over the river & through the woods

[doggedly]

CHARACTERS: Our Intrepid Explorers (Bucky Barnes, Gavroche Thernardier, Jack Benjamin, L, Remus Lupin, Rey, Rue Lancaster, and Sirius Black)
LOCATION: UNDER THE MOUNTAIN
WARNINGS: will update if necessary
SUMMARY: an exploration with necessary details here. to seek out new life and new civilizations. to boldly go where apparently someone has already tunneled before. starters for each stage of the journey have been posted below but also please ad your own.
NOTES: BACKDATED to January 7-10

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THE TUNNEL.

[doggedly]

" With a scream of grinding stone and a sudden cloud of displaced dust, it will become more obvious that the patterns depicted a door -- one that is opening, splitting into two, and sliding aside via some concealed mechanism. Inside, it is completely dark. That is, until someone brave enough steps inside, and the walls and ceiling begin to light up with green bio-luminescence like which they found outside, and similarly attracted to their presence by gathering where they step or touch, or even breathe if close enough.

What lies ahead is a long, dark tunnel, carved perfectly round into the stone. It continues on for about a minute, before opening up into a wider chamber of staggering proportions. The ceiling seems to lift up above them into darkness, save for a faint green glow, and following the walls to the left or the right will indicate a subtle curve that implies an immense round space. Headed towards the centre, the floor begins to descend in sharply carved stairs (which are about a foot shallow and several feet wide, so 'stairs' is a generous term, given scale), following the curve of the wall, descending down and down until they reach a hole in the ground at the centre of the chamber, approximately twenty feet in radius, and sealed off only with a criss cross of metal bars. Bearing in mind, any visuals beyond the meagre light allowed by the green glow will have to be helped along with their own sources of light, as it's extremely dark....."

[fullmoon]

The purpose of this trip, as it was advertised, is to find Weird Things, which may shed light—faint green glowing light, sure, why not—on other Weird Things, so mission half-accomplished. Weird Thing discovered, check, but the light-shedding only literal, not yet metaphorical.

The unadvertised, unspoken purpose is to find people. Too many have gone missing lately. Remus has Harry's wand, which he hits on his thigh like its contents might shift and become more responsive before making an attempt at lumos that sputters and sparks before settling into a cooperative white glow in the dark—Harry's gone, now James, and countless others.

Sirius is a dog, at the moment. Understandably. Remus wishes he could be a dog, too, in a less murderous and more simple way than normal, until James turns up and Sirius stops being like this.

They've already visited here once, with everyone else. Coming back alone means there's no one to look at Remus like he's gone a bit nutty when he says, "I'll follow you," conversationally, to Padfoot.

[doggedly]

In the pale wandlight, Padfoot turns to look at Remus over his shoulder, a flash of glowy eyes. He snuffs, licks his nose wet, and snuffs again before he shifts off his paws and starts forward. Mud mats the fur on his chest, up his forelegs, but in the tunnel, the path is dry stone, and his nails clack dully as he trots along.

They've been here before, so they know what to expect. His nose works at the air anyways, taking in the scents of the tunnel and the cavern that's ahead. The tunnel will start its glow any moment now, a trip of some invisible unknowable alarm but in the moment, it's just Remus and Padfoot, by wandlight, a familiar scene.

Padfoot's pace starts off quick, but it's not long before he falls back to keep pace with Remus instead, falling into step beside him. Close enough that--with the swing of Remus' arm--his knuckles will brush against some part of Padfoot's coarse fur.

[fullmoon]

On cue, there's the bioluminescence; Remus holds the wand up to the wall and it lights around his hand, green trailing after as he walks. The other hand brushes Padfoot a few times and then settles on his head for a second to muss the fur there. Mostly for his own sake. Everyone else comes and goes—he's come and gone—and Sirius is still here. That's something.

"They're not here," he says into the dark. "When we get back we can try looking in the other direction. I heard walking in a spiral is best."

But useless if they've vanished into thin air.

[doggedly]

Padfoot's ears prick and he turns to look up at him, another flash of his eyes in the dark-light-dark of the tunnel. He isn't quite feeling up to it, but his tail wags, once, an irrepressible reaction to the sound of Remus' voice. There are a few voices out there that could get a tail wag out of him nearly in spite of circumstance, and Remus' voice is near top of that list.

Everything is easier, as Padfoot. Cora, Tyke, James. Smells that colour memories. More before them. Cora, Tyke, James, and more before them. These ones hurt. As a dog, all his emotions get screwed down; the ache in his chest becomes something else, nothing smaller but a shape that's easier to get his head around. Cora, Tyke, James.

Remus. Fingers against his skull. Padfoot licks his nose again, with a quiet whine of agreement. Then, just for fun, he breaks stride to do a circle around Remus' legs, keeping tight against him. A spiral. Get it? Dogs can make jokes too.

[fullmoon]

Remus has to stop walking to avoid tripping, for a second, but he grins—a tight, brief thing, but not fake. Ahead of them the tunnel opens up, invisible in the dark but still sensed, the sudden absence of claustrophobia even though they can't quite see the walls. A few more steps and the hand Remus has held toward the tunnel wall is held into empty air instead.

"We ought to check the ship, too." He's not out of hope yet. "It could be pulling people back in to—somewhere."

A void. It's not impossible.

[doggedly]

Grins don't have smells, or colours--even if they did, he wouldn't be able to see the colours--but the air bends around a grin. Things change, infinitesimally. Prickly fur at the back of Padfoot's neck settles a little and his gait is easier, now that he's earned that grin. If he were all dog, this would be easy.

He's not all dog. Other bits inform him, remind him. Cora, Tyke, James. James James James. The ship, the depths, a wreck he's scoured, picked through, sniffed through, bit and kicked and Summoned and pushed, in turns. Bloody finger from a cut. Sweat, angry. His fur is all prickled again and he twists away from Remus and dashes forward into the open cave, tail drooped low. These are not things that he wants to think about. That's why he's here. It occurs to him then that he's left Remus behind, but he doesn't go back just yet. The air smells funny in here, dry and damp all at once, big vast echoy cave smell. The clack of his nails becomes loud, the huff of his breath, all magnified and echoed, a dog five times his size. Perhaps he'll stay this way forever.