[SYMPHONIA] 4000 years and my life is still :]

[Mithos]

It had been an accident.

That was the worst part of it, of course. Unless Hazama was behind it, everything that set off a downward spiral tended to somehow be pure misfortune, bad luck and bad timing coinciding for the worst possible results.

Well, maybe not the worst possible result, in this case - they weren't dead - but in no way could this be called good. Because when the disorientation from the vortex manipulator faded - why had he decided to visit Regina and Oswin today, of course the device would choose to malfunction at this very moment - Mithos had the sinking, painful feeling of familiarity.

He didn't even need to look around. This world had mana - not the limited pool of Storybrooke, but an ocean of it, with the myriad tides and flows that he had felt his entire life. This wasn't the energy of the rifts. This was his own world - or worlds - and the shock of returning to it after he had given up entirely hurt as much as any wound.

Was this - was this really happening? Was he really back? That meant he could go to Derris Kharlan, save Martel, he could -

...No, he couldn't. He had sworn to move on from that, and he had other responsibilities - to people who were still alive. Besides, he had no idea when this was. Involving himself would cause a paradox - he knew enough about that from his first attempts to return, when he had tried to get the Doctor to help. He... he couldn't do anything. He hated feeling helpless - here he was, alive and in his own world, and...

There was no use brooding over it. He pushed his thoughts away and got to his feet, looking around. The floor beneath his feet was set with weathered stone, cracked by the constant influx of heat, and the air rippled constantly. This place... they were in the inner chamber of the Fire Seal, where Efreet usually slumbered, but there was not even a trace of his mana. The teleporter pad at the far end of the room seemed to be working, at least. "Oswin? Regina? Are you alright?" he called out, barely even aware of how hot the room was - it wasn't as if an angel would notice such things.

To a human, however, the temperature would have been almost unbearable, and the air stifling.

It was too bad the majority of the group was human, wasn't it?

[Oswin Oswald]

It was also not Oswin's fault. At all.

Her vortex manipulator was a rather rare breed of device in that it had been found broken and dusty on the TARDIS, as well as missing several parts that had to be replaced. As such, even with Oswin's expertise in fixing up broken pieces of technology, it didn't really...work properly all the time. Usually, the malfunctions were small and, while annoying, didn't cause too much trouble once Oswin was able to knock whatever had come loose back into place. She'd become quite adept at doing so underwater, actually. And, usually, she'd be able to get back to the place and time she was supposed to be in. Usually.

Really, though, it did help more than hinder. And after the incident with the Enchanted Forest, Oswin wasn't about to let go of the one thing that could get her back to the Doctor if they were ever separated again. Besides, despite all its problems, she did have a fondness for things that she fixed up by herself.

Unfortunately, said device had a nasty habit of dropping her off where and when she didn't belong. Especially if other people happened to come along with her.

Oswin had sensed something was wrong from the instant they'd hit the time vortex. Really, this little trip was supposed to be just that, to some distant, uninhabited alien planet where the four of them could relax for a bit. Even if Mithos, Regina and Killian were never too keen to go along, Oswin couldn't help but want to share her traveling with them. Must've been how the Doctor felt, really, even if his companions were probably a little less...well. Them. However, it didn't seem like they were going to make it there, but there wasn't anything Oswin could do, not now when they'd already set off. She couldn't even open her mouth to warn the other three that something had gone wrong.

They hit the stone floor hard and Oswin groaned quietly, turning over. The disorientation was too strong for her to have noticed the temperature of the room, but once it hit, she gasped for air, sitting up as quickly as her still-adjusting body would allow and shedding her jacket. She'd been in extremely hot places before, but that really didn't make this any better. A look around where they'd landed didn't really tell her much. It was probably some sort of cave (probably underground, she thought with a faint shudder), but the heat was much too strong for her to notice anything else.

Mithos' voice rang out from just a few feet away and Oswin blinked several times, trying to get her bearings, even in an environment like this. "Think so, yeah," she managed to get out, pushing herself slowly to her feet. "Something's gone wrong, I haven't got any idea where this is." Oswin continued, pulling uncomfortably at the neckline of her dress. "Definitely not where we were supposed to end up, I can tell you that."

She glanced around the room, biting her lip nervously. Wait. Teleporter pad in the corner. Okay, there was an exit, if they needed it. Probably a good idea to wait for Regina and Killian to wake up before they got out of here, though. Still, the idea that they were most likely underground really wasn't a nice one. And the oppressive heat wasn't really helping with the feeling that they were all trapped here. "Probably ought to find a way out as quick as we can. Keeping won't do much good."