InsaneJournal

Tweak says, ""I laugh at your nose.""

Heather Mason (tufui_egoeris) wrote in vas_captio_rpg,
@ 2009-03-21 08:18:00

Entry tags:

!complete, cheryl mason, day 01, kimihiro watanuki, location: library, river tam

Day One - Morning
Who: Cheryl Mason, River Tam, & Kimihiro Watanuki
What: Awakening in an unexpected wood with equally unexpected company
When: Morning of Day One (somewhere around 9am)
Where: In the woods with the nearest landmark being the library
Rating: TBA (possible language?)
Status: Complete

Cheryl was almost afraid to open her eyes. Too used to the process of unexpectedly losing and then regaining consciousness, she felt that she knew what would greet her as soon as she sat up and she had to admit that she wasn't entirely looking forward to the prospect of pulsating meaty walls and grotesque creatures at every turn -- but that wasn't right. She shouldn't have to face that sort of thing again, not when all that should have been behind her. She was miles and miles away from that town and, as far as she could remember, Portland didn't have a major problem with creeps and spooks -- not the supernatural kind, anyway.

Casting her thoughts back, Cheryl could remember standing just outside the bank. She had intended to wait for it to open so that she could withdraw the majority of her funds and then she meant to buy a ticket on the first bus out of town. There was a letter she wanted to send, but --

Right. All of that was perfectly true and fine, but it didn't quite explain why she was lying on what felt like wet grass.

'Stalling isn't going to help anything,' Cheryl silently reminded herself, but it still took her a long moment to pull herself to a sitting position. After mentally steeling herself, she finally allowed her eyes to open and her first impression was of trees -- an endless maze of trees and underbrush all around her with no hint of anything beyond. Though this sight was far tamer than what she might have been expecting, it was still not something native to the middle of downtown which only begged the question of how in the hell she managed to get herself here.

"Get myself here?" Cheryl snorted quietly as she pulled herself to her feet. Absently, she brushed at the slight damp of her clothes, but the majority of her attention was still given to the fact that she was deserted in an unexpected forest -- only not entirely deserted as she soon managed to stumble across two bodies lying nearby.

It was perhaps telling that her first thought was that the prone figures absolutely must be corpses and, if she didn't want to end up just like them, then she'd better get to running. The impulse to flee was so strong that Cheryl did take a few jogging steps in the opposite direction, but she soon pulled herself short -- where exactly did she think she was going and what did she think she'd find? By all appearances, she was in the middle of a thick forest and running blindly would just get her even more lost than she currently was. Besides, she realized after a long moment of staring that both the male corpse and the female appeared to be breathing steadily -- which meant that they were probably alive and most likely in the same boat as she was.

"Way to overreact," she muttered to herself. Still, even knowing that the two weren't corpses didn't entirely kill the impulse to walk away. There was no way of knowing, after all, what sort of people they were and it could just be simpler if she tried to find her own way. It could be for the best...

"You're crazy. There's no way you're going to just leave them there." Hearing the words aloud did allow Cheryl to realize how bad it would be of her to just leave the two, kids no older than herself by appearances, to fend for themselves and she resigned herself to staying.

As if just noticing the fine mist of rain, Cheryl pulled the hood of her deep orange hoodie up against the weather and stuffed one of her hands deep into the pockets of this same as she meandered her way back to the two. Crouching down between them, she toyed with the idea of just letting the two come around on their own, but she wasn't sure that she'd have the patience for that. In the end, she did decide to try to wake them with a call of "Hey, you two going to sleep all day?"

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aprilfirst
2009-03-26 12:55 pm UTC (link)

Watanuki's face went, if possible, even paler than usual when he heard Raven's words. "Is that a joke?" he asked, but he didn't expect it to be so.
"I'm not sure we come from the same planet," he told the other two after a pause in which he tried to collect his thoughts. "We... probably... come from different dimensions entirely. Yuuko once told me that there are different dimensions, and that it's possible to travel through them. However it's very difficult and only a few people have that power. There's even less people with the power to send others through the dimensions..." There was another pause while he tried to remember Yuuko's exact words. "If we come from different dimensions... and if someone has somehow sent us here... then that person has an incredible magical power. I think."
He was unsure of his words himself, since he was no mage, but it was the only reasoning that would make sense. But it was a discomforting thought, feeling at the mercy of some powerful stranger.

When the subject switched to languages, his face fell even more. "I don't know English," he said glumly. "I only speak Japanese. To me, even now, we're all speaking Japanese."
More magic? After all, if they'd been brought across dimensions, making them understand each other was probably an easy thing to do. He wished he'd been able to read the books as well.

Watanuki nodded at miss Mason's suggestion. It was probably better to concentrate on finding food and other necessities than to dwell on their unfavorable situation.
He turned towards the door, instinctively turning into housewife mode. "What we need most is food, and water," he reflected as he walked. "One bottle of water won't last long, even if we ration it. It would be best if we could find warmer clothes, or even blankets, since we don't know how cold it might get here. If we don't find any place better than this, we could spend the night here. I could clean up this section," he added, glancing at some bookshelves over which the roof seemed to be still in one piece.

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brokengirl
2009-03-27 08:37 am UTC (link)

River glanced back and forth from Watanuki and Cheryl and back. She wondered if they were taken away somehow and had their memories wiped. "The people expanded. Earth was too small. Though there are still some who live there..."she was unsure of how to explain it to them. "I was born on Osiris...although no one stays on one planet for a long time." she said shaking her head a bit. She looked back over at Cheryl. "What year was it when you were taken? It was 2516 when I left."

Watanuki's comment on japanese pulled her attention back to him. Uncounciously she tilted her head as she tried to understand whether or not he was joking. "Japanese?" she let out an awkward laguh, "No one speaks many of the old languages anymore. Everyone is fluent in Chinese and English but it's rare to find someone who speaks any other language than that."

She glanced down at her water at the idea of rationing. He was right it didn't matter what they did they were bound to run out of supplies fast. At Cheryl's comment, River walked back over to the door and looked out into the open. It was obvious that there were other buildings around, she didn't need her...uniqueness...to show her that. But just like before she still couldn't tell what these buildings were. The more she looked out the more she could pick up on the other people coming closer together. They were all faint readings but she could tell that they were not going to hurt them anytime soon. River turned back and nodded to Cheryl as if to tell her it was going to be ok for them to go out and look for the things they needed.

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tufui_egoeris
2009-03-27 03:49 pm UTC (link)

"I...heard of something like that, being able to pass through dimensions," Cheryl spoke slowly and carefully, not entirely sure how much of this she wanted to speak aloud. "I can only think of a few who could really manage it, though, and it was usually pretty obvious when it happened."

Then again, she had been unconscious during many of the times she'd slipped between worlds - and she had awakened to this new place from unconsciousness, hadn't she? And this world so far did seem to be one of heavy mists with buildings in disrepair and scattered inhabitants - all of which she had seen a time or two before.

Cheryl allowed her eyes to drift closed and, lifting her hands, she rubbed at her temples with careful fingertips. "I'm from Portland in the summer of 2003 - so I guess it's pretty obvious when I say that I haven't heard of Osiris or people leaving the Earth to live somewhere else."

Different eras and different planets? She didn't know those could be drawn into the world-in-between, but she supposed that it probably hadn't been tried. If there was a purpose behind the will, though...

Opening her eyes, Cheryl glanced to Watanuki. "What year are you from? I mean, not to be stereotypical, but I'd guess somewhere in Japan of somewhere around my time, but I'm curious."

The idea of moving instead of just sitting and thinking suddenly struck Cheryl as being wonderful and so she quickly pulled herself to her feet. She nodded to Watanuki's list of supplies, but she silently added a weapon or two to it - just in case things slipped further.

"In case we don't find anything better, we should make sure we can find our way back here," she glanced curiously to River for a moment, wondering if the girl would be able to use her uncanny sense to guide them, but she soon decided that it wouldn't hurt to have something practical as a backup. With a wan grin, she fished the tic tacs from her pocket and gave the container a shake. "It's no breadcrumb trail, but it couldn't hurt..."

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aprilfirst
2009-03-28 08:22 am UTC (link)

Watanuki nodded at Cheryl. "Yes, I'm from around that period too. From Tokyo, Japan," he said. "So... River comes from the future. Or a future, at any rate. It's all so complicated!" he exclaimed, taking his head into his hands.
He often felt unlucky, and it wasn't the first time that something weird had happened to him, but usually he'd be surrounded by people he could rely on. Even seeing Domeki's stupid face would have improved matters.

He was starting to feel hungry, too, and his throat felt parched. He hadn't realized how much time they'd spent inside the library, but it must have been longer than he'd thought. It was probably afternoon already.
He took the bottle of water and, after peering at it suspiciously, took a small swig. The water tasted normal, but he still wasn't trusting anything he found in this place.

Personally, Watanuki thought that Cheryl's idea would be useless. The tic tacs were small and easy to miss, and he wouldn't have been surprised if the buildings happened to move overnight. But he just shrugged and nodded at the girl. It wasn't as if they had any other use for the candies.
"What's the time?" he asked. He didn't have a watch and was bad at guessing what time it was judging by the sky. When he stepped outside the library he noticed that the sun was still high on the horizon, but he couldn't have said how many hours of daylight they had left. The only thing he knew was that they'd better get a move on if they wanted to eat something for dinner.

"Maybe we'd better split up," he suggested, somehow reluctantly. They had no idea of where to find food, or if there was any food at all in that place. "If I search in a place and you two search in another, we'll cover a larger area," he said. "We can meet again here later and share whatever we've found. If we find anything at all," he added glumly.

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brokengirl
2009-03-29 07:33 pm UTC (link)

Listening to their time periods River suddenly felt like the odd one out. These people were so far in the past it was annoying to her. They wouldn't know anything about The Alliance or Osiris, Ariel, or even slang like 'shiny'. Although the idea of an alternate universe sounded possible too. River was realizing quickly she would need to disregard all that she had been taught. All that she knew and relied on. It was going to be difficult for her to wrap her brain around. River looked away from a little sad. She was more alone than she realized.

When Cheryl mentioned the tic tacs as a sort of bread crumb trail River looked at her like she had three heads. It would have been almost impossible for them to findi the tiny treats on the ground let alone have enough to follow back to the library. Besides, she had never had anything like them before and she would rather eat hers than dispose to the ground.

Looking over at Watanuki she realized he was probably right. It would probably be better for them to split up and cover more ground than to remain close to each other. She looked back out the door and saw that the others were coming closer and closer. "It won't be long now." she said to the other two and started to walk a little bit out of the library. She stopped and turned back to them and smiled. "Splitting up will be ok. More ground. More findings. More people. We'll find each other again." she said it all with so much certainty.

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tufui_egoeris
2009-04-05 05:54 pm UTC (link)

The firm certainty in the other girl's tone did help to soothe some of Cheryl's doubts but her previous experiences in fog shrouded towns made it harder for her to believe that they would all be able to meet up again any time soon - at least not in the same mental or physical shape as present.

Still, she shook these thoughts away with a slight shake of her head and she moved to stand near River by the open door. Beyond, there really wasn't much to give an impression of what might be found but at least Cheryl could find no immediate signs of impending danger.

"I guess that's settled then," Cheryl spoke more easily and more brusquely than she felt as she stepped back outside. "See you guys around."

The 'I hope' part of that statement remained unsaid, but Cheryl couldn't help but add an admonishment for them to be careful.

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aprilfirst
2009-04-06 10:20 am UTC (link)

Watanuki nodded at the other girls. He didn't want to be left on his own, but didn't want to chicken out in front of them either. He managed a small smile.
"I'll do my best to explore this place," he said, heaving his box on a shoulder and stepping out of the door.
It was still daylight, but it wouldn't last for long. "Good luck to both of you," Watanuki said. "I hope I'll see you around soon, I'll try to get back here." Whatever happens, he added mentally, but he didn't say it.
His mood definitely sank when he turned a corner and his two companions disappeared from his sight.

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