You are a useless child, useless child without me to guide you

[ojisankink]

It’s very, very cold.

Barnaby can feel the urge to sneeze itching at the tip of his nose, interrupting his sleep. He tries to ignore it as best he can, but breathing in the cool air only makes it worse until he has no choice but to rub at his nose.

For a moment, when he tries to lift an arm to do just that and finds it pinned to his side, he panics, eyes shooting open. That’s when he notices he’s been tucked in. Not as well as his mom or Samantha would… it’s very sloppy, the blankets wrinkled and… adult sized clothing layered over top of them. Weird.

That’s when Barnaby finally gets a look at the room surrounding him and can deduce this is definitely not his house. It’s way too old, and dusty, even if it seems someone did their best tidying up the mess. There’s no sign of his toys or stuffed animals. His chemistry set isn’t on the dresser like it should be.

The only toy he seems to have is his little blue robot. He must have snuck it into bed again, even if Mom tried to stop him.

Before they went to bed… wherever this is.

After a few moments of fidgeting, Barnaby gets untangled from the sheets, nearly falling off the bed with a yelp before he regains his balance. Toy still clutched tightly in his hands, he looks down at himself, silently grateful that whoever put him to bed didn’t change him into pajamas, and heads out into the maze of hallways.

This place is huge… but Mom and Dad wouldn’t have gone far without him, right?

“Mom? Dad? Aunt Samantha?”

He calls for them a few times, until he remembers who his parents were making plans to visit with the night before. Is this really his house?

“Mr. Maverick? Anyone?”

Let Fly

[andthebat]

The castle courtyard might not be the safest place to be today.

Not because there are any particularly malignant forces on the loose, but because Bruce recently woke up in the castle with no idea of where he was or how he came to be there. And in order to get even a slightly better idea of where he is, he's attempting to fly around and scout out the area from above.

Unfortunately, Bruce at age fourteen is considerably less adept at flying than Bruce at age twenty-eight.

Every now and then someone in the courtyard might hear a loud fwump as Bruce miscalculates his flight path, gets hit by a strong gust of wind, or tries to dodge a bit of architecture or a tree, resulting in him toppling out of the air and landing heavily in a snowbank, sending flakes flying everywhere.

But to Bruce's credit, as heavy as the impacts might be he always stands up, shakes off the worst of the snow, and launches himself into the air again.

In the meantime, the courtyard is becoming increasingly littered with snow craters.