No Moon For You [Active, Open]

[ineedthumbs]

Characters: Red XIII, Open
Setting: Entryway, Grand Room
Time: Day 001, early afternoon
Summary: Red XIII arrives at Dollsy, is unhappy about it. More people to come?
Warnings: None

Comments

[goblintamer]

Not two seconds after Red called, Courtney appeared suddenly in mid-air, falling forward. "Oof!" she grunted as she hit the ground beside Red, lying on the floor before getting up slowly. "Wh-whuh...?" She looked around warily, barely able to speak out of surprise and confusion.

She had been walking down the stairs in her own home, on the way to the kitchen to get a glass of water, when she had tripped on ... something, and the next thing she knew she was here, in this very strange house.

And right next to her was what looked like a red-furred lion.

"Uhh...!" She started scooting away on the ground, using her arms to propel her backwards from the creature, staring at him. She had faced down faerie creatures before - even Tommy Rawhead, The Worst Goblin That Ever Was - but this creature looked fearsome indeed, so much that being so close to it gave her a fright.

After recovering from her initial thought, staring at the creature warily, she raised her hand, waving a little. "Er. Um... hi?"

[ineedthumbs]

Red XIII leapt sideways when Courtney landed, skidding backwards on the smooth marble after he touched down, his fiery tail whipping around for balance. When he saw who he was facing, however, he immediately reconsidered, feeling guilty. It was just a human girl. He gathered his feet under him and sat, wrapping his tail around himself to look less large and a little more friendly--such as it was, anyway, as he knew he was often quite terrifying to the uninitiated. And for all he knew, she was the owner of this magnificent house, or at least one of its residents. He hoped greeting her back wouldn't startle her too badly, she was already probably terrified. (He was immensely relieved that she hadn't screamed, however.)

"Hello. Are you the owner of this house?" Red XIII's voice was low and full of growl, and his sharp white teeth flashed when he spoke as a natural consequence of his mouth shape--moreso than human teeth did, although he did his best to cut down on it when he could.

[goblintamer]

Although she was mildly unnerved by the sharp teeth she caught glimpses of as he spoke, Courtney was immediately put at ease by the fact that this creature could talk - and appeared to have no immediate hostile intentions. Unlike most girls, Courtney wasn't surprised by animals that began to speak. After living in her Uncle Aloysius' house for so long, where strange creatures crawled about in the shadows of the house and cats could talk like people, she wasn't surprised by much of anything anymore, with the possible exception of teleporting to unknown locations in the middle of the night... like what had just happened previously

[ineedthumbs]

Red XIII blinked a little bit with his one functioning eye. "Unfortunately, it would seem so. If this is your house I apologise--I had no intention of waking up here." The flame on the end of his tail crackled quietly under the sound of his voice. He immediately suspected that this was not, in fact, the girl's house, but it seemed like a good idea to humour her. "There seem to be some strange circumstances, I'm sorry." He didn't really have time to play with this child, but he didn't really want to upset her.

He was, however, quite concerned about where this girl had come from. Unless she had simply dropped out from a hole in the ceiling, there was no sensible way for a child--or early adolescent, which seemed more accurate here--to suddenly land right next to him. And he didn't know of any materia that would let her do that.

[goblintamer]

She looked thoughtful, gazing at him for a good while, before standing up and dusting off her dress. "Yeah, well, that makes two of us," she replied tersely. "I don't know how I got here, either. I was walking down the stairs to get a glass of water, when I just... ended up here somehow." She glanced around the room one more time, furrowing her brow. This didn't look like the Dreadful Duchess' house - could it be that she was in a house occupied by a lord of the Twilight Kingdom? Then again, she didn't know they could spirit away humans just like that...

She mentally pushed away the thought - wherever she was, she had to pay attention. Who knows what lurked in this weird place.

"So, what are you, anyway?" she asked, glancing over at the vaguely feline creature in front of her. "I mean, you look like some sort of lion with red fur, you've got some sort of spikey hair on your head, and you can talk. Are you some sort of Night Thing?"

[ineedthumbs]

... what? Red XIII took a moment to untangle the questions and unearth the information they contained. What... no, nevermind, he didn't need to know what a lion was. She had come here... by accident, somehow? He resisted the urge to stand up and take a good sniff of her, which was what he really wanted to do. From here she smelled vaguely of that general sort of human being smell, but free of Mako, which was good. He also caught traces of a bunch of very jumbled smells, but he couldn't pick them apart from where he was. He flicked his left ear pensively before finally answering. This was a hard situation.

"I am not a lion--my name is Nanaki, of Cosmo Canyon. As for being a night thing, I am in fact diurnal most of the time for convenience. And you? Are you from Midgar or farther afield?"

[goblintamer]

Midgar? Cosmo Canyon? Diurnal? "For convenience"? Courtney had to admit that she was pretty darn lost when it came to this creature. Still, he was pretty polite for a non-lion, so she supposed that counted for something. She looked thoughtful a moment before answering.

"Nice to meet you. Courtney Crumrin... I, uh, come from a big rich neighborhood called Hillborough. Or at least, I'm living there with my uncle." She decided that it was best to leave out the little detail of him being a warlock until she got her facts straight about this Nanaki.

"As for, um, you said Midgar? I really don't know where that is. And I've never heard of a Cosmo Canyon..." She glanced away from him, eyeing the room there were in for a moment, before looking back to him. "I don't know what a diurnal is, either. I'm betting that you don't live in the Twilight Kingdom, either?" She wondered if Uncle Aloysius knew about these creatures. She was pretty sure he knew a little bit about everything in the world.

[ineedthumbs]

"Midgar is..." If she didn't know where Midgar was, and she'd never heard of Cosmo Canyon, then odds were that she wouldn't understand the rest of Nanaki's explanation. Faced with this new development, he improvised. "...a very large city is in the process of being rebuilt right now," he explained, flicking his ears again, which was a thinking habit he'd developed. He'd forgotten to keep trying to cover his teeth by now. She didn't seem particularly frightened by him anyway. "And Cosmo Canyon is a city rather far from there that... is set in a canyon." He almost hit himself for the stupid nature of that one. "And diurnal means 'active during the day.' It's the opposite of nocturnal." He tried not to grin--for some reason he found himself liking this girl and her serious-practical attitude.

"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with this Twilight Kingdom you speak of, however." He hoped she would explain more, as it would, perhaps, help explain what was going on here.

[goblintamer]

...Huh. Seems like they both had no idea where the other came from. She furrowed her brow, moving away from him to look around the room. It was a nice place by all appearances, although somewhat bare. No seats or tables to speak of. Behind her, she noted what appeared to be some sort of exit, and went to jiggle the lock, trying to open it.

Looking a little disgruntled, she abandoned the futile gesture, looking back to Nanaki. "Well, wherever we're from, we're stuck in the same place together. And I'm betting that you have as much of an idea of where we are than I do." Another pause, glancing to the two other available entrances. "...And because there's no way out, and no one's come down to get us or anything, I guess the only thing to do is explore. Think you're up to it?"

[ineedthumbs]

... oh, so it hadn't just been his paws. That was somehow a relief, even though it was much more problematic, since it did indeed mean they were stuck until they found another way out. He hated not having thumbs. The girl--Courtney--didn't seem particularly put out by it, though, and he had to wonder what made such a little human so pragmatic. He was no master at human ages, but she was only a few years older than Marlene, even by their (human) standards

[goblintamer]

Having been in situations like this before, Courtney saw no reason to fret... at least, not yet. For all she knew, she was here for a reason, one she'd hopefully find out about. Not to mention that this was a girl that had escaped the underworld of faeries by the skin of her teeth, on more than one occasion... events like that tended to toughen a person up, so to speak.

Not to mention, she wasn't alone here. She now had made a friend out of a fearsome not-lion... one with the same priorities as her. So she didn't have too much cause for alarm, she had to say!

With a small smile, she tilted her head towards the Grand Room, indicating that they should head that way, before walking along with Red to explore the rest of the house.

[ineedthumbs]

After exploring the length and breadth of the house, however, neither of them had found any convenient or useful exits. Red XIII had determined that it was a very nice house, which is was, and that it smelled of other people, which it did. Intrigued though he was by the library, he could not stay here and neither could this human girl.

Back at the Grand Room, he surveyed the window with one eye. "I hate to do this," he growled, lashing his tail, "But I do think we're going to have to break out of here." So saying, he tossed his head and howled, launching a massive wave of fire from the materia in his hair clip.

The fire crashed against the glass window with a roar as his howl echoed through the room, but it did nothing--there was no shattering, no breaking, not even melting. It simply hit the glass and went out.

Red XIII stared.

[goblintamer]

"Whoa!" Courtney stepped back a few paces, glad that she was far away from the window so that her eyebrows didn't get singed. Geez, she thought to herself, both in surprise and wonder. Not only does he get sharp claws and teeth, but he can breath fire as well?! Despite her shock, Courtney felt herself grinning inwardly.

Despite this fact, however, the window stayed intact. With a thoughtful expression, she considered the facts: The house was occupied, but there was no way in or out (so it seemed). Not to mention, the doors were apparently bite-proof, claw-proof, and fire-proof.

And even if they did get out, where were they? The landscape outside looked pretty, to be sure, but it had no landmarks... it almost looked too plain, as if it was just a backdrop to distract the eye. Or maybe she was going a little nuts from spending so much time in here. For a moment, she wondered whether or not anyone was concerned with her disappearance, whether Uncle Aloysius had caught on yet, but she brushed the thought aside. She couldn't think about

[ineedthumbs]

Red XIII was quiet for a moment before he shook his head. "I don't understand it," he confessed, a bit bemused. "The sun has barely moved from its position in the sky and yet we have been here for hours--in the meantime, I can no more break this window than I can break an entire mountain. Actually, I'd probably have better luck with the mountain." He grimaced ruefully, turning his already fierce visage into something rather horrifying, albeit only for a brief moment.

"Apparently there is something much larger going on that neither of us is in on." By which he meant, of course, some sort of powerful magic or else some sort of horrible trick, the latter of which was far less likely.

[weeatbodies]

Zetsu had slept for some time, and thankfully so; he was definitely certain now that this day was taking much, much longer than any he had yet experienced. With that in mind, he was treating it the same as if he couldn't see the sun at all, simply obeying his natural sense of time when it came to food and sleep. And in this case, he'd woken up not too long ago, and was fresh from a stop in the kitchen to get something to eat.

His attention had been attracted by a loud howl and the rush and crackle of flames; Zetsu headed for the Grand Room curiously, pausing in the doorway to watch a massive wave of fire futilely fizzle out against a quite unmarred window. Seeing that the--what was it? That certainly wasn't a lion, but it looked a great deal like one--creature was not about to attack again, Zetsu moved carefully over to touch the glass.

It wasn't even warm. "You might as well not waste your energy; it's pointless."