18 Apocalypse Avenue, Saturday Morning

[doubleohblonde]

Lord Asriel eyed the strange room warily. It was nowhere near austere or cluttered enough to be the rooms of an Jordan scholar, and despite the faint chill in the air when he opened the window it was was far too warm to be anywhere in the north. Especially not Svalbard, which was currently at the top of his list of places he was likely to unexpectedly wake up.

The obviously anbaric light fittings and strange devices placed around room only added to his feelings of disorientation. He looked back at the bed he'd woken in, as if could reveal any more clues, but only saw Stelmaria stretched out on the covers. The snow leopard daemon was grooming herself, lashing tail the only indication she shared his agitation.

It was obvious that he wasn't going to find any answers here. Deciding to explore this unfamiliar place, hoping to discover at the very least where he was, if not his reasons for being here, Asriel made his way down the hall, Stelmaria padding by his side.

[Open to any of the housemates who might be around.

ETA: Bond is Lord Asriel from His Dark Materials for the weekend, and due to the fact that humans in the universe he comes from have animal manifestations of their souls/spirits called daemons that accompany them everywhere, he'll have a snow leopard named Stelmaria in close proximity at all times. ]

Comments

[spacepiratevala.livejournal.com]

Vala padded her way to the kitchen in her nightshirt, yawning and hoping someone else had made coffee. "Morning." Another yawn, then her eyes opened enough to see Bond's fine self and his..."What the hell is that?"

[doubleohblonde]

Asriel had been about to return the woman's greeting when he noticed something very, very wrong about her. "Where's your daemon?" he asked, as Stelmaria hissed, back arching.

After all, even if she wasn't dressed like any he'd met before it was entirely possible she was a witch. He hoped she was a witch, if she was instead severed he was in far more trouble than he thought.

[spacepiratevala.livejournal.com]

"My what?" She eyed Stelmaria very warily, but was damned if she'd back down in her own home. "Pets cost extra, you know."

[doubleohblonde]

"Your daemon, woman," Asriel growled, sadly the witch option was looking unlikely, although there wasn't that air of vacancy about her you saw in people who had been severed.

Stelmaria meanwhile, had fixed her haughtiest glare upon the woman. Feline scorn heaped upon her tone as she spat out "I am not a pet."

[spacepiratevala.livejournal.com]

"Okay, look," Vala glared, wondering when getting a cup of coffee had been so complicated. "I don't know what a daemon is, I don't have one, and I don't care how many of your animals talk, you still need to pay more rent for them."

[doubleohblonde]

"How is it possible don't you know what a daemon is?" Asriel demanded, as Stelmaria placed herself between them, tail lashing furiously. "More importantly how can you not have one? Everyone has one!"

Pause.

"And what do you mean, rent?"

[spacepiratevala.livejournal.com]

Deciding to tackle the most important issue first, Vala recited, as if from memory, "Rent is the amount of money that is owed to a landlord--me--by a tenant--you--for use of their premises to live in and do things I generally don't want to know about."

"No, I think you're the only one with a daemon, sorry." She further decided that reaching down to pat the kitty would not be productive.

[doubleohblonde]

"I'm the only one with a daemon? Might as well say I'm the only one with a head."

"I know what rent is," Asriel replied witheringly. Maybe he was wrong about her lacking vacancy. "And I have never met you before, let alone leased premises from you."

[spacepiratevala.livejournal.com]

"No," she corrected slowly, wondering if Bond had suffered a head injury in the lastday or so, "heads are prevalent." She pointed to her own as an example. "Daemons," and here she pointedly looked around, noting silently the absence of other non-rent-paying multi-footed organisms, "are not."

"Then why did you ask?" She demanded, hands crossed under her breasts. "You have definitely leased premises. Just last week. Or maybe the week before."

[doubleohblonde]

"So what you're saying is people here have no souls," Asriel said just as slowly, he was getting a glimmer of suspicion about the place he found himself in. "Last week? Last week I was presenting a paper at the Royal Arctic Institute!"

[spacepiratevala.livejournal.com]

"I think that's pretty damn debatable, and none of your business," she glared back. "No, last week you were here, teaching a class. To students."

[doubleohblonde]

"You're the one you said you don't have daemons!" Asriel was starting to get a headache. "The Master of Jordan would never put me at the front of a class. Not of students."

[spacepiratevala.livejournal.com]

Vala's coffee wasn't getting any closer, darn it. "You're right, we don't have daemons. What does that have to do with souls, rent, or teaching a class? Master of who? And why not?"

[doubleohblonde]

"Your daemon is your soul! Do I have to draw you a diagram?" Asriel asked. "The Master of Jordan. Jordan College. In Oxford."

[spacepiratevala.livejournal.com]

"Apparently, because we don't let our souls wander around free here, and certainly not with sharp teeth and claws, as lovely as they are," she added, because hi, still not about to piss off the tiger-leopard-feline thing. "Our souls are invisible. I have no idea where that is, but you definitely taught here last week. In Fandom. Virginia."

[doubleohblonde]

That got Asriel's attention. "They are?" he asked, that earlier glimmer of suspicion hardening. "Where?"

[spacepiratevala.livejournal.com]

"We don't know where. That's kind of the point of souls."

[doubleohblonde]

Asriel pinched the bridge of his nose. "Where are we?"

[spacepiratevala.livejournal.com]

"Fandom, Virginia, United States," she repeated, raising her voice a little. Maybe he hadn't heard her the first time. "North America, Planet Earth."

[doubleohblonde]

"America?"

[spacepiratevala.livejournal.com]

"Yes..."

[doubleohblonde]

"Where's America?"

[spacepiratevala.livejournal.com]

What? "It's under your feet."

[doubleohblonde]

"I'd gathered that," Asriel managed to keep his expression level, although Stelmaria was now quite obviously ignoring Vala. "But where is it?"

[spacepiratevala.livejournal.com]

Vala didn't mind being ignored by the creature that could eat her whole. In fact, she preferred it. "In relation to what? I need a reference point."

[doubleohblonde]

"Look, do you have a map?"

[spacepiratevala.livejournal.com]

"Maybe?" She had no idea, honestly. "Maybe the internet would be a better place to look?"

She was already on her way back to her room to get her laptop and boot it up. She set it on the kitchen table, then found a semi-current map and pointed. "America."

[doubleohblonde]

After marvelling a moment over the sleek device, Asriel studied the map intently. "The names are wrong," he said finally, although he didn't sound as upset about that as he could have.

[spacepiratevala.livejournal.com]

Vala checked the date on the map, but it seemed reasonably current. "How so?"

[doubleohblonde]

Asriel pointed to the map. "That should be New Denmark," he explained, a definite undercurrent of glee in his tone. "At least in my world."

[spacepiratevala.livejournal.com]

She frowned as she saw where he was pointing. "I don't think there is a New Denmark here."

[doubleohblonde]

"My point exactly."