text, un: anonymouse

[aeturnus]

so hey i'm Asking For A Friend ;) but how many other immortals are here in the quarantine? any?

also! important question!! what did everyone get told when they got here? what questions did you ask? i wanna know what we're working with! Let's Work Together!

p.s., if you want to answer the first question without a name there are burner phones available at [ small list of locations ] to make unattached accounts. i'm just looking for at least numbers! names would be radical too of course!

Comments

[signifies]

[ Clark notices someone's cologne, the shampoo or product in their hair, and the smell of their clothes before the rest of their appearance.

He makes a note of Cain's heart-beat as he smiles back. ]

Clark Kent. Nice to meet you.

[aeturnus]

[ He's an odd one, well-composed and generally calmer than he acts or moves. Complacency or familiarity with how it goes, perhaps. He lets himself take Clark in, no longer over the network screen and compression, and nods. ]

Jacob Kane. [ A lie? But not really. It isn't his name, but it's one he chose for now. ] Nice to meet you too. Sorry about the whole... runaround, it hardly hurts to be too cautious.

[signifies]

[ Having given a fake name himself and received his share of them here, Clark's not bothered. He has ways of telling whether someone is lying. Though Jacob's face is young, the rest of his body speaks of his real age.

Clark holds himself as smaller than he is. His clothes are meant to hide him. ]

I understand, I'm a reporter. [ And a secret alien. ]

We can go somewhere else from here if you like.

[aeturnus]

Then you definitely know.

[ If anything like this were happening back home, Cain wouldn't even consider it. Not even with reporters he trusted. There's just no way for this to get back anywhere into something bigger back where it matters.

He tilts his head in consideration. ]

What, like your place? My place? Somewhere less crowded? More? What's your style, Clark?

[signifies]

How does "more crowded" sound?

[ Faces and voices get lost in a crowd. While there are people with all kinds of abilities here, except for Kara and Jon, he hasn't met anyone with the same ability to identify someone by sound. ]

[aeturnus]

[ It's why he listed it as an option, after all. He nods. ]

Prudent, that's how it sounds. Got a place in mind?

[signifies]

I do. It's a bit of a walk.

[aeturnus]

I like walks.

[ He smiles, motions for Clark to lead the way. ]

We can talk about other things on the way. Why not?

[signifies]

[ Why not? Clark smiles and nods. ]

This way. [ He starts to talk only after he's looked around them discreetly to be sure they're not being followed. Riverview is much safer than either of their worlds but Clark has not stopped being careful. ] Where're you from, Mr. Kane?

[aeturnus]

[ Cain is paying attention, too, watching small signs around them without really looking around and keeping his pace. Weirdly he doesn't seem too overall worried. Paranoia is well and good but he just can't live with it constantly in his head, either. That's weighty stuff. ]

Phoenix. Arizona. USA. Earth.

[ Each one is said after a longer beat between. Like he has to remind himself those might be necessary. ]

What about you?

[signifies]

Metropolis, USA, Earth.

[ He follows the same pattern although more smoothly. Clark is used to having to provide the country and planet as well as the city, since nobody recognises Metropolis. ]

I'm originally from Kansas. We have a Phoenix, Arizona too.

[aeturnus]

That makes one similarity. I don't think we've got Metropolis for me, which is... weird, actually.

[ Again with the disparate similar things when they just shouldn't be like that. ]

Phoenix is a recent one for me. I moved there to be closer to some family.

[ It probably behooves mentioning that listening to Cain's heart is probably a faint bit odd because it's... on the wrong side? Which is possible for humans, if not ridiculously rare, and nothing else about it really seems off. Most cases of that already-rare thing only happens in twins, too. How odd! ]

[signifies]

[ Clark notices details like that. He makes a note of it. ]

That's not surprising. A lot of the cities I'm used to knowing about don't seem to be the same for a United States from other universes.

Have you got a New York City?

[aeturnus]

Which means you're probably the outlier in comparison... but I can't really tell yet if that's good or bad. Or if it means anything.

[ He nods to that question. ]

The Big Apple? Yeah, it's there.

[signifies]

It's there for everyone who says they're from Earth that I've spoken to.

Weird, isn't it?

[aeturnus]

What changes, and what stays the same? Yeah, that's definitely one of the things I've been asking myself about.

[ He gives Clark a tilt of his head, then adds a smile to it a second later. Too much time around Abel recently (or wishing too hard that Abel was with him now) has left him hoping nonverbal, unintuitive cues will make sense. Stop that, Cain. ]

It's a good observation. Innocuous, too.

[signifies]

[ All that tells Clark is that Cain is used to having someone to talk to. It might be why he's so chatty. ]

I'm not sure what it means. [ If it means anything. ]

[aeturnus]

[ In a way. If there's no one to talk to, Cain isn't opposed to talking to himself, either. ]

It might mean nothing, but... it's not necessarily irrelevant either. This whole thing is just too different for me to discount anything.

[signifies]

What are you used to?

[aeturnus]

Normalcy?

[ He shakes his head. ]

Uh, mostly it's the magic? And the sciences related to it. There's basically none of that, nothing aside from one thing but that isn't— [ No, let him try again. This is so weird to talk about with someone that must have such a different baseline than him. ] We can't study death magic the way we would anything else, it's nothing like all the different kinds people have here.

[signifies]

[ Clark pays attention while Cain talks. He doesn't know much about magic except that it can hurt him and he'd rather not be afraid of it. ]

There's a research centre in the city. They might have some answers for you.

[aeturnus]

Gramarye? Yeah, that was a thought I had, too. First I figured I'd see what the masses knew.

[ He might be a little edgy about research facilities that look into things they don't know. Poking and prodding where they shouldn't belong... It doesn't matter if they do or don't here, it's an instinctual thing and his heart does beat erratically at that. Recalling something he doesn't let show in the rest of his demeanor. ]

[signifies]

[ It seems like even immortals don't have long enough to control a physical response to fear or worry. Clark will remember to be careful about this subject in future. ]

There are many kinds of magic here. Did you find anything you recognised?

[aeturnus]

No. Not yet, anyway. No one else seems to have the same thoughts about magic as I do.

[ It would be weird if anyone did. Although it's fairly common knowledge, it's more the stuff of folklore for regular people. Anyone talking about it with confidence is probably related to Cain however many generations removed. ]

What are the chances of that happening, anyway? Multiple people from the exact same place.

[signifies]

More common than you might think.

[ They're finally here at a bustling cafe. There's a line to get in at this hour. ]