season 2 episode 3

somewhere between the boulders the world glitched. yeah, just like in a video game or something. the metaphorical (now literal?) pixels of the world twitched and shifted in hue and color, distorting the air and land in rhythmical spasms. whatever things that were living in the amorphous bubble that the glitch occupied felt numb and tingly as their nerves jostled in rhythm with the glitching. of course, it was terribly uncomfortable (though not dangerous), so whatever creatures that lived in the affected area soon escaped (if they could, poor plants).

somewhere between the convulsions of air and space, a quadrupedal figure laying on its side eventually glitched into view, bit by bit: a leg appearing where an ear should be, then reverting to its normal position, then jumping to where it's tail should be, and so on. the creature (a puma, by the looks of it), eventually stabilized. then the world around it stabilized. everything went back to normal, save that there was now a long-limbed, gray-toned cougar with a GPS collar where there once was not.

benry woke up. his head, as always, was fuzzy, but it seemed fuzzier than normal. he blinked, once, twice. his vision glitched (those more metaphorically than literal) until it settled on the unfamiliar landscape. “whhhhhhhahh?” he drawled flatly.
the staff team luvs u

^^

The new High King didn't mean to travel very far from home today - but his adventurous soul brought him to the mountainy terrain just beyond Elysium's borders. It was only a day or so travel from home and so he wouldn't be long - maybe he could bring back something exotic for @Ira to eat from the plains just below their mountains. Maybe some new food than their usual meals would entice her to eat.

What he didn't realize was the smell in this area. The smell of feline that most of his kind would avoid like the plague - Hieronymous on the other hand just strolled through the rocky terrain without a care in the world. His eyes and ears ever vigilant as always in new lands, but he wasn't avoiding this place as he normally would had he known what might be lurking within. 

Instead what he caught was with his eyes. He felt nothing other some mental fuzz as he squinted into the sight he saw. Something strange. A feline all over the place in its own body, a Frankenstein looking thing for a while or maybe was it Cronenberg... something looked terrifying about this that was for certain. A little out of sorts himself, Hieronymous didn't know what to do as he felt dizzy of all things, carefully looking over himself as if he too was puzzled - was he?

No, but it did feel like it was contagious.

^^
the staff team luvs u

he generally didn't know where the hell he was, but this was different somehow. more literal than relative. the land was expansive, but the boulders and stones helped to break up the emptiness, giving some stability to his ever shifting, ever unclear mind.

he didn't move his body as he looked around, only twisted and swiveled, flipping his head upside down and side to side as if he was an owl with fixed eyeballs rather than a cat. “oh.” was all he said upon seeing the wolf. he squinted at the lupine, the patterns of his fur making benry's head swirl and morph. “h-hey man,” he stood up, felt a part of him glitch out of existence for a second (not visually anymore, but he sure felt it) and stumbled, then got back on his feet. “you come round here, uhhhhh, often? lots? lotsa times? mmmmmiii dunnn, dun...” he lapsed off for a moment. “'dunno where i am.”
the staff team luvs u

^^

The High King didn't like this at all. The feeling as if his body was being torn apart without any blood being involved. It split his head to the point he shook it off as the only means of trying to right himself once more. Oof, whatever it was it was awful. Shaking off the feeling had only made him feel worse for a moment, focussing on the creature as they spoke as if that was his lifeline to make sense of anything.
 
“Uhhh naaawwwt - not here.” Honestly he might have drooled for a bit with the lack of sense he had for a moment. “What - what is happening? Stop doing that.” he took a few steps back to try and distance himself from what was happening. It was less now than before, but still alarming that he still felt off - more off than usual. 
 
“Who are you? What are you?” Feline was as far as he got with the appearance of this thing, but there was definitely more to it than that.

^^
the staff team luvs u

“oh,” he said simply. it was disappointing not to get any help, but he wasn't that put off by it. instead he continued to look around over his shoulder, barely noticing any of the glitching that still lingered. “doin what,” he asked, halting all movement.

“benry!” he said suddenly in response to the first question. he'd perked up at that, glad to find something solid and unchanging in all this mess. it took him a while to respond to the second; in fact, he'd almost forgotten the question. “big cat. puma. like the, theeeuhhhhh, athlete pants.”
the staff team luvs u

^^

The strange occurrence was happening less and less, it made him feel strange still but not enough to have him wanting to fall to the ground and begin foaming at the mouth. It took a moment of him gripping the earth with blackened claws to steady his woozy head and floating sensation of being two feet above the ground - but now he was able to take a breath after what felt like a lifetime of holding it.
 
“N-nevermind.” Even if he was very curious about what happened and how to avoid it from happening ever again - how would he explain this? How could he explain it? None of it made enough sense to explain and instead... the painted king wished he would just never encounter it again.

A puma - okay so he had heard of that before, but it was the other bit that had him tilting his head. “I've heard of pumas but never of athlete pants.” Athlete yes, but 'paaaaants'? What the heck was that?

^^
the staff team luvs u

he continued to hold the wolf with his blank stare, still processing everything that happened in his slow, methodical, simple way. He only let out a simple hmm when the wolf dropped the subject, shrugging it away with the many other things that 'were not important'.

“itsa, its...” he went quiet for a moment, staring off into space. “clothess.” which by no means explained anything to the wild canine.
the staff team luvs u

^^

Once more he shook off the feeling, hoping to get rid of this strange sensation that sent tingles all around his body. Prickling his fur up in every angle like some kind of electrical shock. Perhaps to some thrill seekers the sensation would have been pleasant, but to him - he did not seek thrills.

Narrowing seafoam eyes onto the creature, he found the feline to be strange. Beyond strange. “Uh huh.” The more the feline spoke the stranger he came off as. With strange lingo for things he couldn't understand. “Are you uhh... are you okay there?” Like in the head and stuff? Hiero would even toss a toe up to his head as if signalling what he meant.

^^
the staff team luvs u

he was no longer interested in the conversation, his attention turning back to the landscape, too foreign for him to ignore. he was ready to continue walking on, find out where he was, but the wolf spoke again. “you ok?” he turned the question back to him, squinting. “yer...yer not fromm here.” it was a declaration, not a question. benry looked at the wolf curiously, his attentions brought back.
the staff team luvs u

^^

The feline lost interest in this conversation, and frankly, Hieronymous was ready to walk away as well from all this. It didn’t feel right. Didn’t look right. And it sent every hair along his nape standing on edge. Telling him to leave before it screwed something up that he couldn’t fix.
 
They asked if he was okay… well, they seemed to have that same thought in mind. That or the feline was just mocking him now. “No, I’ve only been here longer than you have.” And that was unfortunately fairly common lately. Coming across new strangers just appearing out of nowhere. Coming from the waters, skies, and now thin air.
 
“Well… Uh, I’ll let you get acquainted with this place I suppose. You seem well enough —” even if they really shouldn’t be from the way he had seen this guy just materialize and fidget in abnormal ways. “Good day to you.”

^^

---

Hiero says "nope, I'm done" Exit!

— Total words: 151

the staff team luvs u

benry only hummed in response, a rare admission of acknowledgement from him. he still didn't know where this place was, or how it factored into the world he had just come from. the admission that he'd been here a while was important information, sure, but it didn't fit into the puzzle that was this world. it was just a puzzle piece, unconnected and floating in his rapidly shifting and fuzzy mind.

benry only blinked in response before muttering a farewell. “m'kay. bye.” the wolf passed from his mind almost entirely then. he continued peering perplexedly at the horizon until, picking a random direction, he trundled on.
the staff team luvs u