[network] @crescent; to die historic on the furry road [open]

[lancingintherain]

[usually, the worst thing about waking up is remembering how hungry she is. But this morning, as Day 45 breaks cold and overcast as usual, the worst thing about waking up is remembering that last night, her friend got literally eaten by a monster.

She has to warn people. She couldn't save Mami, but maybe she can help others. So once she's mostly talked herself down from numb grief and fear, she turns on her tablet's video function. At first, it's aiming at a wooden tabletop, but she tilts it to show a drawing. For having been drawn last night in the dark in the hazy, panicky aftermath of mortal peril, it's pretty decent:



She clears her throat and starts to speak, her voice low and breaking despite her efforts to keep it steady.]

Four days ago, I was traveling with Alphonse Elric's group. We were attacked by this monster here. [a gray-furred, four-fingered hand moves into the video to tap at the top left of the picture with one sharp claw.] It was... well, if you've seen Alphonse, you know how tall he is. This one was taller. It had... light, instead of skin. Like what we see on the videos, sometimes. I'm not explaining it quite right, but... we got away.

[she swallows, then takes a shaky breath and points to the drawing on the right.]

Mami Tomoe and I—she's a young human girl; some of you have met her—we were on our own, yesterday. This monster attacked us last night. We—I tried to...

[she breaks off, planting her hand flat on the table to stop it from shaking. When she speaks again, her voice is hard.]

...It swallowed her. It ate her whole. That's what they do. Now we know.

[she points to the bottom drawing.]

It said things to me, before it—before it ate her. Spoke right into my head. "I want it"; "I am here"; I wrote down what I could remember. And there's something else. All of the other monsters I've seen have looked, well, they've looked human, or something like it. But this one... oh, it's easiest to just show it.

[the video swings dizzyingly as she picks up the tablet, and she taps on the screen to turn the camera. At once, the view of the tabletop and wall becomes a view of her very inhuman face, framed by her pale, tangled hair and large ears. Her eyes are tired, and her muzzle is streaked with dark, dried blood.]

...It looked like me. Like one of my people. But it... it ran on all fours, like an animal. ...I don't know what any of it means. But one thing's the same—and if anyone who's just arrived is watching this, you'd better listen. [her voice turns cold, and she looks straight into the camera.] If you see a monster, you run, got it? You run away as fast as you can, and get inside, and block the door. There's no fighting them. No fighting them at all.

[OOC: HOT GOLLY DAMN, there are enough threads here to feed a whole village of cute, thread-starved orphans. I'm capping the number of threads where it is. No more replies please, you beautiful people.]

Comments

[armoured]

[He knows that feeling all too well, and it's like she's mirroring his own thoughts right then.]

How? You-- I know you would have done something if you could have done.

[I couldn't even save one little girl.]

Mami wouldn't want you to blame yourself.

[Blame him instead for letting them go.]

[lancingintherain]

[she makes a harsh sound that sounds like a cross between a sob and a cough, her head still down, her hair hiding her face. The tablet slides off of what she'd propped it against and thumps onto the tabletop, showing a crooked view of the ceiling, but she doesn't reach out to put it back yet.]

Damn thing. [take that, tablet.] ...Maybe. maybe she wouldn't. But she isn't here, is she.

...I'm sorry, Al. I know you're trying to help, but—I've trained for this. My whole life, I've—

[she breaks off. Her own thoughts are moving too fast for her words to catch up, and she doesn't even know what point she's trying to make anymore.]

...She trusted me, Al.

[armoured]

[He struggles to find something to say that will help ease her pain and the guilt she's wearing as clear as day, but there aren't any. As horrible as it is, the cold fact is that Freya was the only one with Mami, and she's bound to feel survivor's guilt.]

I know.

[Someone else might say that she will again when she comes back, but Al still hopes for a cease in the revivals.]

It doesn't feel like this, but even training doesn't make you infallible and it doesn't mean you broke her trust. She-- she would understand that, I know she wouldn't blame you.

[Like... like Nina didn't.]

Sometimes, no matter how much you wish it was different, you can't save someone.

[lancingintherain]

...I know.

[she knows very well. Mami is just the latest in a long, long queue of people she failed to save. But she does drag her focus out of herself enough to remember that Al's speaking from experience, too. She doesn't immediately think about Nina, though; her memories from that conversation are kind of fuzzy, anyway. Instead, she thinks of his mother, and how the spell he and his brother had sacrificed parts of their own bodies to cast had failed.]

[her voice is softer, when she speaks again.]

...Don't you go and blame yourself, either. This was... you were only being our friend, and—and trusting us, too, letting us go off together.

[armoured]

[He does blame himself, and yet he also knows how irrational that guilt is. It's a survivor's guilt, a way to rationalise the pain of losing someone he cares about.]

I'd still trust you both to go alone in the future.

[It's true, even though he might also worry at the same time.]

You're strong, a fighter, and you don't need a babysitter to make sure of that. This... it doesn't change that.