What wrong turn? [FINISHED]

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She had done it, she had left her home world and traveled to another. It had been years since Cerci had been anywhere that wasn't close to the Montressor Spaceport and even then it was only to visit relatives on a planet a couple ticks away, so to suddenly find herself standing in what appeared to be the center of a strange and seemingly abandoned forest clearing made her feel, what, home sick? At first maybe, but after a few moments of gazing wide eyed around her, she seemed to forget about her illness and allowed curiosity to take over. Where was she? Cautiously, she made her way forward, careful not to trip over any loose roots or fallen branches as she gawked at all of the new. It wasn't anything too exciting, just a clearing like any other; trees surrounded the small space and gave the place a feeling of secrecy. She had only made her way to the edge of the clearing before she stopped.

After her curiosity seemed to be satisfied, a question raised itself a little more urgently than it had before. Where was she? Was she in Radiant Garden, had she managed to find the place more quickly than she had thought? It had only been a few days, or maybe weeks, since she had left home; time was a difficult thing to be aware of when she was traveling so she often kept a log on Causeway's computer that helped her to keep track on long journey's like this one. The sound of a twig snapping behind her made her turn sharply, her fingers brushing the tip of Midas' pommel. This sudden turn gave rise to a new sight, behind her, across from where she had touched down with Causeway, was a walled off mansion.

Walking up to it, she pressed her hand against the flat of the gate and pushed. She was met with resistance so she tried using both of her hands and pushed a little harder. The sharp grinding of metal on metal brought her attention to the heavily chained lock that was wrapped around the center of the massive gate, holding it closed. Oh..., she mouthed silently, stepping back from the locked gate. She had only just landed and already she felt that she was going to be written up for breaking and entering. Lowering her hands to her sides, she stared up at the mansion, her mouth forming a thin line as she processed everything that she was seeing.

"Not much of a castle if you ask me," she grumbled aloud, her eyes narrowing as she caught the faintest of movement from a curtain on the opposite side of one of the large windows, "Looks drafty too."

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A small girl by the name of Rebecca had just recently found herself in the wood right outside the mansion with no idea where she was, she had just recently suffered from one of her "psychotic breakdowns." She then heard a noise coming from a bit away. It sounded like metal hitting something, just the noise made her teeth chatter.

The noise suddenly stopped and she decided to go where the noise came from. The little girl hoped nothing treacherous awaited her. She then exited the woods and saw a big mansion in front of her. A girl stood up ahead, this was a peculiar sight to Rebecca.

She then ran up to the person. "'Hullo!'" She pronounced the word very oddly. This was to be expected, she hadn't really had much speech development as of yet. "My 'nam' is Rebecca!"

She smiled at the girl in a way that only a little girl, or someone like Rebecca could. It was, to be honest, surprising Rebecca could speak at all. Rebecca could be compared to a toddler rather easily, mostly because of her lack of education and social experience, while as Grace, would probably be compared to a evil psycho, for obvious reasons.

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Cerci heard the sound of footfall approaching through the underbrush behind her before she heard the greeting. A slight turn of her head as she glanced over her shoulder, at who ever had entered the clearing, gave view to a small, child like girl.

"Um, hello," she felt hesitant at first, unsure whether or not it was normal for children to be running around in the forest all alone, especially when it looked like the sun would be setting any minute. Turning completely, she faced the girl as she drew closer, only now being able to fully see who she was dealing with. The child was short, as she had observed before, and had cropped brown hair that framed her tiny face. She looks human enough, Cerci thought as she moved her hand from it's resting place on Midas' pommel and onto her hip, staring down at the girl.

"What would a small girl be doing running around in the middle of a forest," she smiled a little, trying to appear less threatening save the pistol and sword that she had strapped to her hips, "You aren't lost are you?"

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The lady in front of her seemed friendly, but there was Grace who kept saying all kinds of things about how she shouldn't talk to people. "Lost?" Rebecca said confused. "I'm not sure if I'm more lost now than 'be-for.'" She smiled kindly.

"I have no idea how I even got into the 'for-rest.'" She then started to wonder something. "Are 'for-rests' 'danger-us?'" She was asking this seemingly stupid question because she didn't know any better.

She looked into the forest to see if there was anything scary in there, she saw nothing, but that doesn't mean it's not there. "Even if there was something 'scare-ery,' it's not as bad as somethings." Her smile started to fade away when she thought about those kinds of things, after realizing this she immediately started smiling again.

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Cerci observed the girl in silence as she spoke, allowing her to carefully sound out her own words as she did. It was only a little strange that the poor thing didn't seem to know how to speak, but then again this was a new planet. How was she to know if her language wasn't something that they spoke here. As far as she was concerned they could speak in alien tongues here and this child was trying her hardest to translate it into something that Cerci could understand. What a thought that was.

Cerci stared off in the direction of the forest, "I'm not sure whether or not this forest is dangerous, but I know that some can be," she glanced up into the sky then sighed and brushed a strand of hair from out of her eyes, stepping forward she clasped a gentle hand onto the small girls shoulder, "Listen, it looks like it's getting dark. Twilight has fallen and if we're not careful the moon will be out before we know it. Like I said before, forests aren't always dangerous, but they can get pretty scary when it's dark out. How about I walk you home, hmm? Would you like that?"

Cerci smiled sweetly at the girl, an inkling of a thought nudged the back of her mind reminding her that where there were lost children there would be worried parents and with worried parents comes grateful payments. And wouldn't that be a nice welcome to where ever she was.

"Speaking of home, where exactly are we?"

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"I don't know where we are." The little girl said confused. "I don't have a 'how-um.'" The little girl thought back to what the lady spoke. She then thought back to how she even got here, all she remembered was she was in a lab, and then she wasn't.

She then realized something, maybe this lady wanted to bring her back to the laboratory, so she'd endure more experiments."Um..." Rebecca said nervously. "Are you trying to bring me back, to that place?" She said this, expecting the lady to know what she meant, for some odd reason.

"She doesn't know what you're talking about." A voice hissed out. "She couldn't know." The little girl's smile became a glare as she spoke those words, then it turned back into a childlike smile, as she looked at the lady in front of her.

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Cerci kept her hand on the girl's shoulder as she listened to what she was saying. Her eyebrow raised momentarily as she observed that even the child didn't know where they were. It was strange, to say the least, that a small girl like this would happen out of the forest and into this clearing only to be as lost and misplaced as Cerci, but weirder things had happened.

"Oh, in that case-" she paused as the girl continued to speak, her eyes watching the smile on her small face vanish then return almost as if it had never left. Scratch that, this was a little more than weird. Cerci removed her hand and took a small step back, her eyes never leaving the girl's face. She didn't know what to say at first, but after a moment her eyes hardened and she frowned slightly.

"I'm going to assume you aren't from around here then," Cerci didn't know how to take what had just happened. The girl had changed slightly if only for a moment. It was almost as if she was another person. Was that something that could actually happened? Could people be more than one person? She assumed yes for the sake that people could be whatever they wanted to be; even if that meant being two different people. But that didn't make her anymore comfortable with her current situation.

"Look, I don't know where I am and you obviously don't know either. So we have one of two choices, we can stay here for the night and hold up fort in my vessel until dawn or we can make our way back through the woods and try to find a safer location before darkness falls," to be fair, Cerci wanted to crawl back into her ship and be out of there, but the girl was just as lost as she was. Her moral alarm was blaring right then and she knew she couldn't just leave her there, even if she was a little strange. As long as the threat level was low Cerci would stay.

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"I don't believe we're from 'arun-d' here, are we Grace?" She said, to the lady, and herself at the same time. An odd hiss kind of whisper came out of the little girl's mouth. "Not from here..." A scary kind of grin went on the girl's face. "Right... we're not from here." The girl then went back to her normal self.

The lady then extended the child an offer, stay here, or explore. "Maybe we should stay the night?" A cute little voice came from her. But then a hiss escaped her mouth. "I prefer the dark, and the danger." The girl then went to an annoyed face.

"Nobody asked you!" The girl said to herself. "We'd like to stay here the night." She smiled as she spoke the last part. She then realized something, she hadn't introduced her friend. "Oh! I forgot!" She said worried. "This is Grace." She motioned towards her chest. "Wow, real discreet." The girl went back to her childish self after that sentence, that she didn't seem to hear.

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Cerci blinked, unsure of what exactly had happened. There was definitely something going on here that wasn't normal or natural. The girl was talking to herself, whispering and hissing words that sounded malicious and sharp. Almost as if she were angry at someone or something. Grace, who was Grace? Was that her name? Was that the one she was arguing with or was that her name? She could have sworn she had introduced herself as Rebecca earlier, but maybe there was a misunderstanding.

"Grace," Cerci pondered the name for a moment, maybe it was a nickname or a middle name. It wasn't uncommon that someone had two names, was it? "Ok...I guess we'll stay here then. My ships just down behind these trees."

She motioned for Rebecca, or was it Grace, to follow before making her way towards where Causeway had landed. The threat level hadn't risen much after that little episode, but the creeped out level was getting pretty up there. Cerci felt wary of the child, but was also feeling as if something more was going on and in a situation like this she knew that keeping an eye on her would be better then letting her wander off where, if things did turn ugly, she could cause more damage.

[Erik Stoneking]

Erik sat with his head against one of the trees. His struggle bats were on the ground next to him. The grass was soft and still somewhat dewy even given the time. The darkness of the forest allowed the ground to stay all day if it wasn’t a particularly hot day. Erik looked up and realized that is was considerably darker than when he had arrived there in the forest; he must have fallen asleep. The grogginess he was feeling was a clear sign that his assumption was true.

Trying to regain himself Erik heard a few voices; scared at first Erik began to reach for his bats, but he then realized that they were human voices. Three voices which all seemed to belong to girls. They all seemed to not know where they were, quite odd considering you pretty much had to go through the whole town to get into the forest. They really were saying some odd things, like talking about staying here for the night.

Erik stood up slowly using the tree as support until he was standing at full height. Picking up both of his bats he latched them on to their usual locations at his hips. Afterwards he stepped out so that he would be visible and noticed only two girls, which should have been incorrect if he had been hearing correctly.
Erik cleared his throat so as to announce his presence and said, “Excuse me, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but how do you not know where you are? This forest is basically only accessible through town.”

Erik didn’t recognize either of the two girls standing there, so he assumed they must be new in town or something. That would be the most logical explanation if they didn’t even know where they were. Newcomers had been becoming more common recently, though Erik still hadn’t met many. He didn’t even know where they were coming from. Erik still wanted to hear the answer to his question though, as it was quite odd for them to not know where they were and be in the forest.

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"Ooh! I've never been in a ship before!" She said as she followed the lady to her ship. Then a voice was heard behind her. "Town?" Rebecca said awkwardly. "I think I might've been in a town... a really long time ago." She said as she tried to think back to when she was three.

She then smiled politely to the man and decided to introduce herself. She hadn't yet learned the lady's name, so she decided to introduce Grace as well, and hope she'd figure out the girl's name as well. "I'm Rebecca." I said kindly as I outstretched my hand.

I then pointed to my chest, at about where my heart was. "This is Grace." I said this in a cheerful tone, and I didn't even think that this was better kept a secret.

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Cerci stopped mid-stride at the sound of the sudden noise and turned to face the newcomer; the clearing was becoming more populated by the minute and it was only making her feel slightly uncomfortable. As he spoke, she heard him mention something about a town through the trees and she froze.

"There's a town?" she mumbled this to herself before gazing past the boy to try and see through the forest, her attempt to get a glimpse of something besides shadowed trees resulted in nothing but the same, "I'm sorry, but you said town? I've only just arrived here so...I had no idea there was anything but this crusty, old excuse for a palace out here."

Her hand found her hip and she observed the new arrival in the clearing. He was male, looked to be a bit taller than her but not by much; he didn't look all that threatening, save the soft looking bats that he had dangling from his hips. She gave his face a quick once over and paused on the severity of the blue in his eyes before looking away and clearing her throat. She felt relieved that someone had arrived that seemed to know where they were, but also annoyed over the fact that another person had shown up and yet she still didn't know where she was.

"You, boy; seeing as how you know the lay of the land so well, I'm going to take a leap of faith and assume you're a local," her tone was unintentionally condescending and she knew it, but she was starting to get impatient, "Tell me, where exactly are we?"

[Erik Stoneking]

Erik was a bit confused as one of the girls introduced herself twice, once as Rebecca, and once as Grace. It was possible she had some sort of split personality, where it would probably be best to treat it as such. Looking over to her he said, “Well, it is nice to meet you Rebecca and Grace. I’m Erik.”

Waiting a bit for the introduction of the other girl Erik never got one, instead he got a question. Yup, just as I assumed, she’s a newcomer. He let out a bit of a lough as she has confused the old mansion for a palace. “Well, first of all, there are no palace’s out here, but there is an abandoned old mansion.”

Erik looked up to the sky and took note of the time again before speaking, “And yeah, there’s a town. Right now we’re in the forest to the side, but a little bit that ways,” he said while pointing in the opposite direction of the mansion, “there is a hole in the wall which leads to Twilight Town.”

“Now that I’ve told you where we are, would you mind introducing yourself? Also, would you mind telling me how and why you chose to get here through the forest?” Erik didn’t mean to be rude or intrusive, but he truly had no idea how someone would get to Twilight Town this way. To be honest, he didn’t even know how anyone ended up getting there.

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"Nice 'ta' meet ya, Erik!" She said in a happy mood like usual. "I 'wonnur' what a town is like." She said this more so to herself than to the others. Rebecca then pondered this, maybe it would be a magical place, or maybe it would be much duller. Whatever it was, Rebecca now had a desire to find out.

She listened on to what Erik was saying. "I don't know her 'nam' either." Rebecca whispered to myself, as she silently facepalmed myself. The guy then asked how we got here. "I was in a 'labitery,' and then I couldn't move my body, and then I 'swoorlied' in the air, above the forest." She said, in order to relate her story.

"What's wrong with you? Try and keep something a secret!" An angry hiss came from the girl's mouth, as she yelled at herself. The girl then started being sad, and she held her head down. She didn't really like being yelled at.

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Cerci nodded slowly as Erik explained exactly where they were. She blushed in embarrassment when he corrected her interpretation of the building behind them; an old mansion? Well, didn't she feel sheepish. She perked up when he mentioned the town again, but was sorely disappointed when he didn't bring up the one she had been wanting to hear. Twilight Town. No, she wasn't in Radiant Garden after all. She clicked her tongue in annoyance and put both of her hands on her hips as she tried to think. If she wasn't in Radiant Garden then she was wasting her time here.

She almost didn't catch his inquiry about her name and how she had come to be there through her own thoughts, but when she did her face flushed red again. She didn't like giving out her name so easily, but since he had helped her realize her whereabouts she guessed that it was only fair that she give him what he asked for, "Well, Erik was it, since you asked so nicely...I'm Cerci," she paused there taking note of Rebecca off to the side and her personal explanation. She was a little unnerved by her mention of a 'laboratory' and 'swirling air' but she chose to ignore it for the time being. She also didn't really know how to deal with the small girl's sudden outbursts. Juggling two people at once was complicated enough for Cerci's anti-social life style; three people would have been too much for her right then. "As to how I got here and why: I drove and that's a story for when we're a little more chummy, don't you think? I'm not one to go spouting off my life story to a stranger."

Cerci smiled smugly and crossed her arms over her chest, a slight glare shooting in Erik's general direction, "Anymore questions, officer?"