003 - You take me everywhere that I've never been in

[n0secondchances]

[The Doctor is already up and about as the sun comes over the horizon. Between the three of them, they’ve poked and prodded and scanned Slenderman’s cave as much as possible from the surface, but there’s a time when nothing else besides exploration will do. Which is why, as three TARDII materialize in the lobby of the castle, Ten’s cheerful voice

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DEEP WITHIN

[n0secondchances]

[if the curious explorers navigate far enough within, they just might stumble across the one and only "man-made" structure to be found: an abandoned play-structure, upside-down and ensnared by roots. It is molding and slicked with water, but the plastic slides and tubes are still intact.]

[fishy_go_byebye]

[This is where Del gets to, all things said and done. She seems to be taking a lot of joy in climbing all over it...]

[tehoniongirl]

[Jilly's normally one to find joy in things where no one else does...but when she finally makes her way over the treacherous ground to where she can see the upside down play equipment, she just stops to stare. Her thoughts are conflicted as she watches Del, a bright bit of color in the gloom.

[fishy_go_byebye]

[She clambers around, hair twining in and out of things significantly more gracefully than she herself is. Finally, she tips back, and hangs from her knees, looking down at Jilly.]

[tehoniongirl]

Hey, Del.

[she doesn't have much more to say, at first. She's mostly just remembering the snippets that Caroline, Wybie, Karkat and Nanako had shared. This playground set... they'd stayed by it, as long as they could. One tiny break in terrifying forest of underground trees]

[careful not to shine her light in the rainbow-haired girl's eyes, she lets it slide over the equipment and up into the roots]

Is that stable?

[fishy_go_byebye]

Hello.

[She considers her perch.]

Am I stable?

[tehoniongirl]

[that does get a smile] Somehow, I think you're always stable...except when you don't want to be.

I'm not sure about those slides, though.

[fishy_go_byebye]

[Seems like Jilly notices things, too.]

Always is boring.

[There's a creak from where Del hanging, and she moves onto another part]

Uhm...

[tehoniongirl]

[if there's anything supernatural about Jilly, it's her ability to notice.]

It is. And always doesn't seem to last as long as you'd think.

[uh oh...she heard that creak] You okay?

[fishy_go_byebye]

Always is as long as it remembers to be. Memory can be very short for people.

[Is examining the insides.]

I'm not not.

[tehoniongirl]

For some people, memory is long and short. [she's remembering the Crow Girls back home, little specks of the Old World who could be as flighty as teenagers or older than time. Talking to Del always gave her the same sort of feeling]

Well, I'm glad you're not not.

[turning the flashlight to the gloom around them, she'll look off into the darkness]

All the magic's gone out of this place. [for once, that seemed like a very good thing] Do you think he's still around somewhere? Or did they really get rid of him.

[fishy_go_byebye]

Ideas are harder to leave than things...

[tehoniongirl]

Yeah...I don't think the idea of him will leave for a very long time.

[fishy_go_byebye]

[A sigh that echos oddly in the cave]

Probably not.

[tehoniongirl]

[she's not exactly comfortable here...there's something unsettling about that molding playset... but she's not quite ready to leave, either. Sitting down on the soft ground, flashlight balanced on her knees, she'll consider the roots overhead] I think the idea of us beating him will last too, though.

[fishy_go_byebye]

[She shrugs]

The castle fell.

[This is something she wasn't here for, and shouldn't - doesn't - remember, but Del knows.]