[OPEN] Something about the world today

[perfectlyhuman]

WHO: Adam Young and YOU
WHERE: All over
WHEN: First half of February
WHAT: The whole CnC thing was a mess, and Adam has found himself back not only dealing with years of memories from an alternate life, but also several friends of his are gone. Lots of changes happening.
WARNINGS: Sad child, big thoughts



1. [OUTSIDE NONAH, HOUSE] Packing up
He's still in there a lot, for the first week.

There's no reason to pack up things by hand. He could easily make it all go away, will it all into boxes, cut himself the slack. But he doesn't want to.

There's a lot of books. Stories, comics, the occasional mysterious tome that may not be entirely age or theme appropriate, but that his former guardians didn't seem to have an issue in him keeping. There's toys, of course, some of them partially chewed on by either of his pets. There's souvenirs, including a small, very accurate guilhotine they'd given him after they came back from Paris.

There's other stuff around the house. The plants, the other books. He doesn't know what to do with them, but he's not going to give them away. As far as he's concerned, the house is staying where it is, how it is, mysteriously locked and unbreakable.

He could use some help with packing, though.



2. [NONAH, STRIKE A PAWS PET STORE] Something to do
Nobody really knows how the boy stays employed, but it doesn't look like the shop owners mind or care. There's justifiable absences, every once in a while, but they do an eleven year old, so there's a lot more questions than anyone cares to ask.

It doesn't seem like a lot of people are really into bringing their pets in here lately. Makes sense, really, probably after everything that's happened in the last couple of months, and with rumors of strange creatures roaming about again. Not that Adam really gets why people are into bringing their pets over so often, anyway, but he's always happy to play with the little pups that come in.

Today, though, he's diligently going down the aisles and picking up assorted items. Pet beds, toys, cans and bags of food, the latter of which don't seem to keep only to dog and rabbit food, strangely enough.

He's got a good sizable pile of things in his arms as he's reaching for another small plastic dish, and ends up dropping half of them in mess of clatters and thuds.



3. [DE CHIMA, STREETS AND FOREST] Hideout
Many times, more often now than before, Adam can be spotted around De Chima. Often times, past school hours, he'll be walking down to the residential area and well past the houses, into the forest that surrounds the city.

A good couple of times, he seems to be carrying a rather full backpack and a couple of heavy looking bags, with assorted items. He's also always accompanied by his canine friend, and often carrying Bubsy the Jackalope in his arms.

A couple of people may know where he's going, all those times. Those that don't are welcomed to ask. A secret that isn't really a secret, but younger imPorts will have a better chance of being invited along.



4. [JEOPARDY] Curiosities
He hasn't been here in a good while. At a point, he pops in to see how far along the city's doing ever since what happened a couple of months, curiously watching the rebuilding efforts.

He likes Jeopardy a lot. It's spooky and weird, he's pretty sure half the people he sees around aren't really alive. There's just this odd feeling about it, not new to anyone, but that he finds...fun? Welcoming? Just weird? He doesn't know. But he likes it here.

He's decided to go to all manners of shops, though he's more often found in bookshops. Crystals and cards? He doesn't really understand those, but the crystals are neat.

Might as well build up his collection.



5. [ANYWHERE] (Make up your own prompt)
During these weeks, Adam can be found wandering around, as usual for the boy. Usually with a backpack on and accompanied by Dog, sometimes Bubsy the Jackalope, he can be almost always found anywhere between Nonah and De Chima, though that doesn't mean he won't go to other import cities.

All week days, he can be found at school, usually with his face buried in a book or notebook, specially nowadays. He seems to be keeping a lot to himself.

A few times a week, during the late afternoon, he can be found doing his shift at Strike A Paws Pet Store.

He can be spotted in several parks with his pets. Many times in book shops and the library, often coming in and out of sweets shops and cafés. May even find him heading deeper into the forest around De Chima.

Come and say hi.


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[OOC: For plotting, feel free to privately message this account, or contact me at skree or Skree#9889 on Discord.]

Comments

[thecacophony]

Sal appreciates this distraction, even if it's only for a few minutes while shopping. These past few weeks have been—an incredible amount of birdshit, and more emotionally difficult than expected. So when Adam starts talking about magic wands, well. She's not responsible enough to avoid indulging a kid's imagination.

"I'll share a secret with you, okay?" She glances around in mock concern for who might be watching, and spotting no authoritative-types growing suspicious yet, moves her jacket around to offer him a better look at the gun holstered on her waist. Upon closer inspection, it's definitely nothing at all like a normal gun. Aside from being unwieldy and large and brass, the barrel is carved in the shape of a snarling dragon head. Anyone looking at it for long would get the very real and very odd sense that they're being watched by those brass eyes...

"Real mages don't have fancy wands, at least not those that I know," she says in a stage whisper. "This here is called the Cacophony, and I got him deep down in a cursed tomb full of dead emperors. We made a deal, him and I, and he'll shoot magic bullets at bad guys. Much cooler than a piece of driftwood, I think."

Normally she likes to avoid showing the Cacophony off, but really, one tiny exception won't hurt anything. (And magic weapons are fucking cool, thank you very much.)

[perfectlyhuman]

Ah, yes, showing off a possibly ancient magical dragon shaped gun to a little boy in an odd bookshop. Just another day in Jeopardy, and in Adam's life. Not to mention that Sal is quickly rising up the ranks of the coolest people Adam's ever met.

"Whoa." He sounds genuinely fascinated as he looks at the weapon and the strangely living eyes. "Wicked."

They could both use the distraction. Both of them and probably most of the other imPorts that were dragged out to an alternate reality in the past couple of weeks, and whose friends and acquaintances didn't seem to return, or were gone by the time they came back. Anything to get their minds off it.

"So you're a mage? And a tomb raider?"

[thecacophony]

"Tomb raiding, bounty hunting, whatever kind of dangerous work there was to do," a little vague and light on politics, but it serves as a decent enough explanation for now. Sal reaches back down to collect her stack of books to buy, hefting them under her arm.

"Sal the Cacophony, vagrant mage extraodinaire" she says, finally introducing herself. "Or that's what they call me back home. My friends just call me Sal."

Because she doesn't have much experience with kids, it's taking some time to really dawn on her, but when looking past the boy's shoulder, across the store to where some kind of minder ought to be...Well, it doesn't look like anybody is showing up to lecture either of them anytime soon.

"Hey kid, you're not hanging out here by yourself or anything?" Sal's expression goes from confident to maybe slightly worried. Sure, there's plenty of kids and imPorts here who have to fend for themselves, and shit, she herself was taken away from her family when she was only eight. It's probably a needless concern too, but...

[perfectlyhuman]

"That's a really cool name." He grins easily at her, clearly impressed by all her titles and all the flashiness and dangerous weapons and the like. He remembers having a talk with another imPort about things settling into a new line of normal for those that have been here a while - and, in his case, also as someone who's had some astronomically huge revelations about himself - but he's still capable of feeling impressed.

His look turns a bit curious when she changes the subject, but he doesn't seem to bothered. "Oh. Yeah." He's gotten so used to wandering around the different porter cities, it hardly registers as an issue. Crowley and Aziraphale let him wander around, and it's not like he doesn't have, lets say, natural defenses. "I was just looking for some books."

[thecacophony]

Well, the kid doesn't seem real concerned with hanging out by himself. Sal's got to shrug. While she might have some vague sense of concern, it's more to the point that she knows fuck all about kids and what they should and shouldn't get up to. Kind of the opposite of an authority figure, honestly, so she let's the topic go with an easy roll of her shoulders.

Besides, for at least this day, there's no strange emergencies or monsters running through the streets, preying on whatever they can find. Fuck, this place really is weird on the best of days. "Yeah? Well as far as Jeopardy is concerned, you could do a fuck of a lot worse than this shop. For the few times I've been in, they seem to carry a pretty extensive stock."

She gestures to the stack under her arm. There's some action novels, even some comic books (there's a lot of cool fighting art, alright?), and some stuff that seems more geared to adults. "It's better than buying everything online, anyway. Sometimes you just need to get out and fly for a while."

Speaking of, maybe she should let this boy look around more? Don't be a rude dick, Sal.

"Better let you get back it," she says with a small half-grin. Less grouchy in appearance than before, at least, as if the casual conversation is enough to lighten her load for a while. "See you around, huh?"

[perfectlyhuman]

Well, she falls right in line with his former caretakers, though their issue was more their lack of being human beings, even if they have observed humanity since it first existed. It's a whole thing. But Adam isn't concerned - people let him wander, and he just does. It usually doesn't mean trouble, but who knows what might happen, really. Not like any of them can actually stop he strange things from happening. Heck, it's apparently a sort of 'contract' they've all signed for this world just a couple of months back.

He eyes the books under her arm, particularly the comics. Because of course he does. Unintentionally interrupting her goodbyes, he points at them. "Where'd you find that one? Been looking for it for a while."

[thecacophony]

Sal doesn't look grumpy at the interruption, having little in the way of real manners herself, but she does look slightly surprised. She's grown real accustomed to her presence being tolerated, at best, or so it goes back in her home world when you're a pissed off rogue mage on the loose, promising nothing but chaos and a whole lot of bad luck. Sometimes it's jarring to be reminded how little her past means here.

(Sometimes it's just strange that people want her around.)

"Huh, this one?" She points to the comic in question, a pretty fucking exciting story by her own standards. Guns blazing, swords clashing, epic godly battles and even a cute but subtle romantic sub-plot or two. Can't blame the kid for his curiosity on that one, she's been meaning to catch up on this series herself.

...Okay, look. She can probably stick around for a little while, maybe? Sal turns to look over in the direction of the graphic novels, wondering whether he can manage to reach high enough on the shelf without climbing. And even beyond that, does the kid have money to buy things?

Fuck, it's difficult enough trying to figure out how to take care of her cat, she can't imagine having to worry about another person.

"Come on, I'll help you out," she says with less cheery enthusiasm and more blunt determination. Sal gestures for the boy to follow. "They're stacked up on the high shelf."

[perfectlyhuman]

She'd be surprised about a lot of things. The fact that her concerns, even if not her actions, are fairly in line with what could constitute as normalcy. The thing about Adam is that he goes beyond those rules, from smaller things to catastrophically bigger things. But, right now, they're just a little boy and an adult woman in a weird bookshop in a weirder town in an even weirder world, looking at comics.

He picks up his smaller pile of books and follows her, happy to add to his collection. "I got the first and the third volume, but I can't find the second one. Kind of makes it annoying to read."

[thecacophony]

"Shit, reading things in order is overrated anyway," she assures him, as if Sal the Cacophony cares enough about things like order and organization. Once they get to the comics section, she looks up to the high shelf. Thankfully, nobody else has come around yet to take the other copy of this book; she's about to reach up high and just grab it for him, but stops. Reconsiders.

"Hey, you like magic right? You want to fly up and grab it yourself?"

Sal shrugs and offers him her hand to take, because why the fuck not?

[perfectlyhuman]

Well, that's when their lines cross. This is what happens when you live in a world like this, when people brought here like you may have abilities that you don't yet know. And whether they had them before arriving here or not is a whole other mystery.

Sal offers her hand, and Adam looks, curiosity gradually replaced by an impish smile.

"Sure." And he takes her hand.

But, then, he rises from the floor before she consciously does anything, still holding onto her hand.

[thecacophony]

"Hey, you shit!" She's clearly and visibly amused (regardless of the surprise) at seeing the boy float up from the floor of his own accord, no help from her required. "So you can fly, huh?"

She lets go of his hand, opting instead to cross her arms in mock affront. Shit, she's only met one other who could fly so far. Odds were likely good that there'd be more, she admits to herself, but the thrill of it hasn't diminished.

"Well, you don't look Kryptonian to me," she says, "so I wonder where you picked up a trick like this?" Superboy, of course, being the only other she knows who likes to fly.

[perfectlyhuman]

The boy giggles, thoroughly amused. Before everything that happened, with that Other Time, Other World, he didn't really make much use of his powers here. He'd started to, but he had his reasons to avoid them.

Well, six years of using them for his safety and the safety of others changed that. Besides, all imPorts have an ability or another, and this one was useful. All of his were useful, and he had started to think it would probably be a good idea to practice using them.

He looks toward the shelf, finds that book he was looking for. He picks it out of the shelf and floats back down. "I'm not." And he lands gently, feet planted back on the floor. He shrugs, adding: "Just something I can do."