log > for lack of a better place to do so

[gearsof.livejournal.com]

He had to wonder how it was that, if no one save a very, very select few could leave Whitechapel, he kept ending up elsewhere. Indeed, this wasn't the steam-driven, smog-choked section of city he called home. This was somewhere else entirely - and startlingly modern in comparison to the Victorian England he was so used to.

It was unseemly of him, but he found himself staring - tall buildings all steel and glass towered over him, and over that lay the clearest sky he'd seen in his entire life. The sun was bright, brighter that it had ever been in Whitechapel, with its constant overhang of smoke. All the better, he supposed, that he was wearing his usual attire, complete with dark glasses.

Alabaster stood alone on the street, a tall figure in smoke black stark against the clean, polished world he now found himself in. There seemed to be no one around. This city, if it was indeed a city and not some ludicrous dream, appeared to be deserted.

He reached into the pocket of his coat, fishing out a pocket watch. In this alien place, was Grandfather Clock - his God, and God over Whitechapel - still watching him through the clockface? Or had the connection been severed with his sudden disappearance?

Such things would be answered in due time, he told himself. For now, there was only the question of getting back. It wouldn't do to have Grandfather Clock's elite agent up and vanish in the middle of a rebellion, now would it?

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[looneyrune.livejournal.com]

A map. This would have all been solved hours ago, if she had just remembered to grab a map from the apartment. She'd had the thought, of course, but had been in such a daze that morning, that she'd snatched up the nearest crinkly sheet of paper and prayed it was the right one. As luck would have it... it wasn't, and now she was staring down at an old essay she'd written way back in the fifth grade.

If that wasn't a sign to work on cleaning and organizing her place, she wasn't sure what was. But that could wait; for now, her first and utmost priority was to find the source of the disturbance that had jolted her from a nap twenty minutes ago, deal with it if necessary, and go back to her coffee.

Her senses hadn't been much help, either. "By the mall" only told her so much. Which mall? And where was it? For that matter, where was she? She had thought there was one close to where she lived, but maybe she'd taken one turn too many.

Saga unzipped her jacket, already starting to feel a little overheated despite the thin material. If she kept walking, she'd find it eventually...

... Or him, as the case seemed to be. The man was alone, which in itself was odd, but then again, this city wasn't quite as bustling as its neighboring ones.

Deciding there was no polite way to say, "Hello, are you a disturbance?", the young woman squared her shoulders and stepped closer.

"Hey. Can I help you with something?"

Out and About

[looneyrune.livejournal.com]

The sun was a little lower in the sky when Saga and Alabaster set forth from the apartment in pursuit of a worthy disguise for the latter-- and it had dipped even lower by the time the former had realized that the mall was the other way.

Somehow, they'd made it there without ending up in the wrong city entirely (which, thankfully, she'd only managed once), and had left the question of men's fashion to one of the clerks. She hadn't seen Alabaster since he'd been hauled off, and was starting to consider trying to relocate him, having entertained thoughts of him tangled up in dress shirts or inadvertently cutting up slacks or worse.

[looneyrune.livejournal.com]

The morning dawned gray and drizzly, and the gloominess of the atmosphere outside almost convinced Saga to scoot back under the covers and stay huddled there for at least another hour. However, there was work to be done, and an inadvertent time traveler crashed on her couch, so there was no time to waste.

Hence why she had been standing in the kitchen since seven in the morning, eyes closed, one hand extended with the palm facing down, and... glowing blue. The sight might have been unusual to anyone who happened to chance upon her, but she was more concerned with searching for that one tiny nudge that she'd felt yesterday.

[[ figured I might as well start a new thread before we got too far without a clear jump point.]]

[looneyrune.livejournal.com]

She'd estimated two days, but it was during the middle of the third that Saga finally opened her eyes and groggily regarded the ceiling. It took a few minutes to remember what had happened, and even longer to realize that she wasn't still sprawled on the floor (as she'd expected) but, rather, placed in bed.

The girl stared dazedly at her fingers, noticing the bandages wrapped around them, and made the pleasant discovery of a heavy head and stiff limbs when she tried to sit up. Just how long had she been out?

[gearsof.livejournal.com]

This was a battle he was swiftly losing.

He'd counted on Bailey to put up a fight, certainly. The old man had a thick skull. What he hadn't counted on was that hulking beast of a man - Tom? He vaguely recalled Bailey shouting the name - coming to Bailey's aid. He was huge, and so taken by the clacks that his shoulders jutted out at odd, severe angles, and he had more steel on his body than Alabaster himself did. His weapons worked wonders on flesh, but when it came to steel-to-steel, he was sorely outmatched.

He was bleeding from at least a dozen places, and even for someone of his stamina, he could only take a beating from Tommy's metal fists so many times. They'd backed him into a corner.

This is it, he thought dimly. Outdone by a conspirator and his pet peasant- Tom's fist was coming for his head again with the force of a jackhammer, and he didn't know if he had it in him to duck.

And then he was gone.

It took him a moment to gain his bearings, mechanical arms splayed through his torn coat sleeves like some kind of crazed spider, but it occurred to him quickly that he knew this room. He'd only lived in it for a week, but he knew it all the same. It was Saga's livingroom.

Aware that the immediate threat was gone, his body gave out and he dropped to one knee, coughing, oil seeping from the corners of his mouth. His last thought before he blacked out was only that he was sorry for dripping oil all over Saga's floor.