sixthiterationlogs | Arrival: A new land

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Arrival: A new land

WHO: Thorfinn Thorsson
WHERE: The Fountain
WHEN: July 13th
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: N/A
STATUS: Closed

It's another nightmare.

It was the first thought that crossed his mind when he felt the water around him and his eyes flew open. He needed air… Dream or not, Thorfinn had little choice but to push up towards the light in the distance. Swimming was always one of his strong points. Kicking as hard as he could for the surface as his lungs started to burn desperately needing air. When Thorfinn came bursting through the water his scarred hands grabbed onto the edge of the fountain. Coughing heavily as he heaved himself over the edge onto the ground.

This was the strangest dream he had ever had… Well, kind of.

It took a few moments of coughing to get the water out of his lungs before he could breath. Pushing himself onto his hands and knees and sitting back his long blonde hair plastering to his face. He his eyes widened as he looked around him. Something akin to fear started to fill his senses… This wasn't the bodies of the dead, this wasn't his father or Askeladd. This wasn't a dream.

From the way the air felt on his wet skin, to the strange ground beneath his hands biting into his palms. It all screamed reality. It was no dream.

"Móðir! Einar! Ylfa!"

He called out the names of those who had been in the house when he had slipped to sleep. His instincts seemed to finally catch up with him as he pushed himself to his feet. He was in strange shoes he had never seen before. Clothes like those almost from a dream. A dream that he had long forgotten. One of strange islands in the sky connected by small bifrosts. He stood there examining the strange light gray clothing on him. Confused and soaked to the bone.

"Hvað er þetta? Hvar er ég? Odin, gefa mér merki."

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We're not sure we'd call it a sign, but someone does hear the shouting.

Jo is not actually next to the fountain. She doesn't like entrance points anymore here than she did two weeks ago, or two years ago, but especially two weeks ago (or the week before that), and if she could she would be as far away from the entrance point to this place, once it had been ascertained it wasn't, also, the exit. But possible, again, and, also, unexpectedly, was not a thing here, because the damned fountain and its creepy overgrown park was actually in the middle of everything.

It took up the space right in the middle of everywhere. It edged the smith, baker, the police and inn & pub buildings.
She'd decided to 'look at' the baker's place today, and in such, put herself far too close to miss any sudden, panicked, yelling.

Which is the first truly annoyed thought even. Before she zips her backpack with its new acquisitions in it, shouldering it and heading for the door. Hoping that if she doesn't rush, that when she walks that way, someone else will have already handled this situation.

The gods rarely answered man. At least not directly, Thorfinn knew that much. After a moment of staring at the strange clothes he was in. Tugging at the strange neckline of it. Then looking back to the sky and taking a breath. Sometime's you have to deal with what life hands you.

Life was handing him a load of trouble again he was sure. This was all so strange and the fountain alone chilled his blood. He had never seen something so detailed as the fountain before, least not made of stone... or whatever it was.

He stared at the fountain a moment. Moving closer to kneel down and look into the water. As if looking for how he had ended up in this strange situation. He knew he should likely yell again, see if anyone answered but, he didn't. He just poked at the water with one of his scarred hands, splashing the water a bit. It seemed like normal water. What magic did it hide?

If you asked Jo, she might more say never, but she's a hunter, the daughter of hunters, a caretaker of hunters, friend and lover of, and she and "God" have a very different, complicated, rather unreliable relationship. Which was true, deep in her marrow and in every drop of blood in her body, and a million others left on the ground, before she met other Gods from her universe and across the multiverse, before punctuating it swarms of angels just left behind.

Whom someone better, the hell, be keeping in line.

(. . . and taking care of.)

To her great disappointment, when she makes it down the path there is no one else about, except the guy in light grey scrubs. They were darker with the water, but she remembered what they looked like this wet. Blonde hair stringy and dripping. There's a sigh she wants to push out but she doesn't. Instead, she just called out, "You okay over there?"

Thorfinn often doubted that he was in the gods favor with the oath he had swore upon himself, but, he never doubted the gods existed. He didn't talk a lot about his relgion but he never converted.

He was still knelled by the fountain poking at the water, he had been at this for a few minutes. Maybe it was a touch of an unwell mind, but he didn't care. It had to work. He wanted to go home, back to his family and Einar. He almost missed the sound of the steps approaching but what made him look up was the voice. It was like something out of a dream, a dream long forgotten.

He looked up at her his brown eyes wide. It hadn't fully clicked and yet like his mind was running ahead of him a word tumbled out.

"Jo?"

He stared at her as he lifted both scarred hands into his hair, and froze in place as the world started to dance without him. He could speak her name in her language, one day he planned to show her that.

Jo went instantly still. Maybe it was the pause of a heartbeat only.

But it happened. Not the stillness of a rabbit considering running away.

The stillness of someone gauging whether to reach for a weapon or not.

No one ever knew her name. That wasn't a thing. That wasn't even possible. Her steps inched her forward, as his face got clearer and clearer. Details filling themselves in. Dark eyes, and scars, both that she knew. But impossibly older. Longer blonde hair. For a second he was cross layered with a young boy, soaked to the skin, in the rain. He was soaked here, but there was a completely different hold to his shoulders, even as he stared at her wide eyed.

Her heart and her guts couldn't decide what to do, so instead they roiled, dangerous, like razor wire, cutting at everything nearby. Breath was suffocating, and she'd never needed to breathe anyway right. Not with this. Not when the world had tilted sideways. Her fingers tightening on her bag strap at her shoulder, as the still unclosed stab wound that was Anna on the docks changed, became a knife with the present and the past twisted into one.

Anna in her bar on Earth, suddenly an angel. Anna on the docks of Medietas, not knowing her.

The boy in the rain. The child with a blood soaked sword. The man who just said her name.

It's a careful, too careful, word. "Thorfinn?"

Edited 2016-07-15 04:11 (UTC)

The eyes widened as his hands feel from his hair. The memories ebbing in as his name fell from her lips. Memories of her ruffling his hair, holding him in the rain and cheering for him while he rode in the Tourney all pouring back in that split moment. He felt dizzy.

Yet, the dizziness did not stop him. He shifted quickly from his knees to his feet. Kneeling he might have looked bigger, his arms certainly looked bigger, but he wasn't any taller than the boy she held in the rain. The angry broken boy solider was long gone to him. Buried along side the man who killed his father. The day his passions and desires died. An empty void had torn open inside of him, and the wise words of an old man told him to fill that void with anything. Become someone new and be reborn.

"Jo!" He called out again, and smiled widely. His heart thumping against his chest as so many things seemed to click. It wasn't a dream. Still, good things never lasted.

"Þú ert alvöru! Ég hélt þú værir draumur! Það hefur verið svo lengi!"

'The daughter was right, you do sound like your speaking in heathen curses.'

In contrast to her, he's suddenly all movement. Up on his feet in a flash that makes her wants to take steps backward, but she doesn't do backward. She doesn't do running away. Copper eyes following every movement. Heart torn into something fiercely confused, startlingly sharp and entirely impossible to describe. When he's suddenly smiling and calling out her name again. Not a question this time, but a triumphant burst of sound, in this creepy overgrown little park, with only the splashing water behind it.

He's smiling, which is a baffling enough thing, to add in with old, older, but then he's suddenly rambling at her in a language that sounds like all sharps and guttural tones. Too exuberant, and too foreign, for her to feel much more than second tilt and fall of her stomach. Because this place was already six sides of fucked up, and backwards. Archaic and behind the times.

There were no devices here. There was nothing to translate him here.

It's a sinking sensation, sucking at her feet even as she says, "I don't understand."

"English?" Like her name. "Do you speak English now?"

(But she's sure she knows already, as she asks.)

Everything was so strange and new, unlike that strange dream, which seemed suddenly to be reality. This strange place he found himself in clearly had nothing he knew, at least until he saw her. She was something that he knew, at least his mind seemed to think so.

He didn't move any closer he just looked at her smiling. Looking happy for once, he could smile properly and it did light his whole face up. At least until she spoke back. One word rolled from his lips as the smile faded.

"ríða"

The tone said enough, a curse of some kind.

"No, no English." The lessons from the school were just muddled in everything else trying to come back. He cursed himself in his mind for not making Einar teach him, they had all the time. He could have learned. Hindsight was a bitch.

He reached up, pushing his hair out of his face, with a look of utter disappointment, it was then as he tucked the blonde hair behind his ears that the scar on his cheek and the chunk of his left ear missing became clear.

The smile vanishes with the kind of expression and word no the world over needed explanation for . He was right here. Even if he wasn't. Even if he was...whatever he was now. This. Not him. Still him. Different. Older. Had he vanished from Medietas when she had? Or later? And to where? Now that it seemed there was absolutely no way to ask, words shoved themselves up her throat, battering like bullets at the back of her teeth, harder to swallow back than sand.

She didn't do apologies well. At least not for things that weren't obviously her fault.

Jo walked closer, nodding. Even if it was a dubious, absolutely expected, kind of acceptance of the three words he said. Which left her talking to the air, and feeling like an absolute idiot, as she said, "Yeah. That's what I thought. No English for you, and no whatever that was for me."

The steps stopped somewhere just short of him. Close enough to see he was still almost exactly her height. Except. Except for all of the excepts. How many years older could he be now. Where had he gone. Who had he become. How the hell was he here. She'd barely known him when she had known him, and even if was only two weeks ago for her, it was obviously a hell of a lot more time for him. And she couldn't ask, and the more she couldn't ask, the more it crowded in at her. Pressing like a weight on her skin.

Making her press her mouth as though it was the only way to keep from asking things he'd never get to begin with.

It was another second, and almost but not quite a hesitation, when she raised her hand toward his face.
Slow enough he could stop her, with an uncertain, but attempting, sort of set to her brows.

He was changed in many ways, the scars, the old scars, they were the sign that he was the boy who had come into the bar demanding a drink for a hard day. The boy who believed wholeheartedly that Gabriel was really his god. That boy aged.

His English was so limited. In his travels Askeladd always handled speaking to people when words were needed. Since his fall, he hadn't needed it. Everyone on the farm spoke Norse. His choices never ended up being the right ones.

"Þú getur ekki talað Norse?"

It was strange, in younger years he would have scoffed at not understanding. Stalked off and brooded alone. Yet, he didn't move. He stayed still as she approached him. He had no fear of her, he didn't ever really learn what fear was outside of his dreams.

He didn't stop her, his brown eyes stayed on hers. Unsure what to do, how to ask where he was what was going on... how this was possible. He bit his lip just before skin could connect. A sad look. How was he to talk to her?

She doesn't answer and she doesn't cup his cheek. Her thumb rests against his cheek, and her first two fingers, on their side, catch under that side of his jaw. She doesn't stroke the scar there under the pad of her thumb. Her face doesn't even soften at first. She tilts his face, to the right and then to the left, in the same position she's held far too many men's faces to count, when looking to make sure if a far too good shiner did or didn't need stitches.

The shape of his face is right. The color of his eyes is right. The scars are right.

But, also. There are more of them. There's a section of his ear missing. His hair is longer.
Even the way he looks sad for the second instead of angry, that's different. That's new, too.

But. She looks at his face again, and then finally settles on those eyes: sad, confused, but comforted. "It is you, isn't it?"
That should be impossible. She knows how these things work. Anna was an outlier, but from her world, her time. Thorfinn wasn't.

And if it really wasn't him? He should go for it now. She'd rather figure out how to shoot him in the face right now, than anytime later.

Thorfinn had felt a motion like this just a day or so before. The hands of his mother holding his face, looking him over. Looking and finding his father in his eyes. He had inherited his father's mysterious light in his eyes. The same light that Thorkell had once taunted him for lacking. Somewhere in his pain he had found the resolve, the realization of why his father hated that life he once so coveted. The life that now turned his stomach to think about.

Like with his mother, he did not fight Jo in this. He even helped tip his face and let her look. Being closer he could see the differences now that before he had been to far from home to see, she was smaller than Ylfa. Her hair had a darker hint of blonde than Ylfa as well... but yes, they were still so alike. Beautiful and strong.

"Jo Har...velle." The last name tripped on his tongue a bit. The first time he had spoke it in the Roadhouse asking her about the name had been a heavy weight, now it was harder to say, but important. He had to try and dig into a dream, a dream from years and years ago. Nothing at all was making sense and his resolve was all that kept him still. "Thorfinn Thorsson....Karlsfeni." He didn't need translating for that, her tone, her look they did it for him. He gave his name, the only thing he really had besides his life he didn't know what else he could do and that alone hurt.

There's a sigh out her nose. Because that's just perfect, isn't it. Again. A-fucking-gain. Turning the whole things on it's head once more. Making it so it wasn't impossible. Somehow. Someway. Someone she knew. Once upon a time. When they were someone else. And dropping them in her lap. But making it impossible in a new way. All communication all but lacking. Why was there never anyone to punch or stab or shoot for these things.

The way they made her want to knit her teeth, clench her jaw and left her with nothing but to sigh. "Yeah."

Releasing his face with more care than she usually showed touching anything. "Yeah, that's me, and that's you."

Muttering, as she looked at the fountain, while rubbing the water off her hands, from his skin and dripping hair, onto her white tank top and the top of her black scrubs pants. "That's us, all rolled up and fucked sideways in this mess. Again. But with even more perks." She looked up, and over at him again, thinking about what the hell to do. She couldn't leave him here, and he was hardly going to understand her, even though he seemed to recognize her. Maybe even trust her.

"I guess I can't let you go now, can I?" Jo considered holding out a hand, but that seemed almost wrong.
Too much like relegating him to being a child, who needed to be lead. He wasn't dumb. They just couldn't talk.

She raised a hand and waved for him to follow. "C'mon. I'll show you where I'm staying." Where he could stay if he wanted.
Not that any of her thoughts, nor any of her words, were probably helping, except to sound like endless gibberish tossed at him.

Thorfinn might have argued he was dumb, but that was a recent thing. He thought down on himself a lot for not being the most intellgent man. His skills were lacking where othrs his age would have vastly more. His intellgence laid in battle, battles he no longer wanted to fight.

Still, he appreciated not being treated like a child. He had hated that even when he was a child. Language barriers were nothing new to him, just another annoyance... but one he could deal with to have a familiar face near by. When she lifted her hand and waved for him to follow, he did just that.

He used to move so silently, but the new boots felt strange on his feet. He moved a bit uneven, his steps a little louder, the steps of a man who had never wore boots like these before. They felt nearly like armor and had it a little harder to move the way he was used to, and yet he followed along anyway. His fingers messing with the straps of the pack on his back. It was nothing like his old satchel but he was less concerned with it than the buildings coming into sight, and following the head of blonde hair before him.

While he only understood one in ever four or five words Jo was saying, the sound of her voice was a comfort enough. She was an old hand at this other worlds confusion, they would find a way.

Since Jake turned up and made it clear that their little group could expand by more wet and bewildered members at anytime, Veronica's been making a point to cross through the park whenever she's nearby. Apparently you really never can tell what the hell you'll find in their new home.

There's always a frisson of anxiety that accompanies these detours, though, not because she's particularly worried about her own safety, but because Jake and Cougar had known each other. Well enough, in fact, that Cougar had moved into their little bungalow without even asking.

She knows J.D. is dead -- You don't exactly come back from strapping a bunch of TNT to your chest and going out in a blaze of misguided glory. She has nightmares about how when she'd gone home that night, she'd found some of his charred brains on her shoe. But still, this place has the irrational part of her brain turned up to eleven.

The relief at finding someone completely and utterly unfamiliar is palpable. She's so happy that she actually smiles, bright and easy, until she snaps herself into a more appropriately sober expression.

"Shit," she says, apologetic. "No English? Or, um, Français? Español?"

Still standing examining the strange clothes he was in as his hair and body dropped the water all around him. He had yet to notice the pack on his back or the fact someone else was getting closer. His sharp instincts only went so far when his mind was in such a state of confusion as it was. What was this...

He looked up, hearing the voice of the young woman. He was nearly the same height, maybe a quarter of an inch taller. The words don't click at first aside from shit and No English. He's spoken those words many times in his years. A worried look crosses his face as he lets go of the wet shirt and lets it fall back against his scarred skin.

"No." He replied, a heavy accent, it was harder to place in modern day but something akin to someone from Scandinavia. "No English." He shook his head as if to show he understood that much.

"Talarðu Norse?"

He was hopeful, but also pessimistic on the issue. He should have made Einar teach him English...

Edited (Sorry.) 2016-07-14 13:36 (UTC)

Veronica wrinkles her nose with an apologetic frown, and shakes her head. Norse is definitely not in her skill set.

"No," she says, "sorry," although there's no telling whether he understands that word or not. People converse despite language barriers all the time, but this isn't exactly an ideal situation. How does she possibly communicate that she has no answers for him when he's just found himself in that damned fountain? It's a shitty thing to hear even when you know the language.

Recognizing her own limitations, she motions for him to follow her. If she takes him to the inn, maybe one of the others knows one of the Scandinavian languages.

Thorfinn nodded when she shook her head. He understood that as well as the word no. Sorry was not a word he recognized, but from the frown and that shake, he assumed it was some kind of confirming that she didn't speak his language.

He wanted to turn and try to go back into the water. He wanted to try and figure out what was going on and where he was. However, she's motioning for him to follow and that seems smarter than diving into the fountain. So, he nodded to show that he understood but didn't try to speak again, he followed along after her.

A curious glance moved around as he walked behind her. He was taking in the sight of the things they passed.

Nobody's declared the inn an official meeting place, but most of them had seemed to end up there that first day, and since then it's become an easy haunt. Even if no one's there, there's a decent chance that somebody will happen by eventually.

After it became clear that the insane wind wasn't going to be a regular occurrence, somebody had opened up the building's shutters, and she herself had helped a little bit with airing out the front room. It's still dusty as she leads their latest arrival inside, but it's a far cry from the thick miasma that greeted them that first afternoon.

Of course no one's there now, because that's just her luck, but at least there's a place to sit and someone has left a modest pile of firewood beside the hearth.

"Veronica," she says, pointing to herself. "Cold?" she asks, making a shivering motion and then pointing to the fireplace.

Thorfinn followed along silently, twisting his long wet hair trying to wring it a bit more dry since he had no means to tie it back at the moment. It was better than just letting it plaster to his face. He kept looking around as he followed Veronica to towards the inn.

The size of the building caught his attention before anything else. It was quite a large hall, almost like a king Swyen's stronghold. he took a moment to just marvel at the building before realizing the woman had already headed inside. He followed along, not at all bothered by the dusty nature of the place. His eyes scanning around to see what all was before him.

When she spoke again he tipped his head some before it clicked. Veronica was her name. "Thorfinn." He responded in his heavy accent. Before shaking his head no, he was cold but not a terrible amount. He figured it would pass fast enough. "No." He spoke the english word he knew, "Iceland." He spoke the name of the place he was from, thinking maybe it might help the other to know if she knew of Iceland. It was always cold.

"Ah," Veronica says with a slow nod, her smile a little strained. "Yeah, this is probably balmy for you, then."

It's an awkward situation she's in here, and she almost wishes he'd answered to the contrary. That, at least, would have given her something to do, the distraction of prepping and lighting a fire better than this uncertain silence spooling out between them. Calm exterior or not, there's a good chance he's freaking out, and she's apparently a poor excuse for a welcome wagon.

"This place," she tries, pointing down, and then after reconsidering, motioning more broadly around them. "It's a mystery," she finishes with an exaggerated shrug, lifting her hands up to try and communicate how little she knows, even now.

"I was in America," she adds, pressing fingers to her chest. "Before here." A motion behind her.

He focused on her while she spoke trying to read her body language. To try and move past the words, he only knew what a couple of the words she had spoke meant, not enough for a real understanding and it showed in his face. He looked concerned and lost. He moved to find a place to sit, he didn't care at all that he was soaked to the bone. The strange faberic, the heavy boots and the lack of anything he knew. These things were more important than being soaked.

He put both hands into his hair leaning on one of the tables looking at the door a moment. He knew he had to stay calm, nothing good ever came from letting his emotions run rampant. Taking a deep breath he looked at the table.

"Mercia?" He asked looking back up, removing his hands from his hair. Before here. he understood, he nodded making a bit of a face, America sounded familiar like something from a far away dream, she didn't sound like she was from Mercia. He spent long enough there to know that accent.

How did Leif do this...? How did Leif travel and meet so many and do it so cheerfully without these kinds of problems?

Slowly his eyes widened more, he was being stupid. EVERYONE knew Leif the lucky! He felt hope growing, but hope rarely did him good.

"Iceland." He repeated the word. Even if he had already said that was where he was from, it was important he had finally gotten home to his family. "Leif Eriksson." He spoke Leif's name, everyone knew Leif back home, or of him. He looked hopeful finally. Hopeful that the woman knew the man that was practically family to him.

"No," Veronica replies with a slight shake of her head, thinking she must have simply done a poor job of ennunciating. "America." She points to herself as she says it, and then motions to Thorfinn. "Iceland."

Her attention snags despite herself, however, because Mercia isn't a nonsense word, Mercia is a place -- Or had been, back in the Middle Ages. And as she looks Thorfinn over now, an impossible comprehension begins to dawn.

They're from all different times and places, aren't they? Or at least they think they are.

"It's further West," she weakly says, her mind trying to rebel against the idea that whatever this place is, it's actually capable of tossing in a genuine viking.

He shook his head some, looking to Veronica again. He couldn't fully grasp what she was saying. Not in words anyway. He could tell she was trying to explain where America was, but he couldn't quite understand it. west sounded closer to vestur which was the same thing.

A vast land to the western sea.

It couldn't be though, his mind couldn't accept that.

"Ég hef aldrei heyrt um Ameríku. Ég vel ferðast. Aldrei hef ég heyrt svona nafn." his words came out heavy, but slower. He knew he wouldn't be understood he had dealt with those that spoke English before, but he still had to try.

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Arrival: A new land

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