sixthiterationlogs | (no subject)

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?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

“I suppose everyone could say that.” He certainly could. It might not have been the best situation he was leaving behind in Storybrooke, but at least he knew where he was, and had started getting used to life there. There were people he knew, too, which had slowly turned into an advantage. Still, maybe it would be an advantage to have no one here know him. They would have no pre-conceived opinions of him and would only be able to judge him based on what he does.

He could use some practice at not being a villain.

“I don’t suppose you could tell me where it is I’ve arrived?” Generally that’s the most important thing to find out first, because after that everything else seems to fall into place.

"That's not something any of us can answer," Jon said, giving the man a sheepish smile. It was frustrating to all of them in varying degrees and Jon wished he had a better answer than just "I don't know." And, yet, that was the only answer he could provide.

"The only thing that I've established is that it's not where I hail from, Westeros, and no one else seems to recognize the place. There's no one here that's native to this village or even seems to have recognized it from a previous journey. It's strange."

Westeros. That's not a place he's heard of, and he's been a lot of places. Maybe that's a place to try and make it to in future. If he ever gets a chance to go anywhere again.

"At least it's not just the two of us then." That could be a good thing, or a bad thing. He hopes that it's a good thing.

"No, there's a whole group of us here," Jon confirmed. They weren't alone, for good or for ill, and that was about the only thing that Jon did know about this place.

"We all seem to have come through the same way, as well, and I'm not sure how or why."

"It does seem an unusual way of arriving somewhere." Not that he's been everywhere, or traveled by every method available, but even portals don't tend to drop people in the middle of fountains. "It's almost like the reverse of a drain."

"It seems as though we have all been brought here for a purpose, though I cannot figure out what that purpose might be. It would make more sense if we all hailed from one place."

And, yet, it seemed they were from far-flung shores and brought here together with no explanation as to why. "The fountain only magnifies how strange it is."

"In some ways, it makes more sense that we wouldn't be from the same place. Different skill sets, perhaps. Or competition." He doesn't really know enough to form any real theories yet, having just arrived, but he can throw ideas out there anyway. He's just trying to make sense of it all. "It's strange, either way."

Competition wasn't something that Jon had thought of before and knowing about it now, considering it - it made sense. Why wouldn't someone bring them together and see whose skills shone and whose faded into the background?

"It makes you wonder what the deeper meaning is," Jon mused. "If we are competing, what is the prize?"

"You might not want an answer to that question." People who are willing to bring them here for any reason whatsoever, without their permission or foreknowledge, and not even give them any information or assistance, are probably not the sort to draw a line somewhere. "I could be wrong about this, of course."

"I hope that we're both wrong about this," Jon agreed. The idea that someone might have brought them here for ill purpose, to use them against one another - it wasn't something he wanted to devote much thought to.

"I would rather be wrong and things be benign than be right and know there was something sinister on the horizon."

"Especially if there's nothing we can do about it." Which there probably isn't, given what they've already gone through just to be brought here. "There is something to be said about being prepared, though."

"Being prepared is all we can do," Jon agreed. "I have done what I can to provide food, secure shelter. I have no weapons to do anything else, though, so if it came to a fight, I would be caught unawares."

It bothered him, truthfully, and he hoped that he could devise some method of defending himself sooner rather than later.

He glances down at the hook on his arm and figures this probably isn't the best time to bring that up. "Your opponents wouldn't have weapons either," he points out. "For what that's worth."

Jon hadn't wanted to call attention to that particular disadvantage but now that the other man had, he flicked his eyes down and took a look at it. It would be difficult to do a great many things with only one hand but, in this, he would have a weapon. It was more than Jon had.

"No, they probably wouldn't. I came through that fountain with nothing, as did you, as did everyone else. This place seems to want us on even footing if nothing else."

"Well that's one thing to be said for it, at least." He's had so many reminders lately of how uneven some things are, and now here he's just relieved that no one will have that much of an advantage over him. He has the same chances as anyone else.