open » i've got an atlas in my hands

[mucked]

Who: Peggy Carter + YOU
Where: Library, Rabbit Hole Diner, and other locations.
When: Early Feb
Rating: PG-13; will warn for changes in individual threads.
Summary: A catch-all for the first half of the month. There are some open prompts under the cut, but I'm also posting some closed starters in the comments. Hit me up if you'd like something other than the options below.
The Story:
[ DURING february's first few days, peggy pays a few productive visits to the »LIBRARY. she arrives armed with a scrap pressed into her palm. the paper is thin and torn, jagged, from a puzzle book -- folded in threes with precision and hard corners forced onto its asymmetrical shape. while she walks from stack to stack she traces the list's edge with the pad of her thumb. in reality, she doesn't need it. she'd long-since memorizes the book titles recommended to her in order to bring her loosely up to speed with popular science. so the list is a flimsy talisman, maybe, but during these visits it represents purpose. forward momentum.

her reading list is accumulated over multiple days, as though some reflexive defense mechanism convinces peggy to take her time. patience is rarely her strongest suit but she nevertheless makes an effort, knowing that a rush will only leave her rudderless and once again without distraction. to that end, she allows herself to wander off-path. maybe she's come for non-fiction, but she detours through a shelf of thrillers and mysteries and adventure stories.

she touches the spines as she passes them by -- her little list peeking between her knuckles like an ace at the ready. peggy never intends to appear lost but catch her at an odd moment and she might want some help. after all, stark never gave her author names to go with the titles.

LATER, with her coursework assembled, she goes elsewhere to conduct her reading. a great deal of it happens behind her bedroom door as she readjusts to a solitary life now that jane has returned to her husband. but some of it happens at the »DINER. with a whole booth claimed for herself, she sits with the dust jacket removed so bystanders can't easily discern what she's reading stephen hawking's a brief history of time, incidentally. it takes some two or three chapters to really dig into work she couldn't already recognize in passing -- and, on occasion, she offers up an audible scoff when she finds herself confronted with a colourful explanation of scientific discovery which nevertheless somehow manages to neglect howard stark's contribution.

she orders a plate of chips (hot; crispy; salted) and implores the wait-staff to keep them coming. instead of tea, she asks for a milkshake. not a quarter of an hour passes before she's cracked open a journal and uncapped a pen. her annotations are, for the time being, made in pitman shorthand -- and so appear as a series of near shapeless scribbles to those who aren't fluent. even so, there's no secrecy behind that choice. merely a swell of impatience after she'd worked so hard to contain it earlier.

and yet peggy's not averse to interruptions. not exactly. she may not be the most welcoming conversation partner, nor is she particularly fond of idle chatter, but she doesn't chase off interruptions or inquiries.

OTHERWISE, known associates and strangers alike are free to run into her »OUT & ABOUT. whether she's 'commuting' from quarters to library or grabbing a quick breakfast in the dining room early in the morning. she doesn't have a precise schedule (on most days) but she's not impossible to chance upon. she's nearly always immaculate -- from heel to hair-pins. having a project in hand puts her in a better mood. ]

Comments

[ischyros]

( Diana understands that. She wants to think of Wonderland as a temporary state of being as well but the longer it goes on, the more it becomes a permanent part of her life instead of an inconvenience. )

Home shouldn't merit the past tense, you're right. Do you mind if I sit down? I don't want to keep you if you wanted to keep working but, well. If we're going to talk, we ought to settle in a bit?

[mucked]

[ peg gestures to the bench across the booth and then returns, primly, to her seat. ]

By all means, please. [ polite -- and just a little curious. there is always that reflexive desire to dodge idle chatter, of course, but by now she could do with a break from her reading. ]

Have you been here long, Ms. Prince?

[ischyros]

( Diana takes her seat before answering and it's just long enough that she has a decent answer for Peggy's question aside from "a little while." )

Several months now. I've been in the library several times in an attempt to research about this place but other than wishing I'd read Alice in Wonderland a few more times, I haven't been able to get anywhere.

[mucked]

A common enough problem, I feel.

[ not being able to get anywhere, that is. peggy does the decent thing and pushes her plate of crisps towards the centre of the table -- inviting diana to snack on some, if she'd like. ]

No matter how many months any of us have been here.

[ischyros]

( Diana takes a few, if only because it gives her something to do while she thinks about what she wants to say. She has a tendency to be impulsive when she speaks and she wants to start working on that. No time like the present. )

Do most people end up giving into it? Building a life here and just settling?

[mucked]

That's a...good question. [ her smile is wan; it's obvious she doesn't have the answer. ] I know a few people who would likely embrace 'settled' as an adjective. But I suppose I know a helluva lot more who'd take offense.

It's been nearly nine months for me. Like as not, I'm not qualified to answer yet.

[ischyros]

I wouldn't be qualified either. I've been here less time than you have. I just know that there's been some here for years now and that they haven't left. I wonder what level of acceptance a person has to reach not to go insane after that long a while?

( Diana has no idea but, then again, she's been an exile from her true home for over a lifetime now. She has a different frame of reference than most people, she thinks. )

[mucked]

It's hard to say; people are remarkably resilient creatures. I suspect this place is something of a testament to that fact.

[ and peggy snags a chip, hiding a lop-sided smile behind the act of chewing and swallowing. ]

[ischyros]

Resilience is probably the only way that a person could make it through this place. It wears on the mind to be assailed constantly by creatures, to not be able to go home, to lose the ones you love.

( Diana hasn’t gotten particularly close to anyone in Wonderland, really, but she’s talked to others and she knows that it wears on them to lose the ones they love. )

[mucked]

[ -- what a turn the conversation has taken. ]

And to suffer someone -- something -- stealing your memories the whole time.

[ischyros]

My memories are precious to me as I am sure yours are to you. It's something I want to fight against but I hardly know how.

( Diana frowns a bit, trying to work out how, exactly, she intends to fight against Wonderland. )

Has anyone ever tried, Peggy? To go against Wonderland itself?

[mucked]

[ she taps her shut book in an almost idle gesture. ]

They have. Attempts are made, now and again, but I'm afraid they don't get very far. A spanner always finds its way into the works.

[ischyros]

Naturally. I'm sorry, I'm just not someone who does well at being idle. ( Diana gives Peggy a curious look, a little smile peeking around the corners of her mouth. )

But I sense a kindred spirit in that?

[mucked]

[ peg supposes it's a fair enough assumption given the work on hand. her own smile stays just as small and just as ghostly. ]

Something like that. [ kindred spirits. what a novel turn of phrase when it comes to restlessness. ] Although even on a good day it lends itself more to frustration than to progress. Still. Better than doing nothing.

[ischyros]

I feel like I'm contributing this way, at least. Otherwise, I feel like my being here is just a waste and there's so much back home, so many things that I need to be doing.

( She pauses, a rare moment of vulnerability. )

I don't want to lose the world I left behind.

[mucked]

It is commonly believed that our lives back home are put on hold while we're here. [ said as though she'd like to believe it, too. ]

[ischyros]

I really hope that is the case. There are people who depend upon me being there, people who need me as a part of their team.

( Diana is thinking, of course, of Bruce and the other members of the Justice League and she cannot help but worry that they need her and she's gone missing in action. She needs to have some reassurance that this isn't the case, that time has frozen for a while back home while she's stuck beneath the rabbit hole. )

Has anyone proven it? Been gone and come back?

[mucked]

Well, I don't know if you can count it as proven. But there are people who have left, lived more of their lives without remembering Wonderland, and have returned here to report that while they did so they didn't register any disruption back home.

[ she could give her own life as an example but -- god, no, she can't stomach it. ]

[ischyros]

That is insanity. I know it seems strange to say that when I have seen so much in my own life that defies normal expectations of reality but it's true. The idea that time just stops passing while we're here doesn't make any sense.

( Diana wants to trust it more than anything but she doesn't want to give too much into false hope and get comfortable here. She wants to keep fighting to get home as hard as she can, with the kind of dogged determination she has always had. )

[mucked]

You know, I'm not convinced time stands still exactly. More like -- more like we're removed from it, perhaps, and then replaced back in the very moment we were taken.

[ her nose crinkles. it sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? but then again -- with all these books laid out in front of her and all these possibilities suddenly apparent...maybe it isn't so strange. ]

[ischyros]

It sounds like physics beyond my understanding. I'm not much for those sorts of sciences - I'm more of a historian if anything.

( It's difficult to pin down what she is, lost out of time like she is, but Diana has embraced being a historian and linguist. )

What did you do before this place?

[mucked]

[ peggy carter used to tell more lies. she still tells some, of course, because there are truths that needn't be shared with anyone. but ten months in wonderland have taught her that the reality of her work is often times more helpful than the alibi. so with an unswerving confidence, she supplies: ]

Military service. [ true enough, for a time. ] Swiftly followed by civil service.

[ true enough. ]

You know -- general clerical, mostly.

[ischyros]

Clerical? It's a shame that they wouldn't have let you have a more active role in your military if that's the case.

( Diana smiles a bit, mostly to herself. )

I would have laughed at anyone who tried to get me to do clerical work. Unless, of course, is that what you're more comfortable with? I didn't think about it that way since I've always been more than comfortable fighting on the front lines if I have to.

[mucked]

-- Someone's got to file the reports.

[ once more: true enough. but peggy clings to her fiction a little longer, because it serves her purpose well. last time, it seemed to encourage diana to expound upon her own experience.

she hopes for the same again. ]

[ischyros]

Paperwork seems to follow battles around as an inevitable side effect. I'm not sure why that is but I've done plenty of it myself.

( Diana grins a little, shaking her head. )

What would they do without people to tie up the loose ends, right?