ya_assemble | [LN] Send in the clowns

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[LN] Send in the clowns

This was a nightmare. Except it wasn't a nightmare. Tino had pinched himself no less than eight times and still hadn't woken up. Eight times!

The last thing he remembered, he was hanging out with his friends, sitting on the small wall at the beach. Then he'd lost consciousness and woken up in a strange, dark scary warehouse. One that seemed to be full of carnival equipment. Here and there an ominous sight peeped out from the shadows, illuminated by beams of light through the holes in the warehouse roof. A carousel horse with faded paint here, a rusted sign with a teddy bear face on it there.

"Okay, I'm ready to wake up now!" he called out. "Totally ready to wake up. Ready to commit to that waking up thing like a champ and give it one hundred and ten percent."

He wasn't waking up.

"Waking up in three, two, one...go!" Nope. "Annnd...go!"

That wasn't working. Why wasn't it working?!

Tino turned around to find a clown statue staring at him and let out a high-pitched screech of terror and ran away from it, nearly tripping over his own feet as he did it, until he was a good distance away.

"Where's the way out? Come on come on come on..."

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There's a visible wince when Tino starts whimpering - like, this kid couldn't be much older than Jinora, even if that old. She's just really overwhelmed with sympathy for Tino at this point, between over how young he is and being able to identify with him a bit on the whole strangulation bit.

She lowers her hands to her legs, trying to keep herself calm and stable. "I... honestly don't know what it was, other than some kind of monster. It's gone now, though. It apparently really doesn't like light," she explains.

"Just try and breathe, alright?" Her tone is full of concern and worry - she kinda knows the feeling, between Amon and Zaheer's plots.

In between the squeaky whimper noises, he tried to calm his breathing down but it wasn't happening anytime soon.

He shook his head. "It's going - to take a while. The hyperventilation - train - has left the station," he choked out. "And it's not - coming back - anytime soon."

He knew how his bouts of panic worked. He was in paper bag territory now with no paper bag to breathe into in sight. Because he didn't have one, instead he rocked in place slightly, bloody hands held up like he would've clutched at his head if they weren't hurting.

"You're not going to hurt me?" he asked, daring to hope, his voice sounding pretty pitiful.

The comment stirred up enough of a grin in her that she couldn't help the sides of her mouth curling up and a stifled chuckle. He was at least in good enough of a state of mind to make jokes! That was a good sign.

"I'm not going to hurt you, no. I was trying to heal you when you woke up," she says, then gestures toward his bare foot. "I hope I did alright - I'm no healer, but what I know, I learned from one of the best." She pauses, then leans over on one arm like she's going to start crawling. "Is it okay if I come over there?"

"Meep."

The noise came out of him unconsciously. At the moment, he didn't want anyone to be near him right now and the thought made him even more anxious, but she was the only friendly face nearby at the moment and he just really, really, really wanted to think nothing else was going to hurt him anymore. That was far more likely if he had someone big and strong and capable of shooting off magical lights from her fingers willing to protect him.

He also had about a million and one questions that, as far as he knew, only she could answer.

"I guess it's okay," he gasped out in between his panicky breaths. "But if you try - to strangle me - I will bite you. And not to wound, oh no - no no no - to maim."

His jaw'd had a lot of exercise due to his mother's terrible cooking. In terms of pounds per inch, he figured had to be somewhat close to being able to bite at least like a bear. Maybe even a crocodile!

Edited 2015-04-20 08:50 (UTC)

There's a nod, and then Korra starts to slowly move over. Part of her wanted to laugh again, but his tone made her give that comment the seriousness it seemed to be asking for.

She moved carefully enough that it takes several seconds for each step. "You don't have to worry about that. The only reason I'd be touching your neck is to heal it, but..." At this point, she moves into a sitting position, though leaves some space between them. "I think I'll hold off on that. I know it can be really scary to have someone try to help right after something like that happening," she explains, hugging her knees close, and keeping her tone low and calm. "Like, everyone says it's for the best to let them help. And you know that, but... You just don't feel comfortable with it, you know? So sometimes it's best to just wait until you're ready to get that help."

"I'm just - I'm really, really, really - confused right now?" he said, more tears plopping down his face as he sat there. "Because I was at home - and now I'm here - and then there was that thing - and you did the thing - with your hands -"

To his foot. Which he prodded at thoughtfully.

It was perfectly healed when he was pretty sure that'd been the thing that had been cut up the most.

His voice was still hitched because the panic wasn't going away anytime soon, and it was going to take a very long time for his breath to go back to normal but in between the little gasps, his tone was more dry than terrified now when he spoke.

"That you managed to do - because clearly - you are a witch." He added quickly, "Not that I'm judging. My mom is - into new age stuff. Like crystals - and whale songs - and getting me - to talk about - my feelings."

"That's pretty understandable, being confused about it. It's pretty weird, to say the least." She tilts her head a bit at the witch thing, and hesitantly reaches out to pat him on the shoulder. "Well. I don't know what a witch is, but if you want to think of it like that, that's fine," she says, giving him a small smile.

"I can explain what's going on, but I think it'd be best to wait a little while, until you're calmer."

"The magic glowy thing. Can you do that - to my hands?"

His foot seemed okay enough. Whatever she'd done, it did seem to have helped. And before she even did the magic thing to his foot she'd protected him. He was trying to trust that that all meant she was some kind of good witch, here to keep him from getting eaten by zomblins.

"Because they hurt."

He held out his bloody hands to her like one would hold them out to some kind of potentially ravenous animal, clearly doing it as an experimental exercise to see if she was really helping or planned to use the glowy magic to do something crazy like swap his hands with his ears or something.

The glass had almost worked its way all the way out on its own but the cuts hadn't closed up yet.

"I can," she says with a smile, pulling her hand from his shoulder and starting some slow motions, pulling what water she could from where she dropped it earlier. "It's called 'waterbending' where I'm from. It might hurt a little bit while I do it, since it just speeds up the natural healing process, but it shouldn't for long. I'll need a bit more water, though..." she says, making a bit of a face. It fades quickly, and with one hand she makes pulling motions toward Tino, taking water from his tears, and adding it to the mass she had already gathered.

The mass is split in two, and it envelops his hands - then the glowing starts. Her focus is on both of their hands for the moment, though she keeps peeking toward his face for signs of pain.

Tino winced as the shards worked their way out of his skin but now he was trusting enough to make an effort to not pull his hands away.

When they were healed, he stared at them, marveling at how thorough a job she'd done.

Then he pulled up the blood-smeared hems of his cargo shorts to expose his bloody knees.

"Okay, magic me up."

Despite the glib words, the fact he was still clearly in the midst of what was pretty much a panic attack and the way he trembled as he tried to stay still made it clear he was still pretty terrified - and therefore, was making a pretty valiant effort to keep trusting Korra.

Korra says nothing, merely nodding as she turns the water to his knees. Her quiet is mostly out of a need to focus and keep this going as smoothly as she can manage in favor of not unsettling Tino any more. Once it was done, she started to pull the collected water back to her water skin - though slowly, just in case he had anything else he wanted bent back into health.

Okay. Okay. It was all or nothing, do or die.

Either he trusted her or he didn't. He was going to try the trust thing. Trusting her so far had fixed his hands and his knobby knees.

"Can you - can you do my neck, too?" He pointed to his neck. "I sound like I - swallowed my grandpa. He used to smoke - three packs a day."

His voice was very froggy right now and his throat hurt. It felt like it was swelling more and more and that made it hurt even worse the longer it went on.

Swallowing once, Korra nods. "Yeah, if you're sure," she says hesitantly. "If you need me to stop, let me know, alright?"

She draws a breath, then does it again, and she looks about as nervous as he does, but goes to it once she clenches her jaw, trying her best to keep her hands in view. Just a little bit, and he'll be golden...

He closed his eyes for that part, maybe a little too tightly. When she was done, he cleared his throat and reached his hand up to his neck.

No swelling, bruising all gone - like it'd never happened.

Except it had happened and it was still scary and he had no idea what to do with all the fear at the moment, especially since he still didn't know what was going on. The fact that she was helping him just like she promised made him want to cry more for some reason.

Maybe because he felt safe enough to?

"Oh no, there go the faucets."

Now he was crying openly and couldn't stop. And it definitely wasn't helping with that panicked breathing.

Once again, Korra drops her water as Tino breaks down, and she feels the fight-or-flight kicking in again, and operates on instinct. And that instinct is to reach out and hug him, one arm around his shoulders and the other hand on the back of his head. "It's alright," she whispers, almost as much to try and convince herself as it was to him.

After a few moments, she speaks again. "How about we get out of this place? It's honestly pretty creepy in here."

He was fine with the hugging. He was okay with good witch hugs. In fact, he practically clung to her like he was drowning and she was a lifesaver.

He wanted his mom so badly right now.

"Yes, please," he squeaked. "I'd like a - a less creepy place - to curl up - in a fetal position - on the ground."

He wanted to get away from the creepy broken down rides, some of which had the worst thing in all of existence on them: clowns.

He didn't know where she was taking him but he was a little kid and she was older and right now he was fine with not thinking about anything at all and doing what the only remotely friendly grown up available told him to do.

Korra tightened her grip on him for a few moments, feeling a flutter of warmth that she's pretty sure she probably elicited out of Tenzin more than a few times.

"Alright. It's a little bit strange how we get there, but I promise that it's safe," she says, reaching into her pocket for a snowglobe. She tosses it behind Tino, opening up the portal to Santa's Workshop.

"I don't know if you have magic portals where you come from, but, well. We've got them here. And friends on the other side of them. One who I think can help you better than I can in some aspects," she explains.

"Whatever you say, magic lady," he huffed out, standing up and reaching for her hand.

He didn't know where he was going or what was going on and for all he knew she was spiriting him off to feed him to the rest of her coven, but he didn't know what else to do. If he ran away, that thing might get him again.

And so far she'd helped him with her weird glowy hands. And her hugs. He just had to try trusting that the swirling vortex of possible doom really did lead to somewhere safe and that it was meant to be just as helpful as the glowy hands had been.

She chuckles, taking his hand with a grin. "I guess I probably should've introduced myself before this, huh? I'm Korra." She starts off toward the portal in an easy manner, letting Tino take his own pace in following along. "If something bad happens, you come find me, and I'll do what I can to fix it."

Once they're through, Korra shudders - it was still really weird-feeling, compared to the portals to the Spirit World. She flags down a passing-by elf, and squats down. "Hey, can you go find Tadashi for me? Tell him there's a new arrival that needs his help." There's a quick salute, and the elf is off, quick as can be.

"I'm Tino," he said meekly as they stepped through. "Tino Tonitini."

Whup, that sure was a magic portal. And he was -

"Meeble."

That was not a good squeak.

"Mib. Greb."

Those were not good high-pitched, incoherent noises.

It was Santa's workshop. He was in Santa's workshop. There were elves and Bigfoot - Bigfeet? Yetis? Making toys in Santa's workshop. While there was a part of Tino that was absolutely delighted to be in Santa's workshop (namely the part of him that wanted to trick or treat until he was thirty-five) seeing such a grand and majestic magical place only hammered the absolutely insane reality of his situation home.

"Why am I in Santa's Workshop in another dimension?!" he cried out, letting go of Korra's hand to flail wildly.

He knew it had to be another dimension because a) he read comic books, he knew how this business worked, b) his world definitely didn't have magic, and c) Santa wasn't real. He knew where his mom hid the presents.

So clearly he had been dragged into some other dimension where magic and Santa and zombie-goblins were real. And while the idea of being dragged into an adventure in another dimension was appealing as a fantasy, it was terrifying as reality.

"That is it! I am done! I am done with these - these interdimensional hijinks! Done, I say!" Tino declared dramatically. "And I'm commandeering this bear!"

He grabbed a teddy bear from a passing yeti, which looked at him with bewilderment as he dropped to the ground with it. Then he huddled up in a little ball, hugging it like it was the only thing tethering him to reality, shaking and hyperventilating.

Edited 2015-04-20 22:27 (UTC)

...hoo boy.

On one hand, this was not good; but on the other hand, he was taking it somewhat better than the whole choking zombie-gomblin ordeal. Korra reaches behind her head, rubbing it for a moment and just waving off the robbed yeti. She sighs quietly before stooping down - there's only so much 'do what Tenzin would do' that she could muster here. Her specialty was punching problems, and that didn't work here.

She reaches out, tentatively putting a (hopefully) comforting hand on his shoulder, and glancing around. Hopefully Tadashi wasn't too far off.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," Tadashi said, stepping carefully around the elf that was trying to drag him somewhere by the cuff of his jeans. "You know, this would actually go faster if you just-- Oh."

Apparently, they'd arrived. The elf relinquished Tadashi's ankle and Tadashi beat feet for the freaked out kid curled up on the floor. He didn't even need his magical scanning powers to recognize the signs of a panic attack.

"Hey, kiddo," he said in his most soothing voice, kneeling down next to the kid so that he wasn't towering over him. He flapped a hand at the concerned Yeti and elves to indicate that they should go to literally anything other than stand there and stare. "I know this whole situation is pretty freaky. I had a bit of a panic too, when I arrived. But I promise that you're safe here, all right? Nothing here is going to hurt you."

He held out his hands so the kid could see that they were empty, and grab one if he needed to. Tadashi wasn't going to touch him first of course, since that might make his panic attack even worse.

"I need you to purse your lips like you're blowing out a candle, all right?" he said soothingly. "Like this," and he pursed his own lips, breathing in deeply and slowly, at a rate the kid could match with his much smaller lungs.

For a moment, he stared up at Tadashi suspiciously, but then he remembered that Korra had said she was taking him to someone who'd be able to help him better. His eyes flicked over to her, then back at Tadashi. She saved him, right? She said she was taking him to someone that could help. She wouldn't have saved him just to lie about that.

"My friends - usually get me - a paper bag," he gasped out.

But his mom did breathing exercises with him like this if he got himself worked up. She said they were better because the lack of oxygen with the paper bag method could make things worse.

So he pursed his lips and tried to breathe like the man was showing him and then timidly reached out a small hand to grasp the man's hand with a vicelike grip, trying to ground himself as he did the breathing, trying to focus on the man's hand and Korra's hand on his shoulder. For a moment, he seemed to be doing better but then one of the many toys whizzing around the shop swooped down near them and he let out a little squeak.

"Is there somewhere - that's not - here?" he huffed out, hoping the man would understand what he meant by that.

He wanted to be somewhere quiet. There was just...stuff! Toys and clanking and sawing and whizzing. He was pretty sure it'd be super cool to look at when he wasn't freaking out but right now it wasn't helping. It was like trying to calm down in the middle of a shop class.

There's immense, visible relief when Korra sees Tadashi coming. She stands idly by, keeping a hand on Tino until she sees reason to pull it back - either from him or Tadashi. Once Tino asks about another place, she perks up. "Yeah, there's lots of places to go here," she answers, then looks expectantly at Tadashi for a moment, as if asking if he had any ideas.

"A paper bag isn't a good idea at this altitude," Tadashi said. "If you'd prefer, you can also try breathing through one nostril, or we could do belly breathing."

Tadashi glanced back the way he'd come and nodded. "Yeah, there are quieter places. Would it be okay if one of us picked you up?"

[LN] Send in the clowns

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