Stuck In The Wrong Place

[dammitmasa]

Same Old People, Wrong Destination

Today you get a message from the Malnosso. They’ve found a way to send you home. You’ll remember Luceti, but it’s a one way trip. You’ve said your tearful goodbyes and prepared yourself for the inevitable return home. One moment you’re in Luceti, the next you’re not.

But nobody ever said the Malnosso ever got everything right. Sure, you’re not in Luceti anymore. Yes, you’ve lost your wings and barcode. But this isn’t your world. It’s some other world and now that you’re cut off from the Malnosso, you have no hope of ever getting back home. Which means that wherever you’ve ended up, you’ll be spending the rest of your life there.

On the up-side, you’re not the only one stuck here. Someone else from Luceti, also alien to this world, is stuck with you. With the common bond of being strangers to this brave new world, it’s inevitable you’ll stick together. But for how long?

Considerations

1. You can go to any other world you want! It just can’t be one either of your characters are from. You can make up something like a fantasy world, something from a sci fi, or something just like the modern world. Or you can pick a canon neither of your characters belong to.
2. Ideally they should both be from different canons altogether. But this isn’t required!
3. There’s supposed to be no way back. Even genius characters ought to find it impossible. But does that mean all hope has to be lost? For those who have been gone from Luceti a long time, it might be fun if they were given a chance to go back to Luceti and be trapped again.
4. For an optional extra level of complexity, give consideration to your character’s appearance or to their abilities. Will they stand out in this new world? Will they have to hide what they can do? Or will they even be able to use their powers if the source of their powers is gone?


Prompts

1. Day One - You’ve both just arrived on this world and by chance, you run into each other. Two heads are better than one. Now you just have to figure out what to do next.

2. One Week Later - You’ve been in this world a week. Things are starting to sink in. So is the idea of being stuck here. It’s time to start thinking about the long term.

3. One Month Later - Now that you’ve both been here awhile, you’ve learned the ins and outs of your new home. You’re making a living and getting by, but you still think of home.

4. Six Months Later - It may not be home, but you’ve learned to be comfortable. By now, your relationship with your fellow Lucetian has certainly evolved as well.

5. One Year Later - It’s been long enough that you sometimes wonder if you ever did live in a place like Luceti. So what’s life for you like in this whole new world?

6. Other - Don’t be limited by the above. This could be two weeks later or twenty years later! Of course, you can always time skip once you’ve established what you want to do at one time period.

Comments

[herotypical]

She was dumping forage into rough-made troughs, inviting the mounts to bow to their well-earned meal. Her own meal waited for her by the fire. She -- as on every night before this one -- would be the last to eat. And they -- as always -- would be gallant enough to leave 'Jack' with just enough to fill a belly. No more and no less and everything had its proper place. There was honour, she supposed, in taking just what you needed and nothing more. It was no honour that she was used to but she was slowly learning how to respect it all the same.

She raised her still-helmeted head at the name. Funny how it always sounded achingly familiar, no matter who said it. At first, she'd dared to say it often. At first, she told her horse stories of the people she'd once known. Of pirates and warriors and brave brave souls.

"...Shoes?" She said in her gruffest, most masculine voice. Helpfully, it mostly sounded like an adolescent boy trying desperately to sound older than his young years. It added an authenticity to the whole affair. Just as the ever present helmet smacked of a raw recruit so eager that he never removed his gear.

"Did you--" A pause. Damn, this tongue! These harsh vowels, reminiscent of some Saxon languages. Reminiscent of old spells muttered by Giles on cold nights. "Do you have...shoes?"

A hundred wittier lines rolled through her mind. If you do, you're a shoe-in for our business -- these horses are better shoe'd than we are -- shoe-ly you're the shoe-man -- show me the shoes. But she didn't know how to joke in Rohirric. Her humour had long been pinned up by language barriers and emotional lethargy.

[markofthewise]

"Horse shoes," he clarified. He sounded a bit exhausted and slightly irritated. It was not uncommon for him, even back in Luceti, to exercise no small amount of exasperation when getting work. But unlike those days where he worked for favors, now he worked to put food in his belly. His old attitude was needing adjustment for just how important he actually was here. Not at all.

This would be so much easier if he could just say it all in his own language. So he just held a horseshoe up. "For the horses? I mean. Obviously... obviously the horses. Your shoes are probably fine. Great. I bet your shoes are great."

Well, so much for first impressions. Good thing this was just some kid.

"Horses! Which horses need them?"

[herotypical]

"M-my shoes?"

She wondered why the peddler-slash-blacksmith-slash-stranger was asking about her own footwear. Buffy shoved a gloved hand under her helmet just long enough to rub at the bridge of her nose before she lifted one booted foot. "Boring. Too big. Too wide."

Was this small-talk? She hadn't been here long, maybe these folks talked about their own shoes the way some people talked about the weather. Only -- belatedly -- she understood that the man was having an equally tough time with the language. But it was the cadence that truly caught her ear.

She paused and squinted at him in the moonlight. Seconds passed.

"That horse," Buffy pointed at one, "and that horse," she pointed at another, "and that one -- he's Thunderaxe." She named her own mount with utter, desperate indulgence. It was the little things that tied her still to the person she used to be.

The other riders had laughed at the name. Told the boy it sounded like nonsense. But Buffy knew better, for Thunderaxe was strong and companionable. He whinnied affectionately when she was able to free her humour for those rare few moments they had alone. And he didn't hold back; he pushed ever forward.

And because one time the horse had stolen a sausage roll straight from her hands, savouring it despite the digestive problems destined to follow.

[markofthewise]

He was getting more impatient. The detour about her shoes had not been appreciated. The night was late, he hadn't had enough to eat, and the riders never paid well for shoeing. He'd barely been paying attention to what she said as each of the horses were named. But for one name.

Thunderaxe. He had abandoned that name here. No one had surnames here, after all. So he was just Sokka, son of Hakoda. It was all people needed to know. But that name had not been forgotten. He whirled back on the 'boy', advancing suddenly and reaching for the shoulders.

"What? What did you say?"

[herotypical]

Jack be nimble; Jack be quick. 'Jack' stepped backwards with sudden celerity, as if utterly repulsed by the notion of being touched. Grabbed. Reached for. Interacted with. Her ruse depended on many things and being beyond contact was one of them.

"Thun-der-axe. Threw a shoe. Coming home." No, not home. "Coming back. Make it better!" She gesticulated forcefully at the mount in question. Her only friend. She hated to see him hobbled in any way.

[markofthewise]

At this moment, Sokka was utterly unconcerned with the horse. That name. It was the first time he had heard any name in this place that had absolutely any meaning to him whatsoever.

He pointed at himself. "Me. I'm Thunderaxe. Not your horse. Me." He realized that was aggressive and stepped back. "Where did you get that name?"

[herotypical]

Her tone lost all boyish affectation: "You're not a--" horse.

Buffy took the time to try and properly understand the man. He was claiming the name as his own? But it was an English name, given by a Caribbean Pirate Lord to a Water Tribe warrior.

And then the voice hit her. Like an anvil to the face. Or, perhaps, a boomerang. But Buffy knew better than to trust hopes and dreams and wishes. Instead of answering him, she circled nearer. She tried to close the gap she herself had initiated.

Then, given the chance, she'd try and catch him by his hood.

[markofthewise]

He had noticed something familiar when the voice changed. But he had hardly any time to dwell on it when suddenly the odd boy was getting strangely personal and handsy. Sokka immediate swatted at the hand.

"Hey! Hey, stop that!"

The hood fell back anyway. The moon was bright enough to make it clear how obvious it was that he was not from Rohan.

[herotypical]

It had been little more than a hunch. She hauled at his hood and likely hauled altogether too roughly until the moonbeams struck Sokka's face, and then--

"Oh my God. Oh. My. G--" She was speaking English, now. And on the verge of pinching herself. In the excitement of the moment, she neglected to explain herself. Neglected to remove her helmet. Neglected to do little else but threaten to bowl him over with a hug, arms opening wide and trying to swoop firmly 'round his middle.

She, too, could have managed a better impression.

[markofthewise]

Such was the sort of days that Sokka normally had that he had long forgotten to anticipate hugs and was caught entirely by surprise. He looked around desperate for some sort of explanation, but no one in the camp seemed to notice. So he was left to feel lost and try to defuse it. Especially when the boy began to excitedly speak in gibberish.

This kid had one hell of a grip.

"... alright, I'll shoe your horse. Relax?"

[herotypical]

"You're such a sight for sore eyes," she continued to gibber-jabber. "Oh, I could kiss you. Right on the...on the everything."

But when Sokka kept speaking Rohirric, she grew wary. Perhaps he didn't remember her? Oh -- her heart sank at the prospect. However--

She released him and stepped back, pawing at her helmet (proudly tooled as it was despite her status) until she was free. It dropped to the ground; obviously, this rider was not so reverent with the trappings of office as others were wont to be. Shoes were forgotten. She focused now on clawing her knife-shorn hair out of its matted style.