loficharm | Collapse // for Yona

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Collapse // for Yona

He's tired, and he's been tired for several days now. He can't really pin it down. He's been sleeping fine, his dreams no worse than ordinary; despite his fairly constant exploration, he wouldn't describe himself as feeling physical exhaustion. He's been eating well enough, he doesn't have a fever, and all things considered, his spirits are mostly intact. And yet here he is, again: weak-limbed, shaky-fingered, his vision blurring and his focus perpetually drifting, no matter what he does. It feels like a combination of all possible ailments, symptoms cherry picked to create a frustratingly ambiguous state of being.

Still, he persists. John needs whatever Statements they can find, and he needs to have something to do. And the worst of it isn't even the physical discomfort; it's the lingering ache of existential dread. There's no reason behind it, but it's there nonetheless, an undercurrent of fear, a certainty of danger. He feels it like an itch under his skin, unable to shake it off. Sitting alone in his flat with nothing to distract him, just lying down and waiting for the occasional vertigo to ebb and flow, sounds so much worse than just soldiering stubbornly through.

Martin's wandered into a part of Darrow he hasn't yet visited, which isn't difficult to do; he's only been here a couple weeks. He's been trying to seek out locations where people might be more inclined to talk to him and just... go from there. Getting true Statements is hard enough, but getting people to talk period... well, this'll just have to be a start. So when he sees what appears to be a magic shop of some kind, advertising for fortunes told, he's quick to approach. Even if they are charlatans, they may be able to point him somewhere, even inadvertently.

When he steps inside, the shop seems deserted; it's very small, but there's no customers and he can't even see anyone on duty. Must be in the back. He takes a faltering step forward, already feeling a little overwhelmed by the heady smell of incense, when his footing betrays him and he staggers and falls. He reaches out clumsily to grasp at a shelf of Tarot cards and little books on eastern spirituality, but he only succeeds in making a bit of a mess as he crashes down to his knees.

He lets out a grunt of mingled pain and almost indignant surprise. Who let this happen to him, etc. Surely he's not that bad off.

He tries to get back up so he can reset the shelf before someone comes out and notices, but it's like his body is just shutting down on him now. He sways and pitches forward, hitting the floor face-first and just narrowly avoiding breaking his nose. For no reason at all, a thought worms its way through the general disorientation. Jane Prentiss, he remembers: she worked in a shop like this, didn't she?

And that's when he remembers the last time he felt fear like this, that omnipresent dread and resignation to a danger that he could not escape. For two weeks the entity once called Jane Prentiss had held him prisoner in his own flat. It's the same feeling now: frustrated, afraid, and above all tired.

The relevance of that similarity is beyond him at the moment, but so is everything else. He can't even pull together the strength to try and lift himself up. He lets his eyes fall shut, barely conscious and sprawled out over the shop floor.

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Yona hasn't been working in the little fortune teller's shop for very long, but she already loves it. There's something sort of confidence-inspiring about being able to use what she can do like this, though she isn't generally lacking much confidence anyway. It just feels good, maybe even right, and although she's perfectly aware that most of the people who walk through the door are only here for fun, it's nice to know that she can tell them something true. If she likes to have a bit of extra fun toying with the people who are skeptics — and she can always determine that — she supposes there's no real harm in it. The drama and the atmosphere are part of the point.

It's a quiet afternoon, and she's hanging out in the back, perched on top of a set of low shelves with a book in her lap, when she hears the door open, and a few moments later, a louder, crashing sound. Her expression quickly shifting to one of concern, she sets the book down and hops to the floor so she can walk back out front. She'd known, of course, when she came in today, that it was going to be an interesting day, but she hadn't expected that to equate to a body on the floor of the shop.

For a moment, she just looks down at him, worried and a little puzzled. Then she takes a seat by his shoulder, knees drawn up to her chest as she nudges him. He's breathing, at least, though he looks more than a little worse for wear. "Hi," she says. "Are you okay?"

The voice comes at him like he's underwater, sound all distant and distorted. Martin tries to answer it, but manages only a soft moan, muffled against the floor. Christ, he's lucky he didn't have his glasses on. He swallows, for a moment worried he's about to be sick, and then things settle a bit. He tries again.

"I... yeah." He grimaces and pushes his hands beneath him, bracing against the floor to try and lever himself up. He does manage it, though it feels so much harder than it ought to. His body feels so heavy. He blinks until his vision clears, and looks at the young woman who's spoken, sitting on the floor and watching him intently.

"Hi," he says belatedly. With a grunt of effort, he reorients himself so he can lean back against the shelf he'd upset. "S-sorry. I just - I just need a minute."

He still doesn't look very okay, but at least he's moving and speaking now. Yona considers that a good thing. If someone else were here right now, she would probably be having them call a doctor just to be safe, but she thinks she'll be fine to deal with it on her own instead. It's far more what she's used to, for that matter. There wasn't exactly on demand medical care when she was on the train. Considering him for a moment, she shifts enough to grab a pillow off a chair, embroidered with tassels at the corner. So much of this place is about appearance, a concept still somewhat foreign but charming to her. Now, though, it's not just for appearance.

She holds the pillow out to him, figuring it will be more comfortable than just leaning against the shelf. "It's fine," she tells him as she settles again. With him on the floor, she might as well stay down here for now too. "You can take all the time you need." Should any customers come in, she'll deal with that when it happens, but for now, it seems alright, even if he doesn't.

"Can I get you anything? Water maybe?"

"Oh," he says dumbly when she hands him the pillow, like he's not sure what he's meant to do with it. He takes it anyway, and after a moment just holding it, the implicit offer catches up to him and he sets it gingerly behind his back, a nice bit of cushion against the shelves.

"Thank you," he says belatedly, perhaps to the pillow, the reassurance, the offer of water, or all three. "Er... water, yes. I - I'm sorry, I don't usually... this doesn't usually happen."

Which is a bad sign, he knows. Fainting is never a good sign, but it feels especially awful when there's no explanation he can find.

"I'm sure it'll be fine in a moment, maybe I just... got... too much air?" He laughs weakly. "I - I'm Martin, by the way."

"I know," Yona replies without thinking, her tone nothing but casual as she gets to her feet. There are some bottles of water in the back, and it seems like it will help him. If nothing else, it certainly can't hurt. The last thing she would do is usher someone out the door who's just collapsed in the shop. As far as she's concerned, for right now, he's her responsibility. She knows just instinctively that he means it, too, that this isn't common for him; she also knows that it's not that he got too much air. For someone like her, who grew up confined her whole life, that might make sense — she was so dizzy when she first stepped off the train in Darrow, fresh air and steady ground both unusual for her — but she doubts that's the case for him. It isn't for most.

It takes her only a moment to retrieve a water before she heads back out and takes a seat beside him again, offering the bottle to him. "Here," she says. "I'm Yona."

She... knows? For a moment Martin just blinks at her, already so addled that he's sure he must have misunderstood. What does she know? That he'll be fine in a moment? That he got too much air, which is surely an absurd thing to say? But the last thing he said was his name, and the answer had come then.

She returns with water, which he takes with a soft murmur of thanks, and then she tells him her name.

"Yona," he repeats as he uncaps the bottle and takes a long sip. He breathes slowly, his thumb picking absently at the bottle's label, before he looks back at her. "Sorry, I... what do you mean you know?"

"That this doesn't usually happen," Yona explains, shrugging easily. More of an explanation than that might be difficult for her to give, if only because she still isn't entirely used to describing what she can do. For her, it just happens, as easy as breathing. When she focuses, as she does when she's working, she can see specifics, but often she just gets feelings, senses, and she knows with Martin that what he's told her is true. She also knows that he's more than a little worse for wear, but she wouldn't need to be a psychic for that.

Settled on the floor as if it were the most comfortable spot in the store, she angles herself slightly towards him, adding with a gently teasing little spark in her eyes, "You did see the sign out front, didn't you?"

"Oh." He looks slowly, rather dumbly, at the sign, then back at her. "I - yes. So you do that, do you? Er... fortunes?" He takes another slow sip of water, not wanting to rush himself. "Is it... what, palms, or cards...? Or do you just..." he waves his hand vaguely at her, "know?"

No answer would surprise him, really. Everything was possible already back home, and here, he's already met enough variety of people that he knows just about anything is possible. And he's meant to be looking for Statement sources, after all. If Yona has anything unusual to tell him, then it might have been worth falling directly on his face here.

"I just know," Yona says easily, a small smile accompanying the words. She can do those other things, but it tends to be instinct for her, stemming from the same place, that way she just knows things sometimes. It's been interesting, learning and utilizing those other tools. But what she sees, what she knows, that's something she's experienced for as long as she can remember, as natural to her as breathing. She's learned to do more with it, how to focus it when she chooses to, but nothing will ever quite beat the simplicity of that.

"So yes. I do that." A lot of these places, she's aware, are a scam, just some fun with nothing real behind them. Maybe there's some value in that, too. Whatever brings a person comfort, really. But she wouldn't say anything that she didn't know to be true. "Though I also like the cards. The art is nice."

"Huh," he says with genuine albeit muted interest. "That's... that must be very useful."

There's a lot else he'd like to say - has it always been this way, or just the ins and outs of how it works, if it's anything like what John can do - but he's distracted by how awful he still feels. It's starting to become conspicuous that he's not getting better. If anything, he feels worse and worse, and he's just bloody sitting here, having water.

He braces himself a bit like he wants to stand up, but it's quickly apparent his body is not interested in allowing that. He hunches over, grunting in discomfort. There's the headache he's been getting more and more often, but it's more than that, he just feels... faint and weak and cold. Christ, is he trembling? He looks at his hand for a moment. It's hard to tell, but it's there, a little bit.

"I, erm..." He laughs weakly. "I don't suppose you 'just know' what's wrong with me?"

"It is," Yona says, simple and pleasant. She's certainly found it to be, anyway. For the most part, she tries not to interfere with things, trusting that they'll happen as they're supposed to. But she'll give warnings when it makes sense to, and reassurances, offering assistance without changing too much how things unfold. She thinks if she tried, it might not make a difference anyway, or things would happen alternately just because of that. It's a lot of credit to be giving a place, perhaps, but Darrow is strange, like nowhere else she's ever heard about. Its whims can be fickle. She knows better than to think they could be entirely stopped.

She frowns a bit, though, as she looks at him, watching the way he almost tries to stand up but quickly decides against it, taking in the way he looks and his apparent symptoms. She doesn't need to see things the way she does to have a good idea of what this looks like, she thinks. For the most part, she's careful, in her own way, but she's still had the occasional mishap, and seen people worse off than herself, who just don't handle what they take as well and who come down too quickly.

"I don't 'just know,' but I know," she says, her voice devoid of any sort of judgment. "It looks like withdrawal."

He'd sort of been joking when he asked that, though of course it would have been nice to have a clear and easily discovered answer. What she tells him, not from her talent but just, apparently, her experience, catches him rather off guard and he just blinks at her for a moment.

"What?" he sputters. Christ, maybe she just thinks he's some sort of junkie who staggered in here. He supposes he can't blame her. "No, that's... I'm not on anything. Not even medication, I... I've never even smoked... anything, not once." Some mates at school had dared him to share a cigarette once, and made fun of him when he'd chickened out. He'd always prided himself on the fact that he hadn't given into the pressure, as humiliating as it was to endure.

He doesn't even really know what withdrawal looks like, and he wonders if Yona really does know this, or if she's simply guessing. She had sounded very certain. And she doesn't seem like the sort who'd just make something up.

"I'm sure it's just... low blood sugar or something," he says faintly.

"I don't know what it's withdrawal from," Yona says, calm and certain. In Darrow, it wouldn't surprise her if any number of things could have the same effect as coming off a substance. When he says he isn't on anything, she believes him; she just stands by her assessment, too, the subject matter something with which she's too familiar to second-guess herself. If she could, she'd tell him what's causing it, but she's not sure it works that way. It would require a different sort of specificity than she usually deals with. As to whether or not he believes her, she supposes it doesn't matter much, and she can't pretend to be fazed by it. She'll still do what she can to help him, but he might need some outside intervention here.

The idea of it just being low blood sugar with the state he's in seems doubtful, but doing something about that probably can't hurt. "I have some snacks, if you think they'd help," she offers. "Or I can order something." She probably shouldn't spend her work hours sitting on the floor of the shop eating takeout, but she also doesn't much care. They won't let her go. Having an actual psychic of sorts on the staff is too appealing.

Martin frowns at her insistence, which continues to seem... fairly educated (which is worrisome, honestly), which makes him nervous. The offer of food is very kind, and probably a good idea, though when she mentions ordering something he realizes how much of an imposition he's being.

"N-no, I..." He reaches out and grasps onto the shelf behind him, gingerly levering himself up. "I think perhaps I ought to get myself home. I - I'm at Candlewood, it's not too far. Th-thank you for your help, really, and I'm - I'm sorry about all-"

He staggers slightly, catching himself, huffing out a breath. Christ what is wrong with him? Is he going to have to see a doctor or something?

"...this," he finishes with a half-hearted, very weak laugh.

"It's okay," Yona says easily, shaking her head a little. It may be a bit more excitement than she expected from her day, but that's half the fun of Darrow: never knowing what's going to happen. She's a little worried about the state he's in, and about the cause of it, but if he says he's fine, all she can really do is take him at his word. That, and offer what little assistance she can still give. There's some straightening up to be done around here, but she can take care of that later, not particularly bothered by it now. Granted, she's not exactly the best judge of that, but even so, it's nothing that can't wait a few minutes.

Certain matters still seem more pressing. Quickly, she gets to her feet so she can hold an arm out to help steady him, trusting herself a little more than the shelf. "I know Candlewood. I used to live there," she explains. "I could walk you back? This place will be fine for a few minutes."

"Oh," he says, unthinkingly reaching out to take her arm as offered. He is not a tall person, but he is on the heavier side, and she is very small indeed. He's a little nervous about giving her the brunt of his weight, but it's difficult to pass on the offer when he's genuinely not certain he can make it back alone.

He stammers at the crossroads of not wanting to impose any more than he has already and desperately needing to accept the help as offered before eventually settling, a bit pitifully, on "I-if you're sure?"

He takes his hand away from the shelf, letting himself lean on her a bit, struggling to keep himself upright without dropping all the responsibility on Yona's tiny shoulders. She can't bloody drag him, but maybe with the assistance he can keep himself walking long enough to get back into his flat. "That'd be a great help, yeah," he admits with a faint air of apology.

Yona has always been rather slight, but she's also always been undeterred by the fact of that. Certainly she can't let it get in the way of her helping someone who needs it now. If anything, his agreement comes as a relief. At least it's something she can do, and she can honestly say that it's no trouble. Even walking slowly to make sure she won't be rushing him, it shouldn't take more than a few minutes for her to get there and back, and the chances of losing any business in that time are slim. Seeing him safely home, she won't have to worry about him, as she knows she probably would have.

It might just be the strangest thing about living in a city. So often, she crosses paths with someone and never sees them again. She wouldn't want that to happen here, for him to just walk out and effectively vanish, leaving her without an idea of what might have happened.

"I'm sure," she promises with a nod. "I just need to lock the door on the way out."

At this point he's too exhausted to feel much beyond grateful for the help. Yona's stronger than she looks, taking enough of his weight that he can fumble his way back outside, where he waits as she locks up.

"You lived in Candlewood," he says softly as though only just processing the idea. He realizes he knows very little about her at all; he never even asked if she came here like he did. He'd just assumed that - she doesn't share the odd bland placidity of most Darrow natives. "So you're - How long have you lived here?"

"A long time," Yona says simply, slipping the keys into her pocket once she's locked the door, then moving close so he can lean on her again if he needs to. She knows there are people who've found it daunting to spend years and years here, but she's never been one of them. What would have happened after the train crashed, she has no way of knowing, only that it's likely that she and Timmy would have been the only ones left. Darrow, strange as it is, has more certainty to it, and so much more to see and do. The life she has here is one she can't be anything but grateful for. "About... five years now. Maybe a little more."

Glancing up at him, she asks, "How about you?" She doesn't think he's from here; he probably wouldn't ask how long she's lived here if he were. Although she doesn't mind the locals as much as some, she does find it easier to talk to people who came from elsewhere like she did.

"Jesus," he murmurs. Five years is the longest stay he's heard of yet, and it's too bloody long. He can't imagine; he doesn't want to imagine. His universe may be awful but it's still his.

Martin grunts as he struggles to bear his own weight; he's able to make it mostly on his own, but having her there to spot him is tremendously helpful, and he finds himself gripping onto her intermittently whenever his head gets wobbly. This whole situation feels very alarming indeed; he has no idea what could be wrong, he's never had this specific set of symptoms before, and if the only plausible idea is withdrawal...

He doesn't want to think about that, either. Eventually, he remembers she's asked him a question. "S-sorry," he says. His thoughts are as sluggish as the rest of him. "Only, erm... a little over two weeks? Actually it's... closer to three now, I suppose." He huffs out a sigh at that. "Already feels like it's been too long."

"It's okay," Yona says with as much of a shrug seems sensible while supporting his weight. She knows it's alarming to some people, just like she knows the circumstances of her life before this place tend to be, too. It's a reaction she's gotten pretty well used to as time has passed, even if, for her, the longer she spends here, the better. The world may have been on the verge of thawing before, but Darrow, for all its strangeness, is thriving. She would much rather live here than try to get by in a world still frozen, one that may not even have any other survivors, though she's quietly always doubted the idea that no one else could possibly have been prepared for what happened. While she's in this place, it doesn't matter all that much.

That he's so recently arrived makes his reaction even more understandable. "So you're new, then," she adds, not unkindly. "Where were you from before?" She probably shouldn't inundate him with questions when he's in such rough shape, but she's always been curious about the world she saw frozen and through glass for most of her life. Now there are all sorts of other worlds to consider and learn about, too. Whichever is the case for him, she can't help wanting to know about it.

"Erm..." He's not entirely sure how to answer that. As far as he can tell, most people here are from something that at least resembles the world he knew - 'London' usually makes sense to people. But he's not sure if that's all she's asking, or if there's more to it.

"Well... I grew up in London," he says. "It was 2018 when I left. So... similar, I suppose, except for Darrow being not a real place." He breathes out slowly as he struggles against a sickening wave of vertigo. They're getting close to Candlewood now, at least; the building is visible now, and Yona's steering him carefully toward it. "It was pretty normal, I think, depending on... what 'normal' means to you. Just..."

He's not sure how to explain the rest of it. The fears, the Magnus Institute, the horrible truths about reality that had started to unravel him and everyone he knew. He's quiet for a bit, thinking about it as they draw nearer the building.

"It was dangerous, too," he says hesitantly. "In some ways that... I don't think are dangerous here. At least I hope not." He shifts his weight as he digs his keys out of his pocket. "I know that's sort of vague, but... it's difficult to explain better than that."

He unlocks the door with some effort and leans on the threshold, looking down at her. "I don't suppose you want to help me up to my flat," he says with a faint, apologetic huff. "Just, the landlord is a bit of a busybody."

She's heard of London, at least. It's always a bit of a tossup as to whether she would rather someone mention a place she actually knows by name — a rarity, even now — or if she would rather hear about somewhere new. Being somewhere as strange as this, with people coming from all sorts of disparate worlds and times, there's a wealth of information to be learned, and Yona has always been curious. But it's nice, too, to have that little bit of familiarity, a name that sparks recognition. She heard about few of them, circling Earth for years and years. People stopped talking about what it was like, because there was no sense in clinging to nostalgia. The same doesn't seem to be true of Darrow, though it's similarly closed off. She appreciates that.

"Normal for me wasn't normal for most people," she says, predictably a bit cryptic about it. She doesn't really try to be, but things tend to come out that way even so, and she doesn't make any real effort to stop it. Besides, when it comes to this subject, she's found that there's an odd middle ground to occupy. Though she sees nothing strange about the way she grew up and wouldn't be anything less than straightforward about it, people tend to react strangely when they find out she lived on a train that was in constant motion because the rest of the world froze. "But I think everywhere is dangerous, in its own way."

She glances up at the building before looking at Martin again, nodding in easy agreement. "Sure. I'll walk up with you."

"You're probably right," he murmurs, though he has to wonder if anyone knows the kind of danger John has. Not even that the danger itself is remarkable, necessarily, but the cause... it just doesn't seem fair that these extra-dimensional beings orbit their world but not any others. At least, not that anyone knows about. Maybe they all just take different forms elsewhere - and here, too.

He's curious about what Yona's 'normal' was, but it seems a bit rude to ask, and it's more practical to let the conversation have run its course for now. He's nearly home, and hopefully there he'll be able to pin down what's going on with him.

It seems silly not to take the stairs when he's only on the second floor, but it's necessary now; Yona helps him to the lift, and helps him stay upright inside it, the subtle motion of rising making him shut his eyes tight against another awful wave of vertigo. Stepping out onto his floor, he manages to make his way to his door without staggering, much as he feels like he could actually lie down in the hall and go to sleep.

He unlocks his door with a bit of effort, and pushes it open with a heavy, relieved sigh.

"Thank you," he says softly, looking down at her and managing the faintest of grateful smiles. "I really, really appreciate it."

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Collapse // for Yona

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