strangetrip | [GP/EP] Check-in Day

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[GP/EP] Check-in Day

The woodwinds in her collection were for noodling mostly, and the violin was for memory of her family, but when Curnen really wanted to play she turned again and again to her guitar. This would probably always be her best instrument. It was the first of the month, she’d been here over a year, and it was probably a check-in day. So she sat on the lawn with her instrument in her lap, sending out a subtle magic to call anyone stranded in their little world this way.

At one point, though, she set aside the guitar and turned her face to the sky. For just a few minutes she required a different kind of magic.

It had been a week now since Scanlan had vanished in the battle. And Pike, too, though Curnen honestly couldn’t have cared less about her going away if she tried. Still. The two of them were family to people very dear to her, people who missed them. And Scanlan had been her friend. You marked something like that with a song.

Of all the money that e'er I had
I spent it in good company
And all the harm that e'er I've done
Alas, it was to none but me
And all I've done for want of wit
To memory now I can't recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all

It was a traditional Irish goodbye, a farewell to friends said with love, drinking, well wishes, and the hope of meeting again. She couldn’t think of a better one for the occasion. And as she sang she twined her magic into her voice in a new way, sending the song to any ears that needed it, ears of those who knew and missed the departed. Not all of them might understand it, not all of them knew what she was, but she didn’t particularly care about that right now. The song was more important than the hiding.

Once the last note had dissipated she picked up her guitar again and resumed her work. If there were anybody out there, they had to know where to go.

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John turns serious; "I know." He was just teasing the Americans. At least he did know the Latin word in there. Also, color him impressed that she's so educated for a woman of her skin tone.

One of his hand is now supporting his chin, as John stares at her gently; "I like telly better. Rolls off the tongue. Telly, telly." His face non-verbally seems to be asking; what else does she know? All during which his other elbow bends and knocks the other two books on the floor.

Oppps, clumsy him.

"I lived in California on Earth, it was always TV to me. Or 'movies'." The Runaways had never actually had television service, so it had been 'let's watch movies'. "Motion pictures. Look those up, you will be fascinated."

She slid around to his side of the counter to pick up the fallen books. It was polite, and he was occupied anyway.

Motion pictures? According to this makes sense to have electromagnetics involved. Which is a very recent discovery in John's time the physics of light waves.

"I have a better idea. Why don't you tell me?"

A challenge! How to describe a movie to someone who thought television was a fantastical thing. “Motion pictures are... like plays, recorded by very specialized cameras, that can replayed on television screens anytime you like. Color, movement, sound, all of it. They are fascinating to me.”

Jon listens and looks at her as he sips his tea (with the widest grin on his face) and just is imagining the technology created to create such a feat!

Then looks down at his 'magic pen'. So surely - that will be in his book. Spoilers; it's not.

He does love his dreams of 'Impossible Things'

John then proceeds to flip through the book; looking at just the pictures for his magic pen. He was doing that before but got sidetracked and an index doesn't help when he doesn't know what invention is even called.

However; does stop when he lands on the page about Blue British Police Boxes during the 1950's and stops sipping on his tea and stares.

"Blimey. It's my magic box."

So; he's not the only one with a magic box or rather Police Box.

Normally, Xavin was self-contained and dignified, respectful of people’s privacy, many thing that were important for her, particularly, to be. But she’d been having a pleasant if somewhat odd conversation, so she allowed herself to be a teenager and lean over the counter to peel at his book.

Police call boxes in the 1950s. Clever idea, really, miniature police stations for officers and a handy way to be sure of getting the local station if you needed them. But, “What’s magic about it?”

Magic, wrong word. What did Mary say - oh, right?

"Sorry, not magic. Spaceship. Takes me to off places like here."

John turns the page; which shows a picture of the inside - which is nothing special. Looks like a broom cupboard - since that's where a person was detained and locked in until an officer came.

"That's not right. That's not right at all."

"I don't mind the word 'magic'." Magic was, after all, as real as science. They were the same thing, even, at higher levels, or so she'd heard. "Or spaceship, but that does not look like any spaceship I have ever seen." And she'd seen many.

But the broom closet interior doesn't look like a spaceship either. "What should it look like?"

John is quiet for a moment or two; as he's trying to figure out this problem on why where the outside looks correct but not the inside and flips to the Index to look for any more Police Boxes built up to the turn of the century and there are none.

Then proceeds draw on a napkin; the inside.

Xavin watched with interest, still leaning over the counter. "That looks like some kind of drive core!" Not a familiar one, but she knew Skrull ships and a few others. There were many kinds of ships she'd never seen.

And this was proof that the man's box was indeed a ship, anyway. "I wonder why your ship looked like a box. Most ships look like ships."

Which is when the delusion starts to break- just a tiny bit because she made a remark that John himself just went with. Not questioning why the ship is in the shape that it's in - it just is.

It's his ship, right? Why can't he answer her wonderment? John looks over at her - that he doesn't have an answer either.

"I suppose in space it does not matter," Xavin mused, missing his blank look. "Aerodynamics do not matter, there is no drag to consider. And the color is pretty, that blue."

Aero in Latin is air - and dynamics is the branch of science about force. Wright brothers; they had to factor in aerodynamics - surely.

"You're implying that space is a vacuum."

“It is,” Xavin confirmed, but it was her turn to look confused. How could he have a spaceship, however odd looking, and not know space?

How could anyone know that space is a vacuum? John only gives a 'huh' interesting - look. In way feels behind on knowing things here.

And at her confused look; "What?"

“I mean no offense, but how do you have a spaceship but not know about space?” It was deeply strange.

So all those adventures of Impossible Things - were off in other worlds. His spaceship looks like a 1950's British Police Box. Where it always feel safe in there; even if does feel more like a fugitive.

That's it. That's exactly it; isn't it? He must have stolen the spaceship.

"I stole it. Maybe..."

Why is thinking so hard hurting? Like trying to reach for something that isn't there but also is?

John also starts to look scared because he's not able to find an answer to that question.

“It is all right. I have stolen. I was a Runaway.” Xavin reaches out to try and hold the man’s hand. He looked so scared and lost; she remembered feeling that even if she'd always tried not to look it. “No one will hurt you here. You need not fear.”

The problem is John isn't sure and these questions that he hasn't been asking himself are starting to challenge the denial reality that he's created for himself to cope with this place.

When Xavin takes John's hand like that - he's reminded of his servant girl; the one that looks a lot like Martha Jones or maybe he's thinking of Martha. Either way that face was always there to doctor him.

If anything; at least he's comforted.

He seemed less overtly upset, that was a good thing. Sympathy via light physical contact was still a good go-to move in these situations, it seemed. Xavin smiled. "The library has movies as well as books. Perhaps we should find you some kind of space movie so you can see many things at once?"

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[GP/EP] Check-in Day

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