Tartarean Strands: Chapter 1
Date: D-Day of the Collide
DttS Fade Between
Over by the scary skeleton, Mosi is trying to keep an eye out for things that may cause problems but her perception and alertness isn't really up to snuff right now. In fact if a shark jumped out in front of her roaring a swarm of bees she probably wouldn't notice it right now. Maybe the bullet did knock her a bit before it vanished.
Now, Nancy is having better luck with things. Seeing that wicked skeleton and looking around she is pretty sure she knows where they are but it ain't anywhere she has been before. Only a place she has read about in the past. Or more so that others have written about. A place where once, long ago, people spoke of about that they went after death. Not one of the many that Nancy herself had lived through but one another Emendator had lived through, more than one, for hundreds of years. She is pretty sure where they stand would have been known to Amaratha (Lady Lucas) as Erebus, a region of the Greek underworld where the dead pass immediately after dying. At least that was what they called it. Also, Nancy is feeling other Emendators. More than two, in multiple directions. She cannot tell who she is feeling in which direction but she is feeling them nonetheless.
The scenery seems to be holding as it was and Faye is correct, it does not seem that this skeleton is meaning them any harm. Perhaps it is a warning, perhaps it is just there to appear scary, or maybe it is just a welcome. Hell of a welcome. Either way it doesn't seem like it is going to suddenly spring to life and attack them. Thankfully. Though maybe Lauren was right, maybe it was pointing in a direction but if it was, did you really want to follow where the skeleton was pointing? I mean if you weren't a Crypt. Of course a Crypt would follow it. Be like the best invitation ever. For now though, nothing was changing and it seemed like things were calm.
PE Fade Between
Now, over to some others. It seems that everyone that comes through Gios portal is going to come through the other side without injury. At least nothing physical. Measuring mental trauma is a whole different thing and well going from Egypt to wherever the hell this is might throw some people off. Granted, since it just appears to be a road that has been traveled on, it seems like it could be anywhere. Maybe they are in Nebraska? Who knows.
Sophia doesn't have a half bad idea. Maybe trying to sense or hear or even smell something might give a clue to where they are. Then again, maybe not. Who knows. Worth a shot maybe though? At least it is quiet enough to where if she tried to listen she shouldn't be overwhelmed with things getting too loud around her, as long as the rest of the people with her don't start screaming suddenly. That wouldn't be fun, for anyone. Those hearing it or those screaming.
Andromeda is staying alert and it seems that things are calm. There is a slight wind but the road is empty besides them. Down at either end of the horizon is a tree. Both trees seem to have leaves moving slightly with the wind but nothing more. She can't see through the leaves but there doesn't appear to be anything hiding in them, at least it doesn't seem that way. One cannot be sure. The only sign of life she is seeing, other than those standing around her, is a flock of black birds far off in the distance. They are too far for her to be able to tell what type of birds they are. They might not even be black, it may be they are too far too for her to actually know what color they are.
Evelina Lucas
Location: The In-Between: Evelina's Cave
Skills: Locate (Paradox), Locate (Emendator)
Evelina starred at the fire, watching the flames crackle and the embers burn as thin tendrils of smoke rose.
"I did leave word. I said do not follow." Her words were distant as she spoke them, still not looking away from the fire. She had left specific instructions. Take a week off, reflect, do
not follow her. Pulling a dagger from it's sheath on her thigh, she poked the tip into the fire. Turning it slowly. Evelina did not seem like the same woman who had trained Faith, nor even the same one who seemed darker before the last day that Faith had actually seen and spoken to her.
"That begs the question, what are you doing here? But perhaps that question has answered itself in your own lines. To save me," Evelina said as she rotated the blade slowly. It turning red in the flame and darkening before she stood up. She had nearly chuckled when she said Faith was there to save her, but it was not a happy chuckle or even a sarcastic one. More of one of defeat.
Walking over to the walls her hand reached out and ran along the lines carved into the walls. Slowly tracing them as she walked, stopping and tilting her head to the side as she found one that only had four scores. Driving the dagger into the wall she raked it diagonally through the marks.
"How long has it been for you? Since you last saw my face? I wonder. Why come now? After all this time or perhaps time is not the same there as it is here. Or maybe it is. Maybe that is why you are here now, because it has been so very long. Look," she said as she looked back towards Faith, motioning with the tip of her blade towards the marks furthest away from her.
"At first they marked the days." Turning she pointed to another section of wall.
"Then weeks." She pointed to yet another section.
"Months." Looking back, Evelina pointed to where she had just carved.
"Years...." Evelina turned and looked back at Faith.
"Though until today I had stopped marking so very long ago. I do not know even how long it has been anymore. Half a millennia? Maybe more. A lifetime, even in my eyes." Reaching down, she took a strip of the leather that hung from her waist. Pulling it up and wrapping it around the blade of the dagger. Cleaning away the smut that darkened its metal until it shone again. Releasing the leather it fell back against her thigh as she looked towards the ceiling of the cave and let out a long breath. After a moment her eyes went back to Faith. Waving the dagger around as if to point out the world around them.
"This place? Where is it? Perhaps the better question is what is it? Yes, what is this place. Well it is here. Where we, no, they go. When no choice is given, or when you decide to leave. Perhaps you did die a second time. Perhaps I died. Perhaps that is why we are here. Your guess is as good as mine. Hell, Heaven, Hades, Limbo. An In-between, between life and death?" Breathing out she shrugged and sheathed her dagger back.
Sitting back down she bent her knees and draped her arms over them as she sat there hunched over. No long the straight rod up her backside that refused to have any posture but perfectly straight.
"I felt a strange tug, like there was another. Not like me, more like you, something different, in trouble. So young, you all were. Not ready. Let them stay, reflect, train, rest, be protected. That was what I thought. I left word, do not follow. I stepped through a portal, it was to take me to a set place, one I had been to before. One that was steady for us. Yet, when I came through, there I was." Her hand lifted and pointed back out of the cave, towards the river where Faith had come through.
"Here I was. Here I am. Here I have been." Lowering her hand she looked at her fingers.
"Is it abandonment when a mother leaves her child with their uncles and aunt? To be protected while she searches for another of their family? No, it is prudence. To think of you all here, all these... centuries." Evelina swallowed slightly before shaking her head.
"Maybe you are simply here to keep my company with your sparkling personality." There was a slight chuckle again, though slightly humorous instead of defeated.
"I have missed you though." Her voice was laced with a lost kindness with those last words as she looked towards Faith.
Evelina seemed to be in thought, until she suddenly stood up as if she had heard a twig snap in the woods. Nearly startled by whatever it was that got her attention but there was no sound. Her head whipped to one side and then the other, as if she was looking in different directions but could not look quickly enough.
"Did others come with you?" she asked as her head kept turning one way and then another. Stepping slowly over to the mouth of the cave. Placing her hand against the rock and looking out over the terrain.
Kyra Altham
Location: DtB Fade Between
Skills: Alertness, Tracking
The woman kept looking at people in front of her, her eyes going from one to the next to the next. Four of them. Looking at her wolf she seemed to nod towards him and he laid down, yawning deeply and resting his head on the ground. Even laying there, his back was still nearly as high as the woman's waist. Tilting her head to the side as the one woman asked where they were and who she was.
"Here." That was a simple enough answer. Not really answering the question but stating the obvious. They were here, wherever the hell here was.
"Kyra, Ash," she eventually added, pointing to herself and then the wolf at her feet.
Kyra's head tilted to the other side as she spotted Mali standing there. She was a large woman and not in the way where one had had too many rounds at the bar. While the man smelt of a pugilist, this woman looked like one. Built about like one she had seen before, but the coloring was very different. She said nothing, Kyra could respect that. Words were lost much of the time, especially when others were already talking. Sometimes silence was best. Most of the time Kyra had found words didn't matter as much as actions, then again, Kyra wasn't exactly the action packed woman in life she had once been, unless one counted walking as an action; which it was but not like before. Mali wouldn't be picking up any sort of hostility from Kyra or Ash, they both seemed rather indifferent to the group being there. Ash was yawning and Kyra just seemed to be there.
Then another spoke, asking more questions. How was she to know how they got here? She just shrugged. She knew how she got here, or at least she thought she knew how she got here. Once she got here though she really didn't question the how or even the why. She was there, so she went with it after a while.
"Don't know a Gandalf." The first woman spoke again and Kyra looked at her and then at the ground. Slowly stepping around them, keeping her distance. She was looking at the ground, not them. Her head tilting left and then right before she stepped back over to Ash and stopped. Looking back at them.
"No one else has been here." It was a flat statement. There were no other tracks she could see in the ground, she heard nothing else around them. Saw nothing else. Smelled nothing else. As far as she knew it was only them.
Then the man that smelled like a pugilist finally spoke up. He seemed to introduce the others.
"Strange names." They were to her. Not like names she head heard before but then again, she hadn't heard anything but the sound of her own voice for some time and the names she did know may be strange to them.
"Dress strange as well." To her, she didn't know what to make of what they wore. Odd materials from the looks of it. Strange cuts. Maybe they were gypsy. They did dress oddly, she knew one once. Her clothing could have been considered odd. The man said words she didn't know. A different language perhaps? Not one she had heard before. They seemed slightly familiar and her brow rose.
"Purgatorio? You mean Purgatory? Yes, maybe. Many names. Otherworld."
