Illarion Albireo (
unsheathedfromreality) wrote in
deercountry2022-04-13 09:49 pm
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Real & Half-Real: Chapter 1 - The Portal and the Plan
Who: The Committee to Rescue Illarion from His Very Stupid Mistake
What: Building a portal to bust into a pocket dimension and strategizing what to do once they get there. All extremely advisable science.
When: Early-mid April
Where: Throughout Trench, and in parts beyond it
It's been weeks since Illarion's disappearance in the fight against Leviathan, and scarcely fewer weeks since his Omen Iskierka began papering Trench with notes on his whereabouts. The shrike's friends and loved ones have not been idle during that time, and now their plans begin coming to fruition.
It's time to get him out of the nightmare he's trapped in--but first, they've got to break their way in, and they've got to have a plan.
[[ Part of the Real & Half-Real player plot! Navigate to other plot posts: [OOC] Interest Check | [IC] Prologue | [IC] Iskierka's Notes ]]
What: Building a portal to bust into a pocket dimension and strategizing what to do once they get there. All extremely advisable science.
When: Early-mid April
Where: Throughout Trench, and in parts beyond it
It's been weeks since Illarion's disappearance in the fight against Leviathan, and scarcely fewer weeks since his Omen Iskierka began papering Trench with notes on his whereabouts. The shrike's friends and loved ones have not been idle during that time, and now their plans begin coming to fruition.
It's time to get him out of the nightmare he's trapped in--but first, they've got to break their way in, and they've got to have a plan.
[[ Part of the Real & Half-Real player plot! Navigate to other plot posts: [OOC] Interest Check | [IC] Prologue | [IC] Iskierka's Notes ]]
no subject
It's not until 'Sasha' steps up alongside him that he seems to realize this stranger did not come here for the sole purpose of showing him a neat dinosaur skull. Ford snaps his journal shut and tucks it away again, though his demeanor grows just the tiniest bit more icy. Things have been... awkward ever since Sasha melted off Oscar's hand. Ford's been strongly heeding Dipper's warnings to be cautious around him, but he's aware that sudden distance from a dangerous element can be just as bad an idea as remaining too close. Ideally this would result in him threading the needle and finding the perfect balance between the two extremes, but instead it's just resulted in him swinging haphazardly between his normal level of friendliness and a more subdued, polite distance.
The point is, for once Ford is tuned into the social atmosphere and aware of the less-than-ideal vibes hanging over the conversation, and he's grateful for a chance to step forward and possibly distill them.
"Stanford Pines," he finally says. He does not offer a hand to shake. "Sasha's mentioned that you and I work fields that somewhat overlap."
no subject
This is, naturally, distracting enough that Ford might not notice that the new arrival has caught the galaxy-blackout eye of his awkwardly-dangerous friend, eyebrows raising in an expression of sheer incredulity as he mouths Sasha?!
For a second, or maybe nine or ten of them, quite a few different expressions flick across his face, for that matter. Really it's a pity, that the sun and shade are conspiring to cast such a pattern of shadows across his skin, making it more difficult for anyone to read the questions written there — questions like are you fucking for-real with this shit?, or what the hell have you been saying about me, Teacher?, or maybe do I ever want to know what you called me while you were talking about me?
But then he's looking at Ford again, and the way the
Luggageskull is now trying to rub its cheekbones along his pant leg, like a cat scent-marking its territory, and groans loudly."Oh, for fuck's sake," he complains. "I am terribly sorry about that — did you want me to make it stop? I — huh." He blinks, gaze flicking thoughtfully between the two portal-tinkering wiseguys. "I think it thinks you smell... familiar," he tries out, tasting his words as he goes. "As much as thinking applies, anyway, or smelling, for that matter — which fields would those be, for you?"
no subject
"Oh-- don't worry, it's not bothering me."
Though... being familiar to the weird dinosaur head is a strange concept. If it were the correct sort he'd assume that Augustine had somehow come across his old t-rex skull from one of those portals, but when Augustine mentions his field of study a different possibility occurs to him.
"Anomalous phenomena would be the easiest way to describe it - ghost sightings, cryptozoological creatures, encounters with the supernatural. It's a bit like xenoanthropology, though in Trench it's more like just 'anthropology'."
no subject
"Reminds me a bit of your House, Patience," he says. Like that expression, it's skinned over with cheer but layered beneath it. Your House invites the question-and-admission of his First Saint's relationship to the Fifth, which was not to be raised by it, but to raise it; Patience sets a cheerfully hard boundary, a confirmation of all Ford doesn't know.
The Sasha bit probably made that clear, though.
He takes pity, or caves to indulgence, and stage-whispers: "Ford runs the game I mentioned. I'll catch you up on the adventures of..." No one would dare call it a shit-eating grin when it's on their Emperor's face— no one except probably Augustine, who has earned the right, after everything. "... the dread pirate Sasha Buckler."
In the end, God is having a great day.
no subject
And then he's just about to say something about how he's certainly plenty familiar with ghosts, which isn't the same as being familiar with the cryptozoological, when God just has to go and open his big fat mouth, doesn't he.
It's not just that he seems perfectly willing to collect the whole pile together and call it all River bullshit, and therefore Fifth House bullshit — it isn't even the way he's providing a level of instruction, here, as regards what to say or not-say to this man whose pockets are apparently filled with dinosaur catnip — it's the way he apparently can't even remember how he described Ford to Augustine in the first place, that has Augustine's eyebrows set low and flat above his eyes as he opens his mouth to say yes, I do actually remember you saying that — and then.
That dreadfully shit-eating grin.
Sasha Buckler.
Augustine closes his mouth again, and gives God a very long look.
It's a look that says, plain as day to anyone looking at him in turn, There is a Hell, and I thought I had left it when I came here.
It's a look that says:
I was wrong. It's this moment, right here.
And then, quite abruptly, he turns back to Ford, and fixes a sharp smile on his face that says something like We'll get through this together, instead.
"I suppose cryptozoology is a good way of describing it," he answers brightly. "It had seemed quite intent on eating these eggs — there were two that fell through a portal, a friend of mine has the other — they're still quite alive."
Ahoy, the gigantic monorchid nutsack hanging by his hip; he reaches inside the opening at the top just enough to rap a few times on a nearly-hard shell, giving a sort of leathery thud sound.
"Not really sure how much longer they've got, before they'll be ready to hatch, but it will be interesting to see how easy it is to tame them."
no subject
The rest of it, though - your house, Patience, the conspiratorial tone of a joke shared between friends - tells Ford a lot. What, he's not quite certain yet, but he'll just have to note it down for later. For now, however, the discussion of the dinosaur and it's strange eggs still has his attention.
"My brother, niece, and nephew raised a dinosaur once." He says it in a supremely casual tone that Sasha will likely recognize by this point - just as he'll likely recognize the way Ford moves on with no further comment. "You said it came from the other side of one of the portals?"
no subject
There's a little throat-slicing hand gesture, here, as his eyebrows quirk a little: kaput, dekaput, decapitate, whatever, same thing, right?
"Did you want the cervical vertebrae? They're sort of ruining the overall effect of the skull-as-a-storage-chest," as his hand-gesturing switches to indicating the sagging back end, with its sad little 'tail'. (One of the feet attempts to kick at the bit of spine, and gets kicked in the ankle-equivalent by one of the other feet.)
"Not like I had plans for the softspares, either, if you wanted those," Patience adds absently, gaze flicking over to That Asshole, FKA 'Sasha Buckler', to invite him to speak up if he particularly wants a bunch of loose flesh, or scaly hide, or liquidified cholesterol that used to be a brain, for that matter — whether or not he's going to get them is, of course, a different question entirely. Maybe they'll all go to Ford Pines for whatever-the-hell research he wants to do, John.
"I was told," as his tone remains cheerfully light, surely not shadowed by an undercurrent of Speculation, glancing back to Ford once more, "anyway, that in Nephele," carefully pronounced, "they're all called dragons, rather than dinosaurs... which leads me to wonder, I suppose, if your great-niece or -nephew happened to breathe fire, at any point that you're aware?"
Or, in other words: what kind of dinosaur was your relative?
"I can't help but feel a little bit envious — no matter how many forms of megafauna I've encountered," quite a few, with that slaughtering-planets-for-God-and-just-utterly-wasting-resources-left-and-right bit, "we never did find anything quite as delightful as the prospect of your own pet dinosaur. Or, well, family member, of course."
no subject
To Ford's immensely offhand declaration that he's used to kids keeping pet dinosaurs, John flashes Augustine his most delighted are-you-hearing-this-guy expression. It flickers at the thoughtful note belying Augustine's voice, at the leading edge to what he says next. God's expression shutters for the briefest moment, then clears, but Augustine knows his tells. (Not all his tells; that might've made a few things go a good bit differently, wouldn't it.)
He says, bracingly, "Well, now's the time to adopt. Construction's coming right along, best as I can tell. We'll be gearing up for the next phase of this scheme, soon."
That being the one in which John claps his First Saint on the shoulder and sends him off to do some recon on a hostile planet. Like old times, really.
no subject
As to Augustine's questions: "No, it was a perfectly mundane Compsognathus. Dragons are exceptionally rare in my home dimension, if not outright extinct."
And sure, so are dinosaurs, but Ford doesn't remark on the apparent contradiction. Instead the conversation has moved on to the actual reason they're all here: the rescue mission.
"Ah-- right. The portal itself is close to completion. Now it's just a matter of ensuring its stability."
no subject
(God has never succeeded at 'being incognito' within the Nine Houses; why would he try, in Trench, when it's so very clear that he isn't trying to be John, either?)
"That, about the dragons, sounds like the sort of professional-see-why-aey that every scientist-researcher who never wants someone to catch him out in a confident statement later proven wrong has given me for the past several thousand years, or so," which is both amused in tone and clearly an exaggeration (ha ha can you imagine?). "Did you want the bones? I really wasn't offering them to him."
So there, Sasha Buckler: now's your opportunity to pay for your crimes against humanity (or, well, this one, at least).
"How are these portals supposed to work, anyway?" he asks — patiently, knowing his cue to set things up for a delightedly long-winded passionate explanation about something that might or might not actually make a lick of sense to him.