what in the longdark spitting-pit is that

[inourhead]

This was a bad idea this was a bad idea this was a bad idea.

Holly runs as fast as she can but the demon's faster. She has no idea where Lightning's gotten to; maybe he found a tree to climb. She on the other hand has been diverted into a treeless hill and she's careening down a slope, trying very hard not to trip.

And the demon's gaining on her.

She's never seen anything like it and neither has Crystal; maybe Book knows what it is but Book's asleep. It's mostly mouth - it looks like a cross between a floorlength mirror of a mouth and a snake to propel the mouth along.

And Holly's not fast enough.

The mouth catches her.





But it doesn't hurt.

Where are we?

----


with Minus (kappa)

with Mark (kappa)

with Max (Benedict)

in Terraria (kappa)

with Emma (Marri)

with Erin (Rockeye)

Comments

[inourhead]

Sohng shakes her head and gets out her mouse cage.

Most of the mice in it appear to be dead. Three are plausibly just asleep.

"More mouse," she says.

[unblinkered]

Oh.

"Uh... where... dead, does that sleep thing kill... who sells... bulk... pet store would ask questions, and the truth would... if they believed us, they'd hardly let her buy mice just to..."

He turns to Song and shrugs.

[inourhead]

"They... sell mice to feed to snakes," says Gloria dubiously.

"More mouse," repeats Sohng.

[unblinkered]

"Dead ones, mostly. I don't think... those would work, if she can't put her sleep in those dead ones there."

He asks Song... wait, no.

"We need to ask... if she can do it to things other than mice. Does she know 'only'? 'Pyay only mweelsrow sleep mouse?'"

[inourhead]

"She doesn't know only -" Gloria finds a book with animals in it. She flips to a page with a rabbit. "Rabbit. Pyay sleep rabbit?"

"Rabbit big," says Sohng. "Mouse small -" She pats the sides of the mouse cage under her bag. "- small. More mouse?"

[unblinkered]

Well, fine. She can just face the facts.

"...No more mouse. Pyay sleep?"

[inourhead]

"No."

[unblinkered]

"Is it... can't sleep, or won't sleep? How do we ask-" and then he remembers she knows 'why'- "-wait, no. Duh."

"Why no sleep?"

[inourhead]

"Mm - tlaa, riis -"

"English," prompts Gloria.

She looks annoyed. "You sleep?" she asks.

"Yes," Gloria says, "I sleep, he sleeps, we sleep."

"Why?"

[unblinkered]

"All people- Earth- we sleep. No mweelsrow, no mweelsrow sleep to mice."

She just, what, doesn't want to waste eight hours every day? Max can't blame her, but she seems more insistent than that would imply.

[inourhead]

"No tlaa," she murmurs.

"English," says Gloria.

"No English, no tlaa - no tlaa - no eat sleep person -"

[unblinkered]

Tlaa- that was what she called...? He goes through some of the old papers, and finds her drawing of the snake thing.

"Tlaa? Tlaa eat sleeping person?"

[inourhead]

"No -" She picks up another pen, draws more assorted monsters and one amorphous slightly stippled cloud. "Tlaa," she says, pointing at the snake, and, "tlaa," she repeats, pointing at each subsequent monster and the blob. "Klaon," she adds of the blob. "Klaon eat sleep person. No klaonso?"

[unblinkered]

"No clown, no clowns, no tlaa... no thing eat sleep person. No thing eat person. Sleep is safe."

Christ, people get eaten by clowns, where she's from? Probably... it probably just means 'monster', it's another language, but... Max recalls a Simpsons episode. 'Can't sleep, clown will eat me...'

[inourhead]

"Mmm."

She thinks, tapping pen to desk, then shrugs and says, "No more mouse, sleep. Why no more mouse?"

[unblinkered]

"We... no have mice, in school. Earth has mice, but... no mweelsrow, no clown, person no need mice."

[inourhead]

"I think some of the pet stores that sell mice as snake food have live ones," says Gloria dubiously.

"Why have rabbit?" asks Pyay exasperatedly.

"Not have rabbit," Gloria says.

Pyay looks annoyed with her.

[unblinkered]

Max chuckles.

"Well... she shouldn't have trouble sleeping, none of her clowns... but still, we need to come up with a long-term plan for how to handle her."

What she likely wants: to get home. To get her home, they're going to need to find out how she got there, in more depth than 'got eaten by a snake'. Teleporting is some new, magical thing, probably connected in some way to her swapping power. That means learning how the swapping power works. And that means... doing some kind of testing?

In movies, being "a government experiment" is some horrible fate, but... even presupposing a shadowy, unethical government research lab, he can't imagine them coming up with a test plan that's more fruitful dissecting her than it is by just having her use her magic power on different things. There's probably no reason to worry, if they can put her in the hands of some competent researchers.

"Do you think we could... drive her up to Rutgers-Newark, and have some research team put her up in campus housing while they figure out how to..." -how to reverse-engineer her magical powers- "...how to help her get back home?"

[inourhead]

"What? You want to turn over the magical child to some kind of - team of scientists? What makes you think they'll be able to help her get home, or even want to?" asks Gloria.

Pyay is left quite nonplussed by all this English.

[unblinkered]

"What do you have against scientists, huh? Who else is gonna help her? She- she got teleported here by a demon snake, it's not like social services is gonna have any idea how to deal with that!"

[inourhead]

"Will scientists?" exclaims Gloria. "At least social services know how to deal with lost children in general."

"What," says Pyay loudly, annoyed, not so much like she's reacting to the sentence, just like she's trying to announce her confusion regarding all the English.

[unblinkered]

"You know, I kind of doubt their usual methods are gonna be all that useful in this situation! And she's not a- I don't know how old..."

Max'd likely have gone on ignoring Pyay in favor of continuing the argument, but he has to ask her a question.

"How much... does she know 'how much'? Um... time, time, days, you had some days?"

He shakes his head. "You know what she knows, you ask how old she is."

[inourhead]

"I couldn't get 'days' across for some reason," says Gloria. "There are conceptual gaps that don't make much sense. She looks high school age to me."

"How much what?" asks Pyay.

[unblinkered]

Is she asking... what 'how much' means, or how much of... probably the latter. He points at a clock- but it lacks a second hand, it's probably not immediately obvious that it's a timekeeping device. And... in a world without sleep, would they even have a concept of time measured in intervals longer than, say, a minutes-equivalent? Vexing.

"How much does she know numbers? I taught her up through three... but if she knows more, we could mention that your kids have some number of years, and that we have a larger number of years, and see if she picks up on the pattern."

[inourhead]

"I got as far as ten. And zero," says Gloria.

Pyay looks at the clock. Then looks back at Max.