a wounded deer leaps the highest. | march catchall (OTA)

[azurestar]

Who: Lance (azurestar) and YOU
What: March catchall for Event, some TDM and more.
When: All of March
Where: Trench, Jungle Level, Catacombs, Farther Shores, Trenchwood etc.

Content Warnings: hallucinations, ptsd, will add more as they appear

( ooc: All prompts have multiple ways to interact with them, read carefully! Deer weeks are roughly the first 2 weeks of March. )

DEER WEEKS

[At the very start of March, as the clock struck midnight, and the Paleblood hallucinations kicked in, Lance panicked and turned into a deer to try and escape them. He had just experienced something harrowing that rocketed his corruption to rather high levels and beasthood was probably on the horizon, and instinct kicked in, the faint memory of a month when he was a Bear after his life took a sharp downturn and he needed to not be a human surfaced and he took it as a cue. It has merely stalled his corruption increase and he's still suffering some mild hallucinations, but he's mentally more deer than Lance and that is practically a vacation to him.]

i. trenchwood
[The mystical, glowing deer with three stars in its antlers wanders Trenchwood when it needs to forage at night and during the day. At night, it lights up the area it stands in, diffusing through early morning mists and breaking the dead of night darkness. With it, there walks a coyote with the glowing eyes of an omen, but it stays at a distance, keeping eyes and ears out in the perimeter for threats. There also lurks a massive white direwolf, larger than most average horses, hunting and keeping watch at a further perimeter than the coyote, but ever present.

When the deer spots someone, it stops and looks tense and unsure, stars in its antlers and around it twinkling rapidly. If you give off a non-threatening appearance and 'energy' (he's still an empath, he can tell), he'll continue to watch and engage. If you appear threatening and have a threatening energy, he will scream and take on a stance like he's about to charge. But there is also a strong chance he will bolt. Also, he is mildly hallucinating and jumpy, even if you are not threatening, he may scream.]

ii. farther shores
[It may seem like a strange place for a mystical deer (elk?) to hang out, but this deer is Lance, and he loves the ocean, it brings him comfort. And this week there are plenty of squid washing ashore, and new sleepers. Though he is a bit more deer than Lance, he still wants to be there if someone he knows shows up. He can be seen walking primly on the shores, sniffing around for any sleeper squids in need of help. The cherry blossoms of the false spring cling to his soft fur and get stuck in his antlers and somehow the three stars and the stars that twinle around him don't burn them up.

His coyote omen can be seen loping several feet nearby along the shore and the giant white direwolf is far off on the rocky areas above the sea caves looking down. Much like the last prompt, if threatened or otherwise spooked by you, he may scream and charge or bolt. But he can be coaxed to come over closer to civilization, to the boardwalk. Trenchies hold deer as sacred and he'll be given a lot of space to walk and stares and maybe you can even use him as leverage for a free pass at one of the carnival games... if you can get him to go there.]

iii. trench
[Very rarely, he'll go into the city, and usually into areas where there aren't a lot of people and at a time where there aren't a lot of people. He gets overwhelmed, you see. He can be found mostly in Cellar Door, Willful Machine and Crenshaw late at night, lurking by his, Hunk and Bolin's house, businesses/homes of his friends and Shiro's Mouse House. Again, he is tailed by his coyote omen and the giant white direwolf at a distance, and he is especially skittish here... but he seems to be looking for something. Or someone.

As time draws on, he is more and more Lance, and he is noticing that Bolin and Keith are missing and Diluc isn't at his business. He's nervous, instinct tells him something is wrong, so as the week goes on he can be found walking around town more and more. And his drive to find them allows him to walk among more crowds, where Trenchies give him awed stares and even small bows of their heads and... a bow gets tied to one of his antlers as he passes by a child on their parents' shoulders. All of this seems to have him looking increasingly overwhelmed and confused. Help?]

iv. jungle level
[Though he's still a deer on "vacation" and also searching for Keith, Bolin and Diluc, The Moss King don't care about all these extenuating circumstances. He hears the drumming and his ears perk up in interest, the excitement grows. Is that a sign of where to go to find his friends? Edelya, the wolf and his omen hear it as well and follow him more closely to find it. They locate the game on a stump and Lance noses it open. Yes, he plays the game with his omen and his hyper intelligent direwolf, somehow heavily compelled to do so despite all his current concerns.

And then there's a mystical deer, his coyote omen and giant wolf daughter in the jungle. He's the only one who inadvertently gave blood when he picked up the piece with his teeth, but they came in with him. Awesome. Love this for them. Immediately, they are set upon by a stampede and luckily, they are able to keep up with it, being four legged themselves. If you find yourself in the path of the stampede of rhinos, Lance will run out ahead and pick you up in his antlers. The stars that hang between them move out of the way to accommodate you and you're off!

Or, if you don't want to run into this mystical deer and its odd predator companions in the middle of mortal peril or some other way, feel free to spot him running through the jungle exuding panic and psychic thoughts of 'shit!' 'holy crap!' 'where's the exit??'. OR toss your own challenge at him! Open to all challenges in the event and invented ones, go wild!]

BACK IN BLACK

[It's after finally escaping the jungle and then seeing Yuri's post that leads him to Keith and the others where he and Shiro rode to the rescue, that Lance finally turns back to himself. It happens in the middle of the night on the farther shores as he stares out at the ocean. The hallucinations are less here and seeing his friends in trouble, hurt and then getting his horns stuck in a wall like that… he felt handicapped, the whole ordeal woke him up more, made him more Lance than deer. He knows he needs to change back and try to brave what comes.]

v. carnivale
[After changing back to human, he just sort of spent the night on the beach… and woke up after a shed to another blood type. He sees the shed skin nearby and notices that he's no longer hallucinating mushrooms. His corruption is still up, but it's lessened enough that all he needs to cover the worst of it is a regular sized eyepatch rather than the large one he'd switched to that covers 1/4 of his face. His skin is still off in color and flaky, and he still has fangs, but his mind is closer to normal and without the hallucinations panicking him… he lets out a breath of relief and heads to the boardwalk to check out the last couple days of the carnival.

He can be found playing the carnival games, helping late sleepers to win their prizes with his sharp-shooting skills. Or just winning whatever prizes he feels like on his own to take the edge off of suddenly being human again. Some of the creepy dolls he wins, he just makes a face at and hands to the nearest child or even you.] Uh, I think this suits you way better.

[Other than that, he can be found both during the day and at night hanging out on the carousel or ferris wheel, munching on carnival food and just chillin. He probably looks pretty out of place as a grown young man on his own, lounging obnoxiously and incorrectly on these rides, feet up on a horse head or over the side of a ferris wheel cart. Is he drunk?]

vi. welcome back to the jungle
[He hears the drums again as a human and it's like he gets temporary amnesia about when he was brought to the jungle as a deer. He finds the game board and perhaps he finds it with you and you play it together, or he'll do it alone or with his omen again. Either way, he's back in the jungle and he's not… having a good time at all. Long story short: last time he was in a jungle setting he was tortured and killed. Upon immediate arrival, he'll start having a trauma response, breathing hard and backing up, body glowing blue-gold from his CRAU powers.] N-no, nope. Not… not this.

[Aaand, he might back right up into a trap, like quick sand or sentient vines or a giant frog. Stop him? Otherwise, later on he can be found looking around frantically and hopping from fallen branch to tree and trying to hide in the brush even when there doesn't seem to be any dangers. At least not ones you can see, pff. Even though he has survival skills, he's not immune to getting into bad situations, feel free to rescue him from a crushing massive anaconda or quicksand, any of the challenges or invented ones are welcome.

Or he can swing in and rescue you from a rushing river, a stampede or the mosquitoes, again any challenges and ideas are welcome. He may go a little overkill if it's the Trophy Hunter who is after both of you though, like… creating four small spheres of light (stars) and making them blow up (supernova) through a wide area he thinks he sees the Hunter. That's a lot of damage. He's breathing hard, eyes wild and then a bullet zips by his cheek through the fire and smoke.] AW, COME ON!

[He's glowing again, gearing up for more firepower, looking a biiit wild. But his powers are still not working correctly and he really should not… do that.]

vii. dark places of the world
[Getting sucked down and squeezed into a dark death hole is also… not his idea of a great time. Last time he was in underground tunnels was also deeply traumatic, but at least there's not corpses everywhere, that's an improvement. He'll have a similar immediate trauma response to the catacombs as he does the jungle when he first arrives, the sound of screams echoing in the distance and the smell of this place strongly brings back some flashbacks. He glows again (more muted because this place is damping all his powers), lighting up the space and starts frantically looking around and hyperventilating.] The deep place, i-it… shit. N-no. Nooonono.

[And with that, he'll crouch down and hug his head, rocking a bit. Eventually, he will pull out of it enough to start into the catacombs, finally seeing that there is a shrine here to the Moss King and it might not… be the deep place. Maybe. Shut up. He grabs a survival pack from the cubbies and heads in, only way out is forward, he can figure that much. The further in he goes, the less his powers work, he can't even seem to make a star to light the path and resorts to the flashlight in the pack. The whole journey, he is battling claustrophobia but when coming upon tight and narrow spaces that require spelunking skills to get through etc. he'll stop, tense and not happy at all.] You're kidding, right? Nah-uh, no way. That can't be the o-only way through. And do I hear nasty cave water on the other side? It'll- It'll totally mess up our skin!

viii. the incomprehensible maze
[The smells of corpses and the feeling he is not alone has Lance more and more on edge and jumpy. The sounds that are heard are sometimes heard by both of you… and sometimes only heard by him. The only signs he can make out are english and Spanish, and he tilts his head at the rest like it keeps moving around before his eyes.] The hell is that? Did that sign just give us the finger?!

[No… no, it did not. But regardless, it eventually leads you into a room with a challenge. If it's the dark water, Lance will hesitate and make a face before sighing and walking in… and boy, he sure has vertigo all of a sudden and is clinging to you. If it's the house on fire, he will immediately run in to save the "victims" and will need to be saved. If it's the room full of treasures, he'll find it easier to pass through since he doesn't yearn for treasures these days, if you're going Gollum on him he'll give you a weird look and won't get it but will exasperatedly try to physically drag you forward. In chronology of the seasons, he is not an expert in the patrons at all and will need help… please help, he's very lost and very stressed. And lastly, he'll absolutely be running for that exit and right into the mushroom pit, either grab him or tumble in with him.]

ix. dark places of the heart
[Then the corpses start to follow him and he's panicking again, grabbing onto you and asking if you see them too. He sees his mother, his sisters and brothers, his father and grandparents. And he sees Allura and Chloe and he's shaking with emotion and fear, guilt and grief. Tears manage to escape his eye (left is still covered by an eye patch due to corruption).] I'm sorry, I-

[The corpses of his loved ones each stop their pursuit when he stops and they don't attack… he doesn't know what they want, though. He's shaking like a leaf and looks over to you, not understanding. Or the corpses are your loved ones and he's giving you concerned glances and places a cautious hand on your arm, not sure what to say or do, but he'll follow your lead.

Much later, it's black hole with the warning 'hell is ahead…', and he stands in front of it beside you, breathing hard and fast and looking like he's about to have a breakdown. It's crushing him, he already has so many immense feelings of inadequacy and this hole is finding ones he barely even knew he had, it's finding every dark crevice and wound and pulling it open. He trembles and his knees feel weak, his voice lost and reduced to a small whimper in his throat. Are you suffering the same? Who will crack first and start admitting how horrible they are? If it's not you, Lance will start talking with a tight reluctance and pain, he's trying not to… doesn't want to, but he has to.]

I'm not a good enough pilot or Paladin, I failed as the second in command, I failed the team, I'm just some dumb kid from Cuba way in over his head and I'm weak, I couldn't fight off all the magic bullshit that made me h-hurt p- I'm- I deserve everything that happened to me because I wasn't enough, I-

[He takes in a sharp breath and stops. Placing his hands over his mouth, tears starting to all from his uncovered eye. Corruption is starting to build, the scar under his eyepatch widening to reveal a dark nebula under his skin. He hasn't admitted enough to fulfill the needs of this challenge, but these are things he's struggled to admit to for years.]

x. try to breathe
[From mid-March to the end of the month, in between the times he's in the jungle and catacomb levels and after, he can be found trying to just go about something resembling normal life in Trench. He'll avoid those blood blisters the moment he sees one burst on another (NPC) sleeper and has to fight off their beast form. If you'd like to team up in driving the beast outside of Trench to try and get them back to themselves… or kill it, he won't say no to a partner in hunting.

He can be found crouching by the blood hounds and talking to them like they're people who understand what he's saying.] Nice antlers, I had a pretty sweet pair of 'em a couple weeks ago.

[Other than that, he spends a lot of time down on the Farther Shores as usual, and can be spotted talking to the Ocean/Mariana once or twice, especially late in the evenings. The water lifts abnormally up like a still wave to 'interact' and a few times, Lance seems to be glowing and venting his feelings, pacing and making stars that he sends high up to blow up and make small aurora borealis and disturbing the surface of the water.

Lastly, he seems to have won some prizes in the levels… one is that shitty T-shirt that he is absolutely wearing over a long sleeve shirt while he talks to a glaceon. He seems to be sighing.] I mean, not to look a gift pokémon in the mouth or anything, but I've got a lot of animals to look after already… what do you even eat?

[The glaceon tilts her head at him and just lets out her cry in a questioning tone.]

WILDCARD

( ooc: I've given a lot of prompts, but if you still want something else or something specific, that's totally fine! either toss a prompt at me or if you want to plot, contact me at spypigeon or on my plotting comment. Also, in the second half of March, Lance can still turn into a deer if he gets stressed enough in the Jungle level in particular. If you'd like to interact with prompt iv later in March, feel free to wildcard that Lance got stressed as a human and turned into a deer right before your character's eyes or something. )