singillatim | Whiteness of the day.

Who: Levi and whoever
What: Stuff. Exploring. Looting. Talking. Whatever
When: First few days
Where: Around town

Content Warnings: Levi carries the probable warnings for child soldiers, child abuse and mental illness (PTSD/Depression). Also possibly body horror, gore and human sacrifice. Will note anything specific!

After arrival, Levi does a lot of scouting of the town. He didn't trust Methuselah enough to spend much time at what he assumes is the man's place. He stops in now and then to get warm, but can mostly be found around the town, rifle in hand.

He checks the bodies for loot a few times early in the first day, but gives up on them having anything useful. He'll go through anything in the houses, though, spending a good amount of time inside. Cause he was looking for useful things, not cause he's cold. ~~He's very cold and an oversized coat doesn't cover anything but his arms and torso.~~

After a day or two of scouting just the buildings and streets, he can be found near the edge of town. Perhaps the forest held answers? Maybe, but it might also contain monsters or dangerous wildlife. So he's not quite sure if he wants to leave town yet.

((ooc: Open post, feel free to run into him anywhere, he probably won't shoot you. :3
you can also ping me on plurk or discord if you want to plot))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There's a boy near the edge of town, looking into the forest. Edward hoists the hot pink bag he's been using up onto his shoulder, and steps closer, whistling an old sea shanty to call attention to himself.

"You're a bit far from Methuselah's," he says, looking the kid over. God. He's young, and Edward feels a pang in his heart for Haytham—is he all right? Is Jenny all right? Are they both safe? He can't know, he can only do what he can here. "What, you thinking of going hunting out there?"

"...I know." He looks over to Edward. "Probably not hunting, we don't need food." Yet. "I've been scouting the town but it's kind of a dead end. I was thinking about looking in there."

"For what? Answers?" He looks at the forest then, feels a chill run down his spine at the sight of it. Without the Sense, he can't tell if there's anything lurking in the darkness, waiting for them to approach before pouncing. "I want answers just as much as you do, but maybe let's not step out of town until we're all more settled."

They may have to go out into the forest at some point, anyway, to hunt. But not right now, and Edward certainly doesn't like the idea of letting this boy go near the forest.

He nods, though he's not sure what answers look like. "...I'm as settled as I'm going to get. And we don't know if something in there is getting away from us already."

"We don't know if that's entirely a bad thing either," says Edward. Back when he was much younger he would've been all for walking into the forest for answers, but he's grown more cautious with experience. "You heard the wolves on the way in, didn't you? Who knows how far they truly are from town, or what else might lurk just beyond."

He pauses for a moment, watching the trees, then.

"...if you truly want to go in there," he says, "I'll go with you. We can look for answers, but at the first sign of trouble we need to get back here."

"Wolves usually don't bother people." Or at least they never bothered any squad he was in. He's not entirely sure about alone, which is part of why he hasn't gone in yet.

He remains silent for a few moments before speaking up. "I think its better to check. We'll know more about the area too. You can come with me if you want."

He starts walking but looks back after a few steps to see if Edward is following.

Edward sighs, but follows after the kid anyway, pulling his flintlock pistol from his holster and packing in some gunpowder and a bullet, just in case. The kid does have a point, they'll know more about the area if they venture further in. They'll even find out more about what they might be going up against here.

But he still can't get all those dead bodies out of his head. Something killed them all, or drove them to their doom. He won't let Levi share in their fate.

"Not unless you're alone and they're starving," Edward says now, catching up quickly to Levi, the barrel of his gun pointed toward the ground.

Well, he wasn't alone now. Hopefully two people with guns would keep them away. "I've been in worse situations."

While that was true he's aware its not really the same thing. He's only be in the 'wandering alone in the woods while dangerous things are around' situation once, and then most of the animals seemed to have fled the area. Or died, that was equally likely.

He slows down once they're in the forest proper, keeping a keen eye on things. He doesn't know what answers looked like, but he knew how to identify landmarks that'd get him back to town. Or signs of something lurking.

“You’ll have to tell me about those sometime,” says Edward, although the idea of it makes him uneasy in a way it never really did before he knew he had a child. Being a father softens your heart, makes it harder to look at someone younger and not see your own children. Being a father separated forever from his children—

Well. He can’t do anything about that right now.

His eyes flick about, checking the treetops, the bushes. If his Sense was working, he’d be using it right now to see if anything was watching from the bushes. Instead he has to rely on his own eyes, and right now it’s a little too dark for that. They need to adjust first.

“So what questions did you want answered, coming out here?” he asks.

He would really rather not talk about the worse situations. At least not in depth. It wasn't fun to remember. So he just ignores that statement.

"How we got here, why we're here, who's responsible. That stuff. And anything that helps us understand, um, well, anything."

"That's quite a lot of broad questions you're trying to answer by wandering into the woods," Edward muses, walking beside him. "You'll only get more confused. I'd narrow it down to something more specific—like, say, what might be lurking around out here beyond the town's limits, and how intelligent is it?"

He hopes it's not that intelligent, but then again, his luck led him to a frozen hellscape in the middle of fucking nowhere. So he's not really holding out a whole lot of hope here.

"Yeah, but at least I'll know the area." Finding strange bunkers or trucks wasn't very likely. He supposes Edward's compromise is good enough.

"Fine."

“How big an area are you planning to get to know?” Edward asks, making sure to stay close, stay between Levi and whatever the hell might be out here in the woods. He’d heard wolves on the way here—he can’t trust that they’ll be staying well away from the town.

Hm. That was a good question. Ideally he'd get to know all of the area to the next town or whatever landmark, but that's a bit task. Especially when they didn't know how far away from the rest of civilization this place was. So any longer trip would need supplies...but right now, just closer would do. That's what would matter first.

"Not that far yet. Go back to town before it gets dark so we don't get lost." Or run into whatever night time predators are around.

Whiteness of the day.

near the forest

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