Afterparty? Catherding?? .........Afterherding?????

[aboyandhiscar]

[As soon as they're let out of the trial area, Mike makes a beeline for lounge and kitchen. Why, becomes apparent, because soon after, the room furniture in the lounge is arranged in a circle, with a seat for the all the remaining guests.

There's also a pot of coffee and soda cuz it's been a long fucking day. Maybe there are cheezits too, I don't know, a seventeen year old boy put this together. There are pizza rolls probably.

IN ANY CASE, hope you had enough time to flop and mope because Mike's knocking on every door and telling folks to meet in the lounge--if they aren't in their rooms, he'll slip a note under their doors. Once gathered, he skips straight to the point.]

I know it's been...a rough couple days for all of us, but we can't rest just yet. Especially not after that.

Before anything else can happen, we need a plan. How do we get to our friends, and how do we get them back?

And has anyone gotten any more weird notes lately?

Comments

[terribibble]

I...

[He can't make that promise. He hates that he can't make that promise but he's at the point where he can't lie to himself and pretend everything's going to be fine, not after today. He's always been a bad liar.]

Of course not. Swear on my life.

[It's... not convincing. But he's doing his very best to believe it.]

[outsidethecircle]

[Judging by her reaction? She knows it but..]

...Alright.

[She. She has to believe that she's not just going to end up alone in this mansion. She has to. Otherwise... There was no otherwise.]

I won't leave you alone, either.

[terribibble]

That means an awful lot to me. Honest.

Y'know when this meetin's over do you want to go somewhere quiet and draw? I've been workin' on somethin' of my own and I could use the company.

[Specifically he's been working on trying to design a new chassis for WALL-E, for when his motherboard is fixed, because he is going to fix it. Just you watch.]

[outsidethecircle]

I... I think I'd like that.

[She nods quickly.]

Besides, I know what I want to draw.

do you want to timeskip and actually do this because it'd be cute as hell

[terribibble]

Well -- well then. Good. Once this is over I'll catch up with you in, say, the study?

[The study is good. Cozy. Quiet.]

are you kidding? YES PLEASE

[outsidethecircle]

That should work. I need to get something from my room, anyway.

[Later, Anna will be in the study! She also has a blue diary and... seems to be drawing from it by the time he comes in.]

it's t i m e

[terribibble]

[Fiddleford has brought his own notebook, which isn't surprising considering he doesn't often go anywhere without it anymore.]

Hey there.

[He settles himself down near where she's sitting and flips open the notebook to the back pages.]

So, you said you know what you wanted to draw...?

[outsidethecircle]

[She's not drawing in the diary--she has too much respect for it--but took some of the paper from the study to draw.]

Hey.

[She nods, point at the open pages. They're a little dusty but it describes a night on the ocean in simple words, as if the person was a child or practicing their language skills.]

The marsh from the village. I couldn't quite draw it from memory.

[She'll draw Tip and Star later.]

[terribibble]

[He nods.]

I know how that can be. You get a feelin' for it in your head but all the details go fuzzy.

[He gets that sometimes. He feels as though he remembers things out of order; dates and times usually, but landscapes jumble up as well particularly in that time period where he was leaving huge gaps in his memory.]

[outsidethecircle]

It's like you can reach out to grab it but it's not there.

[She felt it a lot more before she came here but the feeling was still there.]

What are you going to draw?

[terribibble]

Or like when you're goin' up stairs in the dark and you think there's one more at the top than there is so put your foot down on nothin'.

[He twiddles his pen in his fingers thoughtfully.]

Well I was goin' to keep workin' on some designs for a new body for WALL-E but now to tell you the truth I kind of want to see how much of Tennessee I can get down.

[outsidethecircle]

Ouch.

[That would hurt.]

Really? What's Tennessee like? [Is that a city in California??? What is American geography?]

[terribibble]

[Close. Okay, not close even a little, but it's fine.]

Aw, it was beautiful, especially the east side of it. That's where I grew up. It's all mountains and trees and wilderness up there still.

[outsidethecircle]

Wow... that must be why you said you grew up in a small town.

[She can't really imagine it.]

The village was the smallest place I was in but even that had grown in the past few years, according to the Oiwas.

[terribibble]

Well. A couple miles outside a small town, which was technically an 'unincorporated community'. So, too small to even be a village. When we wanted to buy and sell things we had to go all the way out to the next town over.

[It's a very specific sort of childhood, the one he had, and he is acutely aware that many people can't quite conceptualize it.]

That town was growin' just fine. Most towns tend to.

[outsidethecircle]

That's really remote. I hope your family didn't get lonely out there.

[She's interested though? It's so cool.]

[terribibble]

Oh, not at all. We had each other and all, and all the animals. Y'know I shared my room growin' up with four other boys? Pretty hard to be lonely.

[outsidethecircle]

I didn't! That would be pretty hard. I'm an only child, so..