| Opening Log

[shadowqueen]

Everyone's waking up at once, covered in bits of rubble, temporarily without abilities and with a lurking headache. The castle looms around them, irrepressibly gray, huge and silent. The only noises are the people, rustling as they extract themselves from their sarcophagi and look for exits along the arching walkways.

Better take a look around, and see if anyone else knows what's going on.

[ooc: Welcome welcome, we are open!! Make threads, tag each other, be free! Prose and action spam are both fine, as you prefer. You can make your own posts to the community, now, too. Just don't forget the handy entry tags. ♥]

Comments

[enthusiast]

[She puts on a slim smile to be polite, though she eyes his outfit for a second –– it's entirely alien to her.]

Si, thank you. And you?

[seventeenth]

[Oh, an Italian. Desmond blinks a little, looking puzzled, then smiles easily.] I manage alright, I think. Aside from the standard 'why am I in a coffin pot' confusion.

[enthusiast]

[Friendliness. She likes it.]

I think this is the last any of us expected such a thing... [She manages a touch of amusement.] Though... the proper name for a stone coffin is a sarcophagus.

[seventeenth]

No kidding. [Desmond's smile spreads into a grin when he's corrected.] Yeah, but I like 'coffin pot'. It has a nice ring to it.

[enthusiast]

I suppose it does.

[Pause, and a broader smile, despite everything around them.]

My name is Sofia. This may seem strange to say, but there is something familiar about you, though I am sure we have never met.

[seventeenth]

I get that more than you'd think, actually. [He offers his hand out to Sofia. He's not sure she'll recognize the gesture, but he offers anyway.] I'm Desmond. Nice to meet you.

[enthusiast]

[Handshaking won't be common for some time, though it is common for men to kiss women's hands in greeting... however, it's a social faux-pas for men to offer their hands first. Sofia assumes she just isn't familiar with her customs.

She offers her hand, too. Listen to her mixed accent mangle your name.]

A familiar face with an unusual name. Where do you come from, Desmond?

[seventeenth]

[Desmond doesn't take her hand to kiss it -- just shakes it in a firm but comfortable grip before releasing her. He wonders where she's heard his name before, but conceals his curiosity, for the moment.] I'm from America.

[enthusiast]

[She's a little confused by the gesture -- hand shaking, alright -- but she doesn't comment, taking her hand back. She's a bit more taken by that one magic word: America. Instantly fascinated.]

America? I have heard that is the new name for the land discovered by Amerigo Vespucci. My husband was familiar with his cousin. How is life in the colonies?

[seventeenth]

[You husband was familiar with Amerigo's cousin... oh dear. Desmond's smile flickers, but only for a moment. He's smiling again a moment later.] Well, for one, they're not colonies anymore.

[enthusiast]

[She scarcely notices that flicker.]

Have they formed their own country?

[seventeenth]

Uh-huh. The British got kicked out in the 1700's.

[enthusiast]

Como? [She's so surprised.] That is some time from now. Last I remember, it was 1513.

[seventeenth]

[Oh.She... might be a hallucination, then, but Desmond still doesn't think so. His exploration of Ezio's memories had ended well before 1513.]

Huh. Still not as far away as 2012, though.

[enthusiast]

[Eyebrows raised.]

Is that where you're from? Or perhaps I should say when? I must admit, none of this seems possible... I find it difficult to believe I'm not in some sort of afterlife.

[seventeenth]

Yup. The middle of fall in 2012.

[He grimaces at the mention of this being an afterlife, though.] That's my least favorite theory about this.

[enthusiast]

It would not explain how we are from different times. Surely, if this is death, than I would have already been here for a long time before you arrived.

[seventeenth]

Or why there aren't more of us here.

[enthusiast]

That, too, unless this place is temporary.

[seventeenth]

What, like hell's waiting room for something?

[enthusiast]

Purgatorio. [Slight head tilt, watching him curiously. Do these people from the future not know this?] Where people expiate their sins before going to Heaven?

[seventeenth]

Oh. [Well, now he feels silly.] I didn't really read Dante's Inferno that thoroughly.

[enthusiast]

[smile]

It isn't in the Inferno; it's in Dante's Purgatorio. [amused] I'm glad that Dante's poetry has survived to your time, though. La Commedia is an important work. Should this place only be temporary, you should read it more carefully.

[seventeenth]

[Okay, now he feels dumb.] Heh, well, I'll keep that in mind. There might even be a copy here.

[enthusiast]

It's certainly possible. No man should pass through any world without having known the greatest literature in all creation.

[She searches his face. There's still something she's trying to place about him. His voice isn't familiar, his jaw isn't familiar, his general posture and the way he carries himself isn't familiar, but there's something about him that's still catching her, despite the hundreds of years between them. She must have hit her head at some point.]