[ota] an autumnal stroll

[maystillcrow.livejournal.com]

A few rumors that Pete had heard about distances seeming wonky and some various Outside travelers ending up not quite where they expected had him curious. The timing, after all, was a bit suspect. So he's decided to take a nice, long walk out to the ruins of the old Arcana Embassy, to see what can be seen, if anything.

Perhaps nothing. Hopefully, nothing.

And for those that wonder what he's doing wandering all the way out there, he has both notepad and camera. For he's just working on a story, yeah?

When he gets there, he'll spend some time wandering around the glass and stone, kicking a few bits of masonry over, taking almost-artistic photographs of the rubble and its glass shards sparkling in the sunlight. Mostly, though, his attention is focused on a door standing up amid the ruins. There is no frame or wall surrounding it, and it doesn't open, nor does there appear to be a lock...it just doesn't move. Strange, but not the strangest thing about the Arcana, he thought.

And after a while, he'll sit on what used to be part of a wall and dig a slightly-squished sandwich and a bottle of water out of his pack and have something like a picnic. That done, he'll wander around the area a bit more, keeping a sharp eye out for anything that looks...interesting. Not that there's much there, but he at least takes a few bits of pretty-colored glass back with him, stuffed in his pack.

Finally, as the sun sinks toward the tops of the trees, he starts the long walk back to Club castle.

[ooc: feel free to catch him on the way out there, follow him as he goes and have a looksee yourself, or see him on his way back in.]

Comments

[headfollowheart.livejournal.com]

Katya had asked her on the day of her challenge, if she - and some friends - would like to look at the ruins, maybe make a picnic of it. And Zoe hadn't forgotten, but she'd been enjoying the relative quiet after she made Five too much to shake it up with wonderings and wanderings.

But there was something strange in the air now. She knew the walk between Hearts and Spades better than she knew any other path in the Deck, and it seemed to be stretching far longer than it should. There was a whisper, too, from another Five of Spades who'd gone off-Deck to visit extended family, that there was something...off.

It seemed as good a time as any to gather up a picnic and head over to the old embassy grounds.

Zoe's friends are a distance away, eating caramel apples as they peek through the ruins, and she's on her knees in more casual clothes than one usually finds her in, jeans, a sweater, and boots instead of the usual dress. She smiles, though, when she catches sight of Pete on the wall. "Hey," she says. "Seems to be the day for this."

[maystillcrow.livejournal.com]

Pete smiles back at her and waves slightly. Apparently he wasn't the only one with this idea today. But considering the...strangeness...lately, perhaps that wasn't entirely surprising.

"Hello, Zoe. Come to see the sights too, huh?"

[headfollowheart.livejournal.com]

"I haven't been over here since the night it fell down." She picks up a piece of glass to look at it in the sunlight, smiling a little.

"The Fool would be upset at all the broken glass."

[maystillcrow.livejournal.com]

"Would he? We didn't really have the opportunity to speak."

He looks out over everything for a moment before turning his attention back to Zoe, "do you think we ought to do something with...all of this?"

Or just leave it here to rot, that was an option too, of course. As they'd been doing since it fell and the Arcana retreated.

[headfollowheart.livejournal.com]

"He was pretty attached to the windows."

She picks up another few pieces of glass and looks thoughtful. "I don't know," she says slowly. "It might be a good idea? Get rid of the reminders."

[maystillcrow.livejournal.com]

"Though I guess it's not like anybody really comes out here."

Pause, then a wry look, "except today, apparently."

Something in the air, maybe.

[headfollowheart.livejournal.com]

"Gee, I wonder why," Zoe says dryly as she scoops the glass into a bag. She has no idea what she's going to do with it, but it seems like it should be done. "Personally, I haven't been back because I spent too much time in the last several months here."

Being the most diligent ambassador was nothing but pain, really. Well, mostly pain. At least she got practiced at baking.

[maystillcrow.livejournal.com]

"So what prompted this trip, then?"

He nods over to the friends who had come with her. "Field trip?"

[headfollowheart.livejournal.com]

"Something like that, yeah. Queen Katya didn't want me coming alone." Victor probably would have rather she not come at all, but orders - even ones masked as suggestions - were orders.

"Her Majesty asked me to check it out. Some time ago, actually; this is just the first I've had time." Or rather, made time. She glances at Pete, though. "You?"

[maystillcrow.livejournal.com]

He shrugged a little and waved at his camera and notepad. "I thought it might make a story for the Trump. Sort of a Arcana: the aftermath kind of thing." He says, wry.

"Find anything interesting?"

[headfollowheart.livejournal.com]

"I suppose that's probably a good idea. People are still talking about it." Probably would be for awhile, really, though the Trump had often ignored the Arcana problem.

"Just broken glass and debris, really," she adds, shrugging. "It was a mess when it came down."

[maystillcrow.livejournal.com]

The Trump's editor seemed to have been of the mind that if they didn't give the Arcana any press, they'd be less likely to stick around.

Not that it seemed to have worked.

"That's what I hear," he says, "I wasn't here for it, though...just got a lot of stories second and third-hand."

[headfollowheart.livejournal.com]

They'd all tried the Ignore It And Maybe It'll Go Away thing for a while. It hadn't really gone well.

"How come?" She asked, looking up. "I would have thought you would have wanted to be here." She'd been coming back from dinner, and no amount of glaring on Victor's part had managed to convince her to go back to the Castle like a good girl.

[maystillcrow.livejournal.com]

"Bad timing," he says, wry and slightly bashful-looking. "I wasn't actually here at the time."

He'd had another assignment, alas.

"Otherwise, yeah, I would've been here."

[headfollowheart.livejournal.com]

"Ah." Off-Deck, then, which was curious. Or the outposts, she supposes, but she just shrugs.

"Well, it was...illuminating, to say the least. I think the other Arcana all wanted to smack the Magician upside the head."

[maystillcrow.livejournal.com]

"That would have been interesting to see, I'm sure," he smiles slightly. "I imagine there are those here who would've paid for it."

[headfollowheart.livejournal.com]

Her lips twitch as she straightens. "I can think of a long list, personally."

[maystillcrow.livejournal.com]

"Does it include, all of them?"

Or at least, that was the general impression.

[headfollowheart.livejournal.com]

"Most, at least," she says with a grin. "There might be a few charitable types, I suppose."

[maystillcrow.livejournal.com]

"Hm. Now I'm regretting not interviewing any of them before the flew the coop."

His gaze goes back over to the door, speculative. "You think it's worth a shot?"

[headfollowheart.livejournal.com]

She glances over at the door, tilting her head to one side. "Leigh said some of her friends tried it and it wouldn't open." And she'd been a reasonable adult and told Leigh they probably shouldn't.

It was a lot easier to be a reasonable adult when you weren't there.

[maystillcrow.livejournal.com]

Pete just grins and gets to his feet, "well, a good journalist always tries to get first-hand information, right?"

If he's supposedly a reasonable adult, she doesn't have to try and stop him, now does she?

[headfollowheart.livejournal.com]

"That's the theory, I think." She hesitates, though, before she follows.

"How irritated will Elisha be with me if I let his PA vanish into thin air? Just wondering."

[maystillcrow.livejournal.com]

"Oh, just tell him that you couldn't stop me. I was just too fast for you," or something.

And then he's reaching out toward the door and jiggling the doorknob.

"....nothing." For good measure, though, he'll knock experimentally. "Open sesame?"

[headfollowheart.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, I can see that going well." But she just crosses her arms and waits, her eyebrows rising as he knocks.

And waits.

"I don't think it's going to work."

[maystillcrow.livejournal.com]

"I figured it was worth a shot." He goes around and tries on the other side, just to be sure, but still nothing.

"Oh well...guess you don't have to inform his Highness of my disappearance after all. Such a letdown."

[headfollowheart.livejournal.com]

"Somehow, I will live with the fact that I'm just not going to be yelled at by the King of Clubs today." It definitely doesn't work, she thinks. "It'll be hard, of course, but I'll make it through."

She drops the bag of glass into her purse and picks it up before pausing.

"I wonder if they're the only ones who can." She's not sure she likes that they have such an easy path back into the Deck.

[maystillcrow.livejournal.com]

"Well, they definitely went through it...so I'd have to guess they can come back through it or it just...wouldn't be here, right?"

Why didn't they have people watching this, again? Quite an unfortunate oversight.

[headfollowheart.livejournal.com]

"Maybe it'll disappear after a while." Maybe all of it would; the Magician had been pretty straightforward about the fact that it was Arcana land and they weren't appropriating the Deck.

Or something like that. She eyes the door for a moment, though. Maybe she should mention something to Victor.

[onlytolerable.livejournal.com]

You have all moved the artifacts from the places they'd been left. They are...focuses for the Deck, anchors.

Words from a man long used to twisting words to sound the way he wanted you to hear and not necessarily the way he had said. Yet after her interlibrary loan trip took twice as long to complete--with the blisters to prove it--and an enlightening conversation with Briony, Sophie's been thinking.

It's what she had been trained to do, after all. She needs to tell someone, but first she wants to nose around a bit herself. What first seemed like a fluke is shaping up to be, well, a thing.

She really shouldn't be surprised she's not the only person wandering about the scene of the "crime." Sophie pulls up short and smiles uncertainly. "...hello? I, ah, thought I'd have a look about."

[maystillcrow.livejournal.com]

Pete smiles back politely and waves at his camera, "you and I had the same idea then, I think. I just figured I might research a story, a bit."

"Besides," and now he waves at the door standing up amid the stones and glass, "it makes for rather striking photos."

His job with the Trump leaned more toward writing than photography, of course, but these were less for publishing, he'd say, and more to help him organize his thoughts.

[onlytolerable.livejournal.com]

"Nice day for it," she says without explaining for what. She shifts from foot to foot before sighing and clambering up on the wall. "I walked too much yesterday," she explains. "My feet are complaining. If they had mouths instead of toes, they'd be cursing me." She smiles suddenly. "Wonderful. I probably just gave myself nightmares."

She studies the lonely door for a long moment. "It reminds me of him--the Magician."

[maystillcrow.livejournal.com]

He raises his eyebrows, "you knew him?"

It wasn't like he'd gotten chummy with all that many people, after all.

[onlytolerable.livejournal.com]

She shakes her head. "I doubt anyone here really knew him. I was the Diamond's ambassador to the Arcana and, well...." She rubs her nose. It hasn't been out of the splint all that long. "I made quite the fool of myself the night he stole the Diamond artifact. He always struck me as lonely under the smoke and mirrors, like that door." Too bad she hadn't sensed the crazy.

She plucks at a small device attached to her belt, pulls it free and frowns at it.

"How far would you say it is from Diamond Castle to here?"

[maystillcrow.livejournal.com]

He frowns thoughtfully over at her and shrugs slightly, still turning over in his mind what she said about the Magician. "Can't say I ever measured it. Why?"

Nor had he had much reason to go walking from the Diamonds over to the Arcana.

[onlytolerable.livejournal.com]

"Well, I suppose it's not important. I thought this thing would help with my exercise--particularly my runs. I don't think I thought things through. Are you working on a story?"

She knows him more for his association with the Trump. She's not about to mention any oddities if he hasn't noticed and probably not even if he had.

[maystillcrow.livejournal.com]

"Figured it was past time something was written about them, even if it's only a this is how they left us sort of piece."

He shrugs. "What do you think?"