Una Persson, temporal adventuress (
una_persson) wrote in
resort_link2014-12-11 02:17 pm
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
[Video]
[On screen: a handsome woman with chestnut-brown hair and grey eyes, wearing a tailored tweed blazer over a plain blouse. She smiles, offers a little wave in greeting; when she speaks, she has a crisp, cut-glass British accent.]
Hello. My name's Una Persson. I'm a new arrival—just accepted a post as a Travel Agent.
[A beat; her gaze flickers down for a moment.]
I've been here before, but you'll have to forgive me; my memories of that time are hazy at best. Something to do with the trans-temporal travel. [She says, as if this is somehow strange or a surprise to her, which it so very much isn't. People don't need to know everything about her.] So for all intents and purposes, you may consider me a complete newcomer.
Hello. My name's Una Persson. I'm a new arrival—just accepted a post as a Travel Agent.
[A beat; her gaze flickers down for a moment.]
I've been here before, but you'll have to forgive me; my memories of that time are hazy at best. Something to do with the trans-temporal travel. [She says, as if this is somehow strange or a surprise to her, which it so very much isn't. People don't need to know everything about her.] So for all intents and purposes, you may consider me a complete newcomer.
fast-forward sounds good!
You see the carvings above the lintels of some of the buildings, the death's head and archer's bow. We thought it was merely symbolic before, until skeletons armed with bows and arrows attacked the village a few months back. The carvings are probably apotropaic. "We respect you, now go away from my home." Or possibly invoking the creatures as guardians. "Do not rob me or may the skeletal archers get you."
no subject
The—skeletons, yes. They mentioned...
[She passes a hand over her face, and the slight dizziness subsides.]
Apotropaic?
no subject
[But whatever brief spell she has seems to pass quickly.]
Believed to have the ability to ward off evil or ill fortune. Sometimes pictures or symbols, sometimes gestures--the most famous of which, a finger gesture to ward off the evil eye, is now considered obscene, its old purpose forgotten.
no subject
[Answering both questions, more or less. Recovering herself, she nods at the explanation.]
Ah, of course. The concept I know well; the word was new to me. [She moves closer toward the carvings for a better look.] Are there other motifs common around here?
no subject
The skeleton motif is the most common, and was the most mysterious up until a few months ago. Spiders feature heavily, and other native animals. Interestingly, there are no depictions of warfare or fighting among anything we've found. A most unmilitaristic race. Rare, in my experience.
But the strangest icon of all was one that I saw in a temple. It was a figure, long and emaciated of limb, and burning eyes like a demon from the infernal reaches. I've never seen anything like it among the artifacts, before or since. It was terrible to behold.
no subject
It sounds dreadful. And there's been nothing like it sighted [she waves back in the general direction of the town] around here?
no subject
It may be no more than a myth, but of course that's what we thought about the skeletons.
no subject
[A dry sort of joke.]
Have they left any written records, our mysterious precursors?
no subject
I've excavated many civilizations, in many foreign lands, but none so foreign as an alien planet. I find myself making the most basic assumptions about them based on what I have always known--assuming they have two eyes, that they have male and female--and then catch myself and remember that all other mammals we've seen on this planet have four eyes and are hermaphroditic, and perhaps these people were as well. So I think we have not found any writing, but perhaps their way of writing is simply beyond my understanding and requires four eyes to see.
no subject
Nothing for it but to keep looking, then.
[She wanders a bit, looking around.]
Do you need any assistance on the digs? I'm officially signed on here as a Travel Agent, but one has to have something to do when business is slow. [A little smile.]
no subject
no subject
no subject
[Even knowing that this is an alien planet and the people are from many times and places, and that the battlefields she is talking about may not be the battlefields of the First World War, his first assumption is that a woman on a battlefield is probably a nurse.]
no subject
While I have nothing but admiration for the women of that sisterhood, I've never been one of them.
no subject
You were a soldier?
[Asked as if he can't quite believe the conclusion he's come to.]
no subject
You seem surprised. You've never heard of the First Petrograd Women's Battalion, have you? Or the Night Witches?
[Not that she was involved with the latter, but she did admire them.]
no subject
[He offers in answer.]
But I don't travel to Russia much since the Revolution, and before the Revolution I was very busy in France and Belgium. It would not overly surprise me, however, if some of the men at Ypres were actually women. It seems there is hardly a major war throughout history that does not have at least a few women joining in, whether the men in charge have officially permitted them or not.
no subject
and now with the proper account...
A revolutionary too? You've had a very eventful career. There is nothing we French love more than a good revolution. What cause did you fight for?
that was oddly hilarious coming from the other
Oh, now that's a long story; I couldn't possibly bore you with it. Particularly not standing around here, pleasant as this is.