Cause I wanna close my eyes and sleep

[dejerate]

WHO: Yuichiro Hyakuya, Mikaela Hyakuya, Nike Lemercier
WHERE: Heropa, idk a park or camping ground with a tent pitched up.
WHEN: Early Sept
WHAT: Camping and stargazing. Because teens are gonna teen and they need to wind down after the clones and such together.
WARNINGS: None off of the top of my head?



[It's for many reasons that they meet up and have a sleepover. Of sorts. Though this one is in a tent, complete with blankets and pillows and a lamp or two. Outside. They all love and miss nature, almost nostalgic over it, even if Nike has a stronger connection to it than Mika and Yuu, who simply miss and appreciate outdoors all the more after so long underground. So it makes sense to make the most of this, before things get busier nearer the end of the year. In the month leading into Yuichiro's birthday, distracting him from certain events back home that happened in August.

Which is how they are found and heard in their tent, sitting amid the blankets and pillows, Yuu holding a teddy in his lap as he leans against Mika before straightening.]

Hey! We should tell stories! That's what people do with camping, right? Do either of you know any?

[He asks only because. Well. None of the three of them have exactly grown up camping, with school trips or the like. So it might be that they might be out of luck, barring making up their own stories. But either way, this is supposed to be fun!]

Comments

[drizzle]

[It definitely was a lovely late summer evening with the cloudless sky above them, allowing the stars to sparkle as best as they can. Nike couldn't help keep her attention on the upward view. Sometimes reflecting a pensive look while other times there was a fondness in her gaze that hid her guilt. The last few weeks have been more than just difficult -- it's been an experience. One she never wanted to encounter again. How she'll accomplish it? Difficult to say, as she didn't know the reason behind the birth of her clone.

Once she figures it out -- if she ever does -- then she was confident a trail will present itself to her.

But until then, she was going to enjoy the camping trip the boys had thought up and invited her to. It has been fun to travel to their destination, set up their tent, and get everything else prepared to make their trip all the more comfortable. The last time she had gone pseudo-camping was when she was a bratty kid that would run away to the mountains in impossible hours to catch the sun rising because the wind would whisper about those rare moments where a relative slacked off from summoning the rain clouds to keep their island hidden from whoever was close. Those moments have always been rare such as this one too. She made absolute certain in taking as many pictures of their trip as possible.

Their current situation was no exception as they are spread out in a circle with the lamps acting like a replacement fire. Nike was laying on her back, blanket underneath her, watching the stars and taking secret photos of the boys in front of her. Very secret! In which, it wasn't.]

A story, huh? [She'll look back through the times her relatives would plan actual camping trips while she was trying to learn to summon the wind and rain.] Yeah, I think it's kinda expected to do that. A horror one based on myths are usually the style of storytelling my time period would tell. Unless you were a travelling minstrel, then you had to dance and sing.

[Not that she's ever personally encountered one, but has overheard the way it works from other people.]

What about you guys? Same or different.

[allforyuu]

Horror stories?

[It's basically the first time he'd been on a camping trip. The vampires tended to take trips to search for livestock, but that simply wasn't the same. There was no pleasure in it.]

[Mika rested his cheek on Yuichiro's head for a moment, enjoying how soft his hair was against his skin. There was a world of difference between how it felt to be among their captors compared to how it was to be with Nike and Yuu. The air was fresher and it felt like he could breathe more easily. It felt like home.]

....I think it was the same back home. I remember hearing about it, at least. Stories over an open fire.

[dejerate]

Yeah, horror stories! I mean. I'm not really sure I know any, since I never really did the camping thing. But I think we've done okay. Didn't forget anything hugely important, right?

[Shinoa would probably be great at telling scary stories. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how one viewed her and the situation, she wasn't present. So they have to make do without. Which is probably for the better, honestly.

But still, Yuichiro listens as Nike tells of camping back home. Of minstrels.]

I don't think we had minstrels but the basic idea seems to be the same with the horror stories. I mean. I don't think I know any. I haven't really done the camping thing before.

[Considering he wasn't the most social prior to meeting Yoichi and the rest. And this isn't quite the same as them settling around to read a book together at Sanguinem, before their escape attempt and everything.]

[drizzle]

Impressive! Never thought horror stories would exist for so long.

[It was hard not to find the idea of horror stories remaining the standard way of storytelling to live on in other time periods and worlds.]

Too bad neither one of you know of a tale to tell me.

[Although she is certain their daily life would be considered a nightmarish story to tell her. Mika, especially, due to his relationship with the vampires and being one. She really didn't want them to recall their lives back home or their past, so Nike will sit up and smile at the two.]

Then how about I start by telling you a terrifying tale from my world? It could be fun to even, you know, rate it and all. Since you two are from my future and stuff. I bet it won't be as scary as current stories of today.

[Not that she has seen any movies or books on the subject. She has been too busy trying to learn more about the world and history of certain inventions or governments.]

[allforyuu]

Go ahead.

[Mika subconsciously leans a little forward, giving her his attention. Hearing a story is more appealing than he wants to admit; certainly better than talking about their lives. It's like make-believe for adults. A break from their own thoughts.]

[If that's what camping is about, he can appreciate that appeal. Just a little. He leans against Yuu just a little.]

What is the story about?

[dejerate]

Yeah, sure. Go for it, Nike!

[It isn't like he actually sleeps much anymore to really need to worry about potential nightmares from this sort of thing, right? This is just for fun. So he leans forward a little more too, trying to still be mindful when Mika leans against him that he doesn't want the other to fall over or anything. She might not be wrong in theory, on the stories she knows being possibly less graphic in comparison to what they might have heard, especially depending on the story she chooses to tell them. Though Yuu seems more curious than worried. Possibly in part because, yes, what he and Mika went through back home probably seems like something from a horror story to others already.]

[drizzle]

It's a story about a gorgeous horse with an evil reputation. I remember getting goosebumps after hearing this story from my friend, Falah.

[It didn't help she was in the middle of a voyage through the desert at midnight. She remembers it being her first week in the Sand Kingdom. Everyone would tease her every once in a while over it.]

Either way, I will be telling the story while adding some sound effects for good measure. Gotta be a good storyteller as I represent my timeline for you, youngins.

[She is still certain her age may be slightly older than the two boys. While adding the number of the
century she is from, she should technically be much, much, much older if she were immortal. Whatever the case, Nike will begin to hum in an attempt to synchronize with her surroundings, so when she lifts her hand a spark of thunder and lightning can be heard and felt.]

Okay. I'll start telling it.

[She begins to explain the location being of the Sand Kingdom. A prosperous country living in the middle of a desert with many different villages known as oasis while cities usually dwelled within a fortress. Their story takes place in a well-known oasis that was the most prosperous. It was a place that was known to herd wild horses. Only the best horses would be captured, trained, and used for races before being sold off to other countries.

A man known to be the best at the business found himself with a peculiar horse that had a unique color coat that he has never seen. It was such a rarity that he wanted to personally train and look after it, himself. However, the horse would not budge on getting broken down and trained unlike all the others before it, and to make matters worse the creature began to become the most active at night. Whenever the owner would sleep, he begins to hear groans and creaks, and sometimes the rattling of chains throughout, which began to slowly eat the rational aspect of his mind, leaving him feeling paranoid that the horse was growing closer, louder, and more aggressive that he thought it was attempting to kill him. The sounds of the wind will begin to pick up whenever she mentions the noises while the sound of chains especially when they got too violet were met with sounds of thunder or sparks of lightening.

The man decides to sell not just the horse, but his home as he did not feel safe. Because no matter what, many people he would sell the horse were met with the same fate -- of the sounds, creaks, and other disturbances. While the original owner was met with terrible luck as his employees began to disappear, his water source would dry out, and the small bit of vegetation would begin to rot.

It isn't until a philosopher happens to overhear about the bargain price of a famous house and rare horse being sold. He decides to buy it; regardless of the original owner's warnings. Once night falls, when he was about to sleep, the sounds return. The philosopher grows curious as the nights go by realizing the sound of chains and the groans and creaks would begin to sound louder until it began to pound against his walls with tremendous force that it was enough to get him out of bed only to find the horse waiting for him, glowing with a malevolent light, as sparkling chains can be found in its hooves when there never was. The philosopher decides to face the wild animal which will only cause the horse to head away from him. He will continue to head towards it, following the creature until it seizes from walking, pounding its hooves onto the ground of a once living garden that had dried up.

The moment he realized the horse had no intention to leave he decides to lunge towards the creature once it was close only for it to disappear in a puff of smoke. As he lands on the very spot the once ghostly figure pounded to, he decides dig in the very spot only to find human remains adorning the same chains as the horsely figure once did. As the philosopher had planned to remove the bones, he will be met with the sound of thunder and a shaking that will leave him trampled as a wild herd of horses decide to run across the area in which it leaves behind nothing but destruction in its wake.]

And from that day forward, the oasis town never heard from the philosopher nor ever found another wild horse in their area again.

[allforyuu]

[Mika's heard worse stories. He's even seen them firsthand, and lived to tell the tale. But there is something about hearing the story in front of a fire, while the rest of the forest was dark and quiet around him that made his ears twitch, as if listening for dangers.]

[It's a spooky story to be sure, but what really made it stick in his mind was thanks to Nike's ability to make any story come to life. She really knew how to make people into captive audiences. He sat up straighter.]

Why did the horses do that? Were they spirits as well?

[dejerate]

It sounds like it? I'm not sure. I haven't heard a story like that one before. Most horror stories are of like ghosts or something, right? Like....people ghosts or werewolves or whatever.

[He figures the basics, at least, with scary stories. Just not so much on having actually really done this sort of thing before. It was kind of different, with the squad, even if they 'camped' by necessity while on the run back home, after what Yuu recalls. Though the horses, the sound of them getting closer, that does seem like it would be frightening, though perhaps more in a sort of psychological way? He himself has been through worse back home, like Mika, and the fire, that warmth and light from it seems to make it less scary than it might be otherwise.]

[drizzle]

I know a few people ghosts stories, but they.....can be kinda short and to the point. There's always a priest in most of them. It isn't scary when there's someone to save the day.

[Having a priest that exorcise the spirit in the end isn't as terrifying as nature taking care of it instead. Then again, Nike is used to spirits and ghosts, they don't scare her in the least bit.]

As for the reason the horses did that, I like to interpret it as the world granting that spirit its final wish -- to use the horses to obey him. It's just too bad the spirit used it for vengeance instead of trying to seek for justice. I can't find a reason for the man to be killed.

[It was clear she was experience in the subject of spirits and the powerful connections between nature. Nike wondered if a rain summoner was present, would there have been a better ending to this story? Hard to say in this case. So instead of thinking about it further, she'll turn to Yuu curiously.]

I haven't heard of werewolves before neither. What is that? A type of animal?