Who: Claire Fraser and OTA + closed starters When: mid July through mid August Where: Solvunn, Nocwich What: Digging up stuff, research and junk Warnings: none yet but will change if necessary
[ She knows Solvunn had human sacrifice in the long ago past, though she isn't sure exactly how far back or which gods specifically were more likely to grant favor for it. ] I haven't found anything like that yet, but I would say there's a good chance of finding some sort of sacrificial remains if I kept at it long enough. I promised the Council if I did find anything, I would respectfully rebury it, note the location, and let them know.
[ Grinning at his exclamation, Claire can't help but agree, it is smashing, and she does take his joke for what it is. He's the second person to mention potentially eerie consequences for digging up old things. She chuckles and brushes her hands together to dust them off. ]
Be careful or I might inspire the resurgence of the penny dreadful? [ She used to love reading her uncle's old collection, the scarier the better. ] I honestly considered it could happen—a curse, not a penny dreadful—but no one expressed any concerns when I formally asked if this was alright. [ She gives a little shrug with her palms up. ] None of the locals seemed particularly disturbed, either.
[ So, she'd taken it as a sign to go ahead. As they chat, she continues to carefully chisel away at the area around the mound, with the end goal of being able to eventually pull it out of the ground intact. ]
I was raised by my Uncle Lamb who just happened to be an archeologist. I traveled with him all around the world helping him do things exactly like this. [ There's nostalgia in her voice, remembering the days when her uncle was the one hunched over and she was lighting his cigarettes. ] Well, not exactly like this. It was a little more difficult to find the right sort of tools, but I've managed to get by enough to think he'd be proud.
[ She glances at Arthur, remembering the drastic differences between their worlds, and wondering if other things could be so different. ]
Is Stonehenge still in Wiltshire? And don't discount any group of stones, especially if they were built by druids. There might be more there than meets the eye.
Oh yes. [Arthur is quick to agree when Claire voices his own thoughts.] They know all about it here, if there was a serious danger someone would have said something. But it's fun to imagine the possibilities.
[Or it is for him, anyway. All his silly little imaginings have a great deal more validity here than back home. It doesn't seem as silly to imagine.]
As far as I know, good old Stonehenge is right where it's always been, on Salisbury Plain. Never saw it myself, but our little henge was neat enough. And it did have a bit of magic, I think, but magic in Wellington isn't as strong as it is here.
[Not nearly. Certainly not to the point just anyone could do it.
But Claire's history is more interesting in the moment. What a fascinating person! With a fascinating glimpse into a whole other world that was much, much closer to his own.]
Oh that must have been a jolly good time. Did you really travel that much? I never stepped foot off of United Kingdom soil till I came here.
[ Claire knows more people who have never traveled far or at all, than relate to the way she grew up. It was bound to be odd, from the moment she'd refused to be shipped off to boarding school. An archaeologist and his traveling companion toting around a little girl from country to country. ]
Uncle Lamb went wherever the discoveries were being made, or where he suspected there might be something to be found. I think the longest we ever stayed anywhere from the time I was five or six until I was eighteen, was just under two years. Then I went to nursing school, then the war happened and that was five years of camps and bases.
[ She remembers just before the war, being young and married and thinking she would finally put down roots. It still hasn't happened, not in the world outside of Abraxas. ]
It wasn't a bad way to grow up, but I never really had the chance to make and keep friends, or go to school before I was eighteen. I could never relate to what the other girls gossiped over, and I ended more than one conversation with an awkward historical anecdote I thought was interesting.
[ It's partially why she'd latched onto Frank so young; he'd enjoyed history too, and it was one topic he actually engaged in conversation with her easily, even in their later years, when they could hardly stand speaking to one another at all. ]
If it makes you feel any better, I did go to school and grew up in one place and I was rubbish at making friends. I didn't listen to the right radio shows, I didn't read the right books, I was too nosey, and I always had my brother with me....
[It's happening more and more often. Arthur, without thinking, just casually mentioning Percy in conversation. Funny to think that a year ago he didn't even remember he'd had a brother.
He folds his long legs under him to settle in to chat, as he's not in any hurry. He'd offer to help, but knowing him, he'd do more harm than good.]
I've always been something of an outside looker in.
[The sort of person who was at the edge of things. That bloke at the office that everyone knew on sight but nobody really knew and often whispered about behind their hands. Though he supposes back home, nobody really knew anyone, but even then...he'd always been just a little bit different. A horrible thing in Wellington Wells, but not all that bad, here.
Arthur is well aware what people think of him here. He's strange. He's an odd man. But his strangeness is accepted. He's not persecuted for it, he doesn't have to try and hide it.]
I always had my books though. And a fierce imagination.
An imagination is so important, honestly. And books, I can't tell you how much I read on my own. [ Pausing what she's doing, Claire looks directly at Arthur, expression warm. ] You know, there may be quite a lot of differences between our worlds, but I feel as though you and I share a little in common.
[ In this world, and in the 20th century, Claire was not and is not considered strange—until she wanted to go to medical school, no man could conceive of it, not even Frank at first. But in the 18th century, her strangeness nearly got her killed more than once, and she had to learn what not to say, how to make herself meek when that went completely against her character. Holding her tongue used to feel like a pressure cooker building up steam, but she learned over time. Being seen as 'other' was dangerous, and no matter what she did, she was always an 'other' in Scotland. ]
I didn't have a sibling, though. My parents died when I was four, and my uncle never had children, he hardly knew what to do with me. It must've been nice to at least have a built-in friend? [ Unless they weren't close, which she hopes isn't the case, otherwise she's stuck her foot in her mouth. ]
[Arthur chuckles a bit, agreeing with Claire's assessment. He thinks they have a bit in common, too.
Then his face turns a bit distant. His smile grows smaller. The static in the whites of his eyes fuzzes and blurs.]
I didn't always think of it that way. Percy was...not like other people. They called him slow, but he really wasn't. He just thought differently than other people, took everything literally, didn't like to do things he didn't see the logic in. The other children were...quite cruel to him. And me, by extension.
[And Arthur would always pop them for it. Even when he'd been frustrated or annoyed with him, Percy was his brother.
[ Claire clocks the past tense and immediately decides to try and switch the topic. But she does listen, and her heart goes out to the brothers. She'll never know what that's like, but it tells her a little bit more about Arthur and the part of his character that actually matters, not the quirky details. ]
People mock what they can't understand. Rather than try, they get defensive and bullish for some reason I've always failed to grasp. Children don't become that way, they learn it, and then turn into replicas of the adults who spewed hatred before them.
[ She knows that's painting broad strokes, some bullies grow up and out of it, but for this conversation, she doesn't amend her statement. Her plan to change the topic is failing spectacularly as she continues. ]
I'm sorry you and Percy had those experiences, Arthur, I really am. For what it's worth, I'm glad you're someone I know, even if it's jarring to be here.
Oh, I don't know, I think most children are naturally inclined to be little monsters. They learn not to be.
[Arthur realizes that may sound a bit more depressing than he'd intended it. But he's drawing on his own youth now, and the things he does remember from it. He knows the things he did, and no one taught him to do them. He'd made those choices all on his own.
Dog help him.]
That sounded awful, I don't mean it that way. Just...children are still new to being people. They don't understand so much, even if they understand much more than we realize. Consequences... when children do or say something cruel, they don't realize what they're doing. Not really. And we were children of wartime, that makes everything strange and awful. We were scared and confused all the time.
[These aren't things Arthur usually talks about, but...well, Claire is an easy person to talk to. When he'd first met her, and learned she was a doctor, he'd thought she might be like Dr. Faraday. Brusque, distant, focused on work. But she's nothing like that at all. She's bright and compassionate and warm, somewhat like Sally, only much more genuine.
Still, he wonders if she'd be so glad to know him if she knew everything. Who knows?]
But Percy did alright. And I...well, I hope wherever he ended up, people were a bit more kind. Er, meant literally, not euphemistically. We...were separated as children, during the war. If nothing else, he didn't have to grow up in Wellington Wells.
[Whatever happened, that's something he can hold onto. He likes to believe what they were told, and think that Percy spent the rest of his youth with some nice family in a much better country. Percy wouldn't have been able to handle what happened afterwards. He hated fake things, and all of Wellington became fake after the war.
[ Claire has to agree; kids pick things up, say them without knowing anything other than the words or actions hurt. Someone kind, a parent, a guardian, should then teach the consequences of hurting others, but for some it never happens, and then sometimes they turn into awful adults. They don't always though, and Arthur is right: at a point, kids are only being children with no real understanding of malice.
An exhale makes her shoulders sag at knowing he was separated from his brother. She knows of so many families that were ripped apart, some reunited but most not. There are resources she knows of in her time, but it does no good here, and she assumes he would've tried already if possible. ]
War is...it's impossible not to be changed by it. Young and old alike, and it's still felt for so long afterward. I don't think I'll ever go a day without thinking of or remembering something.
[ She's been in more than one war and will be part of another, has lost friends, family, watched her husband suffer. War has shaped her entire existence, and now here it is again, poking at the life she's made in Solvunn. Friends are being taken away, faster now than before, it feels like. It isn't the same, but she knows some of them go back to nothing good, though she wants to imagine the opposite. ]
You never know, the universe is unpredictable and random. Perhaps you'll be reunited yet. Maybe even here.
This world...it doesn't follow the right rules, it has a new set of logic and laws for how things work. I don't think Percy's mind could handle it, he got upset over fairy tales and how 'wrong' they are. I'm really not sure if he'd be able to grasp that two opposing sets of natural laws could exist at the same time.
[Much as he feels Percy deserves a true escape and chance at happiness far more than him, Abraxas would not be that for the other Hastings boy. It isn't as though how his mind works would change as an adult. The doctors had been very firm on that.
No, far better than he simply lived (lives?) out his life in somewhere like Russia or Germany, a nice orderly country where the rules work how he expects them to.
But he knows Claire was being kind. He understands the sentiment. In most circumstances, he'd agree. Of course he wants to see Percy again. He wants to know he's okay, and to apologize....
But one of those things, he's come to realize, is much more important than the other.]
I'd rather he be alright than see him again, if that's the choice.
[ Claire nods slowly, seriously, as he explains. With tensions rising and the chaos they've all just gone through, that alone would be enough to not want a loved one here. Even her wanting Bree to arrive has tapered off in the past few months. Thorne is unpredictable, and she already has people she's terribly scared for. She couldn't handle her daughter being in constant danger. It might not be for the same reasons, but she understands it. ]
That's valid, I completely understand. I have a daughter, and I waffle back and forth between wanting to see her and wrap my arms around her again, and never wanting to see her here, ever. I don't think I would ever stop being afraid.
[ She does get slightly emotional thinking about Bree, trying to call up the phantom weight of her when Claire pulled her into hugs. She shakes it off quickly though, then nods again at Arthur. ]
[Arthur can't even begin to imagine. The idea of being a parent is so foreign a concept to him, despite the parentification he'd gone through in youth with Percy. That was still very different.]
But I understand why you wouldn't want her here. What's she like, if you don't mind my asking? I...haven't really known many people with children. Just some locals I know casually.
[What with Joy making everyone sterile. Maybe he should be more upset about that, but he hadn't been planning on having children anyway.]
[ Claire smiles in a way that's nostalgic and a bit sad, but she loves talking about her daughter, even when she aches. ] I don't mind at all. I just wish I could show you a picture.
[ If she could see Bree's face and not have it be the somewhat-off Horizon version she'll never make again, that would go a long way. ]
Her name is Brianna. She was supposed to be named after her grandfather Brian, but she surprised me by being a girl, so I adapted. She's nearly twenty-three now, her birthday's in November. She's stubborn and bossy and wonderful. She has bright red hair that has my curl, but she straightens them out of existence. She loves animals and used to rescue all sorts when we were on vacation in the country. She's curious and temperamental when people argue but she knows she's right. She'd been studying to major in history, but just before I...well, the last time I saw her, she'd been curious about switching to engineering.
[ Claire has no idea if she did switch before traveling back in time, and she isn't sure John knows, either. ]
If she came here I know for a fact she'd be capable, but so are a lot of people, and they still get hurt.
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[ Grinning at his exclamation, Claire can't help but agree, it is smashing, and she does take his joke for what it is. He's the second person to mention potentially eerie consequences for digging up old things. She chuckles and brushes her hands together to dust them off. ]
Be careful or I might inspire the resurgence of the penny dreadful? [ She used to love reading her uncle's old collection, the scarier the better. ] I honestly considered it could happen—a curse, not a penny dreadful—but no one expressed any concerns when I formally asked if this was alright. [ She gives a little shrug with her palms up. ] None of the locals seemed particularly disturbed, either.
[ So, she'd taken it as a sign to go ahead. As they chat, she continues to carefully chisel away at the area around the mound, with the end goal of being able to eventually pull it out of the ground intact. ]
I was raised by my Uncle Lamb who just happened to be an archeologist. I traveled with him all around the world helping him do things exactly like this. [ There's nostalgia in her voice, remembering the days when her uncle was the one hunched over and she was lighting his cigarettes. ] Well, not exactly like this. It was a little more difficult to find the right sort of tools, but I've managed to get by enough to think he'd be proud.
[ She glances at Arthur, remembering the drastic differences between their worlds, and wondering if other things could be so different. ]
Is Stonehenge still in Wiltshire? And don't discount any group of stones, especially if they were built by druids. There might be more there than meets the eye.
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[Or it is for him, anyway. All his silly little imaginings have a great deal more validity here than back home. It doesn't seem as silly to imagine.]
As far as I know, good old Stonehenge is right where it's always been, on Salisbury Plain. Never saw it myself, but our little henge was neat enough. And it did have a bit of magic, I think, but magic in Wellington isn't as strong as it is here.
[Not nearly. Certainly not to the point just anyone could do it.
But Claire's history is more interesting in the moment. What a fascinating person! With a fascinating glimpse into a whole other world that was much, much closer to his own.]
Oh that must have been a jolly good time. Did you really travel that much? I never stepped foot off of United Kingdom soil till I came here.
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Uncle Lamb went wherever the discoveries were being made, or where he suspected there might be something to be found. I think the longest we ever stayed anywhere from the time I was five or six until I was eighteen, was just under two years. Then I went to nursing school, then the war happened and that was five years of camps and bases.
[ She remembers just before the war, being young and married and thinking she would finally put down roots. It still hasn't happened, not in the world outside of Abraxas. ]
It wasn't a bad way to grow up, but I never really had the chance to make and keep friends, or go to school before I was eighteen. I could never relate to what the other girls gossiped over, and I ended more than one conversation with an awkward historical anecdote I thought was interesting.
[ It's partially why she'd latched onto Frank so young; he'd enjoyed history too, and it was one topic he actually engaged in conversation with her easily, even in their later years, when they could hardly stand speaking to one another at all. ]
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[It's happening more and more often. Arthur, without thinking, just casually mentioning Percy in conversation. Funny to think that a year ago he didn't even remember he'd had a brother.
He folds his long legs under him to settle in to chat, as he's not in any hurry. He'd offer to help, but knowing him, he'd do more harm than good.]
I've always been something of an outside looker in.
[The sort of person who was at the edge of things. That bloke at the office that everyone knew on sight but nobody really knew and often whispered about behind their hands. Though he supposes back home, nobody really knew anyone, but even then...he'd always been just a little bit different. A horrible thing in Wellington Wells, but not all that bad, here.
Arthur is well aware what people think of him here. He's strange. He's an odd man. But his strangeness is accepted. He's not persecuted for it, he doesn't have to try and hide it.]
I always had my books though. And a fierce imagination.
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[ In this world, and in the 20th century, Claire was not and is not considered strange—until she wanted to go to medical school, no man could conceive of it, not even Frank at first. But in the 18th century, her strangeness nearly got her killed more than once, and she had to learn what not to say, how to make herself meek when that went completely against her character. Holding her tongue used to feel like a pressure cooker building up steam, but she learned over time. Being seen as 'other' was dangerous, and no matter what she did, she was always an 'other' in Scotland. ]
I didn't have a sibling, though. My parents died when I was four, and my uncle never had children, he hardly knew what to do with me. It must've been nice to at least have a built-in friend? [ Unless they weren't close, which she hopes isn't the case, otherwise she's stuck her foot in her mouth. ]
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[Arthur chuckles a bit, agreeing with Claire's assessment. He thinks they have a bit in common, too.
Then his face turns a bit distant. His smile grows smaller. The static in the whites of his eyes fuzzes and blurs.]
I didn't always think of it that way. Percy was...not like other people. They called him slow, but he really wasn't. He just thought differently than other people, took everything literally, didn't like to do things he didn't see the logic in. The other children were...quite cruel to him. And me, by extension.
[And Arthur would always pop them for it. Even when he'd been frustrated or annoyed with him, Percy was his brother.
At least he'd been a good brother sometimes.]
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People mock what they can't understand. Rather than try, they get defensive and bullish for some reason I've always failed to grasp. Children don't become that way, they learn it, and then turn into replicas of the adults who spewed hatred before them.
[ She knows that's painting broad strokes, some bullies grow up and out of it, but for this conversation, she doesn't amend her statement. Her plan to change the topic is failing spectacularly as she continues. ]
I'm sorry you and Percy had those experiences, Arthur, I really am. For what it's worth, I'm glad you're someone I know, even if it's jarring to be here.
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[Arthur realizes that may sound a bit more depressing than he'd intended it. But he's drawing on his own youth now, and the things he does remember from it. He knows the things he did, and no one taught him to do them. He'd made those choices all on his own.
Dog help him.]
That sounded awful, I don't mean it that way. Just...children are still new to being people. They don't understand so much, even if they understand much more than we realize. Consequences... when children do or say something cruel, they don't realize what they're doing. Not really. And we were children of wartime, that makes everything strange and awful. We were scared and confused all the time.
[These aren't things Arthur usually talks about, but...well, Claire is an easy person to talk to. When he'd first met her, and learned she was a doctor, he'd thought she might be like Dr. Faraday. Brusque, distant, focused on work. But she's nothing like that at all. She's bright and compassionate and warm, somewhat like Sally, only much more genuine.
Still, he wonders if she'd be so glad to know him if she knew everything. Who knows?]
But Percy did alright. And I...well, I hope wherever he ended up, people were a bit more kind. Er, meant literally, not euphemistically. We...were separated as children, during the war. If nothing else, he didn't have to grow up in Wellington Wells.
[Whatever happened, that's something he can hold onto. He likes to believe what they were told, and think that Percy spent the rest of his youth with some nice family in a much better country. Percy wouldn't have been able to handle what happened afterwards. He hated fake things, and all of Wellington became fake after the war.
Joy would have been the end of him.]
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An exhale makes her shoulders sag at knowing he was separated from his brother. She knows of so many families that were ripped apart, some reunited but most not. There are resources she knows of in her time, but it does no good here, and she assumes he would've tried already if possible. ]
War is...it's impossible not to be changed by it. Young and old alike, and it's still felt for so long afterward. I don't think I'll ever go a day without thinking of or remembering something.
[ She's been in more than one war and will be part of another, has lost friends, family, watched her husband suffer. War has shaped her entire existence, and now here it is again, poking at the life she's made in Solvunn. Friends are being taken away, faster now than before, it feels like. It isn't the same, but she knows some of them go back to nothing good, though she wants to imagine the opposite. ]
You never know, the universe is unpredictable and random. Perhaps you'll be reunited yet. Maybe even here.
no subject
[Arthur shakes his head.]
This world...it doesn't follow the right rules, it has a new set of logic and laws for how things work. I don't think Percy's mind could handle it, he got upset over fairy tales and how 'wrong' they are. I'm really not sure if he'd be able to grasp that two opposing sets of natural laws could exist at the same time.
[Much as he feels Percy deserves a true escape and chance at happiness far more than him, Abraxas would not be that for the other Hastings boy. It isn't as though how his mind works would change as an adult. The doctors had been very firm on that.
No, far better than he simply lived (lives?) out his life in somewhere like Russia or Germany, a nice orderly country where the rules work how he expects them to.
But he knows Claire was being kind. He understands the sentiment. In most circumstances, he'd agree. Of course he wants to see Percy again. He wants to know he's okay, and to apologize....
But one of those things, he's come to realize, is much more important than the other.]
I'd rather he be alright than see him again, if that's the choice.
no subject
That's valid, I completely understand. I have a daughter, and I waffle back and forth between wanting to see her and wrap my arms around her again, and never wanting to see her here, ever. I don't think I would ever stop being afraid.
[ She does get slightly emotional thinking about Bree, trying to call up the phantom weight of her when Claire pulled her into hugs. She shakes it off quickly though, then nods again at Arthur. ]
I think you're right, if that's the choice.
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[Arthur can't even begin to imagine. The idea of being a parent is so foreign a concept to him, despite the parentification he'd gone through in youth with Percy. That was still very different.]
But I understand why you wouldn't want her here. What's she like, if you don't mind my asking? I...haven't really known many people with children. Just some locals I know casually.
[What with Joy making everyone sterile. Maybe he should be more upset about that, but he hadn't been planning on having children anyway.]
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[ If she could see Bree's face and not have it be the somewhat-off Horizon version she'll never make again, that would go a long way. ]
Her name is Brianna. She was supposed to be named after her grandfather Brian, but she surprised me by being a girl, so I adapted. She's nearly twenty-three now, her birthday's in November. She's stubborn and bossy and wonderful. She has bright red hair that has my curl, but she straightens them out of existence. She loves animals and used to rescue all sorts when we were on vacation in the country. She's curious and temperamental when people argue but she knows she's right. She'd been studying to major in history, but just before I...well, the last time I saw her, she'd been curious about switching to engineering.
[ Claire has no idea if she did switch before traveling back in time, and she isn't sure John knows, either. ]
If she came here I know for a fact she'd be capable, but so are a lot of people, and they still get hurt.