There are laws we must obey, certain ways this story goes... [Closed: New Arrivals]

[babylonmods]

Waking up in the Woods for the first time is never a pleasant experience, but this time may be just a bit more unpleasant than most. The tangled branches overhead block out the sky, and most of the light - it could be midnight or high noon, but this part of the wood doesn't seem like it would notice the difference either way. It's bitterly cold

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[modernholmes]

When Conan wakes, he instantly knows something is wrong. He should be hearing the sound of traffic and smelling the familiar leather and chemical smell of Professor Agasa's car. But here there was only the smell of a forest, the sound of birds and a seemingly rapid shift in the climate

[sparrowhillrose]

Rose is cold. This is not new. Rose is also inexplicably both in her prom dress and alive, however, so she's not really in a good mood. Whatever the hell dragged her into this god-forsaken forest is really gonna get it if she gets her way.

Still, she notices a kid, younger than her, wandering around and shivering... well, she's not heartless. "Hey, kid," she calls, trying to keep her teeth from chattering together, "you okay?"

[modernholmes]

Ah, an adult! Much as Conan hated needing help, he couldn't deny that some situations he just couldn't handle in his current form. And his small body was not handling the cold well.

And it wasn't like he had much dignity left to lose.

Conan turns, wrapping his arms around himself as he shivers, and answers in a plaintive voice with a bot of a whine.

"I'm okay. But its really cold!"

[sparrowhillrose]

An adult? Ha! While her maturity level has risen over the decades, Rose can only barely pass for 18 if she's trying, and with her curled hair and party dress, she can't look a day older than she was the night she died - sixteen with the world ahead of her.

Not that she wouldn't be gratified to know she'd been thought of as an adult.

Rose grimaces sympathetically at the little boy. "Yeah, I noticed. You wouldn't happen to know where we are, would you? Is your mom or dad here?"

[ruinszen]

For the longest moment, Sam has absolutely no idea what just happened. He remembers taking his father's disc from Quorra and then -- nothing. There should have been something to signal their arrival into the basement at the arcade, it shouldn't have been that easy.

But then he realizes that he's freezing, which--- shouldn't be happening. His eyes snap open and a once over reveals that he's definitely not the secret hidden room in his dad's arcade. Nor is he back in his own clothing, still in the skintight suit that was giving off a slight glow in the dark. A forest was never in his plans for getting back to his own world, but at least it wasn't the Grid. As far as he knew, there weren't such things as trees and forests, or frost for that matter, on the Grid.

So where was he? Where was Clu? Where was his father? Where was Quorra?

Sam pushes himself off the ground, casting an eye around and calling for the one program he knew should have been there with him.

"Quorra? Quorra!"

[modernholmes]

Conan watches the man wake up with keen interest. From that reaction he believed he could tentatively file this man as a victim. He was dressed in a strange costume. Perhaps an actor? The skintight costume had some similarity to those used on the kids' favorite shows. He was still too far away and the light was too dim to say anything with certainty.

Showtime. Conan adopts the body language and expressions of a confused and frightened child and purposely steps on a branch.

[ruinszen]

Sam spins around, the disc in his hand whirring into a glowing light as he bends slightly. Not that he doesn't consider himself fully capable of defending himself without it, only that he's gotten so used to using it within the last eight hours (a few minutes?) that it's starting to become second nature to him.

The light and the glow only cast a soft light on - whoever it was. Something small, maybe a child?

"Hello?"

[modernholmes]

Conan steps out into the faint light and stares up at the man.

"Ne, ne! Are you an actor? What you did just then looked just like Kamen Yaiba!"

...This never stopped being humiliating.

[regeneracy]

Claire wakes with a start, the memories of the killer at Homecoming still fresh in her mind. The last thing she can remember is Sylar slamming her up against the wall, and then everything blacking out. Now everything is so... coldDid she die again

[ruinszen]

It's obvious that Sam doesn't cut an unnoticeable figure, one hand clasped around a glowing ring and the general overall oddness of his own glowing white suit. But the moment he hears someone talking he's off in that direction - hoping that whoever it is knows something about why they're here.

He's close enough to catch her call for what he assumes to be her father and there's a moment where it strikes a bit too close to home but that's gone as quickly as it came - there's nothing he can do about it. Not back there on the Grid and not... wherever they were here.

"Pretty sure he's not here," is the only thing he can offer, with a shrug as he moves closer to her.

[regeneracy]

She doesn't recognize his voice and is slightly alarmed by that, but tries to not let it show. "Yeah, I noticed." She retorts softly, and slowly turns around to fully face him.

She takes in his outfit and how it glows, and his appearance causes one of her eyebrows to arch. She considers questioning if he was at a rave or some kind of crazy parade, but since she's looking for help and some answers, she bites her tongue and lets the right corner of her mouth tug upward into a smirk instead.

"I'm taking it you're just as lost as I am."

[ruinszen]

"That obvious, huh?" Is his reply, smirking in response.

She doesn't seem dangerous - and not like any program he's come across which only furthers his conclusion that he's made it back to his world. But then why does his disc work? He wasn't going to question it at the moment, not until he's found out more.

Letting the disc edge fade, he shrugs, casting an eye out into the forest; ever since waking up he couldn't seem to shake the idea that something was watching them.

[ledfromthepath]

The wolf shivers awake, scent telling her there is wrong before her eyes clear and the world is different. Wrong place. Her nose maps the clearing and smells the men and the un-men and her hackles prickle up underneath her collar. She can run. There are no walls to keep her. The others hideously close. She growls and shuffles upright while her muscles twinge and pull with cold.

She can run. But she doesn't. The woods reek of stranger things than she has ever met, and she can't find a shape for their scents. She sees bodies. Bodies in the clearing. The men and un-men, easy prey, easy slaughter.

...are all insane, the other animals are all insane, the earth is insane, Nature itself is insane...

She freezes at the sounds from inside, the collections of noises that should mean nothing but do. Words. Words she memorized, words she memorized to keep the wolf back.

Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very very best he is a sort of low grade nickel-plated angel; at is worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last

[toseethesunrise]

Quorra stares, hearing... whatever it was make a noise. She tries to search through her memory for what it could be but... she comes up short. It seemed to be of the canidae species, but for the specifics... she draws a blank. She'd read plenty of books about animals of the User World, but she was too overwhelmed to really think as much at the moment.

She didn't think they could talk, however, so she says nothing at the moment, just watching (while on guard, of course; she's not taking any chances).

[ledfromthepath]

Kat freezes at the sight of the stranger in glowing clothes, surprise letting instinct take over. Her lips peel back. The snarl builds in her chest and breaks through her teeth as she bristles, shifting into a stiff-legged walk sideways so she's in a better position to attack. This one doesn't smell right. It stinks like a man but not quite like a man. She snaps, darting toward her and then dodging back again, a threat display and a challenge at once.

[toseethesunrise]

Freezing herself at the growl, Quorra grips her lightsword a bit tighter, but she doesn't move. She certainly doesn't want to provoke an attack. Had she startled it?

But then it darted for her, and instinct took over. Jumping back, Quorra holds the lightsword in front of her, staring at it directly in the eyes. She looked at it calmly though, trying to get across that really, she meant no harm. But she wouldn't sit back and let it attack her either.

[hagothehills]

It was a strange sort of weariness. Normally pulling an all-nighter was not a strange thing to the witch but -- seeing Roland married to a woman not herself, perhaps she could blame it on that.

That's not it at all, said her Second Thoughts. It was over long before now. You knew that. This something different, something wrong.Not one to ignore her own Second Thoughts, Tiffany rubbed her eyes and sat up, brushing the detrius of the forest floor off her dress, before she straightened herself, and her hat, and surveyed the group

[sparrowhillrose]

Rose had woken from unconsciousness a time or two since she died, but it had never happened when she wasn't wearing someone's coat, borrowing a little life until sunrise. This is something different - she'd been on the ghost roads, debating her sanity at the edge of the Ocean Lady, and then

[hagothehills]

Tiffany turned and -- tried, for a moment, to figure what in the world that woman was doing in the middle of no where in a dress that might've been Letitia's. But she realized she'd been addressed, and said, "Faerie, miss. I believe we are in Faerie."

That is probably not the answer that Rose wanted, however.

"I am Tiffany Aching, Witch of the Chalk," she added. "And this is not the first time I have been in Faerie. For now, please follow simple rules if you wish to extend your life, miss: eat nothing you're offered by anyone you don't know -- myself included -- and don't accept any gifts. If it's too good to be true, it probably is, and you might want to run away from it."

[sparrowhillrose]

"Faerie."

Rose doesn't bother to hide her dubiousness at that suggestion, but... does it really make any less sense than her suddenly being alive instead of a dead girl on the edge of the Atlantic Highway?

And this Witch - not a routewitch, but Rose doesn't pretend to know everything about the supernatural and the Twilight, so maybe she is a witch - seems sensible enough. Her advice isn't bad, if they really are in a place like the 'Faerie' of old myths.

"That'll be a change," Rose murmurs dryly to herself at the mention of not eating anything offered by a stranger. She smiles a little and tries not to let her teeth chatter when she talks. "I'm Rose. I don't have a fancy title or anything."