Ellie would like to be able to say this is the first time she's completely lost her shit in a forest, but that would be a flat out lie. But this isn't a familiar forest. It's not the wilderness in Jackson where she hunts sometimes. It's not the terrifying jungle of Seattle that she'll never go back to. It's not even the freezing mountain woods of Colorado, somewhere she hopes she'll never see again. This is...different. She fights her way out of the vines, forgetting in her panic to be quiet, not draw attention. Who the hell knows what's out here in these woods? But panic doesn't give a shit if there's infected out there, or yet another group of people looking to kill her for whatever reason.

She's not sure if she's screaming or she's just imagining it. It doesn't matter.

Finally, it clears just enough for her to look around. There are...fuck, are those people in the trees? In...in cocoons? She looks back at the vines she just escaped from and realises that she's not the only one.

"What the fuck," she says, half under her breath, words rushed together. She starts at a noise - a snapped twig, a bird, a rabbit, a shambling clicker, something she completely made up in her head - and forces herself to move away from the creepy cocoons and towards what she (thinks she) heard. She reaches for a gun that isn't there, but somehow these strange (and armed?!) people talk her down and take her back to the city. Once they're reasonably convinced she's not going to start shooting them, one of them hands her a backpack. She recognises it, but she doesn't go through it here in front of them.

Catch her on a bench somewhere mostly out of the way, going through it. The second you approach her, she's likely to turn that handgun on you. Is it loaded? Maybe. Maybe not. As soon as she realises there isn't a threat, though, she lowers it and looks down. "Sorry. Hard to not feel jumpy when I woke up like two hours ago covered in vines."

Alternately, find her wandering around the place, trying to get her bearings. She's less likely to pull a gun on you like this, because she's less likely to spook. But hey, you never know! She's obviously highly on edge, gripping one strap of her backpack with white knuckles.

Ellie largely avoids the festival. What the fuck, right, a celebration of people being kidnapped and wrapped up in vines? Yeah, no thanks. Besides, she's just...not sure how to be festive anymore. The past few months bled it out of her. Waking up in that terrifying forest today hadn't done her attitude any favours, either. She still has a sense of humour under there, sure, but this is just a weird thing to be celebrating, feels like.

Someone shoves a drink at her and she hangs around by herself, not drinking it. It's hard to escape everything, so she lingers, not wanting company and not wanting to be alone, either. You can find her like this, staring into her cup, trying to decide if it's safe to drink or not.

Later in the evening, apparently everyone is just throwing shit into a chasm. Ellie can't even manage to be shocked about it, because of course they are! Why the fuck not, at this point. So she just watches them, disapproving scepticism clear on her face.

She catches someone's eye. "What? You don't think I'm going to join in this weird culty bullshit, do you?"

bruises because i'm used to them and i'm sick of coffins

ps this is a terrible question