(online, posted in Seeking at about 2AM on day 1)

[bitofafiction]

Any unattached Weapon who would like a general note of permission and no obligation to fight may apply to Sherlock Holmes. I won't bother you about battles unless you volunteer. You can usually find me hanging around the White dorm playing the violin.

Comments

[Action]

[ergaleomancer]

[[Hello, dorm mate. This person who appears female has spotted your violin case, and she's giving it a quizzical look. She appears female, but her body language is masculine. She's paired the uniform trousers with tall, buckled leather boots (presumably from home). Her trousers are cut to bell out around the knees before tucking into her boots, and she leans heavily on a cane as she moves, babying a weak left side. She wears brass glasses with lots of magnifying glasses on swinging arms, currently all flipped away from her face.]]

[bitofafiction]

[Sherlock glances up and studies her for a moment as he sits down in a chair by the window.

Then he ignores her in favour of taking out the violin and starting to play.]

[ergaleomancer]

[[Theta settles in a nearby chair, not even trying to hide that she's staring. The music is...utterly unlike anything she's ever heard before. She'd not even thought anyone would try to play a violin solo with a song so smooth. Eventually she stops staring, but only so she can close her eyes and sway her head with the music. It feels incomplete, compared to the music of her home, but nonetheless it has a soothing, calm feel to it, and she appreciates it for what it is.]]

[[Her trouserleg on the left side falls strangely, like there's a bulky box around her knee under her trousers. It would be a fair guess that the odd cut to her trousers is to disguise whatever's under there.]]

[bitofafiction]

[When the song trails off, instead of starting on another, he speaks.]

What year is it for you?

[ergaleomancer]

[[She's still not used to the idea that people are from different years, Sherlock, go easy on her.]]

Two thousand ten, of course. ...Isn't it the same in all of the world? I know for a fact it would be the same in all of the Empire...have you been in one of the colonies before you came here?

[[Assumptions, Theta makes many of them, quickly. First, that he is completely English, second, that the odd notes in his accent are from travelling within the British Empire (because where else would an Englishman want to go), and third, that he's from the same world as her, because so far she hasn't gotten clued in on the flaws in that theory yet.]]

[bitofafiction]

I've had the opportunity to analyze the population of this place, and the data support this conclusion: many of the people here come from alternate realities, some wildly different from the rest, and often from different points in history within those realities.

[Now that they are having a reasonably interesting conversation, he goes so far as to set the violin back in its case.]

For example, in the world I call home, the year is two thousand and eight and there is no relevant Empire to which I might belong.

[ergaleomancer]

[[Oh. Oh Theta likes him. He speaks her language. She sits forward in her chair a bit, her gaze fixed intently on him now instead of just mildly interested.]]

Alternate realities and punctures in the flow of time? Oh now that's interesting... And you're from two years in the past...but there's no British Empire? What about Her Majesty? It...is still Queen Victoria on the throne, isn't it? Or are realities truly that different?

[[Then again she had briefly glanced someone with grey skin and horns on the tram, hadn't she?]]

[bitofafiction]

Victoria ruled England from 1837 until 1901; the current monarch is Elizabeth II. The British Empire has become rather less imperial in recent years.

[ergaleomancer]

1901? What happened in 1901? [[She seems confused by the very idea that something could happen to Victoria.]]

[bitofafiction]

[Fascinating.]

She passed away. Old age, I believe.

[ergaleomancer]

...They didn't keep replacing things as they wore out?

[bitofafiction]

No. Medical technology has not advanced to the point where such indefinite rotations are possible even a century later. [He does nothing so obvious as glance at her knee.]

[ergaleomancer]

[[Theta wanted desperately to say something about that., but suddenly she felt a fog creeping in through her thoughts. She tried to fight it, but her expression grew grim, then outright frightened as she found herself flailing through a great blank space in her mind.]]

I... I... My head hurts... [[She takes a deep breath, trying to will it away.]]

[bitofafiction]

That happens.

[He runs his fingers down the row of six Memory Charms on his left wrist.]

I expect you have hit the boundary of a missing memory, likely having to do with the mechanism of Her Majesty's extended lifespan.

[ergaleomancer]

[[She sighs, shaking her head.]]

That...would make sense, I suppose. Of all the memories to take, though. I still remember that I'm an ergaleomancer, even if I don't have my tools here... Wouldn't that have been more effective of a memory to take?

[[Then again, she feels a bit of fog. Not nearly as powerful, but there's something else missing there, and she frowns deeply.]]

[bitofafiction]

From me, they took mostly pieces of my childhood. Names, faces. Inconsequential in practical terms. [He shrugs.] That, and the memory of what it is like to play the violin. I can only recapture the sensation while I am playing.

[ergaleomancer]

That's...a bit ridiculous. I suppose if you're sentimental it would be distressing, though... [[That's a bit disjointed there. Discrete enough that a normal person might miss it, but...it seems to take some doing to think about people who might feel differently to herself. She can accept it, but there's no empathy there.]]

[[She shakes her head and sighs.]]

I am loathe to find out what else is missing of mine. Better to find out as I have them returned and let it be a surprise, otherwise I'm liable to worry.

[bitofafiction]

I've identified all but one of mine, and regained six of them.

[understatement of the century] I prefer to know.

[ergaleomancer]

If they're important to me, I'm sure I'll run face first into that 'haze' again. [[She's a bit frightened of it, but trying hard to ignore that. Better to change the subject.]]

So how long have you played the violin? That music was beautiful, if utterly strange.

[bitofafiction]

[slight smile] It's an adaptation of something meant for a very different set of instruments.

I learned to play three years ago.

[ergaleomancer]

I've never heard anything like it, I couldn't even imagine it on other instruments. [[She smiles cheerily, though, curious rather than disapproving.]]

I can play a song on the piano, but generally I listen to music on the family cylinder player at home.

[bitofafiction]

The library might have a recording of the original on hand. I can check, if you'd like.

[ergaleomancer]

Oh, you don't have to. [[But she'd really like it if he would, and she doesn't bother hiding that fact.]]

I wonder if the library would have anything from my home...dimension.

[formerly_known_as_prince]

You're a Player this time, Sherlock?

[bitofafiction]

Yes.

Are you in need of one?