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 Posted: Mon May 30, 2016 9:17 pm
It was a beautiful day with clear skies and an inviting breeze. Mr. Bitterberry had already taken off, leaving her and Taym and Ivy underneath the tree, the remains of their simple picnic strewn about. (But not for long. She liked watching him clean up, to neatly tidy with slender fingers and efficient grace.) It takes a bit, getting comfortable, but she doesn't want to be inside for this. The blanket underneath and his folded up sweater serve well enough. There's something nice in the smell of smoke and cheap detergent, something grounding. Still, she's not quite ready yet, and so she looks up at him and asks, "Are you ready? Should I have made a not dead sign, just in case?"
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Posted: Mon May 30, 2016 9:43 pm
Taym, for his part, looks more comfortable sitting on the ground with his arms around his knees than he ever does in a chair or on a barstool. He doesn't laugh often, but he has a little exhale-through-the-nose that's not quite a snort, and it surfaces here. "I think that's more for unfortunate hikers happening on you and s**t," he assures her. He doesn't answer the first question, largely because he can't.
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Posted: Tue May 31, 2016 10:16 pm
"Okay, but let's be real here Obadiah Thompson," she wriggles a bit, adjusting her neck. "Any hiker coming on me is anything but unfortunate." With a grin and a huff, she lets her focus go idle, past the man sitting by her and through the leaves above. She lets the world float by for a moment and then she reaches. America's eyes go vacant. .
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 1:20 pm
Even being prepared for it, even with warnings and explanations, it's unsettling, and he doesn't like it. He'd feel better for a cigarette but doesn't reach for one, lacing his fingers together and unlacing them. Ivy sits upright, alert either with an animal's instinct or simply because of Taym's sudden tension, and he unthinkingly reaches to smooth down her ears. It helps him, maybe, more than it helps her. He watches for the rise and fall of her ribs; he debates and discards the idea of snaking his fingers out to test her wrist for a pulse. In the end, horribly, all he can do is wait, although after a second or two, when her eyes don't close on their own, he reaches for that (considerately attempting to avoid wrecking her eyeliner) and has the horrible and inevitable thought of this is what you do to a corpse, to show respect.
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 7:50 pm
Her vision opened up into the right sort of terrifying. Vast, open sky and the world a pattern quilt so far below it hardly seemed to matter. Until suddenly there was another speck in the sky gaining speed and a loud cry filled the air. Suddenly the blanket world was rushing closer, turning from a distant two dimension and gaining a third as trees thrust upward around them. Darting and hopping through branches until the cover of leaves hi them away from that passing form. There is caution, but soon it gives way to curiosity. There is something shining in a shallow pool of water. They hop hop hop and dash and cry loudly when a nearby branch rustles and dips low under a sudden, light weight. Another cry and the flash of feathers is as the unwelcome one leaves. For such a small bird, Mr. Bitterberry has a call like a hawk, like something dangerous if imposed upon. The shiny thing is what she recognizes at the pull tab of a soda can and what he recognizes as belonging to him. It is not particularly graceful capture, but it's fun. The water sparkles in a thousand strange colors as it splashes up in the air, and she has to admit their is a certain beauty to the cheap bit of metal, in the strange spectrum of a bluejay's regard. And then up through the trees, up and up and up again, and again they are free of the ground and the scrambling, growing things. They are on wind and wing and The strain of it leaves her gasping as she suddenly sits up beside Taym, groaning and laughing in turns from joy and the fierce pounding in her head.
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 10:30 pm
He reaches out to steady her, his hand unthinking on her arm, his alarm mastered before it quite has a chance to fully manifest. He's shaken and he hides it. It's harder to hide it in the quiet of dark rooms when she's favoring her injuries; it's easier in the sunshine on a blanket where she's laughing. "Please," he says flatly, a chance to rally behind sarcasm before he manages a real question, "close your eyes first next time."
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 10:41 pm
Her eyes are closed now, as she nods and then curls forward to rest her head against her knees. Jesus wept, she tries to say and can't manage just yet. Without looking up, she holds a hand out in a small grabby motion and while he tries to interpret this, a bottle of water floats up off the far side of the blanket and into her waiting hand. She sighs, and finally manages a hoarse, "Thanks."
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 11:01 pm
It's actually Ivy who jumps, startled by this sudden violation of her primitive doggy understanding of physics. Taym merely goes very still, and then presses the heels of his hands to his eyes as if he could somehow force himself to unsee what he has just seen. "Replay that in your head, please," he requests faintly.
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 11:10 pm
Sitting up with a sigh, America twists off the cap and takes a drink, expression confused at the request and cringing at the sunlight. "Jesus wept," she manages it out loud this time. "Feel like my brain just plopped out my ear and ran a 40k." She huffs with a chagrined sort of smile. It had been more painful than other bird watching she'd done so far. It didn't bode well, but she knew she wasn't about to stop trying to find the right way to make it go smoother. "I don't know what I'm supposed to be replaying, hun, the flying stuff?" And here her voice turns a bit wistful. Wishing she could've held on a bit longer.
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 11:24 pm
He feels helpless. There's a lot of feelings he hates--almost all of them, not to put too fine a point on it--but that's close to the top of the list. He's helpless and useless and out of his depth and he watches her with his hands making a stupid meaningless gesture. The gulf between them, never too narrow for him, widens almost palpably; he can feel it yawning and threatening to suck him in. "Are you OK?" he asks finally. He can bring the rest of it up later. Really, this is the only important part, right now.
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 11:30 pm
The look she gives him is grateful, "Yeah. It's just a headache and it'll be gone soon enough. Are you okay? Was it creepy?" Done with the whole, sunlight and sitting up thing, she lays back down, head near his thigh. "Being a bird was fun. Wish it didn't give me a hangover, though."
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 11:45 pm
"It was OK," he lies. "But seriously, close your eyes next time, please." A pause. "What's it like?"
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 11:59 pm
Eyes staying closed, she pictures it. "Everything was like a...like Prudie's old patchwork quilt. It's like driving through the desert by myself or sailing out to sea when the land disappears, but it's more. And all a'sudden it turns into...you know those pop-up books? Where everything is flat and then suddenly a castle, a tree. Then I'm just small with him, and the world is all these hidden places and treasure pools and scuffles in the leaves." America sighs, "It was good. It was really, really good and I like being me, Taym. But I like seeing the world through his eyes too." Above them, there's the soft flap of feathers and several leaves fall to the ground as Mr. Bitterberry lands in the tree above. "Is this why folks love books n'such?"
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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2016 12:23 am
It's unsettling, as it always is, to hear his name in her mouth, but far less unsettling than the rest of it. He wraps his arms around his knees again, considering this. For all his engine grease and lined eyes and cigarettes and scowls and palpable exhaustion he was once a chubby little boy hiding under the blankets with a Narnia book falling apart at the spine, who maybe, sometimes, when no one was looking, held his breath and closed his eyes when he opened his mother's wardrobe and reached past the heavy coats. "I think," he says finally, tired, "it's more... that people who love books want it to be more like that than it is." It has occurred to him, for the first time, to be jealous.
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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2016 12:03 pm
She's quiet for a long time, until she tucks her head against his thigh and murmurs something about a woodchuck and it becomes clear she's fallen asleep. Mr. Bitterberry flies down, hopping about the blanket and inspecting it for crumbs.
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