Dianne: "Well, we don't have room to do most of those things. You could go outside and fly with Titan for a while or something."

'Yes, I suppose I could do that.' Armin rubbed the back of his head, yawning, then changed the subject. 'So, will we be stopping near the coast to hunt again later?'

Dianne: "Yes. We'll be cutting in towards the mainland in a few days, but until then, it'll be seafood."

Barnabas: "From the looks of things, we'll be getting pretty close to my old home. But, like I said, I don't know if it's still inhabited."

Armin tilted his head thoughtfully. 'Well, I guess we'll find out soon enough. Of course, we can't go near the town, if it even still exists, but we can take a look.'

He dropped the blanket he'd been wearing, and walked to the back doors, preparing to open them and jump outside.

(I have a sudden urge to make Esme jump out of the truck)

(Lol, I don't think Dianne would let her.)

{Dianne looks to Armin and wraps Esme's tail around her hand. It seems she's concerned about her jumping out.}

Dianne: "Let Titan know you'll be out there, ok?"

(True. XD)

Armin nodded. 'Sure. I'll see you sometime later.'

He opened the doors, letting cool air flood the truck. He then walked to the very edge and peered down. Instead of jumping, he simply tipped his weight forwards until he fell, like a skydiver. Then he was gone from sight.

Esme cocked her head and stood up on Dianne's shoulder, wanting to investigate but finding herself held back. She whined in frustration.

{Dianne shakes her head in disappointment.}

Dianne: "Barnabas, close the door, please."

{As Barnabas closes the back, she turns her attention to Esme.}

Dianne: "No, Esme, I can't have you falling out the back."

Esme just squeaked in response. Her belief was that if Armin could jump out the car, then why not her? She had wings, didn't she? The truth was, she had just forgotten that she didn't know how to fly yet.

Armin allowed himself to fall fifty feet before shifting to hawk form. He swiftly ascended to Titan's level, flying alongside the enormous beast. //I'm taking a minute to stretch my wings. Don't mind me.//

{Titan nods to Armin with one of his heads. Letting go of Esme's tail, Dianne stands up and lies back down on her bedding.}

(Shall we skip to evening?)

(Sure, I'll start.)

{Later that evening, the weather had changed drastically. There were high winds, pelting rain, and lightning. As Titan flew, the truck rocked a bit more than usual.}

Esme was sitting on the front passenger seat, gazing wide-eyed at the sights beyond the window.

Armin was still outside when the storm began. However, as a bolt of lighting flashed unnervingly close to him, he dived back to the truck, grabbing the outer handle of the back doors with his talons and clinging on desperately.
//Hey! Can someone open the door?// he said telepathically.

{Dianne walks to the front of the car to make sure Esme wasn't about to bolt.}

Dianne: "Barnabas, let Armin in!"

{Barnabas opens the door for Armin, waiting for him to enter before he closes it again.}

With awkward movements, Armin let go of the handle and hopped inside the truck as the wind threatened to tear him away. Still in bird form, he shook himself vigorously, droplets of water flying from his feathers. Then he shifted to human form.

'Dam.n, that was fun,' he said, without a hint of sarcasm. 'I had to dodge a lightning bolt, it was awesome.'

{Dianne just eyes him sideways while Barnabas closes up.}

Dianne: "...I hope you don't carry the same sentiment for if and when we encounter a storm mage..."

Armin shrugged nonchalantly. 'Probably not, but the weather isn't actively trying to kill me.' He gazed out the window, which Esme was also staring out of, transfixed. 'I think storms are beautiful, in a way.'

Dianne: "Yeah, I guess they are, in their own way..."

{Just then, Titan abruptly veers as his wings caught a rogue gust. He curses a bit, then lands abruptly as the high winds and heavy rains can be heard all around.}

'Oof,' Armin grunted in response to the heavy landing. He moved closer to the window, struggling to see through the rain and rapidly falling darkness. 'We seem to have stopped... is Titan OK?'

{Dianne looks out the windshield. Titan puts the car down and lowers his heads.}

Dianne: "Titan? You ok?"

Titan: "I'm fine. But, I can't fly through this storm. I'm afraid we're grounded for the night."

'Oh...' Armin looked around, making sure Esme wasn't disturbed. She seemed fine, if not fascinated by the whole situation. 'Well, that's fine. We've made good progress until now. Let's just stay here and maybe by tomorrow the storm will have died down.'

Dianne: "I sure hope so. I don't want to be delayed for too long..."

{Dianne sits in the driver's seat, next to Esme.}

Dianne: "...Wow. When I was her age, I was terrified of lightning."

(I'm debating putting Death's Aspect outside in the flashes of the storms for Armin to get freaked out about...)

Armin gazed around the dark interior of the truck as rain pounded on the roof. Then he sat down on his pile of blankets, retrieving a blood bottle and sipping from it. 'Esme usually seems curious about new things, rather than afraid,' he observed. 'Or maybe she's just seen this before... Did storms like this happen often where you grew up?'

(He would certainly be freaked out. XD)

(To be honest though, the aspect has no more business with Armin. Maybe it'll just be Barnabas with a deer skull?)

(Yeah, no point in it showing up if it doesn't have any reason to.
You can do that, but he might not be very happy with Barnabas. XD)

Dianne: "On occasion. I always hated lightning though. Always thought it would strike me out of the air..."

(I'mma do it. XD)

Armin made a noise of understanding. 'Well, that /could/ happen. I nearly got struck out of the air while I was flying earlier. Though I don't imagine a lightning strike would actually kill you - even humans survive them sometimes.'

{Dianne shivers a bit, then goes to sit on her bedding and wrap blankets around herself.}

Dianne: "Still don't want to try it. I've been hit by storm mages and whatever it is that Ana does that hurts so much. It's not fun."

Armin drank some more from his blood bottle, then carefully put it away and leaned back against the wall, watching the lightning flashes through the window. 'Ana's thing isn't exactly like lightning. I think it's some kind of dark attack spell - designed to cause pain without inflicting physical harm. Whatever it is, it's not pleasant.'

{Dianne snorts at that.}

Dianne: "She was a scrub. What was she even doing studying dark magic anyway? What, did she think it would make her more popular with the men or something?"

'Who knows. I heard she was originally raised as a light witch, mostly just learning healing magic. I guess she got tired of that and went over to the dark side at some point.'

Dianne: "The dark side? That hoe wouldn't know the dark side if it came up and hit her over the back of the head. All she had were a couple of parlor tricks and a lifetime of poor decisions."

{She takes a moment more to consider something.}

Dianne: "I hope she doesn't have an avenging light mage mother. That could be problematic..."

'Why?' said Armin. 'Ana's parents are probably long dead, and even if they weren't, I don't think she had a very good relationship with them. If you're worried about her mum coming after you because you killed her... I don't think that'll happen.'

Dianne: "Well, you saw what light magic did to me. That's all I'm really concerned about. But, you're probably right. She likely didn't have anyone who cared about her."

'I'd assume so. I mean, it's been months since she died, and nobody's come to investigate her death. No family, friends or anything.' He smirked. 'All she had in the world was Sargon...'

Dianne: "True. Yeah, I guess so, but not even Sargon loved her. It's actually kind of sad."

Armin shrugged. 'Eh, she could have turned her life around anytime she wanted. She chose to do what she did.'

He turned to gaze up at the window again, watching flickers of lightning illuminate the wet and windy night. It was almost fully dark outside now.

(Barnabas is going to prank him after Dianne goes to bed.)

Dianne: "There's no denying that. She chose her fate poorly. Heh, sometimes I wonder, if I joined his organization, how long I would have been able to go before killing either her or Sargon out of frustration. Heheh."

(Alrighty. XD)

'Well, I'm sure you would have been able to,' said Armin. 'Unlike the rest of us, who were too dam.n scared to go against him... You probably could have stopped Shacklestone from ever being destroyed if you'd joined his organisation.'

Dianne: "Yeah...Honestly, I regret not helping sooner...I'm sorry about that. I could have wiped him out from the inside and saved so many lives..."

'There's no point in regretting it,' said Armin. 'I wish we could have saved Shacklestone too, but I guess that's not how things were meant to be... I regret a lot of things too, but there's no point dwelling on them.' He shifted slightly. 'Did you even know Sargon's organisation existed before they launched their attack on Shacklestone?'

Dianne: "No. When he showed up, I honestly thought he was a foriegner. He had never approached me, and I had never seen him before. I did keep a low profile, so it's not like he knew who I was either."

'That makes sense. He probably had no idea you even existed until he started attacking the city, and found himself facing you. And then he got Ana killed sending her off to fight you...' Armin shook his head. 'Idiot.'

Dianne: "Wait, is he the idiot for sending her, or is she the idiot for going through with it?"

(Here's a question. If we were to redo the Shacklestone RP, is there anything you would want to do differently?)

'Both,' said Armin. 'He's an idiot for not realising she'd get killed, and Ana's an idiot for blindly following his orders. In the end, they both got what they deserved.'

(Hm, that's kinda hard. I can't think of any major things I'd want to change. Character deaths, like Ana's and Wendigo's, I'd probably keep the same. I'm not sure I'd want to do anything differently, aside from changing some interactions and character portrayals to fit what's currently canon (as the canon has changed over time).)

Dianne: "True. Hard to believe that an idiot like Sargon was even able to get as many followers as he did. Was he like one of those clowns on the interwebs, making a fool of themselves for views?"

(I know I'd want to change that interaction between Dianne and @Blood's grin djin character. The whole thing felt awkward and out of character to me. :( But, I think the rest is ok.)

Armin chuckled quietly. 'Who knows what was going through the old bastard's head most of the time. Or why so many people actually /wanted/ to follow him. Believe it or not, he had more loyal minions than forced ones.' He shrugged. 'I'll never understand everything about him, but I'm not going to waste my time puzzling over it. Not now that I'm finally free of him.'

(Eh, I don't even consider BloodHybrid or Kole's characters to be part of the canon anymore. Those two left so early in the RP, and I don't think either of them cared about it very much. Their characters weren't part of the story, as far as I'm concerned.)

(I'm curious about something, actually. How much of Dianne's backstory did you already have figured out when Shacklestone started? The locket, and Lucci's name, were mentioned pretty early on, so I'm guessing you'd already decided on at least some stuff.)

Dianne: "Yeah, no point in thinking about it...."

{She proceeds to lie down on her bedding.}

Dianne: "How did Rex get involved in all that? He seems too nice to volunteer."

(Decannonized!

But ye

They left without so much as saying goodbye.
Rood)

'The same way I was.' Armin lay on his back, gazing pensively at the ceiling. 'He was Turned against his will, and forced to carry out Sargon's orders. It wasn't hard to do. He was scared, so he was easy to threaten... and he had a girlfriend, who was also used to leverage him. But mostly, he was just afraid of what Sargon might do to him if he was disloyal.'

Dianne: "Poor guy...He deserved better. You both did...But, at least it's over now..."

(I had quite a bit of her backstory figured out by then. I started worldbuilding it after TDS. The design of the Akhetians hadn't been finalized, but it was mostly there.)

'Yeah,' said Armin quietly. 'I'm glad all of that's over. I'm glad we survived long enough to have this chance at a better life. I'm happy for him, especially - he's been through worse than I have.' He fell silent, just listening to the storm outside.

(Ooh, neat. I figured you had a fair bit of stuff decided on.)

{Dianne nods, subsiding into silence as well. She started to doze in the darkness of the truck, with the sounds of the wind and rain pelting the sides.}

Armin glanced over at Dianne for a moment. Then he huddled deeper into his blankets, silently cursing the cold. He continued to gaze around the interior of the truck, listening to the storm, not quite able to sleep.

{A few minutes later, Dianne was asleep. As the lightning flashed, the surrounding landscape could be seen. Out the back window, if only for a moment, there was a figure in the dark. One with a deerskull for a head.}

Armin happened to be looking straight at the back window when the flash erupted. The lightning seemed to sear the image of the deer-skulled figure across his vision. Eyes widening, he let out a yelp of genuine fright and scrambled backwards across the metal floor. //What the heII?! It's still stalking me!//

{Dianne stirred but didn't wake. With the next flash, the figure was right at the window, its hollow eyes staring in.}

Pulse racing, Armin scrambled over to Dianne and shook her shoulder to wake her up, not taking his eyes off the window.

'What the heII do you want?!' he snarled at the window, even as the darkness hid the creature's form again.

{Dianne woke up, startled.}

Dianne: "Ah! What?! What? Armin? What's happening?"

'That f**king death monster is out there, I saw it!' Armin exclaimed. 'In the flashes of lightning. Right outside that window. I'm sure that's what it was. I saw the deer skull head.'

{Dianne blinks a few times before scrambling to her feet.}

Dianne: "Stay here."

{She cautiously approaches the doors. Once she gets to them, she forcibly opens them, looking out into the night. There was nothing but the darkness and rain.}

(Have to post a new room to reply in)