[Closed] In which everyone but Rapunzel has a tail.

[healingincantation]

Who: Rapunzel, Dust, Dewey, and Kuja
What: They're Lost!
Where: Anastara
When: July, some point after the bodyswap event.
Warning: None anticipated, will update if needed.


She hadn't been able to figure out what the event that day in Anastara was, but it was sure making traveling through difficult. She'd just wanted to pick up some new school supplies; replenish her stock after midterms, and had headed out with a few friends to do just that...

And now she just wished she'd bought a map, although she imagined she'd have needed a highly detailed one to navigate these narrow, winding alleys. She'd thought about unbraiding her hair to and using it to keep track of where they'd been, but she was hoping it wouldn't come to that.

But she did, at least, have to draw attention to problem at hand, so they could set to solving it. She turned to her nearest companion with a sheepish smile.

"I think we're lost, unless you know where we are?"

Comments

[mithrarin]

This was... embarrassing. Honestly, that seemed to be Dust's watchword of late -- he'd spent the entire month being nothing but embarrassed. And here, hoping that trying to do something normal with Rapunzel would let him get his groove back...

"No idea," he admitted, sheepish and weary all at once. "This doesn't look familiar at all."

[healingincantation]

Rapunzel nodded in response, looking around. "Well... I'm sure there's some way to figure out where we are - or at least keep track of where we've been."

She patted her school bag, but... Hmm. She needed the supplies she'd bought today for her classes, so a trail of quills was out, and she still wasn't desperate enough to undo her braid. "Oh, wait..." she murmured aloud, before pulling out one of the two inkwells she'd picked up, breaking the seal around the cork, and dipping her finger lightly into the ink itself. She then smudged a star onto a nearby wall of the alleyway.

"I'm not sure it stands out enough..."

[mithrarin]

Normally this was where Dust would just climb up a building somewhere and do his best to scout out a position from there. Or better yet, just head across the rooftops towards familiar territory. But... that question was one he'd already discussed with Rapunzel, after all.

"I might be the wrong person to say this, but did you learn any spells that might mark it?"

[healingincantation]

"Oh, of course!" Rapunzel smiled, feeling a bit foolish for not having thought of that, but more excited than anything else. She had a solution after all! "There's something we learned last month in Modification class... Let's see."


She pulled out her wand, and began tracing a diagram, the tip of the wood just barely avoiding the wall. "A over B plus C over D equals AD + BC over BD..."

As she finished, a far larger mark, glowing brightly, appeared on the wall.

[mithrarin]

"Wow." Not really possessed of a knack for Modification, Dust had to admire how quickly she'd picked up a fairly impressive trick like that. "Really nice."

[healingincantation]

She took a moment to inspect her own work, but it certainly seemed to be lasting...

"Thank you," she said, smiling over at Dust. "So, on we go?"

[mithrarin]

"To wherever that is," he said, smiling back. "This isn't the first time I ended up wandering, not entirely certain where I was going. But we'll find our way back to someplace familiar sooner or later."

[healingincantation]

"Yes, I'm sure we will." But as they headed off, Rapunzel found herself stuck, curious, on what he'd said. "When else were you wandering? Was that here in Anastara, or back in your home?"

[mithrarin]

"Both, really." Despite their current circumstances, he still felt a little sheepish about getting lost in the city. "But I was thinking of Falana. A lot of the time, I had a general idea of where something was, but I had to get to it, and most of the time that was a real adventure."

[treno_nobleman]

What brought him on this particular deed, he couldn't say for sure. Boredom, perhaps, or some vague curiosity that he followed against his better judgement. In the end, this is what it earned him. Them, really. For better or worse, he was not alone, but it was looking more and more as if better might have been the word for it.

After a glance at Rapunzel, glad in some part to see her admit what he already could see, he turned his gaze around them and then back toward the direction of the markets, tail tip twitching. "I regret that I do not. This is not the path I would normally take to return to the school grounds, but it shouldn't be difficult to find."

The school is only so large, after all.

[healingincantation]

Rapunzel nodded, fiddling with her wand. She could always send up a blast of magic as an alert for help, but she doesn't think anyone would know that was what it meant.

"I'm sorry about this," she murmured as she ran through other possibilities in her mind. Just wandering around aimlessly wasn't ideal, but it might be their best bet. So she gave a nod. "But you're right, we'll make it back."

[treno_nobleman]

Well, this was going to be bothersome. They might be near to the school grounds or they might not, but it seemed like they had been going in the right direction after everything. The buildings they passed on the way into the shopping center were the ones that they passed on the way out, he was sure of it.

For all the good it ddi them now. He turns his gaze down the path before them, gusting a sigh. Somehow, it didn't look right, but it could have been that he was seeing it for the first time in the opposite direction, and in the darkness to boot. "If this world had not thought to take my ability to fly away from me, I could rise up above the trees and say for certain which direction to go."

But he couldn't, and complaining about it now would do them no good. "I say we keep going and if we reach nothing familiar in a few minutes, we return and take the other road." He turned back to his companion, looking for either their agreement or their opposition. For once, he thought of Califleur and how he had left her to her sleep without him back in the dorm. She might easily have been able to become a crow and be their wings and eyes to help them home.

[healingincantation]

"Wait..." Rapunzel had stopped walking when Kuja mentioned flying. Unfortunately, this was because she was distracted, not because she'd seen something familiar. Despite the fact that they were quite lost, she was grinning. "You could fly? That must be so amazing! I was just talking to someone about that when we all got swapped around!"

[treno_nobleman]

His step paused at her request and his head turned back to regard her, first in question, then in mild surprise, only indicated by a slight lift of one eyebrow. "Yes. What simpler power could a sorcerer know?"

Child's play, really, for who and what he was, though only before he had been brought to this world. Now he was restricted to walking just the same as any of them, but it worried him no more or less not to have such an advantage. They would find their way back one way or another. Of that, he was sure.

[healingincantation]

"Oh, I didn't realize it was so simple," she responded, looking only slightly embarrassed at her apparent ignorance. "If it's easy magic where you're from, I wonder if that's true here, too. Maybe we'll learn to fly, in time." She paused, and shrugged one shoulder. "Well, learning a different way to fly, in you case."

[treno_nobleman]

Limited in his understanding of some emotions though he was, that look of embarrassment, though not one of his own personal experiences, not in that manner, was not lost on him. Better to ease off, he thought in a moment of consideration, a reflex after years of practiced manner in higher society.

"They have vehicles here for that, though it cannot compare to the freedom of free flight under one's own power and not the assistance of a machine. Machines serve their purpose well enough, but to take to the air as a bird is like nothing else. If there is such a magic in this world, you can be sure I will do whatever I can to learn it."

[healingincantation]

Rapunzel nodded, grateful that they were focusing on the flight magic, instead of her mistake. "Well, if you do start studying it, maybe I can help you." She laughed a bit, then. "I promise I'm a better learner than I am a navigator."

/got lost on the way to this post, apparently

[couldabeenturbo]

"I totally know where we are." Dewey puffed his chest out with his usual confidence and zeal, pointing at the end of the alley. "If we take a right up here, we should come out next to that shop that sells the really good flavored ices. Which is good, because I could use one right now. It is sooooo warm."

He rolled up his sleeves, wishing he hadn't gone for his usual two layers. But they'd set out early in the morning, before the sun had had the chance to rise, and now he was paying for his lack of forethought. As usual.

[healingincantation]

"Oh! Well, that's good," Rapunzel said. It wasn't the way back to the school, no, but surely they could make their way from there... And in the meantime, she was also getting warm in the mugginess of the late summer day. Seeing him pull at his sleeves, though, she paused with a gentle smile.

"You could take off the overshirt." She shrugged. "It might help."

[couldabeenturbo]

"Oh yeah." He smacked his forehead. "Heat's getting to me, I guess?"

He wriggled out of the overshirt, then realized that maybe having that as his only shirt would be a better idea. "Um. ... Can you ... make sure no one's coming? Like, turn around? I think I wanna just wear this one."

He'd swapped out clothes in the bushes on Junior Woodchuck trips plenty of times, so he wasn't bashful about it, so long as he had someone to spot for him. The fact that it was a girl was the only thing making it remotely weird, but ... it was Rapunzel, so ... not really that weird. He thought of her the same way he thought of Webby: like a sister, only not.

[healingincantation]

"Oh, of course," Rapunzel said, turning around to keep an eye out - and, of course, give Dewey privacy. "So, you said you and your brothers are color coordinated, right? So your color is blue. And... Aren't you in Eiather house? That's pretty cool, right?" she asked as she kept her back to him.

[couldabeenturbo]

"I am! I thought it was pretty awesome. But Huey's in Eiather, too, and he's usually a red guy. Not that it bugs him much, because he's super into all the knowledge." He wiggled his fingers, even though she couldn't see, then wiggled out of his long-sleeved shirt quickly, dropping it on the ground and picking up his tee-shirt. Another wriggle, and - pop.

"Okay, decent!"

His hair feathers were definitely a mess, though.

[healingincantation]

Rapunzel smiled as she turned back around to face Dewey. She almost reached out to fix his hair, but remembered he hadn't seemed too fond of her doing that in the past, and pulled back.

"Okay, so a right, now? And that should get us to the shop with the flavored ice?"

[couldabeenturbo]

"Yeah, totally. I can feel it in my explorer blood." He grinned. "That's totally a thing, you know. My mom has it, and my Uncle Scrooge has it, ansmd Unca Donald kiiiiinda has it? Mostly he's just got bad luck, though..."

[healingincantation]

"Explorer blood, huh?" Rapunzel said, looking both amused and genuinely interested. "What about your brothers?"