(no subject)

[fantastic_kneads]

WHO: Jacob Kowalski
WHERE: The Bakery
WHEN: May 21
OPEN TO: All - 1st starter primarily for people who have talked to him before, 2nd open to all
WARNINGS: n/a
STATUS: Open

---

Miss Manners Says...

He's been thinking about what his Ma would've thought about this place pretty much from the second he turned up. Jacob knows that it's not like New York, not even like a street of New York, seeing as he thinks there's more people in his building than there are here, but that come with good things, too. It means people care about you, they worry, and they're real nice. Ever since he's arrived in this weird little village, Jacob's been helped out by a lot of people.

His Ma's voice in his head tells him that he should be repaying that kindness. Since he doesn't think anyone needs his brute strength for canning, he goes right to the other skill he's got. Besides, he figures that some pastries are a lot more welcome than anything else he's got to offer.

With limited supplies, it's not like he can go wild and bake up a whole showcase, but he manages to put together nice little displays, about three filled, glazed donuts, each with a different filling (cherry, lemon, and sugary sweet fluff). He hasn't got boxes, but he lines them up as best as he can to get 'em ready for delivery, heading out into the village one little package at a time to find those people who helped him out.

When he sees someone, he waves a hand to try and get their attention, balancing the little baking tray in his hands. "Hey!" he shouts. "Hey, hold up, I got something for you!"

Give Us Our Daily Bread

After that box of strange things turned up, Jacob's been trying to experiment on the daily, even if he hasn't got much in the way to record his experiments. Bread is bread and it's pretty easy, but there are poppyseeds and sesame seeds and he'd been able to coax a couple of eggs a few days in a row until he's got enough to make a few specialties. Today, it's egg bread, like the challah he used to find in the city. Lucky for him, it's not too far off the regular bread he makes.

By mid-morning, the bakery is putting off the smell of fresh bread. The egg bread is there, but he's also got a version with some poppyseeds and he's managed to get a few into bagel form. Just like the other days, he knows it's not much and he can't feed everyone in the village, not if he wants to keep making 'em regularly (and if he doesn't figure out flour soon, that's definitely going to become an issue).

Still, when that bread comes off the ovens and Jacob smells that incredible fresh smell, he figures that if he's got one purpose in this place, he's happy that it's something he loves doing. "Butter," he says, out of nowhere, searching around him. "I should've gotten some butter."

(no subject)

[ex_primals283]

WHO: Corsina Surana
WHERE: The fountain park, the inn
WHEN: May 21st
OPEN TO: Corsina's arrival is locked to Hawke, and I'm taking up to five threads for the OTA portion at the inn.
WARNINGS: N/A, will update if needed.
STATUS: Open

---

the fountain; locked to Astrid Hawke

The first thing Corsina is conscious of is that she can't breathe. Her lungs feel on fire, burning pain and a tightness in her chest like — like drowning, and the second thing she realizes is the reason her limbs feel slow and heavy: she's in water, although she can't for the life of her recall how or why. Among the things Corsina learned at the Circle and with the Wardens, swimming wasn't really one of them — but she can tread water a little, and her arms and legs work just enough to propel her to the surface.

She breaks through the water with a gasp, and probably would have sunk right back below the surface if not for the instinctual grab at something that turns out — when she can get her breath and her bearings enough to focus — to be the rim of a stone fountain. She clings onto it for a while, trying to get a sense of where she is. She's in what looks to be a courtyard of some sort with the fountain at its center, but there are buildings in the near distance; this must be a village of some sort, although not like anything she's ever seen.

Corsina pulls herself out of the fountain, waterlogged and still gasping for breath a little. She remembers where she was — in Denerim, although she was supposed to travel to Amaranthine in a few days, to take up possession of the fortress Vigil's Keep as a new central base for the Fereldan Grey Wardens. This — she doesn't know where this is, but it's nowhere near Denerim nor Amaranthine, of that much she is certain. She's dressed in strange clothes — trousers and shirt made of some plain blue-green fabric, and heavy brown boots with laces — and the heavy weight on her back turns out to be a pack, though she doesn't yet try to open it to see what's in it, overwhelmed just from the realization that she's nowhere near where she was and fighting not to panic at the idea that she must have been kidnapped somehow, there's no explanation for this that makes sense otherwise.

"Where in the Maker's name—" she manages, half of a breathless sentence as she sits right back down on the rim of the fountain.

She'll recover in a few minutes and get to finding someone who can tell her where she is and what's going on. She will. But right now — right now this is all a little bit much.

the inn; open

Corsina's had a few things explained to her now, and realized a few things about herself and why she feels so strange, but even so, there's still a sense that maybe this isn't really happening. Everything's fine; it has to be. This is a dream and she'll wake up, or someone will come and rescue her, or — something, because she's not processed the idea that being trapped here might be for good.

Hawke has been kind to her, but eventually she has to leave the house to take a walk, try to clear her head and get a sense of her surroundings. She's trying not to be intrusive and look into people's houses, but there's a large building that looks like it might be a common building of some kind.

Stranded in this strange village she might be, but she pushes open the door and — well, she knows a tavern when she sees one. There's a small sigh of relief — finally, something that makes some kind of sense — and she takes her time to look around, examining the tables and chairs, the fireplace, and then moving a bit further into the kitchen.

Corsina doesn't know what she was expecting, but she startles a little on seeing someone else in the kitchen. "I'm sorry," she says. "I... didn't realize there was anyone here."

It sounds silly as she says it; she's not quite blushing, but a rueful, self-deprecating smile pulls at her mouth. Everything about this entire situation is throwing her off. Warden-Commander she might be, but right now she feels more like the sheltered girl from the Circle that she used to be than anything else.

III. a series of unfortunate events

[goldsteins]

WHO: Tina Goldstein
WHERE: Around the Village, outskirts of the forest, outside of house 17
WHEN: May 20-23
OPEN TO: Anyone
WARNINGS: N/A, mild language
STATUS: Open

---

I. MAY 20
She's never had a pet before and she never thought to start now. It had been a week ago that the box with her name had arrived. The woman couldn't help but think that it was some poor joke, giving her a cat of all things. If she had found Newt that first day she would have shoved the poor creature off on him. Not for any other reason than it would obviously do better with him. Tina had gone as far as to refuse to name it the first few days, as if that would be proof she didn't own it.

Leave it to her to absently call it by a name a few days ago and accept her fate. She wasn't even sure she was a cat person.

Especially not right now-- Not when the blasted cat had waited at the door of the house she shared with Queenie waiting for its escape all afternoon. The kitten had an adventurous and curious streak that far beat out her own, Tina thought mildly-- And she was supposed to be a Thunderbird. Favors the adventurer, hah! Chasing down a kitten who'd made a break for it was not the adventure of a life she wanted.

"Molly," Tina hissed out as she ducked to look under wooden steps to someone's house. Not there. The increasingly familiar yowl made her straighten immediately and turn towards the sound. The kitten was now across the street and sat primly on that porch.

"Oh," the woman huffed a laugh, "you think this is a game."

Her answer is another yowl which she took as most assuredly a yes. "You're lucky I don't just give you away," She chastised, though there's no heat to her voice. Somehow, just somehow chasing after the blasted cat is the most relaxed she'd been in days. She moved towards the kitten trying to remember what little Newt had taught her about creatures those times ago-- but this kitten certainly wasn't wary of her, did that even apply?

She gets just in just enough distance to reach the kitten before it darted off again and her features twisted into a grimace. Tina wheeled around in time to see the kitten skirt pass a stranger and pressed her lips together. Defeated, for the moment.

"Sorry," she breathed out an almost self-deprecating laugh escaping her lips at her inability to catch one kitten.

II. May 21
( in which a lot of feelings happen )

When she pulled herself together sometime later, Tina had come to a firm decision. She dressed quickly and put the necklace around her neck without any other further ado. Tina made certain she looked fit to slip from her room and to the outside world. Today, unlike most days, she does not head for the Inn but headed into the forest. After her first few days she hadn't dared yet go back in, for no other reason than she wanted to be equipped to do so. But she'd had to have learned something, she has a survival kit and the closest thing to a weapon she could obtain.

If the locket's presence was to upset her, it had done that. If it was meant to serve as a catalyst to action, it had certainly managed that as well.

Tina has half the mind to go looking for the man she knew to reside in the forest if only for his assistance. But as she hadn't gone to where he was staying-- if he was still saying there-- she had just as much luck finding him as she did her answers. So instead the woman pressed on and made her way through the forest. For a woman used to the terrain of New York back alleys and underground she fared fairly well.

Perhaps it was that reason that things decided to go wrong.

She was far from a scout used to nature, but she was trained for harsh situations and investigating. It hadn't taken much to notice the grooves on a cliff side where one might clasp onto to climb up it. Tina thought she remembered something about this from the maps and it was some deliberation that she decided to try to climb them for as terrible an idea as it sounded (but she felt that trying anything was terrible without magic, so maybe that was part of why she had to). She doesn't do nearly so well here. Her limbs are thankfully longer and able to reach grooves she might not be able and she's careful enough--

Later she would not be able to tell you if it was the appearance of the large snake-- was it even a snake?-- from one of the many crevices or her hand slipping that ends in the fall. What she would be able to say is she by no means wants a repeat of it. She was grateful she hadn't been much higher though and that she hadn't done something more dastardly such as hitting her head. A string of curses left her lips as she refused for some time to move more than just to sit up straight.

At least she was used to injuries on the field enough to assess somethings: A bruised rib and a sprained ankle she thought acidly. Of course. The survival kit next to her would have something of a flare, she supposed, but Tina was too stubborn for that. A test showed her the amount of weight she could put on that ankle-- virtually none-- and she pressed her lips together before she shifted (crawled) for a suitable stick and tried to get back up. Between that and the trees she could possibly make it back just fine on her own.

Of course, this way was much more labored. She had to stop more than she cared to and plenty of those stops were from tripping and falling. What had taken her a relatively shorter time to get too took nearly triple to get back though the sun is only just fading over the horizon when she finally, gloriously tumbled out of the forest proper.

Tina doesn't even try to make it any further since whatever adrenaline she had gathered to get back faded way the minute she collapsed just outside of the forest. A puff of breath escaped her lips that's almost a scoff of a laugh. Deliverance Dane, that didn't really accomplish anything at all.

III. May 23
It's two days later the woman can be found on the porch of house seventeen looking more frustrated at herself than ever. Tina may have properly restricted herself to the house and not doing much as she wasn't fool enough to think she probably made any injury worse by coming out on her own. Though, of course later, she realized she wasn't even quite sure how to use those matches in the survival kit so maybe the flare wouldn't have worked after all. The sense she had, the knowledge of how to use them-- not so much, another thing she'd have to learn.

She still can't help but hate being cooped up inside and that is the primary reason she is glaring at the sky instead of the roof. Things had been odd here and they weren't getting less strange. First the sun, then the hail, and she's pretty sure it's much too hot. She sighed and turned where there was a thunk at one of the windows-- Brow arching as she glanced back to see Molly trying to paw her way out of it.

Snorting, Tina shook her head and turned back to open the well-worn survival manual she had picked up. "The weather could at least make up it's mind," She mumbled just loud enough for any passerby's to pick up.