2023-01-10 - Missing?!

Jules’ car might be on its last legs, but a burst of fierce just work, will you??! energy has it sputtering to life, at least long enough for the engine to turn over and get her to the marina. Once parked, she hurries along the boardwalk, tracing what would be a usual route for Mikaere, until she finds the woman in her impatience.

“Thank you so much,” Jules says, breathless as she jogs up. She is still in running gear, after all. “Did you happen to see who dropped it? Tall brown guy?” There are admittedly very few of them in Gray Harbor.

The blonde gives Jules a dubious glance, one that becomes rather more dubious at that reference to a tall brown guy: one can almost see her thought processes, behind those blue eyes, linking brown man with brown woman and coming up with nothing that's particularly flattering to anyone.

"He dropped it," she says, in a clipped voice, handing the phone over. Evidently she's not all that fussed about ensuring it actually goes to someone it ought to go to. "Went flying, and dropped it. Take it."

If Jules didn’t have other things on her mind, imagining the worst, chances are good she’d be using her powers for evil right about now. She sees you, lady.

“Which way did he go?” she asks, glancing at the phone to check for a cracked screen before returning her attention to the blonde woman. “I’ll see if I can catch up to him.”

"Uhhhhh," says the woman. There's something fuzzy about her expression: something in the eyes.

"I'm not sure? He... dropped it and then..."

She shrugs, bewildered but not chasing the thought too hard.

Not helpful.

“Okay,” says Jules, letting it go. “Thanks anyway.”

Thanks for nothing.

“Well, I appreciate you waiting,” she says next, and with that, the woman can go on her way.

And the hunt can continue.

Jules frowns as she looks around, first back towards Mikaere’s boat, then onwards.

“Start at the beginning,” she mutters to herself, turning to head for the pier.

It rained overnight, but it's not a physical footprint in the ground that might catch Jules' attention: it's more like a mental one, like an interrupted footstep that leads to... well. Nowhere on this plane, anyway.

Just as she turns, Jules' attention snags like hair on brambles -- a sharp little ow that pulls her up short with a wince.

"Aw, shit," she mutters.

Carefully, she approaches that spot, squinting, trying to see through it as if it were onionskin.

It's not as if the other woman doesn't already think Jules is a weirdo. Happily, she doesn't seem to especially care: she's already back on her way, having wasted more than enough time on the case of the dropped phone.

It's not quite a thin spot, here— which is to say, it's not immediately possible to look through to the Other Side, unless the Other Side happens to look exactly like this side, down to the damp ground and random litter.

But there's something... the sense of disturbance, perhaps? A leftover shimmer, as if something was here, and now isn't. A portal, closed?

A Door? Something else altogether?

If only it were easy.

Jules’ pulse has quickened with the adrenaline of foreboding. “Goddammit, Mikaere.”

For a few seconds, she just stands there, at a loss.

Sure, blame the guy who isn't there. Sure. Fine. Fine.

As if on cue, the phone in her hand— the one that isn't hers— begins to ring.

And the caller ID? It says simply: Mikaere.

Which is... weird.

If he hadn’t had to go and get himself lost—

Hold that thought. The phone rings.

Jules looks at it with a suspicious frown before swiping to answer and bringing it to her ear.

“Hello? Mikaere?”

Is it him on the other end?

"Jules?"

It certainly sounds like Mikaere.

There's only a beat of a pause, and then: "Thank fuck. Wait. How are you able to respond to me? You can't."

"ًWhat do you mean, I can’t?” Jules demands. Her aggravation at this world-breaking nonsense is showing. She can’t answer? Watch her.

“Where the hell are you?”

"You've— wait. No. Ok, something isn't right here. I don't know where I am. A bubble, maybe. How are you speaking to me? You don't have my kind of powers."

"Good job, Sherlock." Anxiety makes Jules snarky. "I'm talking to you on your phone. Which you apparently dropped, according to some racist lady right before disappearing into your bubble."

She pauses and takes a long inhale meant to steady her racing pulse. "Okay. Start over. Tell me exactly what happened."

"Okay," says Mikaere. "The thing is, I'm not talking to you on my phone."

Maybe that much is obvious, except— "I mean, I'm talking to you with my thoughts. Okay, okay. So. I was hurrying to get to your place— shit, ma, I almost forget— and... I tripped on something. The next thing I knew, I was... somewhere else. It's like I fell through the ārai. I'm not sure where I am— it's unformed. Like an empty plane or something."

"Can you think your way out?" Jules asks hopefully. "I looked around here, but I can't see anything on the Other Side, at least not right away. There's still some sort of -- I don't know, energy. Something's not right."

Obviously. Because Mikaere is stuck in null space.

Mikaere's tone is dry: "I can't open doors," he says. "Or Doors for that matter. Can you break it open?"

Beat. "Or maybe that's a bad idea."

Jules' response is equally dry: "I can try."

But what, exactly, is she breaking? How does she grasp the contours of a Door (or portal, or bubble, or, or...) she can't see?

In this case, she concentrates on the disturbance left behind, eyes narrowing, reaching out with the hand that isn't holding the phone to try to grab it and wrench it open. It probably looks weird to passers-by, this girl grasping at the air with curled fingers and tension throughout her body.

Maybe it is a bad idea. But she's not about to let Mikaere remain stuck wherever he is from an excess of caution.

It would be too easy for Jules' attempt to open a proper doorway into the null space where Mikaere is trapped; far too easy.

Instead, it just radiates a wave of something: a thudding shiver in the earth beneath Jules' feet, and a yawn of the water, too, which quivers and churns.

"What's going on?" Mikaere wants to know.

"Uh." That never sounds good. "I dunno, kind of like an aftershock?"

Jules turns to look at the water rippling, frowning at what she sees.

"I don't know what else to do," she admits. "I mean, I could try to punch it, but I suspect it's just going to be more of the same. Help me out, here."

It's very definitely a physical aftershock, too, because there's a distinct susurrus of concern and dismay: a few people call out in surprise, and more than one person stumbles, drops their morning coffee, or lets out a cry of alarm.

This is not supposed to happen. Not here.

"Um. Hang on. Maybe if I try and link up with you, and share my location, as best I can? Open your mind, as best you can. I don't know if this is going to work, given you're... talking to me through my phone somehow."

Oops.

"Oops."

Minor earthquakes do happen.

Moving on. Jules is still frowning, now in concentration. This 'open your mind' instruction is something she struggles with, and in times when they've explored the mental plane together, Mikaere's been there physically to center her. This, though, is more akin to meditation, where thinking fiercely let go, let go just makes you clench tighter. "I'm trying."

Jules will probably— no: definitely— be able to feel it, the moment Mikaere shoves his way into her mind to share his location, pinpointing it as best he can given the limited information he's got. It probably hurts— it's definitely not gentle.

<< Go! >> is strangled, with more than a shiver of unease to it but, far more than that, the force of command, of suggestion backed up by intensely powerful thoughts.

Jules lets out a yelp that would garner more attention were it not for the earth tremors now subsiding. Hold on, folks, because there’s likely about to be more—

Compelled, Jules does exactly what she said she shouldn’t try. She punches the air, now that she has some idea of where she wants her blow to land. It doesn’t make sense. None of it does. It isn’t the Veil as she’s accustomed to it (not that the Veil obeys rules), and she doesn’t know what she’s doing, and her head hurts, and she’s lashing out in anger and pain and no small amount of fear.

The world parts around Jules' mental fist, torn asunder by the force of her blow, which, directed, strikes true: the world shudders around her, chaos leeching in through the hole she's made.

(Is she aware of the water abruptly lapping at her ankles, sloshing past her and onwards, inland: a low but powerful wave that will, at least, retreat as quickly as it arrived.)

More immediately: there's Mikaere, pale-faced beneath the brown of his skin and both apologetic and wide-eyed as he stumbles towards her.

And that little voice at the back of both of their minds: smugly satisfied in its yessssssssssss.

Jules reaches out to grab him, phone still clenched in her other fist. Her eyes are wide, on the verge of panicky, especially after she glances down and takes note of the water.

The voice doesn’t help.

“Oh shit,” bursts out. “I think we just did what it wanted us to do.”

<< Close it! >> 'says' Mikaere, expressing himself mentally rather than physically rather more out of instinct than need— though perhaps it's simply easier, right now, with him staggering into Jules' touch, squinting against the light and air and... water of the boardwalk.

Water that is rolling back the way it came, thankfully, but still: water that is where it really should not be.

“How?” Jules all but shrieks, trying at the same time to squeeze the rift shut, but here’s the thing—she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Opening paths in and out of the Veil is still only mostly in the realm of the hypothetical (how does one practice when practice is so dangerous?) and this is something even stranger.

“I’m trying!” Tears well in her eyes as she looks up at Mikaere, control slipping. “I don’t know how!”

Mikaere's voice is shaky, but physical, this time, as he attempts to draw Jules in against himself. He's not exactly solid on his feet, yet— and there's a suggestion of something deeper in his eyes that doesn't bode well— but whatever strength he's got, he'll share. "You can, Jules. You can."

Again, he presses his mind on her, less firmly than before (exhaustion? something else?) but not without impact: confidence and surety, then.

It's hard to tell what's going on, beyond that. Can they feel that something is wrong, even ignoring the now-silent voice? Yes. But what? Everything has gone still, again, aside from the anxious concern of those others on the boardwalk, the few who haven't already fled in terror and dismay.

Mikaere’s support only buoys her so far, but it’s enough to propel her from doubt to rage. Rage at her own impotence, at being put in this position, at the being that propels them towards destruction.

“Goddammit.” Her curse escalates towards a shriek as her knuckles go white and her fingernails dig crescents of flesh from her palms. There’s nothing tidy or neat or elegant about it, this attempt to force buckling space back in line.

It may not be elegant, but it works: the hole in the world folds back on itself, shimmering about the edges as it bleeds in to something solid— and then disappears altogether.

Mikaere's breath escapes all at once. There's blood dripping out of one nostril, and his thoughts bleed, uncontrolled: Jules can, without question, feel all of it, from his relief to his bone-deep fear to his abrupt sudden realisation of: Ma is going to murder us.

Which is entirely the opposite of what he says, which is: "You did it. Jules, you did it."

Jules draws in a deep, shuddering breath, squeezing her eyes shut as she sags against Mikaere.

“You’re safe.”

She tries to pass his phone back to him, but it sticks in her palm a bit. Her hands are tacky, and when she takes a step to get underway, the boardwalk cracks under her feet, like her presence is heavy in the world.

Jules looks down at the breaking boards. “Shit.”

"And so are you," says Mikaere, at the same time as he says, mentally, apparently without even intending to: << And so are you. Thank fuck. >>

That relief doesn't last, not with the phone needing to be outright tugged out of her hand, and then the boardwalk...

"What the fuck."

<< What the fucking fuck. >>

“Am I?” The reply is just as unconscious. It’s easy to pick up Jules’ dread and growing sense of guilt—what has she done?

Shakily, she says, “I think I overextended myself. You’d better drive.”

It's arguable, really, what state Mikaere is in: there's still blood drying down his face, after all, and he's not entirely stable on his feet. But he's determined, and maybe that's what makes the difference when he leans in to bodily pick Jules up, forcing past the glimmer-encouraged barriers so that he can get her off the boardwalk and onto proper solid ground.

"We're ok," he promises. "Everything's going to be okay."

The boardwalk... well, that's another problem, and for someone else. Tomorrow. Happy Christmas! For now, Mikaere's only concern is getting Jules safely home.

Jules yelps again, entirely undignified and caught off-guard. “I can walk!” she protests, though she’s also slung an arm around Mikaere’s neck. For stability. Right.

The ground still shudders and sags, but at least it remains stable. After shocks?

"You can also be carried," says Mikaere, entirely calm. And look, though he may wobble a little on his way towards Jules' junker of a car, he doesn't drop her.

(This is important.)

"Where are you parked?"

“Whatever.” It’s not the snappy comeback she’d use if she were feeling more herself, so Mikaere’s probably not wrong. Jules is just so heavy all of a sudden, and it drags her eyelids down too.

“Over there,” she directs with a vague gesture.

Heavy— and Mikaere is not the weightlifter perhaps he'd like to be seen as, though for now he merely adjusts his grasp and keeps going. Perhaps it's sheer mental power that keeps him going; perhaps it's something else entirely.

They do reach the car without incident, though even once they're safely in it, Jules nestled into the passenger seat and Mikaere stretching out into the driver, the Kiwi has to pause. Has to breathe.

Has to: "We're okay."

Jules is not terribly reassuring, since she just mumbles from where she’s slumped in the passenger’s seat, eyes shut, “For now.”

"Yeah," agrees Mikaere. "But that's better than not at all."