Riven Wight

MONSTORY

When Mikey stepped away, at first, Izzy was worried he would run off. She watched him carefully, expecting to have to make a grab for him if he ran away—after all, that would mean he knew something—but instead, he answered.
She blinked in surprise at his downcast agreement. She returned his gaze with curious confusion. Her mouth opened slightly when he told her whose house they were trying to get to.
“The lost calf…?” she repeated. His answers had only created more questions, but she did not voice them. Not yet, at least. For now, they had to make sure it was not just a case forgetfulness or oversight.
“Okay,” she said at long last once they had used up their few resources. She stopped as they rounded a corner, and looked to Holden. “I’ve got nothing here.” She threw her hands up, then looked to Mikey. “But,” she placed her hands on her knees and bent so she was closer to Mikey’s height, “I know someone who might be capable of helping. He knows a lot about this weird, supernatural stuff. He’s helped us,” she nodded toward Holden, “out of sticky situations, so maybe he can find a way for you to get to your mom’s house. He’s a ways out, though, and the only way to talk to him is to go him. What do you say, Mikey? Can I ask you to trust me? Just for today?” She offered him a hand, unsure if he would accept it, or push it away.

MONSTORY

Izzy sighed when Holden turned his back on her. “Sorry,” she muttered as she unlocked her phone. “I’m just… frustrated…” Her voice trailed off at the banner at the bottom of her screen telling her she had no service.
That’s odd. Her brows furrowed and she looked up. “Wait a second.” She looked down at the child suspiciously. He had been pretty set against having help. Could he somehow be causing Holden to overlook the streets, or even blocking her phone’s signal?
“Mikey,” she drew out his name slightly, trying to think of a way to ask him about it without scaring him off or sounding like an idiot. “It’s a little strange, don’t you think? I don’t see how Holden could miss it twice. Especially since I’d imagine he was keeping a better eye out for it the second time.” She glanced to Holden, then refocused on Mikey. “Is there maybe something you want to tell us? Something, say, unusual about yourself or this relative of yours?”

Of Science and Magic

Thought I'd pop in, say hey, and see how you're doing! So...

Hi! How's it going? Ready for Halloween?

A Land of Wonder and Nightmare

To an outsider looking in, eh?

Sweet! That’s a reaction I was hoping for. It hasn’t come up. It’s almost gotten mentioned in previous posts, but they were interrupted. To your " THAT'S going to be interesting:" And you only know part of it. ;-)

Yep! I’ve had a couple rats. But I’ve found that I suck at taking care of rodents, so they ended up being rehomed to a friend. I can admire them from afar, though. Heh.

That visual there of you and your sister is fantastic! That sounds like a wonderful time. That it created you love of hamsters is really sweet. Gotta love good memories like that. Thanks so much for sharing that! It made me smile.
Is it bad, though, that it made me think of this:


The show vs. toys sorta sounds like me with Care Bears. I had never heard of them, but my parents gave me a collection of old toy figurines they had found somewhere. I enjoyed playing with them. The movies, though. Can’t remember how old I was, but even then, I was like, “What the heck is this?!” So, I kept playing with the toys and pretended the movies and shows didn’t exist.

*Stares for a couple moments, trying to figure out what “The same goes for you” is referring to.* Thanks? xD

Aww. I wanna feed a baby dormouse! Oh my gosh. I looked up the one from Disney’s version. Yeah, I’d agree. That looks more drunk than excessively tired! Maybe that’s why the rum’s always gone.


I wonder what Dodgson would think about all the different adaptations of his story! Disney, Tim Burton, The Looking Glass Wars… The number of them out there is insane. I even found an app, uh, last week or the week before that I admittedly obsessed over for a couple days called Alice’s Warped Wonderland. The story’s inspiration is seen in all forms of media!

Happy belated Guild-iversary! Aww, I feel like a jerk for not seeing your status! But right back at you, my dear! <3 I’m blessed to have met you.

Brilliant! xD Read the IC post first, so even if you hadn’t meant to, I was going to play off it anyway.

… In other news, I figured I needed to stop being lazy with the vague “long-lived” descriptions for ages. So, I actually set how that works, laid it all out, and, for the sake of Hatter and Drust… I did… the math.

Drust’s profile now has his age information, which I did end up adjusting a bit. I also added something for Hatter since some of his information is out, including his undiscussed age. So, if you’d like to know that before Ghent, you’re welcomed to it. I also switched Elayra’s father’s cause of death, but that’s a small thing.

A Land of Wonder and Nightmare

Drust snorted, his mouth twisting upward disdainfully at Ghent’s tone. Still, he nodded. At least the boy had enough sense to not argue the matter.
Elayra’s smile only tightened jubilantly when Ghent turned fully to her, his voice quiet, enjoying how much of a rile she had gotten from him. It almost made being called Blondie worth it. Behind her, Drust scowled in anticipation of the inevitable argument between them.
She let out a snorted, “Ha!” when Ghent finished. “You can’t even pronounce ‘Holeland’ right.” She crossed her arms in satisfaction. “Featherhead does fit perfectly. If you’d really rather, I could call you Ding—”
“Enough!” Drust growled, swiping a hand through the air beside him.
Instinctively, Elayra jumped and spun to face Drust. She moved away from him and raised a hand to push Ghent with her and keep him from harm’s way if he did not do so himself.
Drust’s neck twitched. His gaze bore into both of them angrily. “You’re wasting time and energy. Even if the spirits are in a good mood, we’ll already be spending a night in Hollow Forest. Let’s not make it two.”
Elayra inhaled at the news. “But what about the Twisted Forest? We could reach it’s bounds just after nightfall if we—”
“That’d add at least two days of travel,” he snapped. “More, depending on his,” he jerked his head toward Ghent, “stamina.”
Elayra stiffened, the lines webbing out from his pupils pulsing over his sickly tinted eyes. She squared her jaw, taking half a second to weight the pros and cons of objecting. The pros won out. “It’s not a smart move, Drust! It isn’t worth—”
He snarled, and his neck cracked with its next twitch. He closed the little space between him and Elayra with scarcely half a step. The veined red of his irises threatened to color his pupils, their black pulsating as he fought against the Curse.
She inhaled and moved a foot back, strengthening her stance. Without time to draw her sword, she raised one arm defensively and extended the other, pressing its palm against Drust to keep him at arm’s length.
He gripped her wrist tightly and forced her hand to the side. With a tug on her arm, he made her stumble forward so their faces were inches away, his towering over hers.
She reached to draw her dagger to warn him away. She scowled down at her belt when its absence reminded her of its hiding spot in her boot.
He gripped the sides of her jaw with his free hand and forced her to look up at him. “Do. Not. Test. Me, Elayra,” he said through his teeth, his voice dangerously low, a gravelly undertone threatening at its edges.
Elayra’s heart pounded in her chest, but she wiped her face of any fear or uncertainty. They locked gazes for a few second that felt like minutes. Her gray eyes were hard, silently pleading for Drust to win out, for the veined red that had consumed over half his pupils to let up. She scarcely dared to breathe.
Drust’s gaze flicked toward the newest healing scar at her chin. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. His grip tightened slightly on her wrist before he released her, turned so his back to the teens, and stepped to the side of the path.
Elayra’s shoulders sunk with a silent sigh of relief as Drust pinched the bridge of his nose, taking slow, deep breaths.
“Listen closely, Ghent,” Drust began without looking over, his voice strained and clipped. “No matter what you see, hear, or feel in these woods, do not wander. Stay close. Stop only when we stop with you. We follow the rising sun south.” He jerked his head toward the opening, indicating for them to go ahead of him.
“Come on, Ghent.” Resisting the urge to rub her wrist, she reached for Ghent’s arm to pull him toward where the end of the broken cobblestones turned into the vine-choked forest floor. Where the relative safety of Harrow Hollow Hill turned into Hollow Forest.

MONSTORY

Izzy sighed in frustration at Mikey’s unhelpful description, and rubbed her brow free hand. “Great,” she replied, struggling to keep her voice friendly, “thanks. Is it a relative’s house or something?” she finished as they continued onward.
When Holden stopped, Izzy halted behind him and looked around hopefully, thinking that he had found it. Alas, that was not the case.
She scowled just as he glanced to her.
Her mouth opened to form a bitter, “Nothing,” at his inquiry, but then he finished finished with his threat.
Her eyes widened slightly, then narrowed. “Yeah, I have a complaint!” she snapped instead. “I thought you said you knew this area!” She sighed irritably, Mikey still clinging to her leg only adding another annoyance. “If it’s just that you didn’t want to help, you can just say so.” Her gaze lightened slightly as a thought occurred to her. “Maybe I can find it on Google Maps or something.” She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out her phone, trying to remember if she had an app for that downloaded.

A Land of Wonder and Nightmare

Man, I LOVE how Ghent and Elayra are together. It’s so flippin’ beautiful. x’D

I agree that the kangaroo rats are cute. No idea why they’re called rats. They’re pretty small. Kinda between your average mouse and rat. Honestly, with the pipes, if it was PVC (can't remember if it was stated or not), I can see that. I’ve had pet rats before. You’d be surprised at what they can chew apart. Anyway. They said it looked like they had been nibbling on it for a long while. Well, people weren’t called until it was extremely noticeable, anyway, but the living room didn’t explode, so that’s always a good thing. I believe it took the repair people a day or two, if I remember right. But it's been about a year, so my memory on it's foggy.

HAMTARO! My gosh, it’s been ages since I’ve seen anything about Hamtaro. I honestly never watched it, but I knew what it was. Sorta…

Heh, too much?

*Drops everything. Clicks on link.* EEEE! A snoring dormouse. Adorable! You watched it…? You’re awesome. xD You know that? Huh! That’s interesting about them and caterpillars! Maybe that’s why he was never invited to the tea party?

A Land of Wonder and Nightmare

Elayra rolled her eyes at Ghent’s confused reaction to Drust’s statement.
“Your father.” Drust glanced toward Ghent when the boy moved to better place both him and Elayra in his view. “Hatter.”
He sighed heavily at Ghent’s further questions, his brows raising as the boy posed the last.
“He’s one of the Forsaken,” Elayra answered curtly, “if that’s what you want to know.” She looked to him, anger at the suggestion flashing in her eyes. “But that doesn’t make him or any of the others affected crazy. They’re just—”
Drust raised a hand for her to be silent as he stopped a couple feet from where the path ended.
Her attention turned to him, her words cutting off. She stopped beside him as he angled himself so he could face both his charges.
“Crazy, as in mad,” he explained irritably. “I believe he’s referring to the fictitious Mad Hatter.” He looked to Ghent, his eyes narrowing. “Your father’s not that old, boy. It’s an unfortunate coincidence, but a coincidence nonetheless. He was a bit eccentric, but not insane. ‘Hatter’ is what’s not his real name.” He glanced to the woods awaiting them, and his lips twitched downward.
He’s delaying, Elayra realized. He was trying to hide it, but she knew him too well for that. It would seem he was as eager to enter Hollow Forest as she was.
“Simply,” Drust continued, “he had a hat his father—who was a hatter—made for him. He was never seen without it. Holeland Tweedle, one of the White King’s—” he glanced to Elayra, “your grandfather’s—advisers decided it would make for a fun nickname.”
Elayra’s shoulders stiffened when Drust brought in her family. Her hard gaze shifted to the woods waiting beyond the opening in the tree barricade. The impossibly rich brown of the trunks seeped crimson sap as if pained by the vines winding their way up them and snaking about the forest floor.
“I believe he said he was eleven at the time,” Drust went on, his gaze unintentionally following Elayra’s. “It was cute at first, but, to his regret, it stuck. By the time he decided on an official alias, his fate was already sealed as Hatter. He came to terms with it, though, and occasionally added ‘Mad’ to it to mock Carroll once he read the story. ‘Featherhead,’ on the other hand, would be a much more dismal alias to be stuck with.
“Due to the magic nature of your vinifcium blood,” Drust looked back to Ghent, his expression unreadable, “it’s necessary for you to have an alias. For the likes of you and your father, true names have power. Until you decide on an assumed name, it’s best to not give your real name to anyone else here. Understood?”
Elayra looked to Ghent with a mischievous smile. “Don't worry. You’ll always be ‘Featherhead’ to me, Featherhead.”

To Cure a Curse

Gotchya. ;-)

Ooh, a nice important bit of character depth, there, to figure out! Have fun with it! Character building is a wonderful thing.

To Cure a Curse

No need to mention me! I'm subscribed to the RP, so I get notifications whenever there's a new post. Would you rather I mention you?

Ha! Well then... Wait, how old is your guy? Because I did say they had been considered extinct for 800 years. So, unless he's been in the forest longer than that or his entire family line had been secluded for that long, I'd imagine there's a chance he'd have heard! xD