loficharm | 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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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."

Collapse // for Yona

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