Firgures Up Ahead Moving Through the Trees

[kitchen_maid]

Amy knew when she married Perry that she was never going to have what you might call a surfeit of privacy.

On the other hand, this is the first time since she was a very small girl that she's tried to fall asleep with an audience keeping watch over her.

There's a faint sliver of light through the doorway that Amy keeps opening her eyes to watch. X, Parker, Meg, Scorpius, and Bruce are in the breakfast room, just on the other side of the ever-so-slightly ajar door. ("You do not have to worry. I will hear you," X had said, when Amy had expressed surprise at how little the door is open. "Heartbeats are difficult to muffle. It is okay.")

Amy rolls onto her other side, which at least means that she can't see the light through the doorway.

On the other hand, she can now see the side of the bed where her husband isn't. Perry has removed himself to the seventy-third best bedroom. He would much prefer to be here, but he found it quite impossible to refute the logic of Parker and X.

"Helloooo, you're the King," Parker had said.

X had been slightly more diplomatic. "We will bring her back. You know I do not lie. And people will need to know where to find you. If there is an emergency. While we are gone."

Perry probably isn't sleeping any better than she is, Amy supposes. On the other hand, Perry probably isn't even trying to sleep.

Amy sticks her head under the pillow, but there's not enough air.

She rolls over again, takes a deep breath, and starts counting backwards from one hundred.

Come on, Amethyst. Just fall asleep.

Comments

[parkerlee]

Shrugging Parker off might be easier said than done. She's been told she has a hell of a grip.

Of course, she can't quite make herself turn away from the tree either, so at present they are forming what is effectively a very short conga line.

"Yeah. It's sort of like....slow dance beat combined with Barry White."

Presumably, other people might hear different.

"Meg?" Parker sounds slightly desperate. "If I ask nicely will you slap me?"

[noteful]

Meg opens one eye just enough to get a blurry-through-her-eyelashes orienting view.

And then she takes two steps toward Parker and slaps her, not hard, but hard enough.

"You're welcome," she says, and closes her eyes again.

Okay, so they've got a hypnotizing, singing tree to deal with. Maybe if they try to block that out . . .

"It's been a hard day's night, and I've been working like a dog," Meg sings.

Well, sings is a very generous word. Meg is tone deaf, and she couldn't carry a tune if someone gave it handles. And as she's very aware of that fact, the first line is a little hesitant.

But, hey, there's nothing to counteract the silent siren song of an ominous tree like an off-key rendition of a Beatles classic, right?

It's worth a try, anyway.

"It's been a hard day's night, I should sleeping like a log."

[master_bruce]

'...it's been a hard day's night, I sh...'

Wait, what?

No no no. He shakes his head, and looks to X because he has no idea if clones are affected by trees the same way as the rest of them.

'Can you...when I get home to you, I find the things that you do...'

(He doesn't even like the Beatles that much.)

A wire is pulled from his belt.

'I don't think blindfolds are going to cut it. Scorpius, stop! X, if we're linked together, could you drag everyone forward? If necessary?'

If she can't, they could be in trouble. Only - when he looks up to see if Amy is still in sight, it seems like the urge to follow her is stronger than the pull exerted by the tree.

He looks back to X to tell her.


'I find the things that you do, will make me feel...alllll riiiight.'

[cutting_edgex23]

X's eyes are closed, but she can hear perfectly well. Only her semi-permanent lack of expression keeps her from wincing.

(Sorry, Meg.)

Bruce singing is very strange -- moreso than any of the others -- but if it helps, it helps.

She hears the quiet sounds as he pulls the wire from his belt. She also hears the tree, even if she cannot see it.

But if X is possessed of one thing, it is the determination that she decides what she does, not anyone else. Not anything else.

And what she has decided to do is protect her friends. All of them.

"Yes." Her response is clipped, even as she reaches out to take the wire from Bruce, fingers brushing against his as she does so.

"But I do not know if I will be able to be careful. If people struggle."

Then she goes to corral Scorpius and Parker. Aside from the singing, they seem to be in the most danger.

It helps that she can hear their heartbeats, even over all the singing.

All the singing.

[alsoagreengrass]

"This isn't necessary," Scorpius says from the ground with his face in the dirt. Because after trying to get away from Parker - who knew she had a grip like that, huh - that's where he's ended up.

"Honestly. They're the mad ones, with their singing.

"Uhm. I'm okay now? Really."

But, considering he is still trying to wiggle his way toward the tree, even after being corralled and blindfolded? Well. He's a lying faced liar.

He'll need to be pulled along for just a bit.

[parkerlee]

Parker is sitting on the ground, one hand wrapped around Scorpius' ankle.

Her own blindfold is not yet in place and she's eying the tree.

"Uh. Guys?"

The tree seems to give a little shudder and shake off a cloud of glittering leaves. The don't fall to the ground, but hover in midair like a flock of birds or butterflies.

"I think we should get the hell out of here."

[noteful]

"You know I work all day, to get you money, to buy you things . . ."

Meg opens her eyes, because, yeah, all right, she can't see the tree with them closed, but she also can't see anything else, and she kind of thinks she might need to at this point.

That is a very worrisome cloud of leaves.

And she doubts the Lennon/McCartney songbook is going to be much help with them.

Meg's not sure what kind of a weapon you use on a cloud of glittering leaves (some kind of enchanted rake, maybe), and she knows she doesn't have anything with her, but she checks her pockets nevertheless and comes up with a small first aid kit and the twig she broke off one of the golden trees earlier.

She pulls the latter from her pocket, because she's not sure about the wisdom of keeping it at this point.

"And it's worth it just to hear you . . . huh."

Meg stops singing, and stares at the twig in her hand. The moment it was out of her pocket, and in front of her, she stopped feeling anything at all from the tree at the center of the clearing.

"Huh."

Cautiously, Meg moves the twig to the side. The moment it's away from her body, she can feel the pull of the tree again. She hurriedly moves it back.

"Birnam Wood."

Well, if Orpheus's approach won't work, they might as well try MacDuff's.

"I think . . . I think maybe it thinks I'm a tree now," she says, trying not to be aware of the utter absurdity of that statement. "Like, maybe it 'sees' the leaves and stops looking.

"Try it," she says, to Bruce, who is currently closest, holding out the twig.

Maybe they can make like a tree and leaf?

[master_bruce]

He blinks at her.

'Uh...'

There may be an urge to sing something at her in response to that, but he has enough awareness to sit on it. He takes the twig/

'...how 'bout that?'

Wow. OK. They need twigs. He jogs over to the nearest tree, picks another twig, and then tosses the spare to X.

'Give that to Scorpius before he gets eaten, or turned into a sapling or something.'

It only takes a minute to grab enough for everyone. No idea what might happen with the hovering leaves though.

[cutting_edgex23]

X forcibly shoves the twig into Scorpius' hand, keeping her own curled around it just in case he decides to throw it away.

The tree seems very persuasive.

Then she reaches out to take a second twig from Bruce. This one is for her.

And, it would seem, the twigs get handed out just in time.

The hovering flock of leaves dives toward the crowd of interlopers, though they pull up quickly enough to flutter through illusory branches.

The really unnerving thing?

The leaves all have tiny, sharp white teeth. And the illusory leaves will only fool them for so long.

"We should go," X offers, quick and calm and quiet.

"Now."

[alsoagreengrass]

"I can't build a broom from a twi - Oh."

Scorpius blinks, taking in the ...toothy leaves, and he's on his feet. Fast.

"Right. Going. We're going now."

He grabs Parker by the hand, dragging her to her feet and keeping a firm grip on his twig as he does, and he darts toward the treeline Amy had long since disappeared into.

He's pretty certain the others will follow.

[parkerlee]

They're like little airborne piranhas.

"Who the hell designed this place, anyway?" Parker gasps. "And what were they smoking."

Parker automatically reaches out a hand behind her for Meg.

They can only hope the group of trees is friendlier than this individual one.

[noteful]

The group of trees is still eerie, but these trees don't seem to be actively trying to ensnare and/or devour them.

At least not at the moment.

And as a bonus, the glittering . . . flock? herd? school? what is the collective noun for golden, flying, dentate leaves? At any rate, the leaves stop at the edge of the clearing. They go whipping around its outskirts, like fish circling an aquarium, but they do not follow the group into the woods.

Meg sighs and takes a moment to be grateful for both the twig in her hand and the fact that she can no longer hear any singing she has to try to drown out. (Because, logical decision or not, it was still a bit mortifying.)

"Is everyone all right?"

[master_bruce]

'Apart from my eardrums, fine.'

Kidding, Meg! He's kidding.

His own singing was not much better.

'We lost a lot of time there. Lets go.'

[cutting_edgex23]

"No one is dead," X confirms, nostrils flaring as she scents the air.

Just to check.

"Or bleeding."

Beat.

"I do not think we will need to slow down."

The sudden increase in her speed indicates that the opposite of slowing down would be much preferred.

At least until Amy is in sight again.