text | CALL | un: smallvilleguy

[american_alien]

[ Clark had been hoping and checking and even begging for his CALL device to turn on for three years. He'd checked dutifully at least once a week to see if the damn thing would get out of it's funk and he'd always thought that having it turn back would be a day he might just throw a small party over. Today, however, was not that day. Not when the soft beep of the CALL device turning on was almost covered up by the blaring klaxons of literally every alarm on the small plane blaring in his ear. Which was fair, really, since they were three seconds from making a water landing.

Suffice to say that Clark didn't actually get to pull out his device until later. You know. AFTER he's gotten mixed up in literally the stupidest thing he's ever heard of.]

Okay, one? I really missed you guys.

And two, has anyone here ever heard of Bruce Wayne or Oliver Queen?

Comments

video

[boundinblood]

[Oh, he's switched to video. How does she-...

It takes a few seconds of poking at options until she finds it. One doesn't stay technology-dumb for long when puzzles tend to crop up in the strangest places (who seals their tomb with one, really?). Messing with things until she figures out how it works is part of the adventure!]

-...is that "video"? Yes, there we go.

[Technical fumblings aside...]

You said three years? I knew time could flow differently between worlds, but I never thought...

[He does look different enough she'd believe it, but... That's scary - all she can think of is coming back to people - on either side - who think she should be dead. What if it's on her side, too? What if Alistair took her for dead when all that happened is she vanished into some other world?]

video

[american_alien]

[ He spreads a hand since the other one is holding his device. ]

The thing turned off. I mean, I still couldn't lose it or break it but it turned off.

[boundinblood]

[She's still stuck on the fact that three years passed in what was only a few days for her. That less than a week ago this was a younger man. It takes a moment for her mind to even catch up.]

It...did nothing, then? Not even touching the screen woke it?

[Yes, Katherine, that's what "turned off" means here. Not that one can exactly blame her for repeating it, considering this level of technology isn't familiar to her in the slightest. She still thinks of it as "sleeping" and "waking", like she would a golem. If that's even a fair comparison, considering she doesn't see golems as inanimate objects...]

I wonder why. I don't know very much about these little devices.

[She suddenly remembers a courtesy she'd neglected out of the sheer strangeness of the situation:] Oh, and...welcome back, strange as it feels to say on my end.

[american_alien]

Nothing.

[ And yes, he sounds a little frustrated. HE'd MISSED everyone. ]

And then I hear it start to beep on. At pretty much the worst time.

[boundinblood]

[The sound of his frustration makes her hesitate a moment as something in her mind clicks. Something hasn't been quite right - not with him, but with her. As if the sympathy she should be feeling has been dulled all conversation - at first she didn't notice, too shocked by the disparity in the passage of time, but now that it's over with, she can see it, the result of practice in meditation on her own thoughts. All her worries so far have been about her.

Her brow furrows with worry and guilt. It's a little disconcerting, how impersonal the tiny screen was making this feel. Does this reflect badly on her as a person? She's always held some sympathy for distress, whether she showed it or not...why does his location relative to her matter to this subconscious part of her?

Katherine, of course, doesn't have the answer to this one. There's simply no precedent anywhere in Thedas to compare to this particular mode of communication. Even if eluvians worked the same way, and she wouldn't know if they did, they were at least full-length mirrors...

The best she can do is try to work through it. Keep talking and hope her mind gets the memo that this is a person in some form of pain, no matter how they're talking. She should be worried about him, not her own emotions. Firstly, he looks like he's just been through something stressful. She should be focusing on that.]

I'm sorry, it's a little hard to wrap my mind around. I don't mean to be callous. Um... Are you all right?

[american_alien]

I'm okay. I just... like I said, I kinda just got through a plane crash. But I'm okay.

I'm just... really relieved to talk to people on this again.

I missed everyone.

[ This was the only place where he could be himself. ]