Oh. This is strange. Everything in this memory seems darker than it should be, a tinted film thrown over the entire scene. It takes a minute to adjust and catch the details, but it’s not like this is an entirely unfamiliar place—everyone who’s ever been to one of Pocket’s parties has some idea what her cave looks like. What more is there really to see beyond the spray of the Falls at the mouth of the cave and some rocks jutting out of the wall, a fun obstacle for the drunkest of teens. In the back, far behind the memory owner, something blinks. A dull whir sound echoes along the cave walls.
“Ohhhhhmigod ohmigod ohmigod, you guys!!” the memory owner, the drunk party bug herself, claps and hops in excitement as a trio of teens pushes past the curtain of water. The shadowy overlay slips for a moment as her signature sunnies nearly bounce off her face. “I am sososoooo excited to show you guys the PONIES!”
“Pocket!” a blonde girl in her finest athleisure claps and hops along with her, and it feels like glitter is exploding in Pocket’s thorax. Or whatever those cute humans call it. “So you got someone to explain them to you? Did they show you pictures and… ?”
The blonde girl looks behind Pocket, her mouth slightly agape. The other two haven’t said a word the entire time. They’re just as captivated by Pocket’s amazing display as the blonde is. She can tell.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!” Pocket waves her hands and flutters her wings, waving the kids along to follow behind her. “You’re the very first ones and I can’t wait to show you everything!!”
Pocket pivots. On the other side of the cave, not nearly as hidden in shadow as it should be, is an enormous horse head. The eyes are wide and bulging, the mouth thrown open, displaying every single tooth in that long mouth. The closer the quartet gets to that face, the more horrifying details jump out; the warm breeze of the pony’s breath, the squishy sensation as they step on the tongue, the flashing lights at the back of the throat.
“Uh… Pocket?” one of the other teens asks, the boy this time, and Pocket can’t wait to hear his glowing review of her super realistic pony already!! “How are we, uh, getting to the party?”
Pocket grins so wide it almost splits her jaw right off. “We jump!”
The lit wand in Merlin's hand only makes the massive horse head more visible and he stares at it blankly, wondering (and not for the first time) just what is wrong with their Party Bug. At least he knows that this unfortunate equine isn't any more real that the English-speaking snakes they'd encountered at another of Pocket's parties. "...The infamous Pony Party," he agrees, leaving the awe to Armani, "Seems that way."
Armani skips forward, arms thrown out to catch the warm and humid ?breeze. "It's breathing," he says, looking more and more excited with each new horrifying reveal. He steps onto the tongue-- squish-- and turns back toward Merlin, giddy. "We get to jump down its throat-hole!"
While part of Merlin wants to protest this hasty decision and point out that a search of the cave before jumping down the throat would be the pragmatic thing to do, there doesn't appear to be much of anything up here and it's obvious where all the players in this memory are focusing. So. Down the hatch.
He follows Armani, but stops when he sees how the other boy's foot sinks in with the first step. That's doesn't seem right. "Gotta dock points for inaccuracy," he remarks, tone dry but also a bit tense.
Oh, gross. And not in the fun way anymore. Armani weighs his options: look cool in front of Merlin by pretending he is a-okay with this, or save his cute boots by begging Merlin to carry him through.
What he ends up doing is looking at him very sadly, the wind taken out of his sails. Figuratively. The horse breath is still hot on his neck.
As Armani's cute boots sink and squish into the tongue, the surface pulls taught and tears free. The skin sloughs off and piles onto his feet, revealing an emergency test pattern underneath.
Unaware that he's being considered for a possible taxi service, Merlin leans over the tongue and starts to offer Armani his hand so he can help the other boy to pull himself out safely and they can reassess the situation. But he pauses leaning over the gelatinous mess when he sees the emergency pattern that appears beneath Armani's shoes.
"What the hell...?" he murmurs without actually expecting an answer and looks at Armani. Then he does offer his hand. "...I think we need to take a better look at this thing before we go jumping down its throat."
Oh, gross. But kinda in the fun way again. Armani's expression lights up in an instant; it didn't take much.
He looks at Merlin's offered hand, then the emergency test pattern, back to the hand, then the test pattern again. "I gotta... touch." Just real fast, though. He squats down so quickly to slap it and then pops back up again to reach for Merlin's hand.
But are you sure you want to go out there Armani? Because either Merlin is getting shorter, or his own feet are starting to sink into the floor of Pocket's cave, slurping him up like a spaghetti noodle.
With his focus on Armani, Merlin doesn't immediately recognize that something's got a hold of him until he feels it starting to drag him down. His eyes go wide with alarm as he looks down. Without pausing to consider the logistics of attacking a floor, he begins to cast, "Immobulus!"
Now it's Armani reaching out both hands for Merlin, offering to pull him over. Or, well, carry him in his arms like a little spaghetti baby, if he has to. "It's solid where I am!"
Ah, but it's not all that solid, now that he thinks about it. The ground doesn't respond to Merlin's attacks and now they're both sinking, faster and faster.
And it's not just them. Pocket and her party companions are disappearing into the earth, the very skin of the memory melting off to reveal a ringing test card pattern beneath.
Mind racing, Merlin sees no way to stop this now, so he grabs Armani's outstretched hand and holds it hard, pulling himself as close as he can to the other boy. Whatever's about to happen will be worse if they get separated and he's not letting that happen. "Hold on!" He orders the other boy, even as he prepares to fires another spell at the floor. He doesn't think it will do any good, but he's not about to just give up.
"Deprimo!" Maybe they can at least get where they're going on their own terms. Fuck you, ground.
Armani helps to pull Merlin toward him and hugs him tight because, fuck yeah, he is HOLDIN' on for dear life.
Is there a grappling hook spell to hook onto the roof of this Hell Horse's mouth? Shit, shit, he doesn't think so but... surely SOMEONE has invented it?? With no time to think this through, he acts on impulse and points his wand upward to embarrass himself in front of Merlin. "Rezón..!!" Which is... literally just grappling hook in Spanish.
Edited (this is stupid, sorry) 2020-06-10 20:01 (UTC)
There is no safe place. The ground opens up with Merlin's spell, but it's less like rock and more like sand at this point and it quickly fills back in, sucking them further down with it. The ringing of an emergency broadcast signal echoes all around them, not unlike the cry of a cicada.
And then—
There's a flicker of light. There's a grunt.
There's a one-winged magimagicicada dragging himself out of the throat of the party entrance.
"Don't think this one's too stable!" Pouch calls out and holds one hand out to the pair of students. "Had to come in the back way."
His face dares them to ask what the back way looked like.
Growling in frustration at his failed spell and the ground's continued efforts to pull them under, Merlin barely registers Armani's improvised charm. He does, however, register Pouch's arrival and outstretched hand. Just one. He tightens his grip on the Thorntrail with one arm before reluctantly reaching out with the other and grabbing on. Good thing he's been hitting the weights with Imogen.
Once he's got a firm grip on the magimagicicada, he retorts, "So what're we supposed to do?" He seems to have exactly zero intention of asking about the back way. He's seen the front. He figures he knows what the back's like.
"Leave!" Pouch answers jovially, popping the two out of the ground with a surprisingly strong tug. His one wing flaps and flutters reflexively as he hops along the ground, unable to rest on any one spot for very long.
"My little sister really didn't want any yinz seeing this." Pouch hurries Armani and Merlin to the back of the throat, their feet squishing and sinking into the tongue with each step. He gestures down, to a portal waiting for them at the end of a slick esophageal slide. "Better hurry or it'll get real inconvenient to yank y'all out."
There's nothing Merlin would like to do more than just get the hell out of here, but he's stubborn and the idea of leaving the job unfinished clearly rubs him the wrong way. Even with his dress shoes squelching with every step across the giant tongue which threatens to pull them under. "But what about the linchpin? Don't we need it?" he protests as they reach the esophagus.
Behind Armani and Merlin, the quartet of partygoers sinks further into the dirt, the blonde's high ponytail the only evidence she was ever there. The emergency test pattern rings louder and louder, the sound doubling and tripling as echoes bounce around the small space.
"I'm pretty sure this one's fallin' apart without out help!" Pouch shouts over the noise. His feet are already disappearing into the tongue and he rips them out with a loud schlorp. "Little Sister clearly doesn't wanna be saved this way."
The frozen Pocket's head slips into the ground, the lenses of her sunglasses pointed at the roof of the cave. "All right, time for Plan C!"
Pouch slaps a hand on both the boys' shoulders and, for just a moment, everything is ice cold. Merlin and Armani are transported like melting ice out of the memory, freezing then thawing in the Peckenpaugh auditorium. By the time they reconsolidate, Pouch is gone again.
[MEMORY COMPLETE! Merlin and Armani were pulled out by Pouch before Pocket's shame could swallow them whole. You can continue to thread here now that the ground isn't trying to eat you, tokens will follow soon!]
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party - TOKENS!
Merlin and Armani completed the memory "We Don't Talk About The Pony Party"!
The portal collapsed after they were deposited in the auditorium, and Pocket is still trapped within the nightmare tree. She really doesn't want to be saved that way.
Merlin and Armani receive 5 Tokens for completing the memory.
They each receive another 15 Tokens if they promise to never tell anyone what they saw here.
You can check your token totals in Pouch's shop here, and maybe see if there's anything worth grabbing while you're there!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
peckishmods) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
peckenpaugh2020-06-01 11:18 am
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
[C̴̙͙̤̈́̇̈́͝͠R̵̢̙̤͉̙̰̓̉̀̑́͝I̸͙̥̗̣̜̘̟͉͛̆̎̿T̶̡̻̥͇͒Ȩ̴̧̛̪̌͐̀R̴̼̀̾̓̇́I̴̖̲̦̩͊̈́̄A̷̡̛̗̲͔̣̮̞̎͆̀͒̊̎̀͜:̸̡̤͈̻̪̩͑̈͒̑͛̚ ̷̳͙̥̭̰̥̄̄̾̕M̶̝̜̖͚̥̖͔̈́̿͊ì̸̢̭̙̖̥̘́̚ṉ̵̐̌͝ȋ̸̛̟̭͉́͌m̷̨̃̈́̽͑̈́u̸̲͍̾m̸̱͇͖̙͚̝̘̈́͑̑̈́̅ͅ ̶̢̺̱͍͐̃̈́͘1̵̞̱͉̬̲͎͎̓̑̏̇̐̊̕0̸͎̖͓̮̗̩͚̇̄͑͐̊̽͘͝ ̴̧͚̘͚̈R̸̫̆͒̀ë̸͔͉̪̳̣̗́̇́̆͑̆͒͛p̵͓̝̞͌̒͐͒͘l̶̗̱͛͆̕ï̶̢̧̻̖͎̳̘̻̍ḙ̷͖̝̬͙͗̽͋̂͛̂̍s̴̟͈̖̫̏]
Oh. This is strange. Everything in this memory seems darker than it should be, a tinted film thrown over the entire scene. It takes a minute to adjust and catch the details, but it’s not like this is an entirely unfamiliar place—everyone who’s ever been to one of Pocket’s parties has some idea what her cave looks like. What more is there really to see beyond the spray of the Falls at the mouth of the cave and some rocks jutting out of the wall, a fun obstacle for the drunkest of teens. In the back, far behind the memory owner, something blinks. A dull whir sound echoes along the cave walls.
“Ohhhhhmigod ohmigod ohmigod, you guys!!” the memory owner, the drunk party bug herself, claps and hops in excitement as a trio of teens pushes past the curtain of water. The shadowy overlay slips for a moment as her signature sunnies nearly bounce off her face. “I am sososoooo excited to show you guys the PONIES!”
“Pocket!” a blonde girl in her finest athleisure claps and hops along with her, and it feels like glitter is exploding in Pocket’s thorax. Or whatever those cute humans call it. “So you got someone to explain them to you? Did they show you pictures and… ?”
The blonde girl looks behind Pocket, her mouth slightly agape. The other two haven’t said a word the entire time. They’re just as captivated by Pocket’s amazing display as the blonde is. She can tell.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!” Pocket waves her hands and flutters her wings, waving the kids along to follow behind her. “You’re the very first ones and I can’t wait to show you everything!!”
Pocket pivots. On the other side of the cave, not nearly as hidden in shadow as it should be, is an enormous horse head. The eyes are wide and bulging, the mouth thrown open, displaying every single tooth in that long mouth. The closer the quartet gets to that face, the more horrifying details jump out; the warm breeze of the pony’s breath, the squishy sensation as they step on the tongue, the flashing lights at the back of the throat.
“Uh… Pocket?” one of the other teens asks, the boy this time, and Pocket can’t wait to hear his glowing review of her super realistic pony already!! “How are we, uh, getting to the party?”
Pocket grins so wide it almost splits her jaw right off. “We jump!”
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
He follows Armani, but stops when he sees how the other boy's foot sinks in with the first step. That's doesn't seem right. "Gotta dock points for inaccuracy," he remarks, tone dry but also a bit tense.
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
What he ends up doing is looking at him very sadly, the wind taken out of his sails. Figuratively. The horse breath is still hot on his neck.
"My boots..."
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
"What the hell...?" he murmurs without actually expecting an answer and looks at Armani. Then he does offer his hand. "...I think we need to take a better look at this thing before we go jumping down its throat."
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
He looks at Merlin's offered hand, then the emergency test pattern, back to the hand, then the test pattern again. "I gotta... touch." Just real fast, though. He squats down so quickly to slap it and then pops back up again to reach for Merlin's hand.
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
And it's not just them. Pocket and her party companions are disappearing into the earth, the very skin of the memory melting off to reveal a ringing test card pattern beneath.
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
"Deprimo!" Maybe they can at least get where they're going on their own terms. Fuck you, ground.
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
Is there a grappling hook spell to hook onto the roof of this Hell Horse's mouth? Shit, shit, he doesn't think so but... surely SOMEONE has invented it?? With no time to think this through, he acts on impulse and points his wand upward to embarrass himself in front of Merlin. "Rezón..!!" Which is... literally just grappling hook in Spanish.
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
And then—
There's a flicker of light. There's a grunt.
There's a one-winged magimagicicada dragging himself out of the throat of the party entrance.
"Don't think this one's too stable!" Pouch calls out and holds one hand out to the pair of students. "Had to come in the back way."
His face dares them to ask what the back way looked like.
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
Once he's got a firm grip on the magimagicicada, he retorts, "So what're we supposed to do?" He seems to have exactly zero intention of asking about the back way. He's seen the front. He figures he knows what the back's like.
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
"My little sister really didn't want any yinz seeing this." Pouch hurries Armani and Merlin to the back of the throat, their feet squishing and sinking into the tongue with each step. He gestures down, to a portal waiting for them at the end of a slick esophageal slide. "Better hurry or it'll get real inconvenient to yank y'all out."
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party
"I'm pretty sure this one's fallin' apart without out help!" Pouch shouts over the noise. His feet are already disappearing into the tongue and he rips them out with a loud schlorp. "Little Sister clearly doesn't wanna be saved this way."
The frozen Pocket's head slips into the ground, the lenses of her sunglasses pointed at the roof of the cave. "All right, time for Plan C!"
Pouch slaps a hand on both the boys' shoulders and, for just a moment, everything is ice cold. Merlin and Armani are transported like melting ice out of the memory, freezing then thawing in the Peckenpaugh auditorium. By the time they reconsolidate, Pouch is gone again.
[MEMORY COMPLETE! Merlin and Armani were pulled out by Pouch before Pocket's shame could swallow them whole. You can continue to thread here now that the ground isn't trying to eat you, tokens will follow soon!]
MEMORY: We Don't Talk About The Pony Party - TOKENS!
The portal collapsed after they were deposited in the auditorium, and Pocket is still trapped within the nightmare tree. She really doesn't want to be saved that way.
You can check your token totals in Pouch's shop here, and maybe see if there's anything worth grabbing while you're there!