( max opens her eyes to the startling dark, one that swallows up her immediate scream. the pinpoint of light may have been the only anchor in this moment of impossible suspension, but as soon as a hand breaks the surface and grasps at her arms, max thrashes and yells and there is the pinprick of cold air on skin, grass and dirt under knobby knees and the rest of the introductions are downed out in the intensity of her disbelief and bone-rattling fear.

it is a blur, all the way to the settlement, until the very moment she's let back down from the carriage.

rowan march is right — there are questions. or there should be. she should have them, should be spurred to action, as they've done so many times before now. but all she'd done was stare at him as if she expected him to sprout extra heads and limbs. given the last twenty four hours, it isn't an unreasonable expectation.

max remembers the endless expanse of a terrible sky, stretched bloody and sinuous. she remembers eleven; she remembers the hope she tried so hard to convince herself of keeping and how visceral the loss of it felt. she remembers how her bones sounded when they snapped and the sickening calm of the end promised by a monster. she was sure she died. it was so real.

but this feels real too. the clothes feel warm, the air smells distinctly unlike hawkins. people talk to her, and although she brushes past them too quick — rude, she's sure — she hears little through the ringing in her ears.

there's a moment where she finds a tree, just a little ways out from the settlement, knees drawn up to her chin as she stares ahead of her. she just needs a moment. she's fine — she'll be fine. she just needs to stop thinking about everything that was happening. and then she can figure it all out — if this is real, or fake. but it doesn't help that the last thing she remembers is vecna's face. )

( begrudgingly, max was starting to become more and more convinced that this was real. after the messy, unpracticed and fumbled way of stuffing the inner turmoil somewhere to the back of her mind, she was finally starting to accept it.

whatever that meant.

because this meant — that she had been pulled from certain death right from under vecna, and into what was basically one of munson's dungeon and dragons games, which is crazy that she was paying enough attention to lucas' descriptions to even make the connection.

wandering through a place feeling entirely like an outside wasn't an unfamiliar feeling. harder to ignore how absolutely insane she felt, staring at the faces of every passer-by trying to spot a familiar one, and max hadn't realized how much she'd want that between trying to convince herself she didn't need it. it was the sort of false bravado of a teen way over her head.

still, she finds herself amidst the offerings to a god she can't pronounce, overhearing conversations of high magic and bountiful harvest and on and on and she can't help the twist of disbelief scrunching her nose as she turns to look at the nearest person to ask, incredulous: ) — wait, they're really not kidding about the whole learning magic crap?

( alright. she might not have been wanting to admit it, but something about this place was kind of cool.

maybe it was the fact that there was nothing immediately trying to kill her, or end the world as they knew it. maybe it was impossible not to feel a little bit swept up in the dangling trinkets and the ding of music.

she's at the stalls, though a particular potion shop catches her eye. namely, she holds a specific vial a little too long, something that promises the easing of nightmares. but — she has no money, and she's not sure how the locals would react to her trying to steal it. not her first go-to regardless, but a single night of decent sleep was a hell of a promise. slowly, she sets it back. )