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"None taken. I didn't exactly make any housecalls in the past few months." She picked gingerly through the underbrush, though the heavy pads on the bottom of her hedgehog feet didn't warrant the extra care. The cautious steps were half for the sake of having a stalling technique for Thom's need to walk with a cane, and the other half from an old affectation: walking slowly while Reuben bounded about her with a puppy-like enthusiasm.

"So why are you out here, Thom?" The question hadn't really been asked during their last conversation- it hadn't been the time for it, or the place.

"Wow." It seemed an inappropriate summation to his explanation, but even so, it was the first thing to clear Emelyn's lips. (If they could rightly be called that, anyway.) "I'm sorry to hear that. All of it." She debated offering him a place to stay in her duplex- but something in the tone of his voice suggested that it was not a case of physically not having a place to stay... so much as not having one, emotionally. He was out in the jungle for more reasons than one, Emelyn thought to herself. True- she also berated herself for imposing a 'greater meaning' on what could be a simple, temporary outing from the village for Thom- she was always looking too deeply into things, or assuming that there was an underlying purpose to everything. More often than not, it made her life more difficult than it needed to be. Even so, it was difficult- if not damn near impossible- for her to go against her nature, at least when it came to herself. She would spare Thom her assumptions, however, and simply nodded.

"It's not... too bad out here. It gets lonely, after a time." She looked over at her walking companion- her eyes would tell him that she was being frank, and not suggesting anything one way or another. "I know that's not a very casual thing to say to someone. But it's true. And I wish someone had told me that when I decided to impose the solitude upon myself. Sometimes you'll go weeks without seeing anyone. It's refreshing, at first. For a long while, even, if you can live with yourself that long. I don't know." She didn't allow him to answer right away- hers seemed to be a rhetorical conversation. She kicked at a rock and watched it skitter away. "Maybe it's only if you drag yourself through the coals all the time do you find that living alone will get to you after a while."

"Textbook narcissist," she said, her voice rounded with a gentle self-mocking tone to let Thom know she was kidding, "It's easy to spend company with yourself." The truth was, she knew that she hasn't 'successfully' lived on her own for as long as it had seemed: by the middle-months, she was already beginning to feel the strain of the emotional breakdown that eventually left her nearly useless to herself or anyone else. Though no one had yet chanced to ask her how she had 'thwarted' her morals to return to the village, she still dreaded the day that someone asked her why, and she knew that it would eventually come. She would have no better answer than the near-humiliating response of "I was beginning to lose everything I was."

"But I'm assuming you're not pulling an entire-village embargo?" Like I did She left out, though her meaning was clear.

"If the village still makes you uncomfortable, though... have you considered building any freestanding structures out here? Something to let you get out of the rain without really being 'indoors'?" She didn't suggest the caves- he didn't seem to be the sort- man or animal- to be cavorting around in those dank holes in the ground that peppered the base of the great mountain.

She stopped walking for a moment, and turned to Thom. "I could help you. I'm not the best with bigger tools- in fact, it took me forever to just put together my drying rack- but we could get others to help, too. I'm sure it would be beneficial to more than just you." She couldn't believe that the jungle wouldn't become more populated with islanders- not when so many were changing, saying goodbye to that which had made them wholly human.

She beamed. "I've got a makeshift knife that... you know, if you want it, you can have it. I don't think I'll be needing it anymore. We could use that to strip smaller branches. I've never done anything on a bigger scale- but you could fashion something between a network of trees." She shrugged, but was obviously excited. "I'll have to think about it. But don't worry- I'll talk to some of the other villagers, not the labs." She'd still not gotten past that particular stigma.

She put up her hands in a somewhat less than hapless shrug, and left the smile on her face. "What else do we have to do on Hell Island, neh?"