Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Make you uncomfortable to be beneath the water?" Em asked, curious, as she yanked off the other shoe. "Well, want to go wading? I think I'll walk for a while before I go back to the village. ...These days it seems like the days just... drag. So I might as well go slowly." She tied the shoelaces together and hooked the boots over her arm as she rolled her pantlegs up, still looking up at Greer from her folded-over position.

She nodded. "Somewhat. Why? Did you have something in mind?"

"Well, I'd love to help," Em said, noting the woman's clever use of her own professed old passion for insects in her 'pitch', "But I warn you- I'm not very good with larger building projects. To be very honest. But if you have something little and fiddly that you'd need help with as a part of that, like delicate work- I'm quite good at that aspect." She brushed a quill out of her face- they were always falling in the way, and kicked up a little water in a spray off her toes as she went through the gently lolling seawater.

"Certainly! I'd love to help. Especially since you're already thinking of going to the trouble of creating a little niche to deal with my particular ineptitude." She laughed. "Writing? Well... I write everything. How my day is going, what I think about people, about what's happening, what I think, what I hope... and then, when everything else is empty about me, I write fiction. Lots of it. Although I suppose I'll never be published, now." A little sadness crept in her voice. "Ah well. At least I'm accomplishing something, here. Life has to be more than just fame."

Em smiled. "I'm flattered!" And she was. She'd resigned herself to the idea that she'd be writing for herself for the rest of her life- no longer did she dream about people all around the world appreciating and loving her writing... but at least now, with this magnanimous offer (and she hoped that was what it was, rather than... a gesture), some of that dream drifted back. It was smaller, and less grandiose than the original- but she believed that it would be a seed... as dreams often were- this tiny kernel of pleasure and hope could grow into the grand tree of wishes, dreams dripping from every branch. Who knew that in the ashes of a broken dream, such a plant could grow?

"Really... any time." She said, curling the corners of her mouth up in a friendly, open smile.

"Oh, I'm not discriminatory. I've written about... people being married in cults, to science fantasy epics about girls who discover that everyone has a monstrous Guardian to their name." Her eyes lit on the shell that Greer had been worrying in her fingers, caught by the lovely colors as she spoke. "Do you write much?"

"Thank you!" Em said, turning the gifted shell over in her palm. The abalone-pink inside shone up at her, and made her happy. "Well then, what is your specialty? Besides entomology, that is. Are you a field researcher?"

"True. In a strange sort of way... you're sort of following up on your dream," she thought aloud. She continued in this vein of outer-dialogue. "...Do you mind being here? I mean, you were trapped just like the rest of us, but how do you feel about it all, now?"