sixthiterationlogs | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"If there's a name, no one here's found it yet. I've just been callin' it This Place," she confesses. "But I've heard The Village used."

Personally, she feels like that is giving it all too much important. Like it is the only settlement of this size, anywhere. But Kate refuses to call any place that lacks a general store of any description, and lack of access to a local church, a village.

"So this'd be The Inn. Mostly with the houses, we're just goin' with colour and location."

"Color and location are decent enough ways to pick a home," Helen said. She wouldn't have dreamed about coming to a place like this again after going underground but she supposed that life was all about new beginnings and this place had seemed to erase all efforts of her past.

"How long have you been here, then? Long enough to have gotten dry clothes, at any rate, but that doesn't tell me much."

"Seventeen days," is the prompt, somewhat resigned reply. "Although there was an initial group who arrived two weeks before that. No one before that, except I suppose whoever built this place in the first place."

They must have been here for some time, in Kate's opinion. No huts, no shacks, but solid, multi-roomed houses.

"They didn't leave any close, that first group."

"It's certainly a mystery," Helen said, trying to decide why a society would build up a serviceable, if small, town and then simply abandon it without a trace. It was as if they'd just decided to leave and never return, leaving everything behind except the clothes on their backs.

"But it's one I'm going to have to contemplate after I've had supper and not before. I'm afraid swimming up through a fountain leaves one hungry."

Kate doesn't verbally reply to the first comment, just smiles all crooked and companionable. Isn't it just, she says silently.

She doesn't understand. If there weren't the buildings, she'd almost think it all some dreadful, roundabout way of colonisation. It hasn't even been a hundred years since the British landed the First Fleet at Australia for exactly that. Although for a prison colony. And Kate isn't a crimin-

Well.

She's never been charged.

Besides, she's the only Australian here - native-born or not - and she's not nearly important enough for any shady international deal.

"Now, food I can help you. Cold roasted avian, madame, right this way, if you please?"

She's missing the stage, today. She hasn't been this theatrical for weeks. And yet she gestures elegantly towards the kitchen as if she's in a performance.

Helen, at this juncture, would eat anything that deigned to sit still long enough. She had often been accused by her protege of not eating, of working until she wasted away, of ignoring the needs of her body in favor of her scientific pursuits. Not here. Here, the needs of her metabolism were not shy about making themselves known.

"Cold roasted avian sounds practically perfect," Helen said, flashing Kate a dazzling smile. "The presentation is perfect as well. Were you a hostess, once?"

"Not in the slightest," Kate replies with a grin. "An occasionally slightly bored farmgirl who ran off to become a performer."

It's not entirely true, of course.

Ma Kelly sold sly grog to bring in some extra coin, and took in lodgers. Kate had to serve them both. But that's where she flirted a little, not play to these dramatics.

She leads Miss Magnus to the kitchen, and takes out some slices of - well, she still isn't entirely sure what bird it is. A bird of some description, which she'd taken down with a roughly made sling that morning. She takes it out of the cooler pantry, finds a plate and hands it over.

"Here. I hope it's palatable, at least."

"Even if it isn't, it's food, and I'm grateful all the same," Helen said, giving the girl a quick smile. When she tastes it, however, it is good. It's a bit gamier than she'd like, of course, but beggars most certainly cannot be choosers and she's living by the good graces of the others here at the moment.

"Thank you, Kate. I truly appreciate your kindness."

Miss Kate, but for this moment, she swallows it. She'll correct, later. It's the woman's arrival, and she's eating. And with her, who had such an easy manner about titles and propriety, Kate doesn't feel the almost instinctual drive to put up the protections of politeness.

"Just tryin' to help out," is what she says. "We all arrive somewhat startled.

Is... Is there anythin' else I can help you with? Or you do want to make your own way next?"

"I'll make my own way, I think," Helen said. She hardly wanted to put the girl out any further than she already had and she thought that a little while to explore the place for herself would only lead to further familiarity and further ability to contemplate the particular situation she'd landed herself in.

"I do thank you for your hospitality, though, and hope there's something I can do someday to return the kindness. You need but name it and if it's in my power, I'll give it."

life without end [open]

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