July Arrivals

[sixthiteration]

WHO: Arrivals
WHERE: The fountain park
WHEN: July 1, 12:00 PM
OPEN TO: ALL
WARNINGS: N/A
STATUS: CLOSED

---

In the snug circle of an old park, a fountain sits burbling beneath a broad, midday sky.

Once-neat paving stones have buckled and cracked from the slow nudge of wayward roots. Benches stand covered in lichen and rust. Three paths push into the underbrush like the spokes on a wheel, the encroaching forest creating lush tunnels through the dark.

But the fountain stands singular and pristine, brightly splashing in open rebellion of the deep, muffled sounds of a place long ago gone to seed. A vibration hums through the ground, there and quickly gone, and the water in the fountain trembles, lapping against the high walls of its cool, pale reservoir.

It is the first of July.

It is precisely twelve o'clock in the afternoon.

Comments

Arrival: Jo Harvelle

[tobeclosetohim]

Everything is dark and fluid. Warm and cold all at once. Buoyant and rippling. Rippling. Rippling. In every direction. Holding her body in its sway. The endless blackness becoming spots. Becoming light, streaming down. Reflecting. Refracting. Light. . . through water?

The thought thrusting her body into confusion, and then panic, when Jo suddenly breathed in water, causing her body to contract and react. Doubling her over. Then, sending her desperately, terror striking with the need to breathe, flailing toward the light, toward the need for air.

Breaking the surface, there's air, but there's, also, spasming pain spider webbing her whole chest, as Jo tried to cough the water from her lungs. Hands torn between trying to claw at her chest, that was covered by a foreign, too big shirt, and to go out, shoot out, while turning both directions, trying to get her bearings, to look for what might be coming at her, trying to even see straight as water poured down from above her.

[itchtokill]

After he gets his feet under him and he doesn't see anyone in the immediate line of sight that looks familiar, Kol shoulders his bag again and starts walking around, trying to decide where the bloody hell he's supposed to go from here when suddenly, he finds what he's looking for-- someone familiar.

Short, blonde, no more than 110lbs soaking wet, he's sure of it, and probably not one that's going to be happy to see him. But she's in this as much as he is and he'll just have to deal with her snark or sass as it comes. "Oi, you got a damn clue what we're supposed to be doing, here?"

Re: Arrival: Jo Harvelle

[thecatinahat]

The woman looks every bit as angry as he does. She looks like the kind of woman that Clay would find attractive, which means that she's likely volatile. Usually? Bad. Right now? Cougar could use some volatility if it means helping him to get out of here. He catches her eye and slings his bag to the ground, trying to get a hold on his hair as it drips in his face.

"Donde esta?" he asks her bluntly, no time for small talk.

Kylo Ren | Star Wars - Open/Before the winds and siren

[andrend]

The sudden lungful of water had been a rude awakening, and the scramble to the surface afterward through the fountain and other 'swimmers' was no picnic either. By the time Kylo had heaved himself out of the fountain, drenched and choking, he had already formed strong opinions about his new situation. The canvas pack strapped to his back had at least not filled with water to drag him back down into the fountain's depths, but neither it nor the clothing on his back belonged to him.

Once free of water and fountain, he knelt on the cracked paving stones and fought back the burning in his lungs. One hand went to where the bowcaster wound should have been providing a painful ache. Nothing was there. No blood, no wound and no damage to the strange waterlogged shirt and top his uniform had been replaced with.

Rather than kneel on the stones longer and contemplate how and why he was there, Kylo got to his feet and moved to a bench to put the pack down. His lightsaber wasn't at his side, and he was intent on finding it. He was tossing the clothing that had been so graciously provided to him onto the dirty bench as he rummaged through the contents, a series of curses in Huttese on his lips.

When the empty pack was revealed to be filled with nothing but unfamiliar contents, an only partially subdued sound between a growl and a yell came from the tall man in mostly black. He threw the pack at the bench and stood with his hands curled tightly into fists, fighting to calm his ragged, angry breathing.

Re: Kylo Ren | Star Wars - Open/Before the winds and siren

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo's small on a normal day. Loud sometimes, blisteringly hard to avoid sometimes, scary is a term a lot of people like to use when she's pissed, and even if she takes up more space and sound than a burly hunter three times her size, she's still small. In drenched clothes, hanging everywhere on her, while her hair is stringy, drenched, as well? She looks even smaller.

This fact, that she looks like a very small drowned rat, only marginally detracts from the expression on her face. Confusion, laced with anger, biting into copper eyes and a pressed mouth. This isn't where she was. This isn't Medietas, or Mundus, or The Roadhouse. She remembers. She'd gone to lay down after writing that fucking letter. Tired. Frustrated. Wanting a drink, or twelve, and denying herself.

That another person explodes out of the fountain doesn't actually comfort her. Nor does that the first thing the tall, drowned, guy, with black hair and matching black clothes, does is start throwing his shit everywhere. "What are you doing?"

Even though it was, finally, making Jo take stock of her own self. The fact she had a backpack on, too. Along with these clothes.

Re: Kylo Ren | Star Wars - Open/Before the winds and siren

[womanofvalue]

She's done a circle of the area and found paths leading out of there. By the time she returns, there's a tall man who's been left by a young blonde woman, placing Peggy's stranger count higher than she likes without at least a little intelligence into the situation. No time like the present to remedy that.

Leaving that strange bag that had come with her, she marches forward and sizes up the man before her. "I've counted at least one viable path out of here," she shares with him, thinking that she ought to try and garner some trust. "What have you found?"

Re: Kylo Ren | Star Wars - Open/Before the winds and siren

[thesavior]

Emma had been lifting her pack onto her back when she heard the yell. She swung around and reached for the weapon that she was so used to being at her disposal, even though a gun often did not work in her world. She swore under her breath. How the hell did she end up in these situations anyway?

"Are you alright?" She asked the screamer. "Scratch that of course your not. You'd have to be a moron to be okay. I'm all for ragging on the injustices in the world, but your kinda big to carry if you go all damsel in distress on me you know?"

Kol Mikaelson | OTA

[itchtokill]

He's suddenly awake and there's the distinct sound of water rushing in his ears as he's propelled upward. His head snaps around to see others in the water around him. He doesn't have time to think about it though, instead he busies himself with pushing toward the surface, where he can see light trying to peek through.

Kol pushes through the surface of the water in a burst, one of the only people in his immediate vision not sputtering and gasping for air because his lungs don't burn the way the rest of them probably do. The confusion sets in now that he's not trapped underwater, though, and he makes his way to the edge of the fountain to climb out and sit on the side of it, slowly glancing around for a familiar face or something that sticks out.

Only as he's sitting, getting his bearings does he notice that his clothes are all wrong and there's the weight of a pack on his back. He slings it off his shoulders and rummages through it a bit. Clothes, mostly, some boots, nothing all that great or useful, but he'll keep it anyway. He lets out a huff and looks up, eyes searching for someone familiar again.

Re: Kol Mikaelson | OTA

[notabirdcostume]

Sam was standing near the fountain as more people emerged. He was having a hard time taking so many unknowns in. He thought being an Avenger would prepare you for shit like this, but apparently he'd been wrong. He'd managed to stay mostly calm, but it was difficult when there was just no one he knew and nothing around that was comforting. He was not even in the same clothes for God's sake!

He'd already decided though, if he doesn't recognize anyone then he's going to have to figure out who these other people are that the fountain seems to be sending out. He felt the need to assess his immediate situation before wandering too far off. That meant getting an inventory of what assets they had and who these other people were. God he was falling back into soldier mode. Hadn't he retired from that?

So, when he saw one of the other people start to go through their bag, he took a step in their direction. The other looked up so that seemed like as good a cue as any, "Anything useful?"

Cougar Alvarez - OTA

[thecatinahat]

Once, on a mission, Cougar had been captured. They had tortured him for information that never came. Broken fingers, bloodied skin, but what Cougar remembers is the waterboarding. It's that sense memory that drags him back when water fills his eyes, lungs, and mouth. All of a sudden, he's back in Iran and the Losers are coming to get him.

His whole body is suspended in water this time and when he looks up, there's a glint of light. No one is holding him down and there's something beneath him pushing him upwards. Kicking strongly, he makes the surface and crawls out of the well.

He uses his grip on the stones to find his footing, searching around him as the water drips to the ground. There's nothing familiar around. Worse than that, there's nothing familiar on his person. No gun. No hat.

Cougar's already a very unhappy man.

Peggy Carter (OTA)

[womanofvalue]

The minute she finds her bearings, Peggy takes stock of the situation.

First, she's absolutely soaking wet and in unfamiliar clothes, sporting a navy blue shirt that looks almost clinical. Strapped to her back is a bag with a weight that suggests a good deal of items inside. It's quite a miracle that she hadn't drowned in that awful well, but Peggy's been in worst binds.

Second, this place is a strange sort of madness. She hardly thinks that the dark matter could still be impacting her, but what if it is? What if some unforeseen complication has ripped her from Los Angeles and Daniel's arms and placed her in the midst of a strange little park in a forest. Shielding her gaze as she stares upwards, she tries to look for landmarks or anything that might give her a clue as to where she is.

Because, item number three, is that unfortunately, she has a bad feeling about this.

[dnr]

There's a stocky guy in grey prowling the perimeter, still dripping from his own dip in the fountain but just as unable to keep still. He'd checked his pack, pulled the ball cap over his head to keep the sun out of his eyes (and keep his identity at least a little on the down-low), but nothing in there had told him what they were doing here. And so far, nobody coming out of the fountain has had any more idea what's going on than he does – or at least they're good at hiding it if they do, and there are quicker recon methods than interrogation. So he's trying something else.

Maybe just because he's doing the same thing, Frank recognizes her look around for what it is. "Might have to get to higher ground for that," he suggests as he passes. "So far all I've got is trees, and not the kind you'd find upstate."

Which means long-distance transport, and therefore resources, and nothing good.

Sam Wilson [OTA]

[notabirdcostume]

You know what's not fun? Drowning. Drowning is decidedly not fun, especially when you are waking up to it. To say he was disoriented would be an understatement. Sam nearly gasped and inhaled water, before his brain kicked in and he stopped himself. He felt a weight on his back and like he was sinking for a moment because of the weight, but thankfully he had been through enough crazy situations not to panic. Instead he focused on the light shining from above and kicked his way to the surface. He could freak out in a minute, first he needed to get somewhere he could breathe.

The water erupted around Sam as he broke the surface of the fountain, gasping for air as soon as he was able. He tread water for a bit, scanning his surroundings and kicking his legs to stay afloat. Nothing. There was absolutely nothing he recognized. Not that he expected to necessarily, given he sure as hell hadn't been near a fountain a few minutes ago.

'Okay...okay calm down. Get out of the fountain and then you can figure this out,' he thought to himself as he swam to the edge. He pushed himself up and over the edge, dripping wet but otherwise unharmed. As soon as he was out he stumbled a few feet away from the fountain, dropping the foreign bag from his back and panting for a minute. How long had he been under? Where was he? Why was he here? What happened?

And...actually what was he wearing?

His brain whirled with too many questions, eyes darting everywhere for a sign or an indication. He closed his eyes again, forcing himself to calm down. He needed to calm the hell down. Taking a few deep breaths, Sam finally straightens up and then opens his eyes. He catches movement this time and finally realizes he's not the only soaked person around and looking lost. Maybe they'd have some clues.

"Hey!"

Re: Sam Wilson [OTA]

[womanofvalue]

She doesn't appreciate the harsh tone, but given the day they've all been having, she supposes that she can make an exception for the man's behaviour. When she turns to look at him, for a very brief moment, she thinks she's caught sight of Jason, but she calms her mind and reminds herself that this isn't necessarily connected to dark matter. It doesn't mean that she's been brought to whatever strange place in between worlds that exists.

"You know, even soaking wet, there's no excuse for a lack of manners," she notes with mild criticism in her tone, wringing out her wet hair.

General Hux | Star Wars

[generalginger]

Waking up underwater, with no recollection of how he found himself in this situation is unnerving. Survival instinct kicks in first, and Hux quickly swims to the surface. He knows how to swim, but hasn't done so since his days at the academy. Between that and the internal panic, he unintentionally lets some of the air out of his lungs. His chest burns, and he's gasping for air as he pulls himself out of what turns out to be a fountain.

His brows furrow once he's standing on solid ground. Hux is confused, and he hates that his excellent memory is failing him. The course of action is clear, at least: he has to figure out what is going on, and evaluate the situation from there. Why is he here? But more importantly, how does he leave? The fact that he's not even wearing his own First Order-sanctioned uniform is concerning in its own right, as well.

While he doesn't see anyone around him yet, after looking around the general area for a moment, he spots the traces of footprints. He can't say how old they are, and as soon as the path hits grass they're gone. But it's indicative of other people being here, at least, and whether it's a trap or not, Hux decides to head in the direction that he assumes someone went earlier.

Re: General Hux | Star Wars

[womanofvalue]

There's another one. Peggy adds him to the count of people she's seen come out of the fountain, taking note of the colour of his shirt. She's the only one in navy blue, it seems, and what that means, she doesn't know. She hurries to catch up, her pack on her back, thinking that it's about time to head towards another direction and actually start finding shelter. She has the feeling that getting back won't be as simple as diving right back into the water.

"Did you see something in this direction?" she asks, in the hopes that maybe he's caught some indication of a clue.

Frank Castle | OTA

[dnr]

Fountain;

Frank breaks the surface in a rush, water splashing and spilling onto to ground as thick hands slap at the edge of the fountain for purchase. It's an inelegant process, dragging his waterlogged body out and over the fountain's side, planting his shoulder hard on the grass and the rest of him tumbling flat, face-up, backpack awkwardly wedged beneath him, just sucking in air in wide gasps. One breath. Two. Three. And then he's rolling to his feet again, adrenaline pumping.

Grey scrubs. Not prison orange. Not the black on black he was wearing the last time he checked, either, which means he's been out, and out hard, for more than a little while. His arms drop tense to his sides, his hands poised away from his body. He's not dead, either - is he? - so whoever has him, it stands to reason they aren't done with him yet.

But the splash of another body coming to the surface catches Frank's attention, and he dunks one big hand back into the water to yank the newcomer out by the collar with a growled, "The fuck is this?"

Wind storm;

Frank's boots are still soggy when the air raid sirens start blaring through the canyon. His buzz-cut head turns tilt in answer, part curiosity and part challenge. Really? After all that, what fresh hell is coming at them now?

When the tree he's been skulking beside starts to lean, then groan in protest against the rising wind, Frank starts to consider taking the warning seriously.  Leaves slice through the air around him, the odd branch whipping past his wet scrubs. Shit. The fountain is big, but nothing in the clearing offers much in the way of shelter. And they're going to need shelter.

"Nobody builds a garden without a house, right?" he yells over the wind to whoever happens to be nearest, with a nod down one of the paths. There's got to be something more. "Better get out of this shit before it gets worse."

Which it is, fast.

((OTA but I'd prefer one person per starter please.))

[windstorm]

[thecatinahat]

He knows that sound. Scowling, Cougar hitches the bag on his back a little higher as he starts to scramble for high ground, hating the unfamiliar weight. He's used to weight on his back, but the rifle is what makes it comfortable. What comes next isn't a chopper or a bomb, but wind. It whips his hair in his face along with the remnants of whatever's unfortunate enough to be loose on the ground.

Cursing in Spanish, he knows that someone's bound to get hurt if they don't find shelter. He hears sound on the wind and something in him calms, strangely. He eyes the man curiously and recognizes the tone for someone who knows how to give an order. Even the way he stands makes him think of Clay, Roque.

He'd prefer to be up high, but in a windstorm like this, even that's going to be useless. He drags his feet to get through the wind (it's pushing in a direction, but Cougar's without a compass to know which way that is). "Come," he agrees, digging his heels in to fight the wind. "That way?" he suggests, pointing in the way the wind is blowing for the path of least resistance.

For Sam, in the Inn

[andrend]

His ears were still ringing from the siren. It had been joined with the wailing of the wind, the creak of the building and the snap and slam of branches breaking and objects being tossed around in the violence outside. The siren was still blaring but the building at least helped to muffle the sound.

Ren had the sense to get away from the windows and doors, at least. He had his back pressed to a wall in the corner. There were people there with him, more than just the two he had met to begin with. Unlike most of the rest of them, he had pulled on the thigh-length black peacoat after tossing about the contents of his bag at the fountain. It made him both stick out from the crowd and vanish into the shadow of the corner even more.

He was watching carefully, and when one of the group moved closer to him he stepped away from the corner, eyes fixed on the stranger with an intense stare. Sam's scrubs were red and they drew his focus. Kylo Ren had his hands at his side, level with but not in his pockets.

"What's your name?" He kept hoping someone would respond with the familiar system of letters and numbers that delineated the stormtroopers so neatly. Even knowing it was unlikely any of Hux's stormtroopers were there with him. It would be so much easier to have someone to direct to help him and know that if he made sure they knew who he was they would listen. He knew all of the officers. The red made him think Sam could be one, even knowing he wasn't. But it was a start.

[notabirdcostume]

Still feeling disoriented from his fountain arrival, Sam was not prepared for more surprises. The sirens and the wind on top of that had made it difficult to think. Of course he'd moved in the direction the wind was blowing -- it was easier than running into the wind -- and so he'd found himself sprinting into the nearest, largest structure with a handful of others. Granted, he hadn't exactly had the chance to get a headcount so he couldn't be sure if this was everyone. He glanced over his shoulder to see if there was anyone else still outside -- but it looked like the place was deserted now. Everyone was either in the inn or elsewhere. He moved away from the windows -- no sense getting killed after only being in this insane place for less than an hour.

If they were going to be stuck in here, might as well check out what supplies could be found in the first building they'd found. He thought he'd caught glimpses of other buildings along the way -- those would have to be checked after the wind died down. He noted the ample space and the tables and chairs scattered around. It was probably a restaurant or pub of some kind. There were stairs as well, so there might be more rooms upstairs. A windstorm like this probably wasn't the time to move up from the ground floor though. Instead, he started walking towards the back which he cold only guess was the kitchen area (if this was a pub or restaurant).

He stopped when someone moved towards him. He didn't recognize the man at all, but he was staring at Sam with some strange intensity. He was also very forward, but then again asking someone for their name wasn't unheard of in this situation when all of them appeared to be strangers. "Sam Wilson," he replied. He figure the man on honed in on him for a reason, "Can I help you?"

Veronica Sawyer | OTA

[teen_angst_bullshit]

The dream isn't a new one.

In a distant, ineffectual part of her brain, Veronica recognizes the sameness and actually takes some kind of morbid comfort in its predictability. Not that knowing what's coming has ever kept her from bolting upright in bed with a scream strangled in her throat, but the enemy you know, right?

It always begins at Heather Chandler's house. In her bedroom, to be specific, the coffee table still smashed to bits and Heather still facedown on the berber carpet. The entire Westerburg student body sits in cross-legged circles around the flotsam, singing an enthusiastic rendition of "Kumbaya" as Ms. Flem plays conductor from atop the pale froth of Heather's bed.

"Now that's deep," J.D. says against Veronica's ear, and when she turns, she's behind the school again, facing him as the gray morning light filters through the trees.

"You didn't have to do it," she says, or tries to say -- They're in the boiler room now, and his hands are at her throat.

"Our love is god," he says, fingers squeezing, and she can't breathe, she can't—

Wait, she really can't breathe. She can't breathe.

Her body pushes itself, propelled by sharp, manic instinct, and she surfaces flailing and panicked, coughing up more than just water.

"Wha-what?" she manages, throat sore and water lapping against her spit-covered chin.

[dnr]

"Hell if I know," Frank answers, helpfully.

Frank Castle is not in the business of rescuing water-logged teenage girls from fountains any more than he is saving kittens from trees — that's more Daredevil's territory, let's be honest here — but he isn't actually just going to sit here while she decides whether to drown or not, either. He's already got his hip braced against the fountain's edge, backpack at his feet where he'd been giving it a quick search, and it doesn't take much to anchor a hand against the outside of the fountain wall to lean in toward her.

A strong arm reaches down into the water, ready to clamp onto a forearm or shoulder and help haul her up. "Come on, out you go, keep breathing."

[tooktheblack]

There was a burning in his lungs that did not feel altogether different than the burning he had felt when his brothers plunged their knives into his body. Jon tried to breathe and got a lungful of water for his troubles but the pale, misty light above him drove him to kee trying and to keep clawing upward. When he finally broke through the surface, he coughed and sputtered for a long moment before stumbling over the sides of the fountain and collapsed onto the ground.

Not again, he thought. The last time he had died, there had been nothing at all. There was a wide, blank abyss that stretched out into infinity after death and that was markedly different from this. This was strange and new, far different from the bitter cold north of the Wall or the crisp bite in the air at Winterfell that told him that snow would fall and soon. The water was liquid and while it dried against his skin, it did not dry into ice. He was in the south somehow, impossible as though it seemed, and he tried his voice.

"Where am I?" Jon wasn't the only one stumbling up through that fountain and others appeared to be staggering around him. What was this place?

[generalginger]

Hux was trying to collect himself as much as possible. There was no point in standing around waiting for someone to tell him what was going on; he was bound and determined to figure that out for himself. His being here still made no sense; how could one go from being on an arctic planet-turned-superweapon on the bring of explosion to this?

It made no sense at all, and Hux inherently hated things he couldn't explain.

"That has yet to be determined, but we'll figure it out."

Arrival: Kira Nerys [OTA]

[thenewways]

Being stunned by a phaser at close range was an experience that Nerys had been through more than once, though it certainly wasn't anything she'd recommend to people as a must-do life event. Nearly drowning, that was another, and something she'd done before as well, though less often. Being stunned by a phaser, blacking out, then waking up underwater, unable to breathe, that was new.

Nerys inhaled automatically on waking, only to receive the instant reminder that that was an incredibly bad thing to have done. She couldn't help but flail a little, which brought her closer towards what had to be the surface--wherever she was clearly had gravity, she could even feel it under the water, so up had to be out.

Sculling her arms upwards, trying not to breathe in more (but fuck, it was hard to bite back the need to cough), she tilted her head upwards towards the light, and then broke the surface for a momentary gasping second. A hard kick upwards and she broke through again, raggedly drawing in air. Somehow, her flailing arm caught on stone, and she grabbed at it, pulling herself over and upwards a little--

Before promptly puking over the side of the fountain she'd emerged from, water and bile and a little blood, followed by a frantic coughing fit. "What..." she gasped, between coughs. "What... the forsaken hells..."

It took a few moments for Nerys to realise she wasn't wearing her uniform, nor her comm badge, and that she didn't recognise anything or anyone (and there were others) within her line of sight. What the forsaken hells indeed, she thought.

Re: Arrival: Kira Nerys [OTA]

[womanofvalue]

Peggy's been sitting and staring at the fountain like it might yield her some answers. She hates being without them and unfortunately, none are forthcoming -- only more people. When the next comes out, she pushes herself to her feet and offers out a hand, trying for a sympathetic smile that she fears doesn't carry as much sympathy as it should, but she's tired and confused and that's really never a good combination.

She gives the other woman her space, but stays somewhat close. "I'd offer you a mint, but it seems I was robbed of...well, everything when I arrived."

An Ill Wind [OTA]

[womanofvalue]

She's only barely begun to dry when the noise begins to wail around her, forcing Peggy to plaster one hand to her ear in an attempt to drown it out and try to understand what on earth is happening. Panic tries to gnaw at her, but she keeps it from overtaking her. There's a siren that sounds vaguely like an attack is about to happen and years of living in London during the war puts her in a zone that's very familiar.

It's a good thing it's also a proactive one.

She expects explosions or an attack. What she doesn't expect is the sudden whipping of wind throwing leaves and other small objects past her. She blinks twice when she thinks she sees a child's toy hurtling past and takes a moment to try and fight the wind, but it's impossible. "Shelter!" she calls out, blinded by the dust that's being kicked up. She can make out a vague shadow in her vision and it's time to sort priorities. Finding a way out comes second to not being in the middle of what feels like might become dangerous. "Which way is shelter?" she shouts.

[redemptoris]

For one skip of his heartbeat after the wailing replaces all other sound, Dorian thinks he's spotted the Inquisitor- but no. Similar height, build, coloring- but not Evelyn. Still, he staggers his way across the wind, trying to move quickly without stumbling, until he's caught the young woman's elbow, squinting at her through the sudden growing maelstrom.

"The path through the trees!" he shouts. "With the wind!" There's no point in trying for another direction; if anything, the gales feel as though they're picking up force.

ARRIVAL | FOUNTAIN

[redemptoris]

Dorian disliked feeling disoriented. For much of his life, it hadn't been a concern. The power he wielded as an Altus surpassed even the power his family wielded politically, and so he moved through schooling and social spheres alike with a sort of brazen, inherit ease. When things finally changed, with his father, then the Circle, then his homeland, he discovered what it meant, to be disoriented. Turned around. Unsure.

He loathed it.

Much of his journey through the temple of Mythal had been disorienting, for all sorts of delightful reasons, but fleeing a resurrected demi-god through an Eluvian was perhaps the worst of it. The rushing sensation of moving through the mirror, of passing into a new, other, liminal space was replaced by the deeply unpleasant sensation of being submerged in water. Dorian hated traveling by sea, but he'd been raised on the shores of one, and so was a strong enough swimmer that his initial reaction wasn't panic. Merely bewilderment.

He pushed himself toward the glimmer of light that implied surface, noting as the did that his clothing was wrong, the weight on his back was wrong. Everything was wrong, and that included the fact that there was no one in the water beside him.

It wasn't until his chest started burning that Dorian realized how deep he'd been, and when at last he broke the water's surface it was with an inelegant, choking gasp. There was a wall before him, higher than was preferable, but he swam for it all the same, and once he'd steadied himself with his palms against it, took stock enough to realize he was in another bloody fountain.

He swore viciously and swam a little ways along the wall, until he found a part with texture enough for him to grip, and leverage himself up enough to catch the top of the wall. By the time he was sprawled on the ground, his arms were burning as fiercely as his lungs had been, and he was decidedly furious. The weight on his back was a pack of some kind, of a material he'd never felt. His attire was offensively basic. The only positives he could find in the situation were that he was alive, and that, after a cursory brush of his fingertips across it to check, his mustache was not drooped. He owed Sera a thank you on the quality of her bees.

There were others, he realized as he staggered to his feet, in similarly drab attire, but they and the copse of trees and the fountain were not nearly enough to go off of in deducing where the void he was.

He forced the incredulity and exasperation from his voice and hoped that left it sounding authoritative, and focused on the stranger nearest to him.

"What is this place?"

Re: ARRIVAL | FOUNTAIN

[rangerbecket]

Raleigh had spent the last few minutes just trying to get his bearings again. He's always been a strong swimmer so coming up through the fountain, while disorienting, hadn't been debilitating. He'd still gotten more than a few mouthfuls of water in his lungs, though, so when he speaks, his voice is low and rough.

"No idea. I was in the ocean before I came here and now I'm here. No ocean to be seen."

Raleigh isn't exactly upset about the prospect of no ocean. It's troublesome, considering he'd just come fresh out of a jaeger, but he's going to focus on immediate needs for right now and not what's going on in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Arrival: Emma Swan

[thesavior]

Cold.... Darkness was the only thing that Emma felt. She was disorientated and reminded once again how much she hated the dark. Which, when you think about it is really funny considering she spent most of her life in the dark, why should now be any different?

Emma's eyes were wide open as awareness came to her. She didn't know where she was so her natural reaction was to scream. The action was misguided, for it caused water to sear through her lungs and she kicked trying to find air.

She broke through the water, pain ripping through her, as she struggled to stay afloat. She clawed her way to the edge of whatever this was, her hands finding purchase on the rim, as she struggled to pull herself out. She glanced up, rain pouring down on her. "Seriously?"

Re: Arrival: Emma Swan

[tooktheblack]

Jon had been out of the fountain just long enough to help other people and he came closer to the woman, wanting to see if there was something he could do to help her. He doubted it, if only because nobody seemed to know where they were or how to escape it - they were all a group of know-nothings, at this point - but his natural drive was to try and aid her.

"My lady, you're all right," he promised, extending a hand to her to help her up if she should need it. He had no such help himself, having struggled his way up through the fountain alone, but he wanted to aid her if he could.

"But, before you ask, I don't know where we are."

Mark Watney | OTA

[markwatney]

Well, this is definitely not how I planned to end the day.

As days go, it was a pretty normal one. Boring even, although now that I think of it, I did add blueberries to my oatmeal this morning, which was new. What can I say? Us hot-shot astronauts like to live dangerously.

I had class, which was engaging but typical, and for once I was able to go a whole day without having to give somebody a soundbite on how I feel about the future of the space program or what I wear when I work out -- Which is nothing, for the record, not because I’m a nudist but because I don’t work out. I had a sensible dinner, graded some papers, watched the late show and hit the hay.

Things had been going fairly well, I thought, right up to the point I found myself drowning in the world’s deepest fountain.

I’m not ruling out an incredibly vivid hallucination, but now that I’ve had a moment to absorb the scene around me, I have to say that this feels pretty damn real. Which could be way more disturbing than the idea of having a full-blown hallucinatory episode, depending on how you look at it.

The pack on my back has a dry change of clothes in it, which is somehow more annoying than hacking up fountain water. It’s deliberate, premeditated, and a little bit like being given the finger.

I’m not the only one in this predicament, and I’m just stepping over to one of my soggy cohorts when the air splits with a noise that had to have been designed specifically to give people instantaneous headaches. I pause, wincing as I lift my hands to my ears.

“What the shit,” I say, although it’s not like anybody can hear me over Satan’s air raid siren.

Re: Mark Watney | OTA

[rangerbecket]

The siren reminds Raleigh of the sirens all along the coast, the ones that warn you're in the tsunami danger zone or that a kaiju has been spotted and is coming on shore. It's a deafening, piercing sound but it isn't one that elicits fear in him. No, rather, the sound of the siren is a call to arms, an inspiration to action; Raleigh runs toward danger instead of away from it.

But this isn't Anchorage or Lima and he isn't about to suit up in a jaeger and go fight. He's basically defenseless in a set of scrubs and with a whole bunch of other defenseless people, so maybe his fight or flight response ought to kick into flight instead of fight at some point. Maybe. When the other guy speaks, it's a muffled sound - low enough for Raleigh to know that it isn't the siren but not quite intelligible.

"What's that? Hard to hear over the siren," he calls back, trying to raise his voice enough to be heard.

For Jon Snow

[andrend]

As it turned out, Ren was not much of a team player. Thrice he had attempted to play nice and while two had ended without much conflict, the third had resulted in a clash of opinions and plans and Ren had decided he was better off on his own. Or it had been decided for him. That was all just semantics.

The wind was still howling and rattling the building, and Ren had slipped away with intent to try and explore on his own. He wanted to find a weapon, get his bearings and find out who had stranded him. He didn't want to interact with the people in the inn. Somehow he just kept running into them time after time. And while he would have happily told them all to go to hell, he did not need more enemies in his current situation.

Now there was a fourth man who was evidently destined to be the next failed attempt at playing nice with his fellow captives. He did not expect much to come of it, nor was he fond of the idea. He had mixed results with the levels of intelligence and cooperation from both himself and the other parties involved, but they at least had so far not seemed to be affiliated with any orders, groups or clans he knew of at first glance, and the lack of recognition meant it was unlikely he was dealing with Resistance or First Order captives.

He was still soaked, his hair and pants only partially dry thanks to time and the wind, and he had donned the coat from his pack long before the wind had started. His pack bulged from the haphazard job he had done of shoving clothing back in after earlier events. Yet another half-drowned wet dog was before him, which presumably made him another captive and not a captor.

Sam had mentioned looking for more clues. So had Jo and Peggy. Everyone seemed to want more information, and the only method Ren could think of to further gain information was to figure out why he was trapped with these people. If it was not the design of the resistance, his second assumption landed on slavers.

"Where are you from." His demanding question shoved past polite introductions such as exchanging of names or making sure the other man was unharmed. Ren had personal priorities he was far more concerned with.

[tooktheblack]

There were no niceties in how he was addressed but Jon didn't need them. He was confused by this place and felt bedraggled and out of sorts. His own temper was short, as it was, and a blunt question was much easier to address than an attempt to be kind. He struggled to raise his voice over the sound of the howling wind, not wanting to have to speak twice just to get his point across.

"Westeros," he said, as blunt as the question had been posed to him. "From the North, from Winterfell." It was very obvious that this place was as far removed from Winterfell as it could be, considering, but that still didn't tell Jon where he was. The howling wind only proved that something was coming and, honestly, that this something might not be pleasant.

He wished he had a weapon. He wished he had Ghost. He had neither.

"And you?"

For Hux

[andrend]

The siren had finally stopped, but the howling winds had not. The building rattled and shook in the fashion of old and rickety places. Ren's ears still held a ring within them, and the storm's rage was well matched with the one whipping about inside of him.

He had not given up on finding answers but he had begun to assume that any familiarity with the worlds he had known was being kept from him. When he saw red out of the corner of his eye, he assumed it was Sam again and turned to seek him out in the group gathered in the inn. It wasn't Sam, however. The face was all too familiar and Ren had a moment of pause while he tried to determine the best response to suddenly being faced with this.

"General." Ren couldn't decide between anger and surprise. He approached with powerful strides and when he stopped he was, as usual, far too close for comfort and personal space, trying to appear more than the one inch of height he had on Hux.

"Care to explain what is going on here?" Because this is clearly Hux's fault. It couldn't be Ren's. He had been minding his own business trying to chase down the scavenger girl and Hux's traitor-trooper.

[generalginger]

Having encountered a number of strange people since pulling himself out of the fountain, Hux had begun to assume that he would not run into anyone that he knew. He wasn't bothered by that; he was more concerned with making sense of his being here and figuring out what to do, how to contact his ship, and finding shelter.

He'd give anything for his climate-controlled star destroyer; the wet clothes and strong winds caused him to shiver, but when he heard a painfully familiar voice, Hux immediately steeled himself.

Of all the people he knew, why did it have to be Kylo Ren? He was an ally, yes, but the most contentious and infuriating variety. "I was under the impression that unexplained mysticism was your area of interest, Ren."

OTA Group Discussion (please threadjack away!)

[dnr]

It's day one, and fifteen people crawl out of the fountain. Fifteen bodies clad in wet scrubs and fear-frayed tempers take shelter in the inn during a windstorm, and sometime over the course of the half hour that storm rages on, some of them, maybe even a good number of them, might find themselves gathering in the same place: the pub.

Frank isn't exactly in the running for group leader. After his and Cougar's scuffle with Emma, he tries to keep a little lower profile, settling down at a table on the fringes of the pub with a splintered-off piece of bannister he's been dutifully sharpening into a point. (The kitchen knife in his pack he isn't advertising.) It's only a matter of time before people start asking questions, though, and for all that he wants to solve this thing, Frank would rather be on one side of that discussion than the other.

"So what do we know?" Frank's gravely baritone finally rumbles through the small crowd. "Anybody remember anything — about being taken, or where you were before it happened?"

"Anybody recognize anybody else," asks the escaped convict whose face has been all over the news, for no particular reason, "–Or got any idea why somebody would've wanted to kidnap you? Who the pieces of shit that did this might be?"

(( Please feel free to hop around, threadjack, use this thread to ask other questions to the group, whatever! ))

[markwatney]

Would anyone want to kidnap me. Now that's a question I honestly don't know how to answer. Instinctively I want to say no, of course not, but the truth is I've gotten a lot of really creepy mail these last few months. The obsessive fans aren't even the worst of it; I've got a few less-than-stable individuals who are convinced I either made the whole Mars thing up as part of a massive conspiracy, or that I was abducted by aliens.

Because obviously.

"Well, I don't know anyone here," I begin, scanning the room. I lift a hand. "I'm Mark. Watney. I was in Houston, Texas, asleep in my bed before I woke up in that fountain. One thing I know for sure is that something is seriously off about this place. More than the obvious, I mean," I hastily add. "That wind came out of nowhere. The sky was clear. The sky is still clear. I don't want to jump the gun here, but scientifically speaking, there's a possibility it was manufactured, which brings this to a whole new level of unsettling."