TEMPORAL TURBULENCE: BRAZIL&NORWAY

[initiatesnpc]

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.

Comments

[theguideless]

Martin stared blank-faced at Bariyan and his question, blinking slowly, but seeming to not wholly grasp the meaning. Miss what? What's it? The life? That life...his life was...nothing to miss. Not as it.

Them, though...

"I miss my cousins," he said, the sentiment not registering on his face just yet. Some of my cousins, anyway. "And my sister."

[stonefaith]

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]

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]

"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."

[theguideless]

"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."

[stonefaith]

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]

"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]

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]

"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]

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]

"I'll do it anyway," Martin mumbled bleakly. "I have to try."

[stonefaith]

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]

"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]

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]

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]

"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]

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]

"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]

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.

[stonefaith]

The cold passed. Bariyan's hands were suddenly all action, fingers stiff, ten fingers tangling into his hair, nails digging into his scalp.

"I am not saying... that you shouldn't save your sister, or that I don't believe you can. I am saying that you should not go in with this idea that--" He stopped. One palm dragging down to cover his eyes. "That your life is yours to throw away."

Whose, then? A question that Bariyan had never been able to answer, one unanswered question among a sea of others. He had not lived long enough to unravel all the queries he'd had about living.... But he held tight what he did know and what he did believe, still, even after all this time. Even if he did not want to admit to it.

"You can save her," Bariyan said, shoulders falling. "Don't die for her."

[theguideless]

It didn't make a whole lot of sense to him, half-listening, half-working it out. Martin scowled into his sleeve, hiding his face more, as if doing so would close the topic. Make it stop; it's not what he came out there for.

Why does it matter, anyway? Why on Earth Bariyan was so insistent in protecting him, wasting his time on him still eluded him. Especially since it seemed to do nothing but aggravate him so. It wasn't like he was actual family, actually obligated.

He made a sound, muffled, but unintelligible.

[stonefaith]

Hearing no coherent response, Bariyan crouched down, closer to Martin. He still loomed over the boy, but the tree overshadowed them both. As did the vast white cold of this land, as did the lights and colors still hanging in the sky. The strangeness of it all.

Bariyan frowned down at Martin's hunched shoulders.

"Are you listening to me, Darkov?"

[theguideless]

I don't want to anymore, he thought miserably, feeling his stomach do another turn. The fire under his skin was ebbing out, leaving an unpleasant feeling behind. He'd rather be numb.

Martin took more time than he needed to turn his head and peek up past his bangs at the shape Bariyan took crouched over him.

"Yes, sir," he mumbled blandly into his sleeve. So we don't have to talk about it anymore.

[stonefaith]

"Are you, now." Bariyan folded his arms over his knees, still staring, still frowning. He was beginning to wonder whether all of Martin's yessirs meant the exact opposite.

He sighed, and hung his head to turn his stare back to the snow.

"Look, Martin. I can't... I won't be there, when you return home." If you ever return home. If I can ever make good on that promise. "So I can't control what you do there. But when we're done here, when you go...."

Bariyan trailed off. His clear lines of thought had dissolved away, lost in his grip. If they were ever there at all.

He shook his head. "Think about what I've said. That's all."

[theguideless]

The second yes, sir was virtually inaudible, drowned out by Bariyan's sigh. Martin's forehead wrinkled along with his grimace, and he squeezed his eyes shut as the dead man went on talking. It would've been better had he been yelling at him, calling him out again on his stupidity.

"You don't have to be kind," he croaked, ducking his head down again.