2022-06-23 - Night On Bald Mountain

There's a certain smell that most people recognise, even if they can't quite remember where they first encountered it. A mix of mud and beer and sweat that brings fond memories of hiding out behind the garden shed with a sixpack lifted from your parents, which you're totally going to pretend you enjoy in front of the other kids. Or maybe you recognise it from some rainy rock festival, swaying to the music shoulder to shoulder with other drunk and unwashed festival goers. It may be the smell of the old boozers by the general store, particularly if someone's lit a dumpster on fire nearby.

It's not a pleasant smell exactly. And it's the smell that's wafting through a door near you, because why should you miss out?

For Ravn Abildgaard, it's the reek from the small closet toilet on the Vagabond. It's decidedly not how the tiny space is supposed to smell. The smell reminds him of the Roskilde Festival in front of the great orange stage, knee deep in beer infused mud, and surrounded by rowdy, largely unwashed people having a good time. It's not ominous but it's certainly not pleasant either -- because forty thousand unwashed drunks don't smell good.

He's stuck a copy of Anna Karenina in the door to keep it from closing and then opening up to somewhere else like doors seem to do a lot lately. It's obviously not working.

And that's how he finds himself on some hill side, surrounded by tall Normann spruces. The stars shine brightly above, and the air smells -- well, like that. Distant flickering lights insinuate that there's some kind of bonfire going on uphill. He can't quite make out words but there's a number of people singing in a fashion that can best be described as rowdy. He can smell frying -- bacon?

It's nice having a back porch available with the apartment, especially when there's a little vertical metal shed for storing implements of one's own: gardening tools, outdoor footwear, a bike even (maybe), floatation devices if one's a swimmer.

It's not nice when it smells like that -- like three people threw a rave bender in it. It smells like some of the parties Ariadne attended once or twice back in college: too many bodies, too little space, too much beer, and not enough air. She's intending to check it out as soon as she settles Sam down from their morning jog and finds a second cup of coffee.

Thus, still wearing her spandex jogging pants and the light-weight zip-up sweatshirt, still sweat-damp at her temples, still sporting her sneakers, still holding that steaming mug of coffee, she opens the door to the vertical shed and steps through --

-- and out into the night of another place (and time, yet to be determined).

"...GOD FUCKING DAMNIT?!"

Why, yes, it is Ariadne, observe. At least she doesn't throw her mug of coffee? Who throws coffee, it would be a waste.

It's not the kittens... right?

The litter box is sitting in the downstairs toilet, carefully out of the way of accidental bare foot accidents, but still in easy reach of small, furry creatures who have yet to start climbing the stairs. That's why it's so weird, standing in the upstairs corridor of Five Oak, sniffing at the air. It's not the kittens, and look, the kittens and their litter don't actually smell like that, so it's definitely not the kittens, but-- Una sniffs the air again uncertainly.

Jules doesn't smell like that after a day out at work, either. Nor Della. And Una's recently showered. And...

Tentatively, she opens the door to the spare bedroom upstairs, the one where various housemates have started to store junk, even though officially it's still a spare bedroom that could be used whenever it needs to be. She can look before she leaps this time: see the hill, the lights, the something.

She can also hear, and unfortunately for her, what she hears is Ariadne.

Una Irving is a lot of things. Sensible and risk-averse, yes. Equally? A good friend, who doesn't sit back just because her door didn't push her through unawares. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath-- and steps through.

"Okay," she says. "Where are we this time?"

Ravn half-turns at the sound of swearing. He's starting to recognise that particular brand of fury (and once again thanking the powers that be that it's not directed at him). "Ariadne?"

And then, a far more rational question -- and he turns the other way. "Una?"

And then, in a loud shriek from above: "Lass uns heute Abend feiern!"

And then, from Ravn, in a somewhat confused tone: "I think we're in -- Germany."

He looks up for the source of the cry -- but there's nothing there but stars. Twinkling, shining stars -- that flicker in strange patterns as if dark things pass by underneath at high speed. Large birds, maybe. "The smell seems to be coming from up there with the bonfires or whatever those lights are. I suppose we could be real clever and walk the other way, but if this is a Dream, I doubt it'll work."

"Ravn?" That's a familiar voice, thank god and then -- "Una?"

Picking her way across a forested ground thick and redolent of pine needles, the barista sloshes coffee left and right as she goes and grumbles about it. "It's never that easy," she mutters as she comes into the general vicinity of both historian and younger redhead. "Walking away isn't going to work. There's a damn task to do." She'd heard the shriek and belated glances up, as if she'd marked it as the sound of some forest bird instead of human. "But Germany, is it? No wonder. I wasn't even sure what I was hearing."

Rubbing at her nose, she adds, "And I don't think I can like the smell of...pork? Cooking pork -- with whatever else is floating around, geez." Little cough, sip of coffee, bury her face in the coffee.

"Oh," says Una, identifying Ravn. Not 'oh, it's you', but rather 'oh, it's not just Ariadne', and maybe (just maybe) a tiny hint of 'I could've closed the door and walked off again, then'-- except no, that never works, does it? "One day I want to try it. Just... walk the other way, pretend none of it matters. I suppose it would just morph into something else, though, wouldn't it?"

She takes a step towards Ravn and the approaching Ariadne and promptly winces: shoes. She forgot shoes. This time, it's Una's turn to swear. Her feet are hard, courtesy of rarely wearing shoes except when leaving 5 Oak, but-- pine needles.

"Well I'm clearly not getting far anyway. Ok. Germany. It's not cold, so it's not the middle of winter. And they're having a party. Are we joining the party?"

"I think the question is whether we get a choice," Ravn notes and glances uphill. "But I suppose we don't have to burst in all Kool-Aid Man style? Let's nip up there quietly and see what the hell we're looking at."

It's not far; ten, fifteen minutes of walking (for those possessed of boots and shoes). The folklorist glances at Una's feet and amends, "We may have to help you. Do you think you can sit still if I carry you? I have issues with sudden touch."

Ariadne considers her mug of coffee before nodding agreement with Ravn.

"Better to do some recon than being like, the funnnnn has arriiiiiiived." It has the cadence of a quote. "And I didn't really like this mug anyways, oh well." Throwing back another two huge mouthfuls of coffee, the redhead then sets the mug aside on a section of flat stump; the rest of the stump is gnarled, as if wind blew down and broke its original trunk. Her eyes flick from Una's bare feet to the young woman's face. A sympathetic wince.

"Or I can do piggy back, whatever works?" she too offers with a glance at Ravn.

That look on Una's face? That's pure horror and dismay and apology, with a hint of not-quite-freaking-out-but-it's-close. "Shit," she says. "I should've grabbed shoes. I didn't think." It's almost possible to hear her thought process, too: stupid Una, you had time to do that, you absolute moron.

She hesitates, glancing from Ravn to Ariadne and then back again. "You'd think, between us, we'd have some way of working around this kind of thing. Magic shoes. Um-- I can be still. Unless it's easier, if Ariadne does it? I'm sorry. I don't mean to be an absolute pain in the ass."

"Much as I hate having to swallow my masculine pride, Ariadne probably is stronger," Ravn murmurs. One of the two is a kickboxer and runner; the other is not. He hoists up his shoulder bag and reaches for Ariadne's coffee cup. "Let me take that at least. And add a pair of flip-flops to my list of things to put in this little pocket universe of mine."

There's music coming down from uphill now -- for a value of music where drunken cavorting might be a more apt descriptor. People are singing loudly -- and from the sounds of it, it's not psalms either. Peals of laughter, rhythmic clapping and slapping of knees, and roaring along on the refrain; it's anyone's guess in a foreign language, but from the sounds of it, this is a bawdy drinking song.

Somebody's playing a fiddle. Badly. The corner of Ravn's eye twitches at the sound.

"From the temperature I'm going to venture that we're in the right time of year," the Dane murmurs. "If we're in Germany, I mean. And we're in mountains full of spruce -- so, north side of the Alps, but that's one hell of a large area. Could be Harzen, could be the Black Forest."

"Oh." In her fluster, Ariadne hadn't noticed the Bag of Holding. There's a grateful look shot at Ravn -- it's the little things -- and visibly-approaching and gentle rest of palm against his arm in passing. Thank you.

"And you're not being a pain, Una. I remember trying to walk across pine needles when I was young. It's hell. Also, I don't get the impression you're gunning for needing a tetanus shot if you need to pull one out of the sole of your foot. Here, it's no big." She turns and bends down to one knee, showcasing her back and angled, readied arms for the piggy back in question to proceed.

"Also, playing a stringed instrument in the Black Forest while smelling like beer...?" Her brows meet. "Something's seriously up." No shit, Sherlock. "I'm going to guess some sort of LARPing gone mad as the most innocent of options."

Shooting a glance up the hill, even if she can't especially see anything, gives Una a moment to recollect herself, and to bite back those feelings into something more manageable. "LARP-- oh, wait, that live action roleplay stuff? Could be, um, is it the SCA? The historical reenactors? Otherwise I'd expect more technology."

Slowly, she squares her shoulders, then steps towards the waiting Ariadne. It's probably a good thing that she's spent the last few months working her way up to being more comfortable with hugs, because this? This is worse than a hug (better? more than), between the arms and the body and all the contact. "Is that okay?" she wants to know, once she's in position. "Not too heavy?"

"We should be so lucky," Ravn murmurs. Getting drunk in the woods with a flock of Germans in faux medieval costumes and Dirndl blouses? It would not be the first time in his life at that.

From his expression, he doesn't believe it either.

A path winds its way up the mountain -- and 'mountain' really is a term that may be up for negotiation. The Rockies it ain't; no snow cap, no jagged edges, and no steep ravines. If anything, it is reminiscent of a very tall hill, gently sloping. From the stars -- and the absence of stars -- it is not the only one of its kind here, either; the horizon is sloping, rolling mountains -- hills, whatever. There are no city lights. Not in any direction. And that, perhaps, might be another cue all in itself. Not as much as the red on-and-off blinking of a radio mast on a mountain top; nothing at all out there but the black silhouettes of other forest-clad old mountains.

The singing gets louder. There is a large circle of light up there, with a large bonfire in the middle. A few things become very clear as the three observers slink closer.

First off, no one else seems to be arriving on foot. They're entirely alone on the narrow path made by the hooves of deer and not by the boots of humans. The people up here either arrived by some other means, or the road down is on the other side of --

Second, there is one hell of a bonfire lighting up the mountain top. People dance in a large circle around it --

And third, everyone's naked.

Straightening in place, Ariadne jounces Una once and then the younger redhead seems to be comfortably held per the barista's wont. "You good," she confirms before glancing at Ravn. His murmur makes her mouth thin to a slash. "Goddamnit, Veil..." she grumbles back.

Up they go, up the slope, and between lingering adrenaline and coffee (yay coffee!), Ariadne doesn't seem to struggle a bit with her piggy-back'd companion. When they reach a flatter section of the slope itself and the firelight becomes apparent, the barista takes a moment to pause and breathe.

And make a face. And try to stop her eyebrows from flying off her head and into orbit. A few steps closer despite herself, still well outside the proper viewing range of thrown light from the bonfire.

"Y'all...now this is a party," she quips in a dry whisper.

Una stays very, very still, holding gingerly on to Ariadne's shoulders as if, by sheer force of will, she can banish her pounds and be as light as a feather; no burden at all. That the other redhead seems to manage just fine does not in any way ease her guilt; perhaps it's for the best that she can't see the miserable look on Una's face, though Ravn may well be able to.

She ought to be in prime position for viewing up ahead of them, not needing to watch where her feet go, or follow a path. But she's preoccupied with her own misery, distracted by it even up until the point where they come to a stop-- then take those few additional steps forward.

This, finally, is enough to draw her full attention, eyes bugging out of her head as she catches her breath. It's probably a good thing that it's too dark to see how abruptly pink her cheeks are, though it may be possible to see (and feel!) the way she drops her head slightly, as if to hide behind Ariadne.

"Oh shit," she says.

It really does not take a historian of great skill and repute to add up a few things; just one who's ever opened a couple of books, seen a couple of wood cuts, read the bare minimum of medieval history.

Ravn looks at the naked dancers; they are short people -- among them, Una is normal height if not tall. Most of them have injuries that modern medicine would scoff at; club feet, bones that have been broken and not set quite right, the blind white eyes of advanced cataracts, warts and festering sores -- and most of them are old to boot. That is, old in the fashion of a hard working, not very well fed group of people. Forty, fifty. Ancient. Sagging tits and arses, bent backs, and crooked limbs. In many cases, the distended bellies of years of poor fare.

What settles the deal for him, though, is the figure at the far end of the great bonfire. The one chair present -- in which sits a man with a goat's head, and a goat's body from the waist and down, watching the revellers. And just to drive the point home, a naked woman falls out of the sky in front of him, still sitting astride a broomstick.

"It's a bloody witches' sabbath," the folklorist murmurs in disbelief. Disbelief because, well, to the contrary of the Malleus Maleficarum, the Witches' Hammer, and the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church, this actually never happened. "We're on bloody Brocken. At the St John's Eve Sabbath, to dance with the Devil."

Ariadne's lost track of her eyebrows. They're somewhere in her hairline; at least they're not lost to the stars somewhere -- where, apparently, folks are literally flying on broomsticks.

"Oh shit." Yes, there's an echo of Una here. "Uh. This is. What. That guy, with the goat head, that's...look, my brain says it's amazing CG or a really good Furry costume, but the...the time period." It's a wonder she hasn't set Una down in the middle of her struggling attempt to make everything fit so nicely into scientific, established logic. "The terms you're using, they're...uh. Look, can we just...riding a broom like that. With the G-forces in the turns and there's this narrow piece of wood you're straddling and, like...just..."

Because that's what Ariadne falls into focusing on: the discomfort potential of riding broomsticks. Never mind the naked people and the goat man! The brooms need bicycle seats or something!

"Waaaaaaaait a second, could a really strong mover move a broom around while sitting on it?"

There's something a little comforting, maybe, about focusing on tiny little stray thoughts like that, rather than freaking out about the nudity, the goat, the everything. It's pure coincidence that Una's thoughts follow similar lines to Ariadne's here, though she seems to snap back into focus enough after her comment to pick up the rest of it, her voice low and aimed not too far above Ariadne's own ear.

"It doesn't exactly look comfortable," is a second thought, a later admission. "But-- Ravn, what? Brocken? You're going to have to educate those of us without a full historical education here, because I'm super lost. This is a thing? What kind of thing?"

Yes, Ravn. Tell us what kind of thing a witches' sabbath is.

Ravn winces at that question. "I could probably move a broomstick and by extension, myself. And I think that doing so might settle any questions of whether I plan to become a father in some distant future."

It's a good thing the tall and wide Normann spruces provide such great cover; and that the revellers within the circle of firelight can see little in the darkness beyond.

The folklorist rests a hand against a friendly tree trunk. "It's a mountain, in Harzen, in Germany. It's where the witches go on St John's Eve, from all over Northern Europe. There's one like it on Iceland, too, Hekla. The point is, at this time it's inaccessible on foot -- that's why they fly. These people are all witches. And if that's literally the, uh, Devil in attendance, then they're probably not misunderstood healers and people with lingering pagan beliefs, either."

He takes a deep breath to steady himself. "I only know of two rules for this kind of thing. You have to get naked, and you have to kiss the Devil's arse on your first visit, to prove your loyalty. I can't say I feel like doing either."

Oh, it's that kind of thing.

Ariadne squints now at the bonfire and the figures dancing around it. It's hard to keep attention on it, especially when this ruins night vision all to hell. Glancing over at Ravn shows he's barely visible as proof of this. Only the faintest light limns him; same with Una's legs still gently if firmly gripped at the ankles to keep her in place.

"Welp, looks I'm disloyal. I'm kissing no one's ass. If I have to get naked?" A wince. "...only if it's absolutely necessary. But seriously, what even...? What is the end game here? There's always an end game. Can't we show up and be like, acolytes of...Frigga or something?"

Figures the barista would pick the goddess of cats with current crew in question.

"Oh," says Una, voice thick and very quiet. It could be in response to any number of things. Ravn's ability to levitate himself via broomstick (and the likelihood of his potential for fatherhood afterwards)? Oh. Mountain in Germany? Oh. Inaccessible by foot, flying, witches? Oh.

And the rest.

The rest may need more than a single 'oh', though. Ariadne will probably be able to feel how Una stiffens.

"Fuck the Veil, if it expects... that," she says-- mutters, really-- as she squeezes her eyes closed and forces her breath to stay even. "I'm not... I won't. We can just stay here and watch until they're done and then go home again. Right?"

Right?!

Ravn pinches the bridge of his nose with gloved fingers. "I'm not getting out there and kissing the Devil's arse, naked or otherwise. This isn't real. I don't even believe that the Devil exists."

He sighs. "But that also means we can't take anything for granted. If this was real? Hell, emissaries of Freya might actually fly, because a lot of those who were dubbed witches were really just clinging to older faiths." Trust him to correct the name of the goddess of cats, though.

One more glance at the revellers. "If the premise is that the Devil is here, then that also means everyone out there is somebody who sold their humanity for the powers of Hell, and I think just staying put right here is a very good idea."

And as if on cue, the great, horned figure over there stands -- and turns his back on the woman still disentangling herself from her broomstick. She manages, and crawls towards him, grinning in a manic way. And then she reaches up to lift up that little twitchy goat's tail. and plant a big slobbery kiss right where it matters.

Excuse the sound of somebody struggling to not throw up. That's just Ravn.

"Freya, right," Ariadne amends. Indeed, she's gone and mixed them up in the face of the...experience unfolding before them. "I third the idea of staying right here unless otherwise absolutely necessary. Also staying fully clothed."

And then that.

"...and definitely not doing that." Sympathetically to Ravn's sounds, her own gorge rises and needs to be swallowed down. Her voice remains enviously steady, as if she's displaced her main feelings on matters for the ability to coolly react to surroundings. "Man, this is one of those no-holds-barred kind of Veil bullshit." A glance over her shoulder up at Una. "You want down? You don't have to stay up there, I feel like it's a lot to take in." Yes, this is an offer to stand behind Ariadne if wished.

"Oh my god," mutters Una, which is probably not the most appropriate thing to say right now (or maybe it is?). She can't help herself: as much as she would like to hide her eyes completely, it's hard to look away entirely. This... is a thing. It's very much a thing.

"Ummm, yeah, let me down. I don't want to tire you out unnecessarily. Just, if we have to run?"

If they have to run, there are probably bigger problems afoot (and in her foot, most likely).

An entire festival of naked people could be an interesting experience, depending on how one personally feels about nudity. The way a number of people aren't dancing as much as getting it on right there in public view, well, there are people who'd find that enticing or at least funny too. Hell, some people might think 'why not?' and get up there to find a couple of new, very intimate friends.

Ravn is not one of those people. Even if those were ordinary people up there, he'd still nope out on group sex under the solstice moon because he's just not that kind of person. It certainly doesn't help that everyone up there falls into one of two categories: The horrifically old and physically maimed or injured -- or the horrifically young and pert. Whether it's a bent-backed, skinny, and malnourished crone or a girl just old enough to bleed, he's decidedly not interested.

Besides the whole being generally a monogamous person, that is.

"Maybe we can just wait it out until morning," he ventures, weakly. "When the sun rises, the witches and the Devil must flee. That's how the myth goes. And this is a myth, nothing but -- because no amount of rubbing belladonna and wolfsbane juice on your privates is going to actually enable you to fly. It will induce horrific erotic nightmares, though."

Gently, carefully, Ariadne slips Una down to the ground and straightens, offering her height as visual bulwark. It's true, it's a bit like a train wreck: horrifying in one of those viscerally fascinating ways, wherein some terrible curiosity hijacks common sense and fodder of nightmares becomes possible.

"Nobody's going to leave you behind," she reassures Una quietly when running passes into brief discussion. "No fucking way." And so there, apparently.

Wrinkling, both her lips and nose, as the barista listens to Ravn further expound upon the happenings of beyond in the lurid firelight. "Uh. Yeah. I'm not sure if I want to know how you know this, but I'm going to assume it's because of your PhD and not any other manner." A terrible joke for a terrible situation. There's a quick, semi-apologetic grimace-grin flashed at the Dane before Ariadne adds, far more seriously, "Is there a possibility of sentries?"

Una braces herself against the ground with her bare feet, then takes a careful step backwards once she's stable: the better to not crowd Ariadne too much, and if it has the side benefit of giving her a little more distance from the, uh, revellers? That's no bad thing either. It's hard to completely look away, though; the younger of the two redheads is clearly, visibly discomforted by it, but hiding her eyes and just hearing what's going on? That's not much better either. She inhales; exhales; squares her shoulders.

"Thank you," is murmured quietly, but not without distinct, genuine appreciation.

"I'm hoping they're all so hopped up on... well, everything, I guess, that the possibility of onlookers never springs to mind. I mean, if the only way up here is to fly..." Who could they possibly be expecting? "The whole thing is just..." Just. Just.

She shivers, and it's not really from cold.

"Witches' rituals are a substantial part of my field, yes." Ravn is a little too distracted by what he's watching to really catch on to the hint of sarcasm. Or maybe it's just that far removed from his mind, the idea of ingesting severely poisonous plant matter in order to invoke sexual fantasies. He's probably never dropped acid or strung out on shrooms either.

He nods slightly at Una, though. "It's Brocken. A mountaintop in a very remote region, barely accessible on foot. The Devil is in attendance. Imagine being some overzealous priest or monk marching up here, and finding himself face to face not just with a hundred or two hundred high as kites worshipers but also the literal Devil? I think we should just be very grateful it's not real."

And just as if on cue, somebody with the ruffled white collar of a Lutheran priest stands up and starts shouting. It would probably seem less obscene if he was wearing more than that collar. His congregation quickly forms -- consisting of men and women who sit ass towards the priest, laughing and mocking. It's impossible to make out the words at this distance -- but the goat figure on its throne is laughing, so it's probably a quite, uh, unique sermon.

Ariadne quietly finishes the younger redhead's sentence: "It's batshit nuts."

Brocken. The name remains unfamiliar, even with all of the stories passed down through her mother. Risking another glance over at Ravn, her brows and lips alike now pinched, the barista then nods. "I'd rather not face a literal Devil unprepared." Like the idea is just another walk in the park and not some metaphysical Final Boss and any deity help you if you didn't bring any healing potions.

But the man in the ruffled white collar -- he draws attention. Ariadne scoffs soft in dismayed shock. "What is he...?!" she whispers sharply, unable to look away.

'Batshit nuts' is a good way to put it... and only getting more batshit nuts now, with the shouting priest to contend with.

Una's hiding her eyes at that point, caught in that uncomfortable position between being unable to fully look away, and also really not particularly wanting to see what she's seeing. Between Ariadne's whisper, though, and the sound of distant mocking, this isn't something she can avoid: she peeks her head up, and stares.

"Please tell me-- shit. Oh shit. That can't be good, right?"

Ravn tries to focus on the words -- which is easier said than done at this distance. He frowns because yes, he learned basic Latin in university, sure, but this? This is bad Latin yelled by a drunken German farm worker, in a dialect at least five hundred years removed. He isn't fluent at the best of times, and he's only catching bits and pieces of this. It doesn't even help him pinpoint the exact time period -- because Germany is still part Protestant, part Catholic, even in modern times.

"I'm pretty sure he's shouting the Holy Mass -- but backwards," the folklorist concludes. "A mockery of God and the Sacrament. That's what this is all about: This whole celebration is a mad fantasy conjured up by people who were being tortured into confession. Witches in the hands of the Inquisition knew that the more blasphemous their confession, the more likely they would be believed, and the torture would stop. People who are being tortured will say anything to make it stop -- they may even confess more than asked for, in the hope of execution."

The smell remains as strong as ever -- if not stronger now that the trio of quiet spectators are closer to the source. It's the cooking fires -- and Ravn remembers enough of the Malleus Maleficarum and associated works to be very sure he does not want a closer look at what's cooking. It's the unwashed bodies of people with ailments that are cured at the drop of a hat in the 21st century but definitely not now. And it's the goat king on his throne -- is the grass wilting downwind of him?

Yes. Yes, it is. Maybe not go that way unless you're really good at holding your breath.

He glances back at Una and winces. "It's not good. It's meant to conjure up the Devil. But, well."

Maybe tonight just is a really great time to lie very still and stay out of sight. "I think we need to either play possum until morning or make a very quiet tactical retreat. The last thing we need is for them to stage their own counter-Inquisition with us in the lead role."

As the shouting of the inversed Mass continues and elucidation unspools, Ariadne's face becomes more and more a work of art in the vein of disbelief and discomfit. She's not religious herself, per say, and in the end, it's more the idea of someone pleading crazier in order to gain release (generally of death) rather than the actual answer which makes her stomach clench.

Not to mention the smell. That's an issue in and of itself.

"No fucking kidding," she agrees with Ravn in an undertone. "How possible is it for you to wrench open a door, Ravn? To take the wheel of this Dream instead of letting it play out? Or is that going to draw too much attention?"

Green and red war in Una's expression: the green of unease and a faint desire to vomit, and the red of a flush that probably extends halfway down her body because, as unsexy as this particular display is, it's still very... present, and awkwardly so. She turns her gaze away again, letting it drop towards her bare toes, digging their way into the earth as if this might provide them an escape route.

"I... am very glad not to live in the times of the Inquisition," she concludes. "Because I'm pretty sure we'd be very easily cast in the role of witches, and that's a particularly unpleasant thought. Can we get away?"

She casts a quick glance in Ravn's direction, though it's probably aimed more at his feet than his face. "I'm very happy not to see too much more."

You know, more than they've already seen of the participants at hand.

"We can try to walk down the mountain where we came from. Or I can open a door. I will try to reach home but -- everything I've heard suggests that opening a door out of a Dream can lead anywhere. On the other hand I'll also entertain that most anywheres don't feature the literal Devil, so." Ravn glances at the goat-headed figure. He really doesn't want to know what the girl on the broomstick is still doing under his goat tail.

It's certainly not difficult to tell what direction the party is going. The more the ruffled-collar 'preacher' shouts, the more people get started on, let's be polite and call it, acts of procreation. No missionary position here -- they are competing, quite literally, on who can come up with the most perverted and bizarre forms of sex. There are several dogs circling, and a boar. They are probably going to be invited any moment now. The purpose is as clear as the forest is dark: To offend, as much and as deeply as humanly possible.

Ravn does not want to watch the drama unfold. He didn't enjoy reading about it in university, and he certainly does not need the memory of watching the darkest fantasies of medieval minds played out in full technicolor.

He focuses his power and rests his gloved hand on the trunk of the large Normann spruce. When a door handle forms on it he opens it to look through.

On the other side, there's only darkness.

Thankfully for Ariadne's sanity, she's not got any sort of subconscious win to try and 'beat' the Veil by watching what monstrosities and acts are beginning after being encouraged by this 'sermon'. At the moment? The old adage of 'what you can't see won't haunt you' applies in spades.

She turns and remains a visual bulwark to the best of her ability for Una. Fretting her bottom lip, she literally has the fingers of one hand crossed at her side for Ravn to be able to pull off a...

Yes, a Door!

"Fuck it, through the Door, we'll deal with what's on the other side when we get there," the barista says curtly. A hand reaches out in offering for one of Una's hands; taken or not, the older redhead then strides into the darkness of the Door with a fearlessness bourne of a desire get the hell away from this mountaintop. Pun intended.

Una, if her expression is anything to go by, is rather less 'offended' and rather more simply horrified and humiliated (though in the end, there's nothing especially simple about that). Ariadne is a bulwark, even turned, and the younger of the two redheads straightens, now, and turns her own body away as well. This does not need to be watched, no. That was enough.

Ravn's Door is pure relief, her sigh, and the drop of her shoulders an undeniable indication of it. She accepts Ariadne's hand, squeezing her fingers around it, and agrees: "Whatever it is, wherever it goes, it'll be better than this. Let's--" Go. Ariadne is already doing so, and Una hastens to keep up, bare feet barely touching the ground as she hurries after her.

Into the unknown.

Between the Devil and the deep blue sea, maybe the Devil is the better choice because at least you expect nothing good from that end. Ravn reminds himself that while the risk of ending up somewhere horrible is significant -- so's the chance of ending up somewhere that doesn't feature his literal Satanic majesty for one. You don't need to be a believer to realise that even a Veil's copycat construct Devil has the power to inflict a significant amount of suffering.

It could be somewhere with a tropical beach and scantily clad suc- and incubi darting around in a game of beach basketball, seducing people with good looks and cold drinks. It could be back home. It could be a pleasant countryside in some sylvan glade. It could be a sushi bar in Seattle -- or a biker bar, filled with strong, tattooed types who secretly bawl their eyes out at a picture of a cute kitten.

It's neither.

It's St Mary's Church back in Gray Harbor, and it isn't. It's St Mary's Church inversed. A Satanist's dream of St Mary's, perhaps. A Catholic church in which every saint has been replaced by some demonic figure looming down from above, and the ceiling itself is built from bones; like that famous Czech bone ossuary but not as friendly.

It's also empty. Of anyone alive, at least.

"Let's keep on moving," Ravn suggests, hushed. "This is familiar but I don't feel like sticking around."

From the frying pan and into the fire?

Ariadne comes to an abrupt halt on the other side of the Door and immediately draws Una into her personal space by dint of shared hands. It's entirely unintentional, reflexive in reaction to what she's seeing, and the barista lets out a soft sound of disbelief. Her words to follow wobble by a noticeable amount.

"Oh my fucking god, more skulls. I -- what -- Ravn, where -- "

Where are they? The barista hasn't been inside of St. Mary's or anywhere near it since she's moved in to the city. Her spare hand blindly reaches out towards the Dane even as her eyes crawl over the walls and ceilings, decorated as they are with so many bones of the body. The statuary certainly doesn't look friendly.

This is not a moment where Una will show any concern about her own personal space requirements: if anything, she seems grateful for the proximity, for the safety and surety of a clutched hand, and the warmth of a body nearby. She lets out a little gasp of an exhale, as wide eyed as she was on that other side of the Door.

Their location is no more familiar to her as it is to Ariadne, St Mary's not being a place she frequents; regardless, it's not a place she seems inclined to stay in. "Nor I," she confirms, taking a reluctant step away from Ariadne's shadow and towards the main entrance. "Clearly we're not home, and that's the important thing. I want to be home."

"St Mary's." Ravn looks up at the altar. He'd recognise it anywhere, even when it's been turned into a mockery of itself. He spent several minutes of eternity staring at it almost two years ago, lying behind a pew while people were shooting over his head, seeing people use the strange power for the first time -- to kill the shooter. Some things burn themselves onto a man's retina.

He turns and walks towards the exit. "I don't want to be in here. It's one of the most haunted places in Gray Harbor, and staying here is only a matter of time before I get hunted down by some angry ghost."

Outside, the cemetery sprawls. That, at least, looks familiar. Except that just as on the inside, the church is built from bones on the outside, and every cross and grave marker along the lots share that architectural characteristic.

Everybody's headed for the entrance to the twisted church and Ariadne's certainly set on joining them. No reason to split the party! Ever.

"Oh my god, so this is -- wait, this is the church, but not the church, I follow, but the Veil version of it?" she asks even as they exit the main building and enter the graveyard proper. There's even some clinging mist around the gravestones to give the impression of a properly gloomy. The barista's just about got her head on a swivel and her hands unconsciously lifted at her waist. Ravn mentioned a ghost.

She knows what ghost.

Please not this ghost.

On the tip of her mental tongue rests the reaction of throwing up a shield around all three of them.

"St Mary's," repeats Una, in a tone of abject horror. That hastens her footsteps and darkens her expression even further, though she can't help herself but look around as she walks: out of the church and into the graveyard, and isn't that just as horrifying in turn?

Yes. Yes it is.

"Yeah, no, let's get out of here, please. I'm not up for a haunting right now." Or ever, let's be honest.

The ground out here is not painful beneath Una's bare feet, but it's far from pleasant, either: she picks her way around anything that looks remotely dubious, whilst carefully keeping herself close in step with her companions. "Does that mean we're in the Veil Gray Harbor? Does that mean we can take another Door home again from here, because we're no longer in a Dream?"

"I really hope so," Ravn murmurs.

And tries, because please, let's get the hell out of here before two hundred years' worth of angry victims of the Veil all turn up to file a complaint. He avoids the church when possible already -- because it is haunted as all hell, and because of what he saw in there less than a week after arriving in Gray Harbor. The cemetery he can stand -- he even has a few, ah, corporeally challenged acquaintances there -- but the church proper creeps him the hell out.

"Let's find out." Short-spoken, thin-lipped. A gloved hand comes to rest on a church wall (of bone) because for all Ravn's ability to visualise, he is not able to visualise a door hanging in the air without also visualising how to trip over the step.

"I don't think anyone is really ever up for a haunting, not even those lunatics in the ghost hunting shows," Ariadne mutters as she remains within arm's reach of her cohorts. There's something tingling up the length of her spine anyhow while they await Ravn's prowess at another Door. She doesn't like it. The feeling of someone(s) watching from a distance and closing the distance is the only way to describe it. She might not be able to see ghosts, but feel them?

Yes, and every emotion attached to them, though blessedly with the gauze of inexperience and deliberate avoidance between her sanity and them.

"I'm find with finding out -- out of here," the redhead drily quips because it's FUNNY, RIGHT?! Nervous anticipation does funny things to people's psyches, man.

Una's shudder may have something to do with ghosts, but equally, perhaps only the idea of ghosts: the mere concept of their presence, the possibility, is creepy enough in its way.

"Right out of here," she confirms, firmly, focusing her attention on her fellows and not on anything else. The temptation may be to close her eyes altogether, but that way leads to madness: it's still better to be able to see what might be coming, what might already be there, than to simply ignore it out of fear.

Sometimes, a door feels like it's made of syrup. This is one of those times; stepping through feels like having to drag and pull one's way through some kind of sticky resistance -- until suddenly, with a pop!, one tumbles into another reality.

Other reality, same place. On the other side of the church wall is, the church. That's what happens, after all, when you step out of a building and then open a door in its wall: You get to go back inside. On the up side, this seems to be a rather more normal Roman Catholic Church. For one, the saints aren't skeletons, they don't have fangs, and they aren't giving anyone obscene gestures with bony fingers.

Not that that stops Ravn from moving right on to exit St Mary's a second time.

Quip quipped, the barista is hot on the tail of her boyfriend. It does feel like pushing through a wall made of thin ballistics gel and a split second of base panic means Ariadne shoves through with a fervor. It also means she stumbles into the main foyer of St. Mary's proper with little grace. Catching herself on a nearby totally normal desk, the young woman looks around in relief.

"Holy shit, thank you," she says to the place as a whole for being something more recognizable -- and to Ravn already on the retreat. "Una, we have to go." Only waiting long enough for the younger redhead to show, Ariadne is then quick to move to exit as well. "We might have attracted attention we don't want at all," she tells Una with a calm she doesn't entirely feel.

Una's not far behind Ariadne, but far enough-- far enough that she hastens her step further when Ariadne speaks, and far enough that the trip through the Door is harder still: she's fighting, and since when does fighting help anything? It does not. It really does not. She doesn't have Ariadne's experience with that one particular ghost to fuel her disquiet, but she's quick to pick up on things in others, and that's clear enough.

It means she's shuddering when she makes it through, breathing hard despite it being no more than a few steps in all. "That's always a possibility," she agrees, quizzical and concerned, padding after the taller redhead, bare feet making a dull thudding sound upon the floor of the church. "I'm coming. Believe me, I'm coming. This is home,r ight?"

Ravn looks around. The greenery of St Mary's Cemetery. Familiar grave markers, bushes, hedges. A blue sky overhead, and nothing ominous or sinister about it. The church behind him, built from brick and mortar, rather than bones and skulls.

He breathes out. "I think so. I think we made it back. And I think that once we've all had a chance to breathe, we're going to be laughing. A genuine, bloody black sabbath? The historian in me wants to cry."

"Oh god, I want this to be home so badly."

This from Ariadne who's literally plopped to her butt on the grass of the graveyard proper, any lingering dew be damned. Oh well. Her jogging spandex can handle some moisture; the company claims them to have superior moisture wicking capabilities anyhow. She puts hands over her face and groans long and loud into them as a form of stress release.

"The not-historian in me wants to forget half of what I saw and I want some brain-bleach, please. Somebody wipe my brain. I need some mental Windex. Who's got the mental Windex around here? I literally want a memory wipe of that one," she says after she emerges, resting forearms on her bent knees and looking mildly green around the gills for the first time during this escapade.

Una? She just begins to giggle. Oh, she's pink cheeked and embarrassed in recollection of That Which Was Seen And Cannot Be Unseen, but mostly, now that they're safe? She laughs.

She slides down to the grass alongside Ariadne, grabbing hold of her knees, and buries her face into the shelf they create, not quite burying her laughter, but certainly muffling it.

"I don't know why this is so funny," she blurts, between peals of laughter. "I can't stop."

Ravn slides down to sit next to them both, and then falls back to lie on his back, looking up in the sky. He's sweating profusely from opening no less than three doors in rapid succession, and his vision is wobbling a bit at the edges.

"I'm just going to apply large amounts of whiskey," he murmurs. "And then I'm going to try to remember how many impossibly painful sexual positions I just had to witness. And then I'm going to drink until I can't recall a single one. It's that, or joining a convent."

"It's funny because it's so fucking awful, your brain has to try and do something Windex-related of its own accord." Ariadne ends up smiling lop-sidedly at the younger redhead. Any second now? She's going to dissolve as well because what other option is there? "I'm seriously asking around town for a mind wipe of that one. I don't care if I have to be a guinea pig, someone's got to be willing to try it."

Her hand reaches out obviously to settle roughly over Ravn's heart; it's half to check on the pace of the beat and half to remind him of her presence. "Please don't join a convent, I'd miss you," she notes with a sympathetic little grin.

And then snort-laughs. Damnit, Una! There she goes, giggling, having to put half of her face into one hand again because help.

Ravn's specific mention of the sex just makes Una giggle even more. "I'm so glad I'm not sleeping with anyone," she murmurs, flushing bright but still just laughing, because, well, what can you do? It's funny. It's stress relief. And it's funny.

"No convents. Just whiskey. Oh, fuck, what a trip."

"All the damned whiskey." Ravn groans. "I assure you that my sex life is not like that, and if it ever becomes like that I am joining a monastery."

There are Dreams you come back from, to tell others about. There are Dreams where you just keep quiet because they managed to hurt you where it really matters. And there are Dreams you don't mention again ever because they were simply too bloody embarrassing. And awful. And disgusting.

Ariadne flops onto her back on the grass and holds her stomach, her chortling reaching an outrageous pitch.

If any ghosts wanted peace? They ain't getting it right now.

"Can confirm the sex life isn't like that." Look, we're all adults here, let's face up to it. "And fu-huh-huh-huh-huck, I want whiskey too now, damnit, noooooooooo-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho!"

At this point, it's probably not even possible for Una to blush more-- or, for that matter, to stop giggling. And yet. And yet.

She takes in a few deep, deep breaths, forcing herself to try and stop laughing. It takes a little while-- and stray giggles are probably going to be in force for some time still-- but she gets there.

"Whiskey. And we will never mention this again."