capeandcowllogs | like attracts like

WHO: Gil, Soldier Blue
WHERE: Library
WHEN: The weekend
WARNINGS: What
SUMMARY: Folks with common interests in a common location
FORMAT: No

They were quieter days, but no less long. Longer, maybe, in fact: without the hastiness of peril, it was Soldier Blue in a sea of unchecked thoughts and feelings, sometimes for what felt like years when mere minutes had passed. Withdrawing himself, focusing on something other than the beings around him, changed the flow of time. Books were some of the best means of this, and Blue took advantage of it often. Any topic was a potential escape, no matter how foreign. Often, particularly of how foreign they were. With history so shrouded back where he was from, it was never truly certain just how similar the Earth of the City and the Earth of his past really could be. He couldn't help but feel it would be so, but...

The topic was touching on that mysterious parallel that afternoon in the library, with the finding of a book more focused on the City itself than many of the others Blue had touched before. Though perhaps more a general guide than an in-depth reference as he would have liked, but it was giving him fresh starting points for further research if he wished. With all the time he had on-hand, he was more than eager for that.

He sat at a smaller table by himself, the book and a small pile of others on-hand, tuning out the mild sound around him. The cultural makeup of the City from its foundation...

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For some time he found himself buried in the book, jotting down whatever names or specific keywords onto a little notepad he had brought with him. He quietly flipped page through page and continued to write into the notepad until he realized he didn't have a specific plan after all this.

Reading up on the City, its history, its land, its people -- what for again? Doubt crept its way into his thoughts. He let out a quiet breath, now running his fingers through his hair.

The way out is through the machine. What am I doing... fooling myself like this now?

He swallowed, looking up at Blue. "Excuse--" he faltered at first. "Are you a native of this City or an imPort?"

Prompted, Blue lifted his eyes from the text and fixed on Gil. With as mild an expression as ever, he let a few seconds pass before replying.

"The machine brought me here," he said. As it did you, he thought, but gave no voice to it. He'd been given no external clues, only a familiar train of thought to glean the truth off of in passing. And that...

He was fairly certain doing that would only unnerve the young man more.

"And you, too?" he inquired. It was better to have it come from Gil himself.

He nodded slowly, suddenly looking more downcast than he intended. The idea of home was beginning to feel further and further away. Being snatched a second time by Lachesis was a blow to his pride as well.

And he blamed Katurian for these poisonous thoughts.

"Yes, but I haven't been here too long." This time.

Blue regarded the response and the mood it came wrapped in quietly for a time, watching reflections of it play out on Gil's face and posture, some subtle, others obvious. In that quiet, he glided his fingers down the middle of the book to smooth out the pages, keep it open to that spot when his hand was moved away.

"Length of time hardly matters," Blue said at last, "when one's been taken unwillingly from what one knew for so long. The transition can be as unwanted as it is difficult."

"The others seem divided on that fact," he said quietly, though glad he was not the only one who understood time did not often help to situate anyone. He of all people knew how agonizing time could truly be.

"Others have been drawn from very different lives," Blue replied, his gaze idly grazing past the pages before him. "And others hardly bat an eyelash at this new place, for how similar it happens to be. Whether this is fortunate or not..." He looked over at Gil. "That is the most subjective thing of all, isn't it?"

Of course it is, he thought.

Perhaps he had mulled over on what everyone else did with their lives here than what he wanted for himself. He felt rather stupid, losing sight of what he needed to do.

"You're right." He idly shrugged, trying to make it seem as if he was no longer too bothered by the subject. "How long have you been here?"

Blue gave the question some thought, smiling a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"I couldn't tell you," he admitted, shaking his head a little. "I've not kept track. And my time here has been very fragmented. Decades passed between leaving and arriving..." His expression grew apologetic. "And my future is in this city's past. It's strange to think."

Having been sent back for a brief period only to return? That machine was cruel -- if it was possibly as sentient as everyone else made it out to be.

"It may be the future of mine," Gil mused, quietly. He can't decide which of the changes were more surprising; clothes, technology, social customs... "Oh," a beat. "What is your name?"

It was at that question the smile found its way back to his eyes. Blue bowed his head a little as he replied.

"I am called Soldier Blue. Or simply Blue, if that's what you prefer." He looked back up, bearing a much warmer expression. "Hello."

His introduction garnered an odd, albeit skeptical look from Gil. He doesn't know how vastly different each world could be, but naming customs couldn't have been that strange.

Besides, "Soldier Blue" sounded more like some kind of title, than an actual name.

"That's really your name?" And quickly before he would forget, "Ah, Gilbert."

"Gilbert," he repeated, nodding in acknowledgment. A name to the face and thoughts swirling around it; Blue would remember. And as for the question...

"It's the name my people gave me," he explained. "I protect them; 'Soldier' was appropriate to them. Whatever name I had before then is unknown to me, though I don't doubt there was one."

He rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. The first thought that entered his mind was that Blue and him were a little similar in that regard; he had always been Gilbert, but not always a Nightray. His biological family, if he ever had one, was a mystery to him.

"Your people?" But all this pegged another question. "Did you ever think that may be why the Porter brought you here?"

Without giving it too much thought, it seemed plausible. Most of the imPorts were the costume-wearing sort. They had experience protecting others.

"For being a guardian?" Blue questioned, following that train of thought and allowing himself to consider it. "I would say it's possible, but...For as many protectors there are here now, there are just as many innocents. Members of my own people have been brought here in the past, as well. The method to the machine's madness is hard for me to discern."

He nodded, though modern day machinery was far beyond him. He still didn't know how to use all the functions the communicator was capable of alone.

"There really is no logic to all this." He sighed, idly flipping the next page of the book. "But the machine can't be tampered with or else it sends the threat somewhere else."

It was then he realized he must have been lucky. If the Porter could have sent him halfway across the world in a span of two seconds, there's the possibility it could have dumped him in another world with no way to return.

"And harming it would make one responsible for the hundreds of people and creatures drawn here," Blue pointed out. "And though some have adapted well enough to be content, others find it very difficult to be here."

He regarded Gil quietly for a moment, gauging the mood.

"Simply saying one should adjust and wait for the chance to leave is unkind, though options are limited to that and little else. It's...frustrating. Something most of us share in our own ways." Some more than others, some less. Blue himself had not often endured the long exile on this faraway Terra gracefully, yet it was hard to truly regret, save for the strain it had caused others around him.

He knew that of himself well enough – it was Gil that interested him then and there.

"What waits for you in your world, Gil?"

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LOST THIS TAG aaaaaaaaaaaaa

AND NOW YOU'RE BACK

note to self: don't touch inbox when sick

gently snaps sickness' neck :)

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