[SEMI-OPEN]

[acreage]

WHO: Amos Burton, James Holden, Wysteria, Ellis, and YOU
WHAT: Two spacemen fall out of a rift, later explore scenic Kirkwall
WHEN: Nnnnowish? Waves hands
WHERE: The Wounded Coast, then Kirkwall
NOTES: A closed arrival thread, plus open individual threads for meeting Amos and/or Jim after their quarantine period.

Comments

[innerharbor]

A long pause. What the fuck is going on. "Soy substitute. And fungal reconstitutions. I dunno, I'm not a botanist, but it wasn't real meat."

[justashotaway]

"Oh." He doesn't sound angry, exactly--he doesn't sound like much of anything--but she turns her attention back to her lunch for a minute or two anwyay. "You are a Rifter."

It's less question and more a statement provided for confirmation from him. That's the context she's missing.

[innerharbor]

Amos hefts one giant arm onto the table with a dull clank, displaying the glowing green something in his elbow.

"Yeah."

One thing he's already gotten from this chick-- he doesn't have to waste words around her.

[justashotaway]

She looks at his arm with mild interest: normally, she doesn't have a close view of anyone's shard, as most of her friends and acquaintances are from Thedas. "When did you come out of the rift?"

[innerharbor]

Amos shrugs with one shoulder, the effect looking a little like half a wave crashing from one side of his neck. "Recently. The way you guys keep time is fucked."

[justashotaway]

This is a baffling statement. Laura continues to eat her turnips, but with a slightly disbelieving tilt to her brows. "How do you measure time?"

[innerharbor]

"Relatively. What you guys do makes sense for this system."

They clearly have mostly Earth standard hours-- Amos hasn't started feeling jetlagged yet-- but what the fuck is Harvestmere? This planet is a postcard.

[justashotaway]

"Relatively?" There's no spark of understanding in her facial expression. Nothing this man says makes any sense at all.

[innerharbor]

Amos makes the executive decision not to explain relativity to a medieval rube. "Based on where we are," he says instead.

[justashotaway]

"Oh." That makes somewhat more sense, though the idea of traveling doesn't quite justify changing how they measure time passing. "We are not always in Kirkwall, but we use the same system."

[innerharbor]

Amos doesn't sigh, but he knows he would, if he was someone else. "We go to other planets."

[justashotaway]

Her attention is drawn away from her lunch, eyes sharp on his. "Other planets?"

[innerharbor]

"Yeah," Amos says, and starts on the brothy soup, now cold. "And moons. We mostly dealt with asteroids, before."

[justashotaway]

By now, she's stopped eating. "How?"

[innerharbor]

Well, at least she didn't ask what asteroids are. "Where's the moon, kid?"

[justashotaway]

"Which one?" And, after a moment--"And I am not a 'kid.'"

[innerharbor]

"Oh, shit, right, you got a few satellites." Leaving aside the fact that she's definitely 'kid'. He points upward. "So the moon's here," he says, "for the sake of argument. You gotta go up."

[justashotaway]

Rude, serah, she's going to be eighteen in a few months. Her gaze follows his hand. "But how? You cannot climb to a moon."

[innerharbor]

How do you explain this to a medieval person? Like you would to a very small child. "Nah, climbing's for suckers. You jump."

[justashotaway]

She narrows her eyes. "You are lying to me."

[innerharbor]

"Okay." Expression blank, he finishes his drink in one swallow, and turns the cup upside down. "Imagine you had an explosion you could control. Sustained energy, constant burst, and you can put it in one place and keep it from breaking anything."

He points to the cup again, tipping it to the side, as though stuffing the metaphorical explosion in there. Then he holds the cup up, up, up. Get it, kid?

[justashotaway]

This, she understands--and though she doesn't smile, her expression changes slightly, from doubt to something clearer-eyed and curious. "A mage with fire could."

Matthias could visit a moon, if he wished. She likes that idea.

[innerharbor]

"Yeah, sure, magic." It's basically the same thing, when you don't know shit. When he was her age, nuclear fission was a dream. "You just gotta know how to build it."

[justashotaway]

"How do we build it?"

[innerharbor]

"Uh, discover nuclear physics." He starts in on his soup. "I work on the things, I didn't create 'em."