maskormenacelogs | semi-open.

[ The sun has sunk, nighttime arriving late during this late summer by the time Daenerys finally arrives at the place designated to be her home. A wash of yellow light of taxicab pulling up, the slam of its door, and silence in the wake of its departure. Her footsteps, carefully picking towards the front door, are quiet, more caution than hesitation. It looks--

It's very different.

For a while, she simply sits at the stoop, not quite prepared to go inside. She uses the light run off from windows and streetlamps and moonlight to read the file she has open on her lap, her head bowed over it as she reads script that is borderline indecipherable to her eyes. Fingertips gently trace the smooth, dry paper, tracking line by line.

When she is done, she takes her comms device in hand. Its glow baths her face in white light.

She's still in the dress she arrived, a white gown with elegant sleeves, an expansive skirt, and grey soot staining it to ashiness, although her face and hands are clean. Her silver-blonde hair is loose from its braids, a little dishevelled from the day. Every now and then, she looks up at the night sky, as if hoping to see something cut across its stars. ]

Edited 2016-08-07 11:12 (UTC)

[ Sasaki had a long day at work, even if it wasn't particularly exciting. Just a lot of paperwork to fill which he never complains about, but in truth finds quite boring.

And once he is done with that, he heads home, passing by the grocery store on his way so he can cook something for Josuke that night. So when he finally reaches the residential area, he is carrying two grocery bags and a bit of a tired look, which changes when he realizes there is someone in front of his door.

He only speaks up when he is standing in front of the woman, blinking for a moment. Ah... newcomer? Or a visitor? He never saw her before. ]

Hello. [ of course he smiles after ]

[The lights from the taxi had caught Josuke's attention, but he was unwilling to move from his spot on the living room sofa until the precise moment his movie—a dramatic film-noir piece about an aged starlet's attempt to make a comeback and how it went terribly wrong—had gone to commercial. Assuming the light he'd seen was only one of the neighbors coming home, he was slow in finally venturing to the front door to investigate.

And then he heard Haise's voice outside. Someone else had been out there and he'd left them to sit and wait!

When he opened the door it was but a crack at first until he caught sight of the young woman sitting with a familiar folder in her lap. A new arrival. He remembered what it was like, so he put on his most welcoming smile and, flicking on the porch light for everyone, opened the door the rest of the way.]

Hey...I thought I heard people out here.

[ Daenerys closes her folder quietly, rising to her feet just as the porch light overhead glares to life. Her glance backwards is diverted up towards it, squinting her eyes against its brightness, a fine tension coiling in her posture at this latest show of bizarre, otherworldly sophistication. The quiet shadows in which she was huddling are banished back, creating a sense of exposure. The way her dress has greyed looks as though she's recently walked through a bonfire. Silver jewelry, elaborate and shining, glints at her throat.

She looks between them, and seems to collect up her composure once more, comms device and folder held stiffly at her sides. ]

Hello, [ she returns. Polite. Reserved, still. More than a little tired, in the sense of being resigned. ] I understand there are three others who live here. [ She looks from the man in the door to the other, a subtly raised eyebrow. ] Are you two of them?

[ Sasaki looks back at Josuke when he opens the door, waving a little at his friend - a small sort of "hello" - and again his attention falls on the woman still standing in front of their house. He knows she is a newcomer by now, if only because she is holding the folder, but decides to let her speak first.

After all, arriving to this world and being told to share a house with strangers is not so easy as it sounds. ]

Yes. I'm Haise Sasaki. [ he lifts his grocery bags, adding with a playful tone: ] The cook. [ not really, but since he does cook a lot and it's mostly for Josuke and whoever wants food, it might be fitting. he could also be called "the mom" because he also cleans the house and worries like a mother hen ]

[Josuke returns Haise's wave and then gestures to help him take one of the bags.]

Don't let him undersell how great a cook he actually is. There's no better in all Heropa!

[He chuckles and then, turning his attention back to Dany, he pushes away from the door frame so he can bow his head in greeting. She doesn't look very old at all, not much older than him anyway, but given the way she speaks and the manner in which she's dressed, even if the fabric of her clothes is spotted with dirt, she seems the sort of person who'd appreciate good manners.]

I'm Josuke Higashikata. [Longest residing at their current residence, but he doesn't think to mention that fact when his roommates know the place just as well as him by now.] It's really nice to meet you.

[ She does. Seem to appreciate good manners, that is. She nods back at a gracious kind of cant, all poise and practice. ]

I'm Daenerys Stormborn, [ she follows suit, casual affect more mimicked than natural and subsequently ruined when she adds, not exactly with uncertainty so much as she doesn't know what it means here, anymore; ] Of the House Targaryen.

Please, do not let me keep you, [ she says, to the one who arrived, moving to ascend a step so that they can enter the building rather than linger under the porch light. ] If it please you both, perhaps you can show me my quarters.

[ the pronunciation of said name might be tricky, but Sasaki isn't about to try it in front of her. instead, he offers the woman a gentle smile and decides it's better to ask: ] How would you like to be called? [ specially because she mentioned her House, it left the question if it was important to address her with such title or not.

But as Daenerys moves and allows him to enter, Sasaki does so gladly, only to put the grocery bags over the kitchen ]

Certainly. And i can cook you something if you are hungry. And also answer question you might have about this place; I know how confusing everything is at first.

[...Josuke blinks when the girl introduces herself.

That sure is a mouthful! But fortunately for everyone still on the front porch, he knows enough not to say as much. Or maybe he's just taking cues from Sasaki at this point, because his friend certainly asks a good question. With such important sounding titles, they really ought to know how to address this girl so they don't accidentally offend her.]

All the bedrooms are upstairs.

[He moves out of the doorway to let them both enter after him, and once everyone is inside, flicks off the porch light and shuts the door.]

There's two free ones, which're gonna be the rooms left open, and you can take your pick between 'em if one appeals more than the other. And don't mind the noises coming from mine...I got a lot of pets. You're not allergic to anything, are you?

Daenerys.

[ Perhaps something easier to pronounce, in time, but there's no issuing request for Your Grace, not here. Daenerys enters with her skirt gripped lightly in hand, raising the hem above somewhat practical boots, light-cloth leggings, scuffed and sooty.

Inside, she looks around. For all that she carries herself like a queen, she has stayed in places of many kinds since she could remember; and even now, wanders in further with the assumptive curiousity of a girl.

Then-- ]

Pets?

[ So do I. No, that's a topic for another day. ]

Of what kind?

[ She looks then to Sasaki, following him a little, a curious gaze darting over the groceries laid on the bench before she goes to explore the kitchen further. Her fingertips brush the front of the refrigerator, but doesn't ask. ] I haven't been hungry all day, [ she admits. ]

[ Alright. Daenerys. Still not easy to pronounce, but Sasaki will do his best and besides, after he says it once or twice, it'll be ok.

he allows the other to explore the kitchen as she pleases - after all, it's now her kitchen too - and starts putting everything in place. ]

Well, if you get hungry there is a lot of food on the fridge. Just pick whatever you'd like from there. [ Sasaki doesn't have good on his own there, but a lot of food he cooks can be found inside. Daenerys just has to pick whatever tickles her fancy ]

[Her name isn't too difficult, but it's strange and Josuke's sure he'll stumble over its pronunciation a time or two before he gets it right.]

Oh, you know, the usual...a fish, a cat, a turtle, a snake, and some chickens.

[...he sighs.

No matter how many times he says it aloud, it never sounds any less ridiculous.

So he changes the subject. Or, rather, latches onto the one about food that Haise had started. Food's a much safer, much tastier topic.]

We pretty much share everything in the kitchen, so whenever you are hungry, Haise's right. Just help yourself. This is your home now as much as ours. [Then, leaning a little closer to her and pretending to whisper, Josuke adds teasingly...] First come first serve when it comes to the food Haise cooks, though.

[ If the small menagerie that Josuke lists isn't amusing, then delivery and the next thing he says, at a mock whisper, are just enough to prompt a very subtle smile out of the Khaleesi. Following a cue, she roams her fingers along the edge of the white cabinet she's found herself in front of until she can source its handle, and goes to pry it open. There's an unsubtle jerk as the seal gives with unexpected resistance, and the items stored in its door rattle loudly.

Apology firms up her jaw but doesn't manifest into words, ducking a little to peer inside. The wash of cold, the flood of light. Fridge seems like a good word for it. It's a little dismaying that closed off containers and cartons aren't immediately recognisable as food or containing food, but-- ]

Thank you, [ she says, as to food, freely given and offered. ] Both of you. Your hospitality will be remembered and rewarded.

[ --sounds a little like an echo of what she had heard Viserys say, often, but never mind. ]

It can't be a simple thing to welcome those who have been taken from their homes, just as you have.

Edited 2016-08-21 03:12 (UTC)

Those are the only chickens in here aren't food. [ sasaki adds only to tease Josuke a bit. Though it's true, they aren't meant to be food, and they are the only living ones too.

he starts putting the food back in the cabinets and some plastic containers that lately will go into the fridge, but he takes his time and doesn't rush it, mostly so Daenerys can explore as she wants without feeling the pressure that someone behind her is working (it's not really working. Just settling everything) ]

Oh- it's alright, please don't feel like you need to do something for us in return. [ Sasaki smiles softly, looking back at the woman, as he leans over the kitchen table a bit ] We have all been through the same; it's easier for some, harder for others. But we all still understand that it's weird and really confusing.

So if we can help making it easier for you, of course we will. [ Sasaki says "we", including Josuke in this, because he knows the other feels the same ]

[Regardless of how well Haise knows Josuke by now and can speak for him, the younger teen chimes in with his own thoughts on the matter.]

Haise's right. These circumstances are something we've all got in common.

[It was the one way in which all imPorts were alike, regardless of gender, species, powers, or language. Their being brought to this world and held here against their will was the thing that unified them. Or at least...those of them it mattered to.]

Don't worry about repaying us, this place is as much your home now as it is ours. We're not helping for any kind of reward, we're welcoming you to the fold.

[Which didn't make it any less overwhelming, but Josuke remembers when he arrived and how welcoming Hime and Shade had been. It had helped, and he hopes it'll help Daenerys the way it had him.]

[ Breeze isn't living at Heropa 004 all the time these days, and she tends to come and go sporadically. She's used to her two housemates in Heropa, so she pauses when she arrives at the house and sees someone new on the property. Older girl, cool hair. Maybe visiting? ]

Uh, hi? Can I help you?

[ She kind of likes the way those words sound coming out of her mouth. Important and almost adult, like she's in charge. ]

[ There are only so many ways you can hold a smartphone, and yet, the way Daenerys is holding hers still seems a little wrong. Her fingers are stiff and awkward as she tries to both hold it as well as use it, a basic sort of intuition guiding her through otherwise alien technology, but it's slow going. She's absorbed enough in her task that she doesn't notice the younger girl stop and look, and looks up quickly when she's addressed.

There's an immediate steel and frost to her focus, her arrival a too recent thing for her to have relaxed, but her guard is lowered a fraction upon threat assessment. ]

Not unless you've a dragon in your company, [ she says, allowing a little wryness into her tone. ] One that can carry me back to my homeland.

Sorry. You're stuck here for now, and there are no dragons.

[ She doesn't sound sorry, mostly because she thinks this universe is amazing, and she doesn't think being stuck here for a little while is that big a deal. People adapt!

She comes up the front steps and pulls her house key out of the pocket of her jeans, then pauses, a thought suddenly occurring to her. ]

Oh, are you moving in?

[ Daenerys doesn't, immediately, respond to this first part. A healthy disbelief in dragons is not an unfamiliar attitude to run into. The rest cannot be fathomed here, on the porch, in one evening.

She watches the girl move up towards the door, and is already rising to her feet by the time that question is posed to her. ]

So it seems, [ she says. ] If I am 'stuck here for now'.

[ Her lifts her skirt a little as she rises a step. ]

My name is Daenerys.

I'm Breeze. Well, Brianna, but everyone calls me Breeze.

[ She gives Daenerys a grin, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she's just ruined her evening, and goes about unlocking the front door. ]

I only stay here half the time, but it'll be cool having another girl around.

[ The grin gets a more minor smile in return, but her reserve doesn't ring of insincerity. She watches the girl unlock the door before she goes to follow her inside, leaving behind the cooling night. Likely warm for most temperaments, but it's no Essos, and makes her shiver. ]

How did you come by that name? The one everyone calls you.

Have you ever heard that expression "as fast as the breeze"? I'm fast.

[ Once inside, Breeze kicks off her sneakers and stands proudly in the living room. Welcome to her home! Lucky for Daenerys, she only lives there half the time, and mostly keeps her mess confined to her own bedroom, so it's not too terrible-looking. ]

I have, [ sounds a little surprised, dry humoured. She can't say that for a great many of the expressions she's heard here before.

Daenerys glances to the sneakers tossed aside, hesitating, but ultimately chooses to leave her boots on, as if still reluctant to part with her belongings. Her smartphone is kept gripped in both hands, glowing negligently between her fingers. ]

Where do you go for the other half, Breeze?

I live with this lady named Clara. But I like having my own place, too, with no adults.

[ She considers Daenerys briefly, trying to judge her age. Eh, she's young enough. This can still be the cool house. ]

[ That brings about a bigger smile, teeth showing, and she doesn't refute it. There are places in her world where Breeze herself would be considered a woman, or at least very near it, but it's not information she feels like offering. She doesn't mind, at least in this moment, being only a girl. ]

Then I assume you have lived in America for some time.

[ Said like someone who's idea of America is restricted only to this place. ]

Edited 2016-08-21 03:13 (UTC)

My entire life. Yes.

[ She pauses, reconsidering, and then adds, ] Not this America. Just one kind of like it.

[ Hers has superpowers, but no hover cars. Unfortunately. ]

I'm from California, which is like this desert-y place near the ocean all the way on the other side of the country.

[ previously ]

As it is said he did in our homeland.

[ Dry as the day is humid, Daenerys is raise eyebrowed at Jorah's assessment, his choice of description, for all that clever is registered with all its meanings. Behind her eyes is the slight coil and flex of familiar anger, as if something smart about his return to the shadow of the Westerosi politicians is hidden and barbed behind her tongue.

Perhaps she'd spoken it, if not for the terms on which they parted.

Instead; ]

What does power look like, in this world?

[ She doesn’t have to say it.

Jorah acknowledges trace venom with silence that feels like patience, eye contact steady on without shame despite his prior association with Lord Baelish’s small council. It’s a silence that invites her to grind his nose in it.

They both know where his loyalty lies. ]

Lord Baelish has influence, [ he says. ] The American military has control.

There are other players -- dissidents they can’t contain. There’ve been attacks.

[ Anger withdraws, submerging itself in the murk and to be replaced with vague dissatisfaction. Not wholly with Jorah's answers so much as the knowledge that she isn't going to grasp the political landscape of this alien world as they approach the De Chima Porter.

The cab driver is either fascinated or rolling his eyes at the sheer renfaire happening in his back seat.

She turns her attention back out at the street. They've arrived at a red light. ]

The ambush in the fighting pits was a precursor for what is yet to come. I will return to my city with the Masters at her shores. There are limited means through which dissidents can be contained.

[ Fire, often. ]

There is another here, of our world. Drogon arrived with me.

[ Jorah has no doubt.

He’s seen her off already, in fact, at the business end of a Dothraki horde. Rather than say so, he nods -- natural agreement and support. She will return, and the Masters will be waiting. Not even Tyrion will be able to talk them down, this late in the game.

What she says next calls his eyeline into sharper focus, undercurrents of alarm already bright against tawny red, gold and grey bristle. The off yellow of his tunic and the lines around his eyes. ]

Where is he?

[ He’s not in the car.

In this world, virtually anywhere else for him to be right now is a problem. ]

Edited (going for a new record) 2016-08-10 04:45 (UTC)

[ She doesn't love catching Jorah off-guard, but it does present an internal balancing effect, for perhaps all of a heart beat. Nothing that particularly shows outside; she reflects his alarm in the form of weary worry. For a gigantic dragon, he can make himself very scarce when he wants to be.

There's a glance towards the driver end of the car, before she reverts to speaking in Dothraki. ]

When I woke here, he was as small as when he had hatched, [ she explains. ] He was calm when I held him, but once we stepped outside, he began to twist and change. He flew for the sky and I watched him grow. He flew faster than I could run.

[ She pauses, jaw setting. She looks out the window, skyward. ]

I have not found him since.

Edited (i did a you) 2016-08-11 07:58 (UTC)

[ There’s an off beat; the edge to his worry polishes smooth, and he pulls in an easier breath. It feels nice to hear about the threat of her violent, man-eating behemoth from her in Dothraki.

Jorah is charmed.

He’s missed her. What were they talking about. ]

They have weapons that can reach him in the sky, Khaleesi, [ he replies in kind, with no loss of utility for the sway in his focus. ] Weapons that could kill a dragon.

[ With effort that already feels weary, he fastens eye contact down to hold fast, harbinger of counsel she may not want to contend with. ]

You should warn them.

Should I?

[ It's more parry than rebuttal. For his counsel at all, for what Daenerys may owe anyone in this world, from the grasping hands of their worshippers through to the soldier who drove her to her new home to the people who met her there.

But this talk of weapons that can kill a dragon-- there's a pause where she has to try to imagine such a thing. She imagines, probably, siege machines. She imagines siege machines made from the technology she's witnessed here, all hot metal and magic-like efficiency.

Still-- ]

Warn them of what? That if they turn their weapons for the sky, they will burn for their foolishness? The sky belongs to dragons, Ser Jorah, even this one.

[ Fierceness that runs colder, these days, quietly delivered. ]

[ Jorah weathers dismissal same as he has the wind and the sun, with nearly as many lines in his face to show for it. More lately. The road travelled was long before they detoured into another reality.

He’s no longer in much of a position to riposte, reservation more passive even than she may remember.

Certainly less overblown.

He’s quiet for a long moment before he asks: ]

What do you want to do?

[ That's a complicated question said simply, and the shine of her ire (an ire that, if sparked by his presence, is directed mainly at the idea of Drogon being threatened) dulls slightly. No push back, only that question, one she doesn't have a ready answer for.

It's written on her face, but she doesn't try to conceal it, either. ]

I must find him. And find a place for him. He will not come into the thick of the cities willingly, but he will if there is no where else.

[ A pause, and then, a little more idle; ]

I am told there is no known way home. Even on the wings of a dragon.

Edited (consistency is key) 2016-08-21 01:49 (UTC)

[ It goes without saying that having billions of eyes looking is the more efficient method for dragon-finding, but one needn’t necessarily be looking for a house-sized Drogon to notice one.

He just nods, on the weary side of considerate for her ego in hard times. ‘Find him.’ Good plan, Khaleesi.

Reality grips harder at the fuzzy lines around his mouth than he’d like to let on. ]

People are carried home all the time, [ he says. There is no word for teleported in Dothraki. ]

Just not by choice.

Edited 2016-08-27 05:54 (UTC)

[ It's a great plan.

Or rather: not so much a plan as it is an imperative. It has to be her. Anyone else would be killed. Which isn't to say that millions of eyes would not be a benefit so much as she doesn't understand these people, their loyalties, their temperaments.

That she doesn't trust them is neither here nor there. ]

What choices are there?

[ It isn't rhetorical. ]

Conform, [ says Jorah, ] or don’t.

[ It was a serious question. His answer is also serious. ]

We’ve all been marked. Our travel is monitored and our health is carefully managed. ImPorts that disturb the peace are yoked and imprisoned, provided they can be caught.

[ The finer details are all alien -- more magic than science. But the bigger picture is all too familiar. He can’t help but to backslide into half a smile at his own expense, pride thin with rust. Out of one fighting pit into another. ]

[ She remembers those early, painful days amongst the Dothraki. The sun that blistered her brother's mouth, and the desert dust that seemed to settle on her bones after so much riding, and the constant clamour of a language she didn't understand filled her ears. Of course, she remembers flourishing, too, and to speak that language now feels soothing.

Daenerys knows how to conform. They both do.

All the same. Her mouth presses into a line, but there's no argument out of her. In the silence that settles, the cab approaches the De Chima military base, and she can recognise the forms it makes out of the horizon. ]

I've been given lodgings in the city of Heropa, [ she says, finally, settling back into a faster, more versatile common dialect. A signal, too. ] The house numbered four.

semi-open.

heropa #004. closed to housemates.

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de chima. closed to jorah mormont.

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