InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "join the madness!"

Brigid (metalbird) wrote in spinningcompass,
@ 2017-02-26 19:45:00

Entry tags:

!closed, ~isabel lane, ~kaya bode

Who:Isabel and Kaya
Where: The Lady Luck
What: Proof
When: Sunday 26 Feb, afternoon. Immediately after this
Rating: Low, maybe some language
Open: Ask first
Status: In progress

The Lady Luck had definitely had better days. Half the lights were out, and a solid quarter of the remaining status indicators were solid red. The acrid smells of burnt electronics and fire retardant mixed together in the air. Kaya herself stank of smoke and sweat, and there was a bloody cut just below the hairline of her scalp where she'd hit her head in an access hatch.

It had not been a fun time, and now she'd had a crazy person spinning tall tales about Jedi and Sith being fairy tales.

She was ready to wake up from whatever nightmare this day had turned into.

"Just remember, you basically asked for it."

Kaya whirled around and stared at the woman who'd suddenly appeared in her cockpit out of nowhere. It was impossible. No, wait, not impossible. She'd heard tales about what the Jedi could do, and seen the handiwork of the Sith.

Her blaster came out of its holster and pointed directly at the woman. "However you got yourself on my ship, lady, you can get yourself right out."

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	isabellane 2017-02-27 05:03 am UTC (link)
	"It's a thing I do." Isabel shrugged. With a wave of her hand, the blaster turned into a giant novelty candy cane. She chuckled to herself. "I can get us both off the ship if you want more proof." (Reply to this) (Thread)

metalbird
2017-03-06 09:21 pm UTC (link)

Kaya stared down at the thing in her hand that had suddenly replaced her blaster. She'd been hopping around the galaxy for the last decade, and heard spacers' tall tales in her family's shop ever since she'd been old enough to hold a spanner before that, but she'd never seen anything like this.

Eyes wide, she glanced up at the intruder, then back down at the sweet. She assumed it was a sweet anyway, judging from the smell. Slowly she brought it up and gave it a sniff at closer range. Yup, definitely some kind of sweet. Jedi and Sith could mind trick you, could appear and disappear, but she'd never heard of them being able to do this.

"How-" She looked up at the woman, swallowed, and tried again. "What are you?"

Isabel couldn't hide her smirk as she watched the young woman examine the candy cane. She just kept her arms at her sides. She didn't want to seem like a threat. After the question she waved her hand again and the candy cane was back to being a blaster.

"I'm a genie. Though not your typical kind. Things have evolved a bit over the years. I can use my magic whenever but I do still grant wishes. To an extent."

"Genie?" Kaya shook her head. "I don't know that species. I've never heard of anyone who can do what you just did. Not even in all the stories about the Jedi and the Sith."

She slid her blaster back into its holster seeing how it wasn't going to do her any good anyway. If the woman wanted her dead, she would be.

"It's not a species known in your universe. Though I am technically human just with magical powers." Isabel smiled.

"As I said, my name is Isabel. Along with being a genie, I run a diner in town. Really good food, if I do say so myself."

"A diner." Kaya repeated. A being that had powers Force users could only dream about and she ran a diner. Of course she did, why wouldn't she?

"I'm Kaya." She pointed at a battered and powered down Astromech droid in the corner that had clearly taken a few licks in the struggle to keep the ship operational long enough to land it. "That's Arbie, but I'll have to make repairs on him too before he'll be very talkative."

She must have hit her head harder than she thought because it all had to be a hallucination.

"It's nice to meet you." Isabel offered her hand. "And I'm sure it'll be nice to meet him once he's up and running again." She smiled.

"He's a cantankerous old bucket of bolts but he was part of the family since before I was born." Kaya rubbed a hand over the dome fondly and sighed. The only family she had left.

Isabel nodded, dropping her hand back to her side. "Sounds a bit like Artoo."

"There's droids on this island then?" She hadn't heard of an R2 series astromech but there was always a first time.

Kaya realized she had ignored the outstretched hand and gestured about to indicate her ship. "Sorry. It's been a long day. It's nice to meet you Isabel."

Her hands were filthy from dirt, oil and smoke anyway, so better not to get that all over the other woman.

"Just the one. And I'm not completely sure he's still here." She made a face. She really needed to check on that. Isabel smiled.

"How about taking a break? We can go to the diner. I can make you something to eat. You can come back relaxed and clear headed. We can also get that cut looked at." She motioned toward Kaya's forehead.

"You mean there is a way off after all?" Kaya still wasn't sure she believed the whole 'trapped under a force field' story, let alone beings from other universes since this was probably one big hallucination from hitting her head, but she was playing along for now.

Her stomach growled, reminding her how long it had been since she'd eaten, and she grimaced. "Okay, I guess I could use a bite." She gestured toward the hatch leading into the ship, where a corridor would take them to the boarding ramp. That was independently powered so it should work. How she got Lady Luck landed safely on the ground without actually plowing into the dirt and killing her and Arbie both she hadn't a clue, but she wasn't looking a gift droid over for bad parts.

"The island has sent some people home, but it's not anything we have any control over." Isabel cleared her throat. They had just lost some people after all.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

metalbird
2017-03-06 09:22 pm UTC (link)

"Let's get you cleaned up and patched up and then I can get you some food. You want to travel the old fashioned way or something a bit quicker?"

"'The Island' sent people home?" Kaya raised an eyebrow, not sure she understood what the magical woman meant. "You mean the prison administration sends people home randomly?"

She shook her head. "I want to make sure that the boarding ramp works. Aside from that I don't care, is where you want to go far from here?"

"There isn't a prison administration. It's just some....being. He's an asshole and sadistic and it's best not to piss him off." She sighed. Isabel tilted her head at the question.

"I'm not sure." She pulled out her phone. "Friday, where am I in relation to the diner?"

"Approximately 7 miles North East, Miss Walker."

"Thanks." Isabel chuckled. "Guess it's pretty far."

"One being?" Now Kaya was sure she was hallucinating or dreaming while unconscious, though why her mind would come up with such a crazy scenario she had no idea. Either way, it didn't seem to be hurting anything so she'd play along until the dream was over. It'd be something to joke about with Jaythree when she woke up.

They made their way to the airlock and boarding ramp, and Kaya punched the button to open everything up. "Looks like it all works, that's a good sign. I'd worried I came down harder than I thought." She started down the ramp and gestured for Isabel to follow.

"Seven miles huh?" She wasn't familiar with the measurement but it sounded like a long walk. "I guess you've got a faster way than by foot?"

"Well, there are two. One that brings us here and the other that keeps us here and likes to be a dick." When they got to the bottom of the ramp, she glared at the Spire before nodding at Kaya's question.

"Much faster, but you might end up a bit nauseated. You willing to risk it?"

"Right." Kaya just nodded along because why not? If there could be one being with the ability to pull people around from different universes why not two? This was one weird dream.

She punched the button to close the hatch and turned back to Isabel. "Sure, why not?"

Isabel could tell that Kaya didn't really believe her but she just let it go. She would figure it out soon enough. Isabel held out her hand. "I need you actually holding on for it to work."

"All right." Kaya shrugged and took hold of the other woman's hand. "Let's do it." Isabel was able to appear out of thin air into her ship, so maybe she could teleport somehow, though she'd never heard of anyone with that capability.

Isabel made sure that she had a tight grip on Kaya's hand before she snapped her fingers. In the blink of an eye they were standing in the middle of the diner. She smiled, but was ready to grab Kaya if she needed it. "You okay?"

Kaya staggered a bit as if she were on a ship that had gotten a hard bump from something, but was otherwise unscathed. She looked around at the diner and her face went pale. The diner itself wasn't a shock, it wasn't that different in layout than she'd seen on countless space stations and worlds around the galaxy. It was the fact that they really were in the diner instead of outside her ship that really threw her.

A shaky hand reached out and touched the top of a booth seat, confirming the solidity to herself that it was real. "Chuba" (Dammit) This was no dream, it couldn't be, no matter how much she wished it was.

(Reply to this)

metalbird
2017-03-06 09:25 pm UTC (link)

Isabel stayed close until she was sure Kaya was at least stable. "Go ahead and have a seat, darlin', I'm gonna get the first aid kit." She was pretty sure the cut wasn't bad enough to need stitches.

She headed back into the kitchen, grabbing the first aid kid and a couple of wet cloths before going back out to Kaya to get her cleaned up and tended to.

Kaya sat down as directed, wondering if she was going crazy. This definitely was no dream. "How long have you been here?"

Isabel knelt down in front of Kaya and gently started to clean off the area around the cut. She kept her eyes on what she was doing. "Me? Um.....I guess it depends when you mean." She cleared her throat. "As of right now, technically four years. But I've been tossed back and forth through time a little bit. Time I came from, it was nearly 12 years." One she was sure she got all the dirt out of the cut, she started to bandage it as best she could.

Twelve years. Time travel.

It was hard to accept, but Kaya couldn't deny what she'd experienced. She kept her head still and let Isabel fuss over her.

"So this thing... it snatches people from different universes and brings us here and we can't leave? Why bring us in the first place?" she wanted to understand.

"I honestly don't know. None of us have been able to figure it out. Maybe it's fun for them?" She shrugged. Isabel put some butterfly bandages on the cut and then started to clean off the rest of Kaya's face. Her maternal instincts were definitely in overdrive just then.
"I haven't been on the same planet or station for longer than a week or two in ten cycles." Kaya let Isabel clean her face off, it felt kind of good to be fussed over by someone other than jaythree truth be told. The last time someone else had been maternal toward her rather than treat her like a crew member or business partner had been before the Sith came.

Once Isabel was done cleaning Kaya's face she got to her feet. "Do you like living like that?" There was no judgement or distaste in her tone, just pure curiosity. She set a clean damp towel on the table so Kaya could clean up a bit more.

"It's not a bad life." Kaya shrugged uncomfortably, not meeting Isabel's gaze as she picked up the towel. "I haven't had a reason to stop."

Until she found out what happened to her family and friends she probably never would.

"Well, now you can rest for a bit. Maybe this is just a lot stoo." She smiled warmly. It had happened before, people on the island for only a couple of weeks.

"Want me to bring you a menu or surprise you?"

"Could be," Kaya replied, cleaning the back of her neck. "And surprise me. I have no idea what might be the same or different so I'm not even going to try just yet." And it had been a long day, sh just wanted food.

"Surprise it is." Isabel nodded. She went back into the kitchen and started to cook. She could have magicked it up but it never tasted white right in her opinion. After a few minutes she came out with a cheese burger and fries. Lettuce, tomatoes, onions and pickles were on a separate plate. She also had a chocolate shake and a glass of wster, setting it all down in front of Kaya.

Kaya had spent those few minutes staring idly out at the street. The tech in many ways was woefully below what she was familar with, but a high enough level that she wouldn't have to worry about cannibal bands roaming the wilderness. It was odd scene such an urban enviornment so empty. Pondering why kept her from thinking too much about the fact she was trapped here with everyone else.

As the food was set in front of her she could hear her stomach start to growl and she was reminded once again of how hungry she was. "This looks great, thank you." It wasn't too different from diner fare on other worlds, at least in looks. Taste could well be another matter.

"How many people are here? This place seems pretty empty."

"It's no problem, sugar." Isabel smiled. She tilted her head a little at the question. "I think Tony's the only one with a really accurate count but there's a hundred or so. Everybody is listed in the phone."

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metalbird
2017-03-06 09:26 pm UTC (link)

"So you have children here? " Isabel had mentioned sons.

Isabel's smile turned a little sad. "My daughter is here but my boys aren't." She cleared her throat. "They stayed in the right year."

"I'm sorry." Kaya was horrified at the thought of Isabel's sons out on their own with their mother stuck in a different time. It felt a little too close to home to her own situation, not knowing for sure what had happened to her family.

"I know they're not alone. They have plenty of family. And I do have my Elly so it's not that bad." She pulled her phone out of her pocket and flipped through until she found pictures. The boys were roughly 13 and Elly was 11. "That's them." She smiled.

"They're adorable." She pulled a battered holo-locket from under her shirt and pressed the button. An image appeared in thin air of a much younger teenage Kaya with her parents and siblings. It had been luck that she'd had that stuffed in one compartment of the vest she'd worn the day of the attacks, otherwise she'd have nothing at all unless Arbie had some recordings he hadn't shared.

"This is my family."

"Thank you." Isabel nodded. She leaned in a little to get a close look at the holo. "Well, I can see where you get your good looks."

"Thanks." Kaya held out the locket for another moment then shut it down and put it back under her shirt.

"So what do I need to know about this place? " it was as good a subject change as any and she didn't want to trade stories about missing their families.

"Oh, there's a lot." Isabel nodded. "First, you don't need money. Everybody is pretty good about only taking what they need. And people pitch in around the island but it's not mandatory." She smiled a little. "Weird things happen quite a bit. Magic is an actual thing, as you've seen." She tapped her chin with her finger. "Um....what else?"

"No money?" If it weren't a kind of prison it sounded like it might be paradise. Kaya took a sip of her shake while she listened, having polished off the burger and eaten most of the fires.

"What sort of weird things?"

"No money. Everybody shares." She nodded. Isabel made a face at her next question.

"Aside from time travel, people have swapped bodies, changed genders...some forget who they are for a while, think they're someone else. That kind of thing."

"Swapped bodies, changed genders?" She outright stared at Isabel, milkshake forgotten. If someone could teleport or travel through time she supposed swapping bodies shouldn't surprise her, but it did. That was something she'd never heard a whisper of in all the tall tales about the Jedi and the Sith. "How often do things like that happen?"

"There isn't really a time frame. They happen off and on. Sometimes it's the whole island and sometimes it's just one or two specific people." She shrugged. "And there are different people here with the same face. Like, you look exactly like Elyssa. And Tony's daughter for that matter. TJ and Bucky look just alike. Hansel and Clint and Aaron all have the same face."

(Reply to this)

metalbird
2017-03-06 09:30 pm UTC (link)

Kaya had spent those few minutes staring idly out at the street. The tech in many ways was woefully below what she was familar with, but a high enough level that she wouldn't have to worry about cannibal bands roaming the wilderness. It was odd scene such an urban enviornment so empty. Pondering why kept her from thinking too much about the fact she was trapped here with everyone else.

As the food was set in front of her she could hear her stomach start to growl and she was reminded once again of how hungry she was. "This looks great, thank you." It wasn't too different from diner fare on other worlds, at least in looks. Taste could well be another matter.

"How many people are here? This place seems pretty empty."

"It's no problem, sugar." Isabel smiled. She tilted her head a little at the question. "I think Tony's the only one with a really accurate count but there's a hundred or so. Everybody is listed in the phone."

"So few." Kaya shook her head. Even the space station she'd called home as a girl had over a thousand permanent residents.

She dug into the burger and nodded. "Tastes like nerf meat." She mumbled, barely chewing and swallowing before taking another large bite. "Delicious."

"The population comes and goes. Some people get sent home, some die..." She shrugged. "We get along, though."

Isabel chuckled as Kaya ate. "If you need more just let me know. You eat like my boys."

"Sorry." Kaya forced herself to slow down and not inhale her food. "It's been a busy day, I didn't have a chance to eat for a while."

"Honey, you don't need to apologize." Isabel chuckled softly. "I take it as a compliment, believe me."

Kaya nodded as she continued eating, albeit at a slower pace than she had before. She wasn’t a barbarian, even if she'd hung out in a rough crowd the past several years.

"There are people here who look like me?" That surprised her. Then Isabel rattled off other names of people she'd never heard of who shared the same faces. "So it's like having a twin kind of?" This whole place was weird, she wasn't sure she'd wrap her head around it. She'd have to make sure Arbie knew and could tell the others apart from her.

"There's a person that looks like you. Lizy got sent home a while back. And yes, it's like having a twin. Or in some cases being part of triplets." She smiled. "We call it face twins."

Kaya nodded thoughtfully and returned to her shake. "I'll have to see if I can meet any of them." She hoped it wouldn't bring back painful memories of her twin, she still missed her sister.

"Pretty much everybody here is nice. Stay away from Loki, though. He's not so nice." She made a face. "Andres has his moments but don't get drunk around him."

"What does not so nice mean?" Kaya looked up, curious. "And this Anders guy, does he get handsy or something? I'm pretty good at fending off guys who think I'm an easy lay because I'm tipsy." usually with a good punch in the gut or kick in the balls.

"Loki is lovely if you are useful to him. If not he could either completely ignore you or decide it would be fun to play with you. He caused some serious damage messing with my mind a while back." She shuddered.

"As for Anders, he has these abilities. He can talk people into doing things they wouldn't do normally. "

"I see. So this Loki is like a Sith." Good to know. She'd definitely steer clear.

She smirked at the statement about this Anders person. "We'll see. I'm pretty good at resisting that sort of thing when I want to."

(Reply to this)

metalbird
2017-03-06 09:30 pm UTC (link)

"That's an apt description, yeah." Isabel nodded. "Just stear clear of both of them.and you'll be fine." She wrinkled her nose.

"Something else, if you look at your phone you'll see three Steve Rogers. They're the same guy from different points in the timeline."

"Huh?" Just when she thought it couldn't get any stranger Isabel went and raised the bar. "Explain that one please."

Isabel pulled her phone out again and flipped through the contacts. "This Steve Rogers is 18. He was 5 when he got here but the he disappeared and showed up 18. This one is Steven. He's nearly 30 I think. He comes from just before Steve became Captain America. Then there's Captain America here. And this one that says Stevie, he's from an alternate timeline where he was born a super soldier." She cleared her throat. "There used to be an older one here but he got sent back to his time."

"So that's four different versions of the same person here?" Kaya felt like her head was going to explode from the impossibility of this place. "And do the older versions remember being here when they were younger?"

Isabel shook her head. "They're all from different timelines. Though the one that hot sent back to his time did remember being here, bit things were different." She sighed before putting her phone away again. "As long as I've been here and it still confuses me sometimes."

"Yeah, I guess that would be confusing." Kaya frowned, wondering how she was ever going to keep it all straight. Maybe if she just ignored it and treated the men like they were brothers instead of different versions of the same man it would make more sense.

"Anything else I should know?" She was itching to get back to her ship and get started on repairs now that she'd had some food, beginning with Arbie.

Isabel scratched above her ear. "Never say the word wish out loud unless you want to risk it coming true." She sighed. "It's happened on a few occasions. And stay out of the forest at night. There are a lot if dangerous animals. Also, not all of the animals are animals. We have shape shifters here."

"Really? I can just wish for something and it can come true?" That didn't sound so bad to her. "So if I were to do that with my ship there's a chance it could happen?"

Stay out of the forest at night? Not a problem. She wasn't likely to go into it during the day if she could help it.

"It could but it could also backfire." Isabel made a face. "You have to be ridiculously specific. And even then it could backfire. One person here wished for his daughter not to be sick anymore and now she's basically immortal." She and Rachel had had a long talk about it.

"That doesn't sound so bad to me." Kaya shrugged. Not being able to die sounded pretty good in fact.

"Would you want to outlive your children? To watch them grow old while you stay the same age?" She hated the thought of it herself and knew there were a few in the island that would have to deal with that.

"Oh." Kaya looked down at the table. She hadn't considered that, really. There were long lived species out there, some with lifespans many times that of humans, but none that would see their own children grow old and die while they stayed the same.

"There's a Chinese curse that says may you get everything you wish for. This island kind of lives by that, in the not good way." She pursed her lips. "But as long as you're careful you should be fine."

"I'll definitely be careful." Kaya nodded vigorously and stood up to leave now that she'd finished eating. "Thanks for Everything Isabel, I'd better get back to the ship."

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	isabellane 2017-03-06 09:42 pm UTC (link)
	"It's no problem, hon. Want me to pop you back there? It'll be a lot faster." She grinned. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	metalbird 2017-03-06 09:44 pm UTC (link)
	"That'd be great, thank you." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	isabellane 2017-03-06 09:45 pm UTC (link)
	"Again, no problem." Isabel held out her hand again. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	metalbird 2017-03-07 10:19 pm UTC (link)
	Kaya took her hand, and the next thing she knew they were standing back in the cockpit of Lady Luck. She shook her head and laughed, it seemed so surreal but from everything Isabel said it was standard fare for the island. "Thanks again Isabel. I'll see you soon." (Reply to this) (Parent)