like tracers in the night {open}

[Nick Wilde]

The one thought Nick managed to keep intact as he was ushered through the portal by the urgent rush of magic was that he really hoped Judy wasn't waiting directly on the other side. Not that he didn't want to find her; that was the whole point of throwing himself into this DEATH TUNNEL OF DEATH portal to begin with, but he was about 75% sure that the three cups of coffee and two bagels he'd eaten that morning were coming right back up as soon as he had his feet on the ground again. And if he threw up on Judy, he wouldn't ever live that down. 

The second he was pushed out the other end of the portal, Nick could tell that something was different. At first, he wasn't sure what it was, because it was pretty dark in the room, the faint glow of magic the only light to see by...but that was the problem. He was supposed to be able to see better than this in the dark. Why was he half-blind all of a sudden? He made a soft little gah sound, putting one paw up to his face.

His nose was gone. His nose was gone. He put his other paw up to his face, too, groping at the space where his nose should be pointing out into the air, telling him which way was which and what was what. There was...something there, but it certainly wasn't his trusty foxy nose. Nick wasn't sure what was going on here, but he didn't think he liked it. And also, his fingers were...longer, and had almost no hair on them at all, he noticed, rubbing his...were they still paws?...together, feeling the length of his fingers and the weird, flat smoothness of his palms. 

He had to get out of this room, he thought, or at least find some light, since apparently his night vision had gone to nothing. He reached down to his belt, fumbled briefly with the items in various holsters and pouches attached to it, until he could find his flashlight, and drew it out, flicking it on. It didn't take him long to locate a set of stairs and a doorway, but when he tried it, it was stuck firmly shut. 

Nick suddenly had the notion that he could break through the door. The knob on it turned, and it felt like the latch was working fine, so there had to be something on the other side holding it shut, right? Maybe he could just force it. Considering the door for another few seconds, Nick set his flashlight to the side, backed down a few steps for a decent running start, and rushed into the door. It was a little painful, he wasn't going to lie about that. The door did not open, but it did give a little, something on the other side seemed to snap and start to give way. Nick tried it again, and this time, a little crack appeared between the door and the frame. One more time, he thought. Rubbing his shoulder with his weird paw, he took a deep breath, and ran at the door one more time.

He crashed through the opening, stumbling through and falling onto his knees, which smarted almost as badly as his shoulder still did as they impacted the ground beneath him. But he was through, he'd made it out of that room. Was he still completely lost? Yes. Yes, he was. He went back for his flashlight, grabbing it off the stairs just inside the door, then turned around and shined it ahead of him. 

"Anybody in here?" he called. "Judy? Anyone?" This place looked like it hadn't been touched in years, and Nick had a horrible sinking feeling. Judy hadn't come through here. No one had come through here for a very long time...

[Panic]

Panic had been wandering around for a while, he'd lost track of time but the sun had gone down and up a couple of times. There were less people than there used to be and it was not very hard to avoid them in animal form. He tried to stick to smaller, unassuming creatures as he scampered from one building to the other in search of the portals. He'd managed to wash the blood off his face after his last encounter with a thorn vine, but his right hind leg remained beaten up. It was brown with old blood that someone could have mistaken for mud, but it still hurt. There was still a thorn in it, but Panic could only hope to get it out with his human hands. He was too afraid to turn back into a human. He felt more secure this way, besides, he deserved that thorn after trying to attack Della.

He limped his way into the Threave building, scampering in and out of tight spaces in the form of a fox. Foxes were small and quiet enough to remain hidden, but had keen senses locate danger. Every now and again he'd freeze, his ears twitching and his nose wiggling, but it usually turned out to be some fellow animal looking for a meal among the rubble. Sometimes a plant would move suspiciously, Panic was careful to take a wide birth. He was looking for the portal room. He needed to go home. On his right, front paw a bronze cuff enslaved him to a dark and powerful force to which he had to return or risk hurting people he loved.

Panic let out a sound somewhere between and bark and a squeal when a loud crash came from below him. He wanted to run, to get as far away as possible, but what if it had come from his destination? He was desperate to find the portals. He had to go. He went as fast as his hurt leg would let him and found his way onto a flight of stairs headed down. It was dark, but his fox eyes could see well enough. Then a voice echoed from not far away. Panic froze, chest heaving, weighing his options. There were two light sources up ahead, one like a flashlight, the other faint and magical. It was the portal room. It had to be. He needed it to be. However, someone was in his way. It was probably some crazy killer, but did he have a choice?

No. Panic crept forward, remaining a fox, and peered up at the human, shaking from head to toe. Maybe he'd just let him pass?

[Nick Wilde]

Nick thought his voice sounded incredibly strange. Not only was it just...not his voice at all, it echoed eerily in the dark stillness of the stairwell, cushioned partially by the blanket of dust that lay on the steps. He moved his flashlight, sweeping the beam of light from side to side over the room he came into. One pass...nothing, but on the return, he caught a hint of movement, and froze. Something was quivering there, and Nick took a cautious step forwards.

It was a fox.

At that moment, Nick started to wonder if he had died. Maybe the portal had killed him, maybe this was the afterlife, where he was...what, stripped out of his own fox body, and shoved into a dark world, a weird, fleshy spirit with weird, long fingers. Or...maybe this was some kind of hallucination. Someone was targeting predators with drugs again, drugs that gave you incredibly strange hallucinations. But...whatever it was, it felt absolutely real, and Nick couldn't stand there and pretend he knew he was just in a dream, because he didn't know anything of the sort. He looked forward at the terrified fox, and crouched down to get closer to its height.

"Hey, buddy," Nick said, directing the flashlight away from the animal's eyes. He realized as he did so that this fox wasn't him - that wasn't exactly what he looked like even when his body wasn't all weird and semi-furless. It was a fox, but it wasn't his disembodied self or anything. "You don't need to be scared, it's alright. Just us foxes here."

[Panic]

The man was bulkier than Panic was in his human form and wholly terrifying. Panic's ears twitched back when the man knelt down to get closer to him, surely coming in for the kill. He never should have been a fox, people were hunting for food these days. He was going to be this vicious person's dinner and he was never going to get out of her. Well ok, so he was a demon and he couldn't technically die, but Panic knew how much stabbing hurt. Did he have a knife, Panic was too afraid to look away from the man's face to check. He was clearly speaking so gently to lure him into a trap, right?

Panic's nose twitched when he mentioned that he too was a fox. So he'd managed to run into a psycho and a killer. Nice going, Panic. A part of his brain wandered to desperately hope that Della wasn't facing similar hardships. He tried to push the idea from his brain, she was strong, she was better off without him.

Panic braved a glance toward the glow of the room bellow. If he could just scurry around crazy guy he could be home free. He shifted a paw in that direction, still trembling. The stairwell wasn't all that big. If he advanced he could easily be caught. He could morph into something else, but frightening someone who was unstable was something he knew too well to stay away from. In slow motion Panic made to take a step to the side, maybe he could move so slow no one would notice. He picked up his back leg that he had forgotten was injured in the mitts of this new horror. Panic squealed in pain and instinctively tried to bite at the thorn again to get it out. It didn't work.

[Nick Wilde]

If Nick had known what Panic was thinking, he probably would have laughed. Sure, he was a predator, but if he'd heard the things going through Panic's head, he definitely would have found them hilarious. He definitely wasn't planning on doing any stabbing, and even if he was, it wouldn't be this terrified fox he was stabbing.

"Shh, hey, hey, it's gonna be alright," Nick soothed, dropping down onto one knee, lifting his flashlight up to hold it between his teeth. Huh, that worked much better with these weird flat teeth. Oh jeez, his teeth were flat. He just kept on discovering weird things about this body, and he hadn't even taken off his clothes yet. He desperately wished he had some food or something to offer the fox; if only he hadn't left his coffee and pastries in his car when he'd leapt impulsively into the vortex of magic that had brought him here. He was still trying to think of how he would calm down a skittish fox, when said fox let out a yip of pain and started biting at his own foot.

Was he...sick, or something, Nick wondered? It took him a few seconds to realize that the fox was upset about something on his foot, and not just chewing on it for fun, and when he did, he wasn't sure what to do about it. If he tried to help, there was a good chance he was going to get bitten. There was something weird about this fox; he wasn't walking around and talking like an ordinary fox, but he wasn't exactly acting completely wild, either.

Nick made his decision quickly; he moved forward and wrapped one arm around Panic's fox body, trying to keep the fox's head restrained behind him as he grabbed his leg firmly, reaching down to feel for the source of pain on his paw. He found the thorn easily enough, and gave it a sharp tug, trying to pull it free.

[Panic]

Up to this point they had both been moving relatively slow. Panic twitched about a few times, but when trying to make deliberate movement, he was very careful. The man seemed to be doing the same. Perhaps they were both just trying to get past each other. Panic certainly hoped so, but didn't quite dare to dream. The man was focused on him, probably because he looked like dinner. What did it really matter anyway? His leg hurt so bad, maybe getting eaten would be a relief. However, he didn't like being turned away from the threat for very long, so Panic forced himself to stop biting at his leg. By the time he swiveled his head back around, a new horror had been put into motion.

The man was moving much faster now, faster than Panic could process. This was it, he was going to get stabbed or beaten or something even more horrible. Would he master let him endure this? Certainly. His master was very cruel. These were his thoughts as he was suddenly being lifted into the air. He let out a shrieking howl and began to struggle relentlessly. He'd forgotten everything except that he was a captured fox. He tried biting at him, scratching at him, kicking with all his force. There was a hand grubbing his injured leg and he continued to yip and screech until he remembered who he was and what he could do.

Panic morphed into a deer, hoping the sheer change in size was enough to get the man to drop him. However, it was in this moment he realized the thorn had left his leg. The pain was immeasurably less. Did this man just...help him? Who would think to help a creature like him? Perhaps it was only because he looked like a fox. How could this man know he was a demon? Still, why even bother to help a fox?

[Nick Wilde]

Oh, that was definitely the kind of reaction a wild fox would have to being restrained the way Nick was holding him. But then...Nick also probably would have had the same reaction himself, even in this weird body he was in right now. He didn't have much time to form any theories about the nature of purgatory foxes, though, before something was happening, the fox was...getting bigger? Nick stumbled back, catching himself on the wall, narrowly avoiding toppling backwards down the stairs, throwing himself out into the room instead as a gosh darn deer wriggled out of his arms.

To say Nick was surprised would have been a massive understatement. He made a distinctly undignified noise, dropping his flashlight, then fumbling with it as he moved to pick it back up, eyes never leaving the deer that was suddenly in front of him.

His working theory on this place immediately went from maybe some kind of purgatory to definitely a fever dream in some kind of purgatory. But he had never had a dream like this, he had no idea where his brain would even have gotten the idea for a fox that turned into a deer. Was it an allegory for him? Was he turning into a deer too? Was this body he was in now supposed to be deer-like? Because it wasn't, at all.

"Holy flocking sheep," he blurted, scrambling back up to his feet, barely having the presence of mind to keep one hand held out in front of himself calmingly. "Easy...easy there...your leg's better now, right? That's better? I'm not gonna hurt you, just want to help out, okay?" He had no way of knowing if this fox-deer-thing could understand him, but he had to try, right? Plus, maybe just...speaking in soothing tones would help a little. It seemed like the animal wasn't sure of its course of action, and Nick couldn't blame it. He probably wouldn't be sure what to do if he suddenly turned into a deer, either.

[Panic]

Panic turned his head to look at his back leg. It was still a bit bloody, but there was certainly no thorn. He picked up his hoof and bit it back down. It hardly hurt at all. Panic looked back at the man who appeared to be...frightened? Panic shot a startled look behind him. His large antlers scraped the side of the stairwell, but there was no one behind him. He turned back to the man. What was he afraid of? Could he see something that Panic couldn't? Surely...he wasn't afraid of him? Panic was pretty sure he hadn't gone feral like he'd done with Della a few days prior. He remembered that in perfect, vivid detail. All he'd done is change into a stag. He was still shorter than the man and Panic felt like most people weren't that frightened of deer. Panic didn't make a point to meet very many people and in his world magic was very common. Still, Nick was staring right at him. He looked frightened. He was frightened of Panic.

Panic felt his heart twist as the man spoke in soothing tones. He'd helped him feel better and he seemed shocked and, judging by what he had been saying when Panic first arrived, lost. Panic knew every inch of what it meant to be lost and afraid. Still, the portal room was just behind him. He should go, he needed to leave. Even if he wanted to help this stranger, he could go crazy at any moment and attack him. He'd be better off on his own, and yet...

Perhaps Panic could chance just traveling with him to hand him off to someone more qualified. Panic could feel the weight of the bronze cuff on his front leg, still there despite his animal form. What were the odds he'd even be allowed to go back? What were the odds that his master wouldn't just send him right back? He didn't want to risk putting this man who had been so kind to help him in danger, but he also didn't want to leave him to become some giant monster plant's snack. As much as it terrified him to think about it, maybe he could find Della again. She could protect anyone, including this guy.

Panic snorted softly and lowered his head. A decision made. He sprang forward on his hind legs and into the room beside Nick. He kept his head low, nervously glancing about. His ears flicked too and fro. He watched Nick. He didn't want him to be afraid anymore. He morphed back into a fox. He seemed much more fond of the fox form. He looked around, checking for anyone or anything that might attack. Panic glanced at the man. He was already beginning to regret his decision. Panic should not be in charge of helping anyone. Yet, he he was. Too heartsick to not help. He sniffed the ground. He took a few steps forward and then turned to look back at Nick. He figured he could track down someone eventually once he picked up a scent.

[Nick Wilde]

Nick was not scared of deer. Nor was he scared of foxes. Those were both pretty ordinary things in his world. Even a wild fox wasn't that scary to someone who had been a fox ten minutes prior. But foxes that turned into deer and back again, that was a whole other situation. Nick had not signed up for shapeshifting. He thought he might be sick, or pass out. Maybe both. But the fox-deer-now-fox-again was looking a little less terrified, which was good, because Nick was feeling more and more uncomfortable each second, and he wasn't sure how much more good he would be for calming down the skittish creature.

He panned his flashlight through the gloom, around the room they'd come into, caught a thousand small glints of light in the cascade of dust that hung in the air. Maybe he was on some kind of spirit journey. It seemed like the fox wanted him to follow it, and he took a slow step forward, pointing his flashlight at the floor in front of his feet, trying to make sure he didn't trip.

"Guess we're going this way, huh?" he said. It still felt like anything he said was too much, like there was some kind of spell on this place that he might break if he spoke too loud. Despite his increasing dread over this whole situation, and the way the hair on the back of his neck wouldn't seem to stop standing straight up, he was afraid he might make things worse if he started raising any more of a ruckus than he already had with this fox-deer involved. He crossed over to where Panic stood, careful not to move too quickly. "So uh, that's a pretty cool trick, turning into a deer. Never met anybody who could turn into a deer." Why was he having a conversation with a wild fox?

[Panic]

Panic watched him, one paw up in the air, as Nick began to follow him. This was good. He was doing what he wanted. He was leading a stranger to...somewhere? Panic hadn't really thought this through. First of all there were plant everywhere that often appeared to be slithering and who knows what else hiding. He had been a few steps away from freedom from this horrible place. Yet, he'd only be traveling to a place more horrible. Perhaps that was it. A massive, selfish side of him made it this far and then decided this was the lesser of two evils. He was scared to go back. He was scared to stay here, but that fire they'd had been instilled in his heart after ten years of utter torture had changed him. On one hand it threatened to consume him whole and turn him into some fear and hate driven monster. On the other, it might just set him free. That hate and anger needed somewhere to go, and so it had replaced some of his fear. Or, perhaps, simply altered it into something far more action based than he had ever had.

However, the fear was still certainly very present. Panic still trembled slightly as he stumbled over cracks and continued forward just a bit too clumsy to be a genuine fox. Nick began to speak again. Perhaps he knew Panic would understand him, or maybe all animals spoke where he was from. Panic couldn't use his human voice while he was in a different form. He braved a glance in Nick's direction, tilting his head slightly. He squeaked very faintly in response, hoping the man would take it that he at least acknowledged him. Panic didn't want to be rude, this man had saved him from his greatest fear: pain. Still, Panic didn't know what to think of the comment. cool? Panic had never once thought of it as a cool trick. Panic wasn't even sure what the word meant. He knew he wasn't talking about the temperature. Judging by his tone, it meant something positive. Panic wasn't much used to a positive response outside of Della. Even she had good reason to be quite upset with him at the moment. Perhaps leading this man somewhere he hoped would be safe was him trying to work off some guilt. Hopefully he didn't lead him to his death.

Foxes have wonderful senses of direction. However, Panic had been lost in some pretty deep thought. He rounded a corner where he thought there should be an exit and it was simply another room. They may be lost. this was a very large building. Panic shuttered nervously. He sniffed there air, but it didn't help. The dangerous blooms around them let out strong and confusing odors. Panic stopped and started too look a little frantic. Had he just gotten them lost?!

[Nick Wilde]

Onward into the spirit journey, then, Nick thought. Just...following his spirit fox into the void, except the void looked like an abandoned building with mysterious portals in the basement. Somehow, he had always expected his afterlife to look a lot more...wild, and a lot less like a busted up school. And he definitely had expected to still be a fox himself, instead of just following one around in the dark.

"I'm a fox, too, y'know," he said, because the silence was just too much even if there was no way the fox could understand him. Heck, for all he knew it could be a really smart fox. "I mean, obviously I don't look like one right now, but I was up until about ten minutes ago. Tail, ears, the whole ball of yarn. Not even sure what I am right now. Fleshy spirit thing, that's as good a name for it as anything, I guess."

His fox-spirit guide stopped, and Nick was worried at first that he was just irritated with all the talking. But it became clear pretty quickly that the fox was just anxious about something. Was something dangerous lurking? Or...Nick dropped down into a crouch next to Panic, still pointing his flashlight into the darkness, over some strange-looking flowers around them. He had a horrible sinking feeling suddenly. If this was his spirit journey, were these some weird spirit version of night howlers? Was he going to lose his mind? Had he already?

"Come on, let's get out of here," he urged, moving back out of the room slowly. "Don't want to mess with those. C'mon."

[Panic]

He was a fox too? That made about as much sense as it did for Panic to think he could help them get out of this building. This man was not a fox. Still, this was a place of magic. Perhaps he was a shape shifter as well. Panic wished this man was a fox. Panic would have been a lot more comfortable then. Still, Nick had helped him. Panic wanted to think he it was a sense of doing what right that had lead to him trying ti return the favor. However, he knew it was simply his nature. Not only could this man probably crush him, but Panic had a tendency to lock onto people to serve. He'd barely made it a few days on his own and already he felt far more unfocused and frightened. He did better with orders.

Panic ears swiveled in Nicks direction when he tried to explain his human body. The portal must have changed him. The portals do a lot of strange things. Panic liked animals more than people. Perhaps this fox man wouldn't be all that bad. He hadn't made another move to pick him up yet. That was a good sign. And he seemed...nervous again. Panic followed his gaze to the flowers he had been eyeing not second before. He at least seemed to get the idea that the flowers were not to be bothered. However, this didn't solve the fact that they were lost. Panic chattered nervously and tried to sniff again, but Nick took the lead and suggested that they leave.

Like that wasn't already what Panic was trying to do.

Panic wasn't going to argue. One of the plants hissed somewhere behind him and he jumped so violently that he turned into a songbird and took off in the direction they had come. It wasn't till he had cleared the room and could see some light peeking through a broken window that he halted. This could be their way out. There was broken glass, but Panic was certain he could fit. Whether Nick could was another story. Oh no. Had he left Nick behind or had he managed to keep up? Boy, Panic was a fine leader.

[Nick Wilde]

Nick would never have ever said that he liked animals better than people, but that was just because up until tonight, he'd never met any people who weren't animals. And now here he was, being led around the empty halls of the afterlife by a wild animal who probably couldn't understand a word of what he was saying. It was still better than walking around in silence, though, because his mind was already going crazy trying to figure out what was going on. At least rambling let him avoid that a little.

Suddenly, the fox was a bird, and Nick's heart gave another violent leap in his chest. What was a bird supposed to symbolize? Freedom? That had to be it, right? He had to...be free, by getting out of this very confusing building. Except now he was really not sure where his spirit fox-deer-fox-bird had gone.

"You gotta be kidding me..." he muttered, jogging back out of the terrifying plant room and in the direction he thought he had heard the bird fly off into. "Hey! Hey, spirit bird, wait up a second!" Maybe he'd just offended the fox by saying he was a fox, too. Maybe that had been the last straw or something, because he was in denial, now he had his spirit-guide privileges taken away. Wouldn't be the first time in his life he'd been punished for going about things the wrong way, after all.

He shined his flashlight around the room, then, catching sight of a sliver of moonlight, directed his flashlight back down towards the floor. Maybe that was the key...he had to break his way out of here? Or was he...not supposed to, because that was the kind of shifty thing a criminal would do?

Nick's survival instinct eventually overpowered his worry over vandalism, and he approached the window, unbuttoning his uniform top slowly. If he was going to bash his way through a window, he certainly wasn't going to do it with his bare...naked, mostly hairless hands. He pulled off his shirt, glad to find that the tshirt under it had made it through to the afterlife as well, and wrapped it around his fist tightly, holding his flashlight between his teeth. Taking a deep breath, he drew his fist back, and smashed it through the glass of the window, chipping away at the extra glass around the edges so he wouldn't cut himself on his way out.

"Here goes..." he breathed, then hoisted himself up and through the window and out into the night.

[Panic]

Nick was not right behind him. Panic clicked his beak nervously and tried to search the dark building with his eyes. He could see perfectly well as a hawk, but he dare not move backward toward the danger. His helper could be back there. He could have just left him to his death because of his irrational fears. The plant had hissed at hi, A few days ago he had sliced one in half when it tried to attack Della. Why couldn't his bravery come and go as he pleased, rather than whenever it felt like rearing it's head. Panic's head twitched and swiveled as he hovered by the broken window. He would have to go back and find him. He couldn't leave him here.

Panic was about to muster up the courage to head back in when he heard something a little ways away. Without thinking Panic landed and change into a mouse. Hoping to hide from whatever danger was approaching. However, he quickly realized it was Nick approaching a nearby moonlight window. He was alive and didn't look any worse for wear physically. That was good news. Panic watched as he busted through the window and headed out into the night. Panic had let him down, but he was glad to see Nick was taking charge and got himself out. Panic planned to keep a secret eye on him as he traveled, just to make sure he didn't die. Panic would be so sad if he died. So, off into the night Panic followed.

the end for now