lostcarnival | OPEN: New Beginnings In Stranger Places

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OPEN: New Beginnings In Stranger Places

Who: Dr. Helen Magnus and [You]
When: Day 92
Where: Roaming around, a little lost
What: Arrival, getting her bearings, etc. etc.

Adventure was something Helen Magnus never shied from and exploring the vastness of the underground Sanctuary, far beyond those walls was something she couldn't deny herself. So it was that she found herself here, under contract to the Ringmaster with her eyes wide with wonder at it all. The lights and colours, the excitement, the darker elements shining through here and there. It was as familiar as it was alien and she drank it in with an eagerness she had long felt lacking. It stirred her as she moved through tents, passed people much like her who had joined perhaps years before her. A bright flash of a tail there, wings, glowing skin, all of these people becoming Abnormals or were in the beginning. The sheer fascination would have been enough, really.

"Excuse me?" she asked, reaching out to catch the attention of one of the people she had fallen into step with, "I seem to have found myself a bit lost. I was looking for the medical tent and I seem to have completely gotten myself turned around. If you could point me in the right direction, I'd be most grateful."

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Strange can't help but laugh a little at that as he gives Helen a grin. "I'm afraid I've developed a taste for coffee since my time in Venice."

In Strange's defense, Italian coffee is amazing. And, he's acting properly sheepish about the fact that he (god forbid) actually likes coffee. All in good fun, of course, and that sheepish grin soon fades to a teasing one. "Still, I can't say no to a good cup of tea! I believe there's still some in the cookhouse should we want to have a cup or two."

And, considering that they're currently without a head cook, it would be much easier just to nip in and make the tea nowadays than it would be when Koel was around.

"As long as you can still appreciate the comfort of tea and decent company," Helen says with a laugh, "I highly doubt we will have a problem." She nods to his suggestion. "Tea does sound like an excellent idea. Perhaps you may continue with your demonstration? I find myself, for the first time in a great while, with an excess of time."

It's a fact that might not last too long given the fact that Helen is forever giving herself a thousand projects to do but since one of them is now learning English magic from Mr. Strange, this is time well spent.

"Applying that excess to tea and magic, Mr. Strange," she says with a great deal of seriousness, "sounds like a perfectly wonderfull use of it."

"My most impressive magic involves mirrors. And it would get us to the cookhouse faster than if we actually walked there." There's a pause as Strange spins around, inspecting their surroundings as if searching for something. If they were in the trailer area then he could easily find a mirror, just by breaking into someone's trailer. But as they were in the game area....

Then, with a wild grin, Strange turns back towards Helen. "Follow me. There's one of those funhouse mirrors set up not too far from here, near one of the stands. That should do for the magic."

He is straight up not explaining how he'll actually use said mirror to get to the cookhouse. Where's the fun in telling Helen about the magic when he can show off and surprise her instead?

"Translocation via mirror, perhaps?" Helen asks with a tilt of her head. Obviously inferred from his words, of course. Her eyes sparkle with humour. "Curiouser and curiouser."

She followed Mr. Strange all the more charmed by his eccentricities the more time she spent with him, even if that time has been brief. Perhaps it was the sense of mad discovery and the need she had to plunge herself into it after so much in her life had been upended.

When she had so much loss to deal with, only discovery would seem to balance it out somehow. So, yes. She would indeed follow a man with mirrored eyes to a funhouse mirror to get from one point in space to another.

"Not entirely translocation. Back home, the mirrors opened onto the king's roads, roads built in the realm of faerie by the Raven King. I could use them to go from place to place. Here, I can't access the roads, but I can travel directly mirror to mirror. A fine compromise, if you ask me!"

And one that he's taken advantage of far too much during his time here. Strange has too much fun popping in and out, bothering people via the mirrors. And look, there's the funhouse mirror. With a grin, Strange runs up towards it, stopping as he faces the mirror.

"Take my hand while I cast the spell," he says, holding one hand to the mirror and the other hand out towards Helen.

"I suppose that is a rather good compromise," Helen says and she takes his hand. "I can't say I wouldn't have found the roads wonderful to travel." He gets a gentle squeeze and if Helen gives him a bright smile it's because this is exactly the sort of thing she ought to be excited about.

Magic.

"Perhaps if the carnival ever visits my world, I'll take you there myself!" It's said innocently enough, with Strange entirely unaware of any connotations that Helen could read into his words—though the fact that they're holding hands now and Helen can feel his wedding ring is a strong sign that Strange is hella taken.

Putting one hand up on the glass, he mutters a spell under his breath. A moment later, he walks into the mirror, leading Helen beside him. The sensation is almost nonexistent. There's a brief second of power, of magic as the two walk through the mirror but that lasts for only a moment as they exit to the other side.

Unfortunately, there's a bit of a drop as the mirror isn't flush with the ground. Thankfully, it's only a drop of one or so feet, nothing that will trip Strange or Helen up too much. They exit from a full sized mirror into a bathroom off the side of the cookhouse. Obviously the mirror is for primping and making certain everything looks good, as there are smaller mirrors in front of the bathroom sinks.

"Here we are," Strange explains, with a wild grin, as he gestures to the bathroom's exit. "Through those doors is the carnival cookhouse!"

"I think I would enjoy that trip a great deal," Helen returned, really thinking nothing of it herself. Her own interests are as much elsewhere and extremely in a jumble as that ring ties him to another. And there they are, though the drop is unexpected and she catches his shoulder, it's done with a bright laugh.

"Oh," she said, glancing at the mirror and back at him once more before moving toward the door. "That is absolutely fantastic. And useful, too, though I do have a thought." She squeezed his hand gently in thanks and let go as she passed through the door.

"Any mirrored surface no matter how small?" Helen asked curiously.

Strange shrugs slightly at her question. "I'm not entirely sure. I only have to view my reflection and touch the mirror for the spell to work. So logically, I assume I could travel through a compact or a hand mirror--I simply haven't used anything that small before."

Though, that twinkle in his eye and the thoughtful expression on his face is an obvious tell that Strange will probably try it out later.

As they leave the bathroom, the two enter the more mess hall area of the cookhouse. There are scattered tables and chairs for people to eat at. The kitchen is through a set of doors behind a serving area. Almost instantly, Strange makes a beeline towards the kitchen, expecting Helen to follow.

"The cook left a week or so ago, so I don't expect anyone to actually be in here right now." Perfect time to steal some food.

Helen should probably not stir trouble but it was a fabulous question and if Nikola were here, he would have asked it at least a second before she had. What is magic for, if not to be able to test its boundaries? What if there was a situation and one only had a tiny escape route? How many things would be defined as mirrors? How many of those things would the spell work on?

Dare she even think of Nikola meeting Mr. Strange? No, best not. But part of her wanted it to happen very much. But, until then, Mr. Strange and Mr. Sherlock Holmes both had greatly lightened her mood.

"I'd say that is likely the case just right for some tea and company."

While Strange can't cook, he can at least make a cup of tea. He turns on one of the eyes of the stove as he starts to rummage through the cupboards. Taking out a beat up kettle, Strange moves over to the sink and starts to fill it up with water.

"There's all sorts of tea paraphernalia in that cupboard over there," said as he vaguely gestures towards one of the cupboards. "Pick which one you'd like!"

It really is a random assortment of teas in the cupboard: some loose leaf, some bagged, some straight up from other dimensions. The teacups are all also a random assortment, some absolutely huge and some tiny enough that it wouldn't count.

"Thank God," Helen murmurs half under her breath as she goes to rummage. Other dimensions? Hmmm. That's got to be fascinating. Helen picks a few different loose leaf teas that look positively foreign and quite possibly magical.

Strange's oddness is rubbing off, clearly, as she snags two large cups and sets the teas on the counter.

"I haven't the slightest as to what these are, so, I've narrowed it down. You do the picking." Surely nothing could go wrong with that.

After casting one look back at the kettle to make certain everything was still working and it was heating up, Strange walks over towards Helen's assortment of teas. Leaning over, he sniffs each of them in turn, making a bit of a show out of it. But if something smells a bit too pineappley or a bit too cinnamony then of course he wouldn't want to drink it! Granted, it might not be pineapple or cinnamon flavored but at least there's a higher chance that the tea that smells like cinnamon tasting like cinnamon than the tea that smells like oranges tasting like cinnamon.

Eventually, Strange points at one of the types of tea and pushes it out of the line-up: it's the one that smells like mint. "That one! Hopefully it tastes like it smells because it smells delicious. And don't worry, I haven't the slightest idea as to what these are either."

At that point, the kettle starts to whistle, so Strange walks back towards the oven to take it off the eye and turn off the heat. "Would you mind getting the tea set up?" he asks, over his shoulder.

"Fabulous," Helen says and wonders if she's being entirely too spontaneous. Everything in her life must be planned and now this? A life crisis, perhaps? Good lord.

"I suppose it's just tea, we'll either like it or make another to suit." She's already moving to set the cups up with a spoon each and find the sugar and milk, if wanted, and she warms the teapot with a swirl of hot water before emptying it and measuring out what should be the proper two-teaspoon-per-cup formula. She even manages to locate an actual tea tray, which is some minor miracle.

"All yours, Mr Strange."

Here's to hoping they shan't turn into cats or anything else for that matter. Would something minty be cat-like?

"There we are,

Taking his cup, Strange raises it to his lips, having decided to actually see how the tea tastes before adding in any sugar or milk. The result is...odd, shown as he scrunches up his face in concern. Thankfully, the tea is just tea. However, whatever plants were in tea mixture have made it so the tea tastes like mint chocolate instead of just mint. That's a flavor combination that Strange honestly doesn't have much experience with, so he takes another sip of the tea.

"It's not bad," he remarks, with a little frown. "It's simply odd. The tea tastes like chocolate as well, for some reason."

Helen took her own sip and pretty much made the same face. He was right, it wasn't terrible just not at all what one might expect in a tea. Her brown knits and then she laughs.

"It tastes more than a dessert than a tea," she says. "Perhaps I should have gotten the smaller cups so we could have a go at all of them. Or I could just find some good English tea. I was fairly certain I saw a tin back in there that said British Breakfast Royal tea."

Strange takes another sip, swishes it around his mouth for a moment, then adds in one of the sugar cubes. Why not, it's a dessert, desserts are sweet, let's see if making it sweeter would taste more desserty. He's normally not one for sweet things to begin with but, than again, this is the first time he's had mint chocolate tea.

"I don't mind it," he adds in, as he stirs the tea to dissolve the sugar. "Still, if you want to make a different cup for yourself, I shan't stop you. There should be enough water in the kettle and it's quite easy to reheat the water."

Having no idea if Helen came from a world with modern conveniences or not, Strange is assuming better safe than sorry. The stove is awesome though, he is a big fan of electricity, stoves, microwaves, and pretty much anything that elevates his absolute lack of cooking skills to slightly more impressive cooking skills.

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OPEN: New Beginnings In Stranger Places

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living dangerously, Helen

#YOLO

#YOLO indeed

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