Debut - for Felicity
Nov. 9th, 2013 07:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tobearwitness“I don't think I can go through that again. Listen to me next time when I tell you something.” Ichabod laughs weakly and watches her, committing this particular expression into memory. Abbie Mills is a remarkable woman and seemingly, in this moment, very concerned with his well-being beyond their shared task. It is not his wish to needlessly worry her and as he has become fond of her as both a fellow witness and friend, he has a duty to keep her safe as she has kept him. That duty extends to her emotional well-being as well as the physical.
“I will keep my ears open to your admonitions,” he assures her, smiling just a bit and Abbie counters with “I don’t know what that means, just say yes.” Yes is a very, very simple thing to give and he does, nodding his head a bit in deference to that. He moves ahead of her to start the long, slow climb out of the tunnels and pushes open the door, holding it for her so she can walk through ahead of him. Abbie does but when he goes to follow, he’s no longer in an underground chamber and somewhere else entirely.
This isn’t the first time that Ichabod has woken in a strange place and he doesn’t suppose it will be the last. He has made a habit of stepping through time since awaking from his battlefield death those weeks ago and now, it seems, he’s come somewhere else. Unlike Thomas’ village, this place doesn’t seem as if it were set outside of time, protected by something beyond mere humanity, but feels like something else entirely. It seems to be some sort of inn and an inn in the modern sense; there is electricity and other modern convenience out in the open. Ichabod wonders if this is a hereto unexplored corner of Sleepy Hollow, some passage that everyone has forgotten about, and he calls out for Abbie to gain further insight.
If anyone knows about the world, the modern world, it will be her. “Lieutenant? Lieutenant Mills?” Ichabod lengthens his stride, searching the corridors of the hotel in hopes that he’ll find her. There’s only so many places she could have gone after stepping through the doorway and it’s not like Abbie to have simply abandoned him when their situation is so dire. The Horseman rides tonight and while they are but two people, two can make a stronger stand than one. Abbie would be cognizant of that.
He crosses over to the large front desk and decides to query the man working, a short fellow who claims to know nothing of Abbie Mills and to only have one name of import in his ledger: Ichabod’s own. There’s a room here for him and the clerk passes him a key, telling him a few things about the hotel itself. Ichabod doesn’t listen. There is nothing pressing on him quite so greatly as the need to find Abbie and to get back to Sleepy Hollow and away from this Nexus, whatever it is.
He traces his steps back to the door he came through and enters it once more, following a winding path until he comes to another door. Curious, he tugs it open and finds that it leads into a little garden, a hothouse of sorts, and he frowns deeply. Did he not just walk through this door from Sleepy Hollow into the Nexus? Should it not lead directly back, a one to one point of travel?
“It seems that travel is not quite so simple,” he says quietly, trying to work this out. He gestures his hands as he thinks out loud, making his way back down the corridor and out into the hotel proper once again. “It’s not...linear, whatever it is, but it must possess some sort of logic. Everything has a logic, even if it’s not a logic commonly thought as such by humanity. What is your logic, then, Nexus? How do I get back?”
“I will keep my ears open to your admonitions,” he assures her, smiling just a bit and Abbie counters with “I don’t know what that means, just say yes.” Yes is a very, very simple thing to give and he does, nodding his head a bit in deference to that. He moves ahead of her to start the long, slow climb out of the tunnels and pushes open the door, holding it for her so she can walk through ahead of him. Abbie does but when he goes to follow, he’s no longer in an underground chamber and somewhere else entirely.
This isn’t the first time that Ichabod has woken in a strange place and he doesn’t suppose it will be the last. He has made a habit of stepping through time since awaking from his battlefield death those weeks ago and now, it seems, he’s come somewhere else. Unlike Thomas’ village, this place doesn’t seem as if it were set outside of time, protected by something beyond mere humanity, but feels like something else entirely. It seems to be some sort of inn and an inn in the modern sense; there is electricity and other modern convenience out in the open. Ichabod wonders if this is a hereto unexplored corner of Sleepy Hollow, some passage that everyone has forgotten about, and he calls out for Abbie to gain further insight.
If anyone knows about the world, the modern world, it will be her. “Lieutenant? Lieutenant Mills?” Ichabod lengthens his stride, searching the corridors of the hotel in hopes that he’ll find her. There’s only so many places she could have gone after stepping through the doorway and it’s not like Abbie to have simply abandoned him when their situation is so dire. The Horseman rides tonight and while they are but two people, two can make a stronger stand than one. Abbie would be cognizant of that.
He crosses over to the large front desk and decides to query the man working, a short fellow who claims to know nothing of Abbie Mills and to only have one name of import in his ledger: Ichabod’s own. There’s a room here for him and the clerk passes him a key, telling him a few things about the hotel itself. Ichabod doesn’t listen. There is nothing pressing on him quite so greatly as the need to find Abbie and to get back to Sleepy Hollow and away from this Nexus, whatever it is.
He traces his steps back to the door he came through and enters it once more, following a winding path until he comes to another door. Curious, he tugs it open and finds that it leads into a little garden, a hothouse of sorts, and he frowns deeply. Did he not just walk through this door from Sleepy Hollow into the Nexus? Should it not lead directly back, a one to one point of travel?
“It seems that travel is not quite so simple,” he says quietly, trying to work this out. He gestures his hands as he thinks out loud, making his way back down the corridor and out into the hotel proper once again. “It’s not...linear, whatever it is, but it must possess some sort of logic. Everything has a logic, even if it’s not a logic commonly thought as such by humanity. What is your logic, then, Nexus? How do I get back?”
no subject
Date: 2013-11-10 12:41 am (UTC)"Whatever, Felicity. You volunteered, it was your choice. She who writes the code also gets to debug it, even if it got you nearly abducted and turned into a doll. If you don't like it, bug Diggle to go back to training you to hit back."
That did it. She pushed open the car door and walked through the parking garage, muttering to herself the whole time, deconstructing the idea of learning self-defense of some sort, following the logic of making her case to John, setting up sub-arguments to counter whatever obstacles he'd throw in her path and re-routing them.
Confident that she'd covered every sub-routine the discussion could take, Felicity reached into her purse, pulled out her keys...and frowned when it wouldn't go into the lock. She tried again and failed just as spectacularly.
"Oliver, if you snuck over here and changed my locks...," she said out loud, looking down the hallway, hand already back in her purse for her phone.
Wait. This wasn't her hallway. It was a hallway, just not one she'd ever seen before. It looked more like a hotel than anything else, not that she had a whole lot of reference for swanky hotels or anything, but she did watch TV sometimes.
"Okay. Weird." Her phone was in her hand, the lock screen cleared and password entered, but there was an annoying "No Signal" status in the upper left hand. She tried calling anyway. Nothing. Texts weren't sending. The internet didn't connect.
"And then we pass weird and go straight into epic fail. Awesome. Except really, really not."
She looked this way and that down the hall and saw a guy. Well. Sort of a guy. Yeah, okay, it was a guy but what he was wearing...?
"Is there a Renaissance Faire in Starling I didn't know about?" she said to him as she approached.
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Date: 2013-11-10 12:45 am (UTC)"A Faire? No, there is not a Faire in Sleepy Hollow right now," Ichabod says, frowning a bit. He had only just begun to get his bearings in the Nexus and now there's this woman he doesn't know.
"Excuse me, miss, but which door did you just enter from? I am trying to find a way back and I seem to have lost my way."
no subject
Date: 2013-11-10 01:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-10 01:01 am (UTC)"No, nor is it where I intended to be," Ichabod says, wondering how exactly this door could go to both her home and his. "I came through that door from Sleepy Hollow. One moment, I was walking with Lieutenant Mills and the next, I arrived here. How is it that you came from a different point of origin and yet used the same method of entry?"
no subject
Date: 2013-11-10 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-10 01:25 am (UTC)"No. I'm terrible with them." Ichabod knows what they are from spending time in the modern era but he allows Lieutenant Mills to handle such things as he has no aptitude for them yet and no time to sit down and learn it.
"The clerk tells me this place is called the Nexus but did not provide further information."
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Date: 2013-11-10 02:01 am (UTC)She stopped abruptly and looked at him. "I said all of that out loud, didn't I?"
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Date: 2013-11-10 03:33 pm (UTC)"You did," Ichabod says gently, giving her a smile. "But it often helps me to think out loud and speak my thoughts to the empty air so I cannot judge you too harshly for it. The organization of one's mind is always better set to rights when given the opportunity to think and speak freely. A nexus is a confluence, isn't it? Some sort of place where paths cross?"
no subject
Date: 2013-11-10 03:40 pm (UTC)Felicity adjusted the glasses on her face and sighed. Her fingers kept moving and flexing as she spoke. "I think better with a computer in front of me. Don't suppose you know what one of those is?"
no subject
Date: 2013-11-10 10:14 pm (UTC)"I do. I have not seen one but we can find one," Ichabod says, thinking that he would eventually need to learn how to use one himself since apparently they were incredibly important in the modern world.
"What do you hope to find with it?"
no subject
Date: 2013-11-10 10:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-10 11:05 pm (UTC)"This is not my first experience with being a man out of time, Miss Smoak," Ichabod says, giving her a polite smile. He has no problem explaining his current situation in Sleepy Hollow but he does think he ought to omit a few pertinent details for protection of innocents.
"I recently traveled two hundred and fifty years into the future. It's a long story and one that is not pressing at the moment but needless to say I am familiar with the computers and technology, as you call it, of 2013."
no subject
Date: 2013-11-10 11:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-11 01:52 am (UTC)"No idea. I am no stranger to the fantastic but this is something outside of my ken. It would make sense if our points of origin were the same but the idea that we could come from two different places and converge on the same point through the same door? It's not clear to me why this would happen."
It's something he wishes he could consult Katrina about, as her knowledge of such things is much greater, but Katrina seems lost to him in this place.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-11 02:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-11 10:52 am (UTC)"I believe it may have come up," Ichabod says, smirking a little. "We should try to find a computer to aid us and see if there's a way to leave this place. The company is fine but there are things to be done back home...at least for me."
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Date: 2013-11-11 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-11 05:09 pm (UTC)"It is a complicated matter, Miss Smoak, and requires no small measure of secrecy. It is a mission of utmost importance, though, and I must rely upon you to understand that. I feel that I can trust you, at least, just based upon our short acquaintance."
Ichabod does not think harm will come to him at Miss Smoak's hand and aims to help her in finding her own way home.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-11 05:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-12 12:59 pm (UTC)"I agree. I suppose we can start checking doors at random?" Ichabod doesn't think this is terribly well thought out but it's the best he can think of at the moment.
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Date: 2013-11-12 03:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-13 10:36 am (UTC)"Grunge? I assure you, I have bathed." Ichabod realizes his clothing leaves some to be desired as it is that he wore in 1781 but he has cleaned it and mended it where necessary. It isn't dirty, exactly, and his person is very clean.
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Date: 2013-11-13 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-14 05:37 pm (UTC)"You have a strange vernacular, Miss Smoak, even for someone in this era," Ichabod says, amused with her. "I find it highly amusing and a bit endearing. Now, to find a computer?"
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Date: 2013-11-14 05:47 pm (UTC)She smiled a little at that because it was only fair given that he drove her crazy all the time, even if it was for really, really different reasons.