Park were all green space and happy children until someone set a mutant loose in them. And then came the running and the screaming.

What Mirror hated most about parks, honestly, was the lack of reflecting surfaces. For the number of times Central Park was the epicenter of something mutant-relate and dangerous, they really should have caught on and put up some mirrors or something. Panic rooms, really. Would have made the X-deputies' work a whole lot easier.

This one... whatever this one was, did not seem like a level one emergency, though. People were leaving the scene in droves and in a hurry, but there was no screaming yet, and almost as big a crowd was also moving in the opposite direction, phones out and everything. Did people never learn from disaster movies? No one was gonna care about your crappy phone footage anyway... Gawain swore under his breath as he tried to fight his way through the crowd. He couldn't really see what was going on, there were not enough mirrors around in the area, and he was not about to climb a damn tree...
... maybe he should have climbed a tree?...

Looking around, he noticed the horse. It was a large black horse, the king they used to pull carriages around the park. Without a saddle or a harness, alas. And looking kind of familiar...

With a glint of recognition in his eyes, Gawain changed course, and started working his way through the crowd to the horse.

Cheshire's day, in 10 dialogue snippets or less:

--

"Hey mister, awesome horse. Can I pet it?"

"Sure—WHAT THE HELL."

Whinny.

---

"Officer Browning to dispatch, we seem to have a feral horse in Central Park. No I'm not sure it's not just a mutant. Okay, I'll ask. Are you a--?"

Nom.

"…Dispatch, be advised that the horse just stole my hat. No I am not in pursuit--"

---

"AAAAAAH!"

"What IS that?"

"Run!"

---

Cheshire had no idea what was going on. It was a great feeling, wasn't it? Like the whole world had gone a little mad at the edges, and anything could happen. People were running and shouting, and the black mare was prancing in place, trying to get a look at what they were running from.

She shouldn't go over there. She had her legs straightened out now, and fine motor control was coming along nicely, but it she was going to have to get in some real in-the-field practice before she'd be able to shift out of this form. And if she couldn't shift out, she couldn't shift others, either. There went her usual hit-and-flee strategy in any fight. The smart thing to do would be to follow the running people.

But com'on. People were screaming.

Maybe just a peek?

She noticed the man coming towards her. Easy to spot, because A) horses had eyes on the side of their head, woo herbivores!, and B) he was the only other person not running that-a-way. Granted that he was going more perpendicular to the flow of the crowd, whereas she was facing straight towards whatever they were running from, but it made him interesting.

Interesting enough that she turned her big head around, shoved it towards his chest, and gave him a one-two sniff-over.

The cop's hat was still between her teeth, of course. The effect was largely one of a horse-y grin.

It might have been just an ordinary horse. It looked surprisingly calm in the midst of the crowd, and it was not bolting or running, which was unusual, because horses were not exactly the bravest or brightest creatures, no matter what cartoons liked to imply. Also, it had no saddle or harness on, and no owner around, as far as Gawain could tell. Which was another checkmark in the "possibly Calley" column.

As he practically swam up to the large animal, it turned its head towards him. Gawain paused. Even if Calley, the horse was surprisingly large. Aughisky large.
Also, it was chewing on a police hat.
With a grin.

That about decided it.

"Hey there!" Gawain grinned, patting the horse on the nose. In the absence of a fist, a fist bump was not really an option "Awesome timing. I was hoping to run into you again! Shall we see what the **** is going on?"

It was hard to mount a horse this large without a saddle or a harness, but this was ain't Gawain's first... ride on an aughisky. The knight grinned, using a nearby bench for a boost as he grabbed hold of the horse's man and hoisted himself up. The steed knew the drill.

"Alright, let's ride!"

>> "Hey there!"

So far, so enthusiastic. The mare whickered, and toss her head amiably at the nose patting. It was a nice wholeness moment, as the last of the tourists and regulars fled around them.

>> "Awesome timing. I was hoping to run into you again! Shall we see what the **** is going on?"

The first part of that made no sense. The last part? Complete sense. Okay, so clearly this guy was confusing her for some other mutant (…or some other horse?). The important thing was—

--Holy crap he was climbing on her. There were shoes scuffing her sides and jeans bunching up her hair and hands in her mane. The mare stood completely still. The stillness of shock. The stillness of you did not just.

Oh, but he had.


Cheshire turned her head so that one big eye was looking straight at him. She chewed a hat brim for one, two, three heartbeats. Her tail flicked a fly that wasn't there. Wasn't long enough to reach the very big fly sitting on her.

>> "Alright, let's ride!"

Was that how this was going to be. Her flanks twitched as she swung her head around to look deeper in the park. There as a nice paved path running straight in the direction they needed to go.

She pawed the ground, and took off into the trees next to it. The low-hanging trees.

Gawain pulled himself up onto the back of the large black horse. It was good to have his steed back. Calley had been in and out of the Mansion recently, but it was just like him to show up just in the moment when needed, and they had been working together, knight and aughisky, long enough to understand each other even without words. Gawain knew better than to try to kick Calley with his heels. The horse knew what to do.

Or maybe it didn't?...

"Whoa!" Gawain held on to the dark mane as the steed bolted, veered off the path, and ran straight into the trees. There was still a crowd in the path, so Gawain concluded that the horse's keen animal senses must have told him something about a shortcut, or a way with less pedestrians underfoot. But convenient or not, the new path taken was not exactly ideal for the rider...

"Hey!" Gawain protested, lying down along the horse's neck to avoid low-hanging branches scraping at his face "Dude, watch the branches..."

Watch the branches, huh? My, what sagacious advice. The black mare tilted her head back enough to catch her rider's eye, then swung her muzzle towards a —oh, that was perfect. She swung her nose towards a fallen tree and surged forwards.

Jumping as a horse was fun. Check out that height! Oh man, there wasn't another tree on the ground, but that didn't stop her from jumping again. And again. And woo max speed and JUMP—

--and canter-trot-walk to a halt, because the ground beneath her hooves had just gone from dirt and grass to paving stones. And not concrete or asphalt or something sane. Big ol' stones, like someone had…

The horse's head went up, and up.

…built an old school castle.

She knew this was a whole 'nother universe and everything, but she was pretty sure Central Park didn't have one of those. The horse looked back at her rider, whickered, and pointed her nose to the castle.

That your stop, buddy?

Calley was really out of practice with the riding stuff. Gawain could pull his head down in time to avoid branches, but when it came to jumping... well, that was not exactly comfortable.

"Ow! Hey!... Ow!"

Contrary to popular belief, riding a horse bareback was neither cool nor chill. It was mostly just painful. Gawain swore as they finally came to a halt, glad that the jumping was over. He would have to sign Calley up for a refreshing course on how to be a good steed. He seemed to have forgotten the basics.

And then there was a castle.

Gawain stared, mouth actually open, and the building in front of them. Last time he'd checked, there was no castle in Central Park (a glaring omission, arguably, but still). Calley neighed, shaking his head.

"Yeah, dude. We are definitely going in."

If there was a castle, who better (or more qualified) to explore it than an actual knight on an actual steed?

The castle wasn't one of those sunlit happy places with bustling servants and occasional musical numbers. It was more of the broken stone walls topped by ominous black birds, dark shadows, all-the-plants-have-thorns kind of places. It was like two roads diverged in Central Park, and they took the Certain Death route.

It was wicked cool.

Mr. Freeloader was still all high-and-mighty on her back, but Chess couldn't even care right now, because there was so much to do. She pranced a few feet into the courtyard, and lowered her nose down to a dark brownish-reddish smear on the cobbles. Was that--? Sniiiiiffff. Bloodstain, score! Man, that would have been a lot of blood.

And so was that spot over there.

And there.

And ooooh, check it out, that one had kind of a drag-line effect, like the victim had gotten pulled inside! Probably while clawing at the ground, judging by the… well, the claw marks. In the ground.

Caw, said one of the ominous black birds above the castle.

Whinny, said the black mare. Cheshire promptly started trotting for the entrance. She paused at the dark mysterious threshold just long enough to appreciate the splintered doors themselves: man, something really big must have broken those.

Where the blood stains went, that was where the party was at.

Calley paused to sniff at the ground. Gawain looked down and frowned deeply. The red stained looked fairly fresh, and there was no mistaking them for anything else but blood. Lots of it.

"That doesn't look good at all, does it." he grumbled. Whatever conjured up a castle out of nowhere, had also hurt people. And possibly abducted some, judging by the drag marks on the ground.

"We need to go in and see if anyone in there needs help" he decided, patting Calley on the neck. Good thing he was on deputy duty when he showed up to the scene. He would have hated to go in there unarmed. There was no time to waste, even with the cops and MRC probably already on the way.

"If things get hairy in there, go and get some reinforcements, okay?" he told the steed before they ventured inside. Calley was good in a fight, but a horse could only do so much.