multiversallogs | How many goodly creatures are there here!

How many goodly creatures are there here! :: GAME OPENER

Welcome to Baedal.

These are the first words newcomers hear when the door opens and they are invited into their new world. Some fuss, some fight, some need time before they have the courage to step outside. Others, shell-shocked or jaded, go quietly along with the proceedings.

They are given brief instructions; a repeat of what's described in the pamphlet and a door key.

Please stay in your room. There will be dinner soon.

It's been almost a day for some. For others, only an hour's wait. The latest newcomer is lead straight from the arrival room to the dining hall where candles and lanterns have been set out to compensate for failing electricity. (Those who have been here longer explain about rolling blackouts.) The food, however, is warm, varied and plentiful. Seating is open, and less conventional chair are available to those who need them.

There are many strange faces around the table, the majority of these recent arrivals. The proprietor of the Valhalla Inn is here, as is some of her staff. The Sheriff of Mog Hill is introduced, his function detailed. The reason for the dinner is explained:

It's a celebration. A new cohort has finally been officiated; CeidaryBlue523. Your cohort. Please. Introduce yourself. Mingle. Get to know your fellows, they will be your brothers and sisters for as long as you live in this city.

((OOC post for discussion and coordination.))

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"–Balthier." Jack doesn't quite jump, but he's startled enough not to quip, at least. With a quick glance around as if to check if anyone is looking (yes, apparently he's still paranoid), he claps the other man on the arm, smiling. He could hug you, sir. (But he won't; this is how you know he's not a pod person.)

"You're lucky I do, it's been ages. Did you just arrive?"

Relief fills him - both that Jack remembers him and that Jack is still himself - but it's hardly apparent. As nice as this is (and gods, he does appreciate it), his tendency to become extremely grudging when trapped overshadows most of his pleasure at finding his inter-dimensional comrades.

(Somehow, he didn't think for a second Martel might not. Hm.)

"Just enough - what do you mean ages?" Slender metal-ringed fingers brush against Jack's side for a moment, a greeting and a moment of self-assurance in one, and he quirks an eyebrow at him. He's playing at being more or less fine with all of this, but the desperate What is going on here bristles just under his skin.

Oh.

For a second it looks like he might try to backpedal, but – well. "We should sit." Or duck away from the food line, at the very least, though he's talking before they've settled anywhere.

"Maybe not ages, but– it's been months, nearly a year now. Since Bete Noire?" Tentative, like he's almost afraid to say it, afraid this isn't his friend after all. But everything else, the body language, even the rings are right.

His body language goes a little withdrawn - not from Jack, just from the displacement of it all. (Most people wouldn't be able to tell, but, well. Jack's got a bit more insight into how Balthier functions physically, doesn't he? But after nearly a year...)

"I was there, I was-" with Ashe, gods, Ashe, "-just, as usual, there. And I felt... as if I had some strange, long, abstract dream. And woke here."

He goes quiet almost awkwardly on that note, frowning to himself, because he doesn't truly know how long he's been asleep.

What he could have remembered about Balthier's habits ten minutes ago is minuscule in comparison to what his actual presence recalls. Maybe it's simple muscle memory, but one hand stays at Balthier's back, ostensibly casual but steady.

"Like time folded in on itself," he muses, disconcerted, though not so much as his friend. At least Jack has had time to ground himself here. He shakes his head. "Or something far less comprehensible, more likely. This city draws from as many times and realities as the previous one; maybe this is simply what happens when they draw on each other."

Which doesn't make it any less headache-inducing, notably.

"I'm sure it's just luck, us being prime candidates and all." But he still sounds annoyed - privately, it's that he didn't get to go home first, and instead is being kicked around without any idea where he is or what he's meant to be doing. Surely, this has a purpose, but what? Unlike his notable companions, he is not dead, and does actually have a life to return to, one that's got quite the laundry list of things to attend to.

What if time is moving on without him? What if he's abandoned Fran?

For a moment all that anger boils right there, so close to the surface, and for a heartbeat it seems like he might just snap, finally displaying something besides his perfectly-controlled emotional all the time, then -

- It's gone, like it just drifted away in the wind. He glances at the shorter man, one eyebrow quirked.

"This means you'll have somewhere less depressing than a motel-cum-barracks for me to impose upon you for the night, I hope?"

There's a pause to his gaze, a tension in him that responds to Balthier's frustration – sympathetically if not empathetically; even having far less to return to, he can feel for his friend – but it breaks in turn, unremarked upon. Far be it for either of them to discuss feelings, after all.

So instead, distraction.

"Better than that," he tsks. "I own a building's worth. So you have options, amongst which is of course my own." His own building, apartment (...bed), he doesn't specify; in truth Balthier is welcome whichever of the above he's most comfortable.

Feelings are for other people. (You know, people who aren't packing subscriptions of issues.)

"Do you, now. Playing the game, I see. Congratulations, princeling." He tugs on the edge of Jack's coat and grins at that, brief and teasing. That Balthier is politically savvy to a bizarre degree for an outlaw, Jack knows; why is still a mystery.

Jack gives him a Look, affectionately. One of these days he'll wonder aloud about the political habits of sky pirates, but who knows if he'll get an answer. (He is, however, appreciative of the support.)

"I don't mind playing the game when I'm winning," he defends, as if that was an accusation, which says something about his own reservations. "Lucky for me, I'm good at it." (And modest, too.) "Lucky for you, I'm generous enough to share the perks."

"Yes, yes, your ego is very shiny," he teases. Balthier almost never seems just twenty-three; there's always that strange gravity of life that hangs around him, making him seem so much more weighted. Jack has some of it to - perhaps that, all courtly familiarity aside, is why they put up with each other. "Have you found anyone else familiar, then?"

Jack still likes to pretend he's untouchable, but there is kinship to be found in that certain heaviness to their years. "Not a soul. –Well, Sir Hellsing has been here for some time, I presume, but I wouldn't call her familiar." For fear of being disemboweled by Dracula, perhaps.

"This cohort looks much more promising, however." His smile comes sadder than he means it, for a moment, and he looks at Balthier like he might say something more (like he's missed the pirate, or at the very least missed the simple comfort of a familiar rhythm), but he doesn't. He bumps a shoulder against his friend's instead. "And you, have you noticed anyone I should know about?"

"Ah." Balthier's face has a clear 'Oh, them' look to it, and he doesn't comment further. It's interesting, it really is - but that's further into the abyss of politics than he's willing to go; something about Those People edges a bit too into the militaristic territory than he's comfortable with skirting the edges of. Jack is quite enough.

A look, brief - he caught that, sir - and then he gestures with one hand, airy. "You and, so far, Martel, who sends his love-" he says hello, Balthier, "-though I haven't completed the rounds, as it were."

"Oh good, I'd hate to see you deprived of your better half." He loves Martel, really. (Almost enough to offer the man a place to stay, too, but – well, he's not that generous.)

"Speaking of rounds, I ought to be making mine. Civic duty, you know." He rolls his eyes, but it's half-hearted; despite the disaffected default, he's enjoying his politicking more that he'll say. "Meet me out front after, I'll find you a better place to sleep."

If Jack is enjoying his politicking, then Balthier would prefer to break company with him for a while anyway. (He's an odd creature. He'll help, being stunningly adept, but he'll always begrudge the existence of it.)

Then again, neither of them are much for the dreaded concept of PDA.

"Abandoning me already? See if I sleep anywhere but your sofa." But he smirks at him a little, good-natured, as he slips away back into the mess of people.

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How many goodly creatures are there here! :: GAME OPENER

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