001

[ofdensen]

[So your new arrival is, by and large, a fairly unremarkable man; he manifests on the Plane without fanfare, without immediately demanding acknowledgment of his presence. No, actually, it would appear that this man is only too happy to be disregarded for the moment, as he takes a brief but careful inventory of his surroundings and then beelines for

Comments

[onehundredbeers]

[Nathan spends so much time in space now that you know he does not miss Charles appearing. No, he is totally up in that, right now.

In fact, his expression is actually quite happy because hey it's Charles. awesome.]

Charles! Hi.

[This should completely answer the question.]

[ofdensen]

[Look now, if his reception is that warm, he's got no choice but to consider that something must be amiss. :|

He just. Looks at Nathan for the space of about two seconds, as though expecting him to elaborate further.]

Nathan.

[And down to the brochure in his hand.]

Did you... actually write this?

[onehundredbeers]

Uhhhhhhh. Yeah. A few months ago.

[A pause.]

It's totally more informative than Irving's.

[Boy it sure did take you long enough to get up here to nag and scold people, Charles.]

[ofdensen]

"Irving." -All right.

[Let's back up a second here.]

Did you, at any point in the last few months, think it important to inform anyone that you'd, uh... discovered a dimensional gateway into astral space?

[Beat.]

That seem like the kinda thing you might want to tell somebody?

[grampasguitars]

[At first Toki doesn't notice anything out of the ordinary. He's used to Charles walking into whatever they're doing to harass them or lecture them or whatever. A casual response is halfway to his mouth when it hits him that it's Charles. On the Plane.]

It's ams Charles! In space!

[The fact that now Charles will be able to pop onto the Plane and tell him to get back to work does not cross his mind. He's just going to cluster around him like usual.]

You miss the space scavengers hunts but I thinks Irving's Hims ams throwings a parties soon.

[ofdensen]

Scaveng-what?

[Never mind. The guides, those twins, that woman... Well, that's all very troubling, but more troubling still is that they've got a lot of important work to do that isn't getting done here. Really. Really important work. If they can just go and leave all this behind, Charles can be satisfied with that.]

Toki... you and Nathan have a show to rehearse for. You don't really have the time for, uh, space... scavenger hunts.

[grampasguitars]

[Never. They will procrastinate til the end of time. Like Saffy did on this tag.]

But... but... we haves as many times as we wants! I goes heres an' theres lots and you never sees it. Like ifs you ams briefings us on things like always an' I gets bored, I pops up heres. Then I gets bored heres an' pops back, jus' like that, an' yous still talking an' thens I texts Nathans a trumpet or somethings because I ams still bored.

[ofdensen]

[This is my life.]

Well, that explains a lot but point being, I'm here now. Okay? So why don't we head back.

[He doesn't quite start walking, since it's not like there's a physical reason to, but ohhhh the expectant look at Toki.]

[ofdensen]

[Oh, hello stranger. Charles regards him with a fairly neutral expression, for the moment- tolerant is a good word for it, actually.]

He, uh, did not find himself crushed by an airplane, I hope?

[He probably did. :|]

[ofdensen]

Mmm. Got it. Well, it's, uh. Nice to meet you, Irving.

[That mystery's solved. But all this about creatures and infections? Oh, hell no, son. His hand extends out of habit, but he's already decided on the most important part of this conversation so far.]

You saw this 'incident,' did you?