singillatim | [open] arrival

Entry tags:

[open] arrival

Who: Sameen Shaw & OTA
What: August 2024 TDM prompts, getting bearings
When: Mid- to late August
Where: Milton and the surrounding environs

arrival / you lying next to me TDM prompt

It doesn't make sense for this to be real, Shaw thinks, because reality rarely involves falling asleep in a New York City flophouse and waking up completely alone in the middle of nowhere - but it also doesn't make sense for it to be a simulation, because the simulations hadn't worked like this, either. That means that this is more confusing than unsettling - and all that confusion does is make her angry.

No enemies are in sight, which is a bust for her; it means she can't jump right into a shootout, take down some kidnapping bad guys, and get some answers. She does keep her handgun out and at the ready as she walks along, keeping up a brisk and steady pace in an attempt to ward off the chill that she can already feel seeping through her tight jeans and leather jacket. It just figures that this crap had to be pulled on her when she was woefully underdressed for winter weather - but she can at least count herself lucky that she'd passed out fully dressed. As much as this sucks, she knows it would be downright impossible if she were barefoot and wearing PJs.

Luckily, she spots the far-off lights of town in a matter of minutes, which spares her from having to cross her fingers and pick a random direction to walk in. She has no illusions that this place is going to be either safe or full of friendlies, but considering the lack of immediate options at her disposal, she can't afford to be picky. She'll sneak over and scope it out, do some recon, and get a feel for what's going on before she makes herself known. Whether she approaches as a civilian or as an agent going in guns a-blazing will depend on what she finds.

Or that's the plan, anyway. What actually happens is that she tromps across a small frozen pond that's been completely hidden by drifting snow, and the ice underfoot only makes itself known when it cracks unceremoniously under her feet, depositing her into two feet of slushy, marshy, freezing water.

Methuselah's feast TDM prompt

One way or another, Shaw will find her way to Milton. Maybe whoever helps her out of the water takes her there directly, or maybe they warm her up elsewhere and she makes her way to town on her own later. Either way, she eventually ends up in a free bed in the Community Hall, where she'll crash for ten or twelve hours straight.

Shaw herself isn't sure how long she sleeps, but it's comparatively warm, and there's no immediate, obvious danger, so she'd guess that it's a good long while before the smell of fish stew wakes her up. After that, barely a minute passes between her opening her eyes and dropping herself down into an empty chair at the feast table. Questions later. Sustenance first. She's halfway through with her bowl of stew and plate of grilled fish before she looks up for long enough to turn to one of her seatmates.

"So - where are we, and what's with the old guy?"

hot springs

Freezing cold water is fine for sponge baths and washing clothes, but for someone who just recently took an accidental bath in a pond and isn't looking to repeat the experience, the hot springs sound a lot more enticing. Shaw makes her way there a few days after her arrival, the blanket from her bed wrapped around her shoulders (she'll want a way to dry off and warm up before redressing, she figures). Once in the cave, she sets the blanket aside, the strips down bare and walks directly into the water, letting out a heavy, relieved sigh as she settles herself down on the rocky bottom and sinks in almost to her nose.

"That's more like it," she murmurs, more to herself than to anyone else that might be nearby. After a moment or two, though, she does glance over at her fellow bather. "Guessing the conditioner in town's all out, though."

[OOC: Feel free to reply with either prose or brackets; I'll match format!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

And here, Shaw finds herself torn. She wants to protest, because this little diversion into hypothermia is annoying, and patching herself up piecemeal and then powering through her injuries is her favorite side hobby. But insisting on doing that would be the exact opposite of laying low, and she needs to fly under the radar until she gets a little more of an idea of what the hell is going on here.

"I'm fine," she says, trying for one last-ditch excuse. Good thing she made up the fake boyfriend. "I left Ryan out there alone; I really need to get to a phone, and I, I, I d-don't have cell service--"

Aaaaand she goes down, because her left leg - still clad in soaking wet denim - has gone completely numb. Yeah, looks like that cabin idea might be the right one, buddy.

Edited (TYPO, SORRY) 2024-09-05 05:50 (UTC)

Ah, yes, the boyfriend. Ryan. Can't forget him — right, right. He's about to make a remark that's bound to be laced with dressed up sarcasm when she lurches to the ground. He'll be perhaps an amusing tangle of long and uncoordinated limbs as he shuffles close to her in an attempt to keep her from falling too hard. His intent is to — if possible — act as a sort of cushion between her and the ground.

"Let's worry about keeping you conscious and upright first, eh? You're absolutely terrible at it right now," he chides with some cheek to his tone, laced with a bit of genuine worry.

"Listen. Thirty paces due north, there's a cabin." Should be, at least. He sounds so easily confident, though, doesn't he? Him and his paces. "You try and go a step further, we're into a hundred paces or more territory and then you're not getting up. So you'll just have to deal with being hoisted about for a moment. I'll make it quick as I can, you can grumble all you like, but personally I think you'll just have a good story to tell at bingo night later. So come on, up you get ‐"

He has little shame or a normal sense of boundaries and etiquette, so he sees nothing wrong with carrying her over his shoulder. He only knows some people seem to be stubborn about it. To him, it's a matter of complete practicality.

"I'm not gonna pass out," she says, with more certainty than a random snowmobiling tourist has any right to have. She has ample experience with what it feels like to be on the verge of losing consciousness, and she can tell that she's not there yet.

But that doesn't change the fact that she can't walk, and so when he lifts her up, she doesn't fight it: she fully understands the practicality of the situation. You go until you literally physically can't anymore, and then a teammate (or, very occasionally, a random stranger) helps you out. It's just part and parcel of doing battle, and god knows she's spent plenty of time on both sides of the equation.

"D'you know how to treat hypothermia? Shock?" she asks - because if the answer is no, she should probably give him a crash course now, just in case that whole not-on-the-verge-of-unconsciousness thing changes later.

"Of course I do, I'm the Doctor!" As if this should be reassurance in and of itself. But immediately pivoting from that quick moment of easy arrogance, he transitions to —

"Stop the bleeding, remove any foreign debris from the wound, irrigate with water if necessary, cover with a sterile bandage — bit tricky out here, but! Oh, right, that's wound tending, I do get them mixed up," he smirks a little. This is a serious matter, and despite his behavior, he is taking it seriously, his hold on her tight, his steps sure and steady. But he reasons that being deliberately absurd might keep her talking if he's alarmed her enough. Irritation with someone has a way of keeping one alert, after all, though he knows full well how to treat hypothermia and shock.

"But now you can be absolutely assured should you incur any wounds out here at any point, you can call on me."

Of course, he can quite literally heal wounds these days as a result of that aurora a few months back, but that's a matter for another time.

"Good to know your PhD isn't in medieval literature," she murmurs, her voice slurring just a little - and her real personality slipping out just a bit. "You got a name?"

"Asgardian literature, Edwardian literature, specialty cheeses," he rattles off, quickening his steps once the cabin is in sight. Small mercies, at least, it's closer than he thought.

"And I told you my name, I'm the Doctor. You're keeping me in suspense with yours, though. Your real one, that is," he amends. "That's okay, I'm patient, and there are more pressing matters." That point is punctuated by him very assuredly opening the cabin door now, quickly closing it behind him and moving to carefully set her down on the chair in the comfortable recliner in the corner. It's another small mercy here, most of the cabins had furniture and supplies, even if some of the cabins themselves are in varying states of disrepair.

"Alison Sterling," she murmurs, because it's the first name that comes to mind and the name on the license in her wallet. Hopefully he's as batty as he sounds, and doesn't pay attention to politics, because she's not giving off the right vibes for his next question to be You mean the senator's wife? If she hadn't been so distracted by falling into the bone-chilling water, she would have been doing the southern accent and talking about her upstart politico husband from the get-go, but she can't exactly throw all that into the mix now. Damn.

Shivering more and more violently with every passing minute, she sinks into the recliner, hands scrabbling to keep the coat around her.

"'Doctor' isn't a name."

He doesn't for a second believe that, but he'll let her have it for now. Doing a quick turn and slide across the floor, he zeroes in on the small closet in the hallway, finding a blanket tucked up on the top shelf, but nothing else at all. Anything is better than the wet clothing she's in, though, until he can gather something more, and he's back to her side in a flash.

"Everything off," his voice is clipped, more noticeably worried, moving to shove the coat off, and every layer he can help to get her out of right now, that is, every layer she'll allow him to assist with. His movements are swift, precise, focused, and though by now he has few remaining layers to spare himself, he shrugs out of his tweed jacket as well, to wrap that around her along with the coat from earlier and then the blanket, which he'll draw closed as tightly as he can. "Oh, you do look dreadful," he says bluntly, but just as quickly, "On your way, though, promise." He's not a survivalist in the way of many here, he's not someone who's ever had to put actual thought into the sorts of things he could normally just employ his sonic screwdriver to accomplish. But he does know science, how to put things together, and so he's always kept a spare radio battery in his pocket, bits of kindling, everything he needs to make a fire wherever he might be.

As he kneels down, trying to make quick work of it in the hearth, he speaks to her over his shoulder. "What's a name? Something that was given to you, yes? Something someone chose for you or something you chose yourself — a name identifies you, tells someone something about you. And I'm the Doctor — see? Everything you need to know. It's most certainly a name." If she'll let him, he'll attempt to guide her to sit closer to the hearth now, closer to the slowly building warmth.

Shaw willingly sheds every single layer that she's got on right now. Even if she were particularly modest or easily flustered (and she is very much neither), practicality would win out - and she knows full well that cold, wet clothes are a hypothermia death sentence.

By now, the Clueless Civvie body language and tone of voice are wearing on her. She may be practiced at short stints of undercover work, but it takes effort to put on, and that goes doubly so for right now - so in the time it takes him to get her and her blanket mound over to the fire, she finally just... lets it all slough away. Gone are the nervousness and the confusion and the panicked look in her eye; in their place, there's suddenly dispassionate blankness. When she speaks, her tone of voice is flatter and more moderated.

"Okay," she says, slowly (all movement is slow right now) turning her head to study him. "I can respect that."

And she means it. She'd never asked Root about how she'd chosen her name, but she bets that if she had, the reasoning would have been dead-on similar.

"Just call me Shaw, then. Even if it's not my real name anymore."

"Shaw," he nods, side by side with her now, kneeling close. The truth at last, good. Well, something of it in any case. Why she chose to hide her name is her own story to tell, and one he'll absolutely want to hear, to poke and prod at it a bit in due time, as he does. (Due time being five minutes from now.) Not my real name anymore — that's a thread he can't let go of easily. But everyone's entitled to their secrets, too. He has enough of his own to understand it in others. He's briefly focused on the slowly building fire, making sure there's no sign of it waning before he looks over at her again, a brief smile on his face.

"It's good to meet you, officially, though I suppose we might have both preferred better circumstances. On the edge of hypothermia and nearly immobilized in a blanket fortress that might topple over with one good deep breath isn't the most auspicious of introductions, but I'd like to think we're well on our way to better days already." He is utterly sincere as he says this, folding his hands together, rubbing them a bit, inching them closer to the fire. That lasts all of two seconds before he's up again, searching his discarded backpack, grabbing a small mug from within.

"Hold that thought — any thought, that is. The thought you have right now, or were about to have. You need something warm to drink."

"Maybe this isn't real."

That's the thought that she's having, and she voices it instead of holding it, scooting incrementally closer to the fire. She only stops when the heat makes the tips of her toes, poking out from under the blanket, start to hurt.

He's done a little spin towards the door, the energy still abundant in him despite what's happened; bonus being that movement will help to keep him warm, too. He's nearly to the door when she speaks. Of course he pauses, considers it.

"Right! Going rogue with a thought. Quite a thought, at that. Give me a moment and I'll have ten thoughts in return," he promises, as though this is surely something to look forward to, whatever insight he'll share back. When he leaves, he quickly gathers some snow to melt, placing the mug close to the fire in the hearth to set the water boiling, kneeling again close to her. "Okay! Back to this potentially not being real business. Though I can assure you the opposite is true."

Shaw squints at him, mild suspicion with a tinge of bitterness. It's the most genuine emotion she's shown so far.

"Okay," she says slowly, drawing out the word. "This is more interesting than any of the simulations were, anyway. So hit me with those ten thoughts about what's going on here, because I didn't actually jet here in a snowmobile."

"Oh, I know you didn't," he's quick to say, but to her query — "This will be quite riveting, but hold your applause to the end please. Thought one!"

He holds up an index finger — "Chocolate is best before breakfast. Thought two: The lake creature here is really just misunderstood. A teaspoon and an open mind can be far more useful than loads of gadgets. Thought five: but gadgets are delightful! Thought...seven," he counts on his hand, apparently not deeply concerned keeping track of the order or amount. And he didn't exactly specify that the thoughts would all pertain to the nature of their reality, but he's getting there.

And his tone grows more serious now. "But that's not what you wanted to know, is it? This world — well, I'm still working it out. It's a divergence from the timelines of Earth I'm familiar with, but that's not wholly unusual in and of itself. Choices and events create ripples and branches and possibilities. But this place, essentially a nexus point holding together a slew of different realities, everything converging all at once. Something outside of my periphery, an event beyond this place might have launched it, collapsed and broken the barriers between realities. But the point is, it's real. What we're experiencing here."

The idea of chocolate before breakfast gets a skeptical nose-wrinkle, and by the time he comes around to thought seven, her expression reads I'm sorry I asked. And when he gets around to explaining his theory on the nature of things... that expression doesn't dissipate.

"Metaphysics," she sums up, the word infused with surface-level disdain and bone-deep exhaustion. "Great. Just what I needed more of in my life. You know, I've had this kind of thing explained to me before, kind of, and it didn't sound real then, either. Sorry."

"Some things — received by certain minds — can only be believed when lived. That's okay!" He's quick to...reassure? If that comes across as reassuring in any way at all. "I'll stay steady here in reality and hold the line until you come 'round. Of course, you don't really have to believe anything about this place you don't want to. What happens will happen regardless."

The water boils, and he grabs a small satchet from his pocket; a messy little thing of dried berries and pine needles. His attempt at a bag of "tea" here, for what little that means. He does miss a good cup so very much. He drops that in, though, lets it steep a bit.

"Have you had many — hallucinations in your time, then? Things that felt real and weren't?"

"Hallucinations," she repeats slowly, her tone even flatter than usual. "Not sure that's the term I'd use. But yeah, I'd say it took until month... three or four of the people who kidnapped me doing their damnedest to make sure I wasn't able to tell the difference between simulated reality and real reality. Maybe it was month four or five. They weren't big on giving me access to calendars."

"That would be — altogether different, yes," he notes under his breath, shifting to a more serious tone now, objectively concerned even if she's not presently captive as she was then. Technically, they've been kidnapped here as well; multi-dimensional, inter-planetary abduction of a scale he's not quite seen before. And this world has its own dangers.

"Who were they?" If known. He's come to learn some people are brought to this world in the middle of great duress, or just at the point of death, even.

"It doesn't matter."

Either he's a part of their game and he already knows - or he's telling the truth, and they're both in bigger shit than anything even Decima could dream up. Either way, getting into the weeds of her own personal sob story seems like a waste of time. She scoots even closer to the fire - used to the heat now, and willing to take more of it. She'll watch for blistering on the few bits of skin that are exposed; it'll be fine.

"Anyway, your life sounds crazier than mine. Unless you didn't actually mean to imply that you washed up here already familiar with multiple realities."

If he were privy to her thoughts, he would argue exactly the opposite; he'll always be intrigued by the stories of others, good or bad. It's only that, of course, they may not be willing to tell much of it at all. Everyone has their secrets. Granted, he'll keep his own and likes it less when they're kept from him.

It doesn't matter. Hardly!

"Of course it matters, you matter, but we'll turn the page on it for now, shall we? Bookmarked for later." He taps the side of his head. He won't forget. He'll probably bother her about it again. But he also doesn't mind the subject change, and he reaches for the mug now, handing it over with an utterance of, Drink your tea.

"Oh, quite familiar, yes! Multiple realities are part and parcel of my life. I travel across time and space, in fact! This is," he looks around them, back to her, back to the fire, "not where I intended to be." To state the obvious.

You matter, says the perfect stranger, and that's what finally gets her to look over and consider him in full - she takes the tea, and then she studies him, making no secret of the fact that that's what she's doing.

"Where did you intend to be?" she asks, hunching over her mug as if to draw as much warmth as possible from it.

People often stare at him, study him, look at him like he's mad, so he doesn't turn away from it. Saying that he was heading towards the place where he's fairly sure will be the end of the line for him brings the whole mood down, and while he doesn't always bother to filter himself, that's a bit of a thing he'll keep close.

"Sometimes people need a bit of help and I do what I can. I was on my way to doing what I can. But all told, people here need a bit of help as well, so I've traded one for the other."

It's the appalling lack of his TARDIS that makes this all that much harder.

She waits, without any real hope, for an aching sense of loss when she hears those words - things that so easily could have been said by Finch or John, both lost to her now. The best her body gives her is a renewed awareness of the emptiness inside her, bottomless and yawning. That's her version of grief, she's started to realize. It's featureless and empty, but it has depth.

"Mm, I used to have a job like that," she murmurs, her gaze flicking back to the fire. "I guess... someone or something realized I needed something new."

He hasn't really accepted that he's simply trapped here — he could never accept actually being trapped anywhere at all, not when he's lived his life moving across space and time at the pull of a lever. But he can accept that he's here for now and while he is, he's needed. He can and will be of use. The very fact that others have been pulled here at the moments of their death tells him whatever force is at play here is powerful enough to potentially disrupt fixed points in time. Unless they weren't truly fixed points at all; the universe they exist in now hasn't started to collapse yet, after all, and that would have begun already.

All that he does is make a soft sound under his breath, though, to acknowledge, to agree.

"For both of us, it seems. And if I ask after this job of yours, will you tell me or shall I put a pin in it for a day when you didn't fall through ice?"

If this place is real, Shaw tells herself, then the need for any sort of secrecy is irrelevant: she could say I'm a presumed-dead former government agent who secretly worked for an artificial superintelligence, and it wouldn't matter, because what could he do with that information here? And if this place isn't real, it doubly doesn't matter, because Decima already knows everything anyway.

"It was... weird," she says, her gaze fixed on the fire. "We saved people. But not in a big, consequential, stop-the-terrorists way, most of the time; we helped individuals."

Even now, years after being brought on by Finch, she says it like she's still trying to wrap her head around it.

[open] arrival

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let me know if this isn't okay! (didn't want to assume too much)

fully okay!

perfect c:

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