John

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Aaaand posted.

This mansion seems like a nice place, hah.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

That well was one angry old tree.

Leila carried on walking, among the group, in the Forest of the Ancients, their pace slowed down significantly by the raging rainstorm that hit them. Leila struggled to keep her eyes open in the heavy rain and as droplets accumulated and dripped down from the strands of soaked hair that stuck to her forehead. Her hands, aside from trying desperately from shielding her eyes from the pouring rain, were also busy scratching bits of moss and leaves and twigs out of her head and clothes.

Hardly being able to see made it much harder to maintain her pace. Already having trouble keeping up without the distractions, Leila fell back a bit in the group, now walking along the group of guides at the rear of their march.

“The greatest witch hunter alive eventually died here.” The tree had said.

So is the Midnight Man dead or alive?

It was of Leila’s knowledge, of course, that it is a perfectly valid state for one to be in dead and alive simultaneously; and in the absence of sufficiently detailed information Leila later abandoned thinking on about that question.

* * * *

The lights in the mansion weren’t switched on, if there were any. All the illumination in the scene, in fact, was only provided by the faint fluorescence of the magical amulets, the lights emitted by whatever light-emitting critters in the area, and the occasional, frighteningly bright flashes of lightning, which provided glimpses of the entirety of the scene from time to time. Aside from that, most of the time, the place was nearly entirely dark.

Leila, along with Songbird, Brandy, and the continuously gleeful Martini blowing heart-shaped bubbles that contradict many principles of fluid mechanics, were some of the last to enter the mansion in the woods. Leila did not like the darkness. Subconsciously, she clutched onto the edge of Songbird’s baggy sleeve - as it that would make her feel any more secure - and she struggled to decide between the darkness outside in the forest, and the darkness inside the house. The rain was unpleasant, yet shelter lay across the door through which she cannot see, so she hesitated.

Brandy tugged Songbird forward into the mansion. The idea of staying outside along coupled with the discomfort caused by the rain eventually prevailed, and Leila followed.

* * * *

The glass jar of fluorescent plankton was absolutely fascinating to watch.

She had read about things like these back at home, though she had never actually seen them. Groups of microscopic creatures, hovering around in the water, concentrating their excess energy into the generation of various light-emitting pigments for whatever reason - seen in the scale of a human being who is incapable of distinguishing individual sources of faint glowing, streams of light, swirling in mesmerizing patterns inside the translucent fluid - like stars and galaxies, a universe in a glass jar.

The jar was also quite heavy.

Leila held the one Avian handed her close to her chest, with both arms wrapped around it, one hand supporting the bottom, and the lid just high touching her chin.

Having the jar of light did make Leila feel much more comfortable being around the place. The disturbed population of critters in that particular bottle glowed a blueish-green hue, much like that of her amulet. The light was actually much brighter than she expected, providing a quite decent range of sight, and the soft, hued lighting that fluctuated slightly as the creatures twirled around inside projected an atmosphere that was somewhere between somehow soothing and borderline eerie. Leila decided she liked the feeling, though..

The mansion was more spacious than it looked like from the outside. Snippets of chat and discussions rang repeatedly beneath the high ceiling in a mixture of distant voices and faint echoes.

Leila carried the jar carefully as she inched upwards on the grand staircase that curved to one side of the entrance hall, following Riley. The staircase led upwards to what seemed to be the second floor, where there was a gate still too far away to see beyond.

* * * *

At the gates of the second floor, Leila held the glowing jar high and gazed into the space in front of her. The green glow illuminated rows of old, decorated wooden shelves, in series with corridors between them that extended beyond sight and into the distant darkness. Between the shelves there were places where oil lamps can be hung, but she couldn’t find the lamps nor an available fire source. Numbers and text were inscribed into each shelf in an ordered manner, although only traces remained of the golden paint. On the shelves were books - a very, very large collection of books.

The second floor of the mansion was an enormous library.

Before she realized it, Leila was wandering through one of the corridors, the jar creating a circle of illumination around her position, fading out into the distance. She didn’t go too deep in, yet the entrance was already some distance away, and she didn’t see Riley or anyone else anywhere. She didn’t notice that, though - she had the light, and that alone made her feel secure enough.

The shelves were rather tall. Tiptoed, she could reach the sixth row counting from the ground, but the shelves seemed to reach all the way up to the ceiling - she couldn’t be sure for the tops were too far away for the light from her jar to reach already.

She placed the glowing jar on the ground, and with her fingertips she drew out a book from the sixth row of shelves.

Traces of cobweb still attached to the edges of the cracked leather cover. The title was mostly worn away as well, and the thick layer of dust that accumulated on the top side of the stacked pages was nearly the only way to tell the correct direction of the piece of scripture was to be read. The binding, which almost fell apart as Leila flipped the book open, was in the same direction as one would expect for a regular English book, but whatever the pages were written in wasn’t decipherable.

She always liked libraries. Mainly because books provided a great source of information, but she felt like it was more than that. What more, though, she couldn’t tell.

Carefully, Leila closed the cover and put the book back.

The scent of dust, aged wood, and old scripture filled the air. The shelves were like walls of a labyrinth, although it was one that Leila wouldn’t mind getting lost in. It felt almost like back at home - the library, on the top floor of the complex. The place where she read, and where she looked out of the window panes into the city below when she wasn’t reading. The place where she saw the fireworks, the night she was led here.

glowing jar in hand, Leila continued to stroll along the shelves.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

*eats chips as everyone fangirls over the Lesadi moment*

And oh, Haku post. Heh.

Come to think of it it's kinda terrible how Leila had little interaction and the only person she kinda had feelings about is now scheduled to die(?).

Shall get Leila attached to some other people to compensate that. Eheh.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

That sure is one lovely tree.

Resting in that one house in the desolate,creepy forest? Sounds like a nice idea, Harper.

Know what to write, but it'll probably be until Thursday that I post. Ugh.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Aaaand posted.

It is officially confirmed that Leila, without help from the amulet, has a terrible sense of balance.

And Fox, no. I am not watching that video just before I go to bed.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

"What was it like hugging a dragon?"

“Eh-?”

Leila turned around at the question, to see Riley and placing a hand on her shoulder, gleaming.

"Because seeing you rush up to it was just amazing."

...amazing?

Leila raised her eyebrows, half in surprise and half in confusion, at the notion. It was quite a while since the last time anyone considered anything she did worthy of being describe as such. In fact, it was a scenario that never even crossed her mind to try imagining.

And such she lacked a fitting response to such a statement.

”Ah, um...thank you? I...um...”

And there she trailed off, not sure what to fill into the conversation next. Should she go ahead with some more thanks? Return compliments, as people sometimes do? Should she describe her encounter with the dragon - what if Riley wasn’t actually intending to ask about it in the first place? Should she mention how the dragon scales were to the touch? Or how dragon breath smelt like a mixture of charcoal, rust, and coconut? Should...

...Reminder to self: never start a sentence before you have an idea of how you are going to finish it.

Leila eventually gave up trying, and simply allowed her voice to trail off as she forced a rather apologetic smile, saying nothing.

* * * *

The people in the group started talking again, and so Leila saw no reason to resume the humming.

Later in their trek through the woods, Leila was distracted by the sudden burst of action, a figure of white rushing past them, through the group, and into the dark woods in front of them only to end up stranded in a tangled mess of vines and twigs. Leila paused as Inadi was observed to have rushed forward subsequently, apparently intending to rescue Jasper.

Before she saw what became of Inadi as he rushed into the depths of the woods, however, Leila’s attention was again captured by something else.

She turned around sharply to identify that ‘something’, only to see the members of the backmost part of the group equally confused.

Then what was brushing against the back of her neck?

She frowned a bit, turned back around, and straightened her collar and tidied her hair, thinking that it was possibly-

-what was it?

The same tickle on the same place. It pretty well wasn’t her own hair or hands because she felt it on her hands too. What was i-

-...Lesley?

Leila felt her weight being shifted away from the feet and to where the pair of large hands were now wrapped around her upper arms. Her feet were nearly swept clean off the ground when Lesley, in an act that was less dragging her along and more lifting her up and dropping her off somewhere else, swung her around himself and eventually plopped her back onto the ground somewhere she could only assume to be somewhere at the back of the group.

As the pink-haired man stood behind her in anticipation, Leila recovered from her stagger and straightened up her stance to see clearly what stood in front of her.

She found her face inches away from a gleaming circle of blood-red between two pieces of wooden eyelids.

Leila gasped in shock and instinctively shot backwards in unsteady steps, only to stumble right back into Lesley, who she managed to almost knock over, despite the difference in their height. The impact, however, propelled her back forward, into the trunk of the gnarling tree.

umph.

The bark was rough, thick, cracked and layered in places, where various other forms of more primitive plant and fungi life made their residence. It was moist and cool to the touch. Leila could feel some bits of moss scraped off and accumulated at the tips of her fingernails, as part of the result of her failed attempt to prevent her face and body from slamming into the tree. Her left index finger came dangerously close to poking the tree in the eye. She tucked her head down as a last resort and saved herself from ending up with a painful nose and a mouthful of bark. and that probably resulting in her having to take some time plucking leaves and pieces of moss out of her hair.

Her feet found no firm hold among the slippery, intertwined roots on the floor the forest, and she ended up falling over, plopping backwards into the ground, ending in a sitting position at Lesley’s feet as she looked upwards again to see the still glaring red eye of the living tree. With her hands on the ground for support behind her and out of her sight, only moments later did Leila noticed something stuck between her fingers that was a segment of a snapped twig.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

I feel like I'm falling behind a bit again. Ugh. Must not let that worsen.

Post coming up later tonight. Sorry for the wait, folks.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Anonymous said he turned around to grab Leila and plopped her in front of the elderly timber.

Lesley did u just

Uh, gotta write up a post I guess. But I've got some things to deal with and I've spent most of this weekend writing already so it might only come up until monday? Just some information.

Excited for what comes up later in this chapter. This forest seems like such a nice place.

6 AM . . . Yesterday

Loving the new IC posts.

I kept saying Julia was gonna tackle Ruée, but then she's still stuck in the phone for now? Uuuuh. That'll have to wait until Cell City then.

The information site still lacks the sheets for the Valkyrie key, though...?

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Not dealing well with how adorable Jasper and Inadi are.

And uh, time to write up another post already? Wow, things are happening fast.