[open] old familiar places

[ostavil]

WHO: Bucky Barnes + Open
WHEN: January
WHAT: Re-Arrival
WHERE: Streets and then the inn
WARNINGS: TBD



Bucky has seen a lot of shit in his time and when he'd come to Gazin the first time, he'd gone to the inn and cased the place as best he could. Now, returning, he knows a little more than most. He still doesn't understand why he keeps getting chosen to come here. Is there some hole in the universe, some tear he keeps stumbling into across the street from the fruit stand? Is he here because he needs to hide from the world and Wakanda isn't a good enough place? He has no idea why this place keeps calling to him, keeps drawing him in. He has no idea why it seems to want him to return for a second time.

He pats himself down and realizes this time it's at least given him knives to work with. No guns, but he's not shocked. This is a place of horses and blacksmiths and guns are hundreds of years into the future. He's used to being the throwback but in Gazin, he's from the future. He feels like some kind of exhibition at the Stark Expo or some shit and that's so long ago it's a distant, distant memory. It's one only recently returned to him, too, and he smiles at what his idea of the future had been back then. Little did he know.

Just as before, he makes his way along the main road and toward the inn. This is the center of this little town and the place to get the most information. He knows a little more than last time about the layout but he doesn't know which people are still here, which have changed, and which are new like he'd been the last time he came into town. He still takes a table that's a little shadowed so he can watch rather than be seen but at least he knows what he's about this time.

Comments

[ofwovenstone]

Cassandra has been feeling... restless, as of late. So she’s been riding and exploring and mapping the area, on top of her continued delving into who wants an Ember unicorn and WHY (and when, how, but one thing at a time). There’s the strange symbols and glow in the forest from a month or two ago, but that has been frustrating in its lack of answers. Lack of anything, regarding what it is or what had caused it. Other than the strange woman that had heralded the strange goings-on.

But the glow is still there.

For now, though, she’s cold and looking to thaw a little by the fire in the inn. Shaking the snow from her white-streaked curls, she scans the inn with blue-grey eyes, taking in who all’s there and the atmosphere of the place.

Then she pauses.

There’s a familiar face at a table in the shadows. One she’d not thought to see again. She’s gotten so accustomed to losing people. Losing friends. Losing lovers. Losing family. She’s never thought that she might... have someone returned. She cannot help how her face lights up at the sight of him, and she wastes no time in wending her way through the inn towards him.

There’s a part of her that knows better, that knows better than to believe that he’ll know her, that he’ll remember her, from his time here before. But she hopes. Pelor, how she hopes.

[ostavil]

There's no mistaking her. Her hair is white streaked, she has the same set to her chin and spark in her eyes as she had the last time he'd met her. It's Cassandra, in the flesh, and at least one person is here that he'd left behind the last time he'd disappeared from this place.

Hardly a social person, Bucky decides to step out of his comfort zone and wave her toward his table. "Cassandra!" he calls out, just loud enough to be heard across the room, and tilts her a smile that's a shade closer to the one he might have given her back when he was his old self in '45.

"Of all the bars, you come into mine?"

[ofwovenstone]

At his wave, at his calling her name something eases in her chest. He knows her. He remembers his time here. Exhaling in relief, Cassandra wastes no time in crossing the distance between them, her grin lighting up the room.

Oh. She knows that quote! Thanks to her time in the City. She huffs a soft laugh at it, torn between giving him a hug and not wanting to make him uncomfortable. It’s enough that he’s HERE, that he knows her. “Yes I do,” she retorts, teasing. “And I am very glad to see you.”

[ostavil]

"I'm glad to see you," Bucky says, emphasis on the 'you.' Seeing people he knows and is comfortable with makes him think this place is less of a trick. It could still be one, sure, but he doesn't think it is when it lets him have friends and know people instead of nameless, faceless drones.

"You been doing all right since I was here last time?" he asks, wanting to know just how much things have changed since he left and come back. He doesn't know how time passes, exactly, and wants to get a gauge for it. How better to do that than to talk to someone he knows?

[ofwovenstone]

That he’s as glad to see her as she is to see him means the world to her. It’s not something Cassandra’s used to, although she’s slowly getting better about it. More accustomed. Usually she’s just her brother’s sister, not truly wanted or needed around. Only since she left Whitestone has that changed.

“All right enough,” she replies. She always is. Even when she isn’t. “There was an odd... occurrence a few months ago. But other than that, it’s been pretty much the same.”

[ostavil]

"Odd? What kind of odd?"

Bucky's life has become a series of odd occurrences, considering the crowd he runs with and the fact that Earth has become a hotbed for other civilizations to just invade. Still, he doesn't know what odd in Gazin would count as and he's eager to hear Cassandra's answer. Is it something he or Steve could have helped?