squashed in like sardines

Amun

You'll be faced with problems of all shapes and sizes
You're going to have to make a few compromises

Amun grunted and hoisted the bucket in his left hand a little higher. It was filled with damp clay that he'd gathered from the edge of one of the pits he'd discovered over his years in the Hollowed Ground. "Thanks for helping out." He glanced over at Maea and smiled. After discovering his supplies were running low he'd asked her to lend a hand in gathering more for his pottery shop.

Meeting up just after the sun set, he'd led the way and they'd filled their buckets. Now they were just trekking through the Woodland on their way back to his studio.

For now we're happy if not overjoyed
And we'll accept the things we cannot avoid

Maea

And I hope that you don't suffer
But take the pain

"Any time." She returned the smile briefly before turning her attention back to the winding trail. The bucket in her hand swayed in time with her steps; beyond the creak of the handle and the sound of their feet, the forest lay quiet around them. "Did you have a project in mind for the clay?"  

Sometimes she envied him the passion for pottery. While she was busier now with preparations for the party, too much time was still spent just sitting around. Staring out into space, or - probably quite annoyingly - staring at Amun while he worked. She of course helped out when asked, but Maea felt little incentive to take up anything on her own. Nothing really inspired. Not even reading, which had been a passion in the past.

Hope if everybody runs
You choose to stay

Amun

You'll be faced with problems of all shapes and sizes
You're going to have to make a few compromises

Looking down at the buckets he held in each hand, Amun shook his head. Glancing up at Maea, he smiled. "Gonna dump this in a huge pile with the rest of my clay supplies. That's about as far as I had envisioned." He cocked his head to one side. "Why, did you want me to make you something pretty?"

It was quieter in the twilight, and Ascended hearing was pretty good. So when he heard the rustling of branches on either side of them and the crackling of leaves above he frowned. "You hear that?" He scanned their surroundings for the source of the noise.

For now we're happy if not overjoyed
And we'll accept the things we cannot avoid

Maea

And I hope that you don't suffer
But take the pain

She shrugged and shook her head. "Not really, I was just curious. I like watching you work... it's very relaxing." A sly sideways smile implied that it was especially relaxing because she wasn't doing anything. "If you want to make me something, though, I won't say no. Do you know how to make instruments? I think flutes could work well in clay..." She was no musician, but it was the first thing that came to mind. Easy to carry around too - she didn't want to bog down his house with too many things.

At the caution, she looked up and focused her hearing. What she had taken for wind in the leaves became gradually more prominent, and she nodded with a quiet hum. "Yes... I hear it." Out of habit she raised her nose to the wind, but of course couldn't smell anything. Peering into the brambles, a frown appeared on her brow.

"We might want to pick up the pace," she suggested, and lengthened her stride even as she said it. "Sounds like it's coming closer, whatever it is. If it's Gourds..." They could get nasty if there were too many at once.

Hope if everybody runs
You choose to stay

Amun

You'll be faced with problems of all shapes and sizes
You're going to have to make a few compromises

Amun chortled at Maea's description of his work as relaxing. Arching an eyebrow, he shook his head. "I'll have to make you sit at my wheel some time, then we'll see if you're singing the same tune." Humming a low note, his brow furrowed. "In theory? Yes, but in practice I haven't made a flute before. I'm sure I can manage something given enough tries." He inclined his head to her.

Snorting, he narrowed his eyes. "If it's the gourds, or anything else that's too powerful or too numerous, you'll teleport away from them and I'll walk through them." Then, as if to challenge that notion, there was a plopping sound from in front of them as a large pumpkin with teeth to spare plummeted from the canopy and landed directly in their path.

For now we're happy if not overjoyed
And we'll accept the things we cannot avoid

When you see something out of the corner of your eye, turn to look, and see nothing at all, what should you conclude? That you were having a hallucination? Or that your peripheral vision is perhaps not to be trusted. Ask yourself, are you tired? Drunk? Under the influence of something? Is the lighting good? Are there lots of moving shadows about? Are there reasons you have to think that your mind is playing tricks on you?

Because...well, because it would be absurd to think that out of the corner of your eye you had just seen a house. A house with a figure slamming its hands against one of the upper windows with enough force to shatter it, and then...

Well, then you looked and it was gone.

Nah, you're probably just tired.

Maea

And I hope that you don't suffer
But take the pain

"That sounds like a challenge. Alright, then. You can show me how to do it when we get home." She'd never thought to give it a try before, but it didn't seem very strenuous. Or difficult. How hard could it be? And besides, if he was making her something, it was only fair that she tried to help out a bit, in return.

This was not enthusiasm glinting in her eyes. Certainly not. That would mean she actually risked having some fun, gods forbid.

Amun's tone made the girl's brows rise high, only half amused by how stern he sounded. "Since when are you giving me orders? I hope you're not expecting me to obey, because there's no way I'm - "

The gourd landed on the path with a hollow thunk, and Maea spun around to face it, wide eyed with surprise.

And barely had it landed before something f l a s h e d in her periphery. A house where there should be none, and in the upper window a figure that was too familiar.

She didn't want to look at it. She didn't want to see. She couldn't. look. away.

Even after the apparition was gone, Maea stood rooted to the spot. Cold dread crawled up and down her spine, and had she been capable of such things, cold sweat would be breaking out all over.

Hope if everybody runs
You choose to stay

Amun

You'll be faced with problems of all shapes and sizes
You're going to have to make a few compromises

Waggling his eyebrows, Amun grinned at Maea. "So you'll make your own flute then? Excellent, it'll spare me for more important and lofty matters," he teased. "Like finding us men." Laughing, he winked at her.

Opening his mouth to inform her that yes, indeed, he was in charge and she better not forget it, he caught the flash of movement in the corner of his eye. Only this time it wasn't a gourd, but that damned illusion of a house. "Fuck!" he growled, already springing forward. "Maea, it's not real! Snap out of it."

Already the first pumpkin was jumping forward at her, mouth open wide. There were other shadows following it that resolved into more gourds. Unfortunately, she was between him and the incoming attackers. So he activated his phasing upgrade and swung his arms out. Moving through her, he kept the buckets in motion, using them as makeshift weapons to bat away the squash. They splattered against the wood as he smashed them.

For now we're happy if not overjoyed
And we'll accept the things we cannot avoid

Maea

And I hope that you don't suffer
But take the pain

Time stretched in an odd way she had never quite experienced before. The world around her was a blur of color, every process within the body a loud echo in her ears and all she really saw was that house and the figure, and the face in the window kept changing every time the vision repeated itself. Noah's face. The children, each in turn. Her own face. Amin's face, outlined in a window that shattered under panicked hands...

Snap out of it!

She shook herself like a wet dog, dizzy as she blinked and looked around. The gourd came towards her. Amun phased through her and she was disoriented again by the strange melding sensation. Numb as though her legs weighed a hundred pounds, she kicked feebly after a small gourd; it merely rocked aside and came tumbling back, teeth gnashing in the air. This time, her foot landed with more force, and smashed in the ugly face so that seeds and stringy fruit flesh sprayed all over her boot.

That finally woke her up, and time returned to normal with a snap.

She didn't teleport away.

"Behind you!" she warned as something large and orange bowled in between herself and her brother.

Hope if everybody runs
You choose to stay

Amun

You'll be faced with problems of all shapes and sizes
You're going to have to make a few compromises

Amun was already turning, sweeping his buckets out in an arc in a feeble attempt to keep the increasingly large tide of gourds at bay. Eyes widening at Maea's shout, his gaze flicked down to the gourd that had managed to sneak past their defenses in the frantic struggle that had suddenly erupted. Unable to move the buckets fast enough due to the momentum, he activated his metal manipulation upgrade: the gauntlets he wore shot out a spike that impaled the squash.

Already, though more were coming in and he didn't think he'd react to those in time. "Above you!" he yelled back at her. Three smaller gourds had launched from the trees and were headed straight for her head.

For now we're happy if not overjoyed
And we'll accept the things we cannot avoid

Maea

And I hope that you don't suffer
But take the pain

At Amun's cry, she dropped the buckets and raised her arms above the head to shield herself. Closing circuits within her palms produced an electrical current that erupted from her raised hands. Sizzling as they were scorched, the gourds bounced harmlessly off her and tumbled to the ground, leaves and vines twitching in spasms on the ground.

More gourds began to roll in, from the other side of the path this time, and suddenly there was no time to call out warnings.

Without the clay to burden her, she moved far quicker than before. Spending long times on her own had made Maea good at dealing with these kinds of threats, and her fighting style was not exactly pretty. There was a lot of bashing, stomping and stumbling about; but though the ground around her soon lay littered with gourdey remains, the pumpkins just kept coming. The scratches and chomps on her hands and ankles began to build up.

"They're too many, this isn't working!" she growled, teeth gritted as she lifted a gourd in each hand and fried them with her electrical touch.

Was it just her imagination, or were they getting bigger, too?

Hope if everybody runs
You choose to stay

Amun

You'll be faced with problems of all shapes and sizes
You're going to have to make a few compromises

Amun continued to use the buckets as bludgeons. Absolutely splattered with seeds and sticky fluids, he let out a cry now and then as he took out a particularly large specimen. His gauntlets were rapidly diminishing in size as he shot spikes out of them to lock down squash that slipped past him or Maea.

Even so, the damned creatures kept coming. Worse yet, it wasn't her imagination: they were both more numerous and larger. Risking a glance at her, he nodded. "Teleport out. At least a short distance. Trust me, please, I can escape them."

With that, he sucked in a breath. "Come and get me you future casseroles!" he bellowed at the horde of gourds. As if they understood him (and for all he knew, they did) the bulk of them launched themselves in his direction. Hoping she would heed his advice for one he broke into a sprint towards the nearest tree. Throwing the buckets ahead of him to knock the vegetables from his path, he activated his phasing upgrade at the last second and passed through the trunk, leaving his pursuers to splatter helplessly against the bark.

For now we're happy if not overjoyed
And we'll accept the things we cannot avoid

Maea

And I hope that you don't suffer
But take the pain

Leaving him behind was the last thing she wanted to do, but Maea knew she was about to be overrun. Growling something very rude she waited only long enough to see which direction Amun began to move in. Fishing up the buckets of clay she sent a gourd flying with a well aimed kick and disappeared -

- only to reappear ahead of him, a mere thirty feet from where she had been an instant ago. As he came bursting through the tree - it was eerie to see, even in the midst of all this chaos - she nudged her chin towards the left.

"This way! There's a river bank up ahead, we might be able to trap them there!" She turned and began to run ahead, every once in a while sending a glance over the shoulder to make sure Amun was still there.

For once, she was glad to have spent so much time in these woods. She didn't know every nook and cranny, but this area at least she was well acquainted with.

Hope if everybody runs
You choose to stay

Amun

You'll be faced with problems of all shapes and sizes
You're going to have to make a few compromises

As Maea appeared in front of Amun he scowled at her. "This isn't out!" Eyes flicking down to the buckets she still carried, his scowl deepened. "Forget the damn clay! We can always get more later." Sprinting in her direction, he would try to grab the handle of one of the buckets in question and toss it aside.

Nodding at her mention of the river, he changed course. "Lead the way. I will guard our rear." With what little remaining metal he had, he created a short rod. Any gourd that got in range he'd whack. Slowing down so he didn't pass her he twisted so he could try and see both ahead and behind him.

For now we're happy if not overjoyed
And we'll accept the things we cannot avoid