( open )

[gevurah]

Date & Time: 22nd to the 24th
Location: a synagogue in the city
Characters: Kate & whoever else volunteered to help and/or anyone who wants to see what is going on.
Summary: can we fix it? I hope so.
Warnings: ???


The exteriors of the synagogue aren’t too shabby surprisingly, but the main door needs a good push before it can be shouldered open properly and it creaks loudly as it swings on its hinges. Bits of the walls outside are chipped and discoloured, slowly but constantly being eroded each day in the never ending rainfall that blankets the city.

Inside the building is still as cold as it is outside; windows missing entire panes or broken bits still clinging to the frames, still sharp and dangerous enough to cut deep into one’s flesh if they’re not careful enough. Wherever the windows are, cold wind blows in, and the floor beneath the sills are damp and around the edges have some mold growing. There’s also pieces of glass laying on the floor.

There’s dust and broken bits of wood everywhere. Wooden beams that are supposed to support the building lay half rotting around the building. Some of them are in the way if people want to go further into the building, so they’ll need to be carried out outside by a few helping hands. The air in the building is stuffy and unpleasant, even with wind passing in every now and then.

Honestly, it may feel more depressing inside the worn down building than it does outside in the rain that never ceases.


( ooc: feel free to tag in however as you like! characters can work together, do their own clean-up, take breaks, whatever you want. )

Comments

open; any day

[innominata]

[ The girl had watched from a distance before joining, more out of a desire to do something than any desire to see the building restored.

She knows the layout well. She knows the hidden openings that even a direwolf may fit through. By the time she makes it to the main sanctuary her hair is more gray than brown. She has little paths clear for her wolf to walk safely. The glass from the floor she collects into a careful pile; a few pieces she hides for herself.

When she tires she reclines against a wall. The wolf is her only constant company, alternating between napping and helping. ]

[shelkethetransparent]

[Shelke's 'help' has mostly been contained with cleaning up in some places and organizing bits of building materials and dirt and debris. She gets too tired too quickly to do much else, which is the same frustrating roadblock she's hit in her own small reconstruction project elsewhere.]

[But she's quietly trying to help, and at the moment she's carrying a small pile of stones with some mostly intact pieces of glass on top. She's about to turn a corner when she nearly runs into Arya, taking a quick step back and rebalancing before she drops anything.]

Excuse me.

[innominata]

[ The girl moves aside, her steps quick and light. She keeps her head down as she waits for the other to continue. ]

[shelkethetransparent]

[Shelke starts to move past then hesitates, her glowing eyes considering the girl carefully. It was odd to see another child...no, just a child. She was not a child...but it was odd to see one, regardless. Especially here, helping with something like this.]

[She shifts the things she is carrying lightly, and after a moment...]

Do you need assistance with anything?

[Her voice is still as quiet and empty as anything, but she's trying.]

[gevurah]

[ Kate doesn't bother her the whole time she carries out the broken pieces of wood from the building. Eventually, she disappears for about half an hour from view and returns from what looks like a walk down a street or two in the rain, judging from her damp boots and the plastic bag in her hands. She heads straight to "Cat", pulling out a sandwich wrapped in plastic and holding it up for the girl to see. ]

Heads up. [ She calls and tosses it lightly in her direction. ]

[innominata]

[ She catches it with one hand. Her fingers make quick work of the plastic. After seeing the contents, she smiles at Kate. ]

Thank you.

[pixieboots]

[ It's a few minutes before he can place that face; the girl from the market he'd almost taken out on the way down from the roof. She won't know him without the cape and mask, if she'd even held on to that odd little memory in the first place. The thought gives him the boost he needs to head over to spot she's acquisitioned, stopping a few feet away to lean a little against the same wall. ]

Man, this place is busy.

[innominata]

It should be.

[ Someone else perchance. But she has been taught to to look past distractions to what is truly there. He's familiar and it takes her a while but she finally decides who he is. Her expression doesn't change. ]

Open

[governorkang]

[Kang spends a full three hours just inspecting the entire building and making notes on his tablet with the stylus he's bought recently (he owes Sergeant Calhoun a drink for the help she gave him), muttering curses every now and then when he encounters something that'll likely be a hassle to repair. When he's done, he finds a table that's not too badly broken and cleans it off to lay down a large sheet of paper and start sketching rudimentary blueprints with a piece of charcoal from the notes he's taken. Before anything major was started, they needed a breakdown of everything that was damaged and how, the supplies they'd need, and a plan of action to tackle it all.

His sketches show years of practice and skill, with clear descriptions and easily understandable symbols. Here and there a word doesn't match up with English, and his handwriting can be a little difficult to decipher at first.

Bother him at any point, yes/no?]

[innominata]

What are you doing?

[ Have (1) child. Bothering. ]

[governorkang]

[He smiles when he sees the human girl again, pausing in his inspection of one of the few load-bearing beams still in place that's cracked and rotted in places.]

Hello, Cat.

[Kneeling down, he points at one of the cracks closer to the floor and speaks in a matter-of-fact voice without a hint of patronizing.]

I didn't tell you before; I used to be an engineer. I have to see how extensive the damage is and everything that we'll need before I can begin to repair anything.

Open

[chore_boy]

[Coby had never developed an interest in religion. He had been a much more worldly person, deigned to the task of maintaining people in the world he currently lived in. So, he normally had no feelings or opinions when it came to worshiping divine powers.

Presented with the sight of a number of people working on this dreary looking fix-up job of a synagogue, Coby simply watched them work, curious. Though he held no opinions, it wasn't as if he couldn't develop any. If anything, he was just wondering what project was going on.]

open, whenever;

[debtor]

[Allen can be found here most afternoons, lending a helping hand whenever he's able. And despite how cold and stale and grimy and decrepit it all is, he looks almost cheerful as he passes the hours hauling out lumber (that should take a man twice his size to carry) or hauling new beams in, repairing broken window frames, sweeping up shards of glass, patching up or cleaning out neglected nooks and crannies, crawling around on the roof, et cetera. Timcanpy's with him the whole time, occasionally helpfully carting off bits of wood or glass in his tiny hands.

It's been a while since Allen's had something he could throw himself at completely like this; something that's for an indisputably good cause, that's an excuse to put himself to work and make himself useful. He knows they can restore this place and make it a proper house of worship again, and a shelter for those who need it, and it can't be finished soon enough.

He can also be caught on lunch breaks, sitting in a dry spot, eating a sandwich or ten.]

[innominata]

[ Hey, Allen. Don't mind as Cat tries to steal Tim with promises of food and snuggles and free rides on her giant death pooch.

But first just in case-- ] Which are you?

[debtor]

[She won't have to try very hard. Tim ditches the boy once he spots her.]

Miss Cat! [Allen breaks into a smile, giving a little wave. Though the question throws him off, for half a moment. Right—]

Allen, I'm Allen. Everything's gone back to normal.

open

[kneecaptain]

[ Bucky'd never been a religious sort, even though his dad had said grace before every meal, and anyway, this was the wrong church. But his fingers got to itching when he had nothing to do, and he'd rather do something useful than just sit around.

So without saying anything, he walks into the place, glances around, and figures he can start hauling beams.

Bucky doesn't mind the cold or the wet that comes with it, so he takes off his jacket when he starts moving beams. He likes the jacket; it's nice, made of leather. Not the kinda thing you'd want stuck between shoulderblades and rough-hewn wood. He's a strong guy, well-built (in the case of his left arm, literally) and he doesn't have much problem trouble things. But the beams are long and unwieldy, so, uh, good luck with that, Bucky, and anyone within a five foot radius. ]

[governorkang]

[Kang happens to pass by right as one of the beams goes his way, but luckily with his height, it smacks him in the chest instead of the head, making him take a couple of steps back with a grunt.]

Careful there, you'll knock someone out.

[kneecaptain]

[ Well, he can't exactly turn to look without making the whole incident worse. ]

Sorry.

[ And he means that. But… ]

To knock someone out, I think I'd hafta try.

[gevurah]

[ Her father's little murder of crows taught her to keep her senses sharp at all times. Even when she pauses, distracted by a napping Arya and her wolf in a corner, footsteps catch her attention quickly and she curves her hip just in time before the beam gets any closer to poking her. ]

Sorry.

[kneecaptain]

Nah, it's my fault. [ He'd shrug, or something, but… ]

I can't see in front of me too well. This thing keeps getting in the way.

open

[gevurah]

[ Kate puts her new found abilities to the test today. While she doesn't grab the bigger beams, she does examine how far she can lift some of the smaller ones from the ground and if she requires one arm or both to do so. While she finds it still a bit of a struggle, it's clear to her that this bizarre super strength she's acquired is evolving faster than she expected it to.

After she tosses some of the smaller bits outside in a pile, she gets to the broken glass by the window sills and sweeps them aside and out of anyone's way. Occasionally, the dust earns a sneeze or cough here and there.

Two and a half hours go by for she decides to take a break. She can be found in a corner of the room, just sitting at the edge of one of benches and browsing the network on her tablet. What great reception they have out here!! ]

[open]

[pixieboots]

[ He'd promised Kate he would show today, and that's what draws him out a little after the buzz of the work has already begun. Maybe she wouldn't have expected an excuse - not even if he'd thought to come up with one - but how could he look her in eye yesterday and then not be here, however the thought of showing his face in public again without a mask makes his stomach churn?

He'd done it yesterday. He can do it today. Dick Grayson can do it today.

He's not big enough to help with lugging the larger pieces of wood, so hood drawn up and tools in tow he picks a spot up on one of the window sills inside. It's easy to chip away at the brittle glass, tugging the sharper pieces until they come loose enough to let drop carefully down on the floor below. When there's a pile he'll hop down and sweep, dust and glass and a thousand memories that don't belong to him. ]

pls forgive the tl;dr

[whatsupcroc]

( It's in these weeks following her time as someone else, completely and without a time limit, that she tries to digest what it'd meant. Pushing aside the feelings that confused the issue in the first place, she hadn't realized how quickly she'd adapted to having something she hadn't before. Not even the parts that had partly confounded her, but the nervous response to control the whole of a given body. Rolling out of bed in the morning and having something different than her arms to rely on.

it'd been startling, the late night return to normalcy, enough so that she'd jarred awake and fallen off her own bed in the confusion and disorientation. Small favors, she supposes, for the fact she'd convinced Caesar to stay where everything was comfortable for her, knowing it'd be all arranged for the level she operated out from, but it'd still taken her a moment while lying twisted in sheets and half sprawled on the floor to realize that the things she was and weren't feeling were back to normal. Natural. Completely herself again.

She tells herself the reason why she's on foot like this and inserting herself back into the fabric of Exsilium is because a week away was enough to start losing touch. Terri is hard to pin down by the nature of what Collette needs in order to juggle everything she keeps up in the air. Terri is also the escape she won't admit to, in between quiet conversations and moments in alleys where her thumb presses down on the dial of her stopwatch and she goes from blonde to herself and back again. Terri was just information. She was a vehicle, a personality that had been cemented because Caesar needed the help, and Collette needed Caesar's help.

That's all. That's why Terri needs to be invested in the community, because she was meant to be a part of it in a way Collette wasn't. The false sense of belonging, illusion that it was, still had an element of comfort to its hollowness.

She wasn't aware of this effort being Kate's at the outset. Murmurs among people on the streets and an offhand comment from a group of the younger exiles had piqued her own curiosity, sending Collette wandering to find the place being talked about. Construction was always of interest to the Exiles, people used to rebuilding time and time again. Construction on a building that in and of itself had connotations for beliefs and ideas lost in the fogs of time, thicker than any fog rolling in off the Thames, was a curiosity. Where was the profit? The benefit? Who was possibly doing this?

A handful of others more curious wandered close, one or two poking their heads in, wandering as if they might also offer a helping hand. It's once she's there that Collette recognizes one red head in the area -- Kate. She'd mentioned something on network, hadn't she? Renovating something, rebuilding something, one or the other.

Collette stops, looking around. She's not the only 'exile' to wander in, though she is one of the first to step in and offer a helping hand. She's smiles and pointed questions, asking where and what, avoiding coming to close to anyone she recognizes. Caesar's not here, nor would he be -- she thanks his own laziness as something that keeps this act easier to maintain.

Dick registers as someone young and little else, pinging on Collette's radar for little more than that reason alone. Young tends to mean easier to approach; even now, without a specific goal in mind, she prefers to sidestep around the adults she's outwardly closer to in age. This was a distraction, and she didn't need ti to be anything more than a place to be and an obtuse way of helping people who she cared about. Like Kate... even if she hasn't said a word to her quite yet. )

Think you could use something like this for what you're up to?

( She settles on asking, holding out a worn, woven basket, glancing down to the second small collection of broken glass pieces being slowly collected on the floor. )

Might save you a little on the clean-up effort witht he larger pieces.

no never cradles all this tl;dr

[pixieboots]

...Huh? [ The voice is just familiar enough that he turns a little too sharply, then has to catch himself on the edge of the sill from doing another double-take when he sees her. Candy Girl. Wow.

He schools his face away from any signs of recognition, then tries with a little less success to hide the grin behind his sleeve while he makes the short leap down to the glass-strewn floor. Now that she's pointed it out, it does look pretty bad from here. Worse than it had when he'd started twenty minutes ago. ]

I mean, um. Yeah. I don't know what I was thinking. [ He rubs at the back of his neck sheepishly and shrugs. ]

I just figured I'd sweep everything up at the end, but I guess I'm just making a mess where I don't have to.

open

[skennen]

[Locating the synagogue without directions proves a more difficult challenge than what Connor had been expecting when he'd decided he would find the place on his own. Though he starts his search with the self-imposed limitation of only gathering information through eavesdropping, he quickly discovers that... not a whole lot of people have random conversations about synagogues. He eventually settles for asking the locals. Several questions, a few raised eyebrows, and a lot of rooftop traversing later, he spots the building in question. He hangs back for a while, checking out the structure's condition from the outside and noting the various volunteers as they show up.

Only after a few people have gathered inside does he make his way to the entrance. The front door sticks until he puts his shoulder to it and then it abruptly gives way with a groan of its hinges, leaving Connor to stumble in, robed, hooded, and carrying his usual assortment of weapons. Ducking his head, he makes a vague motion at the door (probably handgesture-ese for 'the door needs fixing, too, though you were probably already aware of that') before heading toward the group.

He volunteers to help with the jobs that require heavy lifting and climbing. All business, he sets to work immediately after general plans are drawn up. He pretty much keeps to himself as the hours pass, save when repairs require teamwork.

Breaks are short and spent looking around the synagogue or resting in high spaces. The synagogue seems to be a religious building of some kind, that much is apparent to him. He's learned a little about different religions over the years, but the specifics of others' beliefs have never much interested him. Still, he recognizes the value of any place that offers a safe haven to others or helps foster a stronger sense of community.]