Abigail Hobbs (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
versusnurture) wrote2014-08-08 07:23 pm
versusnurture) wrote2014-08-08 07:23 pm
twenty ♢ private & spam
private/voice } ben
I want to go.
[This quiet but insistent. She wants to go. She hasn't been outside in so long. She wants to go.]
[She doesn't want to go alone, though.]
private/voice } will
[She debates not contacting him. She's still angry at what she considers to be his betrayal, but - well, he's still Will. They were still supposed to be family. And she thinks he will understand her need for quiet, for green, for whatever there is to find out there.]
Did you see what it is yet? Outside.
spam } throughout port
[Most of her time is spent with Ben or near Ben. She isn't yet confident enough to venture out on her own much, so she stays close and takes short walks away from their site.]
[She explores the woods, carefully and slowly, making sure not to disturb anything irreparably. Her father taught her how to walk without a sound, and she remembers him whenever she sees an animal. She doesn't try to hunt anything. They have enough food.]
[Occasionally she comes up behind someone and goes still, freezing like a deer in headlights, as if she expects to be reprimanded for getting so close. Occasionally she'll watch someone from a distance. Once she climbs a tree, just to get a better vantage point, and sits twenty-five feet above the ground for several hours, just because it feels nice to be above it all and the breeze is refreshing.]
I want to go.
[This quiet but insistent. She wants to go. She hasn't been outside in so long. She wants to go.]
[She doesn't want to go alone, though.]
private/voice } will
[She debates not contacting him. She's still angry at what she considers to be his betrayal, but - well, he's still Will. They were still supposed to be family. And she thinks he will understand her need for quiet, for green, for whatever there is to find out there.]
Did you see what it is yet? Outside.
spam } throughout port
[Most of her time is spent with Ben or near Ben. She isn't yet confident enough to venture out on her own much, so she stays close and takes short walks away from their site.]
[She explores the woods, carefully and slowly, making sure not to disturb anything irreparably. Her father taught her how to walk without a sound, and she remembers him whenever she sees an animal. She doesn't try to hunt anything. They have enough food.]
[Occasionally she comes up behind someone and goes still, freezing like a deer in headlights, as if she expects to be reprimanded for getting so close. Occasionally she'll watch someone from a distance. Once she climbs a tree, just to get a better vantage point, and sits twenty-five feet above the ground for several hours, just because it feels nice to be above it all and the breeze is refreshing.]
[ Private ]
Of course, Abigail. Do you require anything before we disembark?
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You don't have to. I'll go with you.
Have you...? Do you need me to provide anything for a pack?
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I don't want to go unarmed, either. [She wonders if this will be a sticking point.]
Other than that, just normal things for being out in the woods for a while. Do you know if it's going to get cold? I need the right clothes, and food, and better shoes than this. And things for a fire.
[She's thinking. Actually thinking. Problem solving. It's - sort of nice.]
[ Private ]
I do not know what the weather will be like. No one has been reporting inclimate weather of any kind, but I can provide layers if it would be better. The rest is easy enough.
What would you like to be armed with?
[ Private ]
[Why isn't he arguing with her? Because he's Ben. Part of her remembers this, part of her trusts it, most of her is confused but doesn't want to question it. There's the sound of her fingers drumming on her desk, then:]
Boots. Hiking boots. Worn in so I don't get blisters.
[And:]
A knife.
[She always comes back to the knife, no matter what.]
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private audio
Do you know anyone who can get some fishing line?
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[She will answer in complete sentences, like this is an SAT question. Won't question it, not yet.]
Are you going fishing?
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[ A warden. Right. He supposes he has one of those now too. ]
I was thinking - [ This is a terrible idea, always was a terrible idea, continues to be a terrible idea and yet here he is. He gets a lot of thinking in, when he's not sleeping at night. ] Do you have anywhere you need to be?
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Nowhere. In particular. Exactly.
I was just going to - maybe a hike, or something.
What were you thinking?
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[ 'We', he means to say and does; it's a subtle question. ]
That is, if you'd like to.
[ get you out of the house a bit kiddo ]
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spam;
But he does have the werewolf senses. It's her scent that catches his attention, makes him turn. She's closer than he expects and he jumps a little.]
Whoa. Hey.
spam;
[She twines her fingers together anxiously, uncertain how to proceed with this.]
Hi. Sorry. [Sorry not sorry?]
spam;
Don't worry about it. You make a habit of sneaking up on people in the woods?
spam;
Only sometimes. I'm used to being quiet.
Did I scare you? [She kind of hopes she did.]
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Less scare, more startle. [Nah, you totally freaked him out for a second. He smiles.] Why, did you want to?
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[forest spam]
This air breathes to her of home, and she breathes it in giant, delighted gulps.
She's in a tree when she sees Abigail: lying along a branch, her cut-off animal print cargo pants and raw silk tank top blending with the bark and moss, her hatless hair catching glints of dappled sunlight. She isn't silent because she's being stealthy, only because she happens not to be moving.
She reaches into one of her capacious pockets and fetches out a small plastic bottle: this she opens to reveal a plastic loop on a stem, holding a fragile membrane of rainbows. In another minute, cascades of gin-scented bubbles start drifting down around the girl on the ground.]
no subject
[The scent of the bubbles reaches her first; then one pops on her arm and, instinctively, she licks it, her nose wrinkling when she tastes soap and gin. She looks up at last, then, catching sight of Iris only because the breeze catches her hair and makes it drift like seaweed in the shallows.]
[Reactions shift across her face quick as shadows. At first she is annoyed at not being alone. Then she is momentarily trapped in wonder. Then she gets lost for a moment in memory, the glint of a new knife, the implausible comfort of a text heart. A promise made. These are not old memories. Still, they seem impossible to slot next to the irritation, so she holds them close to her heart and does her best to press the feeling away.]
[A bubble catches in her hair. Tentatively, she smiles.]
You look like a wildcat up there. A panther.
[A predator.]
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One time, in a flood, I 'ad these great long retractable claws. me and my inmate went and climbed all over the CES, it were brilliant.
[And killed each other, more or less consensually as these things go, but she doesn't mention that; not because she thinks Abigail wouldn't understand, only because that was private between her and Victor.]
I didn't want to lie 'ere not letting you know I could see you. And bubbles come alive in sunshine.
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Thanks for not staying hidden. And for the bubbles. I didn't know you could make bubbles smell like that.
[Meanwhile, she's wondering what it would be like to have claws. To not be so physically helpless. She'll probably never get the chance to know.]
[spam]
He's over the physical effects of his deathtoll but in no mental headspace or emotional moodpoint to relax and enjoy himself. Maybe if the port had been a city, a resort, a village, anything that counted as civilization, but this? He's a city boy, born and bred for at least three generations. He might not make as much of a fool about himself with it as say, Chris, but the fact is he simply gets no pleasure from the wilderness. In the caverns there was a goal to focus on - survival. Being chucked into the wilds with no objective but "relax, have fun" isn't literally the worst thing that could or has ever happened to him.
But suffice to say, right now, he isn't happy. At all.
His warden is probably somewhere nearby, probably; yanking at the end of this invisible leash he storms off away from the clearings and into a place where the underbrush is a little thicker, where hopefully he can just be alone with his angry thoughts. He has his fake skin on so he doesn't stand out as much, though a dark turtleneck with rolled-up sleeves and slacks are probably not what most people out there are wearing; for him, this absolutely counts as dressed-down. And he has on sunglasses, because after so long hiding in the darker parts of the ship, his eyes are actually hurt by such vastness of unfiltered sunlight.
He finds a tree and sits down under it, arms folded, brooding silently. He has no idea that much, much further up, far over his head, this area is technically already occupied.]
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[This place clearly doesn't suit him. She can tell that the second he settles beneath the tree she's chosen to shimmy up. She pauses in the process of carving arrows in the branch on which she's lying and puts her chin in her hand, watching him . . . yes. Sulk. Sulk is the word for what he's doing.]
[Eventually, she sits up, the branch creaking under her, and leans against the trunk. The woods make her feel freer than she has in ages, and more playful, too; she shakes a branch until a few leaves fall down on his head, tucking the knife into a back loop of her pants for safe-keeping.]
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When the first leaves to start to fall he scowls and brushes them off his shoulder absently; when they keep falling, he begins to suspect that this cannot possibly be an accident. He stands up swiftly, shoulders drawn and tight, muttering invective under his breath in a scalded tone. Spinning around he looks directly up.
He was anticipating a squirrel, or something similar, or whatever counts as the like on this alien world. When he spots a person his first reaction is to get angrier -- when he thinks he recognizes Abigail, that fades in favor of surprise. He doesn't say anything at first, simply peering in her direction.]
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[Her chin is on her folded hands, her head nearly upside-down as she looks down at him.]
You don't like it out here, do you?
[She feels sort of sorry about this. She likes it. It makes her feel quieter.]
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He knew that her father taught her how to hunt, that she must have spent time in the outdoors. It never occurred to him however to think of her as...woodsy.]
No. I don't. It's not my type of environment.
[His bad mood lingers in his tone, but where with most others his words would be a least a little snapped out, for her he explains things rationally.]
I was born in a big city. Raised there, all my life. Went for most of my college schooling there. Married a woman from another big city, and brought her back to live in mine. I've...been around nature before, but only in small amounts. In passing.
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