clouded.

tziporah tallulah turner. scout. strength of the mount, go into the rider, strength of the beast, go into the man.

[finnegan-again]

"Right," Patrick remembered, "Clem’s normal isn’t she? Eer, not magical." Even now that was still his normal. It was a hard thing to shake. "I remember when Professor Sprout turned up at my house and told me about everything. Pretty sure I laughed in her face. So you're doing great, Clem."

He pulled a face. "Not yet. Haven't seen a garage or a stable. Not even a bike rack."

[scoutstampede]

scout's mouth pressed together as she thought of the best way to answer that while her niece was still in earshot. she shrugged her shoulders. "so far, but so was I." there had been moments already when scout noticed wonderful and unbelievable things crop up near the girl. something that suggested clementine was more like her aunt than just the attitude. "yeah, the stable didn't have horses either way." she sighed.

[hauntedscreams]

🔧

wren wished clem didn't have to be a part of all of this - whatever this even was. hell, he didn't even want to be here in some haunted mansion with no way out. at least, back in the orphanage, he could run away when he wanted. but, the alternative likely would have been clem left alone and that would have likely been worse. at least here, she was with people who cared about her and would watch over her. "i'm sorry, too. for what it is worth, sometimes, adults lie thinking they are protecting you, sometimes they are wrong and sometimes, they are right. you know your aunt, though, and you know that she would do anything to keep you safe." he had wished, back when he had been a kid that he had someone that had cared about him enough to lie. "how about -as long as it is okay with your aunt- we make a deal; me and you get out from under here and then you can ask us questions about whatever may be going through your mind right now and we will do our best to answer them. would that be okay?" he crawled back from underneath the table, sparing a glance at scout to silently apologize for likely overstepping, before leaning down to hold a hand out under the table for clem to take, hoping she took him up on his offer.

[scoutstampede]

how did you explain to a kid whose last connection to their parents is what memories they have that even if you did try to tell them the truth of everything going on in the magic world that a worker from the ministry of magic would show up on the doorstep to erase that memory, and perhaps more, from their mind before bringing you up on charges about breaking the statue of secrecy? it was fucking complicated. clem didn't take wren's hand either. instead, she grit her teeth again and rolled her eyes. 'no. whatever. I don't want to talk about it.' she stubbornly doubled down, and scout still couldn't blame her. hell, it wasn't all that different from how scout first handled it herself. "like I said, we'll need some time." the still-masked woman offered wren a hand up instead and nodded a head over her shoulder to silently suggest they talk a bit out of earshot from her niece while the little one... coped. "but hey, you tried and at least she didn't kick you. twice." scout blew out a stream of air that ended in a rather pathetic and dejected raspberry. "did you ever have to learn?" she asked after a minute. "or were you aware of magic?"

[chelseaperetti]

[scoutstampede]

@hauntedscreams

[hauntedscreams]

🔧

wren chuckled, dropping his pool stick onto the table without taking a shot. as much as he loved their back-and-forth, there were far more important things, or people, at play here. he moved around the table, hand skirting across her lower back, before leaning in to whisper in her ear. "i think i'll wait to play you again until we can make the stakes a little more interesting. a game of strip pool when the club is closed, maybe?" he made sure no little ears under the table could hear him, offering scout a wink, before lowering himself to the ground and crawling under the table where clem had been hiding out. "can i stay down here with you? your aunt scares me almost as much as this house and i think i need a protector."

[scoutstampede]

it didn't seem fair. wren shouldn't be allowed to be that good looking, charming, a bit of a bad boy, and good with kids. it certainly had scout feeling some type of way about him. honestly, his hand could have lingered on her back a little bit longer. "don't push your luck." she warned somewhat playfully, but also a bit in earnest as he took up a spot next to scout's upset niece. clementine had her arms wrapped under her knees and chin hunched down on top of them. she was frowning. 'why don't you use your wand?' so this was clem's first time experiencing magic in a way that could no longer be denied or hidden. scout sighed. for about a year now, she'd been fairly convinced that clementine wasn't actually muggle. however, it wasn't something that they were really supposed to address about until it was time to go to school. there were laws and things about it, and if scout happened to be wrong about it... well, what was she going to do? obliviate clem? that just did not feel like a real option. 'you're both liars!' scout winced. she had been trying to come up with a better plan on how to let her know about all of this, but... plans changed. who could plan for a haunted masquerade kidnapping anyway? "I said I'm sorry, kid."

[finnegan-again]

"In your defense, Pen's more talented than most people I know." Except for Carolina. He was pretty sure Lena was the most talented, beautiful person in the world. Patrick glanced down at where Clem was indeed hiding and gave her a wave. "Nice to see ya, Clem. Shey was asking for you the other day."

[scoutstampede]

"sorry. she isn't really talking to us right now." scout explained. "it has been a.... weird day for her. just give her some space." when she had tucked clem into sleep the night before, magic had still been a bedtime story. it had been a wish or a fantasy, but now, it was reality, and her aunt was a liar. sulking seemed like a fair enough coping mechanism to such a wildly implausible paradigm shift. "what are the odds you've managed to track down a getaway ride already?"

[hauntedscreams]

🔧

wren's mouth suddenly felt parched as he watched scout line up for the break shot. he had to admit, out of all of these random costumes, hers was certainly the best. he could barely focus on anything else, which might be for the best, considering focusing on anything else would mean trying to endlessly find a way out of this house of mazes. "darlin', i think it is safe to say you have rendered me speechless tonight." he smirked, swinging his pool stick up and moving to line up a shot.

[scoutstampede]

scout laughed. "and yet, here you are still yammering." a little leg stuck out from beneath the table and thwacked against scout's shin hard enough to make her yelp and hop back. "son of a b-! quit that." clem said nothing. she hadn't since they arrived. "on second thought, maybe you shouldn't say out loud what you were just thinking." scout straightened back up. her tone was teasing, but did very little to mask the obvious concern about her niece's attitude.

[finnegan-again]

"I was just thinking you and Pen would make a mean doubles team." Patrick said. At least figuring out the gang in all these masks wasn't too hard. They all walked and sounded the same after all. "Did Clem get dragged here with you, too? I think they only got Shey because he was asleep on my chest. He's in my room, he's scared of all the masks."

[scoutstampede]

"she is a lot more talented than I am. honestly, I've found that if you just hit them hard enough, it intimidates a lot of people into thinking that you are better at this thing than you really are, and do you really reckon I would be this calm if I did not know where my niece was right now?" scout nodded her head beneath the table where a girl with white mask snapped a picture on a camera in her hands. "she's coping with a few things. ow-! don't kick me!"

[scoutstampede]

where; haunted mansion, billiards room with; open

the pool cue snapped quickly against the cue ball to break and scatter the rest of the balls around the table in a flurry of loud cracks and clatters. scout hoisted the stick across her shoulders and casually, but somewhat intimidatingly, rested with her arms slung over either end. "no, go on. say what you were going to say then."

[scoutstampede]

ace.

[hauntedscreams]

scoutstampede​:

“where we going?”

🔧

"anywhere you want -" wren leaned down closer to her, "my place isn't far, though." he whispered above the noise of the casino, but only just loud enough for her to hear as he drew back a fraction to look at her.

[scoutstampede]

scout took a moment and glanced at the door while considering that offer of his. she seemed to chew on it before eventually relenting. "yeah, alright." she slid a couple fingers into the front pockets of his pants and tugged him towards her. "but I gotta pick up clem at ten."

[scoutstampede]

xkilljxy​

@scoutstampede

[RELUCTANT ALLIES] a starter where our muses, who do not get along (or are enemies), are forced to team up

“Can we get this over with.” Penny was irritated. It didn’t really have anything to do with Scout specifically, though she wasn’t going to pretend that she was thrilled with the company either. It felt like a leash, working with someone who she had never worked with before forced her to slow down, forced her to pay attention to someone else, caused her to lose focus on her target. Penny had been working with this crew for a long time. She knew how to work with them. She didn’t know how to work with someone outside. “Do you remember the goal? I distract, you grab, we go.”

-

“I have no idea what the goal is. I have no idea how I got wrangled into this, and I just thought I was playing pool tonight. now I’m here.” how had she gotten here? “but I can handle a rodeo first time and everything so maybe go over the highlights with me just one more time so we’re on the same page.” was this marco’s fault? it felt like marco’s fault. scout really had to stop letting that guy talk her into anything. “or the general idea as a whole. summary style. I’ll catch on.”

[scoutstampede]

hauntedscreams​

who: scout ( @scoutstampede )

“let’s get out of here.”

-

“where we going?”

[wells-hannah]

JO AND ALEX GREY’S ANATOMY 9.11 | “The End Is the Beginning Is the End”

[xavecamour]

[ @scoutstampede ]

[losthavenmine]

[scoutstampede]

@xavecamour

[scoutstampede]

xavecamour​

“well I don’t want to call it a wage, because then I would have to call george my boss.” marco frowned for a moment, his eyes slowly widening as though something had dawned on him but his mind couldn’t catch up quick enough. “if I call it an allowance, does that make george my dad?” nervous laughter followed the question and he shook his head. marco was well past the point of adoption; it was how he fell in with the original crew in the first place. or, he pondered, perhaps he wasn’t. he’d lost real track of his age somewhere in his teens. “as much as I’m sure clem would enjoy having me as a big brother, and as much as I would love to call you ‘mum’ every day, which I still might actually, now that the thought is stuck in my head, although if george is my dad… we’d have to switch and wren would have to be my dad, right?” he winked cheekily. “I cannot remember where my train of thought was going, I ‘ave freaked myself out, like, up here.” he tapped two fingers to his temple. “what else do you like?”

-

although scout was self-employed, and even hired a few hands around the back part of the ranch, but there were worse bosses she could imagine than the old king of the underground, george calloway. he was far more considerate than monstrous which was a rare trait for people keeping the shady positions he did. “I bet george would make a good daddy.” the shit eating grin ran clean across her face. it was so fun when marco didn’t quite realize the hole he was digging himself until it was too late. “then again, I bet I wouldn’t mind calling wren daddy a few times too.” she laughed then proceeded to laugh harder at his own dawning realization. “I obviously like bad decisions, bad nicknames, and-” scout shook her head. “-bad boys, god help me. and you?”

[scoutstampede]

xavecamour​

“yer gamble ‘ere.” george teased gently, before listening to the defeatist tone of scout’s voice. “sounds like yer got a bit o’ a conundrum on yer ‘ands, I’m sorry.” he leaned back in his chair for a moment, watching her face fall and decided to put her out of her misery. “polaroid camera? orange straps, braided though slightly chewed, peeling horsey sticker on one side?”

-

“oy! but I win more than lose. don’t I? the bookie oughta know that.” she shoved his shoulder back playfully. honestly, scout half expected him to call her out on how much time she spent with wren instead. she was a little relieved to not face that quite yet, but was then immediately left unsettled by his unperturbed expression. her eyes narrowed as it clicked into place. “son of a bitch. do you have that camera? please tell me you have that camera.”

[matt-casey]

[scoutstampede]

@xkilljxy​