Lost and Found [Mingle]

[ourearth]

Date: 23-30.3.19
Characters: Open

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It starts slowly, one by one: Items are being returned to people. Specifically, they are delivered to their mailboxes.

The items are very varied, and either pushed through the letter slot in the door or, if they're too big, just left on the doorstep: A wallet that was stolen last year, a coin that was dropped into the sea last week, or a toy that was left on a bus, a time capsule buried in the ground, an unwanted present purposefully forgotten at the train station. The only thing that they have in common that they are never perishables. It's all non-food items.

All items that are being returned must have vanished within the Mossgate Echo Boundary, but they can have vanished long before the person whom they are returned to gained their first echo/got access to the network.

They appear throughout the week, and then abruptly stop the evening before Mother's Day.

Comments

[saveournpcs]

"I'm Mr Helpful." The man returns the polite tone, gives a friendly smile, and offers a hand for a handshake.

[lovedramamoron]

After what I experienced with the last echo, I can't say that's impossible.

[vernal_miss]

What’s that?

[ That is not a word she recognizes, so she cannot support it as her intention. What she can support is Walter finding emotional comfort in someone he can trust.]

Good! You should ask them now about having a talk later.

Not really. They didn’t come from the same sheet or anything either.

[iamnotgod]

Predestination is the idea that some Creator decided in advance how all things are and will be, whether individual people are comfortable with their end 'positions' or not.

[Awww, Nel. ;;]

I'll make sure to do that, then.

That's odd. Wonder why those were the ones deemed 'lost' and not belonging to someone else?

[vernal_miss]

A nod of her head is given to show her understanding, as Nel realizes that if it had been upsetting the first time then a second time could be awful too. Hug returned with the pat at her back, the girl squeezes tighter with her arms. Easing out of the gesture, she leaves her one arm behind her grandfather and stays leaning against his side.

"Maybe it'll stop soon," she ponders. The odd happenings in Mossgate sometimes linger, but it would be unusual to persist for very long. "But even if it does...do you think talking would help?"

[vernal_miss]

Not that. I was thinking about magic that could let them see parts of the future here.

Good!

[Studying the stickers more carefully, she considers them. It is curious.]

Maybe the one I gave away was lost or thrown out? I gave some to adults too.

[iamnotgod]

An oracular talent?

[Walter's glad this is text, otherwise the wry tone implied in those words would come shining through, and Nel doesn't need to hear that from him.]

Then it'd be second-hand restoration - if someone else lost them, they're returned to the original owner. In this case, that would be you.

[vernal_miss]

......yes? [Walter please stop using so many words that she doesn’t know yet.]

Maybe how long I had the stickers before matters? If I had a sticker for months and an adult took it off to throw out as soon as they got to work, that’d be a very short time.

Had to check whether Walter HAD gotten a sticker, first! |D

[iamnotgod]

Oracular is similar enough to visionary, as a word. But some people can be called visionary without actually seeing the future at all.

[ENGLISH IS WEIRD.]

That's certainly possible. Perhaps there's some way we could test that? Recently-received stickers versus those you've had a long time, if you hand them out at the same time?

[Walter, at least, did not throw his out.]

[catted]

[She chuckles.]

At this rate I feel like in the not too far future, we will consider nothing impossible any more.

[scarsolderthanyou]

Sam pauses, hesitating just a moment, before putting his hand into Mr. Helpful's for a brief shake. "Uh, you don't happen to know a Mr. Neutral and a Mr. Evil, do you?" Because the naming convention seems pretty, uh, obvious there.

[scarsolderthanyou]

"What's there to talk about?" Sam asks tiredly, idly stroking her hair, looking out across the room rather than at the box at his side. He doesn't elaborate, mostly because he knows doing so would sound self-pitying and really too sad to bother poor Nel with, but he can't muster up anything positive to say, either.

[saveournpcs]

He hesitates for a moment, looking a bit uncomfortable. Then he sighs, and nods with a mildly disapproving expression. "...I am aware of them, yes."

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Did you guys all pick out your own names?" Sam has to ask. "Because they're kinda... interesting. Unusual, you might say."

[saveournpcs]

"Oh, no." He chuckles and shakes his head. "I would never think of picking a name other than the one I've always had. That just would not feel connected to myself.

...

Did you pick your own name?" There is a faint confusion, like he's trying to figure out if there's another source to the question than the one Sam gave, because it just doesn't seem sufficient to him.

[scarsolderthanyou]

"My parents picked my name," Sam shrugs. "But I can't imagine anybody's parents naming them 'Mr. Helpful' or 'Mr. Evil'. Kids would make fun of them, and anybody, nobody wants to call their kid 'mister' unless they're in trouble."

[saveournpcs]

He shakes his head. "Nobody has ever made fun of me for it.

Did your parents not try to pick a name that would suit your well? That is what my name is."

[scarsolderthanyou]

"I was a baby, they didn't know what I would be like," Sam says. Was this guy never a baby? A child? "Where are you from? I don't recognize you, so you must not be from around here."

[vernal_miss]

Okay.

[Nel will ask someone in her family to explain the different words further later.]

I can give one of each to my mums and ask them to throw them away at a certain time. [Which will be weird but she has asked for odd favors before, and both of them know about the Numbers.]

[iamnotgod]

That sounds like a plan.

Make sure to write down the timeframes, though!

That's what makes this science. ;)

[vernal_miss]

“Maybe...” she starts timidly peering up at her grandfather as he looks off in the distance rather than to anything on the couch. Voice quieting, she finishes the thought, “You could talk about Grandma?” More hurriedly, she explains her suggestion, “Happy stories can make you feel happy and I know everyone else knew her and probably most of the stories already but I don’t really remember and I would like to hear if you want to.”

Good memories can be nice to revisit. At least to bring a smile out when the heart is hurting.

[saveournpcs]

Another shake of his head. "I'm not from around here, no. I only arrived a few months ago. I'm glad I came, though. It's beautiful here.

...You don't seem to be from around here, either, are you? Your speech sounds a bit different."

[scarsolderthanyou]

"I'm from New York, across the pond there, as they call it." He nods at the ocean they're on the edge of. Wrong edge, but still. "It's a nice place. Here, not New York. What brought you here?"

[saveournpcs]

"Oh, I am looking for someone. Or perhaps looking after someone... it is rather complicated." He shakes his head. "In a way that's fortunate though, since it brought me here. I have never before lived at the seaside. Have you?"

[scarsolderthanyou]

"I've lived all over. I've lived here for a couple decades now, so I'm pretty used to it," Sam says. "Who are you looking for? Maybe I can help out."