bigapplesauce | Zagreus' arrival [Open]

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Zagreus' arrival [Open]

The first thing Zagreus is aware of, is the obnoxious degree of coldness in the air. In fact, he can see his breath; that's just downright inauspicious, for waking up.

Not that an inhospitably cold atmosphere is out of the ordinary. No, not in the slightest, and his immediate response is a sort of resigned annoyance. However, the sight that greets his eyes, looking beyond his offensively visible breath, is definitely not expected.

Open sky, framed by stark bare branches. He starts to get up...only to slide gracelessly from the crook of the tree he'd apparently been passed out and huddling in, with a noise of general outrage.

Luckily it's a very short fall, but it's still disorienting when you aren't expecting it, and he definitely isn't. Brushing himself off and narrowing his eyes at his decidedly parkish surroundings, Zagreus tries to recall if maybe, just perhaps, there is a reason this is happening. Nothing presents itself. How typically uncooperative of reality.

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How amazing, not a single question that he can answer concisely and/or non-threateningly. Spectacular. Here is someone who thrives on an unexamined life--unexamined by himself or anyone else. Anything else is downright unsettling.

What is even more unsettling is how definitively he's thinking about the prospect of accepting some kind of affiliation in the first place. But he's no stranger to playing a long game, though perhaps susceptible to forgetting that he's playing, partway through.

At least communications won't be hard to sink his tentacles into, he'd expected much more in the way of hoops where the phone is concerned. "...I suppose that should have been obvious, really. Can you tell I'm not used to having to think in these terms?"

Lucy smiles. "Perhaps a little. What did you do before you got here? I assume you must've lived somewhere?" she asks. It's been ages since she's had to think about all the little things too. Prison sort of robbed you of choices, and now she has to deal with having them again.

Yeah, sorry, Zagreus, now even Lucy is asking these questions. But she won't actually kick you out if you fail to answer, so that's something.

"What, stationarily?" Yes, and for an encore he was learning to quilt. This is such an outrageous idea he may have just made up a word. Whether it's a feature of his neurosis or a bug of his inherited Doctor...stuff, stationary living isn't appealing at all. It comes with all sorts of consequences and realities and linearities that just don't suit Zagreus at all. "I lived aboard a ship and did as I pleased." Sort of. That all came with its own set of problems. "But nothing about tormenting the odd author or painter or exploring sentient castles really prepares one for mundanity."

"Well, I'm sure you'll figure something out," she answers. He's got plenty of special skills, if you can call it that. The main thing is probably having the dedication to put any sort of plan into action which results in him gaining, well, mundane things, like money.

"I'm sure there's authors and painters enough for you to torment, but I'm afraid I haven't been informed of any sentient castles."

"Just as well, really. They don't tend to get on well with me." Then again, what does? At least he still has his sense of humour.

"You know, I really envy your adaptability. It's quite...inspiring." Humans are a sort of disease, able to cling to all manner of inhospitable environments. As a sort of disease himself, he can appreciate that degree of determination.

Lucy raises her eyebrows. "Are you referring to me specifically, or my species?" she asks. She doesn't consider herself very inspiring. Honestly, she feels like she's barely going to scrape by, and it's only been a day. She might agree with the whole disease thing, though.

"I suppose it's easy to adapt when you don't really care that much." Partially thanks to Zagreus himself, of course.

"Hmm, yes, I imagine that does help. Shame you couldn't return the favour." Now there's something he'd rarely say even as a bit of dark humour--it was almost an admission that being other than he is could be in any way preferable, and that's unheard of. But of course he couldn't have wholly manufactured her apathy any more than she could effect any change upon his mind. The foundations were already there, from what he remembers. Though perhaps that's just linearity failing him once again.

"I'm not sure it's really that enviable," she answers, an admission of her own. Look at them bonding and sharing, or whatever this is. "I mean, at least you've got an idea of what you want and what you don't want."

Just no specific plan of how to get it. Whereas Lucy has no goals or ambitions, but actually has some knowledge of, well, how to be mundane. How to go about getting things. They'd make a great team.

Sure, a great team, if you ignore the likely eventual destruction of probably a lot of things. Or maybe that's what makes teams great? A question for the ages.

"More an idea of what I don't want. Which is, basically any part of this." Not that he's exactly a stranger to want, but specificity tends to escape him in that regard as in any other. His wants tend to be fickle and often actually contradictory, or just inchoate stirrings of will. Want is more a thing he is than a thing he does with any clarity. "But surely there are things you want, or want to avoid." Apathy only goes so far. And prying at others is more interesting than being petulant about reality.

Great and terrible, perhaps. But Lucy might be able to keep him out of the worst of troubles. Maybe.

She shrugs again. "Quite a few things I can't have," she answers. Some of which basically involves not being the person she currently is. It would probably be easier if she actually cared about the things she used to. But she's not about to ask for help this time - she's become more averse to having people fiddle with her mind, after she spent so much time rebuilding it.

"Honestly I didn't think I'd be alive past yesterday, so I didn't really plan ahead." As for what she wants to avoid... Feeling like she currently is, probably. There's just this empty feeling.

"Then surely this is a step up from that, at least. Not being dead, always a good start in most endeavours." Despite the sarcasm, this is bordering on optimism, which almost feels dirty. But really, as being supportive goes, this is grade A work, relatively speaking.

"Why didn't you think you'd be alive past yesterday? Was it going to be a painful death?" He is, naturally, curious and morbid and morbidly curious. But there is also the matter of...what commonality might be behind them both turning up here. Not that pure chance isn't an appealing culprit, but one never knows.

Honestly, Zagreus is being positively helpful. Relatively speaking, perhaps, but still.

"Too quick to be painful, I think," she answers, wrapping up the last of her sandwich and putting it in the fridge for later. "An explosion to kill the Master. I set it off, everything went bright, and then I woke up here." Lucy doesn't terribly mind the morbid. Or the curious, really. For all she knows, she might be dead and this is some sort of afterlife. It doesn't really feel like it, though.

An afterlife that has Zagreus as any sort of inhabitant would be pretty disappointing. "What sort of explosion? Some chrono-spatial whatever, or the garden variety sort?" Sometimes explosions tear open rifts between universes. Mostly they just blow things up. But with her involved it's really more of a 50/50 chance. "...Any particular reason you wanted to kill the Master? Not that it's ever really a bad way to spend a sunny afternoon but...well, I suppose I could fault you in particular even less." He's getting sidetracked, but one has to admit it's interesting.

"Well, technically he was already dead, but they were trying to resurrect him. Given what happened last time, I couldn't let that happen," she answers. And if no one else were going to stop him, she had to, you know? Not like she was getting anything else done, stuck in prison.

"I don't really know how it worked. They were bringing him back, but I had this... this counteragent, and it caused an explosion." But then the writers probably didn't even know how that worked, so who can blame her?

He nods as though this is all fairly standard stuff. "So, probably the former. I wonder under what circumstances the other poor souls tend to arrive?" These are the kinds of things he wants to know, and that he could probably find out most easily by being affiliated with someone. If he could just get a grasp of the logic and rules of this situation, he'd feel a lot less dispossessed.

Surprisingly fastidious, he disposes of his meal's trash and takes up a morosely boneless position on the couch. Remarkably relaxed of him, when it's not his space, but he can't even be bothered in his current state, and she's no threat anyway.

"Any circumstance whatsoever, is the impression I've been given," Lucy answers with a shrug. Not that she has gotten any first-hand accounts regarding this. She hadn't asked Peter, and hasn't really had an indepth conversation with anyone else.

See, Zagreus is being a good guest, cleaning up after himself and everything. And yes, Lucy is essentially harmless, after all. It's unlikely she could be much of a threat to him even if she wanted to, unless she was very determined. Like, 'blow him up' level of determined, but she reserves that for her special someone.

Ah. So that's that idea terminated. There's probably not a pattern there to dig out. He sighs. He isn't even really sure why this is so frustrating a circumstance, but given time he'll be a rankling mass of negativity and potential violence.

More's the pity, really. A nice threat would do him a world of good, quite possibly. He'd have no question how to deal with that, and it'd be wonderfully settling to the nerves. "I'm in your debt, you know." When he says this, it sounds like a warning. The food and shelter are trivial, and if she has any sense, she'll know that. He would have gotten by without either, decently enough, though admittedly probably with more troublemaking. But answering all his questions, and not making him the authorities' problem instead of hers, well.

"Didn't think you'd be one to care about debts," she answers, going back to settle on the bed. She isn't really expecting anything in return, except maybe a future unwillingnes to sell her out or something to that effect. What are friends for?

And he hasn't been a problem to her. Honestly, it's nice to have someone to talk to who isn't so easily phased by the details of her life. And neither of them has the highest opinion of the Doctor. There's a familiarity there, and she hardly cares about pleasing the authorities, or about making his life difficult. She's just not a very spiteful person, not unless she has reason to be.

He feigns offense, at that. "Lady, you wound me." Truth be told, Zagreus cares about debts with the geas-like compulsion of any fairytale creature, and with the same propensity for repaying them in the most harmful manner possible, regardless of the spirit in which they were intended. Still, he doesn't actually bear her any specific ill will. Aside from that brief spat in their earliest meeting, where she'd thought he was the Doctor, she's treated him fairly neutrally. This is a surprisingly safe strategy. Her apathy may well be a blessing in disguise.

"My sincerest apologies," she answers, not particularly sincerely. "But please don't feel pressured to repay me, et cetera."

What she meant is that she doesn't think Zagreus cares about returning kindness for the sake of it. And she's never cared enough to be properly scared or disgusted by him - she saves that for her husband. Her feelings about Zagreus is probably something like positive but vaguely disapproving, which ends up somewhere around neutral.

No, that concept would definitely be foreign to him. It has yet to occur to him that kindness might motivate her at all. He generally assumes that people operate more or less like himself. He strikes up with people or does things to/for them out of boredom frequently. It's a great way to get things happening.

"You needn't worry about that. But perhaps you'll need a favour someday." This is like some awful parody of the lion and the mouse fable.

"Perhaps," she agrees. The situation is weird enough that there might be plenty unforeseen events yet in store for her, so who knows.

"If these rebel people decide to get tetchy about something or other, or if a common friend of ours shows up, it's not entirely unlikely." They have a lot of common "friends" who could cause trouble, after all. Very few of them she would actually welcome. And the ones she would like to see aren't the sort to make trouble.

There are indeed plenty of mutual acquaintances who might kick up a fuss if they knew Zagreus was in a densely populated area uncontained. But he hadn't really thought of her as someone terribly likely to inspire enmity, unless it's just by association via her husband. He just really hasn't kept up with the social sphere like he ought to. Tsk, tsk.

"As much as it pains me to say, if any common friends show up, you'd probably do well to let my name go unsaid." Of course he wants the drop on anyone and everyone. But just as a piece of friendly advice, anyone with a history of brainwashing might warrant suspicion, if they're known to have been in contact with him.

"Of course," she agrees. "For both our sakes, probably." Most of them aren't very pleased with Zagreus, and would definitely be suspicious if they found out him and Lucy had been buddying up. Even if they haven't actually done anything to arouse suspicion.

Granted, Lucy herself doesn't have an awful lot of enemies, and generally doesn't pose much of a threat. But she tends to mingle in controversial circles, to put it mildly. They're certainly more interesting, and tend to be less judgemental and annoying to deal with.

Indeed, he'd mostly said it for her sake. It's not like he's worried about being found out by anyone from their universe, or like he would avoid them for any amount of time. It's just the idea of being an unexpected factor that appeals. And it would be such a waste for Lucy to get incarcerated or have her mind forcibly checked out when he hadn't even done anything.

"Though, if anyone else should turn up...I wouldn't mind hearing about it. In fact, I'd be most appreciative." If someone they know is going to wind here, Zagreus wouldn't take any bets on who it's likely to be. Really, given that this is a pretty strange situation, it's only a matter of time before some Doctor or other shows up.

Zagreus' arrival [Open]

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