things happen, that's all they ever do.

[vidal]

WHO: Reyes Vidal
WHERE: The bunker; the inn; the village generally
WHEN: Dec 2-5
OPEN TO: OTA, multiples for inn/village allowed
WARNINGS: Nothing really

---

Arrival in the Bunker (now locked to Kat)
The last he knew, he’d been trying to hitch a ride off Port Meridian, the crashed ark turned human city. He’d been standing in the elevator while it rose sluggishly towards the shuttle bays. Boring enough, yes, because the elevators always seemed to run far too agonisingly slowly despite their complexity, but it hadn’t been nothing out of the ordinary—

Until, the next he knows, the elevator has filled with water. The thought Is the ark malfunctioning manages to run through his head, but then he’s far too busy trying to find the door, failing, running his fingers along the crevices and edges of the container, realising it isn’t actually the lift anymore, and then, his worst nightmare: panicking.

Reyes’ nerves are steely even at the worst of times, but water is simply inexorable, unstoppable, unbargainable. Thankfully, the wait isn’t long before the seal hisses open and the water starts draining and someone (his liberator, he supposes) is helping him out, shaky and wobbly-legged and swearing in Spanish.


South Village Inn, a couple days later (OTA)
Predictably, Reyes gravitates towards the inn. It’s the closest thing to Tartarus, the bar he used to haunt — communal spaces where he can people-watch, get a sense for the group as a whole, possibly even eavesdrop.

But unfortunately, this place is nothing like the neon-soaked dive bar on his slum planet.

The room starts off empty when Reyes begins his inspection, but after a while he hears the creak of footsteps on ancient floorboards, and his head pops up from behind the bar, looking a little sheepish — and empty-handed, dusty. Poking around every single cabinet and shelf has led to absolutely nothing. “Is it true?” he asks with a gesture towards the empty bar, with the sound of a man who’s recently received a horrifying diagnosis from the doctor.


Around the village (OTA)
Reyes will be doing the usual for his first few days: roaming, information-gathering, people-watching, committing the layout of the area to memory. He’s also trying to suss out who lives where and if the fuss of a house is worth it, so can probably be found lingering and staring thoughtfully at the empty buildings, where a neighbour can catch him. He would also appreciate anyone willing to show him where to get/find food etc!

Comments

South Village | It’s Okay He Doesn’t Drink

[skyward_eyes]

He’s been coming in to check the storage room upstairs, see if he couldn’t find a good tool to work some wood with. Not real carpentry, closer to whittling, and that was another beast. But the sound of movement drew his attention and Nida found himself drawn to the bar area. The man popping up, looking a touch forlorn earned a pitying frown from Nida. This was probably a hard way to learn there wasn’t anything to drink. Granted Nida wasn’t partial to it back home so he hadn’t thought to care. Yet he knew the answer anyway. Lucy has told him before and he assumed it was still true now.

“It’s a dry bar,” Nida acknowledged. “I don’t know if individuals have stashes, but you won’t find a drop here.”

After the few days Nida has been through he couldn’t help but wonder if alcohol might not be a good way to adjust. Good thing he had unknowingly dripped right into a support network. And dropped was the right word. Damn that had been cold.

[vidal]

“Then what in the stars is even the purpose of this bar being here?” Reyes sighed, running a finger along one of the undershelves, revealing the layer of dust. It was practically a lament, an exaggerated bewailing of his fate — because griping about this inconvenience at least gave him something to focus on, a pebble in his shoe to make a fuss over rather than the massive, overwhelming, frankly-unimaginable problem hovering over all their heads instead. This one by comparison was molehill-sized, which of course meant Reyes mourned it like a mountain.

“You don’t happen to have a stash, do you? Or know anywhere one may find some? I think I’ve discovered a new goal in life.” He was reminded, then, of his stealing a bottle of Mount Milgrom whiskey. One of the last from Earth, transplanted to a new galaxy. That had been priceless too.

[skyward_eyes]

The purpose? The question earned a raised eyebrow from Nida. It was a rather useful one. Why the inn with a bar? Why the houses? Why anything? Not that he could answer any of those questions. Perhaps he never would be able to.

“I haven’t even been here a week. And my priority hasn’t been liquor. Given all the things apparently out to possibly kill us, weather and lack of technology included, alcohol may not be useful except as an antiseptic. Try the doctors maybe? Or send a text out. Hope you have something to barter.”

For goals perhaps it wasn’t the worst if it motivates the man not to give up hope.

[vidal]

And it wasn’t the most heartening or encouraging to hear — although a hostile environment and a literally toxic atmosphere had been par for the course back home, but at least Reyes had been able to take the edge off with alcohol back then. He sighed again and stalked back out from behind the bar, finding one of the wooden chairs and flopping into it. The bar had been the last thing left in this front room for him to examine; he’d already obsessively pored over that village census and list of volunteers (declining to add himself to the list just yet) and the catalogue of events, trying to understand as much as possible about this mysterious place.

“Another new face, then,” he said, finally introducing himself. “I’m also wet behind the ears — literally! — if you weren’t able to tell. Reyes.”

[skyward_eyes]

"Fountain fresh, though I think the cold water took years off my life," Nida shrugged.

For now he remained standing, turning to put his back against the counter Reyes had just been behind. There was clearly an appraisal going on, from the way Nida looked him over. And not a 'you look tasty' sort of looking over. No, a 'figure this person out' sort of look over. Too bad there wasn't much to read with new people, who didn't even have their own clothes to add metaphorical color to a personality.

"Nida Nomura," he offered after a beat. "Did you get harassed by ice mice upon arrival, or am I one of the unfortunate few so far?"

Around the village!

[cleptes]

Bela was on her way back from the inn when she notices a man standing in front of unclaimed houses looking a little...unsure? That's what it seemed like to her in that moment at least. His presence is enough to catch Bela's attention as well as making her more guarded when she approaches him.

Better safe than sorry.

"Is everything alright? You seem lost in thought."

Despite living in New York city for a few years, Bela hasn't lost her crisp English accent - nor does she want to.

[vidal]

He hears her coming, catching a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye — which makes his hand itch to go for a blaster pistol that doesn’t exist, but he shifts slightly on his feet in order to watch the woman approach.

People here have been incomprehensibly (perhaps even suspiciously) friendly, and it’s required a bit of mental rewiring. She’s wary, but if he’d been lurking like this outside someone’s home back on Kadara, Reyes wouldn’t have been greeted with wariness, but likely violent, preemptive self-defense.

“Just taking in the surroundings,” he says, and it’s even the truth. “Do you live here? Do you know what these residences are like? I’ve never actually lived in a house. This would be a funny place to start, but...” Splayed hands, a breezy shrug.

[cleptes]

Back home she would have carried her pistol at all times, prepared for just about anything. Unfortunately, the technology here wasn’t up to speed so Bela had to make do with a kitchen knife (it wasn’t on her now though).

She is curious about what his response would be to her, whether he would be honest or not. Even if she wasn’t exactly the best person to be a judge of that.

"I do live here." Bela confirms with a nod, though she doesn't indicate where she lives. "The houses are about a century out of date but they're solid and provide a roof over my head so I guess I can't complain too much."

Except when she does complain.

"The inn might have an available room if...sorry, did you say you've never lived in a house? That's odd."

[vidal]

“Is it?” Reyes honestly doesn’t know what’s normal or odd anymore; it’s been utterly suspended in this place, with all these people from other worlds rubbing shoulders. “I’ve always lived in cramped apartments or on-the-go. First on a station, then on a ship for a while, then another apartment in a settlement while we were terraforming. Similar to this place in ways, I suppose. Except at least there are these… cabins? Bungalows?”

He’s standing nonchalantly with hands in pockets, shoulders thrown back as he examines the buildings like an inspector sizing up the quality of the construction. And then, out of the corner of his eye, he sizes up the woman, too: pretty, brunette, sharp. Not quite as welcoming as others he’s met so far, but in his eyes, some of them have been almost pathologically friendly.

“Reyes,” he says after a moment, offering a hand and a devil-may-care smile, gaze trailing down the line of her throat, her arm. It’s like an automatic switch he can’t quite turn off. “New here, obviously.”

I am so sorry for the delay

[cleptes]

So he was not from Earth at all. Or he was, just one in the far future - with perhaps space travel and space colonization involved. "I think people just call them houses," Bela says. "Bungalows and cabins are entirely different."

She'll ask about the space angle a little later, hoping it would be more interesting than any assumptions she had about it; Bela was the kind of person who liked to keep her feet firmly on the ground...except the times when she had to make a quick escape from anyone who dared to interfere with her business.

"Bela," she replies smoothly, taking his hand to give it a firm shake. "A pleasure to meet you, Reyes."

Don't think she missed the subtle way he checked her out. In fact, Bela is going to do the same to him in return just because she can.

Arrival

[mediumhoodie]

"Steady." Her voice was cool, sweet and calm.

Kat carefully took the backpack that he'd woken up with off and placed it off to the side. "Here. Can you stand? I have some water." Which probably sounded odd after he had come out of a tube filled with water but she remembered what it had been like. Her lungs had felt like they were on fire and her throat had been dry and raw. "It's clean water." She clarified in a tone that she hoped was comforting.

Kat was a unimposing woman. She was only a few inches over five feet with short cropped hair. There was a star marked on her forehead as well as swirls marking her right hand. Her outfit was all dark green but instead of scrubs she was wearing a hoodie, a pair of shorts and dark combat boots.

[vidal]

The man from the tube was coughing and hacking as his lungs cleared, almost vomiting up the last of the water he’d swallowed, but thankfully his stomach held. Reyes looked down, then, at the young woman holding him up — an odd reversal of physical stature, but there you had it. The newest arrival was darkhaired, tanned, hair buzzed short on the sides in a fade, the rest currently plastered to his forehead and dripping into his eyes. Normally he would have bristled at having someone so unexpectedly close and in his space when he was so vulnerable, but Reyes found himself glad of the support instead; falling feebly to hands-and-knees was an even less palatable option.

His still-groggy gaze drifted over her shoulder, taking in their mechanical surroundings, the tubes and metal and consoles. Someone else’s ship? Had he been intercepted?

“Where am I?” At the painful crack in his voice, the pain blistering his throat, Reyes realised that a drink sounded heavenly. He blindly caught the bottle Kat offered him, taking an unwise sip, but he suspected he had bigger problems at the moment.

[mediumhoodie]

"It's an island. I'm not sure where exactly." She made sure he had a firm hold on the bottle before letting go. Kat wasn't usually a touchy feely person but she didn't want to watch him go tumbling to the cave floor. "We're in a bunker. I don't know a lot about it but I was here when the alarms went off. I didn't want to leave you in there."

Kat didn't have the answers that he wanted but she'd try her best.

"I think the clothes in your pack are dry. You'll want to change before we go. It's winter." In case it wasn't cold... wherever he came from. "I can try and answer other questions for you but I arrived the same way you did, a few months ago. I don't have too many answers."

[vidal]

Even with her careful consideration and attempt to ease him into this gently, it was still a dizzying amount of information to parse: Bunker? Alarms? Why do I have a pack? Months? Winter?

It was a good thing, then, that Reyes used to parse flurries of information on the daily, sorting through logistics and plans for a sprawling criminal syndicate with connections across an entire galaxy. He breathed out, instinctively tried to smooth his hair back, then took a few more sips of water as he gathered his madly-spinning thoughts. Everything still ached, a little.

“Have we been kidnapped?” he asked, suddenly. Rebels had been kidnapping human colonists, for a time, and the prospect suddenly seemed plausible, even if he had no memory how he’d gotten here. Perhaps he’d been poisoned, or knocked out. “Where are you— where are you from?” The young woman didn’t look familiar, but he was sure he’d have taken note; even with the stream of faces through the port, a star-shaped face tattoo was noticeable.

[mediumhoodie]

"Yes." Kidnapped was the easiest way to explain it though Kat didn't think that their situation was that simple. This wasn't just another world but a world that had taken away her abilities as a medium. Nothing here was as simple as it seemed and she'd grown cautious over the last few months.

"I'm from Limbo City. I doubt that you've heard of it." Besides Vergil, no one else had known of her world.

She paused and slowly began to release him. It looked like he had his foot and while he appeared to be wet, he was sipping at the water and starting to look better. "Here. Let me get you a jacket while we talk. It isn't warm down here and I don't want you to catch a cold."

At House 11

[championofsnark]

Hawke was delighted to get any kind of bite on her post, because in truth she was fully resigned to living solo, but it reminded her a bit too much about her empty house in Kirkwall. It hadn't always been empty, but after her mother died and their life degraded into the eventual madness, it felt like a building of darkness and loneliness. A very dramatic outlook, yes, but she was in no hurry to have the same here.

She liked the house she picked. It had two floors and a nice brick on the outside, and a pantry for her to store dried meats and other larder options for the winter. It was fairly clear that someone only recently moved in, since it was so clean and orderly. Hawke would get it lived in real quickly, with or without help. She left the door open so the fellow could come right in, and she currently had an impressive collection of arrows stacked on the dining table. How they were made became clear in the living room area where there were a few small knives and a big pile of small kindling and wood against the wall. The type easy to whiddle into what she needed. Outside the house was already a stack of full wood pieces for when the winter really got going. She was ready and now so would he.

Hawke herself was currently perched on the arm of a chair in the living room area, easy to spot as soon as someone came in. Dark hair was loose and a little wild, and she wore mostly clean simple black clothes, nothing special to them. There was a pair of rather nice leather boots by the door and a warm cloak hanging nearby that she borrowed from the group items to get by. While Hawke was excellent at making arrows, she wasn't quite as good at sewing, which she was attempting to do now on a torn part of warm socks. It wasn't like they could just replace these things easily, but her mother was the sewer, she was a passable student at beset.

[vidal]

Reyes counted off the buildings until he found the one Hawke had described — the door was standing open so he strolled right in, gazing around, taking it in, and giving her a nod of greeting. The man was still wearing a navy-blue scrubs shirt (a tell-tale sign of his newness), but he was at least wearing the denim overalls, covered by the peacoat buttoned tight to his neck, with the backpack slung over one shoulder that represented his sum total of belongings in this entire world. Horribly unfashionable, a far cry from the efficient suit he used to have. It was like he was wearing a new and unfamiliar skin, uncomfortable, but he made the best of it with calculated nonchalance.

He picked up one of the sticks and toyed with it between his hands, testing the length and weight of it, a thumb against the end which would wind up sharpened. How many years had it been since his people used bows and arrows, rather than assault rifles, pistols, and warp ammo?

“You know, you’re far more prepared than I am,” he pointed out. Reyes’ incredibly false modesty was a running trend, but this time, it had an unpleasant grain of truth to it. Survival. It was going to be an even larger question than it had been on Kadara. “Your allowing me to move in here is an act of true saintly charity, my friend.

[championofsnark]

Hawke was keyed in to the presence of others, so she knew the second she heard a footstep closing in on the house there was someone coming. She glanced up when he entered the door frame, dark eyes giving him a slow and steady once over. She wasn't subtle about it, but she didn't need to be. They were about to be in close quarters more often, trying to get a read on a new person was only expected. And of bloody course, here was another gorgeous person to add to the pile. She would never question the taste of the people who did this.

"I've never been accused of being a saint before, but I'm a giver, what can I say? I was also very, very bored." She set the sewing aside and got to her feet, walking over to him to offer a firm handshake. "Marian Hawke, officially, but don't call me Marian, and I'm not a very official sort of person, so I'm just Hawke, hello." He did seem remarkably calm about everything at the moment, but she was a rogue surrounded by rogues. She knew the value in putting on a good face, and if that's what he was doing, she'd let him have it.

"Right then, come along, let's go put your things upstairs. There's two free bedrooms, I took the largest on because finders keepers, but the other two are larger singularly than the room I've been in at the inn, so." She did warn people on her post that she was very friendly, so until he told her to tone it down, he was going to get the full brunt of it at the moment. She led him up the stairs and gestured toward the other two rooms; they at last were closer to the bathroom upstairs, so there was that.

"I don't know how they made that ... what's it called. Elect... Lightning. Electricity!" She snapped her fingers in recollection. "Some houses have it, but I haven't figure out how to make it work yet here, so we'll have to deal with torches and the like." It's what Hawke was actually used to, so it wasn't a bother.

i swear my tags will get shorter again soon

[vidal]

“Reyes. Reyes Vidal,” he said with a flash of a smile, shaking her hand. If he was going to be living with Hawke, she deserved his surname. He was realising quickly that the woman was cheerfully brusque and to-the-point, without pomp and ceremony — and he found himself appreciating it. In a world gone mad, this kind of straightforward pragmatism and good humour was absolutely essential, and similar to his own.

The tour of the space showed that it was actually cozier than the cold steel and starvation that he’d experienced back home; clearly, there were benefits to housing up. Her unfamiliarity with electricity gave him pause, however. Electricity was a given for Reyes — even on the edge of a new galaxy, a hardscrabble life on a barely-terraformed planet that wanted to kill them at any moment, they’d had power. It was a piece of logistics that he hadn’t had to consider in a while. He knew how to work the machinery, but the Initiative had provided all the generators on his last jaunt. How would one do it from scratch?

“I’ll take the second-largest,” he said. “Might as well. And that gives you some privacy, at least until if/when we get another roommate.” Their bedroom doors faced each other across the hall, with the empty third between them. He supposed it could be used for storage space, if necessary. Not that he owned much—

“So, alas, my confession: I’m dreadfully spoiled and used to electricity, so I could tinker with it, see how much I can figure out about the systems, if you don’t mind. I’ll need some way of earning my keep, anyway. And did I hear correctly that you offer daily archery training?”

Perhaps his reasons for answering Hawke’s ad hadn’t just been seizing on the first available opportunity to crop up.

oh yeah sure stop writing so many beautiful things julie god

[championofsnark]

"A pleasure to meet you, Reyes." He was very smooth and lacked the sort of stilted awkwardness a lot of people had at first when meeting a stranger. If he was wary, it didn't show, and that suited her fine since much of her quick chatty humor was used to put other people at ease. "That sounds like a good idea. If we don't ever end up using it we could always use it to store things in." Hawke unknowingly was echoing his thoughts, but perhaps it's simply the way their minds work. Always ready to use things to their benefit. Waste not, want not. Hawke learned from her time on the road in the past and more recently that she should appreciate when there were luxuries.

She made a tch noise. "You lucky people and your fancy electricity-laden worlds. I suppose you're used to the guns and vehicles that aren't on wheels too?" Hawke's skills were geared toward survival and suited for this world because she came from a medieval time period. This was far more her speed than most. It was an advantage she was happy for, if not occasionally envious at the glamorous lifestyles they appeared to have. Her eyes widened and she leaned against the nearby wall, arms crossed against her chest. "Wait are you from somewhere that people fly from city to city easily? Do you know how useful that would have been for my feet?" Or made her lazy and complacent.

His comment about her archery caused her smile to curl in a smirk. Oh she was more than happy to have an arrangement that gave them both something. All the better. "Please do tinker away, but try not to burn the house down. There are other ones but I just really like this one." It was more her taste than what she had in Kirkwall. "Yes I do. I teach archery and I also take people out to learn how to track and hunt. I can teach combat too, but ...." She glanced at his build again and winked. "I have this sneaking suspicion you know a thing or two yourself."

Around the village

[fishermansweater]

Finnick has been watching this village since he first found himself here two years ago. It's easy, here, after so long playing to the Capitol. Here, people don't parse every word, every action, expecting a perfect performance. Here, that perfect performance isn't what keeps Annie safe from Snow's threats. Here, they may be watched, they may be manipulated, but he's not immediately threatened on a daily basis, and he's allowed to have his wife.

Not that any of that stops Finnick using years of Career training and watching the Capitol to gather information. He knows that he isn't alone in that, though he's alone in where the skills came from, except for Annie. And he watches out for new people, trying to assess them as allies and threats, as people with skills and weaknesses. Which is why he notices the way the new guy is appraising the unoccupied buildings.

"Window-shopping?" he asks as he steps around the corner from the shadow of the building next door to the one the guy's looking at.

[vidal]

A twitch of a smile in the corner of his mouth, as Reyes shifts to take in the new arrival. “Perhaps a little. I should’ve started pressing my nose to the windows, made it even more dreadfully obvious.”

There’s a nonchalance to his movements, but underneath it a subtle wariness, too — like a cat sauntering through a room, pretending it’s absolutely unbothered, and yet remaining spine rigid and watchful. So, he looks over the other man: around his age or a little younger, handsome, and dressed more like a proper villager than Reyes’ fresh scrubs, which mark him as a new arrival.

“The inn’s starting to look a little full, so I decided to take a look at the houses. ” He doesn’t technically owe anyone an explanation, but on the off-chance that this man does live in one of the neighbouring buildings, Reyes prefers to tread lightly. He’s been greeted with everything from a cup of tea to brandished weapons here.

[fishermansweater]

Finnick's carrying weapons, but they're not obvious unless someone's looking for them at the moment: knives secreted in the pockets of his coat. It's one of the less aggressive greetings he's given anyone here lately; he's not carrying a trident on his way to check his fishing traps. But Finnick doesn't need a weapon to be dangerous, and for the observant, there's something in the way he moves that suggests it, a combination of easy grace and physical ease with a keen sharpness in his gaze. He doesn't really pretend not to size the other man up. Finnick notices the wariness in the other man, because he's used to recognizing it by now, after living with victors for so long in Panem and seeing so many other people who act like them in small ways here.

Finnick doesn't comment on it. He just smiles and moves a little closer.

"It's useful to have your own space."

Useful is one word for it. There were many others that could be used, by a person who had Finnick and Annie's wariness about the villagers. "You're new," he says, tilting his head a little in acknowledgment of the fact that it's not actually a question. "I'd say 'welcome', but this isn't exactly the sort of place you welcome someone to."

[vidal]

Reyes’ expression flickers, and it’s hard to tell exactly what that emotion is, though seems like bemusement. “Isn’t that the truth,” he says. “I appreciate your calling a spade a spade.”

Everyone’s small kindnesses have simply been putting a thin sliver of pleasantry over a maddening situation. Captives. Captives without explanation, which was the hardest part for an information-monger, a former spy. If, at the very least, Reyes had known he was being held by a rebel group because they wanted to pressure a government into re-legalising batarian slave trade, well, at least that sort of thing he could understand. So far, everyone’s presence on this island had been inexplicable.

“If I must be mysteriously spirited away to an inescapable land,” and his voice is dry, with a sort of mordant humour, “I might as well have my own kitchen while I’m at it.”

[fishermansweater]

Finnick had responded to arriving in this place by running into the woods and hiding there with Annie until a run of wet weather had driven them into the village and the house they'd chosen on its outskirts. They'd been what some would call paranoid, convinced that the people here were likely to turn on them at any moment, like an arena alliance gone bad. It was the sole way of understanding a place like this they'd had, and while they now accept that it's not the correct reference, they feel safer assuming danger than not.

He sees little point in sugar-coating the situation.

"None of us are here because we want to be," he says.

It's better than the immediate danger of an arena, and it's at a distance from Snow's control, but they're still controlled and manipulated, just in a different way. His expression is carefully impassive as he watches the other man's face.

"It comes with a bed and a bathroom too," Finnick replies, amusement twitching the corner of his mouth for a moment. "Hardly luxury, but it's shelter." Better than was possible in the arena, but far from his victor's mansion.