damned_institute | Night 47: North of the Institute

[From here.]

L clambered over the top of the wall, lowered himself carefully, and landed with bent knees.

All in all, it was a softer landing than Daniel Laurier's had been; the ground crunched under his feet as he hit it, but there was a blessed lack of pain, and no other noise. He retrieved his flashlight from his pocket and switched it on.

The night was cold and dark around them. The open terrain to their north seemed expansive, lonely, almost foreboding. He shivered, put his free hand into his coat pocket, and jerked his head to the east.

"Let's keep moving." Even a voice as soft as his disrupted the silence of their surroundings.

Aside from the mild irritation of the radio thumping at his side, Indy's ascent went smoothly. At the top of the wall he glanced around to see how the other two were doing: well enough, it looked like. The ground on the other side was level and obstacle-free--how convenient, Indy thought, a regular welcome mat--and he dropped neatly down onto it, then got out of the way to make room for the others.

There was already another set of footprints in the dirt there, he noticed once he got the light back out and switched it on. Someone had been this way. Indy swept the flashlight beam around, but nothing else seemed to be moving out there--whoever it had been, he was gone now.

As long as he had a minute, Indy dug the gardening gloves out of his jacket pocket and pulled them on. Once he'd unclipped the radio from his whip, he started off again toward the east, still hugging the wall for now.

"Wasn't the theory about Doyle that he came back as a Zombi?" he asked in a low voice. For such an absurd-sounding question, the edge of skepticism in his tone was uncharacteristically thin; Indy'd seen the damn things with his own eyes. "If the girl was responsible, that raises a lot of questions about what happened in Doyleton."

Lunge reached the top of the wall and swung himself over- first one leg, then the other- with a soft grunt of effort, dropping down onto the damp, cold grass on both feet. Jones wasn't far away, fixing the radio he'd clipped to the dog leash he inexplicably was carrying with him but definitely in one piece (even if Lunge did find himself wondering just how the hat had managed to stay so neatly on the man's head), and he could already see L's feet dangling over the top of the wall.

The brief pause gave him a moment to catch his breath and check his surroundings more thoroughly; by the time he heard the soft thud of L hitting the ground beside him he was standing fully upright and alert again, ready to continue.

They began to walk. Everything, save for the three of them, was quietly, disturbingly still; just as before, the beam of his flashlight picked up nothing through the grey haze that seemed to perptually haunt the area, yet somehow that seemed to make things even worse. It meant that whatever was out there was the perfect predator- if they couldn't hear it now, they wouldn't ever hear it until it was too late.

The best- or, rather, only- thing to do was keep talking. He nodded. "I had heard that theory, yes. Whatever it was Doyle was brought back as, though, it had a far greater degree of awareness and ability than the other creatures brought back that night. It's possible that the zombie attack was an unintentional side effect of Doyle's return. If it was indeed Jill who began the process, it begs the question: why was it that she didn't contact the patient populace to warn them beforehand?"

Lunge paused for a moment, silently playing back his own words. That they'd been reduced to discussing the significance of resurrection and zombies of all things was difficult to stomach, but he swallowed it nonetheless. Jones, too. Only L seemed to have escaped the sheen of cynicism plaguing the conversation, although just how was beyond him- either the man had a more open mind, or his own 'world' was a lot less average than he had first anticipated.

As they walked along the wall behind the greenhouse, L found himself feeling envious of Jones's gardening gloves. It was unfortunate that he hadn't been able to steal any gloves for himself earlier in the day; the chill was pervasive; it seeped through his clothing, particularly his Institute-issue sweatpants. While there was a balance between wearing enough clothing to stay warm and wearing so much clothing that it encumbered his movements and endangered him, he determined that he would don an extra pair of sweatpants for any future nighttime jaunts.

Resentment of his situation would only waste time and energy and distract him, but even so, a small part of his thoughts was devoted to a string of complaints. If he had been investigating something like this under circumstances he would consider more ideal, he could send someone with a phone and a video camera, and direct their movements. They would be well-armed, and he would be in a quiet room somewhere with his equipment, a pot of coffee, and a bowl of sugar cubes. The chances that he would need to visit the site in person would be slim, but if he did, he would be well-equipped, instead of straggling around in the dark with a cheap kitchen knife strapped to his back.

-- Jones had a hat, too.

As they walked, L gave an occasional glance over his shoulder, checking with the flashlight, attempting to confirm that nothing was stalking them. It was, he knew, only a small compensatory effort; attacks might come at a charging pace from the wide open spaces much more easily than they'd creep up from behind in the darkness.

Before he could address his companions' statements, the radios sprang to life: the one Jones held, the one in his own coat pocket.

He focused his attention on the woman's voice. So this was "Jill," and she explained Doyle's apparent return as -- a spell?

L's skeptical expression deepened into a frown. The way her broadcast almost sounded like an interjection into their ongoing discussion rankled at him, but he waited to say anything until the instrumental music had begun to fade.

"Well." He was unable to keep a faint sarcastic note out of his tone. "I suppose she has just answered all of our questions."

One of Lunge's points, at least, he could start to answer. "I ran into one that was smarter. Talking intelligibly, had some kind of weapon. The kid I was with said it was his friend come back to l--"

Indy stopped in his tracks as soon as the radios crackled on, the better to listen. Jill's opening statements didn't exactly impress him (she sounded like a student groping for an explanation as to why her term paper was late), and the broadcast only went downhill from there. Her only evidence for Doyle's resurrection--if you could call it that--was that Landel hadn't been around for a day? More importantly--couldn't hold the spell? Indy snorted and almost missed the girl's next sentence amid an instinctive rush of derision. Jesus, sounded like the patients weren't the batty ones around here. What hokum.

Well, even if she was legitimate, he didn't have a hell of a lot of confidence that they'd be able to follow her out of the proverbial woods, especially if she was working by herself.

"I hope that's supposed to be a metaphor," Indy commented with a grim sarcasm of his own, picking up the pace again. Stumping through a cold fog wasn't on his list of top ten favorite activities at the best of times. Now he had even more reason to feel irritable.

The crackle of the radio stopped the words dead in Lunge's throat. He turned, staring at the radio for a moment, before snapping into action and letting his fingertips do the work in logging as much of the broadcast as possible before it ended- plus a few notes of his own, for future reference. Sex?: F. Identification: Jill. State?: Agitated; excited? re broadcast? Other: Message is brief/ hazy; suggests interference/ distance. Listen for next broadcast. Reference to not having seen Doyle + weak signal= suggestion that is definitely broadcasting from outside of the Institute.

The radio fell to noise, then silence. Lunge looked up, face blank save for the slightest hint of tension in his forehead while he processed the message, and then all he could manage was a flat, "I see.". Even L was frowning now, with good cause; he himself had been accepting most of what he had seen in the Institute as the product of technology, science advanced beyond his own understanding. To make such a deliberate reference to 'spells'...

"Not all of them, unfortunately, though she seems to have some understanding of exactly what happened to Doyle," he said finally, once he had rearranged his thoughts. Best to ignore the less palatable aspects of the broadcast for now. "It sounds as though it was not her doing- at least, not the majority of what happened. It sounds as though she's placing that with Doyle himself."

He had only gone several meters along the wall when Prussia heard sounds coming from behind him, from the same wall he'd climbed over. He switched off his light immediately at the sounds, glancing back. Guards, maybe? Had his captors already discovered him missing?

Whoever it was, he wasn't about to let himself get caught now. He wasn't quite ready to abandon the wall yet--it was the only landmark he could be certain of in the unfamiliar terrain--but he could come back to it once it was clear. He dashed north and dropped to the ground as soon as he felt the uneven ground slant downwards into a dip. He could see light sweeping across the ground around him, but the spot he'd found remained blessedly shadowed...

Patience had never been his strongest suit, but he could wait if he had to. He could hear the murmurs of men speaking amongst themselves as they moved in the same direction that he'd been heading. Once he was sure they were well past his position, Prussia waited for another count of twelve and then pulled himself back to his feet. He picked his way back to the wall, and waited for another few seconds before risking his light again.

[Just having Indy, L, and Lunge pass ahead of him on the trip east.]

Edited 2010-02-16 03:46 (UTC)

[Hopping down to this thread]

[ From here. ]

Sylar let out a breath of relief and looked back to the wall as he dusted off his knees.

"Can you get over on your own?" he called back, making sure his voice carried his utmost concern. Inwardly, he wondered if he shouldn't just make a run for it and ditch the moron.

"So now that part's done, where do you think we should go?" Wally asked, still panting a little from the run, but recovering, like always, much faster than anyone else would. "I mean, I've never been out here before, so there could be anything this way."

Sylar's idea to test Wally's current power had apparently been a wise one: just after Wally's halfhearted confirmation, Sylar heard something like a crack of electricity, and within seconds, saw Wally clinging to the top of the wall.

Huh. It was a shame that Sylar had missed seeing what the hell the guy's power was about, but that didn't stop him from smiling up at Wally as he came over the wall and dropped down to his feet. Sylar moved to clap a supportive hand on his "friends'" shoulder and smile down at him, though his eyes were truly focused on his surroundings rather than his company. He'd been on the bus to Doyleton a couple of times now, but he'd never gotten a view of the Institute's surroundings on foot; although dark, the light of the moon gave enough illumination that he could tell the terrain was uneven, varied, and full of foliage and trees just a ways from the Institute.

Lots of things to explore. Maybe nothing useful would come of it, but at least it was something new.

"Not sure," Sylar replied to Wally, patting his shoulder one last time before taking a few steps away from him. He narrowed his eyes, feeling invigorated by the outside, feeling powerful, in control, alive. A grin snaked out from his mouth to his cheeks as he gazed out at the scenery.

"I guess we're just going to have to find out."

[aslgjahoaslgh FAIL WILL STOP NOW, I PROMISE.]

Wally grinned back, a flicker of a smile before he was also scanning the Institute's surrounds. The uneven footing could end up being a problem if he had to make a run for it for any reason. Turning an ankle at high speed not only hurt a lot, but could result in him losing his footing and crashing into something else. Or worse outcomes if he had to carry Zack for any reason while he was running. Plus he wasn't sure how well the Institute's footwear would hold up to superspeed. Probably not very; at least the boots in his costume had been specially made for that kind of thing.

Still, if he was careful, he should be fine. Maybe have to switch to his costume, or at least the boots from it, but otherwise okay.

He followed Zack forward, looking around the area with interest still. "Yeah, I guess so. It should be fun at any rate, right?" Not really waiting for an answer, he took a final look at the trees a distance away before catching up fully and meeting the other man's gaze. "Think I should scout around to be safe or should we just pick a direction and go?"

[ S'ok, bb. ♥ I had stuff due, so sorry for my slowness tooo. ;; ]

Sylar's smirk was gone by the time he turned to face Wally again, replaced by a frown of thoughtful concern. He rubbed gingerly at the line of shallow wounds down his side, as if trying to reinforce to Wally just how terribly helpless 'Zack' would be without the generous help of his friend.

"Not sure," he murmured, glancing over Wally's shoulder at the foliage and then back to his face again. He smiled wryly. "I won't be much good on my own, though, so maybe we shouldn't split up. The stragglers are always the first to die, right?"

And they were. Sylar knew this from the experience of the hunt: the small ones were the easiest – those so out of tune with their abilities that they refused to use them even in defense against a predator. While Sylar had learned how to use the one ability he had, he now realized that he could only get off one shot each nightshift; it wasn't worth wasting if he could keep his meat shield as a defense instead. Even if scouting would be a big help, there'd be no guarantee of Wally's return, which meant that he wasn't about to risk it.

"Maybe..." Sylar continued, gesturing northwards, "we should just keep going this way?"

[We can be team fail together, bb~ ♥]

The comment about stragglers got a snort of suppressed laughter from Wally, though he also had to admit Zack had a point. Splitting up worked a lot better when everyone had powers or other skills that meant they could take care of themselves. But with how Wally's powers were, and whatever Zack had left to him at the moment, sticking together would probably work better. At least in theory.

"This way seems as good as any other," he agreed. "And it's better than getting indecisive about it, right?" At least he liked to think it was. But then just getting out and doing something was good enough for him, at the moment.

Flicking his flashlight around the area again just to make sure they weren't in danger of being attacked or anything, Wally led the way in the direction Zack had indicated.

"So anyway," he asked as they walked, something from earlier clearly still on his mind. "What can you do in this place? I mean, if you don't mind that is."

Edited 2010-02-25 11:36 (UTC)

Sylar had dealt with enough indecision from people here to last him a lifetime, so he nodded vigorously in response to Wally's confirmation and began to walk steadily behind him. Sylar, too, kept his flashlight up, clicking it on and swinging it back and forth across their field of vision, even though it still didn't afford them much knowledge of where the hell they were going. Still, even if they did come across something dangerous, he at least found comfort in the fact that Wally would be here to take the brunt of the damage – maybe even voluntarily.

That's right. The only variables in these circumstances came from the outside, because Sylar already had complete control over everything Wally felt about 'Zack.' After all, what kind of soulless monster wouldn't do as much as they could to save their dear friend when everyone else they knew here had already vanished? Even the question that Wally asked was an expected one, and Sylar smiled faintly from behind Wally's back as they continued their trek.

"I guess it's only fair that I tell you, right?" he said with a wry laugh. "It's... kind of hard to explain. I can see how things work – like clocks, appliances, machines, and sometimes, if I study a person hard enough, I can figure out how to do... the same special things that they can."

He paused, then continued: "It's... really hit-or-miss here, though. So far, I've only been able to pick up one power – um, electricity. Just one charge of it per night." He sighed, sounding truly morose. "Pretty pathetic, right?"

"Really?" Wally asked, his attention split between the area around them and Zack. Maybe a little dangerous, but what the other man was saying was pretty interesting; in fact it was more difficult not to give Zack his complete attention. "You can do that for anyone with powers? That's really something."

He smiled hugely, all simple, open honesty, and continued. "I mean, I love my speed, can't imagine what it would be like without it, but something like that... It's really amazing." The smile faded out slowly. "Guess it has to bite that it's been limited that far though. But!"

He dropped back and slung an arm around Zack's shoulders. "One charge a night is still something, right? I mean, if you save it for something you need, it could make all the difference and hey-" He tilted his head to catch the man's eye, a sudden idea making him smile even more than before. "You could try picking up my power! I mean, if you wanted. It's something, right? And I don't mind at all."

Edited 2010-03-01 10:07 (UTC)

[from here] (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/808822.html?thread=66075254#t66075254)

Landing lightly on her feet, Momo turned toward the woods before her, hand raised to the hilt of her sword. She didn't see any creatures lurking in the darkness, but she knew there could be at any second.

"Come on down; I've got you covered," she called back up to her companions.

Once Momo announced that it was safe, Anise pushed herself off of the wall, landing somewhat less gracefully than Momo had, though still neatly enough to avoid hurting herself. She had bent her knees to absorb some of the impact, so once she was firmly on the ground, the girl stood up straight, flicked her flashlight on, then began looking around for the mallet she had tossed over. It didn't take long to find it, and within seconds she was armed once again.

Tsukasa seemed to have a tougher time climbing than the rest of them, so she guessed he might want to ease himself down a bit before jumping to the ground. Even though Anise had given him a hard time about how he might 'get in the way' before they crossed the field, this time she didn't say anything to rush him. Even if he took longer to climb down, it was better than if he hurt himself and delayed them that way.

So, even though waiting quietly wasn't Anise's strong suit, she stood with her mallet resting over her shoulder, watching the others without a word.

If he'd thought it was bad looking up at the wall, looking down the other side was infinitely worse and the ground was uneven there, the trees growing up almost to the wall, the roots sticking out of the ground in evil looking snarls. But the other two were waiting and he suddenly wished he'd never come along because this was just so far outside his realm of experience. He'd grown up in the city after all, and he'd never spent much time in the countryside, certainly not since his mother had died. He felt sort of like a fraud.

But still, he took a breath, steeling himself as he turned, clinging to the wall as he lowered himself carefully over the side. There was a horrible moment when he thought that he was going to fall and break his ankle or something, but he caught himself and managed to reach the ground. He stood there for a moment, staring abashedly at the ground, cheeks flushed with embarrassment, feeling like the clumsiest person in existence.

Though Momo had her back to the wall, keeping a vigil on their surroundings, hearing Tsukasa climb down made her mentally wince. Maybe the boy wasn't suited to this kind of thing. But, he was a healer. He should probably get used to being more in the field. Not many got a chance to sit nice and cozy and wait for the wounded to come to them.

Momo flashed Tsukasa another friendly smile once he was down. "Ready to go? It's this way," she said, making no indication that she noticed the boy's clumsiness. After all, Momo happened to know who the clumsiest person in existence is, and Tsukasa wasn't him.

"Let's go, let's go!" Anise chimed in after Momo spoke. It looked like Tsukasa really did have a hard time with the wall, and he even looked a little embarrassed over it. It was kind of funny. But as much as Anise wanted to poke some more fun at him, she supposed it would be more productive to try to encourage and motivate everyone. "We're already past the worst part! It should be smooth sailing from here."

When she thought about it, Tsukasa was probably going to have trouble with that river to the east, but Anise decided not to mention it. They'd worry about that when they got there. No use in thinking too hard about it now!

At least... at least they didn't laugh at him, just gave him that moment to recover. He still felt like an idiot though. Able to smash a zombie's head in with a frying pan but not able to scale a damned wall without extreme embarrassment. Maybe he would be better off just staying in his room. Still, here was here now. Going back would mean climbing the wall again and they would laugh if he did that, he was sure.

"Mmm," he hummed in agreement and nodded. "Yeah, I'm ready," he replied quietly.

Leading the way, Momo mentally retraced the path they'd take as the trio moved along the wall toward the east. It sounded like there was something big going on in the courtyard across the wall. Special Counseling, most likely, but it could be anything, really.

"So, what kind of occupation is a Wavemaster, Tsukasa-san? I am curious about your world," Momo said conversationally. "Yours as well, Anise-san."

Tsukasa didn't seem like a big talker, so Anise was kind of glad when Momo brought up a question like that for him. "I want to know, too!" Even though they needed to be cautious, a little chatting wouldn't hurt, would it? They had a long way to go, and Anise didn't want spend the whole walk in silence.

"Hmm... me?" Anise thought for a moment as she followed Momo's lead. "I'm part of the Oracle Knights back home. The city I'm from is a huge religious center, so it's our job to keep order and protect important figures. Stuff like that." Anise's job was almost exclusively the latter, but she decided not to expand too much on that for now. She wanted Tsukasa to have a chance to walk about his world, too. Maybe he'd actually turn out to be an interesting guy, despite being so quiet.

The question made Tsukasa tense up, although he never stopped walking, trying to hide his reaction. Why did they always want to know about where he was from? And if he told them he was really a high school student and just played a mage in a video game now that they'd taken him along outside the walls, then they'd probably just leave him here. So what? He had to... bend the truth a little. It wasn't as though The World was completely without dangers. He knew that better than anyone after all.

"We..." he began hesitantly before managing to continue. "We're mages, like I said, healing mainly. We generally accompany parties of explorers, monster killers, that kind of thing, when they leave the cities. We're pretty in demand."

Anise did not look like a knight. Momo knew knights - Saber, Signum. Anise was far too young and too... emotional to be a knight as far as the shinigami was concerned. Perhaps a squire, but not a knight. Anise had to be exaggerating, but Momo was too polite to say anything. Hopefully, they wouldn't come into a situation where she'd find out if the truth of Anise's knighthood was accurate.

"That must be exciting, getting to meet important people, Anise-san," was all Momo said in response. She then directed her next words at Tsukasa. "Quality field healers are indeed in demand in places where the risk of injury is not so much great as it is expected. We have the Fourth Division that specializes in healing that supports the rest and tends to our wounds when needed." A pause. "Oh, forgive me for speaking out of context. I am shinigami, Tsukasa-san."

And then they left the walls behind them.

[to here] (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/822045.html?thread=66408221#t66408221)

[from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/808822.html?thread=66111350#t66111350).]

Without his left arm, Keman's landing was...awkward. He rolled painfully, striking his shoulder on a rock. "Nnnng!" His arm really wasn't getting a break, was it? The pain was already fading, though. It was going to leave a bruise, but that was it.

"I'm over!" he called to Howl.

[Hopping down from here]

Since the first group of men had passed, even more people had visited this side of the wall. Prussia had done his best to stay out of sight of all of them, but he'd started to relax after hearing snatches of German coming from them. If they had been English guards—or Frenchmen or Russians—they surely would have been speaking in their own languages.

But even though he wasn't as on edge, the disconnect he'd been feeling since waking kept him in the shadows: they were speaking German, but he could tell if they were German. If they weren't and they returned him to the Control Council so they could finish the job...

The humans that were out still hadn't completely gone, but Prussia headed back towards the wall anyway. He'd seen what had looked like woods in the distance earlier, before his progress had been interrupted, and if this edge of the wall was going to continue seeing so much traffic, getting away from it and into those woods as soon as possible was a good idea.

Just as he approached the wall, however, someone jumped off of it, landing barely a meter away... and it had obviously been a bad landing.

"Shit," Prussia cursed before he could even think of holding his tongue. Someone this close was bound to spot him, and he was already calling back to someone else. Even though it was obvious he wasn't a guard—a guard wouldn't have climbed over the wall when he could use the door—Prussia hadn't planned on actually being seen by anyone.

So much for his attempts at subtlety; he was much better at being direct, anyway.

His cover was already practically blown, so he clicked his torch back on, pointing it towards the boy who'd come over the wall so that he could see who he was dealing with.

Edited 2010-02-24 06:43 (UTC)

A moment or so later, another man joined the picture. The delay was both because Howl needed to heft himself up onto the wall after Keman was up, as well as because he felt the need to spend a few seconds arranging his leap so that he would not ruin his suit. (Or worse, embarrass himself. A suit could be easily mended, but a reputation was trickier.) He already had dirt and moss and who knows what else all over the fine cloth thanks to the wall, but there was no need to make the situation worse.

His caution paid off, because when he touched down it was almost graceful. The leap, he imagined, was enhanced by the way the movement picked up his hair and sleeves. Once on solid ground, he stood with all of the dignity he could fake, which as it happened, was quite a lot. There was, after all, a stranger amongst them now. If he had a heart, it would have been beating a little faster at the sight of a dark figure skulking behind the wall, right where they landed. Why couldn't he have been just another ten yards or so off from them?

"Lovely evening," he offered, but his sunny disposition was painfully out of place, and honestly a little weak. He turned his attention back to Keman to save some face.

"Seconds alone and you're already wounded?" he complained, but moved to pull Keman to his feet all the same. If the stranger grew sharpened teeth and lunged at them, he wanted Keman mobile. "Up with you!"

They weren't alone.

Keman pulled himself into a sitting position, arm raised to block out the intrusive light. His own magelight, still fixed in place above his left shoulder, was flickering, about to go out. He hadn't been paying enough attention to it. The magic was self-sustaining, yes, but he had to think about it now and then to keep the spell going.

The young dragon squinted up at the intruder. He was wearing a patient's uniform, and Keman didn't feel any wild sense of foreboding so he probably wasn't a shape-shifter.

Or so Keman could hope.

"Who...?" he started, but then Howl was up and over, landing gracefully like there was nothing to it. Show off. The boy looked up at his friend, grinning lopsidedly at the reprimand. "What can I say?" he laughed. "I've discovered a talent."

With Howl's help, he was on his feet and looked uneasily at the stranger.

"You're not going to attack us or anything, are you? Because if you aren't, I'd really appreciate it if you'd stop shining that light in my eyes."

Definitely not guards, unless climbing over walls while injured (as the younger one obviously was) and chatting up escapees was part of some weird foreign job description.

He quietly sized the two up: neither of them looked like much, and they especially didn't look like any kind of soldiers. Of course, their appearances could be deceiving, but they weren't—as far as he could tell, and he wasn't entirely sure he could tell while he was like this—Nations, either.

"Like I'd attack anyone who couldn't put up a decent fight," Prussia snapped defensively. He lowered his torch slightly; it was still trained on the pair, but it shouldn't shine in either of their eyes now.

He looked from the boy to the long-haired man. If either of them was in charge of their little two-man team, Prussia would pin the man as the leader; he had a poise that the boy was lacking. It was to him that Prussia directed a question, "Are you escaping, too?"

If they were, perhaps there would be some benefit in travelling together. Without knowing the land or even whose land it was, he knew he was at a marked disadvantage.

The question of why anyone else would be escaping from a hospital briefly crossed his mind, but he brushed it aside. If they were, they had their own reasons for it; the reasons didn't particularly matter to him.

Howl raised his eyebrows at the recent addition to their little party. He tried to look unimpressed, when in reality his mind was considering the possibility of this young man suddenly attacking him. He seemed testy enough for it, or at least enough for Howl to feel totally justified in his concern. He wasn't sure if he ought to be glad regarding the man's assertion that he wouldn't attack defenseless-seeming Howl. After all, Howl did not fancy himself helpless, per se, and his pride stung for the assumption, but on the other hand, it meant not having to fight. He did like that part, admittedly.

Tossing his dark hair out of his face, Howl at having been addressed first. His eyes remained glassy and blank, but in this case, the smile was perhaps no more convincing than they were. Genuine cheer was hard to hold onto outside in the cold, with social strangers and deadly monsters all over. It was as if everything Howl couldn't stand had gathered in one location. But such was his life! Simply a series of massively dangerous inconveniences which he usually only partially deserved. Still, he knew for a fact that he did not deserve this.

"Everyone is trying to escape, although I'm not sure if it'll do us any good in the long run," he explained enigmatically. It wasn't often that he got to be the experienced one here.

Edited 2010-02-26 17:21 (UTC)

Keman bristled, mildly insulted. "I can put up a decent fight," he muttered sulkily. Yes, his arm was in a cast, but this newcomer wasn't the first one to imply that he couldn't defend himself. Why'd everyone always assume he was so helpless? This stupid body, probably. If this stranger were to see him in his real form, he'd be too busy pissing himself in fear to think that he was weak.

The thought mollified the dragon, somewhat. Enough, at least, that he was willing to consider the idea of a third person joining their little group.

"Have you just woken up? If you have, you should probably come along with us. It isn't safe to be on your own."

All right, so Keman's motives weren't entirely altruistic. He was cold, and standing around here was making it even worse. Already, his lips were going a little blue and his teeth chattered. He hated being cold, hated not being able to just regulate his body temperature with a thought. If they didn't get a move on soon, he was half convinced he'd catch hypothermia or something equally unpleasant.

"We need to start moving, Howl."

"Everyone, huh…?" Prussia mused, eyeing the pair one last time. If everyone here was trying to escape, that just confirmed any lingering speculations that the hospital was a prison hospital—albeit a shitty one, what with the utter lack of guards. As for escape not doing any good in the long run, that just sounded like a roundabout way of saying that there was no way of knowing what would come next.

The kid had a bit of spirit at least; his protest against what Prussia had said may have been muttered, but at least it had been voiced. If escape wasn't his priority right now (and if the kid wasn't already injured), he would have been happy to put his words to the test.

Prussia wasn't, however, going to take the kid up on the offer to come with them... not in so many words, at least. He turned away from Howl (was that his name?) and the kid slightly, waving his torch towards the east. "I'm going that way. There's a forest over there, and it'll provide some cover unless either of you have a better idea."

Howl sighed, but like Prussia, did not say one way or another if the new person ought to join them. He simply began meandering in that direction, adjusting the sleeves of his bright red coat unnecessarily. As he did so, he finally got a chance to take a more careful look at the third party member.

Blond hair, Howl acknowledged with a bit of jealousy, although it was a great deal duller than his preferred shades of gold. He was moderately tall, and had darkish eyes. The flashlights didn't help Howl to identify the exact color just yet.

"Have you ever been in there, Keman?" he asked over his shoulder. Howl slowed his steps in hopes that someone else might take the lead; he'd be happy enough calling the shots from the back. Or, even better, from the middle. That way he'd be the least likely to be pounced upon by whatever lurked out here.

"What, the forest?" Keman asked, looking into the trees dubiously. "Sort of. Didn't make it far before morning, though." Still, it was more than Howl or this other fellow, he supposed. And unless Howl surprised him (which could always happen, though he wasn't holding out much hope), Keman was going to assume that the wizard had absolutely no tracking experience. He was certainly as impractically dressed for a hike through a strange forest as it was possible to get. The dragon absently ran his fingers through his hair, thinking.

"Me, my sister, and our friends spent nearly half a year hiding out in a forest kind of like this one. It was wet and it was cold and it was miserable and I'm really not keen on repeating the experience any time soon, but if you need a guide, I guess I'm as good as anyone."

He turned to the stranger, smiling. "But I'm getting ahead of myself. If we're going to be traveling together, I can't just keep calling you 'that fellow over there.' I'm Keman, and this is Howl. What's your name?"

Prussia hated the idea that yes, he really did need a guide, but Keman obviously knew at least a little about the lay of the land. Judging from Howl's question, that made him the only one.

"Better to be wet and cold and miserable than locked away," he commented as he started to walk as well, at a pace quicker than Howl's. He was glad to be moving again; the night was cold, and seeing Howl's coat--no matter how flamboyant--made him wish he had a coat of his own. Hadn't he seen one in the same closet he'd found the boots in? He should've thought to take it.

Keman had asked his name, and Prussia glanced at the boy. It had been a couple of years since he'd last introduced himself to a human that didn't already know who he really was, but answering with his human name still came easily to him. "Call me Gilbert."

Edited 2010-03-02 19:08 (UTC)

Night 47: North of the Institute

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