00? ( video. ) not sarissa, tho.

[magnitudes]

( There is a woman on screen who looks remarkably unconcerned.

She also looks familiar, possibly, given that the family resemblance between Sarissa and her grandmother is staggering. Notable differences – this woman is obviously wearing something a little more era appropriate for this place, but still not quite right, in faded green and brown cut to match World War II era demands, all practicality. A scar, or an injury in the process of becoming a scar, cuts down from her left cheekbone towards her jaw, and it creases into something like a dimple when she speaks.

Between the knuckles of her fore and index fingers rests a cigar, white smoke curling upwards and blooming outwards like a drop of ink twisting through water. Her accent, when she speaks, is markedly Greek. )

I have always heard America called the “Land of Opportunity.” Opportunity— ( A small gesture with her free hand, palm flat and facing down - so-so. )

Maybe. Feet draggers, I think, more likely. And poor filing, ah? That is definite.

( There is a little smile, though it’s not a very mirthful thing, as she picks up a file. ) I was giving the paperwork for a Sarissa Theron. They insist it’s mine, but— no. If anyone knows this woman, I think it better these papers get back to safe hands.

( Her smile widens, sharpens. )

My name is Eunike. For the record? This is— cock and balls. Bullshit. Dragging us from our own wars, to fight theirs? That is convenient, no? Cowardice, I think.


( Note: this is related to the Dial Straits plot. Sarissa ported out on the 1st March and this is set on the 3rd – for those two days Sarissa’s device would have been disconnected. Now is back in action, but in the wrong hands. )

Comments

Re: permavideo.

[incogneto]

Off and on, about a year and a half. Longer, but I don't remember before that.

You'll find some things here are inconsistent, but even then, they manage to surprise you with new inconsistencies.

[magnitudes]

You don't remember?

( Eunike leans in a little closer, frowning. ) Did they do something to you, do you think? Something to make you forget?

[incogneto]

Yes, they sent me through to an earlier time. You'll find things like that don't play by the rules you're used to, Eunike. Once I was gone from here for twenty-four hours, but while I was at home twenty years had passed.

You'll find that it's the same for a sizable portion of us.

[magnitudes]

This place sounds like—

( she taps the ash off her cigarette, and rolls her shoulders. )

A nightmare. A way to test your sanity. If I had not walked here myself today? ( A little shake of her head, that suggests she'd have found the stranger less than believable. Unsound of mind might be the less gentle way of putting it. )

Even being here I am not sure I can trust my eyes, and I am accustomed to trusting little else than my senses.

[incogneto]

[ He likes her. This is exactly how he felt. ]

Give it some time.

Have they given you a house and an assignment, yet? Or are you assigned to Sarissa's?

[magnitudes]

I wonder if there is enough time in the world. ( Wryly, a little. )

A place outside Nonah, I think. It might be Sarissa's. One of her sisters is coming to meet me and collect the paperwork, I will see if it hers. An assignment, though? Of what kind?

[incogneto]

[ He smirks to acknowledge the humor in her words, and then gives a short pause. ]

They will give you work in exchange for housing, but you're free to quit and find something else.

[ He'd say, they had him working in retail selling fedoras. ]

What did you do before, at home?

[magnitudes]

Before? A farmer's daughter, and all that entails. Since the invasion, Greek resistance.

( She holds up her cigar with a vicious sort of pride. )

Nazis like nice cigars. I confiscated these. He was very surprised when I cut his throat, but--

( A shrug. ) Blood demands blood. You?

( "you" is so light and casual, as if murdering Nazis were more akin to arranging display windows. )

[incogneto]

I worked in a steel mill. For ten years, near somewhere in Poland where I spent some of my childhood.

[ And before that he was in jail for a decade for assassinating the US President but, more importantly-- ]

You know, there are many different timelines of Earth, you'll be able to hear it from the others if you stay long enough. But I haven't heard of one yet where Germany wins the war, if it's any comfort to you.

...Thank you, by the way.

[magnitudes]

Poland. I have never left Greece before, but-- Poland has seen a lot, these last years, I think.

( A place she knows little about, other than it has suffered badly. Her head tilts, thoughtful. )

Steel working? Sounds like hard work. ( Not soft, academic things. Real and practical. Eunike brushes her thoughts away to refocus on the last comment, though. It makes her frown a little as she turns it over and over. )

Thank you? Are you from the war too, then?

[incogneto]

[ She asks "are you from the war," as if it was where he was raised, and honestly, that might be true. He'd fled when he was a boy, spent his formative years in a ghetto and in a camp and as a wandering emigrant waiting for somewhere to just... accept him. ]

It was a long time ago for me, I was a boy.

It had been the end of times, then. There are threats here, but nothing like the war. Not yet.

[magnitudes]

Sometimes I suspect we were all children before the war. Even if we were older. I was... ( She has to think for a moment. ) I was old enough to be an adult, before the war, but— I did not understand what it was to be adult, I don't think. Too soft.

( Her head tips slightly to the side. She had been too young to remember the Great War, as well, but she had heard about it. ) Threats can be ignored too easily. People afraid to take action about loud men and their loud voices. Let us hope it remains a matter of it not happening, and not a matter of yet.

[incogneto]

We were all children before and all adults after, you mean.

[ He grins, though wryly. ]

You have a lot of hope for us, I think.

[ Despite what seemed initially like misgivings about this place. Disdain even. ]

That's good. We'll need it.

[magnitudes]

Precisely that.

( Eunike inhales slowly - not a drag of her cigar, just a slow breath, as she leans back and looks up the sky. )

You cannot survive without hope. But— you cannot survive with only that. We need more substance, I think. It cannot be all we have to offer, but offer it we must.

( Although she does shrug. ) Unless people are idiots. Then they can fend for themselves.

[incogneto]

I think that's what most of us are trying to do. Stop the war from happening.

[ Or, in some cases, prepare for one in eventuality. ]

Foster good relations between us and the natives.

[ Get kidnapped by Russians... Might be kind of a more-than-acquaintances conversation. ]

[magnitudes]

Easier to say than to do, for the latter. We might as well be occupying them, no? Taking free places to live, coming here with no invitation.

( Or supposedly no invitation, at least. She's a little suspicious that this is more complex than surprise, you're here but she's not quite sure how to pin it down. )

I would not take so kindly to such a thing, I think. Stopping a war, if we can do that, might help.

[incogneto]

We are not exceptionally nice houseguests either, but I suppose we're more like refugees than occupiers.

Either way, I think there isn't a single person on this side of the Atlantic who wants this war.

With any luck, you won't have to fight in it.