2022-01-16 - Seven O'Clock to Belgrade

You're waiting for a train. A train that'll take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you. But you can't know for sure.

He's ridden so many trains in his life: Russia, western Europe, Japan. But this isn't one of them, he knows it. This is no station he's ever been in, and the crisp gray suit and matching fedora he's in are not clothes he's ever owned in the real world, tailored for styles long out of fashion. Joe wears them comfortably, though, checking his ticket against the departures board, lifting his head so his face is momentarily unshadowed by the brim of his hat.

In one reality, Itzhak falls off the couch in his garage. In another, he's standing in this glorious train station, wearing an equally gorgeous three piece suit in subtle charcoal pinstripe.

And a hat. A baller fedora with a brilliant blue feather tucked into the brim.

He stands there blinking, not sure if he's dreaming or Dreaming, until he spots Joe. "Cavanaugh, hey. Nice suit."

Trains, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, are not a method of transportation that Ravn Abildgaard has a lot of experience with. There was a time that a vast network of trains connected all of Europe -- and beyond -- from Narvik to Naples, from Copenhagen to Vladivostok. It was not such a long time ago -- the nineteen nineties saw the end of that, with car and airplane traffic on the rise. The network still exists, but the trains -- the international night trains -- are few and scarce now. There's just not enough patronage anymore. There's talk of bringing them back, in an attempt to lower greenhouse gas emissions. Ravn hitch-hiked his way from Copenhagen to Valletta.

He wonders why he's here. Where here is. Then it dawns upon him that this must be a dream -- and in this dream, he's someone in a three-piece suit, carrying an umbrella and a briefcase. Presumably there's a porter somewhere, with his suitcase.

He doesn't know. He doesn't care. If there's something he's supposed to do, there'll be some kind of hint. Eventually. So he approaches the conductor, ticket seller, person in uniform, whatever, and tries to convince himself that this is perfectly normal. Board the train, board the story.

Is that...is that Vic? Hard to tell at a glance as she has dark hair, pulled back in a style more suited to the 1940s than the present. She's in a jacket, crimson wool with silver buttons, a high necked black blouse, black pencil skirt, and low-heeled, calf-high, black leather boots. The jacket has black leather patches on the cuffs and shoulders. It looks somewhat military, her outfit, yet not.

She's in line, looking around in bewilderment, until some recognizable faces appear. "Ravn?" she asks the Dane.

In the world that is his daily reality, KC is calling it a day at work, logging out after many hours of keeping the hospital afloat and dealing with multiple other administration duties. He cut out his office light and then reaches for the doorknob, hesitating for a moment before turning and opening it. As he steps through the exit, KC finds himself walking out of a door nearby where everyone else seems to gather. From one space to the other, the giant man pauses with a 'what the hell' look on his face. Change of clothes from his professional work attire to something a bit more snazzy in a suit, round thin framed glasses on his face, his long hair tied neatly at the middle, keeping a majority of it from his broad shoulders. A frown crosses his features, "Really? This is what we're gonna do today?"

Joe looks oddly at ease. Even his posture's subtly different, the hat cocked at a rakish angle. But the smile is the same, broad and bright and a little crooked, as he turns from the board to grin at Itzhak. "Could say the same about yours," he offers. "Where's your ticket for?" He doesn't really have any doubts that they'll be headed to the same place, but it's worth checking.

Violin music is playing throughout the station, something sweet and yearning by Dvorak. Itzhak tilts his head, eyes going unfocused as he listens, listens in the way that a musician listens. More Dreamers arrive and Joe asks him something and he snaps out of it, "Abildgaard, Vic, hey, ovah heah." KC gets a suspicious East Side side-eye. "Who the hell are you?"

Don't mind him, he's just like that.

Joe's question is a good one and he digs into the pocket of his overcoat to pull out a trifolded ticket. "Yeah, uh..." did he bring his reading glasses into this Dream? Whatever, it's not even in English or Yiddish. "Same place," he concludes, comparing his ticket with Joe's.

Ravn dips into the pocket in which he'd keep a ticket if he had one; if this dream wants him to go somewhere, it better have provided, or he's going to wander off and find a taxi to a hotel somewhere.

And sure enough, there are tickets to hand over. So he does, while nodding to Vic. "Looks like we're going to play Murder on the Orient Express. At least we're dressed for the occasion," the Dane tells her with a hint of wryness. He hates wearing a suit. He hates wearing a tie. He's wearing both, and definitely not off the rack either. "Now to find out if we get first class tickets, I suppose. I'd hope for a decent dining car but it seems we're not going to be on board quite long enough to find out whether Serbian wine is as good as connoisseurs claim."

Something niggles at the back of his mind, though, and only after the conductor has moved on does he add, very quietly, to the enforcer, "There's a lot of Serbian in our lives lately, isn't there?" before moving towards Rosencrantz and Cavanaugh and the big guy from the coffee shop.

Vic gives herself a looking over. At least she's not in a corset in the wild west this time. She'll consider that an improvement. She squints, cool blue eyes trying to take in everything at once. It feels old timey in some ways, but also futuristic in others, but...even that futurism has an archaic feel to it. She heads for Joe and Itzhak, more familiar faces, and nods to KC. "Any idea what this is?" she asks, gesturing around them. "Other than a train station?"

She reaches into her jacket's inside pocket and pulls out a ticket, frowning at it as she reads the destination. Belgrade? Serbia? The sounds of Serbian from the porters seem to confirm that, and make her spine stiffen. She mutters, "Fucking Spokane" out of sheer reflex, before she presents her ticket to the demanding ticketmaster.

Tickets? Of course there are tickets required. "Damnit..." KC mutters and starts to search the insides of his jacket pockets, "So what is it now? Slasher on a train? Spies? Ghosts? Zombies, like that Korean movie?" not his first rodeo either right? The large man find his ticket, and opens it up to read the details, "I don't recognize any of this. Not surprising..." he sighs and just holds onto his till it's asked for. In the mean time he looks up to take stock of folks. A couple of people he recognizes, and some not so much. "Vic, Ruiz." he nods, "Eh?" an arched brow at Itzhak, "Could ask the same thing about you, buddy." the large man challenges, "Usually folks give their name first before asking for anyone elses, but I'm KC." Dreams make him a little grouchy too. Not overly, but he might be a little defensive.

Joe's been living the placid life of a retiree. At least, a life as placid as one might live in Gray Harbor. But the comment from Vic has the sailor looking over to her with raised brows. "What's that?" he asks, mildly. The Serbs being a problem....that he's not aware of. The realization that it's somewhere in Serbia they're headed. "It's a little late for Serbians to feel personal about what I did. They were asking for it," he says, in a way that's only barely sequitur.

KC gets a milder version of Itzhak's side eye. "Joe Cavanaugh," he says, as if expecting that KC might have heard of him. Hey, it's possible. Especially with Itzhak there to do the introductions.

"Different kind of Serbians," Ravn murmurs quietly. "Although this might be entirely coincidental."

Itzhak upnods belligerently to KC. "Rosencrantz. Itzhak." He's got a New York accent that could peel paint. He's about to offer his ticket to the porter when it turns out the seven thirty is full. "Whaddaya mean it's FULL?" he demands of him. "We got tickets for seven thirty, right here!"

God help the man who stands between a New Yorker and his chosen train.

"I don't believe in coincidences," Vic mutters back at Ravn. Once upon a time, she believed in them. Then came Glimmer and nothing ever seemed coincidental again. Then her ticket is being rejected and she blinks. "What do you mean? It's says 7:30 PM to Belgrade right on it. We have tickets, we're PART of that train being full." She scowls at the ticketmaster sharply.

"Ah," KC shakes a finger in Itzhak's general direction, "I know you... Well OF you. Lyric talked about you. Band, right?" He feels a bit better with that little piece of information now. A nod also given to Joe, who he starts to speak to as well until the ticket debacle pops up. KC squints in suspicion and rolls his eyes, taking a look at the ticket, "This is totally part of it." he complains, "All of our tickets are gonna have the same situation and then somethin is probably gonna happen." He closes up the document and hands it over to the ticketmaster, "So what's the solution here? What do we do? We all just wait here?" KC is picking up the tone of someone who is already fed up. Like an irritated actor who is wishing he didn't say yes to the part

Joe reminds unperturbed. He surveys the others, before looking back at the ticket taker. "Very well," he says, mildly. "I'll wait for the eight o'clock." It doesn't look as if they have any immediate choice, not really. Apparently it hasn't occurred to him that it might be a bribe the taker's after. He saunters over to one of those plush seats and settles himself with an elaborate casualness, like he might even take a nap in the interim. Only, the blue eyes are anything but sleepy.

"I suppose the eight o'clock would give me time for a cigarette before we board." Ravn looks pretty unperturbed, in the fashion of someone who expects there to be a narrative trying to assert itself, and it's not his bloody job to make it so. If some Veil creature wants to direct a dream in which he gets on a steam train while dressed like he was about to attend the Ambassador's birthday party? The Veil can bloody well sort out the tickets.

He pats himself down. Ah, yes. Cigarette case, silver, coat-of-arms, how posh. He lights one. He waits.

Joe and Ravn are so cool, butter wouldn't melt in their mouths. Of course. Itzhak, who really isn't in the best of moods lately, is getting wound up. Of course.

He also has no idea what's in Serbia and he sure couldn't point to Serbia on a map. The language sounds almost like Yiddish except it's nothing like Yiddish and he keeps wanting to slip into his other native tongue. The urge is so strong that when he answers KC, he first does in the rasping rapid clip of Yiddish. Then, grimacing, he switches over to English. "Band, yeah, sometimes. I'm a violinist."

The teeth on the ticketmaster make Vic's eyes go wide and she stares. Then she notices the clock is...running in reverse? She scowls, irritated, but she moves to sit with the others, crossing her legs in a ladylike fashion, glaring at all and sundry who pass in the terminal. "Time is in reverse or something, and ticket taker guy has a shark mouth," she whispers to the others.

(TXT to ) KC : roll kc/glimmer+alertness

roll kc/glimmer+alerness

"Seen a movie like this." KC points his finger down, indicating their situation. "Million of them. How much you wanna bet we're gonna be the only ones here; only ones with 8:30 tickets, then we'll get hunted down or swarmed by some horde of the undead, huh? Anyone got money on how something's gonna try to kill us?" He feeling around himself for his wallet, "I got 50 bucks right here. Which I don't really carry cash so you're in luck. That's probably why we're here right now, cause we did something we don't usually do today." It sounds like anxiety is mounting with him. But his wallet isn't where he left it. Making him close his eyes and sigh deeply out of his nostrils.

The shark teeth causes KC to take a step instinctively putting himself between folks and this messed up dude. But not just him, the woman is causing a reaction too. "Jesus, lady!" the giant man winces like the sun were shining in his eyes.

The sight of those teeth send a spike of cold fear through Itzhak. So naturally he does what he always does when he's frightened.

One big fist, inked with DOWN on the knuckles, grabs the ticketmaster by the front of his tie and twists. Itzhak jerks him in close. "Listen, pal," he snarls, "the train ain't full. IS it. "

The girl makes his stomach twist in an entirely different way, but he doesn't dare look away, not yet. First this little sunnovabitch is gonna do what he says.

"Yikes," Ravn murmurs as his blue-grey gaze trails after the elegant redhead. One might get the impression the man does not fancy girls -- or redheads -- until he adds, quietly, "The ticket master may have shark teeth, but that woman glows like the Pourhouse on karaoke night."

He glances at the others -- distracted momentarily by KC's little rant -- and then shakes his head. "Either she's in trouble or we are. We're certainly getting sorted. Makes you wonder what the treshold is, because next to a few people here, I should be told to come back next week."

Everyone who knows Ravn knows he's barely got the shine to move a spoon, after all.

And then Rosencrantz is -- well, being Rosencrantz. The Dane turns and reaches out to touch the New Yorker's arm briefly. "I think it's how the story is supposed to go, Itzhak. Let's try to stick together as a group."

"We're in trouble," Joe says, and he's unfolded himself from his seat. Well, waiting patiently is rarely a viable strategy in Dreams, is it. He ranges himself along Itzhak's side, and grins at the ticket-taker. Nowhere near as intimidating, since he has perfectly ordinary human teeth....but the intent is the same. No urging Itz to calm - sometimes it's best to let your friend be the human wrecking ball.

Vic's teeth grind at the sight of the redhead, as she has to look away from her brightness. Her stomach clenches, a cold feeling seeping into it, at the wrongness of her aura. She shields her eyes with a cupped hand, trying to recover. She looks momentarily amused at KC playing the "Big Man" game and protecting them. Clearly, clearly he does not know Vic Grey more than in name. Even Seth gets BEHIND her in bad situations.

"Stick together, for sure," she adds to Ravn's words. She stands when Itzhak moves to grab the ticketmaster, but she's still trying not to look directly at the redheaded sun that is that woman. She settles into a defensive stance, patting herself down for weaponry.

Stick together. Yes, great plan. Ravn is entirely on board with the idea of sticking somewhere not in front because he knows full well that his asthmatic, untrained self is not much use in a fight. Beating people up, whether with fists or with shine is not his forte.

He instinctively calls up that little bit of power he possesses, in the hope of warding off any blows, and prepares to dodge like a kitten on rollerskates. And while doing so, look around, maybe get some kind of idea of who and what is about to happen to the little group -- because if a year and a half in Gray Harbor has taught him anything at all, it's that men with shark's mouths never come alone.

"Hey! I--oop!" KC is initially caught off guard by the change of the man. He was ready to assist Itzahk but things got pretty hairy all of a sudden, "Shit! I KNEW it."

Itzhak barks, "Shields up!" like he expects everybody to know that he's Captain Picard in this scenario. (He's definitely more Kirk but he grew up on TNG, okay?)

A soundless whipping sound as his Song uncoils and he lunges to meet the ticketmaster, fists up and his own teeth bared.

And Joe, for his part, obeys. It takes him a moment of concentration, though, as he summons his own version of the Song. The air around him vibrates in a subsonic tone, shifted that tiny fraction....and he's left looking just faintly blurred around the edges. He doesn't attack the ticketmaster, not yet. No, he's also doing the pat down to see if he's got any mundane weaponry on him. A PPK might be a nice find, in the neatly sewn pockets of that dapper suit.

Vic draws her Glimmer around her in a shield while searching herself for weapons. She finds a pistol strapped in a holster beneath the jacket and she pulls it out to wield it. "Ravn, stay behind me," she murmurs to the Dane, brandishing her gun at the Ticketmaster. "You get away from him!" she shouts at the man assaulting Itzhak.

Ravn is not about to argue. Out of him and Vic one is a trained police officer turned mob enforcer and the other is an asthmatic academic -- and he definitely has never owned a badge. So he falls back while deft, gloved fingers inspect the briefcase that he's carrying for anything useful. Papers go flying because at this point? He is not interested in paperwork.

There's a neat little mother-of-pearl handled pen knife in the briefcase. It's not what he hoped for -- but it's something. He holds on to it for now -- and looks around. He's no fighter. But a distraction might buy time for the people who are.

He looks up. The signs on the platform, reading the town's name in strange letters that look cyrillic but aren't -- it's got to be possible to make them come down. Tendrils of his moving power reach up, trying to wrench the nearest sign loose and launch it at the ticket master because hit or no, anything to distract and buy time for the people who can fight.

The threads of the overcoat and suit part and black streaks appear on Itzhak's skin, the tissue wilting, and he didn't even get cut and this is NOT FAIR. He staggers back, gasping in pain, and drops to his knees, strength sapped.

"Mamzer," he hisses, folding over, forehead on the cool marble floor.

He ain't down yet though. There's a chandelier right above the ticketmaster, isn't that a funny coincidence? "C'mere, baby," he whispers--and the chandelier, half a ton of glass and electric candles, creaaaaks, rocking...then comes smashing down.

Threads of Glimmer pull and weave into a tight barrier around KC, visible and then gone to the naked eye for a moment with his defensive power. Multiple targets start to show themselves and KC hasn't much time to assess the biggest threat. From the looks of it, there are two people on one and then one after Joseph. As Itzhak brings down the chandler, the large man spots the spark of electricity from the candles, reaching out with his fingers and gripping as if taking fistfuls of the rampant energy, KC pulls and tosses his arm toward the Porter after Joseph, sending the electricity to arc and lick hungrily toward its target.

"Fuck you, Baby Shark!" Vic shouts at the ticketmaster. She fires off a shot from her pistol and clips him, though he's still standing despite all their efforts. "Jesus what IS he!?"

He doesn't trust his power the way Itz does. It's not naturally what he reaches for. So it's the sleek little automatic pistol Joe goes for, the report of it echoing loud among the arches of the station. He clips his enemy...but not fast enough to avoid taking that baton to the side of the head. The blow sends him staggering sideways, inadvertantly comical, but he manages to not drop the pistol. Definitely seeing stars, though, by the dazed look in his eyes.

The station sign crashes down around on and near the ticket master as if violently wrenched from its hinges -- and that in turn gives Ravn pause. He looks up. He decides to have a conversation with himself about later, because it was not supposed to be that easy.

But if it is going to be that easy? Hell, let's throw something else. The porter's trolley full of suitcases, for instance -- that looks like an excellent missile. And also far more than the Dane figures he should be able to manipulate, but there's only really one way to find out, isn't there? He reaches out with what power he has available to him, and tries to ram the girl with the trolley, pushing her away from the train.

Vic feels the sudden TRUTH of this Dream. That woman must not get on that train. She turns, ignoring her own pistol for a moment, and a hand stretches out to launch her Physical power at...the redhead's shoes, trying to effectively nail them to the floor.

Itzhak snickers, muttering, "Lot 666," humming the Phantom of the Opera theme to himself. The shattered lights begin to glow once more, just before he slumps over...

and wakes up on the floor of his garage, clothes intact but deep lines of horrid pain scored across his chest.

Oh so THAT'S it! It's the girl, and the train. She can't go that train! Alright, well KC does the first thing that comes to his mind, tries to stop the train itself. If it can't run, it can't take her right. So with concentration on his face, the large man tries to pull electricity to arch for the electronics in the front of to train.

He's too busy fighting the Porter to see directly what happened to Itz, but....he's finally got sense enough to try and use his Glimmer to disarm his attacker. The baton goes skittering across the platform to vanish under the feet of the crowd....and then Joe's yelling at the redhead, "Don't go! Don't get on the train!" As if maybe he can convince her with sheer volume.

Dreams work oddly. Vic knows this, so she tries to think out of the box. Holding a powerful Glimmerist is likely not going to be something she can do for very long, even if she's got a hell of a grip on the redhead's shoes. She looks back up at the clock, the clock that was behaving oddly before. "Maybe..." she murmurs, then reaches out her Physical power to try and make the clock's time move forward to 8 pm, well past the departure of the 7pm to Belgrade.

Ravn gets back up, excited, ready to try to -- wait, what? Something dawns on him as he looks at the girl -- and then he turns his head to look at the others. "She's got too much light! Duck!"

And instead of sending the trolley flying again -- he's diving for cover behind it.

KC has been a part of some confusing dreams, but this one he has NO idea where it's headed, or what the endgame is. That happens sometimes... Though he's sure of one thing with this woman, and that is simply that she is not normal somehow. The giant of a man leaps and runs on long legs, seeking something large enough for his body to duck behind for cover.

Something about her makes Joe sway, the pistol nearly falling from one tattooed hand. He holds up his other hand before his eyes, as if to shade them from too much light. "No," he says to her, but it's vague, rather than loud.

He doesn't make it to cover, though. No, instinct has him dropping prone, more as if prostrating himself before an altar than really seeking shelter.

The silence of the explosion is the eeriest part, as Vic feels it tear through her. This is gonna really suck in the morning. The white hot vanishes and she wakes in her bed, feeling like she is full of invisible shrapnel.

"Mr. Kahnn? Mr. Kahnn are you okay?" a venerable voice calls and meet KC's ears. The large man peeks up from what were once seats in the station, but is now the front desk of the hospital. KC blinks, "Uh... yeah. Yeah! I'm fine Sonya. I just dropped my keys is all--" the man apologizes, reaching and holding up his keys to show her with a smile, "Took em out of my pocket and sent them flinging under the desk. Everything's okay now. Have a good evening, ok? I'll see you on Monday." with a warm chuckle, he leaves the woman flabbergasted with her own thoughts as he exits the building, breaking a sigh and wincing from the experience.

It takes Ravn a moment or two to get his bearings. He remains in bed, face down in the pillow, wincing. Then he raises a hand to look at -- the burns on his arms, as if he's shielded his face from something bright and fiery.

"Fucking Serbians," is all he has to say. For now. It's entirely possible he's going to have a thing or two to say later, to a few very specific people.

He's curling up, as if that might shield him from the force of the explosion. Whatever cry he was going to make dies soundless on his lips....and Joe wakes to find himself on his own bed, the book he was reading fallen from his hand. Ears ringing, head pierced by a sharp pain like a railroad spike....but safe enough for the moment. Then he's reaching for his phone, to text Itzhak, make sure he's come through okay.