Hay is for Horses {open}

[Judy Hopps]

Music, lives, singing, nights and everything. Being free, the two songs seemed to be continuing to interconnect with one another, spinning into something new, and wasn't that the point? Judy could almost see the words entwining as she moved about, as if it could literally encircle the two of them as they kept moving about the edge of the fountain.

"'Til I reach the end and then I'll start again! No, I won't leave, I wanna try everything;
I wanna try even though I could fail~" Judy sang, continuing to entwine lyrics as she nearly entwined their dancing, continuing to move. She'd about run out of chorus, and the next should be almost embarrassing: who wanted to shout "Oh's" to the sky? Still, Judy found herself doing it all the same:

"Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,~" the sounds building, likely starting to wrap about Bartok's, alternating. At least Judy could figure out when to sing, when to slide "Try Everything~" in between. It was still sloppy, almost certainly a musical mess, but freeing and sort of fun, which is what they were going for, right?

[Bartok]

Bartok broke out into a series of somewhat baffling dance moves, maybe the most perplexing of which was a sort of turn towards one side, accompanied by a hand movement that looked almost like he was throwing something over his shoulder. It went along with the beat he was keeping, at least. He could feel the song coming to a conclusion; it made sense, and he thought he was finally getting a feel for the song she was singing, too.

He hopped down off of the edge of the fountain, and then had a thought, a daring thought, uncharacteristically gutsy for him, but even as he thought it, he knew he had to at least try the thing. It wasn't that he was afraid he wouldn't be able to hold up her weight, it was just that...well, complex choreography didn't usually work out for him, for some reason. But he could manage a simple lift, right?

"When you get older, your wild heart will live for younger days..." he sang, circling back. He held his hands up to her, too far away for her to think he meant for her to grab them instead of leaping into them as he intended. "So try everything..."

[Judy Hopps]

Judy herself kept right on bobbing. Again: decent rhythm, but no understanding of what to do with her body. So mostly bobbing and jerking, eventually all but mimicking Bartok's motions. She couldn't quite help it: she got swept up by his enthusiasm, by the song, by the freeing moment of it, by just letting her guard drop for a few moments.

She saw the hop down, and figured out what he was doing. Fortunately for both of them, Judy happened to be incredibly light, even lighter than her slight frame would indicate. "Try everything~" she sang in exact time with him, before moving, sort of hopping, sort of sliding into his outstretched arms. "One day you'll leave the world behind~" she sang one of the lyrics that stuck in her mind. "So live a life you will remember... and try everything, oh, oh, oh~"

She had to stop and giggle, not quite believing the situation. Her in her police uniform, in hoo-man form, held up by a furless, also hoo-man, ex-bat she'd just met. Oh yeah, life was crazy in all the best ways.

[Bartok]

She went for it, she actually went for it, she jumped off the fountain and into his outstretched hands, and Bartok was so surprised he almost forgot to hold her up. He remembered just in time, though, and she wasn't heavy at all, so he managed to turn in almost a full circle holding her up in the air before setting her down in front of him.

He was out of breath by now, from all the jumping and dancing and climbing and singing, but he couldn't imagine not finishing the song just because he was a little winded. "Try everything." he finished, harmonizing with her, before going quiet, breathing hard through a broad, open-mouthed smile. It took him a few seconds to remember to drop his hands from her sides, and as soon as he did, he felt a little self-conscious. He couldn't think of what to say at first, just stood there looking at her, delighted at how well the spontaneous musical number had gone.

"That was great" he finally said, earnestly, reaching up to run one hand through his head. "You're great at singing, not everybody is good at that, it's not easy to sing and dance and learn a new song at the same time."

[Judy Hopps]

It felt odd being held, and Bartok wasn't the only one feeling self conscious. Judy found herself reaching up to lightly stroke her too-small ears, sorely wishing she had more to pull down. Again; how did humans handle body language properly with so little body to actually work with? it did feel good to be back on firm ground, and Judy could still feel the adrenaline and joy at what they'd done surging through her, fueling her emotionally if not physically.

"Well, I can carry a tune," she just admitted. "And I only kinda learned one version. I was mostly singing the Gazelle song. Her stuff is super popular. I used to blare it on the radio; annoyed my partner a lot," she offered a laugh, before looking around. "Does make you think about what this place could be though, doesn't it? Like, if we just try, we could make this place somewhere special. It almost feels like it wants us to."

She looked around for a moment, before refocusing back on Bartok. "It was like that before, right? With the fountain and everyone from different places getting to learn and grow together?" Pure optimism poured from Judy then, and her eyes shimmered with the raw possibilities.

[Bartok]

Juicy looked about as happy as Bartok felt; alight with the still-glowing embers of music, and he shook his head enthusiastically. "You did great," he assured her. "That's a good song, I hadn't heard it before, but now I want to look it up and listen to it." He had a momentary thought that Giselle would probably like that song; from Juicy's interpretation of it, it sounded upbeat and positive, both of which were things he very much associated with Giselle. But that was neither here nor there because he was never going to see Giselle again.

"It was...yeah." He nodded. "When I came here, the first time, I was...I was working for an evil sorcerer, Rasputin. I was his...I guess I was his sidekick, but after I got here, things were different. I didn't want to be an evil sidekick anymore. No one likes an evil sidekick." He kicked at a pebble on the ground, and it skittered away across the pavement. "When I was here, I thought I was brave enough to not be an evil sidekick."

He looked back up over at Juicy, and met her eyes. She looked so hopeful, so full of optimism for this place, and Bartok thought...well, if that was what she wanted, that was what he was going to give her.

"It was the best place I've ever been," he said earnestly. "When I was here, I felt like I could be more than who I am, like I could do better things."

[Judy Hopps]

Judy laughed nervously as Bartok kept complimenting her, again running her paws over her too short ears. She definitely missed having them to try and hide her face: how did hoo-mans try and hide some of their body language? Maybe she should try tugging some of her mane down? She did have to admit that she kind of liked the pretty mane she'd been given, though she almost wondered why it wasn't her usual gray.

Thoughts like that darted before Bartok's history. Judy focused on him, nodding. "Well, people change. You grew, and now you're more than that, and you can keep being better each day. We're living in the now, after all, not the past." Judy nodded, looking back around her. "Speaking of the now, and this amazing place, we need to keep looking. There are probably other people around, and even if there aren't, we should try to spruce the place up a bit, right?"

Another smile, and Judy took a moment to look around. She sighted a major building and started walking confidently toward that, nearly having a spring to her step.

[Bartok]

She was so optimistic about the things he was capable of. How could she know that about him? How could she sound so sure? The way she said all of that, about people changing and growing, it made him want to believe it about himself, even though he'd never had that confidence.

Bartok pulled his hands inside the ends of his sleeves and wrapped them around his body as they started to move forwards toward one of the larger buildings. Now that the song was over, he found that the worry was creeping back in, all the unanswered questions were slipping back into the space that the music had been taking up.

"How long do you think it's been since anybody was here?" he asked her. "I mean, what does it look like, if you had to guess, how long would you think?" He had just suddenly had the horrible thought that maybe everyone had been here this whole time, maybe they were all still in the buildings, but they were all...dead. It made him shudder just thinking about it. What if everybody he'd cared about was rotted and withered away and just skeletons inside of the buildings?

[Judy Hopps]

"Years," answered Judy before she could stop and think about it. She bit her lip, reaching up to try and roll her ear back over her head. That instant reaction had been true: the place looked awful. Her detective skills could tell her that much at a glance. Plants everywhere, lack of upkeep, it looked like an abandoned house or, again, like something out of a spooky movie. Judy still half expected a monster to spring up out of no where.

"I mean," she said, licking her lips, "there's too much here that's just... overgrown," she gestured. "The plants and the vines and all: they've been here a while," she gestured toward the building they were approaching, "there are vines literally from the bottom of the wall to the top of some of these towers. That's not something that pops up overnight. And that's not figuring the general disarray here. Even if you take into account the war you mentioned..."

Judy chewed her lip, before looking to Bartok. "This place had to have been abandoned for decades... is this... is this how magic works or something?" Because Judy couldn't think of a logical explanation, and something illogical had gotten them here.

[Bartok]

Bartok winced. That was what he was afraid of. He'd been thinking years as well, and some part of him had been hoping she would contradict that, give him a reason to be optimistic about the situation here.

"You're right," he said, glumly. "It doesn't look like it used to at all." He was so despondent that for a minute, he forgot he was supposed to be reassuring her, helping her believe that everything would be fine, everything would be wonderful if they could just get things back up and running. But that was impossible, he thought. Two people and a bunch of skeletons couldn't run a school. He was pretty convinced now that they would be walking into a school full of skeletons.

"I never saw magic that made something get old real fast," he shook his head. "But...I guess I only saw Rasputin's magic up close, and that was really specific. He sold his soul to get some people killed, so everything he did was mostly pushing for that." He sighed. "I don't want to say this, sir, but I'm afraid there might be old dead people in these buildings when we get inside. People here don't live for that many decades, unless they aren't human."

[Judy Hopps]

Judy didn't like being right in this case, particularly when she saw Bartok's face and heard the sadness in his voice. IT made her want to take back the words but, well, sometimes a little truth, a little momentary pain, was better than a longterm, more painful lie. Plus, just because Bartok hadn't seen magic like this didn't mean it didn't happen.

"Well, we'll be on the lookout for anyone and anything," said Judy. "If the magic sent you home and brought you back, it could've just as easily done it to your friends. For all we know, there's other groups of people wandering around," she stepped over to him, reaching to grab his shoulder. She gave it a reassuring squeeze, following up with a confident nod. "You may even find some of your closest friends here again."

Another smile, and Judy turned, almost strutting toward the building. "C'mon! We're not going to find anything by sticking around here."

[Bartok]

Bartok was fully miserable now. The magic hadn't sent him home, but he couldn't tell her that. She would be so disappointed in him, and probably totally regret their spontaneous musical number. She would think he was a coward, which he was, and that he would just let her down too, which he probably would. He couldn't explain to her why that idea brought him no comfort at all, so he put on his brightest smile instead and did what he did best - he faked it.

"You're so right," he said, and while her words hadn't helped much, the shoulder squeeze did. He wasn't going to find his closest friends here, because...well, for starters, he only had one closest friend to begin with, and secondly, she was definitely a skeleton. "We'll definitely find all kinds of people there. They have to be coming through the portal any minute if it's running."

He started after her, trying to walk as confidently as she was, but ended up looking a little bit like he had a wedgie instead.

[Judy Hopps]

Judy nodded again, giving another confident squeeze. "Yeah, no way we're it. Plus, they'll be sending people after me soon, so we'll have even more help." She was tempted to point out that the portals, if that's what sent them here and not some sort of accident, would probably be dropping people at random. right now, they were buoyed by quite a bit of hope, and Judy intended to keep fueling that and clinging to it.

So she guided her new friend, trying not to laugh but definitely smiling at his strut. They walked toward the dormitory proper, where doubtless they'd run into more people, and hopefully get a good start on their newest adventure here at Tintagel.

{seems like a good place to end? Really not sure there's much else; these two will definitely have to meet up again though, that's for sure}