save atlantis (saveatlantis) wrote in saveatlantisic, @ 2019-02-17 21:42:00 |
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This wasn’t exactly how Hope was used to travelling but she didn’t mind it. She mostly kept to herself as the team continued on their path. It was weird seeing the Earth like this, seeing an area that was so vastly different to what she was used to.
She remembered driving to DC when she was younger with some students for the annual DC trip, just because they were magical didn’t mean they didn’t learn US history. Everything was so vastly different, in a strange way some of it was beautiful, the kind of beautiful that came with pain and destruction. Hope was used to that.
“So, where do you think we are exactly?” She asked someone walking next to her, “I mean from when there were highways and towns and cities with skyscrapers.”
Clarke shrugged. There hadn’t been any of that here since before she’d been born. “We’re on the Eastern side of what used to be the United States,” she explained. She’d taken Earth history classes, but none of them had known about the grounds, about Polis or any of it at the time. Mount Weather had been where they had been supposed to land and most of the locations the teams had were familiar to her, but she couldn’t have said where exactly they were in terms that would make sense to someone from Hope’s time.
Hope knew they were on the Eastern part of the US, she’d paid attention. she meant more what state would this had been, what town was nearby, were they still in Virginia, or did they cross over to DC or Maryland. She didn’t want to correct Clarke that she meant more specific so she just nodded. “Yeah,” was all she really managed to say. “It’s weird not seeing a highway system and traffic jams.” Was all she added.
She did get that, because Atlantis had been an adjustment, too, for her. “It’s weird for me to see those things,” she admitted. “We had stories and history books, but this is all any of us have ever known of Earth. Some of the history books had pictures, but this was our reality when we finally got down here. That was about 6 years ago for me. My people lived most of their lives on a space station.” The Ark, which was still in space in this time, that’s where Mordecai and his team were headed. Clarke didn’t envy them, but she felt the same about all of the teams. She was glad to be out in the open air, at least. Being stuck inside Mount Weather with Octavia would have been harder to bear. The memories that waited in Polis would be enough.
“Traffic jams aren’t really what I’d call the best part of the time I’m from.” Hope commented as she nodded, being locked in space didn’t sound like fun to her, but Hope didn’t really have a deep desire to travel in space anyways, her life had enough weird things in it to add that.
“Polis is beautiful,” Clarke said after a brief silence fell between them. Lexa had told her once that she thought Polis would change her mind about the Grounders. It had been more Lexa than Polis and a desire for both of them to end the fighting between their people, to unite them, but she had to admit it was a beautiful city. It was hard to say what else they’d find there, but they’d know soon enough.
Hope nodded, she was curious to see what it looked like but she still wasn’t sure about this place, something really did feel off to her.
Peter stood at the bottom of the tower and looked up. It wasn’t that high but it was still a good ways up there. He found some stairs and started climbing them, trying to shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. There weren’t any people here but someone had to have been here at some point to have built all this stuff because it didn’t look old, He stopped climbing and turned around, called down to Jemma who was behind him.
“See anything? It looks deserted,I’m going a little higher to see what’s up there.”
“Not a bloody thing,” Jemma said, her brow creased with concentration as she considered what could bring them all to this place. And the further she considered Clarke living here, the more she really did want to go back to Atlantis. But putting all that aside, she knew there was a job. One did one’s job.
Glancing up to Peter, she blinked.
“Not a person either.”
He went a little further up and looked around. “Nothing,” he said.”just trees. Lots of trees. But someone had to build this thing.” It didn’t look that old either which was even stranger. “I guess there’s not a lot we can do other than just report back. I haven’t seen anything we could carry back to camp, have you?”
She shook her head. There wasn’t anything small or portable -- there wasn’t really anything at all. “It feels weird, of course. People should be here. I’m a bit at a loss,” she quickly admitted. Biology was concrete, it followed the scientific method and ensured an outcome. This job … it was like a puzzle, but the pieces kept changing.
“You think we can snap a photo with our phones?”
Things were weird, sure it was amazing helping people out of the pictures but Hope had a bad feeling all morning, even as they got back to Mount Weather and there was a flurry of people again, she couldn’t shake the feeling.
“Has anyone seen Clarke?” Hope asked after helping check the supplies they had left over still.
Peter was amazed at was seeing, people coming to life out of pictures, something that shouldn’t be possible yet it was there and he couldn’t deny it. He looked around when he heard Hope’s voice and paused in what he was doing. “No, I guess it’s been a little while. I haven’t been looking up from what I was doing….” He had been kneeling on the ground with the pictures and stood up to see if he could spot Clarke. “I don’t see her anywhere around here,” he said. “I’m going to go out just a little bit.” He didn’t want to get too far away from camp but there was probably a perfectly logical explanation. After checking around the perimeter of the camp, he came back shaking his head. “I don’t see her. IF she were going out very far, she would have said something. Are her things still here?”
There was sinking fear that crawled into Hope when Peter told her he hadn’t seen Clarke.
“No, wait,” she said trying to stop Peter. “Let me try something first.” Hope had a feeling she could use a tracking spell and if Clarke was nearby she’d know right away, if she wasn’t… well. She paused thinking about it and what her Aunt Freya had taught her about this exact spell, it wasn’t exactly the smoothest one. Speaking in what sounded like latin she waved her arms up and to the side but felt nothing. She did it again, and nothing. And again, and again. Panic started to overcome her.
“Talk to home base now, Clarke’s gone.”
He watched her as she worked the spell, fascinated by her movements. Peter didn’t know much about magic, just what he had seen, heard, and learned about in Atlantis. It was clear that Hope knew what she was doing but when she stopped and spoke, he felt his heart in his throat.
“Gone? You can’t feel her anywhere?” he shook his head. This wasn’t good at all. “I’ll contact homebase now.” It didn’t take long for him to get in touch with them and then he returned to Hope. “She’s not the only one. Some others are missing too. Alicia Spinnet is gone as well. That’s the only other name they mentioned. They said to see if we could find something that belonged to Clarke, something in her pack. They have some people who are going to try a different locator spell.”
Hope didn’t like her magic being questioned because she knew she was right. “She’s not here anymore.” She felt like she repeated more than once. She frowned when he mentioned others missing.
“I’m going to go find the other magic users and see what we can do,” she said not bothering to wait to see if he was coming with her or not.
“Wait a minute,” he said and grabbed Clarke’s pack. Going through it without her didn’t seem right even though most people would be surprised that he had enough manners not to. Besides he didn’t know her that well and anyway, Hope was heading out and he caught up with her. “I got this so maybe you can see if there’s something you can use. I don’t know anything about magic but I can look if someone will point me in the right direction.”
Hope held up something Clarke had given her earlier but nodded all the same. “The more the better I guess,” but she was even more worried that her pack had been left, it seemed sloppy to her, not that she was an expert in kidnapping but she knew a lot of people who had been kidnapped.