We'll sight the shores of islands

[abyssalarcana]

Who: Crewmembers of the Law-Curufin-Floki sailing fleet + OTA
What: The three ships and their crews finally make landfall after many weeks at sea! Come greet your friends (?) on their return as they disembark and bring the fragments to the lab - or meet them for the first time if you've just arrived!
Where: Island shoreline, or anywhere
When: September 19th
Warnings: Will update as needed but nothing terrible expected here unless someone hugs a Door fragment too close.

Just over four weeks ago, the three boats set off in search of some of the more distant Door fragments. Under the experienced eyes and hands of a few seasoned ocean voyagers, the crew has suffered boredom, kraken attacks, stormy weather, a captain gone mad with the chaos of the fragments themselves - and perhaps most notably, a trio of Null that were waiting at one of the locations.

But as the sight of islands loomed ahead once again, they finally were sure of one thing - they had all made it back alive.">

Comments

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin has been looking forward to this and smiles at the reminder. Once they've docked at South Island and hurried off to the Speakeasy, he sits down with her happily and picks up his glass.

"Thanks, and I'm glad to be back!" He grins again, drinks, and quotes, "Home is the sailor, home from the sea, and the hunter home from the hill." (Some mortal poet, no doubt.)

"And how are you, Kate?"

[dedikated]

"Busy," she answers dryly, like there's any other option when it comes to her. With the return of the fragments and Carlisle's health, with Henry's disappearance and the hole it left in the Guard's ranks... Yeah, she's been busy, even without the storm, or the ogres.

"What were it like out there?" She knows about the kraken, the giant monster attacking her boyfriend's ship, but aside from that. "Empty as everywhere else?"

[so_dark_a_road]

"I don't doubt you for a moment!" he answers. He doesn't know everything about her life, but he does know she's chronically busy, not to mention overworked.

"Out there? Well, it's the ocean, after all." Smile. "Water, water, water, everywhere. But I wouldn't call it empty. Every wave is an event, every change of the wind is an adventure. I may be prejudiced, though. I've always liked the sea, and I never got enough of it during my original lifetime."

He wrinkles his nose. "Could have done without those three aquatic Null attacking our convoy, though."

[dedikated]

She's always liked it that way. Less time to dwell on things which try to rear their ugly heads. The immediate is where things can be solved and though the past is now a dull ache, the habit remains.

Her expression flickers as he talks about the water like it's a lover, the scepticism brief. She never did like the water — perhaps from a distance, when she was stood on a beach or perched on a bridge, but not within its grasp. But nothing is said about that, because why does it matter, and because she's brought to something more important than her own feelings on sailing:

Those Null. Law had mentioned them in his report to the network. A worrying concept to say the least. "Were they different to the other ones?"

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin would completely agree with Kate on that topic! The immediate is a refuge from the past. The immediate allows him to feel he's doing his job, which is solving problems. There are so many small problems and challenges every day, and virtually all of them can be dealt with. Not so the past. The past is a minefield of unsolved problems, and this is despite all that he has done to make amends to his family for the ways in which he wronged them in their world.

He does feel almost loving about the ocean. There is a way in which it speaks to his soul. But he knows that not everybody feels this way. He recalls that Kate didn't seem to do much traveling between the islands, even after there were so many boats -- both the gods' boats and the ones built by the Hadrielites.

"Those three Null weren't very different than the ones you've seen already. They just seemed to be adapted to propelling themselves through the water, which I'm guessing the ones we remember from the Null invasion could have done, only they had no need to. The only water we had back then was the river, and there were bridges over it. I guess it just means that they are pretty adaptable to their environment. But you look worried?"

[dedikated]

She does as much travelling as she needs to. Her house remains on an island separate from the clinic, the guard HQ, the lab, the speakeasy... basically anything she actually needs to visit. She's not quite so bothered by the water that she'll allow it to lock her to an island with only the freaking hot springs nearby. But she isn't about to be chomping at the bit at the idea of weeks long expeditions on the water, either.

She nods through his explanation, and the expression on her face shifts to something dry. Of course she's worried by the concept of the Null lurking about, who wouldn't be? The invasion might be long behind them, and her body may have recovered, but the memories still linger. The fun of being without her powers for weeks still lingers.

Who wouldn't be worried?

"Don't feel like fighting another war."

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin lives on South Island as well. He's often out and about, but she can always call on him to bring his boat around if there isn't another one handy at the time.

Everybody should be worried about lurking Null and the possibility of another invasion. Curufin regards it as a done deal, actually. If communications between Null are instantaneous, then there is no way that he and his crew and Law and Law's crew could have killed those Null fast enough to have kept them from sending messages to their buddies out in space.

"I guess nobody really wants to fight another war. Too many people, including you, paid a price for the fending off of the invaders." He gazes thoughtfully at Kate, his eyes a little sad and certainly worried. "But I think we are going to have to fight one."

[dedikated]

She'll keep that in mind.

And he's right, of course he's right — they've not actually left this war, even after the invasion ended. It's just a moment of respite, being hidden, or something like it. That's all this reall is. Hiding.

But her own exhaustion of warfare and combat and all this fucking violence is only part of the problem here. "This place isn't ready." They're going to have to fight, certainly, but is the city in any state to deal with it? Are the people? Are the gods? If the Null crashed onto this planet right now, would they really be able to hold them off on these four little islands, especially now they know that even the ocean won't be enough to stop their robotic hunters?

God, she needs another drink. A long, long drink.

[so_dark_a_road]

"You're right, we're not ready for another attack. Not even close to ready. We have a fair number of people who can fight, or who have combat magic, but not enough to hold off a full-scale invasion. At least not without considerable organization and strategy, and that's difficult to achieve when there is so much suspicion and distrust amongst the members of our community. Our energies are lost this way, and then we don't have them to deal with our real problems."

He sighs, looks at the bottle, and pours them each another shot.

"The gods have the same problem. They can't even trust each other. I'm of the opinion that if Delight had been able to speak of her despair to the others, it wouldn't have become so great that she became, basically, suicidal. They know how to support each other in certain ways, but not in the ways that are absolutely required in this situation. And of course, they don't trust us."

He laughs a little, and it is anything but a happy laugh. "Their focus is on keeping us under control, and I don't see how a real alliance can ever be formed so long as they think that way. I don't know what's to happen with this Door shard venture. I hope that you and the Lab people can learn something about them, and about the workings of the Door. Knowledge is power, as they say. And leverage. Not knowing anything about the device that brought us here pretty much guarantees that we'll never get out of here, in my humble opinion."

[dedikated]

It's good to know people like Curufin. He's expanding on so much of the things she's been thinking but never actually verbalising. There's not enough people here who can present a united combat front. They made it through last time, but it was by sheer force of will and little else. Judging by how quickly the Null adapted to individual battles, shifting forms in the blink of an eye, she's sure they've already devised better plans for any future attacks.

They need to do the same. And they can't. And now Henry's fucking gone and whatever else could be said about him, he knew warfare, all but breathed it.

She needs several more shots. The first is nice, and followed up by — fuck it, she's going to just take a swig from the bottle.

"Can't get any loyalty as long as people keep turning up and leaving." Every month it's new people, people who know nothing and have no reason to want to support the gods or trust them. And she can't blame any of them for that. Hell, trusting the gods is a rare thing among some of the longest-term residents here, never mind the ones freshly pulled away from their lives.

[so_dark_a_road]

Amen to all of that! And it is good to know Kate. She is intelligent and fundamentally sensible about any problem to be solved.

They do need to organize, and Curufin is seriously worried about their ability to do so, for all of the aforementioned reasons.

He grins when she takes a swig directly from the bottle. One of the things he finds appealing about her is that for all the delicacy of her appearance and sensibilities, she's really an old campaigner at heart!

"I agree with you that the turnover is part of the problem. Particularly when we lose someone of Henry's caliber, or anyone who has taken the time and made the effort to find ways to help the community." And as for trusting the gods, well, who does? The gods are so self-interested that it is a risk to trust them for much of anything. The only reason Curufin is willing to ally with them is because otherwise, the Null are going to kill everybody.

[dedikated]

He's one of the few who has probably come to that conclusion, honestly. But that doesn't matter so much now — what's important is that they can speak like this. People who think about their prospects if and when another battle starts are important now, with the weight of those Null sentries and the fragments on all their minds.

"Not an easy person to replace." It is, perhaps, an overly neutral way of phrasing that, when what she's thinking, what aches at her, is simply that she's going to miss him. Going to miss having possibly the only other northerner in the city at her side, for training and drinking and battle. Going to miss his bluntness and hidden humour.

And then there's the practical things. He's been the face of the guard for the whole time, with and without Maketh, been there since very near the beginning of this entire thing. There are few people who know the city and the changes it's seen as well as he did. "Guard'll have to try."

She doesn't envy that task, knowing all too well that she, herself, won't find a replacement for him as a friend and teacher.

Just to wrap this one, too! He sympathizes with Kate's feelings of loss.

[so_dark_a_road]

Amen to all that.

"Truly, we will miss Henry. I liked him well, and he was certainly a good friend to you."

Ah yes, the practical side. "The Guard was Henry's project, and I suspect, his dream. He had a vision for it, and however difficult or even impossible it might have been to achieve it, the fact that he was trying, and the fact that he encouraged all his Guards to try to reach for the highest that was in us. . . well, there just aren't that many people who do that. But yes, we'll have to try to do it without him."

And he smiles at her. He means to focus on the task of being a dreamer, whatever the cost. And he thinks that Kate will do the same.