[ continuation of this thread ]

    The stench of rot and a sinking feeling in his gut accompanied him back to the swamp. Pig's blood soaked the front of his apparition, staining his front legs up to his elbows with the evidence of his night's activities -- and yet, said night remained a blur to him. He could faintly remember the other's word of a gathering, but what for? How did he end up trudging through a jungle? What had he done? What you had to do. A painful buzz ached in his mind, dulling his senses as he blankly stared at someone else's paws dragging him to someone else's home. His home. No, he didn't have a home, he never had a home in five hundred years. With momentary clarity, Beck twisted his head to peer over his shoulder, eyes failing to recognize the looming shape of Tanglewood's library behind him. The sky, however, was flooded with the familiar light of breaking morning. The poltergeist turned, not pausing to acknowledge the slight bump of something against a blood-crusted shoulder with the jerky movement. His jaws were locked around the burnt and torn scruff of his newest trophy, in all its decomposed glory. The severed head was scarcely recognizable upon first glance. Closer inspection would reveal its identity as the prior body once belonging to their ally's captain herself. Naturally, Beck took his old friend's head to reside with him until time transformed it to mere dust. Now, she had to stay.

    But first, he needed to return to safety. The simple urge comprised the only thought remaining in his trance-like state, driving his legs to stiffly walk forward on an instinctive path. A path traversing right through the town square. Yet the little feline slipped into catatonia, thoughts erased by the entity hissing in his ear to do this, do that. He numbly limped forward, blind to the stirring world around him even as his lifeless eyes fixated on nothing ahead. Goldenluxury's head swung from his teeth plainly for all to see; Beck may have been present on the outskirts of the town square, but in truth, he was gone.

    An obstacle situated itself in the little ghost's path. He raised his head in faux attention, yet his glossy eyes neglected to peer up into Crow's green ones. His well-worn name failed to stir any response more than a subtle twitch of his crooked nose. The name "Beck" didn't mean anything, truthfully. The identity was already lost to time, stowed away in the reaper's pocket without an epitaph for the next century to gaze upon.

    Somewhere deep within his hazed psyche, the entity recognized the vocalized string of syllables as a prompt. A question? Maybe. His useless breathing stilled as he scavenged an empty mind for the correct reaction. The tang of copper lingered in his nose and mouth -- oh, they were concerned about blood. His thoughts dragged slowly, like defeated beasts neck-deep in quicksand. If the obstacle identified his latest stain as real blood, he would never be able to get home. Beck stiffly opened his jaws, unknowingly releasing the scruff of the severed head as he merely gawked for a moment, distracted by a memorized film clip. "Corn syrup," he raspily mumbled. The infamous words of Billy Loomis were all that managed to spill past bruised lips, stolen from the silver screen. Corn syrup meant the blood plastering his front was fake; it meant there was nothing to worry about. It would persuade the obstacle into leaving.

    The young poltergeist recovered the captain's head without further explanation, movement unnatural and forced as he moved a shaky paw to sidestep past both Moth and Crow. Undoubtedly, he would not succeed in limping further forward as the moment of faint lucidity slipped from his grasp, rendering his senses too muddled to prevent those present from intervening.

    [ feel free to powerplay -- beck's catatonic and won't respond to anything anyway ]