sixthiterationlogs | Sabriel Arrival

WHO: Sabriel
WHERE: The bunker, and South Village
WHEN: January 20 to January 24
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: Discussion of and thoughts of death, mentions of violence?

Arrival; Closed to 60; Jan 20

Sabriel floats in the tube. She doesn't wake, instead dreaming of a river, dank and cold and relentless, and of stars that spread out forever, becoming symbols that swirl and dance around her.

If it weren't for the display showing that she's very much alive, she'd be pale enough to be a corpse, black hair floating around her face like some strange kind of seaweed.

South Village; OTA Jan 20-24

Sabriel wastes no time trying to get a sense of where she is. She's been stripped of her magic, her sword, her bells... and she needs to get back to the Old Kingdom as quick as she can. Touchstone's waiting for her after all, and there is work for them both in the Old Kingdom.

But she isn't stupid enough to go running off into the wilderness- everyone here has arrived in a similar manner to her, and if there was a sure or easy way back, they would have taken it. So she moves through the buildings, and stops in the Inn, reading over every record she can find and committing all of it to memory. She's not sure what to think of the history of previous incidents, but at least the information about plants and animals is helpful, even if there doesn't seem to be a complete map. And they're serving lunch, which is always helpful.

Next she heads to the library, reviewing the information about surviving in the wilderness- she knows some of it, but she's also used to having tools and powers that she no longer possesses. So instead she reviews the information about building fires, foraging setting up snares, field-dressing game, finding and building shelter- there's a lot to review. And it helps her keep her mind from wandering back to other things, like the feeling of being pierced by her own sword, or her father- And Colonel Horyse- and Ellimere-

Sabriel realizes she's been staring at the same page for five minutes, and her hands are shaking. She steadies them, and turns the page.

That evening, she curls up in a corner of the inn's front room and tries not to cry. She has to live, and she has to get back to the Old Kingdom.

The next day, things are a little easier- she visits the blacksmith's and the butcher's and several other places in the village, to see what people do, and if there's any way she can be useful.

The day after, she borrows a spear and knife from the village store, and goes hunting- it's mostly an excuse to see what's in the wilderness around the village, but when she returns with a rabbit, she feels more useful than she has since she arrived.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Rations," Sabriel says, "Well, as long as it's something in your stomach and it doesn't make you sick, it's better than nothing. At least everyone seems to be cooperating and sharing resources."

Because otherwise, it would be a nightmare.

"Mostly better than nothing. You get a pre-packaged omelette and you start to reconsider." You can send people across the galaxy, put them in cold storage while you travel through slipspace, and still can't make a decent meal for the military.

"I guess. I haven't really... talked to people." There's the library though, he supposes that's a thing. And no-one has tried to kill him yet.

"Why not just send eggs?" Sabriel says, a little baffled at omlettes as provisions.

"I haven't spoken to many, but... I've tried to watch. People are cooperating, and there don't seem to be any attacks from the Dead or Free magic creatures.

"Because... they'd break? Or go off. Who's gonna ship hundreds of thousands of eggs between planets when you can just send MREs?" And now he was wondering if anyone here had chickens or ducks or something. it'd been ages since he'd had fresh eggs.

"The... dead?"

"Planets?" Sabriel's eyes have gone wide as saucers, "Are you saying you've been to other worlds?" Which honestly sounded like something out of an Ancelstierrian radio play.

That's a hell of a reaction, although maybe he should have been expecting it. It's weird, being in a place where travel between planets isn't normal. "I was born on a small colony planet in the Leonis Minoris system. I'm a marine so I've travelled around to quite a few places, yeah."

So he was a soldier. But more importantly-

"You can travel to other planets? Are you being completely serious?" She'd realized that people here were from places far from what she knew, that differed from where she'd come from in more ways than she could understand. But this is still a lot to take in.

Edited 2019-01-28 00:05 (UTC)

"Yes?" Wash replied. "Totally serious. It's just... normal. Boring. People have been doing it for hundreds of years." Sure, he knows that they didn't used to be able to, but that's so far beyond his lifetime that it's hard to imagine. Everyone just stuck on one planet. No wonder Earth had had so many problems.

"Oh- so how do they do it? Do they use special airplanes?" Sabriel leans forward, her reading entirely forgotten.

"If they've been doing it for centuries, they must have visited so many different places."

At least if she doesn't know how things work, Wash doesn't need to admit that he doesn't know exactly how everything works, in the same way that he can fix a car without knowing exactly how it works. "Starships. A bunch of different kinds. The bigger ones stay in space. Smaller ones take people planetside if there's no better way of doing it, like an orbital elevator."

Which there wasn't on many of the outer colony worlds.

"There used to be hundreds of human colonies. Planets, moons, meteors. All kinds of places."

"Used to be," Sabriel says, frowning at the past tense, "What happened to them?" Natural disaster doesn't make sense if they're on different planets, so...

"Was there a war?"

He's having to explain that a lot recently. it's odd. No-one asked back home. You might ask where someone was from, but you didn't ask further. You could always tell. It was in the spaces between their words.

"Yeah, there was a war. Been going on for almost as long as I've been alive. Only ended recently."

"Oh- well, it's good that it's over?" What could she say? He hadn't said how it ended, but if it had been going on that long, and so many settlements gone... asking for more information would be crass.

"Yeah, it is. And humanity survived." And what do you do as a species when you've poured everything into war for the last few decades? Well, maybe he won't make it long enough to figure out what you do when you're not at war for the first time ever.

"Maybe a break isn't such a bad idea."

"That's fortunate, but I have work to do where I come from- I don't appreciate being dragged somewhere, without any of my powers or tools."

She has to get back. Touchstone is waiting for her, and there are Dead to banish and a kingdom to rebuild.

"I don't think anyone is exactly happy about being here." Some people seem to have accepted it, but even then, they've been dragged here unwillingly. He can't imagine anyone's thrilled.

"What kind of tools?" He\s not touching the power thing if he can help it.

Sabriel Arrival

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