thehometree | 03 Amber | Downstream of the Boat

[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?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It makes sense, in a strange way. If there are places beyond Ryll, why stop at one? Why not many? But his ears lower, just a tiny amount. Why should her strange pattern be the common one? He starts thinking of the chairs, the beds, the tables, all inside the Tree. And all made for someone who walks on two legs...

"So what you're telling me," he says, between deep breaths as he pushes the rock along, "is that there are many Ry- many worlds, and I'm from the strange one?"

He isn't going to ask what Jo means by normal. It's obvious that it's all part of the thing she won't talk about, and Arj is used to Things We Do Not Discuss In Company.

"But no magic, hmm," he says, a little quieter now. The words "then how do you get anything done?" line up in waiting, but he knows the answer. The same way they're getting things done now. The same way he gets anything done. He settles for: "That sounds most... interesting."

Neither of them are going to get around to discussing what's each bothering them the most. Suits him.

It looks like it's going to be a while before that particular hatchet gets buried; Jo is too caught up in the trauma of having her life flipped over not to use every rare opportunity to abnormalize her experiences and try to berate them, without going into any context about the details, and 'normal' is not a word she realizes means very different things to everyone here, not on more than a surface level.

She gives him a look as she pauses and stretches her back, heel of her hands digging into the lower part of her back. "Interesting or fucking annoying?" she asks. A month and a bit ago and she would have laughed at the idea of magic being an improvement to life. Now that she's seen how much easier a time the various people around her are having, she's finding herself very bitter about her own lacks.

If only Arj would open up about his failings, then they could commiserate together. As it is, the conversation is straying dangerously close to those limits.

"It would be useful, wouldn't it?" He looks up at the "boulder" and down again at the rollers it's perched on. As much as it's easier than dragging the thing across the ground, he's seen first hand how much easier it could be. He takes Jo's cue and allows himself a long feline stretch, fanning his wings as he does.

"Hmmm. We seem to be close." Another blatant attempt at changing the subject, but Jo didn't seem to mind last time...

"Yep," she allowed, scratching the back of her head as her thoughts turned back to the task at hand. "I can' already taste fried fish... we should put this one out near the gap there, it ought to come up out of the water there."

03 Amber | Downstream of the Boat

What he really wants is a magic charismatic beast RP or two...

Pray for an 'everyone turns into animals' event and you'll get a four-footed Jo, Arj. 8)

bonus points if she's a bobcat?

Well she's not gonna be a cougar, that's for sure!