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

[aintwejust]

"And I don't mean to!" Others with shards, others with swords swing'n about the skirmish and that was more than 'nuf for him to figure they could get a little breath'n room. Get the girl looked at, get her settled. Ain't no shame in roll'n back to breathe and steady yourself between one wave and the next, 'specially when you don't get much of one on your own.

Mal didn't wait for an answer, sprinting over to finish the templar with a quick shove and twist of his spear, turning about to face the next. "Git! Jayne- Cover her."

Didn't even need to order, didn't need to repeat himself before the Mabari rounded back to keep himself between the fighting and the girl. Made himself massive, muscular cover to steady her, even if he was vibrating with the need to jump back in and bite. "Just a ways, I'll catch up-"

Light crackling in lines from hands up to the rift and it was just about done. Just about there.

[bookish_lioness]

Hermione wasn't much of a dog person, even if she liked them well enough. But giant dogs of an indeterminable breed that she'd just watched tear into a variety of monsters? It was little wonder that she was eager to give Jayne a wide berth, at least for now.

Her hand hurt, and she found that she had to force it to stay down at her side, since it suddenly seemed to want to move towards the green glow in the sky. Ignoring it as best as she could, she stumbled forward, hoping that "just a ways" was local vernacular for "just past that bush over there". Because as it was, between the fear and the unfamiliar burning, tingling sensation in her hand and down the length of most of her arm, she wasn't really sure how long she'd be able to run, even with that large dog helping to keep the way clear for her.

[aintwejust]

Just a ways was, well, just about as far as the girl and Jayne could comfortably get. Coupla others from the Inquisition seemed fine and ready to swing in and help clear out the last of the damn templars. Mal could and by all rights should stick 'round, help close the damn thing.

Figured gett'n himself and the girl looked at took priority. He felled that last templar what had been chas'n him and bolted, shuddering against the ripple of air and rending of noise and pain in his hand that spoke to the rift gett'n flipped. Ain't his problem. Girl. Girl's his problem. One he skidded to a stop by, sweaty and a li'l bloody and a li'l ashy, Jayne much the same, stand'n 'tween them and the rest of the world.

Rift's just about shut. Good job all.

"So..." He took a moment to breathe. "You got all your bits? Noth'n bit ya?"

[bookish_lioness]

Once she was fairly certain nothing was coming after her aside from that giant dog that didn't look overly friendly at the moment, Hermione stopped and looked back, glad to see that the man who'd helped her hadn't been lying. He really was coming along after them, and since he wasn't being chased either, she figured now was as good a time as any to crouch down, head between her knees as she struggled to catch her breath without passing out.

A moment passed after he spoke to her, and she peered up at him, eyeing the blood and trying to ascertain how much of it, if any, was his.

"Would something have happened if they'd bitten me?" She was fairly certain she was mostly fine and unbitten, but she couldn't help imagining that these creatures spread a kind of lycanthropy of their own, turning people they've bitten into werewolves. Or were-whatever-they-are. It wasn't a pleasant thought, and she didn't exactly have a lot of other pleasant thoughts drifting about in her head right now.

[aintwejust]

"Well...it'd hurt and you'd prolly bleed a bit? More than a bit if they got ya." He staggered to a stop, propping his spear against the snow and leaning his shoulder into it as he peered at her and then Jayne. Jayne who was still wound tight and tense till Mal murmurs a curt. ""Démissionner."

Then the dog shook off what grit and growling it had been holding onto and trotted back to sit at the girl's feet, head tipped at an angle, all curious and friendly like. Ain't no danger here no more, best Mal could tell. Which meant Jayne was gonnas tart sniffing for scraps soon enough. "Nothing too bad aside from pain and bleed'n. Which...is reason enough to not wanna get bit. I didn't wanna get bit. It hurts."

[bookish_lioness]

Though he no longer looked like he was ready to tear into her, Hermione was still startled when that dog came over to her, suddenly looking almost as friendly as a golden retriever. She looked up at his owner uncertainly before slowly reaching her hand out to Jayne, assuming he was like any other dog and would sniff at it before deciding to either ignore, attack, or not-so-subtly ask to be petted.

"It's a good enough reason. I just wanted to make sure I wouldn't have anything to worry about. Like... like venom or disease or something. Or Dark magic. That is how I'd gotten here, I'm assuming."

[aintwejust]

Like all friendly dogs, Jayne sniffed at Hermione's hand a bit before butting his head into it, leaning for a firmer stroke. He loved him some affection, did Jayne. Specially from pretty girls that might have food.

Or.

Anyone that might have food.

"Nah. Demons don't do poison, they do magic. Them Red Templars, though- that stuff's apparently some kinda contagious. S'why I told you to run." He could keep 'em away and not catch it, probably. Her? Not gonna leave her to catch a lung full of death. "Dark? Dunno 'bout that. Strange? Sure."

[bookish_lioness]

Though she was still a bit too shell-shocked to actually be happy, Hermione smiled at Jayne's bid for affection, carefully moving in to gently scratch behind his ears. She might not know much about dogs, but at least they couldn't be all too different from cats in terms of how they liked to be petted.

Glancing up at Mal, she frowned for a moment before trying to focus more on the dog; focusing on anything else ran the risk of getting too disturbing. "You mean those things with the red crystals coming out of them? What are they? Were they people once?"

[aintwejust]

"That...they're a li'l complicated and a lot magic in a weird way I don't rightly know how to explain. So here's the plan. We're gonna get you to the healers and get you checked over, get you fed and warmed up and settled with someone that can answer all your questions and explain this place." Which, for the most part? Ain't him. "Jayne and I are gonna have t'come back out here, make sure everything that should be dead stays dead. Maybe check the perimeter of the camp if there's more of these things popp'n open. We'll be gone 'bout an hour, maybe two while you get settled. Soon as we're sorted we'll meet up with you. Promise."

[bookish_lioness]

If nothing else, he's at least able to keep calm and coherent in the midst of a crisis, which is better than Hermione usually is. Though she's reluctant to give up the comfort of the large dog, Hermione nods, deciding that Jayne would probably be better off protecting someone than simply comforting someone. "Thank you," she murmurs as she slowly climbs to her feet.

Then, as an afterthought, she mentioned, "My name is Hermione. I... take it I'm not the first person to land in the middle of things like this?"

[aintwejust]

"...or Jayne can stay with you, keep you company. I figure the worst of it's sorted and I'm not gonna be the only one tak'n a walkabout to make sure nothing nasty comes in where it shouldn't." Jayne certainly perked up at the idea, leaning in against Hermione's hand.

"Me? Malcolm Reynolds. And sadly 'nuf, you ain't. People what know what's going on are try'n to figure that out. Jayne and I just keep people from gett'n bit."

[bookish_lioness]

She glances down at the dog when he seems to nudge up against her hand. Though she recognizes it as endearing, she still gives him an absent pat on the head before telling Malcolm, "I'd feel better if he were with you. Not that you need protection, but... I just will." To Jayne, she manages a small smile as she murmurs, "We'll see each other later. Mr. Reynolds said so."

Looking at Malcolm once again, she asks, "Where are these healers? I can make it the rest of the way so long as nothing tries to eat me between here and there."

[aintwejust]

"Whichever helps you most. I'm good either way." Jayne gave her hip one last bump with his head before shaking himself and standing, circling back around to Malcolm. Mal, on his part, points with his hand, not his word, his hand, to a cluster of tents just up the way. "Check in with the guard in those tents, they'll take you right to the healers. Tell 'em Reynolds sent ya and they'll make sure you get there safe."

[bookish_lioness]

Hermione looks back, following his point before nodding once she's sure she's not going to get herself at all turned around. Or eaten. That's the important bit, not getting eaten. "Thank you," she tells him, looking back at him, carefully backing away from the pair. "Be safe. Both of you."

[aintwejust]

"We will." He reached out once he was sure he didn't have anything sticky or gross on his glove to squeeze her shoulder. Just something solid to ground the girl before he clicked his tongue at Jayne and they turned about to start up that perimeter sweep.