what once was mine.

[nowgoandgether]

Lena Austen has been turned into her six-year-old self. It was a shock to wake up and discover she was no longer a woman in her twenties and instead, the child version of her. She's retained enough memories to recognize people from her adult life, but her mannerisms and her way of thinking are now that of a six-year-old. It's quite a dilemma. That'

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[shellbreaking]

Mark has been chasing after a WALL-E for over a day now. Sadly, the WALL-E chose someone else and he is all alone in his grief and misery. Okay, so that might be a slight exaggeration, but he misses that little robot. He can think of all the very AWESOME things they could have done together.

So now he is sitting on some steps with his head in his hands, going WOE.

"Why didn't he want me?"

That could be taken so many different ways, Mark.

He doesn't even see the approaching Little Lena though he did get a text from Lucky Spencer that said that Lena was six years old. So it won't come as too much of a shock even if he's not expecting it.

[nowgoandgether]

Mark may not have noticed her, so busy is he feeling the loss of what could've been a great friendship between himself and a robot, but Lena notices him and recognizes him immediately. He is Mark, after all, and she has known him for years, and he is sad.

That makes her sad, too.

With a sigh, she goes over and sits next to him, tiny legs crossed over each other.

"Maybe he doesn't like boys?" Lena offers in consolation, patting him on the back.

She twirls her wand in place, the act itself making her hand tingle.

[shellbreaking]

Mark only looks up when he hears someone near him. She's a small girl. There are probably countless children in this city, but those eyes are very familiar and he already prepared himself for the potential of running into tiny Lena.

He hears her sigh, hears her moving to sit beside him.

"No, I think he does, because he chose another boy instead of me." WOE.

And then he looks at her, at her size, at the wand.

"Little Lena, is that you?"

[nowgoandgether]

Oh. Well, she can't use that excuse anymore, and frowning, she looks down at the ground as they both side there, contemplating his woe. It would suck if a robot chose someone else over you. A robot. There is just nothing to say in that respect when you're a six-year-old. It flat out sucks.

"'Tis me, Marky Mark!" she says with a beam, waving her wand at him.

"What will make you happy?" she asks. "My wand will give it to you."

She is not even joking, Mark.

She has been making dreams come true the whole day.

[allegorylion]

Sonny meant to get word to the Crowbar at least to John. However, he ended up with more people than he anticipated to take care of and lead, and it has been almost a constant stream. When he's not helping the many people that come to him for advice, he is sleeping or bathing or eating an immense amount of raw, red meat that his followers have brought for him.

And he may have forgotten that he has a life outside of being Aslan!lion in the course of all of this.

That is until he sees jon through the mass of followers who are either lying around the grass or stepping forward asking questions. There are new people coming each day, and some stay and others ask a question before leaving n awe.

He gets to his paws, parting way through the crowd. "I shall return" and running after John... as a lion.
Sonny.

Have some thought. The people naturally follow but at a distance.

[lefttogive]

"And then you had that ungodly haircut in the eighties. Honestly, what were you thinking? I would shudder to think there was some thought put into that at all, quite honestly..." the mirror is saying, content with pointing out all of John's fashion faux pas.

Apparently. He does not even care, and he is completely confident with his looks, okay.

It would be hard not to notice a lion and its followers behind you.

"...and perhaps you should attempt a different cologne, you are attracting animals," the Mirror says in a snippy tone, as if he could not notice this for himself this strange turn of events.

Eyerolling, John turns back and--yes, that is a lion. "What even."

[allegorylion]

Sonny stops just short of actually running right on top of John. The followers behind them keep their distance so they're too far to hear anything, but they're still staring.

He doesn't miss what the mirror says about John's 80s haircut.

"Well, he has a point," Sonny says in the booming, echoy lion voice. It shakes the mirror a little bit. "About the hair in the 80s, John. The cologne would repel animals."

It smells fine when he's a demon, but as a lion, it is strong and strange and it would not attract him. Now if the smell of his cologne was the smell of raw meat, that'd be something else.

It makes him stick out his tongue like bleh.

[lefttogive]

At those very words, John immediately knows.

The lion's voice may be booming and much more dramatic, but that is something only Sonny would think to say. John groans and folds his arms across his chest, looking over at his brother. "Seriously? You're a talking lion now? Seriously?" he asks in disbelief.

"And he still has more pinache," the Mirror sniffs indignantly, though she doesn't seem too impressed with either of them.

John would not want to smell like raw meat, Sonny.

Then he would get eaten by lions such as yourself.

[thelightofgrace]

Charlie Wellman fears nothing. Not wind, nor rain, nor miniaturized versions of one of his best friends with magical wands.

This may not be wise of him, but it is, in fact, true.

He also is not aware that Lena has been miniaturized, and this obliviousness may be his downfall. However, he could use a bit of fun. His past few weeks in Chicago have been long and heavy, and he could certainly use something lighter.

So do your worst, Lena Austen. Do your worst.

[nowgoandgether]

Eee! A Charlie! Charlies are some of her very favorite.

Lena quickly hides behind a tree as she notices him, wand in place. She follows him, trying to be very stealth. She is not as stealth and ninja-like in her childhood as she is in her twenties, so Charlie probably notices he is being followed by the tiny thing.

The wand points right at his head, and a prett, sparkly tiara appears right on top of it.

She grins and moves toward him, front teeth evidently missing. "Hi, Charlie."

[thelightofgrace]

He does notice he's being follows. Ever since this event has started, kids have been flocking to the streets and reveling in the fairy tales for as long as they lasted. It makes him smile, really, that the Rift could do something like this, so he hasn't minded when he noticed the kid following him, and just kept walking, keeping an eye on her through his peripherals.

Then he feels the tiara land on his head.

Then she knows his name.

He turns when she addresses him, and crouches down in front of her, seeing if he could guess which friend of his got miniaturized for the week.

"Well. I believe you have me at a disadvantage. You know me, but I don't know you."

[nowgoandgether]

She straightens up when she's caught, looking none too guilty about it.

"Yes, you do." Lena beams at him when he finds himself at eye level with her. It would be a lot of fun if she kept him guessing, but she thinks that might just be fun for her instead of him, so what she says next is a clue that would likely leave no room for doubt as to who she is.

"Waffles are way, way better than pancakes," she says.

As if this is fact.

Then she'll be twirling the wand in front of him so that the tiara is given more sparkles. It could use more sparkles, she thinks.

[edgeofhorizons]

Jess is nearby Rachel. In fact, she is probably looking for her to hang out, because Chicago has been so weird this week. She can't even with its life for serious.

She can tell from looking at her friend that she hasn't had a normal day. Jess' day was filled with strangeness as well. She tripped over someone's hair on the sidewalk. There was a dragon on top of a skyscraper. Yeah.

It is one of those day's in Chicago.

"Rachel," she says, putting away her phone which she has actually remembered today and has been texting her best friend with though there likely wasn't any response since Rachel's phone was probably misplaced with everything else. "Hey, I've been looking all over for you. ...you okay?"

[gatherslight]

Rachel would be looking to hang out with Jess, too.

They are apparently some of the few that have not been affected by whatever's going on throughout the week, and Rachel could use that bit of normalcy considering everything else that she's encountered throughout the week, none of which is usual.

Frogs wanting to kiss her. Slippers she stumbles on. She knows a lot better, fairytales.

"Jess," she says with a sigh of relief. "Hey. Yeah, I'm fine. Just can't seem to not stumble onto something today. It's a little more extreme than usual. What about you?"

[edgeofhorizons]

Jess is definitely in the need for some normalcy with everything going on. She's happy that at least one of her friends has remained unscathed so they can try to force some normal, fun times together. If they don't fight for it or if they accept defeat, they won't get to have those fun times together and that is just not acceptable!

She should really know that nothing will ever go as planned, not in Chicago and especially not this week. However, they have to try. This is their last year as seniors, and it's going to be a good one. Jess is not about to stop trying to have normal fun in the middle of all the chaos.

Jess smiles at her at the sound of the relief in her voice. "Okay, cool, that's good," she says and then she grimaces. "Yeah, it's been about the same. No apples thankfully, nothing happening to me but all around me. I saw a dragon earlier on the rooftop of a skyscraper and I thought Gee, I'm glad I'm not up there or ya know covered in dragon bait right now."

[gatherslight]

"Staying far, far away from those apples," Rachel says in agreement. She sympathizes with the predicament, understands that it's not the boys' faults they were tempted to eat them, but it's just so weird to see them behaving so uncharacteristically for them. She misses old Noah.

"We definitely don't want you covered in dragon bait. I kept running into frogs. I don't want to kiss any frogs," Rachel says. Actual frogs, the sentiment itself is also kind of insulting. Why do you need true love to become whoever you want to be? The frog can be a prince without a kiss or changing into something else! Hmph.

"Anyway, you want to hang out? Maybe come over--"

Rachel is not allowed to finish her sentence. They're sucked into the rabbit hole, and it's an endless fall. They fall and fall and fall until finally she lands. On a pumpkin. A very, very big pumpkin.

That hurt, and she is almost left without breath as she falls off the pumpkin and onto the ground with a thud. Grass covers her hands immediately, and Rachel tries standing. "Jess? You

[enjoythe_ride]

Bela still hasn't managed to get out of her shackled state, but unfortunately for her, she can't stay bottled up in the Kashtta all week. What she can do is wrap a coat around her shoulders and head out to work on some of the research that was given to her. It's not ideal, and the shackles still make enough noise to draw attention, but at least she's warm.

For the most part.

She's making her way down the street, and at first she ignores the talking mirror -- there seems to be enough strangeness wandering around the city as of late, but when she catches glimpse of who is behind the mirror, she does a double take and moves back.

And then she smirks.

"At least someone around here is telling the truth."

[lefttogive]

"Not surprised one as lovely as you would agree with me, dear," the Mirror says in a kind voice, a complete 180 from how she sounds when she speaks to John, since they've been going over the many fashion faux pas he's made throughout the years that she is aware of.

"Would it kill you to be on my side, woman?" John asks Bela, arms folded across his chest.

"Why be on the losing side?" the Mirror asks practically.

It won't be long before he notices the sound of those shackles.

For now, he is just completely offended by life.

[enjoythe_ride]

"Yes," she replies without skipping a beat. "It would be excruciatingly painful. You wouldn't like it."

She smirks a bit, before moving closer to look in the mirror herself, eying it with a careful business eye, because that's how she's used to looking at things like this. Mirrors -- they are complicated objects. You never know what someone could do to them.

"Besides. What fun is it if I'm on your side?"

[lefttogive]

"That's sarcasm," the Mirror informs John once Bela has replied.

He gives the mirror an exasperated look before turning back to Bela. "It'd be a lot of fun! My side is filled with fun. You cannot imagine all the sorts of perks people get just from choosing my side," John says to her matter-of-factly, noticing her inspecting the mirror.

"It just popped out of nowhere. Seems hellbent on finding the fairest of them all, though. And before you answer," he says to the mirror. "I get it's not me. Shut up."