bakerstreet | the picture prompt meme

the picture prompt meme

I — Comment with your character.
II — Others will leave a picture (or two, or three...)
III — Reply to them with a setting based on the picture.

IV — Link to any pictures that are NSFW, please.
V — Be aware that this meme will likely be image-heavy. That's kind of the point.

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[ Nine months. Chise had been in that terrible cold for nine months before chance and circumstance either righted what wrongs had been done to her - or created a new set of problems. The way it had explained to before this all began was that Sith holocrons were ancient repositories of knowledge of the Dark side of the Force capable of containing this information for millennia. As what happened with anything with age they tended to get bit...funny. Even willful if sentience could be applied to them. Possessing this new information, Chise was less than thrilled to learn that even though she and Ren technically weren't Sith the Supreme Leader was still having them investigate the ruins of an old Temple in wild space. Where it concerned the likes of Snoke, Chise learned to keep her down and bear with it. Even if it was being hauled onto a shuttle that frightened here every time during take up and carted half across the known galaxy to a crumbling old forest moon covered in weeds and ghosts.

The last thing any of them had anticipated was for Chise to have gone ballistic on the return mission. Lashing out like a cornered animal when Snoke had casually dropped that with the holocron in his possession it was time for Ren to begin the final stages of his training - with Chise to be locked away under guard in the meantime. It was a terrible, suffocating thing to tap into so much raw power that surrounded her. Deeper, not wider She remembered before she was drowning in all that directionless, consuming power. It and everything around her faded away. Spilling like water between her fingers. ]

Do you think he'll wake up today?

[ That had been nearing two weeks ago. To her, it was almost comical to be put in the same situation the last time she overexerted herself only now in reverse. Whatever she had done within the depths of Snoke's citadel...it had taken all of her surrounding energy. For a flickering moment she had become almost a wound in the Force. Ren was the first and maybe only casualty when Chise found themselves splayed out several yards off from a little English countryside home she never thought she would see again. As with the last time with Chise, Ren had been plunged into an unnatural sleep that had now lasted for several days. It took some convincing through all the reunions for Elias to do two things: Not kill Ren, and also save him.

Chise traveled out to the forest grove where they had last kept her. Seeing Kylo Ren sleeping seemingly peacefully in the cradle of an old oak tree's wide roots. A family of curious cotton flies surrounded him. Above, in the tall branches she could see Elias in his quadrupedal form stalking along the heavy leaves of summer. Her teacher was not pleased with his new addition and made it known at every turn, but Chise remained convinced of one thing: Ren had been her only friend, albiet reluctantly, in that terrible place. She would do the same for him, and take him into their home. Elias hemming and hawing over the issue be damned.

Crouching next to the low hanging bed of roots padded with thick summer grasses and a blanket Silky quilted, Chise watched for any sign Ren would wake up. She could see his eyes flutter and her heart began to race - just in time to see something jump out of the corner of her eye. ]

Elias - don't!

[ Chise hurled herself practically over Ren when Elias came down at the base of the tree. Grown back to full, semi-human form with his terrible bone maw clacking and hissing menacingly. She could keep him at bay but it would help immensely if Ren didn't cause a scene once he was awake. ]

Edited 2016-04-18 01:55 (UTC)

[Everything had exploded within his hands. It just took a few seconds, and his whole world had flipped and turned inside out, leaving him scrambling for something to hold onto.]

[It wasn't supposed to happen like this. It was a mission well done, in his opinion (even if he had wasted more time trying to calm Chise down after the bumpy ride than not). They fulfilled the Supreme Leader's requirements, and it was time for them to move onto the final phase of training. Except...only he was moving on. Chise wasn't. Nine months ago, he wouldn't have had any feelings about it. Why should he? He was Snoke's apprentice, after all. But now, strangely, there was a squirming feeling, like a worm twisting in his chest - discomfort. Hesitance. He didn't like it. She was going to be torn away from him, after he had spent so long training her, just like that? But he could tell that this was just another test. He'd have to stay strong, somehow push down the feelings, the emotions, and-]

[And then, just like that, his apprentice had torn the world asunder.]

[He could feel it, even before the world shifted around him - it made his hair stand up in edge, his eyes water, his blood vessels aching under his skin. This wasn't a simple dabbling of the Force, like testing the water with one's toes, but something like grabbing the reins of a creature far more vast than you could imagine. He had stretched out a hand to her, tried to scream for her to stop, but she had turned to him-]

[her eyes were so deep and vast and cold and he's falling he's falling there's no end to this or her or anything he's just pulled in like she's a black hole, hungry like a void, he's screaming and he hears the sound beating against his skull, again, again, again, like it wants to be let out but HE CAN'T LET IT OUT her hand is reaching towards her as they move and for an instant he swears he sees infinity]

[And then, blissfully, there was darkness.]

[He doesn't dream...or does he? He doesn't know. Images come to his mind in a feverish rush. He feels as if he's running, but his feet are not taking him anywhere. There are voices he tries to follow, but they lead him nowhere. He sees forests, snow-topped mountains, the angry red of a laser cutting through the darkness of space, flowers woven through hair, lava curling up in waves on a bleak red shore. He understands everything but understands nothing. Is he dead? He doesn't know. It's strange, how death was so close to him at all times, and yet how he never imagined what it would really feel like...]

[Suddenly, he's able to pick out one voice from the multitude. It's warm and bright - despite his inclinations to turn away, he finds himself following it. It seems strong. It can lead the way out. He moves after it, feeling his arms and legs start to move again-]

[And his eyes open, only to see something large and hideous towering over him.]

[He screams, clambering backward on the bed of roots, unable to push himself up to his feet as he keeps slipping. His eyes are wide open, his lips drawn back in a feral growl.]

What is this?! Who are you?! [His hand moves instantly to his side, grasping vainly for the lightsaber he thinks is there. It's not there.]

[He suddenly notices that someone is leaning against him, shielding him from the frightening thing before him. The red hair...he blinks, confused, involuntarily reaching down a hand to grasp her shoulder]

...Chise? [He says, muscles still tense. What is this? The last thing he remembered...his memories...He clutches his head, trying desperately to recall what had just happened before he got into this mess.]

What the kriff is going on?!

[ She had nightmares about that night in the citadel and likely would for a long while. That cavernous energy ripping inside her - turning into something she wasn't. Elias once told her she had to love this world or risk tearing it apart. She believed him then, and reflected on that more deeply after coming very close to doing just that. It was still up in the air what had spared both her and Ren that night. By all rights, she should be dead and Ren nothing but a husk for all that she had siphoned from both him and Snoke. Unless at the very end she finally did go wider instead of deeper.

Chise had wiled away the last several days drifting in out of the fugue that was her own recovery period. Holding a vigil under a dead old oak tree to time her recuperation with that of Ren's own. The tree was charmed to exist between the notice of mundane humans while also out from under the noses of overly curious neighbors. When she wasn't bringing up a practically apoplectic Elias and the rest of the concerned house up to speed with the last nine months she had been out here. It was usually only her or in Ruth's company after Elias begrudgingly carried him out here. Uncanny, isn't it? She told Ruth one afternoon as they sat sentinel beside the sleeping form. Chise rolling cotton fly wool into a featherdown where she sat on the raised trunk. Trying to adjust to some semblance of normality while working out what she was going to do with Ren once he recovered. He was dangerous, she wasn't naive to that fact. And had his own agenda and life that she unwittingly tore him away from. Turnabout was fair play, but that was Snoke's doing and she long suspected he had been just as awful to Ren in his own way.

Ruth took to him only because of the sympathetic bond as a familiar he shared with Chise. That the man laying there dreamless and at their mercy looked suspiciously like his human guise only momentarily piqued his curiosity. Silky was already making clothes for him but Chise suspected this was only because he was now technically a new member of the household. Elias was the hard sell on this one.

In hindsight, she should have expected this reaction. Even after pleading his case Elias was if nothing else, shockingly territorial and not at all amused with a powerful new mage being dropped on his doorstep. He was more wet behind the ears than appearances suggest, Chise argued, and was in sore need of a teacher better than the likes of the one that took her. Took them both, in a way really. Though Ren didn't need to know that part. When Elias came snarling and hissing at Ren more animal than man, Chise had to act quickly. This was obviously a scare tactic, and she wasn't impressed. She does however feel the tips of her ears stain red when Ren wakes up and decides to swear. Chise has to remind herself that's not an expletive Elias would be familiar with. ]

Elias! [ She put herself between them and stared down Elias until he shifted back to something more human-shaped. She noted his cowl over his face as his way of sulking. ] Please [ She said, softer this time. ] Trust me on this.

[ Even from behind the cowl over his face the gaze coming from behind it as more of sensation than anything directed at Ren made even her blood freeze in her veins. He departed but Chise hadn't let up or loosed the know white knuckle grip she had on Ren's shoulders. ]

My first teacher. [ Chise turned to Ren, voice and posture relaxing with a long - well deserved exhale of pure relief. She didn't know how else to introduce Elias, or broach the subject of what was surely an alarming first encounter. ]

You're okay, you- you've been out for days so you're not going to like the walk home. Remember when it happened to me the first time? I'm sorry. The recovery period always hurts the first time.

[ Brushing dirt and dead leaves from her pleated skirt and the tunic Ren had assigned her that she still wore for some reason she rose. After nine months she was more than familiar with Ren's pride and didn't offer her hand to help him stand even though he could have used it. ]

All of your things are back at the house. I'll explain on the way - I promise.

[ She was worried, frightened even that he would reject her now. Yet the thought of leading through the garden - back to that house, her home. It was a risk worth taking. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. ]

Edited (I accidentally a word or five) 2016-04-18 05:45 (UTC)

[He watches as she talks down the beast, heart beating incessantly against his chest. Of course, he isn't afraid, that's stupid, it's not like, for a brief moment, he could imagine that jaw of teeth clamping down on his neck, snapping his spine in one go. Kylo Ren cannot be afraid of anything. And yet, he doesn't even allow himself to say anything else until he sees it leave.]

...I don't like it. [By "it", he means her teacher, of course. He says it with a sneer. First he had disliked the beast just because it had successfully scared him, now he hates it because it was apparently her teacher before him. Right. Like he could believe that she had been taught by such a thing.]

[He pushes himself up, his legs feeling like jelly as he gets his bearings. Chise is here. They're...what is this, a forest? But this isn't like the forest of Starkiller Base, cold and devoid of life, no, this is quite the opposite. He squints at the trees, practically feeling the life and energy of the place humming incessantly in his ears. He frowns. He could do without all of this, thank you very much. The light's too bright for his eyes, the colors are too... colorful, where are the cold halls he's so used to, without unnecessary noises and hues?]

[And...the presence of the Supreme Leader is gone. He's just starting to remember what had happened. What he had wanted Ren to do, and what Chise had....done...]

[Ren stops in place, a muted sense of horror crossing his face. He turns to Chise. No. No, she didn't do what he was remembering she did, she couldn't have possibly done that to the Supreme Leader, and take him away like this, and...]

Chise...what did you do? [He says, voice suddenly hoarse as a keen sense of dread suddenly starts to rise in his chest. He shouldn't be here. She shouldn't have done what she did. His hands twitch at his sides - he almost looks like a caught animal that has realized it has woken up in a cage.] Chise...please tell me you didn't...you couldn't...why...what in the world did you DO?!

[He looks like he's on the verge of panic - it's not every day when you wake up on another world having effectively burned any kind of bridge that was between you and your former mentor, after all.]

Edited (cold and devoid of life: the repeatening) 2016-04-22 03:28 (UTC)

[ Chise's hand shrinks behind her back as if he had smacked it away. Ren didn't hit her. Never much did resort to physical threats in their nine months of forced cooperation. Held her by the wrist until the tips of her fingers went white or racked unseen hands through the recesses of her mind, sure. Ren wasn't someone even in his more agreeable moods she would dare accuse of gentleness even after he was deigned to call her by name. However, there was a reason she shrank around people in the Order like Hux but not him. A line he never crossed that kept her from abandoning him.

There was too much of her behind those cold and terribly sad eyes. As if when Snoke had stolen her away she had been put in front of a dark mirror. What would have happened in the someone other than Elias bought her that night. Part of her believed Ren came around to realizing that, too. ]

I did- [ Her voice falters and then it goes as sharp as she can whet her tongue. ] I did what anyone would when they're scared. I called for help.

[ Chise knew in some primordial, instinctual sort of way she cast a stone in the Force itself and the ripples carried far. ]

Ren, listen. There's always a chance what I've done can be undone, but right now you're angry with me for saving us from the person that kept us in the same cage. I was never angry with you when Snoke took me. I was never angry with you when you killed your father or almost tried to replace me. Just right now you need to listen to me.

[ Chise looks up and sees the beginnings of twilight staining the treeline in a pale orange. When she looks back at Ren the green in her eyes has dulled with the lowering sun. She motions to a narrow space in the dense greenwood. ]

Down two kilometers is a house just over an embankment. It's not a big house but it's big enough for one more. There is a man waiting for us who will help you and it's alright if you're afraid of Elias. It's alright because I know him. Just as you are mine - and I am yours.

[ Something moves in the underbrush. Catty-cornered to them a dog larger than most with pitch black fur that seemed to move against the breeze stalked out into the field. Chise turned and started to follow the dog down the narrow path. Now speaking over her shoulder.

She was a terribly kind girl in ways that took her apart piece by piece. Elias taught her not to be afraid. That at the end of the day she was the same sort of creature as the ones that hunted her - and that she had teeth same as them. Ren had taught her where the throat was. And how far to sink those teeth. ]

Here you're a very powerful mage but one that doesn't know the rules of this world. There are things scarier than Elias hiding in the trees and they're drawn to people like you and me. By nightfall you should really come to the house but I know I can't tell you what to do.

[ Chise and the massive hound disappeared between the trees. Only the small family off curious cotton flies and the songbirds in the branches above there to keep Ren company now. ]

I wouldn't call that cold - I'd say it was freezing. Casting out your apprentice like a babe in the woods. Whoever could have taught you to act in such a way?

[ Ren did. Elias would tell her from his armchair by the fireplace the moment she stepped through the threshold because of course he had been watching. ]

I trust him.

[ Chise fell into the nearest chair after setting a saucer of cream on the mantelpiece for Silky. Their silver mistress would have a lot on her hands in the coming days. All the energy drained from her bones. All that was left was to wait. ]

Edited 2016-04-26 04:22 (UTC)

[Of course he's angry. He hates it when things don't go as planned. He wants to be sure of his fate, not tossed in the sea like some piece of scrap, unsure where he'll end up. She did this. Now he feels unstable, and the only thing he can rely on, is, surprisingly, her. He opens his mouth, as if to snap out some retort...]

[But her words cut deep. It's true. She's never abandoned him. Everything that's happened, everything they've been though...and she's been at his side, always. Any other person would stoke a grudge against him in their soul. She didn't. He blinks, stepping back warily as a large dog comes from the woods. It doesn't attack him. Instead she moves to stand beside it, and he watches as they leave, her final words piercing through him like a needle into his skin. He's still too shocked to say much of anything, and by the time he gets back to his senses, she's already gone.]

[Whoever could have taught you to act in such a way? He sneers, though he feels the blood rush out of his cheeks. He knows the answer to that, of course he knows the answer to that. What right did she have to talk to him like that? He twists, finding a root and kicking it out of sheer annoyance. Of course it hurts. (At least that answers the question of this being a weird dream or not). He lets out a yelp, hopping in place, before shaking off the pain and turning his attention to the forest around him. A cotton fly flutters by, and he waves it off with a displeased hiss.]

[The whole world has been turned upside down. Now his apprentice knows everything, and he doesn't. She is the powerful one, and he just woke up from a coma. She has a teacher that isn't him, a teacher that has successfully scared him, even though he's loath to admit it. And now, he's stuck in a forest which apparently has "things that are drawn to people like you or me"? What is that supposed to mean?]

[He's seriously considering just turning and heading the other direction out of pure spite. Everything is ruined. He hates this, he hates all of this, he's about to kick another tree root, and-]

[There's a growl. He freezes in place. He doesn't see anything. Is it just him, or is the forest darker? His fingers again scramble for a lightsaber that isn't there. What's there? Is it hungry? Can he defend himself, in such a confused state? He doesn't want to die here, in a place that doesn't know his name, and maybe, okay, maybe it's best not to stay here. His heart thumping in his chest like a scared rabbit, he moves towards where she gestured before, hoping that he's remembering her directions correctly.]

[Sometime later, the door to the house slams open. Ren steps inside, his eyes wide and glistening, taking only a few seconds to look over the house's occupants before he makes a beeline to the fireplace. He sits down, pulling his knees to himself, and glares into the flames like it can offer him some solace for the terrible situation he's in.]

[He's here now. That counts, right?]

[ Divested of his hulking black cloak and imposing mask more snout-like than anything impinging on human characteristics the figure storming in on their doorstep was unmistakably - pathetically, very human. Chise did not startle when the door frame rattled on its hinges when Ren threw the door open with such force. So to speak. The teacup in her lap remained steady in her hands without a drop spilled over the sides as he came storming in and thunder and sound. Elias himself was still; the whole house was before at last Ren was curling up like something beaten and wounded by the fire. ]

Leave him alone. [ Chise said, mildly. The moment she saw Elias's hands tighten on the arms of his chair with the motion of someone ready to rise. Ren had seen enough - been through enough that he could go another night without the likes of Elias scaring the wits out of him. In those nine months, Chise honed her observational skills. Learned her way around Ren's temper and his other idiosyncrasies. Knew more than enough when to leave well enough alone. Elias retired that night ill at ease with Chise following not long after with Ruth at her heel. ]

Goodnight. [ She said, for the first time.

Although the night there was one who kept Ren's uneasy company. Silky had tried so very hard in her stolid, quiet way to reach out to her newest charge and housemate. The quilted blanket she threw over his lanky shoulders never seemed to illicit a response, nor the sandwich and glass of milk she set beside him. It was nearly dawn before she had relented and gathered up the stale dishes to retreat into the kitchen. Breakfast was hot in the pan; eggs and rashers of bacon rousing the still sleeping members of the household out of bed. Chise was the first to rise as usual. Stepping out into the living room in a loose cotton gown rubbing her eyes. ]

Ren - Ren.

[ She said, quietly - unsure whether she was rousing an uneasy sleeper to wakefulness or dealing with his usual cranky self under the heavy blanket Silky draped him in. ]

Elias has a job for us.

[His sleep is restless, muscles tightening under the blanket as he mumbles, eyes darting behind his lids. Eventually, after a while, his body gives up it's useless fight to keep him on the edge of awakening, and lets him drop into complete dreamless sleep brought on by fried nerves and exhaustion.]

[The smell that reaches his nose is strange. The voice rowsing him to wakefulness is stranger. He grits his teeth and murmurs, ready to tell off some newbie officer for daring to invade his quarters, how DARE he enter his room like this, this is a violation of the HIGHEST protocol and SUPREME LEADER SNOKE would hear about-]

[This?]

[This...isn't his quarters. He snorts, jolting his head backward as his eyes meet a very unfamiliar room. It takes him a few seconds for the memory to jumpstart in his brain, giving him context for the warm and bright home he's found himself in.]

[Right. He's stuck here now. He's not back there.]

Chise? [He groans, lifting a gloved hand to brush back his hair, bags under his eyes noticeable. His attention latches onto her like an anchor, as she is the only thing familiar enough to keep himself from leaping to his feet like a panicked animal.] What...Elias? [Elias. Elias. The...thing. Skull thing. Yeah.]

What about it? [He says, with a sneer, glancing down with some surprise at the blanket on him.] What does it want?

Edited 2016-06-26 02:41 (UTC)

He, [ Chise gently reminded him. ] Wants you gone but I managed to talk that down to getting you adjusted to this world before finding our way out.

[ She notices anxiety as readily as she would her own face in a mirror. The patch quilt blanket that Ren left slumped off his shoulders she quickly gather. Wrapping around him again with the same, insistent fervor of the the Silky. ]

Ren, you awoke one the eve of Samhain.

[ With no preamble, Chise wrapped her arms around the shoulders of her friend as though he were a buoy to a drowning man in a storm. Tighter and tighter she gripped him until her would realize. ]

If I can't teach you how to find a familiar now, our Good Neighbors might take you away.

["Maybe he should be the one who needs to be gone", he wants to gripe, but he keeps his mouth shut, lips only pursed in annoyance. He feels like a stranger in this home. Well, technically, he is a stranger in this home. He casts his weary gaze over the interior once more, and nothing is to his liking. It's too warm. Too homey. He doesn't belong here, dark as he thinks he is.]

What's that? [He says, finally turning back to her, his dark eyes poring into her.] What are you talking about? Neighbors? Familiars?

[He clutches the blanket closer to himself unconsciously. Nothing makes sense, and he hates it. He just wants all this confusion to disappear so he can feel in control again.]

Explain.

Edited 2017-02-06 04:51 (UTC)

You know what it feels like.

[ What it really, truly feels like; it seems so insignificant Ren never seemed to register.The pain of other doesn't' connect; no matter how she broadcasted their emotional state. ]

That it hurts... [ She brings his face to her's- ] Then you can make it stop. The queen demands new blood...

Edited 2017-02-06 08:24 (UTC)

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the picture prompt meme

chise | ancient magus bride | ota

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THE AU OF THE AU: well well how the turn tables

proverb: don't bring tempermental goth manchildren back to your house

Keep your friends close and your problematic faves closer

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