paixaorpg | Not all those who wander are lost.

Character(s): Rose Tyler, Sheik
Content: Rose arrives in Paixao.
Setting: Outside of Niflheim Gate
Time: Early afternoon, week 24
Warnings: Possibility of language--she's less than pleased to be here.

Rose took in the glittering gateway ahead of her, the generally idyllic atmosphere, and frowned.

A normal person would have been happy to find that the world wasn't falling down about his ears; it seemed that she wasn't a normal person.

She was actually a little disappointed by the lack of fire and brimstone. After all, she had been aiming for London at Christmas time; an alien invasion and its associated chaos were practically tradition.

Strange. There had been the usual crackle of electricity and the lingering smell of ozone that always heralded her appearance. The Dimension Cannon had worked, but this wasn't Earth. Well, it probably wasn't Earth. If it was Earth, then she was in a lot more trouble than she'd first thought.

Rose considered the local architecture. Yeah, it was a bit impressive. The dome (domes?) was huge, big enough to fit a city, and the gate would've been at home on Woman Wept.

And then there was the queue of people making their way inside.

No, bad Rose. Do not follow them. It was best just to stay out there, wait the half-hour and try to jump back. No wandering into the city.

It wasn't like the plain was full of man-eating plants or something.

She glanced around surreptitiously.

Probably.

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The problem wasn't getting out the gate. That was easy. Even if one couldn't teleport past, the guards were so lax that there was hardly a need for it. Nor did Sheik meet any opposition from the vapid Paixaoans waiting in queue, and from there the rest was fields of white. It would be a bit of a walk, and probably monster-infested, but nothing she didn't handle on a daily basis in Hyrule.

No, the problem was what to do about the girl who had just appeared out of nowhere not ten yards away from her.

Although blonde, the girl wasn't anything like a native. That much was obvious at a glance. Sheik stood still and watched her, not bothering to hide. There wasn't much point - a grassy plain didn't provide much useful cover at any rate. But neither did she say anything - there was little point in that, either. If this newcomer chose to approach her, she'd take it from there.

Someone was leaving the city.

Rose watched him(? his build was a bit girly, actually) curiously. Humanoid, from what she could see, but his clothing was unusual, not any Earth style that she knew. Blonde, like everyone else that she could see.

Weird. Had she landed on a planet entirely populated by blondes? She hoped that she didn't run out of town for being a bottle blonde; not that she'd be entering the city in the first place.

She approached him cautiously, doing her best to be friendly and utterly non-threatening. "I don't suppose you could tell me where and when we are? I seem to have gotten lost."

Sheik quirked an eyebrow at the question. That was an odd way of asking, besides which she seemed surprisingly nonchalant about the whole thing. Did this happen to her often?

"... The place is known as Paixao," she answered after a moment, folding her arms across her chest. For a second she debated going into more detail, but decided against it. There were plenty of other people willing to divulge that information. "As for the 'when'... I suppose that's relative."

Rose repeated the name with care. "Paixao." Unfortunately, it wasn't ringing any bells. "That the city or the planet?"

"It always is." She had been hoping for something more than that, like a local calendar or somesuch, anything to help her get her bearings.

She ran a frustrated hand through her hair; it seemed that returning to Torchwood was her only option. This was quite obviously not where she was supposed to be.

Well, she had time to kill then. "You're not from around here either, are you?" She gestured between Sheik and the queue. "Not really followin' the Victorian look."

Sheik's eyes followed Rose's gesture momentarily, then returned. "No," she replied. "I'm not." This time the pause was shorter, though. The girl didn't seem either clueless or malicious, but it was probably best to preemptively steer the conversation toward topics Sheik was more willing to talk about. Such as, not herself.

"Paixao is a confluence of worlds, of a sort," she went on. "Many like yourself have found themselves trapped here, far from home. By what means, no one seems to know."

He was quite obviously avoiding the topic of himself, but Rose respected that; after all, she had had to do the same before.

So she moved onto a different subject, one he seemed more comfortable discussing. "A rift of some sort, then." She wasn't really surprised by that; the cannon tended to deposit her in such places with weakened dimensional walls.

People were being trapped here? Now that was not something that she approved of at all. Any thoughts of using her jumper left her head; there was no way she was leaving when she had a chance to stop (or at the very least interfere with) such wrongdoings. "The people stuck here: they have anything in common?"

"Not to my knowledge," Sheik replied. Honestly, she was a little impressed at the level-headed attitude of this newcomer. It seemed she was hitting the ground at a run. "There are all sorts. Humans, fairies, demons. Some claiming to be gods, yet all brought here against their will."

Rose had been expecting aliens, time-slippage, you know: the usual. Not this motley group out of a fairy tale. "That's... quite a collection." Though she didn't put much credence in the claims of godhood. "Not very good gods if they're gettin' shuffled in here with the rest of us mortals."

She took out her mobile, fiddling with it; she would need to call Torchwood and see if they could help. "Just to check, no one's ever gotten out of here? By magic or technology. Freak accidents, maybe."

That was kind of the idea. Sheik assumed - and very much hoped - that the captivity of these so-called "gods" was simply a weakness on their own part. The alternative was much more chilling.

She quirked an eyebrow at the device Rose had produced, curious but not overly so. "Not that I've confirmed," she said. "Some claim they've been brought here more than once, and returned home in between. But other than that, even they seem to have no details of any use."

Not all those who wander are lost.

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