the_isle | A Chilly Arrival

Open/locked?: open
Who: Jack and whoever else
What: arrival
Warnings: none most likely

If anyone happened to be anywhere near the beach they would be in for quite a show. There was a short burst of light behind the low hanging clouds followed by a shadow of a shape quickly streaking towards the water. Was it a bird? Or... A person??

Jack wasn’t sure what happened, one second he was speeding over the ocean, the next, he was suddenly tumbling through the air. “Um, wind?! A little help here?!” But there was nothing, no supporting cushion of air or reassuring whisper through his hair, just the rushing in his ears of freefall. He clutched his staff tight. At least he appeared to be much closer to shore than he’d thought. In fact it almost looked more likely he’d faceplant into the sand than the waves. He flattened out his body to try and slow his descent, it wouldn’t do much, but better than nothing.

He hit the sand hard, hard enough that if anyone had been watching and figured he was a normal human, they would probably be very worried. As it was, it certainly knocked the wind out of his lungs, he certainly felt it, but it was nothing he couldn’t get back up from.

After a second to catch his breath, he groaned and sat up, confused as he realized he didn’t recognize the beach. He hadn’t been everywhere in the world, but he’d been most places enough to recognize them, and the grey beach certainly didn’t look or feel anything like the tropics. “Real funny, wind!”

He’d lost his grip on his staff at some point, so he clambered to his feet and went to looking for it. Anyone coming up to him would find a teenage boy wandering the beach, barefoot in nothing but a blue hoodie and a pair of brown capris, his hair an unusual icy white. Though, he didn’t appear to be all that cold.

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"And I thought I was one for a dramatic entrance," she said, seeming amused, hands on her hips. She had been coming out to try and get some fish for the group.

He glanced towards her, then around the beach. Weird... it almost seemed as if she was...

He shook his head. He'd had more than enough time to get used to being invisible, he wasn't gonna start letting his imagination get away from him now.

Rude or mute? Dead maybe? Thankfully River didn't only reply on the Tardis translation matrix - useful as it was. She had other ways to communicate. She grabbed a stick and started writing on the sand.

"Hello, sweetie."

When she finished, if he hadn't been watching, she waved a hand in front of his face, then pointed to the two word message.

He'd gone back to scanning for his staff, uncomfortable not knowing where it had fallen, but the woman waving her hand around right in his face certainly grabbed his attention. He stared at her a long second, before turning to look behind him, just to he sure. But there was no one else on the beach. He whipped back around.

"Me? Are you- Can you see me?" He didn't dare to believe it.

"Oh? Was I supposed to not be able to? Well isn't that interesting. Will I forget you if I turn away, I wonder?" She seemed quite amused.

There was a grin spreading across his face. Surprise, shock, but definitely excitement there. "No I- Well- No one's been able to see me in three hundred years. I thought..."

He shook his head. "You can really see me?"

"Three hundred years, you must be nearly as old as..." her lips twisted into a teasing grin.

Her comment didn't really strike him, he'd grown used to only really seeing other spirits and magical beings, so it wasn't a particularly odd statement. He might've at least questioned who she'd been about to say it about if he was less distracted. As it was he just laughed, a bit disbelieving still that she could really see him. He could almost cry with the relief that was flooding his chest. "How can you-" Why could she see him?

"How can I what? Look this good?" she asked with a wink. "Practice."

He laughed a bit breathlessly at that. "No- I- Sorry- I just can't believe you can really see me."

He ran a hand through his hair and glanced around the desolate beach again. "Who are you anyway? Where are we?"

She gave him a brilliant smile. "I'm used to seeing weird things. You're not even on that scale. Glad I could help though. Sadly the answer to your questions aren't terribly good ones."

It was a little alarming that he couldn't immediately lay eyes on his staff, but her words temporarily distracted him from that. He raised an eyebrow. "How do you mean?"

"Well, I mean I suppose some people enjoy being in a prison where neither magic nor technology works properly. I don't mind it as much as some here, do. But then, there has never once been a prison that could truly hold me if I absolutely needed to leave it."

His brow furrowed and he looked at her sharply. "A prison?"

She nodded. "The whole Isle is a prison. That," she waved a hand at the distant barrier, "serves as the bars. Force field, not powered from within."

He was thrown by her answer. She didn't look like any of the Guardians or Spirits he knew of, yet she spoke of magic, and could see him. She must not have been mortal after all. "Who are you?"

A sparkling smile and an impish look in her eyes. "You can call me River Song. Everyone else here does."

"Okayyyy... Are you... human?"

"You can think of me as human, if you like."

He wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean. "But you're not a spirit. So how do you know about magic?"

"Oh, but that would be telling," she said with a wink and a smile. "I know a lot about a fair number of things people presume I shouldn't know about. But tell me, how do you define a spirit. Maybe I am one after all."

"Well, um-" He frowned. "A being made of magic, I guess? I'm not actually sure. Just- Not a mortal human."

"There are a lot of people that fall under the heading of not a mortal human, you know. I've even married a few of them," she said with a wink.

"Okayyy..." He rose an eyebrow. "I guess I didn't realize. So, you know magic, and this is a prison, that still doesn't explain where this is."

"Unless you can read space time coordinates, I'm not sure any answer I have to give you will help. Well, there is a bit of a history lesson. But you look a little young to want to hear that." She said with a wink.

He'd seen a lot of Earth's history, well, human history, but she seemed to be implying this... wasn't Earth. "Care to explain how I'd have fallen out of the sky and landed on another planet?"

"I can't do that without either using the term magic. Or lying. Which do you prefer?"

He frowned. "You can use the word magic, if that's what it was. I just wasn't expecting you to know it is all."

"Oh, sweetie. Shorter list what I don't know than what I do," she said with a wink.

Was... that meant to be reassuring? "So... how did I get here?"

"A wish gone wrong sent everyone who was supposed to be here away. Attempts to fix it led to a few people who were supposed to be here brought back and a whole lot of us who weren't supposed to be here being dragged over too."

He relaxed a little bit. "Wish magic?" He was familiar with the power of wishes. Wishes, belief, fear, hope. Any one could destroy or save lives. "That explains it..."

He crossed his arms. "So, there's no way to get back right now?" He didn't know what would happen if he was away from Earth for too long. He didn't have believers like the Guardians, but he was responsible for winter in more than one country. So eventually he imagined his absence would cause issue.

"Now? No. In the future, probably. And if we wrangle it right, we might be able to make the future the past and return before we left." She grinned, having fun with this.

His eyebrows furrowed. "The past the... future the past..?" He rubbed a hand through his hair. "Like time travel? That's happening now too?"

She laughed. "If you think about it, if Time Travel has ever happened then isn't it also always happening?" She shook her head. "And listen to me, I'm getting as bad as him these days."