if travel is searching and home has been found

[caballero]

Who: Bruce Wayne, Poison Ivy, and some unwelcome guests.
What: Refugees from the Spatters raids are found by the Militia. The Militia is found by someone else.
Where: Barrackham, the forests. Later, the moonpools.
When: A bit after Ivy's arrival.
Notes: /DEVOURS THE LOG COMM
Warnings: Violence and police brutality against minors, xenophobia, mind control/coercion references, will edit more as needed. (DC characters bring the party.)

In the lingering aftermath of the raids in the Spatters, many people refused to return - they were afraid, mostly, and with good reason; but plenty had nowhere to return to now, either, with their property damaged beyond use, or deemed condemned by the city. Homes full of books, clothes, toys, heirlooms, lives - taped over and written off, with no regard for the souls that lived inside. Word amongst the refugees (what other word do they have?) is that the Militia isn't done with them - they're still hunting down those who fled, because vagrancy is a crime. It's not enough, it'll never be enough, until hey are forever silent. Gone.

In the woods south of the city, but not quire the farmlands, some refugees have finally stopped moving. They have children, and lives, and they have to try to move on, even in small degrees. They erect tents, begin to work as they can - one mother, Sharial, does laundry for a farmer while her children practice reading amongst the trees, with her sisters. It's uncomfortable and it's dirty, but the weather's better than in the Spatters, and when she comes home from a day at work and sees her children playing, scales shining, tails fat, she feels almost okay.

The day she comes home and her sister meets her halfway, sobbing, dress torn, it's another story. Her heart sinks, and she hears commotion in the distance already through the trees (the locals, the Elves, always hide in such silence when outsiders come). Through the sound of low voices and cruel laughter, she hears her youngest son scream.

Comments

[mayqueen]

It's been about a week since Ivy arrived, and she's still on the move, never spending more than half a night in one place. It's in her nature to set down roots; she knows eventually she'll return to Sobek Croix and maybe undertake a slightly more focused investigation of the bipedal life there, but for the time being she hasn't spoken to anyone she hasn't practically tripped over and that suits her perfectly.

She's aware of there being Something Else in the Barrackham woods, a native populace, but they seem benign - at least in that they're leaving her to her own devices if not actively hiding from her. Eventually though, the trees thin out a little and she comes across the tents, and whatever lives in the woods is clearly staying out of their way as much as they are hers.

She watches, unseen in the canopy, for about a day, and establishes a few things. They're on the run; their home is gone; they respect the forest; there are young children here. They're family. And though the older ones try to stay calm for the children, a thread of truth emerges: they believe with the absoluteness of truth that whatever they're hiding from has the power to not simply kill them, all of them, but erase them completely from whatever twisted narrative this city is telling.

Very few things beyond the Green would stir Ivy to action; endangerment of children is a large one. But Ivy is not a hero. Whoever their pursuers are, they aren't in the forest (yet), and these people seem conscious enough of the danger they're in to stay on the move. She sleeps fitfully in the branches overnight, then leaves them to their own devices.

But she still feels troubled. Uneasy.

She heads east during the day, and if she maintains a decent surveillance distance - enough for the trees to let her know if something's happening at the camp - she doesn't let herself acknowledge it. By the time she sees the two women meet on the forest path, she already knows something's wrong. But it's the scream that stirs her into action. The trees know her now, they've talked at length, and when she looks to them for help they reach out with stirring branches and ripples of movement to push her arrow-swift through the canopy, back towards the camp.