(open) mission: hit the beach

[aithinkthereforeaiam]

Date & Time: July 18th-24th, Exsilium Time
Location: Sea Shore during the Late Cretaceous Period
Characters: All! Oh those pesky mandatory missions.
Summary: In lieu of the success of the space shuttle's test flight, all of the Transports have been sent back to the Cretaceous period to gather mineral supplies and volcanic rock, while doubling as a sort of 'vacation' and chance to get Transports out of the Initiative's hair. With well stocked supplies, camping gear, and more burlap sacks than anyone could possibly ever use, the Transports have been set under a protective dome and told to collect what they can... and to enjoy the sunshine.
Warnings: Shenanigans!

The overflow log can be found HERE!

It's almost surreal, the quality of color, of light, of oxygen saturation in the air once people arrive. It's so rich that the Initiative sent people back with respirators, to help ease the transition, and warned those who would listen about the effects of too much oxygen on a system.

What they don't warn for is the sheer alien familiarity of the landscape, the warmth, the roughness of the sand on the beaches. This is not the fine, sandy beaches out of vacation dreams, but a rougher, larger granule sort, with shells that might be recognizeable as ancestors to ones those from Earth would remember washing up on familiar beaches, millions of years later.

Most striking is the lack of abundant wildlife found among the fronds and leaves and foliage, or underneath the surface of the saltier, much warmer waters extending off the beach. While acting as a permeable membrane to oxygen and water, along with the sorts of phytoplankton that kept sea creatures alive, all the larger animals had been pushed out by the Initiative's installment of the safety dome. Along the transparent walls, curious creatures would come close, peer in, tap against the barrier and run off if frightened, but very few were found inside at any size larger than that of a house cat. It was for the better in the long run.

Too bad that the Initiative didn't have ultra-violet blocking technology in their shielding. For all the atmosphere is in much better shape millions of years in the past, the sun is as strong as ever, and the unwary will be burned through and through if they're not careful.

Comments

[anklets]

Almost like a holiday, isn't it?

[She remembers it having been "only a few weeks". The sand hurts her feet, so she treads it just far enough to escape the reach of the sea and slips her shoes back on.]

We have the beach and the stars.

[overclocking]

[He glances sidelong at her, and there's a bit of knowing sympathy in it.]

I don't think I've been here long enough to have earned a vacation. Everyone else seems like they could use it, though.

[anklets]

How long you've been here isn't what counts.

[overclocking]

"How hard you work," right?

[He backs up until he's sufficiently out of the creeping surf and takes a seat in the cooling sand, sighing a bit.]

Still, it feels like a lucky break for a first mission.

[anklets]

[ keeping some distance, politely ]

I would hang onto that luck, if I were you.

[overclocking]

[He just barely resists a derisive snort. He's never met anyone with worse luck than he has. Simply by pointing it out, he's probably jinxed it.

Instead he just quirks a smile, eyes wandering back to the brightly glowing sky, like a moth to flame.]

I'll do my best. For now it's easier just to savor it, though.

[anklets]

[ clearly

you haven't gotten to know Allen Walker ]

Have you been pestered by anyone yet?

[overclocking]

Pestered-? [He has to stop and give that some serious consideration, because technically speaking, Rosette pesters him to the point of abuse every moment of every day.

She's probably not referring to that, though.]

I guess that depends on what you consider pestering.

[anklets]

What I mentioned that first day.

[overclocking]

[He blinks a few times, obviously having to recall that conversation--the sheer volume of information that day, combined with the number of people he spoke to... his memory is good, but even he still struggles with that first day.

At length, he shakes his head.]

No. Things have been okay.

I keep to myself, most of the time.

[anklets]

Thank goodness.

[She settles for relief, near-tangible, and hugs herself as a ward to rising goosebumps.]

They take less notice of the quiet ones.

[overclocking]

I'm used to laying low.

[--'Or else,' his mind supplies, helpfully. It's a facade he's keeping up even now, though he's figured out by now that he probably won't be exorcised on-sight in Exsilium. But it's still safer.

He lifts one of his fists from the sand, bringing a handful with it. He tilts it this way and that, watching the glass catch the starlight. It's a good distraction from a conversation bordering on unpleasant. He opts to hastily shift it away from himself, never wholly comfortable with that. He shouldn't have said anything at all.]

Have things been... okay-? For you? [Asked quietly, politely, if with an air of genuine concern--not a rhetorical questioned asked for pleasantries' sake, but a question that could be rhetorical, should she not want to answer it.]

[anklets]

[It's with a remarkable blandness that she answers.]

There's been some trouble, here and there. Nothing overwhelming.

[Friendly as he is, there's no reason to hand this boy anything more than small-talk. Details and history are not things Lenalee hands out on a silver platter— even Oz, selfsame to her in many surprising (depressing, frightening) ways, knows little more now than he did the day he held an umbrella over her in the rain. She plans to keep it that way, for at least a little longer. Family and home are things she keeps close to the chest.]

I think we've been sent here to give the Initiative some time to try and fix that.

[overclocking]

[He doesn't fault her her secrecy; it's the same tone he's used to deflect personal questions for over two weeks now, and can fully appreciate how simple it is to not want things known.

He notes the cue, and no further questions seem forthcoming.]

Heh... definitely not just a fun vacation.

[He spreads his fingers, watching the sand fall through them like kernels in the neck of an hour glass. He's had a morbid fascination with timekeeping lately, and wishes he could shake the every reminder. He only manages twenty six seconds before the sound of sand upon sand makes him restless and uneasy, seized by an anxiety he can't quite name.

He drops his hand, letting the sand fall away, and lets his gaze wander to the safety of the churning water.]

I'm not really surprised. They told me they were sending us to war, then sent us here. It's never as simple as that.

[anklets]

[For all Cross had commended her on becoming more open, she's locked her gates up tighter than ever. Never having worn a uniform on Exsilium soil, word of the Order remains rare to pass her lips, save for once sating Collette's curiosity with the barest of bones.

But twenty six seconds is long enough, for someone so accustomed to living on borrowed time, and she shifts from foot to foot, watching him with quiet intensity.]

War is much more than artillery and casualties.

[ it is uneasy silences, healing, funerals, smiling because going any longer without would drive you mad ]

We're still fighting it, even now.

[overclocking]

[He glances up at Lenalee, finally, really looking at her. She can't be older than 18 or 19, just from looking at her. Why should she be talking about these things at all, let alone with an edge like that in her voice? He's curious, in that way he wonders why children have been made to suffer. But he doesn't ask. The 'why' probably isn't entirely important, in the scope of hardships already come-to-pass.]

You'll still be fighting it, even after it's over. [He figures she knows this already, and it's clear in his tone; he's determined that she isn't the type of person who needs platitudes or air filled with pretty, meaningless words. It's odd to think that one of his filters has been dismantled, but there's some weird bit of relief in it.

Sometimes, he'd just rather be frank about things like suffering.]

It's why taking a few minutes to enjoy the stars, and not think about anything else...

It's important.

[anklets]

[He does not want to know her 'why'.]

But you are thinking about something else.

[ bland, again; she isn't sure how else to hold herself to someone who looks so young but does not act like it, who speaks on war like she hears Matron speak on war ]

[overclocking]

[He's absolutely thinking of something else, but he isn't going to talk about that, ever, to anyone- (or so he thinks, at least right now). War is easier to discuss, in a way. War seems to happen everywhere, to everyone. It's happening right now. You can talk about it with that blandness she has in her tone, pretending it isn't a deeply personal thing, just for a moment.

What he thinks about when he looks at the stars is something else entirely.]

Mm, well... you're not wrong. [He closes his eyes for a moment and extends one foot, far enough that the incoming tide can brush the tips of his toes.] But it's not war, at least. That's the part that's important.

If all you do is dwell on it, it'll destroy you.

[anklets]

[ she shall lie to herself and falsely affirm the goosebumps are still only by the cooling air, not the conviction with which he presents himself on the topics of war

still, she knows of only a select manner of children who can so unflinchingly say what he says ]

What do you think of to escape war?

[overclocking]

I think of the reasons I'm fighting a war in the first place.

[He shrugs, as if that much is obvious. He'd wanted to keep this conversation light, but he suspects that ship left the port long ago and won't be returning anytime soon.]

No one fights a war for the sake of it; we're all trying to protect something. So why think about the hardships when you can think about the people who make the hardships worth it? [This isn't entirely true, even if it isn't exactly a lie. But for all that this girl seems old and wise beyond her years--made that way, he assumes, thanks to some unknown horrors--he's not quite sure she'd understand such things as prophecies and lost loves.]

Recalling a nice memory or two isn't a bad place to start.

[anklets]

[Aha. And there is no victory march for a correct guess. Smiles, half self-deprecating, though it's well-disguised enough that most people would not notice, on her face, in this light.]

I do that a lot. [ how many thousands of times... ] One day I won't need to any longer. That's what I want to believe.

[overclocking]

I hope that's true, too. There's no such thing as an endless war, even if it may feel that way.

[He wonders how often Rosette thinks of her lost brother, and quickly dismisses the thought. He can dwell on such things when he lays awake at night, staring at a blank ceiling.

But not when all of the heavens are spread out before him like this.]

You might as well enjoy the stars, in the meantime.

[anklets]

[Far be it from her to bring up things like millenium earls and hundred-year wars. She kicks her shoes off a second time and mimics his pose, drawing both knees to her chest.]

You're right. [ there's a laugh in there, faintly ] I have the time, I suppose.

[ and she does. for once, she does. ]

[overclocking]

[He flicks a glance in her direction, and feels a twinge of satisfaction. Mm. That's better.]

... If we don't know the names for all of them, we could always come up with some. [Naming the stars. It's an old, familiar game. Maybe he's just feeling nostalgic tonight.]

[anklets]

I know the names. [ as a child, she had made an escapist's use of the Order's libraries and devoured them: constellations, far-off landscapes, the picture books Matron brought her ] It's finding the stars they go to which eludes me.