open

[antietam]

who: Adam Parrish + open
what: catchall log
when: throughout may, post-memoria
where: community housing/breaking and centering/perimeter/wherever
warnings: none as of yet



community housing

[ Anyone who knows Ronan Lynch or has seen him around will recognize his raven Chainsaw swooping around menacingly in front of the community housing. Is she hunting something? Trying to gouge your eyes out?

Another look will reveal Adam standing below her trajectory. Every so often, he tosses up some food that gets her to swoop and calls out something in Latin. Whatever he's saying, she responds by doing aerobatic tricks.

Stand there long enough and she might come barreling worryingly close to you. ]

breaking and centering

[ Have some sort of vehicle that needs a tune-up? Or just want to find someone with a wrench? Breaking and Centering is your place! Adam is working, but it's a slow day. If you're just passing by, he's balancing on a workbench with a textbook in his lap and a wrench in the other.

If you're bringing him something to look at, you might be treated to a mildly judgmental: ] What did you do to it?

perimeter

[ Adam has been taking classes at the university, but he's not getting all of the information he wants. Therefore, he has to find it for himself. He takes some light provisions, long-sleeved shirt and pants to protect from strange plants, a knife, cheap binoculars, and a notebook.

The plan is to find a creature he's never seen before and study it from afar. Find him kneeling between overgrown plants and taking notes, or maybe save him from a creature that will probably eat him. ]

etc.

[ Or write-your-own-adventure! If you want me to write up a prompt, hit me up @faildere/PM

As a note, I'll be on hiatus from June 1-14 and I'll backtag after that! No worries about dropping anything that's too late, though. ]

Comments

[aeturnus]

[ He tilts his head at the raven going off to do her own thing, but leaves it be for now. Human things are pretty boring. ]

Dreams in Latin? But... doesn't totally speak it? [ Cain raises a brow at the addendum, though. ] Sure. No skin off my back.

[antietam]

No... [ He glances away in thought, but ultimately shrugs. ] Like I said, he's not great with grammar. Good vocabulary, though. Couldn't tell you why, he's a medical mystery.

[ He pauses, and somewhat jokingly asks: ] You don't dream in Latin, do you?

[aeturnus]

You also said Chainsaw's not great with grammar.

[ It's a gentle prod, one enough to point out that he caught that. ]

And no, no more than any other language.

[antietam]

Well, sure. She had to learn it from someone. [ Which isn't at all the real explanation, but no question means no answer. ]

Where are you from, by the way? I wonder if our worlds are similar.

[aeturnus]

[ Fair enough. He just smiles at the straightforward answer. ] Maybe we'll all be having lessons.

Oh, nowhere notable. I grew up in Italy.

[ ... says the guy with a flawless American accent. ]

[antietam]

[ There's curiosity in Adam's expression. He thinks he shouldn't question what he's being told, that's rude, but... ] Rome?

[ Because someone growing up in Italy with people who speak Latin? A little too weird. Not that Jacob needs to take it that way. ]

[aeturnus]

[ Cain actually looks... surprised? He's kind of been figuring that Rome would be something only for his world because, well, he made Rome. Is there some other Romulus out in other realities doing the same things he is? What's all that about? ]

Um. Yeah, actually. Rome. Been a while since I've been back, though.

[antietam]

[ His surprise is even stranger, considering Rome is where most people would guess on the first try. It leads him to his next question. ]

How long?

[aeturnus]

[ Cain is quick to push himself and recover from that misstep. It doesn't stop being weird, though. At least it hasn't been anything crazy since his last trip to his city, relatively speaking. He'd taken a trip just before he had met his current (ex-)wife after all. ]

Several years. You ever been?

[antietam]

No. Never been out of the States myself. [ He's still suspicious of something he can't put his finger on, but he lets it go. He's always suspicious, it's nothing new. ]

So you speak Italian too?

[aeturnus]

[ Cain isn't one to hide a lot of things, but obfuscation for the sake of simplicity is different. He grins and nods. ]

Yeah, I speak a lot of things. Once you learn a second language, it gets easier to pick up more.

[antietam]

Can't say that was true for me and French. [ Looks like he's relaxed a little on the topic. ]

What else can you do? You just seem like a jack-of-all-trades.

[aeturnus]

Oh, you speak French? [ So, of course, in French: ] How well do you speak it?

I've been really into computers and coding lately. Another kind of language if you wanted to get flowery about it.

[antietam]

[ He just shakes his head, face twisting slightly in an attempt to understand but... nothing. ] I had to switch to it the last year of school. I got an A, but nothing else out of it.

How many languages do you know? Including coding.

[aeturnus]

Ouch. Yeah, high school classes are cool while they last, but... [ Who actually ends up putting all that to good use? ]

Well, okay, do you mean fluently? Natively? Conversationally...?

[ stop showing off, gosh ]

[antietam]

[ It is absolutely showing off but he's completely impressed. ]

Uh, all of the above?

[aeturnus]

[ He actually makes a face at that, mind rapidly skimming all the different places he's been and languages he's learned and just... ]

Forty-plus. I'm gonna need a minute if you want the specific number.

[antietam]

[ There's a moment as he processes that. Is that possible? Can a human being learn all of that? He doesn't look that old. ]

That's not possible. [ But it's not like he doesn't believe him. Clearly he knows Latin and French well enough. ] Are you some kind of supergenius or something else?

[aeturnus]

Yes to the supergenius.

[ Cain please. ]

... but I've also been told I look really good for my age. I've had more time to learn it all than you'd think.

[antietam]

[ He makes a face. This guy says as little as possible. He can sort of admire it. ]

I know I'm not supposed to ask, but how old are you?

[aeturnus]

[ It's a practiced skill. Talk to people all the time and hardly say a thing. Most people don't really notice. ]

Weirdly, I've been getting that a lot lately. Closest estimate is twenty-eight hundred.

[antietam]

Oh. [ He has to process that too. That's so much history, and he calculates what year that would have been, at least in Adam's time period. ]

Most people over forty can't work a computer. I guess that's a lot of time to learn things. What was the year before you came here?

[aeturnus]

2014.

[ Easy enough answer for an easy enough question, and he can see those cogs whirring. He'll wait to see where the kid goes with it. ]

You're taking this well.

[antietam]

I've seen time work in weird ways. Almost like this. [ This guy doesn't seem crazy at least, not like another possible immortal he knows. ]

So around the 780s BC. When did you stop aging?

[aeturnus]

I was twenty-four.

[ He turns to watch for Chainsaw, see if she's still around. ]

What was your experience? That was almost like this.