faderift | Harvestmere Rifter Arrival

WHO: New rifters & their rescuers
WHAT: People fall out of a rift and get attacked by stuff… in the desert!
WHEN: Harvestmere 10
WHERE: The Western Approach
NOTES: The arrival log is open to all. Solas was able to alert the Inquisition to the general area where the new rifters would be arriving so people could be sent to pick them up.

You were asleep--deeply or fitfully, for the last time or just resting your eyes for a moment-- and then you were not. And wherever you were was not, anymore, replaced by nothing but the sensation of falling, tumbling into endless, bottomless nothing. If this were still a dream, you would wake before you hit the ground. You can't die in a dream, they say. In some worlds.

In this world, you wake with a jolt when you hit rock or sand or wooden planks--you've been dropped into a narrow canyon, into the rocky orange sand at the floor or onto the rickety scaffolding along the steep wall. Judging by the heat, somewhere above is a bright and unforgiving sun, but view of the sky overhead is blocked by a flaring green rip in reality. There's a narrow splinter of light in the same sickly green as whatever brought you here, now glowing out of the palm of your left hand. It aches, a bone-deep pain that gnaws even through all the distractions.

The way ahead is blocked, too, by a monstrous, horned beast with too many eyes and electricity rippling down its arms: a pride demon with a very off-putting laugh. The only quick way out is up. The ladders and scaffolding and narrow bridges across the gorge have demons, too, but only smaller shades and wraiths. Your chances are better up there--you and the people you arrived with, four altogether, collectively less dangerous-looking than the demon.

Along the way, the planks are littered with debris: crustaceans, skateboards, crustaceans on skateboards, a cyvasse piece, a dagger, a set of bloody and very sharp canine teeth. And an enormous, moving, roaring tiger made of something green, translucent, slightly bouncy, and fruity smelling. The tiger has a rider, at least briefly, clad in a crinkly white suit and rounded helmet. It also has saddle bags, which are full of donuts if anyone is able to get close enough to check without getting swiped by a giant paw, claws sticking out through the ends of pink bunny slippers.

And at the top of the canyon walls, there's help--armed, armored help--already making its way down to meet you.

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1. Wynonna snaps awake at the first jolt of the helmet against her forehead, whacking square between the eyes. It's the tiger struggling for balance beneath her that does it, paws sliding against the hill of sand, jostling his rider about.

"Ow," she mumbles, and reaches up to rub at the spot, only to find that her hand is in a glove and the glove is pawing at glass. "What the shit?"

Her eyes open then, squinted at first, against the harsh sun off the desert sands, and then blinked wide because what sands? And what glass?? And what the fuck tiger???? It all feels distantly familiar but also immediately weird, like the sensation of abruptly waking up from a dream and suddenly realizing how insane everything is despite it having felt normal a moment ago.

She reaches down to grab hold of the saddlehorn in front of her, because for some reason there's a saddle, but no reins. The green gummy tiger she's atop isn't bucking like a horse, but it's wheeling and snarling and slashing its paws at whatever it can find, whether it's sand or person. When one toss of its gigantic gummy head brings Wynonna into view atop its back, it begins trying to throw her off. It looks a lot like a cat chasing its tail, whipping around with greater and greater force in its effort to get teeth around its own middle. But unlike the tail, she's actually in reach and after a few attempts, teeth snap around her heel and Wynonna jerks back as they slice through leather, both girl-in-astronaut-suit and saddle and saddelbags all tumbling to the ground with an undignified yelp only half-muffled by the helmet.

2. Wynonna leaves the astronaut suit on. The ground here might as well be Mars, for all she knows, all orange sand and strange creatures and two moons hanging low in the sky overhead. She's not sure where all these bridges and paths go, and isn't at all convinced that following them is a good idea, but there's no better path on offer and they're easier to run on than sand, so here she is, stumbling her way up a ladder, the heavy astronaut gloves clumsy on the rungs, boots slipping, too big for her feet and faintly sloshing as she moves. She curses, a string of only mildly creative invective as she catches herself and hauls herself up, flopping forward onto the platform above and crawling forward without a shred of dignity before gripping rope railings to try to haul herself to her feet. She gets partway up and then collapses back down for the count.

"Oh," she says to the feet of the person whose path she has been blocking as she's laid prone on the decking catching her breath, the pant of it audible even through the astronaut's helmet she wears, "Sorry, just-- just go ahead on down. Good luck. God speed. Whatever the fuck--"

A crab rolls by her on a skateboard, its claws raised in the air. "Fuck you," she replies, rolling over onto her back and beginning to struggle her way out of the suit, slapping at clasps and clawing at catches, throwing gloves this way and helmets that.

(feel free to wildcard!! and either brackets or not is fine w/me)

Edited 2016-10-12 02:38 (UTC)

Mitchell, sweaty, looks up from deep mad reverie to find--

A woman, in an astronaut suit.

He actually takes a step back. Far away from this moment is the echo of George, what could be scarier than one of us? But it isn't fear that makes him recoil. It's uncertainty, in a moment when everything is sunk deep in uncertainty.

"Yeah," he says, without knowing why he says it. Resists the urge to rub his hand over his mouth.

It's not purgatory. In purgatory, there's no woman in astronaut suits falling at his feet. There's no crabs on skateboards. Mitchell steps aside from that crab as well, slowly, a man mired in a dream. The full terror of waking up in this place is distant, not yet worked over him. The full ache hasn't quite settled in either. His hand hurts, dimly; that reminder is enough to take some of his other pressures from him, at least for the moment.

If this is a dream, he will either be able to manage this moment, or he will kill this woman, or else she will just be dead. Mitchell looks away, quickly, as she works the helmet off. The skateboard wheels are a quiet rattle.

He darts a look back at the woman.

"Was that a crab?"

"Uhhh. Yeah. Yep. That was a crab. On a skateboard. This is such a weird dream. And I don't even remember drinking." She lets out a long, loud groan of exasperation.

And then tries to sit up, which proves to be more difficult that anticipated with all of this space material flopping and swishing and tangling around her limbs. With another noise of somewhat pitiful irritation, Wynonna flops over onto her stomach and pushes up onto all fours, tottering to her feet. She presses a hand to her forehead and swipes dark hair off her sweaty forehead.

Only then does she really look at Mitchell, squinting against the light off the sand. "Who are you supposed to be, anyway?"

"Just," he starts, before concluding, lamely, "Mitchell. We don't know each other."

The strength of his conviction in those words will carry a long way. He knows, not because immortality has granted him this long memory--though truthfully it has, in the worst way. And to that end, more what he's thinking is that he would remember her, if he'd met her before. The shape of her face, the fall of hair over her face, the curve of her mouth. Some detail.

Mitchell rubs his wrist over his mouth, once, quick. Follows the line of the spacesuit's flopping arm with his eye.

"And you're... meant to be landing on the moon."

Educated guess.

Okay. Church has seen some weird things in Thedas. Honestly, none of it all that much weirder than the things he'd seen or been part of back home, just a different brand of weirdness.

Gummy tiger with bunny slippers and donut bags and astronaut rider? Weirdest shit he's seen. (So far.) He's definitely all for killing the tiger, and maybe eating its delicious potentially green apple flavored insides before they go bad, but it's also got claws and teeth that it isn't afraid to use.

Like on its rider. Which he had thought might be an enemy. But it's attacking its own rider, so...that's...that's weird, and maybe it's just some weird-ass fucking Rifter from a gummy tiger planet. Or it's a wayward spirit of the Fade who ate too many shrimp tacos before bead and/or absorbed too many weird mortal dreams.

Either way, Church is a little afraid to go wailing on it with his sword, because what if it doesn't feel gummy pain? What if it claws him up instead? Listen, running around with a sword is not as easy as it looks. Guns are easier! "Hey!" Just because he's afraid to doesn't mean he's not going to. "Hey Flubber! Get your bouncy ass away from the spaceman!"

Woman, sorry, but who can actually tell in that getup? He's both trying to distract it from finishing the astronaut off while also trying toooooo rescue the fallen rider, so, y'know, that doesn't really direct attention elsewhere. He skids to a dusty stop not far from the rider, sword in one hand, shard-powered pain shield in the other. "Howdy, partner, you might wanna get up before Tigger decides you look extra delicious."

Harvestmere Rifter Arrival

no subject

hi, 2, idk that his cold dead heart can take tigers too

wimpy heart

YOU'RE a wimpy heart

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