[MINGLE] Great Shakes

[sixthiteration]

WHO: EVERYBODY
WHERE: EVERYWHERE
WHEN: 13 July (afternoon, main quake) - 14 July (morning, last aftershocks)
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: Potential injuries, PTSD, and anxiety

---

The sun is still high when the earth begins its initial, almost benign sway, but seasoned villagers know well enough that what follows will be far from gentle. Vibrations ramp up swiftly, exponentially, until within the space of a few seconds, the whole world is shaking — Dishes pinging down from shelves, young trees sifting free of the earth, shingles dislodging and tumbling like rain.

After 20 seconds, the worst is done, and after 30 the shaking has ebbed completely. Some will have escaped relatively unscathed, but others will not have been so lucky...

...and the aftershocks are still to come.

Comments

[frankensteinian]

"I've been done with this place for a long time." Pretty much from the moment he arrived here, but definitely since his powers stopped working entirely. There are more important things he could be doing right now, especially since he doesn't have to hide anymore. His secret's out. He might as well go back to being Erik again.

But here, even if he calls himself Erik, he doesn't know who (or what) he is. That which has been part of him for almost forty years is no longer within reach.

He turns to look Jean over. "You're okay?"

[ashandflame]

"I'm fine," Jean promises him. She might lie to someone she doesn't know all that well but there's no point in lying to Erik. She's been inside his mind. She's worked with him, lived with him; there's differences between this Erik and her own but he's still the same person deep down.

"I didn't get hurt - I managed to run out of the Inn before anything started falling on me. I don't know a lot about earthquakes but I know getting outside is better than trying to ride it out indoors."

[frankensteinian]

He nods. He believes her. "The last time I experienced an earthquake, I was inside. I wasn't injured, but someone else nearly was." Nearly killed is what the other man was. Saving one life had led to the loss of others.

"I wonder what this one portends."

[ashandflame]

"Between the lightning and the earthquakes, it's feeling kind of biblical," Jean says, giving him a wary look. "I haven't been to church since I still lived with my parents because of the whole mutants are gonna end the earth thing but I remember enough of it to think we've got some plagues going."

And Jean is so not here for that.

"Is this normal? Earthquakes regularly?"

[frankensteinian]

"I wouldn't know." His religious background is somewhat different, after all, and had included different lessons. Before it all came to an end anyway, and he was content to leave it that way. Now it makes no difference, since the only religious leader here is from the wrong religion.

"No. It has happened before, but not on a regular basis. This weather's not exactly normal, either."

[ashandflame]

Jean lets out a quick breath. So apparently this weather, this place...it's just going to keep on like this and she's just going to have to deal with it? That's not exactly what she signed up for.

Of course, technically, she didn't sign up for anything. She got forcefully volunteered.

"That's hardly fair. Then again, I'm gathering that nothing about this place is fair."

[frankensteinian]

"No. Beyond being unfair equally. For the most part." Some things might happen to some people and not others, but there's not one group that has it worse off than another. They're all stuck in this together.

"If this place were fair, none of us would be here."

[ashandflame]

"If someone like you hasn't figured a way out, we are screwed," Jean says dully. Maybe she puts too much faith in Erik but she's been in his mind and she knows what he's been through. He's not the kind of person to talk like this unless he's exhausted a lot of avenues.

"Hopefully the Inn's okay. I've been crashing there."

[frankensteinian]

"I'm not the only one who's looked." It was a common thing, especially when they were in the canyon and the boundaries of this place were obvious. As far as he knows, no one's even found the edge of this new place yet, much less been able to look for a way past it.

"I have a couple of extra rooms in my house. You're welcome to one of them, if you want it."

[ashandflame]

Living with Erik will be one normal thing in a sea of abnormal so when he offers, Jean perks up visibly. She doesn't mind the Inn, exactly, but she'd rather be somewhere she can sort of call her own and she feels safer with Erik than she does by herself.

"Yeah? Thank you," she says, her smile soft and a little vulnerable. "It'll be like home - not that you know about that, or anything, but we share a...much larger house there."

[frankensteinian]

"My room's downstairs. There are two upstairs. You can choose which one you want." It'll be nice for him to have someone around, too, instead of having to be in the house by himself. "There's something to be said for sharing, I suppose."

[ashandflame]

"Yeah, definitely. It will be nice to have a space that's mine but not be rattling around inside a house by myself," Jean says. She hasn't chosen one of the other houses for exactly that reason.

"That's cool of you to offer. I know you don't remember it but it'll be just like old times back home only it's not a mansion in Madripoor and I'm not suiting up on a regular basis."

[frankensteinian]

"I don't mind living alone." He's used to solitude, and it's easier to avoid judgement from others that way. "It will be nice to have company though." Or he wouldn't have offered. And he has been feeling the effects of being alone more since Claire disappeared.

"A mansion?" How did he end up living in a mansion?