open } hiding wolves in wicked skins their darkest sides preserved

[krmvgivv]

Who: YOU
Where: Wonderland
When: 11/11 - 11/13
Rating: Will vary a lot depending on the thread
Summary: Catch-all log for anyone who wants to do stuff post-challenges but still during the event.
The Story:

[Congratulations, you solved all three challenges! Now you get to hang out and wait for your friends to also finish. Plus, you still get to turn into neat animals. Have fun!]

Comments

Tim Wright | ota, will match any format

[postictal]

[Tim spends most of his time pretending no one else is there. None of the challenges exactly treated him nicely, and he's still trembling from the combined physical and mental strain of them. Occasionally he'll run fingers through his hair, murmuring a quiet litany of phrases to affirm his existence to himself.

And then sometimes, he's a crow. After adjusting to the initial oddness of it, the sensation of having wings instead of hands and talons instead of feet and hollow bones and just generally being a whole lot smaller than he's meant to be, he mostly takes the opportunity to propel himself skyward with a hoarse caark.

It'll be the closest thing to free that he'll ever get.]

[choosetruth]

[George is coming outside when she sees Tim turn into a crow and she raises her eyebrows behind her sunglasses. She waits until he swoops closer before she says anything.]

Why didn't you pull out that trick when we were stuck in that damn pit?

[postictal]

[It takes a bit of mental gruntwork to get himself to change back, seeing as there isn't really a manual here, but he manages it after a moment, stumbling as he readjusts to the feeling of having feet and arms.

He does his damnedest not to look sheepish.]

Didn't know I could. I only figured it out when everyone else started doing it.

[choosetruth]

[Her face is, as ever, hard to read, but she doesn't really look... any angrier than usual. She can turn into a fox now. She didn't know either.]

Since I doubt you could've taken me with you, I suppose it's just as well.

[postictal]

[Even if she were easy at all to read, it wouldn't make much of a difference. Jay was a terrible liar with a face too expressive for his own good, and he was able to take advantage of Tim's lack of social intuition for the better part of a year, the asshole.]

Can you, uh...turn into anything then?

[That seems to be the next logical place to take the conversation? Out of...politeness, maybe?]

[choosetruth]

Um, a fox. [She isn't demonstrating. He better not ask her to. She's still uncomfortable with the entire idea of magic.] It wouldn't have helped much in that challenge. I don't know why we can even still do it. It breaks the pattern of events.

[postictal]

I dunno why we can. What it has to do with the rest of - everything.

[It's fine, he really doesn't need a demonstration. All the other challenges he had to do involved puzzles, codes, confronting all the parts of himself he never wanted to see again.

That tape is still stashed away in his back pocket, burning a hole into the back of his brain.

Once this is over, he'll have to...burn it. Something equally drastic.]

[choosetruth]

What were your other challenges? Did you get three as well?

[There hadn't felt like much of a pattern, but maybe comparing it will help her see. She was stuck in a pit, stuck in a room, stuck in a maze, and then she was back to being stuck in Wonderland as a fucking fox. There's not much of a pattern, besides how angry it all made her, and too many things make her angry to find a good pattern in them.]

[postictal]

Three, yeah.

[He shoves his hands in his pockets, an unintentional tic stemming from wanting to keep the tape out of sight and out of mind. Too bad it might as well be the only thing he's thinking about.]

Mostly just puzzles and stuff. Find the right number sequence, the magic door opens.

And, uh...you?

[choosetruth]

[Just puzzles and stuff. Considering what this place put her through in her challenges, she calls bullshit. And the fact that she's calling bullshit makes her pretty sure there's something way more interesting than he's telling her. She fidgets with her watch, covertly starting her back-up recorder. She's pretty sure Tim won't want her recording this, which is why she's not asking permission. She might want to listen to his answers again later.]

I was trapped in a room with the not-a-raccoon and forced to navigate a maze blind. Just puzzles and stuff? That sounds like Wonderland took it easy on you.

[postictal]

Not a raccoon?

[Yeah, how about we focus on that little phrase instead? Sounds way more interesting than pursuing whether or not Wonderland took things easy on him. They didn't. He just - doesn't wanna think about it.]

So what was it?

[choosetruth]

You'd have to ask him. He looks like a raccoon.

[Oh, she was spot on. This is the other reason she always tells the truth. It's much easier to keep the few secrets she does have. No one ever expects her to withhold information when she answers everything so bluntly.]

So Wonderland didn't take it easy on you and it wasn't just puzzles and stuff, then. What was it?

[postictal]

[Looks like a raccoon but isn't. He...thinks he might've actually met this guy back at Hogwarts. He'd assumed that was part of the weirdness of that whole event, but it turns out that, uh - no. Apparently not.

She's still pushing that topic, unsurprisingly. Fortunately he's got more than a little experience in dodging questions.]

I mean, I'm not sure what else you'd call it. Played a couple games of "guess the magic number" to open doors.

[And hey, that part's true.]

Muahahaha

[theothermrgray]

[There was a fuzzy black cat resting in the garden, blissfully ignoring the world around it and enjoying the peace.]

[Or, it was enjoying the peace, until a passing blackbird flew by. A mix of curiosity and instinct came over the cat, and soon it was stalking the bird, ready to pounce.]

:T

[postictal]

[Always being watched, it seems, even as a corvid rather than someone with two legs and a set of faulty lungs. The sensation of being observed is acute as always, and if he had hair on the back of his neck, it'd doubtless be standing on end.

Sufficiently unnerved, he takes flight with a beat of his wings.]

:3

[theothermrgray]

[The crow flies off; The cat starts running after it.]

[That's how a hunt works.]

[However, at the moment, the ability to fly means that the crow has the advantage. But that's ok. The bird's gotta tire out sometime.]

[postictal]

[Not if the crow finds a sufficiently tall tree, right? He lights down on one of the branches, stark and bereft of leaves in the crisp fall air, and shifts nervously from claw to claw, watching the animal below nervously.]

[theothermrgray]

[The cat sits at the base of the tree, staring at the bird in the tree. How high it was. The cat couldn't possibly jump high enough to catch it.]

[But cats have claws and cats can climb.]

[That's why the cat is going to try climbing up the tree after the crow.]

[postictal]

[Goddamnit. He can't even tell if this is your typical, everyday cat, or if this is someone else who's transformed. He watches the thing sharply as it scales the trunk. When it gets near the top, he flits away again with a bright snap of wings, perching onto another branch.

If the thing feels up to climbing tree after tree, maybe he'll be able to tire it out first.]

[theothermrgray]

[... Crud.]

[Now the cat's stuck in the tree, not sure how to get down. Now the cat has to stop following instinct for a second and figure out how to get down and continue the chase, but it doesn't want to think too hard and wind up falling from the branch.]

...Mrow...

[postictal]

[Tim ruffles his feathers in a manner that might be construed as smug - if crows could look smug, or if Tim were capable of being smug at all. The most he can spring for is contempt, really.

Still, he croaks out a mildly triumphant caw, as if to say take that.]

[theothermrgray]

Mrow.....

[That sounds like an angry, annoyed growl. How dare you try to be smug about it...]

[Wait. That's right. There are other people that turn into animals. Whoops.]

[The cat lays in the tree, eyes wide with shock, trying to figure out how to get down from the tree before he proves his sentience.]

[Or hope the bird decides to become human.]

[postictal]

[The bird does, indeed, decide to become human again - mostly because he doesn't want to risk the cat wising up and getting a lucky shot in. Do injuries translate neatly across transformations? Wow, he definitely doesn't want to find out.

So Tim flutters out of the tree and onto the grass, only to transition back into humanity a second later, on his hands and knees. He raises his stare to the cat still clinging to the tree.]

Your turn.

[theothermrgray]

[YOU!]

[Dorian tries to jump down and join him, but the tree is still too high and his cat brain doesn't know how to get down.]

[He meows helplessly.]

[Tim, you may want to get him down. PLEASE.]

[postictal]

[Maybe not, then. Tim rolls his eyes, folding his arms over his chest as he straightens up.]

Just jump down, [he calls up.] Cats land on their feet. Most of them jump down from trees like this all the time.