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

[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.

[antietam]

[ Chainsaw is long gone. Adam doesn't seem concerned since she told him where she was going. He considers how much he should tell Jacob, but Adam has kind of been asking a lot of questions. So it's only fair. ]

My friends and I found a woman tied up in an old cave. She'd been awake down there for about six hundred years. Still looks fairly young, but... you're a lot more sane than she is.

[aeturnus]

[ Huh. He looks back down at Adam and his brow furrows at just the idea. ]

Well, yeah, I haven't been tied up nearly that long anywhere. That kind of extended isolation melts the brain.

[antietam]

[ Adam shrugs. She's insulted him too much for him to really feel any sympathy for her. ]

I think she was always sort of like that. What happened when you were twenty-four?

[aeturnus]

[ He dips his head momentarily. ]

Perceptive. My brother died.

[antietam]

[ Oh. Awkward. He wonders if all those centuries could heal the wounds of something like that. ]

I'm sorry. Is that what caused it...? You don't have to talk about it if you don't want.

[aeturnus]

Far as I can tell.

[ It's okay. The fact that he says it as died rather than was killed is a weird way of Cain's to indicate there's no trust there. He's barely touching on the incident. ]

It isn't something I've been able to really research. There's nothing else like it.

[antietam]

Are you sure? Here, you never know... [ He seems to think on something for a moment. ]

I might've heard a thing or two about one person sacrificing themselves for another's life. Not necessarily in a living forever sense, though.

[aeturnus]

I was asking about it before, and best I got was, "You just haven't found the right death yet." And it wasn't—

[ Like that? Except that it was. Remus forcing Romulus on before being struck down by those damn dogs... He blinks, then waves it off. ]

How do you mean?

[antietam]

[ That makes him pensive, but it's something he's going to have to think on. ]

Sometimes that's how it works. A life or something equivalent for another life. It probably requires magic, though. Were either of you magic?

[aeturnus]

[ That gets a sigh. ]

No. Not until after he was gone, and that part itself is complicated. I think I get what you're saying, though. If magic like that worked where I'm from, it would probably be incredibly powerful.

[antietam]

Maybe you were on a leyline. We seem to be from similar places. [ He pauses. ]

Sorry, I guess you don't want random people trying to throw out guesses about your whole life. Do you like it, living for this long?

[aeturnus]

Like it? Overall it's been pretty good. It can't all be, though.

[ He shrugs. ] It's... not a choice I made, so I just deal with it best I can. So yeah, guess I do.

[antietam]

[ He's always heard stories about how awful it is to be immortal, but he supposes they were never written by immortals. He seems pleased by the answer, at least. ]

It must be cool to get to see so much of history exactly the way it was. And you've had so much time to learn, like, every skill. I believe the supergenius thing now.

[aeturnus]

[ Oh, he doesn't doubt some people would be miserable with it. It takes all types. Maybe they were lucky that it was him of the twins that was stuck with this, in a way, that he could deal with it. Abel's price, however... well, it doesn't make anything worth it. ]

Gee, thanks. Yeah, I've learned a lot and I'm lucky I have an aptitude for learning. Can't imagine what someone with less interest would do with all this time.

[ Not exactly true. Conquering the world, sparking conflicts, whatever keeps someone distracted from the infinite maw of eternity. ]

[antietam]

[ Adam, of course, begins to think of what he would do with all that time. He could get so much done, completely recreate himself if he pleased.

But then he would have to see Ronan and his friends die... ]

I think I'd learn biology and study myself. Maybe discover the secret to immortality, sell it... That'd make for a good sci-fi novel.