I'm just doing what comes naturally

[jolting]

Who: Dr. Whale and whoever wants to stop him from doing science experiments on innocent wildlife
Where: around Truffula Valley
When: the 12th
Rating: PG-13 for crimes against nature
Summary: Fish do not hum. Trees do not smell like butterfly milk
The Story: Being transported from Storybrooke to Wonderland really should have been enough. But no, he was taken to yet another world. Luckily Evelyn already told him a little about this, or he would've been very off-footed. Of course Whale still was off-footed. Just less so.

After getting over the bright colors, Whale started really taking a look around. The trees weren't like any he ever saw before. He reached out and felt a tuft between his fingers. Odd, but it was soft as silk. Whale plucked it to examine it closer. He caught the faintest whiff of something. He couldn't place the scent. Whale tucked it into his pocket so he could take it back to his lab.

He continued on his walk and saw three... fish? On land? Whale gaped at them in surprise. The surprise grew to outright shock when they actually waved to him and started humming. Humming. He needed to get his hands on one of those things.

Comments

[nascensibility]

She notices that his expression has gotten unusually strained. An avid reader of fiction between all her historic texts and a supporter of interpreting literature your own way, Evie finds the response curious.

"How does it go, then?"

Because he seems to have a very strong opinion on the subject.

[jolting]

Wait. No. He didn't really want to talk about this, not really. He was already dangerously close to revealing himself to her. Whale didn't mind so much about revealing other things, but his true self? That he wanted to keep a secret a while longer.

"Happily ever after, of course," he answered flippantly.

[nascensibility]

"Mhm."

Her expression says that she doesn't believe him in the slightest, but she won't push the subject. Rocking on her heels, Evelyn braces her hands on her hips.

"Would you like to hear a different story?"

[jolting]

"Sure," Whale agreed. He offered his arm. "Let's take a walk and you can tell me all about it."

[nascensibility]

Perhaps a different talk will encourage him to be a little more forthcoming, because Evie is perfectly aware that there's something he's not telling her. After nine years with a man who happens to be one of the least talkative people she knows, Evelyn has learned to read between the lines.

She takes his arm and begins pragmatically, because now that they've touched on the subject of reanimation...

"The is the story of how a young woman accidentally brought a three-thousand year old mummy back from the dead."

[jolting]

A mummy. Well, he shouldn't be surprised. He was Frankenstein and his one sort-of-friend was a werewolf. Why not mummies too? So after a brief moment of surprise, he gave a nod of understanding.

"You would be the young woman in question."

[nascensibility]

"Correct," she confirms with a little nod. It's been a while since she actually had to think that far back, to remember the 'first' adventure.

"She was very...ah...headstrong, and wanted to prove a point to group of old men who refused to take her seriously."

Understatement of the century.

"Since she was a little girl, she had wanted to to find the Book of Amon Ra- it was an Egyptian legend, you see, a text that was supposed bring men back to life, but there was very little literature on the subject. So she funded her own expedition with her brother to set out for a city that wasn't supposed to exist to look for a book that was considered a myth, at best."

[jolting]

He listened to her story as they talked. Now and then a bar-ba-loot would stare at them, or a hummingfish would sing a little tune, or a swoony swan would fly overhead. Yet Whale gave Evelyn his full attention. Her story struck a chord with him.

Especially the part about bringing a man back to life. Whale was getting that feeling again, that certain understanding he had shared with Ruby on the pier.

"Go on," he encouraged her. "I like this story so far. I have a feeling I would have been right there with you, were I a part of your world."

[nascensibility]

It's funny how you can relate to people once you've given them a chance, hm, Whale?

"Well, ah...with the help of a very dashing guide, she and her brother found the lost city. The excavations were in full-swing, everything was going along rather splendidly when we found a large sarcophagus buried at the base of a statue."

Evelyn is suddenly dragged out of story-telling mode into reliving the entire ordeal. Word for word, piece by piece.

"In it was a...a mummy, but he was still decomposing, he-" she takes a deep breath. "He had been buried alive with scarab beetles for a grievous transgression, cursed in this life and the next. It's not entirely uncommon to see the sacred hieroglyphs chiseled off, but it is rare. But by then it was late, we left the mummy for our camp and the book-"

She realises she didn't quite clarify that part, but she'll get there.

"The Book of Amon Ra had been found by the other half of the digging party. While they slept, I took it, opened it, and read from it."

Maybe you can guess what happens next.

[jolting]

It amazed him, really. It made him regret not trying to make connections earlier. But he was always so focused on his work as Victor, or focused on himself as Whale. But now that he was both he could feel the loneliness they both suffered. So yes, he was glad to be seeing a connection forming between himself and Evelyn.

Here was a woman who he could really understand. Her daring to step across the boundaries, to dare read from a book that could revive the dead... Well, didn't he do something similar?

"I see now why you envoked the name of Frankenstein," Whale said quietly. "The two of you have a lot in common. Reviving the dead and all."

[nascensibility]

"I didn't mean to," she replies just as quietly, rubbing at her cheek for a moment. "After all, no harm ever came from reading a book."

She regrets it now, if only because Imhotep has returned in a similar fashion. Taken her son. Torn her and her family down. The only monster is the man who claimed to do all this out of love for a woman who wasn't even available to him three-thousand years ago.

Funny how grudges work like that.

"But that was a long time ago."

[jolting]

No harm? Hopefully she would never say that to Regina, should the woman ever show up. The only reason the curse got a chance to break was because someone decided to read from a book.

"However long ago it was, it's a part of your past. It shaped who you are now. You shouldn't dismiss it." Speaking from personal experience? You bet.

[nascensibility]

Those were Evie's famous 'last' words. Her husband likes to remind her of them too often for her liking.

"Oh, I don't dismiss it, by any means. A great deal of good came from the whole affair, despite the-" Evelyn waves her hand a bit, "-plagues and such. And I rather like to think I turned out all right."

[jolting]

"You certainly did," Whale agreed with a gentle squeeze of her hand. "Whoever has your heart is a lucky man." Yes, he might have been fishing with that comment to see if there indeed was a man in her life.

[nascensibility]

The narration is groaning at Whale's pathetic excuse for subtlety, and he's damned lucky that Evelyn isn't as particular when it comes to noticing these sorts of things.

Evie smiles, but it's still somewhat sad - the first couple of weeks alone in her bed have been...miserable, to say the least.

"I should think so."

It's not a confirmation, but it isn't a negation, either. Whale could take it whatever way he wanted. Evelyn simply isn't in the right mood to talk about a more recent version of home.

[jolting]

Well now, that was a vague response. If she wasn't careful, Whale would just keep hitting on her. Though he did not miss the sad look on her face as she smiled.

"I'm sorry. I broached an uncomfortable subject for you."

[nascensibility]

"No, it- it's fine, really, it's just that-"

Evelyn sighs, because everything recent has left her with agonisingly mixed feelings. She went home for nine years, got married, had a child, came back to Wonderland and...and the man she was dating here, before all that in her own world, before she was committed and madly in love, doesn't speak to her anymore.

It's as though he's forgotten how they were friends before they became romantic, as if the only thing that mattered between them was the physical aspect.

She misses Rick desperately, and the lack of platonic companionship here makes that longing more painful.

"...it's very complicated."

[jolting]

Whale understood complicated. Perhaps not on the same level as Evelyn, but he knew what it was like to struggle against new memories and have to adjust to life again.

"I have two sets of memories in my mind," he mentioned. "Very early on, I wanted to lose those other memories... The ones of the life I had before Storybrooke. My life was so much less complicated there. And the longer they lingered, the more those old memories burdened me. But then my friend Ruby told me something: she said that this life is our chance to make something different of ourselves."

The conversation was still so fresh in his mind. "Maybe being in Wonderland is a chance for you to make something different in yourself. It will be difficult... Believe me, I know how it feels to have that kind of pain. But I'm taking Ruby's advice."

[nascensibility]

Evelyn thinks it's a little more than difficult to try to start anew...again. Especially when people here already know her. When she doesn't have a clean slate, it's just...scribbled upon and left for her to deal with. Like having to translate an absolute mess of Hieratic.

"I'll try," she mumbles, but the words are half-hearted, at best. While it's pleasant to hear Whale contributing, sitting on her own problems won't get them anywhere.

She just has to get out.

[jolting]

Maybe he wasn't as good at encouraging speeches as Ruby, but hopefully he managed to get his point across.

"I'm trying to stay dry," Whale mentioned, "or I would offer to take you out for drinks once we're back in the manor."