burnt_orangesky: (Hiding? Not me!)
burnt_orangesky ([personal profile] burnt_orangesky) wrote2010-01-17 10:48 am

{Twenty-three} &diams The Shades of darkness filled her life

[The words are shaky and a little sloppy, written rather hastily.]

Assistance would be greatly appreciated; I am lost in the Wilderness, currently in [small pause] some sort of swamp. It is quite eerie, but a little better than the areas with lava and fire.

It is not the least bit pleasant, especially with all these [long pause] I really don't like this place, it's decidedly creepy.

-Fred

Should Locket find her, or Rogue?

[identity profile] desig-survivor.livejournal.com 2010-01-17 11:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Depends. How clear is the air where you are? The wind keeps whipping the ash up and cutting visibility. If it's like that everywhere, we'll probably pass each other.

Quicklog?

[identity profile] desig-survivor.livejournal.com 2010-01-18 12:19 am (UTC)(link)
I think this will be easier if you hold position. He might jump away somewhere where the air's bad and you won't know where he is. This is a bad place for a pet to get lost.

I'm on my way.

[identity profile] desig-survivor.livejournal.com 2010-01-18 01:09 am (UTC)(link)
[[ooc: Sorry for lateness. ...Does Fred think Rogue is a woman?]]

Rogue was having an easier time of walking here, even with the ground now soft and squishing under his boots. During the sudden exodus from the Wilderness someone had dropped a scarf, and it was now around his neck - he'd used it to screen his nose and mouth from the airborne particles. The pilot had also brought a few meters of rope, coiled over his shoulder. Rogue was thoroughly dusted in ash, gray head to toe.

He saw a woman sitting with an animal in her lap and quickened his pace to get close enough to talk to her.

"You're -" he faltered, realizing that he hadn't gotten her name. "You're the one whose animal ran here?"

[identity profile] desig-survivor.livejournal.com 2010-01-18 01:55 am (UTC)(link)
[[Oh, okay. Rogue will probably never comment on a name being odd; Star Wars names are just too varied. And he's about five foot six inches, almost five foot seven.]]

"That's me. You wrote to me the other day ago, right? When I was asking about Two." Rogue eyed the dog a little warily - he didn't have much experience with domestic animals, and half expected it to either start talking or do what a wild animal would do if being held, i.e., bite and claw and run off. "I've got some cable if you want to tie a leash just in case he breaks free."

"Just a moment." He'd seen the lights on the water, and took a step closer to it. There was something under the surface.

Rogue paled under the ash when he saw them. Without a word he took the coil of rope from his shoulder, tied a loop into one end, and started to lower it towards the still surface of the water.

[identity profile] desig-survivor.livejournal.com 2010-01-18 02:46 am (UTC)(link)
[[The Star Wars EU has names like Mitth'raw'nuruodo, Isplourrdacartha Estillo, and Zephata'ru'tor. Bizarre names are awesome.]]

"Someone said they'd once heard from a Seven, and there was a Zero-Zero, but I didn't hear anything solid. Not yet."

"They do look dead," he said slowly, watching the slightest current stir strands of hair. "But they might be some species that breathes underwater and hibernates, or just sleeps very soundly." Almost too quietly to hear, he added, "And if they are dead, they deserve a proper burial."

The rope touched the surface of the water - and floated. He'd taken it out of some kind of sporting store before the Wilderness had shifted, having a vague idea about using it to climb, and it was too lightweight to sink down to where the bodies were.

Rogue took half a step towards the water, but stopped himself. He didn't want to go in. He really didn't. There was something unbelievably sinister about them. But just leaving them there - the dog's whine got higher, breaking him out of some kind of trance, and he shook his head. "Maybe I can get some people to help me take them out later. For now, we should get you two out of here."

[identity profile] desig-survivor.livejournal.com 2010-01-18 04:11 am (UTC)(link)
"I'll have to remember that."

"It's not sanitary to sink bodies in standing water," he protested, but weakly. "When they start rotting - all right, nomads might, but does that clothing look nomadic to y-" Rogue shook his head harder, and very deliberately turned away from the water's edge.

"Sorry. That's not important right now." One way or another, a few more hours underwater wasn't going to hurt them.

Trying to gauge the dog's size, he made a smaller loop in the other end of the rope, the dry end, and held it out to Fred, then turned southeast, the way he'd come. "Let's get going."

"I'm pretty sure all the particulates near the volcano can't be good for anyone's lungs," he said a few minutes later, as the terrain got drier and more rocky. "I should've remembered to get another scarf." Rogue unlooped his from around his neck and handed it over, then shed his jacket. As a breath mask, it wasn't as good as the scarf, but it was something.

[identity profile] desig-survivor.livejournal.com 2010-01-18 05:47 am (UTC)(link)
"Oh. I didn't notice the collar," Rogue said sheepishly, with a bit of a grin.

Just in general the walk was uneventful; in such hostile-seeming territory he was too occupied with noting that he was headed past all the same things and keeping an eye out for trouble to want to talk, and it seemed like Fred either felt the same, was occupied with her pet, or was put off by the change in his attitude. [I'm not godmodding am I?]

There was a heartstopping moment when he thought he saw something large and fast flying way up ahead, but when he strained his eyes he saw nothing through the haze but the now-visible tower, glowering malevolently at nothing specific. All in all, they got back without incident.

[if there are nazguls here, it was one of those. If there aren't, it was Valenth's blue-flamed dragon. Since he's Rogue, he'll think it was a ship.]

[identity profile] desig-survivor.livejournal.com 2010-01-18 01:30 pm (UTC)(link)
[[People seem to know what their homeworlds are.... so!]]

"I'm Corellian," he said with a distracted version of the typical flashy odds-matter-not smile, as if what that meant was self-evident. The smile wasn't visible - to his irritation, he got some ash in his teeth - but it could be heard in his voice.

Rogue was now straining his ears as well as his eyes, but there was no engine sound. If he couldn't hear the engines, then whoever was flying couldn't be close enough to see if he started waving his jacket around. That would be another reason to come back here later.

"And there it is," he said as the lift and the various medics came into view, relaxing his guard a little.

[[...Rogue, first you want to pull the evil strangly drowned ghosts out of the water, now you want to flag down a Nazgul. You're so not genre savvy.]]

[identity profile] desig-survivor.livejournal.com 2010-01-18 08:12 pm (UTC)(link)
[At some point he'll have to realize that no one here, with the possible exception of Handmaiden, will have any idea what Corellian means. ...Now I kind of want to have Rogue go drinking, knock down a huge amount of alcohol with hardly any effect, and explain it as "I'm Corellian".]

"What?" He actually stopped to look back at her. "That's absurd. Who said that? Let me guess - they're sheltered and from some backwater?"

Rogue frowned. "Actually, I think I'll see if I can get into temporary housing now and get this ash off. It looks like there are plenty of other people going looking. I might come back later, though." For the bodies. And to try and identify the ship, if it was a ship.

[identity profile] desig-survivor.livejournal.com 2010-01-18 10:36 pm (UTC)(link)
"Isolated colonies sometimes forget about the greater galaxy, but why these Earthians would actually think it's not possible to be nonhuman..." A little disgusted, he started walking again.

"I woke up covered in it, and it doesn't seem to brush off easily, so if it makes me sick, it makes me sick. But I think my skin can handle it - lungs are a bit more delicate," Rogue said, pausing to kick at a particular mound of ash and finding a shapeless canvas bag, right where he'd buried it. He hefted it up and turned to Fred.

"But I'm still going to turn in. There's no shortage of helping hands and, well, I'm hungry. See you around, I guess?"

[identity profile] desig-survivor.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 12:57 am (UTC)(link)
"Most of the people I've seen so far are human-shaped, but there were a few, I've seen them in passing, who were clearly not." Aggravated, he said, "What do the Earthians think of that?" Coming from a galaxy like his, it struck Rogue as a xenophobia issue - as if these people Fred mentioned knew full well that nonhumans were out there, but wanted to deny that they were every bit as intelligent and cultured as humanity.

"It seems likely." As they got into the elevator and the doors closed, Rogue pulled the scarf down from around his mouth and nose. "Is there somewhere I can take these clothes to get washed?"

[identity profile] desig-survivor.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 01:55 am (UTC)(link)
Rogue shrugged. "I saw one or two furred humanoids. It's possible that they weren't actually people - I wasn't close enough to hear if they could talk - and maybe the woman with green skin wasn't born like that. And I suppose a provincials who've never seen someone really different might have trouble wrapping their minds around that." He had to smile a little at the thought. How bizarre and lonely it would be to think that one's own species was all there was.

He had to laugh when the dog shook himself off. "I wish I could do that. So much faster than scrubbing."

"Thank you, I'll do that. Hopefully they'll take care of what's getting tracked around, too." The doors opened. With a sketchy salute - tapping his hand to his brow and flashing his palm - and a more earnest, visible showing of the flashy Corellian smile, Rogue left.

[End, I guess. They can remember that he gave her some rope later on, it's a good excuse to meet again.]