[GP/EP] Check-in Day

[st_oneswidow]

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.

Comments

Re: Bucky and Loki

[st_ratagem]

"People are always people, wherever and whenever they come from." It was the only rule that mattered. Whatever people knew, or thought they knew, as long as one bore in mind that they were adversaries in almost all cases, it was easy to step back, look for the cracks, decide what was true in the moment, and go to work. And they were often childish about time - Thor was almost certainly a case in point. "Time happens one thing at a time. If someone says 'oh, you did this' and you didn't or haven't yet? You decide. Agree with them, fight them, whatever. What hasn't happened isn't real unless you let it be."

By the same token, whatever had happened was real, but you still had choices. Excuse it, own it, whatever. There was a list. "People think truth and reality are immutable things, but they really, really are not."

Currently, Loki had opted to philosophize at a confused one-armed man. Likely not the best decision he'd ever made, but he did like talking.

Re: Bucky and Loki

[st_ranger]

Bucky really did try to keep up with Loki in the conversation. Some of the words made sense, but some of them? The words were deep and they went right over his head. Loki had been practically going philosophical on him and that just wasn't Bucky's world. Steve had always been the smart one of the two of them.

Bucky was kind enough not to just ask the man if he liked to hear himself talk. Since, clearly, he did.

"Like..." Bucky frowned. "This place. She... She said time and space, not here. Stuck?" He glanced up at Loki, his brow furrowing. "So... Stark came from my future. He knew things I had not done yet," he murmured. "To him, it's real. To me, it's... Not?" Did that make him better or worse than how Tony saw him. He wasn't sure. "But... We're stuck here. So, I... I can't fix it or change it. And he'll still feel the pain of it, even if I didn't do it..." Bucky was half talking to Loki and half talking to himself, trying to understand and work it through in his own mind.

"It's... It's like the East River. It flows. It's constant. Always moving. You can try to block it, but it would have to be a really big rock," he mumbled.

Re: Bucky and Loki

[st_ratagem]

“If there’s nothing to be done, there’s nothing to be done. His feelings, his problem.” Unless it was useful to take them on in some way, but mucking around in emotions was tricky, difficult, and generally had very little real payoff.

Time did flow like a river, sometimes; Loki couldn’t play with it himself, but he didn’t need to in order to understand that he refused to be bound by anything but his own decisions. “Or a multitude of small rocks.” Or a ditches sufficient to bleed it away.

Not a bad metaphor, all things considered. “I’d concentrate on keeping your own head above water. If we’re talking rivers.”