+ Your imagination can't hurt you! +

[vitaelamorte]

Who: YOU!
Where: The Mindscape
When: starting November 11th
Rating: may be up to R for character deaths
Summary: Navigate challenges to learn valuable lessons about nonviolence, cooperation, and self-sacrifice! Release your inner animal! Read more about the event here, and on the bulletin board.
The Story:




"If you know yourself, you have nothing to fear."
"Working together is the only way."
"Deaths are a necessary part of life, but not all deaths are necessary."
"The needs of the many outweigh the life of just one."

Comments

[determinedest]

[The floor trembles beneath their feet, and Frisk reaches out to catch at one of the walls with their hand, automatically. Their expression is still disconcertingly blank as they glance up at the adult, possibly for guidance of some kind.]

I guess we have a limit to how much we can mess up.

[pottershotter]

[It is times like these, when he is clearly supposed to be The Adult, that James feels his physical age rather than his mental one. He freezes for a moment and feels his legs lock and his eyes go wide in search of what is causing these tremors.

How is this kid so calm?!]

Guess so. What's going--

[And then he sees it. Near the dead end, the floor is falling away fast, revealing some sort of black abyss beneath.

James doesn't ask questions. He just takes their free hand and tries to run.]

[determinedest]

[Oh. That looks like a kind of spiraling death pit forming beneath their feet. Frisk watches the tile-like material of the floor go clattering away, plummeting into the seemingly endless blackness below.

Fingers wrap around their hand and yank at them, and Frisk follows without resistance. They try to keep pace as best as they can. Their legs are short, but if they don't keep up, he might get mad.

It's not good, if adults get mad.]

[pottershotter]

[They aren't going fast enough. They're both trying, but the floor is falling away too quickly. If they keep up at this pace, they're going to fall along with it.

They have to go faster.]

Wait, get on!

[It makes no sense at first, but he has to say it before he changes, before he loses the ability to talk. As quickly as he can, James shifts from one form to another, from man to stag. It wastes a few seconds, but he's certain he can go faster this way - even with a passenger.]

[determinedest]

[He...turns into a deer.

It's a seamless transformation, and Frisk, if they had a capacity to be surprise, doubtless would have taken a moment to be sufficiently shocked. As it is, however, they simply regard the new shape with a slow blink of their eyes and then wordlessly, obediently, climb onto his back.

They loop their arms awkwardly around the beast's neck to hold on in the absence of any other purchase, and cling as tight as they can.

They wouldn't want to fall off. That'd mean he'd start to worry about them.]