sixthiterationlogs | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

WHO: John Druitt
WHERE: Fountain/around town
WHEN: June 3rd
OPEN TO: OTA!
WARNINGS:

[Fountain]

The last thing Druitt is consciously aware of is seeing Helen vanish through Worth's portal, chasing him back across the timeline into the past; he feels, rather than sees, the massive shockwave of energy that coincides with portal's collapse as his vision fades away.

He comes to - and that's surprising in its own right - abruptly when he realizes that he's floating. It's only a moment later that he realizes that he's only doing so because he's submerged, eyes snapping open at the realization. And while it's certainly tempting to simply let the pull of the water take him and carry him away for good, or rather, would be if he'd stopped to think about it, he doesn't. Instead he reacts, kicking up towards the light without so much as a second thought.

A moment later, he breaks the surface, and for a brief moment he simply remains where he is, blinking. Partly because he doesn't recognize any of his surroundings, but also because he's not really certain what to make of the idea of finding himsel in the middle of a fountain. Eventually, though, he makes his way to the edge, hauling himself up and over with relative ease; a moment passes in silence before he turns to whoever happens to be nearby.

"You wouldn't happen to know where this is?"

(Elsewhere, on the network he doesn't yet know exists, a new name pops into existence: Jack the Ripper)

[Elsewhere]

Once he's gotten a reasonable explanation of where he is - if not necessarily why - Druitt takes to exploring the village. And given that he's still slightly damp, if not actively dripping, it's not too hard to guess that he's newly arrived, even if he doesn't look lost, the way some new arrivals can. Instead, he mostly tends to loom, although just at the moment it's the sort of looming that just kind of happens, when you happen to be as tall as he is. Still, he makes his slow way past most of the various landmarks of the village (such as they are), before he finally arrives at the Inn, where he drifts for a bit, before settling into one of the chairs to do a bit of people-watching.

Still, he tries to offer a polite nod to everyone who passes by, and is certainly not against a bit of conversation, if it should happen to come up.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Helen knew as soon as it showed up on the Network. There had been no mistaking Jack the Ripper for anything but the man himself and by the time she got to the fountain park, she saw him. John was someone who was so singular, so unique in how he looked and how he carried himself that there was no trick of the light, no hallucination, no explanation other than the fact that he was one and the same.

Dear God.

"How did you get here? And I don't want to hear through the fountain, we all come that way. How?"

He cuts an odd figure, wearing nothing but the scrubs all new arrivals turn up in. But he wears the black well enough, despite that (he always has favored the color) and not even the fact that they very much aren't the sort of thing he usually tends to makes a jot of difference to how he carries himself. As he's said before, he is who he is, and there's very little that can change that fact.

That said, Helen's voice does come as a surprise. Mostly for the fact that he would have expected her to still be caught up with dealing with Worth, but he turns all the same. She always has been able to command his attention, for better or worse, and not even a moment of confusion can change that. Although if she should happen to look closely, traces of that same confusion linger still by the time he's turned to face her properly.

"It wasn't anything I intended, if that's what you mean."

"No, I don't think anyone ever intends to come here but it happens all the time," Helen said drily. Of all the people from her world to show up here, it simply just had to be John because it would be too simple for it to be Will, Henry or Kate. Even Nikola would have been welcome. Ashley would have been a blessing. John is...complicated.

Helen didn't care for complicated.

"I knew it was you as soon as you arrived," she said, tapping her wristband. "Your name on the network precedes you."

He does have a way of complicating things, it's true. He has ever since he'd first made a name for himself in the annals of history, and shattered what the five of them had had in the process. But there's no changing it either. Not with his dreams of doing very literally that smashed to pieces thanks to Worth's desire to seek his own agenda with regards to altering history.

But that topic is one they can cover later. If it's absolutely necessary to do so.

"I wasn't aware there was one."

Nor, for that matter, that the wristband had anything to do with it. But now that she's mentioned it, he is a little curious. Not enough to forgo the conversation to go looking, but enough that he might check it out once he's found a quiet place to sit a while.

"No, and it's recent," Helen said. She came close enough that John might be able to read the printout of his name, JACK THE RIPPER, there in bold text. It was quite possibly the least subtle way to announce the man that she could think of. Clearly their captors weren't interested in tricking her in regards to John.

"I imagine as soon as you broke through the fountain, your name was listed."

Unexpected though it is to see the name that history remembers him better by writ large (or as large as can be, given the size of the screen involved) it does certainly explain why Helen might have been on high alert after seeing it. It does, admittedly, mean that he won't be able to escape his past here either, but even without the network, Helen's presence puts the likelihood of doing so in doubt. But it's no great concern. He's lived with it before; he can live with it now.

"Which suggests that there's someone keeping track of... recent arrivals."

Or possibly someones, but either way, it suggests that there's a presence that's keeping track of this sort of thing.

"I suspect there must be, though how to access those records I have no idea. There's plenty about this place I don't know."

Helen was wary, naturally, but John was an old friend. The warm feelings she associated with him often outweighed the negative even if it was unwise to trust him fully. At least in this place, his teleportation ought to be hampered.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"I'm sure there has to be way."

What that way is, he can't say. Not when he's been in the village scarcely more than a handful of hours, and hasn't even begun to do the sort of exploring that a little judicious use of teleportation would require. And that's assuming that whoever had made those records had been careless enough to leave them somewhere that they could be reached in that manner.

But he's not in any hurry either. He might not always be perfectly patient, but in this he can absolutely bide his time, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

And besides, there is still the conversation with Helen to be had.

"Worth's machine. And you following after him."

Disappearing into the past, though he figures that probably isn't something he needs to actually come out and say.

"There's...oh, John, there's been nearly a year between now and then. That was before I came to the village, even, and I've been here nearly two. We're three years removed now I think."

It wasn't the first time she and John had gone a long while without seeing one another but the gap seemed somewhat insurmountable at the moment.

"You're the first to come here from my version of the world."

The fact that it's been nearly a year between then and her 'now' is... less surprising than perhaps it ought to have been. He'd been expecting for that single act of breaking down the barrier to let her have her chance at Worth to be his last anyway; that the effort of channeling that much energy through his body would finally have brought his life to a close and that even before the aftermath of the portal collapsing in on itself in her wake.

And if she really has been here for nearly two years, that doesn't entirely bode well for the state of the Sanctuary. Even if her little protegé can handle things.

"Really? I would have thought they'd be sending rescue parties, by now."

With the stormy weather they'd been having, Steve thought it might be a good idea to check the fountain while he was in town. In the winter he'd helped make sure the surface didn't freeze over, trapping a newcomer underneath, now he was more concerned about debris having landed in or a top of the fountain, making it difficult for a newcomer to get out. The last thing they needed was for someone to drown upon arrival.

He's on his way back to the inn when he hears someone surface. From the distance he sees the person pause with only their head above water. Concerned they may be interest he hurries back, arriving as Druitt pulls himself free of the water. The ease in which the man does so speaks to someone in good health, but Steve takes a moment to quickly look him over before approaching to respond.

"Unfortunately not, no. Nor can I tell you how, why or by whom you were brought here." Steve shrugs with an apologetic expression. "That's all part of the apparent mystery." He extends a hand. "I'm Steve. Steve McGarrett. You mind if I ask, when and where your from?"

Apart from looking confused - and an old and well-healed scar that runs along the side of his face - Druitt looks the very picture of health. As is perhaps no surprise, really. Apart from a few very specific things he's never had much cause to worry about his health, and while he would have expected to be dead that's hardly something he's going to mention to someone he's only just met.

Admittedly, he is also slightly frustrated to hear that there isn't any concrete answer to the questions he has about the nature of his arrival, but for the time being he's willing to set them aside.

"Not in the least," he answers with a polite smile as he takes the offered hand. "John Druitt. Most recently from Old City."

There's a flicker of an apologetic smile as he offers the name of the city, as if he knows very well that it's not going to be a terrible helpful name, if Steve isn't already familiar with the place in question.

It's a good to find the man in good health. Not that there aren't doctors here, but their resources and medical equipment is limited. The confusion and frustration are both understandable. Steve wishes he had more concrete information that he could share, but he will share what he knows.

'Old City' isn't a name that Steve recognizes and by the apologetic smile, he gathers that Druitt didn't expect him to know it either. While Steve has traveled the world, he's well aware that people are brought here from different versions of his world as well as various times. "I can't say I'm familiar with where that is. I'm from Hawaii. In the spring of 2012. Not everyone here is from the same world or time."

Steve offers a one-shoulder shrug with the apologetic air. "I'd say welcome but we're trapped here and I highly doubt this is where you'd hope to be. We do have shelter and all the basics so it's not as bad as it could be."

Given that thus far the grand sum of his knowledge of the place is what can be seen shortly after having pulled oneself out of the fountain, he'll be glad of whatever Steve can offer, even if that's comparatively little.

"I can't say that I've been to Hawaii, personally. But I am familiar with it."

It's too much of a tourist destination to be terribly appealing as a bolthole. To say nothing of the active volcanoes, any one of which would be capable of putting a crimp in the sort of long-term plans he tends to prefer simply by virtue of happening to erupt, something that he's been led to believe isn't terribly predictable ahead of time. Even if that is because he tends to think in terms of decades, when it comes to the comparative sanctity of his boltholes.

The rest of Steve's comment, meanwhile, earns a shrug.

"It'll do."

It's not perfect, mind. But it's a far sight better than being buried several miles underground, which is the best he'd had to look forward to back home.

Well, it says something that Druitt is at least familiar with Hawaii. Although not as much as what Steve would have liked. He is curios, but it is only curiosity that is driving him to ask. It's not that he's part of the census or that it makes a difference one way or the other to him. With that in mind, he lets the subject go.

Besides there is something that he is more curios about. "You don't seem upset or shocked, at least not as most do when they arrive...?" It's word as a statement but the inflection in his voice makes it comes out more as a question.

If Steve had asked, Druitt would have been glad to explain more. Or at least, to explain that he'd never really had call to visit. The part about it not striking him as the most ideal location for a bolthole, on the other hand, is something he means to keep largely to himself. Accordingly, there's simply a shrug at Steve's question.

"Let's just say it's not the first time I've arrived somewhere ... less than expected."

Sure, he has a better handle on his teleportation these days. But that doesn't mean that his comment is any less true for it. Just that it's been awhile.

Druitt's answer could be taken in many different ways, but there's something about it that caused Steve to pause and tilt his head in intrigue and curiosity. There seemed to have an air of familiarity to his words. Like this wasn't as foreign of a concept to be taken and deposited here, as it had been to him.

"This has happened to you before?"

Some people had come and gone and come again so it wasn't unheard of. Not to mention it did appear as if this, whatever this was, had happened more than once. They weren't necessarily the first. Steve also wasn't discarding the idea that this could have happened under other circumstances. Since arriving here he'd learned not to make assumptions. Anything was truly possible and if he wanted to get himself, Danny and Mary out of here, he was going to have to keep an open mind.

"Not precisely like this."

He's only been in the village once to date, thus far, and hasn't really stopped to think about the idea of turning up more than once. But the core of the idea, of being transported by strange powers to somewhere entirely unexpected, that is familiar enough. The rest is simply window-dressing, especially when it might also have offered him salvation besides.

"But the idea of it... that I'm familiar with. And in any case, I think I rather prefer this. Even if it is somewhere I don't recognize."

Whether or not that will stay true throughout his stay in the village is another story entirely, of course. But at least for the time being he's content enough to take things as they are, and not worry too much about the rest.

There's a touch of disappointment that Druid's experience isn't more closely aligned to this, but it's short-lived. Nothing truly lost after all. And, his preference makes Steve snort.

"We'll talk again after you've been here a while and see if this is still your preference."

Not that he's dismissing that there are places so much worse than here... He has been to POW camps and war-zones after all and this is by far an improvement. But, some of the things that happen here, how little control they have and the lack of means to escape or face their jailers... Sometimes he thinks he might prefer the war-zone. At least he can do something there.

Edited (Not the icon I was expecting...) 2018-09-25 22:49 (UTC)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(no subject)

shortly after the fountain

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Fountain

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject