westwhere | the weather vane will say it smells like rain today

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the weather vane will say it smells like rain today

WHO: Lily Evans & You!
WHEN: Throughout early June
WHERE: The farm mostly for now, hopefully branching out to the woods, the trials, etc.
WHAT: A catch-all! Some farm and forest based things, maybe the trials will make an appearance (hopefully)
WARNINGS: None so far, will update as needed

( starters in comments, both open and otherwise, feel free to hmu if you don’t see anything that suits either via pm or on plurk, or toss starts my way, whatever’s clever. if brackets are more your thing i’m good to match format. )

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Since 'they' apparently included his sister, he tends to agree. He's been meaning to make it a little clearer to everyone who they shouldn't get tangled in their mess, but that's for another time.

As she looks down, he casts a glance around to see that they're still alone. There's so many people crawling around these days, he always expects to have one of them popping out of the shadows. And then there's the aforementioned sister, who really doesn't need to be troubled by any updates about the lake.

When he settles back on her again, he watches her expression carefully. He decides that he believes her when she says she doesn't remember. For all he knows, she's been here longer than she thinks.

"I'm familiar enough." It's too early in their relationship to tell her he has one kidnapped. He's only planning on sharing that bit of information once he gets something useful for his trouble, if he does at all. He shrugs. "They're fanatics. Some of them are undead, and others aren't, but I haven't confirmed what abilities they might have. Assuming it's not head trauma."

And honestly, this whole thing would be a lot simpler if his other sister were around to compel them to answer.

"What happened before the lake? Is that the earliest thing you can remember?"

The kid seemed - cagey almost, enough so that she refrained from digging through her satchel to bring out a notebook and a pencil to jot down the little shards of information he was inclined to toss her way.

Instead of taking notes, she frowned thoughtfully at the question, breathing out another sigh as she squinted her eyes and tried to drag the rest of that memory out of whatever corner it was hiding in. "I stepped off the train and then it was as though I'd walked into," trailing off Lily gestured around her. "Instead of the platform that was supposed to be there."

"I was out of sorts, it's a blur until the edge of the lake and," Lily stopped and looked at Five, focusing sharply on his face as she squinted. "They were speaking, the only word they used that Karsa used when she found me, and told me what was happening was Unhalad. Then they pushed me and I went under, and," again she held up her wrist in wordless conclusion.

She doesn't mention specific symptoms he'd expect, but being out of sorts covers most of the basics. What she recounts is unsettling enough not to ask his usual follow up questions; placing her in a year and location to keep track of the timeline. If people are beginning to show up at random locations, it's going to be that much harder to track his family down.

Why push her into the lake? He still doesn't know the process they use to convert someone, or whatever the term is, to a member of the undead. If they wanted to kill her, they could have done that outright. Did Anurr's people assume she was aligned with Unhalad? And if so...

"I don't get it. You don't fit the pattern." He seems more perturbed by that than he is empathetic, but these have been a frustrating two months. More questions to ask the captive from the forest while he has the chance. "They knew where to find you and they knew why you were here. You said Karsa found you, did you see her with them?"

"What's the pattern?" It was the most pertinent question, a pattern was promising, it could be jotted down in one of her notebooks to be picked over. As piqued as her curiosity was, the concern on her face and in her voice was unmistakable.

"I remember being on the shore of the lake long enough to dry my clothes and hair, no longer than ten minutes at the most - but she wasn't with anyone. She told me she was on her way to the trials and brought me with her while she told me what I was doing here, and how I was meant to go east with the rest of you to get home."

Of course there wasn't anyone else. He sighs, like explaining what he means takes too much effort on his part. It doesn't benefit him to catch her up to speed, and anyone could provide this information to her, but he goes ahead anyway.

"We arrive in groups, usually chained and drugged... put into some menial labor. The jail or the mines. The last was on a ship." Not one person by a lake. There's a possibility that they were simply too sedated that no one remembered their capture. Five had eventually located the briefcase that brought him here, but has no memory of anything before waking up at the jail. Though as exhausted as he was from overusing his powers, not to mention taking a cast-iron frying pan to the head back in the '60's, that isn't entirely surprising.

"They must have been holding you for a reason." Until Karsa retrieved her? It seems suspect, whatever it was. He doesn't want to keep speculating though, so he presses on with his next question.

"What were the trials about?"

"I think they intended for the thing in the lake to handle me," Lily shook her head disdainfully, at the thought, still unsure why it had even let her go at all. She would remember the grip it had on her for a long, long time.

That her arrival had broken his suggested pattern wasn't lost on her and she intended to mull it over, already wondering what might have caused things to change in Unhalad's absolutely terrible recruitment strategy. "Do you think it's a showing of desperation? Has anyone gotten the upper hand enough to drive him to simply pluck people out of train stations?"

Analyzing the situation was the first step towards taking control of it, and more than anything Lily wanted to know what was going on. "The trials? She said they were Anurr's people in the forest, proving their wit and strength and the like. I didn't want to risk them recognizing me and trying to force me back into the lake, so I left quickly after she told me where to find this place, though if it's safe I'd return."

Why any of them thought that the trials were worth investigating is beyond him, but he's not surprised that the cult would come up with that kind of activity. For some reason it interested Karsa enough to visit. That's all the information he thinks he's going to be able to gather from her on the subject, so he doesn't ask any follow up to it.

As far as her own questions, he could probably make a reasonable guess. One she could have figured out on her own after seeing how excitable Anurr's people are.

"You think you were just some random person at a train station?" She really seems to be trying to sell that. Before hearing her answer, he asks for the sake of the timeline. Old habits. "What was the date when you left? Where was the station?"

Shaking her head at his first question, she crossed her arms over her chest. "No, what I mean is - if it's not a group at a time anymore, just whoever strikes his fancy, would that imply urgency."

Lily shrugged at Five. She knew she wasn't just a person on a train station. There was going to be a war, she was talented and she would fight in it, but if they weren't arriving in groups, just plucked one by one - it was peculiar enough to mention.

"London, King's Cross Station, Nineteen-seventy-eight. I was getting off my train. You?" She got the sense it was a bit of a coinflip whether he'd tell her where and when he came from, but she had no reason not to try and ask.

"It's possible. Unhalad seems to be threatened by Anurr, and apparently he's getting weaker if he can barely hold who he manages to take." They've seen that enough. While that tracks, he's not exactly sure if it's a great development. Harder to find people when they trickle in one at a time.

"Day and month?" Back to this important subject. Yes, he gets that specific with everyone. It helps to narrow down world events if he doesn't have to go through an entire year.

He considers what was going on during that time period for a moment before he comes up with the answer he gives to anyone asking. Keeping his story straight.

"I was in Dallas, Texas. November 23rd, 1963."

"June 30th, stepping onto platform 9¾ at about four in the afternoon, if you want to put a very fine point on it." She got the sense he did, and she wasn't going to argue with it, there always was a chance that something was hiding in the finer details. His meticulousness was absolutely one of those finer details,

"Have you found any pattern in the dates so far?" Watching him curiously she continued to wish it wasn't terribly rude to take out her notebook and begin writing furiously. Five didn't seem as though he would take very well to it. For a kid who looked about thirteen, he struck her as not being the sort to put up with a lot of rubbish.

He can't tell if she's mocking him by giving him that extra bit of information, but he takes it all the same. Anything could be relevant. The day he stops asking is the day he's given up on fixing this, and that's just not going to happen. Forty-five years hadn't broken his resolve, two months isn't about to.

Nothing immediately stands out, but he doesn't admit at the lack of an epiphany. These things take time and he scrutinizes her a moment before he replies.

"I'm working on it." That is as polite an answer as he gives, even in his dry tone, so he must take her curiosity as genuine. It only occurs to him after how accepting she is to the possibility of time travel. "You seem to have adjusted to the idea pretty quickly."

At the mention of her adjustment, Lily looked around them for a moment, before looking back at Five rather dubiously.

"I wasn't aware there was much of a choice beyond adjusting." Time travel existed, she'd read about time-turners in school and even indulged the rumor there was one on school grounds. It was the idea of different worlds that struck her as the strange part but confronted with the apparent reality of the situation Lily had no choice but to accept that it was the case. They had all been brought to this place, and the implications of just that fact alone were huge.

"So if this is what it is, then I want to help figure out the hows and the whats of it."

His eyebrows twitch up, but he shrugs a moment later. Not that he's one to talk, but he feels like a normal person would take more than a few days to be so casual about meeting others from entirely different timelines. What that familiarity says about her is an unknown. But noted.

"By seeing who you'll run across in the garden?" That's one approach. He can almost empathize with her. If he knew he couldn't do anything to fix what's broken, he might be right where she is, trying to figure out how turnips grow in the winter.

"How's that going so far?"

Looking around the garden nonchalantly Lily turned back to Five and answered his question with a shrug. "I've met you, you've told me more than I knew before I came to the garden."

What was she supposed to do? Lily had no idea if the people in the woods were going to gang up on her again and toss her in the lake once more. It seemed prudent to keep close to where something like that was less likely to happen and try to find out what others knew - in the garden or otherwise.

"Are you always so skeptical of people?" She asked mildly.

As often the case, Five inevitably gave away more than he learned. Even expecting that, he narrows his eyes when she points it out. It's typical that he can provide genuinely useful information and still get sass for it.

"If that makes you feel better. As a general rule, I tend to question everyone who crawls out of a lake and shows up at our door." Someone has to. It's ridiculous how easy they are to infiltrate, but it's not like he trusts the people he's known longer either. He'll always insist on doing it himself. "I'm sure everyone else has been welcoming enough to make up for it."

That's not to say he doesn't believe her story. He just finds it best that she knows where she stands with him.

"I'll leave you to it." All smiles. Turning the subject to him is the quickest way to get him to go, it seems, and he starts to move past her. He's learned enough to satisfy him for now, but he leaves that door open in case he changes his mind.

"I won't be far, whenever I'm needed."

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the weather vane will say it smells like rain today

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