initiatesnpc: (Default)
initiates NPCs ([personal profile] initiatesnpc) wrote in [community profile] exsiliumlogs2012-06-23 09:32 am

TEMPORAL TURBULENCE: BRAZIL&NORWAY

Date & Time: Brazil, 1200 A.D./Norway, 1201 A.D.
Location: Assorted
Characters: Alistair, Bariyan, Chloe, Martin Darkov, Natasha, Robin, Sark
Summary: Group #4's adventures spent lost in time.
Warnings: Violence? (notify Elle or Liz of anything else worthy of labeling)



The mission was set. Team members were given their equipment: The cloaking devices would acclimate to the area and disguise them based on the historical data pulled in. There was a weapons check: The Initiative was insistent about having those chosen weapons along for the ride. Four operatives were introduced as beacons: They would stay in contact with the Initiative and relay any alterations in plans until the mission was deemed a success. And it had to be a success, or disaster would be the only thing left.



1890 A.D.

There was a man, not very well-known as far as famous men go. A writer. His existence alone was not the significant factor in the timeline's disturbance, but his profession and his choice to tell a particular, peculiar story.

This man, the Initiative states, helped sow the seeds for modern time travel centuries before its prime. What was a captivating fiction in that man's time was the reality of today, and without his account of the Time Traveler, there was risk of the very existence of so much. The recruits absolutely have a stake in this.


To the export room — the massive, rather bare and bleak place where so many were to exit and put a stop to what was putting a stop to the writer's tale. It was as yet unclear, but the Initiative is certain they'll know it when they see it, that it will be revealed once their reluctant soldiers set foot on ancient soil.

One last check, one last insistence on the urgency of their task. One, final urging to avoid as direct an impact as possible without ruining their chances; keep your temporal footprint as light as you can.

Good luck. We're counting on you.



A flash, a bitten-back breath, a blink...The room was gone.

But this wasn't right.

Out of the many who were assigned, only seven remained. Seven, and an Initiative's operative, who was immediately aware of a problem. A big problem.


BRAZIL, 1200 A.D.


The village the eight found themselves in was in no way even close to the one they were targeting. Already, the cloaking devices were fumbling to find disguises to suit, lacking the historical data for an appropriate match for an undiscovered Brazil. Historically undiscovered, anyway; if the ghost city they had arrived in was anything to go by, humans were not strangers to this land.

But it was empty. Birdsong echoed off great stone structures, some decorated, some bare, but all vacant. There's a faint scent in the air of salt from an unseen but not-so-distant ocean, and a thick, heavy humidity causing a sweat right away.

Over six centuries too far back, the data relays. And no answer as to how to get back.



NORWAY, 1201 A.D.


The heat is very suddenly gone, replaced with a breath-stealing cold. There is snow to the ankles and a sharp wind blasting through. Mid-gust, the party has arrived in a land so far away from the last, but barely a blink away in time.

One whole year. The dismay in the operative's report cannot be disguised, nor was there any attempt to. Whatever was going on with the equipment back at the Hold was serious trouble.

Speaking of serious trouble. Unlike the first, there were no quiet and empty cities to wonder at; this frozen land was very much alive, filled with the scattered shapes of horses and ironclad men racing to a location unseen in this bone-chilling darkness. Flickers of firelight on metal, the loud whinny of a horse and a man's shout straining to echo far...Something was certainly up.
undeadarmies: (Living Dead Girl)

[personal profile] undeadarmies 2012-07-01 02:14 am (UTC)(link)
[What does "not long" really mean? She doesn't say it though, simply smiles and bobs her head up and down in a nod. The longer they're here, the more time they have to mess up something in time.]

Yes, sir. [She echoes Martin's words, glancing off to the side. It wasn't the living wild that worries her though. Since dropping off in this place, she's felt the constant tingle of a dead bodies nearby. A source of worry for someone who was still untrained.

Chloe's tugged out of her thoughts when Martin yells, jumping slightly without realizing how tense she really is.]
I-it's just a bird...
undeadarmies: (Gravedancers)

[personal profile] undeadarmies 2012-07-01 02:20 am (UTC)(link)
It probably was weird to talk about such things. Monsters. A few months ago, if anyone had tried to have a serious conversation with her like this, tried to say they actually hunted monsters, she'd probably have run away. Thought they were crazy. Maybe that was the funny thing, since that was exactly what happened to her.

"Are they all bad?" Her voice softened, the tone a mixture of curiosity and maybe sympathy. They all thought Derek was a monster too, because of what he was. But it wasn't true. "The monsters, that is. Do you just kill them because of what they are?"
theguideless: (◊ frown and bear it)

[personal profile] theguideless 2012-07-01 02:24 am (UTC)(link)
"Monsters are...monsters," Martin said, his voice raising slightly in a confused kind of way. Osprey had gone that angle before, questioned just what a monster happened to be. The boy shrugged his shoulders against it, brow furrowed. "They...poison animals. Kill the land. People...Humans, I mean. And we have to protect them. Or we'll die, too."
hernes_son: (Default)

[personal profile] hernes_son 2012-07-01 02:48 am (UTC)(link)
[Robin's lips quirk slightly, though he would not for the world be caught smiling at poor Martin. He's just so very... Much.

He scans the land, occasionally touching a frond of leaves as he passes a tree or bush. So unfamiliar, and yet, life is life, and what the birds and small game eat is likely to be safe for people also. Therefore Martin's bird is cause for some small celebration, as there is a stand of long-leaved plants nearby, heavy with blue-black berries. Robin tastes a few; the flavor is tart, mild, not unpleasant.]

Well done, Martin.

[There's nothing to collect them in, but Robin's dealt with that before. He shrugs off his shirt and ties off the collar, knotting the sleeves into a sort of sling, and begins to fill this rustic pouch with the berries.

They stain the cloth and his fingertips purple, and this gives Robin an idea. He mashes up a few of the berries and with the juice sketches a rune of warding just at the base of his throat. This land is not his own, he knows, and likely the spirits are different too, but... it couldn't hurt.

And indeed the insects do seem to back off a bit. Robin offers sticky purple fingers to his companions.] It might help with the biters. Shall I?
theguideless: (◊ w-wait uh)

[personal profile] theguideless 2012-07-01 12:52 pm (UTC)(link)
[the whole time, Martin's just staring in dumb awe.

wait.

he did something right? in the shadow of something stupid?

and...he squints — what's Robin doing with...?]


What...? Why is — [impulsively, he looks to the next nearest person — Chloe, this time — for more explanation. that can't be normal.]
stonefaith: (uncomfortable | this is not okay)

[personal profile] stonefaith 2012-07-01 03:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Bariyan looked down to kick at the snow, stamping it flat, listless. Drawing his next breath in through his teeth. What did he know about the sister? Little. Nothing. That she had to be saved, somehow, from something.

"What happened to her?" he asked. A blunt question, one that he'd perhaps asked before. He could not recall. There'd been many questions asked, since coming here. Fewer answers given.
theguideless: (◊ one more time)

[personal profile] theguideless 2012-07-01 04:11 pm (UTC)(link)
The numbness was starting to lose hold, overpowered by a strong knot in his stomach. All it needed to start was thinking on her, saying the name out loud, huh?

"She's...poisoned," he said, looking and sounding unhappy with the word choice. "There's a monster on...in her now. It's my fault. That she'll die." The knot tightened. Just like Father. "Just like...Robin."

He's dead because of me, too. No amount of cold was going to numb him from that. Sure, they'd been rather too busy to dwell on it, but now?

Martin's fingers pinched his arms as hard as they could, well after it hurt.

"I keep...killing people. And hurting them. By being around, or...messing up."
stonefaith: (downcast | takes its toll)

[personal profile] stonefaith 2012-07-02 01:09 am (UTC)(link)
"That's not true." An automatic response at this point, repeated over and over in the hopes that maybe one day Martin would not shrug it off. But it brought Bariyan down, made him sad; sad to think that one boy already thought the weight of the world was entirely his to bear. The weight of several worlds, even. And try as he might, Bariyan could not convince Martin to relieve himself of any of his burdens.

Bariyan sighed, tilting his head away to look back at the sky. Too tired, too angry at himself to say anything more on the matter. There was not enough strength in him to start the back-and-forth that he expected, should he try to dissuade Martin from his guilts again.

But something Martin had said hooked a claw into Bariyan's thoughts, and would not leave him alone. So he spoke. "But your sister is still alive."
undeadarmies: (The Strangers)

[personal profile] undeadarmies 2012-07-02 03:35 am (UTC)(link)
[So she's landed herself in a group with a. Sorcerer? Chloe stares in awe at Robin before she glances back at Martin. What's normal, anyway? Time travel.]

No. [That's said to Robin instead. She doesn't know what kind of magic he's doing, but she's wary enough to not trust it. Girl's gotta learn at some point.]
theguideless: (◊ refusing)

[personal profile] theguideless 2012-07-02 10:56 am (UTC)(link)
"Sevens will kill her," he blurted, thinking it simultaneously. "If I don't...fix things. Somehow. I don't know how, I just...said I would fix it. I said I just needed a little time to."

Martin's expression hardened as he stared upward. Something in his veins was heating up. "I think...I only got it to keep me out of the way. Nobody thinks I can. Because I'm me."
hernes_son: (messy archer)

[personal profile] hernes_son 2012-07-02 03:04 pm (UTC)(link)
[Robin would have a fit if he realized what Chloe was thinking. Sorcerers are evil, mad, power-hungry... well, in his experience, anyway. He is a mere adept, Herne's chosen Son, a practitioner of the simple ways.

But to each her own, so he does not press the issue. If she prefers to be eaten alive by the rather enthusiastic insect population here, so be it.]

As you like.

[He reflects that it's probably fortunate that he knows several recipes to cope with itching.

There is a movement in the underbrush ahead. Robin strings his bow and looks at the other two.] What do you say, shall I hunt, or do you prefer that we only gather?

[Robin is unaware of the theory of the butterfly effect.]
stonefaith: (thoughtful | so how about them apples)

[personal profile] stonefaith 2012-07-02 11:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Bariyan considered that. Martin hardly had a good track record here: a few small successes still overshadowed, even in Bariyan's mind, by the man that Martin had killed in Assyria. And Martin's track record back home hardly looked any better.

So Bariyan could understand wanting to keep Martin out of the way. In the end, hadn't that been what he'd meant to do? Not that he'd succeeded. His failure to do so was why they were even here, right now.

"Well," Bariyan said, brushing snow off his sleeves, shaking his own thoughts off. "It appears that you have all the time in your world now."

He could not help but still sound bitter about that. The state of his own world and the things he'd left behind still weighed heavily on his mind. But that was not up for discussion, and never would be, if Bariyan had any say about it.

"So...." Bariyan cocked his head to the side, giving Martin a sidelong glance. "Do you think you can save her?"
theguideless: (◊ one more time)

[personal profile] theguideless 2012-07-03 12:13 am (UTC)(link)
"I don't know," Martin replied, hardly taking time to stop and think about it. "I still have to, even if I can't."

He was getting aggravated. It wasn't a common thing — something he couldn't even recognize feeling. It was better to be cold, but there was heat under his skin, burning not unlike the fire cold started after exposure for so long. He clenched his jaw tightly, enough to make it hurt, and then let his breath out in a long and heavy huff, vapor blasting out into the air.

"Or...she's dead."
stonefaith: (neutral | this can't be happening)

[personal profile] stonefaith 2012-07-03 01:01 am (UTC)(link)
Bariyan was looking at his hands, now, turning them over, pulling at a thumb, now drawing a nail down the head line of his palm. Almost detached, almost as if he weren't listening -- but he was.

It was simply that... there were boundaries, now. Just as Bariyan didn't believe that they ought to be here, he too believed that he had to remain at a distance where Martin's home was concerned. He could judge; he did judge. But in the end whatever he thought could not translate into anything useful in the material world. What could he do to help, or even to harm? Nothing. Even less than what he could do for Martin here.

But he questioned, all the same.

"No one else will take responsibility for your sister?" Bariyan raised his eyes, finally. "They left this all to you?"
theguideless: (◊ my fault)

[personal profile] theguideless 2012-07-03 01:06 am (UTC)(link)
"No," Martin corrected, insisting. "I asked. I begged. I said...I'd do it. I'd fix it. So nobody else has to die."

He rocked back, his back hitting the tree, obliging him to slide down. He did so without much protest, his teeth clenching again as his arms coiled around himself, over a shoulders and to his neck.

"I went mad. Because there's no way..."
stonefaith: (guilty | i've made a huge mistake)

[personal profile] stonefaith 2012-07-03 01:26 am (UTC)(link)
Two more breaths, and then Bariyan stopped breathing all together. Something he was doing more and more often here, feeling strange and out of place when he saw the vapor that hung around others' heads, completely absent around his own.

"And what will you do if there is no way?" Bariyan asked, his uncertainty manifesting in the shift of his feet, transferring weight from one leg to the other. "There are things that... sometimes, they can't be done." A lesson hard-learned on Bariyan's part.
theguideless: (◊ foreign things)

[personal profile] theguideless 2012-07-03 01:30 am (UTC)(link)
"I'll do it anyway," Martin mumbled bleakly. "I have to try."
stonefaith: (angry | fuck off bro)

[personal profile] stonefaith 2012-07-03 01:49 am (UTC)(link)
Bariyan was still looking at his hands when he replied, and so he saw -- observed, as if from a distance -- his right hand clench into a fist, nails digging into cold skin.

"Will it get you killed?" Bariyan's voice sharpened, suddenly. Again, a reaction that he hadn't the time to suppress.

Monster, Martin had said. Bariyan knew little about possession in his own world, let alone Martin's, but he could not imagine that it would not be dangerous.
theguideless: flawfree <user name="oceanwrath"> art (◊ ugh)

[personal profile] theguideless 2012-07-03 01:57 am (UTC)(link)
"I don't know." Probably. "Maybe." Hopefully.

He did hope, and often. Not intentionally, not every time, but he did entertain the idea. Wondered what it would feel like. Wondered if it was really all that bad a thing, especially if he managed to save her. It'd almost be heroic, maybe? Which was way more than he deserved, so who was he kidding?

"I don't think it really matters."
stonefaith: (downcast | takes its toll)

[personal profile] stonefaith 2012-07-03 02:13 am (UTC)(link)
The colors were doing strange things in the sky, now; green ribbons now tipped with blue, now purple, weaving a slow way across the cloudless sky. Bariyan's suspicion had evaporated, with time; if something was going to happen, it would have happened by now.

He lowered his eyes back to the ground.

"That's childish of you to say," Bariyan said, but without even the slightest hint of anger. Or any emotion at all. "You don't think your cousins will miss you?"

There was a slight crack in his voice, right before 'your cousins'. As if he'd been on the verge of saying something else.
theguideless: (◊ more apologies)

[personal profile] theguideless 2012-07-03 02:18 am (UTC)(link)
Martin started to scowl, shrinking down into himself a little. He'd not wanted to talk about any of this tonight. Anything at all. As far as he was concerned, everything just sort of...happened, and he wanted to wish it away.

"I don't know," he uttered. "But they'll be fine. They're all really strong. And good."
stonefaith: (downcast | on second thought)

[personal profile] stonefaith 2012-07-03 02:43 am (UTC)(link)
"That doesn't matter," Bariyan said. "I'm sure they'll hurt all the same."

And I? He wondered. What would I do? Neither good nor strong, barely even alive, less than the sliver of a heart left in him.... Not even enough to know if his words were fueled by something genuine, or by some blurry ideal that meant little to nothing at all.

"I just hope you realize that death is a very permanent thing. That's a hurt your family won't recover from," Bariyan said. Then he smiled, the expression cold and frozen. His fist unclenched.
theguideless: (◊ my fault)

[personal profile] theguideless 2012-07-03 02:51 am (UTC)(link)
Martin lifted his eyes up and stared dimly back at Bariyan. What did it matter? All Bariyan wanted to do was get rid of him. And why?

Someone has to. He said so. Some kind of obligation. A fetter. And in that way, it was like family. In all the ways he was not — blood, work, upbringing...There was, at least, that. Having to deal with a burden like Martin Darkov because someone has to.

"It won't hurt much," he said, though the strength of his voice had already withered before saying much at all. His shoulders shrugged up, settling his cheek down against his knees, arms coiling tighter. "'ll be fine."
stonefaith: (angry | that ain't an excuse)

[personal profile] stonefaith 2012-07-03 08:56 am (UTC)(link)
"Childish," Bariyan said, again, "and selfish." There was a bite in his words now, cold and bitter and grieving, but it was perhaps stronger in his voice than it was in his heart. His hands in fists again -- when had that happened?

He had more to say, a whole deluge of words, but the cold that he could not feel froze them in his throat. So for the moment Bariyan said nothing more. Let his accusations hang on the air. All the clearer and sharper for this land and weather.

And what about you?, he wondered. Had he not once felt the same way as Martin-- did he not still? He did, despite all the good that it had done him in a different life. Hypocritical, pathetic.
theguideless: (◊ still wrong)

[personal profile] theguideless 2012-07-03 11:10 am (UTC)(link)
No it's not, he thought, curling fingers against his sleeve at the shoulder. Even if it was, it wasn't. He was...almost certain of that. And even if it was, it was the only thing he had to do. So he'd do it.

But he wouldn't cough up a good enough excuse for it, that was certain. He let Bariyan's words hang there, true or not, without any open protest. They were probably true, anyway. Even if they weren't. He didn't want nor expect encouragement; didn't deserve it.

I killed three people. It's going to be four.

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