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 Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 7:04 pm
This was not Ashdown.
Nathaniel realized his accident approximately three and a quarter seconds after the first raindrop hit his face, a hand rising to absently brush it away. It took him that long to realize that it hadn't been raining a second before, and then, as he'd lifted his head, another raindrop had patted him on the cheek, sliding coldly down the line of his jaw.
It was a lot grayer than it had been - and a lot mistier, a lot less...Ashdowny.
"Ah," said Nathaniel.
And then a second later,
"Well, shoot."
He didn't recognize his surroundings. In front of Nathaniel loomed a large, imposing looking building that he thought was some sort of warehouse of a kind, though it looked old and there was not a million cars in the parking lot outside of it. Nathaniel could have sworn he'd been walking to his apartment, but this...
This was definitely not his apartment. But at least it wasn't the court.
Nathaniel took a few steps forward, and then a few more until he had crossed the empty parking lot and stood at what he thought might be the front door of the warehouse, or at least a door. He peered at it, a hand resting on the strap of his bag, and then gave it an experimental knock, or a push, or maybe both.
This is the start of every terrible horror movie, Nathaniel thought, resisting the (very stupid) urge to call out hello like all terrible horror movie protagonists did. Instead, he just tried to quietly look around, wondering if the building was occupied or not.
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Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2016 7:07 pm
"Are you lost?" Mare called out.
She was standing on the landing at the top of the staircase of Coalsmoke's exterior, looking down at Nathaniel with her arms crossed. From afar, she simply looked like a girl. Perhaps too skinny, too pale, but just a girl from another era entirely. Today she was wearing a knee length peasant skirt, a button up dress shirt tucked into it and hiding beneath an oversized cardigan.
She was also barefoot, a newly gifted scarf half wrapped around her head.
"You look very out of place," she added on, whuffling slowly, "For I have not seen you around here before. Are you new? Old? A friend? The Lord Alexander did not tell me anyone would be visiting... But if you are simply on the wrong path, I might assist in finding the right one for you. I have been granted a break from schedule today and I very much do not mind being along but it is still more appealing to be with someone else."
She paused, beautiful and terrifying.
"What is your name, sir?"
Thorne came out onto the landing after her, peering out in the deluge with one hand over his face. He blinked when he recognized Nathaniel and let out a slow, melodic noise that could have been laughter, could have been something else entirely.
He leaned against the metal railing, peering over and -
His wings came up, as easily as shadows, to cover him from the downpour.
"My, my," he said, "When I told you to come and find me, I did not mean it on this side of the veil."kuropeco edited to include thorne C;
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Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2016 7:53 am
He hadn't quite expected to get caught so fast.
The factory, as it turned out, was occupied At the top of a staircase on the outside and looking as though she had been taking out of a photograph of an old movie was a young woman peering down at him, arms folded across her chest. Or maybe she had been taken from a movie itself, Nathaniel stepping back little to look up at her, one hand shading over his eyes so that the rain wouldn't get into them.
The Lord Alexander? He wasn't sure what that meant, Nathaniel trying to figure out where he was.
"I'm - " he started to say, but another figure had appeared, and this time, they were familiar.
Mostly. Sort of. Nathaniel thought they were who they were, at least, but now, looking at the sprawling wings on either side of his narrow body, Nathaniel thought he might be mistaken. Maybe this was the other one, the one that he had no desire to see whatsoever, especially not if he had wings.
He sounded like the man he'd spoken to days earlier. But Corr had sounded that way too.
Nathaniel shrugged, waving a hand that caught raindrops on his fingertips.
"What can I say? I like the element of surprise," he said lightly, smiling slightly. "Fancy meetin' you here, Alexander Thorne - that's who you are, right? You look a little..." He waved a hand again.
"...flightier than I remember."
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Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2016 12:34 am
Mare made a distressing noise at Nathaniel's lack of - well, his lack. She recrossed her arms, pressing her lips firmly together, and was about to talk when Thorne patted her head gently, a shushing sort of motion that he found usually worked.
To Nathaniel, he hummed. The other looked sodden and wet, and Thorne couldn't help wondering if he knew about the importance of magic (or umbrellas) in Other Ashdown.
"Is that so?" Thorne said warmly, laughter deep like a melody in his throat. He was smiling as he leaned against the railing, his wings keeping both Mare and him dry, antlers pulsing a mild glow. "Well, you have done a good job at it, I must say."
He laughed again, teeth flashing, and said, "Why don't you come a little closer and find out?"
But the tease was warm and gentle. It did not threaten like Corr's brand, and Thorne shook a hand back and forth in the air.
"That is who I am," he said leniently, "But please, call me Thorne. One person calling me Alexander is enough. It's such a terrible name. Why don't you come up here?"
He shuffled his wings and Mare squealed, darting back to avoid a thin stream pouring off one of them.
"I promise that contrary to popular belief, Mare is quite harmless. And I could always use more company on this side of the veil."
Mare whuffled, displeased by this conversation track, and said, "I am quite pleasurable to be around when I wish it. You there - " She pointed a bony finger at Nathaniel. "Come up here and be our judge. I will show the Lord Alexander that I am, in fact, adequate company."
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Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 5:58 pm
Water dripped down Nathaniel's forehead, slid along his temple, and disappeared, slipping off of his jaw and pelting downwards. It wasn't even raining that hard, but it was enough to make him feel as though he'd just swam a lap to Alcatraz.
The laughter and the smile weren't cruel and capricious as Corr had been; it was lighter, somehow, and less mocking, which made it all the more obvious that this was not that man. It was Alexander Thorne, though still not the Alexander Thorne that Nathaniel had seen that night, glowing antlers and wide wings, relaxed and at ease instead of tensed and fractured.
Or maybe he was just good at hiding the fractures.
"Thank you kindly," said Nathaniel, lips curving up into a smile. He glanced at the warehouse, eyebrows raised, then looked back up at Thorne, the continued rain making his hair stick wetly to his face. "I didn't mean to just...appear, I just sorta...appeared."
He didn't know who Mare was, but apparently it was the out-of-time woman, who was looking outraged at the insinuation of her apparently less-than-pleasing company. Nathaniel lifted both hands in a gesture of innocence.
"All right, up I go," he said, and pushed open the front door again. The staircase loomed in front of him, and Nathaniel took it carefully, curiously, glancing all around.
"Uh," he called out, after a second. "Where are you? Am I goin' the right way?"
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