tushanshu_logs | EVENT | LANDFALL | KITHIKA

EVENT | LANDFALL | KITHIKA | BOTTLE

Characters: ALL!
Date: February 12th - 28th
Location: Kithika, inside the bottle
Situation: The discovery of an artifact from the first war against Malicant reveals the land of Kithika within a dimension of the Death Plane... and just happens to be contained inside a bottle.
Warnings/Rating: Please indicate content warnings in subject headers as applicable.

OOC INFORMATION ♦ CITY OF KEELIAI ♦ INSIDE THE BOTTLE ♦ THE WORLD EATER
Arriving in Kithika is unpleasant for the most part. Transport through the glass vessel deposits you in the middle of a thick and murky swamp, with air so hot and humid it feels as though one is breathing through a wet towel. This is a place of perpetual night and there are no celestial bodies visible overhead through the twisted vines to break up the blackness, making the only light visible that which comes clumps of marsh fungus that emit a steady glow in a variety of muted colours: pale blue, whitish green, watery mauve. The only other light comes from those who can generate it themselves and that will reveal numerous broad-leaved trees, in some places standing too thick to move through. Below, knee-deep water laps in swirls at their legs, accompanied by the occasional slithery feel of something moving in the bracken against wet limbs, gone before it can be identified. A variety of strange noises from creatures of the swamp fill the air with buzzing and hoarse croaking, interrupted by the screech of mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds darting past and hungry for a meal.

---

OOC NOTE: Characters will not be able to progress past the Temple and the Grounds for 48 IC hours after which point, the way to continue onward to find the dragon will be discovered. The second log will be posted on the 17th, to help spread out the tagging. Thank you!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Landing face first in a mucky swamp, surrounded by darkness, getting slime up his nose and all over his clothes, not his favorite landing so far. Choking and sputtering, Stiles sits up, wiping the worst of the ick from his face, spitting out the brackish water.

And silence falls.

He figured his thrashing about would have a certain werewolf all up in his grill, making sure he's okay. And yet...

"...Derek?"

He calls it out tentatively at first, and then louder and louder, scrambling to his feet and pulling his dirk out. Yeah, he grabbed the dirk on his way in; he's not going totally defenseless, thanks. And he's even wearing those bracers he got in Sinbrilee. He's never worn them before, but this felt like the right time.

"DEREK?!"

Nothing. Silence.

He and Derek have been separated. He's wet, he's cold, he can hardly see anything, and all he has to defend himself is a short sword.

Great.

Obviously, there's a gap in Stiles' absorption of some of Bruce's more poignant lessons, one of which is never draw undue attention to yourself in enemy territory. He hears him yelling from several hundred meters away, and with a frown approaches him from the east, moving silently through the water and around the clumped trees. The swamp shifts of its own accord, so he relies on instinct more than a mental map and before too long he's in the shadows of one particularly hulking tree, studying Stiles as he splashes around.

Undisciplined is a word for it, so when he has his back turned, Bruce steps in, grabs at his wrist (he's wearing bracers, of a make and sort he doesn't recognize) to twist it up behind his back. With his other hand, he covers the boy's mouth. "Be quiet," he snarls, just beside Stiles' ear. "You don't know what's out there."

Some of Batman's training did sink in.

When he feels the hands on him, before he hears that muted snarl, Stiles goes boneless. Limp. Sagging in Batman's arms, trying to slither to the ground and evade the grasp. He doesn't swing his knife; he's not at the right angle for it.

But when he realizes who it is, he freezes, and then huffs between the leather - or whatever material - gloved fingers. And he struggles back up to stand straight, struggles to free himself.

A decent reaction, if a little lack-lustre. Bruce makes a faint noise of approval, even as he releases Stiles and gives him a little shove. And then, from the depths of his utility belt, he pulls out two small earpieces, which he holds out for Stiles to take. "When you find him, use these. It'll cut down on the yelling."

He wriggles himself free, flailing off to the side with one arm flying out before he rights himself. And he smooths his wet shirt back down, looking sour.

"Thanks. I'm pretty sure my voice isn't gonna be heard over the screaming trees but hey."

Ah, the sarcasm as his only defense coming out. But he's relaxing a bit too, because of all the people he could have run into, Bats is top of the list right now.

"They don't scream unless people are trying to damage them," he says mildly. "Gather up the glowing fungus, they move aside when it's near." Score one for the Keen Observational Skills of being a Master ~~Godmode~~ Detective. All it took was one of the trees snagging on his cape and dangling him in the air like a child's play thing, really.

But thankfully, no one was around to see that undignified incident.

"You shouldn't be in here, Stiles."

"...Good to know, glowing fungus defeats screaming trees. I suddenly feel like I'm in a play through of a Resident Evil game."

He finally manages to sheathe his knife again, just as something slithers by his leg. He yelps and scrambles away again, scaring whatever it was off. Hopefully. Of course, that's when he's told what he shouldn't be doing, and no.

"Seriously? You're gonna tell me that? Like I could just sit back at home and do nothing? No way. I'm helping."

"If you think the only danger is in here, you're being naive. You can't possibly think that the Enemy wouldn't consider this a perfect time to strike, when all the 'heroes' are trapped inside a bottle that may or may not be breakable, when its breaking may or may not kill us all." The creature slithers past him next, but Bruce doesn't so much as move. The creatures in the swamp have trace amounts of an unidentifiable chemical compound in their bite, and Bruce isn't in the mood to tempt luck without a laboratory handy to whip up an antidote.

He just rolls his eyes.

"Exactly. So I either stay out there and wait for a strike that I can't do anything about, or I come in here, get proactive, and try to help fix this shit. And if Derek and I hadn't landed separately, we'd already be moving."

Again, that strange, almost irrational dependence on Derek's abilities to fight and keep him safe.

"And endanger yourself in the process. You aren't ready." There's a bit of a growl in his voice as he says it, chastisement and warning both. "Don't rely on ifs. Or on Derek." People can let you down. Relying on yourself and your own abilities is always the better option, though Bruce has had partners aplenty. There's nothing wrong with relying on others, certainly, as long as your own abilities are up to par, and you won't need rescuing. A team, instead of a burden.

And whoever Derek really is, Bruce doesn't expect him to be the sort to appreciate burdens.

At those words, Stiles sets his jaw, and looks completely and totally rebellious. Yeah, wrong tack to take, Batman.

"Not ready, huh? Well, too fuckin' bad, because it's happening now. So I'm helping now. And excuse you, but I'll rely on Derek all I want. You don't get it. And I don't expect you to get it."

Because Derek had declared them pack. And that was all the difference in the world.

"How well do you really know that man?" Bruce asks, his tone completely even. He's weathered more than enough teenaged temper tantrums to know their navigational straits by now.

"Better than I know you!"

It's a brutal, raw confession, his need to protect Derek flaring up and skewing his judgment.

"At least I know his real name, and where he's from, and who his family was."

Bruce is silent for a considerable time, long enough to be uncomfortable. The edges of the silence crackle with energy, the atmosphere of the miasma overlaying it with a sort of frenetic foreboding. He has no reason to tell Stiles anything - nor has he ever asked - but he never has particularly liked being called on his hypocrisy, and he snorts as he turns away. "Gotham," he says at length. "I'm from Gotham. It's in Jersey."

It's a gamble, telling him that. Stiles isn't stupid, if he did a little digging he could exposit that, given Bruce Wayne's own home town, the two might be connected. Very little is of greater import than his secrets, but it's become increasingly clear in Keeliai that Bruce, not Batman, is the necessary identity.

If there's one thing Stiles is good at, it's taking little bits of sparse information and putting it together in one terrifying leap of logic. He gets to places ages before other people, landing blind with both feet firmly on the ground. It's just the way his brain is wired, he can't help it, even when the side effects of ADHD aren't exactly pleasant to live with.

"Gotham..."

And just like that, all the information comes together. His knowledge of comics, his hero worship of Batman, who he's spoken to on the turtle, his run-in with "Matches," the voice, the shape of the jaw, the way he holds himself...

"Oh my god."

"Don't," he warns, his voice a low growl. "We need to keep moving."

His eyes widen, and then narrow.

"...You've been playing me," he mutters, just loud enough for Bruce's ears only. "Getting me my meds with one face and teaching me how to fight with another. I don't know if I should thank you or be really creeped out."

Need to keep moving or not, this is a pretty stunning revelation.

He says nothing, merely continues on through the swamp. His cape he holds back and out of the way, it's weighing him down considerably even though it's waterproofed. Of Stiles' revelation he feels, curiously, nothing. He knows the boy can keep a secret. It's the only reason he was willing to give him the pieces of the overall puzzle.

"'Playing' implies a game," he says at length. "Is that what you think this is?"

"I don't know, is it?"

He's not pissed, exactly, but he is a little annoyed. He also feels a little aggrieved with himself for not putting the pieces together sooner than this.

"Because I didn't ask to be trained like it's a game."

"I train no one as if it's a game, Stiles," he snarls, stopping dead and turning to face the boy. "No one. Keep that in mind." There's no mistaking the anger, stitched together from the deaths of those he holds dearest. No one takes this more seriously than he does. He may have no intention for Stiles to become a Robin, or any brand of vigilante, but he'd never shirk on the boy's training as is being implied, either.

He takes a step back, a little stunned, and then his expression turns stubborn again.

"I do," he says back, sounding more than a little sullen. "I came to you for a reason. I trust you for a reason. But don't play the BS line at me about how I shouldn't trust or rely on other people, either. I make that choice for myself. Not you."

But there's something about Derek Bruce doesn't like. He can't quite put his finger on it. He knows that he cares about Stiles, but he also knows he's quite a bit older than Stiles. Physically there's maybe a few years' difference, - dangerous enough when one party is sixteen and the other isn't - but Derek is more worldly by far. It's obvious by the way he fought.

"Then ensure you're putting your trust in the right people, Stiles," Bruce says finally. An ultimatum, of sorts. And then he turns back and continues on through the swamp, leading the way.

"Yeah, okay. I get it. Remember when we first met? I mean when I met other you? And I was like 'stranger danger' all over the place? Believe me, I have a very finely tuned sense of who's evil. I didn't hold Derek up in a pool for two hours while he was paralyzed because I felt like he was evil, okay? You don't know what we've been through together."

His mouth is running as a distraction from the slog through the swamp. And as they're walking, Stiles is scooping up as much of the bioluminescent moss as he can, stuffing it into one fist and brushing it against any trees they come near.

Perhaps not, but Stiles has a little of Dick's problem. He cares too much, about too many things, or people. It's one of the reasons he's both a good and terrible choice for this sort of work. Good, because Bruce knows he'd lay his life down for a stranger. Bad, because he's nowhere near skilled enough to survive it.

He may not be a Robin, but Bruce doesn't want to lose him, either. Can't. Not another child. If Derek will protect him, so be it, but Bruce isn't one to rely on him for it. Stiles is under his protection, such that it is. Perhaps more attentively, now that Jason's gone again.

He doesn't remember the colour of his mother's eyes, and Jason's death is always the one that defined him.

"Then explain it to me," he tells Stiles as he gathers up a collection of the phosphorescent scum and puts it in a transparent phial for easy transport. A second one gets tossed back to Stiles. "It's the light, not the physical contact."

He huffs out a sigh. Well, that's gonna be difficult without naming werewolf names. But if anybody will keep it secret, it's this man. He weighs it against everything, and decides that it'll be okay.

"Derek's a werewolf," he says simply. "And for the last year plus, he has been risking his life to save mine. And Scott's. And Isaac's. And Erica's. And his sister's. I trust him because he has proven to me, over and over again, that he's a good person. He blames himself for his family's deaths, his entire family was murdered by his psychotic girlfriend when he was fifteen years old. He's a paramedic. He likes tinkering with cars. He speaks Spanish fluently. And I'm completely head over heels in love with him."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

EVENT | LANDFALL | KITHIKA | BOTTLE

Closed - Stiles & Batman

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject