⇨ The Tourist Trap: PROLOGUE

[ringleaders]

Who: Anyone, anywhere in Portland.
When: Any time before the start of the event.
Where: Portland area, in the new reality.
What: Once you've submitted your AU summary, you can use this post to do some CLOSED THREADING to play out some character interactions that happened before the event start. This means that memory regains will not be in play yet. Open top levels are not allowed - these threads are intended to sort out closed interactions between planned backstory connections, during the week leading up to the actual event start.
Warnings: Could be anything.

PORTLAND, AS YOU KNEW IT↴ The shift went unseen and unfelt. One moment you were one person, and the next, another. This before all that, though, in the new life that you remember living here in Portland. No memories of your true self have arisen yet, and at the time this was the only life you knew. Did these events truly happen at all? Or do they only exist in memory?

Comments

[atouts]

And that would be the cue for resorting to magic. Childermass doesn't move through the shadows, per se, but more like he becomes one that darts flat across the floor, only to allow him to spring up again as suddenly as he'd vanished. To the plain eye, it's almost like teleportation, almost.

It also puts him directly in Steven's path, standing right in the open door, between him and escape.

"He can't hear you, Steven," Childermass continues on sounding terribly calm, like this isn't outright horrible or out of the ordinary whatsoever. "He's not here."

[starseedling]

His tears start pouring more freely as he becomes more desperate. He moves forward anyway, and will physically try to push Childermass away from the door. He's only got the strength of a regular ten year old, unfortunately, so that will be an uphill battle.

"Let me go!" he cries, only getting louder. "Dad!"

[atouts]

Steven gets him to take, at most, a step back, but after that, he just makes a grab for the kid's arm. The last thing he needs is having to go chasing the younger changeling up and down and all throughout an apartment building. As it is, he can only imagine someone's put in a call to the cops just from Steven's yelling along.

"Should have known," he mutters under his breath. "No one ever takes the easy way of doing this."

[starseedling]

Childermass manages to grab him, if only because Steven was already mid grapple with him, attempting to get to the door. Now that that hasn't worked, however, Steven is struggling as hard as he can to get back to the phone that Childermass had shoved aside earlier. Part of him already know this isn't working.

But what else can he do?

"Help!" he continues to scream. "Dad!"

[atouts]

"Enough," Childermass snaps, a momentary crack in his otherwise calm demeanor. As Steven struggles, Childermass will close the apartment's door again with his free hand and, something that might be a surprise to Steven, actually does let him go.

It is too good to be true, however, since Childermass is only freeing both hands to make a gesture in the air and quickly throw together a more complicated bit of magic. Rather than becoming a shadow himself this time, he gestures at Steven's own shadow before he has a chance to get out of immediate range. The shadow itself will freeze in place on the ground, which, in turn, should stop Steven from moving further away.

[starseedling]

As soon as he's been let go, Steven is making a dash for the best - but the spell catches him before he can make it there. His shadow freezes, and at the same time Steven's body is frozen to match. He strains against it as hard as he can, but all that comes of it is him making desperate sounds of fear and exertion, his body suddenly becoming its own form of a prison.

The spell doesn't stop him from continuing to cry, of course. He gasps in utter terror, the tears continuing to roll regardless. He can still see the cellphone laying across the room from him, but he can't move, he can't do anything - he's helpless.

[atouts]

Once Steven's trapped in place, Childermass closes the space between them again with a few slow steps. He points a finger at the frozen shadow and gestures upward, bidding it to do the next part of his little spell. With that, the shadow spread out across the floor begins to shrink, because it's moving up to ensnare Steven instead, akin to bundling an animal in a blanket only this is far from warm or cozy. It's a trick from the Winter Court, meaning it's cold, winter in one's bones cold and not just the sort of chill one gets from standing in the shade.

He won't say anything more. There's no point in it since Steven can't even answer anything he might bother saying at this point. An apology for this would be insincere just as an explanation as to why he would do this in the first place wouldn't make up for anything.

All he does at this point is wait for the shadow to finish creeping up, checking back outside the window briefly before returning to take ahold of Steven's shoulder. Another reason for using the shadow becomes apparent (or would be if Steven knew anything about magic, anyway). It's easy to turn a shadow into more shadow, right?

That's how they'll leave the apartment, falling into shadow the same way Childermass had before and darting away, back out the same way that Steven had let him in.