adventure without risk is disneyland [closed]

[commentboxtroll]

Date & Time: 4/22 through 5/3
Location: From Exsilium to southern UE territory and back again.
Characters: Caesar Silverberg, Collette, Asami Sato, Stephanie Brown, Ellie Linton, Nash Latkje, Gamora, Balder, Nathan Summers, Khisanth, guest-starring Clive.
Summary: Over the channel and through the wastes to the UE's house we go.
Warnings: Violence, spiders, swearing highly likely.
Notes: Any format goes. Feel free to start your own threads outside the subsections; those are just guidelines, not rules. Timeline and info is here if needed (or there are any further questions).

[ on a boat. ]
[ wastelands. ]
[ spiders. ]
[ onward. ]
[ civilization. ]
[ compound. ]
[ space. ]

Comments

onward towards civilization [End of 4/25 - 4/27]

[commentboxtroll]

[ Once they manage to get themselves out of the ravine in (hopefully) one piece, evening is already creeping up on them and a stop is called early. There will be a much more scheduled watch duty kept from here on out, rather than letting those willing to do it figure it out between themselves.

Morning of the next day will see a sluggish restart to the journey, but they do eventually get going. The rain starts again, but only a drizzle, as they march on through the wastelands for another two days, stopping to rest, eat, and camp while they can. At the end of the 27th, something other than ruins begins to come into view. It's quickly confirmed with Caesar's spyglass that ahead them really is an inhabited town.

They've finally reached the United Earth.

Time to find a safe spot to hole up in while they're here. ]

glass case of emotion outside of camp

[whatsupcroc]

People are okay. Everyone is okay. Okay, as in alive, which was a decent definition of okay in her book.

Collette was back on foot after having taken to the air, keeping a keen eye on the surroundings just in case another patrol crept up on them and tried to send them down Lion Ant Valley, after the Valley of Spider Hell. Once camp had been established, being on wing seemed less useful than using her nose and ears to secure the premises in yet another way.

Or so she tells herself, and so she'll blearily inform anyone who asks what she's doing. She's more reaction than action now, to the point where she vaguely knows she's running down time and that soon enough she needs to be human again.

The scent of water isn't unusual. Rain isn't unusual. The strength of the scent carrying her way speaks of enough flowing water to create a sound she finally recognizes. It's jarring enough she jerks away from the fire she'd been heading toward, turning tail and trotting straight off into the forest.

A half formed plan, some kind of driving necessity, keeps her moving in spite of the exhaustion she feels in her borrowed bones. The fog in her head has wrapped around the necessity to bathe, focusing in on that one thought and driving away all others.

She wasn't paying attention. By now, someone could be skipping along behind her and earn little more than a flick of an ear backward; violence would garner a response, but the rest wasn't penetrating.

Collette had to find the water. She picked up her feet and kicked into a trot, nose high in the air, then held low. It had to be around here, somewhere. The overwhelming, driving need to bathe has so taken over every other thought in her head that she breaks into a tired lope for the last fifteen feet, breaking through the foliage on the banks of a large creek.

She doesn't even pause, run being cut short as she hits the lip of the pool around this bend of the creek, tumbling in chest first and exhaling sharply to keep water from rushing up her nose. She surfaces, ears flat against her skull, doggy paddling for all her worth.

A rock! She changes direction, feeling the soft tug of the lazy current pulling her downstream as she angles toward the massive stone jutting out of the water. Clawing up it, she can't quite get purchase.

Then she just gives up, frustrated as she squirms and swims and scrabbles around to the side where the current presses her up against the rock itself. She demorphs, taking close to three minutes to complete the process. It's the first real fear she's felt, in that moment of wondering if the delay was because she'd waited too long. On top of the rest of today, she was going to nothlit as some ugly, crazy, coyote-girl in a river in the outskirts of the United Earth a whole universe away from home and -- and --

She doesn't know what else there is, since the trail of self-pitying isn't one she can stick to for long. Collette feels her chest tighten, the cold waters clearing away the fog that's been in her mind as she struggles to pull herself up onto the rock. She lies on her side when she manages it, swallowing past the lump in her throat.

Everyone was okay. The tears hit hot and sudden. She closes her eyes, pulling her legs up and out of the water. She mostly succeeds. None of this is comfortable at all, but comfort is something she's not feeling past the comfort of knowing no one died.

She tries to hold back a sob and repeat that to herself. No one died. No one died. But she'd been powerless in helping them out once they'd been injured. This was so starkly nothing like working with the other kids she'd fought with back home, she doesn't even know how to rectify the differences. How worried and scared she'd been, lying to Caesar (and hoping she was right) just to call out for the people who could do something.

She doesn't know if she needed the humbling realization. Collette used her own body and skills as a weapon, because it's what she knew she could do, and it has been and often is a benefit. How is she supposed to handle seeing people she cares about in situations she can't help them out of? It didn't matter that Caesar didn't feel the same way, he was still a friend before anything else, and he was -- probably the worst out of any of them! He could probably hold his own against a fly, if he had a flyswatter on hand, but that didn't extend to mutant spiders or United Earth soldiers or who knew what else might be coming up. Then there was Ellie, beautiful, stupidly brave Ellie, throwing herself on Collette to be torn into when she didn't need to be in the first place.

Why? Collette could heal. It didn't matter that the new suit Peter had made for her was punctured with large holes in several places. Clothing didn't matter. Her body healed, and she was fine with that. She could take the damage.

Why had Ellie throw herself into the line of fire for someone better equipped to handle being shot in the first place?

Collette might actually understand some of why, but it's frightening. It's frightening and frustrating, and she's tired, and she feels the chill setting in and can't bring herself to care. There's still spider-parts in her hair, goo on her face and hands and suit, and now she's wet and none of its any better because she doesn't even have anything like soap or sand to help scrub herself clean.

She shoves her fist in her mouth, biting down on it to try and stifle her sobs. She can't afford to be heard. Some distant part of herself remembers that, reminds her about it when the rest is a mess of emotions and conflicting desires.

She wants her mom, but that's not new; it's not realistic, and it's an older pain. She wants her brother, to ask him how he handles what he does, but she hasn't seen him in over a year by now, getting closer to two, and she probably never was. James wasn't around, nor Kelly, nor Timmy, nor anyone from her world. She doesn't know who to ask if this gets easier, or if she's doing anything right. If it's okay to not tell people she's dead, or close to it, back home. That part of what freaks her out so badly now is having people she cares about, people who are alive in every sense of the word, here or back home, be brought down closer to death when they didn't deserve it.

How could she explain that it frustrates and frightens her how the Initiative controls even how they die around here? She can't hate it. She knows it's part of why she's alive, but she can't like it, either.

How can she protect the people who matter here? How can she make sure she keeps up, proves herself, whatever she needs to do? It's getting next to improbable. Collette doesn't want to say it to anyone around her, but the constant strain and sleep deprivation was making it harder for her to function as long as she needed to on scouting duty. Sentry duty tonight as an idea was enough to bring on a strong sob, eyes slamming shut as she tried to tell herself it'd be fine.

But she knew she couldn't keep up, and it was frustrating to realize that this wasn't something the rest felt to the same degree. If she could walk, then being tired from morphing, this kind of marathon exhaustion, she could deal with it. Just stumble forward, keep the pace, and rest as she can.

She can't do that. Without morphing, she doesn't move on her own, not out here. As much as Collette hates knowing that, as much as she hates examining her own limitations, even how she's acting now tells her she's at the brink in a way she can't just shrug off.

But she'll try. "It's just not fair!" she wails around her hand, knowing it never is. Crying about it won't change anything. Throwing a fit wouldn't find solutions.

She's too tired to try and find the actual answers now.

( ooc: same as always, I'll match whatever style you tag in as! if you're... inordinately brave, that is )

[controlledvariable]

She's furious in a way that she can't really cope with, in a way that isn't really fair to the people she's furious at, so instead of staying in camp and taking it out on everyone around her, she slips away with some half mumbled excuse about checking the perimeter. In her defence, she does actually check the perimeter, walking in a haphazard circle around the camp, ensuring there isn't anything lurking nearby.

By the time she hits the creek, she isn't feeling any less angry, enough that she nearly considers going for a swim despite how terrible an idea that is, when it'd leave her exposed while no one knows where she is. God knows what could be lurking in that water.

Except that she spots a figure on the rock, and after a quick check to make sure they don't seem to be in immediate danger, she quickly takes off her boots and her clothes - she doesn't want to get them wet or be weighed down by them, and she's annoyed at herself for taking off her waterproof Batgirl suit back in camp - before diving into the water.

It's a relatively quick swim over to the rock, and she makes it an even quicker one when she realizes it's Collette on the rock, not trying to hide her approach, "Coll?"

She's just - going to tread water a few feet away from the rock, concern obvious in her expression.

[whatsupcroc]

Collette hadn't heard Stephanie on the bank. She'd half-registered the sound of something entering the water, but her focus was so inward at the moment, that registering only caused a reaction when she heard someone speak.

Collette jerks her head up, arm sliding out to catch her and help her face whatever spoke to her. Unfortunately, her arm slips, elbow cracking against the rock. It prompts her into yelping, rolling onto her back and cradling her arm close to her chest. She doesn't notice the sting of where she lost some skin.

It's a small system shock that hurts in a tangible, external way, fingers tingling and arm partially numb from hitting the least funny bone in the body. "Stupid rock!" ends up being her greeting to Stephanie, followed by a choked cough and sob she'd been trying to downplay. "Stupid, stupid rock!"

[controlledvariable]

"Hey, hey," It's the sort of tone she might use to soothe a cornered animal, as she scrambles up onto the rock, perching carefully and reaching out to take Collette's arm, "Let me look?"

It's a question, because she won't touch Collette if it's not wanted, but she thinks it might be an idea to focus on the obvious thing wrong with this situation before breaching the subject of why Collette is crying on a rock in the middle of a creek.

[whatsupcroc]

Collette doesn't really want her to look. It doesn't matter. It's not worth spending time thinking about when it won't last. No scars, except the mental kind.

But a memory of someone else tied in with all the vigilante craziness of Gotham makes her close her eyes and nod her head. Al'd wanted to be sure after she'd been shot. This wasn't anything comparable, but it's reminder enough for her not to make a point of being difficult.

She wasn't frustrated with Steph -- she was frustrated with herself.

"I heal fast," she jokes, swallowing snot and salt and saliva in unequal parts. "Won't even scar." She wants to laugh. Oh, but how she wants to laugh when she gets that out.

bellyslides into this thread like a penguin

[reconnaissance]

( At least Collette has had a chance to get out of the water, by the time Ellie stumbles on her. Stumbles is really not quite so accurate as seeks her out, because Ellie has refined the art of evading people or being alone. She's got enough sharp edges to ward people off, these days, even if Exsilium (its people, more accurately) have taken her a few steps closer to being able to smooth it all off. Some of those edges feel re-chipped, after all this, or maybe she's just more aware of them again.

So yes, she's seeking Collette out, because stories were written in the past few days that shouldn't have been, or that made things complicated and freshened the ink on older stories, the ones that you might not want to think about as much. Some of that is her fault, and some of it is just the way that things can unfold, on a trip like this. Nothing ever goes wholly to plan. )

Hey.

( Her voice is rough, raspier than usual, as her fingers self consciously feel over the skin where her bite had been. An awkward silence. ) You okay?

( Neither of them are okay. )

oh hell yes penguin time

[whatsupcroc]

( She's gotten most the goop off. Collette's not sure if that's much of a help, since she's left freezing, but small favors say it feels nicer to be a little cleaner.

Freezing or otherwise.

Low light hides how red and puffy her eyes really are. Collette clears her throat, still sounding unsteady. She tries, at least. )

Um, maybe not yet. I will be, though.

( As okay as okay really got, for them. It's still something comforting to look forward too, less of a daunting task, to continue on being okay when she's not holding back all of what she feels. Right now, most of what Collette feels is drained. )

You?

[reconnaissance]

( She has a jumper bundled in her hand, and she's kneeling down next to Coll, unbunching it, shaking it out and holding it out. Ellie is already wrapped up, she's fine.

Do you need an olive branch, after something like this? The jumper is like an olive green, so maybe it can kind of work. )

Yeah. You will.

( Having faith in that is essential. She needs to believe they'll be okay, whatever that means. )

Been worse. ( A beat. And, rushed: ) It was my choice, you know? Don't add that into the pile of things making you feel shit.

( Ellie is not subtle. )

[latkje]

Nash isn't actually looking for Collette— he was looking for anything. He was good at watch duty. He was good at noticing. Over the years he's honed that into the particular art, half-skill and half-luck, that is showing up at the most convenient moment. Or the most inconvenient, which is usually more fun for him.

Today wasn't fun for him. This isn't fun. He gives her sobs a moment to echo, standing still and silent and remembering for a moment how young they all are. How young he used to be. And then he looks up at the sky for a minute, like he's praying, like he still did that.

"Life isn't fair," he says. "But you already knew that."

[whatsupcroc]

She has to pull out of herself, something hard for her to do at the moment. Collette doesn't even avoid being emotional in front of people. She happens to compartmentalize better most the time, is all. Her first thought now is more toward how she better sit up and how she really needs to blow her nose, but that she has nothing to blow her nose into. Her hands?

That's gross, she whines in the comfort of her own head.

None-the-less, she tries not to curl into a tighter ball when she recognizes Nash's voice. She bites down on her lower lip to hold back the sobs, haivng pulled her fist away to better hold herself together. Collette doesn't think it's acutally working. It was still worth the try.

Another shudder of her shoulders, quieter this time. She can't just keep on like this. Not when she's not alone; not when it's not helping.

It sticks like a burr in her brain, what he's just said. He's agreed with her statement, but he wasn't lecturing her. But you already knew that.

Collette pulls her head up, rubbing the back of her wrist under her nose to clear up some of her snot. "Yeah," she agrees, swallowing the salty thickness in her throat. "I do. It still sucks," she half whines, hating the fact she sounds tired and cranky and young, even when she knows she's all of these things, and more. "I just don't know what --"

Collette sniffs hard, trying to keep herself from being even more snot-ridden than she already is. The rest of her statement lies unfinished. I just don't know what to do about it.

[latkje]

"You don't know what to do about it." He finished the sentence for her. "No one does, you know." That was a frustrating non-answer, even for Nash. So he kept going.

"We guess. Sometimes you have to come up with an answer to hold yourself together. Sometimes you know you can't stay where you are, even if you don't know where you're going, right? You guess. And some people stumble on an answer they like so much they tell it to themselves, over and over. Until eventually, it becomes their truth.

"But I don't think I've met anyone who really, deep down knew what they were doing." He wasn't looking at Collette, and he wasn't sure if he was giving her privacy or if he didn't want to look. His eyes were pasted to the horizon, the sky turned to strange, wasteland pastels. "That's the scariest thing I can think of. Someone who knows what they're doing."

After a few spaces of silence, he mutters. "'Sucks' has to mean something else for you, right?"

Sometimes a question you knew the answer to was the easiest comfort.

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

Nate keeps his mind shielded - one of the constants for life as a telepath, even if the world is a little quieter to him these days. But it's never silent, when there are people around, and he's been keeping his mental barriers a little thinner than usual on this trip, the psychic equivalent of a listening ear for other presences lurking around.

So after the battle, he can feel the psychic bleed of everyone's emotions - and some stand out more strongly than others. He doesn't follow Collette when she leaves on the pretense of scouting the area - though he knows that's not the full truth. Working off feelings on your own - that's something he understands all too well. When she doesn't come back in a timely manner, though... well, suffice to say he knows teenagers. And he knows the sort of trouble they can wind up in when they're upset.

The area they're in is empty enough that it's not that hard to track her psychically - which is just as well, because he already has enough of a headache. When he finds her, he lets her finish shouting before he makes his presence more clearly known, giving her a small, sad smile.

"Life rarely is, unfortunately."

[whatsupcroc]

She doesn't expect for Nate to be there -- her surprise is apparent, even if he'd been psychically deaf. He's really so far out of her usual realm of experience (most the rest of the people here she'd known for longer) that she makes an effort to sit up and push her damp hair back off her face. There's little point denying he heard her, or she heard him.

Besides, he was an X-man. (Former or current didn't matter as much.) He had all sorts of crazy, amazing abilities, the least of which included finding hurting teenagers and giving them sad smiles while reiterating what they already knew.

"It still sucks," she says, quiet and trying to calm herself down. It almost works -- she starts hiccuping instead of crying -- but that's just as bothersome in a different way. "Now that's -- hic! -- really unfair!"

Ridiculously so, enough to catch her as something amusing. She laugh-hiccups into her hands, rubbing at her face like it'll undo the tears she's cried, or untangle the things she's feeling all intense and immediate, as if there was nowhere for them to go but out.

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

He feels her surprise, followed by the wash of confusion anger amusement that isn't so surprising just after a battle, particularly in someone not as seasoned to war as he is. It actually takes some effort to keep the feelings she's projecting from intermingling with his own, which is a little irritating - there was a time when it was instinct, and easy as breathing. But that had been a long time ago now, and he wasn't the same person, in more ways that one.

He doesn't laugh at the hiccups - he knows it'd probably just be frustrating for her - but his smile warms a little, to a touch of genuine amusement. "Try holding your breath until you can't any more. That usually works for me."

End of 4/25 - patching people up

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

[They've finally gotten out of that hellhole of a ravine without running into another patrol or losing anybody to the giant spiders. Nate's survived worse, but even then he has to admit that this was pretty damned lucky. Lucky and a testament to the fighting skills of the people he's with, even if most of them seem far too young to be involved in this mess.

Now that they've regrouped in slightly safer territory, it's time to take care of injuries before anyone bleeds out or gets god knows what kind of infection from those spiders. He's got the first aid supplies out, and seeing who needs help the worse. After that he'll take care of his own injuries, including stitching a wound on his side closed himself. He's pretty sure he cracked a few ribs in that fall, and is going to have a metric ton of bruising in the morning, but it could be worse. A lot worse, really.]

[onblackwings]

[ There's a raven settled on a branch above Nate, eying him. It's the same that's occasionally been fluttering around the group, though it disappears for long stretches. It had reappeared about halfway through the ordeal with the spiders, watching, occasionally croaking out what could possibly be taken for amusement.

Khisanth hops down to a lower branch, cocks one bright eye at his messy work, and clicks her beak disapprovingly. ]

There are spells to do that much more cleanly. [ A raven's voice, low and croaking. ]

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

[He's way too tired to spare much more than a critical glance at the talking bird. If it hasn't tried to attack him in the last five minutes, it's not going to start now]

Probably. Can't do magic, though.

[onblackwings]

There are those along that can.

[ Never you mind that she had a chance to heal Caesar and passed it right up, that's different. Caesar is an asshole. ]

[controlledvariable]

Hey! [She manages to make a single word sound like a reprimand, as she strides over to Nate, fixing him with an unimpressed look once she's close enough for it to have an affect.

She saw him trying to deal with his own wound and is having None Of It.] You're gonna do a shit job of it at that angle, let me.

[This is not a request, since she's dropping her pack to start pulling out her own first aid supplies.]

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

[He manages not to let too much of his surprise show - but he was just reminded way too much of Hope to be totally nonchalant about this. He pauses in his work, gives Stephanie a glance]

Well, I don't really care how nice it looks, but if you're offering...

[controlledvariable]

It's not about how nice it looks, it won't heal right if you stitch it up badly.

[She could not sound more like a disgruntled nurse if she tried, as she takes a seat beside him, setting out bandages and antisepctic, washing her hands before pulling on surgical gloves - yes, she's going to be that finnicky - then moves to take the surgical needle and thread from him.

So, yes, she's offering.]

[commentboxtroll]

[ Caesar's settled down to rest, his pack propped against a rock and himself propped against the pack. He's, for the most part, been seen to as far as injuries go, though the hole in the side of his boot is going to be irritating for the remainder of the trip. Still, he's kind of pale and recovering from the whole ordeal himself, not being a fighter of any kind like the rest of the group he'd chosen to come along on this fun little adventure.

From the spot he's resting at, he has a good view of Nate. It's hard not to stare as the man goes about stitching his own damn wounds shut. It really shouldn't be so surprising, he supposes, but still, he has to wonder... ]

Doesn't that hurt to do?

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

[Nate makes a vague sort of grunt of acknowledgement, but doesn't look up from his work]

Yeah, it does. I have a pretty high pain tolerance, though.

[commentboxtroll]

From how you look, I guess you'd have to...

[ Have a high pain tolerance. The guy looks like he's been through several kinds of hell and back. ]

Why not call someone else over to do it for you instead?