[OOM: In dreams.]

[mnt_raph]

INT. TENT THAT DREAMS OF BEING A STUDIO APARTMENT
The scene opens on the interior of Raph's tent as it exists at present, the scene is a desolate one. The camera pans through the space, starting with the front door flap and moving counter-clockwise through the space. As it travels through the living room/sitting area there is a brief pause to take in the one shred of magic still left on the roof: the Raph-shaped clean spot that claims the left-most cushion of the couch. The tour continues over the breakfast bar and through the galley kitchen, before coming to a halt on the remnants of what was once a bed.

Suddenly the alarm clock on the bedside table sputters to life, and the moonlight which bathes the room is augmented by the blue blinking display. The camera pivots to take in the face of the clock which blinks the time: 1:22 am. When it pans back to the bed proper, the bed is not only whole but currently occupied as well. A shirtless Human RAPHAEL lays on his back, his eyes closed.

Comments

[the_lioness]

"You're the one wearing the pants, Raph," she says, which is no sort of answer at all. Perhaps she simply delights in reminding him. Still scanning the crowd, she flicks the yellow feather in his hat. "And I use that term loosely."

A faint, mischievous smile curves her lips, and she neatly pulls two pints of ale from the back of a table and presses one into his hand.

"Two questions. In all seriousness, do you know where we are? And do you feel as if someone is observing our progress?"

She feels twitchy.

[mnt_raph]

Oh that's it! There will be no idle flicking of what Raph has just now decided is a Manly Hat! Why? Because if he's got to wear it, then it's damn well manly. He'd never wear anything if it wasn't. Got it?

...

And just to prove how manly it is, he's taking it off in a huff with the hand that isn't currently holding a pint of ale.

"Cute. Real freakin' cute."

He takes a swig from the pint, and is pleasantly surprised by how not-bad it is.

"I ain't feelin' it, but if you want we can take out that little squirrley guy over there in the corner. Send a message that we ain't to be messed with."

Raph gestures with his hat at the balding man sitting with his back to the room at large.

[the_lioness]

"Careful," Alanna drawls, keeping an amused eye on the hat. "There's no need to crush such an elegant accoutrement. A good hat is the basis of any solid wardrobe, our deportment master used to say."

The teasing light leaves her eyes as they are drawn to the man in the corner. She takes a halfhearted sip and deposits her drink on a passing tray.

Hopefully the person to whom it is served won't mind a little missing.

"Why does he keep his back to everyone else?"

That's just weird.

[mnt_raph]

"Your deportment master needs deporting, if you ask me."

Raph downs the rest of his drink, while he considers the guy...sizing him up.

"He's trying hard not to be seen. You can't catch someone's eye easily if you ain't lookin' at'em. Plus, lookit how he's dressed..."

Oh crap, Alanna's starting to rub off on him.

"...all dark durin' a festival? Dude's up to somethin', an' it ain't makin' merry."

[the_lioness]

"On that we are agreed," is her dry response, though all of her attention is now on the other man.

"More to the point, he's in modern clothing amidst a sea of pantaloons, bell sleeves and," she spares Raph a quick glance, "feathered hats. There's something wrong about all this."

Her fingers curl around her emberstone. "Perhaps we should alert whoever's in charge of the festival."

Yeah, right. That's why she winks and motions for him to go left, while she goes right.

[mnt_raph]

He grins right back.

"Oh yeah, that's totally what I was thinkin'. I'll just, you know, check over here."

Raph hands his glass to the first impressionable person he meets, giving them a good solid Ninja Smile as he does so. It's the kind of smile that looks pasted on-over-something-far-more-menacing yay! So clearly the guy takes the glass and is happy to have it.

"Thanks, kid."

Says the ninja as he passes, making his way around the room. He keeps his eyes on the man, but stops short of obvious confrontation, and looks across the room for Alanna.

[the_lioness]

The knight finds herself saddled with an inquisitive eight-year-old boy. When she doesn't slow her pace across the room and around tables, he lengthens his stride to keep up.

"Hey, that looks like a real sword."

"That's because it is."

"Cool. Mom wouldn't let me have a real sword. Why aren't you in a dress?"

"I like to be different."

"Can I hold your sword?"

"Maybe later," Alanna mumbles, moving toward the man like a cat. The kid is called away by his mom, and she nods once, then takes a position behind the incongruous stranger. A sidelong look at Raph, and she clears her throat.

[mnt_raph]

The little man doesn't look up.
Not when Alanna clears her throat or when Raph, a few moments later, does the same.

It's like...he didn't hear them at all. So Raph tries a more direct approach.

"Yo, buddy. We're talkin' to you."

Slowly the man's arms raise, as if he's about to invoke a great power.
Raph takes a half step back...stoopid mages.

"I have made a little space for the cheese slices."

[the_lioness]

An indrawn breath signals Alanna's own concern that the man plans to use magic against them, and she's already racing her own hands to fend off an attack when he speaks.

"Don't even..." she trails off, face twisting into a look that clearly says: WTF?

Cheese slices. She can only assume that's code for dangerous explosives, or perhaps 'Hello, I'm insane, so please leave me to contemplate my corner in peace.'

"I don't see any cheese, do you, Raph?"

[mnt_raph]

Raph isn't close enough to see much of anything by this point, but when the little man in the modern dress leans up and smiles at him, Raph does catch a glimpse of what appear to be undressed Kraft Singles.

"Uh...Alanna?"

His eyes widen in a panic. He's seen the cheese! He can't look away. He wonders if in seven days he will die...unless he can convince someone else to see the cheese.

"...Alanna!"

[the_lioness]

If that is the case, then they are both doomed. By the time he repeats her name, Alanna has also seen the cheese, although the man's expression has her much more uneasy.

She's glad he's smiling at Raph.

"I see it," she admits. "The cheese. At least I think it is cheese, but I've never seen cheese that thin or quite that color. Have you sliced it with a fine knife?"

Head bobbing like a bar of soap in bathwater, the man turns his unnerving smile on Alanna and she makes a face in return.

"Who ARE you?"

[mnt_raph]

"I wear the cheese. It does not wear me."

In that mild voice lurks an evil that has no name. An evil that is artificially colored, and has a luster all its own.

Raph takes another step back. His face is a mask of horror. In a flash his weapons are drawn.

"It's not real. It's all artificial. They say eight ounces of milk, but...nothing from nature is that color."

[the_lioness]

"Raph?" Alanna's voice has gone high, a pitch that might suggest, were she boy, that she had just been kicked in a sensitive area. "I apologize for anything I said about your choice in clothing."

He wears the cheese?

Wouldn't that get messy and rather odiferous on sunny days?

"Okay, I suggest you come outside with us before my friend completely loses his cool and cubes your precious bovine byproduct," she suggests, one hand on her sword and the other reaching for the strange little man. But as soon as her fingers touch his sleeve, she jerks backwards, rubbing her face. It's like someone has plastered a layer of plastic like cheese over her nose and mouth, or maybe she just can't catch her breath. Either way, her sword is soon drawn and pointing menacingly in the same direction as Raph's weapons. "Move."

[mnt_raph]

Sadly, Alanna's apology falls on deaf ears,

The man, this cheese man, doesn't rise. Not right away. He turns to the direction Alanna's sword points to, that smile still plastered to his face.

Raph flinches when the man looks at him.

"GO! Go on, move! Don't make'er tell you twice!"

Slowly, methodically, the cheese slices are gathered up and the man stands.
He's not a large man by any stretch of the word, and yet his presence seems to fill the room. Or at least to Raph it does.

[the_lioness]

No one around them seems to notice anything out of the ordinary. In her peripheral vision, Alanna spies the young boy chatting with his mother in an animated fashion as they leave the dining area, probably going on and on about how he wants a real sword. Well, who wouldn't? Alanna certainly appears grateful for the strong steel and sharp edge of her own at the moment.

"You really don't want to make him repeat himself." A grim smile. "He's not blessed with my sweet and generous temperament."

A disposition which, with a quick nudge from the flat of her sword, Alanna is quick to demonstrate. Her eyes are wide and slightly wild, as if she's afraid he might turn and unleash hell upon them at any moment, and she growls low in her throat as the man deftly arranges the cheese slices in his palm. He grins and tucks a slice into the pocket of his brown suit.

"That's just eerie," she shudders, shoving him in front of Raph, toward an open tent flap.

[mnt_raph]

He turns and begins exiting the tent just as directed to do so.

Raph doesn't let him out of his sight.

"Do you think he's made of worms? I think he's made of worms. I hate worm people. A lot. Why is no one else in here not freaked out by the guy made of worms with the hypnotic cheese?"

[the_lioness]

"I don't know about worms, but I definitely don't think he's human," Alanna mutters, blinking in the bright sunshine.

The man keeps walking, and although he's saying something else about cheese, it's largely lost in the noise of the crowd. When they are back behind a row of merchant tents, Alanna darts forward and traps him between them.

"We want answers, Mister. This," she waves her hand around, eyes on the man's face, "isn't supposed to be here, and judging by your clothes neither are you."

What that says about Raph, the narration isn't sure.

"That officially makes you a person of interest, if you catch my meaning."

"Cheese," the little man says, laughing quietly.

[mnt_raph]

"I swear that if you mention cheese one more freakin' time, it'll be the last freakin' think you ever freakin' do."

To say that Raph is a bit tense at the moment would be something akin to saying the ocean is wet, or maybe that the sky is blue.

"We're on to you an' your shenanigans. So just cut the crap and spill it."

[the_lioness]

"Cheese," he repeats, smile very nearly gleeful, "The cheese is all around you."

Well aware that her friend is reaching the edge of his frayed rope, Alanna snaps out an arm, wraps her fingers in the lapels of the cheese man's coat and jerks him forward, glaring.

"Look. I'm doing you a favor. Has it not gotten through your thick head that you don't want him taking a swing at you? Just tell us who you are and WHY you are here, and we'll deal with you fairly."

She lets go, but the little man is off-balance and stumbles backward, right into Raph.

[mnt_raph]

Oh he didn't...
Oh he did. This is not going to go well.

"That's it."

Says a dangerously cool Raph as the Cheese Man not only backs into him, but steps on his toes in the process.

Raph grabs the man's shoulder, whipping him around before punching him square in the face. Imagine, if you will, the sound an apple would make if one threw it against a brick wall. Yeah, it's something like that.

And yet, in spite of his efforts, the Cheese man seems to remain unharmed. He continues to smile calmly. He even goes so far as to reach into his jacket pockets, retrieving the cheese he had stored there, and waves two slices at Raph while intoning:

"Behold, the power of cheese."

[the_lioness]

The power of cheese?

No matter how you slice it, *cough* that sounds ominous. She's studied enough magic to know that some mages use a focus to channel their power, and while she's never heard of anyone using cheese, it might not be outside the realm of possibility. Somewhere. It's time to get rid of the cheese.

Plus, that punch would've knocked out an average person. The little man is clearly up to no good.

Face expressionless, she grabs one arm and lands a punch just under his ribs, then throws the cheese man over her leg. He hits the ground with a dull thump. One slice of cheese flops to the dirt beside his feet; the other is dangling between Alanna's thumb and forefinger. She examines it with a disgusted look and says, "Ew."