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WHO: John Constantine and You
WHAT: Arrival and settling in
WHEN: Drakonis
WHERE: Various
NOTES: A few prompts, open

ARRIVAL
(Just one thread for this one please. Multiple characters welcome but they'd have to be on the same rifter collection team.)

It's a dark and stormy night. Something poetic about that, maybe, but John doesn't have the space to think about it yet. He's just had a nasty wake-up - possibly the worst in his life, which is saying something. He doesn't even remember what he was dreaming about, but he does remember it was at least warm, and dry, and there weren't any demons.

Not this: soaked through to the skin, freezing, running through a goddamn forest, the densely packed tree trunks illuminated only by the sickly green light of the thing he'd fallen out of. Like a hole, or a crack in the air, but flickering and fluctuating like a flame. He hadn't had a chance to look at it further. Not with the claws and teeth that had started climbing out after him.

In normal circumstances he might have some way to deal with this situation. Something tucked in his pockets. But in the immediate of not knowing what the hell was going on, he'd taken the most obvious survival option: run.

Where the fuck he's running to, though, he has no idea.

GALLOWS
It's still raining. John doesn't think it's stopped, and has considered, several times, that God must be here too. No one else has a sense of humour as twisted as this.

For a man that isn't happy about the rain, he's closer to it than he should be. Stood in the doorway leading onward to the dining hall, golden light, the sound of a dozen conversations and the smell of food spilling welcomingly out. But he has his back turned to it, shoulder leant into the stone of the doorframe, eyes on the dark clouds overhead.

His fingers are twitching, a little. Trembling might be a better word for it. Jumpy and restless, more irritated than usual, more trouble sleeping than usual. It hasn't been a good time to be trapped indoors, even if the rain might have prevented him from seeing the wonders of Thedas anyway.

Finally, something about him seems to fold. His hand dips into a pocket of his coat, fishes out a packet, silver foil and green. One mint coloured pellet of gum is peeled out, the packet crumpling empty in his hand. He holds it up to the sky between finger and thumb, almost like he's giving a toast.

"Picked a great time," he says, then pops the gum in his mouth.

KIRKWALL & DOCKS
Only a day out of quarantine and he can already be found getting thrown out of a tavern, landing on his back in the mud. Face bloodied, he attempts to get upright again as fast as he can before realising no one appears to be following him out. Well, that's just fine by him. He can just lay in the rain for a moment.

"Must be something I said," he mutters to himself. It absolutely was, of course. Making friends and influencing people, John Constantine style, usually means pushing buttons until he knows what they all do. And Thedas, so far, seems to be full of buttons.

Eventually, he levers himself up, starts making his way down to the docks. Finds himself a place to stand, right out on the jetty, seemingly uncaring of the salt breeze only blowing the rain sharper. Hair pasted to his face, clothes soaked through, the bruises blossoming on his face are unmistakable against the increasing paleness of cold skin. He doesn't bother to seek shelter back near the buildings or amongst the waiting cargo of the docks. Just watches the slow approach of the ferry across the water.

"You should see the other guy," he says, when he notices he's being looked at. But even just that comment has him wincing, pressing a handkerchief that's as wet with blood as it is rain more firmly against the fresh flow of red from his nose.

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The scrutiny he notices is coming from somewhere roughly down at shoulder-height, somewhere to his left, close enough that she is probably also waiting for the ferry if not actually waiting with him, initially. One amber eye regards him critically, the other gleaming blank gold like a coin one might lay on the eyes of the dead, and little else other than a shock of curly hair twisting in the damp air is in evidence with her fur-lined cloak, elegant and finely made, protecting the rest from the elements. The wind keeps blowing the hood of her cloak off, and she has mostly given up on it altogether, holding the edges with gloved hands.

“Why,” drolly, “was he more impressive?”

It's Kirkwall, so probably not, actually. This is a reflection on Kirkwall more than on this new stranger, in her opinion.

The look she's given in return is amused, albeit only evidence from the edges of his eyes and slight tip of one eyebrow. He's somehow still well-humoured, it seems, despite the cold and the injuries. Or maybe it's the bloodloss contributing.

"Depends what you find impressive," dry, muffled slightly by the cloth as he glances her over. Warm cloak, shiny eyes, beautiful. He knows crowds back home she'd fit right in with. "Seemed to me like he had more muscles than brain cells, but I'm trying not to judge."

It was bad for the soul, and all that.

The sound she makes is amusement, too, if not a laugh.

“You must be a man that likes a challenge,” is certainly a joke at Kirkwall's expense, although she has certainly taken in how shit he looks and accounted for it in a punchline that can do double duty. (Which is, of itself, nearly a pun.) “I'd offer to do something about your face, but I'm afraid I'm waiting for someone coming from the other direction.”

In all likelihood, the emergency satchel is almost certainly amongst the things Guilfoyle has packed up to see her up to Hightown with, but getting trapped on this side of the harbour until the next round-trip of the boat might be more inconvenient than just seeing how much blood a man really needs to keep inside his nose, anyway. There's an infirmary in the Gallows, if he doesn't want to be terribly masculine about the whole thing.

"Pretty sure he said something like that, too." With a gesture at the bruised and bloody state of himself, for context.

More importantly, though, that was enough words spoken for him to place the voice. He gives her another glance over, putting the two pieces of the puzzle together into a whole.

"You live this side, or did they not want to risk the nun getting called a cunt during her stay?"

The query jogs a similar moment of oh, you on her end — and thats what he looks like; she decides that makes sense — in the same breath as a shrug that would probably be more elegant if she weren't bundled up so much against the elements that it's almost hard to tell it happened.

"I live there," she says, tipping her head toward what Strange has described as Baba Yaga's luxury yacht, a moderately terrifying looking built up house-boat, secured to a slip not far from where the ferry stops on the Gallows side of the harbour, "when I'm not sequestered in my grandfather's place to avoid being put in the position of unavoidably having to call a spade a spade."

Wild that she's not in Diplomacy.

Vanya Orlov is not usually the sort of man to assume out-of-context remarks are directed at him. On the other hand, he is keenly aware these days of a tremor in the hands and a restless demeanor. He assumes that whatever the new rifter is craving, it isn't lyrium, but he feels a pang of sympathy all the same.

"Excuse me," he says, his Neverran accent vaguely Slavic to Earth-native ears. "I am sorry to intrude, but is there anything you need?" He is somewhat braced for the answer to be no, but he can't help but ask. (And if he's curious about whatever the man just popped into his mouth, he keeps it to himself for the present.)

There's a dry huff at the question, a laugh at a joke that probably wasn't meant to be one.

"World peace, a ticket home, and a bottle of two hundred dollar whiskey," he answers, eyebrow raised as he looks to the other man. Really, on a list of what John Constantine needs, those probably don't even rank top ten. He knows he's likely been recognised though, either in his solitude or his conversing with the sky, query inspired by some genuine concern - though most of what he's encountered so far seems to be concern of him rather than for him. Familiar, in its own way.

"I'd take some nicotine patches, if you've got any," is an honest answer. Funny how easy that is, when you know it's impossible. "Maybe tucked in a treasure chest or whatever you use here."

Vanya can tell from the tone that it's a joke, but still: "I don't know what nicotine is, but I am currently acting seneschal, so while I can't make any promises about world peace, it is not a totally idle question." He considers the man's general demeanor and adds, "I know it can be uncomfortable to be far from home, even if I have never been so far as you. If you'll describe it to me, maybe we have something similar?"

John considers it, for a long moment. Considers the title 'seneschal', which he's never heard before but apparently means something here. Trying to make sure people are comfortable, or something. Like a hotel concierge. Considers how comfortable he'd be being comfortable, seeing as he was near-constantly coughing his lungs up only a week ago. But hey, can't hurt to try.

"It's the stuff in tobacco that makes smoking addictive," he says, finally, shouldering away from his lean against the wall to fully face the man. He's assuming they have tobacco here. They have coffee. Some things seem to be universal. "Without all the other shit that'll give you cancer."

He's assuming they have that here, too.

It doesn't show on his face, but Vanya has the brief, mad impulse to laugh at the thought I didn't know tobacco was addictive. Under the circumstances, it is perhaps the smallest bit funny, but not in a way a new arrival is likely to appreciate, and this isn't about Vanya.

When John looks him over, while he's unlikely to see the suppressed irony, he can probably read a lifetime of military training, the signs of which aren't so different between worlds. Vanya isn't in armor or visibly armed, but the marks are still there: in his posture, in the way he's unconsciously positioned himself so that no one can easily sneak up on him, in the way "at ease" applies to him more in that it suggests not at attention than that it suggests relaxed.

"I'm afraid tobacco is not close enough to the top of the list of things that might kill us that we have dealt with that particular issue yet." It's mild enough that it's easy to miss that it's a joke. "That said, the infirmary might have some suggestions you're not familiar with from home, if you are willing to branch out. I know they have dealt with other sorts of addiction, before."

Where the fuck is he running to may in fact prove to be one of those funny, almost existential questions very shortly. But presently, as he cuts through the trees, a further oddity makes itself known: a group of people, weapons drawn, running in the direction he's just come in—blind if not to one another, than certainly to John Constantine as they evidently have some serious business to attend to closer to the source of the sickly green light playing through the trees.

Which would be odd enough in and of itself if not for here, a number of meters back, a lantern reveals itself out of the brush and wet drooping foliage. A young woman is standing over it, in the process of strapping a buckler to her arm. When he comes crashing through the trees, she quickly snatches the heavy field knife from her belt and is already bringing it round to stab errant demons with—

"Oh!" She cries instead, shrill with surprise and pleasure both. "You're not dead!"

Very close (arguably far too close), the sound of fighting kicks up. A heavy crack-pop of arcane energy rings, and the whole forest turns briefly bright neon green.

He'd slowed as he'd run into people in the trees. Might have stopped entirely, if they'd seemed to pay attention to him at all, if he'd found himself between whatever was climbing out of the hole and an armed crowd. Instead they'd gone straight past him, and while some small voice made the suggestion that he should warn them, or stop them, the rest was still too what the fuck is going on to allow for playing hero.

So it is that it's more of a confused stumble that has him arriving in the company of woman and lantern. And bucket, and knife. His attention flicks between all of these elements before being pulled away by the sound of fighting from the way he'd came, looking back just in time to get blinded by that flash of green light.

"Not feeling so sure about that myself," he gripes, lifting a hand to wipe some of the rain off his face while his eyes readjust. There's a brief hope, that as his vision clears, he might find himself back in bed, instead of wherever the hell (not) this is.

Poor luck. The young woman with her knife and her little shield in the pool of wet lantern light remains exactly as they are regardless of any blinking or eye rubbing and helpful sweeping away of pelting rain.

"Not to worry," she is in fact saying, cramming her plain field knife back into its leather sheath at her belt. "You're quite safe now from whatever back there meant to harm you. With sincerest apologies that we weren't here earlier. We all took the horses out thinking the road would be perfectly fit, and then the storm— well, it has slowed down our coming considerably. Ordinarily we would be more prepared to greet you."

Peel a Rifter outer of harm's way before a demon tries to gut them. Potayto, potahto.

Another pop of magic, further flashes of green. The scream of terrible things crackle through the darkness, and the young woman in her waxed rain cloak bends to fetch the lantern.

"We might consider retreating back to the horses for now until they've finished sealing the rift. We're not so far back as to be entirely outside the reach of its spirits."

( continued from. )

Strange passes him a look, then, which is assessing and clinical: sizing up those fingers laced into the handkerchief, pressed firmly to a bleeding nose. The stranger doesn’t have the build of a brawler or a regular tavern thug, if he had to hazard a guess. He looks leaner. Rumpled.

They’re about the same height, although Strange is a little older, his hair grey-streaked. But he’s huddling into a long red cloak on that pier, looking just as miserable in that driving rain. It’s been going hard all month, with little respite.

“Maybe,” he says, slowly, considering. “I try not to judge. I hear things get wacky around here: assassinations, hauntings. You could’ve run afoul of a poltergeist.”

That gets something closer to a laugh in response, a huffed out breath and a half smile.

"Nothing that fun." Which is probably as much confirmation as is necessary that yes, it was a bar brawl. Not even a particularly interesting one, given that John was fairly fresh out of quarantine and still finding his feet. He'd need a couple of weeks at least to level up his pointed jabs and side comments. And run into a poltergeist, maybe.

"Know where I could find one?"

An arch of an eyebrow; a little surprised, a little bemused in the way of like recognising like. “Really? Most people would run in the exact opposite direction at the mention of one.”

Then again. His gaze drifts down as he notices the tell-tale faint green light of the other man’s anchor shard; he unfurls his own left hand from within the warm recesses of his cloak, flashes it in the rain as a kind of hello, palm-up in not-so-secret greeting, rifter-to-rifter.

“Sounds like you’re not from around these parts either,” Strange observes.

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the docks.

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Gallows

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arrival;

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the docks;

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