![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
[open] a friend in need's a friend indeed
Who: Ned and OPEN
What: Random encounters & fallout from dream-walking tomfoolery
Where: House 20, the garden, anywhere around town
When: Day 89
It's been a long week. A long, mostly-sleepless, weird week during which Ned has seen far more of his friends' and neighbors' subconsciouses than he would have liked to. Plus, a creepy city made of crystals that everyone seems to have seen, but no one will claim as their own. Shady stuff. Today, he is determined to wear himself out. Perhaps if he's tired enough, whatever mojo the men behind the curtain have put on him won't be strong enough to stir him out of a deep and dreamless sleep.
It's probably a futile tactic, but he can't just do nothing.
So he is a bustle of activity - cleaning the house, walking around town, checking on the crops to see if they are holding up well (carefully, with an eye for any enterprising tigers roaming too close to the edge of the forest), keeping an eye out for new faces and an ear out for rumors of missing ones.
What: Random encounters & fallout from dream-walking tomfoolery
Where: House 20, the garden, anywhere around town
When: Day 89
It's been a long week. A long, mostly-sleepless, weird week during which Ned has seen far more of his friends' and neighbors' subconsciouses than he would have liked to. Plus, a creepy city made of crystals that everyone seems to have seen, but no one will claim as their own. Shady stuff. Today, he is determined to wear himself out. Perhaps if he's tired enough, whatever mojo the men behind the curtain have put on him won't be strong enough to stir him out of a deep and dreamless sleep.
It's probably a futile tactic, but he can't just do nothing.
So he is a bustle of activity - cleaning the house, walking around town, checking on the crops to see if they are holding up well (carefully, with an eye for any enterprising tigers roaming too close to the edge of the forest), keeping an eye out for new faces and an ear out for rumors of missing ones.
no subject
"Fortescue. It's nice to meet you, Ned." Her smile takes on a slightly more wry glint. She can't decide if it's nicer to meet people, on account of being stuck here, or just a shame, in general. "Have you been here long?"
no subject
"Nice to meet you, too." Despite everything, perhaps the only thing he likes about this place is the company. Overall it's a good group of people to be bottled up with. A friendly group of people, certainly. People aren't really this convivial with strangers, where he comes from. Captivity makes for an unusual social environment.
"Forty days. You?"
Now that Jazz has indicated it is alright to touch, Ned scritches under his chin lightly, rubs a thumb over the crown of his head, notes the jagged ear. "Looks like he's been through the wars," he comments, absently.
no subject
It already feels longer, somehow, but Fortescue reminds herself that that's just a symptom of their confinement. Telling a broad frame of time is more difficult when you only have basic clocks and the rising and setting of the sun. She doesn't keep a fastidious grasp on the passing of time, either, though maybe she should.
Jazz purrs lazily, leaning his head into the offered attention.
"He was a stray when he was found," she explains of her cat, chuckling again. "Rail-thin, bad attitude, and that ear. He's mellowed out a little."
no subject
"Seems plenty mellow to me," Ned agrees warmly, wondering how he'd become a stray: if he'd been a pet that had gotten lost, if he'd been born to a cat on the street, if his mother had been killed by a car, etcetera.
He wonders about Fortescue, too, and asks, "So when and where are you from?" And then, he adds, "Still haven't gotten used to asking the 'when' part of that question."
no subject
She knew that from her Void Traveler's training, although, who knew, perhaps there was another Imperium out there somewhere. With supposedly countless worlds, who was to say that there wasn't?
"And yourself?"
no subject
"Tiny town in America that you wouldn't have heard of, 2007." He could tell her Coeur d'Coeurs, but he knows well enough that that name would mean nothing to anyone who hadn't grown up there. It isn't exactly a major metropolis.
no subject
And then there was the magic, which wasn't consistently scattered among the multiverse either.
Fortescue tilts her head slightly to the side, thoughtful. "Is your tiny town bigger or smaller than the Cape?"
It's as good a way to measure size as any.
no subject
"Maybe twice as big has here, but no more than that. Still small enough that everyone knows everyone and that sort of thing."
Jazz is butting his head against Ned's palm, and he realizes he's grown lax in his petting duties. He goes back to scratching under the cat's chin and says, "You're lucky he came through with you."
no subject
Missions have sometimes taken a week or two, in small locations, but never longer. It's a stretch to say that she's lived there, rather than simply traveled, but what else can she say? It's more entertaining than the truth, which is that she lives alone in a giant house and isn't allowed to have true acquaintances or friends. Too many background checks involved.
And they don't trust her, which is just an added problem. Darby does, maybe, but the Council clearly doesn't.
Fortescue smiles very wryly at Ned's last comment. "Yes, I'm very lucky."
She doesn't like to think about what she'd be like, prolonged without her soul. Constant hallucinations, discomfort, no moral compass? No, it's best not to think about it at all.
no subject
But just moping about it isn't going to bring him here, so Ned puts it out of mind, tells himself to cheer the hell up or he'll make a horrible first impression.
"So what'd you do back in Imperium?"
no subject
Or maybe that's just her loneliness talking.
"I'm a soldier. Of sorts."
It's the closest approximation she can think of that doesn't mention the kills people for the government bit. And the does whatever it takes to get something done bit. And it's what people in the Cape have been most comfortable with. Even if the thought of her being a soldier is laughable — everyone back home knows what a problem she has with authority — it's still the best avenue.
"Though I suppose I'm on vacation from that kind of thing," she quips, smiling slightly. "And yourself?"
no subject
Odd, to think of their imprisonment as a forced vacation, but it's certainly an interesting perspective. He thinks back to when she said she was from and asks, "Is there uh. A war on?" Who knows, after all. Different versions of reality.
"I'm a pie-maker."
no subject
She's not sure what she calls it — other than bloody, inconvenient, horrifying, and a mess. Fortescue can't even claim to have a small part in it. If the Inveterates have their way, the human race will be nothing more than slaves to the elves, as they were during the Dark Ages.
"I'm glad to know we have more people around here who know how to cook. Pies especially. Though I suppose you're short on ingredients right now?"
no subject
It's distressing, even with a relative stranger like Fortescue, to think about her having to live through all of that. Ned doesn't ask her any more about it. If she wanted to talk about it, she would, but he isn't all that surprised she doesn't seem to. Not exactly a pleasant conversation topic.
"Yes, but we're managing."
no subject
no subject