taxonomites | ( 001 ♠ HOLO ♠ ARRIVAL )

The vertigo was different this morning, accompanied by a dry taste in his mouth that left Puck wondering what the bartender had slipped into his drink.. and where he could get some more. Only then did he realize that he was standing rather than laying in his bed and concluded that his life was certainly at no high point when his automatic assumption was that someone had drugged him. Although, looking around this strange silver room, that might have been the easy explanation. "The fuck is going on?" he muttered, dragging his hands over his face as though that would help wake him up... but froze, the cool lights glinting off the bracelet fused against the pale skin of his wrist.

Now more disquieted than disgruntled, Puck took another long look around as he tried to piece together how he might have gotten here. The last thing he remembered was falling into bed in his loft, accompanied by... "Blon-- brunette? No, blonde. Dyed though."

He spoke more to break the silence of the room than anything, because he found it disturbingly creepy. It struck him as something sort of... retroactively futuristic. Almost idealized, but like from another, earlier decade. He tried to pry his fingers beneath the silver band, but it only resulted in a gash on his forearm. Black studded boots clunked down the stairs leading from the platform as he approached the only other thing immediately visible: a small pedestal. He frowned at the device sitting there, skimming his fingers lightly over the unmarred surface that looked like it'd never been used. A weird cellphone? Puck patted his pockets down, but his was missing.

A flash of colour in the corner of his eye made him swing around, and to his shock he saw his guitar behind the platform he'd just left. Crossing to it quickly, Puck ran his fingers over the polished surface, but couldn't detect any flaws. Whatever hallucination this was, it was convincing enough to fool him. "Is this your damned modern glamour?"

That was his only explanation, because how else could it be explained that he'd woken into a room with nothing but the clothes on his back, his guitar, and no door? A sardonic scowl twisted his mouth into his usual moody expression. "I would've thought a padded room would've been more appropriate," he muttered.

But even a faerie could not force himself awake from a dream, even one as unwelcome as this. At the very least he would not indulge it, and keeping his guitar close to his side, sat down with his back against the featureless wall. "I can wait longer than you know," he called out sullenly. "I have nothing but time."

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"Many of us would prefer many things, but sadly, we do not have them," Long said calmly. "Our captors are not greatly concerned with our preferences.

"The device is called a tablet, and now that you have it hand, the door should be open."

Puck is, for the moment, less interested in the door's appearance and more focused on something Long has just said. "Captors? Explain."

A slight sigh, possibly for the lack of manners.

"You've been taken from your own reality by... beings of considerable power, with unknown motives and natures, although you will probably hear them referred to as 'hamsters' more than once. You are in a city called Taxon, with a number of other captives in the same situation as yourself.

"I would say 'welcome', but it is hardly apropos under the circumstances."

"Is that so," Puck said, his voice dropping slightly, and his speech tinting more towards archaic. "They know not who they intend to cage."

Long's head tilted to the side at the shift in language. Interesting. But then the actual words registered, and he laughed.

"Who they intend to cage? My dear sir, you are already caged. We all are. And, as a point of interest, many who are here are... beings of note. I find it likely our captors know exactly who they take, and are more than capable of keeping them, as well."

Beings of note? Now they found each other mutually interesting, but Puck had no interest in preening his status. But he would continue to wonder, in the back of his mind, if Long's words were really true and that somehow, he'd been targeted.

"That remains to be seen," is all he says instead.

Long shrugged, smiling slightly still, his smile a little audible in his tone.

"So it does. In that case, I wouldn't wish to stand between yourself and your escape. Do you have any questions about the city, and about logistics, that I might answer for you?"

He did, actually... especially since this was not a dream. "Why is my guitar here?"

"Because our captors seem to see fit to grant us one object from home," Long answered easily. "In my case it was the hotel room where I lived. In your case it is apparently your guitar. It seems they wish us to be... comfortable, for a certain value of the word."

"A hotel room isn't a possession," Puck feels obliged to point out. "And who the hell is going to be comfortable in the situation you've described? Is everyone here on fucking drugs?"

"Who said anything about a possession?" Long responds mildly. "I said an object. A hotel room is an object, unless the definitions of such have changed. I would also argue it can be a possession as well, but I think that would be dull." He punctuates that with a yawn.

"For myself, on the whole I find this city comfortable in many senses. But perhaps you have difficulty understanding the nuances of 'degrees' of comfort, or of anything else. The young often do."

A pause as he digested the offhand remark, and then he laughs derisively. "I am not so young as you'd think. But tell me, old one, why should I be as pleased as you to be here?"

Long smiled; perhaps it was audible in his tone. "You likely mean that you are not so young as you look," he said in the corrective tones as a professor. "Since you have no idea how old, or young, I may think you to be."

He yawned again. "Nor did I say that you should be pleased. You don't seem interested in pleasant, polite conversation, and that is one of the primary reasons I enjoy Taxon. I am also patient, and aware that nothing is forever, not even imprisonment.

"But you? No, I don't believe you will enjoy it here." Said with a polite lack of concern.

The unfailing politeness grated on Puck's nerves. Something, something about this guy rubbed him the wrong way. He couldn't even pinpoint what it was, other than it had been a long time since he'd associated with someone so obviously intelligent and learned, but without much trace of arrogance about it. Maybe it was the patience Long was displaying: Puck was used to making people react, and there was a distinct lack of that in this conversation. It made him feel as though he had no impact.

"Only a fool would enjoy this," is his answer, though with less acidity in his voice than he would have liked.

"Then I am a fool," Long said easily.

"I find that being content here takes much less energy than raging at anything and everything. Did you have any more, oh, what is the term, 'venting', you wished to do?"

A frosty silence is Long's answer, and then Puck figures out how to end the communication. But he'll definitely remember this conversation, and not fondly.

( 001 ♠ HOLO ♠ ARRIVAL )

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