open } and when trouble comes we’ll start the drums

[choosetruth]

Who: Georgia Mason and YOU
Where: Around Wonderland
When: throughout the week of 9/16
Rating: PG-13 probably for Georgia's foul mouth
Summary: Wonderland gave Georgia a plank. Great. Time to figure out why.
The Story:

Kitchen

Georgia stares at the plank through her sunglasses. The plank does not stare back, since it's a plank. It just sits there.

She sips her Coke and scowls and looks at the note in her hand. In the search for something lost, do what you know you must. -RQ

Great, except she has no idea what she must do or what's lost or what a freaking plank has to do with anything.

She turns it over and continues to stare.

The plank continues to be a plank. Sitting there and entirely unhelpful. Lovely.

Library

Well, this is a mystery, and if there's one thing that can solve the mystery, it's more knowledge. So Georgia takes her plank to the library and stacks up walls, scribbling notes on a sheet of paper. RQ = Red Queen? she writes. Plus Walnut, underlined a few times, but then... not much.

The books include Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, as well as a few on carpentry and different types of wood. There's even a book on chess, just in case learning the rules a bit better gives her some kind of insight. She glares through her sunglasses at anyone who comes to bother her... but then again, if they have any helpful answers, or more clues to offer, she might be a little more receptive.

[ooc: will match format! hit me up if you want a specific starter for something too and I can add it in the comments.]

Comments

[choosetruth]

"Mmhm," she flips a page in her book, then glances up at him. The plank is still frustratingly a mystery to her, but she hasn't given up. "It's probably magic or something." She rolls her eyes. She's so fucking sick of magic. But it's the only thing that makes sense. "You get anything?"

[sawny]

"No, they dinna give me anything. Must not be special enough," he says, a twinkle in his eye as he says it. He doesna know if it's special or not to receive some thing from Wonderland and not know what it is or why he has it.

"Seems a useless way to communicate, though."

[choosetruth]

"Probably happier that way." Special people so rarely end up happy. Not that happiness has ever been one of Georgia's priorities. She's always been too busy for that. "Somehow, I don't think clear communication is the goal here."

The trick, of course, is figuring out what the goal is.

[sawny]

"Aye, no, I would think not. I'd help you - I have a couple languages - but I don't speak wood."

This Jamie pairs with a brilliant smile, the one that used to always make Murtagh elbow him and Claire roll her eyes. It's a good one, he thinks, and he wonders how it will land on Georgia.

[choosetruth]

She doesn't react to the smile at all. She just raises an eyebrow over her sunglasses disdainfully and doesn't otherwise acknowledge it. It's too close to flirtatious for her liking. He may not mean anything by it, but she's always found it best to keep her stance on anything resembling flirting clear: she's opposed.

"It's not a message. It's a puzzle."

[sawny]

"Puzzles can be something to spend an afternoon on but I dinna ken where to start with a plank," Jamie admits.

"Have ye any ideas on the subject? Ever seen anything like it before here in the mansion, these kinds of puzzles?"

[choosetruth]

"They've given us weird gifts before. Last one I got wasn't Wonderland related, though. It was from home. And it was files." Which were much clearer, even if the full context didn't make sense until after she'd gone home and experienced the future for herself.

[sawny]

"But never something from the mansion itself, though?" Jamie hasn't been here long enough to know what kind of gifts this mansion would give or withhold.

"Mayhap there's a message we need to know - yours is a piece of it and the others who got gifts are the other pieces. That's why it doesna make sense alone?"

[choosetruth]

"Mayhap." His accent is interesting... Scottish, she thinks, but using enough archaic words that she wonders what century he's from. Since that sort of thing is possible around here, she makes a mental note to ask if she gets a chance. "My brother got a bottle of milk and a saucer. If those are both pieces, they certainly aren't adjacent ones."

[sawny]

"No, I don't think the milk and saucer ought to go with the plank," Jamie says, laughing a bit. "Your brother is here? My wife is here, was here before me, but I didna know that you could have other family. I guess I hadn't thought on it overmuch."

This has distracted him from the plank momentarily. "How long has he been here?"

[choosetruth]

"You can have anyone here. Or no one. Wonderland's weird like that." She's glad she has him, though. If she didn't have Shaun, she doubts she'd be able to survive this place. "Same amount of time I've been here. Almost a year."

[sawny]

Jamie wonders if anyone extends to people who are only alive, though, but he stays his tongue. Not a question for right now - not when they're trying to figure something else out about Wonderland.

"Is he younger or older? I was the oldest in my family."

[choosetruth]

That's... a surprisingly complicated question. She opts for the simplest explanation. "I'm older by a few weeks. We were both orphans of the Rising, so we don't know our exact birthdays. But that's what the doctors estimated when we were adopted."