deercountry | faceless man counting crumpled bills // OPEN

You know the best way to get into mischief? Flying around during what seemed like eternal night. That was what Luz was contending with now, and taking another hour to fly around to make sure things were going all right sometimes meant falling smack dib into trouble.

In this instance she was going through Gaze when she saw something that seemed a little off: it looked like a dog, but had horns on its head and looked like it had rabies.

Luz knew full well this had to be corruption. The horns seemed to be a dead give away. She landed down with her staff and walked toward the beast, approaching it as slowly as she could. Something about it seemed familiar, especially with its color.

Whomever Rose was had been subsumed, leaving a wretched, corrupted beast in her place. Something of Rose's consciousness was there, but it was being drowned out by what she'd become. Something she'd never wanted to be, a beast.

An onlooker got too close and she lashed out viciously, jaws snapping at thin air as the person managed to dart back in time. Voices started crying out to run, run, find a blood minister and bring them back, to hurry!

But Luz's rather more quiet approach wasn't as maddening as the onlookers gawking and shouting had been. But her hackles were still up and a low noise rumbled from her throat.

"Easy, easy," Luz said softly, making sure to look as non-intimidating as she could. She was pretty sure that in this corrupted state that the corrupted beast could probably rip her throat out. While she did have her glyphs at hand, she didn't want to resort to them, not yet.

"I won't hurt you. That's it. If you want, I'll take you out of here, ok?"

She wasn't even sure if she could be heard while this person was in a corrupted state, but she'd sure give it a shot.

The beast still did her best to seem intimidating, tossing her head to show off her curled ram horns. It didn't even occur to her that dogs didn't have horns and she'd be horrified if she had full knowledge and control of what it was she was doing.

But the voice sounded calm. There were so many voices which didn't. From their sounds, they'd kill her given half a chance and she was too afraid to let her guard down completely.

Her body language was a mesh of fear and anger both and it remained to be seen which emotion won.

"Maybe we should...get out of here then. If we stay any longer, we might attract the attention of hunters, and at that point it'll be hard to defend you and fight against them."

Personally, it was not something she wanted to deal with right now. So Luz was already starting to draw on the ground, as quickly as she could but making sure that she had the drawings down as accurate as she could. When she was done, she motioned to the beast.

"Come, come on! It'll be ok!"

Luz would have to hope she was starting to learn how to speak to animals like Snow White.

Hunters. Something about that word shook something loose in her mind. Hunters were...bad. Not something she wanted to be around. So she released a little whining noise, head ducking down briefly.

And the beast watched what Luz was doing with eyes far too intelligent for a mindless beast. Something about what Luz was doing...jogged her memory. So she released another little whining noise and stepped closer as she was beckoned.

She wasn't sure what was supposed to happen, but she released another little whining noise.

Luz waited, hoping whoever this was, they had enough intelligence not to attack her right out. Luz didn't want to hurt someone who was corrupted, but if she had to try and defend herself it was just going to make things that much harder.

Luckily, the beast was understanding at least that it would be better off NOT attacking her and going with her. Luz waited until the corrupted beast was within the glyph, and then, mustering up her strength and tapped it.

The glyph glowed around them and they were transported to the lamp location right outside of the Disaster house in Cassandra. Luz exhaled, sitting down hard on the ground.

"Woomph. That took a LOT. Give me...give me a minute."

The beast was more threatened by the gathering crowd than she was the girl, though that familiarity was still in place. So she took a risk and turned her back so that she was facing the crowd gawking and pointing at her. The words "hunters," "blood ministers" were barely made out, making her hackles rise again.

The girl was acceptable. Everyone else was not.

And she let out a brief yelp as she felt the ground under her feet shift into something or somewhere else.

When the girl sat down, she moved to sit as well, letting out a little huff which sounded like a sigh.

Luz was on the ground, breathing hard. This was the first time that she had ever used a transformation glyph to go such a distance and wasn't used to how much energy it took. She was pretty sure she was going to have to and sleep this off for a little while. Maybe it took some getting used to?

It was a good thing she didn't know who had done this in her world before her, or she might have never made the attempt.

She looked over at the corrupted beast and gave it a thumbs up.

"See? We're safe now. I can at least try and help you here. We...we need some incense."

Which she'd be happy to get once her feet could get moving again.

The beast which had been Rose still looked strangely shaken. A low whine started and she laid down the rest of the way, resting her head on her front paws, russet curls and ram horns gleaming in the low light of night.

The beast looked up at Luz and made another whining noise.

Then another sigh.

"Something about you seems familiar," Luz commented, taking a chance and petting the corrupted beast gently. "But give me a minute. I want to get you the incense. That way the healing can start, and then we can think about getting the blood minister if we need to."

Luz actually had a stick handy (she ALWAYS did these days) and lit it with her glyph, the flame coming out as gently as she could manage. She placed the stick between them and gave a small sigh, clearing her mind.

"Breathe in, breathe out," Luz said softly, in mantra-like fashion, making sure each breath was labored and slow, so she could focus her comforting thoughts on the poor creature.

At that, the beast's eyes moved to Luz, remarkably pale eyes for such a creature. But she didn't lash out at being petted, instead it seemed to have the exact opposite effect. She sighed again and her eyes seemed like she was looking at something far away, but recognizable.

The incense smelled odd to her, she'd never had to smell it before, not even in Gaze. Which shook a memory loose, old books smelling of years of use and review, some of the oldest there.

And she watched Luz demonstrate the breathing, trying to match with her own. She was a beast, but not entirely a mindless one.

Luz did feel strangely calm now, seeing that the poor corrupted person was starting to gain some semblance of self. From what Vira had told her, she'd done something similar. There was a part of her, she gathered, that still needed blood, but still wanted to somehow be "safe." She had to think that whoever this was, they were trying to do the same thing.

When the corrupted dog started to match her breathing, Luz gave it a smile and continued, making sure they could mimic each other.

"Good job," she assured the corrupted. "Just concentrate on my voice. Slow. Siiiigh. Out. Whoooosh."

It sounded silly, but she knew it would help.

She felt so strange, but she didn't feel like lashing out now. Now that she was away from that circle of onlookers calling for Hunters, for Blood Ministers. Somewhere in there, she knew those two titles were ones she needed to avoid. If any of the two came along and identified themselves, she'd immediately go back on the defensive.

The breathing was hard to maintain. Something inside her wanted to breathe more quickly, to respond to a trauma the beast felt, but the human had been pushing aside.

She didn't raise her head but she looked up enough to meet Luz's eyes and purposefully mimic the way the girl was breathing.

She didn't know what would and wouldn't work, but it might help?

Luz figured this must have been what happened when she was corrupted, but she only had some experience with Varian and Vira's corruption. She unfortunately didn't know who this was yet, and she was lucky enough that whoever it was, they weren't trying to still attack her. That had been the unfortunate thing with Vira.

She was going to have to try and see if she could possible do it through the mind. It would be tricky, for many reasons but most especially because Luz was not an expert at it and had only really done it with a few people.

Still, she had to give it a try.

Hello. Can you hear me? Can you understand me?

Unfortunately, this poor creature hadn't even the chance to be corrupted, then find someone to be rid of it. She'd been pounced on by something with red curls and then became something she wasn't but she herself was afraid of. That was when the thought processes were working somewhat normally, most of the time it was a mess of instincts and fear.

If someone had tried to touch her, she would have cringed away before biting or attacking. On some level, she knew she was a nightmare, not a person. Just a borderline mindless beast.

The words which weren't her own slipped into her mind and she wasn't sure how to respond. Finally, after a long time, a whimpering little thought came through, like one from a dog which had been beaten too many times. Yes.

Luz could see that there was a mess of emotions there, and why not? She'd never delved into the mind of someone corrupted like this before. It was like getting a barrage of information, some relevant, some like yelling into the wind. Some things were easier to make out than others.

But she knew enough to try and not overwhelm the person corrupted right now. She could at least understand that they were frustrated at being in this state of uncertainty and flux.

It's all right. You're going to be OK. You are not a monster. Just breathe with me and try to stay calm. I'll do my best to help you, I promise.

She couldn't help her fear, trembling with the weight of it. This person seemed to mean well, though...but so few people had meant well. It was difficult to take in after feeling so pressured, afraid, and angry for so long. It was like she'd escaped one cage, had a brief reprieve (but how?), and was now back in another one.

She began to let out a low, but steady whine, her pale eyes filled with a mingling of pain and fear, but not aggression.

Trust.

[Luz could see the pain and fear in her eyes, and couldn't help but reach over and gave the corrupted animal a hug.

It wasn't smart. It was super dangerous. It could cut up her back and possibly bite her while she was making herself so exposed, but Luz didn't care. She didn't want a corrupted person suffering alone while she was pretending things were fine. They weren't and she knew it.

I just want to help. I'll do everything I can to get you back to normal.

A hug was the last thing she was expecting. The last thing...but not unpleasant. She was trying to shake herself of the fear of hunters and blood ministers. She knew that each would be catastrophic for her to encounter at this point. They'd assume the worst, they'd attack her, they'd turn her inside out in an attempt to understand her.

But...this young girl didn't feel like either of the two. She was showing kindness where kindness wasn't to be expected. She was so used to expecting condemnation or dismissal of her thoughts and feelings that to not have them taken lightly was a pleasant shock.

Help. Please. Normal.

Luz knew that she was taking risks here, but she also figured that this had happened when she herself had been corrupted, and had she not been shown kindness she might have been hurt and scared. So she took her time in assuring this corrupted person, though a clue to who they might be was starting to crop in the back of her mind.

That couldn't be though. Could it?

In a way, it didn't matter: Luz was going to make sure this person was ok.

You'll get there, slowly. If you really don't want a blood minister, it'll take longer, but I don't mind looking after you. What do you need?

This was her first experience with any of it. Corruption, beasthood. She'd thought that it wasn't possible to become a beast without first being corrupted, but that--that thing had attacked before she could even react and the next thing she knew was the ripping, tearing sensations of her body contorting and changing into something else entirely, her mind suddenly lost in the process. But she was getting it back.

And as a result, the whine increased in volume, wanting nothing more than for all of this to be over, one way or another.

Hungry. No blood ministers.

There was still a lot Luz didn't understand, not helped by the fact that she hadn't encountered anyone who had instantly transformed. All she knew right now was that she wanted to help, and if she could do that by attending to the corrupted person without a minister, she would do what she could.

She really hoped it would work though.

All right. Keep breathing. I wish I knew more, so I could help you better.

She'd never heard it was possible. She'd seen the deer around on the network and assumed it was from a planetful of deer. Or even a deer from this place, it certainly seemed to know and love its deer. It reminded her uncomfortably of people who'd hunt deer, have their heads mounted to their personal study's wall.

But maybe deer weren't for the hunting, despite the antler sets she'd seen above doors. But giant wolfhounds were for hunting. Or being hunted. She didn't want to do the former and was terrified of the latter.

So did she.

Mirror. Looked like me. Sudden.

Oh boy. Luz would definitely have a field day talking about deer, since that seemed to be one of the prevalent things in Trench that had carried over from the last town. Deer were good. Most other things were decidedly not.

Luz lit another incense stick though. She kept it the same scent, since she didn't want to have another smell competing with the first one she lit. This was a long shot, after all.

Mirror? Oh. Jeez, that sounds like a new development. I'm not even sure what I'd do about that.

Did she have to hunt down the other image?

Do you remember who you are?

Here we go again!

Ladies, gentlemen, and non-binary folk, keep your hands inside the ride at all times and no selfies!

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(CW: animal cruelty)

Re: (CW: animal cruelty)

(CW: animal cruelty)

Re: (CW: animal cruelty)

(CW: animal cruelty)

Re: (CW: animal cruelty)

(CW: animal cruelty)

Re: (CW: animal cruelty)

Re: (CW: animal cruelty)

Re: (CW: animal cruelty)