[network] @ADMIN; Arrival

[snowblindmods]

Welcome to Norfinbury. The time is E̛̬̞͖͖̫R҉͖̯̬R̼̻͉̰͎̳̙O̩͓͔̫͇͈̯R and the date is E̛̬̞͖͖̫R҉͖̯̬R̼̻͉̰͎̳̙O̩͓͔̫͇͈̯R. This network has been provided for your use. Please interact politely with everyone else on this network.

Comments

@gardenGnostic; video

[eclecticbassist]

[ It's been a rough week for Jade since Tim died. She can feel that three-year-old melancholy creeping in, the grief and (more importantly) the frustration with herself for not preventing this. At least this time she doesn't have ridiculous cosmic power taunting her with the feeling that she could should have done something.

Now she's crying a little for the umpteenth time this week, but she's also smiling and giddy and kind of light-headed because it's Davesprite! He's alive! He's alive and not saying weird cat things with a weird cat mouth.

Yeah she's not bothering with text; incoming video call! ]

Davesprite - !

[ She pulls back her hood since they're already indoors, and wow she's kind of a mess. She's been here for about two months and it shows. ]

text; (1/2)

[mrcreamsicles]

[Wow. Okay, so, Jade is here. There's thing one to observe. But more importantly, she looks—relieved? glad? some kind of emotion that sure ain't negative—that he's here. It's a bit more than he expected, even if she looks a mess on top of it. He'd been ready to fuck off and keep out of her life from the whole feathery douche thing he's just labeled himself with for the network, but this is—]

[Well.]

[Hm.]

hold on

video, private; (2/2)

[mrcreamsicles]

[It takes a couple minutes, but enough poking around the interface unearths the option to send shit privately, which he is absolutely going to do after dodging all the expected questions of what the fuck about the sock thing. He's not up for being hassled about the bird thing first day here, okay, but Jade is Jade and she already knows.]

[He's settled in the master bedroom of the house he showed up in, the walls behind him a ridiculous shade of purple. He's sat on the bed with his tail curled close for warmth, the peacoat (as orange as he is) pulled on tight for what it can offer. His wings are visible behind him; the coat fortunately had holes to fit them through.]

'Sup. How long have you been here?

[eclecticbassist]

Jeez, it's been, like... a couple of months?

[ She might be starting to share Dave's opinion on snow. ]

What about you? I mean, have you gotten your bearings yet? We might be nearby.

[ Read, "tell me where you are so I can find you and never let you out of my sight, holy shit." ]

[mrcreamsicles]

Months? Okay, time shenanigans are officially in effect. Bearings, uh—

[He rises off the bed, background moving as he drifts out of the room toward another one.]

Not really, but there's a map on the wall here that this Steve Rogers guy drew. Who's 'we'? Also there's this weird 'totheark' person who can't type worth shit claiming to be your friend; are they bullshitting me or did you pick up a fondness for the brain damaged in the past couple months?

[Not exactly a polite way to put it, but he really has no idea what the fuck about that guy.]

[Soon enough he's in the right room, and he turns his tablet around to display the map on the wall.]

Does that help any?

[eclecticbassist]

You're right next to the funeral home! That is... at least a few days away.

[ She looks (and sounds) disappointed, but she perks up considerably at the mention of her dearest snowbuddy. ]

That's Brian; he's like, my best friend here - or one of them, now that you're here. He is, um - I don't know about brain damaged, but his mind was definitely addled by a spooky eldritch abomination.

[mrcreamsicles]

What direction are you in?

[Not that he knows which direction is which from the house yet. The sun is taking its sweet time here in the wintry, Alaskan hellscape, so east could be anywhere. He'll figure it out.]

[As for Brian.]

I'm not saying I'm judging, but...

[He's totally judging.]

[A pause, then:]

You really missed me that much?

[eclecticbassist]

South, I think.

[ And theeeere it is. Some of that existential bird angst she missed out on. ]

Are you kidding? I -

[ God, where to even start? ]

It's been a while-- like, way longer than two months. For me, at least.

[mrcreamsicles]

[He's been drifting back toward the bedroom again after showing her the map; now he settles back onto the bed for what residual warmth might be left where he was sitting earlier. A mattress is better to sit on than the floor, at least.]

[His movements are slow, though, and the line of his mouth shifts as he considers what she's saying. Time shenanigans and greater time than two months—what that means he doesn't know yet. He remembers what he said to John before he left the ship, how he didn't handle thins as well as he could have with her, and a part of him wonders if maybe she just forgot what a douche he can be in the absence of however long. But so long as she is here and wants to talk to him, he doesn't want to mess that up yet.]

I saw you the same day before I showed up here, so you're going to have to explain it to me, Jade. What happened?

[eclecticbassist]

I think we might, uh, be from different timelines. Or different points.

[ Maybe he was from the same timeline as her, and he was just days or hours or minutes from dying - ]

[ Well. Better get to explaining. ]

I haven't seen you in three years; you... you and John died a few days into our trip.

[ Her voice shakes a little, throat painfully tight. That weird version of Davesprite explained how their experiences differed, but going over this with the Davesprite she knew - the real one - is harder. ]

[mrcreamsicles]

[His mouth tightens further and stays that way. Different timelines is worrying to start with, and she makes it clear right quick that that's exactly what the situation is. Three years without him or John. He can hear the tightness in her voice, and his throat doesn't feel much better than hers.]

[The immediate question on his mind is which one of them is the doomed one, which is stupid—she's been here two months, and now he's here too, so whatever pertains to the alpha timeline is likely beyond the both of them especially when they're in a different world. But it's hard not to think it anyway. He's the Time player, or was, and his existence is separated by already being an alternate.]

[He swallows thickly. When he finds his voice, the effort of keeping his tone even makes it dry and featureless.]

Different timelines. None of us died. We just arrived in the new session.

[eclecticbassist]

Yeah, I figured as much.

[ She probably knows what would happen next, then. But she shouldn't tell him, right? Time was never her thing, and in her experience with foreknowledge you're not supposed to spoil this kind of thing. Then again, wouldn't their disappearances screw with their respective timelines anyway? And what's going to happen when they can finally go home -- because they will return -- and could be separated again? Will they have a choice in where they go?

Time is such a headache. ]

It's still really good to see you, Davesprite. [ She smiles, and it's definitely genuine, but also physically and emotionally worn-out. ]

I missed you and John a lot.

depressed bird makes everything worse

[mrcreamsicles]

[He waits, like she might say more, but she doesn't. It sits weirdly in his mind, and he can tell already that the time thing is going to keep on bugging him after this too. He pushes it back down, though. What good would come of bugging her about it? She's the one who lost him and John both. He wonders passingly what happened, but surely asking that won't help either.]

[So, she missed him. And he can believe that maybe, that she missed a version of him. But three years—three years—she never dated him, doesn't know him as deeply as she came to, doesn't know either what an ass he can be.]

[It's a long, uncomfortable moment before he asks. because he can't keep himself from it,]

Are you sure I'm the one you missed?

[His shades hide it, but he's not looking at the camera.]

@Mnemosyne; voice

[bookofnope]

Well, that explains everything.

voice; casually threadjacks your threadjack

[mrcreamsicles]

Dude. If you knew she was here it should have been obvious.

[bookofnope]

I don't recall her mentioning frogs before, and I'm not about to assume only one universe of the infinity of them out there can be so intensely weird. That would be depressing.

[mrcreamsicles]

[Davesprite sighs.]

Frog breeding was her duty; just ask her about it. If she can't get it through your skull, then no one can.

[bookofnope]

... Jade, you never told us you were a goddess in your free time.

[mrcreamsicles]

[There is a sound that might just be Davesprite facepalming heartily. Does Jade tell no one anything? He's leaving this part of it to her now.]

@gardenGnostic; voice

[eclecticbassist]

Oh yeaaaahh, I never did get around to explaining that.

[ The concept of Sburb is already kind of a doozy. ]

To create that new universe I told you about, I had to clone a bunch of frogs until I got the genetic code right.

[bookofnope]

Let's assume that I'm not yet ready to question the utter inanity of frog part. Did you have any control of the contents of the universe that followed? Or was it merely a question of creating the vessel, and the rest proceeded on its own?

[eclecticbassist]

Kind of? You don't choose what species populate it or anything, but if you really mess up it can get cancer. And by "cancer," I mean a very stab-happy Dersite initiates the Reckoning too early for the game to be winnable without, um, cheating a little.

[bookofnope]

[He does not like the sound of that "Reckoning".]

Or in small words for us plebes, the new universe is destroyed. Or is it something worse?

[eclecticbassist]

Eventually, yes, but not directly because of the Dersite-- he escaped from our session. There was also a huge bomb at the center of Skaia, powerful enough to destroy two universes. I think it's supposed to wipe out null sessions like ours.

[bookofnope]

[Two destroyed universes. Null sessions. Bit by bit, he's losing his scientific distance to what feels like a creeping wave of powerful vertigo.]

You make it sound like the creation and destruction of non-viable universes is something that happens all the time.