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WHO: Abigail and OPEN
WHAT: Having learned she won't be thrown in jail again, Abigail heads back to Thorne
WHEN: October
WHERE: Nott, Thorne, the Horizon
WARNINGS: None inherent, will edit as needed

I. Nott - Open

It had taken Abigail a while to get used to the little nooks and alleys that made up the slums of Nott. Now, though, she knows the shortest routes between her lodgings and the inns and taverns where she spends most of her time trying to win at cards to scrape up the coins for food, as well as the more obscure routes that she takes on the occasions when one of her marks has gotten angry and tried to take their money back by force if necessary. She's always on the move, paranoid about staying in one place too long, though she can generally be spotted all over the city - at the many inns trying to earn her keep, on the roof of a building hurriedly eating the food she's managed to swipe from a passing cart, at the docks swinging her feet over the harbour wall and watching the boats coming and going. Whenever she sees someone who looks familiar from Thorne she instinctively looks nervous, even when its those who've shown her kindness in the past, though she'll ultimately offer them a polite smile and ask how they're getting on.

II. Nott - Closed to Kylo Ren

The more she thinks about it, the less sure she is about her choice. At first Abigail had thought anything would be better than trying to eke out a meagre living in Nott, but even though Kylo had assured her that she wouldn't be imprisoned if she were to return to Thorne, there's still something that doesn't sit right with her about willingly going back to the people who'd kidnapped her in the first place.

She arrives at the meeting place they'd agreed with nothing more to show for her month in Nott than the clothes on her back and a few coins in a pouch tied to her skirt, hands clasped together tightly with her nails digging into her palms as she waits for his arrival, hoping she wasn't putting herself into an even worse situation but trusting that he really did think this was the best option for all of the summoned.

III. Thorne - Open

Once she's settled in, Abigail heads straight for the dining hall. She'd been perpetually hungry since she'd left for Nott, having to reluctantly admit that for all the prison food was basic, at least it had filled her up. Now she takes advantage of what the castle provides, piling up delicacies on her plate and taking her time to enjoy them. After she's finished she pokes her head around the door to the library, her expression surprised and rather delighted at the amount of books it holds.

IV - Horizon - Open

Abigail's domain is a forest, though the trees, plants and animals don't seem to belong to one location in particular. Snow-capped pine trees give way to ancient oaks, and racoons and red squirrels mix in the treetops. The river that cuts its way through the forest floor is clear as glass, though if you tried to follow its path you'd end up completely lost, or perhaps right back where you started.

Here and there are signs of a road, a railway track, an office building, even a dilapidated funfair, all of which are rusted and moss-covered, long since reclaimed by the forest. In stark contrast is Abigail's cabin, which is pristine, emitting a homely feel as you approach with soft lamplight and the smell of roasting meat.

Abigail can be found all over the place - lazing in the cabin, riding the rusty ferris wheel which somehow still works, hiking or hunting in the forest, skating on a frozen patch of the river. And sometimes when you're alone, you may feel something watching you, see a dark shadow moving through the trees.

[ OOC: Prose and brackets are both fine! Hit me up at

viridianwings if you'd like a custom prompt for your character. ]

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Kylo wasn't exaggerating when he said he could be in Nott within the day— realistically, he could have arrived within the hour, had he not wanted a little time to be certain he had a guarantee of safety to offer. Travel over such distances should be a far more tiresome affair, but is rendered instantaneous with the ability to create magical portals that connect one space to another.

Not that Kylo has this ability himself, of course. Not yet. But with the small group of Thornean mages under his command, he has the next best thing.

For this simple mission of bringing Abigail back to the Castle, Kylo travels with just one of the mages— an unassuming young woman who hangs back at the portal while Kylo strides into the market square. Tall, dark and broad with a strange, invisible weight to his smoothly unhurried gait, he's impossible to miss even without the volcanic elements woven into his existence in the Horizon. He has no trouble identifying Abigail, and shows no hesitation in approaching her.

"So this is Nott," he comments, failing as always to start a conversation with a proper greeting. He glances around them, then lets his gaze settle back on her face, steady and singularly focused. "Cold. Isn't it."

As he steps through the portal, Abigail lets out a deep breath that she hadn't been aware she was holding. She still didn't entirely understand how the Horizon worked, and there was a part of her that was afraid she'd simply dreamt the whole conversation.

She's more pale and tired than she had been in the Horizon, both from having to scrape by here and because of the guilt and anxiety she's carried with her from her own world, which constantly threatens to spill over and consume her. The most stark difference to the version of herself she presents in the Horizon, though, is the deep scar spread across her throat like a grotesque white smile.

"The winds from the lake make it seem even colder," she agrees. "I'm very glad I won't have to see through the winter here."

"There's a warm bed waiting for you in the Castle," Kylo assures her, gesturing towards the glowing portal without quite taking his eyes off her face. "I spoke with Jolene, Ambrose's first apprentice, who has been advocating for the Summoned. She wanted me to tell you that you will be safe. Thorne will not return you to the dungeon unless you decide to break the laws of the land— and if you do, you will be treated the same as any Abraxan-born citizen. This offer will be extended to anyone else chooses to join you in returning."

Message delivered, Kylo lets his attention slide to the city around them. Not, he decides, the most hospitable of refuges. It's hard to imagine how anyone could choose this existence over the promised comforts of Castle Thorne... unless motivated by the kind of bitterness and resentment that could easily become a threat to the nation. Particularly once Abigail tests that promise and finds it offered in good faith.

"Now. Are you ready to come with me, or do you have business to attend to here?"

Abigail takes a cursory glance around them, thinking just how little she'll miss this miserable place. There's a part of her that thinks she ought to find Susan and Eponine, ask them to go with her, but her concern for them is outweighed by the jealousy that they managed to become part of a larger group here while she'd been left to fend on her own. No, if they wanted to get back into Thorne's good graces, they could figure it out themselves.

"I'm ready whenever you are. There's nothing here for me."

Whether or not Abigail has noticed or recognized him, Ronan is always near. Sometimes he's the raven on Kylo Ren's shoulder. Other times, like now, he's the lurking apprentice dressed in robes just as black as his master's. He's an intimidating figure, as large as Kylo despite being a decade younger — Abigail's age, in fact — yet there's something almost reticent about his manner when he finally approaches her on his own.

Although she hasn't been in the castle very long, it's been enough time for Ronan to guess at what she's lacking. Plenty of others have already taken advantage of his services, but she doesn't know to ask, so he beats her to it. The bundle in his hands is a substantial mass of folded furs and green velvet, topped with a soft pair of ankle boots that are obviously several sizes too small to belong to him. Without much ceremony, he steps up to her in the corridor and extends these items to her.

"For you," he says, in case that wasn't clear.

Abigail glances down at the bundle he's holding out and then back up to Ronan, and when she realises what he's offering she feels quite touched. She reaches out to take the pile of clothes, relieved that this has been taken care of for her, as she was nervous to ask for a change of clothes or anything else in case she pushed her luck too far and was thrown back in jail.

"Thank you. That's really thoughtful of you."

"Is it?"

Ronan isn't generally considered the thoughtful sort, although he can see how the gesture might be interpreted that way. Ordinarily he wouldn't even be making this delivery himself, because people make less of a fuss when these things are left anonymously, but new clothes are just the beginning and the least of what he can do for Abigail — and by extension, for his master.

"I wasn't sure what else you might need. Toothbrush? Girl stuff? I'm a walking convenience store. You can make a shopping list if you want."

She nods, offering a smile that's warmer and more genuine than her usual practised ones. She'd been unsure of what to expect here and it seems almost too good to be true that she really was being welcomed and looked after.

"You wouldn't happen to have a steady supply of M&Ms?" She's only half joking, after the weeks of prison rations followed by the bits of bread and fish she could get her hands on in Nott.

"Food's a little complicated."

Maybe he should start clarifying he's not a vending machine? It's not even that it wouldn't work. It's just ethically unsound and spiritually experimental. Maybe he could make a bush that grows M&Ms? Does that effectively skirt the rules about feeding people his soul? Ronan isn't sure.

"The kitchen's great, though. You can probably get them to make you something a hell of a lot better than M&Ms."

"It was worth a shot." She shrugs, knowing it was very unlikely they'd be able to get hold of any of the snack foods she was craving here. The food in the kitchen definitely sounded miles better than anything she'd had in this world so far, though, even if the idea of it made her think of one of those cheesy, touristy medieval banquets.

"A toothbrush would be great. But honestly, this is amazing. It's going to be so nice to have clean clothes for a change."

"It's what I'm here for."

Like... literally.

"Toothbrush is easy. If you think of anything else later, just ask me. And I'm serious about that. You're in Thorne now and I'm bribing you to stay, so even if it's something stupid, you can bother me with it. It's usually next-day delivery unless it's a real rush order."

Abigail just looks confused at that explanation, and a little uneasy. Surely she can't be so valuable to Thorne that they'd want to bribe her to stay.

"They really want me here that badly?"

"'They'?" Ronan scoffs. "Who's 'they'? The mages?"

He casts a glance around, but there's no one within earshot to overhear them. Not that he's particularly worried about it, being so valuable himself that he's figured out he could probably run through the halls shouting heresies and they'd still keep him around for the free resources. But he shakes his head at Abigail. Nothing here is as simple as she assumes.

"We want you here. The Summoned. We're from different worlds, but we're one kind, and we're all stronger together. Don't you feel it?"

It hadn't even occurred to Abigail that the other Summoned might want her here themselves, she'd simply assumed that they were trying to get as many of them on Thorne's side as possible, to make it easier for themselves. She immediately feels guilty, as well as a deep gratitude to both Ronan and Kylo. She doesn't want to become a puppet of Thorne, but she's more than happy to counted as on their side, to look out for each other rather than worry about outliving their usefulness to their hosts.

"Actually yeah, now you mention it, I do. We're far better together."

Ronan smiles — an exceptionally rare expression for him, if Abigail has been paying any attention. Finally, things are coming together. After years of suffering in solitude back home and so many months wasted in this world. He should thank Oliver Abbot and Elizabeth Francis for weeding out the faithless and getting the albatross off his neck. The ones who remain in Thorne are now the ones who want to remain, which is crucial. It's everything.

"We're not here to be some royal's puppets," he assures Abigail. "The Singularity doesn't belong to any one kingdom or even one world. It's the source of everything and it chose us, out of everyone in every fucking universe. This is just the beginning for us."

Bucky's own routes tend to take him near the water most of the time, as he's found his placing earning money by the docks and trying not to call too much attention to just how unnaturally strong he is. He blends as best he can and though his face isn't hidden, his arm usually is.

Playing cards is more about having a little fun and making local connections than about paying his way, so he's likely to walk away from a table with minimal winnings or losses most of the time and without much on the line. If loses the money he intended to bet for the evening, he'll walk away still able to feed himself until tomorrow's work and that's enough for him.

Still, this had been one of his bigger losses after making the mistake of sitting down at a table with Abigail. He waits until the others have collected their coats and walked away grumbling before he leans over, quiet enough for only her to hear:

"Wow, where'd you learn to take people for all they're worth like that?"

It's friendly, though. He's not angry about losing. More, he's just impressed.

Abigail tries to give a modest smile, but it's obvious that she's quite pleased with herself. She scoops up her gold and puts it away in the pouch tied to her skirt before any of the sore losers get any ideas about taking it back, though she gives a piece to a passing waitress in exchange for some bread.

"They let their guard down, since they don't think a girl can beat them. It makes them way too easy to read."

Of course, when they'd lost to her once, they wouldn't fall for the same trick again, so she has to try to find new marks each night.

On the river, clear as glass: this is where he finds her. Whoever she is. He first glimpses her at a distance, sees her straight dark hair and her slim frame, and thinks she's someone else—but only until she moves. The spell is broken, then. He follows her anyway.

Blades scrape through the winter hush. This other girl, she glides, and turns, and maybe she sees him first, or hears the soft jingle of tack. It doesn't matter which. He's there, up the frozen bank: a tall man on a large horse, cutting a black silhouette together against the trees, pale face and dark eyes, staring at her.

It takes a while for Abigail to notice she has company, as for just a little while she manages to lose herself in the familiar motions of skating, the freedom that simply gliding gives her. For a moment she can pretend she's a child again, her dad taking her to the frozen lake near their cabin, some of the few memories of him that weren't completely tainted now.

When she catches the figure out of the corner of her eye, all of her grace and balance disappears in an instant. She just about manages to stop herself from falling on the ice, but the way in which she catches herself makes her skid right into the bank of the river and she looks quite sheepish as she dusts herself off.

How charming.

The rider, he doesn't smile, only seems like he might. Like a faint impulse has stirred, either too distant or too tightly bridled to surface—a suggestion, there and gone again. The big black horse, on the other hand, has slack enough to bob his head up in surprise, ears forward and lip twitching. Both of them watching as she smooths down that little bump in her dignity.

"Careful," the man says. His voice, though soft, carries easily through the winter quiet. "This may be a dream, but falling still hurts."

He doesn't need to ask if this place belongs to her; it feels like it does, and Horizon doesn't lie the way some dreams do. (Or has yet to lie to him.)

Abigail smiles up at him to try to hide her embarrassment at having lost her footing, but she definitely wishes she could have looked a little more graceful, especially as it's not often that she has people wandering into her domain and she's both pleased and curious to get a visitor.

"At least there won't be a bruise when I wake up." At least, she doesn't think so. She's still not entirely sure how the Horizon works.

"No, there won't be." The horse settles beneath him. "You'll awaken exactly as you were."

Even if you die. There's no reason to tell her that, but he thinks of it, every time: the punch and pull down his body, being at once inside and outside himself, unable to leave. (Not that he particularly wanted to leave—)

"Why this place?"

An intuitive question, he assumes. Of all things, why make this? What does it mean?

"I grew up in this kind of place." She takes a seat on a nearby tree stump, gazing up at him on his horse. "Me and my dad, we had a cabin in the forest that we'd go to all the time to hunt and hike. I guess my subconscious wanted to cling onto that."

It was far more complex, of course. But Abigail doesn't like to think about the fact that she'd chosen to spend so much time in the environment where she'd began to be moulded into a killer.

"As for the rest of it..." Abigail glances over to what looks like the front of a strip mall, half hidden in the trees and crumbling to ruin, letting the forest overgrow it. "I'm actually not sure myself. I guess that's part of why I spend so much time here."

It was a puzzle that she hadn't quite figured out yet, as she didn't know herself well enough. She just knew that it was soothing to her to place herself in what was essentially the aftermath of chaos.

His gaze follows hers to the ruin, lingers there a while. The cultural markers are unfamiliar, but not so alien that he can't guess it is, or was, a string of shops, and the state of the building itself is not so unusual a symbol.

"Curious, isn't it—what the mind chooses to keep. Some pieces of the past left to decay while others are allowed to remain just as they were." As his attention drifts back out to the woods, his voice softens just barely. "I grew up in places not so different from this."

Focus returns to the girl, then. He leaves no room for comment. "Woodlands are popular here. Have you visited any of the others?"

Edited (who needs words anyway) 2021-11-08 05:01 (UTC)

Abigail shakes her head, though she definitely looks curious about visiting the other forests around the Horizon.

"I haven't explored anywhere near as much as I'd like yet."

Mostly because she was wary of just what might be lurking in others' domains.

"What's stopping you?" A question more for pondering than answering, evidently, as he goes on after not too long a pause: "I can show you where to look, if you like."

The rider's hands move on his saddle's smooth pommel, some vague shifting of the reins. Despite the neighbourly suggestion, his demeanour has hardly changed.

The library loses some of its lustre when you've been here long enough, had enough chances to peruse the shelves. That doesn't make it a bad place to be — you wind up in a world nothing like your own, brushing up with some reading tends to be a good idea — but it starts to pale in comparison to everything else there is to do. Witness living history in the form of the castle's native residents and how they approach things; practise magic instead of just read about it.

But if you're new, then yeah, it makes a lot of sense to end up in the library. It had been — still sometimes is — a point of interest for Brad, after all. And he's never seen Abigail before — never went down to the dungeons all that often, and there were far more interesting goings-on when everyone was in the middle of escaping — so he'd guess that she's new.

And that she's seen better days, judging by how small she looks. Hopefully those better days are right around the corner, considering she's somewhere with resources now. But the spark of interest at the books — that's good to see.

Brad turns back to the shelf he'd been looking at before he'd heard the door open; thinks better of it and heads over to her instead, hand raised in greeting, a little wave. "Hey," he says, his voice surprisingly warm for him. "Been up here before?"

Her initial expression would suggest that the answer is no, but it's an easy enough way to get confirmation. If she has been, though, then maybe she's got some reading recommendations of her own. It never hurts to consider what other people might like and what you can learn from them.

Abigail raises her hand from where she'd been tracing a finger down the leatherbound spine of a volume that's caught her interest to return his wave. The nerves she feels at being back at Castle Thorne are still evident in her expression, but for once there's a spark in her eye too at the idea of getting lost in the library.

"First time," she confirms. "Last time I was here, they weren't so hospitable."

The pieces fall into place pretty quickly: now that's two young women he's aware Thorne had felt fit to throw in prison, for whatever their reasons were. That's not great, though he doesn't betray the sentiment externally, choosing to go with sarcasm so as to avoid expressing anything genuine.

"And yet they are now," Brad says, just a but of judgment at upper management's choices seeping through his words. "I guess when a bunch of people run out on you, it makes you reconsider your earlier actions."

But that's neither here nor there. (That's not true; he knows you don't get over things just like that. However shitty Abigail's situation might've been before, it takes guts to return to a place like this if you weren't exactly welcomed before.) Now, she's got free reign of the library, and that spark in her eye is encouraging.

"Name's Brad," he says, offering her a slight smile, as though he's dealing with someone who's going to resort to fight or flight and would prefer to avoid both. He nods at the book that had caught her attention, "What's that one about?"

"Abigail," she replies with a friendly nod. "And you got that right. I feel like they didn't really think any of this through." What to do with them after they'd summoned them here, at the very least. So many of them had been imprisoned without good cause and she knew others who would never return to help Thorne after that. Abigail only had herself because it was better than any of the alternatives.

She glances back at the book. "Just a general history of this world, I think. Makes sense to start with a broad picture."

For as much as he tries to brush it off, Brad's aware of how lucky he was to end up properly welcomed. He could have handled the dungeons — or at least, he likes to think so — but there's no denying that their circumstances in the castle proper are far better, no matter how disjointed, how on edge people seem to be nowadays. So he nods. "Hell of an unforced error on their part," he says. Not I'm sure they had their reasons, even though they must have, but what possible reason could there have been to imprison people like Julie, like Abigail? Unless he's completely missing something, and he doesn't think he is.

Besides, it's not like you debate someone freshly out of prison, freshly out of another undesirable situation as to why they were really there. Wouldn't do anybody any good. And for as much as he wants to make sure his reputation as a sociopath is intact, Abigail doesn't deserve that.

He glances at the tome, back at Abigail; can't help but wonder how much of the world she actually saw before she ended up back here. Certainly not that much, considering the time frame, but more than he has — he hasn't ventured beyond the city here at all. There hasn't been a need.

"Yeah, that's about what I did. All the magic and fantasy makes a lot more sense when you have some idea of where it comes from," he says. A beat, while they're still poking at Thorne's treatment of strangers in a strange land. "Thorne's got a pretty high opinion of itself and its place in the world, if you can stand reading about that, too. But the information seems pretty accurate. You know, as long as you've got a grain of salt to go with it."

She takes the tome off the shelf and tucks it under one arm, glad to have confirmation that this is a good call. "I just hope it's not all too dense. I'm still having to come to terms with magic and everything without having to wade through the dry and dusty version. I doubt there'll be a CliffNotes version, though."

"Yeah, probably not," Brad agrees. "World history's a lot easier to learn when you actually know what world you're living in. At least it's not like there's going to be a test."

Other than, you know, life in general being the test; how well you can adapt to living in a place like this. Though Abigail seems adaptable enough, if she's survived all that she has here so far. Something else she says catches his attention, though.

"You're from somewhere without magic too?" he half-asks, half-states, head cocked in curiosity.

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your chariot awaits;

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thorne

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Nott

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horizon;

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thorne

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