Entry Post: An Unexpected Escape Route

[paladins_lady]

A tall, blonde teenaged girl hurries into the bar. She doesn't look as if she belongs in any business that's making money; her clothes--a blue-and-green pullover that's too short in the arms and at least three sizes too large in the torso, acid-washed jeans that are virtually swimming on her amd battered sneakers that are being held together by tape and wishful thinking--are decidedly ill-fitting. Her half-striding, half-sidling entrance might well suggest that she's hastening away from something as fast as possible but doesn't want anyone to stop her with awkward questions about why she's running. This is appropriate, as it's very nearly the case.

For half a moment after she enters, she looks relieved. Then she looks around at the bar, the customers and the undead waitrats, staaaaaaaaaaaaares, rubs her eyes and then stares some more.

"How did I get from St. Mark's Bookshop to the Nevernever?" she mutters.

Frowning and stepping quickly away from the door, she takes a corkscrew route around tables, chairs and the occasional waitrat toward the Bar. Surely, her expression says, someone has an explanation for what's going on.


[OOC: Feel free to talk to the confused young wizard. Basic info on Charity here and here.]

Comments

[crabbycustomer]

There is a young, dark figure sitting at the bar--black and grey clothes, black wiry hair. The first thing that registers as off is the nubs of orange horn that peek through the mess; when he looks up, and glances back at the approacher, the grey pallor of his skin becomes apparent, too. His eyes are yellow, and regard the new person disapprovingly.

"holy shit, did you cut those clothes off a dead hyenape or what? you look ridiculous." His voice is loud and hoarse. And lastly, to anyone with even a cursory grounding in the mystical, he's wearing the astrological sign for Cancer on his clothes.

[paladins_lady]

Charity registers the horns, the grey pallor and the yellow eyes and blinks. It's not just his appearance. It's the fact that this--well, whatever he is--sounds not only like a teenaged boy but a fashion expert.

"No, I didn't cut them off of a hyenape," she says with what she thinks sounds dignified but really sounds snappish. "I don't even know what a hyenape is. And I know they look awful. They'd look better if they fit and weren't falling apart--but this is what I've got."

(Actually...no. They really wouldn't look better if they fit. Fashion from the 1980s didn't look good on anybody.)

She looks at the being in front of her, hoping that he's not a demon. The horns are worrisome. "What're you called?" Not What is your name. She's remembering her manners. You don't ask possibly-supernatural beings to give you their true name--well, not without a lot of prep first.

"And what's...this?" Her gesture encompasses the entire bar. "I mean, it's obviously a bar, but where? What realm?"

[crabbycustomer]

"well first off, a hyenape is a big thing kind of like hyena and kind of like an ape, i think that's pretty obvious to anyone who thinks about it for even a second. and equally obviously, this is just a shitty little bar tucked away in the fetid bulgecreases of paradox space, it isn't any kind of a realm. it is just snagged in an unstable piece of space and time."

"and I'm called Karkat Vantas."

[paladins_lady]

...the bulgecreases of paradox space?

That doesn't sound like the Nevernever--a kind of checkerboard of multiple dimensions, realms and worlds--at all.

She considers lying about her name--in the past year or so, it's become a habit for numerous excellent reasons--but she decides against it. For one thing, her erstwhile mentor only knows her by her fake name. And for another...well, she has a feeling that Karkat Vantas would see right through her. And within about two seconds.

She's not telling him the whole thing, though. That's dangerous.

"I'm called Charity. How did a bar get snagged in an unstable piece of space-time?" she asks, sounding more curious now than anything. She can't resist stealing a glance in the direction of the entrance to see if Gregor is following her. She hopes not.

"...what happened to the door?"

[crabbycustomer]

Shrug. "fuck if i know. i think somebody built it for the view from outside space and time and then wandered off, and it's been catching clueless people from various timelines more or less at random ever since. There is a school of thought drifting around that there is some kind of unseen trickster working out a mysterious master plan in who it kidnaps, but I take that one about as seriously as the half-witted ramblings of any religion."

"It is just a bunch of people in a bar, there is no plan or fate or alpha timeline involved. That is one of the redeeming characteristics of the place."

He follows her glance. "Do you not see your door anymore? That can happen." Whatever it is that he can see in that direction, he spares it a particularly nasty look.

[paladins_lady]

Charity, who isn't nearly as devout now as she will be later, doesn't argue about religion. She's focusing on other details.

"They built it for the view? That's on a par with climbing a mountain because it's there. I...I can picture humans building it for the view, actually."

And possibly other races, too. But humans, definitely.

"I'm glad there's no plan involved. I've had enough of other people's plans." This is punctuated by a scowl.

"And no, I don't see it anymore." She closes her eyes to try to concentrate, but it's no use. There's no shield, there's nothing blocking the door. It just seems not to be there.

She goes back to where it was a few minutes ago and runs her hands over the wall before rapping it to see if it's hollow. Nothing. It's a wall.

She goes back Karkat Vantas. "Seems I can't feel it, either. And the wall sounds pretty solid, even if it shouldn't."

[onceholyknight]

(Hi! I play your character's husband from about thirty years in the future. Would you like them to meet or not? Totally up to you since it would probably break Charity's brain a bit.)

[paladins_lady]

(Hello to you and to Michael! Oh, by all means, let's break her brain.

Do you want to discuss how to play this, since they're so strongly linked? [Or will be in the future.] I'm on GTalk and Gmail; I'm having trouble with AIM at the moment.)

[onceholyknight]

There's a man sitting by the bar, taller than her if only slightly, graying dark hair and beard, a cane propped against his stool.

He's just spotted her. He's trying not to stare, but... it's a little difficult when your wife as you first met her walks in.

[paladins_lady]

Charity, unaware that once she gets back home, she'll meet a much younger version of this man in a matter of hours, notices him striving not to stare and is puzzled. She's not getting a bad vibe from him--quite the opposite. She just can't understand what she's done to merit such attention.

"Is something wrong?" she asks, her tone uncertain. She looks around the bar and notices, for the first time, the signs of extensive clean-up. "Or should that question be 'Is something still wrong?'"

[onceholyknight]

"Nothing that won't be repaired in time", he assures her in answer to her second question, then tackles the first. "And no, I'm sorry. You just look strikingly like... someone I know."

[paladins_lady]

The last comment worries her. If he knows someone who looks like her, maybe he knows her family. And she's certain that both her family and the cops are looking for her. That tends to happen when teenagers break out of mental wards.

He could be a cop--though what a cop would be doing here in a bar at the end of the universe, she has no idea. But if he is, he doesn't feel like a threat.

Besides, the practical side of her mind points out, he can't take you back to Chicago, cop or not. You can't even see the door.

"W-who do I look like?" she asks, clenching her fists to stop them from trembling. "And...do you know anything about why I can't see the door? Someone told me that it happens sometimes, but that's really all I know."

For some reason, she doesn't think about the magical implications of her next question.

"And, please...what's your name?"

[onceholyknight]

"Michael Carpenter", he tells her easily, not seeing any possible harm in it. But then, he's protected and besides, it's not his full name. "I'm not sure I can tell you any more than you already know, about the door. Sometimes it's not there, and that may be for the best in many cases. It will come back." He smiles reassuringly and adds, "And it's my wife you remind me of, when she was your age."

[paladins_lady]

"Oh." The comment about his wife gets a smile for the implicit compliment that it is. "And I'm Charity."

There's more to it, of course. But Charity is enough to start with. Especially since she's been living for the past year as "Melissa."

"I suppose it's not too surprising." Though she doesn't sound one bit enthused about the prospect of the door's return. "In stories where people go to other worlds, they never stay there. They always have to go back where they came from."

And, because she doesn't want to think about what will happen when she returns, she adds, "I wonder if any of the authors of those stories were writing their autobiographies."

[forgottenmotley]

The Fool is playing solitaire with a deck of cards. When she sits down he gives her a sideways look. He looks like a human dressed in motley and somewhat worn Victorian era clothing. He's got a top hat and a walking stick leaned up against him.

His eyes are a bright amber and he's looking Straight At Her.

[paladins_lady]

A look that she doesn't dare meet, of course, not wanting to trigger a soulgaze. So she focuses on the motley, the Victorian clothing and the top hat instead.

"Is there a masquerade party today?" she asks, sounding perplexed. "Or is that the usual costume where you come from?"

[forgottenmotley]

"It is what I wear, if that's what makes it a usual costume, then yes, it is," he says lightly. There's a hint of bells as he speaks. The bells aren't visible but they're definitely heard - not with the ears but where the mind think you should hear them.

[paladins_lady]

It's odd hearing a sound with your mind rather than your ears. It's as if reality decided to bypass extraneous details and enter your memory directly.

"How do you do that?" she asks, fascinated. "Make that jingling sound inside my head as you talk, I mean."

[forgottenmotley]

"I just do. It's not something that can be explained. A fool is required to have bells, even if he doesn't wear them." There's a bit of a sour note as he says that last part. Clearly the bells annoy him sometimes.

They're SO old fashioned.

Or something.

[paladins_lady]

Charity frowns. "Required by whom? And, please, what's your name?"

Well, she can't just call him "Fool." It may be his occupation, but it doesn't sound nice.

[sidhe_king]

"Ye're not in the Nevernever, lass," comes a relaxed voice, from the vicinity of up. There is a sidhe, and one very powerful if Charity can tell that, lounging up on one of the rafter beams, gently whittling away at a piece of wood. It's turning into something very vaguely triangular and bird-like, though the shape is still quite indistinguishable.

[paladins_lady]

Well, that's an answer. Not the one she expected, but an answer. Truthfully, she's been holding out hope that the bar is in one of the Nevernever's multiple realms/dimensions.

Then she looks up and sees a young man--or what looks like a young man--relaxing on a rafter. Her magic chooses that moment to tell her something in a way that doesn't make a great deal of sense.

What registers is pressure--like the ocean at great depths. It doesn't hurt, precisely. There's just there's a lot of it, and she wasn't expecting it. And she's not sure, precisely, what the pressure is--probably power, though she might well be wrong--or how accurate her perception is. She's no expert when it comes to magic, and she knows that she's missing a great deal.

"You're the first person I've seen here who sounds like he knows what the Nevernever is," she calls out, looking up at him. "What should I call you?"

[sidhe_king]

He just smiles down at her--his teeth are sharp if you look at them the right way, and his eyes are a dark, unearthly clear blue. It comes with what he is, as does the ability to drop down from that rafter and land, light as a feather and just as quiet, in front of her. "'Course I know what it is, lass. 'Tis where I and my kin live, in a way. Or one name for it, humans have invented many over the years."

That ought to give her a clue, anyway. "Ye may call me almost anything you like. King wouldna be inappropriate."

[paladins_lady]

Well, Faerie isn't the only thing in the Nevernever--but it certainly does form a large portion of it. And humans have given it--and the fae--a lot of names over the years.

Her breath hitches as she realizes that not only is this man a faerie--to use a word that his people REALLY don't like--but an incredibly powerful one as well.

And powerful fae are dangerous, or so she's always heard. Though, granted, so far he's done nothing worse than lounge on a rafter, whittle and land lightly on his feet.

"'King'?" she says weakly and with a fair amount of confusion. "Of Summer or Winter? Or of the wyldfae?"

What she's not saying: Are you Titania's consort or Mab's? Or are you, perhaps, the Erlking?

Because names--even names that aren't true names--matter.

[sidhe_king]

He isn't particularly likely to mention the rest of the lands; he hails from none of them, and they aren't really his problem. Finvarra does, however, smile at her question. So like humans to codify those things which have no need to fit into a tidy little box.

"King, aye. High King of the Daoine Sidhe." He gives her a formal, deep bow; he's neither queen's consort, though he knows of them, certainly. "My name is Finvarra if ye prefer that," the sidhe adds, though. He's unlikely to be much more openly malicious in the bar, though. It's enough that the girl in front of him knows what he is, he doesn't need to push it. Yet.