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 Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 9:41 pm
Tara lazed about on the Caffrey couch, skimming through her language notebook for what might have been the billionth time. She was bored. Very bored. But at least she wasn't hot, which was the reason she was there. The air conditioner in the apartment she shared with her brother had been on the fritz for a while, until it finally conked out on what had to be the hottest day of the year. Anything was better than stewing in her own juices. Even coming to her uncle's house, when he was out and Evie was working. And Dana was, well, Dana. Doing whatever obnoxious preteens did in their spare time.
It hadn't occurred to her to bring much in the way of activities when she'd come by to escape the heat, and finally she'd had enough of the same symbols burning into her retinas. Tara practically flung herself off the couch and down the hall. Which room was Dana's? She tried two, which led to a bathroom and what was probably her uncle's room, before finding the right one. Clearly she hadn't spent a lot of time in the house, at least, not lately.
"Danaaaaa," she whined once it was clear she had the right room. "Let's do something fun, you and me. It'll be a cousinly bonding activity."
Her motive was bonding, not boredom. Obviously.
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Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 9:50 pm
Dana was very grounded after deciding to take another hair styling adventure, which she was admiring in the vanity mirror with a pair of scissors in hand to further mutilate it even during punishment, not that she cared, obviously. The door was ajar and she was fairly blatant about it. IT was almost like she wanted to be caught.
She'd been depressed lately, and this wasn't perking her up nearly as much as she thought it would.
"I thought you were just here to avoid roasting, not attempt to inflict any bonding on me," Dana huffed as she angled her head in the cramped room.
She didn't sound especially enthusiastic about Tara being around, but probably because due to age alone she was associating her with Evie until further personality traits could be gleaned. That, and she hadn't been her usual, jovial self lately
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Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 11:18 pm
"Who says I can't do both?" Tara countered, taking the reply as an invitation to come into Dana's room. "As long as you don't try to stick me in an oven or anything. I don't taste nearly as good as pot roast, promise." This was something she knew from experience. Though granted, she had tried nibbling on herself when she was a zombie. Maybe she'd taste better as a non-youma, or cooked-
Bad train of thought. Time to move on.
"Did I mention I like your hair like that? It looks good on you. 'Course, that means we can't do each other's hair as a bonding thing, but that's probably for the best. All I know how to do are braids, and that gets boring fast." She touched the one behind her ear self-consciously and started moving around the room, looking at the bits and bobs scattered around. There was the camera Dana had assaulted her with when she and Kent came for dinner. Tara knew better than to try touching what was probably a prized possession, so she picked up a memory card laying nearby instead. "We could, I dunno, film something. Or play a game. Or watch Star Wars. Or film a game about Star Wars. How does that sound?"
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Posted: Sun Jul 14, 2013 12:21 am
"Yer 'bout the only one," Dana huffed, making one last attempt to get it to stay up after she shuffled through the clutter on her vanity for the brush. And then she slumped in the chair with a groan. She wanted to be out in the park. Or just out. Being grounded was usually a non-punishment because she was so vastly unsupervised she could sneak out whenever she wanted.
Unless her dad offered their air conditioner to charity and there were witnesses.
"Evie does braids too," She said, sounding almost wistfully detached. She definitely wasn't her usual, happy, thousand miles an hour self. But she did flinch when she saw Tara was touching a memory card, though. A result of bad experiences of people breaking or stealing them when she filmed senshi activity.
"Uh... You might wanna... put that down." She decided to give a little, either in an attempt to appease Tara or try to make herself get moving. Depression was weird and foreign to her. "We coul' try to play Star Wars. I've only seen the first movie, though. Whatsit... the Phantom Menace?"
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Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2013 10:25 pm
There were definite signs that something wasn't quite right here. But Tara didn't know Dana very well. They had never been close, and after her rift with Evie, she'd never wanted to be close. Now they had a second chance, but while Evie seemed to care about that, Dana didn't. Usually Tara was okay with that. But not when she was bored out of her gourd.
It seemed like touching the memory card had hit a sore spot. Tara put it back obligingly, but that didn't stop her from poking through more of Dana's things, more out of boredom than any genuine curiosity. "I haven't played Star Wars in a while," she said thoughtfully. "Should've brought my- wait, what? Oh, you poor deprived child." For a moment, she was distracted and stopped rooting through Dana's stuff. "Phantom Menace is the first Star Wars numerically, but certainly not the first chronologically. If you've never seen the original, then I have been seriously lacking in my cousinly duties."
This had to be rectified as soon as possible. But how? She hadn't thought to bring her DVDs with her. Streaming was possible, but she didn't have a computer. "Are you sure you've never seen A New Hope?" she asked, resuming her poking. She wasn't really expecting to find anything useful- like a Star Wars DVD, for instance- but hey, it was possible to find anything! Nail polish, hair clips, a rock...
As Tara glanced at the rock, recognition flared within her. Which was strange. She knew she'd never seen this particular rock before, but she also knew that she recognized it. As much as someone could recognize a rock, anyway. It was roughly palm-sized, and smooth without being polished, but she could tell that it was volcanic in origin. A symbol was scratched near the center, one that roughly resembled a heart.
medium-small gray rock, unpolished, with symbols scratched on its surface
"No," she breathed slowly. This couldn't be that rock- the one that was missing from her Outpost. Sure, it fit the description. And yes, the symbol matched the one that she vaguely remembered. But there was no way for it to get here. There had to be thousands of medium-small gray rocks with hearts scratched on them. Right?
Holding the rock in one hand, she turned back to Dana. "Hey, this is a cool stone!" she said, her voice falsely chipper as she tried not to jump to conclusions. "I'm a geology fan myself. Say, where'd you find it?" Tara held it out, waiting to be told that it was all just a coincidence, and she could go on with her life.
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Posted: Sat Jul 20, 2013 9:49 pm
Dana had skittered over to make sure the memory card was just so while shrugging or nodding passively at her cousin's education on the Star Wars movie line up when her false tone managed to hit an unsettled nerve.
She couldn't tell you why, or even identify that it did, but whatever it was, it made Dana look up and see the rock she'd stolen from Evie after finding out she had acquired it on some grand space adventure Dana wasn't invited to.
"Oh... uh... I don't know, I just picked it up," She lied, clearing her throat and moving to snatch it back.
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Posted: Sat Jul 20, 2013 10:36 pm
"Really? Where?" Now Tara was being downright invasive, but she had to know. If Dana was even tangentially involved, if someone knew she had the rock, if something went wrong somehow...
Still, she needed a feasible reason to be so curious. "It's not the sort of thing you'd find around here naturally," she said, still failing to come off casually. "It probably came from a volcano! Pretty neat, huh? Hey, I bet someone lost it. Maybe we can try to get it back to them somehow."
If she could convince Dana to give her the rock, that would solve everything. Or at least give the illusion that everything was solved.
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Posted: Mon Jul 22, 2013 5:08 am
Dana was not used to making such serious faces for extended periods of time, and frowning her most serious and offended frown made her facial muscles very tired.
However, rock now clutched protectively in both hands as she held it close to her body and away from the prying Tara was a precarious situation that warranted such seriousness, she thought.
"I didn't know you cared about stupid rocks so much," She said in typical childhood bully brand derisiveness.
"No one lost it, it's mine. Go find something else to harp on, Tara."
Why her cousin was so up in arms and serious about a stupid space rock was anyone's guess. Dana hadn't considered she knew it was stolen from space and was toying on settling on an explanation that her hooliganism was common knowledge thanks to family gossip and Tara was more than willing to assume 'found' was code for 'thievery'.
Not that she was about to give her the real story. At least not the whole one.
"What makes you think it's not mine?"
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Posted: Mon Jul 22, 2013 12:02 pm
Why was Dana being so defensive about a rock? Tara hadn't accused her of stealing it. Mainly because that would mean that Dana had been to space, which was not a possibility she was willing to entertain. It was far more likely that whoever took it dropped it somewhere, and her cousin just happened to pick it up. Yes. That wasn't a far-fetched conclusion at all.
"Of course I'm interested in rocks," she replied with a bit more vigor, this having nothing to do with the rock itself. "I'm a scientist. We have to be interested in everything." A gross exaggeration, but one that she did believe, at least when it suited her to.
Still, she was clearly making Dana upset, and that wasn't part of the plan. If Evie came home and discovered them like this, it would probably be the end of their making amends. For a moment, Tara considered dropping the subject entirely. Until she was presented with a question she couldn't resist answering.
"Well, like I said, it's volcanic stone. Not glassy enough to be obsidian, so it's probably basalt or rhyolite. Now, there aren't any volcanoes, active or otherwise, anywhere near Destiny City. And I'm pretty sure you never went to visit a volcanic area, so it's not a souvenir. That means it was brought here by someone, for a purpose. So, either you're a closet geology nut, or you found it, thought it was a cool rock, and brought it home."
Finishing her summation, she did a quick bow. "Behold, the powers of science! And I'm not even all that into geology. Unless you're talking space rocks, I mean-"
No no no that wasn't what she meant to say. How could she have brought up space? Not that Dana would know the rock's real origin, but it was still a dangerous slip. Tara broke off suddenly and tried to think of a change of subject, but her mind was blank.
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Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 2:14 pm
Dana just clung harder to her treasure and scowled at Tara. While she could never place why, all of her defensive walls went up and they weren't about to come down the more her cousin went on. If anything, she found it all very intimidating, and besides...
Everything sounds like an accusation when you're guilty.
"I go to lots of places you don't know about," She said in a low voice that was meant to be a warning.
"There are lots of rocks outside, go stare at them."
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Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 9:58 pm
"Why are you so upset? It's just a rock. A cool rock, I admit, which is why I'm taking an interest." Had she done something wrong? Her logic was sound- it was unlikely that Dana had suddenly developed an interest in geology, especially considering her last comment. So the rock had to be somebody else's, even if it wasn't from the Outpost.
Maybe she'd been a little bit too firm about that point."Wait, do you think I think you stole it? Dana, please. I may not know you that well, but I doubt you're the kind of person to go around nabbing rocks. Unless they were like, diamonds or something, and even then. All I'm saying is that you probably found it and thought it was neat, right? And it is neat. But I bet someone else is missing it, and I don't want them to get the wrong idea if they ever find out that you have it."
Assuming this was the rock from the Outpost- something she wasn't convinced of, yet- who, aside from her, would care that it was missing? The person who swiped it from her. The list of people who had the opportunity was both lengthy and short:
A) a senshi or knight who helped out
B) one of the missing civilians
C) a Negaverse agent or Dark Mirror, during the battle
If it was A or B, Tara wasn't too worried about it. But if it was C, she really didn't want that hunk of rock anywhere near Dana. Who knew what lengths they might go to in order to get it back?
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Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 10:10 pm
Dana was eying Tara endlessly, trying to think of her own options about why her cousin was being so weird.
"No, it can't be anybody's, because I picked it up myself on a trip," Which was partially true! If you switched out Dana for Sailor Eunomia. By now it was a point of pride about who had picked it up and if it was rightfully hers since it was apparently so out of the realm of possibility.
"You do think I stole it! Picking up something you know belongs to someone and not returning it is stealing," She huffed. "You've just been been gossiping with the grown ups."
Now Dana was projecting. She had a strong feeling the family didn't think much of her and her hooliganism, and her dad had been especially harping on her tendency to get in fights after she came home one day with her face completely smashed. Even though that had been a nega, she couldn't exactly explain it away and school yard fights had become a common excuse.
"So just go away."
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Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 10:21 pm
Why wouldn't this just end already? Why was Dana saying things that didn't make any sense? It was confusing and concerning and Tara had half a mind to just grab the rock away from her before somebody else did. Because now her paranoia was kicking into high gear. This had to be the rock from the Outpost, and somebody wanted it for some unknown reason.
"Dana," she sighed, "you haven't been on any trips, I'd know." Their aunt had a thing for knowing what the rest of the family was up for, to the point of having an actual newsletter. Dana had to know that, so why the lie? This was getting uglier by the second. Tara needed a way to end it, before they ended up at each other's throats.
Only one thing came to mind. Not the ideal solution, but it would work. "Look, I didn't want to say this, because I didn't want you to get the wrong idea. But you've already got the wrong idea, so so much for that idea." Tara took a deep breath. "The rock is mine, okay? It's a sample from my collection." Technically true. "I, uh, must've dropped it somewhere." Definitely not true, but saying "it was stolen from my space base" wasn't really an option. "I didn't want you to think I was accusing you of anything, 'cause I'm not! But I kind of need it back for a project I'm working on, okay?"
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Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 10:32 pm
Dana had a small 'd'oh' moment when Tara managed to call the lie about going on a trip, and she found herself looking to the side while trying to fabricate an excuse or a new lie.
What she knew so far was Evie had been in space. She brought this back, even if on accident, and Dana had greedily stolen it. So how could it be Tara's? If she was more suspicious of the world Dana would probably guess Tara just wanted it for herself. She did assume she was lying, though, and just couldn't figure out why.
"It is not, you butthead," She muttered.
And then looked down at the thing cradled in both hands, tracing the symbol with her fingers. "Because... I... I got it from somewhere far away."
Very, very far away. It was expressed in almost a sad mumble, a wishful thought that it had been her, and she had seen such things. Rainbow roads and glittering outposts hazily tried to form in her imagination as the lie affirmed a small, secret fantasy.
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Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 10:41 pm
Okay, so that wasn't exactly the answer Tara had expected. She could work with it, though. "It is too mine," she insisted. "How else would I be able to identify it so quickly?"
Why was Dana being so stubborn? And continuing to lie, when she'd already proven that there had been no trips. "What, you got it in 'a galaxy far far away?'" she quipped. That was a bit too close to the stone's true origins, so she hurried on. "C'mon, Dana, I know you haven't been anywhere. Why do you want it so bad? You don't even seem to like rocks."
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