02.13.09 - Infestation

Location: Mossflower, a forsaken cottage

Characters Involved: Darcy, Harper, Sivaine, Magramba

It's getting dark. Rather quickly, actually, as the group moves through the woods. Darcy is at the rear, trudging along with her eyes mostly shut, watching her footing. She has so far proven herself so be just a wee bit clumsy, and roots are not her friend. Through the trees, in the wanning light, a house is now visible. Sort of old and run-down looking, sturdy enough, and most definitely unoccupied from the look of it.

She's kept up a steady, sure-footed pace all day, using her halberd as an ersatz walking stick and occasional cutter of brambles. The temperature's gone down with the sun and the mouse has bundled up against the chill, little more than her eyes visible under the hood. "Hm," she mutters, quirking a brow at the abandoned structure. "Beginner's luck?"

"Huh," Harper muses. And forward he walks. "Looks pretty empty, doesn't it?"

Darcy peers through the trees. "Hey. Hey can we sleep in there?" she asks the pair, kind of sagged under her pack. Shuffling steps. "If there's a bed I want it."

Harper glances back at Darcy with a smirk. "Of course you do." But he's looking forward again. Nods. "I think we can. Siv?"

"Empty or unattended," Sivaine considers, her voice muted in the growing dark. "If nothing else the lee of it would keep the wind off, so let's see." She glances back at the two hares, then starts forward again.

Darcy perks up just a bit at this affirmation. She directs her trudging route toward the house, crunching underbrush under her feet. ".. hey, /ow/. Stupid .. tree-thing.." Mutter.

A quiet snicker comes from Harper's general direction. But he keeps quiet otherwise, moving closer.

The door, it opens. How convenient. It takes a bit of tugging, but it opens, and Darcy steps inside. "... okay well. Not so bad so far," is her verdict.

Harper doesn't really have to crane to see around Darcy. He just sees over her. "Careful the floor's not rotted, Darce. /Careful/."

Sivaine twitches her nose, making little sound as she moves over a pile of soft leaf mold left from last fall apart from a soggy branch cracking. She cants her head to the side and eyes the dusty interior with scrutiny. "Definitely empty," she decides, her steps across the old boards cautious, like walking on ice.

".. what would I fall into? A random deep hole with spikes in it?" Darcy quips back at Harper. She squints around as she moves into the first room. "I can't hardly see in here though."

"This is why I'd like to start looking for campsites when it's still light out," Sivaine comments, thumping her halberd against the floor once or twice, dislodging dust particles from the ceiling unseen. "Let's see.." She squints slightly in the gloom and begins skirting along the wall, heading for the opposite side of the room.

Thump. Her voice comes out of the darkness a moment later. "Stairs."

Tock. "Bookcase."

Darcy swings her bag off and drops it with a light 'whump' onto the floor. She aims for the doorway into the next room. "The first cushioned /thing/ anyone finds.. I have dibs. I don't care if it's a bed or a loveseat or a bloody windowsi--/ow/." She stumbles, mutters.

"No spikes, but I'd rather not have to carry you with a broken ankle all the way back t' Redwall," Harper answers from somewhere in the darkness. He clatters into something. Something falls, breaks on the floor. "... Oops," he mutters.

Darcy cringes. "Bravo, Mister Sutton, bravo."

Shff. Tong. "Oh, here it is," Sivaine remarks, setting her pack down. "Darcy," she calls. "Really, careful about the floors."

"I'm /being/ careful. I'm just on a quest for comfort," Darcy responds. She's not even within sight anymore. It is /dark/.

And not but a few seconds after Sivaine's echo of his warning, there's a funny sort of cracking, /wet/ sound and Harper cursing and stumbling. "... Damn it. /VERY/ careful. Don't come over here." He sounds a little pained.

"'She said as the floor gave way,'" Sivaine mumbles ever so quietly to herself; there's clothy rustling sounds that pause. "Harper?"

Darcy fumbles, grips onto .. something. Oh, ick, cobwebs. "You know I don't want to carry /you/ back either.."

Rustle rustle. Shff. "And I'm not supposed to be lifting heavy loads so /both/ of you stay put until we can see something. Harper. You all right?"

Harper is muttering under his breath. There's a sound of more crunching and he stumbles back into the table again. "Yeah, just. The floor. Ankle's not broken, don't worry."

"Good, great even," Darcy mutters, "I've covered in cobwebs. But sure, I'll just hang out until you get some light. Why do we not have a lantern..?"

"Good," and she sounds like she means it. There's another 'tong,' a "Mgh," and a scraping sound. A torch flares in the darkness and rises, chasing inky black to the corners of the room. Sivaine rises and turns in a small circle of light. "Fire needs wood."

"Sorry, forgot to bring along my spare pegleg," Darcy mutters.

There's a hole in the floor near Harper. There is standing water visible in the hole. And Harper's leg is wet to his knee. He looks kind of. Grossed out. He glances up at the light, nose wrinkled.

Darcy is in the doorway between this room and another, ears back, cobwebs clinging to one of her arms. "Ick."

And a few moths flutter over toward the light source.

"Volunteers foooor?" Harper cocks an eyebrow.

"Firewood?" she suggests.

Sivaine says, "And the gathering thereof."

Darcy gives her arm a jerk and a flail and makes a little noise of annoyance. "It's /on/ meee.."

"Oh. Sure." Harper goes to gingerly set his pack down - on the /table/, which looks sturdy enough. "I'll be back," and he heads for the door. Carefully.

"And you'll live." Sivaine starts skirting for the door again, taking the light with her.

Darcy is left in dark again as Sivaine, and the torch, move away. ".. oh yeah that's nice. I'll just be ovvvvver here..." She twitches and scrapes clumped-up cobweb off her sleeve.

Harper has made it to the door first. He slips back outside. Firewood ahoy!

"..or you could help," Sivaine points out, lingering a moment in case Darcy decides to follow.

Darcy makes a face. ".. ew why's it /on/ me.." She glances at Siv, looking disgruntled, and heads for the door. She makes it three or four steps and then the next foot forward sinks down with a crackling of rotten wood splitting apart.

Harper hasn't gotten too far away that he doesn't hear that. He reappears at the door, peering in. "All right?" he asks.

Sivaine turns back, leaving little trails in the dust as she approaches Darcy with caution. "Hurt?" she inquires.

Darcy fumbles and sits down, foot shoved through the floor. At least her hole has no water in it. "... I don't like this house," she grumbles, and removes her foot from the hole - carefully - to get up again.

Harper grimaces slightly. "Why don't you two just. Sit. And I'll get the firewood?"

"The part by the hearth seems safe," Sivaine consoles. Maybe. Her tone is pretty neutral. She glances at Harper and flicks her ears. "Mm."

Darcy sidesteps away from the newest hole onto a more sturdy-looking patch f floor. ".. I am all in favor of this idea."

"You too, Siv," Harper points to the hearth. And starts back out.

Sivaine drifts - that's the word for it, the slow way she's moving - back over to the hearth, changing course when a board creaks worringly under her feet. She eyes Harper's retreating form, brows lifted, then kneels down by her pack. The torch is set in the rusting old iron pot hanging from the fire hook, where it sways and casts dancing shadows over the walls. "What am I, made of glass?" she mutters.

".. pregnant, I think is the word for it," Darcy points out, skirting over a safe-ish route toward the hearth, taking up her pack as she goes. "With child? Knocked up? Take your pick."

Sivaine snorts lightly, undoing the top of her pack. "I'm over the morning sick and it's barely a bulge," she points out, drawing out a knot of what looks like dried grass. She sets this in the ashes and dips into her cloak for flint and steel. "I'm hardly a walking melon."

Harper finally comes back in with an armful of wood. It's kind of hard to see the floor for safety, but he manages. "A walking what?"

"Not yet," Darcy responds, and glances up as Harper returns. "Melon. Melon is her term of choice. I hate this house. Maybe tomorrow we can find one actually .. you know. Standing up?"

"Or we could camp with the tents I've been luggin' around all day," Harper offers. Just as an alternate. Suggestion. Thing.

Darcy says, "I like houses. .. just not /this/ house."

"And I won't be for a while. So. Not made of glass, Harper. We've been over this." Sivaine leans over the burgeoning flame, blowing gently on the embers she shields with a cupped paw. "Doubt we'll be lucky like this again, and inns are expensive." She leans a little stick of split wood - more supplies from her pack - against the knot, watching for it to catch.

Somewhere over their low conversation a /scrit-scrit/ noise is just barely audible.

Harper eyes Sivaine. "Well, let's see. I c'n do math. There's one of me. There's one of Darcy. If we're hurt, that's it. We're hurt." And then he points to her stomach. "Not so with you. So if it makes you feel any better my concern isn't really for you." The scrit-scrit goes unheard. Maybe it's on his bad side.

Scrit-scrit, scrit-scrit-scrit.

"Actually there's four of me," Darcy mutters. "You only ever see one at a time.."

"Well," Sivaine concedes quietly. "You have a point." Her hands keep moving, feeding quickly-burnt fuel to the steadily growing flame. She glances around for the wood.

Scritscritscritscritscritscrit.

"Of course I - what /is/ that?" Harper makes a face, looking around.

"I'm getting tired of this," Sivaine remarks to no one in particular, ears angling back into her hair. "Do- hn." She listens for another minute. "Sounds like crickets."

".. tired of what, being pregnant?" Darcy chuckles. "You can't exactly tell Nate to.. ... you know. If that's crickets. I will about die laughing."

Darcy says, "... and Harper will just. Die."

Sivaine cracks a handful of twigs off with sharp little popping noises. "I'm tired of- never mind." She concentrates on the fire.

"Will you stop cutting off in the middle of saying something," Darce aims curiously at Siv, while one ear does a twitch-twitch motion at the perpetual, low noise. Her muzzle lifts. ".. uhh."

"Will you stop making witty remarks at my expense?" Scritch. Skrik. Snap. Some of that is the twigs and bark Sivaine is stripping off one of the pieces of firewood with a certain destructive satisfaction. Some of it probably isn't. The mouse exhales, causing the nascent flame to flicker close to her palm.

Harper's ears are perked. "Would you both just stop?" That is the logical conclusion of this little line of questioning, isn't it?

"Will you stop acting so.. .. uhg fine." Darcy's ears twitch and flicker away from each other, moving separately. "... please. Someone tell me it's normal for old houses to .. talk."

Sivaine feeds a log into the fire, then another, building a flammable framework. "It's normal for old houses to talk," she replies after a delay. "Though not.." Her ears flick and she draws her hands away from the fire, looking around at the dim-lit corners. "..this much."

Darcy shudders. "That is not the least bit reassuring." Her glance shifts to the walls to either side. "It.. the /walls/.."

Harper is kind of looking around with a worried little frown. Hrm.

One of the moths, lured in by the firelight, flitters near Harper's face.

"In the walls," Sivaine corrects, sounding more or less unconcerned by the idea of living things swarming between the boards. "Beetles, probably, keeping warm in the rotting wood." She delivers it like a textbook as the scaffold grows, then sits back, looking satisfied with the fire's size.

"/Beetles/?" Darcy mutters. She's kind of tensed up, knees bent up, arms looped around them with her head ducked. ".. nnh, beetles. With their .. little pincher things.. and.. uhg."

Harper bats the moth away from his face with a grimace. Looks with distaste around the room. "... Beetles," he mutters. Kind of grimaces.

The moth flitters off, then back over toward Harper. It lights briefly on the inside of his ear, crawls downward.

"Well, unless we go whacking the walls with sticks, they'll stay there and we'll stay here, so.." Sivaine scoots back from the fire and shifts to a cross-legged position to lift a cold napkin-wrapped pasty from her pack.

With an annoyed little sound, he smacks at his ear, hitting the moth. Which flutters downward, then recovers and just. Does its thing. "Damn thing," he mutters.

Darcy snorts. Through the discomfort of the situation she manages to look amused. ".. are you sure? 'cause. I mean. The /last/ thing we need is to be swarmed by beetles while we're asleep..."

"I wouldn't worry about the beetles," Sivaine replies between mouthfuls of flaked crust and gravy. "They're probably happy where they are."

"I'm not so sure I'm happy where we are," Harper mutters.

That moth is near Harper's face again.

"Hello, hello." The door to the simple cottage swings wide, threatening to displace those too close. Magramba steps in, closing the door behind him with a parting shove. The squirrel's grin is slight, but noticeable. Until he looks at the room, ears perked to the sound of rustling in the walls. A glance goes to Harper, the presumed leader of the expedition. "Why. Are we in here."

".. and I. I just want a bed." Darcy mutters this with a grumpy glance at the nearest wall, and turns. The firelight allows her to view the floor, and she picks her way a few steps over the least rotted-out portions of it. "Oh. Look who I found." Magramba gets a smile. She heads for the next room.

"... Okay, so I'm going outside. Where there are /less/ bugs," Harper scowls. And then there's Magramba! "I don't know."

"Because it's a little dark to be pitching tents." The fire crackles and pops, devouring a stray last winter's leaf Sivaine tosses to it. "Wasn't time to set up camp." She offers a nod to Magramba, then looks after Harper. "Dry yourself out first?"

"Hey." Darcy reappears in the doorway to the next room. "Do we have a chair or something? There's a loft-door thing."

Magramba raises an eyebrow in a look that says 'Tents?' followed by a shrug. The squirrel glances at the doe. "Want me to just get it?"

Darcy quirks a brow. "And deprive a chair its chance to me useful?"

"How is it too dark to roll out a bedroll?" Harper is kind of lingering near the doorway.

"Well, there's.." Something goes 'tock' against the roof, out of sync with the steady scritch-scritch-scritch inside the walls. Sivaine's ears prick. Tock. Tock. Thunk. Plink. "..hail?"

Harper opens the door, obstinately, sticking his head out, "It's not-" He flinches. Flinch flinch flinch. He ducks his head back in. "..." He just. Looks. Miserable.

Magramba sighs... Things are off to a great start. "Well, at least we're all together."

Darcy's ears fall to either side of her face. "... you have got to be kidding." She glances back over her shoulder. "Nnh. Please. Please let there be a mattress in the loft..."

"Darcy... do /not/ open that loft door." Harper is /so/ super serious!

Sivaine looks up from her half-finished dinner to say "That's a bad idea." Actually, she says "Mf mf." Then swallows. "Darcy don't. Just use your bedroll."

Darcy is already turned around again, taking a few steps. A trap door is over her head, a rope dangling from the handle. She stretches up on her tip-toes, arm up, trying to reach it. "Mattress. Mattress. .. uhg why am I /short/.."

"Darcy don't be /stupid/ there're probably beetles up there." Harper starts walking towards her, trying to avoid the inevitable. "Just use your bedroll. You c'n even have mine, too! Double thickness."

"Mag, /tell/ her..." Harper's kind of desperate. It's hailing outside. He doesn't want it hailing in here, too.

Sivaine rises, a few crumbs falling from the napkin wrapping the pasty, looking, well. Exasperated. "Darcy, will you /please/-"

"Darcy..." Magramba just... shakes his head, looking at the floorboards. Is that a hole? "Why would there be a mattress up there anyway."

"They're in the /walls/ you said, not the attic," Darcy mutters. She /jumps/! .. and doesn't catch the rope. Dammit.

But the downward momentum breaks through the not-so-sturdy spot of floorboard she was standing on, with a *CRACK* from the old wood and a noise of startled dismay as her feet - both of them! - go through. ".. /gah/!"

"Darcyy..." There's a woeful resignation in Mag's voice as he steps carefully towards the site of perforation.

"I said /beetles/ were in the walls. I didn't say anything about the other probable lodgers," Sivaine is very quick to make clear, almost stepping on the heels of Darcy's words. She grimaces at the cracking sound, ears laying back.

"... Why are all women idiots," Harper mutters. And then adds as an afterthought. "... Sorry, Siv."

"Because all the good ones end up dead." Magramba steps a bit closer, careful not to fall through himself. "Can you get out?"

Truer words were never spoken. Harper grimaces.

Darcy wobbles and sits on the floor, both her feet shoved into the floorboards. She stares at this hole, glowering. "You know what I'm /sorry/! .. I'm /sorry/.." For a moment there's a trace of hurt and upset in her tone.

Sivaine blinks at Harper oddly. "Thanks - what?" Non-sequitor from Magramba, there. Sivaine trails over, but not to Darcy - she'll leave the menfolks to sort out the rescue. Instead she moves over to Darcy's pack where it was dropped and starts untying the bedroll from the bottom. "Sleeping without a mattress isn't so bad." It's almost soothing.

Magramba stands with some tentativeness on the edge of the breakthrough, in front of Darcy, and extends a paw.

"Well next time /listen/." Harper sighs, inching forward also but leaving Magramba to do the actual rescue. "Did you hurt yourself?" he finally asks.

"No," Darcy mumbles, ears pinned back, as she extends her hand upward to take Magramba's.

Magramba takes Darcy by the wrist and gives her an anchor to pull on, assisting with a gentle tug on his own end.

Harper takes another step forward. He glances at the twin holes. "Be very careful, guys..."

Sivaine starts rolling out Darcy's bedroll, thought not before she carefully treads the length of the floor it's meant to go on, stomping a few times just to be sure.

Darcy pulls herself up out of the floor, stepping onto a sturdier spot. She looks disgruntled, letting go of Magramba and turning back toward the fire. She fishes into her pocket for a piece of valerian. ".. I'm going to bed," she mutters.

Up out of one of the new floor holes, a fat fuzzy spider climbs.

Magramba quickly stomps on the spider, his weight on his other foot to hopefully not-fall. "You've got to be kidding me."

Another spider skitters across Magramba's foot after it stomps down.

"What?" Sivaine's back is turned.

Magramba jumps backward and stomps again. It seems he got the spider, but his foot takes out another portion of the floor. "Spiders." The squirrel hauls his boot back out of the hole. "I /hate/ spiders."

"No. No, this is pretty much in line. This is, yeah. This is normal." Harper is staring at the skittering thing. "I'm going to go be beaten to death by hail now. Great knowin' you all. Thanks." And he turns, walking woodenly towards the door.

Darcy turns, blinking. ".. huh?"

And another, and another. Spiders crawl up out of the two holes where Darcy's feet broke through the floor, and outward like a ripple-effect.

Sivaine pauses in her bedroll unrolling. "/Big/ spiders? How many? Here." She leaves her word half-finished and snags the rusty pot off the firehook, tossing the almost-forgotten torch in with the burning logs below. "Block- sweet /chichory/ in the ditches what." Her voice goes flat.

Teensy jumpy spiders, fuzzy chubby spiders. The largest are maybe the size of a small fist. They clamber and skitter over each other and spread out away from their exit point, across the floor.

"To the loft." With an ill-advised leap, Magramba crosses the room to the pull-rope. The floor groans in protest. "Shall we?"

Darcy stares. She backs up a step, ears stuck straight up, eyes kind of wide. "... oh my bloody--.."

Sivaine exchanges pot for pack (hers.) "If there's spiders under the floor I don't want to /think/ what's over our heads-"

Harper's eyes have bugged out. His face is twisted in horror. He opens the door, steps out into the hail. Gets battered with it. Stares inside at the skittering spiders. Decides this is preferable. "Darcy sometimes I really hate you." Because he has to blame someone and it was /her/. /Feet/.

Darcy presses back against the wall next to the fireplace. ".. yeah well. I hate you too. Please. Harp. .. please come here." Her voice is very, very strained.

"Why don't we just." Sivaine closes her eyes, whiskers flicking as an adventurous little soul skitters over her feet. "Keep the door open, wait for them to get where they're going. Get rid of the stragglers."

Magramba is stomping. The movements are becoming a bit dance-like in their speed and repetition. The others are just shut out for now. This is important. With a tail like that, you've got to be careful what you let close to you.

Harper is staring at Darcy like she's crazy. "Why don't /you/ come /here/." He doesn't have to stare at Mag like he's crazy. That's a fairly solid definite.

".. because I'm /shorter/ and there's a shorter crawl up to my face," Darcy mutters. Like rising water they're near her feet now. She stomps, cringes, looks across the room with a dismayed expression at Harper. "Harp. ... if I come over there. Will you pick me up?" Her voice is kind of small.

Sivaine slings her pack over her shoulders and watches the concentric waves of creepy-crawlies, sweeping at them with brisk strokes of her tail and folds of her cloak. She's /trying/ to clear a path, or at least get some of them out the door, but it's like trying to run water uphill.

She looks kind of. Pathetic. Harper's teeth grit. He... comes in out of the hail. And walks across the floor, stomping as many spiders as he can, and arrives at Darcy's side. And scoops her up in his arms. And stands there. Grimacing.

Darcy grunts, and hunkers into the hold. One foot kicks a little, ridding a spider that was attached. Her ears flatten and she squinches her eyes shut. "... sorry." Mumbled.

The piles of the dead around Magramba have grown deep enough that a few of the spiders break off them like a wave hitting a shoreline. Freed up a bit, the squirrel glances up at his friends to see how they are faring. At the sight of Darcy, Magramba just. Stops. The situation must be dire.

"S'okay," Harper mutters. Squuuuish goes a spider under his foot. One has somehow crawled inside his pantleg. He almost drops the doe.

Sivaine? Is getting more forceful about her spider eviction, sending several catapaulting into the hail-filled night with audible flaps of her cloak, using the voluminous fabric like a cross between a flyswatter and a trawl net. She has her determined face on.

Darcy makes a little disgruntled noise and curls her arms around Harper's neck. ".. nngghhhrrhhghhh." Utter disgust.

The spider has reached the point where it can't go any further. It's... squirming. Harper moans deep down in his throat, an almost mewling sort of sound.

Magramba is moving towards the door. This squirrel's had enough. There's no end in sight, both hares are apparently incapacitated, and Sivaine is the Spider-Slayer. "I'm finding a nice tree."

Sivaine is, well, busy. And giving the evil eye to a spider who's decided the proper way to go is up. Don't you dare, bug. Her ears are pressed back into her hair, and there are some unfortunate squelching and crunching sounds. She pauses to let Magramba pass, with a "Good night." It has a wistful note.

"... let's. Let's just. Leave, okay?" Darcy mutters to her pick-me-up. Hahaha. "Harp. Harp. We need to get /out/ of this /godforsaken/ /hellhole/.."

Magramba hop-skips through the door, and leans back in to ask, "Anyone want to come? I might be able to get you up one..."

Oh. Oh /well then./ "/Yes./" Sivaine looks back to Darcy and Harper. "Them first."

"Siv let's go out. I c'n pitch the bloody tent in the dark, just. Let's go okay?" He's edging towards the door. The spider. Is. Squirming. It's mandibles sink into his thigh. "Darcy Darcy it's biting it's biting /kill/ it."

Darcy gives a little 'yip' noise, twists in Harper's hold. She kind of slips, one foot touching the floor, crunching on something. The doe brings back her hand and /smacks/ the palm of it against Harper's thigh. "Hrk."

And in a little fit of fury she smacks again-again-again!!

They had their chance. "Tree?" Sivaine requests of Magramba, brows slightly lifted.

"Right. Come on." The squirrel tosses his hood back up over his head, little protection though it is, and makes his way to a tall alder. "This'n. Now, uh. I can boost you, or I can climb it and reach down. Which?"

Of course the spider siiiiinks in as its last dying effort. Harper makes a high-pitched sort of yipping sound, and then he's striding for the door, holding fast to an upside-down dangling Darcy. And into the hail!

Sivaine considers the potential roost, ignoring a bit of hail that bonks off her nose. "If you'll climb and take my pack up first, I'll manage." She tugs at a tie and unslings the coil of rope attached to the side of her pack.

And the /hail/. It batters down. Their bags are still inside. Darcy sort of wrestles free of Harper's hold as soon as they're outside, flinching at each chunk of ice that smacks her. "/Uhg/. .. oh, dammit, /ow/, where'd it bite you.."

Magramba accepts the pack and slings in over one shoulder, rubs his paws together, steps back, and runs at the tree. The squirrel takes three steps up the side and grabs, sinking his only exposed claws into the bark. The squirrel grimaces, hanging on doggedly. "What is /in/ here..." Then, one paw at a time, using his toes as much as possible, he arrives at the lowest branch. It's... A pretty fair distance off the ground. "You sure?"

Harper is kind of green. "I'm going to get our packs," is all he says. He turns back towards the dreaded house.

Darcy cringes. She doesn't get near the house for any sort of cover, /oh/ no. The hail whack-whacks off her shoulders and head. ".. just. Don't .. get /bitten/ anymore..." Uhg.

"Well hang that first and give me a hand?" Is what Sivaine meant. The hail is the size of wild apples, and liable to give anybeast who looks to the sky a black eye. "Here." She tosses one end of the rope up to him.

Magramba watches as the rope loops lazily over his branch, and skitters out to take it up. He goes back towards the trunk where the branch is thicker and gazes down, squinting to see the mouse in the darkness. "Make a little loopy in the end. Put your foot in it."

Sivaine grunts something like acknowledgement, head bent in the darkness while she works. "Got it," she calls after a moment.

"Ready?" Or not, 'cause he's pulling. Magramba sets his paws against the outer curve of the branch and begins to haul on the rope, paw over paw.

Darcy is getting bruised. Her arms curl around herself, shoulders hunched, waiting for Harper to reappear.

Magramba believes Sivaine should be about halfway up by now. "Are you about halfway?"

Good thing she is! Against all probability, Sivaine actually curls a hint of an amused smile as she's helped up the tree, and squints up at Magramba. "Just about," she decides.

"Good." Magramba pulls a little more energetically, now that the end is in sight. Siv should be at the top very shortly.

Harper reappears back outside with both packs hanging from his arms... There are spiders skittering over them and a couple on his arms. He /throws/ the packs on the floor and scrabbles at his arms furiously, throwing the spiders off. He shudders all over. "Darcy get under a tree!" he barks out. And then he's unstrapping the tent from the back of his pack and quickly unrolling it, freeing the short poles that make up its support. He's fumbling, but at least there's the moon.

Darcy hunkers and steps back. She grabs her hood, pulls it up - not much help - and then heads resolutely toward Harper. As he starts to set up the poles she shakes out the tarp, readying it to be pulled up and over when he's done with the structure. Hail hammers down on them both.

There's muttering from above them as Sivaine pulls herself onto the branch and nestles herself into the crook where limb meets trunk, tucking her knees up and pulling her hood down over her ears, then lashes herself loosely in place with the rope. Magramba has disappeared further up the alder to find a spot of his own. And the spider that was clinging to her cloak? Drops.

Harper finally gets the poles set. It's no easy task with the hail battering down, numbing his fingers to the work. "Toss it over, I'll secure it on this side!" he orders.

Darcy gives little flinching motions more or less the whole time. She tosses the tarp over when Harper directs her to, waiting for him to catch that side, then kneels and starts to fasten down her side of it. She fumbles and hesitates a few times, never having done this before.

Harper is quick to secure his and comes around to Darcy's side, his paws covering hers and moving them aside. He quickly finishes. "Under cover," he points. Flinches.

Darcy is quick to obey this direction, and scrambles into the tent. She huddles in the middle, then edges further back to give Harper space to come inside as well.

Harper quickly scrambles under. He hunches. The tent is /not/ large. It's just enough to provide cover and not much else. "... You okay?" he mutters.

Darcy nods. Her shoulders are tense and she curls her arms around her bent-up knees. "Yeah. .. yeah." Her muzzle scrunches up. "Bit?"

"S'fine," he mutters. And then he's half-lunging out the tent flap, dragging their packs in. They crowd the entrance, but they also block more of the hail. "... Your bedroll's still inside," he apologizes. Unlashes his, handing it over to her.

Darcy shakes her head. One hand comes up and pushes it back toward him. "I unleashed the madness.. I'm not taking your bedroll."

"Darcy just take it." His eyes are closed.

Darcy's ears pin and she takes it, just holding it, looking at him.

Darcy says, "... Harper I'm /really/ sorry."

"It's not your fault," Harper points out. He sounds a little pained. He digs into his pack, pulling out his cloak. He drapes it over himself, curling over onto his side. His paw presses against his inner thigh.

Darcy just sits there, holding the roll. "... can I please look at that bite?"

Harper's face pulls in a grimace. "I'm not going t'hear the end of it 'til I let you, am I?"

The tiniest little smile finds its way across Darcy's muzzle. "... no. No you're not."