[EP/GP] Today is Check-In Day

[st_illunsmeared]

When the fifteenth of the month came and went without any new arrivals, most people logically supposed that there would be no new arrivals that week, or that the pattern they believed they'd found was false after all.

Kitty Pryde, Caroline Forbes, and Phryne Fisher were decidedly not most people.

Between them, they agreed it would be best to keep a watch for a few days following the fifteenth, on the grounds that, often enough, holidays interrupted regular schedules, which would reassert themselves again at the next instance. If "keeping a watch" had required them to do anything out of the ordinary, they might have been somewhat less sanguine about it. Might have, as they were not, after all, most people. Yet since their routines, almost invariably, had them in public places, working and people-watching, it required no special effort on their part to be alert for new arrivals.

So it was that Phryne had taken up a table in the lobby cafe to read and hold court, while Kitty took an extra shift tending bar, and Caroline tidied up and labeled the boxes of decorations from Valentine's day "for next year's residents" on the morning of the sixteenth and again on the seventeenth--and not one of them were surprised when, in early afternoon, newcomers began to arrive.

Comments

Re: for Ignis + OTA

[st_unning]

"He is deserving of whatever praise he is given," Alcuin said, thinking of how he owed some measure of repayment to the man himself.

Thinking then of a very concrete question he could ask, he added, "Does everyone here speak Cruinthe? It is a rather obscure tongue where I come from. I am feeling grateful I happen to know it."

Re: for Ignis + OTA

[st_illunsmeared]

"Cruinthe?" Phryne tilted her head, brows furrowing at the unfamiliar word. Obviously he meant English, but she couldn't place 'Cruinthe' in any of the languages she knew. "We call it English after the original speakers, the Angles." And probably the Saxons and the Jutes, but Phryne's history could be a little patchy. "They eventually colonized much of the world and spread the language."

He did have a look of a different era about him. How extraordinary if he'd come from before the Romans left the British Isles! "May I ask where and when you're from?"

Re: for Ignis + OTA

[st_unning]

English. The word meant nothing to Alcuin. No did "angles."

"I come from a country called Terre d'Ange," Alcuin said. "Vax'ildan had never heard of it... But he seemed to recognize but not understand the language when I was speaking D'Angeline."

Re: for Ignis + OTA

[st_illunsmeared]

"Terre d'Ange," Phryne repeated, and then said, "Land of Angels. It sounds like French. Say something?" Little though she wished to recall her time in France now, her French was excellent. If D'Angeline was French, or close, and it made him more comfortable, she could speak it.

Re: for Ignis + OTA

[st_unning]

Alcuin did not know the word French either. He hesitated, and then spoke in D'Angeline: "I appreciate your willingness to help. To not know things, it is disconcerting for me."

Re: for Ignis + OTA

[st_illunsmeared]

Delighted to discover that D'Angeline did correspond more or less to French, Phryne smiled broadly and replied, "In that case, I hope my sharing your mother tongue will help somewhat."

Re: for Ignis + OTA

[st_unning]

Alcuin smiled, genuine. Ah, it felt good to smile. And it felt good to hear the language, despite the accent being a bit odd. "I thank you. Though this does not make the situation any less confusing."

Re: for Ignis + OTA

[st_illunsmeared]

"No," Phryne replied kindly. "I imagine it doesn't." She sipped from her drink and then smiled again, cheerful. "Consider me your guide, then. I'll answer any questions you have, and if I don't know the answer, I'll be very pleased to attempt to discover it." It wasn't quite investigating crimes, but it might lead to solving the crime of her own abduction.

Re: for Ignis + OTA

[st_unning]

It was such a kind offer, and Alcuin honestly had no idea what to ask.

"Will you tell me about where you come from?" he asked politely.

Re: for Ignis + OTA

[st_illunsmeared]

"If you like," Phryne replied, her tone suggestive of a certain bemusement. "It's unlikely to help you adjust, though, darling. This isn't my home either."

Re: for Ignis + OTA

[st_unning]

"My impression is that it is not anyone's," said Alcuin.

Re: for Ignis + OTA

[st_illunsmeared]

"To the best of my knowledge, it's not, although some seem to come from worlds more like this one than mine." Still, he had asked and she had promised to answer, so Phryne began, "I suppose this might be my world, but it would be, fifty or sixty years in my future. I'm told the technology here is from the 1990s, and it was 1929 for me." She pursed her lips and then added, "We measure dates from the putative date of the birth of our god. Before that, dates are measured in reverse..."