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dizzy_landThere is a faint *pop*, and a parachutist lands in the entrance plaza. She removes goggles and an old-fashioned leather flying helmet, revealing ironic grey eyes, chestnut-brown hair, and a beautiful, sculpted face. She unsnaps her parachute harness, rolls up the webbing and silk expertly, shrugs her pack to the ground, and unfastens her olive-drab field jacket. This done, she takes in her surroundings with a bemused expression.
"Well, sod. Lord Jagged!" she calls out. "Werther? Jherek? Christia? Is this one of yours?" Her voice is mellow and very English.
When Mickey first addresses her, she stares, dumbstruck, and starts to laugh. "Oh, come on now, Jagged, very funny."
Mickey coughs theatrically. "'What is your name?'"
"Una Persson. You know, I didn't realise that Jagged had been spending time in twentieth-century America. It's not really his taste, is it?"
"What is your quest?" asks the Cat. It's perched, suddenly, on the roof of one of the gate-stiles.
"Well, I thought I was going to be meeting someone at Grasmere in 1976, but clearly there's been a slip-up in the megaflow somewhere." A pause. "This is the End of Time, isn't it?"
"'What is the average w..?'" Mickey frowns down at the notebook. "You know, I don't really see why that's important." He flips a page. "'If you could be granted three wishes, what would they be?'"
"What the hell kind of a question is that? I'm past wishing. I don't deal in that sort of thing anymore." Of course, she was still an optimist, as Major Nye had pointed out. But she knew the general uselessness of wishing much better than most.
"Or," the Cat says, examining its tail with interest, "if you were a genie and someone you were trying togive three wishes to was trying to trick you into giving him more, what would you say?"
She snorts, reminded of Frank Cornelius. "I'd tell the obnoxious little bastard to sod off and waste someone else's time."
Mickey looks rather nonplused at the next, but reads, "'When the revolution comes, what skills will you be able to barter for food?'"
Una can't help it; she laughs long and loud at this. "Darling," she says when she's finally recovered, "I'd probably be leading the revolution. It would hardly be the first time I've done such a thing." She'd lost count, in fact, of the number of revolutions, uprisings, and disturbances she'd led, much less how many she'd won or lost. So many ...
The Cat rolls its eyes in a friendly (and rather disconcertingly out-of-sync) way, and asks, "Milk, dark, or white chocolate?"
Una's own eyeroll is conventional and considerably more annoyed. "How is that a relevant question? Dark is all right, I suppose, but I haven't cared much for that sort of thing since I was last on stage." And even then, she'd rarely eaten much of the chocolate that her admirers brought her. She tended to share it with her fellow cast members and with the stagehands.
"'Choose the two coolest: robots, pirates, fairies, bears, ninjas, monkeys, vampires, or humans,'" says Mickey, giggling a bit as he goes through the list. "'Explain.'"
The inanity of this question and the preceding are well on their way to convincing Una that she is not, in fact, at the End of Time. The eccentricities and whims of those odd, powerful folk are one thing; this kind of silliness is something else altogether. With a weary sigh, she says, "Pirates and ninjas. Both are exceptionally useful in their own way, at different times. It's all in finding the right tool for the job."
"Great!" Mickey flips through the blank pages of the notebook at top, cartoon-y speed. "Well, I think that's just about it! Oh, and I'm supposed to ask, 'for your safety: are you carrying anything sharp?'"
"Of course I am," she says. "What kind of revolutionary would I be if I weren't?" She declines to specify that the sharp thing is a six-inch clasp knife. She also neglects to mention the Smith & Wesson .45 handgun on her belt and the AK-47 (broken down for easy transport), the dozen hand grenades, and the many rounds of ammunition in her bag, as, technically, they are not sharp. She reflects that Jerry will be terribly bent out of shape when she fails to show up with those weapons.
Deciding that the interrogation must be over, she heaves her bag back onto her shoulders and starts to walk off. Better see if anyone else she knows is here; she'd even welcome the sight of Frank at this point. Or perhaps there's a Time Centre.
((Una Persson is from Michael Moorcock's wide-ranging multiverse. Due to her very complicated history and the crisscrossed timelines of the stories, it doesn't particularly matter where in the canon she comes from; anything that's happened to her in the books can be assumed to have happened to the version of her that appears here. The inventory of what she arrives with is detailed here. More tl;dr in the userinfo and the LJ.))
"Well, sod. Lord Jagged!" she calls out. "Werther? Jherek? Christia? Is this one of yours?" Her voice is mellow and very English.
When Mickey first addresses her, she stares, dumbstruck, and starts to laugh. "Oh, come on now, Jagged, very funny."
Mickey coughs theatrically. "'What is your name?'"
"Una Persson. You know, I didn't realise that Jagged had been spending time in twentieth-century America. It's not really his taste, is it?"
"What is your quest?" asks the Cat. It's perched, suddenly, on the roof of one of the gate-stiles.
"Well, I thought I was going to be meeting someone at Grasmere in 1976, but clearly there's been a slip-up in the megaflow somewhere." A pause. "This is the End of Time, isn't it?"
"'What is the average w..?'" Mickey frowns down at the notebook. "You know, I don't really see why that's important." He flips a page. "'If you could be granted three wishes, what would they be?'"
"What the hell kind of a question is that? I'm past wishing. I don't deal in that sort of thing anymore." Of course, she was still an optimist, as Major Nye had pointed out. But she knew the general uselessness of wishing much better than most.
"Or," the Cat says, examining its tail with interest, "if you were a genie and someone you were trying togive three wishes to was trying to trick you into giving him more, what would you say?"
She snorts, reminded of Frank Cornelius. "I'd tell the obnoxious little bastard to sod off and waste someone else's time."
Mickey looks rather nonplused at the next, but reads, "'When the revolution comes, what skills will you be able to barter for food?'"
Una can't help it; she laughs long and loud at this. "Darling," she says when she's finally recovered, "I'd probably be leading the revolution. It would hardly be the first time I've done such a thing." She'd lost count, in fact, of the number of revolutions, uprisings, and disturbances she'd led, much less how many she'd won or lost. So many ...
The Cat rolls its eyes in a friendly (and rather disconcertingly out-of-sync) way, and asks, "Milk, dark, or white chocolate?"
Una's own eyeroll is conventional and considerably more annoyed. "How is that a relevant question? Dark is all right, I suppose, but I haven't cared much for that sort of thing since I was last on stage." And even then, she'd rarely eaten much of the chocolate that her admirers brought her. She tended to share it with her fellow cast members and with the stagehands.
"'Choose the two coolest: robots, pirates, fairies, bears, ninjas, monkeys, vampires, or humans,'" says Mickey, giggling a bit as he goes through the list. "'Explain.'"
The inanity of this question and the preceding are well on their way to convincing Una that she is not, in fact, at the End of Time. The eccentricities and whims of those odd, powerful folk are one thing; this kind of silliness is something else altogether. With a weary sigh, she says, "Pirates and ninjas. Both are exceptionally useful in their own way, at different times. It's all in finding the right tool for the job."
"Great!" Mickey flips through the blank pages of the notebook at top, cartoon-y speed. "Well, I think that's just about it! Oh, and I'm supposed to ask, 'for your safety: are you carrying anything sharp?'"
"Of course I am," she says. "What kind of revolutionary would I be if I weren't?" She declines to specify that the sharp thing is a six-inch clasp knife. She also neglects to mention the Smith & Wesson .45 handgun on her belt and the AK-47 (broken down for easy transport), the dozen hand grenades, and the many rounds of ammunition in her bag, as, technically, they are not sharp. She reflects that Jerry will be terribly bent out of shape when she fails to show up with those weapons.
Deciding that the interrogation must be over, she heaves her bag back onto her shoulders and starts to walk off. Better see if anyone else she knows is here; she'd even welcome the sight of Frank at this point. Or perhaps there's a Time Centre.
((Una Persson is from Michael Moorcock's wide-ranging multiverse. Due to her very complicated history and the crisscrossed timelines of the stories, it doesn't particularly matter where in the canon she comes from; anything that's happened to her in the books can be assumed to have happened to the version of her that appears here. The inventory of what she arrives with is detailed here. More tl;dr in the userinfo and the LJ.))
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