Wind In the Desert Just Sounds Like Music

[solitarynote]

WHO: Sunny and You! (This happens right after the therapy meet, but it’s OTA. If you weren’t attending the meeting, you can still see Sunny running off ^^)
WHAT: Sunny got upset and ran off. Now he’s lost in the Desert. Help?
WHERE: The Desert (and Dunes. Really he might end up at one of the inserted locations too, TBD)
WHEN: Post-Therapy Meet, Pre-Second Crossing
WARNINGS Most likely signs of PTSD and anxiety. Will update in Subject as needed :)

Sunny didn’t know where he was. He remembered getting upset, running off… but he didn’t recognize any of the surroundings nearby. He wasn’t in the Oasis… and, because he had spent all of his time in said safe haven before now, that fact filled him with dread…

He needed to find his way back. But… that meant finding everyone else, which would probably lead to more questions. Questions that he didn’t want to answer. Questions that caused his stomach to cramp and his breath to come short all over again.

Maybe it was better to stay here…

[OOC: OK! Here’s the search log for Sunny! I’ll be making several prompts below, and whoever ends up finding Sunny will be left to random draw to keep it fair ^^ But feel free to mingle, join the search with someone else, etc. Any of the locations added by us are fair game to explore too!]

Comments

Sunny Search Sign-Up

[solitarynote]

[OOC notes: reply to this if you want to be included in the random draw to find Sunny!]

[blindluck]

[knockingatthedoor]

[witnessvelama]

[cloversandcranes]

[spaghettimonster]

(okay i do have to toss papyrus in the ring because like. imagine. they haven't met in person yet.)

[solitarynote]

(YES. Just imagine this being their first in-person meeting XD and Papyrus would definitely have been able to tell something was going on at the meeting. Sunny wasn’t subtle ^^;)

[marblenest]

[perfecttune]

Haunting the Oasis (This is for Hanako tag-outs, no Sunny/Hanako interactions)

[toilet_bound]

Hanako stays in the Oasis. He had no need to join the search - it seemed like enough people were doing so, and it would be best to remain here in case anyone decided to come back in the middle of the search - but he does take notice if someone seems to be searching here.

”Ah, the kid seems like he hasn’t come back yet. I’d wager he’s somewhere else.”

[knockingatthedoor]

[And this is the one who really, really tried his best to find Sunny so far.He had to come back only to try to get papers and pen, trying to write down and mark ANYTHING that could help him remember where he had already been, anything that could assist him in the navigation.

Kel is not exactly discreet when it comes out showing how much he cares about both Mari and Sunny, so it's not a surprise that he looks like a worried mess- they're so near the Crossing, if they don't find Sunny before it... he doesn't want the other to suffer through a sliver of what he had to handle back there.]

No? Man... I- I don't even know what got him to run away. Can we count on you to keep an eye on the place here?

[The other called sunny a Kid and KLel didn't even want to comment on how Hanako did seem much younger. Not the right time to joke around.]

[toilet_bound]

[A mess was right - it had been a long time since Hanako had seem someone look so frazzled about another person being lost.

Well, except for Yashiro, but his assistant tended to show her entire heart in her expressions.

Hanako watches, silent, as Kel rummages through the spare materials, gathering… what? It seemed like he was grabbing any and everything that might be useful… at least to the former ghost’s gaze.]

I wasn’t near at the time so… I’m afraid I can’t help with figuring that out. [Hanako is surprisingly frank, almost serious, at this point.] But you can trust me. I’ll keep an eye out here. If he shows up, I’ll just use that… what is it… the fancy phone. It’ll send a message straight to you~

OTA, just searching

[blindluck]

[Nagito is not particularly familiar with telling people his plans before he does them. He sees Sunny run out of the therapy session--and really, it's kind of a surprise it took this long before someone did that--but he also sees people go after him. It's better if other people deal with it; they'd be better at it, surely.

But then it turns out Sunny didn't just run off to go hide in one of the shelters or something, he left the oasis entirely. And Nagito can walk around the desert, if nothing else.

He tracks the footprints as far as he can, which isn't very far--the sand shifts pretty quickly. It gives him a general direction, but that's all. Then he uses his usual method for these sorts of things: he just picks a direction and starts walking. By himself. Into the desert.

It'll work out in the end, probably.]

[knockingatthedoor]

[Kel has been running. On the sand. He hates the sand, as he already told Nagito- a wise man once said "I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.". They were right. It's in Kel's shoes, annoying the crap out of him. It's in his underwear since he fell on one of the dunes and rolled down on it, it's between his hair making the teen look dirty and messy-

To quote another wise person?

Fuck Sand - Probably Kel.

Still, Sunny was out there and by all gods that may or may not exist Kel was going to look for him as long as it was needed. When he spotted Nagito? He took a deep breath and sprinted in his direction, perhaps they could share info and maybe not look in spots where the other had already been. Assuming Sunny wasn't just... wandering around, of course.]

Hey. Any news?

[blindluck]

[Oh, turns out he won't be alone the whole time after all. Nagito smiles, calm as he usually is.]

Not yet. I lost track of the footprints a little while ago. [It didn't occur to him to suggest to anyone they look for footprints. It seemed obvious to him, so everyone else must have known as well.] But assuming he's traveling more or less in one direction, it's just a matter of keeping track of the colors of the sand.

sand despair

[marblenest]

Sometime later on, Dankovsky is out in the Dunes, trying to retrace Sunny's steps too. It's not working, of course, but he has managed to run into Nagito.

Because of course he has.

He doesn't bother hiding a scoff. It's petty of him, but he can't help but wonder if the two of them hadn't argued if Sunny wouldn't have run off the way he had. He supposes that makes part of that his fault, but then again, the whole responsibility is his to begin with anyway.

Ah well.

"Any luck so far?" Dankovsky asks, adjusting one of his leather gloves absentmindedly as he looks about.

Sand. Sand all around him.

Same as it is everyday.

[blindluck]

Nagito regards him impressively primly for someone who's been walking around in a desert. It's just his luck he'd run into Dankovsky of all people, and he doesn't even have his luck anymore. (If he had it, this would be easy. He'd have been able to walk into the desert without thinking about it. All the relief of shaking loose from his talent turns into guilt and drags him down like shackles now.)

"Not yet," he says--prim, yes, but also civil. "Kel-kun asked me to double back and inform Ferryman-san of what happened, so I'm a little behind."

OTA - Recruitment / Search

[witnessvelama]

At the Oasis

[Celehar had done his best not to make his absence from Mari's gathering obvious, but he had avoided it. He had considered the invitation, very solemnly - and he imagines that the camaraderie that the younger members of the group could find among themselves would be helpful.

And yet, when he had contemplated standing, making his way to the hut that had been designated for it, the strength seemed absent from his limbs. It's a phenomena he remembers mostly from his days at the Untheileneise Court, the black mud of a mood that made dragging his eyes open a near-impossible task, some mornings.

He's settled himself against one of the building walls on the far side of the little settlement, taking advantage of what reprieve the shade can offer, settling his spirit and gathering his nerve by working through one of the devotions, when a sudden flurry of activity nearby catches his attention. He lifts his head, finally leveraging himself upright, to catch the passerby.]

Is aught amiss?

In the Desert

[Celehar starts his efforts by looking for the wraiths.

It's equal parts habit and practicality. Habit, to seek answers from the dead, even if his and Sunny's efforts to speak to the wraiths hadn't borne fruit - and practicality, in the habit of the faded figures to drift towards any and everyone who spent time beyond the Ferryman's light. Celehar has even collected a sentinel or two of his own, on this journey.

But if he has, it stands to reason that the same has happened with Sunny - and a collection of wraiths is a touch easier to spot against the dunes than a single young boy, especially as Celehar's efforts bring him further out into the sands than he's been before. The next time he crests a dune, he draws to a halt, staring at the canyons that start to develop ahead, dropping down into a ravine.]

Oasis, sorry I cannot read and got my timeline mixed up

[marblenest]

Oh good, it was someone who could be trusted to be rational and reasonable. Dankovsky was incredibly reassured to see Celehar approach the group, and he speeds up to meet him. Which isn't fast, considering, but it's something.

"Oh, I'm happy to see you, yes, it's Sunny-" Dankovsky begins, "He's run off, poor lad. He was spooked something awful during our therapy meet. Would you help us look? Another pair of eyes would be most helpful."

He seems genuinely frazzled, and actually upset over it. Sunny running off into the Dunes is a terrible thing to happen, yes, but more than that Dankovsky takes the kids' safety as his personal responsibility. To him? This is his fault.

In the Desert

[spaghettimonster]

[Given the impromptu nature of the seeking (and maybe hiding) currently underway, it's probably not much surprise that the skeleton's approach to the search is a bit indecisive. Some of the time he spends searching openly, cresting to the tops of the dunes and peering down them, trusting that the lightness of his bones will help keep him from sliding suddenly down a sandy slope.

Right now, though, he's taking the other approach. Stepping quietly with as little crunch to the sand as he can manage, walking in something of a crouch to avoid standing out against the sky... After Nagito's cautioning that Sunny is skittish and might run off if startled, the skeleton's plan is to move such that, if he does startle anyone, it'll be up close enough for him to give chase.

So, for better or worse, someone might just crest a dune and start gazing out at canyons and ravines before noticing the motion just down the other side of the slope - the skeleton creeping along, head swiveling to look up and squint at him.]

Oh, hey. You're not Sunny, are you?

OTA - Oasis, Desert

[spaghettimonster]

(1) 💀 OASIS: QUESTIONS

[The skeleton didn't attend the therapy meeting. Why would he? He's doing great!

...Admittedly, he could have gone in a therapy-giving way. Aiding as an inspirational and motivational speaker... It comes so easily to him, giving the insights sure to illuminate the paths to greatness and self-confidence to all!

But, well. He'd only recently been pulled from the river, and of the humans he's spoken with, most have been at least a little alarmed by the sight of him. While it could surely only be beneficial to them for him to join in eventually, helping them both with encouraging words and as an exposure therapy to help them be less alarmed by appearances... Well, that could wait!! At least until they'd gotten a good first session under their belts, establishing a groundwork for how they were doing therapy, and all.

Maybe that had been a little bit of a mistake. First one person went charging out of the dunes like they were being chased by the River's tendency to make people relive their deaths... and then a number of other people started trickling out into the desert as well? The skeleton approaches one of them with the first, most obvious question:]

Hey, did someone start a scavenger hunt, without telling the rest of us?? What's going on?


(2) 💀 DUNES: SEARCHING

[...Maybe it had been a little bit of a mistake, and not just in the sense of missing out on invitations to games and/or investigations. Seems like someone had gotten very upset and run off without telling anyone where they were going. Which, in itself, seemed fine. The light the Ferryman was sharing was visible from a distance - one could wait until night to follow it back. If therapy had made anyone realize they needed to lay in the sand for a while, or take a long walk to scream in relative privacy... he wasn't going to judge.

But. If it was someone who was very upset, and had forgotten their phone - or notebook, or whatever - in their running? Well, they might have accidentally gone even further than the light's visibility. And while the wraiths were passive now... They wouldn't be forever.

So the skeleton's joining in the search, cresting the taller dunes of sand with the confidence of someone light-weight enough not to slide down the sand as easily as some.]

1

[blindluck]

[Nagito has been mostly staring downward--following Sunny's footprints, though he hasn't thought to mention it to anyone--when the skeleton draws his attention. His expression is placid; it would be easy to assume there's nothing particularly wrong if you were to judge by that alone.]

It seems like Sunny-kun has run off into the desert. We're going to look for him.

[So maybe it's a scavenger hunt, but there's only one item on the list and that item is actually a person.]

Closed to Papyrus | Hide-And-Seek

[solitarynote]

[Sunny hadn’t meant to run away. In the moment, his brain hadn’t been working, and all he could think to do was ‘get out’…

But now… Sunny found himself lost in the desert. He could maybe find his way back - the teen had helped several others do the same, so he had some tricks that were viable - but… the thought of returning was even scarier.

He had ruined Mari’s therapy session. He had run off without telling anyone where he was going. He hadn’t stopped when they had called out to him. Everyone was probably furious, and the thought of going back and facing that…

It was too much.

So Sunny wandered, a one person party in an unknown desert, until his legs felt like they might give out. In front of him was the giant skeleton that Nagito had stumbled upon… maybe he could just… stay here…?

Unbeknownst to him, a certain skeleton’s well-meaning and productive efforts with the search party were about to come to fruition…]

But will hide-and-seek become a game of tag, instead?

[spaghettimonster]

[Human books sometimes describe deserts as "vast," and this search is really driving home the truth of the phrase. It's a vast place, and compared to the underground it really feels like it could go on forever. And with only a dozen-odd people awake and moving around above the River, it feels astonishingly empty, too.

There's the wraiths, of course. The most silent but persistent cheer squad, faithfully following the skeleton in his search. He keeps choosing to interpret their presence as an encouragement, anyway. Just like he keeps reminding himself that everyone says they're passive outside the crossings, and that the next crossing is still weeks away!! Maybe they're a little unnerving to look at sometimes, but it's nice not to feel entirely alone in some of these emptier stretches.

And there are the various landmarks, too - changes in scenery preventing it from being sand on sand on sand. Places like the oasis itself, and the cliffs, and the River, and other things beyond. And one of them, which he first learned of when one of the others (likely searching the sands now) described it to him, is a gigantic dragon's skeleton.

It's not his first time heading there, by any stretch. Standing and marveling up at it, occasionally calling up a greeting just in case one of these days it offers a greeting back... That's become one of his routines.

(In fact, that's what he was up to when the others were first gathering for their therapy thing. While they gathered to talk of feelings and home and the people hopefully left behind, he went to hang out with... well, something of a reminder of some of those people. The skull's not quite the right shape, but it reminds him of magic, and his brother, and his friends, and that's close enough.)

Returning to it feels like retracing his steps, but in the interest of thoroughness he doesn't want to skip it. And there's a promising sign as he rounds one of the vertebrae and sees a short figure with even shorter dark hair - possibly black hair - in front of it.]

Hello, over there? Would you happen to be wearing orange cloth on one eye?

[perfecttune]

[Mari had tried her best to avoid completely rushing out after her brother... after all maybe he just needed some time? But the longer she waited the more impatient and worried she became... so she gathered what supplies she could find- water, a blanket, Sunny's Captain Spaceboy edition that he had left in their room- really anything that she could find that was easy to carry and she thought might be of use to help calm her brother down...]

Don't worry... you'll find him... you have to...

[Her nerves were beginning to fray. Here her little Sunshine was out in the desert all alone... upset, afraid, and most likely lost...]