twenty-eighth jump;

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Any and all.
LOCATION: Gravity Couches and beyond.
WARNINGS: Maybe some swearing, or even some violence, and more than likely some implied (and possibly explicit) nakedness.
SUMMARY: Another month, another jump, another round of new faces.
NOTES: It could just be the standard sensation of air on wet skin, but if you bother to check, you might notice the steam rising from your body, barely there and gone within a minute. By the time you get to the showers, it will be clear that it's not just taking you time to adjust. The room is cold — colder than usual, but no worse than the last jump. While it's nothing dangerous, it's certainly motivation to hurry through the usual routine and get dressed quickly.



It's getting closer.




YOUR EYES ARE OPEN.

KEEP LOOKING.

You wake up in darkness.

There's a breathing tube jammed down your trachea, and you're suspended in a tube of clear blue fluid. Upon registering your level of consciousness, the gravity couch drains the fluid surrounding you and retracts the breathing apparatus; the doors in front of you open, and you're deposited on the floor of a stark, sterile medical bay.

You are not alone.
There are others who have come before you, others who are awakening beside you. Some may be familiar to you, perhaps even friends. Others have much less amiable plans. Some are merely alien and inexplicable, but there are always those who might mean you harm.

After you catch your breath and your vision returns, you notice a number on the inside of your forearm. Maybe it's a familiar number. Maybe it means something. Maybe it's just a number. But the number—completely unique to you—is a tattoo, and it does not come off.

If you enter the room adjacent to the medbay, you will find a small locker with your number on it, surrounded by rows upon rows of identical lockers. Inside, you will find a few of your personal items, a communications device, and a ship's uniform in your exact size. The comms device is fully powered and connects directly to the ship's network; it's your only means of communication beyond physical conversation. Upon turning the device on, a neutral, automated voice will say, "Please take the blue lift to the passenger quarters." Any other attempts at communicating with the rest of the network are met only with static.

This is your welcome party.

Comments

[wheeloffire]

...England?

When he was a lad, Frodo would sometimes study maps of Middle-earth with Bilbo. They would talk about Erebor, and Mirkwood. Sometimes they would spend hours upon hours talking, but nowhere in his memory could Frodo recall an England. Or a France!

Frodo couldn't help but feel confused. So if she didn't know where Middle-earth was, and he didn't know what England was, did that mean she was-

Of course not. If there were other worlds, there was no way she could be here! Could she?

"A country where?"

[skjalf]

Elizabeth appears equally as startled. She was given a rare and broad sort of education in her father's court. The geography of the Known World had been part of it.

And nowhere on her father's maps had there ever been a place called 'Middle-Earth'.

"We are an island across the sea from the coast of France. there are two other countries upon our isle, Wales and Scotland. Ireland is yet another island, to our west. But surely.."

Surely he knows of it, right? But he does not seem to. The blank stare is both telling, and alarming. Elizabeth sucks in a breath to calm herself and keep the rising panic at bay. Just where are they, if they are both here, but have never heard of where each other hails from?

She smiles reassuringly, but she feels the muscles drawn tight in her face with the effort of maintaining it. She is terrified.

"Well, no matter. We shall find out where we are soon, God willing. And our dear ones before that."

Elizabeth can only hope.

[wheeloffire]

Things were so overwhelming right now. Frodo didn't have a clue on where he was, or why. Smeagol and Samwise were gone. There were people he was meeting that weren't from Middle-earth at all, or so they said. There were people all over, some looking fairly normal and others not so much. It felt like his brain was spinning inside of his head, and there was no way to make it stop.

He had to contain himself. The only thing Frodo could do was to search for Sam and Elizabeth's sister. That's what he tried to tell himself. There was nothing he could do now. There was nothing he could do now...

A distraction was what they needed right now!

"What is it like in...England?"

[skjalf]

Elizabeth stops in her tracks, and turns to regard the hobbit with a concerned frown. Her brows draw together, and then she lowers herself to one knee in order to regard him at his own level.

"Take heart. You are not alone here. I shall not leave you to face this situation alone. It is.. it is frightening for me, as well. But not as much as it would be were I alone."

It is because she is an elder sister, and used to picking up her younger siblings when they fall, and being able to tell when they are upset. His panic is obvious, and she sets herself to address it first, rather than dismiss it.

And once she has, she gives him a small smile.

"It is a nation which spans half the width and breadth of an island set in the sea. It rains most of the year, and is covered with small hills. But in the spring, everything is green. And in the winter, everything looks as though it has been made anew. It has its own form of beauty, though it not be conventional."

Realizing she has gone on at length, she looks sheepish, and coughs.

"What is Middle-Earth like?"

[wheeloffire]

"Aaah." Frodo sighs as he's struck with a bout of homesickness.

Small hills, the greenest of green in the springtime. And then the winter, when everything's covered in a blanket of snow. It reminds him so much of the Shire, and the things that he's been missing on this journey. He nods along, giving Elizabeth a somber kind of smile. "What a lovely place."

Now, for Middle-earth..."Ah, well I can't describe it all to you. There are very many places that I haven't seen." Or maybe will...or have seen. There was too many places he'd been to for a hobbit. "I came from a place known as the Shire."

He looks down to his feet as they continue, lost in thought. "The sky is beautiful, and the grass is always green. My kin live in houses built into the hills, called smials." Oh, Bag End. How he missed it! "It's always beautiful in the Shire. And when winter comes, it's even more so." Frodo sighed. "There is nothing more pleasurable than watching the snow fall from outside of your window while you sip a cup of tea."

[skjalf]

"It truly is." Elizabeth is also struck with a melancholy longing for home.

So much of it as she might see from the back of her palfrey or from behind the casement pane of a window. But still, home is home, and she understands well the look upon his face.

Elizabeth is content to listen, so that talking of home might assuage their mutual fear a little. "It is not a nation, then? But a.. continent? Ahh, I see!" She lights up with a smile, then.

"Your home does sound lovely, indeed. I wish I might see these houses for myself. I confess I have never heard of the like before!"

And.. "What is tea?" She won't address watching the world from out a window, because she has a bit of a different take on that particular experience.

[wheeloffire]

What is tea? That was a question he never heard of before!

That was actually...kind of hard to explain. Never before in his fifty years had he ever gave someone an explanation as to what tea was! But as odd as it was, it made him smile. Even though it made him homesick, talking about tea was a very good way to take the pressure off of his shoulders.

"Tea is made out of tea leaves and water." This was easy enough, right? "You simply put the leaves inside a kettle full of water, and place it over the fire." He tries to smile. "It's wonderful after a long day or in the middle of winter."