singillatim | Either way, we're not alone

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Either way, we're not alone

Who: James Fitzjames, OTA
What: Exploring, and also finding some friends (early Sept catchall)
When: First few days after arriving
Where: Around Milton!

Content Warnings: The Terror-typical themes of death, illness, and general Bad Times, but anything specific will be added as it comes up!

For the first two days or so, James doesn't really leave the house he's taken up (temporary?) shelter in. Instead, he spends most of the time sleeping, occasionally waking up to make some rosehip tea and wage the mental battle necessary to drink it, then falling back asleep and repeating the cycle.

But although any sort of true recovery will take far longer than a few days, by the third day of being in this new place he feels much better than he had when he'd arrived, and even if that was an incredibly low bar to clear it's still more than enough to be encouraging. This isn't some sort of strange dream or dying hallucination. He's really here, somehow, and--for once in so many months now--he's getting better, not worse.

He might actually live. But this time, unlike his many other close brushes with death, he finds he isn't entirely sure what to do with the knowledge of that possibility.

He also has zero desire to contemplate that fact or any of its implications, but unfortunately, the downside of feeling better is that he's now capable of overthinking things again. And the only way to avoid doing that is through distraction, so it's only reasonable that he decides to go exploring.

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Considering he'd been more than a little dazed during his first--and last--visit to the Community Hall, it seems like a good first stop in getting a better sense of the town. Upon arriving, he's immediately distracted by something he'd completely missed last time; the message board, covered in handwritten notes, is entirely fascinating.

So James spends some time going through them all, curiously reading over the various notes and looking through the occasional drawings. Some of the messages half-illegible between the handwriting and James' bad eye, others make no sense between the lack of context and strange word choices, but a few of the messages are in familiar handwriting with familiar names and many others offer various helpful pieces of information. Several people have also given their addresses, though he only makes mental note of a few of them.

If a stranger or new acquaintance approaches, he directs their attention toward a particular drawing.

"Do you know what this is about?"

If it's someone more familiar, they're likely to get a slightly different greeting, depending on who it may be.

In addition to his half-aimless exploring, James also has a specific mission in mind to accomplish. It isn't too difficult to figure out where Goodsir might be--there's the note on the message board, and so all James has to do is ask around a little to be pointed in the right direction--so he soon finds himself on the front porch of what he's been assured is either Goodsir's house, clinic, or maybe both.

Brief hesitation grips him, more due to how surreal this all is than any particular trepidation about the actual situation, but he soon shakes it off. He raises a hand, knocks twice, and waits.

[[ooc: Anything goes!!!]]

Thomas had just thought of leaving Milton, despite the appearance of the Aurora and the new batch of lost wanderers. It never strikes him as a good time. It's never fun. It's never anything more than the realization of imprisonment and sadness and longing that washes over them. He doesn't like to see it in their face.

He nearly walks past Fitzjames before he realizes his mistake.

"Captain?"

He nearly stumbles over his feet in shock.

James has been filled in on who else from the expedition are present here, so it isn't a complete shock to hear the familiar voice and term of address, but it's still a bit of a surprise. A good surprise.

"Lieutenant." He greets in response, turning away from the board to more fully face Jopson and offering a small but genuine smile. "I'd been told you were somewhere around here."

Tom's a lot more observant than people think. It's easy to dismiss him, the twitchiness of it all, the occasional spurts of poetry, the laid-back and somehow still wildly manic energy he gives off all converging into a persona that's generally unreliable at best and untrustworthy at worse. But he's smart, and he knows where to be and what to look for.

It's somewhat early in Fitzjames' recovery. Zane's clocked him going in but not coming out in a while, just by virtue of the fact that he, too, loves to explore and has stumbled upon the other at the appropriate moment. Today Zane has an actual approach for saying hello to his new friend the magnet scientist: the other had been sickly upon arrival, tired and ragged, leaving Tom worried. When he fishes for Alan, Scratch and Darling that morning he makes sure the bounty includes one extra person.

Tom bursts through the other's door at around 9 in the morning with a grin on his face, two fat, freshly caught fish bundled up in his arms.

"I thought you might--" he stops dead in Fitzjames' hallway, eyes wide as he seems to remember something, and proceeds to turn heel and exit immediately, closing the door behind him. A few seconds later, he knocks politely.

...He probably should've locked the door. But, to be fair, he really hadn't thought about it; between living on a ship and then in tents for the last several years, and then being so dazed upon arriving here, it's probably no surprise that it hadn't exactly crossed his mind.

But at least James happens to be awake at the particular moment Zane barges in, working on finely shredding some stuffing from an old pillow in order to use it as kindling, so it's marginally less startling than it would've been if he were sleeping. Marginally. He's on his feet in an instant at the sound of the door, not able to see the hallway from where he is and so unsure of who might be coming in, but he immediately starts toward the door and catches a glimpse of Zane just as he's turning around and leaving.

...What even...

And then he's knocking, and James just... Takes a moment. What is even happening. He appreciates the inherent comedy and theatrics of the entire scene, but also he'd just been thoroughly startled and is not sure how Zane found him, so there's a whole host of warring emotions going on right now.

Still, after a few seconds of knocking he opens the door, and raises his eyebrows at his visitor. Explanation, please.

He doesn't admonish him as he does Little or Irving for using the title he had shucked off so easily after they arrive. He doesn't say a damn thing about it. Seeing him here, hale and healthy, that smile on his face and those clothes on him - Jopson has to suppress any number of emotions.

"I - have taken residence on the other side. In Lakeside. But I came here for the arrival. For the Aurora."

Edward has been much less of a presence around the town recently, than he usually is. He still patrols, still checks in on others, but he's... noticeably absent, keeping to himself. He hasn't even learned the faces of the newest group of Interlopers to join them, something that sits heavy in his gut, one aching guilt to join so many others.

When he visits the Community Hall one September morning, it's meant to be a quick thing — he delivers more chopped wood for the fireplace, slips down to the basement to check on supplies. This place so recently faced an extreme food shortage, and the fear of it never quite leaves him.

When he heads back up, adjusts his greatcoat and prepares to leave, he spots him — the tall figure, distinguishable in the way Commander James Fitzjames always has been. The way great men always are. Though of course, the last time Edward saw him, Erebus's captain was bleeding and crumbling, and Little was soon tasked with burying him. It was an especially horrible day.

Something in his chest hitches. He is no stranger to finding the ghosts of the men here. He was among the first Interlopers; he's seen each one come in. But it's always a shock, an ache, as much as it's some breath of yearning — to have the chance to be with his fallen companions again.

Edward approaches the other man at the message board slowly, removing his cap to hold in his hands and dipping his head with polite subservience. "Captain Fitzjames."

[ There we go. Zane's tone is soft, alarmingly gentle and quiet. ]

People need to knock. It's been so long that I forgot that people knock.

[ Back on track, he hefts the fish up, back to smiles and manic energy. He's going to just barge right in again if allowed, heading straight for the kitchen. ]

I hope you're hungry. You were in such a state when I saw you, you need to eat! This place'll kill you if you don't.

['Been so long' since what? He's curious and a little confused, but considering his own recent experiences had led him to forget about locking doors, he's willing to accept the excuse. This time.

He does allow Zane to enter, if just because he does want to see why he's here, and is soon rewarded with the explanation as he follows the other man to the kitchen. James has hardly been in here, pretty much everything untouched aside from the pot he'd found for boiling water, and he isn't really paying any of it any more attention right now. His focus is solely on the fish.

He hadn't been hungry--not really, anyway, not enough to outweigh the nausea and dread associated with the idea--when he'd arrived, and hadn't managed to convince himself to eat anything at the feast, but with a little rest that's suddenly changed.]

Do you have a knife?

[Because he doesn't, and he's not sure if there's one in the kitchen, and he has the sudden and intense urge to cut out one of those dead fish eyes and eat it raw.]

It's strange, this. There are very few social situations that James is at a complete loss for how to navigate--or even simply how to feel about--but this is certainly one of them.

Still, he's glad to see Jopson, and that's really what matters with now.

"Is there always a correlation? An Aurora with arrivals?" Focusing on practical things seems easy enough for the moment, something that feels almost normal. And he didn't miss that Jopson said he lives in Lakeside; that's good to know, though he also wonders why he's chosen to be so far out.

"Not completely," he admits. "The Aurora comes without arrivals, but arrivals never come without an Aurora."

He lets out a breath, wondering for a moment where to even start this conversation.

"What - what was happening before you came here?"

Well, he'd hoped to evade this conversation slightly longer, but it would have to happen sometime so might as well be now. James casts a quick glance around them, making sure no one is within earshot, but then makes eye contact with Jopson and tips his head toward the door all the same. They should talk outside, and if the brief walk to the door gives him a moment to stall and figure out how to answer, then all the better.

But once they're out in the snow, too far from the door for any eavesdropping and satisfied no one else is nearby, he stops and faces Jopson again. Even with the extra time, however, a distinct few seconds pass before he's able to find the right words.

"I'm aware that being here should be an impossibility." It isn't exactly an answer to the question he'd been asked, but he presumes its an answer to the implied one, and it's one that's vague enough and distant enough that he can say it without his voice wavering. "And that such a situation isn't entirely unusual."

Francis had given him an entire list of names from their expedition alone, but he hadn't exactly said who actually knows what, so James isn't entirely sure what Jopson's aware of in return, except that he should be further along in time than James is. Was. However this utterly surreal nonsense works.

Of course! [ Tom's chipper as he sets the fish on the counter without much thought as to the exact location--he barely looks at it--and then proceeds to pull out a fairly decent hunting knife and wave it around a little, close to himself and no where near his new friend. He remembers personal space when it's important, at least. ]

I'm borrowing it from Doctor Darling. He's quite helpful. Always is--always has been--you two should really talk. Get that thirst for information out, spin your scientific curiousities together in a centrifuge and really shake things up.

[ Where's the fish? Where did he put it? He can't just edit reality anymore, he has to look for things now, and--ah, right. There we go. He's glanced back at where he's put it directly behind him, and then points casually at Fitzjames with the knife. ]

After you rest and eat. You have enough energy to make a fire?

Levi checks the message board regularly, in part because he lives at the community hall and its right there. He makes note of people putting up or reading notes, though, so the boy in the oversized coat with the rifle on his back heads over to see if Fitzjames is leaving a note or not.

"...that's the Darkwalker. Kate drew it."

Oh. So this is the Darkwalker, apparently; James has heard a bit about the creature and isn't sure what he was imagining, but not something with three heads. He glances over at the stranger who'd joined him, noting the rife first and then that this person seems pretty young, though certainly not too young to be carrying a weapon in a situation like this.

"When did you see it?" General you, referring to the note at the bottom of the drawing; what had happened, for many people to see the creature? Had it attacked?

"Months ago, during the winter. We all had a dream and he was in it. That's the only time I've seen him, but he's out there somewhere." Or in an overlapping world or however gods' realms worked.

"Everyone? On the same night?" Probably... Not the weirdest part about this if he really thinks about it, but for all the strange things he'd encountered during the expedition at home and the new ones he's getting used to here, somehow a shared dream stands out as particularly unusual.

"Everyone who was here at the time. All on the same night. It was a message from a god."

"A god." He doesn't say it mockingly or disdainfully, but it's probably clear all the same that he's dubious about the idea. "Is that what it's seen as?"

"By some. Or a powerful monster of some sort. I think its some sort of god of destruction. I think the people who lived here viewed it like that? Or a, um, demon?" Demons were the bad spirits in books from worlds with religions like this ones, he thinks.

In just the short time James has been looking through the memos, several people have made their way through the Community Hall, so he's mostly tuned out the constantly shifting presences unless they get close. It's one of those skills one absolutely has to have on a ship, where the lack of solitude can be a little maddening, even for someone as sociable as James usually is.

Since Edward is slow to draw closer, James doesn't immediately notice him, and when he does it's only out of his peripheral vision in his bad eye. But when James turns to look more fully toward Edward at the same time as Edward speaks, recognition is immediate, and the smile that crosses his features is reflexive and genuine.

"Ah, Lieutenant, you've saved me the effort of going to find you." He says it lightly, as if Edward had simply shown up on Erebus when James had been planning to make a trip to Terror. Something normal, something that had happened often enough, something easy to navigate. Something other than the nearly unfathomable reality of their situation.

[The erratic knife-waving doesn't really bother James much, especially since Zane's keeping it at a reasonable distance, though he does decide to stay out of arm's reach just in case. This has the added benefit of keeping James away from the fish.

...Is Darling actually the doctor's name, or a term of endearment? James feels like either is a possibility, but he notes the name anyway. He's also getting the sense that he's given Zane completely the wrong opinion of his own scientific prowess, but is not about to correct him on it at this point.]

Yes. I'd been about to light one.

[Sort of. Not quite. But close enough, and close enough to imply that startling him could've set the house on fire, something he is absolutely not overly cautious about for various terrible reasons.

But although the implication that he should start the fire was obvious enough, he doesn't move to do so just yet. Instead--]

How did you find me?

[He isn't necessarily upset about it, especially since he'd been brought food, but it is still something he wants to know.]

He follows him outside, not affected at all by the snow and the cold. It's as if they are moving from one room to another inside of a well-warmed house. His desire for an answer is more important than explaining away small details. James has his rapt attention, fully aware of what's happening, and, when they stop, he tucks his forelock behind his ear.

His face falls slightly. He had hoped for some ignorance on the Captain's part.

"It is not. But - Captain Crozier has shared with me several details of what happens. What happened, at least."

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