#thestargatherer

[neverendingparable]

@thestargatherer

“A King, you say?” Virgil could play along, a smile gracing his lips as he attempted to unwrap the caramel in his hand. “I didn’t know I was in such royal presence. Quite silly of me to walk in so carelessly and disturb your peace.”

A laugh rewarded the stranger for his cheekiness, his freckled cheeks a soft pink as he patted the other on the arm.

“King and charmer- you’re quite the catch, wouldn’t you say?” he teased, finally working the candy from its packaging and putting it into his mouth. “You must be charming all day if you only charm the cute ones. Most are fair in soul and face if you know where to look, and as a King you must have many secret skills to make a boy flush.”

“I shall forgive you, because you are a fellow freckled fella like me and because you did not run from my puns, so you are obviously worthy of my presence.” Bradley said, bowing dramatically.

“But alas!” He straightened up and dug out another caramel piece for himself. “Unfortunately I’ve been up to my kingly armpits in grumpy aliens and alternate selves that have all heard my jokes three times already, so I think fate is smiling down on us. On me for having a new person to tell my puns to, and on you for getting to hear them~”

It must be luck indeed, he walked straight out of the Office and into a new area that not only severely lacked said grumpy aliens - that he can see - but brought him right to this new, friendly face. There were little disconcerting details, such as the other not knowing what a cellphone was, or how he was dressed.

Bradley wasn’t sure where or when he was, but he decided if he did travel back in time or to a primitive dimension and his accidental mentions of modern human technology somehow causes an anomaly in history...well, he wasn’t to blame. If anyone asked, he was only sharing caramel candies (which he was certain had to be loved universally, regardless of time and dimension) and telling cheesy pickup lines.

“So, would you have any idea where we are? I mean, if we’re in your hometown, we must be in Tennessee.”

[eritvita]

💭? c:

@thestargatherer

"Darling creature,” breathes he. “Kin and kindred spirit. He is the same as me, as art we Wanderers, and ne’er Known when or where or why we truly place our Goodly Feet, and whom wouldst come a’fore us in our happiness and cunning amiability.

“His is kind,” continues Roland, nearly dreamy. “And sweet and cute of face. I am very fond of him, and thrilled--- always--- to find him within the same dimension!”

Send a 💭 to find out what my muse really thinks of yours!

[the-pillar]

@thestargatherer

“Parts of it!” Virgil pulled the book out of his bag, a slip of ribbon marking his page in the Alice in Wonderland that Phileas had let him borrow. “It’s quite odd. I don’t understand most of it, if I’m honest. Growing big and small and all the strange beings she meets- it’s a bizarre twist of magic that I’ve ever seen. What is a pocket watch anyway?” 

-- "A watch that you can put in your pocket, I would say." Phileas tilted his head. "As opposed to those you wear around your wrist. Mh, wait a moment."

He started rummaging through the pockets of his pants, an almost comically short-legged piece (on Phileas' gigantic frame anyway) of clothing that was worn for decency rather than fashion or protection. Seeing as the summer nights were warm enough to go without them, Phileas usually would not have bothered with it. But he feared Virgil might have been uncomfortable.

After a few moments, Phileas pulled out the sleek black smartphone that Hassan had left him with a few months ago. To listen to music if he ever felt too lonely, to look up unknown words and places instead of asking a million annoying questions every time Hassan came around to visit, and to make sure they could stay in touch if anything happened... just in case. While handling the phone had been strange at first, Phileas' fingers easily navigated the search engine now.

"Here." He held out the phone to Virgil, a collection of pictures of pocket watches on display. "They meassure time. But I do not think people use them a lot anymore."

[the-pillar]

Reunion.

@thestargatherer (x)

“I did.” Virgil couldn’t help but smile, a tiny, shy little thing as he wrung his fingers anxiously. “I… I hope that’s okay? I didn’t know if messages would get through to ask, but I know the sequencing works on me, so I thought… well…” He shrugged helplessly, face falling into worried doubt. “I-I could leave, if you want?”

  “No--!”

  His hands twitched as if they wanted to reach out and grasp the other, but Phileas kept himself under control. How much he would have liked to simply hug the other, though he knew that if he gave into this urge, he would likely only scare Virgil away. People did not appreciate being hugged out of nowhere by somebody they barely knew. Phileas certainly did not. And yet..

  Dropping his hands, fingers curling into fists as if tugged back by an invisible leash, he stared at the other and tried to muster a smile.

  “... I mean-- No. I do not want you to leave. I did not think you would... .... how are you?”

[mirrcrspeaks]

@thestargatherer | cont. from x.

   “ Mhmm. “  Riley sat up from where he’d sprawled himself on a patio table, stretching his back over the chair.  “ Everything seems to glow and come alive at this hour.  In the sunlight it’s all a bunch of dull signs lining the streets.  And now look!!  Neon city!!! “

One could certainly argue that this stretch of Zuzu City went overload on the signs, but Riley loved it.  It made his tiny box of an apartment worth it.  Who cared if he could barely sleep with all that light filtering in from the window?  They made blinds for a reason.  Besides, he was more productive at night!  Well, maybe not this night.  This was a night of relaxation...and meeting strangers off the street, apparently.

“ Nice outfit, by the way, “ Riley added.  “ Are you going to a convention?  I wasn’t sure there was one in town right now. “

[ivory-rabbit]

@thestargatherer​ :: From here [ ♥ ]

- - -

“Ah, but the beginning of a life is the beginning of a journey,” he countered gently, moving the garment he was working on so he could begin finishing it, “This is often a day that’s chosen - planned for, you know?” Of course, it was easier to have this perspective being sort of... outside the system as a whole, as the Guardians were.

“You were born on the darkest evening of the year,” Kieran continued idly, his serene expression in stark contrast to his friend’s flustered one, “That means that once the world had you in it, it began to get a little brighter!”

[mirrcrspeaks]

@thestargatherer | cont. from x.

    “ Wash me away... “  And where would they wash her away?  Abigail watched the water, fascinated by the watery beast that was being roused by the wind and whatever other qualities lurked beneath the surface.  Her own glade had been quite peaceful, so secluded from everything else.  It was an amazement how her father, a seafarer himself, had managed to find the place.  What might he have done in the face of such a storm?

That seemed to be the perpetual question on her mind during this adventure.  Glittering amethyst eyes turned on the stranger beside her.  “ Tell me, when do the ships sail in the morning? “  Abigail had been traveling for what seemed like an eternity trying to find a body of water as large as this one.

[eritvita]

continued from x ;

@thestargatherer

In the moment he doth spoke the Warning Words and the Individual listens to his Warning Words doth Roland place his body back up against the crack of the Individual’s hiding place; and therefore place himself seamlessly, his hands held on either side as if for double the good-spirited protection. As art they in the undergrowth of the jutting, low-hanging and creeping roots from this sacred tree, the grateful canopy of purest safety, and Roland becomes as still as the master’s stone, and attunes his ears incredibly perfectly.

Naught a moment more doth the dragon come crawling by with its ancient-belly hissing sounds, the whip of a tongue and the lower jaw of shimmering scales the color of the sky only noticed as it looks for them, for Roland in particular, and crawls from the hands at the tips of its wings and its back legs only, and a spiked tail with a great club grown from the end. It breaks trees like twigs and uses giant boulders as pond stones, and not of its eyes nor of the top of its head canst be seen. Naught doth Roland move.

In time, after the slow crawl of the ticking hand and the bead of sweat near Roland’s temple, the dragon subsides, and spews a great clout of smoke in its reptilian frustration on the long trek ‘way from the cleverest hiding spot ... and ‘tis longer still, and when only the echoes of the great cracks of trees and crunching rock doth Roland speak to his compatriot, and his partner in the Hiding Ideas:

“‘Tis safe now,” says he, and with the low gloam of the silty smoke still pervaded, doth his voice sound soft, and eternally amiable. He removes himself from his bodily function, shedding in light ‘tward the Individual.