for gods sakes its memorial day | lod invite

[Oswin Oswald]

"And I swear if we end up in Storybrooke or Cardiff again, we're turning around and leaving," Oswin circled around the console, finally finding a suitable place and leaning slightly on it. Honestly, the TARDIS and the Doctor could be a little more creative about where they ended up, they'd gone to both those places loads of times. Oswin didn't have anything against Storybrooke or Cardiff, but the former usually had someone trying to curse them and a trip to the latter usually involved destroying a major landmark. Completely by accident, of course. Totally. Every time. But either way, there were plenty of other places that had recognizable landmarks for destroying. After all, they did have to leave some for Torchwood.

As the TARDIS' engines faded into the continual humming that never really stopped, even when she was shut down, Oswin hopped off the railing she'd been perched on, heading to the console to peer over the Doctor's shoulder at the screen there. She couldn't exactly read the circular Gallifreyan there, but at the very least, she could try and get a peek at whatever was outside. "Where've we ended up, then? Somewhere good?" Oswin flashed him a grin. Of course, wherever they ended up was usually exciting. And, if it wasn't, then they made it that way. Trouble followed them around relentlessly, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

Well! Whatever it was wasn't going to wait. Grabbing her jacket and bag from the coat rack near the door, Oswin pulled the former on over her dress and slung the latter over her shoulder. "Come on! Whatever's out there's not going to wait all day!" Oh, she loved this part, heading to the doors in anticipation of seeing something new. Whole planets and galaxies awaited just beyond those doors, all the wonders of the universe spread out before them. Adventure, danger, awe and splendor, the freedom she'd been denied for so long in her life, all there and ready for her. With one last glance back at the Doctor, Oswin grinned, took hold of the handle, waited just a few seconds and threw it open.

"...you have got to be joking."

Oswin stepped out of the TARDIS, folding her arms and looking around, clearly unimpressed with where the Doctor had decided to bring her. And really, who would be impressed with what looked like a run-down...blimey, Oswin didn't even know what to call this. Anything that implied serving food would give this place far too much credit. "All of time and space and you bring me here?" She turned her glare on the Doctor as he followed her out, clearly dissatisfied with not being taken to some alien planet or...she didn't know, something besides this place.

And oh. Wait. There were people here. People who were staring in clear disbelief that a police box had just appeared out of nowhere and two people had walked out of it. Oswin gave the Doctor a nudge and a pointed look, clearly passing on the task of explaining to him.

Because if he wanted to take her here, he was going to have to explain why they'd shown up.

[Sarafine Duchannes]

If she'd been confident that it was in her ability to do so, she might have very well killed Abraham for making her do this. Socializing with these Mortals (Gatlin, after all, had the very worst kind) was grating enough, but to force her to do something as degrading as working here...this had to qualify as psychological torture. Not only was the food in this place rather appalling (how did anyone eat any of this?), but the customers consisted mostly of teenagers who were, if it was possible, even more intolerable than Gatlin's society of religious old biddies. And what if one of her daughters friends showed up, and recognized her?

...Not that it would exactly be easy to do so, at the moment. The Dark Caster had traded her usual choice of elegant gown for jeans and a t-shirt. She'd absolutely refused the silly cow hat the manager had tried to force her to wear, but her long dark hair was pulled back into a pony-tail - a fashion she hadn't sported since she'd been about fourteen. To top it all off, she'd been forced to invest in a pair of colored contacts, seeing as neither dark sunglasses nor frightening yellow eyes were exactly appropriate work wear. She'd at least gotten a bit of a laugh out of choosing green ones - but it hadn't lasted long. Dressed...like this, forced to work in this setting, Sarafine felt disturbingly, well. Mortal. Insignificant. ..Uncomfortable. She knew that doing all of this to 'blend in' wasn't really necessary - she knew this was just Abraham's way of screwing with her - but that knowledge hardly improved her mood, and she had presently taking to venting her irritation by bristling at a young couple who'd taken around five minutes to decide what to order now.

She might have done more than bristle, if at that moment a bizarre sound hadn't torn through the restaurant, forcing everyone to fall silent and stare towards its source. A police box had appeared in the middle of the Daree Keen.

...

A police box had appeared in the middle of the Daree Keen. What.

As a Caster, there weren't many things Sarafine could say she found strange, but this...she had no response for this. She could only stare, wondering whether the ridiculousness of her situation had finally driven her insane, and she had begun to hallucinate. It would have seemed like a vaguely legitimate theory, if the rest of the people in the restaurant hadn't been staring right along with her. And then, to top it all off, two people - a man and a woman - walked out of the box. Had they been...cramped into that box? Together? She could only stare at them for a moment in disbelief. The girl, at least, looked as surprised as the rest of them did. They hadn't meant to come here, or...so it seemed. But if some sort of explanation wasn't offered quickly, Sarafine didn't need her sister's abilities to foresee the results. This place was going to erupt into total panic. Because Gatlin was just about the absolute very worst place for anything supernatural or otherworldly in nature to openly manifest.

Not incredibly keen to witness them all abruptly begin a mass prayer session, Sarafine quickly decided to take action, and find out exactly what was going on here. Slipping over the counter, she approached the duo and their...magic box with only a moment's hesitation, and offered a dazzling smile. "...Well, I think it's safe to say you took us all by surprise." she commented as casually as she could manage. "You folks showed up a day early! The...movie magic demonstration wasn't scheduled 'til tomorrow!" The people of Gatlin generally did not know the first thing about 'movie magic', and were actually somewhat likely to buy the hurriedly thrown together explanation - if these two were willing to go with it. She wasn't quite sure either of them realized the danger they'd stumbled into - danger that would likely involve their blue box being involved in an attempted exorcism if these people weren't calmed soon.

[The Tenth Doctor]

"What, you think I'd take you there again?" The Doctor asked, before scoffing. "No, I've got something much better planned - you'll see!" He typed into the computer, with the only thing popping up being various shifting words and phrases in circular Gallifreyan. He could have switched it to English, but that would ruin the surprise. He was taking her to a very famous location, far in the future of the Earth they usually went to - in fact, it was well-known as one of the greatest restaurants in the history of the human race. The Doctor had been there twice before, and both times he'd ordered some relatively simple stuff. Getting too complicated with things would've been a little obnoxious, considering how many people went there. It would take too long and hold other people's food up.

The Doctor finished his input and pulled a nearby lever. He didn't even need to pull the lever - he just thought it was pretty great when you pulled a lever to get things done. The TARDIS' console sparked up right before the engine sounded - of course, leading into the TARDIS starting to tilt and sway as it traveled through time and space to the most famous restaurant on Earth. As soon as it stopped, Oswin seemed anxious to leave. The Doctor hanged back for a second, grabbing his brown coat from the railing and throwing it on. The Doctor gave Oswin a big, excited grin as she looked back. This was going to be great. She pushed the doors open and...

What.

The Doctor's face showed only the purest confusion as he stepped towards the door and saw the inside of the run-down remains of what looked like a Dairy Queen. The smell coming from the outside was greasy and downright repulsive. He could tell that they didn't exactly use the best ingredients in their food and that they weren't... well, sanitary at all. This was one of the few times he wasn't thankful that he had a better sense of smell than most people. The Doctor barely even glanced at Oswin as she spoke, only continuing to stare around the room in confusion and vague disgust at the baffling restaurant. What even... was this place? On the menu, he saw the words "Daree Keen"... Where was this? One of the employees walked up and started talking about a magic show or something, but the Doctor couldn't even really hear her over his own confusion.

"No, no... hold on..." The Doctor said, waving his arm vaguely in the employee's direction. "I'm a little confused... where is this?" He didn't even seem to notice that most everyone in the restaurant was staring at him. In fact, he didn't even really care that he just accidentally materialized the TARDIS in the middle of what looked like a run-down chain restaurant. Could it be that this place was the beginnings of Earth's most famous restaurant?

[Oswin Oswald]

Unlike the Doctor, Oswin was fully aware that the entire building's inhabitants were staring at them, and not exactly with the friendliest of expressions. Confusion and shock were quickly turning into fear and a general uneasiness, which...really wasn't a surprise, considering they'd just seen a police box appear out of nowhere in the middle of a building. Oswin flicked open her communicator, punching a few buttons to bring up the read-out that would tell her at least the date and time they'd landed in. 2013...definitely Earth from the likes of it, sometime in June. Oh, they were in trouble. This was way before anything like the TARDIS had been invented or even thought to be something that was more than fiction.

"Doctor." Oswin tugged on his sleeve to get his attention, holding her wrist up to show him the read-out. ...Wait, actually having her communicator out right now might not be a good thing. Or, drawing attention to it, at least. It was mundane-looking enough to pass off as a watch in most times, but she knew that the Doctor was always uneasy with Oswin having it on her. Who knew what would happen if futuristic technology fell into the hands of someone who'd want to use it for profit?

As such, she quickly hid it behind her back as people continued to stare. Right. Okay, so the Doctor was too wrapped up in his own confusion to be of much help explaining. Oswin glanced over at a nearby table and caught sight of a woman reaching into her purse and drawing out a book...a Bible?. Oh, this was bad. This was very, very bad, they'd landed the TARDIS in front of a bunch of religious people. They'd had experience with this before, landing it in places where people'd thought they were demons or angels or something ungodly. Or gods themselves. That had been fun for a bit. Until the people on that planet had tried to sacrifice them in order to free their celestial souls from their human prison or whatever.

These people seemed to be more the sort that'd sooner start a mass exorcism of the TARDIS than anything. Oswin was about to attempt to launch into a thrown-together explanation, but suddenly, one of the employees stepped out from behind the counter and approached. And, bless her, she had an excuse. "Right!" Oswin's tone was a little more bright and relieved than it ought to have been, but. Well. Who could blame her? "Yeah. Sorry, we were just testing it out." She gave the Doctor a sharp nudge in the ribs. "You'll have to excuse him, he's a bit confused." Insert pointed look in the Doctor's direction here. "Sort of meant to show up somewhere else before we did it for real."

The rest of the people were now murmuring among themselves, probably having caught from their accents that Oswin and the Doctor weren't quite from around here. Wherever 'here' was. Everyone she'd heard speaking sounded American, but that wasn't really enough to get Oswin to assume that was where they'd landed. After all, plenty of planets had developed accents like that, even in the 21st century.

[Sarafine Duchannes]

And it was already starting. People were transitioning from shock and confusion to fear and revulsion, Bibles were being pulled out...Sarafine vaguely recognized two girls sitting at the corner table who'd gone to school with Lena, and were currently bowing their heads and beginning to pray. The Dark Caster wasn't sure her exasperation could rise much further - but then the man who'd stepped out of the police box spoke. And his response wasn't exactly what she'd been hoping for. Turning to fix him with a rather stern gaze, she narrowed her eyes faintly, trying to communicate a silent warning. This was all going to get messy very quickly if these two didn't catch on soon.

Thankfully, his companion seemed a bit more aware of her surroundings. Sarafine's features softened a little as she chimed in. Well, at least this wasn't entirely a lost cause. Her smile fixed firmly back in place, she gave a light laugh. "Oh, well, that's just fine. At least now you know it works!" At least some of the commotion, at this point, seemed to have died down a bit. Those who had been bordering on panic moments ago had at least quieted down to listen in, now. She was hoping none of them would start thinking about asking questions. They were only so gullible, after all. "Really," she added, glancing back at the customers with her most reassuring expression. "The manager knows all about this. They showed up a day early, is all." If anyone went and complained to the manager to question this, she'd probably lose her job - so maybe something good could come out of this after all.

With that said and done, however, she returned her attention to the man in order to finally answer his question. "As you've probably already figured out by now, you're in Gatlin. Gatlin, South Carolina." She was sure he had no idea - in fact, she wouldn't have been surprised if neither of them had ever heard of it. South of Somewhere, North of Nowhere, as the residents liked to say - more like middle of nowhere. Well, they were certainly in for a treat. Though as amusing as it would have been to witness an outsider's reaction to this hellhole, it was probably better if they got out of here as quickly as they could before an angry mob formed. Still, Sarafine had to admit she was...rather curious about these two and their magic, traveling box. She would have liked to get a proper explanation for all of this - but that seemed rather unlikely, at least here.

She lowered her voice so that the eavesdroppers around them wouldn't overhear, and then, in a slightly less pleasant tone, added to her previous statement. "Just about the very worst place you could have possibly chosen to make an entrance like that." Why, exactly, were they here? It seemed an odd place to just...end up in, even accidentally. Sort of akin to landing on a deserted, undiscovered island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And in the middle of the Dar-ee Keen, too. At the very least they could've ended up in one of Gatlin's 'nicer' bits - like by the lake - but it seemed fate wasn't quite so kind. Her gaze traveled briefly over to the strange device they'd arrived in. She'd never seen Mortal technology like this, before. Could it be they were from another world entirely?