T - Bee, Dark, Nako, Vyn

[Nathalia]

A few seconds after the Corvid touched a claw to the mirror's surface, there was a sudden flash of red from inside that all could see, and with a fluid motion, the Bird was dragged inside.
Phaedra caught a flash of something completely horrifying in the reflection's surface for the briefest of moments before it vanished with their companion.



Suha felt an incredible pain tear through her lower body and shoulder as a massive form, thick and bulky, pinned her down and bit as her back savagely. In a void of swirling darkness, she felt herself fade in and out of consciousness, unable to fully process what, if anything, was happening.
For Phaedra and Javaid, it was only about ten seconds after she vanished, that the Bird reappeared, sliding out of the mirror and into a bloody heap on the floor, looking injured, though not too badly, and horrified.

[Dark]

A flash of red and Suha was forcibly dragged forward, pulled through the glass as it were nothing--unsubstantial, nonexistent--a yawning vortex of darkness that swallowed her whole. No time to think, to react, to struggle. She was consumed by darkness, pinned under the crushing weight of another’s form. Pain, all consuming, beyond the physical. Hating the memory of helplessness, or being at the mercy of someone older, larger, stronger. She couldn’t fight back. Reality, time, slipped away and Suha drifted in and out of the darkness, away from the actuality of such a brutal assault.

How much time had passed--she slipped back through the mirror as easily as she’d been taken, back into a different kind of darkness, a true darkness. A moment of unbelieving, and then she was scrambling away from the mirror, keeping a terrified eye on the gleaming glass as she retreated. Her whole body shook.

There were no words for her companions--they were here, everything was alright now, this was real, this was real--just a soul-shattered keen that couldn’t possibly be coming from her own throat. She backed up against a wall, shaking, she couldn’t stop shaking.

[Bee]

Everything happened so quickly. Suha never answered her question; instead, she finally glimpsed something in the mirror, some fleeting image of a terrible beast, and then the bird was gone, sucked into the mirror. But she barely had time to be perplexed and horrified by her absence (they did not need another girl to rescue, they still had to find Delaney, could she possibly have been sucked into the mirror too...) when she was spat back out. None of the arrogant, self-interested Morganberry remained; she was just a red quivering lump on the floor. Her distressed keen was ear-piercing.

Phaedra really didn't know what to do about it. Except, for the moment, get the hell away from the mirror. She had touched the damn thing too, she was right in front of it; who was to say she wouldn't get pulled in too if she remained near it for just a few more seconds? She tried to marshal her people skills, looking uncertainly at Suha.

"Come on now," she said, crouching a little, calm but insistent. Speaking kindly to her seemed so very counterintuitive, but her current state was too pathetic for the vitriol in which she normally soaked her voice. "Up you go. We should leave. You'll be okay."

[Vyn]

Javaid snarled as the mirror sucked Suha in and something that might have been cursing escaped him in his native Hisstor. What in the name of the Ancestors was going on!?

And then she was back.

Javaid hadn't even had time to bark at Phaedra to step back, hadn't had time to voice his plan to leave. Probably for the best, because leaving her here like this would've probably been considered rude. His blue eyes flashed around briefly, all the more wary of this madhouse, and then he slipped forward into the shadowy hall.

The brutalized avian was keening and shaking, rightfully terrified and bleeding something awful. He resisted calling her names for touching the mirror and instead allowed the Esterberry to whisper reassuring nothings as he examined her wounds. Nothing that seemed absolutely life threatening, but best not to leave her bleeding.

"I have water and bandages, just hold still a moment." He was always prepared for this sort of thing. After all, one could never be sure when outsiders would attack and Javaid was not going to let them get the better of him. The large pack he'd been carrying was now swung down in front of him and he slowly began to remove the required items: A canteen with extra water to wash the wounds, and medical gauze. He had some healing ointments but for now it seemed well enough to clean and bandage her to the best of his ability.

When he was done, he returned the contents to their place and withdrew from the woman. He turned his attention to Phaedra. "If you think the child is still here, we can search the lower hallway... but I personally believe this place is dangerous... We should leave." At very least he wanted out of this hallway. He'd have nothing more to do with that mirror.

[Nathalia]

The mirror surface rippled slowly as they stepped back from it, and as they stared, another image slowly faded onto its surface.
It looked almost identical to the hallway they were currently standing in!
...Save for the fact that it was full of light, fine carpets, and a nicely laden table of snacks being pushed along by a hairless, Bipedal Mouse-looking woman.

What?
The hall they're standing in begins to go a little colder than before and all feel rather suddenly empty and hungry.

[Bee]

Well, one of them had to come prepared to administer first aid and it certainly hadn't been Phaedra. The injuries hadn't looked awful, just bloody, but there was something to be said for tidying up. It would probably help Suha's mental state, as well. She glanced back at the mirror, wondering what on earth could have happened, when the new image caught her attention. The terrible figure she had seen before was no more; instead, a hairless maid stood in a bright hall with a table of enticing snacks.

All the warmth in Phaedra's body seemed to pull to her belly; the rest of her suddenly felt a bit chilled, but her stomach was working and now quite famished. Ridiculous, she thought; she had indulged in appetizers earlier in her desultory pub quest with Suha. There was no real way she could be hungry. And this was such an inconvenient and inappropriate time for it; she should not even be entertaining the thought of chasing after a snack tray, even if it was magnificently laden with sugary confection. She could agree with Javaid about leaving; this place was seeming almost as uninviting as the misty streets. And yet...she glanced at the mirror again, where Suha had been pulled in, where now only stood a harmless-looking woman.

"Maybe she is here," she said, uncertainly. Perhaps that...that monster was just one of many destinations. She was still afraid of the damn thing; but the thought of still being right was too pressing to ignore. "Perhaps she was pulled through...do you think this is some kind of portal?"

[Dark]

Not a single note of protest while Javaid cleaned and bandaged her wounds, beyond a low keening noise; she refused to look at him, and had started something awful when he first came towards her. Logically, she knew he was trying to help, but--she didn’t want him touching her, oh gods, no, no, no, no, no. She latched onto one of Phaedra’s paws, squeezing in desperation--strange, why was the woman being so nice?--and ignored it, she was ignoring it, yes, Phaedra actually had rather nice eyes, the woman was always so calm, so logical. Javaid finished and moved away, and Suha’s breathing evened out; her shaking eased.

Suha shifted, starring at the new image uneasily; but it wasn’t that place, not the dark place, and he wasn’t starring back at them. Mirrors. What did she remember about mirrors?: reflections, of the truth, sometimes lies, bad luck, scrying and spying, a trap for spirits and wayward souls. Was there something about gateways? Suha had never been particularly magically inclined, and she certainly wasn’t an expert on magical items.

Suha remained firmly at Phaedra’s side, uneasy of Javaid’s lurking presence, feeling miserable, cold, and absolutely famished. It didn’t really matter what they did at all, so they might as well move forward; the certainty of their fate settled heavily in the bottom of her stomach.

“Through the looking glass,” she murmured, “Only one way to find out.” She knew she wasn’t making much sense--her thoughts were flighty little things, refusing to be pinned down--but in the calm corner of her mind she had found, she did not particularly care.

[Vyn]

Through the looking glass? Javaid's expression darkened and he visibly recoiled from the thought, a slight of disgust spreading over his muzzle.

The room around them had grown cold while the world beyond the glass had become warm and inviting. His stomach churned and he wrapped his fingers so tight around his staff that his knuckles hurt. He wasn't hungry. He'd eaten not long before the madness fell upon them. He still had rations -- unappealing as they were -- tucked into his traveling bag.

"Trickery," he scowled. That's what this whole place was, trickery.

Of course a portal made sense, it was one of the many uses for mirrors, and Phaedra's trail had lead them here to this dead end... which might not be such a dead end... but really? How could they trust it with what Suha had just endured? Had she honestly forgotten her own trials so quickly?

It was all trickery, a trap. It couldn't be anything else. Life was not convenient like this mirror wished him to believe. When the world was cold and your stomach was empty, warmth and sweets did not appear before you.

"But yes, it could be a portal. ...It could also be a trap."

He took a step back, shaking his head a little as he watched the women draw forward. He would've longed for Conway's presence just then... if it hadn't meant the man would be suffering this situation with him. Better, for once, that he be far away.


(Sooo, apparently SoD stopped notifying me when people posted. Awesome. Sorry for the delay. ;_; )

[Bee]

Phaedra was more than marginally surprised that Suha had decided to cling to her. Extremely stressful recent circumstances aside, they had been snidely at each other's throats since meeting one another. She seemed to be reacting quite poorly to Javaid's presence, however; her trip through the mirror truly seemed to have broken something upstairs. The fire was gone. She supposed she had it in her to pity the dead coals, however deeply strange it seemed to her to do so. She slowly stroked her head, dredging up some long-lost memory of what her mother used to do for her, when she was wee.

Her frustration she directed at the mirror. They had little enough idea what was going on, and if the mirror led them to answers and more importantly Delaney, she was loathe to discard it as an option, much as it gave her the chills. She poked it again. It did not seem to budge, waver.

"Its magic seems to be intermittent," she said, sourly. "A trap it may be, but none of our venues thus far have seemed particularly inviting. Whatever corner we turn seems to have something unsavory lurking around it." She threw another angry glance at the mirror. "We can check downstairs again. But the scent..."

[Nathalia]

It would seem that Javaid's fears are fairly accurate as Phaedra's second stroke of the mirror caused a delayed reaction of sorts.
A sudden rush of wind at their backs and a forcible ripping sensation placed all three miscreants in a sudden and desperate amount of pain.
Almost as suddenly as it had started, the pain ceased, leaving all three with a dull, throbbing ache, and a terror of whatever had lurked in the darkness.
Javaid and Suha distinctly felt something grab tightly onto their arms, before being ripped away by the wind.
"Goodness gracious!"
A voice yelped, followed by a clattering noise as a small tray of pancakes crashed to the floor.



The woman they had seen in the mirror stood before them, pale skin accentuated by a few pale swirls of gold and...something else, a darker tinge.
Her wide, empty-looking red eyes stared vaguely about her as she crouched, maid's uniform rumpling a bit as she tried to feel for the plate.
"Hello! Helllo, please, I- hello?"
The cart she was pushing stands before them, and all three are now lying on cool tile in what seems to be a warm, wealthy kitchen.
The mirror still stands behind them, the same one, though it now reflects the kitchen they stand in, and their reflections.