entranceway | First* Video/Action

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First* Video/Action

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[Bela is standing in front of the camera, dressed in pants and shirt and a brown leather jacket-rather common clothing considering the eclectic pile of clothes behind her. If anyone cares for those kind of details they'll see a wide arrangement of clothing, from suits to cocktail dresses to waitress uniforms and even a maid costume.]

So. The closet? It's a very nice touch, I have to admit. I certainly wouldn't mind having one back home. Though seemingly free food, board, and clothing just means there's a hidden cost. So what is our benevolent caretaker charging us?

And what becomes valuable in a place like this? Is there a currency in particular items? Favors? Souls? [And there's a wry smile there to indicate that might possibly be a joke.]

Or does everyone here work on altruism?

Action A: Wandering Wonderland
[Not one to idly sit when her surroundings are so undiscovered, and therefore a little bit threatening, Bela takes to exploring the grounds with a casual step that belies just how uncomfortable she really feels. She can be found idly touching decor along the walls of the mansion, or grabbing something to eat in the dining room, or eyeing the titles of books in the library even if she doesn’t actually reach for any right now.

[ooc: This is your find her wandering anywhere you want to option.]

Action B: An unlocked room is an invitation.
[After exploring the more open grounds, Bela can be found roaming the hallways. It’s a seemingly innocent gesture by itself, except for the subtle jiggle of a handle here and there as she moves about. Just her way of...well, casing the place. Not that she’s planning on stealing anything quite yet, but she’ll feel more comfortable once she’s got a good map of the surroundings and people around her since it doesn’t seem like she’ll be leaving very soon.

Occasionally, when she finds an unlocked door, she casually opens it just to get a good idea of the room-and on the occasion that someone is actually in their room without bothering to lock the door, well, she smiles sheepishly and offers an embarrassed apology.]

Oh, I’m sorry. I have the wrong room. [Ignore the subtle sweep around the room before she tries to retreat.]

Action C: A locked one is just a challenge.
[She’s good. For a while. But after finding so many empty and unlocked rooms, she’s a little curious to see what’s inside a locked one. And just as curious to see how easy it is to pick a lock on these particular doors.

So she chooses a random one in a rather quiet hallway, listens near the door for any tell-tale sign of shuffling, and when she thinks she’s in the clear, she kneels down and jimmies the lock, before pushing the door open. If there’s no immediate reaction, she’ll take a step inside. Just a quick scouting mission, don’t worry, she’s not here to steal anything.]

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Fine. [She certainly doesn't have anything else to really do at the moment.] I'll see you in ten.

See you then.

[Jo is good to her word, and gets to the tearoom in question a few minutes early to make sure it's fit for use-- thankfully, Wonderland doesn't seem to have left any surprises in there for them this time around, and if anyone used it recently, they did a good job of cleaning up after themselves. Though tea is apparently the order of the day, she might also have brought a couple of shot glasses and a bottle of Jack over from the bar-- just in case.

Wonderland tends to make people want to drink.]

[She has every intention of arriving in ten minutes, but as new as she is, her timing to trek from one area to the other is still a little off and she arrives a few minutes late. While she doesn't mind standing people up under the right situations, she is annoyed with her own tardiness.

Not that she makes a show of it as she arrives and pauses by the entrance before greeting Jo with an easy enough smile and nod. It's habit to eye the place thoroughly before stepping too deep into the room.

It looks safe enough, however, and she moves in easily and takes a seat at the table. The booze does not go unmissed and this time the smile is a little more genuine.]

Well. I certainly appreciate the way you think.

[Jo smirks in reply-- if she'd noticed at all that Bela was running late, it doesn't show, and she simply offers the other woman an easy shrug as she gestures dismissively towards the bottle.]

I remember being new well enough to figure you might appreciate it.

[Most adults who come through Wonderland do.]

So, as first days go, what do you think?

[As much as she could appreciate a stiff drink, might be inclined to partake, she won't do so until she's sure she's relatively safe here. She won't be at the mercy of a drunken mistake.

She might have a bit of a control issue.]

Considering where I'd probably be otherwise, I don't suppose I can complain much.

[That 'otherwise' is something they have in common, even if Jo herself doesn't realize it-- but she still gets the sentiment regardless, and offers a wry smile as a show of sympathy.]

If it helps any, you're not the only one who feels that way. You'll hear a lot of people desperate to get back home, but there are some who have decided they're better off here, at least for awhile.

[Or, in her case, for as long as she can make it stick.]

[Commonality isn't something she seeks out, so the words she knows are trying to be comforting are just a simple fact to settle away. It's not exactly a trait she expects to find in hunters, though.]

How old are you?

[It's a simple enough question, and Jo shrugs easily, pouring a drink for herself in the meantime. Might as well partake as long as she's here.]

If you want to be technical, twenty-four, because people don't really age here-- time seems to pass, but nobody gets any older. We're frozen.

[A perk for some, a curse for others. She has a couple of friends she knows are frustrated by being stuck in teenage bodies despite technically being adults.]

If you count the years I've spent here in Wonderland, twenty-six. Twenty-seven in April.

[Her brow arches. Jo looks a little younger than she would have guessed, but it seems they're actually the same age...technically. But it does help settle some curious thoughts she's had.]

Well, then. You're rather well adjusted for a hunter. Get into the game late in life?

[Very few hunters are sane and healthy.]

I was raised around hunters, but my mom spent most of my life trying to keep me out of it. Didn't work out the way she wanted.

[Knowing everything she did, hearing all those stories growing up and knowing that there was something hunters could do to protect the people who didn't know what was out there-- it was impossible for her to turn her back on all of that.]

My dad was a hunter. He died when I was just a kid, but I always wanted to do what he did. All I knew was that he went out and he helped people. He was a hero. Hard not to want to follow in those footsteps. [She smiles, just a little.] Took a more practical approach to it when I finally started, but I don't regret getting into the life. Can't imagine things any other way.

[It's hardly impossible. But then she certainly can't properly appreciate a healthy family relationship. Ten years later and she's still uncomfortable with just the idea of her parents.]

Surely you can. You're married here with a bar to keep you busy. [Just worth pointing that out. Normal lives for hunters weren't exactly how things worked.]

I'm not sure I would have ended up with any of those things if I hadn't been into hunting beforehand.

[It wasn't all that long ago that she remembers doing whatever she could to put distance between her and the family business.]

When I got here, Dean kind of conscripted me to the bar to keep me from going out of my mind, not having any other work to do. When he left, I decided to keep it up after him. He's been back a few times since, but--

[It's never been quite the same. She doesn't add that part in, at least.]

And Simon-- we might have still wound up together if we were both normal, but I don't know. We both come from worlds full of all kinds of monsters. Well, mostly zombies for him, but-- there was solidarity there early on.

Knowing about the life, what exists out there and who's fighting it, I certainly think that's useful. But that doesn't mean you've got to throw yourself in the midst of it.

[Seriously. You people and your self-preservation. It's atrocious.]

I suppose that's one plus for our world, not many zombies. [Luckily she's dead before the whole rising from the graves and eating people shit.

It's still worth finally taking a drink of that offered alcohol though.]

Maybe that's how it worked out for you, but-- it wasn't like that for me. I couldn't just ignore it. I wanted to do what my dad did.

[She doesn't think that's so terrible-- but Bela's not wrong about self-preservation.]

They turn up every now and then, but-- not like where he's from. [She shakes her head.] Hard to imagine a world where there are more zombies than people, but there are a few like that. We've got plenty of survivors here to prove it.

[She smiles, it's fake, but she's good at selling fake. But there's a twitch that she can't exactly hide whenever fathers are mentioned. It's probably more visible in the way she quickly finishes her drink and pours another.]

it seems Wonderland did him a favor then.

[Jo, for her part, didn't grow up serving hunters in a bar without learning how to read people, and she narrows her eyes ever-so-slightly, curious.]

Hey. Something I said?

[Damn. So Jo's a people-reader and she had just given her a tell. Denial won't do her any favors here, so she shrugs casually as she considers her words carefully. Dean and Sam shouldn't have any real reason to share her assumed background with people that she's had no interactions with, but then she's no idea what she's gotten into in the past here with people. So she has no idea what Jo knows.

And getting caught in a lie is an...unfortunate thing.]

No. I just...didn't exactly have the kind of father that I would ever want to emulate. So it's like comparing apples to oranges, your goals and mine.

[She nods once, a show of understanding.]

I get it. Everyone's different, and-- you kind of see it all in the hunting community.

[Like some incredibly telling cross-section of human life, that bunch. She's pretty sure she's heard every sob story in the book.]

I know I got lucky. Most people I've met-- they don't have much good to say about where they come from.

[She doubts it. Nobody really understood. The closest had been a god damn demon.

But it doesn't matter.]

And yet they all seem to run into the lifestyle to get some sort of vengeance.

[As smoothly as she can step over sob stories the better.]

A lot of them, yeah. It's a common story among hunters.

[She shrugs a little, grimacing as she pours herself a drink, though she keeps the amount modest.]

Revenge is a complicated business, I guess. It's never really been my style, but you see enough of it, it's hard not to notice how it eats people up inside.

Good. Then maybe you'll stay a sane one. [That's probably the best a hunter can hope for. Because a long life certainly isn't in the cards. Nor is a normal one.] If you ever have to return to it at all.

What about this place, any suggestions? Reason to salt the windows? Or carry rod iron around?

Makin' an effort.

[Which is about all anyone can do.]

There are a couple of demons around. I'd salt the windows just to be safe. I always do, anyway-- and a devil's trap just inside your bedroom door never hurt anyone.

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