Blue Birds

[Sonnie Wu]

Sonnie narrowed her eyes in confusion, glancing up at Titania as they descended. "Wait, are you sure? Tooth fairies? I don't... I don't remember that..." She was sure she never heard Rhodes mention rotting teeth. However, she also knew her own attention span could fail her pretty often.

Well, it could be true. Pretty much anything was possible in dreams. The Beast pondered the idea for a few moments, paying minimal attention to the ladder and wind. Her lackadaisical approach to the climb was nerve-wracking to watch.

"Where do they get all the money, then? Is there like a coin minter somewhere in the skien?"

[Titania]

She kept descending the ladder, stopping merely to ponder on the monkey's inane and somewhat sillier questions. "Have you ever seen a Fairy with money to spare?", she said looking down and rolling her eyes at the monkey. "Of course not, the coins were your parents'. Now if we were talking about Santa, I'm sure he has resources to spare. All that elven slave labor after all", she mumbles

[Sonnie Wu]

At this point, Sonnie was hanging upside down on the ladder, holding on with her feet, as she looked back up at Titania. "I'll have you know I was raised by my aunt and uncle. My parents died in a plane crash when I was a baby. Then I was bitten by a radioactive monkey and my uncle was killed by a mugger... a mugger I could have stopped! So thank you so much for reviving those painful memories!"

She was, of course, lying through her teeth. But she was gambling the severely out-of-her-time-period Fairest was unfamiliar with certain arachnid-powered superheroes. Even then, then bit about radioactive monkeys? Surely, Titania wouldn't buy that? Would she?

[Titania]

"Tsk", her tongue clicked against her palate.
Even if just for a second, the Fairest looked at the monkey with an expression of sullen resentment, almost shaking with rage. Her loved ones were gone forever, the simplest joke about the topic was breaching a taboo. "Liar! Rogue! Scoundrel", she shouted with a trembling voice, then calming down, lowering her tone "Really now? I suggest you keep a notebook of your falsehoods. You mentioned your parents being alive and well", revealing that as much as the airhead could be lost in her own little world wandering from thought to thought, she could indeed listen. Oh boy if she was keenly aware of the little details.
"Oh, a radioactive monkey. I suppose that's where you caught the stupidity cooties from", she smirked, "makes sense"

[Sonnie Wu]

Sonnie was honestly surprised and impressed at how keen the Telluric's memory was. The Beast herself had completely forgotten about that. Smiling, she righted herself on the ladder and bowed her head towards Titania.

"Brilliant deduction! You passed the test! I wondered how fast you'd catch the trick! Marvelous! Well done! Now, here's your reward, Detective Titania!"

Her tail reached out and jabbed a conveniently-placed knot on the side of the tree. It made a 'click' sound. Sonnie waited a minute or so, as the muffled noise of machinery could be heard... inside the tree trunk?

Yes, a section of the rectangular bark slid open like a door and inside was an elevator car! Bright, clean and waiting to transport the pair down to the jungle floor.

"Your chariot awaits, milady!" Sonnie said as she deftly swung herself inside.

Wait, was this lift here the WHOLE TIME?

[Titania]

"Liar!", she feigned outrage. "You made that on the spot, right now. Don't you know? Light always travels in the path that can be traversed in the shortest time. Had the elevator been there from the very beginning, my wisps would have known", she said smug, nevertheless, she took up on her offer.
"Oh", she says, seemingly taken aback when the doors shut close. "Two maidens stuck inside a room. Reminds me of one of Jack's murders", if Sonnie could look at her face, she'd see it morph into a twisted grin. "Makes sense. After all we're trying to summon a Lord of Dread", she wonders aloud. Suddenly all her wisps retreat to a corner, leaving the rest of the elevator a much darker place, the Fairest smirks.
"One little monkey, butchered in her bedroom", she whispers softly, tapping her feet in perfect timing with each jump of the elevator. With a cute tilt of her head she turns back to the monkey, a cute and quite convincing look of innocence on her face. It's obvious what she's trying to do, but it's no less effective for that.
"Kukuku".

  5 successes

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2019-05-18 07:59:06		Titania rolls 14 to Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites (10 Again)		5, 4, 7, 1, 10, 5, 8, 4, 1, 1, 2, 9, 8, 5, 9		5 successes

[Sonnie Wu]

"Reminds me of the start of some porn," she snickered, acting totally innocent on whether the elevator had previously existed. She honestly couldn't remember. Short attention span and all that.

  failure

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2019-05-18 08:38:43		Sonnie Wu rolls 4 to Res + Comp (10 Again)		3, 6, 5, 2		failure

"Thhhhhbbbt!"

Sonnie crossed her arms and blew a raspberry at Titania's totally silly story that totally didn't get to her at all. She totally wasn't eyeing the darkened corners of the elevator car, nor was she listening for strange sounds. Not at all.

No, no she wasn't edging closer to Titania because she was scared or anything. Nope. It wasn't even a convincing story! Who'd be dumb enough to believe that?

Hey, did the lights just go out?

The car was now lit only by the Bright One and her motes.

Wait, did the car just jerk to a halt? What's the noise?! It sounds like... wrenching metal? And was that a sinister laugh echoing from overhead?

The car wobbled.

Sonnie leapt onto Titania, wrapping her arms around the Fairest. And her legs. And her tail.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" she screamed!

The elevator plummeted.The women were in freefall.

Perhaps messing with the monkey's imagination while in her dreamscape was not the wisest idea.

[Titania]

Teetering on the edge, on the brink of their extinction, with soft arms and a bushy tail wrapped around her - even in those places it was not proper, not proper at all to be touched - the Fairest feels... elated, there's a big smile on her face.
As they float mid-air, carried toward their doom by gravity but lifted up by its apparent and opposite force, the Fairest lets out an exhilarating laugh.
They say elegance is the ability to display carelessness and indifference in the face of danger. The devilish contempt for overwhelming odds. "Yes! I knew it, I knew it. Dangers, here we come!", she lets out a liberating laughter, her sapphire eyes filled with joy. Soft hands caress the monkey's head as to calm her. The Fairest is apparently unmoved by their predicament, their lengthy descent into the Abyss of nightmares. And why should she? Her wisps floated around all the time, it was so fun.
But they had to slow down to not miss their stop. From their corner, a myriad of wisps shaped in a hundred of different folds rushes to the middle, unfazed, their lights reflect into the stardust their mother is profusely sweating, almost filling the car. The smell of the midnight rose perched atop her head, a spectacular display of fireworks, starry nebulas and galaxies, all so that she could distract the monkey before they dug too deep into her torments.

[Sonnie Wu]

Of course, the worst that would happen if the pair of changelings splattered on the jungle floor would be they'd simply wake up back in the Tavern. This wasn't the Matrix, after all. However, lucid dreaming makes everything one experiences feel more real, and in such a dramatic, frightening moment, it was easy to forget where one was.

Still, Titania's crazed laughter, as well as the kind stroking of her hair, brought Sonnie out of her series of horror movie screams. The girl had impressive lung power. Speaking of lungs...

Sonnie's hands were indeed in an inappropriate place. Oops! She loosened and moved her grip. Time to focus on surviving this unexpectedly quick elevator ride.

"Cushioning! Cushioningcushioningcushioningcushioning!" she focused really hard!

Panels on the walls of the falling car slid open, and out spilled a ridiculous amount of pillows and bubble wrap! More than enough to fill the space and leave the two girls well protected. They were practically smothered!

Just in time, as the lift slammed into the ground with a loud, destructive force! Local wildlife fled the rising cloud of dust and debris that expanded out from the base of the great tree. The elevator doors had been disconnected by the impact and sent flying, and mounds of Sonnie's impromtu cushioning spilled out onto the lush rainforest floor, along with the entangled Lost.

Sonnie and Titania rolled out, completely unharmed, and found themselves at their destination.

The Beast, removing all her limbs from the Bright One, sat up. She blinked her golden eyes and ran her hands over her dream body, checking for injuries and finding none. "Huh. Well, that was a thing! Hey, Ellie, you okay? I think we... OOOoooo! Bubble wrap!"

Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop...

[Titania]

She jumped to her feet without a single hair out of place and with a big smile plastered over her face.
"What? Again?", she says aloud to one ellipsoidal floatie of light, one of the many that had been reshaped by the impact, "This is not a playground but a reputable scientific expedition. Besides, I don't think we have another elevator for another ride. What do you mean we could jump with just an umbrella?", she looked at Sonnie for a second before turning to her weightless interlocutor,"Yes, it was fun. But what did I tell you? First duty, then pleasure". With her court quietened, her attention was now drawn to her bestial friend.
"Why, thank you! Never been better", she beamed, "Are you hurt?", but long before Sonnie's reply, the Fairest was already with a notebook in her hands, ready to catalog the lush tropical flora.