+1 Man Eating Monster.

[itsdark]

WHO | Ele [OPEN]
WHAT | Ele is hiding in her room in suite 05.
WHEN | After Arena 06.
WHERE | Suite 05.
WARNINGS / NOTES | Ele has not spent time among humans like Some has. She is terrified. Humans to her are A. Dangerous and B. Food. The door to her room is unlocked but... enter at your own risk.

It had taken them several hours to stop Ele from either attacking them, or attempting to hide under any available furniture (whether she fit or not). It took another several for them to explain why she was there in a way she could even begin to comprehend. She would kill humans. And other creatures, but mostly humans. Ele was wary of the idea. Humans were dangerous creatures. If not taken for a meal, they were best avoided.

Left to her room, she's wedged herself beneath the bed where it's dark and confined. Safe. Resting her head on all four arms, she tries to think of a way that she could get past all the humans and their Light.

Comments

[itsdark]

Ele is startled anyway, her crest rising slightly as she jerks back. She calms when she sees that Some isn't panicked. "There are tiny humans in there!" Snack size.

[gruesome]

Some had to press two hands over his mouths to keep from laughing. Because hadn't he reacted in exactly the same way, when Aimery had first showed him the televisions? He didn't let go until he thought he could control his voice.

"No, only images of them. Like... like reflections, that they can send to other places. Look." Some was clumsy with the controller, but he could stop, and rewind, and play the same bit again. "They use this to tell stories for them."

[itsdark]

Ele looks hopelessly lost. "...They can move their reflections?" Like a Some can move things? All eight of her eyes widen in amazement when Some stops, rewinds, and replays the same thing. "...Their stories have so many pictures!"

[gruesome]

"I still don't know how, but they can take the image of a thing, while it happens. Here, let me find some of me..." Not his death, he'd avoid that just a little bit longer. He suspected there might be some of the party he'd just come from, and so he clicked from channel to channel until he found it; himself, dressed in his stylist's loom-inspired piece, standing by the buffet, talking to a little human girl.

[itsdark]

Ele looks uneasy. "Why are you among so many of them?" They seemed so calm around him. None of them ran or screamed or attacked. And Some wore their garments.

[gruesome]

"This was a gathering. A party. They have them very often, here. And we're expected to go to them, to be seen and be friendly. That little girl is one of the other tributes." Some didn't even think about it, the way he used the same 'girl' to describe her as he would have one of his own sisters, not the more removed words usually given to humans.

[itsdark]

She doesn't recognize the word 'party' but she does recognize 'tribute'. They'd said it so many times while trying to explain things to her. Ele gives Some a very uncomfortable look. "...We should find a way back home soon."

[gruesome]

Some looked back at her, silhouetted against the big screen, just starting to realize how much there was to explain.

"Ele... I don't believe there is a way home."

[itsdark]

"T-there has to be!" She cries. "I was going to be married soon!" The thought of never seeing her family again, of being stuck here among the humans, was unbearable. "Why are you giving up?"

[gruesome]

Just two steps and he was at her side, wrapping his arms around her to hug her tight. "I am sorry, I'm so, so sorry, but even when I was free to move, I could not move back to All-Falls-In. If there is a way from here to there, I don't know it, and I don't know if they do either."

[itsdark]

She welcomes the embrace, wrapping her own arms around him and clinging, as if afraid to lose him. Her only remaining connection to her world. "We will find it." She says determinedly, though her voice betrays doubt. She rests her head on his shoulder. "I will eat all of the humans." She grumbles irritably.

[gruesome]

He put a staying hand on her shoulder, tilting his head to look into her face. "... Not in the City, though. You understand?"

[itsdark]

She scowls at him. "Why not?" They kidnapped them!

[gruesome]

"... They're willing to feed us," he said, catching his lip in his teeth. Not a grue gesture at all, and the plentiful little scars there showed why. "It isn't much, but they do. And there are many, many more of them than you can imagine. We are only two. I watched them kill one of their own, in front of everyone, for killing just one person. Do you see?"

[itsdark]

Ele touches his lip, feeling the scars there concernedly. "...I'm scared, Some." She leans against him for comfort, arms still entangled in his.

[gruesome]

He twitched his face sheepishly, and stroked the fur on her shoulders. Humans didn't have this, this casual touch between near-strangers, and he hadn't realized how much he'd missed it. He didn't want to let go.

"They aren't so scary. I- I've made friends here."

[itsdark]

She pulls back enough to look at him. "Friends? ...With the humans?" There's suddenly a pitying look in her eyes. Grues were such social creatures, after all. Some must have been desperate. "It's alright, you have your own kind now." She says with a smile.

[gruesome]

He frowned at that tone in her voice. "Meet them. You will see. They're more than we think they are."

[itsdark]

Ele looks uncomfortable and irritated. "I have met them! They are food, Some. They are also dangerous. You shouldn't trust them... just look at what they've done to us!"

[gruesome]

"They aren't just food!" he snapped back, startling himself. "... I am sorry. But- but they aren't. You'll see. The people who brought us here are- are dangerous, and frightening, but there are good humans."

[itsdark]

Ele looks taken aback momentarily at his outburst.

"They are not people." She says darkly. "You have been among them too long."

[gruesome]

Some took a few steps back, smoothing down his crest as it threatened to rise. He wasn't frightened, nor even angry, but definitely a kind of alarm fluttered in his lower belly.

"You'll see," he said again, both mouths pressed thin. "You'll learn."

[itsdark]

"We'll see." She replies. Her relief is beginning to turn to doubt. Caution. Could she really trust Some?

[gruesome]

He stared at her with a sort of bewildered frustration. "Please," he said, deliberately using the humans' language. "Just give them a chance. Try to get to know one, just one, and then tell me they are only food."

[itsdark]

Ele looks alarmed to hear their language flow so fluently from Some's lips. "I will-" She trails off as she realizes, her crest lifting slightly. "I can understand you!"