bigapplesauce | This is Most Assuredly Not Portland (For One Thing, It's Not Raining) [Open]

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This is Most Assuredly Not Portland (For One Thing, It's Not Raining) [Open]

"There are places where the layers of reality don’t sit well against each other, like... like wearing a new
pair of shoes. They rub and pull and holes can form." - Jonathan Healy

Central Park, New York City. (And Not the New York City One Would Normally Expect- At Least, Not the One Alex Would.)

Alex stood dazed for a moment, suitcases in hand. A moment ago, he was unpacking them from the car, getting ready to take them into the hotel room for the night. He and his fiance were driving from Ohio to Portland, with his colony of Aeslin Mice and church griffin, ready to start making wedding plans once they got to his family home outside of the city.

But. This was not the hotel parking lot. This. Looked a lot like Central Park. In New York City. The exact opposite direction of the way they were headed. And Shelby was nowhere to be seen. He put the suitcases down, and hushed the cheering from within. "Not now, guys."

"Shelby?" No answer. Not good. Or possibly good, since that meant she wasn't sucked into this, and that she was probably now looking for him on the other end of it. Comforting thought.

"Crow?" A big, black shape flew from one tree to another, squirrel caught in his beak, fuzzy hindquarters disappearing into the leaves. Alex relaxed a little. Okay, he had... some sort of backup with him. Even if he was only... mostly likely to listen to him.

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Daine might not keep especial track of new arrivals, but it's impossible for her - both of her - to not notice the sudden appearance of some sort of magical creature and a group of unnaturally intelligent mice. And since only one of her can talk properly, that's the one who makes a beeline for the creatures. The mice will be easy to hide, she figures, but the other one feels bigger, and she won't be able to make excuses for whatever it is if there are frogs and things dropping out of her mouth all the time.

Still, this is exciting. Back when she tracked the rift's output more closely, it tended to either spit out two-leggers or random objects, not animals - at least not by themselves. Are they with someone? Who would have this sort of entourage?

That fellow, from the looks of it. He's standing beneath some trees not far off the path, a suitcase at his feet - odd's bobs, the mice are in there - and a tell-tale baffled look on his face.

"'Scuse me," she says, offering a little wave and casting a concerned look at the case. "Sorry, but... did you just get here?"

Edited 2015-03-19 22:04 (UTC)

The mice are in a very comfortable portable habitat made lovingly by his sister from shoeboxes and doll furniture. The church griffin is still hiding in the trees.

Alex looked down at his suitcases. "Ah. Yeah. You could say I'm a little lost," he admitted, which was true enough. Understated, but true.

He tried not to look too suspicious of the woman and her sudden arrival. No reaching for weapons, no backing towards the woods. She seemed harmless enough. But then, so did cuckoos. And the women of his family.

He smiled. Time to be friendly. Even if he was pretty sure this was going to be the start of some horrible, horrible adventure.

Daine nods as if he's confirmed a suspicion, though she knows full well he only just got here. He seems to be handling things well enough, though - he doesn't look terrified or at a complete loss. Being direct is probably best, then. "Well, you've just come through a thing folk call the rift," she says. "It's like a hole between realms that takes folk from all over the place and dumps them here. I'm from a different realm, myself; the same thing happened to me.

"And..." she hesitates a moment, curiosity thoroughly piqued. She has to ask. "Sorry, but I can tell you've got some sort of mice and that there's something else in the trees, and I've never felt minds like theirs before. I'm really good with animals, and I was wondering if I could see them?" Technically there's nothing stopping her from just calling down the whatever-it-is herself, but she can feel its caution clearly enough, and she doesn't want to be rude. "I'm Daine," she adds helpfully, extending a hand.

That would explain why he was suddenly on the other side of the country. Though he did have to wonder about that- usually dimensional rifts didn't have that much of a geographical drift. Though if there was a temporal difference, the movement of the Earth and-

Oh God, Alex, you're a nerd.

Alex blinked in shock at Daine's question. "I. Don't... take them out in public. Usually." He frowned at his own answer. He should have been able to bullshit his way through that better. "Doctor Alex Price." Another shocked frown. Preston. He meant to say Preston.

Crow, perhaps sensing Daine's nature, or Alex's discomfort, swoops out of the trees to sit in front of the suitcases and preen.

"Crow, no. Crow- trees-"

This is one very flustered cryptozoologist.

Ah. It seems the strangeness of the whole situation is starting to sink in. Daine offers an understanding nod - this really is a lot to take in - and a polite, "It's nice to meet you."

But it's even nicer to meet his tiny gryphon! Well, not tiny, exactly, but certainly smaller than she'd expect such a creature to be. No wonder she didn't recognize the feel of its mind. "Mithros," Daine breathes, dropping into a crouch so she can examine Crow more closely. "Aren't you pretty." She cautiously sends him just a little bit of her magic, a tiny thread of reassurance so he'll know she means him no harm, then reaches out a hand so he can examine her more closely. Glancing up at Alex, she adds, "We've got gryphons back home, but not like him."

"He's... not... usually allowed to be in public sight" Alex says, mostly to Daine, but with that last bit directed at Crow, even if all he mostly understands is the slightly scolding tone- at least he knows why he is being scolded. He is not supposed to be seen by humans, normally, because griffins, back home, Do Not Exist... officially. He'd be... well, probably caught and dissected or something equally terrible, or end up in a tabloid or... something along those lines. Mostly he stays in trees and in the sky, far up enough to be mistaken for a large raven, a common enough bird that no one would look twice, even if he has fluffy, fluffy hindquarters and fuzzy ears.

In terms of intelligence, he's just above that of the average corvid bird. With the curiosity and attitude of a cat (and the hunting instincts, he currently has a belly full of squirrel and pigeon).

"We have the larger, Greater Gryphons... back home as well, though they're not exactly housepet friendly. Crow here is a Church Gryphon, one of the subspecies of Lesser Gryphon, which range from about six inches in size to just about twice the size of this guy." When in doubt, Biologist Babble Mode. "Excellent companion animals, but they do require a lot of specialized care-" and he realizes he's doing the Bioligist babbling, and sighs. "We should... probably go somewhere less public. I have a griffin with me and you've apparently sensed my talking mice, right after I've fallen into a parallel dimension. I normally would have given you a fake name, but couldn't, so something else weird is going on, so I'd really prefer not to be out in the open like this."

Daine has plonked herself down to give Crow a more thorough ear-scritching - what a marvelous little creature he is! - but Alex's suggestion that they get indoors is sensible. Enough so that she feels a bit sheepish for forgetting herself in her excitement. The native New Yorkers aren't very observant, but Crow sticks out something fierce up close, and everyone's got a camera. If she doesn't get them underground soon, they're going to draw gawkers.

"Maybe you ought to head up and follow us from above," Daine suggests to Crow. "We'll be going towards the subway, but you won't need to join us until we hit the entrance."

Then she gets to her feet, grinning up at Alex in irrepressible curiosity. "The mice can talk?" she asks as she tilts her head in the direction of the base and starts toward the closest path. "Aloud, you mean? In a way humans can understand?"

Alex, at least, does not have the aversion to subway travel that his sister did while living in Manhattan. But he also does not like to give gravity the middle finger quite as much as Verity does. Admittedly, the thoughts of the things she did find under her Manhattan make him wince a little at the thought of willingly taking the underland route.

He's fairly sure that won't happen in this case. Pretty sure.

When Daine asks about the mice, he kind of makes a pained expression. "The bigger miracle is getting them not to talk, actually," he says, just as the sound of cheering comes from the bag when he picks it up to start moving. "They also cheer, sing, chant... perform religious rites involving detailed historical reenactments going back for generations..." he says. "I'll be happy to offer a formal introduction once we're somewhere safe."

"I'd like that," Daine says aloud, adding a silent, It'll be very nice to meet you properly, to the mice. They're People enough that she figures they should be able to hear her.

Remembering what Alex said before about not being able to fib, she says, "You've picked a fair strange day to show up, I'm afraid. The rift acts up sometimes - messes with the folk it's brought through - and it's really been misbehaving today. But the fits usually only last a few days at the longest, so you'll be back to normal soon enough." Her smile starts sympathetic, then turns rueful. "There's actually two of me right now. That's a first." But if Andrew can get through such an experience, so can she.

Alex follows the woman, suitcases rolling alongside him. And one of them "HAIL!"ing. The mice do not know how to respond silently. Like that's a surprise. As if they could do anything silently. Crow takes wing far above them, keeping an eye on them and following.

"Inter-dimensional travel can cause some strange effects. I'm just happy to have made the trip without any border imps to deal with. Not having to worry about anyone getting necrotized makes any trip far easier to deal with. So far, this has been less harrowing than Australia. Admittedly, that did involve my future in-laws."

"I haven't seen any imps here." She wrinkles her nose at the thought. "From my realm or anyone else's. Odd's bobs, that'd be a mess." She still has her bow and practices with it regularly, but she's well out of the habit of carrying it with her wherever she goes. The thought of an onslaught of immortals showing up while she's essentially unarmed isn't a pleasant one.

That being said, she's hearing an awful lot of familiar terms from him. He doesn't look like he's from the same time has her, but she can't help wondering if he's from the same place. "You haven't heard of Tortall, have you?" she asks, trying not to get her hopes up.

Alex gives that some thought. He thinks maybe he might have seen the name in one of his sister's books... but not one of her research books. Antimony read... a lot. Comics, sci-fi, fantasy. "Not in any factual or research references," he says, apologetically.

"My 'Uncle' Naga would be a better person to ask, he's a professor of inter-dimensional studies who... kinda got summoned to our reality by a snake cult. Great guy, very knowledgeable about... well, alternate dimensions. Honestly, if we get desperate, trying to summon him here wouldn't be the worst idea. He'd probably appreciate being summoned by someone not trying to feed him small children or virgin sacrifices." A pause. "He's... not actually a god, just... half very large snake. The bottom half, specifically. Snake cults are... almost always made up of very, very stupid, misguided humans."

She frowns a moment, trying to figure out if that's really a yes or a no, then decides it was leaning more towards 'no' and huffs out a disappointed little sigh. Too much to hope for, probably.

The thought of dashing Alex's hopes in turn isn't very enticing, but given how the rift tends to respond to prodding, it's probably safest for him to be warned against it straight away. "Nothing gets in or out of Manhattan without the rift's say-so," she says, wrinkling her nose. "I don't think summoning anyone would work. Elsewise, someone from my realm would've found me already." Even if Numair had been stymied, there's no excuse for the Badger. She still has his token, and he's a god. But the rift is the only god worth mentioning in this realm, and it doesn't seem to like sharing.

Hoping to lighten the mood a little, she adds, "But your uncle sounds nice. Plenty of folk back home misjudge immortals, but I've met ogres and basalisks and dragons who're kind and sensible sorts."

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This is Most Assuredly Not Portland (For One Thing, It's Not Raining) [Open]

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