Once upon a time, in a land not so far away...
You wake to the feeling of being watched. Of a set of unfamiliar eyes, of warm breath on the back of your neck. A jolt back to the land of the living, and it's gone. No matter how quick you are, how sneaky, the source of the disruption has long since disappeared, so you have no choice but to try and ignore it. To continue on with your day and try to set that moment of strangeness aside.
You eat, drink, speak with others. Perhaps you explore a little. Whatever it is you choose to do for the day, that feeling from the morning won't return. And by the time the sun sets and the moon glows brightly above, you've likely set those moments of strangeness aside. It's not like it's anything new, after all.
It's the same again for the next few days. No better, no worse. Something best ignored, right?
A speck of blood on the doorframe. That wasn't there before, was it?
A snap of twigs in the distance. A crunch of leaves.
Claw marks gouged deeply into the door.
Into the wall above your bed.
Scraps of red fabric, turned darker with blood. Pieces of fur. Of flesh.
Do you run and hide? Do you fight? Whatever you choose, it's definitely time to make sure your body parts aren't scattered next...
...what a horribly big mouth you have.
--------------------
Since first waking up on the island, characters have been stuck with that feeling of being watched. It isn't a constant. Isn't more than a few seconds at a time, dotted throughout the day. Investigation has never turned up much, and there's never been any sightings of the cause of it all.
Until now.
Throughout the first half of the week, characters will find themselves suffering from that feeling of being watched on a far more constant basis. Rather than it being a one-off, few seconds occurrence each day, that feeling will last for minutes at a time, and on multiple occasions.
However, it isn't until the fifth day that they'll start stumbling across physical signs of their monitoring. There are claw marks on doors. Spots of blood on the paths outside. A crack of twigs in the forests, or the imprint of bloodied paws in the snow.
Ten days in and those signs start finding their way indoors. Wet footprints, tinged with red. Claw marks in the walls, the floor. Torn sheets and the smell of wet...something. Whatever it is that's been watching you, its finally decided to come and say hello.
Two weeks in and characters will begin to have sightings of the creature, its fur dark and its eyes a glowing yellow. At times it looks like a wolf, prowling in the distance. At other times, it's walking on its hind legs, almost human were it not for the muzzle full of gleaming sharp teeth. Get too close, and it slips away like a shadow, gone between one blink and the next. It decides when to reach out to characters, not the other way round.
It's after characters finally get a good look at the creature that it starts leaving...gifts. Characters will start to find familiar items from their home worlds amidst the mess. The remains of a childhood pet, perhaps. Photographs of loved ones, faces torn almost beyond recognition. It's only once it delivers its final gift that the creature retreats to the trees again: a blood-splattered item of clothing that clearly belongs to the person the character misses the most at the time, alive or dead.
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fablelands2018-08-27 11:34 pm
no subject
First of all, it's not sir, it's Star-lord. Second of all... [ oh shit this isn't just any kid. this is the kid he was just with. maybe he knows what happened? maybe it's his fault this happened. ] You never answered my question: is Footloose still the greatest movie of all time?
no subject
[his words are muttered under his breath, a confused look on his face. this other man is acting far too familiar, given that peter is at least 90% sure he's never met him before. hitching his pack up a little more, peter glances briefly back the way he'd come, the hairs on the back of his neck rising in the moments before there's a snap of twigs in the distance. it's just a deer or something, right? that's all it is.]
Sorry, Mr. Star-lord. But I think you've got me confused with somebody else?
[and he's fairly sure that any response he could make about footloose probably won't go down well because of that either.]
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[ it literally doesn't matter!!!! peter stares at smol peter for a whole beat. is this kid for real? ]
I totally don't. You're the bug boy that hitched a ride on Thanos's ship. Duh.
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[there's a certain amount of awe that seeps into his voice in the moments before he remembers that, right, outlaw=criminal, and criminal=bad. so that means he should be getting as far away from star lord as he can, shouldn't it?
except--]
Bug boy? [he doesn't mean...?] Wait, who's Thanos? Are you talking about the big donut ship in New York? Are you working for him?
[right. now's the time for panic. because if he's with the bad guys and he somehow knows peter's identity, then he needs to get out of there now. he needs to warn whoever else is on the island while he can.]
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[ disgust and rage take up his gaze when peter asks if he's with thanos. he supposes they didn't really get to the answer session of their q&a but it's still an offensive accusation, even if the kid has no way of knowing different. ]
Heck no, I'm not with that purple butthole! I'm gonna smash his face into pudding and then blend that pudding into smoothies for all my friends.
[ he takes a breath, he knows he's high-key and it's still not peter's fault. he's gotten better at cooling down since dadding his own teen okay. ]
He took my girl, man. I was going to save her when I met up with you and your weird dads.
no subject
Are you being literal? Like, you're actually from space?
[because that's a whole lot easier to focus on than the idea of trying to work out who these weird dads are that star lord's talking about.]
That's awesome. Do you have a space ship? Is it here? Can I see it? Have you ever met any aliens before? What's it like out there? Do you live on another planet or do you have, like, an Enterprise you live on instead?
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[ he kicks a clump of dirt at his feet and shakes his head. he can't really be that un-memorable???? it's happened to him his whole life but you would think it would stop sucking so bad. but then peter is coming around and he can't help but smile a little, thinking about when groot gets all worked up about something he really likes. because other than that he's pretty boring as a teenager. sorry groot, love you son! ]
I totally have a space ship, dude. And it's way cooler than the stupid donut thing we just left. Her name's the Milano, you know after the hottest actress ever: Alyssa Milano? She's orange and blue and my whole family lives there, all the Guardians. A talking raccoon - Rocket, my Ravager uncle - Kraglin, this big dumb guy made of sandpaper - Drax, a bug girl who can steal your feelings it's creepy - Mantis, and the most beautiful woman in the whole universe, or at least all the galaxies I've ever been to. Her name's Gamora and we have a son together, he's a tree.
[ how's that for too much information? ]
no subject
maybe it's best to just set that all aside for now and focus on star lord himself.
yeah. he'll give that a try for now.]
You were talking about Footloose. That means you're from Earth, right? [much simpler to focus on that.] Why are you in space now? [because he can't be from the future if the two of them have met, right? or are going to meet-- hold up.]
...how do you know who I am?
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They're both dead now.
[ good talk?!?!?! ]
I know you from the donut ship! Did you forget that already, too? Are you sick or something?
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he's never going to get over that one. nor, apparently, star lord's strange origins.
a half-god being used as a battery for a planet. right.]
Are you related to Thor? [not that peter's ever actually met the guy. but he's top of the list of avengers he wants to meet. that has to count for something.]
The only person who was on the donut ship was Mr. Stark and the Wizard. [and the creepy alien guys who kidnapped him.] Technically I wasn't even on the ship properly. I was outside it. So unless you're like...secretly Ant-Man and you were hiding on me, we never met there either.
[a beat and-]
Sorry.
no subject
[ ok that was mean, but he's trying to figure this out and it's hurting his brain. which admittedly isn't hard to do. ]
Yeah, your dad guys! I met them and you. I don't know who the heck Ant-man is though. Who would want to be an ant?
Uh. It's okay, I guess. I'm just wicked confused right now. I was just with you, so. It doesn't make any sense that you'd forget.
no subject
though weirder than that--]
They're not my dad. Neither of them! I haven't even met the wizard yet, and Mr. Stark is...uh. I'm his intern. [well, it's more like tony is his mentor-slash-advisor-slash-hero. but that's probably a little more than he wants to let on right now. sticking with "not my dad" is probably easiest.]
I haven't forgotten anything though. I was still holding on to the outside of the donut ship before I came here. [okay, so technically he was falling off of it. but he's not going to admit that!]
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[ he lets out a breath, wondering if this isn't thanos somehow. he had screwed up reality all around him once, he scowls thinking about the bubbles coming out of his blasters. he'd failed her. she got taken because of him. ]
You came inside and we all met. At least, that's the way I remember it, dude. I don't really even know... what's real anymore.
no subject
No, I'm not a secretary. But yes, boys can be secretaries too. There's nothing wrong with that! And Mr. Stark isn't my dad. He's just been helping me train. He's like... He's just awesome.
[which may seem like a bit of an anti-climax, but it's no less true. out of all the avengers, tony is the only one whose seen him as something at least close to an equal. he may call him a kid, but it's not the same as when the other avengers have questioned his age in the past.]
I don't remember any of that. So, uh-- [he holds out a hand for a shake. because that's what adults do, right?] My name's Peter. And it's Spider-man, not bug boy.
no subject
[ huh. he looks at peter's hand, but then his expression brightens a few shades from his confused frown. ]
Woah, that's crazy! I'm Peter, too. Or Starlord.
[ he winks and shakes his hand once, firmly. ]
no subject
I'm gonna keep calling you Starlord though. [well, mr. starlord. but semantics.] It makes you sound like a superhero from space.
[okay, so technically that's exactly what starlord is. but this is also the first time he's actually met the man, so he can't help but make the observation. it's not like the guardians are as well known as the avengers, afterall.]