itinere | Open || Action

Open || Action

It had been nearly a month since Cassie came through the door, expecting the Library to send her on her next mission as a "Librarian in Training". She had explored where she could, tested locks on other places, likely been seen out and about, perhaps mumbling to herself as she worked to sort out one mystery or another within her own mind. It wasn't until just recently that Cassie realized that she hadn't actually found the mission she was seeking.

Perhaps the Library had done it on purpose. Perhaps it was magic toying with her, sending Cassie beyond the realms she knew and into someplace new. Whatever the cause and reason, there was definitely some magic afoot here nonetheless.

Like the magic that came with the rose tucked behind her ear. Or that went with the clovers that lined the path. Neither of those had occurred to her though, caught up in trying to calculate the ramifications of her being there. The door had yet to send her back to the Library though she was certain she merely had to calculate the right time and calibrate the right alignments. Or, in other words, she was praying there was a scientific answer to a magical problem.

Also she was really digging the roses. They were just so pretty and she really wished the others were there to see them.

Most of the time though she was reading what she could find, seeking more information, and likely standing somewhere, working things out in her head while talking to herself, with herself, and sometimes about herself. On good days. Bad ones found her with a nose bleed, sometimes caught up in the way she saw the world, and trying not to think about the fear of dying here, alone and without the other Librarians.

(ooc: Open to pretty much anything. She has touched and held roses though and is likely to fall in love with anyone she speaks with and open to that being just infatuation or turning horrible and bad and then working it out later.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(ooc: with this one, infatuation might be best, seeming as he doesn't even like to be touched.)

There was another someone in the library too, a Christopher Boone.

He has been in this strange place for ten days, thirteen hours, sixteen minutes and ... he has to check his watch, 26 - no, 27 - seconds.

It has not been easy for him to be here. He is not very good with strange places, especially strange bathrooms. It has led to more than a few accidents. And he has screamed more than once. He is, though, very glad that his pet rat hasn't been kidnapped by this place.

He has, though, found books. Books about physics and about space and those have been what has made it possible for Christopher to function here as rudimentally as he does. So, there is a fifteen (and some months and some days) year old boy sitting on a bench currently staring up at the sky, imagining space beyond.

Realizing that this was not the same land where she was sent to be, Cassie was still trying to work out where she was, since the door was not working two ways. Eventually it had to open, and at some point she was going to have to find her way back to the Library.

Moving through the city, she wasn't putting anything together. Nothing showed her a picture that others couldn't see. More often than not she was able to find that pattern, to see more than others normally could.

Yet now there was nothing here.

Padding barefoot over a grass space, she was turning in circles, hoping to catch a glimpse that would give her a clue what had happened between the Library and here.

"Maybe it's a pocket environment. Or, maybe it's the house, except no windows look outside of here. It's all containted and the door leads to anywhere but the Library and maybe..." she stopped, giving the boy a look.

"Oh. Hi!' She said, waving at him.

After a moment, Christopher looks over at who speaks. And it seems that she is speaking to him. He glances at her, then away, quickly.

"Hello."

Cassie couldn't help but smile, clasping her hands behind her back and bouncing on the balls of her feet. "My name's Cassie. Mind if I ask you a question or three?"

She'd done about as much information gathering as she could on her own. She needed to look to others and see what she could find out.

"There is a sixty-eight percent chance that I won't know the answer," Christopher said, looking away again. "I have been in this place for ten days - " he consults his watch - "eighteen minutes and three seconds. I am not an expert."

He figured the percentage at sixty-eight because there are some things he knows.

"Sixty-eight percent though is better than decent odds, truth be told," she said, smiling brightly at him. "Could be a lot worse," she added. "Not to mention I'm kind of curious where you came from and how you ended up here," she admitted. "Where were you before?"

"I am not supposed to talk to strangers," Christopher says.

Of course, even he realizes that there are only strangers here. Not even his pet rat is here. "I was in Swindon, England. That's in the United Kingdom. Where were you?"

Most of that was said in a rush of words without him looking at her.

"Which is a good rule. Would be a good rule, but I can tell you that I'm a Librarian, so I'm not entirely strange."

Okay, but she was. In some of the best possible ways.

"Oh. Well that is certainly not where we are now, is it? I've been trying to figure that out," she admitted, head canting, watching him. "I was in the Library where I work. Before that I was in New York City. I worked at a hospital then. How did you end up here?"

"I went through a door." Isn't that how others ended up here? That is what Christopher has heard. "Are you really a librarian? Is there a library here?"

"I thought I was going to Boston," she admitted, making a face. "Now I can't figure out the right door to get back to Boston, or the Library," she admitted, shrugging as if that was all there was to it.

"I am really a Librarian, though not at a library here," she admitted, figuring it was safe to admit at least that much. "I assume there's one here. In fact I would bet there was now," she said. She had started to work that out, how much things changed as one was here.

Gathering his books, Christopher stowed them in his backpack and zipped it up and stood. "Perhaps we should go find it," he said, still not looking at her.

Cassie perked at that, smiling brightly. She had worried that her questions might have been intrusive and he was preparing to leave. Instead it was an adventure, and wasn't that why she stepped through the door in the first place?

"That is a brilliant idea. I admit, I've spent so much of my life in libraries, and schools." Before it had all gone wrong and she had given up on so much because of her health. "Where shall we explore?"

"This way." It is the way that Christopher hasn't yet gone and that means the statistical evidence seems to show that that is the way to go. He starts walking. Forgive him, Cassie, but he does assume that you are following.

She most certainly is, practically bouncing as she moved to catch up. "Have you tried to go home yet? I mean, it took me several days to realize I wasn't where I was suppose dto be. I keep wondering if I missed my window to go back to the Library."

"I have tried many doors and none of them took me home. The odds seem to be shrinking that I will find a way home."

It makes Christopher feel sad that that is true. He wants to see Siobhan again and his mother. And his father.

She wasn't sure what to think of that, glancing at him. "Is there someone in charge you could ask? I mean, shouldn't you have a choice to go home if that was your desire?"

At least she imagined that was how it should be, though she hadn't tried. Not yet.

"I don't know. I am not good with people. Siobhan is trying to teach me to be good with people, but I am not good," Christopher explains, his head down.

"Did Siobhan come through with you? Is she here too?" That would be nice, for his sake. "Did you not have a lot of experience with others," she mused softly.

"I go to a special school," Christopher tells her. But no, Siobhan didn't come through, though sometimes, he hears her in his head, telling him what to do, to count his steps, to be strong.

"Oh. Well. Lucky you. I would have loved to go to a speciality school,' she said, taking that to mean a trade school. "I was always teased in my school because of my focus on science and math."

"I like science and math, too," Christopher says, looking over at her in surprise. "I got an A-star in my A Level. I am going to study for my Physics A Level."

If he can get back home anyway. He hasn't thought about if he won't.

That made Cassie perked, looking excited. "That is awesome. Physics is fantastic, and I've been learning just how much it stills applies to life no matter how much changed." Magic didn't negate science. It proved it, at least in her mind.

"I participated in so many sciences fairs when I was younger. Recently got to go to another one, and it was amazing. Except for the near disaster and when we thought it was going to kill hundreds but then it passed and it was awesome."

"Physics can't kill anyone," Christopher points out. "It's a science. People kill."

He knows this too well. His own father killed Wellington, after all.

"Well technically it can make it easier to kill people, and still you're right. It takes people. Except this was less physics and more that it was magic. Which is really not that different from science," she said. "Sometimes you can't even tell the difference."

Somewhat doggedly, Christopher says, "there is no such thing as magic. There are illusions and sleights of hand, but not magic."

He is, after all, a very concrete person.

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