Alice in Horrorland [Obsu/NpcNol]

Silence. Utter silence.

For the first few moments, perhaps Yomi would have thought that she was still floating through the void, at the end of whatever push and pull she had felt through the Digital stream, but where she had ended up was comparatively more boring, more mundane. When she finally came to, the girl would find herself face-down in the dirt, a blackish, soft, dry peat-moss. Perhaps she had landed in some sort of garden? Well..

... No. As far as the eye could see, in every direction, was the same dry-and-unforgiving soil. Light here was scarce, the sky above thick with dark and gloomy clouds, only a faint red glow piercing through the thinnest part of the veil. Aside from that? Well, it was silent: nothing to be seen within her eyesight, save a few rolling hills or stark, white, cactus-like trees that gave their own faint glow.

There was nothing to see, but occasionally, there would be something to hear, like a faint growl off in the distance - something as persistent ans a cackling insect in the woods.

Something was out there - but it would be like no beast or bird she'd ever heard of before.

If this was just a case of delirium, well, that might have been an easier pill to swallow.

But no - unfortunately, through those cracked glasses, the setting that Yomi found herself in was quite real, that growl echoing once more in the distance as if to respond to her words. There would be no real answer, of course, not now, not alone in this dark and brutal area... but she would feel one thing.

The cold.

She was in an effective desert, the cloud cover up above thick, blotting out the sun's helpful rays, giving the land one of eternal night. And with it, came the whipping winds, peat moss carried through the air as howling winds carried forth their frigid temperatures.

She needed to get moving...

And run she would. Run, through this desolate, dark landscape, where she might only be able to see a hundred or so feet in front of her. She'd find that the ground had a lot less give than she might have expected, her feet sliding on top as she tried to sprint through that loose moss - but once she had a handle on it, she'd be able to make quite an impressive pace.

A pace to where, though, that remained to be seen. It would have been likely for her to just run off and find nothing, or perhaps simply slip into a small dune that she might not have been able to climb out of, but luck hadn't completely abandoned Yomi. She would eventually find a tent.

A simple cloth tent, with a smoldering fire-pit simply burning ash on the outside, but a tent nonetheless. Currently, it seemed as if its owner was out in the wilderness, a small red crystal cast lazily by the fire. The tent itself seemed usable, a small cot set up in the side - though it was clear this place had been used, recently.

No, it wasn't a telephone, but Yomi's D-Tector did serve some purpose. The screen showed a map of the area, a central dot representing her position... but it didn't do a good job representing the land's scale, or give her any landmarks to work with. No, there was just a numbered coordinate, something 'South' and 'East' - though the word 'Scanning' was right across the center, a pulsing circle radiating from around the dot that represented herself.

Useful? Right now, probably not, but it was something to look into. For about twenty or so minutes, she'd likely wait in silence, until there would be a rustle in the peat moss nearby. Whoever owned this camp was just about to return... but it wouldn't be anyone she would know, or likely would have expected:

"Of all my luck..." The wolf swore to himself, pulling over one last hill to get to the camp. Appearance aside, he had a bag slung over his right shoulder, and an iron, rusted pipe in his left. His tone sounded disappointed - but as he came to his camp, his eyes widened a bit at Yomi's sudden appearance.

An unknown face.

Who hadn't... stolen anything? Regardless, his expression tightened, showing his fangs to this lost girl.

"Slowly. Explain just what you're doing in my camp, human."

The figure was definitely not a human - in fact, to be a human in these parts was the most unnatural thing. The wolf gave a tense growl, at first thinking that he should jump and attack the invader of this camp...

... But, he noticed something off. Despite this 'thief' being here, his tent had not been entered, nor had his crystal been moved. Yomi's hands were stained a dusty gray from the moss below, simply desperately trying to feed the fire in front of her. Wait, was she lost, out here? The wolf grit his teeth, some of the tensity leaving his arms.

Until she spoke, that was. 'What are you'?

"What kind of question is that? Of course I'm not a human, you human!" He'd missed the point of that question entirely... but god dammit, the girl was crying, glasses fogging up, and here he was trying to scare her. It took a moment, the wolf gritting his teeth, before he shook his head.

Alright, fine. Opening his bag, he tossed the contents out in front of her: a number of white, faintly glowing branches, clearly nothing that she'd find in Japan. "If you want to stay here, then make yourself useful, girl." He pointed to the branches, then to the fire-pit, before pushing a box of rudimentary matches into her palm.

"Get it going."

Would they last? "Tch. Of course they'll last. Blanchwood burns slowly, just don't breathe in the smoke."

Well, add an unfamiliar plant name on top of everything else that Yomi didn't know. But at least with a source of heat, things seemed to settle between the two somewhat. The wolf sat down, scratching his nose with the back of his hand, simply trying to warm up in the heat of this gentle, white flame. His ear twitched briefly at Yomi's words, the wolf giving a sigh. So she had just... 'appeared' here, then? "What, another one dragged in by one of those Digivice things? Ugh... long story short, you're in the Digital World, kid. And this is the Dark Area, so you've pretty much landed in the middle of !@#^ing nowhere."

He didn't put those words too kindly, the Strabimon looking towards Yomi from the corner of his eye. Who was he? "I'm a Strabimon. Cano, if you want a name." Giving another look towards the human, the Strabimon grit his teeth, and reached back into that bag - pulling out a piece of jerky, shoving it once more into her hands.

"Don't go crying on me. I've enough shit to deal with without you bawling your eyes out."

"You got wax in your ears, kid?"

The Strabimon let out a low growl, not quite a fan of having to repeat himself. Regardless, he wouldn't do much against the human in his camp - a strong word there, a bit of spite there, but he was overall tolerant. Though he might not have been a fan of humans, he couldn't raise his claws against the clueless.

Unsurprisingly, she was a bit confused about just what was going on. The Strabimon either missed or ignored that first muttering, but the second caught his attention. "Tch. Its just what the device calls us by our form, don't pay much mind to it, human." He waved it off. He'd given enough for the human to at least survive through the night, so really, his good deed for the month had been long done.

Which was why, when she gave that hopeful remark at the end, he gave a laugh! "Hah! I'm not cruel, girl, but I'm not your babysitter." He corrected her view: "I'm going to drop you off at a village nearby, and you can figure out what you want to do from there. Sorry, kid, I don't got the wallet to keep a pet like you around."

He gave a sigh, idly scratching the back of his neck. "Must'a had some shit luck to end up here first, though..."