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]

"There are lots of kinds of demons," says Crystal, trying to restrain her vocabulary to what the magic table has learned. "We don't know what this one was."

[unmarred]

"Is a demon an animal?"

[inourhead]

"...Sort of. No. Do you not have demons here? Where are we?"

[unmarred]

"We are in a [untranslated word] travelling from [untranslated word] to [untranslated word]," apparently. (He smiles wryly at the obvious inadequacy of this answer.)

[inourhead]

"...Ah."

[unmarred]

"Where did you(singular) come from?"

[inourhead]

"We," emphasizes Crystal, "were in a forest running from the demon that ate us."

[unmarred]

He nods thoughtfully.

"How many of you(plural) are there?"

[inourhead]

"Two. I'm Crystal and she's Holly."

[unmarred]

"You(singular) started to be instead of Holly when you(singular) started to talk to the table?"

[inourhead]

"Yes. Do you want to talk to Holly?"

[unmarred]

He shrugs. "Does Holly want to talk to me?"

[inourhead]

"She didn't want to talk to the table. She'll talk to you if you want. But she was the one running from the demon so she's a little tired."

[unmarred]

"The table is not the most fun to talk to. Are you always one of you at one time?"

[inourhead]

"Holly's still a little awake. We're unusual."

[unmarred]

"Unusual because you are two? Or unusual because you are not always one of you at one time?"

[inourhead]

"...Second thing. All adults are two, where we're from. But if you don't have demons, maybe you just sleep instead."

[unmarred]

"Most people are one, here. I am one." He hesitates, then amends, "I don't know if I am one, but I don't think I am two like you are two or like your people are two."

[inourhead]

"We were three," she volunteers. "But Book moved out because he's a boy. Usually people start out one and then they move in together so they don't have to sleep. A kind of demon called a klaon eats sleeping people."

[unmarred]

"I might be zero, or one and a half, or three..." he murmurs, possibly to himself. Then he shakes his head and says, "Here there are no things that eat sleeping people, and no people who don't sleep."

[inourhead]

"I noticed you were sleeping," she agrees. "Even though you're an adult. It was strange."

[unmarred]

He laughs. "That's the first time sleeping has been the strange thing about me."

[inourhead]

Crystal giggles.

[unmarred]

"I'm many kinds of strange," he confides.

[inourhead]

"We're only one kind of strange. But it's very strange. They called all three of us Holly till we explained."