Welcome to Gaia! ::

To begin with, it was peaceful. Quiet. Certainly an improvement after the beast of a storm that had ravaged the island. It wasn't long, however, before an unease seeped into his mind that he couldn't understand. There was nothing around him, at least not that he could see.

His weapon had offered no verbal concerns, and before he could actually ask if it too felt unnerved the ground split open and had the Hunter stepping back from the gouge quickly, wide-eyed.

"What now?!" Tanner barked aloud, startled as well as irritated. Was there going to be a goddamned earthquake now? That was just great.

No... No, that probably would have been better.

The sound of the apparition hurt his ears and the sight of
it frightened and confused him. He didn't know what to do, short of summoning his weapon in hand and be prepared to defend himself.

-------

"I can't believe you've done this again!"

The woman's voice was stern, and while she could have spoken much louder the words made him flinch back like she'd just slapped him. "I-I'm sorry?" Tanner stammered, looking from the old woman to the hundreds of shelved books he'd spent the last three days' worth of shifts sorting and organizing. "I sorted the authors alphabetically. That's what you told me to do."

He didn't sound confident about it, because of the angry look she gave him over her bifocals.

"That's what you told me to do!" The young man repeated more insistently.

The librarian put a hand to her forehead, muttering something he couldn't hear under her breath. Even if he couldn't make out the words, the tone was not pleasant and he was certain the words had not been kind.

"By last name, you dolt!"

Despite how much taller Tanner was to the elderly woman, he felt so, so much smaller. There was a long, awkward silence as he tried to gather his wits. Try to explain himself. Again. Try to ask her to give him a chance to fix it. Again. He'd spent so many hours on this row of shelves alone and it was all wrong?!

The woman stood with her hands on her hips, glaring up at him and watching his mouth open and close for several seconds before she cut off his fruitless attempts to give whatever excuse it was going to be this time.

"I knew I shouldn't have left you alone with this. It was stupid of me to think you could handle it on your own, so I'm partly to blame I suppose. I'll fix it myself."

"I can help," Tanner said quickly. Hopefully.

"No. You've done quite enough here already. I shouldn't have to babysit you when I give you a job." The woman waved her hand down the row to shoo him away from her. "Get out of my way. Go home. I'll figure out what to do about this in the morning." Tanner knew from the way her attention turned pointedly back up to him that her last statement wasn't about the books. "I would highly suggest you spend your evening looking for a job that you can handle with that simple mind of yours."

Tanner left that library feeling like a whipped dog, doing his damnedest not to make eye contact with anyone on his way out. There was no way that everyone hadn't overheard everything that old b***h said to him, and he couldn't stand any looks of ridicule or even sympathy.

Thinking back, the stranger that approached him later had probably been there too. Following him as he walked down the sidewalk, paying attention only to the path ahead of him and his own self-hating thoughts. He could hold back his emotions. He could push them down and lock them up behind an outward appearance of neutrality.

"It appears that you may be seeking new employment."

Tanner looked up from his cheap coffee and the classified ad he'd been scouring, apprehensive. "Excuse me?"

The well-dressed stranger welcomed himself to sit in the chair across the table, his gaze never moving away. "I believe you have the skills needed to work well with us."

Tanner sighed softly, turning his eyes back down to the paper in front of him. "I'm pretty sure that I don't have whatever 'skills' it is you think I have, and I certainly don't have an impressive resume." Or references that would put in a good word for him, for that matter.

"Oh, but I'm sure that you have the experience. Have seen things that even you cannot easily forget."

-------

He was supposed to meet someone at the training fields today. The woman with long, brown hair that had taken interest in him. She always seemed enthusiastic whenever he saw her in passing or at a distance. Loud, perhaps, but considering she didn't seem to mind how many times he'd forgotten her name he was content with her presence. Granted, this was the first time he was going to exchange more than a few words or a glance and wave.

She had said she was Sun. She was...

< Paige. > His weapon's voice provided helpfully over his mental struggle. < You agreed to meet her outside of the building at ten this morning. >

"Thanks," Tanner murmured. He appreciated the help, as his weapon knew, but he hated that that help was needed. "We should probably head that way, then..."

-------

Tanner's vision was suddenly back in the here and now. He was again alone save for his weapon and the apparition towering over him. Quickly looking around, as though there were some other explanation for the flashbacks that he could suddenly remember, wide eyes stared up at the final puzzle, trying to make sense of it.

They were good partners, the pair of them. Thackery was always on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary on his own, of course, ever vigilant to protect the island from threats, but when he failed to take note of something, he always listened to what Key had to show him. It only showed him, never spoke, but that was okay - he spoke enough for the both of them, and the weapon didn't seem to mind a bit.

So when the image Key unlocked was one of danger, Thackery took notice. He stopped short of his destination, weapon summoned in defensive caution, and whispered a faint little plea under his breath that he wouldn't have to kill anyone. He really, really didn't want to kill anyone.

The longer he stared towards trouble, the less the (literally) growing threat seemed less like a someone and more like a something. He gave away his rising panic with sharp, shallow breaths, then with none at all, his eyes closing as the form seemed ready to overtake him-

-his brothers, the three of them together, playing among the trees in the forest near home, teasing each other as they all chased the shadows, swearing to their mother that the shadows weren't just their own tails-

-swallowed up by a storm like nothing he'd ever seen before, the wind and torrential rain tearing apart the place he was supposed to be protecting, finding himself powerless to protect the people he loved-

-swept into a drain shaped like a clock, consumed by time, leaving him staring at its face with a knot in his stomach and a worry that he was still not strong enough to help.