⇨ 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

[periphrasing]

Peridot is stunned into silence for all of two seconds, until finally she has an outburst in an even quieter, even more intense whisper: "I have not been doing drugs-- See, this is why I didn't say anything!" she hisses.

[whattaprick]

"I was just asking," Lambert huffs back. Better than maybe she's going crazy at any rate, but at the same time ... she's inarguably a bat, so it's not just her imagination.

Still, there's another possible explanation, though it sounds even crazier -- the kind of thing teenagers joke around about all the time, with an air of scandalized glee. One he doesn't want to think about, but hey, they'll get to that later.

"You said you thought they were stress hallucinations. Why?"

[periphrasing]

She sighs softly through her teeth. "Three words: Mandatory school play.

Like that should be enough to explain everything right there.

[whattaprick]

Lambert was a huge ham when he had to do the mandatory school play and got kicked out for being too obnoxious during rehearsals, so he can't really say he relates, but he winces in sympathy anyway, imagining Peridot trying to navigate that.

"My condolences." For her sake or for the other people in the production, he doesn't clarify, and he types a few more words into the search engine. He clicks one of the results at random, lapsing into silence at he skims through.

"Well," he says, after a moment. "According to this, only two things could turn into bats, and that's a shapeshifter or a vampire."

[periphrasing]

"Vampires!?! Vampires aren't--" real, she starts to say, but then she remembers that a few hours ago she didn't think it was possible for a human to completely change into a different species of animal, so. Vampires could entirely be on the table here, for all she knows!

"...I don't want to be a vampire," she squeaks with dismay, after a short moment.

[whattaprick]

The third option is that Peridot's somehow managed to become a wizard without every thinking about it, which Lambert seriously doubts is the case here, judging by how the EMPHASIZED TEXT on the blog post repeatedly assures visitors that self-transfiguration is a difficult task even for the most skilled of mages.

... He'd also meant that as a joke, mostly, so he feels a little bad she's taking it seriously now.

"Unless you're suddenly feeling the urge to drink blood and have a new allergy to daylight, I think you're fine," he says reassuringly. The 'shapeshifter' bit isn't all that helpful, either, but it gives him a few different things he can try searching for.

[periphrasing]

"Maybe the blood cravings just haven't kicked in yet," she grumbles mostly to herself, because she's still hung up on this. "But I don't remember being bitten by anything recently... Wait, does it say how vampires occur? Is it a bite? or is it something else?"

[whattaprick]

Click, click, squint. "Uh. It kind of says you have to die first to become one. Do you feel like that's happened to you recently?" His tone is super serious, but he might be having trouble keeping a straight face.

[periphrasing]

Well lucky him, she can't even see his face from where she's positioned.

"Alright, fine, so we rule out vampires then," she says, rolling her eyes. SUPER HELPFUL, LAMBERT. "Didn't you say something about shapeshifters? What do you see on those?"

[whattaprick]

"A lot," Lambert answers, equally helpful to his earlier diagnosis. However, he will relent and add, after skimming the page-- "So, there are all kinds of 'werebeasts' other than wolves. Stress or the full moon can be a trigger for involuntary transformation.. It can be other things, but those are the most common."

Spoilers: it's absolutely not the full moon. So...

[periphrasing]

"W.... Werebeasts. That...."

Peridot considers this for a moment, groans, and then slumps, just kind of... Letting gravity sink her back down into Lambert's hoodie a ways.

It sounds so fake, but the description pretty much exactly matches the situation she's in. It's a strange thing to consider, hearing information that, on any other day, she might have just laughed off as something out of a cheap fantasy book. That's what hearing this description of alleged "werebeasts" feels like, except rather than being able to scoff at the idea like she wants to, Peridot simply has to confront the fact that something so ridiculous sounding is APPARENTLY, by all current evidence, actually an absolute reality. There's not exactly any room for doubt when she has the nose, wings and ears to prove it.

It's kind of fucking with her a bit, and she appears to have momentarily stalled out trying to comprehend the truth.

[whattaprick]

Not a lot of things are serious enough to shut Peridot up. Lambert has to admit this all sounds pretty fake to him too, What isn't fake is his sister apparently having turned into a bat, not of her own volition, and... is this going to be something that keeps happening? Is she going to get on that stage and turn into a ball of fluff and wings?

That's assuming she can turn back at all, of course. On that note, since he's not sure what else to say, he'll look for an answer to that question while she's busy with her own thoughts.

"Here's the good news," he says, quietly, after a few minutes more of opening and closing pages. "At least according to this site, you should be able to control your transformations after a while. You don't have to stay stuck as a bat."

Though she is, apparently, stuck as something not human.

[periphrasing]

She perks up a bit when Lambert says the words “good news”, but the excitement is short-lived. She laughs unpleasantly.

“’After a while?’ Wow, okay, that’s just GREAT! And in the meantime, I’ll just look forward to the fact that even when I figure out how to change back this time, I’ll get to keep living in constant paranoia of the fact that I could turn into a leathery-winged freak again at the drop of a hat! GEE! WHAT FANTASTIC NEWS!”

timeskipping this a little bit, lmk if this works!

[whattaprick]

Unfortunately, whatever response Lambert could have come up with to that is going to have to wait, because that's just a level of noise and disruption the librarian is no longer willing to tolerate. Hurriedly, Lambert shoves Peridot right back down his shirt as she comes up to the computer desk, looking harried and irritable as she asks that he step out if he insists on having conversations at this volume, turning her head left and right to look for the source of the second voice.

Lambert isn't going to give her a chance, though, already bending to scoop up Peridot's backpack and making a hasty exit before anyone can question him on the wriggling mass (chestburster) in his hoodie. Once they're outside, he unzips it again, letting Peridot stick her head out as much as she wants.

Yeah, he knows he really isn't helping with this don't get stressed situation, but Perido was born stressed.

LOOKS GOOD TO ME!

[periphrasing]

Peridot squeaks indignantly when she's shoved down, but otherwise holds her tongue and focuses on trying not to move around too much, lest she draw attention to her hiding spot.

Surprisingly, she doesn't immediately come bursting back out once the coast is clear. She seems to be sulking now instead, the top of her cotton-puff body and her yellow ears visible, but her face obscured under a wing.

[whattaprick]

Naturally, Peridot shutting up isn't something Lambert takes as a good sign. He frowns and gently nudges her with a finger through his hoodie. He's probably trying to pat her back or something, but it more or less ends up an awkward petting. They're far enough from the heart of downtown that tourists aren't swarming the sidewalk, but it'd still be odd to be seen talking to himself, so he'll keep his voice quiet.

"It'll be okay," he says, though he isn't sure if that's more for his reassurance or hers. "Let's get somewhere with less people around and we'll figure this out." Going home like this seems a bad idea, but one of the parks might make a decent bet, so he heads for the bus stop.

[periphrasing]

She weirdly doesn't mind the petting much? It's sort of nice. Which, she thinks bitterly, is probably because she's apparently some kind of animal now and not human, but. Self-loathing thoughts aside, she appreciates the gesture.

"I always knew there had to be something wrong with me," she mutters from under her wing. "I just didn't realize how wrong..."

this tag hurt my heart tbh

[whattaprick]

"There's nothing wrong with you," is Lambert's immediate response to that, with straightforward, fierce conviction. Look, he's still crawling out of his own cynical teenage hates-the-world awkward phase of his life, but he's not about to let Peridot get herself any more down over this of all things.

"Look, you're not the only one of you, right?" There are other shapeshifters out there, at least if the internet is to be believed. "They figured this shit out. So can you."

SSSAME

[periphrasing]

The force and conviction behind that statement leaves Peridot rather taken-aback. She looks back up at Lambert while he's talking, blinking tears out of her beady little bat eyes.

"Okay... Okay." She sighs. "Yes. You're right."

He really is, she realizes. If a bunch of randos can figure this nonsense out, it should be a cakewalk for her, right? She's smarter than the average human, after all.

Peridot takes a deep breath, her cotton ball body appearing to puff up dramatically, and then exhales.

"...Thanks, Lambert."