So listen to the secret things you hear the west wind say.

[asliceofchaos]

Sunset, days after the vanishing of the first group, the Carnival goes oddly still. The rides don't stop, the crowd keeps moving, but in spite of all the noise and motion there's a frozen feeling in the air, like everything in motion is just a collection of confetti in a shaken snow globe

Comments

CELL TWO

[babylonmods]

Re: CELL TWO

[gallantgoggles]

"Takato?" Guilmon drops his head miserably and starts snuffling around on the floor.

"Giru, where is Guilmon? I can't find Takato anywhere."

[nolimitation]

Olivia wakes up silently, her eyes snapping open at the unfamiliar voice. She doesn't move at first, just sits still, listening and trying to make out shapes in the faint light of the cell. She counts three other people - one too small to be anything but a child - and...

That's Guilmon, isn't it? The creature from the junkyard, when she first came to the Wood...

"Guilmon," she whispers, as she moves slowly and a little painfully to check on the child. "How long have you been here? Do you remember what happened?"

[gallantgoggles]

"Guilmon doesn't know." He lowers his ears mournfully. "Guilmon tried to fight the monsters with Takato, but they were too fast."

[ruinszen]

Sam groans awake, clutching his head while he tries to reorient himself. The Carnival, fairies... Quorra. He jerks upright, other hand immediately going to pull the disc from his back and letting it whirr softly. Both the disc and his own suit cast a strange glow in the surrounding area - the only suit that he can find. Damn it. Damn it. He can't have lost her, not now.

It's then that he realizes that he's not alone, and he tunes into their conversation just in time.

"But there's only us," he responds, giving the creature an odd look. His universe has been exponentially expanded recently so he's willing to cut it some slack in the existence department. "And they didn't take just us."

[nolimitation]

"We'll find him," Olivia reassures Guilmon quietly - though first they'll have to find a way out of here...

She gets up and walks over to the door, running her fingers along the edges of it. It's not a door at all, at least not one she knows how to work - having been in Tempest's castle for so long, she has no doubt it does open, but she doubts they'll have much luck getting out that way.

She drops her hand with a sigh and turns to look back at the man in the glowing suit. She's not going to ask why he's glowing. It doesn't seem like their most pressing concern, under the circumstances. "How do you know? I didn't have time to see much before they knocked me out..."

[ruinszen]

"A friend of mine. She's..." A pause, because he's never had to quantify the relationship between Quorra and himself that would explain why he knows. "I'm responsible for her, I guess. Not that she's not perfectly capable of taking care of herself. It's just... I was keeping a close eye on her."

Sam gives up, switching off the disc and returning it to his back. "They were gunning for her as well, and she's not here." Which means he'd failed to protect her. Again.

Shit. But he wanders over to the door, even more determined to get out of here and find her. "Any luck?"

[immaguard]

The grooves deepen suddenly, and a face appears in the stone, the eyes grinding this way and that as it looks them over. Its voice doesn't come from the closed mouth, but from the walls around the prisoners. "Murrrr, don't see why we need you, frankly, don't see why we need you at all. Things are fine the way they are - but it is what it is, and it is what she says, isn't it." The face doesn't nod so much as shift up and down. "Yes, yes, so it is."

There's a pause, and it says, "Oh, yes. I am supposed to ah- One moment, one moment."

The stone mouth grinds open wide and a mix of withered fruits and small bottles of water come dumping onto the floor of the cell. The face grinds its mouth shut again, and the voice reverberates from the walls once more. It sounds pleased with itself. "Yes, yes, there we are. Can't have you starving, I suppose not, no."

[gallantgoggles]

Guilmon makes his way over and snuffles at the wall curiously.

[nolimitation]

Olivia steps back from the wall as soon as she notices something happening, and manages to make the movement look calm, with a careful blankness in her expression that used to be reserved for particularly disturbing fringe events. Maybe the entire Wood qualifies as one big fringe event...

She reaches out as Guilmon moves to the wall, placing a hand on his shoulder and gently tugging him back - not enough to move him, if he doesn't want to follow the silent suggestion, but she's not sure it's safe to be that close to the walls anymore, even if the face seems harmless enough.

"...thank you," she says, after eying the fruit and water bottles for a moment. Her voice is as neutral as her expression. "What are we needed for, exactly?"

[immaguard]

"Something doubtlessly fatal," it says. There's the vague impression that it's shaking its head sadly. "Unfortunate, really, so much life in you lot."