sixthiterationlogs | arrival and exploring

Entry tags:

arrival and exploring

WHO: Natasha Romanoff, one person or group for her arrival, and anyone who wants to find her wandering around
WHERE: starting at the fountain, then most likely up and down every road in the place taking an inventory of her surroundings
WHEN: Sunday afternoon for her arrival, exploring the town can cover the next couple of days
OPEN TO: all
STATUS: open

NOTES: Please let me know where and when you'd like to run into her in your subject line. if you have an idea for a starter that you're not sure of, hit me up on plurk or discord and we can talk about it.

arrival - still open

It's possibly not as surprising as it should be, coming into awareness far enough underwater that the pressure in her ears almost hurts and she can't see what's around her. One moment, she's lying down with a headache, a mild anti-inflamatory and a glass of water. The next, her head is clear and the water is murky and everywhere. There's weight on her back, straps, she shucks them quickly. The boots, waterlogged and heavy, won't come off as easily. She skips that and begins kicking for the surface. Her hands find a wall quickly, and she pushes off, hoping to use the momentum to get her to the surface, only to be brought up short by something else. So it's not wide, only deep. She points herself straight up, struggles toward what she can now see is a small patch of weak light.

By the time she breaks the surface, the headache is back. She knows it will pass, though. It's not much work to heave herself out of the fountain and onto the stone path, lying on her back, arms above her head, sucking in deep breaths to clear her head. She takes a brief inventory. She has no injuries, sturdy boots, black hospital scrubs. Or perhaps another dark colour and they only look black because she's soaked. The weather is mild, wherever she is. Not dark enough yet to see any stars for help in determining her exact location.

exploring

The way out is not back through the fountain. That would have been too easy. So all that leaves is every other conceivable options, and quite a lot of ground to cover. She starts with the buildings closest to the fountain - the blacksmith, the police station, the inn, then over to the the butcher and baker, and further along that road to the hospital, schoolhouse, and town hall. She doesn't go looking for people specifically, not right away - just for the lay of the land. She works her way out further, traveling down winding roads, counting out houses and making mental note of which seem to be occupied and which appear deserted. Every path out of town brings her up short, and adds to her frustration. There is a way out, she just can't find it. That doesn't sit well with her. None of this does.

SUNDAY
afternoon - arrival - n/a
afternoon - schoolhouse - Kira
afternoon - town hall - Peggy
evening - mill - Clint

MONDAY
morning - police station - Wanda

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The isolation of camping a week in the trees and living at the very edge of the village renewed Kira's appreciation of solitude. It's easier to think, easier to examine or set aside his feelings, when there's no one else around. No one to get a read on, no one to try to manage.

With the chalkboard gone and the woman making use of the space disappeared, the schoolhouse makes for a decent place to hole up. It isn't so cold out now that he has to get a furnace working, and it isn't as clean or put to purpose as the town hall, as trafficked as the inn, and so far Casey hadn't appeared to rip its windows out--and that's what he really wants, right now. A break from even the people he does let close, where he can sit at the larger desk designating the front of the room, and write down what he's learned since the crack in the walls.

He's staring at his sketch of the symbol on Ren's roof when his attention shifts to the door, a moment before it opens. It doesn't feel like his powers have grown any stronger, but maybe--in the absence of sixty emotional beings clamoring for attention--he's getting better at noticing the small moments of anticipation.

Not that he could anticipate the woman returning to this place, so long after Peggy mentioning the loss. Ren had claimed no memory of his first arrival, but maybe he'd been a special case, or maybe she hadn't entirely left at all. "Do the others know you're back," he asks, half-risen from the chair. He didn't know her personally, but he's acquainted enough with Sam and Peggy to seek a reunion.

"Back," she repeats, entering the space cautiously, sizing up the kid behind the desk. "No, I don't think they do." She keeps distance between them, hovering near the door, making a show of examining the building and the condition it's in. "It hasn't been long."

Peggy has been searching out a larger space for her to use for her classes with Sansa, especially once she's thought to herself that she might actually do what she'd said and begin to expand. When she wanders outside, tugging her coat a little firmer around her neck, she startles to see a ghost standing before her and examining her surroundings in a manner that leaves little doubt to Peggy that she's staring at Natasha, again.

Her heart beats just a moment faster, wondering if that means Steve is also here, somewhere, but she refrains from being too hopeful and instead regards the other woman. "Are you searching for someone?" she asks, wondering if Natasha remembers her or whether it will be just like Bucky again, though she doesn't look that different.

Natasha pulls her gaze away from the building's depressingly inadequate resources and settles it instead on the woman behind her. "Not someone. Information." She recognizes the face instantly. How could she not? Even the accent and cadence of her voice is just perfect. "Something tells me that Peggy Carter is the perfect woman to provide it."

Well, that's a relief to hear her name and see the recognition in the woman's face, though as she walks closer, she reminds herself that it might not mean much at all. After all, from the limited information she has on the woman, Natasha is one to hold a great number of cards close to her vest.

"I'm afraid I may be poised to disappoint you," she warns, "I have a great deal of information, but it might not make the sort of sense that anyone is after."

The recognition is what Natasha is focusing on. Every reason in the world for her to know Peggy's face, none at all for Peggy to know hers. So that's something to file away. Still, she keeps her posture open as the other woman approaches, even relaxes herself somewhat. "Well, I just came out of a town fountain that's deep enough to drown an elephant in. Sense is... a fluid thing right now." Then a beat, calculating the odds. "It's good to see your face," she finishes with, softly. Testing the waters.

"Do you remember me, then?" Peggy asks, trying to temper the desperate hope in her voice. There are so many other questions that she wants to ask the woman, but it all hinges first on establishing whether they have a history. "The fountain, though, that's unfortunately normal, don't you remember from last..." She trails off, awareness hitting her as she speaks.

"Ah," is all she says, inevitably, because either she's being tested by a Natasha who remembers, or this is another version of the woman she'd grown to call her friend.

From the last. Yup. That's a confirmation, absolutely. She chuckles, though it's a bit forced. "I'm sorry, you think a person should get used to a thing like that? Town fountain deep enough to make your ears pop, totally normal. I think you've been here too long."

"I have been," Peggy agrees, no mirth or humour in her voice because it's been a very long set of months without any promise of going home, no matter how much she investigates, seeks, explores, she always comes back here and finds herself without a way out or the people that she misses. She's made friends, of course, but they're no substitute for what she has back home.

"You won't find a way back through the fountain. It's solid, I'm not even sure why we come out of that thing."

She certainly doesn't seem to recognize the place, and his powers remain enough that he'd know if she were feigning--to what end, he can't imagine, but her replies are vague enough that there feels like an angle in it.

Kira didn't know her well enough before to know now if she's still managing the confusion of her arrival, or makes a habit of bluffing her way through simple conversation. "You used to come here, when you were in this canyon before. Do you remember anything about it?"

Wanda was wearing a white tank top with a pair of black jeans that she'd been lucky enough to find shortly after her arrival. She had swung by to see Sam however he wasn't at the police station when she arrived. A frown touched her lips but she turned to leave, figuring that she'd see him later that night anyway. Her feet paused mid-step as a familiar figure stepped into view.

Her guard instantly rose. She hadn't know that Natasha had arrived and she wasn't sure what to do about it. Sam had told her that people arrived from different times and Peggy proved that fact. So would Natasha see her as an enemy or an ally.

This was more complicated than Wanda liked. She waited a half second before speaking. "Natasha?" Her accent was a give away for a spy like Natasha but Wanda didn't think that mattered.

Natasha offers a more genuine smile, and sinks down into a seat with open body language, a sweeping hand inviting Peggy to join her. "Why don't we skip the things I already know. Tell me what I've missed." Which, sure, that can be taken more than one way. Natasha is hoping that Peggy will take it to mean that she was here, left, and is back now. She wants to know what someone would tell her without the reservation that comes with speaking to a stranger. What would they tell a friend? "Please."

Outside of the hospital there is a sign that reads: "The Hospital Staff is OUT". However, as Natasha approaches from one direction, a lanky man with a prominent nose approaches from another. He appears to be carrying a bucket of water, doing his best not to slosh it all over the place and, more importantly, not soak his navy blue scrub pants. It is thankfully no longer cold, but Rory would prefer NOT to look like he wet himself if he's about to start his "shift" at the hospital.

He doesn't notice Natasha until he is at the door of the hospital, pausing to set the water bucket down and turn the 'OUT' to 'IN' on the sign.

"Hello," he says. She looks healthy enough and while he can't be sure, he decides to ask, "You weren't...coming here were you?"

Edited 2017-04-06 01:12 (UTC)

Peggy eyes her warily, but she settles down into the seat, giving her a long look. "I think I need to know that you are the person I think you are, first," she says, with an edge of apology, as if she's not entirely sure that she should be asking such things. "You seem to know me and I do know someone who looks very like you, but before I start to talk about this place with you, I want to know your name, where you're from, the last thing you remember."

These are questions she asks everyone, at some point, but they feel charged this time, as if they mean more.

The village's mill (god it feels weird to not have a name to refer to the place as) is out on the far side of just about everything. Across the river from the fields they plan to till and plant soon, all of the other public buildings, and most of the houses, with only a bare handful on the eastern side of the river with the mill itself, houses that he's presuming once held the people who worked in the mill. Not many people live out that way - he'd heard about a flood the year before that had damaged some homes, and presumably people didn't want to have that happen again. It made trying to get the mill in working shape into something of a solitary experience, unless someone tracked out to help him, which a few people did sometimes.

But this day Clint's alone, taking a break near the end of the day before he heads back in to grab some dinner. Wanda or Sam might've made something, or maybe he'd grab something from the communal meal at the inn, but a day of labor makes you hungry and- Someone's coming. He can see a figure approaching on the road, heading towards the bridge from where he's sitting with his back against the building, drinking a cup of water he'd scooped out of the river as a quick refresher, and that someone is definitely female. Wanda or Peggy come to call him in and make sure he hadn't passed out? They're both more worried about him than they needed to be after the firefly illness. But no, the hair's not dark enough for either of them, though the height is about right - and then he gets the first clear view he has of the woman approaching, and there's no mistaking. Only, she disappeared months ago, didn't she?

"Nat?" he calls, pushing to his feet and starting in the direction of the figure. "That you?"

There is nothing simple about her arrival or exploration. There's not much in her entire life that's simple, and she's got no reason to trust anything about this whole situation, including the people she runs across.

She shakes her head, looking around the building, an expression of vague recognition tempered with confusion on her face. "I've got such a headache, and everything is... muddled."

The desire to make a connection, it's written all over her. Natasha can see what Steve must have, the grit and the magnetism and the kindness tempered with steel in her spine. Peggy Carter, her own special kind of living legend. Natasha gets it, sitting across from the woman, she gets the draw. She also knows how kindness will always be a chink in armour.

"My name is Natasha, but you know that. You also know where I'm from. You know who I am," she says, putting weight on the end to imply that Peggy knows more than most people, that there's trust there. "The last thing I remember isn't even help to me. My thoughts feel like they've been through the wash, nothing fits, my head is splitting. I don't know what's real, and that's--" She hopes that Peggy will come to the conclusion that she's terrified, not knowing what thoughts might be her own and what might have been put there. If Peggy does truly know her, hopefully she'll know that much. "If you're not going to help me, Peggy..." She glances down, to the side, careful movement designed to convey hurt feelings and an attempt to not show it. "I suppose that tells me what I need to know."

Natasha sighs, begins to stand. "I'll find one of the others."

"Clint." It's difficult as hell to keep the relief out of her voice, and then she's jogging across the rest of the bridge, not stopping once her feet hit the road again, so fucking relieved to see a genuinely familiar face. She still doesn't have an explanation for where she is or how she got there. She's starting to get hungry, has no idea where she can hole up tonight to be safe, and not much hope for tomorrow, but now she's got something.

If Clint's here, then the two of them will figure it out. They always do. Granted, this situation is a bit beyond the pale, but things suddenly seem a lot less doomed.

"Most people don't remember anything," he tries to assure her--he doesn't really have hackles to raise, most of the time, but he keeps an eye on her as she assesses the room, and he thinks bluffing suits her more than confusion.

"You don't really have to lead me into telling you about this place, or your life before," he says. "You can just ask, though I didn't spend enough time with you to really know the latter."

"Natasha, wait," Peggy says firmly, because she means to help, but she also wants to make sure that she's not going around in circles explaining the same things to a woman who's already lived through them. She gives her a hopefully encouraging look and gestures for her to follow. "Are you thirsty? Hungry? I've a few biscuits left at my place and the dregs of some sherry."

"I find alcohol is a great help in these situations," she admits. "You've been here before," is what she says. "That's how I know you. I wanted to know if you remember that time."

That relief is obvious to him, and he doesn't even try to stop himself from grinning as she confirms his guess and moves his way. Cup left behind, he starts jogging to meet her himself, not stopping in front of her but rather continuing until he can grab her up in a hug. She's not the most touchy-feely of people, but she disappeared almost three months ago and he's flat-out relieved to see her again. She's also clearly shaken from her abrupt appearance here, which is totally fair enough. She's getting hugged.

Still, Clint knows she has to have questions, so the hug is tight and heartfelt but not too long because there's other things to get down to. He backs away just enough for a comfortable speaking distance, still grinning, and all together not looking all that bad for someone living in a village with no technology. His clothes are a little beat up, but he tends to be hard on his clothing at the best of times anyway. He'd found a discarded shaving kit and has been putting it to good use, and his hair hasn't grown all that much, though it's not quite the short cut she's used to him sporting. He'll have to get that looked at at some point. And there's no way she won't note the throwing daggers in sheathes hanging from his improvised belt. There's also no way she'll be surprised by him being armed.

"Did you just get here?"

"Lead you into?" She doubles down on the confusion, mostly because she has no reason to know that he has the ability to see through her act. It's such a huge part of how she deals with the world, her first line of defense, and her assumption is that he's fishing. Of course, she's doing the same thing, but that's nothing to do with running into him specifically. "What are you talking about? Does the memory come back, or will it always be this mixed up?"

If she knows Peggy, then she should be comfortable, and if Peggy knows her, she knows how suspect Natasha is of the unknown. So the ease with which she follows Peggy, the ready acceptance that it's perfectly safe, is something she's counting on to help her along. Mostly because it's not easy. No part of her wants to follow someone she doesn't know to an unknown location without a deep understanding of what she's getting herself into. Pretending to know everything always starts with knowing a hell of a lot more than everyone else - after that, faking the rest is almost easy.

"Well, you know I won't turn down a drink." And Natasha hopes that she does. She's taking a very strange kind of leap here. She's trusting some version of herself to have given the answers that she's about to, to hold back what she always holds back, and to freely share the things she's decided help present the image that gives her a place in the world while also keeping her safe.

It's particularly rough, considering that the last couple of weeks have ruined both her image of herself and her place in the world, and nothing feels safe any more.

Natasha is still in the black scrubs from the day before, hair finger combed and braided, the natural curl keeping it from coming undone. She no longer looks like she just dragged herself out of a fountain, and armed with Clint's explanations, she at least has the lay of the land and a general history.

Wanda looked tense, but fine, though Natasha noticed how that tension only really amped up when she was spotted. She just nodded her head at the girl, acceptance and recognition. "Wanda. Are you all right? You look..." She raised a hand, twirling her finger around, trying to encompass the look on the girl's face and the set of her shoulders.

Natasha's been walking for a while now, down the road from the mill away from the river, back again, growing more frustrated as she reaches the limits. She's back to searching the more central buildings, the progress to be made there more satisfying. She's also still in the black scrubs, hair now dry and braided loosely, her pack of extra stuff stashed away so she doesn't look quite as fresh-out-of-the-fountain as she did yesterday. The closed sign wouldn't have deterred her much, but she nods her head at Rory all the same. "I was, yes. Problem?" She stops walking, cocks her hip to the side and tilts her head, glances from him to the bucket, then back at the building.

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arrival and exploring

exploring - schoolhouse

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exploring - town hall

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exploring - the police station

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exploring - hospital

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Exploring - the mill

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