{First Case} Come What May

[passes_out]

Ichabod snapped open his eyes and looked at his surroundings. Everything was amiss to him. The setting seemed too new and too modern to be the Van Tassel home where he was last remembered to be

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[likeatelescope]

"Hello, hello?" Alice has been wandering Xanadu for the past few hours (it is not her first time, but still as enchanting as), and someone sounding confused is always enough to catch her attention.

She moves her head through the doorway of the building it seems to have come from, and a kitten pokes its head in just next to hers from its perch upon her shoulder (it has wings, but those are still safely 'round the corner of the frame). "Is everything all right?"

[neverneverqueen]

Not safely 'round the corner of the frame: Captain Darling, a step behind Alice and tall enough to be tilting around from over her blonde friend's head. "Dear me," she contributes, unhelpfully.

[passes_out]

He descended the stairs to view the two women in the door frame, both blonde and both seemed very curious about him as he was of them. He looked to the first woman and nodded his head slowly. Dressed in black and what appears to be late 18th century clothing and very plain in design with a white collar that peeked behind the black satin vest, Ichabod was not what one would call significant or a shining example of being well dressed for his time. "I seem to be displaced."

Footfalls echoed off the walls and into the vast auditorium of the building that he woke up in. "Where am I and what year is this?" His voice was calm considering his circumstance despite that he was scared out of his mind that he was dead and had awoken in a place far from the living.

[likeatelescope]

After shooting Wendy a glance - affectionate and amused both - she makes her way inside (the cat makes an annoyed noise, but stays put with nails dug into her collar) - it's clear by her dress that she holds a status of some sort, but the way she moves at the same time lets on that she doesn't quite act by it. "That happens to so many people! Please don't worry, I'm sure it will all be set right in the end."

Her smile is something gentle, "you've found yourself in Xanadu. It welcomes people from all times and places, so it's... No-year and every-year at the same time." For her part, Alice seems the least perturbed ever about that knowledge.

[neverneverqueen]

When Wendy removes her hat to come inside, it's clear that one of the blondes is actually a redhead; the sunlight and the pale veil caught the gold in her hair, misleading. (Misleading is a good word for Wendy Darling in general - because the bitch is a liar.)

Whatever her status, she bothers with no deference to her companion.

"Reality is...by arrangement."

[passes_out]

With intent interest, he listened with his hands clasped behind his back. "A nexus of a sort then? What an odd reference that we are in a palace of muses as the name of this place is called," he stepped slowly from the stairs and toward the pews. "A place where time stands still and offers no real intrinsic value other than what we believe it to be?", he turns on his heel to continue his pace.

His calm demeanor gives way to a more logical view point and stops just a few steps in front of the two women. "Then if reality is how we view it, the possibility of returning home is merely an illusion, am I correct?"

[likeatelescope]

She watches this, still amused - as she so is by near anything - now so by this man's demeanor (she hasn't been inside a church in years, goodness); his postulated theory simply draws a shrug, however. It's not that she doesn't understand, it's simply that it's hard to tell how things work here, theories or no.

"That depends! I've certainly returned to a home that seemed real enough. I do suppose that could have been an illusion itself, stranger things have happened." Of note: Wonderland seemed real, yes.

[neverneverqueen]

Wendy rolls her eyes and crosses the floor with a stacatto tap of her heels, seating herself in one of those pews. For ease of conversation, one assumes. "What my dear friend means to say-" for the record, what Wendy is about to say may or may not have anything to do with anything Alice would come up with, "-is that here we have all truths and none of them, so what is real to her, sweet mad thing that she is, may very well not be real to you or I, and vice versa. Some may be more probable than others, but when pods of whales meander gently across the sky..."

She spreads her hands eloquently. The implication is obvious: simply set nothing in stone.

[passes_out]

He was about to respond with a question then turned his attention to the other before another question came to mind. Having the two here to listen to offered a little more than he was able to think through in a logical sense. "I see. So reality is not a reality of one or the other. So with this world, with all of its power to change as it sees itself fit, one persons reality is shifted from another point of view." His expression was now very confused.

"I have gone made with the fever," he said as he put his hand to his forehead. "I have completely shot my bolt."

[likeatelescope]

Alice laughs, but it's not unfriendly (she takes to being called 'mad' curiously well too). "I wouldn't worry about having gone mad, most people that end up here are certainly anything but."

"Besides, everyone is mad where I come from, I honestly don't see what people kick up such a fuss about." Alice, stop helping.

[neverneverqueen]

"Alice, darling, stop helping." Look.

Wendy pats the pew. "Sit. You are safe enough-" with a pirate and a mad queen, "-and you have a wealth of possibility at your very fingertips. Once you have your bearings, I feel sure you will see how very useful, how intriguing this place can make itself. I imagine the libraries will interest you."

[passes_out]

"Ah, your name is Alice. Charmed," he said as he took his place in the pews near Wendy with a wistful smile. Not that he didn't mind the banter, it was better than being dead in a place where he was subjected to witchcraft and vengeful ghosts. Madness didn't seem half bad just now. "And your name?" He said as he turned to the red-head.

"The libraries sound like a marvelous place to start my research," he smiled.

[likeatelescope]

"Hush, you," she's sat herself down by now and she's still smiling, though there's something perfectly bratty about it. "As am I, surely."

The kitten settles in her lap now that she's conveniently stationary and she strokes its fur just behind the wings. "Even more useful for research than normal libraries perhaps, these have everything far and wide. Though then comes the matter of finding what one needs punctually."

[neverneverqueen]

"Wendy Darling," she provides, "Captain Wendy Darling. I find the map section of particular interest, but I am ever intrigued by waters that I myself have not personally charted."

It takes balls to steer your ship through nexus waters on purpose.

[passes_out]

"Ah, Captain Wendy Darling, a sailor among adventures or a sailor for purpose? How much have you discovered." He found Wendy's manner of speech a bit too masculine for a woman but it certainly got the point across.

He looked to Alice and nodded. "So these libraries have everything that one can possibly need. I find that to useful indeed." His smile was much more genuine this time since he liked being able to find what he needed especially if he needed it in a hurry.

"So where is this library?"

[likeatelescope]

Alice quirks a soft smile at this, but simply gives a light-hearted shrug. "It's a bit hard to explain directions in places like this sometimes, but if my dear Wendy has no complaints, I'm quite sure we could show you the way."