genessia | An Arrival [Action]

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An Arrival [Action]

So...it'd been an interesting couple of hours. The pod, the hologram, the obvious tracking devices presented as gifts, they all screamed 'set up' to her. Lorna was fairly sure that she was awake and less certain that she wasn't trapped in some telepath's mindprobe. It seemed elaborate for that, but then again, telepaths often had overactive imaginations and too much time on their hands.

She wrapped the tracking device - sorry, ID pendant - around her wrist several times by its chain and flipped the pendant through the end to secure it. The phone she powered down and stuck in her jacket pocket. The cash was an oddly anonymous option considering the other two technological leashes, but it was one she could embrace. Her first stop was your basic convenience store for some hair dye, where she jammed the lock on the bathroom and covered the vivid green of her natural hair with a nice safe black.

If this place was real, she couldn't take for granted that it wasn't just as hostile to mutants as the US. It was safer to be taken for a normal young woman, perhaps a bit thin but well-dressed and neatly groomed. Nothing special about her. With her hair freshly dyed, she fixed the lock on the bathroom and headed for that reliable bastion of information - the nearest dive bar. People talked when they had alcohol in them.

[OOC: you can find Lorna in any bar within a few blocks of the Bay. She's not hiding the fact that she's new and looking for information.]

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How convenient, then, that Alleyana's best and most true friend in this land besides her horse was anything in a bottle that burned on the way down. It was easy enough to encounter her in a dive bar at any time, really, and her appearance -- pointy ears, mangled face, and full armor -- may even put some things at ease when it came to green hair under black dye.

The Inquisitor was nursing something that could strip paint at the bar, and glanced over at the newcomer. Damp footware, pendant around the wrist, close to the Bay... yeah. Clearly a newcomer.

"...How come so many new people head straight for the bars?"

Not that the elf was one to talk. And knew it. But it was a trend she was familiar with seeing on the network in particular, if not always in the flesh.

Lorna turned her head and caught sight of the speaker. Rapidly, her green eyes took in the ears, the scars, the alien set of the features and the unusual armor. Mutant, her mind cataloged, before adding a (?) to the statement. Better not to assume.

Either way, her expression didn't give away the thought process as she smiled wryly. "I don't know. Maybe waking up in a coffin and being told you were kidnapped is the kind of thing that begs for a whiskey. Or several."

"Have you been here long?" Assuming, of course, that the woman was one of the ostensibly kidnapped.

"I'll drink to that," Alleyana lifted the glass in her left hand for a moment before taking a swig.

"Not as long as some," the Inquisitor added after setting the glass back down again. "I'd consider myself kind of medium in that department. I have, however, woken up in that coffin three times now, which is a little unusual."

Made her feel a little like one of those 'basket balls' the kids she'd taught on her second stay here had liked to play with. Just bouncing all over the damn place.

Lorna collected a drink from the bartender, who had, she imagined, correctly interpreted her statement as a request for a drink. "Three times? Did you escape? How did they find you again?" How did you get out and can you show me? she thought, but did not add. She wanted information about what was happening before she started planning a jailbreak.

The whiskey was neither good nor bad. It was, at least, aggressively alcoholic and that was enough to make it wonderful.

"Woke up back on my world, and then woke up here again. I had a theory, but it's been largely disproved. Plus," here's Alley staring down at her drink, "it wouldn't have applied to the rest of you."

Fen'Harel being behind herself and some other members of the Inquisition being suddenly and conveniently off-world, well, that worked. Fen'Harel himself getting stuck here? Less so. Even if he was from a different version of Thedas, their powers and goals would be the same...

And Fen'Harel bothering with shuffling people from other worlds to and from this holding pen? A waste of time and resources and highly unlikely.

"Your world?" Interesting. Lorna would have said 'the world'. "When you woke up there, what did you think had happened? What did other people say had happened to you?"

Repeated immersions in the same dream world definitely leaned toward telepath or dream manipulation. Though on a scale this large (again assuming any of the other prisoners were real), it would take something like Xavier's machine to maintain the world.

"I woke up at the same moment I'd vanished from. Only those from my version of Thedas, who had also been here, knew anything at all had happened."

Not only different worlds, but different versions of the same worlds as well.

"Common theory here is that time doesn't really move back home while we're gone. I think it's more that we get dropped back in where we left, which I guess is the same end result other than anything that went branching off in the interim."

After time-traveling a year forward and then back again with Dorian, on accident, and viewing a world in which Corypheus had stomped all resistance to his rule without her there to stop him... alternative timelines wasn't that weird a theory for the Inquisitor.

And... well. God or not, she knew Solas could indeed be killed, if it came to that. He'd died in that timeline, after all. Maker but she hoped it didn't come to that.

Edited 2018-07-11 23:05 (UTC)

Time moved when you were caught by a telepath, and moreso when dreaming. "Hm." Lorna wished for a notebook to jot down some of these observations. Obviously, she should have prepared better to be kidnapped. An alternate timeline did make more sense in that instance. Certainly, there was plenty of evidence for such things even among the residents at Muir.

"So anyone who had been kidnapped here remembered it, but those who hadn't didn't perceive that you'd been missing at all," she reiterated to be sure she was understanding. "You said there are people who are studying this?"

"I think most people have at least taken a crack at it," Alley shrugged one shoulder, the massive shield on her back shifting with the casual motion. "And I'm sure there's a group or two that's gathered up everyone's findings as best they can. I keep forgetting to check if that's what the GSRF does, but that might be a good place to start if you want to track that stuff down."

Lorna wasn't sure that she did, if there was nothing that could be done about it. Cross-dimensional travel wasn't her area of study, unless they needed an expert in electro-magnetic resonance. But it was still something to look into. "Thank you. I'm Lorna, by the way."

That was pretty much Alley's conclusion as well. After realizing Thedas wasn't going to burn to ashes without her there to save it -- again, and again -- she found herself in no real hurry to get back to it.

Especially as the one she had to stop this time was her own beloved.

Yeah drinking in dive bars in Genessia was a lot less pressure.

"I'm Alley. Welcome to Genessia, I guess."

Sam had spent the first hour after his arrival in much the same way most new arrivals did: thinking he was dead, then thinking he was buried alive, then thinking he'd been kidnapped by some freaky funerary cult, then thinking he'd been whammied by the trickster again-- All right, so maybe it wasn't what most new arrivals thought, and maybe he hadn't stopped thinking some of it, but for a Winchester, it was all pretty standard fare. Most of that time he multi-tasked, reading brochures, listening to the hologram, looking for anything obviously out of sync with the story he was being told.

Not finding a thread to unravel, or his brother or Ruby, Sam powered down the phone (no he knew had the number), tucked the pendant inside his t-shirt, and left the bay to broaden his search. Like he did in almost every town he found himself in, Sam stopped into the first bar mentioned by the first few locals he asked. Time-tested, hunter-approved method of finding a place someone would know a few things the town didn't necessarily want him to know.

For a good while, he nursed a beer and watched the interactions around him. It didn't take long to discover that someone else either was new in town or was pretending to be. He listened as unobtrusively as he could while he spoke to the hatchet-faced woman in full armor (cosplayer? possible with those ears, but they could be real), and when she'd finished that conversation, caught the younger woman's eye and lifted his chin in greeting.

Alley had been helpful, but had given her more questions than answers. Thanking the woman, she let her attention catch on the attractive man at the other end of the bar. He'd been listening - she'd bet her doctorate on it - but whether that was spying or natural curiosity she wasn't sure yet.

Taking her drink, she moved down the bar to join him. Why not? If he was a spy, he'd give that away. If he was a honey pot, she'd let him sweeten the deal. If he was just a guy, he could buy her another drink. No losing propositions there. "Hear anything interesting?" she asked with a smile, giving him a little salute with her glass as she approached.

"Thanks, I guess." Lorna nodded. Her attention caught on another bar patron for a moment, then went back to the other woman. "Good to meet you. I appreciate the advice."

Sam ducked his head slightly and gave her a sheepish smile. He wasn't all that embarrassed, but she had caught him out when he was trying to be discreet. There was no denying he'd been listening; he shrugged one shoulder.

"That you're new in town or pretending to be." That was more interesting than what the soldier had to say, honestly, and not just because she was pretty. It meant he wasn't alone or the people who'd taken him wanted him to believe that. "I'm leaning toward new. You weren't listening for confirmation of what you believe. You were just listening."

"New," she confirmed and lifted her wrist and shook it to jingle the ID pendant, then slid onto the barstool next to him. She finished her whiskey and set it down with a faint click. He was good at that sweet aw shucks vibe, enough that you almost didn't notice that he wasn't actually apologizing for anything. It made him look harmless, the way his hair fell over his forehead and minimized the deeply impressive body. Honey pot seemed more and more likely.

Lorna relaxed against the counter and idly dragged her finger over the rim of her now empty glass. "I didn't hear anything helpful, unfortunately. Just a lot of 'we're stuck and no one's going to miss us if we're gone.' Not that anyone would have anyway." Something that anyone probing her mind would already know, so that wasn't giving up anything.

"Pretty much what I heard before I got here." No matter who she was, that was safe to say. While he considered what came next, he caught the bartender's attention, then ordered another round for himself and the woman at his side.

After the drinks had been delivered, he shifted to face her and held out his hand. "I'm Sam. And it's hard to believe no one's going to miss you." When in doubt, give honesty and awkward flirting a try?

"Lorna." His hand wasn't soft and pampered but it wasn't the hand of a laborer or a gym rat either. A little like her own, really. Someone who didn't work with their hands but occasionally used them for more than manicures.

Not that he had a manicure. She'd seen that at first glance.

With him facing her, she had a chance to really take him in. Taller even than she'd initially thought, and broad-shouldered. He was endearing, even though he could have been intimidating. She was impressed and reminded of Alex at the same time.

"I was new at home too. Less new than here but I hadn't had a chance to get to know anyone."

"I'm going to go out on a limb and say 'their loss'." Probably it sounded like he was sucking up or trying to hit on her, but he wasn't really. Sure, she was beautiful, but he didn't plan to be here long enough to take advantage of that.

Not that he would take advantage of her if he could. There was something sort of delicate about her. Almost fragile. That was what made him say what he did. Like maybe she just needed to know that someone thought she was worth trying to get to know.

Or, as Dean would probably tell him, he thought she was hot and he was overthinking it.

"I don't get to know that many people either. I move around a lot."

She smiled and relinquished his hand to pick up her refreshed glass. Her instincts were telling her that he was pretty much what he appeared to be. A sweet, hot guy talking to a pretty girl in a bar where neither of them fit in. If this place was real, he might even be that. "And why do you do that, Sam?"

If he was being honest with himself, Sam would have to admit he was reluctant to let go of her hand so quickly. It'd been a shitty week before he got here, and she was a lot nicer to him than Ruby already. But since he wasn't planning on staying, he probably shouldn't--

No, jerk. That's exactly why you should.

--no matter what his alarmingly Dean-voiced 'conscience' wanted to suggest, get involved.

"That depends on whether you want the truth, something truth-adjacent, or a comforting lie. So, let me ask you this. Where you're from are the things that go bump in the night real or just fodder for romance novels?"

She felt herself pull away, grow distant and stiff. It was too ingrained a reaction to stop it, so she let it happen and gave it a beat before visibly allowing animation to come back into her body.

"I prefer truth, whenever possible. Comforting lies don't get us anywhere." She licked her lips - nerves, not flirtation - and decided she had to answer the second part too. "Lots of things go bump in the night. And in the day. Some of them walk through your walls and into your mind. Are you running from something?"

Sam clocked her reaction. It hadn't been subtle, but that made it even more worth paying attention to. Up til now, she'd been really controlled, and it made him cautious. Not wary, just alert.

"I can see where you'd get that," he said, because it did follow from what he'd asked, but it said a lot more about her than it did about him. Was she running from something? "But no. We, uh, save people who are being threatened by supernatural entities." It sounded better than 'we kill monsters' which wasn't entirely true anyway.

"Supernatural? Like...ghosts and aliens?" No one called mutants supernatural. Preternatural, maybe. Metahuman, often. But they weren't supernatural. They were aberrations.

She gave him another long look, this one faintly troubled. He didn't look like a government agent, but he could have been a bounty hunter. "Who is we?"

"Like ghosts and demons." And vampires and werewolves and... He reached behind him to rub the back of his neck. "It's a pretty long list, actually, but it's mostly been demons the last year."

There was that look again, though, and her question about 'we' raised his concern. His worry for her was plain in his eyes (because you're damned bleeding heart, Sam. Shut up, Dean). "We is just me and my brother, and he's not here as far as I can tell. Are you in some kind of trouble? If you are, maybe I can help."

Lorna turned away and played with her drink, long fingers turning the glass about. "I guess that depends if this place is real and what can come after us here."

She shot him a sidelong look. "If it's not real, then yeah, I'm in trouble. If something can come after us, ...maybe I'm in trouble. But if it's like the hologram and the lady over there said, that we're stuck here and no one knows we're gone? Then this is the first vacation I've had in years."

As soon as she turned away, Sam knew what she was going to say. He didn't expect her to elaborate as much as she did.

"Yeah," he said, gaze lowered deliberately so not to invade her space. "I know I'm not excited about staying in the housing they assigned me with a tracker phone and ID bracelet. It makes us far too easy to find."

"You noticed that too, huh?" She pulled out the phone she'd found in the box of tracking convenience and dropped it on the counter. "I was thinking a simple Faraday cage around both of them would stop it from calling home all the time. But the housing is more challenging."

"A simple Faraday cage, she says, like we wouldn't need access to high-tech labs for something like that," Sam observed, his tone a little wry, but he dropped his phone beside hers. "Housing's not so hard if you're willing to live a little rough for awhile. There's got to be motels, or people who'll give us a room for cash for a night. Fake names, swap the bills with someone else. There's got to be some kind of underground."

If it sounded like he knew what he was talking about, well, that was inevitable. "We'd have better luck together, probably. Pose as a couple."

Lorna smiled, because she liked the way he thought. "We haven't even had dinner. What if you're an axe murderer?" Or if she was something worse.

"Faraday cages are easy. You just need a metal mesh and the right frequency current to run through it. It's more of a Home Depot problem, than a lab problem."

Sam shrugged and gave her that sheepish smile again. "I'm not an axe murderer, but if you are, I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me now." Before he ended up a movie cliche, because she was pretty and that was his luck.

"And I'll defer to you on Faraday cages. I know more about killing monsters and protecting yourself from demons and bad juju."

"I have never murdered someone with an axe who didn't deserve it," Lorna replied with a laugh to indicate she was joking. "Honestly, my big secret is a little more weird. ...you deal with monsters? How do you feel about people who are...not exactly completely baseline human?"

"Notice you didn't say you've never murdered anyone, or that you've never murdered anyone with an axe," Sam observed, but his eyes still held a smile. The important part in that sentences was the deserving, even if it wasn't a joke.

The rest of her question earned her a considering look and then an uneasy shrug. "I feel like I'm one of them."

She hadn't, had she? Lorna just smiled at his observation, then reached over the bar and picked up a metal cocktail shaker.

With it set in front of her, she lifted a hand and concentrated. She felt the shift and hum of the electro-magnetic fields around her, responding to her will. Slowly, the shaker collapsed on itself, down to a perfect sphere. She lifted it with a gesture and floated it to Sam. "So am I."

Sam's psychokinesis wasn't his strongest ability and it could be unreliable, but for something this simple? After he'd taken the sphere so that it was in his control, he floated it back to her and set it down in front of her.

"I can't crush it like you did. You're not psychokinetic, though, are you?"

"Magnetopath." She frowned at him and waved her hand again. The ball flowed upward, retaking its original form, much faster this time. "I generate and manipulate electromagnetic fields. Are you a mutant?"

"Yes?" Sam screwed up his face at both question and answer. She said the word like it had a specific meaning, and he wasn't sure it applied to him. "Technically. But usually I just go with freak or monster."

Her face quirked, somewhere between agreement and resignation. She heard the question in his response and clarified for him. "Yeah, we get that a lot. Mutants are humans with an active X-gene. Some lunatics prefer the term homo sapiens superior, like we're something greater than human."

She floated the shaker back to its original location. "It usually manifests at puberty but...we're born as time bombs. Most of us just don't know it until we're teenagers."

"X-gene?" It sounded like something out of a comic book, actually, but then again so did his story, if you weren't living it. Hell, even if you were living it. "I'm... compared to genetics, this is going to sound cracked, but... well, my mom made a deal with one of the princes of hell to save my dad's life before I was born, and I was the price. I still don't know that much about it, whether any of it's permanent or it'll fade if this really isn't home, but he fed me his blood when I was a baby and I got some psychic abilities."

Yeah, it really did sound cracked when he said it out loud to someone who didn't know the half of it.

Lorna listened without changing expression. "Not a mutant then," she said when he finished. "Mutate, maybe, assuming the blood did DNA-level damage but probably just cursed. So...are you evil? With demon blood in you and all?"

So, from what she was saying, a mutant was born with the gene and a mutate was someone forced to change.

"Not cursed as far as I know. Just changed. He wanted someone to lead the armies of demons out of Hell." Sam shrugged as if that were no big thing, definitely nothing he'd died for and come back from. "I declined."

His brows knit over the question she'd asked so baldly, like she didn't care what he answered. What did that say about her? Other than that she probably wasn't planning to off him if he said yes. "Jury's still out on whether I'm evil. I don't feel evil. No sacrificing babies or eating them."

Lorna could have told him that it wasn't a serious question. That blood or genes or whatever didn't determine your path. Mutants weren't registered and tracked because they were evil but because they were dangerous. "Oh good. I told myself I was going to draw the line at baby eating. It's unattractive."

Sam's nose wrinkled up when he laughed. He'd have apologized for taking it seriously; it was a real question for him and Dean pretty much every day. But it was easier just to go along with it. "I don't know. I think you'd have to work pretty hard to do anything unattractive."

Wow, Sam. That was almost smooth.

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An Arrival [Action]

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