exsiliumlogs | WEEK ONE: meet and greet the meat

There were hundreds of reasons to dislike a hospital, some of which the Nightcap had come to unknowingly share in an extremely short amount of time. Such a fan of sensory stimulation still had it in it to despise the florescent lighting, the sharp, stinging smells of disinfectants desperately trying to disguise disease and decay it knew far better. There were hundreds of places to rather be, yet the Nightcap rounded another corner and pressed flat against the wall, sucking air sharply through its teeth and waiting another heartbeat to advance to the nearest open room.

"Ugly, ugly, ugly," it whispered in each breath, slinking backward into the room. The process repeated again and again, cut short as people passed, bleeders that had to be ignored for the greater goal.

Rooms and rooms of sick, smelly humans...the Nightcap really had to stifle itself, prone to giggles and mumblings as it was. No, not that one...

How about here?

Collette didn't recall leaving the room. Her fever must have been particularly bad, if she'd managed to morph and try to escape from the pain and confusion and the distorted images she was inventing for herself. She kept thinking she saw familiar faces, ones she hadn't seen in about a year. James, Kelly, Timmy even, rolling by in the hall. Her friends, but they were all dead, as far as she knew, and she wasn't supposed to be seeing them if it wasn't the first of the month.

What was worse came in after them, seeping out of temporary shadows, tapping outside her window. Things that weren't there -- and then those moments, as she coughed, where she sat up absolutely certain she was covered in blood. Stephanie's, Nathan's, Ceasar's; whose blood didn't matter. It was just evidence of losing something she couldn't put back together again, and having no means of making it okay.

Collette hadn't known the mental state of her actual body could continue to effect her when she'd morphed. In most ways, it didn't. After long enough to recognize she wasn't the animal she believed herself to be, her consciousness reared up, taking control with willpower of titanium. (Or stainless steel; she preferred both metals to iron.) She'd gone further this time than most the rest, perplexed as she turned her furred head back toward the door on the hospital roof.

Collette was standing in coyote morph, at a loss for understanding how she'd gotten here. < I've got to stop doing that, > she told herself, ears pressing flat against her skull as she realized she didn't even know how to fully do that much. No one had mentioned this! Fever morphing? That sounded ridiculous!

Rudiculous and real all at once. She sat, forcing herself to demorph on the wet roof, doing what she could to ignore the light rain. Not knowing how she got here meant not being sure about the time spent getting here. It couldn't have been two hours, Caesar or Drift would have found her, but the risk of assuming was too great.

Going nothlit meant having to die to ever be human again. Collette really didn't want to have to die twice just to remain herself, especially over something as stupid as this.

Struggling to pull her hospital gown into a slightly less revealing position, Collette groaned and looked up at the sky. "Anytime now would be great, really. This whole fever, coughing thing --"

As if mentioning the cough was enough to summon it, she broke out coughing, hacking, wet sounds wrenched from her lungs along with the phlegm seeking to fill them. Close to doubling over where she sat, Collette squeezed her eyes shut, a picture of misery.

She wanted her mom. More than anything, she wanted her mother. But alone for the moment in the misting rain, all she had was herself, and her inadequate arms to wrap around her chest and whisper, "It's going to be okay."

Edited 2013-06-08 03:59 (UTC)

It was not going to be okay. If coincidence had anything to do with anything, coincidence had vile tastes. If coincidence was responsible for the Nightcap finding the stair, letting it climb the dim and dingy way up and up in favor of bright lights and putrid chemicals, coincidence had a lot to account for.

But coincidence had nothing to do with the Nightcap's state of being. It was fussy, fidgety, and anxious for the things it wanted and the work it had to do to get them.

Little Darkov door...I should just poke him right through and have it and no one would need to be impressed.

A different door was pushed open, the Nightcap at last not blasted in the face with oppressive light.

"Ahhh..."

Delighting in the damp cool of evening rain, of dark and distant lights, of the tingle of the change in temperature on its skin was almost enough to quell its agitation. Atop Regina Darkov's head, the Nightcap shivered and stirred, flexing and readjusting its tight grip. Sending eyes across the roof took two once-overs to spot the bump in the smooth stretch of concrete and reinforced steel.

Oh?

Loudly, the heavy roof door slammed behind it, leaving the Nightcap's arm outstretched with nothing in its grasp. It stood, frozen, like a dingy mannequin.

She stiffened, letting go of her torso at the sharp, heavy noise that shot across the rooftop. Collette's heartrate picked up, adrenaline shooting through her system at the unexpected noise. She didn't stop to consider the cause. Once glance where she didn't recognize her new companion in the low light was enough.

She'd surprised Caesar once so far this week by doing this, though it'd not been a conscious decision. She can apologize if she's done it to him again.

Her hands came down to rest on the cold, wet roof, and she initiated her battle morph. Whatever was here, most likely something harmless, was still unexpected and unknown for now. Despite what Jason had thought months ago, and what people seemed to think of her common sense in general, she knew she was vulnerable. With the image of the crocodile in her mind, Collette relied on something of an older familiarity and security.

Her original battle morph. Scales erupted across her skin, spine elongating as her nose and mouth seemed to melt together, reforming as they jutted forward, a flesh covered maw. Hair pulled back into her head with an almost audible slurp, arms and legs shortening and compacting in unmatched diagonals as her fingernails lengthened and solidified into claws.

Bumps and ridges formed through the green that'd overtaken her backside, eyes being part of the last to turn the proper reptilian color and design as a minute after the door slammed shut, an adult crocodile opens its tooth jaws with a hospital gown tangled around its neck.

< Way to surprise a girl! > Collette called out in Thought Speak. < I didn't have a rooftop rendezvous scheduled tonight. >

The Nightcap's lips curled, splitting into a wide grin. Did you fall, girl? it was about to ask, but such horrible changes took place instead, and so it only watched, still frozen save for the widening smile, somehow glinting in the dark almost as brightly as the stained monocle it wore.

There were still so many awful things in the world, far away from Regina's home. Things the Nightcap couldn't comb her memory for reference – certainly not a girl becoming a beast. Rarely were changes so fluid and so dire in her mind's eye.

The world is filled with the stuff of nightmares, echoed Grandfather. You must expect what you cannot and kill what threatens. That is all you can do to see the next sunset.

A voice invading its head was what freed the Nightcap from its frozen state, moving like water to recover from a stagger that set it to a stride, pacing widely around the squat, bulky monster on the ground.

"What a monster!" it cried, giggling throughout. "Look at you! How horrible!"

As whoever this was moved, Collette moved too, keeping her open mouth pointed their way. The glint of light off something around their eye was distracting, but not enough to break from her uneasy mutual guard.

< Awwh, but I've got a nice smile! > She tilted her head to better show off those teeth, knowing exactly how good at crushing down they were. She didn't recognized this person. Woman? Strangely hatted individual. That made her wary mostly because she was ill, and because most sane people didn't approach an adult crocodile even if they didn't recognize the beast. Particularly not when it was just a girl.

No... wait, was it the other way around? She found it hard to focus on those sorts of details.

< It's rude to stare! Since I seem to offend your senses, you could save yourself and just, you know, leave anytime now. Make like a banana and split! >

The grumbling growl of a crocodile escaped her throat. Collette waited for this person to take her suggestion. She wasn't about to actually attack, she never did that unprovoked, but she also didn't feel up to dealing with possibly manic curiosity when she was feeling so gross.

Edited (...that was not a crocodile) 2013-06-08 15:59 (UTC)

"Make like a banana...and SPLIT!" cried the Nightcap, parroting the words it heard in its head in a mindless shout. None of it made any sense, internally or externally, and all of it coming from a rumbling, oversized lizard made it less clear on the whole.

It stopped its slow pace around, snickering for a moment at the way the crocodile had to move to keep its eyes fixed on the Nightcap. Was it really absurd? What did it really know about what absurd even meant? Life was still barely two months fresh and still full of wonders – this being one of them.

Scales...it looked heavy. Thick. Slow.

Following that train of thought, the Nightcap made a sudden swiping gesture from which a single, thick needle flew, making a beeline for one of those big, slitted crocodile eyes.

Collette reacted, but a beat too slow to prevent the needle from piercing her eye. People often underestimated the speed and strength of the crocodile, absolutely certain a lizard of that size couldn't possible move quickly.

They were wrong, an even as she loses vision in one eye, Collette is already on the attack. She doesn't know them, doesn't understand what's going on, but she knows how to defend herself and try to get away. She wasn't thinking clearly enough to call out for help.

Help should have just been here, but this wasn't a here with a team. There was no back-up.

She pushed off the roof with all four legs, snapping her jaws at her aggressor and attempting to latch on to one of their legs. If that failed, she'd whip around, hoping to use the heavy, thick tail naturally part of any healthy adult crocodile to knock her opponent off their feet.

She wanted time. She didn't even remember that crocodiles had difficulties in opening doors that opened outward, not inward, and had no way to deal with locks.

The Nightcap yelped, leaping barely out of reach of those jaws; its skirt did not fare as well, shredding at the edges. Giggling with a mix of panic and excitement, it spun around on its heel, needlessly jumping at the swish of the heavy tail it was a fair distance away.

Testing, it conjured and flung a trio of needles at its hide – little to stick, really! Not a strong enough arm, not a sharp enough point. But there had to be some soft spots. Eyes, mouth...

"Oh, we need a hammer," it declared loudly, heels clicking as it hopped a fair distance away and around. "We need our big hammer, Bruce! Come here! Smash this angry beast! Haha–!"

Darting around to find the head again, another assault was launched for the second eye. THWIPPTHWIPPTHWIPP!

Defensive of her blind spot, any sign of movement her good eye caught provoked immediate reactions from Collette. She had tried to keep it trained on her assailant, jerking her head around and feeling the impact of the needles on her cheek. They were a bother, but not injurous there.

Unfortunately, the movement necessary to prevent those needles from driving into her eye caused her to lose track of Nightcap for the time being. With shooting pains driving through her head, Collette threw her mouth open wide again.

< If you want a hammer, you should be talking to Thor! >

Not that he'd been around for months, but that as a secondary point. She was open to attack, and until she found her aggressor again, Collette was aware of her disadvantage.

Little chance of the Nightcap diving right into the mouth of a scaly girl-turned-beast, truly. It circled again, nearly skipping with every alternating step like a child at play. This was no casual ring-around-the-rosie, however: someone was liable to get hurt.

Hiding from the mouth and face gave it little to work with, so it stopped, rocking back on its heels, and peered down at the croc. The next time the mouth opened – hoh! scary, that! – it threw a pair of needles inward.

Collette choked on those needles, pain exploding in her mouth and causing her to flinch back before blindly barreling forward. She had to get away! This was ridiculous, needles were nothing, but she didn't want to deal with it, and she was injured.

The pain of not being able to think as rationally as usual meant leaving herself open to ridiculous and preventable attacks. The needles in her mouth themselves were dangerous, too close to pushing through into parts of the crocodile that would be heavily damaging.

She'd have to morph to get her eyesight back in the other eye, and to get rid of the needles. As soon as she morphed, she'd be a sitting duck.

THNK.

The Nightcap's body slumped heavily against the steel door. It sighed loudly, teeth clicking together with a broad cheshire grin. As the needles in the crocodile's mouth dissipated to dust, a fresh array emerged from Regina Darkov's knuckles. One, two, three, four. It lazily lifted them to its face.

"More?" it called. "Shall I dig out each tooth, one by one? Take the eye and shine it up, top a cane..."

Great, part of her thought, now my mouth tastes gross. Blood and dust and a smiling woman, wasn't it, this was a woman doing everything. Collette didn't bother responding to the taunt at first, though she could have.

Instead, she slammed right into Nightcap's legs. Threats weren't going to disssuade her, not if it was only needles. They hadn't penetrated far enough to be a threat to her brain.

Not yet.

< Trust me, lady, I don't need the dental work! You're talking up the wrong crocodile! >

But the door, closed as it was, would be an obstacle no matter what Collette managed to do with the lady.

"Wrong crocodi-iIIIII–!" The singsong echo was cut short by the tackle, forgotten as the Nightcap scrambled, heels scraping against the door as it worked to keep limbs from falling into that steel trap of a mouth. All that work wound up with the Nightcap practically sitting atop the crocodile, facing the tail rather than the real problem. It twisted, stretching out over its back and grasping and clutching at unyielding neck – nothing to pick or poke at to make headway.

So the Nightcap, having lost three of the four conjured needles in the commotion, firmly grasped the last one in its fist, and jammed it down into the second eye while shrieking and shouting, trying to keep from being wriggled off or somehow a limb or two less a body.

Collette shrieks, a mental cry that she doesn't keep constrained to one singular mind. The pain exploding through her skull as a needle is shoved through her eye is excruciating. Worse, she's afraid of it going just far enough to hit the unexposed portion of her brain.

Underneath Nightcap, she went wild. Collette thrashed around, contorting and slamming with her full strength into the steel door. She couldn't afford to leave Nightcap on top, tucking into a violent roll if nothing else would dislodge her passenger. Crocodiles were nothing but muscle, though a lack of developed muscles to open their mouths made only their bite phenomenal in strength, not their ability to open their maw.

She had to get her off and demorph, stat. As soon as she dislodged Nightcap's weight, Collette didn't wait, darting off blidnly and rolling over a section of the roof she could not longer see. Crashing into the gravel, she began the demorphing process, scales and blood giving way to naked skin and hair. The blood didn't actually leave. Whatever pooled around Collette's head as a crocodile was around to dirty her hands as a girl.

She didn't have time to hang around as herself, not in the freezing cold, not with having lost her gown and the only sense of modesty or rationality that came along with it. The rain started to pick up, thick, heavy droplets falling down like leaden promises. Drip, drip, drop, little April shower, beating a tune as you fall all around...

Collette's morph was accompanied by a brash, excited shrieking that came around and around as the Nightcap circled and drew closer, an enticed predator to flesh exposed. Flesh exposed – ah, ah, ah, it saw. It saw scales melt to pinker, softer things. It saw the jaw grow watery...

With another holler, it lunched and grabbed at the vanishing jaw, fingers wrapping around one of those remaining crocodile teeth and yanking, giving a crow of delight at feeling it pull loose. Mine, mine!

"Ohhh!" it moaned through laughter, drawing away with haste as it cupped its prize in its hands. "Oh, you monster! Monster-thing! Lucky beast! Show me! Show me the trick!"

It swooped in again, hands searching for other prizes to be had, snorting and sneering at the human shape that had begun to dominate.

"You don't fool me, you don't!" A tangle of hair found its way in the Nightcap's grip. It crouched low, bringing its face to Collette's, hissing loudly.

"You don't fool me!"

Edited 2013-06-13 00:02 (UTC)

Collette yelped, a strangled sound that didn't make it entirely out of her throat as the tooth was torn out of her head, mostly crocodilian. She was human and panting and shocked on the cold roof, water falling on her bare back. She looked around, trying to track her assailant, but it was difficult between the lack of light and the rain and her own illness, regardless of the adrenaline in her system now.

When Nightcap ended up in her face, she jerked back, feeling the pain of her hair and wondering why she hadn't shaved it all off or something else ages ago. (Because she always wears her hair long, but that's the reality, and not an answer to a fevered, frightened mind.)

Collette smashed her forehead against Nightcap's face, unable to scramble backward, insistent instead on going forward. "Shut up! Leave me alone!"

It wasn't just a request. Vision swimming, head aching, she morphed again, this time the rippling effect of fur and jutting muzzle and four lanky, thinner legs than any she had as a human. As soon as she had functional hind legs, she launched herself after Nightcap. It wasn't just about escape, though she wanted, needed to get out of there. It was about driving off this creature causing so much pain, a single minded desire to hurt what was making her hurt until it stopped hurting. < Leave me alone! > she shouted in Thought Speak, trying to bite, to tear, to rend with nails and teeth.

The smack to its forehead blacked out the Nightcap's vision, already failing and practically gone in one eye as it was. It sparked a surge of fury, welling up from both beast and body as the instinct for survival gave greater strength to the limbs at its control. Of course, that had little say on maintaining balance and being upright, as Collette's new legs pushed it backward, shoulders hitting the concrete and the back of the hat squishing and hardening against the impact. All the while, it shrieked and laughed, gasped and snarled against the chaotic flail of limbs and hide.

As the hair in its grip began to shrink and slip through its fingers, hands searched and groped, needles breaking through skin at the knuckle and dragging across the ever-changing flesh the Nightcap worked to be free of. Something snagged, and the Nightcap twisted its fist to dig in and pull, pull, pull, snatching at something loose with the other hand and pulling, all the while laughing. Laughing, gasping, snarling...

She'd been slashed, gashed, burned, shot, smacked, slammed, and bitten in the past. Some of it was worse than what was happening now. Some of it was miles better.

Nightcap pulled, and between the needles and the rest, when it pulled, it took her skin up with it. From the ruff of her neck, tearing down and exposing the muscles of her shoulders and neck along the straight line of her spine, Collette screamed from the sudden, intense pain accompanying the ripping. The superficial fascia, which held the two together, ripped as well, the least educated and unclean of any unintentional, reverse dorsal skinning.

She was bleeding again, attempting to bite down on the arm fisted in her skin, quite literally. There was no way this should have worked. She had no idea how much damage had to be down through skin level to manage this, feeling a burning trail of warmth extending to her mid-back.

There was no way she was getting skinned alive! Bleeding profusely, she bit and howled and struggled to get away, crying in Thought Speak -- she didn't know she was, and hadn't thought it was possible. Projecting fear and hurt and anger and pain all in one long cry of, < Let me go! >

He'd heard the first scream — many had. Most of those who had heard were too delirious or sick to do more than stare around them in feverish alarm, but fortunately Ashraf is doing a little better than that. He'd cast his array of magic over himself before beginning his search, and spent the next few minutes searching through all nearby rooms, in a barrage of glowing, unnaturally fast-moving, and increasingly high grim priest. Nothing, nothing, nothing— it's at the second scream that he suddenly remember another option. The roof.

It doesn't take him long to get up the stairs to the door, and less time from there to throw it open. He takes in the scene at a glance — a woman, an animal, and a hideous amount of suffering.

"Leave it!" He's striding forward as he shouts, deep and with all the authority 75 years can manage. He has no idea who had been screaming, or what's going on, but it will be stopped. "Let go of the animal and step away."

There was a lot of noise; the Nightcap was screaming over the noise being blasted into its head, all the while ripping and pulling, ripping and pulling and–

More noise? Did it matter? There was yowling in and out of its head, and all the more reason to keep tearing until one more rrrrrip sent the Nightcap's arm sailing back against the concrete with a long tuft of fur and skin.

Is the screaming coming from — oh, no. That's either a sentient animal, or someone shaped like an animal. His eyes narrow, and he throws a hand out toward the woman, while the other dips to a loop at his belt to pull out two golden, cross-tipped rods. A searing bolt of light, similarly cross-shaped, streaks toward her from his hand. It does burning, painful damage to anything living, but it brings a special kind of pain to things demonic or undead.

God he hopes she's demonic. That would make everything from here on out a lot more straightforward.

The pain was exquisite. Having felt worse didn't make it more pleasant; breaking away from the woman she can only shy away from the man, too, not sure if he'd turn around to protect the apparent person over the animal bleeding and snarling and looking wildly for the door.

It's closed again. Collette wants to scream, cry, anything: the dang door is closed!

She scrambled away, living up to her own mental entreaty, light burning her eyes as she refused to turn her back on assailant or new stranger. She slams her eyes closed a moment too late to prevent being partially blinded by the light.

< Stay away from me! > she calls out. It's a warning to both parties, ignoring the blood staining her sides red, matting her fur and showing the muscle underneath. Collette doesn't register Ashraf as Ashraf yet, doesn't recognize his smell through the blood and burning particular of any kind of light concentrated in a given area, let alone the result of that light touching flesh.

Bad memories. It's all a rush of bad memories, and all she can be thankful for is that fire isn't direct her way -- yet. Growling, blinking blinded eyes rapidly as she jerked her head between Nightcap's direction and where Ashraf stood, she calls out at last for the names of people who she swears should have been here. < Barnaby! > Gone, and she knew that, revising mentally. < Drift! > Her friend who faces down his own demons, convinced all he can do is destroy. < Caesar! > Who she can't call for, because he can't be here. He can't be around any of this. < Vanadi! > He's always shown up before. But things change, he's changed, who knows where he is now? < James! > She feels her mental voice breaking off into a cry of a different sort of wordless pain. < Where are you? >

The rest is locked within her own mind. Why aren't you here? She isn't always brave on her own. She edges further back, seeking to get away. If they keep each other distracted...

Edited (forgot vanadiiii) 2013-06-16 00:51 (UTC)

Not so demonic, but Ashraf is lucky: the Nightcap wasn't made to endure such foreign elements. Over Collette's cries, Regina Darkov's own swallowed them up, loud and shrill as she twisted and writhed on the ground. The monster, too, suffered: bulging and bubbling in places, the hat looked less a hat and more a boil ready to burst.

No! Auuugh–! NO!

Pain. Personal pain – not just information fed from the girl. And it was terrible. Tendrils burst from the already broken shape it had once been, flailing and stretching and searching blindly for some means to ease the pain.

WEEK ONE: meet and greet the meat

6/9: more than one way to skin [COLLETTE, ASHRAF]

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oh god look at that, quicklog is just so engrained in me