Outside the Woods; Sunday Morning [08/12].

[died8yearsago]

The funny thing about a stake-out was that they always sounded pretty cool...until you were actually on one. When it came to choosing someone to keep an eye on the forest and watch for any signs of where an entrance might be, Rosa was a pretty logical choice and, honestly, even if the focus was strange and stupid and some bizarro magic whatever, she was just kind of glad to be doing some actual cop work. She set up a task force with her and a few of the troopers to keep an eye all night, with the directive to shoot off a flare gun to let the others know if you'd found something. It seemed a pretty solid idea, really.

...except that nothing happened.

Nothing hardly ever happened on a stake-out, and that's why they weren't nearly as cool as one might be lead to believe.

Nothing happened, and now dawn was breaking, and Rosa shook the last remaining suggestions of coffee from her very empty thermos and sighed. What a bust. The thing had been thoroughly poked, none of the collected clues from yesterday seemed to make any sense, and now the entire night had passed without even a suggestion of something helpful. She took a moment to check her watch, sighed again, and decided to linger at least a little longer, at least until maybe some people started showing up for Round Two, before going to report her findings (or lack thereof, really) to the mayor.

[[ expecting one certain tiny green pathfinder, yes, but if anyone wants to swing by, it's open! Thread with Peridot will be last chronologically ]]

Comments

[era_two_triangle]

Peridot was thousands of years older than you, Rosa.

She was also very much not paying attention, just quietly stumbling her way into the forest.

The pumpkin, at least, seemed to notice, looking back at Rosa and dropping her stick in order to bark, in that clearly distraught way that only sentient gourd-type creatures really can.

[died8yearsago]

"Hey, wait--"

When she realized the tiny green rock thousand year old being that was still totally being called a kid regardless wasn't stopping as she got closer to the woods, she stepped forward, but it was too late to do much of anything before the darkness swallowed her up. "Shit," she hissed under her breath, trying to shake the boredom of the long night off of her now that something was finally happening, took out her flare gun and shot it into the air to get the attention of the troopers, and then yanked the axe out of the back of her jeans so she could mark the spot where the kid had disappeared by forcefully lobbing it into the nearest tree.

And that is why a woman always needed an axe.

Of course, since she figured there was no guarantee the axe would still be there when she returned, she waited for the troopers to find her before going to deliver the news and have them stand guard over the spot. But it was a pretty big forest, so, while she was waiting for them, after a moment of frowning at the apparent spot where someone at least had managed to get through, she looked over at the pumpkin.

She...couldn't just...leave...a clearly upset pumpkin there, could she? Wrinkling her nose and fighting against something very deep inside of her that deemed this whole thing as stupid, she snapped her fingers to try to get its attention, letting out a little whistle, just like she did with her own dog.

"Here....pumpkin," she said, lowering her snapping fingers down to about the pumpkin's level and whistling again. "Come here....pumpkin, it's okay."

[era_two_triangle]

Pumpkin whined, looking between the darkness and the human who was calling her, clearly distraught.

... Well, at least the tall human one knew her name!

So, yeah. Peridot might have wandered off, but at least someone was on the right side of the big scary dark. Pumpkin was going to trot right on over and sit on one of Rosa's feet. Totally normal Pumpkin coping mechanism.

There. That was better.

[died8yearsago]

"...I hate this place so much," said Rosa, to no one in particular, after a long moment of coming to terms with the fact that there was a pumpkin on her foot.

And that, you know, the woods were swallowing up only few select people and doing God-knows-what to them inside.

And that those troopers were really, really slow when you least wanted them to be.

She didn't know if pumpkins liked dog treats, but she knew she had a few of them for Arlo 2 in her pocket, so she fished one out and tossed it down to the pumpkin while they waited. Looks like she was going to play pumpkin-sitter until they figured this out. Or until she foisted it onto someone else, though she did wonder if Arlo 2 would get along with the pumpkin. That seemed a pretty safe place to keep...it for now.