(no subject)

[frogfear]

Who: Willow Rosenberg (frogfear) and you!
What: November Catch-All
When: November
Where: Around Trench and Sleeper Farm

Content Warnings: Standard event warnings



Sleeper Farm A (Wolfwalker Option)

She's the wolf when she wakes up on the floor of the stall, chained to the wall by the muzzle on her face, but she's getting more and more accustomed to this happening when she's asleep. It hits her after a few seconds that she has no idea where her human body is, and the realization drives her to her feet in a moment of sheer panic. The last thing she remembers is heading back to the house after leaving the Archives, which means whatever happened, probably happened on the way home. She has to get out of here.

Willow plants her feet and pulls back against the chain, whipping her head back and forth to try to forcibly pull herself free. It doesn't even budge a little, though, in spite of her efforts, and she feels weaker than normal, like she's been recovering from a bad bout of the flu. She flops to the ground in frustration and exhaustion, sides heaving.

She can smell the oil, blood, and strange fermented odor in the air she can't quite identify. And... another Sleeper? She turns her head, as though realizing suddenly that she's not alone. Maybe they can get each other out. Little help, please?

Sleeper Farm B (Human Option)

It's a stroke of sheer luck that Willow's managed to free herself unassisted, and is now free to try to find a way out. It's probably a blessing in disguise that her powers are barely accessible. She's been working to gain control over her ability to pick up on the emotions of those around her, and somewhere like this, full of pain and terror, she'd much rather not to be hit full force with it anyway. Still. There's enough getting through that she's aware that there's someone else trapped down here too. This place seems particularly ominous, and of course she can't leave someone else abandoned down here if there's any chance she can help.

She's a little nervous of calling attention to herself, though, as she creeps along the corridor, peering into the stalls to try to find someone else, so she stays quiet. She's spotted a couple of the Zealots creeping around, but she's been fortunate enough to be able to avoid them so far. Finally, she spots a figure in a corner of one of the stalls and lets out a relieved sigh.

"Hey. Hey, can you hear me?" She whispers.

Blood Crazed Zealots

Willow could feel the strange sensation of being watched as she left the school, then of being followed. A couple times she glances around, and finds herself seemingly alone on the streets. It feels oddly deserted, though - she's used to seeing more people out and about, even if it is beginning to get dark.

Another glance behind her, and she spots a hooded figure who seems to radiate a particularly malevolent presence. She's reminded a little bit of the first time she spotted Maul on the streets of Deerington, but she's already well aware it's not him. It's definitely something else. It feels like something out of a bad dream.

She picks up the pace, and tries to add some twists and turns into her usual route to try to lose them, but each time she glances back, they're still there, and still following. Puck appears as well, called forth unconsciously by her nervousness, and the fox trots alongside her with his ears pinned back against his head. He doesn't like it either.

She takes another look behind her as she turns a corner and crashes straight into another Sleeper, with a startled cry, and she immediately backs up and looks contrite. "Oh! Um. Sorry - Sorry. I - uh, thought you were something else."

Comments

[obeir]

It's difficult to dismiss the feeling that they're being observed by unseen entities, even if he'd like to think that's just his paranoia working overtime. Of course, that healthy (and justified) sense of paranoia had played a critical role in keeping him and those he cared for alive in Deerington, so he isn't going to ignore it now. Taking the first turn available to them is a sound idea, and he does exactly that once they reach one. So far the coast is clear.

"I heard about the safehouses on the network — used to run one, too, in the last place," he adds. It's something he'd like to continue in Trench. And if their current predicament is any indication, there's obviously still a need for them, but he hasn't accumulated the supplies necessary for maintaining one just yet. "Getting to one of those might be our best bet. If we're lucky, it might even be warded enough to keep these things out..."

[frogfear]

It seems like a sound plan. Get to one of the safe houses, and lay low there until... until whatever's following them goes away, Willow supposes. Or until they can call for back up, or something.

"Yeah - I've heard about those! Friends of mine were involved in getting them set up," she nods. She looks around. "Do you know where the closest one is?"

[obeir]

"The way buildings keep shifting around the city, the map from the network probably isn't accurate," K says, not stopping as he produces his Omni from a coat pocket so he can check it. "But I think I can figure it out." While others may be easily turned around and lost amid the shifting architecture of the city lately, he's found himself in possession of an innate sense of where everything is — a phenomenon he's sure must have something to do with his patron being the Tower.

As expected, he finds several significant discrepancies between the map and their surroundings. But it feels like they're heading in the right direction for a safehouse.

"There should be one a bit further on." Assuming his blood magic GPS is accurate... He glances at his travelling companion, figuring it'd be polite to introduce himself at this point. "I'm KD6-3.7, by the way. Most people just call me K." Because his serial number's a bit of a mouthful.

[frogfear]

Willow's noticed it too, the way the neighbourhoods have been shifting and changing. She was able to mostly dismiss it until now, though. "I think it's those things messing with the landscape. This wasn't happening before they came to town."

She'll have to trust his navigation skills - she's not even sure where she is at this point, nor how far off home is. A safe house is going to be their best bet. "Good... Hopefully it's, you know. Safe."

Managing a little smile, she nods as he introduces himself. "I'm Willow. That's quite the name."

[obeir]

"All the more reason to avoid them, if you ask me." Disorienting Sleepers makes them easier to capture, no doubt. Deerington had thrown a few curve balls in this regard, where the monstrous 'big bads' turned out to actually be benign or even beneficial for Sleepers, but... he'd really rather trust his instincts with these cloaked entities. Those hooks had looked anything but benign.

"Willow. I like that." There's a hint of amusement in his tone. "It's what I named one of my plants." A digital plant in a gardening game, not that that makes it any less important to him. He takes the welfare of his digital garden seriously (maybe a little too seriously). "Mine's just a serial number," he says in the manner of someone used to making this distinction. Not a name. The worry in his expression now when he looks at her has nothing to do with their pursuers. Outside of his home universe, it's been hard to guess how people will react to his being an android.

[frogfear]

"Yeah, I'm really not interested in stopping for a chat to see why it's after us," Willow admits. They even feel evil. She doubts there's anything warm and fuzzy going on with the zealots, or that it's just trying to return something she's dropped, or something else entirely innocent.

She smiles a little and ducks her head when he says he likes her name, and tells her it's shared by his plants. She doesn't realize he's talking about a digital plant, but it doesn't make any difference. "Thanks. I like K. It's short, direct, to the point. There's people at home named Kay too. What do you mean, though, that it's a serial number?"

i'm coming off a long hiatus; sorry for the wait and lmk if you'd rather handwave anything!

[obeir]

Being told that she likes his nickname in turn is surprising. He's become fond of it for his own reasons, but it's... strangely very nice to hear those positive attributes. Direct and to the point. That suits him just fine, he thinks.

"Same as any other manufactured product." Because that's exactly what he is, even if it's not all that he is. He knows that now. It's been a long and difficult journey toward accepting his identity without shame. "Androids are identified by serial number where I'm from," he elaborates. "If our owner is especially sentimental they might name us, but it's rare."

It's all good! I'm happy to pick back up if you are!

[frogfear]

Her eyebrows raise. "You're an android? Really?"

She sounds more surprised than anything. She's met a handful of similar beings, but very few who could so easily pass as human. She's more disturbed that he wasn't given his own name beyond a serial number than his origins.

"You still all should have been given your own names," she adds after a moment.

of course!

[obeir]

A little of the tension in his posture eases as his revelation is received better than expected. Good. That's a relief. There's still the matter of their pursuer — possibly pursuers — so he isn't going to let his guard down, but Willow's acceptance means one less thing he has to worry about now.

"Older models all had names," he says as he pauses to carefully check around a corner before taking it. So far, so good. The coast is still clear. "And they proved... difficult to control, for a number of reasons. Dangerous to humans. This was corrected in my model — we're made to obey. It's thought that naming us allows us too much of a sense of identity." Denying them names is far from the worst of what humanity inflicts on his kind... something he's still coming to terms with.

"Does your home universe have anything like us...?"

[frogfear]

Willow is still on alert herself for any sign of the zealots, but so far, it seems like their luck is holding out as they make their way through the streets.

She nods at his question. "Uh, yeah. I mean, they're rare - like, really rare - but I've seen a few." She smiles a little. "Even repaired one of them a couple times. Someone made her to look like a friend of mine - don't ask, trust me, you don't wanna know - so she acted as a stand in for us sometimes."

[obeir]

That information has K suddenly seeing her in a whole new light. Not only is she accepting of androids, but she even possesses the knowledge necessary to repair them? Her home universe's version, at least. But that's still significant, and has him wondering if she might be willing to assist with his own maintenance since the person who previously helped him is gone... but he's definitely getting ahead of himself.

"That's incredible. What are the odds," he says with poorly concealed enthusiasm, though he's trying to rein it in. "For the vast majority of people I've met, we're the stuff of science fiction novels and movies. Always the villains..." Which raises some important questions. "What purpose do we serve in your world? The ones you know, are they— free?"

Being made to look identical to an already existing person is certainly odd — such practises are strictly banned in his home universe, as far as he knows — but he has a fair inkling of why Willow told him not to ask.

[frogfear]

"Well, I mean, the first one I met wasn't exactly one of the good guys..." She shrugs a little. She doesn't really consider any of the androids she's met as villains. They followed their programming. Well, except for maybe Ted - but his designer was insane, and his programming had years to degrade. "The others were... Well, I mean, yeah, okay, potential danger, but not their fault?"

She has to stop and think if she would consider Buffybot, or Ted, or April really free, and bites her lip thoughtfully. "They were all built privately by different people. Okay, well, two were made by the same guy, for pretty much the same thing, but..."

She shrugs. "I don't know if freedom's the right word given they still had to follow their programming. I mean, I guess they didn't have it all bad? The one I worked with the most did... well, pretty much the same thing as our friend she was standing in for?"

[obeir]

"Following their programming," he echoes, a touch disappointed for reasons he doesn't want to examine too deeply right now (it's an inconvenient time for brooding). Not free, then. Bound in a way he's unfortunately intimately familiar with: "I can make my own choices, but only within the parameters of my programming. Something like that?"

With his orders always having precedence over all else, that choice may ultimately be an illusion... but he'll take whatever he can get. Removing him from his homeworld hadn't altered his programming, though he does have more leeway here, where he's free of anyone authorised to give him orders. And he's grateful for it.

The way Willow talks about the stand-in lookalike raises even more interesting questions.

"Do you consider that android a friend in her own right?" he wonders. "It must have been weird, if she was even programmed to behave identically to someone you already knew." Weird for the android too, possibly. He recalls hearing of how earlier Nexus android models, unaware of their artificial nature, had often suffered breakdowns and dangerous instability upon learning the truth. "Did she even know what she was, at first?"

[frogfear]

"Something like that, yeah," Willow answers with a nod. "Some of the programming can get really specific - like, Buffybot knew to find me when she was damaged so I could get her up and running again. But she could make her own choices too. It just kind of depended on the situation."

She pauses as she considers his friendship question.

"It's... complicated. I mean, she was really sweet, and she always wanted to help - with everything," there's a fondness in her tone and a small smile that fades as she continues. "But she was standing in for the real Buffy when she died and we needed to keep up the appearance she was alive. So it was hard too, you know? But yeah. I liked her, and we all made sure she knew we were her friends."

[obeir]

Oh... so the real person was dead. That kind of casts the whole situation in a new (but admittedly no less weird) light.

"I'm sorry about your friend who died," K says with a frown. "That was very kind of you, though. Treating Buffybot well." Was that... really her name... but he supposes he isn't in any position to judge, considering. Very abruptly, he cuts himself short and gestures for Willow to also stay quiet when he catches a flicker of something in his peripheral vision. They really can't be too careful. Luckily, the safe house is close now — right across the street. The very wide open, eerily deserted street that practically screams 'trap'. Fun.

"That's it," he says in a hushed tone, pointing toward the safe house. Its windows are dimly lit from within, so that's a good sign. It's presumably still being maintained. "And I'm pretty sure one of those things is close... Be careful. Ready?"

Once Willow indicates she is, he'll make a mad dash for the door while trying to keep pace with her, so neither one of them will become a lone target for whatever seems to be lurking.

[frogfear]

She's about to answer when he gestures for her to stay quiet, and she's immediately back on alert, as she glances up and down the street. It's far too quiet, and it feels far too dark for it to not be a trap, but she's aware as well there's a chance it could simply be paranoia as well. She takes another look up and down the street, checking to see if she can spot anything. She can't, but it feels like there's something looming.

She takes a deep breath and nods. "I don't think we have much choice."

There's another brief moment of hesitation before she sprints out of the alley towards the door.