tunicaintima | Supernatural AU for Roland

Supernatural AU for Roland

[The little hamlet along the forest hasn't had a good time. Surrounded by magical creatures on all sides, they've decided to get a little... proactive in dealing with their problem. When night falls, hunters armed with crossbows and improvised weapons--hoes, shovels, and long hunting knives--come out to patrol.

This time, one of them's squaring off with one of the local werewolves. At this full moon, Firo's completely in wolf form, nearly indistinguishable from an actual wolf when he's not speaking.

The crossbow's been knocked aside, its string broken. The two circle each other, and then the wolf leaps for the hunter's leg to sink his teeth into it.

He's going to make sure that this hunter realizes it's best to leave the business.]

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[Firo suddenly finds that he can move--maybe he was just tired. This thought annoys him, because it seems far too soft, but he brushes it aside as he hustles off to where he left his clothing when he transformed. He wriggles into it as best he can, adjusting it more as his wolfishness slips away with the disappearing moon.

He glances around to make sure nobody's watching, and then he dashes off. Even when he's slipping under the lamps on the outskirts of town, he doesn't yet notice the addition to his shadow.

With dawn on the way, he collapses on the couch for a fitful--and all too brief--sleep.]

[When he wakes, if he looks properly, he might notice an unannounced visitor. The space which is being visited is the foot of the couch. There is the suggestion of a figure there, its features obscured - even the bright blue spots which suggest eyes are nearly obscured, because the figure is looking up. Up at nothing in particular, except the ceiling.]

[He's trying to wash off a faint memory in his mind so it'll come clear, the memory of standing in a house, looking up at a ceiling from the inside. He hasn't started wondering how long it's been since he's seen that particular sight, but he's getting there. Slowly. As he gets there a light breeze has started whispering around the place and a chill's grown in the air. The shadows in the room grow and shrink strangely, now blocking whatever sunlight might be moving in the direction of the werewolf's eyes, now shrinking and letting it stream straight in. He isn't making things uncomfortable on purpose, he isn't trying to wake the werewolf up. It is not exactly clear whether the figure standing at the foot of the couch has even properly remembered the concept of sleep.]

[The light and shadows dancing across his eyelids rouse him, and he's immediately on alert. Could be Maiza, could be more monster hunters who somehow tracked him back home. Better safe than sorry, so Firo's leaping to his feet without a thought. The knife he'd had hidden under his pillow--he's not used to relying on his claws yet--is in his hand.]

Who the--?

[Nobody's there.

Well, that's not entirely true. He'd hoped that odd shadow was just a dream, no matter how real it seemed, but it's even harder to dismiss in daylight. It doesn't look real exactly, but something's definitely happening.]

You again?! How'd you get in here?

[The ceiling, as fascinating as it is, ceases to matter. The full attention of those blue spots in the shade's face focuses itself on Firo. A hand rises, a hand with a hole in it, and specks of shadow drift very clearly across the rays of sunlight between them. The shade doesn't seem to walk but comes closer anyway, trying to close the distance with all the unthinking confidence of someone to whom personal space is but a vague hint of memory. What he's going to try is to take in his chilly, faint grip whichever hand had been the paw that shoved that hunter's bolt out of him. He wants to see the palm, see if that's where all those little flecks of him are drifting to. Asking is the last thing on his mind - it does not occur to him that the man in front of him has any particular desires at all, let alone a desire for some kind of explanation. Even if he were capable of giving it.]

Edited 2016-10-02 14:26 (UTC)

[It had been his left, which may be lucky, because Firo doesn't mistake the movement for a grab for his knife. He's no less offended, though, and he first tries to back away.]

What the hell's your problem? Let go!

[In seeming contrast to his words, he moves to shove that palm right into where he thinks the face is--right at those blue spots. You want to see? See.]

Whaddaya think you're gonna see, huh?

[And then he does see. He sees a new place around him, one of bright golden light and deep shadow, and in the same way he always can sense the world around him he knows that this is not a real place. If he remembered what dreams were that's what he'd compare it to. In the same way he knows that what he's seeing now is dreamlike, he knows that behind him somewhere is a large castle, green fields, maybe a forest. He does not think about what they are, or why they're there, but he knows that they are.]

[What else is here depends on his companion. This place, real or not, is one they're sharing, after all.]

A curse.

[Those aren't words he's speaking, because they don't come on a voice. It's less a set of words and more an idea, a concept which, with the logic of dreams, the two of them might simply know has been said, even before the shade has remembered how to speak well enough to say it.]

That arrow was a curse. Between us. What do you see? What's around us? Part of this mindscape is yours, after all. Part of this landscape - such as it is - is yours, too.

[He sees the cave where he first turned: in real life, a little, lichen-covered thing, but in this dream it appears towering and grand, just the way he remembers it. Firo turns and sees some of the village houses seemingly shoehorned into the rest of the landscape, scattered without rhyme or reason. He surveys the image slowly, unbelieving, and then whips around to the voice. He felt it rather than heard it, but he looks to where he gets the impression of the "speaker" being.]

Us..? Hey, you'd better not be sayin' you cursed me!

How do you know all this?

[ooc: Let me know if my mindscape assumptions aren't working!]

[He may be able to communicate in this place, but that doesn't mean he is going to. Certainly not for a question as meaningless as that. The old, old knowledge, the experiences lived by men long dead, they manifest themselves inside of the shadow's mind only as instinct and there is no urge anywhere in him to explore the matter further. There is no urge anywhere in him, either, to try and understand why anyone else would want to.]

I know, that's all.

[He twitches his shoulders in a dismissive, minuscule shrug and the shadows twitch out around him, stretching narrow, angular legs to feel at what the werewolf's mind has placed around them.]

You truly think I'm the one who arranged for that arrow to stick its magic into both of us, tie us together in this way? Are men in this age really that dim?

Edited 2016-10-06 22:02 (UTC)

[Firo turns to glare at him.]

And is everybody wherever the hell you're from such a dick?

An arrow can't do stuff like that. They've got special poisoned ones that kill you or cripple you, but they don't do curses. This is a dream.

[Curse? That's just too odd.

He supposes he has some time to kill before he wakes up, he takes a few steps nearer to the castle, sizing it up. That place might be neat.]

Of course it's a dream.

[Once he sees where the werewolf is headed the castle is suddenly there, in the way of dreams, directly in front of them. There's a wooden door and, far above, a window of bright rainbowed glass.]

If your great expertise tells you I'm wrong, then what's right?

[He stares up at the window very steadily and, impossible as it'd normally be, the window casts a many-colored shadow over his face. And it is, if someone squinted out of the corner of their eye, almost a face. Where the color touches him looks almost like deeply tanned skin; when it touches those blue chips of light they look almost like eyes.]

What's the explanation for your cave over there? Where's the explanation for this?

[Firo doesn't have an answer, so he just glares back. He jumps a little when the castle's suddenly right in front of him, which he tries to cover up by pretending to carefully consider it.

As he steps inside, he looks back at his companion. Now his expression is merely curious.]

What are you? You can't be a ghost.

[He won't believe in that until he sees it.]

That door's not for you.

[Firo isn't the only one here not answering questions. That one wouldn't have been answered even if it had been phrased as one because the shade has more important matters, suddenly, on his mind. His attention snaps onto the boy in front of him, and all that multicolored light, the hint of life on what might generously be called a face, is gone.]

Common folk enter into the Great Hall. It's over that way. East.

Common?

[Firo smirks. God damn, this guy is a dick.

He's never had a lucid dream before, but he's heard that some people can control their dreams--Claire, for one. Firo wonders if he can do that here, so, no matter the size of the doors before him, he reaches to open them, willing as hard as he can that they'll obey. He really wants to show this guy up.]

[ooc: Because it's a mindscape, if you want to have Roland 'hear' some of Firo's particularly emphatic thoughts, go for it.]

It's not an insult.

[Impossible for words like this to have a tone, but his confusion's clear in them anyway. He watches the doors open, and makes no move to interfere.]

It's a fact. This isn't your home.

Sure it wasn't.

[Firo steps in to find a towering staircase looping its way up to an airy chamber at the top. He doesn't bother counting the floors--each with a single solid door on it--but there seem to be a lot of them.]

Duh. This place isn't somebody's house.

[He hops up the steps to the first floor landing. On his way, he looks back to see if this guy'll follow or not. He hopes he does.]

If you know everything, who do you think lives here?

Pampered noblemen, their self important ladies, their wardrobes and legions of fawning servants to help dress them of a morning.

[As with all his answers in this place, that comes immediately and without thought. He doesn't need to think. He knows.]

A number of boys in the higher rooms. Plenty to steal, if you're too simple to worry about the punishment. Is that what this is? Why you insisted on coming in here?

[Amusement flickers across Firo's face, aaand it's gone. He narrows his eyes at the mention of stealing.]

You think just 'cause I'm common, I'm a burglar?

I never broke in somebody's house to rob 'em. But, hey, maybe I could give it a shot. You know about any good pickings here?

[He tries to peek through the keyhole of this first door. Nothing. Well, there's no punishment if it's a dream, right? He rears back and tries to kick it right next to the knob.]

[The shadow does not look to see whether it opens before his shoe can touch it, or if his kicks are strong enough to break open a well made - if metaphorical - door. He's focused on what's inside. It seems unfamiliar to him, but even here this does not strike him as strange. He makes to move past, interested and not bothering with so much as an excuse me as he goes inside.]

Hey--

[Firo is instantly envious. Perhaps because it's a dream, though, the door pops open, and Firo stumbles forward after the shadow.

The room within isn't really a room at all; the walls and floor are stone. In the cave, a ring of wolves stands around a solitary human, a younger reflection of the one who's gaping beside Roland. The other Firo doesn't seem bothered at all, even when one of the wolves leaps forward and bites his neck.

Rather than shaking him to break his neck, as one might for prey, the wolf releases the boy and takes a step back. As the other Firo sinks to the ground, his hand flutters to the mangled mess of his neck. He pulls his hand away and looks at the blood on it. Waits.

In that kind of unexplained knowledge common in dreams, even in the cave the viewers can be sure that there's a full moon.

Firo doesn't know how it happens, but he's suddenly back in the stairwell when the memory ends, the door slamming shut in front of him.]

Yours. Your making. Right?

[He was no more expecting to be suddenly back here in this hallway than the boy was, but he does not seem surprised. Probably because he isn't.]

You weren't born into it, then. You were chosen.

[Dazed, Firo looks at Roland for a moment as he tries to connect what he's saying to sense.

Chosen, though. He likes that. He straightens and plants his hands on his hips. His chest might even puff out a little.]

Yeah, I was. They're my pack.

[And now he's curious...]

What about you? Were you always like this?

This?

[The shape that might be a head, might be a face, looks down for a moment at the rest of itself. The thin, translucent shoulders shrug.]

What else would I be like?

[Before he's finished saying it, a door on the other side of the hall rattles on its hinges. He stares at it. If he had a face, it would be frowning. He walks over to it.]

Those doors never shook like that. Not even afterward. They were made too well for it.

Come on, even you have to know you're not normal.

[He's interrupted by the door, though, and his focus shifts entirely.]

Seriously? You're gonna brag about doors now?

[Firo rolls his eyes and follows Roland over. He tries the doorknob.]

Bragging? I wasn't-

[Under the boy's hand, the door swings open. It's a corridor, almost exactly like the hallway they were in before walking up the stairs. Almost, that is, save the tapestries on the wall, mostly burned away, the soot on the walls, the mold spreading from each corner.]

[There are footsteps, too, echoing off the stone. The hint of a hand, out of focus but there at the edge of vision, swiping itself across a large spiderweb blocking the way. The large spider who made it drops through range of vision and then out of it, and there's a familiar-sounding grunt, surprised and angry. The view swings down to a particular part of wall, a dark stain over it, very old blood. The footstep noise stops, replaced with a single shaking breath.]

[Then the corridor is new, and clean. The two of them are there again, themselves, in front of the same door they were before, except for the way the man-shaped shadow is moving down the hall without a word, away from it.]

[Firo stands by the doorway, wanting to see more, trying to pick out what might've been important in what he'd seen. It's only a moment later that he realizes his companion is taking off.]

Hey! Hey, wait!

[Firo scampers after him without even a look back.]

What was that about? Come on, tell me!

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Supernatural AU for Roland

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cw: blood

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