Entrance Post

[willscarlett]

Who: Will Scarlett and open

Where: "Sparsely wooded area"

When: Early evening

What: Will arrives on the island



When Will woke up, the first thing he thought was that the heat of the desert must have gotten to him. He had heard before of men losing their mind to the desert. He'd made the trip out of Acre earlier that day and the sun had burned down on him like on so many days before, but then he had returned to the city, had come back to the cool shadows of Bassam's house.

So why was he believing to be here in this forest, a place that was so clearly not Djaq's native land where he had been living for several months now? Was he back in England? He could almost believe it, looking at the trees around him. Still, why would this be the case? Was he dreaming? Maybe this was true. It was the most likely explanation. He had dreamt of his home before, his former home, of Locksley, of Sherwood Forest, of the outlaws' camp there, of a different life really, that he had left behind to stay here with Djaq. No, not here. There. Here was different.

Will got to his feet, only now noticing the envelope that was lying on the ground, next to his left foot. He picked it up, eagerly looking at the writing on it. It was his name, this he could recognize easily, Djaq's teachings having been fruitful there. He opened the envelope, finding a key and a map, but nothing else, inside. The key had a number on it and the map was labelled with the same number pointing vaguely at a location. So this was probably supposed to be the key to get in there, whatever there was. Will figured it couldn't hurt to go there. Maybe some of his questions would be answered. One thing was certain though: he had to be careful, for he could not know that this was not some elaborate game of enemies he had believed to have left behind in the past.

Comments

[lordofsherwood]

With everything appearing normal despite the oddity of that flash of light, Robin decided to poke around in the trees along the village path, and see if he couldn't scare up a rabbit for dinner whilst Marian went on ahead to the main house for some apples.

Slinging his bow off of his back and readying an arrow, he crept silently along. After a few minutes, he heard movement-- too big to be a rabbit, and he wondered if there might not be one of those deer-creatures here. That would be tasty and would also last awhile, so he raised his arrow from where it was pointing at the ground as he neared the sounds.

As soon as the source of the noise came into view, Robin broke into a grin and stuck the arrow back in his quiver. "Will?" he exclaimed happily, barely believing his eyes.

[willscarlett]

Will had not got far yet, when he heard someone or something ahead of him. The sound stopped then and Will walked on, a careful watch on any sudden movement that might be to come.

What he then saw was not something he had expected at all. Robin stood there with his bow, arrow ready that he put away once he saw Will. Robin. So he was really back in England, though he had still no idea how he had got there.

"Robin." The man was grinning broadly and it was such a contrast to the last time Will had seen him many months ago, back then when he and the rest of the gang had left the Holy Land to return to England, while Djaq and Will had remained behind. He had been grieving then, and Will had felt a pang of conscience about leaving Robin just at this time, but Djaq had decided to stay and he would not have left her.

And maybe this was still some strange dream.

[lordofsherwood]

Continuing over, Robin gave Will a quick hug before stepping back to look at him. His friend looked... not older, but a bit more mature than the last time they had seen one another. Well, since the last time Robin had seen him, at any rate; he had no clue when Will had last spent time with a version of him.

"It's good to see you," Robin enthused. "Have you been here long?"

[willscarlett]

"Thanks," Will said. "It's good to see you, too."

He smiled. "No, I don't think so, but I can't really tell. I don't even know where we are, so it's hard to say how long I've been here. As far as I know, I shouldn't be here at all."

Will wondered how weird this all sounded to Robin. Would he think he had gone crazy?

[lordofsherwood]

Robin's smile turned wry. "You've just arrived, then." No wonder Will seemed a little disoriented.

Spotting the piece of paper in Will's hand, he added, "I take it that you have found your key and map. If you let me see it, I can show you where to go-- and I'll explain things along the way."

He wondered what Will would make of it all; it was a lot to take in.

[willscarlett]

Will nodded. "Yes, I have this map. And there's the key. It got the same number that's shown on the map, as far as I can tell."

He handed the paper to Robin. Apparently Robin knew what was going on here. That was at least something and it made Will feel a little safer.

[lordofsherwood]

Seeing that Will had been assigned a room in the west house, Robin remarked, "We're going to be neighbors, of a sort. This is a housing assignment; the same person or people who bring us here give us a place to live, and Marian and I live just up the path from this house."

He slung his bow on his back and gestured for Will to walk with him toward the path, trying to work out the best way to explain this place. It was easiest to just lay everything out at once, but that it might be better for Will's sake if Robin did it a piece at a time.

[willscarlett]

"Housing? We're going to live here? What is this place?" Will wanted to know. If they were indeed back in England, what had happened that they needed to live somewhere else?

"You and Marian?" he wondered next, following Robin. This wasn't possible. Marian? Will's thoughts had been racing ever since he woke up in this place, searching for explanations. But some of them became ever more likely. Either this was a strange dream - or they were all dead, he had died too, in the Holy Land, and they were meeting again here in this place that was not quite like he had imagined heaven to be.

[lordofsherwood]

Robin was about to answer Will's first set of questions, when he asked about Marian-- and it occurred to Robin that none of their friends knew. With a satisfied smile, he said, "Yes, we got married." The rest of their news should wait until Marian had joined them.

"We've been here awhile," he continued, as a way of leading into the beginning of the explanation. "We're in an isolated village-- nobody seems to know where, but it's not in England." He would hold off on the whole apparently not Earth part of that, for now. "In fact, there's little that we do know. We have no idea who brings us here, or why, or how. All we do know is that people from different places and times just suddenly wake up here, as you have done. And, that we apparently cannot leave of our own accord."

They emerged onto the path, and he turned toward the village. "But yes, we're given places to live and there's plenty to eat, which is a nice change." It was not that Robin did not miss England-- he did, deeply-- but he had been here for so long now that he was used to it.

[lordofsherwood]

"The village is just a bit further up," Robin replied, with a gesture ahead of them on the path. "Your house is at the other end of the village, as is the path to our cottage."

His smile grew when Will told him about Djaq... then faded, as he realized what being brought here meant for them. For Will. "People get sent back home sometimes," he said carefully. It was not a guarantee, but it was an offer of hope.

[willscarlett]

Will looked ahead on the path that was leading to the village, according to Robin. He wondered how many other people were living here - and where they came from.

He nodded silently to what Robin said. Back home. Acre hadn't even been home for him yet, things being too different from what he knew from England. If it had been home to him at all, then it had been because of Djaq.

"Do you want to go home?" Will asked. Robin seemed content here, happy even, as far as Will could tell from the short time they had spent together now. It was not the same Robin Will had said goodbye to on the gang's return to England.

[lordofsherwood]

Robin considered his reply for a moment before offering it.

"That's a more complicated question than it might seem," he finally said. "I would like to see the gang again, and I miss helping the people. But... I have reasons for wanting to stay here, as well." Again, he wanted to wait until Marian had joined them to tell Will about the baby. Fortunately, a distraction presented itself as they emerged into the village.

"The buildings look odd, I know," he said, explaining before Will could ask. "Apparently, things around here seem to be from the twentieth or twenty-first century. There are a lot of advancements here: lighting without candles, cooking without fire-- and wait until you see the bathrooms."

[willscarlett]

Will nodded. "I can understand that." Of course Robin had things here that he would never want to lose by going back.

He was surprised when he saw the village. The houses looked different from what he remembered from England. They also didn't look like the buildings in the Holy Land. "The twentieth century?" Will wondered. He looked closer at the houses and wondered if that was really how buildings would look 800 years in the future. The thought was crazy. Not that any of what had happened this day was any less so.

"Cooking without fire?" Will couldn't quite believe it. He knew there were inventions, many of them, being made all the time. He knew that the Saracens had come up with ideas that were not yet known in England. But was it possible to do something like what Robin said?

[lordofsherwood]

Robin supposed that, despite the fact that he had offered little in the way of explanation, Will would understand. To have made the decision to live in the Holy Land, when he had previously not even been outside of his own shire in England, would certainly give him that sort of insight.

"Some of the buildings appear to be from the twentieth century, but the technology is from the twenty-first." He had to amend the next tidbit that Will caught. "Sometimes. Some ovens still do use fire, but much differently than at home.

"But, showers, Will-- showers are one of the best advances available." Will would comprehend his enthusiasm, he reckoned, after living in the forest. And, even before that, since it was rare for villagers to even have bathtubs; he did not know if the Scarletts had possessed one, but this would still be nicer even if they had. "It's a way of washing, with the water pouring down over your head; and you don't have to heat the water first. It's already heated."

[willscarlett]

"The water is already heated?" Will was amazed, immediately thinking about how one would do that. How would one make water pour that was already heated? It would have to be heated before it started to run in that shower. So a fire would have to be made that would heat it earlier. But then Robin had said they were able to cook without fire, so probably they could heat the water for showering without fire, too.

As strange as everything about the situation was, Will was looking forward to see all of that.

[lordofsherwood]

Robin grinned. "All the advances take a little getting used to, but it's worth it." Not only from a sense of making life easier, but he had long thought that Will would find the workings behind it all fascinating. Djaq might be of a more scientific background, yet carpentry was also very rooted in the functionality and mechanics of things.

As they passed through the village, Robin pointed out some of the buildings and offered explanations as necessary. His personal favorite was the library, though he was aware that Will could not read much; perhaps, that would even provide his friend with something to do. However, it was the park that led him to elaborate on something about the island.

Indicating the gazebo, Robin said, "That's where Marian and I got married-- the first time. When I said people could be sent back home, she's one of them. When I arrived here, she also did, and from the same time. Shortly after our wedding, though, she disappeared... only to reappear about a week and a half later. She had no memory of this place or anything that had happened here, and had lived through another year in our own time." He gave a slight shrug. "It took awhile to get that all sorted out."

[willscarlett]

Will looked around the village as Robin explained things to him. Looking at the park that Robin pointed out, he said, "The first time? That means you married a second time then, when she came back?" He frowned. "And she came back a week later, but had lived through another year? How is that even possible?"

Will realised that the oddest things seemed to be true here. "Maybe I have been here before? And you said, you came from 1192? Maybe if you ever go back, you can change things." He paused. "Sorry, it's just all so confusing."

[lordofsherwood]

"Loads of things," Robin said. "At first, I explored a lot, got to know the main house (where I was initially given a room) and the island. There are also libraries, a large one in the village and one in the main house, so I've done a lot of reading. I also help out at the farm-- there's a good-sized farm here. I've hunted on the outskirts of the jungle that's beyond the wall, as well, though I have not ventured too far into it."

He bit the his lip for a moment before continuing, "And, once in awhile, odd things happen. A beast has attacked the village, for example. So, I teach archery to anyone who wants to learn, and I've learnt to use more modern weapons."

With a shrug, he summed it up. "There is a lot of downtime, but there are ways to fill it."

[willscarlett]

"That sounds interesting," Will said, though it also sounded odd, but he did not say that. And as everything was odd about this place, it had probably no point to do so.

"Reading. I'd like that, but Djaq's just started to teach me. I can read and write a little, but I don't think I'll ever manage to read a book."

He frowned at what Robin said. "A beast? What kind of beast?" In England there were wild animals in the woods, but nothing that was terribly dangerous to a healthy adult. "More modern weapons?" he wondered.

[lordofsherwood]

Robin's smile was supportive at the mention of reading. "I think you'll get there. You've a good mind, Will, and if you've begun to learn to read, it's just a matter of continuing along that path. I'll be glad to help you if you need it, and I'm sure Marian will feel the same." All the same, if it made him think of Djaq, Robin could understand that it might be painful. He would leave it to Will to decide from there.

"A large animal," he clarified, in regards to the beast. "Far larger than anything we had in Sherwood. The jungle, beyond the wall, is home to many dangerous creatures; that was the only one that ventured into the village since I arrived, but I cannot imagine it will be the last."

And, as for weapons-- "Since our time, they developed weapons which rely on fire to shoot. They're called guns, and come in many varieties."

[willscarlett]

Will was really curious to meet Marian, though the idea was still strange, too. "That would be nice," he said to Robin's remark of them helping him.

He didn't really like the sound of that beast and imagined having come across anything like that in Sherwood. It would have just made it harder to live there.

When Robin mentioned weapons relying on fire, Will's thoughts went back to fire weapons he had seen in the past. He had not liked them back then and he doubted he would like them now, if they were anything like that which had been called Greek Fire.

[lordofsherwood]

"Reading and writing will also help you keep up with people around here," Robin remarked, moving over toward the computer he spotted. "It's all because of this thing." Making sure Will could see how he turned it on, he explained, "It's called a 'computer,' and you can send messages to other people, or to everyone, as well as receiving them."

An odd noise made him glance around, and he raised a quizzical eyebrow. "Is that a pigeon?"

[willscarlett]

"A computer," Will repeated. "You can send messages? How are they transported? With this machine?"

Turning to the pigeon Robin had noticed, Will nodded. "That's one of Bassam's pigeons. Djaq's uncle," he added as an explanation. "I helped taking care of them." He smiled. "You can send messages with them too, over a very long distance, and they are very fast."

[lordofsherwood]

"The How of it is complicated. Something to do with those messages being passed through wires from one place to another, and also using the electricity that works the lights." That was about as much as Robin could figure out about all of it; he had once tried to read a bit more about it, but felt no more enlightened at the end of that book than he had before he opened it.

"Sending messages on pigeons," he said thoughtfully, wondering how that worked. In truth, he reckoned that it would be easier to comprehend than the messaging system here.

[willscarlett]

"So do those wires lead everywhere?" Will wondered.

Looking at the pigeon, he nodded. "The pigeon is trying to fly back to its home, where ever that might be. So you can tie a message to its leg and it will find its way home and deliver the message to who's there." After a moment he added, "Bassam owns many of those birds."

Looking at this strange thing, the computer again, he said, "So how does it work?"