( video )

[mucked]

Who: Peggy Carter and YOU.
Broadcast: Fleet-wide, from inside the Marsiva.
Action: Y, for any other newcomers between now and the Shuffle.
When: This Week.

[ let us not dwell too long upon the awkward silences and humiliating nascent moments of agent carter's awakening. let it only be said that she woke with a start (despite the afforded comfort) and the broadcast didn't quite zoom in close enough to adequately witness the depth of her horror when she first raised a tentative hand to her forehead only to find an empty glass vial still sitting there. steve's blood had been poured away: returned to his native lands by way of the east river. both guilty and triumphant, she pockets the vial in her blazer and tells herself it's a problem for another time. after all--- ]

Bollocks. [ mistaking herself for a person alone, she swears. loudly and colourfully as she crosses the bay and knocks her knuckles against the too-intact viewing window separating herself from the rest of creation -- and no familiar blue-and-green marble in sight. peggy swears again: bollocks, damnit, and hell. unable to peer into the void for much longer, she turns her back on oblivion and is confronted once more with the too-sterile hospitality deck. she may be a tidy and precise sort of woman, but this much tidiness and precision makes her stomach turn. where is the stink of new york? the heat? the mess? the humanity?

feeling charged with purpose, she springs into (moderate) action. feeling alarmingly comfortable with technology she swears she's never seen before, she plays her fingers across a panel she doesn't know will connect her to the rest of a whol damned fleet -- but she's left with the burning certainty that it'll connect her with someone. imperiously: ]

I would speak with the individual -- or individuals -- in charge of this operation. Believe me when I stress there is a whole bloody cavalcade of laws, both domestic and international, you're breaking by holding me here. I demand to...

[ some of the fire floods from her belly. a little desperate, she changes tactics: ] Is anyone there? Hello?

Comments

[mucked]

And all for the entertainment of some...some unknowable institution. Am I still hitting the nail upon its head?

[openhands]

Yes. We have limited contact with anyone outside the Fleet. Mostly individuals who live on the planets we visit on occasion and those we run into at waystations.

[mucked]

And I would wager these...planets, and the way stations besides, aren't all that random. Prisons rarely allow for happenstance.

[openhands]

Is that how you view this? As a prison?

[mucked]

I haven't yet made up my mind. But the word has been thrown around by a few others with whom I've spoken.

[openhands]

I imagine those saying it have never actually been imprisoned.

[mucked]

-- Have you?

[ raw curiousity. ]

[openhands]

It was for only a few hours in my youth.

[They really wanted her dead, so keeping her imprisoned for longer than that would have been detrimental to plans for a speedy execution.]

But in serving the Seekers, I have seen enough to know that if this is imprisonment, we should be thanking the Maker for it. There are far worse conditions we could find ourselves in.

[mucked]

I'm sorry, but I'm not so certain the distinction ought to be made on difference alone.

[openhands]

You are not being beaten, tortured, starved, and your mind is still your own. There is a distinction.

[mucked]

I won't argue that there are degrees involved. Gradations, certainly, and that this exists on the lighter end of the spectrum. But abduction is abduction, no matter how soft its velvet ties.

[openhands]

That is unnecessarily dramatic.

[mucked]

I rather feel as though it's just dramatic enough. Interstellar travel, mangled timelines, and all this television poppycock besides? Drama is warranted.

[openhands]

And drama is exactly what they are looking for.

[mucked]

[ a pregnant pause. this is still the part of the puzzle she doesn't understand: ] Is it?

[openhands]

As I understand, this is a common form of entertainment.

[mucked]

For some, maybe. [ she exhales. ] I can't believe I'm saying this, but -- I think I rather prefer radio dramas.

[openhands]

Radio dramas?

[The hell is a radio even???]

[mucked]

Stories [ that much is obvious, so she doesn't bother to go into any more depth ] told over wireless. Like you and I, talking as we are. But without the visuals.

And only a marginally better script. [ hmph. she's not a fan of radio dramas. ]

[openhands]

Ah. There is nothing like this technology where I am from.

[mucked]

Don't get me wrong -- this is well advanced from that to which I am accustomed. But what is the world like where you're from?

[openhands]

I am not entirely certain how to describe it...

[You know, seeing as how she's from there and nobody has actually bothered to ask until now.]

I think perhaps others might think it...simple. Compared to all of this.

[mucked]

I might not have done much travelling outside my own...planet -- [ oh it still galls her to phrase it like so. ] But I'm convinced no world could be simple.

How about we start with its name?

[openhands]

Thedas. I come from a country called Nevarra.

[mucked]

[ lovely names, she thinks. ]

I wish I could say any of it sounded familiar. But it doesn't.

[ and it makes her feel so...disparate. distant. lost at sea. ]