The Hidden Door-A Role Play (AKA The Most Dangerous Coffee Shop II)

Chion, who'd been pretty much ignored most of the day had lost her cheeriness. She'd gone through all the trouble of being a full grown man, just so she could understand what people spoke to her about, only to have not a single person speak to her. And while it was sort of useful to know what was going on. Nothing seemed to have been so important that she wouldn't have gotten by without the ability to communicate.

She'd given up on actually having a conversation with anyone and had changed back to her normal self. Sitting in the corner with a mug of beer, which she'd barely touched, and a plate of food.
 
Chion, who'd been pretty much ignored most of the day had lost her cheeriness. She'd gone through all the trouble of being a full grown man, just so she could understand what people spoke to her about, only to have not a single person speak to her. And while it was sort of useful to know what was going on. Nothing seemed to have been so important that she wouldn't have gotten by without the ability to communicate.

She'd given up on actually having a conversation with anyone and had changed back to her normal self. Sitting in the corner with a mug of beer, which she'd barely touched, and a plate of food.
Kyle spotted Korim in the corner, but it obviously wasn’t Korim because he had just spoken with Korim.
“Chion!” He said, seeing the plate of food. “Looks like you’ve already eaten. Okay.” He nodded at her and spurred Rylie back towards Kipp. “Chion can handle herself,” he reported. “She ordered food for herself. I suppose we should send her to bed when the others go to bed.”
 
Blair snorted at his comment, curling her lip as he tugged on her face. She was unaware of the creature stalking the pair. There were too many other scents of the harmless Borealean creatures overwhelming it that she didn't even think twice about it.
Glancing back at Take, she jerked her towards where the forest thickened, itching to explore. The wolf's body had far more stamina then her human form did, and she was hardly fazed by their race.
Releasing Blair’s face after being forcibly manipulated, Take straightened up and noticed her slight gestures down at the further most part of the incline, leading to some dense woodland. “Hey, I’m not stopping you. Go ahead, I’ll keep up.” he assured her, assuming she wanted to go fulfill any wolf-y desires like marking some trees, explore, and maybe hunt something. He didn’t particularly know what it was that wolves actually did besides howl at the moon– but there was obviously no moon strung out in the sky. Suddenly, the creature that stalked the two from the brush emerged, throwing Take off his feet and enveloping him in the pitch black darkness of its fur. It was a We-sa, reclaiming Take back into the clutches of Olim. It turned to face the canine creature that accompanied him and let out a deep bellow, hoping to scare it off before making its departure. Take squirmed and fought in attempt to escape, but it felt as if he was being sucked into the dark abyss of the we-sa’s fur. What the hell.. is this?! His body started to heat up as the pressure surrounding his body intensified, constricting his movements. He tried to yell, kick, bite, but all it earned him was a heavy helping of candelous powder straight to his face, Crap not this agai... were his last thoughts before he slipped out of consciousness.
 
Aella felt his tears.
The silent tears that hurt so much more then full on sobbing. Where your chest and throat ached for hours after trying to keep yourself so silent. The trembling. The persistent migraine that never failed to blossom. It always seemed to hurt worse then the full on scream-sobbing that tore at your throat.
She found herself covering her mouth with both her hands at his choked words, her teeth biting her lip until it bled. There was no was she was going to break.

She couldn't.

21 years.
Twenty one agonizing years, and yet she could count maybe a handful of times she had let another see her tears. Twenty one years and every single time she looked in the mirror and covered her hazy and reddened eyes with a grin that could fool just about anyone. Twenty one years and every time she had wanted to scream so hard she couldn't speak, she had muffled it and silenced herself. Twenty one years and rarely did anyone see her cry.
And there she was breaking in front of a stranger. She hadn't even realized she had until she felt the uncomfortable dampness on the sleeves of her shirt and tasted the saltiness. They both cried for seperate reasons, yet they were so similar. He wept for himself, for his world, for his family. She wept for him, for herself, for everything that the little alcohol in her system decided to painfully remind her of. Maybe it was a good judgement of character, maybe it painfully showed her selfishness and his selflessness. But, in the moment, did it really even matter?

"Are any of us?" She directed her gaze back to him, just barely muffling a choked sob that broke through as her hands came away from her mouth. A neatly perfected grin tried to appear, the ghost of it just barely dancing across her features, but instead it was replaced by a twisted smile, betraying more then she would have liked if she saw it herself.
Suddenly her gaze fell on his hands.
Her own hand out and grabbed one of them out of sheer impulse.
It surprised even her, even though she knew the limits of her impulse control.
And she could've sworn she was going to say something. She was, in all honesty. She was going to reassure him that it was going to be okay, that they where going to be okay. But all to quickly she felt what it actually felt like to hold a persons hand, not a drunken grab or an attempt to stop someone from going somewhere but holding a sober person's hand.
That in it's self forced a sob from her throat.
Initially, Ciro was so surprised that his tears momentarily dammed up.
Then he started getting the gravity of what she’d just done, and they shoved right on through- if not more forcefully than before.
Slowly, he unfurled his fingers and carefully worked them around hers until the grasp was no longer one-sided. It wasn't the average perpendicular, palm-to-palm hold; no, he went to the painstaking lengths of matching up every single finger to hers and embracing them individually.
Sure, this way was made it a lot more inescapable, and, knowing all too well how nothing unnerved people on their own more than being tied up out of their own realm of control, maybe that hadn't been the safest move.

But it seemed the right way to express that he wasn't about to let her go.

Having someone else's hand in his always awakened a sense of contrast for Ciro. When it was his little sisters, he was abruptly awakened to just how callous-roughened his hands were compared to their undamaged gloss. When it was his mother, he marveled at how big his hands were compared to the hands of the woman who'd brought him into this world. When it was with a friend, foe, or absolute stranger on the street he'd grabbed to keep from harm, he always got a shock at how much warmer his hands were, yet how much steadier his pulse was.
Now, with Aella, it was everything at once, except the roles were so very reversed on the last two.
The radiant heat of her hand definitely transcended anything living he'd ever grasped; touching it was indeed tolerable, but it was amazingly surreal in a way he couldn't describe. He guessed it was to be expected, but then looped back on that thought and wondered if the longer her flames had been out, the cooler they got.
Her pulse raced so wildly across his palm that he could feel it more than his own. His blood pressure had elevated, too, but nothing like hers. He knew weeping was bound to be the primary contributor to her quickened pulse, but what else? Was she nervous? Regretful? Uncomfortable? All three, and then some?
He could've, maybe even should've, asked, but also found that he couldn't- actually, shouldn't.

He didn't know what to say anymore, really.

Instead, he squeezed her hand, taking so much care to ensure that it was perfect - gentle, unhurried, and meaningful.
And suddenly he realized that said it all.
I’m here.
I get it.
Remember that thing about pride? I think you something you should be proud of is being able to not be okay.
 
Juliana gave her a quizzical look before sticking out her hand assuming Thneed was her name. "Then you'll have to be mine. I'm Juliana, and you're my official Thneed."
Charlie un-invisiblied himself and stumbled over to the two, Hana’s katana swinging dangerously from one hand. “EVERYboDy NeeDS a THNeEeEd!” He sang, his whole sentence a horrifyingly purposeful voice crack. To any onlooker he might’ve appeared like he had three too many mugs of ale. However, there were several other possibilities. 1. He was incredibly sleep-deprived. 2. He had drank too much ale. 3. He was just being his not-so-normal weird self. Or, 4- a combination of the above.
To be honest, it was most likely a combination of the above.
(I laughed out loud when I read this.)
Korim watched as Charlie staggered across the room with a weapon. The fact that the weapon was sheathed did barely anything to assuage his fears. Another fear: What exactly was a thneed?
He had to remind himself that the definition of a thneed was void while a loopy Charlie swung around an otherworldly weapon. Which could very well be the aforementioned thneed.
“You don’t need a thneed!” he said, grabbing the katana’s hilt.
The momentary apprehension at a boy suddenly appearing quickly faded, as he was barely able to stand, even if he was holding a weapon he didn't seem to be much of a threat.
"Well, get your own. She's mine." Juliana said pulling Nat toward her by the fur jacket she had draped over her arm. Korim interrupted rather quickly insisting Charlie didn't need one and tried to take the katana away. "See, you can't have her. Cause he says so."
Charlie looked between Juliana and Korim. All he knew was that everyone was trying to take his thneed. However, at this point he had lost his train of thought and forgotten what a thneed even was or why everyone kept saying it. His memory of what he had just said about thneeds had been wiped away as he tried to figure out why he was being stared at.
When Korim got distracted, Charlie slowly moved a finger towards his nose, determined to poke it. Then, he was released and instantly became absorbed with the katana- the thneed? -again.
"I am the thneed, and the only thneed you need," Nat insisted loudly, quite put out that there was ANOTHER thneed in existence.
Well, she was going to take the knock-off imposter OUT.
She lunged forward, out of Juliana's grip, and and managed to get both of her uncoordinated hands around the blade of Charlie's thneed. "No one needs YOUR thneed when you've got MEED."
 
Releasing Blair’s face after being forcibly manipulated, Take straightened up and noticed her slight gestures down at the further most part of the incline, leading to some dense woodland. “Hey, I’m not stopping you. Go ahead, I’ll keep up.” he assured her, assuming she wanted to go fulfill any wolf-y desires like marking some trees, explore, and maybe hunt something. He didn’t particularly know what it was that wolves actually did besides howl at the moon– but there was obviously no moon strung out in the sky. Suddenly, the creature that stalked the two from the brush emerged, throwing Take off his feet and enveloping him in the pitch black darkness of its fur. It was a We-sa, reclaiming Take back into the clutches of Olim. It turned to face the canine creature that accompanied him and let out a deep bellow, hoping to scare it off before making its departure. Take squirmed and fought in attempt to escape, but it felt as if he was being sucked into the dark abyss of the we-sa’s fur. What the hell.. is this?! His body started to heat up as the pressure surrounding his body intensified, constricting his movements. He tried to yell, kick, bite, but all it earned him was a heavy helping of candelous powder straight to his face, Crap not this agai... were his last thoughts before he slipped out of consciousness.
Blair spun abruptly when a crashing noise alerted her, her eyes widening at the sight of the massive creature grabbing Take. She hadn't really seen it when it had grabbed her, but now that she did, it terrified her.
As the we-sa constructed Take, she abruptly barked at the creature, lunging straight for it's back. She sank her teeth into the thick, suffocating fur, but she taste no blood, he teeth barely piercing the thick fur.
With a violent shake the we-sa had flung her off, and she landed with a sharp yelp. That hurt. God, why did that hurt so bad?
There was really no time to think about it, as she scrambled for Take, trying to drag herself back to him. But the pain was blinding, and clearly the we-sa wanted nothing to do with something that seemed like a regular wolf, and left her scrambling for her footing.
 
Blair spun abruptly when a crashing noise alerted her, her eyes widening at the sight of the massive creature grabbing Take. She hadn't really seen it when it had grabbed her, but now that she did, it terrified her.
As the we-sa constructed Take, she abruptly barked at the creature, lunging straight for it's back. She sank her teeth into the thick, suffocating fur, but she taste no blood, he teeth barely piercing the thick fur.
With a violent shake the we-sa had flung her off, and she landed with a sharp yelp. That hurt. God, why did that hurt so bad?
There was really no time to think about it, as she scrambled for Take, trying to drag herself back to him. But the pain was blinding, and clearly the we-sa wanted nothing to do with something that seemed like a regular wolf, and left her scrambling for her footing.
The we-sa stretched out its wings and shot up into the air with great momentum, leaving the wolf to face the gale of wind released from its wings when it parted ways from the ground. It soared high into the sky, only appearing as some small black winged creature as it flew to the north, towards the deepest and highest reaches of the mountains.

Stillness.

Complete silence was all that encapsulated Take, unable to sense or touch a single thing in his dreamlike state.

It was almost as if he was drifting through space, where gravity failed to anchor him down to where he belonged. But no, he was here, aimlessly floating with no sense of weight or pressure.

That’s when it all came crashing down, a heaviness came upon his chest, almost preventing his ability to breathe. His eyes snapped open, gasping for breath as he suffocated. Slowly, a tightening sensation coiled around his neck, fastening with each passing second. His hands flew up to his neck in aid of prying off whatever was strangling him. Although only his left hand bothered to assist him, while his right somehow ceased to exist. His fingers dug at his neck, trying to find what blocked his airways. But, there was nothing.

Nothing.

“B-B.. Bl-air” he managed to choke out, desperate for the only person he considered living for. She was his literal lifeline. It was all that he had, even if it sounded incredibly selfish– it was true. She was the one who introduced him to true warmth, affection, and love. Even if Blair was hot-tempered ignorant, hard-headed, and made him want to literally fight her; she was also protective, capable, and tender.

She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever met.

And I want to spend the rest of my life with her.


Take slowly started to release as the last of his oxygen faded out of him.

But I’m really going die, aren’t I?

Faintly, whispers started entering his head, completely unintelligible, but they sounded Borealean. His eyelids grew heavy, and soon he was unable keep his hand on his neck.

The whispers grew louder and louder, until he heard a disgustingly familiar shrill voice screaming at him.

“NO! YOU CAN’T LET HIM!”

The demon.

“TACO!”

“YOU CAN’T LET HIM CONTROL YOU!”
 
"I am the thneed, and the only thneed you need," Nat insisted loudly, quite put out that there was ANOTHER thneed in existence.
Well, she was going to take the knock-off imposter OUT.
She lunged forward, out of Juliana's grip, and and managed to get both of her uncoordinated hands around the blade of Charlie's thneed. "No one needs YOUR thneed when you've got MEED."
Charlie made a sound that could only be described as a mix between the screech of a scandalized seagull and the squeak of a stepped on puppy. He stared at her and tugged weakly at the katana. “It’s mine.” He insisted. “Thneed thnief!”
 

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