paradisalogs | What is this thing that builds our dreams

Entry tags:

What is this thing that builds our dreams

Who: Zoe and you! OAT completely, not even kidding.
What: Zoe Arrives, she is confused and short tempered.
When: Early evening, Sunday.
Where: Roaming around the castle.
Rating: PG-13, may involve course language and minor violence.

Hoban Washburne was dead.

Lots of other folks had perished in the events following the rediscovery of Miranda, but none had been so keenly felt as the pilot's.

She'd fly true, hadn't that been what she'd told her captain? Both Serenity and herself, more so herself in that reference. Three whole days since she last cried without knowing it. She wouldn't stretch it so far as to say she was on the mend, but she was functional. Her back still made her wince with each stretched movement though. Doc said it would take time to heal, well time they had.

Crew touched down on Hera, hadn't been back in years but it seemed a fitting enough place to cool their heels and line up their new lives. Mal an River had taken up piloting Serenity so they weren't in the market for a new pilot just yet. Zoe suspected that courtesy was owed more out of respect to Wash and comfort for her than the lack of funds the captain blamed it on.

They were makin' peace, they were movin' on.

Movin' on don't normally mean waking up in a bunk that ain't yours though. Nor does it mean finding yourself on some strange kinda place that looked like a story book from Earth the was. Zoe had woke with a start and sat up sharply, she instantly regretted the move; pain lanced up through her spine and doubled her over. Slow and steady was a hard thing to get used to and in this circumstance it was not something she was willing to do right now.

Zoe grunted through the pain and let her fingers trail back to check the long scar down her back. A couple of spots felt like the flesh bond might have split but it was good enough. She could move with this wound, that was what mattered.

With gritted teeth Zoe pushed herself off the bed and to the door, she paused only long enough to sling on her gun belt and holster her sidearm. The mare's leg,by now practically a part of her, was held at the ready as she ventured out into the hall; from there she intended to see just what the hell was going on.

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Jennifer had woken up that morning to find Blue sleeping on her doorstep, the sheepdog that she knew belonged to her friend merely nosing against her hand when she reached down to rouse him, showing no sign that he was lost or scared. She'd let him inside her room, deciding that perhaps he'd gotten off his leash while on a walk, come back to the castle, gotten lost looking for Ray's room and lay in front of a door with another familiar scent to rest. That thought mentally settled (and not even considering the other possibility), Jennifer decided to give him breakfast while she ate her own, then wished a leash into existence, deciding to walk him around the castle to go and find Ray.

Her mind was beginning to wander the longer they went without finding him, but Jennifer stopped short with a small gasp of surprise as she saw a woman holding a gun a short distance down the hallway.

Zoe saw the woman, saw the dog. Neither of them quite cranked up her warning bells, so she eased closer. It didn't mean the gun was any less visible or her hand strayed from the trigger, but there was no certain, direct and overt danger in her.

"Mind tellin' me just where I am, who you are and how I came to be here?"

Jennifer swallowed, wishing she would put the gun down. She'd never seen the woman before, and her question indicated being new to the castle, so part of her supposed she couldn't blame her for being on her guard. Blue, however, didn't seem unduly bothered, so she tried to relax. However, her voice was a little higher than normal due to nervousness.

"Uhm. You're in a castle called Paradisa. I know you're probably not going to like hearing this, but nobody has any idea how we're brought here, we just... appear."

She hesitated before adding,

"I'm Dr. Keller."

[Chell had been just wandering the corridors, as was her habit when she noticed a woman...holding a weapon...

Her hand instantly, from years of habit went to the firing position of her nonexistent ASHPD before she remembered. Forcing her hands back to her side, she eased a few steps forward, eying the woman nervously. Slowly, she raised her hand in a wave.]

Closer she got to the woman the wider her eyes got.

"...Kaylee?" She blinked several times, it looked like the engineer..might thinner and older maybe and the voice was slightly different but.. uncanny.

"What are you talking about? Captain put you up to this? Some job he didn't see fit to tell me about?"

The other was noted and that wave got a raised brow. She could deal with that in a minute. For now why the hell was Kaylee acting off in the head?

[Chell nodded at that raised eyebrow, and seeing that the two women before her were engaged in a very serious conversation of some type or other, she slinked away into the shadows.]

[OOC: I apologize for that. The perils of tagging while half-asleep. I'll go make a proper reply in another thread.

Jennifer noticed the second woman approaching and gave her a kind smile before freezing up at the question. There it was again. Several people now had mistaken her for someone named Kaylee- and she had no idea why. She made a mental note to ask about it later, but that didn't solve what was going on now.

"You're not the only person who's called me that," she finally said slowly, fighting the urge to turn and walk away- and noticing that the other woman had done so, for which she was grateful. "I'm not her, though, sorry. Just someone who sounds a lot like her, I guess."

"Sound nuthin', I know the girl who has kept our butts in the sky for years now. I'd know her anywhere."

But...there was something off. Kaylee smiled, even with the gun turned on her she would have been friendly. And she surely would not have pretended to be someone else.

Zoe's eyes narrowed just a bit and she stepped closer to the thinner, older looking Kaylee. She gave the girl a through once over and, though it was uncanny, this was not Kaylee. Just to be sure though...

Zoe tugged at the girls collar and bared her throat. No scars, no sign of the darts Reapers had fired into her at the battle.

"So maybe you ain't Kaylee. More of a twin then I ever have seen though." She stepped back and rested the shotgun a moment. "Name's Zoe, you mind explaining some things?"

Jennifer almost flinched away when the woman reached for her, but realization dawned when she examined her closely- probably looking for some kind of telltale mark or scar, she guessed. Blue made a whuffling noise and nudged her leg reassuringly.

"I'll try," she finally said. "And I... I wish I was the person you're looking for. I can't even imagine how that feels." She wanted to posit that perhaps she was an alternate universe version of this Kaylee- it certainly wasn't unheard of in her world, after all- but decided to keep her mouth shut on the subject for now.

"So how about startin' with where am I an then movin' along to how I got to be here." Where the crew was would come in after she had the facts.

"You're in a castle called Paradisa," Jennifer replied, gesturing around her. "There's a town nearby, too, but most of us live in the castle itself. As to how you got here... well, I'm not sure anybody can explain that. I don't know myself."

"A castle." OK, she could deal with that it did look the part after all.

"An ships? Where are they?" Serenity had to be here somewhere, if she could find that she could find Mal, get his ass out of whatever trouble he'd gotten it into and then make a plan to get the others and get out.

"Ships?" Jennifer repeated, then shook her head. "There aren't any- not that I know of or have ever seen, anyway."

"Gwai-gwai long duh dong." The words might be foreign but the roll of eyes, the expression and tone gave it away as an expression of displeasure.

"How do you go about findin folks in this place? My crew, I need to find 'em before they go stirring up trouble we don't need."

Jennifer furrowed her eyebrows at the unknown phrase, but the woman's expression conveyed all she needed to know.

"Have you found your journal yet?" Jennifer reached into the messenger bag at her side and pulled out the bound leather book. "Instant communication with anybody in the castle. Everything you write in or dictate to this book can be seen and heard by everyone else in the castle. And no, nobody knows how it words," she finished, anticipating the inevitable question.

"Journal?" But not-Kaylee was quick enough to produce it for her to see what she meant. Zoe frowned and let her gaze drift back to the room she'd come out of.

"I didn't exactly look for a book, not much of the readin' sort, that's Wa-," There was a pained moment when she bit back her words and looked very nearly about to cry, it passed a moment later. "Not much of a reader like I said. Might be something back in that room though, I didn't really look through it."

"I can't really blame you for not thinking of something like that," Jennifer replied. "But that's really the easiest way to find out more. I haven't been in this place for very long, but some have been here for years. They know a lot about the castle."

"Ain't exactly a daily part of life where I come from." She looked around and back to the Kaylee look alike. "You said you was some kinda doctor?"

Jennifer nodded.

"Medical. I'm a general practitioner." Which wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth. Jennifer was still wary of revealing too many specifics about Atlantis, however; it was ingrained in her to protect the privacy and secutity of the city at all costs, and it was a hard habit to break. "I don't insist on using my title, though; Jennifer is fine, too. And you're...?"

"Jennifer." That was one of the old Earth the Was names that used to be popular. She nodded in greeting and shouldered the shotgun.

"Zoe, just Zoe is fine." Always good to know a doctor, she'd made it a fair sight better by having Simon in their good graces than they would have otherwise.

Jennifer visibly relaxed when Zoe shouldered her weapon, though she tried not to make it too obvious.

"Well. I'd say 'nice to meet you', but... hey, it's still nice, despite the circumstances."

"Nice to meet you." She sounded odd saying it, not something that was natural to her or something.

"Takin it you know this place?"

"Somewhat," Jennifer replied. "I've been here for a few months now, but there have been others that have been here for... years, even. It's a pretty big place."

[There was something niggling at the back of Chell's mind. That woman she'd seen earlier.... She looked pretty darn lost and confused. And here Chell had unintentionally butted in on her conversation. She should really apologize for that, she figured. So she's wandering the halls, looking for this woman.]

Zoe would be found making her way down to where she was told the kitchen was. She had a powerful hunger and need to know the layout of this strange place. No matter how long she was going to be there (which she intended to be a short time) she needed to have her bearings.

[Chell's eyes roamed the nearby hall, suddenly settling on a slightly familiar figure, moving toward the kitchen. Quickly she jogged after, her boots making their customary interesting thud-clonk noises on the stone floor... She thought of writing this woman a message, but she didn't seem to have a journal... So for now Chell just ran along behind her.]

The journal had been left back in that room she woke up in, the one that by now had her name etched in the plate on the door. But she didn't know that did she? Zoe was in a strange place, with strange people. If what the Not!Kaylee had said then there was a lot to learn here.

There was also someone following her, and not at all discretely. Zoe took a corner sharpish and ducked into the first niche she could find, she waited, back tot he wall and out of sight for her follower to show herself.

[It's the exact woman who walked in on your earlier. She wanders past your corner and pauses. She's not noticed where you've gone just yet, but very pale grey eyes are flicking around everywhere, searching both for you, and seemingly also for other dangers.

And when her eyes fall on you, a smile flits across her face, and she bends her head, writing in her journal. Then, lips pursed in thought, she debates on how to let you see the message. She could let you have her journal, but she doesn't know you... So thinking for a second, she rips the page out of the journal, and offers it to you. Should you take it, there is a message in scrawling handwriting covering half the page.]

I'm sorry for interrupting your conversation earlier.

[The message is signed simply... Chell.]

Zoe blinked and read the message. The girl didn't seem scared, she did seem wary but that was far from the same thing.

"Don't talk?" She nodded at the message and back at the girl. "No matter about that earlier, was just getting the lay of the land."

[Chell smiled at Zoe. She seemed nice enough. And didn't ask why she didn't talk. Not that anyone here had as yet. But still, it was appreciated. Hmm. Getting the lay of the land... That would mean she was new to the Castle. Slowly Chell lowered pen to page again.]

If you have questions, I'd happily help answer them. I could even show you around, if you like. I'm assuming you're new around here? Did the Castle give you a journal? It would be rude of it not to.

[She finished writing, but instead of ripping out a second page, she just offered Zoe her journal. She seemed nice enough to hand a journal to, now that Chell knew for sure she was new.]

Zoe leaned a bit to reach as the girl was writing, then took the offered book. She nodded.

"Reckon I have a lit of questions. An I wouldn't say no to finding out more about this place. I didn't really look I just sorta showed up in a room, mighta been one there, couldn't tell ya."

As for the talkin' thing, some folks did and some folks didn't. In her experience those that did tended to do it too much anyway.

[Chell wrote again.]

The journal allows you to communicate with other people. Their words and voices come through your journal. That is why I asked if you had one.

Are you hungry? I could escort you to the kitchen if you are.

[Chell grinned at Zoe then. Playing tour guide and helping out newbies was always a fun adventure.]

I might have, back in the room, I'll check on that later.

[She read the note and smiled some, already forming a soft spot for the girl.] I could use a bite.

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What is this thing that builds our dreams

i am so sorry except no not really

Never be sorry!

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Couldn't resist tagging into this. <3 Firefly

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Oh my god I did not mean to thread-crash! I meant that as a separate comment not as a reply ack ack

No worries! :)

None at all:)

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Sorry again for the accidental threadjack.

Never be :) More fun!

Oh poor Zoe. this will be so much fun!

heehehehe!

Re: heehehehe!

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