wastewaifs

[wastewaifs]

going to be scrapping this sideblog soon -- dragon and francis can now be found at @escapeintonight!

[wastewaifs]

putting this blog on a mini hiatus but i'm breaking my vows and offering these two for disco rp if anyone's down!!

[wastewaifs]

"We would've tried to scare it away. I don't know if you can kill them, but they get scared easily, y'know. We would've made a lot of noise, or thrown things, and if that didn't work," she indicates the redhead, "they smell things really well, so he would've fa--"

"Fought it!" Francis interjects. He summons his nerve when Dragon's head whips around and she scrunches her face up at him. "Fought it. Together. Right?"

Dragon rolls her eyes and turns back to the stranger.

"How did you get away from it?"

Because like it or not, they can both sense Callisto's otherness. It's as plainly noticeable as the stink rolling off of Francis -- or it is if you know what you're looking for.

Callisto peers at him curiously. She did not think she'd been that funny.

(She does care about her shorts, by the way. Callisto doesn't know how to sew).

"I'm okay. Skinned my knee, but that wasn't cos of that." No, that had happened pre-Goner and been forgotten about - but now that the immediate danger had passed, the throbbing was making itself known again. "What were you gonna do if it hadn't left?"

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"Uhhhhhh." No. Not at all. But that'd be salt in the wound, wouldn't it? Francis smiles sympathetically. "Sure did."

Dragon's slowly pacing around the pair, dragging her stick behind her so there's an imprint in the sand. From above, it looks as though Francis and the stranger are sitting inside a pentagram. She notes the bag, and its meagre (but shiny) inventory.

"You didn't ask permission to camp here."

"Dragon!" Have a heart, that tone pleads.

"Well they didn't! They just showed up and started yelling and stuff."

"What the helllllllll," Alex complains, groggy and achey and Too Fucking Spoiled for this kind of treatment.

At the observation that there's dirt on them, Alex swats wildly at their face.

"Did I get it?"

They focus their attention on the boy—the kinder of the pair, that much is already apparent.

[wastewaifs]

kid solidarity with dragon all the way. you can be the biggest shit ever and she'll still have your back. if you're visibly 18+ you're dead to her. if you're visibly 18+ and act like a kid she'll pity you.

[wastewaifs]

Laughter, shy but goodnatured, spills from the boy. He must avert these eyes, now.

She takes another step forward, trying to keep her interest casual by stuffing her hands inside the pockets of her shorts. (Which she sewed in herself, by the way. If you even care.)

"Are you hurt? Did it get you?"

"Nice to see your eyes work."

The retort is a little haughty, the way that twelve-year-olds are wont to be, but ultimately without heat.

It's mostly embarrassment, anyway. She'd run away from an argument with her parents and found trouble - and now there was a pair, about her age, blinking at her with big owlish eyes.

In truth, she didn't really know how she'd gotten out of the situation, aside from the way she'd wanted to not be noticed by the Goner anymore - and then she hadn't been. A slight sidestep from her usual gift, but she's thankful for it.

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this verse.

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I don't.

This is surprisingly reassuring to the boy -- that this other kid hasn't tuned into their brainwaves, and taken Francis' spot -- and having been reassured, he can now understand. He nods agreeably, though there's one thing he must make clear.

"I got to get back to her soon as I can."

If only to fill up this newfound, profound emptiness. Half of him is now in the shade, it feels like, and not the kind that's cooling and wanted. He slowly turns in a circle, trying to get some idea of his bearings.

"Maybe if we got up high--" Because desert though it may be, he knows these aren't his dunes, the same way a mother sheep knows which lamb is hers in a herd of hundreds. "Could try and see--"

francis's question pulls a slower exhale forth from mutt, left thumb loosely hooking into where his backpack's strap loops at the tightening buckle. "i don't."

his shoulder blades shift minutely. he sees no rhyme or reason why he should lie to the boy, whereas someone else might have soothed him with false confidence. "but sitting still isn't going to get you to her any faster."

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Dragon's knife halts mid-stroke. She seems to see Dingo for the very first time. There might be something unnerving about the stern focus of her gaze if it were not counteracted by the youthfulness of her face; the uncreased skin, the pearly-pinkness that touches her cheeks.

"We had least one wet season since," Francis recounts, brows puckered as he tries his hardest to remember.

"We get enough," she answers evenly. "We're the only ones who live out this way. Nobody else ever tried it before us, I don't think."

The boy beams proudly at this.

"And most of the time they've been walking through as many sundowns as sunhighs -- that's why I don't listen to half of what they say," she directs this remark to Francis. "Because they don't even know what they're saying."

"Some do," he mumbles. He wants to believe in Big Water.

She hefts a sigh. "I don't mind if they need help," she tells Dingo. "Lots of the time they're too sick to cooperate, so I don't expect that. But I don't like it when they think they're the only ones who've ever needed help."

Hmm. Interesting, but doesn't give Dingo a lot more to go on. It does illustrate a bit more of the dynamic between the pair in front of her.

"Would you have liked him more if he was a better patient? If he were more cooperative?"

This question was directed at Dragon, though it really didn't matter which of them answered it. Idly, Dingo wondered if the hole in Eyepatch's head was self-inflicted, but she wouldn't dare ask the younger two.

"How long ago was this?" And then, "Do you two get a lot of Wanderers?"

Is that safe? Dingo couldn't imagine her own younger siblings being out here on their own, even if she herself was only a handful of years older when she left home.

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Any attention is too much. She knows eyes will be trained on them, still -- this city has spies in every corner. The girl tucks the guide tightly underneath her arm and gives a short, jerky nod.

"Once we get out of here. They've seen, so we gotta be quick. Don't put your knife away."

Scanning the rows of ramshackle booths and stands, trying to pay no heed to the panicked thumping within her ribcage...

"That way," she advises in a low voice; she indicates a throng of shoppers that they might be able to use as cover. "I'm sure there's a path behind there. It ain't the way we came in, but it doesn't matter. Come on!"

the only response deigned to grateful response was a cutting sidelong glance, though not entirely disapproving—more bewildered, than anything else. it itches and scrapes like roughspun.

mutt's tongue chases the inner curve of his teeth, teeth that then chew at the inside of his cheek. slowly, he feels himself nod. figures, rare as it might seem, arguing wouldn't be worth the trouble. he's not used to people saying nice things about him. especially something so cleanly-cut as such.

his fingers knot together, rubbing restlessly at his palms, hard enough to ache at the bones underneath. "mind if i take a look?" his chin jerks in the vague direction of her book. anything he can get his hands on, he'll read.

[wastewaifs]

Dragon gets to poke them one last time, seconds after they've asked their question and are awaiting an answer, as a treat.

"We're still deciding," she says impishly.

"Dirt on you. On your forehead." He's got dirt everywhere. "Right here." In demonstrating on himself, he spreads it around.

"Ow!' Alex Haven whines. "Stop it, stop it." They swat with their arms fruitlessly. They're not very in shape, and their arms are more like noodles than anything formidable.

Alex Haven brought only the essentials. If anything, I reckon, they will be able to make a very flimsy but very beautiful and shiny tent.

"I don't look like shit!" Alex sits up abruptly. "Why would you say that? Are you going to help?"

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"You're alive," Dragon marvels.

"And you're a girl!" Francis squeaks. (Earning a gentle rolling-of-the-eyes from his companion.)

They didn't think she would be a girl -- nor would she be untouched by the Goner, who must've been attracted to some scent the stranger carried -- from where they had noticed the commotion.

(They had been on their way to help her. Promise!)

[wastewaifs]

me and you, in every lifetime.

[wastewaifs]

They're awake, she’s sure of that -- but this does not stop Dragon from poking at their face with the least pointy-end of her stick.

Francis is hovering over her shoulder, attention divided between making sure that she’ll have his assistance should the visitor wake up with a temper, and nosing around at their stuff. There are a couple of shiny things he hasn’t ever seen before, and he's seen a lot of shiny things in his thirteen or so years.

She grimaces. “They look like shit.”

[wastewaifs]

@soulmissed said: it's okay. it's just me.

Call it muscle memory from his days as a sentry. Crisis averted, an easy smile makes itself at home on a face made even paler by moonlight.

"Can't sleep neither?"

[wastewaifs]

Not stupid enough to forget that water is never to be wasted, Francis pisses it out then collects his small inventory: his half-empty plazteck bottle that hangs by his hip, a sack full of thin slivers of dried meat, and another full of leaves, that can be used for wiping or perhaps for packing wounds. It's a light load -- he hadn't intended on losing his way.

Does anyone?

Feebly, he asks, "How can you know where Dragon is and I don't?"

most people are.

sand grits under his nails. one grain pops underneath his teeth as his jaw clench-pulses at what is, to him, a stupid question. why else would he be helping?

"put that fire out. pack up your things."

[wastewaifs]

Francis is unperturbed by the rejection -- having lived a life full of nothing but it. He accepts this answer without any further prodding; the only action he takes is to fart noisily. Good thing she turned her nose up.

Dragon makes a face behind Olivia's back and stomps off toward the base of their hill, little feet thudding rhythmically against layer upon layer of packed earth.

A moth hovers past Olivia's face, besotted by the open flame.

"She doesn't like grown-ups," Francis explains needlessly. "She has a word for them, but I can't remember. It's a big word to spell. I can only really spell the smaller words." A beat. "Can you spell?"

"How come," the a-dult, here, says haughtily, "Is none of your business."

She's so busy turning her nose up that she doesn't seem to notice the damn near telepathic communication between Dragon and Francis.

Until Dragon rises. Olivia cranes her head up, squinting even though it's dark. Maybe it's the smoke from the fire.

"Hey. What's that supposed to mean, anyways?" she asks, somewhat cautious—even though, again, she is the a-dult, here.