03 Amber | Downstream of the Boat

[hairsay]

[For once this lanky young woman does not look like she's trying to win a staring contest with a cockatrice when she activates her amber slice. She does look sweaty and tired, but maybe that's actually helping. Behind her the mist is close, a towering wall, but the chuckle of the stream gives away her location before she can even open her mouth.]

Hey, any of you happen to be strong and willing to lend a hand? Me and Evan, [And indeed, the gawky redhead struggling to roll and heft rocks behind her happens to be in the frame as she talks,] are putting together a fish trap. I don't know about any of you but the thought of real meat that we don't have to bargain for with stone doubloons is so tempting we've been building this thing for the last couple of weeks straight.

It could use refining.

[She swings the slice around to reveal a very crude weir along one side of the stream composed entirely of raised pebbles and smooth rocks; it doesn't block the stream because Jo has noted the boat at dock just upstream of her location, but she's making a fair play at funnelling any minnows into it.]

Once we're done we just need some bait and some lucky catches. I never learned spear fishing but I'll bet some of you super freaks has a leg up on that. Come on down, huh?

Comments

[hairsay]

Seriously?!

[Jolene doesn't know what to make of that, at least not coming from a young girl. To be fair, when she was ten she was getting into fist-fights and playing video games, so her experience is severely curtailed by her own background.]

Isn't a lance the sort of thing you throw from a horse or something? How does that work?

[2wei]

Yeah. [ She just nods as if it were an everyday occurrence. ]

Um, well, you don't have to throw it. I usually only need to throw the lance if I want to activate its Noble Phantasm. But I don't really want to, because it can kind of... kill someone.

[hairsay]

[Jo's jaw slackens for a moment, and then she gets a particularly crafty look, Cheshire almost.]

I'm sure it's all pretty fucking terrible. You have a lot of danger play-times with the other kids around here?

[She's terrible and condescending, god.]

[2wei]

I don't play around with my powers, if that's what you're asking.

[hairsay]

[Jolene notes the girl's veiled vitriol and, considering her options, raises a hand in peace. She shouldn't be treating kids like shit, and given everything else she's seen around here, she has absolutely no reason to doubt that Ilya's got any power she mentions. Besides, she has a talking ruby rod; that's got to count for something.]

I'm just... where I come from, talk like that's mostly about playing. You yell 'bang' and someone pretends to fall down dead. I'm not used to kids like you doing... having the sort of stuff you do. It... I just guess that it weirds me out?

[2wei]

Well... I've never done anything like that. [ She gives a wide shrug of her shoulders. ]

But it's not like I've been like this my whole time, either. But now that I have these powers, I have to use them to help others.

[hairsay]

[Now that sounds like some Spider Man grade bullshit right there. Jo's caught offguard, staring at Ilya with something between despair and horror.]

You never play?! Come on, you don't have to have all that weight on your shoulders, you're just a girl, you should be able to have fun!

[2wei]

T-That's not what I meant. I meant that I don't really play... like how you explained it.

[hairsay]

Well... but...

Right, I guess you probably go for dolls and dresses.

I don't know what to think of you and the other kids around here. Half of what you talk about doesn't seem possible. I get to thinking it's one big cloud of 'not real'.

[2wei]

Not really, but...

[ Illya's group of friends don't talk about clothing or dolls that much. They're all weird. ]

Well, seeing is believing, isn't it?

[hairsay]

What do you mean by that?