Pennyroyal had always been a dreamer; his sleeping world was a place he didn't have to feel ashamed, to be afraid, to have things expected of him, an escape from all the pressures real and imagined. But when he'd gotten a rather... unsettling one, he wasn't sure what to do with the disjoined history and pleas for aid. Penny wasn't even entirely sure it was real --and yet the churning worry in his gut told him he felt like it was-- nor how he would even go about helping, really.
But the pull to the lake, this, he could obey. Check it out, see what was real and not; if something was happening in his very own home, it should be easy enough to figure out, right? Then, perhaps, he could align his thoughts and wonder more in the grand scheme of things.

Part of him was so, so sure he would find nothing amiss. Perhaps that's why it was so easy to go out, to wander from the safety of the Nightshade den despite the yearlings usual reluctance to do so. Then again, it'd grown easier to leave the den when he was still running and hiding from the well-meaning lessons of his Father despite the fact that his siblings must've been nearing or past the point of not needing them anymore -- Penny was so disconnected from that part of his daily life in his need to ignore it, he wasn't sure if they were still getting lessons.

When Pennyroyal arrived at the lake, it was already chaos. He recognized Valeska, the High Priestess, and she was muttering something about a curse as he sidled out of the bushes nearby, wide-eyed. There were several other, including a young man that looked like a copy of Valeska chasing after an inky boy, both of which Penny at least recognized the scent of, and two pale ladies he wasn't as acquainted with the presence of.

Did... Did they all hear him, too, feel this pull? Penny's spinal fur rippled uncomfortably, and he sniffed, trying to pinpoint what was so malevolent about the moment, what presence hung in the air like the storm about to break.