The true story here was a fate to discover; the true story here was too simple to see...

[thatsortofaman]

As the sun starts to rise, a handful of people emerge from the trees, heading for the barracks gate. It's not another attack - for one thing, the group's a bit small and ragged-looking for that. For another, as they get closer to the gate those inside the barracks may recognize them, all friends or acquaintances who quietly went missing before the

Comments

[neverinportland]

Juliet has a migraine that's made her head fit to burst and she keeps hearing a chorus of cuckoo, cuckoo echoing in the trees, even though things are silent. Despite the things she's learned from wilderness life with the Others, she's barely paid attention to the fact that things look a little like a battlefield around here- beyond the iron tang of monster blood still hanging in the air, which she only notices because it makes her headache worse.

The pounding on the door doesn't help. She hangs back from the Doctor and the others, arms crossed, and only then does she notice the barracks, the surrounding area, and has to swear under her breath. If anyone died in there, because they lacked a doctor, she was going to kill whatever fairy abducted her to the creepiest part of the Woods with her hands.

[bell_bound]

Mogget wants to know what's going on. The ragged group don't look too healthy, to put it mildly, and none of them were here during the siege. He picks on the woman purely because she's a little apart from the rest of the group.

So, Juliet, have a cat mewing up at you.

"Bad experience in the woods?"

[neverinportland]

Juliet looks around briefly before finally looking down and had she not spent a week at the Princess's castle, she might have jumped to find a cat speaking to her. Automatically, she assumes it's one of her cats coming to visit.

"You could say that," she says dryly. "If you're here to give me another invitation, I'm going to have to respectfully decline.'

[bell_bound]

An easy mistake to make. The only thing that distinguishes Mogget from the castle cats is his red leather collar.

Mogget tilts his head. "Even if I invited you inside the barracks? That is where you wish to go, isn't it?"

[neverinportland]

Juliet rubs her face. God, she's sick of riddles things turning her words around on her or being literal at her. She almost misses the island. Before the seventies. Back when things sucked and didn't make sense more than they had before Jack and everyone else came back.

"The Princess didn't send you?" She says, finally.

[bell_bound]

People always assume he's one of Tempest's minions. It's understandable but still annoying.

"No. I do not serve her. What happened?"

[neverinportland]

Juliet laughs behind her hand. Of course. They just happen to have a talking cat in their camp. Just randomly.

"I blacked out. When I woke up, I was in the middle of the Woods- it was dark. I could see people- the group of us that were all taken. I just kept walking until I found someone who could lead me out." She swallows. She doesn't want to go into details about the sights and sounds of that place. She just knows she doesn't want to go back, unless she has to.

"What happened here?"

[bell_bound]

"Monsters," Mogget replies. "They laid siege to this place... would allow none to enter or leave."

He wonders if that has anything to do with what happened to these people. "So were the Woods empty? Did the entire fiendish population come out to menace us here, or did you encounter any yourself?"

He suspects she's not telling the whole story.

[neverinportland]

"You'd have to ask them. Nothing attacked me. It was..." She exhales through the nose, keeping her tone neutral and emotionless while talking to a cat that she kind of wants to pick up and hold and pet to make her feel better is more difficult than she ever would have imagined. "Psychological. Just a sense of foreboding and... complete sensory overload."

[bell_bound]

"Hallucinations?"

Mogget wouldn't actually be averse to being picked up and petted as long as the person doing so intends him no harm. He's used to craning his neck to talk to humans, but it's always easier talking at their eye level.

[neverinportland]

Juliet does him one better. She kneels in front of him, because looking down is getting annoying. "Nothing specific. You know that feeling you get when you keep catching something out of the corner of your eye, but you don't know what it is or where it went or when you hear things and don't know where they're coming from? It's like that, but constantly."

[bell_bound]

That's much better. The cat sits with his tail curled around his paws, musing on this piece of information.

"Yes, I know the feeling. It usually means that something is there, or some magic is at work. Something with no good intentions."

Not that he's surprised. Practically nothing here so far in the Wood seems benevolent.

[neverinportland]

"I figured that part out on my own," she says, dryly. She unconsciously reaches out and pets him on the head as if she's trying to convey her sarcasm doesn't indicate any bad feelings towards him. She's not used to magic or talking with cats.

"This is all just a little above my paygrade."

[bell_bound]

He shifts forward, arching his back so that she can pet him more. In many ways, Mogget behaves very much like an ordinary cat.

"Hmm? What were you before?"

[neverinportland]

Well, at least he didn't get offended. Juliet almost laughs and moves her fingers down his back to scritch him. "A fertility researcher- more of a field medic these days though. I've had to give more off-the-cuff appendectomies than I'm really comfortable with."

[bell_bound]

She's a medic and seems to like cats. These are both plus points for Mogget - it gets tiresome suspecting that anyone might suddenly turn on him.

"There seems to be no rhyme or reason regarding those who are drawn here..." He looks back to where the gate is open by now. "I suppose you do wish to go inside?"