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RP Date: 2026-10-24

Participants: Marw, Rory

This archive was published after approval by all listed participants.

Roleplay

Rory treads slowly up the stairs into the station from the platform outside.  His footfalls are heavy and deliberate, and the door creaks loudly on its long-rusted hinges as he enters the interior.  Despite the peekaboo sunlight outside, it doesn't really take his eyes but a moment to adjust to the dimmer light coming in through the busted windows.

Marw has been here for a little while already. Long enough to spend a few moments staring (or perhaps glaring would be more apt) at the hourglass symbol hanging on the banner inside the station. How many does that make now? After a pause, she takes out her notebook and adds it to the growing list, then returns to the actual reason she has come. Her coat hangs from one of the hooks along the wall, presumably once meant for travellers passing through this place when people were still free to come and go... If they ever were. Grimwych has a habit of making even the idea of freedom here feel suspicious and artificial, as though it might simply be another illusion the place has allowed them to believe in. The abandoned luggage has been arranged across the station floor in a neat rowby herself, case after case lined up with methodical precision. Those easy to open have already been searched. Others remain stubbornly locked. A few useful or particularly interesting finds have been set aside to take back to the reservoir, though the contents themselves are less curious than what is missing. No names, initials, addresses, documents, tickets, anything at all that might suggest who these belongings once belonged to. None of that, One case, however, has held her attention longer than the others. The leather is unusually fine, aged but well made, the sort of thing that once belonged to someone with either money or a particular appreciation for quality. Naturally and annoyingly, it is locked. Marw carries it over to the old ticket counter and sets it down with a dull thump against the wood. Then she moves behind the counter and begins opening drawers one after another, rifling through the forgotten remnants of the station in search. However on hearing footsteps, her search stops and blue eyes dart to the entrance. Once Rory reveals herself, she taps the suitcase and asks "Do you know how to pick locks?" No hello then.

Rory stands in the shadow of the  doorway and just watches Marw with expressionless eyes as she goes about her work.  His dark hair hangs messily in his face and around his shoulders, and his hands are in the pockets of his necessary brown coat, for today isn't exactly warm.  He moves with slow and deliberate care around the room, looking for anything that might be useful or interesting to him.  There are still locked cabinets, and then his eyes find the hourglass banner. "Missed the train, eh?"  He smiles halfheartedly, momentarily immersing himself in something as normal and absurd as missing trains.  It feels like a million years since he rode one, but has it really been so long?  "Yeah, I know how to pick them.  What's in it for me?"

Marw opens another drawer and, after a brief rummage, finds a paperclip. She stares at it, there is very little hope in that stare. But who knows? She bends the thin metal out into something resembling a straight line, studying the result with the dubious expression of someone already disappointed by an object before it has even had the opportunity to fail her. "Absolutely nothing in it for you," she says, with complete bare honesty. "But it would make this encounter between you and I far less awkward than you simply standing there, achieving nothing in life." Her eyes lift from the paperclip to Rory. A slow, deliberate assessment follows, travelling up and then down before she returns her attention to the bit of metal between her fingers. "But I suspect that is nothing new for you." She does not mention that she has only a vague understanding of what a train probably is. There are enough clues scattered about the station to suggest some form of transport, certainly, but beyond that?to be honest she does not care. Marw returns to the suitcase, pushing the straightened paperclip into it before twisting experimentally one way, then the other. But nothing. Books always make this sort of thing sound considerably easier. A frustrated sigh escapes her as she withdraws the paperclip, moving back behind the counter to continue searching through the drawers. Halfway there, however, her gaze drifts towards the station window. She pauses, glances to the suitcase, then back to the window and seems to be giving serious consideration to the possibility that throwing the entire case through the glass might be a perfectly reasonable method of opening it.

Rory stares at Marw as her words hang in the air. "I like you," he replies at length with a laugh that quickly dies when she continues with her assessment of his character.  Hands in his pockets, he observes her, allowing the words the roll off his shoulders like rain off of one of those old statues. "Maybe not.  Give it here."  He holds out his hand for the suitcase. 

Marw presses one hand to her chest as though he has just loosed an arrow clean through her ribs and into her heart. A tap of plum painted nails against her matching satin blouse. "Oh no," she says flatly. "How will I ever survive?" There is not the slightest change in her dry tone. Perhaps they will not end the day as friends. That is what any betting man would pick. Still, if they manage to get the suitcase open between them, perhaps that can count as achievement enough. She takes hold of the handle and drags the case from the counter. The movement sends a small cloud of dust billowing up from the long neglected surface, catching briefly in the sunlight that filters through the windows of the station, taking awhile for it to settle again. Without ceremony, Marw marches the suitcase over to the wizard and holds it out for him to take. "Marw Foxx." Apparently, that is her introduction.

Rory takes the suitcase and sets it down on the nearest bench, scattering away another cloud of dust into the air, which makes him sneeze.  He retrieves a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes at his nose before stuffing it away. "Bloody allergies," he mutters.  "My mum never called me an overachiever.  Let's see." He pats the side of the case, doing his best to gauge its contents before retrieving first a set of small tools.  It takes him a minute, but he appears to know what he's doing. "My last girlfriend used to always forget her keys.  I got good at it."  A pause. "Name's Rory."

Marw leaves him to it and settles herself onto the opposite end of the bench, one leg crossing neatly over the other, an elbow settling along the backrest as though she is simply waiting for the next train to arrive. It may, admittedly, be permanently delayed, hopefully Rory proves more efficient than the railway. Her attention remains loosely upon his hands and the little tools working at the lock until the mention of his mother catches somewhere it ought not to. For only a moment, her gaze drifts from the suitcase. She finds herself wondering what sort of mother she was. But just as quick as the thought came, she rejects it. Marw's fingers curl once against the back of the bench. Adamina's reaction had already told her enough. There are things she knows without needing memories, things settled somewhere deeper, lodged stubbornly in the bones. Whatever woman she had been before Grimwych, mother, wife, grandmother, whatever else might eventually crawl out of the dark, Marw has no particular desire to let that define her now. Her eyes return to Rory's hands at the lock, expression smoothing over as easily as though the thought had never occurred. "Do you think," she asks after a moment, almost conversationally, while she waits to see if he is successful, "when they open the portal, they will take people back to their homes?"

Rory 's expression is one of deep and intense concentration, thought he is not unaware of Marw.  He is aware of her the way a semi-socialized animal is aware of the presence of humans that they have not determined to be nonthreatening.  He twists one of the tools, feels something give, and shrugs his shoulders a bit. "Could one portal take people back to several different worlds?" He counters the question with a question. "How would the person doing the killing know where everyone needed to go to open it properly?"

Marw watches the tool turn in his hand, eyes narrowing slightly at the small give in the lock before they lift to Rory. "Magic is finicky. Perhaps it does not need to know." She gestures towards the suitcase with two fingers. "You do not know what is inside that case. You do not know who packed it, where they intended to take it, or whether there is anything in there worth finding at all." A small tilt of her head. "And yet you can still open it." Her gaze drops back to the lock. "The mechanism does not require you to understand what lies beyond it. Only that the correct conditions are met." There is a brief pause as she considers the thought further, thumb brushing absently against the side of one plum-painted nail. "Perhaps the portals work the same way. It may not matter who opens them, or what they expect to find on the other side. Perhaps they are simply doors." Her eyes return to him. "Doors generally are less interested in intention than people like to imagine." Another glance towards the suitcase. "If the lock opens, it opens. What is inside has been there all along."

Rory continues to work. "Are you theorizing that the door will go to the same place no matter who holds the knife?" he questions idly. "Because if that's true, then someone is going to be very disappointed when all they have out of the endeavor is bloody hands and a guilty conscience."  He pockets his little array of small objects and opens the case to see what's inside. "Traps work the same way.  They might be set for one thing in particular, but will snare whatever springs them."  He hadn't really paid the argument  between Morgane and Axe-Girl a lot of attention; he'd been a naysayer as soon as violence was on the table, but maybe there was something to it. "The person trying to get there has to know exactly where they want to go, otherwise it becomes very messy very quickly." 

Marw watches the case open, though her attention remains more firmly on Rory than whatever might be waiting inside it. "And how, exactly, do you know what will and will not work in this world?" Though words could be deemed as sharp, there is an underlying curiosity to them. "You are assuming the portal behaves like a journey. That it requires a destination to be chosen, understood and aimed for." Her fingers move toward the open suitcase. "I am saying we do not yet know whether it behaves like a journey at all." Her gaze shifts briefly around the abandoned station before returning to him. "For all we know, it leads to one fixed place. Or several. Perhaps it chooses for us. Perhaps the person opening it determines the destination. Perhaps the person being killed does." A lift of one shoulder. "Perhaps none of those things matter." Then a sigh as she adds "Your trap comparison could be argued to support my point. A trap does not care whether the rabbit understands it. It does not care whether the hunter knows precisely what it will catch. The mechanism is triggered, and then whatever follows, follows." Her eyes settle on him. "Don't make the assumption that if you understand how magic behaved wherever you came from, it must behave the same way here." Then she pauses. "As for bloody hands and guilty consciences?" Her mouth twitches, though it does not quite become a smile. "That is why I would prefer to establish as much as possible before somebody becomes enthusiastic with a knife. But sometimes the only way to rule something out is to do it." Her attention fully falls upon the open case, she rises from the bench. She makes a small, dismissive shooing motion at Rory with one hand, as though his role in proceedings has now concluded. "Move." She steps beside him and reaches for the lid. "My case."

Rory opens the case wide to get a good look at its contents. "I understand how magic works <i>at all</i>, which is a step ahead of most of you lot."  She's got his aching brain working, and he isn't sure whether to curse or thank her.  It's easier to function with something to think about, easier to block out the sensory overwhelm that is increasing daily like the heat of the frog's water pan. "Could be one or the other.  I'm not killing, opening or going, so I'll leave the speculaton to those who are."  He rifles through what is apparent, mostly in search of alcohol, or a bottle of Coke or something.

Marw gives him a sideways look as she begins rifling through the contents properly, moving folded clothing aside with considerably more interest than she had shown in his claim to magical expertise. "You may understand how magic works somewhere," she coldly corrects. "I will grant you that much." That is the maximum amount of professional recognition he is receiving today. "Choosing not to participate does not make the speculation irrelevant. However, what did you do that means going home is not a favourable option for you?" Her hand disappears beneath a folded pair of trousers and emerges with a black men's shirt. She unfolds it, gives it a brief inspection, then holds it up against Rory at arm's length, gaze travelling between the garment and the wizard with the concentration of someone making a very serious assessment. "You need this." There is no question attached to the statement. She holds it out to him to take. "I hope you know how to iron." She returns to the suitcase and continues digging, uncovering a couple packet of cigarettes. Both are slipped into her own coat pocket. "My case," she reminds him, in case he objects. She moves another item aside, but her attention has already wandered elsewhere. Her eyes settle upon the familiar hourglass marked within the station. Without looking up from the suitcase, she points towards it. "That symbol. Have you seen it anywhere else? And in all your vast magical expertise, what does it mean for this place?"

Rory smiles at Marw. "You say it's yours, but I opened it and I'm holding it.  There's an expression in my world about position being 9/10 of the law. Fortunately, for you, there is no law here." He glances at the shirt and tricks his head and politedrcline. "I can dress myself."  He says nothing about the pocketed cigarettes.;  she doesn't seem like the type to share and potentially create competition.  His fingers touch glass auntie grabs for it only to come up with a small bottle of cologne, which smells absolutely atrocious to his hypersensitive nose. "I worked a low wage manual labor job and then went home to a flat that I could barely afford.  It's not really any different from being here so why not just stay here?  Place could use improvement.  Someone will need to warn the next group of people that come through."

Rory says to Marw, "I've seen it all over the place."

Marw watches him decline the shirt, expression unmoved. She drapes it neatly over the back of the bench instead. "You maybe able to dress yourself," she mutters. "But not well." With that settled, she returns to the suitcase. Her fingers find a small black velvet box tucked between two pieces of clothing. She lifts it out, turns it once in her hand, then flips the lid open. Inside rests a fine gold chain with a small circle pendant set with diamonds. Marw studies it for a moment. Then snaps the box shut and holds it out in a silent offer to Rory. Her attention is already elsewhere. A make-up bag comes next. That earns considerably more interest. She unzips it and inspects the contents: two new eyeliners, mascara, a few other little remnants of whoever once owned the case. The useful pieces disappear promptly into her growing collection without discussion. His answer about staying, is then addressed "Someone will need to warn the next group," she repeats thoughtfully. Her hands slow inside the suitcase. Marw looks around the station then, not at Rory but at the dust, the abandoned luggage, the empty benches and tracks waiting for trains that seemingly never come. "Do you not think someone before us might have thought exactly the same thing? You are now one of three people here that I am aware of that are considering the same thing. Therefore it is not a unique plan." Her blue gaze returns to him. "If there were people here before, one of them must have decided to stay?" She lets that sit with him for a moment. "So where are they?"

Rory pockets the pendant because he likes the look of it;  it is certainly fine her jewelry than anything he has ever owned.  He doesn't dispute Marw. "I translated the journal on my own.  I got the book from Morgane, copied the text onto one of my own pieces of paper and then translated it to English.  French is a language from my world, but she doesn't look or act like someone from my world.  Too theatrical.  It also begs the question that if all of them were just hanging around until they figured out a way out why is that book at the only thing of any value that we found?  That and maybe the haunted post office but now that I've got the code figured out those little papers have some interesting things to say."  He looks around slowly now that he has given up all pretense of looking for booze. "Has it occurred to you that we are looking in the wrong direction with the whole Stone thing?  This was a way to somewhere at some point. you don't build tracks to nowhere.  Maybe it still is."

Marw considers that as she abruptly flips the suitcase shut. She crosses the room to her previously laid out row of luggage and selects another locked case. It is marched back over and sey squarely on top of the first. A pointed glance to the lock on this and then Rory again. "The language we are speaking now. What world is that from?" Her head tilts. "You would say yours, I would say mine... So French existing in your world does not mean that it may not also be shared with others. Therefore does not prove Morgane, or whoever wrote the journal, came from your world or time." Her gaze shifts toward the window and the tracks laid out. "It is worth exploring." A reluctant concession. "But we have limited people, limited resources, and winter approaching. If we chase every possibility at once, we could easily starve to death." She walks behind the bench the suitcases are on, hands resting on the back as she leans against it. "And Morgane has placed herself in a very delicate position. She revealed the journal and attached herself to the idea that someone may need to die.Think it out Rory. What happens to her if nothing happens?" A brow lifts. "So either she is extraordinarily reckless, or she genuinely believes or knows something will happen. Perhaps not a portal." Her eyes drop pointedly to the second suitcase. "Belief is not proof, of course."

Rory scratches the side of his neck a bit. "She was awfully quick to put government and sacrifice in the same vote, and then move the matter along." Something nags at him, a niggling in the back of his mind something about the situation that doesn't set quite right. "She's very quick to panic, and very quick to spread that panic to others."  He scratches a bit more. "Has Lucian told you about this mala cosa business?  I've also translated the Morse code papers from the post office and it might just be a haunted enchanted machine, but they do say some interesting things. Do not trust her., and do not unbury what sleeps beneath the stone circle. It could just be a trick to keep us busy or maybe a board ghost or a red herring but I'm going to look into that further later." He starts picking the second lock. "Hourglasses usually stand for time but a finite amount of time. Why an hourglass is not a clock or a sundial or something.  There's one on the banner here there's one on the flag of the shipwreck that matches your nails varnish, the lake is an hourglass. There's some of the shrine."

Marw gives Rory a little more room with the suitcase, dipping her head in acknowledgement. "Mr Corvo has briefly told me about his Mala Cosa." The mention of the little papers catches her interest more immediately, one brow arching. "You can translate those? Do you have a guide?" Then her attention drifts back towards the hourglass. Marw turns on her heel to face the banner properly, boots giving a dull thud against the station floor as she crosses towards it. She stops not too far in front of it, arms folding across her chest, chin tipping upward while she studies the symbol as though staring at it for long enough might eventually force it to explain itself. "A clock would be too controlled. People invented clocks. We decided what a second is, how many make a minute, how many minutes make an hour. We could all wake up tomorrow and collectively decide a minute should be a hundred seconds instead and simply redo the maths." A faint shake of her head, happy with her decision on that whether it be right or wrong. "Too precise. Too much control." Her gaze remains fixed upon the banner. "A sundial is different. Dependent upon daylight, sun, nature deciding whether we can measure anything at all. But this..." One hand lifts vaguely towards the banner. "Annoyingly less precise. You can see time disappearing, but unless you already know the glass, you cannot say exactly how much remains. Yours might empty faster than mine, mine might hold twice the sand." Her hand drops again. "Death. Rebirth. Time running out. Turn it over and it begins again. Momento Mori." An incline of her head in a nod. Only then does she glance back over her shoulder towards Rory. "So." A brow rises. "Still planning to stay?"

Rory has to pause in his lockpicking of the second case to scratch at the side of his neck again, grimacing at the fury of its itching. "Memento Mori.  That's Latin, in my world.  Remember, you must die.  Latin was a lot more romantic than English.  You find that written down somewhere, or did you romance someone with it?"  His face wears the shadow of a smile, the good-humored kind that softens some of his features.  He is listening to her; what she says makes sense. Everything she says makes sense, and there's the matter of that plum nail varnish, the plum flag on the shipwreck.  The purple in all the banners.  Purple, the color of royalty.  His neck itches more and he scratches at it, the old scars reddening with the irritation of his skin only to fade away almost immediately once he quits. "You can't move the clock or change what the sundial says, but if you find the hourglass, you can flip it over, yeah?    It works both ways." He holds out his right wrist, upon which is a pretty nice watch on a scuffed leather band, that is running backwards.  He doesn't like it; it reminds him of that old movie, The Wizard of Oz, and the green old witch's hourglass.  The old hag could have just taken the shoes off the girl, but she'd left her there to watch time slip away and worry about it.  Was that the point of this? Torment?  So they could watch time slip away until they all died like a bunch of ants under a magnifying glass?  He resumes working on the lockpicking, preferring the movement of his hands to the racing of his thoughts. "Might as well."

Rory says to Marw, "Yeah, I have a guide."

Marw gives him a flat look at the suggestion she may have used the phrase romantically. ?Death threats are my preferred method of seduction, yes.? Her tone matched her expression. Onto something considerably less personal. ?Latin, then. From your world.? A small gesture between them. ?Yet I know the phrase. Which rather supports my argument. If Latin can cross worlds, there is no reason French cannot.? Her gaze drops to the backwards-running watch when he holds it out, and a small frown before returning to the hourglass. ?You make a fair point.? Reluctant but granted. She becomes distracted as that thought seems to have dislodged something. As Rory opens the suitcase, she approaches the man. Ready to claim whatever she deemed useful to her. In the suitcase however was nothing?.or very close. Inside sits a single black box, positioned neatly in the centre of an otherwise empty case. A gift label upon it, finally a name?..the label however says ?Rory.?. The Foxx goes still, eyes narrow as she glances to the man, back to the box and then to him again. ?Well?? she says but there is no immediate logic to apply to this. She lifts a hand to just place between him and the suitcase, to buy herself time to think over it before he reaches it. ?I am going to allow you time with this alone. Sometimes what is inside can be very personal.? After all, she had received poisonous flowers and wedding rings, both threatening. She moves her hand to just pat his shoulder as if wishing him all the best. Then she moves to the pile of belongings she had deemed as hers, one hand neatly on top, the other on the bottom. ?Good luck Rory.? She collects her coat and then departs. Inside the box would be a single narrow strip of paper that says ? ..-. .. -. -.. / - .... . / .... --- ..- .-. --. .-.. .- ... ... ?