eastbound | un: ut malum pluvia

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un: ut malum pluvia | audio

[ Five is walking out of the lighthouse as he addresses the network, since it's generally quieter where ghosts aren't constantly interrupting his thoughts. The beauty of this form of communication is it's not entirely unlike talking to himself, which is really his preference. ]

Okay, listen up. Since we're all sharing, let's see if we can't come up with an actual plan, before we experience the next shift and you all inconveniently forget who you are again.

[ To say nothing of a haunting that has already sent him into a panic attack or how he nearly drowned just to see for himself what he'd already heard second-hand. Nothing but success for Five Hargreeves. ]

Two orders of business. One, Miang-Si is obviously a catalyst, if not the cause of what's happening here. I searched her room one of the nights she was out galavanting with her lake friends. There was correspondence that suggested she was enamored with someone, who I now assume was the Huntress. I also found evidence that the woman in white, and another in red, visited her there. The witches she's involved with also may have dragged in women doing laundry nearby into their lake at some point, judging by what was found with the skeletons at the bottom.

Secondly, these hauntings aren't just some curse. If they are spirits, we need to figure out a way to trap them. There's a woman in white, a man in black, a lumberjack, and another woman in red. Who else has been seen and how often? If we can capture one of them, maybe we can get some answers before whatever triggered this starts again.

[ He has no doubt it'll happen at the worst possible moment.

Just as he's about to continue with his all-important conspiracy theories, he's approached by a young girl with a silver coin in hand. Distantly she can be heard saying she's worried about her family, and asks him to take a donation for Kathoo'lul's blessing. Dumbfounded, he takes it and promptly loses his train of thought as she scurries away. ]

...Amazing how easy it is to start a cult around here.

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Yeah, pretty much. But I can meet you somewhere if that's faster.

[She says like she doesn't know Five's just going to teleport over here anyway.]

[ She knows him. No responding, just appearing on the ship moments later, looking around until he spots her. Can't say he doesn't appreciate it when she makes herself easy to find.

He has a bag with him that he sets down as soon as he finds something to use as a table. Inside are a few books and some practical women's attire. Guess which he's talking about when he gestures to it. ]

Picked up a few things from Miang-Si to sort through.

[Oooh clothes. She reaches in to pull them out of the bag, holding them up to the light to examine them.]

Did she just not want them anymore or did you steal them?

[No judgement, just curious.]

[ He's pretty sure it was part of an escape plan, but he only shrugs. Blame the servants who just let him waltz on in and left him unsupervised. ]

She had them packed and hidden away under her bed. [ So she'll probably notice they're missing, but he doesn't really care. ] There's books on geography and other citadels in there. Doesn't hurt to brush up on where we're headed in the event this doesn't result in a complete destruction of the timeline.

Works for me.

[She puts the clothes aside and goes for the books.]

It'll be nice to have an idea of what we're getting into for a change before we get there.

Exactly. [ It goes unsaid that he has no intention of using the beacon, even if they're ultimately successful. His original plan of finding all of his siblings here before jumping together into the future got a bit murky; but he's not eager to see another apocalypse. This is the best he can do in the meantime. ]

Nothing's guaranteed. If I don't get any takers, we're going to have to wait until we're pulled back again and just hope it keeps going in the same direction to when this started.

And doesn't disintegrate into a pile of nothing?

[Because fingers crossed they don't handle that again.]

[ He really wishes he could say that won't happen. ]

Fingers crossed. [ And since he's not on the network, let him take a rare moment to bitch that it's so hard to bully people into doing what he wants: ] You'd think that'd be more motivating.

When you talk about something like the end of the world, it's hard to really picture it.

[It's not something you really have the capacity to understand unless you experience it for yourself. Unless you've managed to feel the weight of it, for better or worse.]

It's too big to conceptualize until you live it.

[ ...Five could almost take that as an apology for thinking he was crazy when he jumped back to 2019 and started talking about the apocalypse. It's hard to find vindication when he would have given his life to make sure she never experienced it. ]

That doesn't give me much hope for persuading them. [ If he couldn't convince his own family to listen to him, he's not putting a lot of stock into his charisma winning over the few people who could help. ] Next time I'll let you suggest it.

[It sort of us one - in some ways, it was easier for her to want to prevent her own death versus to have any understanding of trying to prevent the end of the world.]

I'll do my best.

[And she doesn't want to hear about how she should rumor them. She's trying not to go too nuts with her powers after having gone out of control for a while.]

[ It's for the benefit of everyone that Five never gets a taste of Allison's powers. He'd have zero restraint about getting people to listen to him.

He nods though, grateful she's agreeing to a hypothetical. His tolerance for socializing is tested every day. ]

On the occasion there is a next time.

Hopefully there won't be. Honestly I could live with at ninety percent less time travel shenanigans in our lives.

[She's had enough and just wants to go home and hope her daughter will be there.]

[ Something complicated passes over his face at her phrasing, but he can't really blame her. They're two of the very few who really understand the consequences. ]

If only. [ He can't help that it's a part of him, but that's why he's constantly going back over his math and learning all he can. ] Even if we stop the ones responsible, I doubt it'll end with them. If all it takes is a spell, there'd be no shortage of desperate people eager to use it.

Maybe there's something we can take.

[A key ingredient specific to the spell that they can't perform without it.]

But even if there isn't ... there's only so much we can do to save them from themselves.

[ ...He knows she hates that he constantly suggests this, but it's because it works. They've already discussed how can't murder everyone. ]

You could rumor them to forget the spell.

I could, once we find out who they are.

[They would have to make sure they got all of them. That none of the witches remember because she's sure that if they left one person behind they would be able to teach the rest.]

We just have to make sure we discover everyone.

[ She has a point. Hatisse said time magic was well known, just that most witches are smart enough not to practice it. Erasing it from all of their minds might not be realistic, but he already tried talking them out of it. ]

At least we have options.

At least there's that.

[She shakes her head.]

Thanks for bringing by the clothes. I'm sure I'll be able to make use of them.

[ He shrugs off her thanks for something that was entirely accidental, then points to what else he brought. ]

And the books. We don't know what we'll be able to take with us when time shifts again.

Yes. I will definitely try go through the books.

[Maybe she can find a way to take the information with her somehow.]

Good.

[ She's not even going to ask what he'll be doing? If he knew all he had to do was steal her some clothes... He sighs and gets back to the matter at hand. ]

If history tells us anything, we won't get much more of a heads up about where we're going next. [ And from what they've experienced, they've been progressively worse. ] Hopefully they won't run out of beacons by the time we need one.

Fingers crossed. There seems to have been one everywhere we've gone, so hopefully that pattern continues.

[But eventually that luck will probably run out. And yeah, Allison doesn't want to know what he was up to that involves women's clothes.]

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un: ut malum pluvia | audio

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