hadriel | first; voice (when useless dreaming comes to an end, who will carry all your fears?)

[Chris grins a little at the laughter; it doesn't seem exactly like happy laughter, but it's still something. In this place and situation, laughing for any reason is probably a good thing.

When she explains it makes sense; though he hasn't run into that problem much so far, he understands the feeling in a different way. Being here was--and still is--utterly surreal, especially after everything that went down right before he and his friends arrived here.

Her last comment earns a small laugh of his own, subdued but with an edge of that same underlying sense of it's crazy this is the situation they're in, and that he can say what he's about to say.]

Well, if it makes you feel any more better I'm actually one for one on surviving shitholes full of monsters. Not counting this particular shithole, I mean.

Edited 2016-01-01 06:28 (UTC)

[And that's ... well, it doesn't sound like a joke. So is he actually serious about that, surviving monsters? It sounds crazy, but considering where they are ... maybe it's not. Nick only ever know of monsters in a metaphorical sense before Vancouver, before that thing attacked her and she too became an actual monster.

Because that's what she must be, she thinks. Some of the other Nightbane she met looked unusual - Graham, for example, took on the form of a giant golden retriever - but more often, they looked like how Nick looked when she transformed, frightening and as far from human as could be.

She's instantly sober.]

You're serious about that? The surviving monsters thing, I mean.

Yeah.

[He's a little quieter than before, but there's no uncertainty in his words.]

We were uh... I told you that my friends and I were all at the lodge on the mountain in Canada for our vacation thing, and that the tradition's probably kind of over now? It's because we got attacked by monsters.

[And other reasons, but even if the others hadn't happened the monsters would be enough.]

We'd just made it out of that whole thing like, an hour before I woke up here.

Well ... shit.

[Nick nervously chews on her fingernail again. It's clear that people come here from different places; as weird as that still is for Nick to think about, she's accepted it as truth anyway. But ... Canada. Monsters. Maybe not the same part of Canada, but it's still one hell of a coincidence.]

What kind of monsters? Was it like ... you were being stalked? Someone leaving you roses, or some other kind of fucked-up little presents?

[That's an awfully specific question, which he files away for a moment to ask about later, but just shakes his head in response for now.]

They were uh... We know what they were. Wendigos. Like... Stretched out grey people with huge teeth and claws and shit, and they're super fast and strong.

[They're really horrible creatures, and he has to kind of not think too much about them while he talks.]

They were probably smart enough to leave weird presents or whatever, but that wasn't part of their thing.

[A short pause.]

Were there monsters where you're from that do that?

Edited 2016-01-01 23:30 (UTC)

[Her eyes widen as she listens. Fast and strong - that tracks. But Nightbane are as varied in appearance as people, no two exactly alike. So that's different.

Nick hasn't talked about Nightbane much since she first Became, except with Graham and the others like her. She's shown herself in her monstrous form to a couple people here, once to pick a fight with some asshole kid in a shop, the other while helping fight off a yeti. And maybe it's because Chris reminds her of Andy, and maybe because she's been talking about Andy, too, but she's suddenly overcome with a wave of mixed sadness and outrage, because she's had to white-knuckle her way through the last few months without him, and it's still a raw, exposed nerve for her, the fact that he gave up on the two of them, decided she wasn't worth making space for in his life anymore.

And maybe that's why she decides to tell Chris about this. Because keeping it a secret locked away inside of her makes her feel hollow, more empty than she even feels in her doll form, when she is a void surrounded by a frangible porcelain shell.]

Yeah ... [She nods, frowning.] Yeah, but they weren't called wendigos. The thing that attacked me, it had a ton of piercings all over its face, and it oozed blood when it talked.

[That sounds... Pretty horrifying, really.]

I'm sorry, that's... Monsters fucking suck.

[It's so an understatement, but he's pretty sure the sentiment is the important part. It's kind of reassuring on some level to know that the sort of thing that happened at home happens other places as well, but mostly he wishes it didn't. No one deserves to go through any of that.

Something she says stands out to him, though, and he has to ask...]

It talked? What did it say?

[Wendigos don't talk, unless they're parroting something a human's said.]

It called me by my name.

[Nicky Nick Nick. She still remembers the horrible way its voice sounded, rolling her name out of its bleeding mouth, the way it scuttled toward her with a crazed look in its rolling eyes. Nick squeezes her eyes shut and shivers.]

Said it was gonna fuck me up, take my knife and cut me open. It had - a rose, it threw it at me. It'd been leaving roses for me, at the hostel where I was staying when I first got to Vancouver.

[Her head drops, and she rakes her fingers up through her hair.]

It was following me for a while.

That's super fucked up.

[Like seriously, what the hell. The wendigos were smart and violent and horrific but nothing they did was personal, they were just hungry; he'd gotten a fair share of creepy, stalkery attention from a different threat on the mountain, but that's more than a little different from it being from a monster.

He wants to ask what happened, and if she got away from it or just ended up here right in the middle of things--like Sam did--or something else, but it feels wrong to ask. He'll just leave it up to her to continue or not.]

I know, right? [She laughs bitterly, picking her head back up to face the camera again.] I mean, I've had some creepy, weird fuckers try to follow me home from the bar, but this ...

[She shakes her head, at a loss for the words to describe just how fucked up that was.]

Lemme tell you, anyone ever tells you to go check out Stanley Park, you should probably punch 'em in the face. I mean, I got away, obviously. But going back? No thanks.

[It's not exactly a lie. She did get away, but only because another Nightbane named Jaqueline intervened and succeeded in knocking Nick's attacker unconscious. Still. Nick feels a tiny twinge of guilt over not coming completely clean. Chris has been nothing but nice to her, with no real reason for it. And he's been through a trauma too.

But she can't help thinking that because he's dealt with monsters before, he might not be as nice to her if he found out she's one of them.]

Edited 2016-01-02 03:46 (UTC)

I have no idea where that is, but yeah. I will totally avoid it, even if we're from completely different worlds.

[Which... Could or could not be the case. He hates to think there are other horrible supernatural creatures out there elsewhere in his world, but why would it be just wendigos? What would make them so special as to be the only legend that's real?]

You should probably like, try not to go near Blackwood Mountain either. Just in case.

[He wouldn't have taken her reveal too badly, all things considered, but it's still probably for the best that she holds off for now.]

It's a big park up in Vancouver. Lots of huge, old trees.

[She smiles sharply, rubbing at her temple.]

Trust me, if I get outta this place, I'm staying as far the fuck away from Canada as I can get. Who knows, maybe I'll give LA a shot. Not like I've got anywhere else to be.

[As homesick as she feels for Chicago, it's still too weird to think about going back. She's spent too many years there, with Andy, and Kennedy too, and it's a big city, but there are still too many ghosts waiting for her around corners and down darkened alleys.]

Edited 2016-01-03 18:57 (UTC)

Staying out of Canada sounds like a plan, actually.

[He'll probably do the same for the foreseeable forever; his only reasons to return to the country are pretty gone now, after all.]

You should; at least LA is warm like, all the time. I'm pretty over snow at this point.

[Nick laughs weakly.]

Yeah ... I always feel like winter in Chicago's never gonna end, but it always does, eventually. It just takes forever, and it feels even longer when you're right in the middle of it, y'know? This kinda feels the same.

[Except maybe this winter really will last forever - or until they all die, it's more or less the same thing.]

I think it's the waiting for it that makes it feel like it takes so long, or something like that.

[He knows that the night on the mountain had definitely been the longest night of his life; it's hard to believe everything happened in only ten hours. Coming straight from it to this place, and even more now that it's snowing here too, just makes it feel like it's all been one long event.]

Yeah ... like when it's busy at work, the time goes by pretty quickly. But when it's slow, it just drags on forever. All that waiting. You'd think these assholes could at least give us a book to read or something.

[That's what she did, when work was slow - read, or sometimes write in the journal she kept in her purse, things she never let anyone read.]

Though I guess that would spoil their fun of watching us suffer.

If one of those guys was called Boredom I'd think it was on purpose, but they might just like... Not even realize. Though that's probably a good thing.

[Because if Fear figures out they're bored, he'll might decide to entertain them with monsters or something.]

They're both assholes anyway. I don't care which one actually brought us all here - if they won't send us back, they both suck in my book.

[Because Nick is totally rational like that, yep.]

I wonder if they even know how to do it? Like, are they being assholes on purpose or are they just really incompetent?

[He's not sure which would be better.]

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised by either. Maybe it's both - Fear's an asshole just fucking around with us, and the other one, Hope, is an idiot.

first; voice (when useless dreaming comes to an end, who will carry all your fears?)

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