2012-11-25 The Shadows of Timaittivu Ep. 02

How much time has passed since the plane crashed is hard to determine, everything in this paradise is slightly unreal. Maybe more than slightly. The golden ziggurat was further away than the first look suggested. For days, Snake Eyes and the Winter Soldier have walked through dense, lush rainforest. Strange things have come and gone in that time. 
Once, they came upon a narrow canyon carpeted in thick moss and under the moss, a mass grave. That was unsettling enough, and then the dead began to shake off their green blanket. Being pursued by an army of the dead took them to the edge of a cliff with the blue waters of a river far below. They had no choice but to jump. The current swept them apart, sorting them deliberately so that Snake Eyes was lost over the edge of a waterfall and the Winter Soldier washed up into a green pool under low-hanging trees. 
From the edge of the pool, worn, mossy steps lead up into a shadowed archway.
 
James Barnes is exhausted and battered, hungry but at least not thirsty if the water was a river and not the ocean. He called out for the ninja, but...since the other man doesn't seem to talk, he wasn't too hopeful to get any sort of answer. Once he was able to get to his feet, he started moving forward towards the steps. It at least looks somewhat peaceful...a place to rest, perhaps.
Checking the gun at his side, he frowns upon finding it waterlogged and practically useless. There are a few curses in Russian before he takes a seat on one of the steps to rest a moment.
 
The wind plays in the trees, making the dappled sunlight dance on the water, then everything stills. James can see himself reflected clearly in the surface and below his reflection, the steps leading downward. A strange light passes over things, as though a rainbow washed through the rainforest. 
All around James are laughing girls in identical bright robes, balancing laundry baskets on their shaven heads. Their feet, quick on the steps beside him, are stained red. As quick as it came, the past of this place is gone and he's back in the present. Little red foot prints mark the old stone of the steps on either side of him.
James Barnes stands quickly at the sound and appearance of the laughing girls, his hand going to the waterlogged gun, but then they're gone. He looks around a moment before he looks to the footprints on the steps. His energy renewed, or at least, his interest piqued, he starts to follow them...going up or down.
 
Down, the steps lead into the water, up they lead through the archway. The passage is only dark for a few paces and then the dappled light returns as James steps into a courtyard of broken stone. Heavy ivy draperies trail down the walls, the fountain in the center of the courtyard is long dry. 
The statues are so worn with age and so damaged that James wouldn't have known what they were save that he just saw the girls going down to the water to wash clothes. The draped garments look the same. The arms and head of each statue have been broken away and they lie here and there, likely where they fell. 
The courtyard is full of chaos. The girls scatter, screaming. Men swathed in shadow colours, in dull armour, swarm over the walls and up the stairs. Blood splashes the smooth paving stones. The assassins, whoever they are, swift and merciless. A girl, bright bracelets glittering on her wrists, grabs at James desperately before a masked soldier sweeps her up over his shoulder. 
A fresh corruscation of rainbow light glints off something golden caught in a crack in the paving stones as it fades away.
He must have hit his head in the fall...or the hallucinations are from lack of food and rest. He looks about, dark eyes confused at the scene. Just when he can start to comprehend what is going on, the scene vanishes. Frowning, he moves over towards the golden, glinting thing, bending down carefully to poke at it with his right hand.
 
A slim gold bracelet stands upright, caught in the crack in the stone as though it had just fallen from the wrist of the girl who wore it, rolled, and come to rest there. There's no way that it could have stood there all these years. The wind rustles the trees and stirs the ivy, tugging the vines aside to reveal another archway at the far end of the courtyard. 
The darkness in the mouth of the archway has a sheen to it, a rainbow passes over it as though a headlight caught the slick of oil on water standing in a gutter. Briefly, the memories of other times slip in and an old car horn brays on the exhaust-scented air of a distant city. Then, the wind sighs again, warm and full of flowers.
James Barnes was contemplating the bracelet in his hand when he heard the blare of the car horn. His head snapping up, the bracelet is tucked into a pocket even as he darts over to the archway. His hand rests on the stone as he looks up at it, as if trying to get that scene back again. He tries to find a trigger button or rune or something that could make it turn back on.
 
There's nothing there but the dark of the passage beyond the archway. The carvings on the stone are worn down to nearly nothing now. Everything seems completely mundane until the next strange rainbow ripple runs through reality.
The air smells of the disinfectant the custodians use when they mop the school floors at night. Someone jostles James from behind. Locker doors slam, the school bell rings. Then, as soon it came, the moment is gone and the dark of the passage leading away is all that remains.
School? He must have really hit his head, although it's not a school that he recognizes. It's not a school from the late 1930's, most likely. He takes a moment to look up at the arch before James actually goes to step through into that darkness to see if it does anything. Could it be any worse than being stuck, alone, on that island?
 
The ground underfoot is uneven, the stones here heaved up by roots and the shifting of the earth. The stone walls are smooth. Nothing untoward happens for several paces. He's simply left the courtyard behind in the here and now and is walking in the dark. Then the magic washes over everything again and the passage is lit from above, through a part of the building that must have collapsed centuries ago. 
The girls are back in their bright robes, laughing again, heads shaved bare, feet stained red. A bell rings and they run past him, deeper into the building. One of them turns around and beckons to him, her bracelets chiming on her wrist. The girl who tried to reach him in the courtyard. He doesn't speak the language but it's clear that she's telling him to hurry up. This must be a different time. Beyond her, James can see an open chamber, a temple of sorts. 
Then something trips him up and he falls forward. The dark under him is shimmering with the same rainbow oilslick of magic and, instead of hitting his head on stone, he keeps falling. Where to, he has no idea. Time, space, everything is stripped away in the same white pause he remembers from the storm.
James Barnes does try to catch himself as he falls, but there is nothing to catch on! There is a shout of surprise as he ontinues to fall...like Alice down the rabbit-hole. The white pause is eerily familiar, but with the way his mind is working right now, he can't be sure if it's something from the distant or recent past. If he closes his eyes tightly, perhaps he will wake up...somewhere. The Island, the plane, SHIELD detention cell...or somewhere other than a worldless white.
 
The car horn blares again, and then another, and another. The white light splits into headlights, tires scream, the air tastes like chemicals and exhaust and icy rain. James is in the middle of an intersect and, while things have changed, he knows exactly where he is. He'd know it no matter what decade--what century--he was in. Brooklyn. Home.
"What's wrong with you, buddy?" A cab driver shouts.
"Get outta the road," someone else yells out a car window before they blow their horn again. 
"He just walked out into the middle of the road," someone else is saying. "Did you see where he came from?"
It's cold. It's raining. The headlights and streetlights are shimmering off of oilslicked water in the gutters and the potholes at his feet. Everything is very, very real.
James Barnes squints against the rain and cold and bright light from the cars. Winter Soldier knows this era...James Barnes not as much. It's both familiar and strange at the same time, causing him to be stunned for a moment. When the scene doesn't shift, he starts to take a step or two, leaping back so that he doesn't get run over by an impatient driver. Picking up his pace, he sprints back over to the sidewalk.
Has the scene changed yet?
They're speaking English, so that's a start. To one of the speakers he asks, "Hey...where am I?"
 
"Where do you think you are, jackass? Same place you were five minutes ago, just like the rest of us. This is Brooklyn." The fat guy talking rolls his eyes and spits into the gutter. His friend with him socks him in the shoulder. 
"Dude. The guy's a prob'ly a vet. Missin' an arm and everything." This one is short and thin, swarthy. He squints up at Jame. "Bet he got that PTSD thing. You okay, buddy? You got somewhere you need to go?"
James Barnes certainly looks young enough to have been involved in the more recent conflicts. Blinking, as if just noticing the rain, he looks around, "Brooklyn..." as if there are any landmarks he might recognize. When he's asked the question, he offers a nod, "I'm...ok." He's at least back in civilization...and no one knows that he's here. This could be useful. "Somewhere to go...no. But, I'll find a place."
 
This is Brooklyn, no doubt about it. Right near where James grew up. He's sure of that, too. The streets have changed but he remembers the way they were a long time ago as though he can imagine a sepia photograph overlaid on the scene. 
"Homeless shelter's that way." The big guy points past James' shoulder. "Better get going if you don't want it to fill up. Gonna be cold." He pulls a snack cake out of his pocket and unwraps it, then pops it in his mouth. 
"You want me to call someone for you? You don't look great," the little guy says. He gets out a battered old model S-phone.
James Barnes looks in the direction of the homeless shelter briefly, but then he's looking back around again at the area. "There's no one to call," is answered almost absently before he starts to move off in the direction of his street. It may be cold and raining and he may be exhausted, but since he's here, he just has to see if the house is still there!
 
The rows of brownstones haven't changed, when James gets onto the old street. They're older but the area looks like it's still nice. There's a few women out pushing baby carriages, a jogger splashes past in the slow rain. The cars are different, the air is heavier, the trees have long since been replaced, but it's the same place. The house is there, lights are on behind the curtains in the windows. A couple pots full of chrysanthemums are on the step on either side of the door to brighten it up.
And James just stands there, in the rain, looking completely disheveled and a mess, looking at the house. He knows that too much time has passed for anyone here to remember him -- they're all dead, most likely. He might be staring a little too long but eventually he moves. The house won't be going anywhere if he wants to come look at it tomorrow. It takes him a moment to orient himself before he starts to move in the direction of the Homeless Shelter.
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