entrancelogs | just keep your head held high [open]

Who: Frisk and whoever
Where: Gravity Falls, mostly in the wooded areas
When: February 5th-9th, pick one
Rating: PG-13 for gore and violence because Chara is a Bad Influence
Summary: Baby's first event.
The Story: Beneath the cut, yo.

February 5th - 8th; always look on the wild side of life

There are an awful lot of animals. Some of them speckled deer that remind them of the gyftrot they'd befriended (and in some cases, killed), others patterned or sized in such a way that leads Frisk to wonder whether that's really the general way for animals on the surface. Not very many of them talk, but plenty respond to patience and encouraging smiles and a soft clucking sound with their tongue. They seem used to humans. They must be, considering the kind of place this is. It's not Wonderland, but it didn't take Frisk long to theorize that this must be one of the events Sans mentioned.

A few days in the woods isn't so bad. So Frisk meanders and wanders without much purpose to their trail. There was a building a way back, and they'd woken up with a fat wallet in their pocket (paper bills, crisp and crinkling, so utterly unlike the round heavy gold coins traded and spent in the Underground), but it hadn't entirely interested them. Too many people in once place, too many humans especially, and in any case, there are woods that need exploring.

February 9th; gnome pun intended

It'd been really nice, honestly, to get to see some monsters again. Even if they weren't the monsters Frisk was used to, they still deviated from the human norm, and it had gotten to the point that this was simply what was most comfortable for them. Petting a few here, befriending a few there, and then they'd made the mistake of quirking their eyebrows and wiggling their hips in the flirtatious if incredibly juvenile way (this is how people flirt, right?) that had gotten them out of plenty of scrapes back in the Underground. Maybe it wouldn't have been so heinous, if they hadn't happened to perform this little display to a group of what appeared to be animate garden gnomes.

Now, well, now Frisk is pretty sure they've been inducted into a marriage ceremony of some sort, a gaggle of pointy hats streaming this way and that, and now a few of them seem to be caught up in a heated debate over what kind of title would be bestowed upon the future spouse of gnome's vague approximation of a leader.

Before Frisk can get another word in, a few of tiny hands seize theirs and the whole lot of them start more or less towing Frisk back to, presumably, their no place like gnome. As soon as Frisk realizes what that might mean - flirt they might, but they're pretty certain marriage is meant to happen to people older than twelve - they begin to struggle, but it turns out gnomes are awfully strong, particularly when they work together like that. Frisk squirms, thrashes, pretends to comply before trying to bolt again - all to no avail. Yelling for help isn't something they're especially good at. They can't typically speak louder than a mumble on a good day.

But fill their lungs they must and fill their lungs they do, until finally they manage a single, wordless cry of fear and indignation.

[ooc: as usual, prefer prose but will but will bracket if desired. Feb. 9th will pretty much require a rescue, but unless it's going to be a group effort I'd like to keep that to one thread since different multiple rescue attempts is confusing (and nonsensical, narratively).]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Souji had been looking at Frisk, already trying to order his responses to those questions in his mind, but their sudden silence and movement is enough of a signal that they've seen something. Crouching down as well, he looks in the direction they're pointing.

Now he's the one whose eyes widen, and he stays still for a moment, holding his breath. He's undecided if they should approach or hang back and watch, and part of him doesn't want to make the first move and have it be the wrong choice.

After a second, he lets out his breath in silence before murmuring, "That's them?"

It's more of a statement than a question, but confirmation can't hurt.

Frisk nods excitedly, then quickly tempers the motion into something more sedate. They don't know what scares off fairies yet, and if it happens to be sudden movements then that little slip-up would be their fault. They hold a finger to their lips, pausing to peer curiously at the hovering array of bright lights before creeping closer with excruciating slowness.

So far the fairies either don't notice they're being pseudo-stalked or don't care. They keep bobbing idly in place like a collection of beaded Christmas lights, illuminating the clearing with a soft multicolored glow.

As he watches, Souji is a little hesitant to move, sure he'll make too much noise. Unless those things just weren't paying any attention at all, they heard their not-so-silent approach, so worrying about staying silent now seems a bit pointless, but he doesn't want to be the reason the fairies take off again. After a few seconds of waffling, though, he moves to follow Frisk. If he does nothing, he can't expect anything to happen, good or bad.

Things seem to be going well enough, until a twig snaps under his foot. It's probably not as loud as it seems to him when it happens, but he still freezes and his eyes dart between Frisk and the lights a few times.

Frisk stretches out a finger tentatively, reaching out to brush against one of them. The sound of Souji treading on a twig makes Frisk jump, startling, and it's enough to send the collation of lights whizzing back into the trees. Frisk's eyes widen and they snatch out blindly with one hand, but the effort is futile. It only takes a few seconds for the rest of the fairies to disappear without a trace.

They straighten up, expression glowing.

"I almost touched one," they whisper, almost reverently. "Did you see?"

Souji straightens as well, feeling a bit bad that the lights ran off again because of him, but relieved that Frisk seems more excited than disappointed by losing their trail. He smiles and nods.

"Yeah. What was it like?"

He'll apologize for scaring them off in a moment.

Frisk crinkles their nose thoughtfully.

"A little warm," they say after a moment of consideration. "Like touching a lightbulb." They'd felt the heat emanating off those wafer-thin wings a split second before they'd all gone whizzing into the shadows.

Souji nods seriously. That makes sense, though he wasn't quite expecting it.

"Sorry for startling them."

He looks in the direction they fled in, considering. They probably won't be so easy to find or sneak up on again, but he'll leave it up to Frisk whether or not they give up here.

"Do you want to try again?"

"It's okay." They weren't too fond of the company in any case, that much was fairly obvious, and Frisk can respect that. "I think we should leave them alone now."

But they flash Souji a grin, pleased nonetheless. "Thanks."

Souji offers a smile in return. "Let's head back to the mansion for now, then."

Stan is probably wondering where the heck he wandered off to, and Souji feels odd about leaving Frisk here alone at this point.

"I can tell you more about the TV world."

"All right."

They probably shouldn't stray too far from that central hub. Frisk retreats from the clearing. They're not entirely sure where the mansion is from here, exactly, but hopefully Souji has some idea.

Souji has....a vague idea. If nothing else, he can retrace his steps to where the two of them met a little while ago. He walks beside Frisk, looking around them as they go.

"There were a lot of interesting things in the TV world. We called them shadows, but that was kind of a catch-all term."

Most of it is just fairly uniform woodland, but Frisk doesn't mind so much. They smile happily as they breathe in the cool air, the patches of blue sky visible between the gaps in the trees. The surface, the outside. It really is beautiful.

"Shadows," Frisk repeats thoughtfully. "The things you saw there, or the people?"

"It was somewhere between." Souji turns his attention to the ground in front of him, trying not to trip or bungle around like a drunk bear. "Shadows are created by human emotions that...siphon into that world from ours, I guess you'd say. They take a lot of forms, and have a lot of different abilities, but for the most part, they don't have that much volition of their own."

Though there are notable exceptions.

A while ago they might've likened that to a ghost, but now that they've learned that ghosts are a rather unfairly maligned monster subspecies with a lot of variation, they're finding that those "shadows" sound like they have a bit more in common with the human SOUL. Or at least, the six nameless SOULs kept inside Asgore's castle. Persisting beyond death, but without any control over what anyone did with them. Mostly, anyway.

*You CALL for help...

They refrain from mentioning it. There don't seem to be SOULs here, anyway.

"So...what do they do, then?"

"When you leave them alone, they don't do a whole lot. But they get agitated when anything other than shadows comes around and attack."

Souji wasn't sure he would have killed so many shadows if it weren't for the fact that they attacked him in most cases. There was also the fact that anyone who wasn't prepared to fight them would be brutally killed, and such people had a way of ending up in that world.

"They have more potential than that, though. A good friend of mine is a Shadow who was able to develop beyond that level."

"...Oh." That gives them a bit of pause. But as Souji goes on, that sounds a little bit familiar. They're sort of like monsters, in a way, maybe? Monster after monster had attacked Frisk, even when they hadn't done anything to hurt anyone, out of almost a sense of apologetic obligation.

They perk up a bit. "Are they here, in Wonderland?"

just keep your head held high [open]

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