Quarantined in the new year

[Tempest]

listening to the exchange between the two shifting uneasily. vasily stopped moving and with an obvious effort and faced Alice well sitting down.

good to meet you, call me V. what brings ya to this place.

lou you got anymore of that tape i might have need of it again.

vasily fidgeted a pit to show lou a new hole in his pants well frowning. it was obvious that vasily does not communicate well or intelligently, and wont make eye contact for more then a second at a time.

[PoeticJustice]

Conversely, Alice makes a lot of eye contact. Her gaze lingers on Vasily, clearly studying him intently. When he speaks to her, it takes her a few seconds to respond, as if shaking herself out of a daze.

"Father Ashmore brought me here. I..." she frowned, as if struggling for the words to articulate her thoughts. She awkwardly slipped the right side of her jacket down, perhaps revealing the flash of of black metal at her hip. What was certainly revealed was the arm. At the top was a tattoo of a simple sun design. Under that was a scrawling script that moved down to her elbow. Beneath that was a candle with a circle around it. She pointed wordlessly at the candle, as if that explained everything, before shrugging the jacket back up.

[ronfiction]

Lou kicks his tool box under his table for Vasily and looks at what Alice show him. He raises an eye brow at her and then gives her a nod.

"You worship with the father?"

Lou asked and continued to look at the candle.

[PoeticJustice]

She shook her head reflexively to the question, shifting slightly in her chair. And then her brow furrowed further and she looked down, rubbing over the tattoo self-consciously. She was silent for a long few seconds before looking back to Lou, her eyes fixing on his face.

"... Not... exactly. I... do volunteer work. Father Ashmore is... my spiritual advisor," she said the words with a similar cadence to her earlier discomfort, as if she had memorized them but aren't sure that they are exactly right.

[ronfiction]

Lou decides to not press the woman and motions to the rest of his food.

"you sure you're not hungry?"

He asked and finishes his orange juice. For all her oddities, Alice was at least pleasant enough.

[Tempest]

vasily stops moving and sits extremely still raising his eyes to meet the gaze of alice.

you are broken like me if you are don't stare to deep. our pain is in the eyes. it may not be true yet but it will be.

then as abrupt as that vasily stared twitching again and reached for the toolbox and started struggling to rip the tape. then as he remembered something vasily light up happily.

hay lou I found this radio you think you can make it work? I can trade you some credit or stuff for ya to do it.

[PoeticJustice]

She met his gaze without flinching, eyes snapping to him. There was no fear as she held his gaze and he spoke, although her brow did furrow and she did frown. Her eyes narrowed and her shoulders moved backwards. She sat completely still, staring at him for a few minutes with narrowed gaze, as if trying to process that information.

"I am not in pain," she countered finally, before her attention turned to Lou and the food sitting in front of him. She absently bit her lip as she considered the offer. She hesitantly reached out a hand towards the plate to draw it towards her, unless she was stopped.

[ronfiction]

Lou did not interrupt the two as they spoke to each other. He tried to think of something to say but the two of them but decided to let them have at it. A lot of folks who have arrived lately had rough histories. Lou always counted his luck as bad but some of these new comers simply had hard lives. Vasily talked about living in tunnels and had patch work cloths, while Alice was seemingly skiddish and quiet as a part of something from before. Lou was starting to count himself as luck with spending time with these people.

He let Alice have whatever she wanted from the plate and pulled out a new letter that he had gotten at the holiday party and couldn't help but smirk at how rediculious it was. He looked up and saw both Vasily and Alice and thought about the two being a similar pair.

"What did you guys think of this?"

Lou asked holding up the news letter in an effort to change the subject.

[PoeticJustice]

She ate with the fervor of someone who had spent much of her life hungry, or having food taken away from her, quickly shoveling everything that was left into her mouth while she kept the plate very close to her chest, hunched over it. Her eyes flickered up when he pulled out the paper and she frowned, pausing to pull out an identical copy from her pocket. She unfolded it meticulously and then set it down. The word "late" had been scrawled in every open space -- between articles and alone the outside -- and several words were crossed out or circled.

"I am curious who is writing this," she admitted, studying it as she continued shoving food in her mouth. She seemed more animated momentarily, as she spoke. "It seems... silly and strange, but Ondreij said at least this one is mostly true." She pointed to the article about Whisper Hill being bombed.

"I want to know what this means..." she stabbed a finger against the cipher in the lower left hand corner. "I tried to help the people who were trying to figure it out, but then Father Ashmore came and I had to talk to him." She looked frustrated that it hadn't been figured out yet, frowning deeply as she stared at it.

[Owle Isohos]

There was a bird in Kelsey's tent, perched on the metal frame at the foot of her bunk. A sharp-eyed, thick-beaked grackle, its feathers shimmering in iridescent black. There was no reasonable way the critter could have gotten in, but there it was, sitting pretty as you please. Kelsey stared at it.

The bird stared back at her, unapologetic and yellow-eyed.

Sighing, Kelsey reached for her coat and hat, giving silent thanks she'd slept in her clothes. She didn't want to spend more time this close to the wild grackle than she had to, and the hat would mostly hide her mussed hair. Maybe she ought to apologize to the people who shared the dormitory room with her - the weirdness seemed to follow her around. At least this was one of its more benign manifestations.

The bird startled as she walked past it to the exit, then settled right back down onto the foot of her bunk. Kelsey left the door open as she left - maybe the creature would get some sense in its head and fly out once she was gone.

As she made her way towards breakfast, she spotted V, Lou, and the woman with intricate tattoos she'd met briefly at the holiday party. Kelsey veered towards the porch, waving in greeting as she approached the small group.

"Morning!" she said with a smile on her face. She self-consciously smoothed out the rumples in her slept-in clothing. "Mind if I join you?"