xp_logs | Skeleton Coast: Ten Years Later

Wednesday. They arrive in Khorixas, following Esther's map, and find the traveler's lodge where Gideon's men recaptured Domino after her brief escape. Then they find out that Gideon expected them to find this spot. A little later, Nathan finds out why.

The traveler's lodge just outside Khorixas that matched the precise location of the mark on the map was tiny, weatherbeaten and seeming almost a part of the stony landscape here at the foot of the mountains. They had been greeted almost immediately upon their arrival by the couple who ran the lodge, who were acting oddly delighted to see this group of four strangers. Not in the traditional 'let us share our hospitality' sort of way, but delight with a strange edge, almost of vindication.

"It has been longer," the man said in heavily accented, but passable English to Alison. "Late? You are late. It has been days."

The woman had already hustled Pete and Cain in, saying something about food, but Nathan heard the man's words to Alison and paused, frowning. "Late?" he asked, eyeing the man suspiciously but then hesitating, looking at Alison. It had been her he'd spoken to, after all.

Alison raised both eyebrows in mild surprise, though it was hardly a shock, truth be told, considering the trail they'd been following... "Well, unfortunately no one let us know what the time frame was," she offered, with an apologetic smile, making no move to walk away to follow Cain and Pete. Instead, she settled in place as one who expected to have a light chat with one's hosts might, a pleasant expression on her face. "Is there anything in particular you feel we should know about?"

"He said others would follow soon. To look for the girl," the man said, then sighed. "A bad business," he proclaimed, shaking his head. "So young to be mixed up with such dangerous people."

Nathan was coming closer, as if unable to help. "The girl was white?"

"White, yes. Dark hair but very pale. They carried her out of here. They fought in my office!"

Somehow, that made perfect sense. "Well," was all Alison could say for a moment, trying to connect the dots without saying something more snarky than helpful. Snarky would not be good and being tired was no excuse. She could be as snarky as she wanted once they found Domino. Preferably at Domino at that. "How was she when they left with her?" That the hosts had been left unharmed was clear, at least.

"They carried her out," the man repeated, sounding distressed. "Out and to their car. She did not wake."

Nathan winced visibly, looking back over his shoulder to make sure that Pete was safely inside and hadn't heard that. "How many?"

"Two. Then he came the next day, to tell us to expect you. But you are later than he said."

Nathan brushed the man's thoughts, just for a moment. Enough to see Gideon's face in his memories. #Gideon came the next day,# he sent to Alison. #He knew we were coming. The map. It's got to be a fake. A trap. It's not as if I would know what my mother's handwriting looks like.#The twenty-four hours he'd had to assimilate the idea that his mother had somehow managed to leave them directions had not been nearly enough to wrap his mind around the idea. He was still in denial. Or something.

There hadn't been much option but to follow them, though. Even if it was yet another trick of Gideon's, it was part of the game. They had to play it through, right until the moment when they stopped playing and made him pay for screwing with them like this.

Alison nodded gravely at the man, saying something or other about being glad he and his wife were all right, and that they'd be doing their best to find the "young woman" as soon as possible while not hissing over the fact that her silver hair apparently excluded her from that category or something. Hiss.

#Maybe, maybe not,# she responded to Nathan. #He got the timing wrong - I don't think that's just a small detail.#

#Maybe.# But then, how had Gideon known when they would arrive? This was confusing. Too confusing. Nathan extended to Alison the other memory he'd gleaned from the man's mind, a bruised and unconscious Domino being carried from the house in the arms of a shaven-headed man who looked somewhat the worse for wear himself. #At least we know she was here.# He wasn't going to share that one with Pete, needless to say.

A mental snicker answered that, Alison unable to repress that thought. #Beaten man seen exiting building. Sign on wall saying 'Domino was here!' found later. ...waaait. Think she might have left something in the office, hoping someone'd hear about her having escaped and would retrace her steps?# She turned to the owner, asking him permission to see his office, if it wasn't too much trouble.

Nathan turned to follow her. Wishing he could let himself hope.

---

The couple had insisted they stay for dinner before they got back on the road, but Nathan hadn't been hungry. He'd stayed at the table for long enough to avoid insult, and then excused himself. It was beautiful out here, he thought bleakly, staring at the sunset. The sun had just slipped behind the mountains, and the colors of the sky were close to astonishing.

He heard a familiar heavy footfall behind him. "If only she'd been able to make that phone call," Nathan said, not looking around at Cain. "Even if Clarice or Illyana hadn't been right to hand, I could have gotten here fairly quickly... and now we're days behind."

"Ain't like she's some wilting hothouse flower," Cain remarked, sipping the cup of cheap instant coffee he'd been offered. "Bet you he knows that, too. Stick him in a room alone with her? I'll bet ain't no luck in the world would keep him from getting his fool neck snapped."

"We can always hope." The image of Domino killing Gideon was... actually, pretty damned appealing. "I can't imagine he hasn't taken precautions, though. And I hate to think of what he might be able to do with her power." Nathan finally looked around at Cain, his bleak expression not altering. "She's never been able to use it consciously," he said. "Moira could never figure out why. Some type of block, maybe, from all the stuff she went through as a kid. But if Gideon synchs to it, and can... Dom's fundamentally a reality-warper."

"So's Chuck, so are you, when you get down to it," Cain said, crouching down by Nathan to watch the clouds change color. "You can screw with how people think. What's more real than what your own brain tells you, huh?" He shrugged. "From what I recall, he can't do more than one power at a time, and he can't work his whammy on me at all." He paused, realizing he'd finally said that out loud in front of someone that wasn't Moira. "So between me, you, Alison, and Pete? Lucky or not, we can kill the fucker."

"I told Haroun, months ago, that I didn't want it to come to that," Nathan said, staring blindly back at the sunset. "That I figured it was playing his game. To want to do that. I'd be what he wanted me to be, if I threw away everything I've learned over the last couple of years."

But that had been before.

"I couldn't sleep last night." His voice was tight, overcontrolled, none of the terror escaping. "Woke up from dreaming about walking into a room in that house back in Windhoek and finding her, like I found Aliya and Tyler... I want him dead, Cain." The tremor was there in his voice suddenly, but gone again almost as quickly as it had come. "I want him dead before he takes anyone else from me."

The big man shrugged, crushing the styrofoam cup in his hand and flicking it absently off the cliff. "Shit, I just want him dead because he threw a bus at me."

Nathan glanced at him, taken aback for a moment, and then surprised himself with a laugh - tired-sounding, far too tense, but with some real amusement behind it. "Tit for tat, maybe, when we track him down? I can pin him down, and you can grab the nearest handy heavy vehicle and turn him into a thin red paste. The image appeals."

Before Cain could make any response to that, there was a hesitant noise, the clearing of a throat from behind them. "Nathan?" The voice was hesitant and heavily accented - the 'woman of the house', Nathan knew even before he looked around at him. "You are," she said awkwardly, coming out to join them. "Your name is that. Nathan."

"Yes," Nathan said with a slight frown. He hadn't introduced himself -Alison had been doing most of the talking, earlier - but she could have heard one of the others use his name. "You're... Ndapewa." He stumbled a bit over the name. African languages had never been his strength.

"Yes," she said, looking a bit warily at Cain before turning her attention back to Nathan. "She told me that you would come. After the girl with her... strange eyes."

For a moment, Nathan, confused, thought that she meant Domino had suggested that someone was liable to come after her. Which would have made sense, of course... but no, that wasn't what she'd meant. "Who? Who told you?" he asked, more gently.

"Nine...ten years ago. When she came. She said that you would follow. She did not tell me what would happen to the girl," Ndapewa insisted, "or I would have warned her. I swear!"

Nathan stared at her, not quite comprehending. "Who?" he repeated.

Ndapewa bit her lip for a more. "Esther," she finally said, pronouncing the name carefully. "Your mother."

Cain's eyes bugged as he did a double take. "His what now?"

"She was here?" Nathan asked, his eyes widening as Ndapewa nodded. "But she..." His voice deserted him, his mouth hanging open as the pieces started to come together. Of course. Of course. How else could she have left the map?

"Fuck me," he whispered in an uncanny echo of his words back in Windhoek, speaking almost to himself more than to Cain or Ndapewa. "She was precognitive too."

Whistling through his teeth, Cain sat back down, rocking on his heels. "Well, don't that beat all," he said, throwing a rock out over the cliff. "You think your mom could have left us a big sign saying 'X marks the spot to drop can of whoopass on asshole uncle. Sandwiches in fridge.'?"

"Of course," Nathan said dazedly, not really hearing Cain. "How else would she have known to send us here?" Yet another kick in the ass to his worldview. He was really getting more or less accustomed to them. Or should be, at least.

Ten years ago. Had she left the map in Windhoek ten years ago?

Had she died when her death certificate claimed? Nathan reeled physically, this time, just a little, but enough for Ndapewa to reach out and touch his arm, hesitantly.

"She said... be careful. And that she loved you. And to remember..." Ndapewa's brow furrowed, as if trying to call the words back up. "To remember the lights in the north." She drew her hand back, as if embarassed, and then turned to head back inside.

Even with his thoughts still spinning, trying to fit this new information into the bigger picture, Nathan sensed Cain's question coming before he asked it. "It's something I remember," he said, his voice low and hoarse. "Maybe a real memory. A good memory. The two of us sitting on the front steps, watching the aurora."

Cain shook his head dismissively. "You said your uncle messed up your brain all sorts of good when you were a kid. May be a trick. Can't really tell, can you?"

"No, I can't." Nathan swallowed, taking a deep breath and stepping hard on the confusion. Harder still on the hope. No more wishful thinking. "Let's go back inside," he said in a more neutral voice. "We need to tell the other two. At the very least this gives us a little more to go on when it comes to that map."