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 Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 8:58 pm
Ambrose poked around the area.
"I... don't smell anyone familiar here... lots of scents... but I can't place any of them." He paused, scratching his head. The scene wasn't familiar either. This wasn't the right spot - it had been off the road a ways. Something else must have been here.
"Let's... let's keep going, actually?"
He continued down the road, glancing back to make sure she was still following.
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Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 2:53 pm
Anjali was indeed following, just at a slightly slower pace - the treesong, damp air and wet earth were really making her want to dig her rootlets into the earth and just, hah, vegetate for a while. Still, it wasn't an unwinnable battle against the most basic instinct of plants. "Sorry, plants aren't exactly renowned for swift movement," she said wryly as she caught up to him. "So it wasn't here, then? I wonder what the jeep was after....?"
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Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 7:38 pm
Ambrose was oblivious to the yearnings of the plant-woman, instead, breathing in the humid post-storm air. Swimming might have been a more apt method of travel if the air was any more humid.
But it was fascinating how something like a weather condition brought its own scent to the island. People always used to say 'smells like rain' but Ambrose never realized how much of a scent it really did have.
"It's no problem." He spoke back to her. "I'm not exactly in my 'element' here in the humid tropical heat. I appreciate the laid back pace."
He shook his head, pondering as they walked. "I don't know... the tread marks were off the road... but not by far.
He continued the walk. Yards stretched on until they had gone about another mile when Ambrose stopped - the scent of blood pulling at his awareness as he turned to the side of the road. If they looked, there was another set of treads here, but not nearly as deep in the mud - as it looked like it went offroad as much as it could. Ambrose headed into the woods for a few hundred yards until they came to a small clearing. Here, Ambrose's ears flattened as scents accosted his nose - lots of people, and the cloying scent of a lot of blood. Everything seemed woven together - the blood, Aubrey, the rain, and then a lot of other people - some familiar, some not.
In the center of the clearing is a particularly muddy area where some of the blood runs red. IT looks like it's been disturbed, and settled again. There are also a lot of footprints.
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Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 9:42 pm
"Here, then..." Anjali breathed. She realized that she sense the blood too, very faintly - the sundew was a carnivore among plants, after all, and blood was a rich source of nutrients regardless. The urge to go and dig her toes in the stained area was so strong that for a moment she felt nauseous, before she forced herself to stay where she was, curling her toes in away from the edges of her flip-flop sandals. "Now... hm... there are definitely plants here," she said, realizing how stupid it was, but she had to say SOMETHING. Couldn't just stand here staring at the damage.
"Just a moment. I'm going to... try something." Anjali stepped over to one of the smaller plants that have been damaged. "Plants," she said, conversationally, "seem to have very different perceptions. A great tree that can live many years tends to give forth sensations only of very great events. Maybe they feel time in a different fashion, the same way a mayfly that lives for only a day might find a second seems far longer than it does to us... but I think a smaller plant will do better."
She didn't have to touch it, but she did so anyway, twining the tentacled fingers of one hand around the nearest mangled branch. The forest around here was grumbling irritably, mainly about things associated with the jeep - hot, metal, fouled air most especially...
Closing her eyes and gesturing to Ambrose to be quiet, she tried to interject herself into the song around her. Speech, emotion, thought - it was all of those things and none of them at the same time.
Slowly, the reedy, shaky and pale sound of her own song rose, carrying a sense of curiosity centered on the damage to the plants nearby.
The answer came immediately - noise/living flesh. The coppery 'taste' of blood on the roots. Live things banging around...
After a few minutes, she opened her eyes and sighed. "Nothing. Nothing that we couldn't know from sheer observation... maybe when I'm changed more, when I can communicate better and understand them more, I could do something useful with this ability... but it seems for now it's only a novelty." Anjali looked extremely disappointed.
"Can you sound out anything here, Ambrose?" Maybe it wouldn't be a total loss.
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Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 11:50 pm
Ambrose hung at the edge of the clearing as Anjali stepped into it. It was... eerie, almost alien to see Anjali join her element and 'commune' with the flora of the island. The fact that the clearing's floor was a muddy paste made the scene all the more ... disturbing. When Ambrose had seen the area earlier, he had barely stayed around to get a look at what had happened. Now, while the scene was more... stale, at the same tme it was creepy - there was no denying the grissly attack that had happened - his eyes, his nose - all spoke of it.
He stayed dutifully out of her way until she returned to him. Ambrose didn't know whether he should feel releived or more nervous when her plants weren't able to convey anything to her.... or at least nothing she spoke aloud. What if she DID learn? What if he HAD done it and she was just skilled at keeping a cool exterior to someone she thought might be a killer.
"I'm sorry. But... it is amazing all the same. Hearing them."
He stepped forward next and lifted his nose, first tasting the air. THe scents were so thick here... thick of pain, of blood and Aubrey it almost overrode everything else. Slowly, dutifully, he knelt down to the mud, wincing as his pants soon took on the disturbing red tinge of the mud.
"I smell water... rain. And... Aubrey and blood. A lot of that." He moved around a bit, squeezing his eyes shut to focus on the new sensory input. "I smell other people... many... many of them unfamiliar. But... also... I smell... the woman I met at the beach bar... the one with the darker skin and hippie clothes... I smell... Emelyn... I smell..." His ears lay back against his head. "I smell Jamal. And.... the priest?"
He stood up, refraining from mentioning the other scent that was around - his own. But between having been nearby earlier and there now... he couldnt' tell how old or recent that scent was.
But Jamal. He was here. There was no saying when.... but... he was HERE. It had to be him.... right? He had a MOTIVE!
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Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 10:22 pm
Anjali scowled. "I know... Jamal attacked Aubrey once before, but... surely he wouldn't..." She didn't want to ascribe such a feral nature to him, even if the man had... well, had a rough past, but he had been friendly and pleasant company as well. "But I can't tell. Plants don't see..." She attempted to articulate it, and failed.
There was a pause, then, "Can you tell how long ago each of those people was present? Maybe by... I don't know, intensity or something like that?"
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Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 10:30 pm
Ambrose looked doubtful. "I... I don't know. I know Jamal has it out for her really badly. He's been bragging about how bad he wants her.... dead." He paused before the last word.
What if Aubrey WAS dead? What if she hadn't survived after all of it. There was a LOT of blood on the ground.
He sighed, shook his head and stood up again, wiping his hands with distaste on his pants. "I.... I don't know. Aubrey's scent is the strongest.... but... the others..." He shook his head. "All of this is too new to me. THey all smell about the same." He frowned. "And with all of the recent rain, there might even be more scents that have been covered by the others or washed away." He frowned apologetically.
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Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 10:36 pm
Anjali smiled. "It's okay... at least we both tried, right?" She shook her head, and as she did so several of the tentacles lashed out and snagged bugs out of the air. "It was worth the attempt, if nothing else..."
She paused, looking pensive. "I really wish I knew what those men who took you and the others had wanted, or what it was for. And if it was at all related to this..."
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Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 10:44 pm
Ambrose shook his head again, eying the surroundings with increasing distaste the longer he was there. From Anjali's perspective it was diffiult to tell if it was mere human revulsion of being around a scene with such visable evidence of past carnage, or if the illness in his eyes was more due to denying something that he didn't like that boiled from within.
"I wish I could have been more help." He sympathized. "And.... I wish I knew too. It... it really bothers me that they might have been doing more to us than just the obvious." He frowned darkly.
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Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 10:47 pm
"Maybe it's all another trick." Anjali scowled. "Maybe not. We can never know until it's over, can we? That's the beauty of this place..." She sighed, and rubbed at her temples despite the stickiness of her fingers. "The jungle's giving me a headache, and ugh, the exhaust left over is kind of rank and not exactly helping. I think I'm going to head back to the village...?" She raised one eyebrow at him, waiting for his response.
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Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 10:53 pm
Ambrose nodded, the frown still on his face. "I don't like the smell of this place either. I'd be happy to walk you back if you like." He looked up, stepping carefully around the blood back towards the road.
"'Beauty.' That's a good one." He replied sarcastically. "Trick, yes. Deceitful, yes. Beastly perhaps, but the only beauty here is the natrual wonders of this island, not the abominations the doctors have wrought. I just worry if Aubrey DOES pass... that what little conscience in the labs exist will die with her."
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Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 10:55 pm
"Very well, I'll welcome the company. The roar of the jungle's voice is strong yet and I haven't quite learned how to ignore it while I'm outside in it..." Anjali smiled and began down the rough path back to the road. Ooh, her feet were really annoyed now, but she didn't want to stay there. Not take root in the jungle and risk forgetting herself again.
"I'm worried about her too," Anjali admitted. "The only reason she's a target to the others, including Jamal, is because she's so accessible - but I'd rather have one sympathetic, if deluded person... than nothing but a faceless controlling entity."
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Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 11:02 pm
He nodded, walking back to the dirt road of the jungle and a partial reprise from the scent, at laest those that did not still cling to their clothes, bringing a part of the bloodshed stench with him.
"Precisely. I ... I agree with you. Worse yet, they could have us locked up in cells in the labs and likely surve their purpose to science as easily as letting us walk loose among the jungle and duplexes." His voice was heavy, tired, and strained as he walked.
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Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 11:04 pm
"It could always be worse," Anjali conceded, then sighed. "Look at us... so cowed... but do we have a choice?" Her voice was uncharactaristically strained for a moment, before she shook her head. As before, the movement brought on a flurry of insect-snapping from the head tentacles. "It's not easy, Ambrose... but then, you know that. You've been here longer than I.... I'm sorry. It's been a bad day." She rubbed at her temples again, heedless of the strands of mucilage that stretched between fingers and head when she dropped her hands.
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Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 11:08 pm
He looked down. He was being a coward in saying such things. He knew he was, as much as he hated to think that he was rolling over and taking this when he was standing to lose so much of his hopes and dreams to this island. But for the time he had been here, from everything he had seen, they held no real power. Even with Aubrey's injury it was only likely to bring them more suffering than any sort of pipe dream Jamal might talk about with vindication. Ambrose couldn't do that, not with people he had grown to care about here as well, sharing his fate and under the same thumb as the rest of the staff. He could hope, he could pray, and he could cling to the humanity that he still held with every breath.
"I think its been a bad day for most of us." He said quietly before remaining in quiet thought for most of the trip back to the village.
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