October 2018 Test Drive Meme

[sodder]

OCTOBER 2018 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to October’s Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: HALLOWEEN HORROR.

All Test Drive Memes contain at least one clue to the Deerington's upcoming in-game events for the month! Keep your eyes peeled! But...not literally.

Characters may die during TDMs, but you do not need to count it towards a game-canonical death unless you want to. Consider it a freebie. All TDMs can be considered game canon as TDMs introduce minor aspects about the world of Deerington that can be revisited by characters later on in the game. You may also use TDMs for your application writing sample as well as AC.

CW: Wet and rotting corpses/zombies, ghosts, violence, blood, knives, possessed dolls, options for underage drinking

Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

IT’S JUST A BUNCH OF HOCUS POCUS

It’s not Halloween if you don’t make a trip to a cheesy haunted house. At least, that’s what everyone in Deerington likes to say. The old Victorian stands at the top of a hill, rickety and in desperate need of a new paint job. The yard and porch have been decorated with what you’d expect for your typical haunted house; fake spider webs spread across the overhang, painted foam grave markers with cheesy names like “Here lies Richard Cranium” and “BEWARE!!” in creepy letter etchings. You can see the blinking of variously timed strobe lights in some windows and the shadow of what you’re pretty sure is a full-sized doll standing in the window, meant to look like someone staring out at you. The rocking chair on the porch near the door has a skeleton with a bowl of candy in his lap, and a sign is propped up against the wall next to him.

“ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK. TOUCH NOTHING AND NOTHING WILL TOUCH YOU!”

Well that sounds promising.

The first few rooms you enter are appropriately cheesy. There’s the silly burst of air that you hear just before a plastic figuring pops out of a poorly constructed coffin, the clicking sound of the machinery inside echoing in the room when it starts to pull back and the lid closes once again. There’s fog machines trying to give the appropriately spooky air, stuffed sheets shaped to look like dead bodies wrapped up laying in piles on the floor with fake blood staining the white fabric, black lighting to show off words scribbled on doors like “TURN BACK NOW” and “SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES.” Nothing you haven’t seen before. It might be even worse than things you’ve seen before, over the top cheesy, boring enough to give a yawn. Each door seems to open on its own so you don’t even have to touch the handles.

As you make your way through the next automatic door, the room you walk into is different than those before it. It’s a regular children’s room. A bed against the wall near the window, a dresser in the corner, a small desk with a chair. Nothing out of the ordinary, save for the lights not being on, and the strange flickering light in the closet. You step towards it, figuring you’re in for another jump scare, but the door doesn’t open. Whether you’re naturally the curious sort or not, something in the back of your mind makes you want to open the door and see what’s on the inside.

If you fight it and walk towards the next automatic door, you’ll find you’ve walked out to the backyard of the house, those same foam decorations and a dozen or more jack o’ lanterns lighting your way on a path back to the town.

If you choose to pull the door open, however, it’ll take you into yet another room, with a flickering television playing nothing but static. Once you step past the doors of the closet, they slam shut behind you and whoever else dared to enter. The doors won’t lock no matter what you do, no matter how strong the person shaking the handles or pushing against the wood may be. You realize you broke the one rule; you’ve touched something. But can things now really touch you?

The only light source in the whole room is that television and it’s not lighting up much inside the room around it. If you squint when the TV is at its brightest setting, you can just make out another door. Your exit, you hope. But as you make your way towards the door, the flickering suddenly stops, the TV steadily bright, a low humming noise coming from the screen, and suddenly the door seems several more feet away from you than it was a second ago. Before you can reach the door, there’s the sound of trickling water from behind you. If you choose to look back, you’ll see something coming out from the screen - a girl with soaked clothing and pale, rotted skin. She emerges fully from the glass and starts to move towards you. You know it’s best to start running for that door. If you stay and try to fight, you’ll find that no regular weapons work on her, though special weapons and powers that are effective against spirits will definitely do the trick. For those who don’t have any of these at their disposal, however, there is one more hope besides just trying to run; two old school VHS tape sit on the table near by, a fancy machine between them that is meant to copy one to the other. Work as a team and have one distract her while the other records, and you’ll find that she disappears as quickly as she flickered on the screen and the TV will return to static.

Regardless of what you choose before carrying on, the next room you come to as the door slams and locks behind you is entirely different. Brightly lit and filled with what seems like hundreds of porcelain dolls, it’s almost hard to tell where there could possibly be another exit hidden among the massive shelves. You can start to wind your way through them, but before long, you start to hear the sound of running feet, the jingling of bells, the swish of satin, and most eerily the sounds of children giggling - but there’s nothing that sounds save about them. Some of the dolls you saw on the last shelf seem like they’ve moved and are sitting in the corner or laying in a new position on a new shelf. Sometimes you swear you can see their heads turn to watch you pass, but it has to be a trick of the light, doesn’t it?

That is until one of those dolls runs by you, brandishing something shiny in their hands - something sharp. A knife, you realize too late, as it tries to slice at your legs and knock you down. You can kick them away and they’ll go flying, and when the porcelain smashes, the doll will scream in agony. You notice there’s blood pouring from the hole that formed, spreading quickly across the ground. The dolls are easy to kill, but are they really just dolls? You can take your time to contemplate that later, as now you have to fight your way through the violent and armed toys to reach the door at the end of the maze of shelves. Hopefully you can get out without too many severe injuries.

When (or if) you do manage to get to the next room, you seem to have a chance to take a breath and tend to any wounds. It’s decorated like the room of a small cottage, a large pot over the fireplace that isn’t lit, and several jars full of (possibly rotting) food and herbs on the shelves. You see a book on the stand in the center, latched shut and covered in dust. You can open it, if you want, but remember the warning you ignored that got you in trouble in the first place. It’s probably better to carry on to the next room.

If you do choose to open the book, though, there will be eerily glowing text lining the pages, the light will seem to poor out and fill the room, and you’ll be transported back out in front of the house.

Those who continued through the door will find themselves out in the backyard. Just like for those who got out sooner, there are dozens of jack o lanterns, but the graves don’t look like they’re made of foam this time. They’re real stone, engraved with real names and real dates this time. And the ground underneath them seems to be moving, like someone’s trying to crawl out of there. Better not to wait around. Soon as you start to move down the path, you’ll start to hear the sounds of groans as the undead start to crawl from their own graves, pulling themselves up through the dirt, and determined to get to the only food source they see - you. The zombies seem like they’re never ending, coming from every inch of the yard, but at least they’re just like normal zombies - completely incapable of being killed unless you cut off the head. There are shovels lying next to a few graves if you need a quick weapon, but there’s also still always the option to run as fast as you can up the stone path to the front of the house and back towards the street.

When you do finally manage to get back to the front, there’s a momentary blinding flash of light, disorienting anyone near it for a few seconds. When it finally fades, any leftover zombies chasing you have disappeared and the house looks like the same, cheesy haunted house you walked up to in the first place. If for some reason you decide to go and explore the backyard again, the grass will be back to normal, and the graves will all be replaced by cheaply painted foam once more.

Was that all in your head? Who knows. But maybe it’s best to just get out of here.

WE DID THE MASH

Somehow the street lamps have all been converted to oil based flames, the Authority are in witch hats, and every where you go there is music that seems to be playing from faintly glowing bats hanging upside down from telephone wires. The bats will open their mouths in succession, seeming somehow capable of producing the sounds of instruments and singers alike of popular Halloween songs.

Yards are decorated as thoroughly as the front of stores. Maybe you haven't bothered to decorate, but your neighbor sure has! Fake gravestones are propped up in yards, giant fake spiders in trees, and no matter where you walk, the ground seems covered in thick, rolling fog from machines. Or at least you hope it's coming from machines. Hell, you can't even find it in yourself to be too worried! Everyone around you is having way too good of a time! And God, there is food everywhere! Might as well grab a bite while you're out, huh?

It's tempting to break loose and dance. Jack-O-Lanterns absolutely crowd the streets. There's more than you can even begin to count, and all of them are lit all throughout the night. Even if you accidentally trip over some, they don't seem to catch fire to anything or go out! Some neighbors have camp fires set up with marshmallows to roast, while others have...are those broomsticks? Well that's kinda cool, you guess. Correction: it's really cool since you can actually pick one up and take it for a fly! Make sure to attach a little lamp to the front though because God knows it's dangerous flying at night. The brooms only work if you wear the appropriately provided hats, of course, but you can keep both the broom and hat indefinitely and have a readily available means of flight in Deerington after! Be forewarned though: the brooms are as easily broken as regular brooms and the hats easily blown away in the wind.

TRICK OR TREATS

At any of the events, especially the nighttime partying, you can find any number of the following treats (and their potential side effects):

Donuts (Will make you deliriously happy. Everything is amazing to you. May cause a lot of affection. A lot of affection.)
Candy Apples (You will eagerly tell someone everything you like about them. Talk about a sweet tooth.)
Candy Corn (Will make you extremely sad. Like god, you'll be wondering why you hate yourself so much.)
Pumpkin Spice Lattes (Causes suspicious amounts of obedience and a desire to do what you're told.)
Hot Chocolate (Can provide some minor healing. Best stuff to drink with a common cold!)
Hot or Cold Apple Cider (Nothing will happen. It's just really good.)
Alcoholic Cider (This isn't your grandma's apple cider. This stuff will knock you on your ass. Anyone who drinks this will get wasted regardless of whether or not they are immune to alcohol or even ingest regular food. It only takes one or two before you start to get tipsy, but any more than that and you'll be well on your way to drunk. Please drink responsibly. We don't need any FUIs.)

Character Arrival

You can read how all characters arrive in Deerington here.

There is not a collective "all these characters showed up at the exact same moment" occurrence in Deerington. Since characters fall asleep, die, or pass out at various times throughout all their worlds, it wouldn't make too much sense if they arrived in game all at the exact same time. There should be some discrepancy between character arrival, whether by a couple minutes, hours, or even days up to a week.

The players are entirely in control of how/when they want to play their characters arriving in Deerington. For TDMs, you can play it like your character has just arrived and that can be maintained as your game canon, or you can wait until game events for that moment. Or you don't need to acknowledge it at all. The flexibility for character allows a bit more of an organic feel to the character arrival situation, so please play it to whatever feels right for you.

If you are interested in having an "arrival" introduction for one of your TDM prompts, you are more than welcome to explore that option.

Comments

Laura | X-Men

[sanar]

Arrival
Laura isn't exactly like most other kids her age, in the fact that waking up someplace new doesn't make her have much of an outward reaction. There's scents that are familiar here, like some of the foods that she's been exposed to in her time traveling with Charles and her father. They're gone now, and it looks like her friends are too. Wherever this is, there's no initial feelings of danger. She slips out of bed and slinks along, hurrying her way outside. She never enjoys being cooped up indoors. After spending her entire life trapped inside behind bars, being outdoors is the freedom she craves and thrives in.

She takes to the streets and explores. Her senses are on high alert, and she openly sniffs at the air for any sign of danger. Laura ignores things like fences and hops right up to run along the tops of them, balance not seeming to be an issue as she hurries along the residential areas like its her playground.

When someone crosses her path while she's running around, she comes to a stop and observes them curiously. If they approach too close to her cautious distance, she sounds off a warning growl in her throat.

Haunted House
Going into the house was probably a bad idea. Laura can defend herself just fine, and doesn't hesitate to use her brand of extreme violence to take care of the dolls she ends up locked in with. Her screams are loud enough to be heard outside the house, though whether or not anyone does depends on the mood of the haunted place she's ended up in. There's no fear as she takes care of the dolls that are attacking her, just pure adrenaline. Any cut that she gets manages to heal well enough, but that doesn't stop her from ending up completely covered in blood as the floor starts to spill it. As most kids are prone to doing when there's a mess nearby, she ends up covered from head to toe.

By the time she makes her way through the cottage and angrily destroys any of the books and bottles she can get her claws on, she's a sticky and bloody mess. As she emerges and makes her way back up to the front of the house she stands there, completely still. It might be easy to confuse her as a very realistic decoration, until she decides to speak up with a warning.

"Morirás." A pause before she elaborates in deadpan, "You will die."

On second thought, maybe she still looks like part of the decoration.

Flying Lesson
Sometime after someone manages to get her to wash up, Laura finds her way to one of the yards that's the best decorated. The Jack o lanterns completely fascinate her, and she's brought one of her own claw carved masterpieces to set out with some of the better ones carved by adults. She spends a ridiculously amount of time perched up on a fencepost observing her work of art among all the others, but eventually is pulled in by the tall witch's hats and the flying brooms.

And of course she'd have to figure out how to keep a giant hat balanced on her small head in order to try riding one. She huffs and grumbles as she tries to adjust it to sit just right, but always ends up with it either falling over her eyes or tipping over and off her head completely. As much as her pride wants to ensure that she does this herself, she ends up turning toward the nearest person with a cautiously hopeful look on her face.

"Help," she requests, shoving the hat at them a little too roughly.

Tricks & Treats
Wouldn't you know it that Laura finds the donuts and decides that it's a good time to eat a dozen by herself. Given that she's eleven and has no idea how to socialize, her idea of affection with strangers is attempting to scale up them to perch on their shoulders. Anyone larger than she is that has their guard down will have a slinky kid attempting to scale them, sniffing at them to memorize their scent as she goes.

daughter? My Daughter? but also haunted house b/c you said "someone washes her up" and i need,

[danzan]

"Holy... cow."

It's a god damn challenge not to say shit, but given the fact Logan's been teaching in a class for at least a month now, it's at least easier than it used to be. He doesn't recognise this kid, and though under ideal circumstances he'd recognise her from the smell, in the end the blood and gore that covers her negates any of that.

"Did you--" Yeah. Yeah, she probably did. God knows how she did it, but the look on her face and the mess that covers her says enough.

Looking from her to the house, he can't help the disapproving click of his tongue. Of course Deerington has a fucking hell house. But the frustration doesn't quite outweigh the concern he feels, so he grumbles and pulls a handkerchief from his back pocket.

Then he holds it out to her. "Here. Wipe your face, kid.

"You hurt anywhere?"

heeeeeey there dad

[sanar]

She's expecting him to say shit. She can almost see it on the tip of his tongue, but when something else comes out instead she's left not really being sure what to do. Of course she knows him, and instinct has her wanting to go to him. But she's seen him die, she's buried him. She can't call this man daddy, not when she isn't sure if it's him. The fact recognition isn't showing in his eyes makes her heart ache in a way she doesn't fully understand and can't process. And being that she's so emotionally behind other children her age, she's quick to upset because of the feelings she doesn't know how to work through.

"Shit," she says for him, instead of answering his question. Her head shakes a little though, relenting just enough to be cooperative.

As bewildered as she is to see him here, she has no idea what to really do about it. So she's rooted to the spot, because she can't bring herself to growl and knock him over so she can run away.

[danzan]

A brow lifts. "So you got a mouth on you, huh."

He's not going to reach out to her just yet. Unsure of what's making her upset, he suspects it might be a lack of trust thing-- something stranger danger-esque. Kids still have that, right?

"You got a place here? Anyone I can call?" His fingers crumple the handkerchief a bit more, and he takes in a small breath through his nostrils before expelling it from his mouth. "And look, can I..." Logan makes some brief gesture to his own face. "You're covered in" -- and because she's said it, well, that makes it fair game -- "shit."

[sanar]

He definitely doesn't know her. That causes her heart to twist and drop with a painful lurch, and her hand presses against her chest like it might make it stop. Now that she's able to see through all the blood soaked hair caked onto her face, she realizes he looks too young. He doesn't smell right either, not sick and waiting for death. He's...young. Too young for her to even exist.

"Shit," she repeats, voice trembling. Yes, she's covered in shit. But the fact he doesn't know her is also shitty. She's been sad in recent memory, she's had her heart broken with his initial loss. But this is something else completely, and it twists and contorts deep in her belly and makes her angry enough that she feels sick.

With an abundance of caution to be gentle, she reaches up to take the handkerchief from him. It's not going to really help, not with as dirty as she is. But she doesn't want to turn down something she might be able to take that's his.

"No. Only you," she insists, trying to rub the cloth along her face. It just smears the blood all over the place, the smell of it making her nostrils burn. Everything she's feeling threatens to boil over, and tears stream down her face. They mix with the blood, and she just keeps furiously scrubbing at her face with the handkerchief.

[danzan]

Ah.

Fuck.

He made her cry.

Logan's eyes widen-- he can't remember if he'd ever made a kid cry, knows that he's scared a few in his life, but never this-- and panic in its basest form starts in the bottom of his chest. She's crying. She's crying and she's rubbing at her face and he's frozen, useless, because nowhere in the five wars he's been in and the years he's spent as a professor has he ever had to dealt with a child crying because of something he did.

Only you rings in his head. Likely he doesn't compute it the way she wants him to, but he knows that this means she's alone. (And he knows what that feels like more than anything.)

"Okay," he says, reaching forward properly, one big hand wrapping around a bloody wrist and gently bringing the kerchief and the fingers attached to it down.

"Okay."

If she doesn't pull her hand away from his grip, Logan's going to reach out and use his other palm to smear the blood (and tears) out from her cheeks, pushing it towards the side before he flicks what's on his hand away from them. Either way, whether he's allowed to touch her or not, he'll promise this much: "I got you.

"Let's get you cleaned up, okay?"

oh hey there / flying lessons from uncle deadpool???

[4thwaller]

Wade couldn't help but try to keep an eye on any of the kids he ever noticed milling about in the town. Not in a creepy "want some candy little girl/boy" sort of way but more in a super hero way that would totally knock the teeth out of any creeper that even tried anything weird. So of course he'd noticed the little girl that looked like she wanted nothing to do with anyone.

He'd of course, stopped paying attention to her to text someone a bunch of ridiculous texts about how he wants the next witch superhero to be named Sabrina and to ride around on a broom Harry Potter style. Really, it's a shame Peter'd even given his name, it made it way easier to hunt him down on the device and chatter his ear off.

"Wh-huh?" It takes him a moment to realise what's going on as the hat is shoved up to him. "Sure, too big huh?" He looks at the hat, then to her again. And yeah, maybe picking the guy in the big red suit was an odd choice but Deadpool doesn't mind. "Yeah, I had a little trouble keeping mine on too with the suit and all. But that's what this is for," his sentence is punctuated by him digging into one of his pouches and withdrawing a roll of duct tape.

!!! this will be the best team up ever

[sanar]

Laura's pretty transfixed by his suit. It definitely reminds her of the X-Men. That's enough to make her smile as he decides to help her out. Whatever he pulls out of his pocket is something she hasn't seen before, so she barely pays it any attention.

"How?" She wonders out loud how something so small is supposed to help the hat stay on her head. Or maybe she's asking how it helped a guy wearing a big red suit keep the hat on his head. She isn't exactly sure what she's trying to ask here, all she knows is she wants to keep him there so she can figure out which one of the X-Men he's supposed to be.

better than all those times that wade and logan teamed up

[4thwaller]

It's a shame all she knows of is the X-Men, a group created by a sexist old guy because X-Force is so much better. Oh, she's about to learn the joys and the horrors of duct tape all in one go.

"Duct tape isn't just near impossible to bite through, it helps with a million other things too. Ducts... Taping things.... Improv Zombie suit...." But Wade's no animal. "You're going to have to pull your hair back behind your head, like you're putting it in a pony tail." He holds the duct tape in one hand, and the hat in another, waiting for he to sort her hair out to safeguard against any possible hair tragedies that may occur.

well obv

[sanar]

"Duct tape," she repeats after him, being as patient as possible as he talks. What she really wants to do is tear the tape out of his hand and explore what it does on her own, but she's learned that isn't good manners. It's not okay. Her hands flex and fidget with the effort of her restraint, and she glances up at him just in time to hear his telling her what to do. She's never moved to pull her hair back so quickly, hand forming a tight fist to hold her hair in place.

"Like this?"

<3

[4thwaller]

"Perfect," and he seems to really mean it. Wade sets the hat on her head in a way that he basically scoops up the hair that she'd pulled back in the hat, and while it may feel like it's just ready to slip off of her head, his hand finds one of hers with a touch that's so light it's barely there, trying to guide her hand to hold the hat on her head for a second. Children are small and breakable. Little tiny people who have every right to their own space bubbles despite what parents think. "Hold this like that, okay?"

When the hat is in place, he turns his attention to freeing a strip of duct tape. "Wow, you're the most fearsome witch I've ever seen. Sabrina be damned." He uses his teeth to rip the duct tape before moving to wrap it from one edge of the hat, around her chin (twisting it to make sure she doesn't have rip it off later) and then to the other side of the hat. He repeats the action a couple times with various strips of duct tape before finally letting out a pleased him. It might look a little silly, but that sucker isn't going anywhere.

holds face - arrival

[clussy]

It's a face that Eddie hasn't seen in literal months. But it wasn't a face he had ever forgotten. Laura had worn her name onto his soul and that wasn't something that was ever going to go away for Eddie. She had been his first friend when all of this weird shifting around time and space had happened, and she had been the first person to make it clear that there were people outside of the Losers Club who maybe didn't want him dead.

At first he has to double-check. He even rubs at his eyes and strains them a second later. Deerington was known to play tricks on people, to show them things from the past or things they wanted to see. He hadn't thought about Laura in a while, but that didn't mean she had been far from his heart. None of his friends ever were. The same went for Max or Will.

But it was Laura. It seemed like Laura. But Eddie knew that sometimes people who showed up here didn't always remember, and he knew Laura enough to know better than to come sprinting at her screaming her name.

For now, he heads in her direction, hope thumping hard at his chest.

"Hey! Um- Excuse me!" he calls out, weaving through adults to try and get to her.

[sanar]

She's headed this direction because she recognizes his scent. It's not the same as she remembers, but close enough that she decides to try and track him down. She's still surprised when she winds up actually crossing his path. So surprised that she stands there and stares, shocked.

Eddie's a friend. Her first friend that wasn't another kid from Transigen. He helped her through so much. Seeing him here in this confusion makes her heart beat quickly. And then before she knows it, she's hurrying forward so she can plow right into him with a crushing hug. She's not that affectionate with most people. But for him, she can make exceptions.

"You are safe now." She promises, thinking back to their first conversation where she promised to protect him.

[clussy]

Laura is the kind of girl who would never just hug someone. Which means the moment she comes at him, Eddie is filled with this burst of relief that she remembered him. Oh thank God. He just barely catches her, just barely manages to keep from toppling over, and all because he meets her hug with a crushing one of his own.

It had been months since they had seen each other and Eddie could near cry over it. He doesn't, but he is smiling so much that his cheeks begin to ache.

"Yeah, I am," Eddie agrees instantly. He might have been safe-ish before. There were people here who cared about them. But they still weren't kids. They weren't Laura. And to this day, Laura was still the first person outside of the Losers Club who had ever made him feel safe.

That kind of thing was special. He rubs a hand over the back of her head, soothing himself or her, he wasn't really sure, but he was just glad to be hugging her again.

"Jesus Christ, I missed you a lot," he admits shamelessly, pulling back just enough to look at her face, eyes darting all over it as if to see whether or not she had grown as much as he had. It has been almost a year, after all, for Eddie.

"I really fucking missed you. Are you okay? Did you just show up here?"

tricks and treats. hola niñita, latinx solidarity?

[azurestar]

Lance is a really easy target for climbing. He's tall, usually has his guard down because he's kind of a goof, but he's also not a stranger to children climbing him and getting all up in his personal space. So his reaction isn't negative, he just lets out a momentarily surprised yelp when he feels her hands on him, but he doesn't stop her.

"Woah, hey there." He turns to face her and get a better look as she sniffs at his shirt, "You looking for something in particular?"

His tone is patient and kind, he's used to dealing with children and if she speaks Spanish at him, he will understand and talk to her in her native language.

holaaaaaa

[sanar]

He reminds her of Rictor in a lot of ways. That's enough to make her feel comfortable trying to scale up him like he's her personal jungle gym. He doesn't make a move to stop her, and doesn't even seem to mind. That means she just ends up draped over him, trying to figure out why he doesn't sound angry.

"Candy," she says in Spanish, as she snakes an arm over to tap at his chest, like he's handing sweets somewhere in there.

[azurestar]

Lance blinks, not expecting to hear that. He chuckles and bends a bit to help her in her climbing adventure, letting her use his hands as footholds if she wants. His niece and nephew are not nearly this odd, they don't sniff at him or at strangers when climbing, but he's certainly been climbed before.

"Sorry, I don't have any, but I saw some candy covered apples earlier," He replies in Spanish and his accent is different from hers, Cuban.

[sanar]

Aha. Someone who understands and talks like her. That makes him seem even more like Rictor in her eyes, and she slides off of him so she can move around to his front to lean in and get a good look at his face. He's not too old, maybe he's still a kid the same as she is.

"Where? Show me." She's still working on her manners, so she doesn't see anything wrong with telling him bluntly what to do.

[azurestar]

He's definitely still a kid in a lot of ways even though he's eighteen now, and he can appreciate her eagerness for candy covered apples. Or candy anything. Her bluntness doesn't bother him, though he's pretty sure his sister in law would thwack his niece upside the head for not saying please. But he doesn't chastise her since it's not really his place, they just met after all.

"Alright, alright. I think I saw them over in this direction, come on," He says simply and motions for her to follow him. "I'm Lance, by the way. What's your name?"

Tricks & Treats hello there, you now have another grandpa, Laura

[homo_superior]

Erik's enjoying himself with some hot apple cider when he looks down to find a small girl attempting to scale his leg. Erik's always had a soft spot for children and he smiles gently at her. "Hello there."

Erik once told Logan he could sense adamantium as soon as he was within range. He's sensing it now and coming directly from the skeleton of this little girl. There's only one way he knows of that it could happen. Bad enough for a grown man to go through it, but thinking that it happened to a child makes him want to slowly impale whoever would put her through such a horrific procedure as that.

But best to start off slow with small children. No need to tell her he can sense all that. "What is your name, my dear?"

ahhhh best grandad

[sanar]

There's something about this man that reminds her of Charles. Maybe it's his age, or maybe it's the way that he speaks to her so kindly. Whatever the exact cause, Laura puts this man alongside with Charles in her head, filed under protect at any cost. She wasn't able to protect Charles, but maybe she can this man.

"Laura," She softly answers as she pulls away to peer up at him, head tipping as she tries to sort out if he's being genuine or she's a pain in his ass.

She quickly decides that maybe it doesn't matter, just as long as he's speaking to her at all. "What is yours?"

[homo_superior]

"Laura," he repeats, noting how similar that name is to Logan's. Could it be...? He looks for signs of his friend in the girl's face. There might be some resemblance if Logan is indeed her father, but more than that, if she has a healing factor that allowed her to survive having the adamantium coat part of her skeleton, it's almost guaranteed this is his daughter.

"My name is Erik, though I have also been called Magneto during my life." Codenames are hard to stop using after sixty years, even if they don't really matter in a place like this. "Tell me, Laura, does the word mutant mean something to you?"

[sanar]

Her eyes widen, and she slowly nods in response. Both to the fact his name is familiar and the fact that the word mutant means everything to her. "Mutant," she says, pressing a hand to her chest.

Just in case he needs more proof than her just telling him, she allows her claws to pierce through her skin. Her healing doesn't seem to work well here, but the pain doesn't bother her. It's worth it, so he can see that they're the same.

[homo_superior]

He nods in approval at the sight of the two claws on her hands. It is as he thought. "I am one as well." He wordlessly demonstrates his own powers, the flick of his fingers sending coins and the marbles he's so fond of manipulating rising up out of his pocket, and hovering in midair.

"Your father, Laura, is he named Logan?" It has to be, for no other mutant he knows has that particular set of gifts, healing and claws, but he wants to hear it straight from the girl first.

Flying lessons are kind of his thing

[speed_of_snark]

He's hating every minute of this street party. People are acting weird as hell, screams are coming from the creepy house down the way, and he tripped on a goddamn jack-o-lantern.

So he's decided to hang out by the brooms for a while, because in his current mood watching people fall off of them is amusing.

Until he gets a hat shoved at him. He looks down sharply and... oh. It's a cute little girl.

"Can't get it work?" He takes the hat and studies it, looking for a string or something. "You even allowed on these? You could break your neck."