[PRP] Children of the Forest (Meridian & Amber)

[AnimeEyeshime]

(backdated to Meri as a child)

It had become apparent to Meridian over the months on their new home that all the children preferred different sorts of pursuits. Some preferred indoors and the various things the ship had to offer - labs, the library, the training rooms. Others preferred the outdoors...and Meridian was definitely one of those sorts of genomes. If he could figure out how to stay outside all the time, he'd definitely consider it. There was still the small dilemmas of dealing with temperature fluctuations and the not-always-hospitable weather, but maybe if he asked one of the others to help, they could come up solutions or dig around in the ship's stores to find something useful...

He wasn't too concerned about it. But he was rather pleased that more often than not, one of the younger children had taken to spending most of her time outside too. And today, they were going to go exploring out together, further than either of them had gone yet. The shield dome would still be out there protecting them of course (Meridian looked forward to venturing beyond it someday) but perhaps they'd get to the very edge of it, and could check out the whole perimeter? "Amber~!" The green haired Genome boy fidgeted outside the door to her quarters. They only lived a few doors apart on the third deck, but that didn't mean Meridian wasn't still going to be impatient when there was adventuring to be had!  

[elfgurl1234]

Amber definitely preferred to spend more time outside than in, as she had fallen in love with the outdoors the moment she first laid eyes on it. She was rather glad to have a companion that felt much the same, and today's little adventure was something that she was very much looking forward to. "Coming~!" she called back, a moment later answering the door with a grin. "Okay! Ready!" Currently slung across her back was a quiver full of arrows and she held a bow in hand. The young genome had been practicing a lot in the weapons room, but if they were going to be exploring then it was best to be prepared. ... Plus it gave her an excuse to actually use and carry these things around. "Are you bringing anything?"  

[AnimeEyeshime]

"Some food for later, and water too," Meridian said with a nod, gesturing to a small bag slung over his shoulder. The pouch around his waist was empty though, he was saving that for anything interesting they might run across and want to take back for Ghost or the others to see. He eyed the bow and quiver Amber sported with a mixture of amusement (were they even necessary for right now?) and a little impressed. He'd played around with some of the objects and weapons available in the training rooms, but bows were especially hard to use on account of the accuracy (and personally he didn't have very much patience to attempt mastery of such a thing himself quite yet). He wondered how good a shot she was, but he suspected he'd find out while they were out in the forest. "Though there's stuff out there we can eat too, that the computers've said is okay." They all knew the stores of food on the ship wouldn't last forever, so they had to learn how to eat their new world's foods and what might look like food but wasn't.

"But I wanted to keep my load light just in case," Meridian added, with a grin of his own. If there were two of them looking, surely they'd find something really special! Or if not, it would be easier to keep everything in one spot while they went swimming later.  

[elfgurl1234]

Amber nodded along as he listed his supplies. "Good thinking. Doesn't hurt to be prepared." He could take care of providing the necessities while she ensured their safety (and maybe even got them food of some kind). The arrangement made perfect sense to her. "Let's get goin! The sun's not gunna be up all day you know~" Oh yes, she was very much excited for this. What sort of new things might they discover further into the forest?  

[AnimeEyeshime]

As the older of the two Genomes, Meridian decided to take the lead out of the ship and into the forest. The trees nearest the ship were familiar to both of them, given how much time both had spent out and about but still within relative sight of their home. "So, how good are you with that?" Meri asked, pointing to the bow and arrow as they made their way through the forest side by side. "Have you practiced outside with it before?" Training rooms were one thing and reality was another, after all. He half wondered if Amber was practicing for later - if she meant to choose the path of the fighter. Ghost had said that their people didn't used to be able to choose much else. Or maybe she meant to be a hunter. He wasn't sure if they both got to be outside a lot.  

[elfgurl1234]

"This'll be my first time using this outside," she replied, decidedly not answering the question about how good she was. She might not have been consistently hitting the red dot in the middle, but at least she still hit the target most times now? It was better than when she had first started for sure. Still, she could probably manage to hit something outside with it if she tried, which was why she had brought it along. She doubted there would be anything that was out of shooting range that could still be a threat to them. "How far back into the forest have you gone before?" She knew the other had been around for a bit longer than her, so there was a good chance that he might have gone further back than she had up to this point.  

[AnimeEyeshime]

"Pretty far," Meri assured her, stopping briefly to splay a hand out against the trunk of a particularly large and many-branched tree. This was one he liked climbing, and there was this sort of nook in the branches just right for tucking oneself in and watching for the native creatures... "I've been to the lake back here...aaah, we should've tried fishing! Oh well. Maybe we'll try that next time." He wasn't sure if Amber would like that sort of thing anyway, it was a lot more sitting around than exploring was. And you couldn't shoot a fish with an arrow. Well, maybe you could, but Meridian was sure it would be very difficult. "A lot of times I'll climb up to try and get a better view of what's around. Have you ever tried that?"  

[elfgurl1234]

Amber started to nod, but then stopped herself half-way. "Well, I've climbed plenty of trees, but more for fun and exploring than to try to look around." Not that she didn't look around while up in the trees, but it wasn't the main point of the climb for her. For her climbing up into a tree was a nice way to get away and enjoy the sounds and feel and smells of nature all around them. It made for quite a nice afternoon-- when she wasn't training of course. "Will we be climbing some trees in a bit then, or mostly sticking to the ground?" Though for the record, no, their inability to fish was not a major loss to her. She wouldn't mind actually attempting to shoot a fish or two with an arrow though-- even if it failed horribly.  

[AnimeEyeshime]

"We can do both. We might wanna climb closer to the edge of the barrier, see what we can see outside it," Meridian suggested. After all, someday--maybe not too far off?--they'd be fully matured like Ghost was and able to explore outside the protection that encircled their home. Him sooner than Amber, of course, since he was one of the first genome children awakened here. He was glad to hear that she had climbing experience though, that would make things much easier. "We can stick to the ground for now though."

There was a skittering sound above them, and Meri peered into the branches. He wasn't afraid -- nothing that could harm them could be this close to the ship -- but he was still learning about the various creatures inhabiting the forest here. Since it was a whole new world, whoever saw the creature first usually got to name it...at least, until somebody more scientific decided to give it a "proper name" but usually everybody called it the less official one anyway. Would they find new animals (and plants) to name today?  

[elfgurl1234]

Amber too looked up at the skittering sound, her bow at the ready, but whatever it was had continued on out of their sight. Darn it. "We should try catching some stuff later," she remarked as they continued on. "It'd be fun to have some animals around home who don't run away all the time." Surely there had to be something trainable living within the shield dome, right? Something that was cute and small and could keep them entertained when the weather was too bad to go outside and play. But such a search was best left until after they had finished exploring; anything they caught now was only more likely to get away while they looked about the forest.