singillatim | first umbral days

Entry tags:

first umbral days | open!

« Who: Venat and you (open!)
« What: catch all
« When: October-long
« Where: Venat's house, throughout Milton, in the nearby woods, at the fishing hole
« Notes: None yet. Working on backtags but wanted to have something up for October.

She had been the heart of a star for many an age.

A most lonely position, and a position largely apart. Even as she loved her people, suffered for her people, suffered the slings and arrows of the ages and even her own former countrymen's work, it was rare she got to talk to anyone. Twas not her place.

So even here, as people reconstruct supplies and homes and plans and relationships, Venat remains apart.

She may dance in the Community Hall for the amusement of others in the evenings, or out front of it during the day, this time with her chakrams flashing through the air to provide her practice. She may offer assistance if she is walking through town and sees someone who is struggling with something, be it to carry or push or pull or anything else. She may nod her head to others while she is in the basin, either ice fishing with self-made tools or hunting with her weapons. Anything she catches, she will prepare and offer to the group other than a small portion for herself. And she will most certainly venture down to the hot spring a time or two to wash off, something that she hasn't had to do in ages and which she takes a certain amount of delight in now. But largely, you will find her in front of her house on Blackrock Road, carving or whittling or otherwise working to create.

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Bruce has been... both busy with his people and somewhat isolated himself, albeit for very different reasons. He recognizes people, patterns, behavior, even when he's not intentionally gathering information.

Basically, he's noticed she's keeping to herself a lot.

When he runs into her at the hotspring - which is not his usual haunt, he smiles, very faintly. "I remember you." Of course, it hasn't been that long. "I'm surprised I haven't seen more of you."

"As I remember you," she says as she continues her preparations. She has with her a towel, of course, and she is looking for a good spot to slip in. But she doesn't pause in taking off her robes (tattered, but maintained) and then the warmer clothes she wears underneath are pulled off.

She doesn't rush, doesn't have any problem with showing her body as it is, but neither is she making a show at it.

"I have done my best to be productive and to come to learn my new world. I have not hidden away." She looks over at him as she moves to the water to slip in. "Have you been well? I'm glad to see the fighting did not do poorly by you."

Bruce has some mental block on getting undressed, that's not a direct result of any sort of trauma, much less shame. It is the result of ingrained habit and hiding the state of his body to varying degrees to avoid questions.

So he's a little... brisk and businesslike when he undresses, but that's about the extent of it. He's paying attention to her but not in a sexual way even. He's focused on the conversation and just passively, accidentally, picking up data because it's what his brain does.

"Where did you end up deciding to live?

She doesn't really notice. Bodies are...

For her people, the appearance of their bodies was a less of a concern when one could see the shape of their souls. Hence wearing their plain robes and their masks. She's come to see mankind in all manner of shapes and sizes and as for anything sexual, it hasn't even crossed her mind yet.

"I live in Milton, have taken a house along Blackthorn Road. It is serviceable enough. And yourself?"

"Venat my friend!" Sveta calls out to her on a nearby road. "Where are you headed? To the hot springs? Let me join you."

Sveta hadn't anticipated going today, but with no one needing her and no one headed her way, she has the time. She has the energy. She wants to do something for herself, strictly for herself, for once.

Sveta does not know how long it has been since she has been a friend, since she has had a friend. Sveta does not know how her words sink into Venat's heart, daggers of ice that sting in penetrating before melting with the warmth and soaking in.

"My aim is a bath, a hot one, and some warm contemplation. I would welcome company, however. Especially your company."

Sveta is looking better, much better, than she did the first time they met. Her cheeks are a little pink from the cold, there's a hat jammed on her head that covers her ears, and she's wearing a coat that is a size too big, but there's an unmistakable happiness about her.

"Then I should join you," she decides. "I need a distraction from my work."

"No doubt," she says fondly as she offers an arm to her so that they can walk arm for a time. The closeness allows for greater warmth, after all.

"Are you so greatly burdened with work? No wonder, given recent events. But I hope it is not too sorely taxing upon thee."

"No," she assures her, taking the offered arm and walking close to her. "No, I have taken on some readings and notes from a former - colleague. I've been going over them for months."

"Do you find them vexing or fascinating or merely voluminous?" she asks cheerfully, since there's no telling when it comes to work.

"Fascinating," she decides, her mouth twisting slightly as she sobers. "Potentially important. But - sad, in a way. Doctor Hilbert was a very - practical man who perhaps cared for human life also in a very - practical way."

"One must wonder how much of his practicality came with him as opposed to adaptation to this new home," she says thoughtfully. She keeps walking as they go.

"Is your sadness for those he learned from or for the man himself?"

"Both," she admits. "He was - killed. By a creature. That - Darkwalker creature," she continues. "It devoured him from the hydrodam."

"Sorry am I for your loss, and for the loss to this community that he no doubt was," she says quietly, offering a squeeze to her arm.

"It has not been long, I assume."

"Months," she answers, trying to think back. "It was in the spring or - early summer."

"Not long at all then," she says, as her life has been measured in aeons. She has lived every one of those days, but some of them do blur in her recollection.

"It is long for this place," she argues. "It - " She frowns, picking at the gloves on her hands for a moment. "It seems years are crammed into months."

She considers that.

"I suppose in mourning, days may seem longer or shorter. And in survival, the same is true. Forgive me if I seemed insensitive."

"No," she says with a shake of her head. "No, you are not insensitive. But the days do not go quickly here. I don't want you to get the wrong idea."

Trixie’s never been an overly social being just for the sake of being friendly, but then again, she’s not sure she’s ever been given a proper chance to have friends that aren’t coworkers or potential clients. Maybe here and there, but she realizes the world she came from is isolated and strange, and not how things typically work in a non-dysfunctional and hard setting like the camp. It does mean she’s at a loss for how to act here; what her purpose is, how she fits in, but she’s shrewd enough to see that others don’t know what the hell they’re doing either.

Walking around tends to help some. She’s picked herself out a cabin and has made a daily path in and out of the center of town in search of food and relative security, so she knows some of her neighbors by now. And while she hasn’t struck up a proper conversation with the lady sitting by her front door, she’s tried to be friendly with her nods and smiles and whatnot.

Today, for whatever reason, she pauses by the gate, half-buried in snow, and nods towards the carving in her hands.

“You’re always making something.”

That’s how people make friends, right?

She has seen Trixie walking through town more than once; watching is an activity she is far too fond of, much more fond of than walking up to people and disturbing them unless she has a question. She's more than happy to be disturbed, however; her interest shifts easily and freely. None of that watching has not given her this woman's name, however.

At the comment, she dips her head in a greeting before answering.

"Creation is the way of my people. And in such environs as this, supplies are easily lost, broken, or needed beyond easily expected supply." A pause. "If you would care to learn, I would happily show thee."

Thee. Well ain’t that something? But it isn’t like she hasn’t heard weirder being in this place, with all these strange accents and vernacular she assumes is typical for people roughly 150 years in her future.

Trixie nods a little more enthusiastic than she might if a man offered to teach her something new. Suspicions automatically lowered, she takes a few steps closer to the beautiful woman - an ethereal beauty too, it’s not something she’s ever seen before - and joins her at her makeshift work station.

“What’re you making today?”

She has lived a very long time, and had lived a very long time even before the destruction of her people. And since, she has watched mankind shift and change, their language bend this way and that. Sometimes, artifacts remain of earlier times. Sometimes they don't.

She will hold up one of the dried sticks in her hand cheerfully before she places it on a rock and begins to pound it with another. The skin splits apart easily enough.

"Cordage. And kindling, I suppose. I wish to make some simple bows, arrows, and a number of other items. And I was able to find a great bramble of dried stems suitable for the purpose. Tis is a simple enough craft, if time consuming."

Trixie watches her, intrigued by how simple she makes it all seem, and the wide range of knowledge she apparently possesses.

There’s a lot she herself doesn’t know how to do. It’s not for lack of want, the urge to learn has always been there, but opportunity has always been scarce.

“Who’re your people, that encouraged this kind of fu-” Trixie pauses, chews her word in her mouth a moment, then tries again. No cussing, she can do better. She helps herself to a stick and picks at the bark. “Craftsmanship, working with your hands, that kind of thing. Who’re your people?”

She feels it’s a fair question; she’s learned quickly here that assuming is the worst thing a person could do.

"The people of a star known as Etheirys," she says simply enough. She'll show her how to gently beat apart the sticks, how to peel the innards away from the fibers she means to use for her cord. The inside, hollow and dry, is excellent kindling, and she drops it into a small carved bowl between them. The fibrous outer casing is what she's aiming for, and she splits it between her fingers slow and careful to show Trixie the way of it.

"We had no name for ourselves beyond this, only 'mankind'. And our creation was done in many ways. These skills I learned in my travels, as that was my vocation: to travel and explore. I was taught many things by those I met in those travels, thus it is only right I should pass them to others who wish to learn."

Trixie follows, clumsily at first, but with a surprisingly amount of patience with herself for someone who’s flung a pencil halfway across the room for not getting her numbers right.

“Travelin’,” she says after a moment. “So I guess…maybe this ain’t so strange for a person such as yourself? Did you do all that traveling by your lonesome?”

"A traveler is only alone in between destinations. If one approaches with an open heart and an open mind, one is not alone for long," she says fondly as she continues her work. Right now, it's just gathering fiber, repetition as much for her as for Trixie to let her get some practice.

"But yes, I was often solitary in my journeys."

She looks over and smiles fondly at Trixie.

"Do your people have a name?"

They’re pretty words, that’s for damn sure. The way she talks about it, Trixie can even see herself believing it.

She laughs under her breath at her question. Oh, her people have a name alright, but maybe she shouldn’t make the whore joke to her yet. She’s trying to make friends after all.

“We’re called Americans,” she tells her with a shrug, “but we ain’t a race. White, I guess. It’s a loaded question when it comes to what we are - don’t think we quite know anyways.”

But speaking of names, “don’t think I catch what you’re called. Name’s Trixie.”

He remembers her, of course, he remembers everyone. But it's only been a short time since he's last seen her, and it's a pleasant surprise when he catches sight of her on his way towards Milton. Definitely — better circumstances this time. He's wearing a backpack he'd found a few months back in his cabin and keeps it with him now when he's going further than around the lake.

While he didn't intend to stop, he can't simply pass her by while she's fishing near the basin, it's just not his way. Even if she might not prefer company at the moment.

"Venat, hello!" He calls to her with a smile, as though they're old friends by now. The way his mind works, he considers that she is already, until and unless he's told otherwise. "You don't mind a bit of company?"

She always prefers company, even if she rarely seeks it out. Ten thousand years of being alone certainly do make one forget that company is an option.

"Doctor," she says pleasantly, "you are welcome to join me. Do you enjoy fishing?"

"Oh good, because otherwise I would have been left with my own company and that never goes well."

The Doctor always seeks company, even when he has at times attempted to insist that he's perfectly fine alone. Age — or something like it — has dulled the strength of those protests. He's far more earnest and open about enjoying all the time with others that he can grasp onto.

"Do I," he addresses her question first, as though that's an answer, but it's actually a question. Sort of. "I don't know, I'm still working that out. When I was younger, I was more...the catch and release sort." He thinks of a memorable fishing trip with Jamie and Victoria and William Wallace, notably. "A few hundred years later, traveling with a friend, I thought it a perfectly pleasant way to spend the next fifty years — just fishing. Or simply a few hours, as it turned out," he smirks a little, moving to settle beside her, shrugging off his pack, but not before reaching inside for something bundled up in a clean cloth.

He doesn't realize he hasn't entirely answered her question before he's suddenly offering the bundle to her. "Gooseberries? If you care to indulge."

Bigby didn't really mean to visit Venat - or anyone, really. He was on his way to head out of town, looking to catch some game for him and the people living with him to eat, and it's along that way that he happens to spot the other sitting outside her house.

At first he doesn't even really stop to say hello, considering the fact that she's here and seems alright means that she made it out of that terrible night last month just fine, but it's what she's doing that catches his attention enough to stop, at least for a moment.

"Hey, Venat," he says, now properly greeting her. "I didn't know you were into that sort of thing."

To show what he means by 'that sort of thing', he gestures in the direction of where her hands are busy whittling away.

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