Stuck In The Wrong Place

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.

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"It's a very large place, your world. It's somewhat amazing I found you at all." He set down his utensils as he finished with his meal, looking out across the yard and beyond. It had been overwhelming at first, adjusting to the sheer amount of world there was to explore. "But your name certainly seems to reach a number of places, if you ask in the right company."

It was not as if he had arrived in her world completely helpless. Just ... lost, confused, and penniless. And with only a slight hope that someone would remember him if he found a familiar face.

"...I'm not quite sure whether that should have me feeling proud or worried.

I thought I was dreaming, y'know. When I saw you."

"Famous? Notorious? They seem to be two sides of the same coin when it comes to you." A verbal shrug. While it may have worried Buffy at some level, he had been quite relieved to have some idea of where he was based on Buffy's name being recognized.

He quietly took in Buffy's admission, comparing it to his own experience. By the time he found himself face to face with Buffy, he was quite aware that he was not dreaming... But he had been worried. What if she did not remember? What if he had to truly navigate this world without anything to ground him?

"I was not sure what to think, when I finally found you. ...Besides the fact that we always seemed to meet at night."

She pushed her place aside with an unceremonious nudge, allowing her elbows to take up the space from which it had just been evicted. In an odd little self-hug, she gripped each shoulder with its opposite hand -- arms crossed over her chest. This left her wrists elegantly bent at just the right angle to be a chin rest.

"At least I got to you before that vamp-tramp did," she spoke idly but was carefully constructing a plan behind her eyes. A whole day in the sun: perhaps the movie theatres wasn't the right fit. Too dark; too gloomy. Albert's comment strikes down to her bones. They ought to be well-lit, for once.

Her head tilts. "Funny how I almost didn't recognize you without your wings. How sad is that?" Although the wings weren't the only absence that had thrown her off. "Can I tell you a secret? I was this-close to spinning 'round and staking you, too. That would've been a tragedy. And a sure sign of my rustiness."

"Well, if you had managed to kill me quickly enough, I would have died before the sense of disappointment hit with full force." He followed Buffy's example and set his plates aside. "Tragedy averted."

Being saved by Buffy in such a way had brought about a certain degree of awkwardness in their reunion. Crossing that distance in the dark, staring at each other in disbelief. And that was even before the inevitable question of what he was doing in her world.

"You seemed in perfect form that night, though. For all your talk of 'rusty skills.'"

Her smile didn't slip; however, the laughter in her eyes died. Buffy had once watched a man die from a stake-wound. Blood on Faith's hands and blood on hers. The Deputy Mayor had died so fast. All there had been left to do was run. Run and let the horror creep in.

In the breathless moments after she'd recognized Albert for who he was, that horror had lingered. Artificial and imagined, fuelled by her pessimistic imagination and the twitch in her arm muscles. It had been a twitch that had almost led to her finishing the killing lunge. But then she'd looked into his eyes and her heart had leapt in knee-jerk joy. Not just to see him but because if he was here...

Don't be so ungrateful, Summers. One familiar face is more than you could have ever hoped for.

"I suppose it's a lot like riding a bicycle." Ah! Now -- there was a thought. A nice alternative to a dim theatre. "Have you ever? Ridden one? A bicycle? Back in..."

She trailed off, unwilling to say the name. Luceti.

Even armed to the teeth, holding a stake aloft as she turned from a fresh kill, Albert had not been afraid of Buffy. There was that thrill, that fascination, that kept him from looking away -- and he had stared at her the entire while, wordless as they both processed the situation.

But on the matter of processing situations... He blinked at her question, raising a brow. "No. Never." With his juice finally finished, he set the glass aside as well. "But it can't be anymore difficult than riding a horse or driving a car, can it?"

Despite the faint close-lipped smile he gave her, he took notice of how she once again avoided mentioning the enclosure by name.

"You learned how to drive a car?"

She knew it had been possible. The dome had allowed for it, as did some missions and drafts. But she somehow hadn't expected it from him. However, she found it oddly endearing. Admirable, even.

"...'Cause I've never learned, and I lived here." A soft intake of breath. "Live here. That present tense is so tricky sometimes."

"No? Never?" Albert repeated himself with a slight tilt of the head, amused and curious. "It's not all that difficult when you have time to dedicate to practice." He glanced meaningfully at her, but only for a moment. "Of course, I have not studied any of your traffic laws here, so my knowledge is a bit ... lacking."

To understate the matter. He could very well be a terror behind the wheel, having only a ninja summoner's opinion to go off of.

"...Mom wouldn't let me take the road-test."

It wasn't as though she'd never then stepped behind a wheel; however, all those instances had promptly ended either in disaster or on a back-street rather close to disaster. Buffy gave a self-conscious little shrug. "I flunked the written. Never got my license. And afterwards--" after mom died "--if I needed wheels, Giles or Xander provided. Came through. Very rarely failed."

"And now, in your current predicament?" While he did not know much about this world, he had seen enough streets and vehicles around to know that they were the preferred mode of transportation. He followed up with a related question. "Are we going to require one of them to go anywhere around the area?"

The idea of being stuck in a car with Xander did not sound appealing; the young man had already shown himself to be suspicious of him and his intentions with Buffy.

Buffy played up the notion of her having an idle mind more often that not; however, this morning -- and with him -- she let her logic fly. His fears weren't too difficult to deduce.

"We won't be requiring a chauffeur, if that's what you're fretting about. But -- that is why I asked about the bikes. I think Dawn said something about two quaint old things in the barn. We could go a-peddling our way into town. It's not a horrific distance. My calves are up to it. Are yours?"

Fretting. He couldn't help but raise a brow at Buffy's use of the word, as if in askance, before he moved past it and entertained her proposal. What a change it would be, spending the day learning how to do something like that and simply keeping Buffy's company.

"You may have to be patient with me." Something of a light warning, though he was quick to balance it by referring to his own gratitude. "...Not that you have not been, this entire time."

"Isn't that what leaders are supposed to be? Patient. Wise. Kind. At least, they are if they're women."

Her expression turned distant for a moment, and she threw a leg over the picnic table's bench -- as if preparing to stand up. "Be a woman and in charge and the moment you try to be decisive, everyone calls you a bit--

Well. They don't call you a saint, at least."

She was speaking from personal experience; that much was obvious with the way she looked off. Albert smiled wryly, trying to imagine just how chaotic the situation had been.

And now she had been restored to her true role beyond any pseudo-general role she ever had in the other world.

"I somehow don't imagine you taking well to being called a saint. But you described some traits of a leader, yes. A good leader."

"They don't know, yet. How hard it's gonna get. Once we get the castle. Start hunting down the new Slayers. Start trying to organize the squads. And I can't even tell them, can I? Because that would be wrong..."

Buffy had always suspected that she would one day go home. She'd never expected to end up back a year in own damn timeline, re-living events but with new knowledge. And a new ally. She gathered the dishes back onto the tray and stood up from the table.

"I'm gonna go give these a scrub down. And you, Albert, are going to meet me by the barn in exactly twenty minutes."

He watched Buffy collect the dishes, nodding unnecessarily in confirmation of when they would meet. His mind was more fixated on her references to things that had come to pass and were now being repeated. They had barely scratched the surface of that topic, focusing more on the day-to-day happenings and whatever they could find on the possibilities of opening a way to another world.

What decisions would she change, knowing what she knew now? Who would she pull into her close circle, and who would she push away? The years spent in Luceti would almost certainly change dynamics, especially if she had only spent a limited time with these other Slayers in the past. And now she had a distraction--something new that she felt responsibility towards that would pull her away from other things she otherwise would have focused on.

"It would not be wrong," he finally said. "But I doubt a few words will help when you have such a tremendous task ahead of you."

Similar concerns skirted the edges of her consciousness. When it came time to assign Andrew's squad to Italy, would she do so because it was a good tactical call or because she'd done it before? It stank of the same problems that arose from prophecy. Buffy hated prophecy.

"If I tell them some things, how do I justify not telling them everything?"

But she didn't really want her question answered. Right now, all she wanted was to toss these dishes into the sink and find a pair of bikes to take them far away from a life she'd already lived once. For a few hours, at least.

"Wear something comfortable. Biking? Not always a walk in the park. I suggest those sneakers I got for you on our ill-fated first shopping spree."

In order to brook no argument, she ducked off the deck and headed to the kitchen.

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Stuck In The Wrong Place

Same Old People, Wrong Destination

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