rekindleme | Back to the months before

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Back to the months before

Who: Fortuna (or rather, Rosalia Ibbott) and you!
Where: The streets of District 1
When: Backdated to the start of the deaging
Summary: Fortuna has been aged down to about 12. Meaning she's not really Fortuna anymore.
Warnings: um...nothing yet?

First, a hideously long intro. Skip to the next bold text if you don't want to read.

Rosalia wakes in a strange place. The bed is too soft. It's also too long. She opens her eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling, free of any trace of insects. She sits up, taking in her surroundings. The room she's in is a large one, though it's mostly empty save for a coat rack containing a very large black duster and a pair of combat drones lying on the floor. She watches the drones as she gets up, padding over the stripped floor cautiously. They don't look like they're active, but they provide a clue. She's been kidnapped by a rigger, obviously. Maybe drugged in her sleep or something. She can't remember running into anyone suspicious today. She'd better learn what she can, she thinks as she pulls the coat on the rack down to look for clues or a weapon or something useful. Why? Does this mystery rigger - a troll or ork, judging by the trenchcoat, a woman if which side buttons is any indication - work for the Mafia? Have they abducted her because her parents failed to pay off their debt? And where is this captor of hers? Why would any kidnapper just leave her unattended?

A search through its many pockets (so much room to conceal things...) reveals a bunch of mechanical things, a weird oriental-looking mask, a laser microphone, a medium-sized empty sack (what's the point of putting this in a pocket?), and...bingo, a commlink! She turns it on...to be greeted by a password screen. Whoops. Okay, scratch that, she still doesn't know anything else about her captor besides sex, one of two possible metatypes, and occupation. Maybe there's something else somewhere, she thinks as she opens one of the two doors in the room. It's a restroom. Well, it's stupid, but she needs to use it anyway. While she's in there, though, she sees several used tubes of white hair dye. So now she's got a good idea of her captor's appearance.

She speaks to fill the nervous silence. "Ork or troll lady with white hair, keep an eye out for rigger jacks. Got it." With a deep breath, she cautiously heads out of the room, to find...the beginnings of a workshop. And a window. The buildings look Asian, maybe. Nice neighborhood. No metahumans at all passing by, weirdly enough. Is this Japan? She's heard their government has no tolerance for metahumans. ...Is that why her captor is nowhere to be found? She may have friends, though. So she searches for a weapon, and finds it - a knife in the kitchen.

Actual RP prompt begins here

And this is Saeng Seong's first look at Rosalia Ibbott, the person Fortuna used to be: a preteen girl in well-worn clothes wandering first the halls of building four and then the streets of the district, carrying an ordinary kitchen knife nervously.

As she wanders, however, she realizes how strange she must be. There are no homeless people about, this is obviously a wealthy place. So she tears off a strip of the shirt under her tank top to tie around her waist, tying the knife to it loosely. That doesn't look like she's going to kill someone at any rate. It looks weird but she looks weird no matter what. She'd better make the most of it.

Eventually, she comes across a shop. And she realizes she can read the sign.

"That doesn't make any sense...I don't know Japanese or whatever..."

Those things, linguasofts or whatever, she thinks suddenly, frantically feeling around her head for any sign of surgery. Nothing. No datajacks, no chip slots, no sign of headware being implanted at all. Still freaked out, she sits down on a bench, trying not to look too vulnerable and still trying to figure out just where she is.

"I don't get it..."

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He shrugs, turning to head that way, and he only glances behind him for a moment to make sure she's following. He can't blame the kid for wanting to try. He'd be doing his damnedest to find a way out if Steve wasn't here, after all. This girl probably doesn't have anyone like that to help look out for her and calm her down. That much is obvious by the fact she's carrying a kitchen knife.

"By the way... that thing's probably not the best thing to defend yourself with," he says, motioning at the blade at her waist. "You want somethin' that's a little better for it?"

If she's going to have a sharp blade--and he's pretty sure she's not gonna give that up--she might as well have something that has a sheath so there's less of a chance to hurt herself by accident.

"Um." She looks down at her knife. This guy's being awfully friendly...if she were at home...well, if she were at home she wouldn't be in this situation to begin with. But if she wasn't in a completely strange place she wouldn't have even followed him to begin with. People these days took kids away for lots of scary things. What if he's in some kind of cult?

"Okay. But I want to see it first."

"Fair enough."

He woke up with a couple of knives on him, and he didn't bother to take them off--they might come in handy, and he's not the type to go unprepared anymore. Bucky takes a combat knife from inside his jacket, still sheathed, and holds it out to her, handle-first.

"Here you go."

If she's already suspicious, it makes sense she'd suspect his motives. Whatever precautions she thinks she needs to take, he's fine with it. He can't just leave a girl sitting around worrying. What kind of big brother would he be if he did that?

Now this looks like a real knife. She doesn't know much about knives, but this isn't one you could pick up just anywhere and that's obvious. She takes it, holding it in both hands loosely - not threatening, but she could take it out of its sheath immediately and that gives her some sense of security - a nervous, shaky sort of reassurance that if things go wrong she's got a chance, but it's not one she'd be thrilled to take.

"Thanks...where'd you get something like this?" Her eyes are lingering on his dog tags. She really doesn't have to ask, with those, does she? But she wants to hear it from him. She wants to talk to someone, calm down, feel safer. Know a little more about him and see if he can be trusted.

"Don't remember, exactly," he admits easily. "Part of the whole wakin' up here and not knowing what's goin' on. But I'd guess the military, since I was part of a pretty important unit last I remember."

Bucky would be glad to talk if it helped ease the girl's nerves, and it wasn't like he'd been shy about it before. Even with the commandos, he'd spent plenty of down time shooting the breeze to help them all wind down. They all needed it, especially considering the weird shit they'd seen with HYDRA.

"Mind handin' me the other one so I can get rid of it?"

"Sure. One sec." She takes the knife Bucky gave her out of its sheath to make sure it wasn't just made of rubber or something (the idea occurred to her just now, of course), and then replaces it before untying the knife at her waist and swapping it out with the proper combat knife. Once it's secure, she holds out the kitchen knife to Bucky. It's a show of trust that it's properly handle first and not set at his feet or sideways with the dull edge facing her. Or maybe she's not that cautious. She's a sharp kid who grew up in a dangerous environment, but she is a kid, after all. Who knows.

He's a little relieved when she finally holds it out to him, though he's careful to take it from her in a way that the blade can't hurt her when he does. Next he sees a trash can or something, he'll be dumping it. Let it be someone else's problem.

"So, where you from?" he asks, trying to lighten the atmosphere again. He isn't unfamiliar with her accent, having some friends from inner New York and plenty of people in his last unit from the northern states, but he isn't about to make any assumptions out loud.

"I'm Bucky, by the way," he says casually, offering his own information to help her open up. "I'm from Brooklyn."

"Rosalia. I'm from Chicago." She glances up at him again, not exactly showing it, but grateful for the distraction anyway. Even if she's still a little wary. "What's in Brooklyn?"

"Nothin' that Chicago doesn't have, for the most part," he says with a shrug. "Tough there is Coney Island--kind of a place for amusement parks. Made my friend ride on the Cyclone there once and he ended up getting sick. I keep wonderin' if he's still mad about it, but I can't remember a lot of times I had that much fun."

Kids like amusement parks, right? He hopes the subject might get her relax a bit, but he'll just have to see.

She does smile, a bit sadly. "I've never been on an amusement park ride. They sound fun. I dreamed about going on one since I was five and saw my first commercial for one, but there are better things to dream about."

Things a twelve-year-old still shouldn't have to concern herself with, she'll probably realize later.

Bucky raises his eyebrows, partially amused and partially concerned. He remembers back to when he and Steve were her age, with his buddy worried about all sorts of things and needing Bucky to remember how to have fun.

"Nobody said you can't dream about more than one thing, you know," he replies. "And just 'cause there's better stuff out there doesn't mean you can't hope for some little things too."

"Yeah, but this one's stupid. We'll never afford it, especially now that I have to get out of here somehow."

Plane tickets are expensive, after all. She hasn't really stopped to think about the logistics of spiriting her away to Japan or China or wherever this is.

"Never say never," he says with a shrug. "If you're determined enough to save up for it, you can do a lot of things you might not be able to afford."

He knows about that first-hand, though most of his experience comes from his more recent years--living with his parents was never tough enough that he had to worry a lot about money, though he didn't get to have new stuff too often. Even with a family of six, though, he never had as tough a time of it as his best friend.

Bucky takes in a breath to dispel thoughts of the past when he spots one of the terminals on the end of the block. It looks enough like a telephone booth, though the tech here is pretty overwhelming for him at the moment.

"There's your phone, if you wanna give it a shot."

Edited (oh my god can i never get this right) 2015-02-03 08:11 (UTC)

Rosalia steps into the alcove and looks at it, not sure what to make of it. It looks kind of like a vidphone but with no credstick slot...and attempting to call collect doesn't get her anything at all.

And here she'd thought everything was more or less universal...

She sighed and exited the alcove, arms folded tightly over her chest.

"...Not sure what to even do with that thing. It's not like any phone back home."

Bucky takes the opportunity to drop the knife in a nearby trash can as she's trying to discover the secrets of what he assumes to be a weird screen-phone, but he doesn't take long.

"You're tellin' me," he says, leaning against the glass and folding his arms as he stares at the contraption. "Guess that might be part of the whole 'different planet' thing."

He knows how ridiculous it sounds, and he still has a really hard time believing it, but... well, he saw his best friend turn into a Captain America. It opened his mind a bit.

"You're really sold on this different planet thing."

Of course, when the sun sets and she sees this planet has two moons, she'll start to believe it.

But until then, she's got this weird military guy who insists the people who are very obviously human around him are aliens.

"Where'd you even hear this?"

"Only a little," he admitted with a shrug. "When my best friend and his pal tell me I'm younger than I'm supposed to be and on a different planet, I dunno what else to think except that everyone's gone crazy, which isn't that appealing."

"Uh...Younger than you were supposed to be?" she asks, voice rising a little in uncertainty. It sounds utterly insane, but it would explain a few things. She doesn't want to believe it. Especially since that would make her "kidnapper".... "How much younger?"

"Not sure, really," he replies, a mild, pensive frown on his face. "Can't be by that much. My friend only looked a few years older at most."

He considers it another moment, thinking about the serum. An unpleasant look comes to his eye for a second, but it's gone as soon as it shows.

"Then again, he's kind of a weird case, so he might be older than he looks. I didn't ask."

"Did it...um. Did you wake up somewhere where it looked like someone else had been living there too...?"

She sounds noticeably more afraid now. All she really knows about goblinization is that it's taking some of her classmates out of class for some time (and some don't return), they don't like to talk about it, and her grandmother died because of it before she was born. Also, she's seen other kids bully orks and trolls in her grade.

So the thought that the mysterious troll lady might be her? It scares her.

"Yeah, basically," he says with something of a grimace. He's not about to tell Rosalia the fact that the only thing of note aside from normal clothes in the room were knives and a terrifying-looking mask. What has he even been doing? "The two other guys livin' in the place told me it was my room."

Being pensive about his own situation doesn't mean he misses the look on her face, though, and he straightens up, unfolding his arms.

"You okay?"

"Y-you know how I said there was...there was a troll lady's coat where I woke up?"

She doesn't realize she's the only representative of an Awakened Earth, of course, not even yet totally believing this wasn't Earth at all anymore. And, of course, she's losing her cool in a major way, not even considering that for that troll-sized coat to even be there means she has to survive both goblinization and living to adulthood. It's clear that Fortuna's usual collected attitude was at least partially innate, from her childhood. But this young girl, Rosalia, is not yet the woman that could pass out for a month and not outwardly panic. Some of it came with time, and some with the shadows and the experiences within.

Bucky doesn't know a lot about trolls except they're monster things or whatever that live under bridges, maybe, but it appears that the term has a different meaning to this girl. Something to do with the metahumans she talked about earlier? Wherever she comes from, it... well, suffice to say this situation is starting to feel more like it's straight out of some bizarre science fiction pulp.

Even so, he puts out his hand to rest on the girl's shoulder to help reassure her.

"Yeah, what about it?"

It doesn't make much sense to him that she'd think she's the future owner of this "troll lady's" coat, but he's trying to keep an open mind.

"My grandma goblinized before I was born and-..."

She manages to stop herself from speaking, but not crying. The way the kids get treated, the fact that her grandmother died and the way her mother's talked about it, even knowing she can't die like her grandmother did because she doesn't have heart problems is no comfort. Logic has no place here. Trolls are ugly, it's all movies and trid shows and implications in conversation have ever told her. Trolls are stupid. Sometimes they can get somewhere but mostly nobody wants them anywhere. Trolls on the trids were mindless brutes or comic relief.

There's clearly a lot more to her situation than he can get at the moment (even if he thinks he's starting to make headway), but it's not going to stop him from trying to make her feel better. He never could stand to see a girl cry.

"Hey, come here," he says softly, gently coaxing her to lean against him with his arm around her. "Everything's gonna be alright."

He looks around without moving his head, trying to figure out the best way to comfort her.

Back to the months before

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bucky taking fortuna to the boardwalk tho

fff that would be...interesting.

maybe later in the week when they're both less freaked out, y/n?

sure!

thread it out or handwave?

Whichever works best for you! Either way is fine with me :)

i think handwave this time. :|d that'll be an interesting topic to breach later.

Okay! And yes it will. (Along with most of this conversation, really...)

good. 8)

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