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There were North American spirits that knew a thing or two about passing through worlds. Bunny didn't want to give the two a specific name and potentially false hope, but he was lining up a few in the back of his mind.
"I'll put the word out around the world. Someone has to know something."
If only Anansi hadn't been taken yet. Bunny still didn't know where the Spider's lair even was, or if there was a way for anyone other than him to see the stories that came to him in webs, but it was worth looking for.
Mami's comment about a "base" made him think a little more. He glanced at Jack. "Tooth's palace is the only place of ours that stores information. Maybe one of the mini-fairies could find something relevant from a memory. It's a long-shot, but we should follow it."
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There's a shudder that runs through Howard's body like a crack in a sheet of ice when Jack says 'we're getting you home', but he hopes no one else notices it.
"What about bringing more people here, does your magic spirit Ouija board summoner do that too?"
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She flips one of her curls and frowns, lapsing into silence as she listens and learns what she can.
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"We don't know because, like we said, we're not the ones doing this. The bad guy is the one changing the world so that people are falling through the cracks."
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Bunny was holding so dearly onto the hope that one day soon he might get to throttle Pitch himself.
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/wrap?