3rd Contract [Wandering from room, holodeck, ten-forward, halls]

[magicsprice]

For the most part Gold has been keeping to his room, occasionally reading actual books, occasionally finally deigning to poke at the PADD to figure out how it worked and learning what he could from it. When he wasn't reading, he would spin on the wheel. Of course, the latter activity typically left him with a byproduct that he should perhaps looking into a means of using. Unfortunately, given the confined area and the lack of any obvious need of wealth, he was at a small loss at how to go about bartering the gold away.

When he wasn't in his room, he could likely be found either wandering the limited area of halls he was allowed to roam, debating on if he should even bother continuing the program he'd begun crafting within the Holodeck, or seated within Ten Forward (more for the chance to see his son, or failing that, to observe the 'natives', than any desire for other company).

During one of his trips to the lounge, he'd discovered what had first seemed to bear some relationship to a chess set. How one actually played on the strange board was something he was still working on fully figuring out. When he's not paying much mind to the crowd around him in the lounge, he's studying the set up and trying to figure out its rules and strategies. His first few attempts at actually playing versus the computer had ended in abject failure, perhaps if he had someone who knew the game to play against and question, he might actually learn how to at least give the damn computer a decent challenge the next time he bothered to play against it.


(ooc: feel free to talk with the man anywhere in the areas mentioned, just tell me where either in subject header or your tag!)

Comments

[kepthimhuman]

He's been looking for ways to fill his time since he got here, and with the limited areas he can go, he's only got a few options left. He's heard about the holodeck, but hasn't been there yet, so that's where he goes. When he enters, it's to find it seemingly empty. Which is curious, because there's something on the screen.

It looks like a diner that could be found in many places, like many of the ones he visited in the land without magic. Somewhere on Earth, that's obvious, and he supposes it's not that strange. The strange part is that this street, all of these buildings, would be able to fit in this space. He reaches for the handle on the door to the diner, and is surprised when he's able to take hold of it and open the door. There's even the sound of a bell tinkling when he pulls it open. What is going on here?

Which is when he notices the other strange thing. One of the few patrons in the fake diner is him, as he is now, and he doesn't know how he can be standing in the door and sitting at a table at the same time.

This is something he can figure out later. There are only two people in this place who could have put him into something like this, and he doubts it was Henry who did it. He doesn't even know if Henry could have done it if he wanted to. Which leaves only one option.

He closes the door to the diner and tries to leave before his presence is noticed.

[magicsprice]

Unfortunately for Neal, the very person he's trying to avoid is mere feet away from him. He'd noted the holodeck doors opening, more from the sound of them than by seeing them. Thus he hadn't seen just who had entered the room until he came across him in front of the diner.

A brief glance through one of the building's windows told him that the man before him was the real deal, since he could see the fake seated within the diner blithely unaware that anything was currently wrong with this town. If it hadn't been for the fact he's not hardly seen his son since that fiasco involving Henry, he might have been a little more inclined to step out of the entrance walk leading to the diner's door. He's a bit surprised to find his son here, and is thus a bit lost for words, but he'll still try to grasp the chance he's been given for some conversation with the other man.

"....Welcome to Storybrooke."

[kepthimhuman]

He's too late. He can't just walk out now. Well he could, but that would be rude.

Their last conversation mostly stayed clear of problematic topics, covering only the basics of their location. That was a conversation he could handle, because it was the kind of conversation he could have had with anyone. The kind of conversation he'd prefer right now.

"It looks like a nice place."

[magicsprice]

He moved to step back out of the way so they were no longer blocking the door. "It is. I wish it were the real thing."

He fell silent for a moment as his eyes took in the main street and the buildings along it. He'd finally gotten the outside of the buildings to looking as they should, though the inside of most buildings that he rarely had cause to visit were sorely lacking still.

"Would you like a tour?"

He could show him the town, his shop, maybe even the library and his own house. Though the latter two places did run the risk of their running into this false town's version of Belle, which would no doubt provoke some questions and more explanations. At least Belle was a reasonably safe topic, so long as he didn't go too into detail about how their relationship began.

[kepthimhuman]

"A tour?" He didn't know that kind of thing was possible. It would be nice to see the cursed town though, the place where Emma had gone. The place where Henry had lived too. "That would be nice."

[magicsprice]

That went over better than he'd thought it might. Perhaps he'd been wrong to fear that his son would rather seek to leave and continue the pattern of avoidance. Or more likely, it was his sense of curiosity which was luring him into staying. Either way, it granted him time with him, he couldn't ask for much more than that right now.

"The diner behind us is Granny's, she also runs the bed and breakfast here." He turned in the direction facing away from the library for now, gesturing vaguely down the street. "Down that way is a number of stores and the post office. The school is also in that direction I believe. I can take you down that way if you like, but I haven't gotten around to tending to the details within those buildings yet."

He turned back in the direction of the library and gestured toward it next. "That is the library and clock tower. It I have been working on, we can visit it if you like."

[kepthimhuman]

Why not? "Okay. You created people as well as the buildings then, obviously. Including me, I noticed."

[rhapsoidein]

She hadn't expected to walk into an half finished but no less impressive town when walking through the holodeck doors. Genesis wanted to spend some time alone practicing her flying but, instead, found a charming little town. She kept her wings closed as she made her way through the empty town, boots crunching on the fall leaves that had blown in. An autumn chill was in the air and she almost wished she had a jacket and scarf, but she knew she would be fine.

It was just the holodeck, after all.

Eventually, she found herself in front of an antique store. Taking a peek through the window, Genesis found quite a few intriguing artifacts inside and decided to open the door and make her way in. Many of what she saw was not something she would have found on Gaia, after all. Just who was behind all this?

[magicsprice]

When Gold had started the program to see if he felt like continuing his work on it, he hadn't expected any company. When he heard the bell ring due to his shop's door opening, at first he didn't think much of it. After all, the three people he'd had the computer create for him were all the sort to think nothing of coming in his shop whenever they desired should the door be unlocked.

It was a minute or two after the entry when no hails came for him that he ended up curious enough to quit what he was doing in the back of the shop to come up to the front of it. Upon noting the red hair and the dark wings, it was obvious the woman was another unfortunate brought here by Q.

"Hello. Can I help you?" Despite the fact that his shop and the wares in it weren't as real as they appeared to be and couldn't be removed from the room they were created in...old habits were hard to break.

[rhapsoidein]

They may not have been real, of that she knew, but they were at least real enough in the sense that they existed somewhere. Items like these were not created just out of one's imagination, after all.

"Ah, no," Genesis heard him from the back, her sensitive hearing allowing it, but she hadn't really expected a greeting. She hadn't been sure if he was part of the program or not, but she suspected not. "I was just... curious. Didn't expect to find a town when entering the holodeck. Homesick?"

[magicsprice]

"I imagine not....and yes." Perhaps it should come as no surprise the woman had figured out part of why he was here still tinkering with this program, instead of giving up on it.

It might not be real, but having the familiar walls, smells, and sights around him did help him behave himself when he had grown sick of the sight of the ship's halls and his own guest room. If not for the fact he had his doubts that the captain, crew or the rest of their guests would approve of his occupying the holodeck for days on end, it would be rather tempting to live once again in his house, real or not, and forgo returning to his guest room.

[rhapsoidein]

Well, she never saw him tinker with it. But it wasn't hard to figure out, either. It certainly felt real enough, but also awfully lonely. There was no one in the town and she had a feeling she knew why.

"It won't replace home," She murmured, fingers gliding over a few of the trinkets. "But it could help for a little while. I doubt the crew will like you occupying this for long, though. But I'm sure you can find a way to save the file for later use."

[magicsprice]

"It wont. The computer's magic might be capable of creating such real and solid illusions, but that is all they are." He'd been more invested in the program before he'd realized that there was no real way for him to recreate the people he'd wanted to place in this mock-up of Storybrooke.

Once he'd realized that the people created could never feel anything like the real thing then he'd gotten frustrated with it and he'd ceased to work on it as seriously as he had before.

"I know. I tend to only visit whenever I need a break from the world of our current hosts."

[abyssum_invocat]

"This is nice."

Says the semifamiliar voice from one young girl Rumpelstiltskin ought to know, dressed today in a much, much more modern outfit consisting of denim trousers and what she would rightly classify as an oddly decorated undershirt, but it's warm enough for the ship. At a certain point Sinthia had gotten very tired of trying to argue with the replicator over what was considered decent clothing. (That was how she'd ended up with the mint-colored leather jacket she was holding over her folded arms, wondering vaguely how one earth one raised a cow that color.) She rather liked the holodeck even when it wasn't her own program running; the ease of creation reminded her enough of the ease with which she could find thoughts in someone else's head for it to be comfortingly familiar, only it gave her less of a headache with prolonged use.

"Is this where you're from?"

[magicsprice]

The voice is certainly unexpected, but by no means unwelcome. He ceased racking his memory for details about the town that he might have missed in applying to the town he'd been building here, and turned to properly face the young lady,

"Yes." He gave her a somewhat amused smile. "Welcome to Storybrooke."

[abyssum_invocat]

"Storybrooke," she repeats, and with her hands gripping her forearms she looks around. "It's...vaguely saccharine as names go, but it looks pleasant." Inasmuch as she can guess at pleasantness, which really isn't far.

"It looks normal."

[magicsprice]

Sinthia's words earned something of a small chuckle from him.

"It holds its own irony, much like other names bore by its citizens. Appearances can be deceiving, though by itself, it is rather normal, as towns go you might say."

[abyssum_invocat]

"It isn't normal to me. I imagine this is what normal people think of," she says with a tiny shrug.

She knows normal. It's metal tiles, wide windows, greys and blacks and mechanical equipment. Not asphalt streets and storefronts. "Is this really where you came from? It doesn't seem likely to teach you magic."

[magicsprice]

"Yes, the definition of normal does tend to differ person to person." He replied with quiet humor lacing his words.

"If you mean was I born in the world this town is from, no I wasn't. Perhaps if you would like to see it, I could recreate part of the world I was born in to show it to you."

His castle perhaps, along with part of the mountain range it was in, maybe he'd even try to add the small village that was also within the range not too far from his castle.

[abyssum_invocat]

"Which is more home to you?" she asks, surprisingly mature for an eight-year-old still getting used to dealing with space. And everything that comes with it.

[goldencobra]

It had been almost three weeks of not leaving his shared quarters with Irian before Henry decided he was bored enough to do so. It was great that the replicator could do almost anything but there was only so much one could do alone. He'd been thinking of visiting the holodeck for a while so today, he finally left his room and headed in that direction.

Not realising there was already a program running, he let the doors open and caught his breath at what he saw. It was his house. His and his father's house in Storybrooke. The fact that it was Storybrooke meant a certain magical person Henry didn't want to see was obviously here. But he couldn't help but wonder what the house looked like inside without him living there.

Amusingly, the door was locked but Henry's key still worked. First thing he noticed was the lack of pictures on the walls. No birthdays or Christmases had been celebrated in this house. He turned to look around the kitchen but it seemed very much the same. Ascending the stairs, his father's room looked almost identical as well and before long he stood in front of the door to his own room, his hand on the door knob but not having the courage to look inside it.

What would he find?

[magicsprice]

Depending on just how preoccupied the boy was about the mystery of the room beyond the door, he may or may not notice the sound of someone ascending the staircase not too far from his current position. Now that he no longer needed to rely on a cane, he was capable of mounting the stairs faster and quieter.

Upon seeing the boy, he remained silent for a couple seconds before finally speaking up. "It's just a spare bedroom. Nothing more."

[goldencobra]

Henry hadn't heard the man ascending the stairs as he was so used to listening for the cane. So he jumped when he heard the voice and somehow, in that moment of shock, his hand turned the knob the door opened. The boy turned from the older man and looked into the room.

More to get away from Gold than anything else, he took a step or two into the room cautiously. There was a bed, yes, but it was hardly what he had back home. Boxes were set down in the corners and there were, of course, not posters or certificates on the walls. Everything felt dark and unloved so it truly felt wrong to Henry. He'd thought about making his own Storybrooke here and knew now that he certainly had to. If only to show the others what it was like for him.

Not that he was talking to either of them...

[magicsprice]

Gold remained in the hallway as Henry retreated into the guest bedroom. Taking the boy's tale about being raised by him into account with the way the boy had been standing in front of the door... he had a hunch that back in the town the boy came from the room was no doubt different.

Less cluttered and more lived in.

He sighed quietly and debated leaving the boy alone, it was obvious that his presence was unwelcome. After a minute of silent debate, he turned away from the room and moved to head back down the stairs. He'd go to his shop, leave the boy to his wandering.

[goldencobra]

Henry watched the shadow disappear down the stairs but didn't stop him. Instead, he simply sat down on the bed and felt like he wanted to cry. Everything was wrong here. And not just the room. The house. The town. Just everything. It made him angry and upset.

Standing up again, he kicked the bed. He kicked it several times, even moving it slightly with the force of his kicks. The boxes on the other side split but Henry didn't care. It wasn't real so why did it matter? He continued kicking a little more then collapsed on the floor, breathing heavily and wishing that, even if he wasn't real, he could create his dad here to just hug him and tell him everything was going to be okay.

But Henry didn't know how to do that. And all he had was a man who looked like his dad but wasn't. And a man saying he was his dad but couldn't be. Even Storybrooke, with all it's faults and it's bad pasts, was better than here.