TEST DRIVE MEME #11

[abraxasmods]

Test Drive Meme

Welcome to the Test Drive Meme for Abraxas! This meme is run a little bit differently than most in that you'll be asked to choose one of the three different arrival scenarios below for your character to take. If you have any questions about this mechanic or anything else related to the TDM, please take a look at the questions below or ask one of your own under the Questions header below. For general game questions please still use the FAQ.

Below are some links to information you may find useful. Our Setting pages have information about the world itself as well as current events for each nation, while our Game History page outlines the game's story so far.

Setting | Game History | NPCs | Arcana
You can also find answers to questions asked on previous TDMs in their respective questions threads.

Reminder that the TDM is forward-dated to when the summonings occur in-game, at the start of April. For current players, this means all of the Summoned will have been rescued and recently returned home to their respective factions.

For prospective players, there's no need to familiarize yourself with the recent event, but prompts in the TDM may reflect the aftermath.

Summoning

You awaken suspended in the abyss, silent darkness stretching out in all directions. If you try to yell, you'll find that the sound doesn't carry. If you try to move, you'll find it's impossible to tell whether or not you're actually getting anywhere. If you reach for an item you were carrying last time you remember being awake, your hand will only touch bare skin.

You're naked and floating helplessly through the void, and what little air you have in your lungs is running out.

There's a pinprick of light that almost looks like a faraway star but as it grows it becomes clear that it's actually quite close. It's hard to make out any individual objects, as if you're looking from beneath rippling water.

A hand plunges through and you realize water is just what it is. Whether you take hold of the hand or not it will grab you and yank you up through the surface, lifting you out until you're sprawled on solid ground - still unclothed.

Arrival

You'll find yourself summoned to one of the following three major nations: the extravagant and magical Kingdom of Thorne, the bustling and advanced Free Cities, or the tightknit and faith-driven rural community of the Solvunn Commune.

If you had any powers, they feel unusually weak. Attempts to use magic or enhanced strength or powers of any sort fizzle out without any effect, but they don't feel completely gone, either. After a week or so, your abilities will return.

When you gather your bearings at last, you look up into a series of unfamiliar faces...and equally unfamiliar surroundings.

Welcome to Thorne

Set into an indent on a marble slab behind the fountain is a card bearing the image of one of the Arcana. An apprentice mage - the one whose hand lifted you out of the fountain - brushes the water off on their robes and runs back to join a group of three others, who all stare intently at another mage with highly decorated robes and a large, heavy book. The man peers up at you for a moment and starts flipping through the book.

"One moment," he says, not bothering to look up from the tome. He looks tired. "I am Ambrose Rhett, the High Mage of the Kingdom of Thorne. We’ll explain everything in a moment, but for now, please calm down. You’re completely fine."

Regardless of your response, he keeps flipping through the pages, until he stops on one specific passage, stares at it for a moment, and then nods, satisfied. "Excellent." He motions for one of the young apprentice mages over. "Settle our guest in, please. I don't have all day."

The apprentice hurries forward with a fine silk tunic, pants, and some basic sandals. With a wave of their hand, the clothes reshape to fit you perfectly. Once you're dressed, the apprentice leads you into the hallways of Castle Thorne, prattling on about the kingdom, names of royals and nobles, and, of course, the reason why you're here: the world itself is in great peril, and tales of your exploits have reached far and wide across universes. If asked about these exploits, the apprentice will simply smile and shrug. The High Mage was happy to see you and that's good enough.

◎ Surroundings

Castle Thorne is where not only royals and members of the court reside, but includes the surrounding city itself. Now in spring, the weather mild and cool. In the distance, you can see snow-covered mountain peaks that are beginning to melt, and the gardens are in bloom. The castle is enchanted to be at a comfortable temperature.

As you walk or look around, you take in some of what's going on around you:

• The North Wing, devoted to housing the Summoned, is tightly guarded against outsiders. As one of the Summoned, you're free to come and go. The guards aren't keeping anyone prisoner. They're there to protect you, and they take their jobs seriously.


• Apprentices, kitchen staff, guards - everyone seems to be bustling and busy. The air is tense, and you hear chatter of abductions and mutated victims who were only just recovered a week ago.


• The infirmary is full. Healers are in high demand. Normally, Thorne's staff put effort into welcoming new arrivals. This time, they're focused on what seems to be an influx of the wounded - including other Summoned who arrived before you.


• Despite the troubles, life in the Castle is beginning to resume. Still, you can sense that a major crisis has only just been resolved, and much of the fallout remains.

◎ Exploring

Despite the troubles that plague the land, Castle Thorne and its surrounding city have much for you to indulge in.

Care Packages
Castle staff are putting together care packages consisting of flowers, hot meals, and draughts to manage pain. Gather flowers from one of Thorne's many beautiful gardens. The gardeners will direct you if you ask, though you're welcome to gather anything that catches your eye. There's no magic in the flowers beyond their ability to brighten up someone's day.

You can put together the bouquets and care packages with a partner, as well as deliver them yourself to one of the older resting Summoned. They might be in the infirmary or in their rooms depending on their injuries. Why not stay and chat? Though you've only just met, they've evidently been through something terrible. Perhaps they could use a friend.

Magic Lessons
Regular magic lessons are held by apprentice mages as part of their training, usually involving learning to cast a small spell. These classes are for the natives of Thorne, but you're welcome to join if you wish. The spell they will be teaching is conjuring a modest defensive light shield that can protect against a single magical blow. The spell relies on Academic Magic which involves a few words said correctly. You'll likely need a few lessons to grasp it unless you're well-versed in magic already. In the meantime, the class of fresh-faced students means there's a constant bright explosion of light coming from the practice room as the spells fail. It isn't dangerous, but it can be annoying.

Forest Growth
Patches of woods in the city of Castle Thorne have suffered from dead flora. It appears to be related to some heavy magical corruption from the past several weeks. Though Thorne's deemed it too dangerous to go directly into the woods, you can help plant new saplings in square crates filled with soil and pack them onto wagons. Make sure they're secured and kept upright. These trees will be taken out into the woods later by mages to replace the withered plantlife in the forests.

Nocwich
Nocwich, which is shrouded in an eternal darkness and is home to the werewolves and the vampires, opens on the first weekend of every month for a total of 3 days. Shortly after arriving, you'll be given a pendant that allows you to travel to and from the portal. In Castle Thorne, the portal is a short walk around the back of the castle. While Nocwich is normally thriving, no shops are open in Oleuni Square. Nocwich citizens explain that unforeseen circumstances prevent the market from opening as usual and request you return next month to explore. However, you can stay to help. Tents, tables, and medical supplies around the Square need to be taken down and packed up. You can guess that this was once a site for heavy rescue operations and emergency treatment.

◎ Settling In

When you're ready to rest, you're shown to the North Wing, which has been set up as living quarters for you and your fellow newcomers. There are four people to a room, but each generously-sized bed has opaque curtains that can be drawn around it. You can meet your roommates here and discuss your shared situation (those who were previously brought in may have a great deal of information to tell you).

Although you can leave the castle, you can't leave its surrounding city with the exception of entering Nott via portal in order to assist with rebuilding or visiting Nocwich. Borders are especially well-guarded right now due to the recent attacks. Besides, Castle Thorne gives you everything you need: fine clothes, great food and wine, massive libraries, and all the magic and knowledge you could want. Isn't that plenty? You won't be given money as you're provided for, so if you want to do some personal spending later, you'll have to find a job in the city on your own.

Welcome to the Free Cities

Dry warmth hits you at once as you're set on a hard floor of dull ruddy stone. Men and women in unfamiliar uniforms of brown and red leather stand in a semi-circle around a small pool of water - the very pool you were just pulled from. The water is still now, rimmed in pale gold tiles with odd symbols etched into them. Across it is a raised pedestal with a card bearing an Arcana symbol.

A guard covers you with a simple robe and returns to their place in the semi-circle. Before you stands another woman, dressed in a more elaborate and decorated uniform than the others. A sword rests at her hip. She carries an air of authority as she approaches you with a nod and a warm smile. "Sorry about the circumstances. Take a minute, catch your breath. I'm Prime Minister Marlo Reiner and you're in The Free Cities. That nice lady over there will explain everything to you and get you settled."

A robed mage off to the side approaches to help you up. She brings you out of the cave through a corridor that angles upwards until you emerge in what looks like some kind of storage facility. You'll learn you're in the Cadens Desert Outpost 003, a military base on the outskirts of the major city of Cadens. You're told the world is in delicate and dangerous times, and you're needed to help. You're important and they're very grateful you're here.

◎ Surroundings

While you're currently at the outpost just outside of the city proper, Cadens on the whole is a large bustling city. Temperatures are rising, and the climate is hot and dry, though still pleasant - during the day, at least. At night, they'll cool rapidly. Desert blooms dot the landscape for the spring. Look to the west and you'll see a long stretch of desert wasteland. This is the infamous Badlands. The soldiers don't recommend going out there unprepared - you're likely to face a slow death to the elements or be eaten. Reaching Cadens is possible by wagon, a trip of about 2 hours each way. You're asked to return by sundown for your own safety... but no one will chase after you if you don't.

You'll be given a military style uniform with your Arcana stitched on it where a formal rank would normally be. As you walk or look around, you take in some of what's going on around you:

• Libertas shows signs of having suffered a devastating attack, but a good portion of it is rebuilt including a new garden park memorial that commemorates the lives lost. Chatter has shifted from the fire attacks to the abductions and failed experiments recovered only a week ago.


• From Cadens to Aquila to Libertas, the streets are heavily guarded. Soldiers patrol all areas, especially those typically occupied by the Summoned. This includes a particular inn and tavern in the heart of Cadens - The Sarstina - where the Summoned like you are often found...though it may not be as busy and thriving as it normally is.


• Instead, many of the older Summoned are either resting in their homes or recovering in Cadens' largest hospital. Doctors are busy, and the hospital is heavily guarded, too.


• Despite the troubles, life around the Free Cities is beginning to resume. Still, you can sense that a major crisis has only just been resolved, and much of the fallout remains.

◎ Exploring

Despite the troubles that plague the land, the barracks and Cadens have much for you to indulge in.

Training Grounds
Non-lethal training weapons and obstacle courses are set up for anyone to use. The soldiers will be watching, and if you catch their attention they might approach you and encourage you to enlist. You're free to invite other new arrivals to spar, but be sure to keep things friendly and avoid trouble. Discipline is key in the barracks. If you're especially competitive, the soldiers will sometimes hold impromptu obstacle races with informal wagers made. They'll be happy to race against even the most unlikely of opponents, and you'll be judged more on your spirit rather than your skill. If you really impress them, they'll even buy you a drink.

Supply Delivery
The Summoned are important to the Free Cities. The government means to take care of them through their recovery, and have instructed the military to assist. Soldiers are packing rations, medicine, and other supplies into crates to be delivered to the hospital in Cadens. You can help pack or make the deliveries yourself by hopping on the wagon. Though you aren't supposed to wander around the hospital, as one of the Summoned you have a bit more freedom than the average citizen. Maybe you could visit one of the rooms while you're there? Or you might run into a Summoned in the halls arriving to check on a friend.

Furry Friends
Researchers in Cadens have been studying the positive effects of animal companions on those who recently went through traumatic experiences. They've settled on the catlike Leosylph, a popular domestic breed, as the best choice. You can help bring these animals to anyone who would like one in the hospitals, or you can simply play with them and make sure they're fed while they're awaiting their assignments. They enjoy chasing mechanical mice powered by New Magic and purr when happy.

Nocwich
Nocwich, which is shrouded in an eternal darkness and is home to the werewolves and the vampires, opens on the first weekend of every month for a total of 3 days. Shortly after arriving, you'll be given a pendant that allows you to travel to and from the portal. In Cadens, the portal is a short walk away from the center of the city. While Nocwich is normally thriving, no shops are open in Oleuni Square. Nocwich citizens explain that unforeseen circumstances prevent the market from opening as usual and request you return next month to explore. However, you can stay to help. Tents, tables, and medical supplies around the Square need to be taken down and packed up. You can guess that this was once a site for heavy rescue operations and emergency treatment.

◎ Settling In

When you're ready to turn in, the barracks are waiting for you. They have a communal bathing room at the end of the hall, with curtains that can be pulled around the individual raised round tubs for privacy. Each barracks room is rather sparse. Six simple beds set against the wall, three on each side of the room, each with a trunk at the foot of it. You can greet your roommates here, most of whom will be new arrivals, as well.

If you plan on making use of your assigned quarters, you'll have your basic needs met: uniforms, a roof, bland food from the mess hall, and access to the training grounds. You won't be paid unless you formally enlist with the army. The longer you take advantage of the barracks, the greater the pressure to enlist. Some soldiers will start to see you as a freeloader if you refuse to join them yet continue to use their resources. If you're set on not enlisting, you can always strike out on your own in Cadens - but you won't be provided for and handouts are rare. You'll have to work to earn every copper and loaf of bread. Whether that's honest work is up to you.

Welcome to Solvunn

You're in a grassy clearing in the midst of a circle of large stone slabs stacked to look like doorways. In the middle is the same glimmering pool you were just pulled from. An elderly mage stands before an ornate altar. He holds an old leather-bound book in one hand and in the other is a card bearing an arcana symbol. "I detect no ill will from the gods," he says. "It seems we've been blessed with success."

Those that had gathered all breathe a sigh of relief and now seem pleased. One offers you some clothes of leather and knitted wool that seem to fit you perfectly. A rough-looking man steps forward once you're dressed and motions with his head outside of the stone circle. His speech is informal, his consonants harsh.

"Hold your horses, I can see all those questions coming about! Rowan March, at your service. I'm one of the council members of Solvunn. There's a lot to discuss, but it's best talked about over a hot meal." He leads you to a horse-drawn carriage and helps you up into the back. He talks the entire ride to the center of the Primary Settlement. You're told that the world hangs upon the brink of disaster and that there are those in this world that are happy to see it fall to ruin with their meddling.

You're important. The gods have graced them with your presence. They're delighted you're here.

◎ Surroundings

The Primary Settlement is full of greenery, blessed with the fresh ocean breeze. Winds are pleasantly cool with the occasional heavy spring rains that soak the farmlands. The scent of wildflowers fills the air. The shops, farms, and homes around you are all modest and unassuming. You get the sense that the people here prefer to blend in with their neighbors than stand out.

As you walk or look around, you'll be greeted warmly, even eagerly...though there's an edge of awestruck nervousness to some. Though the settlement is often quiet and calm, there's still plenty to take in:

• Shops and stalls in Solvunn are temporarily closed. Many of Solvunn's residents have instead dedicated their time to helping the rescued Summoned. They're reluctant to speak of the recent abductions, stating that what happened was blasphemous to the Old Gods.


• Solvunn Elders will accompany anyone who strays too far from the Settlements, and will give you protective charms to make sure you're safe. You're advised to stay close to the commune where possible.


• Shrines around the settlements are overflowing with offerings. It seems something has happened recently that's made the locals especially dedicated to showing their devotion.


• You're free to venture towards the ocean if you like, though heed the warnings of leviathans. These beasts do not stir near the shores, but if you look closely in the far distance - at night in particular - you'll see the water's surface bubble and roil beneath the moonlight.

◎ Exploring

Despite the troubles that plague the commune, the commune and its settlements have much for you to indulge in.

Warding Homes
In order to aid recovery, commune Elders have asked for your help to ward the doors of homes occupied by the Summoned. Many of these homes are in housing provided by the Council or with host families in the settlement. You can hang bone wreathes on the doors to request blessings of protection and healing from the Old Gods. You can also bring hot meals and herbal medicine to the Summoned while you're there. Host families are friendly, and will welcome you in as long as the Summoned inside are willing to receive you, as well.

Shrine Offerings
As a new arrival, you'll be encouraged to perform your first offering. This can be anything that feels right to you: fruit, wine, flowers, even an animal you've hunted. Whatever you choose, it must be retrieved by your own hand meaning you must pick the fruit, cut the flowers, or pour the wine yourself. You can travel to the shrine by yourself or with a companion. Once there, lay your offering and ask for a blessing through Solvunn's tradition of High Magic. Blessings are often made for the commune overall such as abundant crops or good weather. You will not see the effects right away, but you may find over the next day or so that the sun has cut through the rain. Of course, you're free to dismiss this as the nature of how weather works...but don't be too loud about it. Solvunn takes its beliefs very seriously.

Goat Herding
Due to the circumstances, Solvunn's traditional chaotic goat races will not be happening this month. This means the goats are filled with pent-up energy. Ornery and mischievous, they'll headbutt anything that moves, chew fence posts and clothes, and generally make a nuisance of themselves - some even escaping their pens. Exasperated farmers and herders are struggling. You can help retrieve escaped goats, repair broken fences, and do your best to contain the animals.

Nocwich
Nocwich, which is shrouded in an eternal darkness and is home to the werewolves and the vampires, opens on the first weekend of every month for a total of 3 days. Shortly after arriving, you'll be given a pendant that allows you to travel to and from the portal. In Solvunn, the portal is a short walk away. While Nocwich is normally thriving, no shops are open in Oleuni Square. Nocwich citizens explain that unforeseen circumstances prevent the market from opening as usual and request you return next month to explore. However, you can stay to help. Tents, tables, and medical supplies around the Square need to be taken down and packed up. You can guess that this was once a site for heavy rescue operations and emergency treatment.

◎ Settling In

When you're ready for your bed, you're brought to the center of town and escorted to an apartment above one of the establishments in town. The living conditions are temporary if you'd like them to be: the local families would also be happy to host you in their home. In return, you'll be expected to contribute to their household, taking upon daily chores and repairs. While money has its uses, many establishments and craftsmen are happy to barter with your time or skill for their goods. You'll find your willingness to trade and your friendliness with the natives more valuable than gold.

You can even leave for the other two settlements if you like, but you're encouraged to remain in the Primary Settlement. Just be sure you have an invitation to the Secondary Settlement. There are tales of travelers visiting the secondary settlement without invitation disappearing without a trace. The gods are as hungry as they are protective.

Questions and Answers

If after reading these you're still unsure about anything, or your question wasn't covered, please feel free to hit up our Questions thread below!

How many slots are open?

Please check the Taken page for how many player, franchise, and canon slots are available. Activity check will be processed before applications open, so the count may change between now and then. Existing players can apply for a second character without restriction.

How do I choose a scenario for my character?

Pick whichever situation appeals to you most. Which faction your character is drawn into has nothing to do with their personal morality, beliefs, or how highly they regard themselves and their own accomplishments. Anyone can be put into any one of the situations.

What happens if my character refuses to comply with the NPCs?

They will be forgiven for their moment of panic or anger if they have one, and the faction leaders will try to calm them and persuade them further. If they put up too much of a fight and/or start actively attacking anyone, they will be warned once that everyone is willing to put them back in the well where they came from (see below), and if they continue to fight they will make good on that promise.

My character intends on causing a lot of trouble (destroying parts of the cities, murdering the NPCs, etc.), what would happen to them?

Characters who make too much trouble for the mages and other NPCs would be thrown back in the well (which will mean drowning in the void, not returning home). Brawling with other PCs and causing minor damage is fine and will be greeted with a cranky attitude and intervention from various NPC guards, and there will be plenty of opportunity for destruction and murder later, but for now the Abraxans have no desire to keep huge liabilities around.

Is the power loss for characters permanent?

No, but it does take a week or so for their powers to be back in full, and certain powers (determined on a case-by-case basis) may require nerfs. If your character has world-breaking powers, please discuss with the mods what modifications may be necessary.

Can my character leave the bounds of the nation?

In Thorne, characters can leave the castle but not the city. In the Free Cities, they can take a trip from the outpost to the nearest main city, Cadens. In Solvunn, they can explore the entirety of the Primary Settlement.

Can my character eventually change nations or kingdoms?

Yes, but tensions between the major nations are at an all-time high. Doing so is possible, but will require some plotting and discussion with the mods once you're in-game!

How much will my choice of scenario affect my character's plot later on?

This choice will determine where your character initially lives as well as the bias of the information they receive from NPCs (although other PCs can and most likely will give it to them a bit more straight). It will also affect your character's day-to-day life and development. Characters who seek technological advancements or combat will find more of it in the Free Cities while those keen on court politics and learning magic will have the most access to it in Thorne. Anyone who wishes to uncover the secrets of the Old Gods and forest mysteries will best do so in Solvunn.

This is not to say characters can't do these things from another faction - with effort and the help of friends, anything is possible! Don't get too anxious about your choice. This is just one of many, and every character in each scenario can work their way towards many individual goals and outcomes. Additionally, once in-game the Horizon will provide characters with a way to easily find cross-faction CR.

Are TDM threads mandatory for my application?

No, you may use other samples, but we encourage you to post to the TDM and get a feel for this game and its mechanics before you join. If you do not have a TDM thread you will still need to choose one of the three scenarios on your application.

What if I haven't settled on a sign yet?

Your Arcana sign won't have an immediate impact on your character beyond them seeing it on themselves or being told what it is by the locals. You're welcome to disregard those aspects in your prompts or try out different signs.

Can my character go to the Horizon?

First time visitors to the Horizon must be taken there by other characters, through either shared meditation or a physical journey to the Singularity, and all first-timers experience memory loss. For the purposes of the TDM, we suggest against using the Horizon.

If you're interested in threading with characters outside your borders on the TDM, you can utilize the Nocwich prompt which will allow all characters to meet in person regardless of arrival scenario.

What about making use of the network?

Much like Horizon they would need to be introduced to it by another PC, as no NPCs would be aware of the network or be able to access it. Because of this, we would advise against using this mechanic for TDM top-levels.

Can I try out more than one arrival scenario on the same TDM?

Yes, although only threads taking place in the arrival scenario you formally choose upon applying can count as canon. However, you're welcome to try out as many as you like on the TDM.

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Comments

Sabine | Empress | Tales From The Gas Station

[the_keeper]

Sabine wasn't paying attention to the two men who scurried away or the man who said to calm down. She wasn't even paying attention to the dripping water or her lack of clothes. She was staring at her outstretched hand. The way her metacarpals shifted the skin on the back of her hand just enough to wrinkle, and then the tight stretch of it over her knuckles as she curled her fingers into her hand, feeling the tension of the muscles within that fist, down the underside of her forearm, the delicate, sharp press of her nails into her palm.

Being nude and soaking wet and the people hunkered
were causes for concern, but not as much as—


Corporality.

She'd been walking Jack through the very last door—Employees Only a red slash against so much white—and suddenly. Here? Solidly here? Awake? Alive? Her brow was already wrinkled when she looked back up at the man suddenly shoving a pile of clothes into her hands, which only helped her first words along, "No towel?"

Apparently not. The clothes went on. Soft against her skin that seemed just to keep announcing where else it went on existing. Her expression remains neutrally confused, with a side of suspiciously ready for business, already trying to decide whom to question first. Still, there was no flicker of reaction at the magic used to resize, cut, and shape of her clothes.

---

This city is still more concerned with itself than her or anyone else who seems to have arrived around the same time. Everyone is running to and fro, taking care of victims of some terrible abduction that appears to have involved a gruesome amount of torture and genetic mutation. It's hard to make sense of the whole lot of it. Unbalance. Like she was dropped into the middle of someone else's story, a side character no one had a specific need of after that weird 'Chosen One' speech on the way to her new room.

In media res had nothing on this.

🆃🅷🅾🆁🅽🅴

There's a nebulous strangeness to the feel of this place. Outside her, inside her; it's hard to tell still. Equilibrium is a boat she mans but an ocean that still flounders in flux. Oily uncertainty ebbs. Shifting shoals. A deep, resonant vibrating hum beneath it all. And every once in a while, when she isn't focused on anything, a soft pitter-patter of a beat she can't quite place that tugs at her with an ache of insistence but not name or direction.

Still, with nothing else to keep her hands busy and fewer answers than questions—which seems to be the same for people who have come here and have always lived here—she agrees to help pick flowers in the garden for the care packages being made and to be part of a group of people who will be delivering them around the hospital.


🆂🅾🅻🆅🆄🅽🅽

With nothing else to keep her hands busy and fewer answers than questions—which seems to be the same for people who have come here and have always lived here—she agrees to help hang bone wreaths to The Old Gods of this new city, and deliver hot meals to the victims of recent events.

After a few days of those, she gives in to the constant encouragement to offer a first blessing. Even if the arrival was unasked for, she could be grateful for being clothed, fed, sheltered, and not being in the straits of those she's been helping. She brings with her a leaf. Wide-reaching, thick veins running down to tiny ones. It's green with spring, and it reminds her of home, which is not beside the point, as when she steps in front of the altar, she raises it to her lips, letting it brush her skin, before looking down at it again.

"Thank you for the kindness that's been given to me since arriving,"
Sabine placed it on the altar before adding a softer whisper,
"I don't need your blessing. Just send it to him.
Keep Jack safe until I can get back."

cw: child abuse

[stations]

Jack and Sabine have spent more time together in hospitals than most people ever do.

She was with him when he first got his diagnosis. She was with him through subsequent appointments. She was with him earlier, younger, when he was in his teens and sporting broken bones courtesy of his father — the only other person willing to wait in the ER waiting room with him.

And then he was with her, while she was the one in the bed. With her, but alone. With her, sporting a book, reading to her smooth and impassive face. The Hobbit; Moby Dick; Harry Potter. All seven books. The last time he ever saw her in person was in a hospital, and he didn't know it was the last time. They sprung it on him, mammaw and pops. Over a phone call one day, abruptly. She'd been transferred to another state, somewhere better, somewhere far beyond his ability to reach.

She was gone.

The first time they see each other in person again is in a hospital — in a different fucking world. He's there having the last of his wounds looked over, there for his final check-in. Holding a glass of water which, in hindsight, is a terrible thing to have in a hospital for precisely the following reason:

He sees her, and drops it. It goes crashing onto the stone floor, scattering into a hundred shards that other people gasp and step around, but he doesn't even notice it. The glass, the people, the castle, all of it drops completely out of his awareness in favor of-

Her.

[the_keeper]

Sabine is smiling as she finishes chatting with Colten, having returned this time with news of how his sister's new baby is doing and relieving information no one else from his family was taken, too. It's part of the rounds. Even juggling one more care package, she takes the time to squeeze his upper arm lightly with the hand there and wishes him the best with his check-out tomorrow going flawlessly.

He's in the middle of a second sentence too long for an obvious I'll be off now—which she gets is the desperation of empty hospital rooms and distance from those you love, and she is already letting it slide—when a small crash happens somewhere to their side. The whole space goes up in a domino wave of gasps and shuffling out of the way, which makes them turn, too. And right at the center

Oh.

Her mind is already slotting together too many facts on a background, puzzle pieces that hadn't reached, but her mouth only opens a little in surprise before her lips press, and her mouth is already starting to curl at the edges. And poor Colten? Is having a package shoved into his hands none too delicately while she says, "Can you hold this?"

Except it's not a question

(and Colten luckily manages to catch it before it hits the ground).

Because Sabine is already walked through the crowd without looking back toward him or it. Just the boy in the center of it all. The look of shock on his face was so thorough it was made of bladed edges. But she can't stop once she's started. Because of course; of course; it was; of course. And he found her first still.

She only stops short of him by about a foot. "Jack." Was there glass? Was there a glass of water? There isn't when Sabine wrinkles her nose a little and adds, "You look—" All dark ringed eyes, thinner than usual, put through the wringer more than the already high normal. But somehow she can't say it without smiling, surprise and joy making the worst bedfellow of the truth, but she doesn't care. "—terrible."

Because he's here.

Because he's right here.
And she's right here.

And She doesn't have to wait to be remembered.
(At least she's pretty sure she doesn't have to wait.)

[stations]

She's not a hallucination, right? She can't be. Somebody else is talking to her. Unless they're also a hallucination, but he wouldn't just hallucinate a random guy, right? Maybe he's hallucinating her face onto somebody else. That's way more plausible; it's not her, it's just like what happened with Julie in the horizon. He's seeing her, but it's someone else, and when she gets close enough his stupid brain will get with the program and he'll stop seeing her.

Except why would she be walking all the way over here to him if it weren't her? Unless it's somebody else, and they just caught him staring, and they're stalking over to give him a piece of their mind for him being a rude stare-y creep, which would also make way more sense than it-

being-

her.

And then she says Jack, and his face twists a little, a deep furrow in his brow, a part to his lips, a sudden alarming shine to his eyes making his vision blur at the edges.

"Thanks," he says dimly, absently, a dry retort that doesn't match the waterworks already threatening to overtake him.

Everything in him wants to reach out.
Everything in him is afraid his fingers will find nothing.

His voice pitches a little lower, a little quieter, but he has to ask —

"Are you real?"

[the_keeper]

That...is an excellent question.

One Sabine doesn't entirely have the answer for (or its the right answer for? Has she ever?), and honestly, no need for either. There were subjective qualities to specific definitions of the word that have never applied, and some others that didn't again recently, and ... it didn't matter. It didn't at all.

Because Jack's eyes were filling with tears, and that expression was all cracks.
It's where the real broken glass is. Broken glass and shattered walls.
Doors that were closed so hard they grew bricks and briars.

There's fear more than anything else;
in the cracks of his whisper.

A need not to even hope.
Self-preservation.

Sabine's expression softens, saddens, contending with the want to pull him close and take it away, and she holds out a hand. Pale fingers in the air, with wiggle just a little to make sure he happened to look at them and not just look through her as though if he moved his eyes from her face, she would vanish away entirely.

But then she changes her mind. She stepped closer and slipped her fingers into his so he didn't have to take the chance on it first. "We should sit down."

Out of the way of the mess all around them.

Sabine looked away to the nurse, one of many who were relatively familiar faces,
if not well known, not far from Jack. "I'm going to borrow Jack here for a minute."

She almost promised to return him. But she ate the lie instead.
And just stepped away, tugging him gently to follow her.

[stations]

It's not very easy to shock him. He's seen... a lot. He's seen more than most people, even ones steeped in the supernatural. He's seen some fucked up shit even when held in comparison to the rest of the Summoned, all of whom have been pulled into an entirely new world.

It's hard to stagger him, but if anybody could...

She does it when she threads her fingers through his, and he can feel it. His heart gives a sharp, painful lurch. It rends him from sternum to stomach. He nearly chokes.

He's seen her since her coma — in dreams, in visions, in hallucinations. He's seen her mainly when his mind is altered, his consciousness dulled and dampened by drugs, by alcohol, by sleeplessness. He's stone-cold sober now, he's as well rested as he ever gets, there's nothing to mute this. Nothing to turn her into a dreamlike, hazy wonder.

There's just the jagged edges of harsh reality, and her palms, soft as he remembers.

He follows like a well-trained dog on a lead, slow steps crunching on glass, then stone, then grass. Stunned into silence, and afraid that the first indication of resistance might somehow ruin- whatever this is.

"Why- how... How are you here? Is it- am I dead?"

[the_keeper]

It's almost too easy. She'd like to take that as a compliment, as a trust unshakable, but she knows it's a shock just this side of obeying so as not to break the glass bubble around it. Her. But Jack's mind isn't something to be rushed, and if he's been through what all the others have, that's even more true now. So she doesn't, and she lets him start.

"No." There's almost a tiny laugh, the word that comes out first when he skips from asking about her to asking suddenly about himself. (It's going to take so much more than another predatory universe to take Jack Townsend down. She'd see to that if she had to, too.) But. Worst case scenarios. Likening her to a ghost, gone beyond the pale and waiting for him on the other side of that other door. The type she wasn't during the last week either. As though the one could stall her from the other.

Though it does jostle something else free. Because Jack isn't dead, and Jack is here, which means Jack isn't back home. And that means the Gas Station (— is a problem to think about a little later than now). She picks the closest bench to their exit point.

"I woke up in a foundation." Which, at least thankfully, is the truth on multiple levels so far as she knows at this point. Sabine tilted her head, turning sideways and facing him rather than forward. "I'm assuming you did, too, when you first got here?"

[stations]

Oh, no.

The way she answers is... possible. It's a logical, reasonable, possible thing that could happen. She came through the same way he did, the same way Jerry did, the same way every other Summoned here did. He knows- he knows about timelines, and about how these people snatch fucking... superheroes and celebrities and fictional characters, they snatch from the past and the present and the future, they snatch from alternate realities.

It just- it never occurred to him-

It seemed impossible, like she was somehow untouchable. Like she was locked away beyond anyone's reach, including theirs. He never actually considered that they might-

Wow, somebody's breathing really fast.

Oh shit, is that him? Is that his breathing? Is he hyperventilating?

He doesn't sit down. He can't sit down, he's flooded suddenly with too much energy, something building up, something kinetic, he's-

She's-

"You're alive." From a certain angle, it might almost sound like an accusation. "You're- you're alive, aren't you? You're here. You're really here? Tell me you're real. Tell me- that this isn't just something supernatural fucking with me, because if I get my hopes up and this turns out to be some- singularity fuckery, I swear to god, I will burn this entire place to the ground."

[the_keeper]

"Hey." It starts as a single word. But it turns into many all repeating that word (hey, hey, hey), raising her second hand, because Jack's brain, whatever it does, is doing, sprints him off toward what's starting to sound like a hyperventilating. Or a panic attack. Either one or something else nearby. Whatever else might be? She's losing sight of things that aren't him; they slide out even when they try to stomp in.

There's no stopping it, though, and by the time he's out to words, they're so much louder than that whisper. It's redlining toward hope, with the throttle violently accusative and threatening, and it only makes her heart ache harder, makes her move faster. Having to let go of his hand and reach out for his shoulders. The defense of her memory doesn't go unnoticed, but she's not the person he needs to threaten to kill to keep it.

"I'm here. I'm really here." A hand to the side of his neck, but it's more of a directive and not a caress, to try to draw him closer, make him focus down rather than explode out. "Alive. Real." Whatever either of them means. "Breathe." They don't matter. They mean whatever Jack needs them to. (It means she has him with her, and how many things would she have foresworn for just that in these last five years.)

"The big shiny rock in the middle of this place didn't make me."

A tiny beat. "It's definitely not that cool."

Another. "And I will not forgive you if you tell me you've started worshiping it like some people here." None of it is serious, nor does it pretend to be in more than the words put out; it's just her mouth making sounds now and giving them to him. Herself, to him. To hold on to rather than every other fact that has so much more right to be there in his head than she does here, inches from him.

[stations]

Her hands are on his shoulders. On the side of his neck.

He doesn't like to be touched, generally speaking. He never has, because in his experience for as long as he can remember, touch was never positive. Touch never felt good until her, and it never felt good after her. If it were any stranger on the street, any random nurse or too-handsy well-wisher, he'd have instinctively shrugged it off. He'd have felt that awkward discomfort instantly and moved to rectify it.

Her touch feels familiar. His body recognizes it. There's no strange, no awkward, no distance. There's only comfort, and then a kind of need — touch starved, because she hasn't been around to meet the quota and nobody ever took her place.

It works. He focuses down. He reels in instead of expanding out, and is honed.

"Sabine," he manages for the first time, and then all that stubborn, frightened, defiant willpower breaks.

He folds around her, drags her in. Less an embrace, more burying himself into the side of her neck and hanging on for dear life.

She feels the same. She smells the same. Her skin smells like her skin, and he forgot what that was until now. She's solid beneath his hands, solid in his arms. She fits almost the same — though he's thinner, he's also put on some muscle, so it nearly evens out. She feels right.

It's her, it's her, it's her-

There are things he's wanted to say to her for years, too many to fit into a single conversation let alone a single moment, but god damn if they don't all try at once anyway. They come rushing out in the form of word-vomit, broken, frayed at the seams as the fabric of her shirt goes wet with ugly tears he will totally refuse to admit to later.

"I'm sorry, I'm such a fucking asshole, I didn't mean to, I swear, I can't believe you're here- you were right- you've been asleep for six years- also, I don't give a shit about that rock, holy fuck, I'm so fucking sorry, and you weren't supposed to leave without me, you were gone, and I-" A beat, and then he reels back when the next horrible realization pings a reminder in his brain. "Your parents. I have to tell you about your parents. I-"

Yeah, maybe that order to breathe would come in handy right now, because he's feeling suddenly light-headed and a little less than concretely stable on his one and a half shitty legs.

[the_keeper]

He says her name. Once.
Like a bell ringing. Like a sigh.

It's a thousand different sparks somewhere else, fingers gentling against his neck, relaxing a fraction into the pause before he crashes into her, and she lets him. She's not even surprised. Maybe she'd even half wanted something like this a week ago when distorted dream logic and the blurriness of drugs and dysphoria, the continual patience to wait for his waking mind to remember it, made it all too easy to shave off some of the serial numbers on any kind of reunion. That she'd waited so long, and she'd go right on waiting if it was in her power to help keep him safe.

And all of them, so short, barely handfuls of minutes in each one.
Maybe only until about now, when she'd had to send him back each time.

Maybe this is what she'd wanted that whole time, when the time, the world, the universe, and the darkness coming for everyone, always had to come first. The total length of him caught up in clutching her to his body and burying into hers simultaneously, all of his words pouring out against her skin. She hugged him back just as hard, momentarily stilled by the solid reality of him, of his voice not stopping, of having the moment to hang on, desperately to what had been so brutally ripped away for so long.

Jack's voice is a speed-laden litany of apologies she's not sure she ever needed and still wants to pull from the air and collect like fireflies in a jar. Trap the jar in her chest, and protect each one. Tuck them in with six years of reckless, desperate wishes—something so connected not even flesh could sever it—manifested completely differently, and still all but forgotten entirely.

"Hey, hey, shhh, shh—" Sabine says quietly, her face tucked up against what she can reach from the side of his face—mostly talking into his hair and part of his ear. Hand stroking his back. "That still doesn't sound a whole lot like breathing either."

Problematically, it also doesn't sound ... right.

All of it adds up. She knows the things he's talking about; she's pretty sure. But then, it doesn't continue. He's not saying anything about where he was or how they stopped. Everything he says has nothing to do with what they'd been doing last.

[stations]

Somebody's crying. Probably the same person that was hyperventilating earlier. God, that guy needs to get it together, it's starting to get embarrassing.

Wait, shit. It's still him.

That still doesn't sound a whole lot like breathing either.

He pulls in a ragged, deliberate inhale. It feels like his chest is caving, or over-full. It feels like bruised ribs. Which... in hindsight, he might actually have, considering the past few weeks. It's worth it, though — every ache in his body, every twinge from the way he's folded around her, the struggle to breathe. All of it's worth it for this.

Six. Fucking. Years.

It strikes him again, the disbelief. The utter incredulity. The impossibility of her reality, and the shocking truth that she exists.

She exists, she exists, she exists. Real. Solid. There. Still there. Still there.

He pulls back to look at her again, eyes wet and wide and lost.

And then presses his lips to hers abruptly, in the least graceful kiss he can remember ever giving. Not that he's given many in the last half a decade.

(None. He's given none.)

ꜰᴏʀ ʙʟᴀᴋᴇ → ᴡɪʟᴅᴄᴀʀᴅ: ʜᴏʀɪᴢᴏɴ

[the_keeper]

You’ve probably heard this before, but one more time can’t hurt. At the edge of the Horizon, at the helm of a teaming wood, sits a little, shitty gas station, and even in a place where time has no meaning, it’s open twenty-four a day, seven days a week.

If you bypass the temples, the mansions, and all other aesthetically pleasing and saner options to come there, inside, you’ll find rows of knock-off brand chips, cookies, potted meats, sweet treats, and Southern curiosities. The expirations dates are missing. There’s a mini tar pit by the cooler where layers of run-off have trapped in amber any number of small insects. The drink machine is archaic and constantly hums its unending tune. A lingering smell of honeysuckle, ammonia, and vomit seems to come from nowhere that can be pointed to.

Lucky for you, it does seem the Horizon Gas Station isn’t handing out toothaches, mutated raccoons, archaically shaped vision floaters, or voices whispering words, always just out of recognition, to follow you home. But today, of all days, you will find a girl behind the counter, with long red hair and a copious dusting of freckles, currently engaged in reading a battered paperback.

[oversight]

Where Blake's come from, it's always night. The rain isn't constant, but near enough, sometimes rumbling with thunder and crackling with lightning. One day it will snow (but hasn't yet) and anyone who might come wandering through will note that those who do pepper the streets keep to themselves and move quickly against the weather whipping between the tightly packed city buildings.

Some little piece of Gotham has reached out, it's tendril daintily touching some part of the Gas Station's anatomy. Perhaps the discord shared is what brings these pieces together, but Blake wouldn't know.

You know how it is when you get so tired you blink and wonder how you got somewhere you don't remember going? Well, it's apparently not just an Earth-bound thing. Days and nights are generally the same (at least outside the Horizon) and that's helped some in acclimation, but inside is a little different.

Standing in front of the coffee pot, he's eighty-two percent through his pour when awareness seeps back in, and one-hundred-eight percent through when the coffee overflows and slides over the back of his hands before dripping on the floor. "Dammit," Blake whispers. But he's already rain-sodden and the coffee's lukewarm, so it's really sort of evening out in the end to be embarrassingly painful instead of painfully painful.

Turning in a circle, looking around for napkins to clean up his mess, he fumbles aside the over-full coffee cup and reaches for some courtesy napkins tucked into a handy dispenser only to find himself pulling and pulling like a magician exhuming endless scarves from a sleeve. He stares, blinks once, and then pulls some more like maybe he's just doing it wrong.

Something isn't computing and he looks to Sabine like maybe she's got the answer.

[the_keeper]

Sabine did look up when the guy walked in, but he had that single mind stumble of the caffeine-needing zombies, of which both her boyfriend and several midnight and morning costumers had, whether regulars or people who just happenstance through their postage stamp of a town. Or they had when she had been there, which she doubted had changed in her recumbent absence.

There'd been a return to her book (about two werewolves who fell through a tesseract)
before the whispering. Then the manic shifting. The even more manic napkin-ing.

She's watching him when he looks back to her for help. Book down, with her thumb resting in the crease. Looking almost the edge of out of place—too pristinely caught up against the look of everything around her—and yet with the easy demeanor of someone who might have been behind that counter for decades. Neither of which is precisely a lie.

Something is hovering around him. She's not entirely sure of its edges, but she's confident it is there. The hovering shifts to the light that is both not there in her vision, not coloring the clarity of the air around him, and absolutely something she can make out simultaneously. A permeation that feels gallingly stilted. Like her sense of things is still slamming a wall.

There's no hitch in the set of her expression. She's been living the multiple layers of it forever. There's only a raise of her eyebrows, a little too patiently. "Logic would suggest you rip them at some point. Unless you have some nefarious plan to steal them all and make a mad dash, which at that point, I'd suggest shoving them back in."

[oversight]

Normally he would have some kind of classic rejoinder to toss up like a shield, but the advice is solid and he only needs to take a moment and think about it before he accepts as much and follows the directions.

When he tears the napkin, it shreds along the length for several more feet, leaving a python-long paper shard hanging from the holder. Weird. So not like he expected. But he crouches to sop up his mess, the bottom of his shoes squeaking unpleasantly against the floor. At least here in the Horizon he appears as himself, wearing familiar fabrics in colors that suit him. If not for the obvious exclusion of umbrella, he would look almost at home in the convenient aisles.

"Logic's not been my strong suit lately," he says, lowly. The Horizon doesn't show the still-healing wounds, but it seems helpless against Blake's mental state, unable to paint over the lingering upset. Since returning from the pit he's had some help with his mood, but in the quiet and sleepless hours it's hard not to find himself drawn back into that damp nightmare surrounded by blood and altars and insanity.

When he goes to stand, he bumps the back of his head against the counter's edge on his way up. Oof. It isn't a hard hit, but he's rubbing at the spot on his way up to find the trash.

"Sorry. Uh." He's turning the other way now, looking around for a place he can wash his hands. "How— Uh. How much for the coffee?" Blake's got both hands up like a surgeon trying to stay clean; he is, in fact, trying not to get any coffee and floor juice on himself. So fussy.

[the_keeper]

Sabine isn't all that surprised the napkins continue not to play along. This is not The Gas Station over the rift, but it is Jack's facsimile of it, and it plays along so many of the rules of The Gas Station. She almost feels bad for the guy. It's not a place that was truly ever built for 'convenience' in the normalized sense of the word, no matter what people expected of the place. The convenience was in giving the world a chance, not in giving them a break.

The soaking wet guy cleans up the soaking wet floor, the cloud around him nettling at it all. There's something else there. She can feel a loose thread but not quite catch it, leaving her there staring at his back (even when there's a universal-displacement wolf-alien religious-revolution to get back to). She winces a little when the guy hits his head. Whatever he's got, he's got it pretty bad.

It takes a lot of effort to do this badly on purpose in your own head while awake.

"Dollar-fifty." There's a strange tilt to the way Sabine's looking at him like that's a pretty ludicrous question, and did he make himself carry money in this place? "The bathroom's over there if you want it."

This with some pointing toward the back of the store, where the bathroom, the storage room, and the walk-in cooler doors are. She hasn't yet had the chance to see if Jack made a facsimile of Ghost Cowboy yet. She almost hopes dude who can't help himself checks that box for her.

[oversight]

Watching her point, he looks back over his shoulder to note where she indicates and then nods in her direction with a grateful but tense smile before disappearing among the chips and dog food and tar pits.

He's not always like this. In fact, he'd been at a steady calm for years coming up to everything that had happened in Gotham. Five months of anarchy, of madmen holding a whole city hostage, of starvation conditions and rampant panic. The looming terror of nuclear destruction was like a buzzing under the skin that didn't allow Blake to rest until the thread had been squashed.

There hadn't been time enough to reset before the portal birthed him into a new world that followed very much on theme with those months in Gotham. Kidnapped, imprisoned, starved, and forced to comply. What he'd avoided back home, he hadn't been able to avoid here and it dogs him like it was a mistake he could have avoided. Never mind that he volunteered.

It's barely thirty seconds later when Blake comes backing out of the bathroom door, stopping, staring, shaking his head. And then he swings by the coffee station to retrieve his cup on the way to the counter and Sabine, two bucks in hand that he probably hadn't had before going in.

"The guy in the bathroom," he says, eyeing Sabine a bit like a person who doesn't quite know what he saw. "Does he work here, or..." Blake clears his throat and places down the singles, sniffs the coffee, sips tentatively. Okay, not bad.

[the_keeper]

Sabine returned to her book just as soon as the guy turned away. Skimming for the right sentences she'd left off on before Coffee Fiasco 1—the moralizing of otherness and equation of godhood as a boost. Gods had been given power for so much less than just falling out of a rip in the sky. She didn't expect anything like sense and logic from the thing; that wasn't the point of them. She was just returning to a rhythm when the guy started talking again.

Looking up, she found he had that slightly owlish look of someone who didn't quite know what words to put out of their mouth. That thing that was all semi-gobsmacked, doubting and hoping for someone to throw them a line back out of whatever deep end they accidentally walked into. Which could be what she thought, or it could be any of a million other things that might have come flush and fiddle with Jack's squirrely subconscious.

"Depends." Sabine's mouth twists as she drags out the word into a long beat, but her green eyes have a bright kind of amused sharpness, and her assumption is already checked in with the box. But why not let it drag out a little? There were two other guys who worked here officially. "What did he look like?"

[oversight]

It certainly seems like a logical question since he did little to actually describe the person in question. He thinks nothing of it, not expecting any kind of suspicion to be cast in his direction because—

"He looked... fit," which is Blake's way of saying he noted the physique first. And why shouldn't he have? "Apple bottom jeans, boots with the spurs," he jokes without joking. "No shirt, and he was wearin' his Stetson in a surprisin' way." It's only because Stetson is the only brand of cowboy hat Blake can think of that he gets it right, like sheer luck spent in the wrong place. Figures.

Leaning back his gaze grazes the selection of gums and candies and lighters spread before him, all those impulse purchases looking familiar but not. He's trying to decide if he's got enough for something else. Because, yes, he's imagined this place takes money like anywhere else gas station shaped.

Maybe he just needs a Snickers™️. Or... a Cackles™️ as it seems to be called here, which he places up on the counter, too. What's the damage? More than he has. He's almost hoping for a little pity.

[the_keeper]

"Ah." Sabine also draws this out with the fluted note of someone wise and having put all the pieces together. Check and check, and Sabine is starting to smile. Just the slightest bit; tiding it back just enough to remain aloofly polite. "You met the Bathroom Cowboy."

"Don't mind him. I hear he's very polite." Even when he's in there sharpening knives (and scaring people out of the store without buying anything after they've decided not to use the bathroom). "I haven't had the chance to meet him. Obviously. On account of him being-" There's a playful shrug. "You know. Polite. And staying on his side of the hallway."

It's not exactly true, but neither is Gas Station Bathroom Cowboy of Horizon, so they can make up the difference between them. Sabine finally took the two dollars off the counter and considered him quizzically as Dude With The Shadow Cloud suddenly looked awkwardly uncertain (and, yes, Sabine is a master at translating awkwardly uncertain. Prime example: Jack Townsend at all ages.).

"What's that face for?"

[oversight]

The quirk of his eyebrow in response is almost Spock-like, as if Blake can't imagines what Sabine means. His eyes shift to one side and then he leans to the other side, looking back over his shoulder like he might be expecting her to be talking to someone else.

"Who, me? What—" He feels the trickle of rainwater crawl down behind his ear and settle in his collar — (How is even possible that he's still so damn wet that he's dripping?) — and Blake resists and resists and resists, but a tremor shudders through him that he's forced to fight off with a sip of lukewarm black coffee.

"You just said the Bathroom Cowboy, which is not somethin' I've ever heard of outside of Brokeback Mountain," Blake says, confused in his own right because it seems obvious to him. "What kinda face should I be makin'?"

(And maybe more importantly, why does this coffee taste so familiar? He can't quite place it, but everything from taste to temperature to where it hits on the back of the tongue reads like déjà vu.)

[the_keeper]

Sabine supposes she should take it easy on the guy. Honestly, in the course of things, back when this was still in her daily life, it hadn't been something to bat an eyelash at. Of all the things which were ultimately concerning on-site, the Bathroom Cowboy was not. But. It's not been normal for a helluva long time. Even in pantomime, it's like a re-christening. She's enjoying it more than Dude deserves, but she can't help herself or the amusement it adds to her countenance.

"Well, yeah," Sabine agrees. "There's not another article that fits there."

Yes, that random gas station clerk girl just took your emphasis and turned it grammatical. "Pretty sure he didn't get to spotlight in a blockbuster, so you might be mixing him up with some other cowboy in a stetson and apple bottom jeans." Oh, yes. That's definitely on purpose, too. "They can all start to look alike at a point. Take my word for it. The lower fifty is a blur of both."

[theshamelook]

Rosa is very good at taking weird punches as they come. Everything about the last 24 hours has made absolutely no sense, but in her own little Rosa way, she has stubbornly decided against letting things like being kidnapped to an alternate dimension to be part of a war she knows nothing about get her down. She’ll figure it all out as she goes!

The murmurs floating around the castle are upsetting— recent abductions, people in need of doctors and get-well packages. That’s where she’ll be, of course— helping put together care packages for the recovering abduction victims.

Rosa is currently taking things from each of the organized piles of supplies— ranging from medical salves and hot meals to bakery treats and flowers from the garden— and placing them in the designated bags to be distributed. Each bag has been tied off in varying colors of ribbon with notecard messages like “Get well soon!” and “Hope this brightens your day :)” attached. There are hearts, stars, and other easily drawn shapes filling the white space on the cards in varying colors.

Maybe you’re also filling care packages, or bringing something to put in?

[the_keeper]

Sabine comes back with a mountain in her arms this go around, and she can't find the person she was working with earlier, so she chooses the next closest person to her when she steps into the prep room. The very familiar girl with mad hair game, playing those pink highlights, setting off her hair and skin punk-sweetheart style, and ... apparently drawing hearts, stars, and messages on things.

Different strokes, different folks?

(Sabine has a lot of opinions at this point about what hospital gifts should look like, for about two decades worth of time and vastly different kinds of circumstances. Especially for people in states they can't change, who are stuck looking at them forever or having to smell flowers as they moldered. And about specific people who deserved that kind of compassion and comfort but never received it from anyone who should have been watching over them.)

"I've got blankets for this round," she announces as her segue of interruption. "There's eight of them, and they each need a basket sent with them to one of the super far wings. Something, something—" Yes, those words just rolled out in an unphased fashion. "—blankets that are spelled to help some of the worst of them with body temperature regulation that isn't coming back as fast as they hoped."