Goodness gracious! Great balls of fire!

[sendmyscourge]

Midnight passes with little incident. In fact, most of this day will be rather uneventful to the point where people will have to stop and wonder if the plagues have stopped right in the middle of their stranglehold

Comments

[artischaos]

Fire. FIRE. Oh yes. He hasn't seen proper fire like that since he left home - humans tamed it, kept it only around in small doses. This was FIRE, untamed, free. He could taste it on the air, smell it in the wind. The small bat crept out of the hotel, then took to the air, surveying the damage. Maybe this would end with a portal to hell he could sneak throu--- oh wait. DAMMIT. He was still a friggan bat! Like he'd be welcome. Azeroth sighs, perching near the coffee shop to watch what remains burn.

[ohperilousplace]

Zoe should not be out right now, and her parents are going to kill her when they find out. But it was a perfectly clear day out, and she's been cooped up inside since the first plague, and she was starting to go crazy from cabin fever.

A little trip outside to see what damage has been done to the city so far can't hurt anyone, right? ...except for the fact where this is Chicago.

Right now, she's crouched awkwardly in a little alcove on the side of a building, concentrating very hard on a shield that doesn't cover her completely, just directs the fire and hail in another direction, away from her. A fireball bounces off it and into a parked car - she flinches, but quickly recovers and redirects her attention to the shield, biting her lip hard. She does not want to die in a rain of fire because she was an idiot and went outside. That would just be... really embarrassing.

[thatsortofaman]

Sensible people do not go out during the day designated as the plague of fire, however bright and sunny it is. The Doctor, however, has all the sense of a concussed fruitbat, and he might have still been out and about even if the fireballs had been falling when he left the house, so... it doesn't much matter what people with a sense of self-preservation might do.

At the moment, he's sitting in the window of a hardware store, just under cover, peering out at the storm in bemused fascination. The window itself's been broken in, either by hail or looters, but the Doctor doesn't care about that, he's just trying to avoid getting hit in the head by something flaming until the worst of the storm passes. Again.

He's been trying to track down the TARDIS, but it's been proving a bit difficult without being able to send out a psychic call. He really does tend to stay inside her, safe and sound, once he's located her. You know, until the next plague that interests him.

[cyfor]

Cy climbs through the window and falls into his lap. There's a moment of flail while she tries to get her legs back under her, then she gives up and stays upside-down and twisted about. She's thinner, a bit, and filthier than usual, but otherwise looking as she usually does. There's a bit of scorched fur on the tip of her tail

Perhaps also a bit more manic.

"Hi," she says. "There's flames rattling your brains."

[thatsortofaman]

The Doctor blinks at her for a moment, and then scritches her belly. He does notice that she's skinnier than usual, but he doesn't worry too much about it - Cy's always been able to take care of herself. (This is why the Doctor should never have children, or a dog who's not a robot. He'd assume much the same about them.)

"There's flames rattling all around the city," he answers with a shrug. "Seems fitting."

[cyfor]

"Fitted for a velvet box," Cy says, not really paying attention to her own words. She's getting scritches.

Also, there is a hardware store. Holy crap. It's like the Cave of Wonders. She tumbles off the Doctor's lap and tries to run down three aisles at once and instead ends up running in a circle and almost falling over.

This. Is the best. Thing. EVER.

[findaconstant]

Winny's okay, now, for the most part - the fire is unsettling, yes, but Dan left her with a kiss and the promise that he'd be back right away. Don't worry. I just need to get something. She should be okay. The fleas are all gone, he made sure of that, and she should be okay. This is what he tells himself. This is what he almost believes.

She doesn't know his nose is bleeding. He wiped away enough before leaving that it escaped her notice and he left just before it started up again. He's not sure it would've mattered if she'd noticed, anyway; he could've lied, said it was allergies, or that he tripped - anything other than it might be a cerebral hemorrhage. It might be. It also might not be, but he can't be sure of either, and he can only focus on the former possibility

[crossindexing]

When he doesn't come back in an hour, two, three--Winny starts to worry. When the staff tells her no one saw him leave the hotel, all that leaves is for her to go floor by floor hunting for him, knocking on doors and breaking down the locked ones where no one answers.

She finds bodies. Mostly suicides. Five of them before she gets to the abandoned rooms on Dan's floor.

When she gets to the locked door, she's not sure she can take breaking down another one and finding a... corpse inside. She's already bruised and tired and wrung out from crying, and hating herself for being relieved every time it's not Dan.

She knocks. "Hello? Please answer. Is anyone there?"

[findaconstant]

By the time Winny reaches the room he's in, he's sound asleep.

He's not dreaming, not mentally flitting here and there - he's just on a bed, in an abandoned room, asleep.

And now he's not, because Winny's outside. An all too familiar pang of guilt kicks him in the gut when he realizes what he probably put her through by running away, but he has the chance to fix it this time. "I'll be right there, Winny," he calls, rolling out of bed to head to the bathroom. He's a mess; his face is half-covered in dried blood, there's some crusted in his hair, in his beard... some on his shirt, near his shoulder.

His stomach twists once he reaches the sink and catches sight of himself in the mirror. He makes quick work of washing most of it away, though, and rushes to the door.

He wants to wrap his arms around her, wants to kiss her, but all he can do is stare at her and say, in a very small and quiet voice, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

[crossindexing]

She hugs him tight. Not as tight as she wants to, but that might hurt him.

"Nononono," she whispers. "Don't say that. It's okay. You're okay, so I'm okay, okay?"

Winny rests her face against his shoulder.

[weaponof_choice]

The sun's just going down when Twice Sold Tales burns to the ground. It's an old building downtown, after all, wood frame, filled to the brim with flammable paper. The roof takes a direct hit from a fireball and the entire place is reduced to ash, taking with it the seventy-three people huddled inside for shelter from the rain of flames