pullmeoutalive | log > for lack of a better place to do so

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log > for lack of a better place to do so

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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Following her directions, he located the cupboard in question and began rummaging for mugs (briefly wondering what a microwave did as he did so). He selected a pair of mugs, not much caring for color or design, and set them on the countertop.

He frowned, thinking. "I can safely say no connections come to mind straight away." Unless, of course, one of Bailey's - or even Oliver Sumner's, if he was still alive after the initial revolt had failed - cohorts possessed such a thing in the past, and sent him away to the future. The notion seemed absurd, nothing of that power would be able to escape the notice of the Gods. Still, he wanted to leave no stone unturned, so he voiced his concerns, "If there is such a rune, is it possible that someone in my time has it, and used it to send me here?"

The oven was old, but functioned well enough to boil water in less than an hour, and Saga busied herself with the brewing of the tea while she thought over Alabaster's suggestion. Still, she remained quiet until she'd filled both mugs with tea (and it'd said "English" on the bag, which was as close as she could get).

"It's possible," she murmured, pulling out a chair and seating herself while pushing one mug in her guest's direction. "Not very likely, but if the rune itself had enough power to transport itself to the past... well, that'd make it hard for me to obtain it, wouldn't it? I doubt anyone from your home would know how to properly use it, but if someone had a strong desire to send you far away, then the rune would have reacted to that."

The brunette stared pensively into her steaming mug, her former cheeriness having dissolved into a more solemn expression. "I can't rule it out entirely, and that means our options are very limited."

Well, thinking of someone who - at that moment - wanted him very far away wasn't all that hard. That boy was certainly on the top of the list, providing he was still conscious. Bailey, and that brat Sumner were also on the list. And then there was their rabble- ah, perhaps the list was longer than he thought. Not a lot of people liked him.

Alabaster mulled over that, pulling out a chair for himself. He sat and removed his hat, hanging it on the back of his chair before moving to carefully sit his tea. "And what, pray tell, are our options?"

"We've got to figure out which rune it is, first of all." She pulled her notes towards her, flipping through several pages. "If someone from your time has it, then I need to find a way to get it to appear in this time. You're-- to put it simply-- an anomaly. If the gods haven't taken notice of you yet, someone will."

Saga took another sip of her tea, finishing with, "The other option is that I send you back, but chances are you'll just get sent somewhere else again before too long."

Alabaster continued to sip his tea, frown deepening as he thought. He'd been referred to as many things, but "anomaly" was completely different territory. Though, he visibly perked when she said the magical g-word: Gods. Maybe Grandfather Clock and Mama Engine still held sway over their kingdom, even in this day and age. They were Gods, after all, and he'd been too quick to assume that the rebellion had succeeded in his absence. "I don't mean to backtrack, but which 'gods' would you be referring to?"

And here we go. Saga had been expecting the topic to come up sooner or later, and it seemed that even a passing mention hadn't escaped Alabaster's attention. She was stuck for it now.

"The ones currently on Mount Olympus... what you'd call the Greek gods. They've got their own affairs to handle back in Greece, I'm sure, but every now and then..." She spared the ceiling a glance, fighting back the urge to roll her eyes, and then returned to her papers, one finger tracing lines and pictures. "'Grandpa' likes to check up on me."

Not the gods he'd been hoping for, but that didn't mean that they were gone entirely. He had to have faith that the Gods of Whitechapel weren't about to be undone by some foolish peasants.

Wait a second. He found himself staring again, looking at this girl in a far different light than he had been a minute prior. "Did you say... 'grandpa'?"

Another sigh; she'd never liked this part of explaining who she was, because it always served a reminder of what she wasn't. "Yes, Grandpa, even if he doesn't look a day over twenty, he never shows up for family reunions, and my grandmother went on to marry someone a little less divine. Most people know him as Hermes."

This was certainly an interesting turn of events. As though being dumped through time and space wasn't enough, he was now having tea with the granddaughter of a god. Hermes was at least at the forefront of Greek mythology enough that he recognized the name, and he made a mental note to do a little research when he got home - he'd never had much use for gods apart from his own, but he was intrigued by the concept.

"Well," Alabaster remarked, an edge of good humor in his otherwise no-nonsense tone. "This day is full of surprises."

"Oh, I'm sure we're just getting started." Saga raised an eyebrow, fighting back the urge to smile. "But you're not the only one surprised. I would have expected to point, stare, throw something, threaten to burn me at the stake or, at the very least, call me a liar."

She was relieved, though. It was nice to have a reaction like his, when she'd already braced herself for the worst.

"Things such as gods aren't outside of the realm of my comprehension."

He leaned back in his chair slightly, surveying the ceiling for a moment before adding, "I myself am an agent of one of the Gods of Whitechapel."

"Really now? That's a noble line of work... and probably exhausting, too." She'd perked up now, more than a hint of interest entering her voice. For as normal as she tried to appear to the outside world, at heart, Saga was just as much of a mythology buff as her parents-- especially when the subject matter was something she'd yet to learn of.

"Do you mind telling me about your Gods?" Saga leaned forward, looking considerably more intrigued than she'd first appeared. "I don't suppose they followed you here, did they?"

"Ah no. They didn't follow me... at least not that I'm aware of," he couldn't help but look slightly disappointed at that, nor could he help fishing his pocket watch out of its resting place for another quick glance. Nothing had changed, apart from the time now displayed on the clock's face. He replaced the watch and leaned forward as well, "But tell you about them I will.

The God to whom I give my services is known as Grandfather Clock, and his counterpart is Mama Engine. I know very little about Her, seeing as I'm not in her service, but she is, above all, a mother to her followers. Grandfather Clock, on the other hand, is the embodiment of order and precision - He usually keeps a close eye on his followers by watching them through the face of a clock. The Gods themselves have no physical bodies - at least, none I've ever seen - but are evident in other ways." He went on to explain how the Gods first revealed themselves to Baron Hume, promising to make his architectural dream for Whitechapel a reality. With their help, he constructed impossible towers, and factories, and feats of steam-driven and clockwork technology that, by rights, should not have been possible. The Gods were rooted in their city, and took care that their followers didn't die or suffer disease as a normal man would.

Well, not suffer disease save one. The doctors called it morbus imperceptus incrementum, though most people called it the 'clacks'. "Though I don't see it as much of a disease, myself. It's a phenomenon that defies the laws of medicine, even the laws of human anatomy, but disease makes it sound like such a dirty thing."

Throughout the explanation, Alabaster held a captive audience; indeed, save for the occasional blink and nod to indicate that she was listening, Saga didn't budge or even shift or fidget. Duff had long since bored of the conversation and his toy of choice and had fallen asleep on the table, but his housemate couldn't have been more fascinated.

The world of Whitechapel seemed like a fantasy come to life-- and probably was, knowing what gods were capable of-- and she was only disappointed that she hadn't been able to experience the place herself. The disease he'd mentioned, however... that had her concerned. And the city Alabaster spoke of sounded so controlled. People were bound to dislike being under that much control.

"People will always have differing opinions on the nature of something," she remarked, finally leaning back in her chair. "There's no point in arguing for either one, since both sides will always believe their own views. That aside, that's quite a city you live in. Your Gods are interesting, too. And one watches through a clock--"

Realization smacked straight into the back of her head with such force that she literally jumped. Precision. Order. Clocks. Time. Of course. Why hadn't she realized it sooner?!

To each their own, indeed. Still, people who defied the Gods were in for a world of hurt - Winfred Bailey and Oliver Sumner chief among them. They were all about Queen and Country, and would sooner risk their lives for a lady in a shiny hat than for a God. Queen and Country had never done Alabaster himself any favors. They could call him a traitor all they liked, but he knew where his loyalties lie.

Alabaster jumped a little himself, startled by Saga's sudden movement. "What? What is it?"

"I know which rune it is!" Unable to sit still and excited from this new discovery, Saga rose and began to pace, talking as she did. "I thought it might have had to do something with time, but it turned out to be even more subtle than that. Time itself is a journey, and there's only one rune that would contribute to that. A journey, both physical and spiritual-- to gain a wider perspective, as it were. It's rhythm itself."

She finally stopped, nodding to herself. "The rune is Raidho, and it's possible that it's the rune that sent you here and not an actual person. It must have wanted to uproot you for some reason... but to send you here, of all places..."

His eyes tracked her as she paced through the kitchen. Her excitement was almost catching but, to his credit, Alabaster remained sitting.

He considered what she was saying for a moment before speaking, "So, I was sent here because, for whatever reason, I needed to go on a journey?" If that was so, the timing could not have been worse.

She nodded, still flushed with excitement. "The runes don't typically involve certain people, but if you're the only one who arrived here, I can't dismiss that as chance or random selection. It's almost like saying that you were meant to come here, for... whatever reason that is."

"Would it stand to reason that once I've fulfilled my purpose, I'll then be sent home? Or is that too much to hope for?" Even as he spoke, he couldn't help but give her a slight grin. Her excitement was catching.

The grin was returned, as well as followed up with a nod and a thumbs-up. "It's pretty much a test, so if you can pass it, the rune should be satisfied with that. And..." Saga tapped her chin with a finger, looking thoughtful. "Maybe helping you out is my test, too. Even if the rune doesn't send you back, if I can learn enough, I should be able to do it myself."

It sounded like a win-win situation. The only constraint was time, and while he wanted to do whatever it was he was supposed to do as quickly as possible and be done with it, he doubted something as ageless as a rune worked on the same timetables he did. The only course of action seemed to be to push forward and hope for the best.

"All that remains is to figure out what this test actually entails, then," he mused, tapping the side of his mug with a finger.

"I'll get to researching," she promised, giving the stack of notes an affectionate glance. "It might take me awhile to sift through everything, but we should probably also look into finding you a place to stay for the time being. Maybe a hotel... but if we don't know how long this'll take, I guess we can't give them an approximate time period..."

"As much as I hate to impose," Alabaster remarked. He thought over his next words carefully - this girl had already gone so far out of her way to help him, and the last thing he wanted to do was put her out but... "Wouldn't letting me loose in a world that I know next to nothing about be a bit, ah, unwise?"

Cutting off a "Yes, Mommy" before it could do more than formulate in her mind, Saga chose an embarrassed nod instead. She'd been worried about exposing him to too much of her world too quickly, but had glossed over the fact that this entire city was going to be just as overwhelming for him. At the very least, he'd need someone who would understand and be able to explain things to him.

"You're right, I'm sorry." She paused and clasped her hands together behind her back, uncharacteristically bashful. "If you don't mind the ghost cat, and the occasional... odd thing happening, I'd be honored if you stayed with me for as long as you need to."

"I'm having a hard time imagining anything odder than what's already occurred." For whatever good it did, he smiled. Saga was willing to help him, get him home, and let him stay with her, he figured he at least owed her the courtesy of a smile. They were - in essence - partners on this little mission, even if they didn't quite yet know that the mission was. "Thank you," he added with a small nod.

After a moment, he rose out of his chair. "I don't want to go about surprising you unnecessarily, so I believe there's something you should see."

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