SLEIGH BELLS RING ❄ MINGLE

[nightmods]

SLEIGH BELLS RING

Those that escape from the theater all seem to come out through the same doors. When they get there, they can see that the theater isn't actually a building. There's only a free-standing set of theater doors on the playground. At the rear side of them is a brick wall.

Those that exit will find they can't re-enter.

None of the humans have seemed to notice the door or them, even those driving by.

Not everyone escapes at the same time. It comes in fits and starts, them filtering of the theater. Some can walk out mostly unharmed, some limp out, some come out supporting each other.

What they find outside is... uncanny. There in the playground is a massive sleigh, but one that looks not-exactly-traditional, with equipment and boosters that look almost like a mix of technology and something magical.

It's been expanded into many carriages, almost like a roller coaster. Harnessed to it are eight massive reindeer, champing slightly at their bits. It appears the people that attacked and created the theater are at least long gone. That means that as people slowly filter out they can check up on each other, provide first aid, and reassure each other.

OOC DETAILS
❅ Status effects: Any injuries or damage that happens to a character will stick when they leave the Multiplex. That means that someone that gets facehugged by a facehugger will have an alien larva problem that may be causing some serious indigestion soon. Anyone that gets Borg-nanited through the neck will start having the nanites take over them. However the myth healing will slow these processes down until they can get to the Pole, and there are magical means at the Pole to help the characters survive this.

❅ First Aid/Other Supplies: The sleigh will have magically anticipated their needs. While it won't have the antivenom for Kaa because only a magical plant that grows at the Pole can cure the bites, it will have plenty of well-stocked general first aid kits. Applying first aid can help the myth healing heal someone more quickly and is important for injured characters that opted out of the myth healing.

❅ Timing: People can bendytime the timing of when their characters have escaped to play in this and "Let's All Go To The Movies" at the same time. People can also intro here late if they need to wrap some things up in the other post first.

❅ Intro: Players can use this post to intro instead if that's their preference. You can just assume your characters had to run from scary things in the theater and either handwave their circumstances, or assume your character found a way out more quickly than others.

Comments

Elle Bryant

[millenyal_pink]

Closed to Stacia

[millenyal_pink]

Elle shifts back to Homid once she can see the exit door. She doesn’t want anyone to mistake her for an enemy; she’s gotten beaten up enough for one day. It wouldn’t be so bad if she was healing like she should be, but her wounds are still oozing blood. If she’s not careful, she’s gonna pass out soon.

She limps through the door and takes moment to assess the situation outside. Sleighs? Why not.

She can see first aid kits, but there’s a problem— the reindeer. Elle can’t approach them. There’s a chance that they’re magical and won’t get spooked, but she doesn’t want to take that risk. The last thing the group needs is a fucking stampede because she can’t bother to keep her distance. But that leaves her in quite a predicament.

She leans against the brick wall and takes a second look around, trying to find someone familiar and trustworthy. At least, trustworthy enough. She saw Henry and Dan earlier— maybe they’re here? Or other people from Wilderlands showed up too? At this point, she’s not going to be too picky about it.

Re: Closed to Stacia

[credit_not_blame]

Stacia's had better luck than Elle, she's more bruised and battered than bloody. She's also got a naked eight inch hunting knife in one hand because she hadn't wanted to waste time going through Ghostface's robes for the sheath. She and Elle spot each other about the same time, and Stacia marches over in her direction.

"Are you really being this much of a cat right now?" she asks, somewhere between concerned and exasperated. "I'm not trying to be culturally insensitive here, but seriously, we do not avoid people when we are injured! Can you still walk?"

[millenyal_pink]

Fuck, she couldn't be happier to see Stacia. If she had ended up here without her, that would've been... rough.

"Not avoiding people," she corrects. "I don't wanna spook the reindeer. Animals tend to freak out around me."

That's an understatement.

"What're the chances you'd be willing to grab a first aid kit and bring it over here?" it's not asking a lot, but clearly Stacia has her own idea of how Elle should be dealing with this.

[credit_not_blame]

Stacia glances back at the reindeer in question, which are very large and could do a lot of damage if they were freaked out, even if people weren't already injured and traumatized. Yeah, okay, it's fair for Elle to err on the side of caution in this instance.

"Moreso than most people with Rage?" she asks, lowering her voice. Getting into Rage is edging into territory they're still generally keeping secret. "I didn't notice them getting antsy over me, but I'm on the lower end of that scale."

[millenyal_pink]

Elle suppresses a wince. She's really not supposed to talk about it, but right now she doesn't have much of a choice. And if she's going to let anyone know, Stacia's the person to do so.

"Yeah." That's the most she's willing to say on the subject. Isaac will probably want to metaphorically kick her ass for giving away that much. A lecture is in her future, that's for sure.

"Glad to see you, by the way," she gives her best strained smile. It's not her most elegant deflection, but she's willing to give herself a break.

[credit_not_blame]

Stacia nods and adds a note to her mental file on Elle as she turns around and heads back toward the sleigh. Sometimes people have that kind of Rage; it's always good to know who is going to set off animals.

She comes back with a first aid kit and a smoothie cup for some reason, which she gently sets down nearby before she cracks open the kit.

"I got an unconscious guy in there," she says by way of explanation, jerking her chin toward the cup. "I don't want someone to sit on him or toss him in the garbage or anything by accident."

She pulls out a bottle of hand sanitizer, of which she makes liberal use.

"All right," she says, "am I picking shit out of you or just cleaning and bandaging?"

[millenyal_pink]

Elle's eyebrows raise in surprise, but she doesn't question Stacia's explanation. There's a guy in the smoothie cup. Why not?

"Mostly just bandaging."

The worst of it is the claw marks from when the thing climbed its way up her back, the deep bite wound it gouged out of her shoulder, and the hole in her side from a bayonet. They rest of her is scraped up from claws and teeth and couple of grazed musket balls, but nothing's nearly as serious.

"My healing's fucked, but it's still better than a humans. I'd say focus on my side and shoulder. Those are bleeding the worse." She's getting lightheaded, and she'd really rather avoid passing out if she can. Also they hurt like a motherfucker, but she's managing to keep pretty stoic through pain so far. It's a matter of personal pride, if nothing else. She can take it. She's gone through worse.

[credit_not_blame]

A guy stashed in a smoothie cup isn't even the weirdest thing Stacia and Elle have dealt with today.

"Damn girl," Stacia says, looking over Elle's injuries. "I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you got these saving some idiots from certain death."

As she gets to work, she starts filling Elle in on the information she's picked up so far; to give her something to focus on other than the ouches and ows of getting patched up when you don't have someone with a healing gourd on hand.

"So, this is second-hand from an unconfirmed source, but supposedly this is a world very similar to Bunny's world, and that Jack Frost guy is very similar to Bunny's Jack. I heard that from the Jack in question, but we should definitely keep an eye out for Bunny to confirm it.

"First-hand, I can confirm that Kenzie's here, and Need, and a cat girl Need claimed as her daughter. There's also a talking wolf who isn't a Garou named Amaterasu, and a Garou whose name I didn't get because we were too busy running away from a dragon. I also met this huge guy named Miguel who indicated he works in reality repair, but he's pretty cranky so remember to be extra cute when you deal with him."

[millenyal_pink]

Luckily, Elle's always extra cute.

"Dan's here, if you haven't seen him yet, and said the same. It's been a few years for him, though. He's looking pretty good."

Older. Healthy. Happy. Better than the last time she saw him, that's for sure. Something in him has settled.

"I met the cat girl. She was there when I got most of this," she waves toward her general state of injury. "She got cornered and I provided an escape route," mostly by playing bait, she doesn't say. It's not like she knew her healing was gonna be fucked up at the time. She might've played things differently.

Elle's happy to hear that Kenzie's around. She didn't get to know her super well, but she knows Stacia likes her. The other Garou, she's a bit more wary of.

"I assume you're gonna do your check-in with the wolves," she says. The Garou need to figure out their pecking order, after all, even if it's in the most informal ways. "How involved do you want me to be?"

She doesn't want to stick her nose where it's not welcome (that's a lie, she loves sticking her nose where it's not welcome), and not all Garou work well with Fera. She'd rather know what she's getting into before having to put some asshole in their place. Hopefully that won't be necessary.

[credit_not_blame]

"I haven't seen him yet, but I'll be sure to find him and give him a big hug," Stacia says happily. She adores Dan, so hearing that he's here too is a delight. Maybe it's selfish of her to be pleased that Dan is in a situation as dangerous as this; but to be fair, Dan finds dangerous situations at least as well as Fera do. At least if they're both in the same place, she can help watch his back. "A few years, huh? I came straight from the Wilderlands, as far as I can tell. If the North Pole doesn't have running water, I'm breaking into a fancy hotel."

She chuckles, pleased that Elle already knows she doesn't have to ask. "Yeah, I'm going to do a check-in, as soon as I can figure out who they are. We were both wolves when we ran into each other, and I didn't get a specific vibe off of them; so all I know for sure is that they're not one of Falcon's."

Language, language, language. Even when they're mostly off in a private corner by themselves, gotta watch their language. Can't get too comfortable throwing key words around. Besides, Elle's a Bastet, she appreciates secrets and being circumspect.

Stacia hums thoughtfully. "My first impulse is to have you hang back for round one. If they need to be smacked around about playing nice with other shifters; that's my responsibility more than yours." Garou aren't even known for 'playing nice' with other Garou, much less Fera. Stacia knows she was lucky to have fallen in with such a Fera-friendly sept after her First Change, though she hopes that she'd have been smart enough to question their superiority complex even without that twist of fate.

"I figured I'd let them know that you're here, though I can keep quiet on exactly what you are if you want to play Twenty Questions with them, too."

[millenyal_pink]

"That's where we're heading? Explains the ride, I guess."

That... may be a problem for Elle and the reindeer, but she's not going to panic about it. Yet.

She's happy to pawn off responsibility for making sure the Garou play nice. She's just not sure whether she wants them to know who she is before they meet her. Thank fuck they're not Silver Fangs-- Ace is a one in a million.

"Let them know there's a Bastet around, but don't point me out. I'll approach them and--" she snorts in anticipation of her own bad joke "--let the cat out of the bag myself. I'd appreciate an update after the talks, with whatever you're comfortable sharing."

There aren't many Garou insider secrets that Elle isn't already in on, but she doesn't need to play her hand so easily. She doesn't have a specific plan yet, but she appreciates any opportunity to cultivate an air of mystery. She knows Stacia gets it.

[credit_not_blame]

"Yeah, apparently it's got some kind of protection on it that keeps people like the guy who made the multiplex from getting in," Stacia says. "Which is why we're all camped out here instead of getting ferried there in stages; Jack and Bunny don't want to leave anyone behind when we go."

She takes a quick break from Elle to check on the guy on the smoothie cup, make sure the visible effects of the poison haven't progressed into the we're fucked zone. It hasn't, so she returns to patching Elle up. The bad joke gets a groan and a flick on an uninjured stretch of shoulder.

"I can make that work," she says, of indicating the presence of a Bastet without tying it to a specific name and face. "Assuming the privileges run my way, of course. But the one I ran into -- literally -- seemed flexible enough. And yeah, I'll pass the relevant deets back to you; though that might interfere with your mysteries if get it into their head to see who else I chat with."

She might even let them! It's good to encourage Garou to use their brains instead of just their claws and teeth.

[mothersson]

At some point, Elle might sit down in the sleigh, lean back, kick her legs back... and have them connect with something furry under the seat. Or perhaps she spots something moving under the seat.

Something furry and very small. Literally pint-sized.

It's a Crinos werewolf, black with white highlights in his fur, and only about six inches tall, who was just trying to find a hidden and quiet place, thank you very much, until these injuries a-fucking-finally fix themselves.

[millenyal_pink]

Stacia's done patching Elle up, so she decides to get a lay of the proverbial land. See who's here, what supplies they've got, that kind of thing.

She hears shuffling under one of the sleighs, one of the ones far from the reindeer she's trying very hard to stay away from.

"Someone there?" she doesn't wait for an answer before crouching down to look.

She quietly grunts in pain as she does. She keeps forgetting her healing's fucked. She has to actually take care of her injuries. It's bullshit!

She comes face-to-face with the tiniest fucking Garou she's ever seen.

"Woah! Hey bud, you're looking pretty rough. You need some help? No string attached, promise. I just got patched up by a friend myself," she gestures to the bandages peeking out under her shirt that are wrapped around her shoulder. There are some on her legs as well. Her arms are covered in bandaids large and small. Jumping into the fray before you've realized you'll heal isn't a pleasant experience and she doesn't recommend it.

[mothersson]

Well. So much for this hiding thing... he would say, if she wasn't - he squints, and then relaxes. Somewhat. He's never seen this specific scent before, though he can tell that it is some sort of Changing Breed. Not wolf, not coyote, not bear, not bird. Something else. But unmistakably one.

Which is good. Now the question is how well she'll be able to understand him.

Well. He's just going to try and speak Garou. Not many other options if he wants to be more detailed in his words. This form doesn't really lend itself towards conversations in homid or wolf tongues that are more complicated than die.

"I'm trying to heal." Probably fairly obviously, since he's hanging out in war form.

A tiny version of it, but still. "Can't be seen." Obviously, he feels - he's pretty sure that all Fera have some sort of Veil.

[millenyal_pink]

Shit, he's worried about the veil. Should she burst his bubble? Or maybe she should indulge him. He's probably freaked out enough and she doubts that he's usually this extra-small in Crinos.

Well, there goes Elle's plan of being subtle when she meets the wolves. Luckily for him she's more than familiar with High Tongue. If he watches her body language closely, he'll see her shift to more Garou-like posture and movements. She may not smell like one, but she's kind of acting like one.

"Give me just a sec. I don't think under the sleigh is gonna work out for you long-term. I've been told these things are gonna be our ride to wherever we're going next and I doubt you wanna be left behind."

She stands up with another small groan and grabs the first medkit she sees, then sits down on the ground in front of him to block other people's view.

"How's your healing doing?"

[mothersson]

"Seems to have shrunk along with my size." He sounds about as unimpressed as he is, but does his best to not sound aggressive over it - no reason to make a potential ally feel attacked.

Particularly if she's here with first aid supplies.

"...I didn't intend to stay under here for long. This SHOULD have fixed it quickly..." grumble grumble grumble.

Okay he can't keep from complaining a bit here. Particularly because the alternative is to be afraid. What has fucked his very nature over this badly?

[millenyal_pink]

Yeah, Elle's not happy about her suddenly increased recovery time either. She starts rifling through the bag to find disinfectant.

"Alright. Well, if your healing isn't working in Crinos, it may be worth it to shift to whatever form you wanna be around other people in. I can help clean and disinfect your wounds like this, but any bandaging is just gonna get messed up when you shift again."

She keeps her head tilted down in a way that doesn't protect her throat; she doesn't want to look defensive. She's trying to project an aura of calm and practicality.

"And don't worry, it's going around." Elle doesn't expand on that statement, but she herself is covered in bandages that she normally wouldn't need.

[mothersson]

"It's still faster than in homid.

...I think." He suddenly sounds very unsure. Because he is. He thought it was still faster, but maybe that's just conviction and not reality?

"..." He needs a moment to make a decision. And he actually has a question. So... "You're not coyote, bear, crow or wolf. What are you?"

[millenyal_pink]

"You wanna bet bleeding out on that?" It's his call, but Elle can't help close his wounds in this state. When she realized she wasn't healing and was no longer in immediate danger, she decided to go back to Homid because it's easier to treat wounds and be around new people that way.

She gives him a smile. It's friendly, if a bit mischievous. "I'm Elle."

If she had been thinking she would've masked her scent before approaching. Well, too late now. She'll have to update Stacia later.

[mothersson]

It was a long shot - hoping that he could catch her by enough surprise to make her answer. His Gift is useful, but only when you know what you're looking at. Most changing breeds, Garou absolutely included, are way too secretive to just give up information to explain.

He huffs. "Unfair, that you know more about me than I know about you..." There's no force behind his words, though, the amusement in them a clear marker of him not really having expected much else.

[millenyal_pink]

"I know you're a Garou, you know I'm a shifter and my name. I'd call that pretty even."

Is she being difficult? Yes. A girl's gotta get her kicks somewhere.

She pulls out disinfectant wipe from the bag.

"So, we doing this fun-sized or are you shifting up?"

[mothersson]

He gives her a look, but after a moment curls up into a ball on his side and shifts to his breed form. Good call - he couldn't sit under here, but lying down on his side works.

The young man before Elle is of average size for a dude, wearing baggy clothes including jeans and a hoodie, and with an olive skintone and dark hair and eyes clearly of Mediterranean descent. He sports a shitty teenager beard and looks to be about 18.

He also has a nasty burn on his arm, a couple of bleeding spots somewhere under his shirt and left trouser leg, and a solid bruise forming on the left side of his face.

[millenyal_pink]

Elle pretends not to see his look.

She hisses in sympathy when she sees his injuries. Those don't look pleasant.

"Alright, can you lift your shirt? And your pant leg? I need to see what we should deal with first," she sets down the disinfectant wipes and goes looking for a pair of sterile gloves, ibuprofen, a cold pack, and burn cream-- then stands up and rifles around the sleigh for a water bottle.