Jac01/Zra02 - Between Two Worlds

“Blood never forgets. That’s the heart of the cycle of violence and why it just keeps going on and on. He kills her, She kills him, and so on and so forth. The only thing anyone can be king of is the pile of corpses at the end.”



“What in the hell are you on about?”



Jacob looked up at his interlocutor, “That’s…” he paused and considered. ”That’s the point behind ko. If I capture your stone, you cannot play in a way that creates the exact same board state as it was before I captured it, because then I just capture yours again and we go around and around in a circle and never get anywhere.” The demon stared at Jacob, its scaly brow furrowed. Jacob considered that the explanation may have been too involved…or perhaps it wasn’t the demon he was trying to convince about futile gestures. “Go is a game about the whole board, not getting fixated on one perpetual exchange of stones. Just take a breath and look wider for a moment.”



Jacob stood up and walked over to where the truck was nestled between a set of trees. They had managed to get water into the engine, but it needed to cool pretty much all the way down before they could reseal the hose. One last delivery, he considered before turning to give the motorcycle what had to be its eleventh inspection. It was just as ready to go as it had been the last ten times, but if he tried to leave before Mors, Mors would get angry and might try to kill him. Mors probably couldn’t kill him, all things considered, but Jacob needed Mors to drive that truck away and be found driving that truck so people would stop looking for it, and there would be one less reason for people to be looking for Jacob. When, for all you knew, your life was forfeit in every direction, each one fewer lead for people to follow was one less headache.



“Ok, I got it!” Mors shouted. Jacob cast his eyes to the stars, quietly pleading that maybe Mors had gotten it, refixed his smile and returned to the stump where the Go board was squatting between the two camp chairs. Mors had not, alas, gotten it, but he had at least played a legal move. It was a useless move - Mors was more a checkers demon - but the point was to keep the game going, not to improve one demon’s strategic vision.



Jacob and Mors played for another hour and Mors seemed more and more astonished how Jacob seemed to be slowly swallowing the entire board in black stones. But as the demon’s temper was starting to rise again, Jacob reckoned that time was up. “I bet we can get that engine going now. Best if you’re off before we get too close to dawn, right?”



Mors narrowed his gaze at the slender man across from him, “You’re just saying that because you think I’m close to winning. Are you conceding then?”



Jacob hesitated only a moment, “Mors, you’ve seen through my ruses yet again. Someday, I will get one over on you…”



“...but not today!” The demon laughed and swatted the board a good two yards into the grass. The stones spattered to the ground like hail. Jacob winced just a little, but played it off as more of Mors’s victory and the two went to work wrapping the engine’s hose in tape and getting the truck started.



“Really, though.” Mors said just before he closed the truck door, “I appreciate you doing this. Getting these supplies to the lads will save us a lot of headache getting home and putting some distance between us and the Allies.”



“Think nothing of it, Mors. My best to the captain.”



Mors slammed the truck door and the diesel engine rattled to life. The tires groaned as they chewed through the soft earth and pulled the cargo truck back onto the road. Given the Allied advance, he’d be in Yank custody before noon, in all likelihood. With any luck, Jacob would be, quite literally, worlds away.



He checked the saddlebags of his motorcycle - one sack of gold and one leather pouch of francs that would be useless the moment he got too far from this shadow. In the other bag was a pile of oilcloth that covered a submachine gun and two magazines of ammunition. “Everything a growing boy needs,” Jacob muttered to himself. He resecured the saddlebags and walked the motorcycle silently up to the road. Once on the pavement, he kicked on the engine and turned in the opposite direction he’d sent Mors in. It wasn’t very long at all, before he started making small adjustments: different grasses, taller trees. It had been years since he’d actually clapped eyes on the Forest Arden, but no one ever really forgot sights like that. No one forgot home…



…but did home remember him? And if so, what did they remember at all?



Jacob rode for home.



(OOC: Jacob is shadow-riding on his motorcycle towards Amber for as far as it will take him, or, of course, until something or someone gets in his way)

Jacob rides through the Shadow Storm, pinning the hood of his longcoat to the half-helmet on his head just to keep the worst of the rain out of his goggles. It is only successful in that it keeps him from being completely blind. He attempts to remain stoic in the face of demonic serenading, but can’t help but crack a grin when the forces of Chaos lift up praises to West Virginia. Almost Heaven, indeed…



He rolls the bike under the freestanding roof covering the pumps at the service station and allows himself to just drip-dry for a moment before acknowledging that anyone else is even there. As he peels the various protections from his head - first the hood, then the helmet, and finally the goggles, he uses the time to stretch his psychic senses, mentally feeling the area for presences or powers muddling with the shadow paths, or just lying in wait, acknowledging that the shadow storm may blind everything outside of the immediate environs.



He packs the helmet and goggles on the back of the bike and finally looks at Vincent, as though just noting him there for the first time. “Seeking shelter from the storm? Bit of a madhouse out here, isn’t it?” Jacob puts his best face forward, “Is the source of that beer a state secret, or shall you consign me to fishing for change for a Coke?”

Jacob watches this exchange with interest. His eyes flit to the woman’s hands as she passes across the beers - people tell you a lot in the state of their hands, especially if they’re trying to pass themselves off as of the “working class,” a term that shifts violently in meaning and value from shadow to shadow. The baby is also of note - it can be hard with infants to see parental features, but not impossible. But his smile is fixed back in place by the time Vincent is headed over with the “blues,” and there’s a part of it that’s even genuine - he has, after all, stopped dripping all over the place. He follows Vincent’s gaze to the bike.



“1811, actually. The company redid their dual-piston engines from scratch a few years ago, though the big body on these touring bikes can hide it. Not as zippy as if it was all made of fiberglass and hope, but also doesn’t shatter if someone looks at it funny.” He takes a sip of the beer and looks Vincent over. “So what’s planted you out here in the middle of hurricane season on this island of gasoline-powered domestic…bliss?” He can’t help the questioning tone - loitering outside while one's partner sits silently within is rarely a sign that everything is hunky-dory. 

Yes, he thought. So sympathetic that you bark orders to the “poor girl” who is “working her fingers to the bone.” It wasn’t that the notion of an egotistical Amberite showing sympathy by putting an overworked single mother into indentured servitude was a completely unrealistic concept in his mind - it was more that Jacob hated coincidences.



He walked around to the gas pump and switched it on, slotting the nozzle into the gas tank. “You’re all heart, Victor, and I do appreciate any heads up you can give me. Word has reached even the far-flung shadows I was lounging about in that something has befallen the King?” With no notion of what Victor might know about Jacob’s situation, probably best to hoard his own knowledge at the moment.

"A pleasure to meet you, Mary." Jacob turns back to look at Victor, "Did you hear that? She called you a good man. Makes me wonder what her frame of reference is."

He fishes into his pocket for some of the coins there. "Will gold dollars do? All I have at the moment." And he sets six gold coins next to the register before stepping back outside to walk back towards the motorcycle.

"Well, it sounds like the unsteady regency of the moment needs all the help it can find, so perhaps they won't immediately look askance at a returning relative. I take it from your existence out here that you are absenting yourself from family affairs, at least for the moment?" Jacob replaced the pump nozzle and did a quick walkaround of the bike to ensure everything was sound.

Jacob regarded Victor quizzically.

"That's a lot of different directions packed in a few sentences. I hardly know how to respond. If 'absenting yourself' is not what you're doing, what phrase would you use?"

"So far as my going home goes, the why and wherefores are my own affair, whatever you might consider a coincidence or not. That said, I'd be a fool to turn up my nose at an offer to help watch my back, if such was your offer, though I wonder how you would do so from your remote location. Or have I misread your intentions utterly?"