Genesis - Part One
Sep. 7th, 2024 04:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsA routine shift at the Wormhole suddenly becomes much more interesting.
“Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.”- William Shakespeare, Macbeth
***
"Your Highness! Might I offer you a drink on this long and lonely watch?"
This intrusion – one, the figure of Marius Laverne as an unusual guest in the chapel basement, and two, the person of Marius Laverne as an unwelcome figure anywhere near the Atlantean currently on monitoring duty in the aforementioned heart of all things Excalibur– prompted several responses. Namor, who had been content with his reading, slowly looked up with the particular expression of someone attempting to momentarily bend the universe around his will. More practically, the man also fluidly set aside his reading to fetch up a clipboard despite the sleek affordance of monitors available.
"No," Namor said, as if he could simply will Marius to do them both a favor and expire on the spot, "You can, however, give me the time."
"Ah, what is time but an illusion? I come with gifts of far more substance." The X-Man had not come before the ruler of Atlantis empty-handed, and it was these offerings he now flourished. It was a tray bearing a small ceramic tea set and what appeared to be a small bowl of sugar.
The King of the Jeweled Throne sighed and searched for the nearest interface with a clock before precisely drafting a note. "Let it be known that we need to double check security measures for the wormhole." He tapped the pen. "If you could, describe how you breached our defenses. I only make thorough notes."
Alas, even Namor's apathy could not penetrate Marius' weaponized extroversion. The X-Man beamed. "Through the power of polite request, of course. When I explained the importance of my endeavor Molly acceded to allow entry on the condition I touch nothing. No worries, I have been duly briefed on protocol -- she was owed a few replacement drone parts for my little misadventure in January, and it made for quite interesting conversation whilst I accompanied her in the spending of my money."
Namor did not remove his eyes from Marius as he made some more notes. When appropriate bureaucracy was achieved, however, he let himself break only a fraction. "Molly Hayes," he made an involuntary noise that was more snarl than laugh, "strange, I did not anticipate she would forgive so easily."
The Atlantean did, however, stand and make his way over to confiscate the proffered ceramic-ware. He poked at the contents like a threat, revealing a kelp derived tea matched with what turned out to be salt and not sugar. The expression on his face proved that the briny smell of it passed an initial sniff test.
"Ah, we got to know each other a bit whilst fugitives in a mutant apartheid state, though I confess I've always found this lot to be strangely forgiving of my little transgressions. Fortunate for me, though possibly unwise of them. At any rate," the Australian flashed teeth, "what we have before us is konbucha. You see, in Japanese 'cha' is tea, and 'konbu' is kelp. It is not to be mistaken for kombucha, which is a fermented beverage that I understand the Japanese refer to as kōcha kinoko, or black mushroom tea-" Marius noticed the expression on Namor's face and smoothly curtailed his cocktail party smalltalk. "-which is unimportant. At any rate, I was looking to restock on Jamaican Blue when I came upon this. I can only speculate upon the standard Atlantean diet, but algal seaweeds are commonly consumed in East Asia. When I learned of kelp-infused teas I hazarded a guess you might find it suits your taste."
The look of annoyance on Namor's face lessened bit by bit with every word of Marius's explanation like someone getting used to a rainstorm or white noise, piquing briefly at "a mutant apartheid state" and flattening into a resigned state of half-attention around the Japanese lesson. It could have been that he had simply busied himself with working to make the tea, or that he had merely decided to regally disassociate.
Whichever it was, he was knocked right back out of it when the briefly mentioned sleek interfaces started beeping and tossing up spiked data visualizations.
"What's that?" Marius asked, in defiance of the obvious conclusion of "nothing good".
"A challenge," Namor said. The look that crossed his face with something that Marius had never been privy to before: an eager anticipation that almost bordered on joy. That indulgence aside, the Atlantean was now multitasking between the monitoring interface and his phone with calculated efficiency. There was no wonder in the science possibly unfolding, just the calm, incurious acceptance of an ongoing storm. He looked over to Marius again as if he'd forgotten the man was there, "Begone before your world becomes significantly more complicated. The wormhole has made a connection."
Marius' heavy brows lifted with a somewhat insufficient lack of urgency, considering the frequency of the beeps issuing from the console. "X-Man, if you will recall," he pointed out. "Besides, what else am I doing right now?"
Lights were now flashing. Red ones, too, which was decidedly worse.
The king's face hadn't given way to panic, but a note of concern had crept in at the edges. He finished his work at the terminal, which involved, presumably, the sending of updates and alerts concerning the alerts flashing about energy fluctuations and quantum entanglement, before walking over to where his trident had been set aside for just such an event.
"Arm yourself, then," Namor said with a stretch. The wormhole – a phenomenon that spoke differently to everyone – had begun to visibly pulse light. A shrill alarm rang as warning throughout the entire chapel basement substructure. "We're hosting visitors."
“Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.”- William Shakespeare, Macbeth
***
"Your Highness! Might I offer you a drink on this long and lonely watch?"
This intrusion – one, the figure of Marius Laverne as an unusual guest in the chapel basement, and two, the person of Marius Laverne as an unwelcome figure anywhere near the Atlantean currently on monitoring duty in the aforementioned heart of all things Excalibur– prompted several responses. Namor, who had been content with his reading, slowly looked up with the particular expression of someone attempting to momentarily bend the universe around his will. More practically, the man also fluidly set aside his reading to fetch up a clipboard despite the sleek affordance of monitors available.
"No," Namor said, as if he could simply will Marius to do them both a favor and expire on the spot, "You can, however, give me the time."
"Ah, what is time but an illusion? I come with gifts of far more substance." The X-Man had not come before the ruler of Atlantis empty-handed, and it was these offerings he now flourished. It was a tray bearing a small ceramic tea set and what appeared to be a small bowl of sugar.
The King of the Jeweled Throne sighed and searched for the nearest interface with a clock before precisely drafting a note. "Let it be known that we need to double check security measures for the wormhole." He tapped the pen. "If you could, describe how you breached our defenses. I only make thorough notes."
Alas, even Namor's apathy could not penetrate Marius' weaponized extroversion. The X-Man beamed. "Through the power of polite request, of course. When I explained the importance of my endeavor Molly acceded to allow entry on the condition I touch nothing. No worries, I have been duly briefed on protocol -- she was owed a few replacement drone parts for my little misadventure in January, and it made for quite interesting conversation whilst I accompanied her in the spending of my money."
Namor did not remove his eyes from Marius as he made some more notes. When appropriate bureaucracy was achieved, however, he let himself break only a fraction. "Molly Hayes," he made an involuntary noise that was more snarl than laugh, "strange, I did not anticipate she would forgive so easily."
The Atlantean did, however, stand and make his way over to confiscate the proffered ceramic-ware. He poked at the contents like a threat, revealing a kelp derived tea matched with what turned out to be salt and not sugar. The expression on his face proved that the briny smell of it passed an initial sniff test.
"Ah, we got to know each other a bit whilst fugitives in a mutant apartheid state, though I confess I've always found this lot to be strangely forgiving of my little transgressions. Fortunate for me, though possibly unwise of them. At any rate," the Australian flashed teeth, "what we have before us is konbucha. You see, in Japanese 'cha' is tea, and 'konbu' is kelp. It is not to be mistaken for kombucha, which is a fermented beverage that I understand the Japanese refer to as kōcha kinoko, or black mushroom tea-" Marius noticed the expression on Namor's face and smoothly curtailed his cocktail party smalltalk. "-which is unimportant. At any rate, I was looking to restock on Jamaican Blue when I came upon this. I can only speculate upon the standard Atlantean diet, but algal seaweeds are commonly consumed in East Asia. When I learned of kelp-infused teas I hazarded a guess you might find it suits your taste."
The look of annoyance on Namor's face lessened bit by bit with every word of Marius's explanation like someone getting used to a rainstorm or white noise, piquing briefly at "a mutant apartheid state" and flattening into a resigned state of half-attention around the Japanese lesson. It could have been that he had simply busied himself with working to make the tea, or that he had merely decided to regally disassociate.
Whichever it was, he was knocked right back out of it when the briefly mentioned sleek interfaces started beeping and tossing up spiked data visualizations.
"What's that?" Marius asked, in defiance of the obvious conclusion of "nothing good".
"A challenge," Namor said. The look that crossed his face with something that Marius had never been privy to before: an eager anticipation that almost bordered on joy. That indulgence aside, the Atlantean was now multitasking between the monitoring interface and his phone with calculated efficiency. There was no wonder in the science possibly unfolding, just the calm, incurious acceptance of an ongoing storm. He looked over to Marius again as if he'd forgotten the man was there, "Begone before your world becomes significantly more complicated. The wormhole has made a connection."
Marius' heavy brows lifted with a somewhat insufficient lack of urgency, considering the frequency of the beeps issuing from the console. "X-Man, if you will recall," he pointed out. "Besides, what else am I doing right now?"
Lights were now flashing. Red ones, too, which was decidedly worse.
The king's face hadn't given way to panic, but a note of concern had crept in at the edges. He finished his work at the terminal, which involved, presumably, the sending of updates and alerts concerning the alerts flashing about energy fluctuations and quantum entanglement, before walking over to where his trident had been set aside for just such an event.
"Arm yourself, then," Namor said with a stretch. The wormhole – a phenomenon that spoke differently to everyone – had begun to visibly pulse light. A shrill alarm rang as warning throughout the entire chapel basement substructure. "We're hosting visitors."
