OPEN: turn off the lights and I'll glow

[faderifting]

WHO: New rifters & characters in Emprise du Lion
WHAT: More people falling on ice than usual, this time with demons, templars, and bonus nighttime
WHEN: Guardian 23
WHERE: Emprise du Lion
NOTES: This month, the arrival log is open to all.

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.

But there's no waking here, just a flare of green-white light and a jarring impact onto freezing stone or ice that is twice as cold and just as hard. When your breath returns and the light's after-image fades from your eyes you will find yourself beneath a dark sky, a full moon straining to be seen through intermittent clouds, and a second moon low on the horizon. Its light reflects off snow to add an eerie ambient glow to the darkness, made stranger by the sickly green tint added by the fluttery menacing shape of the rift hanging in mid-air. Be careful getting up: you are at the edge of a cliff, what was once a waterfall now frozen solid in a massive curling sheet of icicles. The drop to the bottom is several stories, surely a deadly fall even without the huge humps and spikes of ice and snow that litter the ground where splash and spray were petrified.

You are also not as you were: in the palm of your left hand there glows a narrow splinter of light the same sickly green as whatever brought you here. It aches, a bone-deep pain that gnaws even through all the distractions. Like the fact that you're being attacked by monsters--some tall, spindly stick-things with too many eyes, some hunched and hooded with no eyes at all. Some are entirely different but perhaps more monstrous for it: men and women in heavy, gleaming armor, all of them with chunks of red crystal protruding out in a way you soon realize indicates it is actually growing out of their skin. Their eyes are a dull red, hollow and empty, and they attack with a single-minded determination.

Luckily, you are not on your own. Around you others are waking up, equally confused, with the same green lights flaring from their hands. There is stuff scattered about, like the contents of someone's life exploded through the rift with them: a picnic table and benches upended, metal camp furniture flung about, clothes and utensils, bits of wood and canvas and mattress littering the ground. Even better, you are not far from a path leading toward an Inquisition camp, and noise travels far in this terrain, echoing up canyons and off cliffsides, carried by the chill night wind. Help is on its way; just last until it arrives.

Comments

[eviscerates]

"Excuse you, I was trying to make things easier for you," Ruby retorts, faux wounded, tossing one of her boots to Emma with a little excess sass. "Besides, I've gotta keep that Storybrooke reputation alive and well somehow, right?"

It-- it was easier to laugh about the way people looked and leered and their entire attitude towards Ruby, generally, than it was to think about it seriously. It was easier than remembering the that lost young woman, and then the echoes of the forest that the mockery bought with it. You're a red woman, the girls had said. We should call you Red.

Despite herself, Red huffs a quiet laugh. "Really angry. Definitely less cute than flubber."

When Ruby has finally worked off the second boot, she hands it over with less sass and a more care than that first one. "Deal. I'll go wolfy, maybe scout ahead a little so we know what way we want to go, and..." She looks down at her clothes, and then to Emma and her sadness sack. "Do you need some more layers?"

Maybe the skirt? Maybe... anything? "We're going to get you some more clothes." This is not the girls' shopping adventure she would ever have anticipated.

[dreamcatcher]

"Do you? I always thought that reputation was kind of full of shit." Short, sweet, and to the point: classic Emma Swan. Oh, she remembers how Ruby dressed at the beginning of her stay in Storybrooke. Hotpants, fishnets, eyeliner practically to the sky. She also remembers the discomfort on her face when Whale had skeeved on her. Not exactly the picture of a man-eater. Emma doesn't think dressing flashy means much of anything. It had seemed more of an attempt to take power into her own hands when she didn't have much to hold onto than anything else. Emma understood that better than anyone.

"I miss the days when I would have thought that sounded insane," Emma sighed. Those days were years behind her, now. At this point she could be incredulous, but it was hard to have a leg to stand on when it came to things not existing. What didn't exist, at this rate? Her skepticism had died an uncomfortable, horrible death, a long time ago. Smothered by unicorns and goblins, probably.

Emma is a little slow to start pulling the boots on, but if Ruby is looking at her feet, they aren't purple or blue or any other terrible color that might hint at frostbite. She nods at the idea Red will scout ahead, though there's honestly not too much that can hurt her right about now. A little distance between them sounds fine when she is so suddenly weary, she doesn't want Ruby to feel bad about anything. "Okay. I'll follow your tracks." As weird as that was to say, it sounded easy enough.

And on the more clothes front: "I'll take anything. Even a corset." If only Killian could have heard her say that, he'd never have let her hear the end of it. That makes her expression shift a little sad, maybe more than a little. She ducks her head to focus on getting the boots on her feet and insists without looking, "Go on. I'll follow you when I get these on." Smart or not, she needs a little bit of time alone.

[eviscerates]

That makes her freeze up. And it shouldn't, because it's true. She liked the nice parts, the parts that felt like she had control and was interesting. She liked feeling like a person that other people wanted to know. Unfortunately Emma has that habit of hitting the nail on the head, finding the crack in the glass and pressing on it, but it makes Ruby smiles just a fraction.

"Yeah, well. Granny had fun with it, at least. Gotta keep the older generation entertained, right?"

Ruby liked being Ruby, the clothes and the look and the make up, she liked all of it. She hated that it made people think they could control her or like she was some thing. Flirting with people, talking to them and being friendly, it was like... looking at possibilities and adventure, before she inevitably pulled away. Most of the time, the thing that defined Ruby was the desperate want of freedom. Sometimes Red felt like Ruby Lucas had been a lot of big talk and big dreams and what sometimes felt like an incapacitating amount of fear.

"I'm not sure a corset is something you want to learn to get used to while hiking around," she advises with a gently teasing tone. Still, Emma has her cloak and her boots, and Ruby starts to peel off her gloves when something has her stopping short. A glowing, blistering green light cutting from just above her left thumb, across her palm and to her wrist. Red stares at it for a moment, mouth opening and closing, before she jerks the glove back on, swallows thickly, and looks towards the sky.

This couldn't be simple, could it? Instead she's pulling off her belt with the dagger and setting that down beside Emma, just in case.

"I'll scratch the bark off the trees, just in case. But I'm pretty sure if we get split up, I can track you down."

[dreamcatcher]

She notices the pause, but can't quite pin down what the pause means. She doesn't answer Granny having fun with it, because she hopes that woman was the curse talking through, and that the real article wouldn't judge a girl by the length of her shorts. Especially not her granddaughter.

"I've hiked in skinny jeans, it can't be that much worse." So she's known for not always picking the most sensible hiking clothes, sue her. Ruby is right that she'd rather not hike in a corset, but she'll figure it out if that's the only option she's got other than a sack. At least as she tucks the red brocade in tighter, it's hard to see the mediocre slip she's got on.

Red isn't the only one wearing a spare flash in her palm. Out of sight, out of mind; not even out of sight, Emma just hasn't had the spare brainpower to think about it. The darkness, the magic flooding her, being transplanted in a new place, it had all taken over. The green light in her palm will freak her out later, no doubt. She didn't really need anything else to worry about, a green light in her palm was probably going to go over great.

"Okay. I'll keep an eye out for them." She isn't exactly excited about the idea of using a dagger but it's better than using magic, at least while she's uncertain about what will happen when she does. "Don't worry about me, Ruby." She's strong all on her own, even when she's not magically invulnerable. With that tacked on there's really not too much to worry about.

[eviscerates]

"Skinny jeans, right." Oddly, she thinks she will probably start missing those at some point, once the skirt-nostalgia has worn off a little. "Maybe if we're lucky we'll find a Ye Olde Hot Topic to service all our needs."

It's a dumb comment, yeah, but what do they need right now if not something stupid to laugh at?

And with that need for a laugh and lightness in mind... Well, that comment just gets a look, Red stopping to catch Emma's gaze for a second. "Hey. You're my friend. I'm going to worry about you," she says with a bit of a smile, before handing over the bodice and the outer layers of her skirt, leaving her pretty much down to underwear and gloves in the snow, nice. Ruby shivers a little, wonders how the hell Emma's been so fine about so few layers, and rolls her shoulders. "Okay. Yell if you need me."

She starts walking up the slope, moving into a run. Red's barely gone three paces when it's a heavy paw hitting the snow instead of bare feet, and the eyes that look back at Emma are glow gold, the heat of her breath fogging the air. The Wolf raises its nose, sniffs the air, and starts its ascent up the hill.

[dreamcatcher]

If Emma had realized Ruby was determined to basically leave her with every stitch of clothing she had, she might have protested sooner. She appreciated the boots and was all right with the cloak but the dress was probably not going to do her any good when Ruby was not a wolf again.

At least she'll carry them for her, so they don't both end up mostly naked in the snow. Hopefully Ruby comes back with shoes... Emma doesn't want to try poofing some, not when everything is so uncertain with her magic.

Watching her change is something else, though. Despite seeing the wolf and seeing the human, she hadn't seen the transition until now. Her mouth gapes open a little — apparently, even after everything she's seen, that's a new one. It's beautiful and terrifying and amazing all at once. "Sure," she says in a sigh as the wolf bounds away.

She won't end up yelling. Even if it would have been better if she had.