strangetrip | GP: April Fools!

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GP: April Fools!

It didn't take any sort of precognitive abilities to predict some kind of shenanigans on the first of April. Many of the people stuck in the bubble world of the Madonna Inn were from times and places where April Fools' Day pranks were normal, expected... (in many cases) minor annoyances. And then there were the residents who remembered the strange egg hunt from a year ago, and the sometimes confusing explanations of the two holidays falling on the same day and how that related.

Also, life at the inn could be interminable. After a while, people started hoping for some kind of strangeness to happen, just to break up the monotony of being trapped in a kitschy no-snow globe.

So, no. You didn't have to be a mutant fortune teller to expect some kind of joke being pulled. But Emma was, and even she had no idea what was coming, other than it was going to be frustrating and topsy-turny, and the visions she'd been getting from the tarot – and way more reversals than was usual or healthy in her experience – were even less clear than usual.

She definitely didn't foresee waking up without the powers that were as much a part of her as her heart. Or just as suddenly having powers she had no idea how to control. But she did, and she had*, and she was far from the only one. The same thing was happening to people all around the inn.

(*Not to worry. The singe marks should be gone in a day or so. Right?)

[Powers swap GP! Tag in. Tag around. It's a time for out and about at the inn coping (or not) with powers gained (or lost).]

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Once Corbie had wriggled herself into a summer dress that dipped low enough in the back to accommodate her wings, she'd thought herself to be all right. It was an arrival day, and there were so many faces she hadn't seen before. Sure, she had these weird, colorful little wings, but it wasn't like Coby where they were too heavy for a human back to lift without practice. They felt off, but they weighed almost nothing. She could manage, until whatever weird was passing through took them away.

But then she noticed that the people coming to talk to her came straight for her, and what was more, no one else she already knew seemed to notice them at all.

That spooked her right the fuck out, and she tried to retreat from talking to anybody she didn't already know. But what if there were someone new here today, and they were alive, and they needed help, and she avoided them because she could not tell who was really there and who was not?

They came thicker and faster, perhaps word spreading that someone could see them, someone could speak to them, and Corbie didn't know when she'd understood that these were the inn's ghosts, but at some point it became painfully clear that without opening herself at all, she was seeing the dead.

She curled herself up tight in a corner, wings folded tight against her back, head tucked into her knees and arms over her hair. "No. Go away. Go away. I can't..."

She had no magic to help them, but they kept coming, kept wanting her to see them, and she wept for the second time that day, wept for want of Felix and wanting to apologize for him that he'd been left alone with this.

(Find Corbie curled up in any corner of your choice.)

Edited 2019-04-05 00:01 (UTC)

For the first time in years, Sam felt no taint on his soul. It meant readjusting to how he navigated the world, but he couldn't have cared less. It was a relief to be free of it. And his new abilities were cool. Strength, speed, he figured he probably was less vulnerable to harm, too, which should have reminded him of demons, but it didn't. Just felt clean and shiny, somehow.

Which made him feel even worse when he saw Corbie huddled in a corner with bright splashes of...were those wings? Yep. Wings. Behind her. And tears streaking her cheeks.

"Hey." He crouched down beside her and rested a hand on her shoulder. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

"Don't touch me!" Corbie nearly shrieked. Her face in her knees and her focus on ghosts, she hadn't noticed Sam, not really, all she could think was that she didn't want to know that ghosts could touch and now she couldn't unknow that and she'd already cornered herself and shit shit shit shit--

Edited 2019-04-06 15:31 (UTC)

Startled, Sam pulled his hand back and held up both of them for her to see. "Okay, okay Corbie, I won't touch you. I'm sorry." He didn't sound panicked or upset, just soothing. She was obviously traumatized; he'd seen reactions like this before. "Just talk to me. Tell me what's wrong."

Corbie looked up finally, her naturally large eyes huge and dark in her pale face. Even so, it took her a moment to focus, to really see him. "Sam?" she asked in a small voice.

"Yeah. It's me." He gave her his best 'it's okay, I get it, you're not crazy' look, even though he had no idea what was upsetting her. On some level, it didn't matter. Whatever it was, he wanted it gone. Corbie should never look like this. "Really. Can you tell me what's going on?"

Corbie swallowed. "People keep talking to me," she whispered. "And I don't know if they're real. Or alive."

Fuck the fucking fuck.

Mildmay'd been about to be glad he'd found Corbie, although not as glad as he was she hadn'ta spent the night last night. But the way she was curling over herself, and the fear and desperation in her voice... he'd seen that before. Almost exactly. Not from Corbie, though. Felix.

"Corbie," he said voice low, but sharp-like, to pierce through whatever she was seeing and hearing. He wanted to reach out to her, and his hand was already moving that way, but he stopped, remembering the beer, and the dishwater, and his room.

"You don't gotta listen to 'em."

Edited 2019-04-06 20:29 (UTC)

"Mil'may?" Corbie asked in a small, almost child's voice. She only dared lift her head just enough to look through the barest slit of her eye as if terrified of what else she might see. "They won't go away."

He had some kinda hocus shit, to go along with the cold and the turning into a animal. Mildmay couldn't say how he knew, and he sure fucking didn't know how to use it, but he could feel the magic in ways he shouldn't be able to. Like he had when Halloween turned him into something not quite him. And what good was magic if he couldn't use it to help his friends. But Felix's ghost shit had been separate from his magic.

"C'mon," he said, having a different idea that didn't need magic at all. "You can hold onta my sleeve if you wanna keep your eyes shut steada seeing 'em all." He held out his arm, bent elbow extended. Maybe he could keep from freezing her if she touched his skin, but he didn't wanna risk it.

Even through her distress, Corbie recognized the immediate strangeness of Mildmay offering his arm rather than his hand. But she trusted him, and she needed him too much to question it.

Tentatively, Corbie reached out and touched him, reminding herself that someone at least was solid and--

"Mildmay? You feel cold."

"Yeah." Wasn't no sense trying to deny it. "Lotta weird shit going around. I keep freezing things without meaning to. But I'm getting better controlling it. I think." He hoped. "Just... hold onta my sleeve, but if it gets too cold, leggo and tell me."

Corbie hesitated a moment, not because she didn't want to touch him but because she was thinking about taking his hand anyway. But if Mildmay was worried he might hurt her, she'd take that seriously. She looped her hand into his elbow and let him help her up.

Mildmay was something of a worrier. But better safe than sorry, and he wasn't gonna risk hurting Corbie if he could help it.

He helped her up and started without more explanation toward the temple, hopefully without the ghosts or anybody else seeing her like this. He wasn't sure whether it'd keep the ghosts out or not, but even if it didn't, being close to her Lady might help somehow. Least he hoped so. It made sense to him anyways. Catching sight of something outta the corner of his eye, Mildmay looked back over his shoulder and saw – what the fucking fuck? – Corbie still huddled in her corner, even though he could feel her there at his side, hand curled around his arm.

"Corbie?" he asked, the low whisper even the youngest kept-thieves learned that wouldn't carry further than the one they were talking to.

Taking the cue, Corbie didn't respond aloud, looking back as well without a sound.

When she saw herself there--was that what she looked liked?--she went pale. It was hard enough meeting her other self at Christmas when she seemed so calm and self-assured. This...

"Let's go," she whispered back. She was going to lose her shit if that other self looked up and met her eyes.

"Yeah." To the temple. Don't pay too much mind to how he could feel something in the back of his head connecting him to that other Corbie they left behind. Mildmay was doing a lot of ignoring of weird shit today. But he didn't know what else to do about it.

The connection seemed to fade the further they got from it, although Mildmay couldn't say when exactly he stopped feeling it. Way before they got to the temple anyway. Once they were inside the cool, quiet space, he felt like maybe he could breathe a little easier.

"Oh..." Why hadn't Corbie thought of this? They had taken advantage of this during the invasion last summer to protect everyone from that army of dead things, but in her own hour of need she hadn't thought of coming here at all. She dared a look behind her and, catching sight of no unfamiliar faces, she let out a sob of relief. "Thank you."

Corbie had more sense than most wizards put together, but that didn't mean much when a whole host of ghosts was ganging up on her begging for her attention. Mildmay wouldn'ta expected her to think of the temple right off. And he was gonna tell that, or ask if she was okay, but what came out instead of "You got wings."

Way to go, Milly-fox. Next you'll be noticing her hair is blonde.

"Oh..." Corbie had actually managed to forget them for a while, and she looked over her shoulder at the colorful feathers. "Yeah. Fuck if I know why." She still couldn't get them to move the way she wanted and when she wanted. Sure they were part of her body, but babies didn't come out knowing how to walk and they had legs.

Mildmay spared a glance to where Kethe's alcove could be found if you knew when and how to look, but there wasn't nothing there to see right then.

"Some practical joke," he muttered, and Corbie maybe the only one here who'd be able to pick out the words. "Trickster shit."

Corbie normally might have noticed the glance, but quite frankly she felt too wrung out to see the little things.

But she did hear him. "Ain't funny."

"Nope." Wasn't nothing funny about any of this.

"You still got your magic?" Probably not, from what he'd been hearing about others, but if she did... maybe it'd be a help somehow.

Tears stung at the corners of Corbie's eyes, and she didn't quite have the resolve to blink them away. She shook her head.

Nothing he could say to that, but not like with Felix, Corbie he could pull into a hug, careful of the wings and ready to pull back if he went cold.

Then quiet, "I think I do." That wasn't quite right, though, was it, Mildmay? "Not like yours. But some kinda magic. I c'n feel it."

Corbie wanted so much to apologize to Felix over all manner of things, but in that moment what she focused on was settling into Mildmay's embrace. Even if he was cooler than usual, she took comfort from the familiar strength of his arms. "That's gotta be awful weird," she murmured back.

GP: April Fools!

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