fandomtownies | Outside Needful Things, Friday

Entry tags:

$needful things

Outside Needful Things, Friday

Leland Gaunt's hold on Fandom might be weakening, as more and more people were delivered from his thrall, but you couldn't tell just by looking. The fog was more sinister. The boarded-up doors and windows of the storefront were more foreboding. And the sign out front remained, as creepy as ever:

YOU SAY HELLO
AND I SAY GOODBYE GOODBYE GOODBYE
I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU SAY HELLO
I SAY GOODBYE

Needful Things was closed. The streets around it, however, were open for bouts of madness, the murder of loved ones, and other normal, everyday activities.

(This post is for Fighters to show up and get fierce, and Recovery to try (and fail) to get to Gaunt, and Recovery to fight the Fighters, and anyone who wants to drop in so they can fail at talking sense into any of the other teams, or just get in on the smackdown, or what have you. No OCD, just go crazy. Have fun!)

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Elsa was more than a little unsteady on her feet today as she sat outside Leland Gaunt's shop. She'd been made to eat food yesterday, though a hot chocolate and a pastry wasn't exactly enough to sustain anybody for any particular length of time, and she still hadn't slept in...

In...

She wasn't sure how long. It didn't matter. All that mattered was protecting Leland Gaunt, now. She was leaning hard against an icy gryphon today, her wolves off patrolling elsewhere, and looking at anybody who came close with a cold air of mistrust.

Speaking of mistrust, there was one look of mistrust on Barry's face at the moment as he approached the shop.

Hugs? Breaking items? This was something out of a fantasy or fairy tale. It wasn't science.

(Never mind the fact he was dating a princess who had ice problems. Shh.)

Still, Elsa was going batshit. And based on what he heard on the radio about yesterday, breaking these cursed items was supposed to fix everything. So Barry was going to take a leap of faith and do what he could to fix this situation.

He stopped across the street from the shop. There were ice creatures moving around the shop. He heard about it but didn't quite believe it until now.

"This is fucking weird."

Day... something, of Hanna's watch on the shop. Light-headed and tired now, she was sitting on the trunk that held her record-player and album, knife in hand. She was humming one of her mother's songs under her breath, eyes flicking around those gathered in front of Needful Things.

Edward'd been on the lookout for his assignment yesterday, but he hadn't found her before night fell and it got too dark for him to identify anyone. Now, though, he was here bright and early, studying the people out there.

Hoping quietly none of them had the capacity to set him on fire with their minds.

"Morning!" he called. That was Hanna, wasn't it?

Carmilla was starving. She hadn't made any trips off the island to get a few bites in (literally) because she had to stay here and defend. If anyone got too close, she might just have to drink her full of them.

It was indeed. Hanna gave him a wary look, still clutching that knife. "Hello." She tilted her head, and asked hopefully, "Are you here to help Mr. Gaunt?"

"They're beautiful," Anna breathed. "Is she doing that? That's amazing."

Sorry, Barry. Anna was never going to think Elsa's powers were scary. Not even if the ice-creatures were directed at her.

They didn't have a plan, but plans were for people who weren't going to just dive in and want it hard enough to make it happen. (Or for people who had more common sense than Anna, which was a fairly comprehensive list.)

"Elsa?" she called out, hoping to get her sister's attention.

Like the cursed people, Squall still hadn't slept, and all he'd eaten in the past few days was the sandwich Karla brought. He was worried. He was scared. This would be so much easier if there were a large, angry monster to attack.

"I'm here to get, ah, informed about Mr. Gaunt," Edward said, swaggering forward with as practiced a friendly expression as he had in his arsenal.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad? "You seem like a loyal sort. Thought I'd come ask."

"I am," Hanna insisted. "He's a good person. He helped me get my mother back."

Not literally. But it felt like she remembered more and more of the woman who died when she was two, the more she had listened to the record.

She watched Edward approach warily, and held up the knife, even though her arm was shaking. "Don't come any closer." The fingers of her other hand tightened on the trunk she was sitting on.

Edward put his hands up immediately. "I'm not here to take anything," he promised. "Your mother, aye? That's no mean feat. What happened to her before?"

He was just interested, Hanna. Honest.

Hanna relaxed a little, mostly because she was so tired. "She died. Marissa shot her three times. I was two, almost." She smiled a little. "But now I can remember her voice, and what she was like, and I can imagine... if she'd lived."

She swallowed, looking away, shaking her head hard. "You wouldn't understand."

"I still have both of my parents," Edward allowed easily. "But you sound like you're good with words. Perhaps you could shine a light on it for me? Just so I've some notion of just how good this Mr. Gaunt is."

Hanna' face lit up at the opportunity to explain. "He gave me an album of her singing. She was a night-club singer, and she used to sing me to sleep." That was real! She'd remembered that before. "And he asked me to..." Oh. Right. Not telling about that. He'd said not to. And the Mayor would be mad.

"I helped him help a little girl who was sick." There, that was a good part to explain, wasn't it? "And he gave me a record player to listen to the record with, since I didn't have one. And he did the same thing for Professor Rinoa, I know, and Carmilla understands too, and Anders let me have this box for free to protect my things, because he knows how good Mr. Gaunt is too, and he wanted me to be able to protect my things." She took a breath. "You don't want to hurt him for that, do you?"

Edward shook his head.

What? It was true. He'd only recently found out just how bad things were, and he hadn't quite let it escalate to the point of 'fostering violent thoughts' just yet.

"I'm just here to talk to you," he said. And he had absolutely no idea where he was going with this, besides that he had to find some way to talk her into breaking this... album. He'd figure something out. He had the gift for it. "Tryin' to figure out why you're marching in front of this store, as well. Sounds like you were given a good gift, though a man's got to wonder how Mr. Gaunt found the album to begin with."

"I..." How had that happened? Oh, yes. "He sent out a message. He needed help."

Although. It was a little funny that she hadn't seen him since then, wasn't it?

"And that woman. Officer Drew. She was going to arrest him. For... I don't remember." See? So it was good that Hanna had been there to help.

"I don't know how he got the album. Mr. Knepfler - he produced it - is dead. And Mr. Gaunt trades for so many things. I suppose he just found it. Somewhere."

Somewhere... it was a coincidence, wasn't it. A nice one?

"That's a lot of questions," Edward said, after a pause. "Wait, they're arresting your mr. Gaunt? And you don't know why?"

He knew exactly why. But he was a good actor when he needed to be.

"Professor Rinoa said they were scared of his magic." Which... didn't entirely make sense. Because the professor had magic, and so did Anders, and no one was arresting them. "And something about the woods."

She sent an uneasy glance toward the park, and the dying trees. The blackened pond. "I hate when forests die. Live things shouldn't be polluted."

"Aye."

Edward followed her glance.

"They're trying to piece together why that's happening, last I heard," he said. "Wondering if Mr. Gaunt has anything to do with it."

"He wouldn't. Besides, how could he? Or any person," Hanna said, shaking her head. "Do they know why it's like this? The deer were sick, too." She'd been so wrapped up in her memories and the songs on the record, she hadn't given it a lot of concentrated thought, but it had left Hanna uneasy and worried despite that.

"It just seems awfully convenient, doesn't it?" Edward asked. "Man shows up with anything you want in his shop, then things start dying. That's probably why they're looking into him. Hear some of the objects he's sold were poison, too, but that may be rumor."

He knew it wasn't.

Hanna shook her head violently, then had to grip the trunk to keep her balance. "You're saying... you're saying he found out about us, and brought things here we'd want so he could-- kill the wildlife?" That didn't even make sense! "How could things be poison?"

Edward shrugged. "That's what I'm hearing," he said. "I'm not an expert, mind you. I don't know a lot about this magic stuff. But my mother always taught me that if something sounded too good to be true, it probably is. I don't know about yours."

So Cara was willing to admit at her 'get a squirrel to point out which one's Carmilla' plan had a few flaws when the fog was too thick to find the furry little bastards, or at least one sober enough to do her any good.

Still, she had to be one of the ones guarding the store, so that narrowed it down some.

"My mother's dead," she reminded him sharply. Although. Erik -- Erik would have agreed. That was the kind of thing he would tell her: to look for the flaws. "My father's dead too. But."

When had she stopped thinking about that? When she got the record.

Hanna lifted a hand to her temple, closing her eyes. "My head hurts."

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 5

Outside Needful Things, Friday

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject