Mirrors | Day of the Jump

[alsohawkeye]

[ The image that appears on the mirror screen is not a person at all, but the ground. Specifically a patch of dirt, scraped smooth by the Tranquility's slide. There is a tin can half-embedded in the soil, and what looks like it might be a blanket in a lump beside it. ]

So, things are falling from the sky. Apparently? I assume I'm not the only one who noticed.

[ A hand, tanned and scabbed, enters the frame to gesture at the stuff, flicking a finger against the can. The noise it make sounds like someone flicking a tin can. (Dull in more ways than one. Also like it might hurt a little.) ]

Did anyone happen to see anything that might explain this? Did anybody find anything extra weird or interesting? I knew this planet thing was seeming too normal to be true.

Comments

[rhyfelgri]

I wanna live your normal life, gorgeous.

( THIS PLANET THING SEEMS SO FUCKED UP, KATE. the fact enfys can't see kate is irrelevant to that endearment, this is just what happens when people and words, roll with it. meanwhile: )

This, on t'other hand-- ( mirror swiveling wildly and abruptly to show a gas mask that enfys has picked up and possibly named, ) --is forboding as all get out.

[alsohawkeye]

Do you? [ Kate's version of 'normal' has gotten pretty fucked up by this point. Nothing mind controlling them and no hallucinations seems like an astonishingly low bar until you've spent a couple years on the TQ. So yes, that is said dryly.

Less so: ] Yeah that is definitely ominous. I was thinking this might be stuff the ship spat out, but I don't remember every seeing gas masks around unless something was hiding a stock of them.

[rhyfelgri]

( enfys' laugh is the knowing laugh of someone whose normal was already pretty askew, if she's being honest, which on occasion even happens. )

Looking a mite bit antique for the Tranquility, to my mind.

[alsohawkeye]

Yeah, that was my thought too, but what's the alternative?

[ The mirror wheels in a blur of ground and sky and tarp and skin as Kate shifts and closes her hand around it without remembering it's doing video. This way she can rub the cloth of the blanket between two fingers again, assessing. ]

Pulling stuff out of other versions of this world? But what are the chances of there being Bicycle cards here?

[rhyfelgri]

( enfys flattens her hand over her own mirror for a moment while the image blurs and swings - not cool, kate, her stomach rolled unexpectedly. it's fine!! but jesus, wizards. )

Pulled us out of our own worlds. But it doesn't feel as random, you know. I don't imagine we've got as much in common as these things to each other.

[vdova]

I found a deck of playing cards. [ She holds it up, box scuffed and dirty, but Natasha's pretty sure they're all there. ]

Well, more accurately, I was hit in the head with a deck of playing cards.

[alsohawkeye]

[ Kate leans in to peer more closely at the image, and it makes her quick bark of laughter all the louder and more immediate. ]

It hit you in the head? How dare it. Doesn't it know who you are? Is there anything about the cards that suggests where they're from? Are they just normal Bicycles like at home or TQ-native or...?

[vdova]

[ Natasha shrugs. ] They're normal Bicycles, suicide king and all. As far as I can tell, there's nothing weird about them, excluding their attempt at giving me a concussion.

[alsohawkeye]

That's even weirder. It would be less weird if they were weird.

[ What a stupid sentence. What a stupid life where that sentence is accurate. ]

At least you got hit by something fun?

[fullmoon]

[ With relative cheer: ] Maybe it's trying to help.

[alsohawkeye]

[ With less skepticism than she'd like: ] 'It' what? The ship?

[fullmoon]

Sure. Whatever used to put things in our lockers.

[alsohawkeye]

Then why isn't it in the lockers? New people are still finding their stuff in the ship.

[suddenlycaptain]

The jump.

[ Carolyn is sporting some coloring around her eye socket, courtesy of the radio receiver she's holding in one hand. ]

Just like back on the ship.

[alsohawkeye]

Did you recognize any of it? If it's the stuff that was meant to go into lockers this month or last someone has to recognize something.

[ She lifts her chin and one brow: ]

Nice shiner, by the way.

[suddenlycaptain]

No. But some of it is what I'd been quietly wanting for survival reasons.

[ Which. Isn't necessarily comforting.

A snort, and Carolyn shakes the radio receiver. ]

Rain's a little harder than I'm used to.

[alsohawkeye]

[ Kate huffs a little laugh, and the humor lingers in her voice the way the smile sticks around her mouth. ]

When the blanket fell on my head for a second I thought it was some sort of really weird bird and just about gave myself a black eye trying to get it off.

Is it close enough to what you were wanting it could've come out of your head, or just coincidental you think?

[forgodssake]

I ate something from a can. I'm fine.

[ Science expert Charles Xavier. ]

In case anyone was feeling hesitant.

[alsohawkeye]

[ Charles. ]

Are you serious? You just went and ate something from one of those cans.

[forgodssake]

After conducting some simple tests, yes. Honestly, I didn't make everyone carry all this equipment out into the middle of the jungle for nothing.

[ He sets the mirror aside, returning to whatever he was doing. He always found video mode weird. These mirrors are weird. He can still be heard, his shadow passing by. ]

No presence of known poisons and the two cans I found were unspoiled. I wouldn't try my luck with anything leaking or damaged or rusted, but that's, you know, common sense, I'd say.

[alsohawkeye]

Oh. Well, good. Because it would've been very stupid if you hadn't.

[ Which is obviously not a thing she would ever guess of him. Ignore the tone in that last message. Moving on. ]

What was in them, exactly? Could you tell?

MIRROR

[doggedly]

Hang on, what 'extra weird' thing did you get to find?

[alsohawkeye]

I didn't, I just got this normal stuff, that's why I was asking. But Enfys has a gas mask, that's fairly weird. Mildly weird.

[doggedly]

[Hang on but you said



right, mirrors. Mild disappointment gives way to interest. Gas mask.]

Is it?

[alsohawkeye]

Yeah, they're kind of-- creepy. Don't you think? And they're old school for the TQ, I'd be surprised if they were ship-issue.