001 | arrival

[goldsteins]

WHO: Tina Goldstein
WHERE: The Fountain & Around
WHEN: 3/25 Onwards
OPEN TO: Closed arrival to Queenie, OTA threads to anyone else
WARNINGS: Nothing applicable at the moment
STATUS: OTA sans Queenie thread

---

FOUNTAIN// ARRIVAL
(This is locked to Queenie, but should you want to do something with it let me know! It's merely because I prefer not to have a lot of initial reaction threads. )

Tina is usually not so quick to wake up in the mornings. The nature of her job forced her to be an earlier riser, but even then she had to wake up a little earlier than most. It took at least one cup of coffee to make her ready for the day (some days more if a case kept her later than usual). The sudden jerking motion, as if from a fitful of sleep, to wakefulness is more than enough to set her sense alive. Her brain whirled half groggily become aware very quickly that this was certainly not where she was supposed to be.

It's December in New York. Most of the water inland was frozen over, so she has to be somewhere else. It's distinctly somehow warmer than it had been and that's more than enough to set off further bells. Bells that she can't really take heed to at the moment as she forces herself upwards. Grateful, not for the first time, of the training that Aurors were pressured to go through of all kinds. Panicking right then would surely be her downfall. A few moments later her hand grasps the sides of a slick wall, uses it to guide, and lets out a strangled breath as her hand grips the edge and her head emerges from the water.

She gives herself a moment to catch her breath before giving a frustrated noise and hoisting herself out of the water. The immediate danger seemingly gone for now, the woman can't help but still remain on high alert. What kind of Auror doesn't have a wand? She mentally scolds herself, but it's easily returned with a simple: The kind who was sleeping peacefully in their home until five minutes ago. The realization sobers her from the adrenaline high of a few minutes prior and she takes in her immediate surroundings: Buildings she would certainly not find in their part of New York.

A tensity sets her shoulders and for the first time she glances down at herself: Definitely not the comfortable pajamas she had worn to bed. Her mouth formed a thin line and she rises to her feet, hefts the weight off her back-- a bag-- and glares at it as if it's the problem here (there was a lot of problems here).

"What in the name of Deliverence Dane is going on?" She growled to herself neverminding at the moment how absurd she most look as she unzips the thing hoping against hope somehow a wand would be in there. Hope, of course, doesn't work and she hardly looks as absurd as the last person to arrive. Or the person before them.

LATER// AROUND THE VILLAGE
Once she's settled and dry, Tina finds she can't sit any longer. As much as she wants to sit and talk to her sister-- to make up for an apparent lack of being there-- she's restless. The house Queenie had settled in was nice, far larger than their one bedroom they shared in New York, but it reeked of unfamiliarity. The idea of simply having her own room after all this time was simply disconcerting and saying as much wasn't going to help anyone (of course, however, her sister knew her better than anyone could read her in ways she didn't like to be). Tina just had to get out and do something: Anything.

Even taking in the village left her uneasy. The functionalities of things didn't seem so strange, but she's used to taller buildings, crowded streets, millions of people. There was overcrowding New York and here it seemed overly spacious. The fog certainly doesn't help. When the weather was right the fog rolled over Manhattan and on a good day it was difficult to see where you were going and as homey as that feeling was it's inherently wrong. Tina feels more disconcerted by the moment as she takes in the various houses and buildings, frowning at how it can seem so empty and stepping away quickly if she comes too close to someone.

She doesn't seem to offer any words of apologies in that moment: Or at least the excuse me doesn't sound entirely apologetic. It's not as if people running into each other in overpopulated New York wasn't normal nor was it really easy to see anything. The disgruntlement is obvious in her tone if and when she does even if she manages a somewhat apologetic look.

THE WOODS// A FEW DAYS LATER
Being busy is just part of who Tina is and investigating is another. Once she's set on where things are in the village she can't help but test the limits: Just because someone says they're trapped doesn't make it any easier for the woman to believe. Her time in any expanse of forest is few and far between. Most of her job involved city arrests and her Ilvermorny days were kept to the school (not into the surrounding woods on Mount Greylock). In spite of that she's determinedly made her way into the woods.

The woman certainly doesn't move with any sense of ease in the woods, but she's careful enough. Taking in the growth and wondering just how large the woods are. If there's really no way out. Right now, however, she's merely curious-- taking in the area as opposed to even trying to find a way to escape. It's hardly as if she's prepared for that at all.

Unfortunately for her, inexperience in a forest shows and now and then the noises of animals moving or the rustling of trees makes her stiffen up. At one point she catches sight of a deer out of the corner of her eye and stops-- Turning to it in surprise and gives out a puff of a breath.

"Now this is ridiculous," She mumbles to herself unhelpfully deciding then that she's certainly had enough for the day and turns to find her way back to the village. Which is another thing altogether: Mapping a city she can do. A forest? Not so much.

Comments

[posilutely]

As far back as Queenie can remember, she and Tina have always been together. She'll be the first to tell you that it hasn't always been smooth sailing -- There have been a few fights in there that would blow your hair back for sure -- but there's never been a time when either one of them ever actually considered splitting up. Not even in her wildest, silliest teenage dreams did Queenie imagine a life without Tina firmly in it.

And so, from the moment she sputtered from the fountain up to now, it's never been a matter of if Tina showed up, it's been when.

Newt and Jacob being here have made it seem all the more like an inevitability, and Queenie's been antsy for a full week, checking the fountain anytime she's got a good excuse (and plenty of times when she doesn't). It's going to happen, she just knows it will.

And then, of course, it just... does.

She hears her sister's familiar tone of exasperation before she sees her -- The fog's been an absolute terror for weeks now. Grinning, Queenie bolts forward down the path through the trees, and all but flings herself at Tina, mist swirling in her wake.

"Oh, you're going to just hate it here," she says, voice brimming over with happiness, still squeezing Tina tight.

the woods // jyn's going through a lot so i'm so. so sorry for this, lol.

[kestreldawn]

She's found no answers, no hint, no trail, no discernible trace of Cassian. For all of the efforts of the few she's run into, who've been kind enough to try and assist her, who've let her ruminate in her panic and hysteria and fear .. he's nowhere to be found. There's a dull ache at the center of her chest, the same one she'd felt when she'd first come through the fountain. Her braying heart again picks up its familiar song of pain, and loss, and devastation. Each beat is another dagger driven within her, lodged between ribs or into guts. Each beat is another reminder that Darkness, forever lurking and lingering at the edge of her consciousness -

Was right.

Attachments make one weak. Vulnerability leads to havoc and ruin. Love, in all its forms, is nothing more than a death sentence - no better than twenty years in a prison camp, where no one makes it past five.

She's spent the last - how long? Three hours? Four? Five? - running, from perimeter to perimeter, trying to find him. Unable to relent and unable to give voice to what she knows is true: he's gone. She's caked in dirt and sweat and grime, breathing ragged and labored, feet dragging with each step. She mutters his name every few seconds, unable to admit that she may never be able to call his name again and see his face, hear his voice, touch his skin. She remembers how it had been a prayer for her, when she'd first arrived, learned he'd been here. How it kept her moving, kept her breathing until she'd found his arms wrapped fiercely around her. It does the same now - only, she knows the ending won't be as joyful.

She somehow manages to hear the mutterings of another person - a woman, she thinks - and it snaps her out of her haze. Panicked eyes scan like quadnocs, finding a woman she doesn't recognize looking rather confused. She adjusts her trajectory, sets course for the stranger.

"Have you seen a man with dark hair wandering about?" she calls out when she's within earshot. "Black scrubs, dark eyes?" Please, she thinks, Please. Let him be here.

AROUND THE VILLAGE

[chosenbytheocean]

"Are you alright?"

Moana's voice sounded sweet compared to the dense moisture and oppressiveness of the fog. She had a small basket in her arms filled with fish she had caught that morning. She was getting good at using the small net she'd made. Her lips were positioned in a warm smile while her dark eyes reflected her strength and innocence.

"Are you hungry? I'm going to make fish." Which she was used to eating however she missed eating more fruit. Sadly there wasn't much left in the inns storage.

Few Days Later

[fantastic_kneads]

The boxes of flour are one of the best discoveries he'd made about this place, even if he's still wrapping his brain around this idea that somehow, boxes full of flour just magically turning up. Some of the fuller ones are heavier than he likes, and they take up most of his vision, which is why he has to keep peering around them every few moments, otherwise his elbows start jostling people. He manages to get it to the little bakery he's been setting up with Peeta and once he does, he feels like he's earned himself a little fresh air.

He ends up out in the woods, because Jacob's still getting used to having this much nature so close to him, so totally different from Central Park. Of course, it also means that he gets a little extra twitchy when he hears sounds, because his imagination keeps running away from him, inventing strange beasts in his head that might come after him.

"Who's, who's there?" he calls out, a touch nervously, when he hears the crack of a twig somewhere nearby and he's not entirely sure what's out there in the fog.

village;

[repressings]

Credence likes the fog. He supposes most think it's lonely, but for him, he finds it strangely comforting. Before, he didn't know why - now he thinks it has something to do with whatever is inside of him, that clawing, itching part of him that burns his throat as if it was a chimney when he's truly upset.

Truthfully, he likes the idea that in fog this thick, he can be swallowed up. It doesn't matter if he's a good person, or a bad person, or a human or a wizard or anyone, really. All that matters is what's five feet in front of you. It's not isolation, Credence argues with himself. He's felt that far too much, even in a crowded church. It's a pleasant sort of peace. Maybe that's because walking feels that way to him and allows him to think, and the thick fog merely means no one notices him and allows his thoughts to better solidify.

Or maybe he just likes fog and there's no real, deep meaning behind it. Credence knows not to go further than the village outskirts, and with Mr. Graves feeling better from his fever, it's his first walk in a while. He thinks of nothing and everything at the same time, and it's just the way he likes it. Credence is used to finding small amounts of solace in places unforgiving. This village is no exception.

As he rounds the corner, he sees a figure in the fog. He can't quite see who, but Credence keeps his walk slow and soft, bunching his hands in his black peacoat's pockets. He doesn't think much of it - at the very least the words 'new arrival' don't ever cross his mind, but as they get closer he's sure they look so much like the girl that saved him. The woman that works for Mr. Graves, but more importantly, the woman who had shown him the only kindness he'd ever known. They --she-- has Tina's hair, and a stoic, concentrating look on her face, and --

-- and Credence stops walking altogether, eyes wide, unable to stop staring with his mouth agape. It is Tina, he's so sure of it, and as they collide Credence doesn't even so much as flinch.

"You," He manages, and that's all he can do. His voice feels hoarse all of the sudden, and his heart feels like it's beating far too fast. He feels dizzy, like it can't possibly be true. Like this can't possibly be Tina.

But she's here. She's here and Credence is dumbstruck.

THE WOODS// A FEW DAYS LATER

[maternis]

Newt keeps well away from the little town. Well, as far as the limits of this place currently allow. He prefers it that way normally, and finding himself thrust into a new and wholly unappealing situation without use of his wand, limited ability, and no case---. Well, it hasn't endeared the place to him, even if they are all in this together. He works with others when he must, mostly only in sharing what he fishes for and forages for from local plants.

He at least doesn't mind the color of his scrubs, only if it does still indicate that which he wishes, if people are paying attention at all.

He pays enough attention out here, to be aware of what animals are treading through, and to keep his own imprint on the area to a minimum. His bag stays with him at all times, and he has his peacoat wrapped around him, hands shoved into his pockets as he moves along.

Newt stops, however, when he hears another person almost trampling through the underbrush, curious as he moves closer to investigate, and then hears her voice.

"Tina?" Newt calls it out, voice still oddly quiet though it is raised to be heard.

Around the Village

[hawkeyesniper]

It was a little too soon to be taking Arado to far into the woods, she had to make sure he was disciplined enough not to go chasing after things she didn't want him to. As it was, his training was coming along nicely. He was just as smart, loyal, and obedient as she had predicted. She could sense that he wouldn't take just anyone's orders though--that had to be earned and apparently Riza had done her job well enough to do just that.

At the moment, she was training AND playing because she had grabbed a stick and was throwing it off for him to go fetch and return. The retrieval part was going smoothly, the part he was proving stubborn on was dropping the stick. She looked down at him, face a mask of neutrality, "Arado. Drop it."

He looked up at her, brown puppy eyes looking at her like he didn't know what she was talking about for once. She didn't respond, just waited, and finally Arado reluctantly let it drop to the ground. She scratched his ears while also grabbing the stick back up, "All right. Good boy. Let's try again."

And once again the stick went soaring through the air and a few seconds later Arado was tearing after it. He wasn't quite fast enough to catch it, but when he did pick it up, he noticed a woman approaching. He looked back at Riza, waiting expectantly, and then towards the unfamiliar woman. He should...investigate right? He trotted over to the new woman, tail wagging expectantly.