Welcome to Gaia! ::

((I seriously don't remember that.))

The first light of a new day initiated the typical morning ritual the violet eyed incarnate had found himself forced into more by necessity than by desire. Wearing only a raggedy old pair of cargo pants and a gray dress shirt missing a fair few of the buttons down the front he stood staring out his bedroom window out into the extensive Razor Fields. At least, that was what he had planned on doing before a brilliant white sunrise spliced with red and green was turned all to blackness and dim ubiquitous illumination. His bright smile quickly faded to a small frown as he tightened his grip a small metal device in his left hand.

He had been unable to complete daily maintenance on the digit and was therefore unfortunately left without the smallest non-opposable digit on his right hand. What should have been the back of the metallic facsimile in steel and clockwork was folded back to reveal the intricate workings of the replacement finger with several pieces temporarily disabled as Torment had been in the process of cleaning them. He grumbled quietly to himself as moved over to the bar to set the prosthetic down upon the surface.

Drawing up a stool he sat down and hunched over the minuscule replacement with sharp eyes. He continued grumbling to the fact that he had no proper tools to continue his work in the absence of the supernatural but was largely undeterred. At this point his work mostly reverted to a visual study as he subconsciously fiddled with his unhealing wound with his thumb. There was very little pain and even less so in this locations which he could only conclude indicated that the injury was indeed magical in nature, but far beyond anything he'd ever encountered before. Even mundane tools found in the bar such as rags and pean-



((*le sigh* Just nobody around when I'm in the mood...))

Cora sat in the main room of the Brink, at one of the tables towards the center. Her back was facing the bar, however, which was not very common. She usually preferred to sit at the bar, or at least look at it. But not right then. There was something else she wanted to think about. How long have I been here? Alone?

She hadn't touched her wine in hours. It sat in a glass there on the table.

"I haven't seen anyone in days... maybe even weeks. Or is it months?"

Cora put a hand to her forehead, and ran it over her face. Trying to press the exhaustion away. "Why hasn't anyone been coming? Or maybe, I've got it wrong, maybe its just been a day or two, and I just forgot to go to sleep or something. Maybe I'm just... confused.

She knew it wasn't true. Despite not having any measure of time left to her, Cora could tell that it had been a very long time since anyone had entered the Brink. Or at the very least, it had been a long time since she'd seen anyone there. Why? Why are they all gone? She pressed her fingers to her eyes and held them shut. When she opened them again, and looked out, she saw something different.

The door. She admitted to herself quickly that it wasn't different. It had always been there, just the way it was at that moment. But for the first time, she really saw it. Cora was looking at it for what it was really worth.

No. The captain said that I can't. That my time is gone, my world is gone. There is nothing behind that door for me. I- I don't even have a key to open it with. But... what if I could?

And then, as though on cue, the moment Cora looked at the door and considered the possibility, the knob turned and the door cracked ajar.

She darted out of her seat, standing up immediately out of shock and disbelief. She blinked and looked again. The door was closed. She had imagined the whole thing. Slumping back down in her seat then, Cora began to cry. She realized that she was starting to lose her mind.

With her head in her hands, she wept for a very long time. I can't do this anymore... I can't stay here. But, what about the Captain? What would happen if the Seraphim was finally able to enter this place, and there was no one there to stop him? At the very least, there'd be no one here for him to hurt. She thought bitterly, knowing full well that there was a lot more danger involved in it than that.

It took her a long time, but eventually she figured out that in the state she was in... she wouldn't have been any help anyway. The Seraphim plays mind games, and the way I am, I might as well be a toy. But she thought that perhaps she'd been torturing herself for nothing. Why spend time trying to chose whether or not to stay or go if the choice isn't even hers to make? So she stood up, looked at the door again, and began to walk towards it. There next to the door was the key wrack. This particular structure, Cora was entirely familiar with. She'd spent a lot of time looking at all the names of those to whom the keys belonged, the styles of each time from which they came. One of them caught her eye this time. It was a key she didn't recall seeing before, and when she read the name, Cora realized she'd never met anyone going by it. She liked to imagine that she'd met everyone who came to the Brink, because she was always there, and indeed she had known all the other names written on the keys.

Cora didn't know why, but she picked up the key and tumbled it around with her fingers, as though getting to know it would somehow allow her to know the person it belonged to. But she smirked at the notion as quickly as it came. Somewhere deep down though, she began to wish that she were this person, that this strange key could belong to her. And then, on a whim of mindless fancy, Cora slid the key into the lock of the door in front of her. She turned it and heard the lock 'click' free.

Staggering back a step, she let go of it. Had she imagined that too? Cora knew damn well she couldn't use someone else's key to open the door, it didn't work that way. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she reached for the knob and turned it, until it too 'clicked' itself free of the frame. She felt all the blood drain out of her face. A million thoughts raced through her head. Everything from, 'Where will this lead?' to 'What about the others?' to 'Will I be back?' All she could really do was stand there and think about it for a time.

As for what could be behind the door, she thought that at best it was a new place that she had never been before, and at worst it was nothingness and she could possibly just evaporate out of existence. And after everything she'd been through there in the Brink, after spending all that time (or lack there of) being in this lonely limbo, neither of those prospects scared her. If she stayed here, she would undoubtedly just slip further and further into dementia. At least by walking through that door, there was some small chance that she could have a life, even at the risk of losing it all together.

Instead, what really bothered her was the prospect of never seeing them again. She wondered if she left if she'd ever see the Captain or Maggie, or Bard, or Alex ever again... or Luke... Her eyes welled with tears once more, and they fell heavy onto the floor. Cora hadn't seen Luke, or anyone else in a very long time, and she had begun to believe she'd never see them again, whether she stayed or left. So after a while, she shuddered one last sob, wiped the tears away from her eyes, and looked back over to the bar. Cora took in the scenery one last time, knowing that if she went to go grab one last bottle, or to fetch a few things from her room, or some of her favorite books from the library, she'd just change her mind and never escape.

She took one last breath of the Brink's benign atmosphere, and grabbed the knob of the door, pulling it open. Cora closed her eyes to steady herself, and stepped over the threshold, closing the door out of the Brink of Time behind her, forever. April fools. I haven't given up on this quite yet.

An empty green glass bottle, and a slightly wine-stained glass in hand, Cora steps casually through the entrance to the main room from the guest halls. She manages to make a whole five steps before realizing that the vision of a man at the bar isn't something she's imagining. Her feet freeze in place, causing her shoulders to jerk back with disruption to the momentum of her stride.


And it was no stranger, she was looking at. She knew his name, she meant to say it, but Cora's voice was caught in her throat. Her lips parted in the effort, but even the air in her lungs seemed to be frozen in place.

No, it wasn't Tacitus... but her heart protested its own will to beat at the sight of him all the same.

"T-Torment...? You-" But what could she possibly say. Though, she had gotten rusty at conversation. She spent too much time just thinking things and not having anyone to say them to, and so now her thoughts began to flow past her lips.

"You looked so much like Tacitus, for a moment, I- " but she stopped herself, feeling like what she was saying was embarrassing to herself, if not to him. She closed her mouth and just walked up to him, looking him over as she got closer to the bar. A whole lot of things had changed about him, she realized.

"Your hair..." The gray hair on his head looked so much like Tactis' And as she was inspecting his head, she realized something even more strange. Though it should have hit her right away. "Oh! Your cerebral protrusions! What happened they-re..." And then an unnatural glint caught off something in the corner of her eye, and her peripheral guided her vision to his right hand. "Your fingers!"

But naturally, Cora couldn't ignore his malady quite so easily.

"What do you mean, it won't except techonological healing?" She didn't even bother to ask permission before grabbing up his hand and examinging the wound. Cora could see that the metal plate which attached the two mechanical fingers to his hand was directly on top of what looked to be a fresh wound.

"My goodness! It really doesn't heal? How long has it been like this?" She began to doctor him, keeping his hand held up in one of her own, and using her other hand to dig around in her belt. She found some version of a super absorbant clotting material and began to dab around the edges. It was then that she realized how much blood was getting dried inside the two shotty metal finger prosthesis, and shook her head.

"This is such poor work..."

Cora cringed a bit as the mechanical fingers landed with a dull clunk onto the bar top, and was suddenly very sorry for causing him the pain his was gritting his teeth against. It didn't make her let go of his arm though. Instead she put down the absorbant material and fetched her administrator, which at that point was loaded with pain inhibitors. She seemed to use them a lot around here. Not usually on herself of course, but whenever someone would pop in... not that that had happened in a long time.

She didn't bother rolling up his sleeve when she got it ready, she used the edge of her hand to brush the top of his unbuttoned shirt to one side and pressed the trigger with the barrel was flush to his chest.

"There... for now..." Her expression was a bit unsure of how he would take this, and she glanced up at him from under the blonde hair that had grown out too long over her eyes. "And I'm sorry. I didn't mean to insult your work. Silver hm... Well, any metal is going to be quite difficult to work with when there's constant bleeding like this. Have you tried just grafting skin over it? Would the wound stop bleeding if there were just clean stumps there? Then you could strap an aparatus on it with a strong enough electrical reciever to sense the neurological information through the skin, I think... Do you have that kind of technology where you're from... oh, I think you must. Right?"

She continued to talk animatedly as she worked trying to clean the area up, finding her spirits lifting now that she could finally prove to be of some use again. Though, she was beginning to worry that she didn't have any kind of material or setting with which to really help him try to fix this.

"Though, if you could just avoid common-metal prosthesis altogether, that would be most beneficial. Haven't any biofabrics been invented by the mid 21st century? Oh- no you're not... hm. Nevermind..." Cora trailed off realizing that was a bad idea.

Cora listened to what Torment told her about his injury, and she grimaced at the thought. Magic was keeping him from healing somehow. What a terrible thing, she thought. The one thing she could do to help and something outside of her hands would thwart her the moment he left this place. But he was here now, Cora decided, and she would help while the magic subsided.

She let his hand go for a moment and began to prepare some other things from inside her belt.

"I guess it could be three years." She paused while gathering a couple of small vials. "I would have trouble telling though. At least three years. I mean... look at me..."

She seemed finally to have the items she needed and she began to insert a few small items into the back of the administrator pistol tiny "shhht" sounds leaking from the spots where she lodged the tubes into a series of recesses to one panel of the gun.

"I don't think I've seen anyone in months maybe. And-" Cora bit her lip and tried not to let the concern get the best of her emotions all of a sudden" And I was beginning to worry-"

She didn't finish the thought though, instead, she locked a small panel in place on the administrator, and decided it would be worth it to roll up his sleeve this time, to get the chemicals as close to the wound as possible.

"Have you considered just leaving the three fingers? What if it will only heal if you leave it alone...? How long has it been like this anyway?" She said as she pressed the barrel of the device down and pressed the release.

He only managed to pull away after she'd treated him, and was satisfied for the moment. "I'm done with the administrator, I'll just try to clean this a bit..."

Cora watched his wounded hand intently for a bit, getting a fresh piece of the super absorbent fiber out her belt, beginning to dab where it kept bleeding. She listened to every word he was saying though, and nearly stopped what she was doing when he mentioned 'him'. Cora considered asking, but knew Torment must be referring to Tacitus.

She let the comment by for the time being, and focused on answering his question first. "I was actually just using my hair as a gauge for how long I've been here... but there's no telling anymore. And the clothes, well- they started appearing in my room. I think they're Luke's". But she thought better of that and rephrased. "Well, I mean I was given a lot clothing last time I visited him, but it all got left there. I think that's what's showing up in my room now..."

There was a beat of silence then, and the curiosity got the best of her finally. "So... how is your father?"