deercountry | (no subject)

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."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He jumps a bit at the feeling of her nudging and then immediately sees where she's intending to go. Then he scrambles over to the open stall and presses himself into the closest wall that will hide them from prying eyes. He's breathing heavy and hard like he's on the verge of a panic attack and he tries to get it under control so he doesn't make noise.

The sound of clanking heavy footsteps starts to get louder and come closer.

Willow darts after him, slipping a bit on the floor as she rounds the corner into the open stall. At first, she positions herself directly in front of Stiles, crouched low in case it comes to a fight, then she hears the fast, heavy breathing. She turns around and tucks in close to his side instead, still tense as the heavy footsteps come closer and begin to slow as though something may need investigating, but clearly trying to help offer comfort too.

Stiles' hand automatically drops to her fur, but he doesn't pet like before, he just grips non-painfully. An anchor of sorts, as he focuses on calming down. By the time the footsteps slow, he's quiet as a mouse, breaths shallow and barely there as he glares at the ground stubbornly refusing to succumb to the fear even as he continues to tremble.

Hands modified with metallic claws and covered in scar tissue curl over the pony wall of the stall and Stiles freezes, looking up. Carefully, he gathers dark blue power in his hands to prepare to attack should the Zealot look over at them. And then the first sight of the top of its head and he's blasting it in the face with as much telekinetic force as he can… which is a hell of a lot when he's in fight or flight mode, it turns out. The Zealot goes rocketing up and back and there's the distinct sound of snapping bones as it goes.

Willow's lips lift to show her teeth as the claws appear over the pony wall, as she prepares to launch herself at the zealot. It's clearly not needed, though, Stiles hits it with his blast as soon as it shows its hideous face, and instead she dives after it to make sure the sickening crunch of bone is the end of the thing and it won't be able to raise the alarm.

It's clearly dead from the odd angle its laying, leaned against the wall, so instead she seizes by the pant leg, plants her feet and pulls back, trying to drag it into the stall to get it out of sight so it isn't so easily spotted.

Stiles peeks up over the wall after a couple moments of hyperventilating and trying to calm down. And when he sees his new wolf companion dragging it by its leg, he slowly stands, looking disbelieving.

"I… killed it?"

Willow glances back at Stiles, and finishes dragging the body the rest of the way into the stall. She's not sure if it was genuinely the force of the blow, or just a really lucky fall, but the zealot is dead all the same, and that's the important part. It may have been a Sleeper once, but it's hard to feel sympathetic with one of the creatures responsible for this place. Especially in a world where Sleepers don't stay dead anyway.

She returns to his side, and nudges his hand before setting off back down the hall again.

They need to get out of here.

The nudge to his hand pulls him out of his stupor he fell in just staring at the body and grappling with the fact that he killed it. It's a strange feeling. These creatures hurt him so badly, but he's never really directly killed someone before. Part of him wants to argue that this thing isn't a someone, but it used to be, right? He shakes it off and lets out a shuddered breath as he goes to follow her.

"R-right, yeah. Lead the way."

Willow herself has a fairly low kill count - a handful of vampires over the years, and two humans that she still carries a lot of regret over, but she's seen no shortage of dead bodies. It's rarely ever easy - not even when it's something, or someone, who would have killed you otherwise, but sometimes it is necessary.

She stares up at him for a long moment after he says to lead the way, and pauses to sniff the air to make sure there's no one else coming for them before she sets off down the hall. She tries to keep the pace brisk, she doesn't want to linger and risk nearly being discovered a second time, but she can feel herself growing more and more tired. When she comes across the long spiral staircase leading up to the next level, she pauses and huffs out a big sigh, before looking back to Stiles, as if to say, are you kidding me?

He follows and keeps pace with her well enough. Even if his body isn't exactly in tip top shape after his last visit here, he's been healed rather well with magic. Enough to have him walking without too much issue… but even if he was worse off, he wants out of here fast.

They get to the stairs and he looks up at the spiral with a little "Huh, well that's new…" He doesn't get a good feeling from it, but… it looks like it goes where they need to be getting to, "Hear or smell anything weird up there?"

Willow tilts her head, listening carefully for a moment. She can hear the grinding machinery, the occasional hiss of the steam-powered engines, and... something banging? Or running? She's not entirely sure.

She starts up the stairs cautiously, and stops after a couple steps to sniff the air. Blood. Blood of all kinds, and oil, and terror, and death. She casts a worried look back at Stiles, and she can't help worry about what they're about to face, and how he will handle it. There's really not another choice, though. She lets out a soft, rumbling growl, the only way she can think of to let him know there's danger ahead and slowly starts the climb.