sixthiterationlogs | life without end [open]

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life without end [open]

WHO: Dr. Helen Magnus
WHERE: The Fountain; the town
WHEN: 1 August
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: N/A
STATUS: Open

Helen had lived for an extraordinarily long time but there were still moments in which this life took her by surprise. This was one of those; her lungs burned and she twisted and pulled and clawed her way upward toward pale light in a vain hope that this was the way out. From what she could tell, it was some sort of narrow waterway. Stone, possibly, a cistern? A cave? Regardless, she wanted out and as quickly as possible. After narrowly missing the lip of the stone with her skull, she used the last of her strength to push herself out onto the ground and coughed loudly, trying her damndest to catch her breath again.

After all she'd seen and done, she didn't want so ignoble a death as a drowning and she glared back at the fountain with particular vitriol before hugging her knees to her chest and looking up at the sky. This wasn't her Sanctuary. This wasn't the old, rambling house she'd come to love over the last century in Old City and it certainly wasn't her new, state of the art facility beneath the ground. This was somewhere else entirely and she wasn't certain that she trusted it. Had she been teleported here? So far as she knew, John was dead, but it wouldn't be beyond him to teleport her some place where she had no frame of reference and leave her at his mercy.

She looked down at her waterlogged clothes and found that instead of the smart suit she'd been wearing earlier that day in the office, she was in dark blue scrubs instead. She had no surgeries on her schedule for the day but, again, those things weren't always planned. Neither was this jaunt, though it seemed she'd been pulled along on it anyway. Reaching for the edge of the fountain, she pushed herself upright and stood on shaky legs. She leaned over and peered into the fountain, trying to see where she'd come up from, but there was nothing but flat, clear water and her own bedraggled reflection that peered back at her. Oh.

"Bloody hell, I look dreadful," she said, quickly combing her fingers through her hair to try and repair the worst of the tangles. It could be dealt with later, yes, but it had been a long time since she'd looked quite this pathetic in public. Still, there were other, more important things than her appearance to be dealt with and she decided to simply pick a direction and start walking, start trying to make sense of the place she'd just wound up in.

"Well, Helen, now you've gone and managed to get yourself into a bind, haven't you? Nothing but the clothes on your back and...well, what's this?" There was a pack beside her, as well, and opening it revealed a few additional articles of clothing but no clues as to the origin of it or the identity of the place she found herself in. "You could have at least included a map," she muttered. "That would have been helpful."

She would persevere. She always had.

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"Cartography has never been a strong suit of mine either," Helen said, working on wringing out her hair as best she could manage. It was not salvageable and she knew that but damned if she wouldn't try. She gave the other woman a quick smile.

"So, I wouldn't suppose we're in England, are we? I noticed you're also English and at least that would be home even if it isn't my current residence."

England, at least, would be familiar territory. She could find her way around in England.

"If we are in England, it's not a part of it that I've ever seen before," Peggy confesses, because the white cliffs are hardly the same as the canyon of this strange village they're sitting in. It's lovely to hear the familiar accent, but she hates to be the bearer of bad news seeing as they really aren't close to home.

"I've met just as many Americans as other Brits," Peggy confesses. "But I think we're in more of a no man's land situation."

"It wouldn't be the first time I've found myself far afield but I was really hoping for something closer to home. The topography doesn't look like anywhere in England that I recognize, either."

Helen didn't think it was England but hearing it confirmed from another Englishwoman dampened her spirits a bit. "What do you know about this place?"

Peggy's expression is unhappy as she's asked what she knows about the place. It's not the woman's fault that it's a sore subject for her, yet it is. "I know that we've all been spit up by a fountain and that no matter how much you search out an exit to the canyon, nothing yields." She knows there are people from other planets here, inconceivably, and that she's from eighty years before a great number of the population.

"I'm afraid anything I have in terms of information is just as frustrating as the next," she says, frowning. "Nothing makes sense and it irritates me a great deal."

"Glad to know it isn't just me who is frustrated by the damned place. Still, that doesn't bode well for the next several days." Helen looked back at the fountain for a long moment before looking at Peggy once again. She, too, was in scrubs though they weren't the same as Helen's own. Hmm. Did the colors mean something or was it simply random?

"I guess there's nothing for it except to make do with what we have and pool resources until we've figured out a way back. A focus on the day to day needs might ease some of our frustrations - at least in the short term."

"The food situation isn't quite what you would want it to be," Peggy admits, since they're still on the topic of information and when it comes to the day-to-day, she thinks that's a touch pertinent. "It's not that I was frequenting many restaurants before I arrived here, but I did have the convenience of as many shops as I could find, both in New York and LA."

That, and Jarvis did find the most wonderful little morsels of food. "I'm afraid right now, it's whatever you can forage, find, or hunt." And the latter is not one of her best skills seeing as animals don't exactly give up after a few punches. It's why she's had to resort to fishing.

"It's been a long while since I've hunted or foraged for anything. I know how, certainly, but I have grown rather used to creature comforts of late."

Helen didn't think she'd lived rough since Carentan and, even then, they'd had some semblance of technology there. It was just hard to keep it in working order. This place, on the other hand, didn't have any such luxury it seemed.

"Is food plentiful, at least?"

"For now, but thinking of how long it takes these creatures to reproduce and the ever-inflating population here," Peggy says, trailing off. She's hardly a statistician, but she'd worked with enough numbers and patterns to see the writing on the wall. Unless they find something more sustainable, they could be looking at a very lean winter.

"I've heard there's some wild animals about, so maybe we could attempt things like cheeses, but even that requires equipment I'm not sure we have."

"It might not require too much, if we're not looking to make anything terribly aged," Helen said. It probably gave the lie to her age, in a way, but she had knowledge of how to do things in her original era that might prove useful here.

"I suppose we'll just need to take stock of what we have and see if we can use it to make what we need."

It's a sparse sort of lifestyle that she's not entirely sure she's willing to accustom herself to. It must show on her face, she thinks, because the whole notion of such a utilitarian life of surviving is a holdover from the war that she's weary to think of doing for a long time.

"I'm not sure that I'm mentally equipped to deal with thinking about doing this for months," Peggy admits. She'll muster her way through, of course, but the idea of a long-term rationing and survivalist life makes her think of years she'd barely survived.

At least it will never be a dull moment.

"I've done it before. It won't be pleasant," Helen conceded, "But I'm going to put on my stiff upper lip and do my best. It's my duty to King and Country, after all." Helen hadn't quite gotten used to saying anything other than king even though England has had a queen for quite a while and she wondered if that would give the lie to her era of origin.

No matter. She would find a way to cover her error and move on. She'd done it before and she could do it again.

Peggy gives a soft exhalation that might be a laugh, giving her a curious look. It's the sentiment and the words that give her pause and she finds that despite the woman likely having enough to deal with, she'll have to put up with Peggy's curiosity as well. "Before," she echoes. "Can I ask, where were you serving?" It's a guess, but she thinks (hopes, really) that she's not too far off.

And if she is, she'll just be a bit embarrassed and move right on.

"Normandy," Helen said, giving the woman a steady look. Perhaps she could trust her. Besides, she had been in Normandy over the last year or so - though not the Normandy of the 1940s. There had been many wars fought in that part of France. It wouldn't be hard to pick one.

"It's a damned lucky thing that I can speak French, isn't it?" Among other things.

It's strange how something so simple as a contemporary can bring such a flood of relief. Here, in these odd clothes, it's hard for Peggy to tell whether anyone else is from her time, and yet now she has a definitive clue. "Yes," she agrees. "I'm afraid I've only really been to Normandy the once," she says, cautious of the timelines after Sam had spoken of the future.

"It was mainly a quick trip over it, seeing as I had to return to England, but still enough to see the damage. Were you there for business? Or pleasure?" Perhaps it's just best to ask her purpose there.

"Business, I'm afraid," Helen said. It was old practice to be cryptic, to dissemble, and she hoped that her new comrade wouldn't hold it against her. To reveal too much had the potential of backfiring and Helen had dealt in secrets for more than a lifetime. She had quite a bit of practice.

"Were you involved in the war effort as well? Pity we didn't cross paths. Not many women with visible roles."

Peggy finds that though the war had been hard and she'd very nearly been starved to death, shot, and blasted into pieces, at least she had been respected and useful. Ever since, it's been an uphill battle as the world welcomed their men back, but back in the war, she had mattered.

"I was working with Colonel Philips, then the Howling Commandos," she says with great pride. "At least, until things came to an end. Still, they were awful times bracketed by good company."

"Not the same circles, then. I was with the RAF for the most part," Helen explained. "Did some work in the English intelligence community as well. It was, as you said, a terrible time bracketed by good company. I miss those men very dearly."

She didn't miss the war, at all, but she did miss the camaraderie of it.

"I was at Bletchley before they put me in the field," Peggy says, furrowing her brow as she works a little harder now to try and place the woman in front of her, trying to scan through the dozens of faces that had come through the door to see if she can't figure this one out. "I have to say, though, I'm ridiculously grateful to meet you."

"No one else is from anywhere near the same decade as me," she remarks.

"It's nice to have something in common," Helen agreed. "A countrywoman and someone who isn't from a different time and place. It's something I find welcoming in a place that's certainly not known for it."

It didn't feel welcoming at all. This place felt ominous, in a way, and Helen wondered what the secret of it was.

"Yes, I'm afraid no one really believes me when I say what year I'm from, with the few exceptions who come from my future," she says with an air of displeasure. Sam and Frank both seem to know her, which is both a good thing, but also puts her at a disadvantage. After all, they seem to know everything about her, but she hardly knows anything about them in turn.

"I'm afraid this place doesn't really ever lose that daunting feeling of being overwhelmed," she notes.

That was a pity to hear, that the place never seemed more friendly or easier to navigate. Still, it didn't appear to be an active war zone and Helen thought that meant she had (and could) endure worse. Living life as long as she had, she'd learned that there were a great many things a body could endure, so long as they had perseverance and hope. She had those in spades.

"Hopefully we're able to crack the mystery of it before long. With so many minds to work on the problem, it can't take forever, can it?"

And, if it did, she did have the advantage of time.

That's what Peggy keeps thinking. Her stubborn resolve is that she'll crack the nut any day now, that she'll figure out what the key is to escaping and getting home. And yet, every single time she thinks she's found something, it proves to not be any sort of lead. "We've plenty of clever minds," she agrees, seriously. "And no lack of determination and resolve."

"There's also the unfortunate distraction of trying to stay alive," is a mild sarcastic and amused reply. She does rather like staying alive, of course, but she'd much rather escape and get home to where she can enjoy the luxuries of home again -- such as they are.

Helen scoffed a bit. "Ah, well, that's an inconvenience, isn't it? Damned mortal bodies."

Hers was a little less mortal than most, though, and she intended to put that to good use. If she outlived every one else in this settlement, she could have more time to devote to the problem of getting them home. People had only a given number of years; Helen's years were infinite. She looked at problems differently as a result.

"Next you'll tell me we'll have to eat and sleep too."

She opens and then closes her mouth, but decides that keeping mum about such a thing will do no one any good. "You say that as if mortal bodies are an oddity," she notes. "Or you've got a very odd turn of speech," she says, which could also be the case.

Then again, this could all be a joke and Peggy's just being far too serious. "Or you're joking and I'm making a fool of myself."

"I'm quite tired," Helen said, trying to cover for her error as smoothly and naturally as possible. "Since I just came through the fountain and all. I just misspoke, honestly, and didn't mean to cause confusion."

Perhaps it wasn't a perfect cover but she would try to float it and see if it worked.

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