fandomtownies | The Park, Early Monday Morning

The music picked up quietly, as it had done in times past. But this time there was no choral hymn, no quiet harmony of voices. This time there was a guitar, though it strummed the same notes, soft and gentle.

The sky shimmered. The guitar's volume increased until it punched to the fore, no longer in any position to be ignored. Then its melody was joined by a husky but young female voice, singing, self-contained but with her own particular flavor of force. joined the melody.

"You can picture happy gath'rings
Round the fireside long ago,
And you think of tearful partings
When they left you here below..."

The next chord struck false. Something snapped. The shimmer tore open, revealing a brief vision of pillars and garishly-painted statues-- and a whirlwind of white toga with blue highlights. The fabric blocked the view of the pillars abruptly, and then suddenly it was no longer an image, there, real--

--and collapsing into the grass of the park with an audible "Oof!"

Elizabeth pulled her cheek off the dry mud and exposed it to the cold air. She shivered. An irrational thought shot through her head: it hadn't been that cold but two minutes ago, had it? She pressed her hands to the ground and scrambled up, pulling her toga more closely around herself. It didn't help. "Where... where am I...?"

[[ welcome, AU NPCs! you should have all received invitations to the fandomtownies and fandomhighdorms comms. as of tonight (ie, posts set late tonight or after), you're free to appear at whatever time you wish. also, open. cue me being unable to listen to anything but Elizabeth's canon soundtrack for two weeks. ]]

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Zoe had been caught up in her own thoughts as she cut through the park, but the music managed to get her attention in time for her to see the girl collapse onto the grass. "Are you all right?" she asked, slowly approaching.

Elizabeth skittered backwards on the grass until her back hit the tree. Why hadn't she listened to Maximus? She should have been armed! Somehow! With something!

"Who are you?" she demanded, going for determined, not helpless - but her voice cracked in the middle and she failed miserably.

For a moment, Zoe wondered if this was someone else who was confused about who they were, but the people she'd heard about so far all seemed to know where they were supposed to be. So, she held her hands up defensively and gave the girl a friendly smile. "My name's Zoe Winchester. What's your name?"

"I'm Elizabeth." She tried to recover her composure, but it was rough. "I... just a minute ago, I was on Fandom-- where am I now? Tell me."

Preferably while keeping your distance.

"You're still in Fandom," Zoe said, keeping a safe distance, but close enough that she could hopefully catch up to Elizabeth if she tried to run away. "Did you get lost? The streets can be kind of twisty and complicated if you're new."

"I was on the island," Elizabeth repeated. She groped around until she found... a stick. Perfect. "I was trying to teach some of the other children songs from home. And then I fell. Unprompted. Did you have anything to do with that?"

She had reason to feel suspicious, she felt.

"No, I didn't," Zoe said, her tone growing more warm and maternal. "I was just out for a walk. I think I might have heard you singing though. I assure you, you're still on the island. You look a bit underdressed though." Not that the toga wasn't nice and all, but still.

"It was warmer... where I came from," Elizabeth replied cautiously. She sized up Zoe, but couldn't find anything about her that seemed... mean.

"It's a little colder than it should be, I'll admit," Zoe said, sighing softly. "Are you--were you new to the island?"

Sure, this didn't make sense, but she was going to try to find some sense anyway.

"No," Elizabeth said, shaking her head. She had started to relax at least a little - she was suspicious, but she wasn't a warrior.

Maximus would not have been impressed with her, but at least he wasn't here to glare. "I'd been here for several months... I think--" A blinding headache struck her. She winced, bringing up her fingers to her nose and finding... was that blood?

That certainly looked like blood from where Zoe was standing, and she forgot about leaving personal space as she went to move in front of Elizabeth and knelt down. "Are you all right? Did you get hurt when you fell?" she asked.

And Elizabeth had forgotten most of her paranoia in favor of a more pressing problem. "I don't-- No," she said, reaching up for her face again. "No, it's just a nosebleed. Sorry."

Zoe searched through the pockets of her coat and thankfully found a tissue. "Here, take this," she said. Then she shrugged her coat off and offered that as well. "Maybe warming up a little will help."

"Thank you," Elizabeth said. She gratefully took the tissue and pressed it up against her nose. "Won't you be cold--?" she asked, looking up at Zoe. "I could just go indoors and warm up..."

"It's all right, I could just go indoors too. In fact, that's an awfully good idea," she said. "Do you think you can get up?"

"I'm not wounded," Elizabeth said. She pressed her palms to the ground and scrambled to her feet. "I'm just... discombobulated... I guess."

"Sounds like you need some indoors with a comfy bed to recombobulate," Zoe said. "We have a hotel in town that isn't far from here, and I'm sure they'd let you stay, under the circumstances."

The increasingly weird circumstances, that is.

Elizabeth nodded slowly, straightening out her toga. "If you think so," she said cautiously. "I might have a few denarii on me, but... I don't know if it's enough."

"It's all right, I'm sure there are plenty of rooms available, and the woman who runs the hotel is nice. I doubt she'll charge you if it means keeping you out of the cold," Zoe said.

The Park, Early Monday Morning

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