thecrossinglogs | Wind In the Desert Just Sounds Like Music

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!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Sunny can’t help it - he outright shivers at the mention of the River.

Not just because of his fear of water - he’d faced it back home, but here was a different story - but also…

There had been too many people accidentally smacking him when they arrived. He had sworn off visiting.]

Too… violent… [Those peppers would grow up to be hooligans stealing candy or something if they were planted there!]

[It's a little disappointing to see his cunning hints go so far awry, as that shiver gives away the renewed discomfort or fear... for some reason or another. It's unclear to him what's wrong, even after Sunny offers a couple of words on the matter.]

...The... River?

[He hates to put the teen on the spot for needing to answer. But, as great as he is at holding a conversation pretty much by himself if needed, that comment seems completely tangential. Maybe even cosinal.

The River was unpleasant, with the mud that seemed to fill every cranny of his bones, the way floating in it had frozen him in that last living moment. But the salted mud itself was salty mud, and seemed pretty content to sit or slowly flow in place. Had there been some explosive eruption before his arrival? Bodiless souls forming bodies out of mud to properly flail at people with? Something else??

...At least the question is ultimately a yes-or-no sort. Elaboration would be helpful, but he can shoulder the talking again with as little as a nod or shake of the head.]

[Sunny nodded, an affirmation. But… it would probably be better to explain a bit… if he could…]

People… arrive there… but… it’s scary… [Sunny had been the object of sudden jump scares in the form of arrivals, accidentally be smacked or (in one case) ordered around by a very pompous yet large bird. OK, that last one was more along the lines of what he had expected, but when a hand had risen through the mud like something out of a horror film, Sunny almost felt his (non-existent) heart stop.]

A bird… and people… and flailing limbs…

Oh! I see. I suppose the River is... a downstream destination for various violences.

[Personal murders, political assassinations, illness, disasters... All sorts of circumstances leading to their respective demises. And while he was relatively calm, if shocked and betrayed, anyone who went down swinging?]

And you've been attacked by a few who hadn't... exactly realized they were somewhere else, now. I hope they realized their mistakes quickly! But I guess that doesn't make the riverbank an enjoyable relaxation spot. Exciting, but maybe not enjoyable.

[And that's a person, a fairly quiet and subdued one. How would peppers fare in that bank, if people go scrabbling up out of it...?]

Maybe the oasis would be better.

[The Spicy One had the right of it. Sunny had sword off going to the River (till the Crossing at least) in case any such incidents would occur again - and this is part of why he wasn’t there now, aside from the fact that his flight had been blind panic. He always felt better near the Ferryman, and probably would have been safer there but…]

Do I… have to go… back…?

[His question takes time, voice smaller than previously. Everyone… was looking for him, but they would probably be really, really mad, right? In a way, Sunny is glad that this skeleton found him first.]

To the river? I would never shove someone back in there!

[He isn't in a state of recently-murdered flailing panic, after all. It takes him a minute to realize that the question, as quiet and slow as it was even for this teen's apparent norm, probably didn't mean that. If that meant back to the therapy session, or whatever, no. But if the idea of going back is distressful...]

If you mean back to the oasis... I think that's for you to decide. Sometimes teenagers just have to run away from home!

[Somehow, unlikely as it might seem - he isn't joking. He's thinking back to days underground, of one of the drake's infamous rebellion - and the frequent loitering out by the sentry stations. Even when the pack of teenagers gathered together, they tended to go no closer to town than his painted bridge, which... The reminder helps him continue.]

I think it's traditional for other teenagers to bring them packed lunches, but... we haven't really been eating... So I hope you'd let the people out searching know where you are eventually, even if they don't bring you sandwiches or whatever.

[…well… it was at least good to know that, should Sunny ever end up back at the River, he had at least one dependable set of bones near him…

And despite the joking tone that the skeleton took…] Run from… home…? [In all of the times that Sunny had felt overwhelmed, his father’s words (now forgotten) echoing in his head, the specter of Something floating behind him, all of his fears… he had never thought to run away.

Not physically, at least.

In fact, it’s the almost stunned silence that follows which has Sunny realizing… this was a first. Running like this.

Running from his problems was something he did often. He didn’t like confrontation, especially when it concerned the darker parts of reality (and his mind, though there it was easier to reset). He didn’t want to have the bitter and uncomfortable guilt that swirled inside of him to come out on accident… so it was easier to just not.]

Won’t… that make them… angrier?

[It seemed, for all the talk of the people back in the Oasis being worried, that the stronger (and more volatile) emotion was what he was afraid of. The longer you put something off, the larger the explosion when everything did come out, and…]

Wind In the Desert Just Sounds Like Music

Papyrus, so considerate <3

Deflective! But the best kind of deflective is the kind where it's also considerate

Sunny surely is painting the worst mental image of this XD

having met the bird, he can imagine the initial reaction

Is a big bird XD

no subject

CW: brief hint of parental abandonment