The Cape Rouge, Somewhere Along The East Coast, Monday Afternoon

[okteiviakom]

The days at sea felt like waves. There were moments where Octavia felt settled and patient, ready to ride it all out until the multiverse decided to spit Duke back out again. And there were other moments where the wait just felt like it was crushing her.

She liked coming out on the deck sometimes, when the latter happened. Something about looking out towards the horizon could sometimes help center her. And that was what she'd been doing when she suddenly caught movement in the sky, out of the corner of her eye, and turned to look. It was a bird, an albatross. Carrying something in its beak, something -- very oddly shaped.

As the bird flew closer, Octavia could make out what it was: a squirrel.

A squirrel wearing a hat.

And then the squirrel waved at her, with some -- white piece of paper? A piece of cardboard? Without thinking, Octavia waved back. "What --" she muttered, right as the albatross flew directly over the deck, above her, and the squirrel dropped whatever it was it had been holding.

On instinct alone, Octavia rushed to snatch it out of the air, before it even had time to land on the deck. And it wasn't just a piece of paper, or cardboard. It was an old and battered envelope, addressed to her and Lucifer, care of the radio squirrels on Fandom Island.

And it was in Duke's handwriting.

Octavia looked up, but the albatross and its furry hitchhiker were already gone.

She looked down at the envelope again. Her hands were shaking.

"Lucifer!"

[ooc: NFB, and for the one.]

Comments

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer had known Octavia for entirely too long not to react to her screaming like that. "What? Who's dying?" he called, dropping the knife he'd been working on lunch with as he ran up the stairs.

[okteiviakom]

"It's --"

A mirage. She was half thinking this was a very real-feeling mirage, the envelope she was now holding up for him to see while she tried to get her hands to stop trembling.

"It's from Duke."

[my_own_advocate]

"You're joking," Lucifer said.

Though the firm steps he was taking showed he didn't really think so. "Have you opened it?"

He nearly snatched it out of her hands, but relented just in time.

[okteiviakom]

Octavia shook her head. "It just -- came."

Yes, that sounded absurd to her, too.

She was also feeling an odd sense of terror.

[my_own_advocate]

"Suppose it's not the most insane thing to have happened in the past ten days," Lucifer said, sounding tense. "Open it."

[okteiviakom]

Octavia stared at the envelope for a few seconds.

Then she thrust it into his hands. "I can't."

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer let out a downright irritable grunt - he wasn't irritated, not really, just as tense as she was and about twenty times more Lucifer about it. But he took the envelope and opened it quickly, with no care at all.

Then he started reading.

[okteiviakom]

And Octavia watched his face as he did.

Anxiously.

(Why did the paper look so old?)

[my_own_advocate]

"Well, he's alive," Lucifer muttered after a moment, "In Haven. In 1955."

[okteiviakom]

"What?"

Why couldn't good news ever just be good news?

[my_own_advocate]

"'I was an idiot'," Lucifer read aloud, "Well, no surprise there-- 'and got my ass booted back here by a trouble my grandfather failed to off before he died'."

He lowered the letter for a moment. "This is apparently after being stuck in Haven for a month and a half now."

[okteiviakom]

"Month and a half," Octavia repeated, in a mutter. "That part... could be worse, I guess."

Just trying to cling to the good, here. Desperately.

1955.

[my_own_advocate]

"And it's a trouble," Lucifer said. "Those things tend to be temporary in one way or another, no?"

[okteiviakom]

"Some of them," Octavia said, her eyes flicking to the letter. "Does he -- does he say anything about what he's doing to get back?"

To his own time, she meant. It felt like too much to reach for think he had an idea for how to get home.

[my_own_advocate]

"He just says he's been talking to Claire and Gloria and Audrey and someone named Dwight?" Lucifer offered. "And that he misses us."

He was going to leave the note about her out, until Octavia decided to read it herself.

[okteiviakom]

Suddenly, Octavia looked particularly alert.

"Did he say anything else about Dwight?"

[my_own_advocate]

"All he says is that Dwight has 'oceans of muscle' and he wants to know if you ever met him," Lucifer said, blinking. "Why?"

[okteiviakom]

"Dwight's with the Guard."

She did not look too happy about it, no.

"He pretty much stalked me one day in Haven. I'm pretty sure it's the same guy."

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer shrugged helplessly. "Duke says he's 'okay', whatever that means."

[okteiviakom]

Octavia inhaled sharply, then forced the exhale to be slower. Calmer.

(She really, really hated this.)

"Okay," she muttered. "It still feels like bad news."

[my_own_advocate]

"I mean, he's not dead," Lucifer pointed out practically. "Or amnesiac. Or on a very long, postponed commitment freakout bender."

[okteiviakom]

"No, he's in Haven," Octavia said, scowling. Not at him, just in general. "And not just that, but his granfather's Haven. Because of someone's time travel trouble."

Yes, he knew all this already, Tavi.

Her hands were fists at her sides.

"Which means the way out might not even be in his hands."

[my_own_advocate]

"Or yours," Lucifer noted. "But that's not exactly any different from where we were an hour ago, is it?"

[okteiviakom]

But it was.

If only because now Octavia had faintly more exact scenarios to run through in her head when the bad moments hit her.

Now she did scowl at him. It was a paper-thin mask for her helplessness.

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer really wished he'd known he'd meet these people before he chucked the dimensional-portal-creating flaming sword through a portal and sealed it.

"What?" he said. "We still don't know how to get to him, or how to get him out of it, or if he's even still stuck in 1955 at all."