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WHO: Killian Jones (aka Hook)
WHERE: The fountain
WHEN: July 19th
OPEN TO: Everyone!
WARNINGS: None. Unless you want to avoid an annoyed pirate.
STATUS: Open

The first thing he's aware of is that he's underwater.

The second thing he's aware of is that he shouldn't be underwater. He had been on the way to stop Emma from making a mistake she didn't even know she was making; he hadn't been anywhere near the docks. Yet somehow here he is, in the water anyway, with what must be the surface shimmering above him, if the light is anything to go by.

He feels a slight push from beneath, towards the light. He's spent a lifetime, in fact several lifetimes, at sea; he knows how to swim. In addition, he knows how little time it takes to drown. He's seen it happen more times than he can remember, when a sailor falls overboard and isn't rescued fast enough.

He kicks with his feet, pulls with his hand. This would have been easier in the days before he lost it. Even without it, he's a fairly strong swimmer, born from years of a life at sea. It takes everything he has to fight the instinct to take a breath. He knows that would be the end of him. There's a burning in his lungs, a need to take in air, but he won't give in.

His hand breaks the surface first, then his head appears. He gasps and sucks in a breath, then takes stock of where he is. A fountain. Much smaller than he would have guessed from his swim. He hooks an arm over the edge of the fountain, then a leg, and pulls himself over onto the ground below. He leans against the edge of the fountain for a few moments, catching his breath, then glances down at himself to make sure everything is how it should be. He's wearing...well he doesn't know what he's wearing. At least it's still black.

Where is he?

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It does sound rather chivalrous, if a touch vague on the details. In point of fact, she's fairly sure that those exact words could be used to describe herself on any number of occasions when she's not doing something that people like. "Did you manage to stop her?" she wonders. "Or were you abducted prior to that happening?"

She's trying to keep away from asking what this supposed mistake was, unable to help wanting to poke her nose into things.

"I didn't make it there." He'd ended up here instead. "All I can hope is that someone else intercepted her and managed to talk her out of it before it resulted in her death." He may never know the answer to that question, unless someone comes here who can answer it for him.

Those are quite serious stakes, then. She's beginning to wonder if anyone here is from a relatively normal and dull line of work or whether they all have their own high stakes situations. "Let's err on the side of hope, then," she suggests, though she knows little of the background. "Here," she says, gesturing to the first in the row of houses. "They all look like this, more or less. I'd say only eight to ten are actually inhabited."

"Hope is all I've had to go on for quite some time. Subsisting on it for the future should be no trouble." If there's no hope left, then what's to keep anyone going on?

"So there aren't many of us here then."

"I've lost track, but I've only spoken to about eight or so, yes," she confirms, though by virtue of observation alone, there must have been more as they had all come out of the fountain. "Which may be for the best, though," she adds as they walk. "I'm not entirely sure this place has the resources to sustain a larger community and I'd rather not have to go back to rationing anytime soon."

"It would also mean more people working to take advantage of the resources this place does offer, but I see your point." He's confident enough in his own ability to survive and he's not that concerned about anyone else's, as long as they're willing to pull their weight. "I take it that means that no one knows the boundaries of this place yet."

"I think there are some of them out there wandering," Peggy says, or it's just that she's lost track of a few of their party, "but I've mostly been trying to keep an eye out for anyone who might have been here before we arrived. Something happened, that windstorm, but there was a siren before it," she says.

"It doesn't make sense. Who sounded the alarm and how did they know to? That's what I can't figure out."

“The only people you’ve met here have arrived when you did?” Obviously people are still arriving, because he just did, but he knows enough about it to know that it’s strange that there seems to be no one here from before. Whether that’s good or bad is something everyone will have to decide for themselves.

“It certainly does seem that it’s all connected somehow.”

"There's been one that came after," Peggy admits, thinking of Jake coming out of that fountain so unexpectedly. "But there was such a rush of people, all at once, sitting around a fountain and not sure of what was happening..."

"I keep looking for patterns and finding nothing," Peggy says, the frustration brimming in her voice. "Maybe you'll have luck where I didn't." And though she might feel a touch put out, at least there'll be answers.

"Someone somewhere must have answers." Even if it's not any of the people she arrived with. "Especially if there's still someone or something bringing people here. There must be a reason." He'll keep looking until he finds it, or something forces him to stop. "There's no guarantee any of us will have any luck in finding it."

"That's what I keep thinking," she admits, because it seems too random otherwise. Why put all these strangers together unless there's a common purpose or unless one of them might a way to get out of this mess. "I suppose until then, we have to do our best to survive."

"Have you any experience in such a situation?"

"That depends on the situation. Have I had to survive somewhere? Undoubtedly. Have I had to do it when I knew nothing about where I was, how I got there, or even that I was going there? No." Which really is the worst part of it, for him. Not knowing where he is or how to get back to where he came from, especially when he didn't agree to come here in the first place.

"I think there are a few people who have gone out there to start mapping the canyon," Peggy shares, because she thinks that if they're going to be out there exploring, it's best not to duplicate their efforts. "Maybe someone with some mapping skills would be able to put together a sort of legend and key with a map."

"Have you any skill with that?"

He smiles at that, a little ironically. She'd have no way of knowing the appropriateness of her question, after all. "I have plenty of experience with maps. I've made a few myself." Mostly he'd encoded the ones he already had, but the skills are transferable to making new ones.

"Could you make one of this place?" she asks. She wishes that she had something better to trade than future favours that might come in handy at some point, and yet, this is unfortunately the best she can do. "You could do it for everyone, but if you did it for just me, I'd owe you a favour," Peggy says, her meaning heavy with the fact that she stands by her promises.

"Are you sure you want to owe me a favor?" She knows nothing about him, after all. Not everyone would just offer favors to random strangers on the chance that it would work out for them.

"At this point, favours are all I have," is Peggy's blunt reply, because she'd much rather use some sort of barter currency, but it's not like there's going to be anything that she has in her possession that everyone else doesn't already have. After all, it seems like the backpacks had been uniform in their belongings.

She studies him sharply. "Are you saying you'd abuse such a thing?"

"Certainly not. Especially with a lady such as yourself." He's a gentleman, after all.

He holds out his hand to her, to seal the deal. "You have a deal. I'll create a map of the canyon for you."

Peggy reaches out to grasp his hand, giving it a secure shake as she thinks of what she might do with such a map. Surely having the information on hand is the key piece here, but she thinks that maybe others can start to fill in what they've found.

And maybe, along the way, they'll find someone who has some answers. "Do you need any help in creating it?"

"I can answer that question more easily once I've seen it." Especially without having a compass or any other navigational tool. He may need someone to help find measurements, or record them. "I will certainly need some assistance in acquiring items required to make one. Pen and paper and ink, or whatever might be found as a substitute."

"Linens, maybe?" Though she's not sure what they might use as ink, but she thinks there must be enough in the way of natural dyes sitting around this place in order to make a few etchings and marks. "I think it would be helpful for us to know where we can go and where's a waste of time."

Not to mention, if they chart out the current state, they can keep track of it anyone is changing things.

"Those could work." It should be possible to make them into smaller pieces, for a start. He'll figure out something to use for ink. There's always charcoal or ashes.

"Aye, there's no point in covering the same ground twice."

The spirit of togetherness never fails in a bad situation like this. Peggy's rather grateful for it, but at the same time, she'd give anything to not have to live in this sort of world again. "It sounds like we have a deal. Let me know if you need any help, but I think it will be good for all of us."

"Am I not supposed to tell anyone else that I'm making a map for you?" He wants to know exactly how this is going to work, now that he's agreed to it. He also wants to know if he's not supposed to give a map to anyone but her.

"No, you can tell people," Peggy says, though she doesn't want someone to swoop in and out-barter her, seeing as she doesn't have much in the way of things to offer. "If they're interested, we might as well share the information."

And maybe, they'll learn something new that they just haven't been able to see when looking at the problem independently.

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seekingcrocodile - 2016-08-17 02:53 (UTC) - Expand

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