[closed] mission: lost children

[anotheroldsoldier]

who: Bucky, Eddie, Michael, Yuri, and Ivar
what: The team tries to find some missing children and wind up with more trouble than they asked for.
when: July 9-13
where: Out beyond the fence.
warnings: Fighting and teenagers in peril.


[When children started disappearing, note was taken immediately. They just seemed to wander off, a handful of them between the ages of five and fourteen, near the fences that separate Riverview from the uninhabited city. A small team is arranged to investigate the disappearances and - hopefully - bring the kids home. With representation from the Perimeter Guard and the police force, the group is supplied and set out for a short term mission, starting at the spot the latest child was last seen.]

Comments

searching;

[anotheroldsoldier]

[The police department provided the info, profiles on the missing kids, the last places they were seen. They choose the most recent trail to follow, that of a six year old boy who was spotted wandering away from the playground and past the fence into the abandoned city.

They've gone a ways out, into the worse of the overgrowth and brush, and Bucky stoops down to look at a small footprint in the soft earth.]

This is still hours old. Not deep, though, probably a normal stride. What would possess a kid to just wander off this far?

[ragnarsson]

[Ivar shrugs, glancing around the brush like he's looking for another sign that the child had been through here. There's some bruised leaves and broken branches lower to the ground like someone small had been pushing through them.]

Kids're stupid. Fact of life.

[The fact he might still fall under that category never even occurs to him. He hasn't been a kid in a long time, not since he was five years old, and killed someone for the first time.]

For Yuri - Birdnapped!

[ragnarsson]

Ivar woke up slowly. He had the traces of a strange dream lingering in his mind, something about flying through the air. Looking at his surroundings, he began to suspect that had been no dream. He was high up in a humongous tree, far higher than any human could go, settled nicely in the hollowed out center. One look around and he was able to see that this was where all the missing children had gone.

He propped himself up on his hands and crawled over to where Yuri was. There was a scowl on his face. "I'm not sure how we got here, but I'm still blaming you." Because clearly, if he had been in his own, this wouldn't have happened. Ivar was far too smart for this.

[bespredel]

What Yuri remembered came in fractured pieces. They had been camping together, Bucky and Yuri on watch. Having begun to get tired, Yuri had mumbled that he was going to do a round, make sure everyone was all right. He had skirted the low embers of their campsite, had wandered the forest edge with the edge of exhaustion pulling at him. By one of the tents, he had heard a soft, mournful trilling from somewhere deep within the forest- but had only paused long enough to identify it as probably some sort of animal. If it got too close, they would take care of it.

Coming back to Bucky he'd been told to get some shut eye, and even though Yuri had put up some feeble protest, he hadn't been able to argue that the day's travel had tired him out. So he had mumbled that he was going to take a piss, and then retire to his own bedroll.

Well, that wasn't exactly how things had panned out.

He had remembered walking a little ways from the glow of the campfire- still close enough to see it, but far enough away to have a little privacy. He had done his business, sanitized his hands with a little pocket bottle he'd carried out with him, and had taken two steps to start walking back- when he had heard the soft, trilling noises again. It was louder this time, closer. Curious, Yuri had turned towards the source of the noise in the darkness, listened to it's soft tune in the darkness. Had closed his eyes, and started to fall forward, exhausted.

He had never hit the ground. Remembered the embrace of thick talons around him, almost delicately. The same tune carrying through his dreams. There was something so... comforting in the sound of the music. And yet so sad, as well. Yuri had let it take him, hadn't even been worried when, at one point he had slowly blinked open his eyes, lazily stared at the treetops far, far below, and then had fallen asleep once more.

He would have been happy remaining asleep, but rather suddenly his dreams were disturbed by a rather piercing, annoying voice.

"Fuck off," he mumbled, his hands pushing vaguely towards the other, before rolling slightly away. His arm dropping onto the ground- only to fall through it, instead. Jarred, Yuri woke up properly, sucking in a gasp as he realized he was at the edge of- of a something. Sitting up, he looked around wide eyed. Needing a moment just to take it all in.

Well. This certainly did explain a thing or two.

"Holy shit," he breathed out, before scowling as Ivar's words registered, and he turned, shooting the other an unimpressed look. "Maybe we floated up here on that fat ego of yours," Yuri sneered, rolling his eyes, before shuffling to his feet, to get a better look at the towering hollow they found themselves in; the interlocking branches above where other children huddled. Too afraid to attempt to climb down, or perhaps simply unable. Yuri wasn't really sure, just yet.

Worst of all, Yuri couldn't actually see any sort of bottom; which was unnerving in and of itself. How fucking big was this god damn tree?!

[ragnarsson]

"Sure we did. Or maybe one of Hræsvelgr's eagle spawn got the better of us." Like everything else bizarre in Norse legends, there was talk of giants that could turn into birds, birds that could turn into giants, and just plain giant birds. Ivar looked nonplussed about being up as high as they were. Nothing much frightened him except for open water. "You know, I can see why the bird would want to take me, but I can't see what it wanted with your charmless, scrawny ass."

At least now they had solved the mystery of what was taking the children. That still didn't answer the question of why, but he was sure it had something to do with that mournful song. The way the bird had put them all here wasn't like an animal storing food. Rather, it was like a creature forming a collection for some purpose, keeping them safe.

"Well, I'm not going anywhere soon." Ivar was strong, but even if he had a whole backpack full of equipment, it was doubtful he would have been able to climb down from the tree. There was just too much that involved using the legs when coming down from such an extreme height. One grip of his hands just a little too loose and that would be the end of him. That just made him all the more irritable. Ivar hated feeling useless, and while most of the time he was capable of keeping up with everyone else, there was always the painful reminders that he was different.

[anotheroldsoldier]

Stupid still ain't the same as no sense of self-preservation. And someone would've been watching them. [It doesn't make sense. The only way he can think of that does make it into some semblance of understandable is if the kids specifically snuck away from their guardians. But why would they do that?]

[ragnarsson]

You'd be amazed what kids will do even with adults watching. My older brothers Ubbe and Hvitserk wandered out onto the ice and fell through into the river one spring.

[It had been a very dramatic event. Neither of them had ever forgotten it and it had been used as a cautionary tale for the brothers growing up.]

[anotheroldsoldier]

What possessed them to go out onto the ice? [That does sound very dramatic, but he figures they weren't being watched all that closely if that happened. He doesn't know much about kids or taking care of kids, but every time Luke and Jessica's baby was in danger, it certainly wasn't because they weren't taking care of her.] And some of these kids were older. They'd know better.

[ragnarsson]

My brothers aren't very bright. I'm the one with all the brains in our family. They were lucky a woman loyal to the family saw them fall in. She rescued them at the cost of her own life.

[It has been a solemn lesson for the older two Ragnarssons. Their actions had consequences. It also drove home the fact of how negligent their mother had been, too busy having an affair to watch her own children.]

Let's hope they did. Or we might end up finding their bodies instead of them alive.