exsiliumlogs | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Date: May 1st
Location: The Initiative Hold & Courtyard.
Characters: Everyone.
Summary: New Transports arrive and are shuffled into the Courtyard after their initial briefings, while those Transports on the mission to Wollongong return.
Warnings: None.

You've just been hustled and bustled through mazes of information and literal, wide corridors of the Initiative Hold and you've been equipped with your weapon—be it a gun, a sword, or even your existing powers. They've handed you this light netbook and a small pouch of coins (or a debit card, if you're more inclined), and there are several Transports before and after you going through the very same motions. You can hear the Greeter's voice as she walks alongside large groups, telling them all about the history of this place and sharing with you your purpose here in a hurried and urgent tone. "You're in luck that we have enough rooms for all of you; the housing building is getting awfully full. Please, let me show you into the courtyard."

You pass what looks like huge gymnasiums, all with dummies and targets strewn and splayed around the room. Training areas. There are even classrooms, and a few small offices. You're rushed past a large library while the Greeter informs you that you can find almost all your information there, if you've got the time to look—and trust her, you'll have time. You don't spend a lot of time in the bank, and it's a bit of a blur of exchanges with more and more of these strangely-accented and oddly polite-seeming members of the Initiative.

Soon enough, you're in a massive courtyard bustling with all the other Transports. It's not exactly what you'd expect, and it looks more like barracks than anything—huge walls of concrete and stone, separating you from all of the hallways you'd just passed through. It's raining heavily, and dark clouds loom in the air, though it hasn't turned to snow. It's a chill cold, and there are shelters—long cloth hangings that extend from the walls of concrete to house you from the rain, but not enough. Most notably, the courtyard is filled with a marketplace. Even in the cold and the rain, there are several citizens seated at their covered booths and tables, bundled up against the weather. They're selling all manner of their own handmade goods and foods, and citizens and Transports alike are traveling from one small covered shop to another in search of all manner of necessities.

The Greeter's voice has become so faint now, but you swear you can make it out in the back of the crowds as she tells you, "Good luck. Be safe!"

Her voice is drowned out by the busy marketplace, though even the transactions taking place are somewhat subdued. Nobody is overly happy, really, though most citizens can be found with smiles on their faces. It doesn't seem like they're that shocked to see you, either; even if you're not bound in tattered rags and wrapped in heavy shawls as they are. You're welcome to walk up to a shop, and find yourself something to eat—hey, maybe you'll even find something akin to a raincoat. Or, you can join the others under the coverings against the walls. Where am I? What war? She was talking so fast, and it didn't all make very much sense… did anyone else catch it all?

Welcome to the courtyard. Welcome to the Initiative Hold—and most importantly, welcome to Exsilium.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Ratonhnhaké:ton pushes himself off the ledge and lands neatly back on the ground floor. He starts toward his mother only to slow to a stop when her next questions are posed.

Those questions lift his eyes up to her face. She's not just asking for his name again. He smiles faintly, his hope bolstered.

Maybe this will be easier than he'd thought.

But... he can't tell her here. Scuffing one foot in the debris, he looks off the way they'll soon be traveling.]

... My name comes with a story. I will tell you both once we have reached the camp.

[He needs more time. So does she. Even if she doesn't know it yet.]

Can you walk? [In a somewhat steady manner?] I can carry you if you still feel the poison.

I can walk. You can tell me your story on our way.

[It remains to be seen, but she refuses to be carried like an invalid just yet. It is an insult to her pride, one she will not let these Initiative people take. They have taken her home, her family, but they cannot have her pride.

The man's smile is faint, and for a moment, again, Kaniehtí:io thinks it familiar, sees some trace of someone else in his expression. He seems younger when he smiles... and strangely it reminds her not of her son but of Haytham.

His chin is like Haytham's too.

There is still something that Ziio can't quite put her finger on about this man that troubles her; it's not that she feels unsafe or uncomfortable around him but there is something she's missing and she cannot work out what it is.]

How is it you speak English so well?

[He studies her face a moment longer, uncertain, but eventually nods his assent and moves forward.]

Some parts of my story are better told sitting down...

[He warns, eyes on the path ahead. Though he doesn't watch her, he walks slowly and pays close attention to her footfalls.

Maybe the poison is wearing off for her now, but he remembers it lasting a while for him.]

I... started learning the language when I was very young. Knowing it has been a great help to me.

Why is that? You have dealings with the colonists?

[And then it strikes her, like a sunburst through the clouds on an overcast day, and she realises what should have been so very obvious. How could she not see it? It makes perfect sense.]

Or is one of your parents from the lands beyond ours?

[His features are not wholly Kanien'kehá:ka, like her son's, and perhaps that explains away why it is he seems so familiar. She knows Ratonhnhaké:ton cannot be the only child born of a union such as hers and Haytham's was.]

Tell me, what year did they bring you here from?

Yes.

[An answer he gives only once. He stays on the move as he explains.]

I have had a number of dealings with the Colonists. And my father is one of them.

[Not the most telling of facts. Marriage between the Haudenosaunee and their white neighbors does happen on occasion.

But her asking for the year gives him pause. He stops and cranes his head back to look at the sky, a motion that could perhaps be mistaken for reminiscing.]

It was 1776.

[1776. Sixteen years ahead of her? She knows that it cannot be, should not be, but she should not be here either. She should be at home in the village waiting for her son to come home.

This man is a child born of two worlds, like her son, and then suddenly she stops in her tracks and stares at his back. An idea begins to spread its tendrils through her mind, one she wants to dismiss as being unreasonable even beyond the many strange things she has already seen today. This one is terrible, this one she cannot give weight to by voicing it.

She moves again, walks around so she can see his face as he looks to the sky, her brows knit in concentration as she really looks at him. That chin, the smattering of freckles over his nose and cheeks... If his face was softer, rounder, if he were younger-

It cannot be. This man must be too old, he carries himself like a man much, much older than the age of twenty that her son will be when 1776 comes to be.

And yet...]

...and how old are you?

[... He feared that question would be next.

Ratonhnhaké:ton swallows slowly and drops his eyes from the thick clouds overhead to her, to his mother, who is still really here.

She will know if he gives up his age. Or will she? Would he recognize her if she had been brought to this place from another time in her life? Would he know her as a child? He'd like to think so - that he would recognize her spirit even if she was much younger, but he has no way to be certain of that.

And that isn't the situation here.

The need to embrace her is stronger than ever, overwhelming and painful. He comes very close to wrapping her in a tight hug and letting the gesture say what he hasn't spoken...

But the thought of being pushed away, of seeing any fear or anger in her eyes, keeps his arms still. He must wait until she knows, if not until when she understands.]

In my time, it has been twenty years since my birth. Here, I may be another year older but it is hard to say. I arrived in a different season than the one I left.

[He steps around her carefully.]

We should keep moving if you are able.

[Twenty years. It is too much of a coincidence.

The idea does not want to leave her alone, it keeps prodding and poking at her as she looks at this man who is only a few years younger than her and she just can't help but think that maybe, just maybe, it's not just an idea. Maybe there is truth in it.

But she can't be sure, not yet.

She nods her head at his suggestion they move on and follows him, watching him carefully and really looking at him now, trying to see all the pieces of him and seeing if they match the boy in her mind. He looks so much older, but is that Haytham's chin? His nose? She would stop him and look into his eyes until she could see for herself if the truth is in them, but if it is not... how strange would she look stopping a stranger and staring into his eyes to see if they were hers?]

I am able. Lead on.

[But she can't let go of it. She can't help but feel if there's something she's missing...

She keeps walking, her head low as she thinks it over. Is this man her son? Is she mad to think that this could even be a possibility? It should be impossible, but then it should also not be possible to be ripped from her home and sent over seas and forward in time over hundreds of years to this wretched, broken place.

And if Ratonhnhaké:ton has been brought here too...

How would she even go about asking that?]

[Ratonhnhaké:ton ducks his head in another nod and resumes walking, keeping a few short steps ahead of his mother to guide her along.

He bears his racing thoughts and newfound anxiety in silence as they follow the backstreets to his camp. What should he explain first? What would be easiest for her? There is so much to say...

And what if he wakes up and this has all been some too-real dream?

He steals a furtive glance over his shoulder at her... only to trip over a crack in the pavement during that brief moment of distraction.

Recovering from his stumble, he shakes his head, motions at the ground, and mumbles a warning.]

Careful.

[She watches him trip and address his grievances to the ground, and for a moment it should make her laugh but that moment when he had wavered over the crack, when his eyes had widened briefly, it stirs something in her that makes her suddenly take stock of everything.

Is it- could it be-

It couldn't.

But in that moment, whether imagined or real, she could swear she sees her son in this grown man before her. She can see traces of herself, of Haytham in his chin and mouth... the chances of this are astronomical, this should not be a possibility but she feels herself grow more anxious the longer she wavers over this. She must know. She's not sure if she wants to, but she knows that she has to.

So she takes her chance.]

Skennen’kó:wa kenh Ratonhnhaké:ton?

[Too deep into his pondering and planning, he doesn't catch it.]

Hén, Ista.

[At least, not until he answers her, as casually as he might have sixteen years ago after tumbling off a low tree branch or slipping into the river. His hand is raised at his side in a reassuring gesture and it freezes there, along with the rest of him.

Did she just...? And he...

Ratonhnhaké:ton draws a shallow breath and lowers his arm, all thoughts of what to say forgotten.

Her question suddenly has new meaning. Yes, he almost repeats himself. Yes, I am all right. Better than all right. Yes, I have peace.

Hén, Ista. It is me.

Instead, he turns halfway back toward his mother and, after one last hesitating pause, lunges for her.

He will take that hug now.]

[Kaniehtí:io is not sure which hits her with greater force; the shock that her suspicions have been proven correct, or the several hundred pounds of muscle that apparently embody her son.

She suspects that it is both.

She is so stunned that she almost buckles under his weight as he takes her into his arms- he takes her- and dwarfs her in his embrace. This isn't right, this isn't right at all, he's supposed to be so much smaller, softer, weaker than her, she's supposed to lift him in her arms and hold him aloft and press kisses in his hair, not be dwarfed by this, well, bear of a man.

How. How is this possible and why?

The shock renders her rigid for a moment, frozen in his arms like a post. Gradually though, it begins to wear off and hesitantly she brings her arms around this man- her son- and she does her best to hold him back.]

You are my Ratonhnhaké:ton?

[Her voice is bewildered, but there is a part of her that just... knows and she has no explanation for it. She knows. There is no need for her to have it confirmed. She might not understand, but she knows that this is her son.]

Edited 2013-08-15 03:42 (UTC)

[Ratonhnhaké:ton isn't the least bit discouraged when it takes his mother a moment to return his embrace, but he does hug her a little tighter when her hands finally rest against his back.

Then he's quiet and still in her arms.

His mother. Here. Alive and well.

When he at last draws back enough to look upon her face, his eyes are bright and his smile wide. He nods quickly.]

It is as I said: the Initiative steals people from different times. I could have been brought here as a child... or as an old man. [Assuming he lives long enough to become one.] I did not know how to tell you. You were looking for a different me.

[Ziio stands there, stunned, listening as he explains, and when he gives her space, allows her a moment to take stock and process it all, she remains silent, staring at him wide eyed and trying to reconcile this man with her son. There is so much that is different and wrong here and she wants to deny it, even now she knows the truth.

She is still stunned by this, and then she takes a step forward, trying to see beyond the years to the little boy she knows. There's his smile, that much is certain.

She takes his face between her hands, not waiting for permission and not caring how rude that is, but if it's her boy, if it's really her boy-

Those are his eyes.

She moves a hand to her mouth to catch the small noise of surprised realisation, the other stays on his cheek as she stares at him.]

You- you are grown so big. Where is my little bear?

[Finally she moves her hand away from his cheek, turning it into a caress as she does, but her hands rest on his shoulders. She is not done looking at him yet, not by a long shot.]

[He stands a touch straighter but doesn't so much as fidget as she looks over him, over the man that's taken the place of her child. When her hands fall to his shoulders, he raises one of his to hers.]

Right here, Ista. He is just not so little anymore.

[She cannot call him little bear anymore, not really. He is so much taller than her now, she has to look up at him instead of the other way round. He is too big for her to catch him around his waist and tug squirming and laughing onto her lap to cover his round little face with kisses. He is too big for her to hold in her arms and quiet when bad dreams wake him in the night.

He's not her little boy.

He's a man.

And he is still as beautiful and dear to her as the moment that her mother laid him squalling on her breast seconds after he was born.

His hand is so much bigger than hers, it covers it completely on his shoulder. For a moment she looks at it, then at him again. Her boy the man, with his hair tamed and tied away from his face instead of flying away from it at every angle. He is broader than his father, dressed in the clothes of a colonist- an Assassin even- but he's still Kanien'kehá:ka. There is a story to be told here, one she knows she must hear, but right now it seems unimportant in the face of this man her son has become whom she does not know.]

You-

[Words, it seems, do not want to come to her, so she will hug him again.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only