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 Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2014 11:46 am
Beautiful days tended to draw people outside, and that wasn't any different at Deus. The grounds were dotted with various Hunters doing various things. (Was that a frisbee? That was a frisbee.) Even Hanna couldn't deny its pull, much to her nonconformist dismay (maybe). It probably helped that there was no AC in her room, and she had already sweated through two pairs of pajamas. (Gross.) At least the sun-soaked outdoors would offer a breeze and, judging by the careening of the aforementioned frisbee, the breeze was fairly intense, more of a gust. It took longer than Hanna would have liked to find a decent semi-secluded spot -- which meant trekking down to a grassy area above one of the more junk-laden areas of the beach. The waves crashed and swelled, sending white sprays of foam flying into the air. If Hanna closed her eyes, it was almost like she was transported back to memories of Ocean City with her family -- her twin sisters darting in and out of the waves while she read off to the side, bundled in a towel and wrinkling her nose at each whip of sand. Hanna set the copy of A Canticle for Leibowitz that Obadiah had given her down gently on the grass and then spread her blanket across the ground. She had even brought snacks because the Death Hunter planned to make this a date with herself. Sprawling out across the blanket, Hanna wriggled into a comfortable position, picking out a stray stick that was poking at her and digging in her bag for a sleeve of crackers. Popping a cracker in her mouth, Hanna propped herself up on her elbows, grabbed the book, and continued reading, her legs bobbing up and down and looking quite a bit more carefree than she normally did. rejam I got parentheses-happy. Forgive me.
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Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2014 8:28 pm
Apparently she hadn't found a spot quite secluded enough: he had a catlike stride unless he was intentionally making noise, and so it was that he materialized almost ghostlike about a yard away, abruptly breaking in on her reverie: "Good so far?" Given the silent approach, it was probably for the best that he was, as he'd been when he'd dropped off the book, startlingly soft-spoken, a voice that jarred entirely with face and expression and posture. He added by way of semi-apologetic explanation as he fumbled with shaking hands (this too, unchanged from their initial meeting) for his cigarettes, cupping his hands against the gusting wind off the water: "Was doing some clean-up down there and saw you're still working on it. Needed a smoke break, figured I'd come intrude on your company." Akina Tokuwa I am the queen of the overuse of parentheses and colons and semicolons and LISTS IN THREEEEEEES lmao
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Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2014 12:00 pm
So maybe Obidiah was a vampire. You're impossibly fast. (And strong?)
Your skin is... pale white (check), and ice cold (probably).
Your eyes change color (why not)... and sometimes you speak like - like you're (highly educated) from a different time.
You never eat or drink anything (have a hamburger); you don't go into the sunlight (it would seem).The book-lending Hunter had managed to sneak up on Hanna, something that she both envied and was bothered by immensely. Since she was still working on her battle competence, she had hoped that stealth would be her thing. It had seemed as such when she practically flew through the darkness of the Corridor of ___________ as if she had perfect night vision, avoiding all pitfalls, hiding from all enemies. But apparently... not now. Snapping a blade of grass free, Hanna tucked it into the spot where she was reading and sat up cross legged, facing his direction. "Yeah, it is -- thanks again for it," she said. "I like the Simplification concept. Reminds me of the 'firemen' from Fahrenheit 451 or the forced conditioning of the babies in Brave New World." Golden eyes followed the cigarette from Obidiah's hand back up to his mouth. In her rebellion, Hanna had most definitely smoked cigarettes, and she had done it young, around middle school and trailing into the first few years of high school. At first, it was okay because she didn't know how to inhale, which made addiction less of a concern. When she finally discovered that her mother and father actually knew about her cry for attention and were just ignoring it, she stopped. And then she developed a highly condescending air about it in her junior and senior years -- oh, you think you're so rebellious, don't you, with that cigarette in your mouth?Thankfully, college came around, and Hanna got over a chunk of her pretentious bullshit, decided that drinking and cigarettes paired nicely together, an excellent bouquet really, coupled with her new found ability to inhale thanks to weed (skill increase, experience points, thanks college) and an increasingly deteriorating mental state that resulted in facial tattoos, Other Dangerous Behavior, and ultimately culminated in her joining Deus without actually knowing anything other than adventure awaits. Being in the pod, going through the trials, the haze of early Hunterdom, the poverty and lack of access to goods, and then going back in the pod for three years had served as a top notch Quit Smoking program, and for that reason, it had been three years since Hanna had smoked a cigarette. It didn't mean she didn't take some sort of weird extra joy in just watching someone else smoke, breathing in the air with an excitement that made her judge herself.
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Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 12:21 pm
Although Hanna might have learned to dismiss her disdain of cigarettes as pretentious, in his case the reasoning-- ooh, you think you're so rebellious--had dismaying merit. It was most of the reason he'd picked it up and part of the reason he'd never stopped, even after the Island repeatedly put him in situations that would have made stopping easy--it is very hard to buy cigarettes when one is being, say, held captive underground for two weeks, or stranded on a literal desert island for a month with no money, no escape, and nothing to barter with. The rest of it, though, was simply for the relief of having something to do with his hands: he had a constant air of restless tension, the same wire-strung shape in his shoulders that one might have seen in a caged, starving animal prowling to and fro against the bars. He paused, and it might have been something in the look that betrayed her, or more likely it was a personal assessment based on those same face tattoos, but he wordlessly extended the pack towards her in offer, even though he politely turned his head to exhale. "You ever read The Diamond Age?" he asked. "Just got recommended to me and about ten pages from finishing." It was not typically in his nature to linger, but circumstances having lately been what they were, he was seeking out company specifically to spite certain people, and someone who liked to read was more promising than most. Female, also promising (he, like a tomcat, shied away from his own gender more often than not). And besides, he wanted an excuse to ask her about those tattoos.
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Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 2:10 am
When Taym extended the pack of cigarettes to her, Hanna eyed it for awhile. A groaning wheeze slipped out of her and then blended into a long murmur of the word, "No..." She sighed. "Thanks though. I'd like to. I'd really, really like to. But I shouldn't." Now that she was a Hunter, Hanna wasn't as concerned about the cancer or illness side of things. Her odds of dying young were much higher, and she assumed the magic of her weapon bond would somehow steel her against it. Her concern was more mental. If she started again, she'd need to spend money on it, dedicate time to it, relinquish her self-control to it. That wasn't something that was a great decision for her currently. Hanna picked up a carrot from the snacks she had brought with her and crunched down on one. She paused and then extended the baggie of carrots to him. Reciprocal. "Haven't read it," she said, picking a piece of grass from her knee. "How did you get it so fast? I marvel at your ability to access books. I only brought a small number with me to the island, basically all of which are in Kostya's library now, and Death can only just go on leave again for me to potentially shop for more. Approval is a b***h right now because, you know, everyone in Death can now suddenly go on leave again." Her request had been pending since the hour it had been announced. So far, no dice. It was more than a little annoying.
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Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 5:12 am
He'd grinned at her refusal, straight yellow teeth in a wolfish expression, but eyed the carrots the same way she'd eyed the cigarettes: as though they were tempting but also dangerous. And he turned them down for the same reason she had: force of will, rigorously upkept even now that the weekly weigh-ins were a thing of the past, even now that he'd had to change which hole in his belt he used to accommodate hips with actual flesh on them (a morning that had caused a miniature crisis), even now that he bullied and cajoled and goaded himself into more rather than less. Relinquishing self-control was a threat that Taym knew intimately, albeit through a highly distorted lens. He politely made the universal hand gesture for "no thanks," and after a moment's pause he folded up, spiderlike, to sit down on the grass a few feet away. "Partly," he said, gesturing vaguely with his cigarette, "I get twice as many leave days as you. Partly I bribe people--if you're willing to camp the portals with cash people are typically pretty willing to make a stop for you. Just, you know--that's if you want to spend an extra thirty bucks on a carton of cigarettes--" another good reason, just as she'd surmised, not to take up smoking "--or fifteen, twenty extra on a book. Less, if you have friends willing to make the run." Given that he'd mentioned bribery first, it seemed likely that he did not have many of these. "And partly the only thing I bring back is books and cigarettes, most times, so they're not typically competing for space with groceries or clothes or whatever the ******** else people load themselves down with on leave. Erasmus, I guess. When I get a little money," he said wryly.
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 2:54 pm
His reasoning about how to gain access to books made sense. Hanna had a habit of stockpiling her money and, in her own way, exercising self-control in that regard. As much as she might feign poverty, she had been fortunate enough to have saved almost all of her paychecks before her second dip in the pods and had been similarly frugal since her return. It helped her self-control to constantly maintain that she was hard up (perhaps if she said it enough her mind would begin to believe what it knew to be false) even if she was not. She ferreted her meager earnings away for the rainy day she was certain would come. The habit had stemmed from her mother, like many of her habits. They lived frugally themselves in her childhood, always saving, withholding, denying. And then, when she had begin to feel the disconnect between herself and her family cementing into something that perhaps could never again be cleared away, Hanna stored her money for the day that she swore she would leave them all, forever. She never did abandon them as she planned, not really, not until Deus, but just having the money safely kept away made her feel more in control of a situation that she did not, in fact, control at all. Books, however, would prove a worthy investment, at least to her mind. And Taym was someone who she liked immediately for the only reasons she needed: 1 - He read a lot. 2 - He donated a number of books to what she considered to be the main library at Deus. 3 - He was considerate enough to pick up a book for her, for no reason other than loving books. Hanna made a decision then. “I’m going to go on leave soon, hopefully. My first leave, actually, which is weird — but I wasn’t ever allowed when I first woke up and since I got back out of the pods it has been a no-fly zone for Death Hunters through the portals so, anyway - the point is that I am going,” she said. “And maybe I can pick something up for you to pay you back for lending me this,” her fingertips brushed the cover of the book at her side, “in the first place. Because it was very cool of you, really, and I’d like to.” She pinched a blade of grass between her fingers and tugged it once, twice — it came free from the dirt on the third and fluttered away from her on a gusting whip of wind.
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 8:33 pm
Thoughtlessly--he was a person who needed to keep his hands busy and sometimes a cigarette was not enough--he made a grab to snatch it out of the air, which was alarmingly snakelike but still, nonetheless, failed. This resulted in a half a heartbeat of boyish awkwardness which did not sit well with that face or those hands, and which he channeled into doing much the same thing she had: absently plucking at a blade of grass. It was obvious that the offer had rattled him, that it was unexpected to the degree that he was unable to decide if it was also unwelcome. Had he been able to hear the thought process that ended in Taym is someone I like, he would have been still more alarmed. As it was he simply watched her sideways as though waiting for the other proverbial shoe to drop. The unease made itself further known in his answer, which after a pause was: "I didn't do it because I was expecting you to pay me back." He wasn't sure why he had done it, not really, except that if it was possible to navigate a social interaction through the means of a book he preferred to and because, unlike Hanna, he had been spending money like it hurt him to have it, which in a sense it did. Ten dollars here, twenty there: it added up, and his motives had, maybe, been a little selfish in this regard.
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 8:51 pm
Hanna's eyes trailed after Taym's snatching hands before roaming back to his face. He was visibly uncomfortable with her offer, which was surprising to her if only because he had been somewhat forward with his own generosity. She watched him for a moment, an amused smile pulling at the edge of her lips. "Which is precisely why I intend to pay you back," she said. "No surprises -- I'll get you what you request, or I'll pick it. This is kind of unavoidable." There was no deception here. Hanna would be repaying the kindness whether he liked it or not. Her motivation was also a bit selfish; she felt uneasy about owing people anything.
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 9:14 pm
Taym being Taym, made uncomfortable by kindness even when it was purely reciprocal, fell back on the old, familiar comforts of rudeness, ignoring her question in favor of bluntly asking: "How old were you when you got those? I mean," he clarified, pointing at his face where her tattoos were, and all of this without looking at her.
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Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 2:12 am
It was difficult to rattle Hanna. She took his avoidance of her latest point to confirm that, yes, she would need to select the title as he would not be vocalizing any requests. Not a problem. A few titles were already rolling through her brain, though maybe she would just pick out something that looked good. Hanna enjoyed discovering new, unrecommended books -- a library explorer merit badge, she wanted it. Ah, the facial tattoo question. She'd gotten it before, lots of time, and that was, sort of, the point in getting them in the first place, wasn't it? Hard not to notice the girl with the face tattoos. She tended to run in crowds back in Maryland that either didn't care or liked her because of them. As far as she knew, in the smaller pond of Deus, Hanna was the only Hunter with facial tattoos, at least on her cheeks. There were worse things to be than the Girl with Face Tattoos. "Eighteen, pushing nineteen," Hanna replied uncrossing and recrossing her legs. "I was a freshman in college. It was... a choice." Her inflection on the final word for slow, self-judging. She reached up and rubbed at her left cheek as if she could feel the tattoo. "Honestly, I forget most of the time that I even have them until I catch someone staring hard at my face, assume I have some smear of dirt or food or something else on my face -- only to realize, oh right, there is something on my face and I paid a lot of money and endured a lot of pain to get it permanently put there." The tattoos were part of her. She did not regret them. At the time, they were exactly what she needed, and with her new form of employment, her appearance mattered very little. The attention to her facial tattoos hung in the air so Hanna batted it back towards Taym. "Do you have any tattoos? A tribal tramp stamp with a monarch butterfly, perhaps?" Hanna smiled.
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Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 3:55 pm
"What the ******** you take me for? Of course I don't. It's a dolphin, not a butterfly." He actually half-twisted as if to demonstrate before falling back with a grin and a polite cough into his elbow. "I got one right after I turned eighteen. Not on my face, but that didn't stop me from wishing I hadn't. I had a high enough opinion of myself at eighteen to figure I'd want to be that way forever, but I unfortunately came to my senses. It's covered up now." And this time, now that they'd moved to the realm of realities, there was no move to show her. It could have been almost anywhere: despite the weather he was in full coat-and-scarf uniform (the coat fresh-looking albeit worn, something that had been stored away for a long time, perhaps, and then revitalized before it was handed off to a new Hunter) and not looking at all uncomfortable for it. "So is it a question of not coming to your senses, or was your high opinion of your eighteen-year-old self justified?"
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Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2014 4:57 pm
Hanna gave Taym a laugh for his sarcastic reply. It was her preferred method of humor. "Covering up tattoos hurts worse than getting them, right? I heard that from," she searched for an answered, "the internet? I feel like it was the internet." The curious streak in her itched to ask just what the original tattoo had been, but Taym breezed past it and put the ball back in her court. Oh well, another time. "There was nothing to come to my senses about," Hanna said simply, without defense. "Yes, the original inspiration for these might have been along the lines of a high opinion of my eighteen-year-old self, but that doesn't mean I regret them. I like them." Most days, she did. The thirst for being perceived as different was regularly quenched with her facial tattoos back in Maryland, less so in Deus. On the rare occasion she faltered in that devotion, Hanna would quietly cover them up with tattoo makeup, but then, in the mirror, she wouldn't feel like herself. The tattoos on her face were a manifestation of some sort of scar she felt needed to be expressed. But Taym didn't need that explanation. Uncrossing and recrossing her legs, Hanna refocused on Taym. "Now satisfy my curiosity," she said, tilting her head to the side, "why do people call you Taym? Thompson has the 't' in it, but I never figured out the rest." She had first taken note of it on Twitter; she wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to ask the man now that he was in front of her.
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 8:53 pm
"I was engaged once," he answered, and for a minute maybe it sounded like this was about to be a story. Instead he continued: "I told her I'd tell her why my family called me Taym after we got married, but she broke it off. Which is good," he added, exhaling absently, "because I was lying about telling her anyway."
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 9:04 pm
"Well, this is all moving so fast, but yes, let's get hitched," Hanna said, nodding. "Going to die young anyway." She laughed, a bit darkly. It was the truth, probably. Most of them, anyway, hopefully not her, but statistically speaking... Tanned arms stretched above her head and she leaned back on them, glancing out at the sun burning above the stretch of water, the trash-laden beach.
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