( open ) throw the chairs into the fireplace

[tommygunned]

WHO? Lup (tommygunned & OPEN
WHAT? Lup dreams. Maybe she has company.
WHEN? Throughout the DREAMY event.
ANYTHING ELSE? Spoilers through The Adventure Zone's Balance Campaign!

i. hang up your chairs ( janus )

[The forest here is wild, and it seems to stretch out endlessly, verdant and deep as a thicket in some places. You can't see light through the trees; the only light comes from above, from the twin suns blazing down cheerfully into this tiny clearing. The weather is somewhere between cool and warm, balmy and pleasant.]

[It's nice here. It's peaceful. And there are two elves, identical in almost every way, standing shoulder to shoulder in front of you. One wears a flowing skirt and a pointedly pointed wizard's hat; the other, recognizable as Lup to anyone who's met her, is in combat boots and a loose Sex Pistols shirt. They're holding hands, and in the crook of the opposite arm, each cradles a sleeping baby mongoose. Under their feet, one set bare and one set heavily protected, is a carpet of broken bits of eggshell.]

Hello, [Lup says, her smile slight, quirked, cautious; and--]

Sailor, [says the other, at which Lup throws her head back and laughs, bright and wide.]

ii. to better sweep ( bear )

[Imagine a Kodiak bear. The biggest bear in the world: imagine that. Now imagine it bigger, twice as big as normal. Now imagine it bigger than that.]

[This imagining approaches the size of the bear whose shoulder Lup is sitting on right now. She's smiling, utterly relaxed, even as the bear shifts under her and gives the newcomer a sharp, unusually canny look, for a bear.]

He wants to fight you, [she says.]

That's not what I said, [the bear grumbles, in exactly the voice you'd expect a giant bear to have. Lup rolls her eyes.]

He's "curious about your strength". Whaddya think? You gonna weenie out, weenie?

iii. clear the floor to dance ( forgetting )

[The walls are curtains. The room is tight. The ceiling tapers to a point, making the room into a strange shape, like a slightly bulbous cone.]

[Besides you, there is only one figure in the room. You know you know her, but you don't remember her name or why she matters. You can tell she's panicked with the wideness of her eyes, the quickness of her breath, the way she claws at the curtains and the fact that she must have been doing it for a while, because there are nail marks torn into the hangings all the way around the room.]

[But your senses are dulled and it's hard to focus. It doesn't help that, when she tries to speak, the only thing that comes out is piercingly loud static.]

[You try to remember how you got here. And then it dawns on you. You don't know who she is--but you don't remember who you are, either.]

iv. throw the walls ( hunger )

[It's dark.]

[Not dark like a dark room. Not dark like a basement. Not like a cave, either. This is the kind of darkness that lives where light has never been, or where it's been so thoroughly extinguished that it can never live in this place again. Even the marrow of this place has been sucked out. You can't see your hands. You can't see the ground. With as dark as it is, you can't even be sure there is a ground.]

[And then: something moves. Something opens. A great eye without a face, hanging just above you, wide with a pupil like an oil slick and focused only on you.]

[Half a second later, another eye opens. Then another. Then another. More and more, until just above you is a sky of eyes open in blackness, thousands upon thousands of them, all staring down at you. Somehow you know, you can feel that they want to devour you the way they've devoured this place.]

[But the glowing eyes show you something else. Just a few feet from you, there's a figure in a red robe on hands and knees. You can't see their face, but you can tell two things: they're staring up at the eyes, and their hands are clenched into too-tight fists on the floor.]

v. into the fireplace ( wildcard )

[If you'd like to catch Lup in the waking world, feel free to hit me up with a prompt for that! She can be found pretty much anywhere, so go wild.]

Comments

iv.

[thingpuncher]

[Midnighter has seen a lot of scary shit in his life. He's seen knives and felt pain, walked into fights he knew he'd lose, been shot up by and ripped into by plenty of shit. This is... different, though.]

[Fucking magic.]

[Midnighter knows the secret. Rage, rage again, against the darkness and all that bullshit, don't let them know you're afraid. And he is, a little, but it's easier to be angry, itching for a fight, ready to go.] You think that'll fucking break me? Huh?

[He yells up at the sea of eyes.]

You can get fucked! I've seen worse.

[But when he sees someone slumped down in the distance, fuck. He runs toward them somehow, without any floor beneath him. He doesn't understand how it's happening, and his computer has no fucking clue, but he has faith in himself and whoever this person is, broken by pain and dark.]

You ready to fuck up these eyeballs?

[tommygunned]

[He's right, of course. The best way to fight fear is to refuse to admit you're afraid. Lup is usually so, so good at that. It's practically her specialty. Pretend you're not scared or hurt or uncertain, fake it 'til you make it, and you will make it.]

[Sometimes it's just so heavy, though. Sometimes she can't carry it all. Usually when it gets like that, there's someone by her side to carry her through, to take her hand in his and wind their fingers together to stand against the universe like they always have. But it's dark in here, and she's alone.]

[At least she thought she was.]

[Someone's yelling. She doesn't hear it clearly at first, unfocused as she is. But then he's right behind her, this guy who's a little scared but won't let the enemy see it and wants to fuck them up. Which is almost funny. You can't fuck up the Hunger.]

[. . . Except that's not her thinking. That's them. That's it. She glances up at the not-sky, where a grin is slowly but surely opening up, splitting the space between the eyes.]

[And Lup explodes. A great fireball expands from her, robe fluttering in the darkness until its edges are singed and smoking. When the flames clear, she's on one knee, pushing herself up, and her face is just gone. Her cloak flutters over bone; her empty eye sockets fill with flame. There's a light around her, or maybe it's just the way the eyes burn from the heat of the fire. Either way: the only word for her now is unearthly.]

Yeah, [she says.] Let's kill 'em.

to better sweep (lmk if this is too much <3)

[fernbeleafer]

[ oh my god it's a talking bear and also an elf??? ]

Holy shit!

[ but not the bad kind of shock-- keyleth looks like she just stepped into fantasy disneyworld. the path to this clearing had felt more like home than anything else since she woke up in france. it was easy and a little scary, but that adrenaline feels good. and she's no weenie! ]

Pff. Well if I'm a weenie then you're-- you're the ... cheese? Look, I'm not good at the quipping so let's just do this, OK?

[ her staff thunks into the soft earth, and keyleth's tall form begins to embiggen and solidify, skin shimmering green before dulling quickly into a cracked matte grey. her face fades into black, and two green glowing spots appear where her eyes should be. sharp green quartz-like sprouts jut out from each of her joints, and she gives a loud roar that sounds more like a rock-slide than anything.

...and yet keyleth still feels so very smol. ]

IT'S PERFECT, sorry for the delay friend

[tommygunned]

[Lup's eyes absolutely sparkle. Forget the quipping: not only is this another elf, the first elf she's seen in ages besides Taako and that asshole she demolished, but she can do cool rock shit. Leaning over the bear's shoulder, she oohs and ahhs appreciatively.]

Look at that! You see that, man?

[The bear grumbles, tipping his head curiously. Then he . . . bucks Lup off. She drops onto the ground in a crouch and scrambles a few steps closer to Keyleth, looking her over.]

Neat. You're gonna need more than that to beat my man here, though!

[The bear roars, deliberately just a tick louder than Keyleth did. He ain't afraid of no rock. With a ground-shaking stomp, he takes a step towards her. And then another. And another. So menacing.]

omg no worries! lmk if you want to make this a quickie so i don't bog you down <3

[fernbeleafer]

[ she tries to talk, as always, and it's just more rocks scraping against rocks for a few seconds. her giant chunky hands gesticulate and it's that motion that trips her memory. she stops, and both 'hands' turns into two thumbs up as if she's toootally heeding that warning.

and then she just charges that giant ass bear and flings a one-two punch his way. ]

i'm ok continuing as long as you are! either way is fine :]b

[tommygunned]

[Oh. Okay, well: the punches connect, and the bear startles back a bit. He just wasn't expecting her to move so fast, it seems, and takes half a second to shake his head and get his bearings.]

[Meanwhile, Lup's laughing. This is her favorite kind of fight, where everything's dumb brute force and unpredictability. Too bad it doesn't take the bear longer to get his strategy down, but the strategy is charge and it's generally pretty effective. So, yeah, he fucking charges, head down and straight towards Keyleth with the full intent of bowling her over with his ton or more of weight.]

<333

[fernbeleafer]

[ down they go, the momentum rolling them both once, twice-- and keyleth finds herself pressed to the earth and unable to get herself up. she's dazed and smarting, and if she could laugh it would be delighted and wild.

but she sinks instead, form almost melting into the ground below her, soil and grass left undisturbed in her wake. she emerges behind her opponent and dives toward his back because she loves bad life choices. ]

iii, slips in l8

[crownless]

[It's wrong, everything is wrong, it's all wrong wrong wrong. The panic in the woman's eyes-- when he can make them out, dizzying as their surroundings are-- has made that infinitely clear. He's never done well in spaces like this to begin with. A psychological rather than a physical claustrophobia; a sense of doom and of entrapment, those billowing curtain walls seeming to close in tighter on the both of them.

...Them?

Who the fuck are they, anyway?

He looks down at his hands and the color of flesh blurs. He doesn't know what to do, or how to scream, but he opens his mouth, running over to her--

Is there an exit?

Can we find the exit?

--and joining her, short nails ripping into the curtain fabric in a frenzy, slowly, slowly building.]

[tommygunned]

[His voice buzzes. Not totally incomprehensible, words come through, but they come through as though he's talking through an old radio from miles and miles away, over oceans and mountains. On the other side of the earth. She looks at him. Someone new. He's new. He came from--out there? So it ate him. She--]

[Exit, he said, she thinks, she thinks, and the answer is a resounding no. She shakes her head over and over, too hard, so much so that it hurts, although she's glad for that; she's only just started feeling again, after however long it's been. A year? Two?]

[No exit. But he's from outside. It ate him. So he's magic. So he might have seen--]

[All of a sudden she grabs his wrists and pulls him towards her, her grip fierce and eyes piercing, not just afraid anymore but afraid and determined. She opens her mouth to speak again. It's still just static, but louder like she's yelling, and more than that: she speaks slowly, enunciating carefully so he can see her mouth moving.]

[TAA, she mouths-screams. KO. TAA-KO TAA-KO TAA-KO TAA-KO--]

[crownless]

[Suddenly, he lurches forward, the physical contact screaming like a white-hot iron rattling inside his skull when it doesn't even hurt it shouldn't hurt all she's done is touched him? He blinks stupidly, jaw lax.

Tako? Taco...?

Taako?

The name doesn't register. Fuck, his own name doesn't register, and neither does hers: he's running off a vague impression of knowing her, not her face, not who or why he and she are even here but a familiarity he senses in the pit of his anxious gut. He hates it. He shakes his head. They're that much further away from an answer.

WHERE? he tries. WHO? he tries again.

This, he realizes, isn't going to work. The not-pain, the wrong, of her touch makes the static louder, but it's contact and it's the awareness that he's real, he's something. He won't shake the woman off.]

[ryuji]

[And of course, in this particular dream, Ryuji's been retooled (emphasis on the tool part) to a fighter class, without a lick of spell slots about him, and no Speak With Animals enchantment to help him discern what the hell the bear is saying. Or why he looks so completely okay and calm with Lup riding his shoulder. He crit fails that insight check, and tilts his head, eyebrow quirking up towards the heavens.]

WEENIE? I ain't a freakin' weenie. What the hell?

[That thing looks like it could topple a tree in a matter of seconds. Tear a human apart piece by piece. This isn't the Winnie the Pooh style of friendly neighborhood bear, looking for some honey. Ryuji pounds a fist against an open palm in defiance.]

Let's dance, bro.

[tommygunned]

[Lup laughs, head-thrown-back out-loud gut-shaking laughter. Uses the momentum of her laughter to slide down the bear's side and land on her feet, only stumbling a little. She leans on him. He grumbles again.]

Put your money where your mouth is, weenie.

[Then, in a stage whisper:] Try to win, though? I got money riding on you.

[And she steps back, bows. Out of--the trees? maybe?--a microphone comes down on a cord; she grabs it and pitches her voice a little lower, rhythmic and overexcited like a sportscaster new on the job.]

Innnnnnnnnn this corner, we have our reigning champion, house favorite, the King of Strength, my good good friend . . . this giant fucking bear! And in this corner . . . the challenger! My good good recent acquaintance! Ryuuuuujiiii!

[She wiggles her free hand at him, jazzhand-style. Which is when the bear swats a lazy, enormous paw at Ryuji's side. Lup hisses in pre-sympathy.]

[ryuji]

Tch, didn't your mom ever tell you not to put things in your mouth? I mean, mine definitely has. A bunch of t---

[What the hell is even happening? Why is there a microphone? What reality did he sign up for when he wandered into this mess? This has all the showtimey aspirations of a pay per view boxing match, but Ryuji knows full well that he's gonna be pulverized if he can't get his shit together- fast.

He looks up to where she had absconded to, hoping that he'd get like...




you know


some sort of magic buff to give him a hand here, but it's way too goddamn late and Ryuji's body goes FLINGING at the trajectory path within the full might of a giant fucking bear. This is. This is fine. This is okay. He gets back up, fisticuffs.

And he charges in.]

RAWWWWWWRRRR

[Okay, that's not intimidating, but whatever.]

[tommygunned]

[It makes the bear laugh, actually. Like, a lot, and very loudly, and bear laughter is about as intimidating as you might expect. It shakes the clearing up to the tips of the trees.]

Tell him he's funny, [the bear says, right before dodging so Ryuji goes darting past him. Then he sits down on his haunches, apparently content to wait for the next pass. He could do this all day.]

[Lup shouts into the microphone:] HE THINKS YOU'RE FUNNY. But you gotta do better! Use your head, Ryuji!

[ryuji]

[At this rate, it'd be a test of endurance. Even if Ryuji had the best on his team, there's no way that he can outlast a bear in a match of pure contest of strength alone. Attrition will get the best of him, and it's a war he's bound to lose.

That laugh though. That's not a laugh- that's fucking terrifying and he's just glad that the thing isn't hostile enough to come right for him.]

Use my head?!?

[Well, okay Lup.

That's a good idea.

He charges again, this time aiming his head straight into the belly of the bear who's mocking him from the short distance away.

Ryuji, you are so dumb.]