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sixthiterationlogs2017-06-05 01:06 pm
3ofswords) wrote in sixthiterationlogs2017-06-05 01:06 pm
[open] i'm caught in the cold; i'm caught in the hot
WHO: Kira Akiyama
WHERE: House 39; Riverbank, southeast bend
WHEN: June 5
OPEN TO: Credence + 2 at the house; 2 more at the river
WARNINGS: Edited as needed
STATUS: Open
There’s a calm after the hail storms that’s gotten under Kira’s skin, and a wave of heat strong enough to bake him into it. Trying to catch the sunrise early enough to do anything comfortably in the fields has proven more and more difficult--time hard to measure with the sun slipping the wrong way across horizons that it never seems to fully sink below. He’s had a lot of days dodging it in the house or in the trees, a lot of sleepless nights that don’t get darker than twilight, and even the animals are starting to grow listless and fatigued, like they don’t know the new rhythm of this world either.
Still, as far as disruptions go, this one is creeping, almost peaceful. The quiet of a world without his gifts is exacerbated by the literal quiet of people trying to survive the heat. Finding Bodhi asleep in disparate parts of the house and its surrounding area isn’t a new development, but Kira thinks he’s not the only one coping in a series of naps.
All places are about their people, he’d told Sonny and Veronica both, casual as only the deepest seated beliefs could be. With Sonny he hadn’t meant to be more than glib; with Veronica it had been something closer to advice. It was the kind of belief to draw a map with, which route he planned to maintain toward sanity.
Not always the easiest route, the way people keep disappearing on them. Ty, Ren, Casey, now Jyn--Kira gives Tim a month before he’s dead or gone, and he gives Sonny and Veronica two and three respectively, unable to determine if the rule is emotional support or his willingness to fucking sleep with them. Considering who he still has left, considering the headache he’s already getting up with after another fitful few hours on the bed, he’s leaning toward the latter.
People are just going to keep leaving, and here he will remain, wanting to claw out of his heat-damp skin and climb to the top of a canyon wall just to throw himself off. Maybe this is what happens when you sidestep fate. Maybe you get to survive, but you don’t get to live.
at the house
Kira feeds the animals before he gets to work, bringing all of them out to the porch to sort through his materials. Aurora flops in her corner with one bowl of water, and Hoshi drags himself between the sun and another, until enough water has evaporated and the heat is enough that he nests himself down into the cool ceramic. It’s already hot--the sun doesn’t stay down long enough for it to cool one day to the next--but there’s as much shade on the porch as there is in the house, and what breeze comes through the canyon can actually be felt.
He settles his materials into a few piles: pulled and reclaimed shingles, some decidedly not from his own roof; stripped siding, old boards, and most important--nails. He’d settled into a long and silent fight with Casey over the ransacking of Ren’s old house, a fight Casey had won with his disappearance, leaving Kira to finish what he’d started. Leaving Kira with an understanding of the young man he’d only thought to have in his presence--when the world leaves you alone, sentimentality isn’t an option. Ren and Jyn had known that as well, though Jyn had seemed as unable to fully shake it as Kira is.
His hands are already blistered and he’s gone inside for more water before he’s even ready to head for the roof. He’d stripped more nails from the boards with a hammer from the cache at the inn, used his knife to hold them at the heads and hammer them closer to straight. It’s too hot for the work he means to do, but he can’t do it in the few hours of dark they’re getting, and he doesn’t know when the next freak storm is going to tear through. He’s not going to wait on someone to come along and do it for him--catch him fish, bring him wood; carry him back to the inn, take him away from the village when he’s sunk too deep in other people’s problems to see his own.
He’s not coming back. None of them are, and it’s time to stop needing them to.
Working against the heat, Kira carries his materials up to the attic in shifts, doing his best to splash water on his face and hydrate between. The only reason the space hasn’t become a very big, triangular oven is the ventilation of some very noticeable holes, sunlight streaming through to the rafters. It takes some trial and error to brace the boards on the sloping roof with his shoulder, the pockets of his overalls full of old nails, and hammer them into place, but he doesn’t think he’s doing too bad a job, balancing on the beams and boarding up the holes from the inside.
The only problem is how much hotter it gets as the sun rises, and the holes close. By the time he’s sitting half-out the small window, dragging his shingles out and flipping them onto the roof for the last steps, his arms are shaking and it’s more of a struggle than ever to catch his breath. When he tries to pull himself further out to follow the shingles up onto the roof, he wobbles enough to rethink finishing the project today. Instead, he slides his legs out to hang himself down, using the last of his strength to lower himself clumsily back to the porch.
Once there, he slides down on the steps, shoulder against the support beam, and keeps sliding. Down onto his side, then rolled onto his back, back on the porch and legs sprawled on the steps. At his far-flung hand, Hoshi lifts his head and sets to cawing in his small, croaking voice. Aurora shuffles up and he can feel her tongue scraping the side of his head as the bright world dims to black.
at the river
The sun has slipped close enough to the canyon walls that the shadows have lengthened, the world dimmed enough beneath the trees that Kira chances a walk. He’s still shaky, but his brush with heat sickness hasn’t eased his restlessness, his need to prove himself more than the soft civilian who gets pneumonia in a snowstorm and heat stroke in a drought, isn’t good for defending himself from even the fucking weather.
If anyone sees fit to chide him, at least he can say he stayed by plenty of water. Not that there’s as much to go around: the old edge of the river is cracked earth and smooth, exposed pebbles. It stinks, too--the fish left on the high banks aren’t very big, but they’ve been out long enough to go to rot.
Hoshi puts up enough fuss over the exposed treasures glinting under the faded light that Kira sets him down from his perch on his shoulder. His wing seems to have healed, and he has most of his feathers--but he still holds it stiff, and Kira isn’t sure it healed right. He might prove more than a quick rescue and release, no one to teach him to fly, not enough of the right feathers yet to start trying. The little bird picks at the stones, even a couple silver-scaled minnows, but eventually he finds something that captures Kira’s attention as well.
“What have you got there,” he asks, crouching gingerly at the new edge of the water, scooping the little crow back before even he can be swept away in its diminished currents. Moving aside the rest of the pebbles with his own hand, he picks up a dull metal arrowhead, antiquated in shape but so clean, he wonders if it came from the blacksmith up-stream.
[Kira has fainted from heat-sickness in the first prompt, but your character is welcome to come along at any point after he goes out on his porch and interrupt or help.]
WHERE: House 39; Riverbank, southeast bend
WHEN: June 5
OPEN TO: Credence + 2 at the house; 2 more at the river
WARNINGS: Edited as needed
STATUS: Open
There’s a calm after the hail storms that’s gotten under Kira’s skin, and a wave of heat strong enough to bake him into it. Trying to catch the sunrise early enough to do anything comfortably in the fields has proven more and more difficult--time hard to measure with the sun slipping the wrong way across horizons that it never seems to fully sink below. He’s had a lot of days dodging it in the house or in the trees, a lot of sleepless nights that don’t get darker than twilight, and even the animals are starting to grow listless and fatigued, like they don’t know the new rhythm of this world either.
Still, as far as disruptions go, this one is creeping, almost peaceful. The quiet of a world without his gifts is exacerbated by the literal quiet of people trying to survive the heat. Finding Bodhi asleep in disparate parts of the house and its surrounding area isn’t a new development, but Kira thinks he’s not the only one coping in a series of naps.
All places are about their people, he’d told Sonny and Veronica both, casual as only the deepest seated beliefs could be. With Sonny he hadn’t meant to be more than glib; with Veronica it had been something closer to advice. It was the kind of belief to draw a map with, which route he planned to maintain toward sanity.
Not always the easiest route, the way people keep disappearing on them. Ty, Ren, Casey, now Jyn--Kira gives Tim a month before he’s dead or gone, and he gives Sonny and Veronica two and three respectively, unable to determine if the rule is emotional support or his willingness to fucking sleep with them. Considering who he still has left, considering the headache he’s already getting up with after another fitful few hours on the bed, he’s leaning toward the latter.
People are just going to keep leaving, and here he will remain, wanting to claw out of his heat-damp skin and climb to the top of a canyon wall just to throw himself off. Maybe this is what happens when you sidestep fate. Maybe you get to survive, but you don’t get to live.
at the house
Kira feeds the animals before he gets to work, bringing all of them out to the porch to sort through his materials. Aurora flops in her corner with one bowl of water, and Hoshi drags himself between the sun and another, until enough water has evaporated and the heat is enough that he nests himself down into the cool ceramic. It’s already hot--the sun doesn’t stay down long enough for it to cool one day to the next--but there’s as much shade on the porch as there is in the house, and what breeze comes through the canyon can actually be felt.
He settles his materials into a few piles: pulled and reclaimed shingles, some decidedly not from his own roof; stripped siding, old boards, and most important--nails. He’d settled into a long and silent fight with Casey over the ransacking of Ren’s old house, a fight Casey had won with his disappearance, leaving Kira to finish what he’d started. Leaving Kira with an understanding of the young man he’d only thought to have in his presence--when the world leaves you alone, sentimentality isn’t an option. Ren and Jyn had known that as well, though Jyn had seemed as unable to fully shake it as Kira is.
His hands are already blistered and he’s gone inside for more water before he’s even ready to head for the roof. He’d stripped more nails from the boards with a hammer from the cache at the inn, used his knife to hold them at the heads and hammer them closer to straight. It’s too hot for the work he means to do, but he can’t do it in the few hours of dark they’re getting, and he doesn’t know when the next freak storm is going to tear through. He’s not going to wait on someone to come along and do it for him--catch him fish, bring him wood; carry him back to the inn, take him away from the village when he’s sunk too deep in other people’s problems to see his own.
He’s not coming back. None of them are, and it’s time to stop needing them to.
Working against the heat, Kira carries his materials up to the attic in shifts, doing his best to splash water on his face and hydrate between. The only reason the space hasn’t become a very big, triangular oven is the ventilation of some very noticeable holes, sunlight streaming through to the rafters. It takes some trial and error to brace the boards on the sloping roof with his shoulder, the pockets of his overalls full of old nails, and hammer them into place, but he doesn’t think he’s doing too bad a job, balancing on the beams and boarding up the holes from the inside.
The only problem is how much hotter it gets as the sun rises, and the holes close. By the time he’s sitting half-out the small window, dragging his shingles out and flipping them onto the roof for the last steps, his arms are shaking and it’s more of a struggle than ever to catch his breath. When he tries to pull himself further out to follow the shingles up onto the roof, he wobbles enough to rethink finishing the project today. Instead, he slides his legs out to hang himself down, using the last of his strength to lower himself clumsily back to the porch.
Once there, he slides down on the steps, shoulder against the support beam, and keeps sliding. Down onto his side, then rolled onto his back, back on the porch and legs sprawled on the steps. At his far-flung hand, Hoshi lifts his head and sets to cawing in his small, croaking voice. Aurora shuffles up and he can feel her tongue scraping the side of his head as the bright world dims to black.
at the river
The sun has slipped close enough to the canyon walls that the shadows have lengthened, the world dimmed enough beneath the trees that Kira chances a walk. He’s still shaky, but his brush with heat sickness hasn’t eased his restlessness, his need to prove himself more than the soft civilian who gets pneumonia in a snowstorm and heat stroke in a drought, isn’t good for defending himself from even the fucking weather.
If anyone sees fit to chide him, at least he can say he stayed by plenty of water. Not that there’s as much to go around: the old edge of the river is cracked earth and smooth, exposed pebbles. It stinks, too--the fish left on the high banks aren’t very big, but they’ve been out long enough to go to rot.
Hoshi puts up enough fuss over the exposed treasures glinting under the faded light that Kira sets him down from his perch on his shoulder. His wing seems to have healed, and he has most of his feathers--but he still holds it stiff, and Kira isn’t sure it healed right. He might prove more than a quick rescue and release, no one to teach him to fly, not enough of the right feathers yet to start trying. The little bird picks at the stones, even a couple silver-scaled minnows, but eventually he finds something that captures Kira’s attention as well.
“What have you got there,” he asks, crouching gingerly at the new edge of the water, scooping the little crow back before even he can be swept away in its diminished currents. Moving aside the rest of the pebbles with his own hand, he picks up a dull metal arrowhead, antiquated in shape but so clean, he wonders if it came from the blacksmith up-stream.
[Kira has fainted from heat-sickness in the first prompt, but your character is welcome to come along at any point after he goes out on his porch and interrupt or help.]
no subject
"That is weird, isn't it? I never know what to say to people. You never know what'll make sense to them." Bodhi flies a starship, which perhaps puts him on the opposite side of the bell curve from someone who'd have a good sense of what to do with an arrowhead.
He turns up another one, lodged mostly underneath an irregular flat stone that looks relatively recently broken, in his amateur estimation. There, he contributed.
no subject
But he's fallen in with more than one of Bodhi's ilk, fallen a little further in with a boy from the twenties, a boy from an ash-choked future--and whatever the fuck Izzy is, talking about vampire drugs and guardian angels. "I just kind of wing it," he admits, hoping that much is obvious in all the times he's interacted with Bodhi. "Just be yourself until something sticks, there are worse things in his canyon than hearing about space travel."
Every once in awhile, there's common ground in the form of tea or knowing nothing about arrowheads.
no subject
Though he follows a slightly different path in his answer. "I don't know, you've met me, how's that going to work?" He's never a very good judge of when making fun of himself is appropriate or not, especially given he means it every time. "But you're right, more worried about what this rotational anomaly is about."
no subject
Even seeing how far science has come in his own world, to breed disease and unleash it, to recreate the past out of lasers and lights and footage from everything between security cameras and Snapchat stories. "He said if the planet were really rotating the other way, the place would have torn itself apart and killed us all. He thinks we're living in a simulation, that we're not even really here."
It is the one thing he's heard that explains everything. Even the existence and loss of their gifts--just strip them out of the code, and they cease to be. What he can't imagine, what he can't wrap his head around, is how someone codes a thing like empathy into existence any more than the weight of an arrowhead in the hand.
no subject
no subject
No, he's too practical to turn his nose up at bronze age weapons or tools: at least they'd have more of them to go around. "I guess I like that idea better than being in The Matrix."
Right, talking nonsense: "We have a movie at home about robots putting people in tubes and projecting a false reality to keep them from waking up." It's a little too close an image to what he'd described to Sonny--bleeding out on meathooks for someone else's gain.
no subject
But he's not going to make Kira talk about entertainment options. "I don't know--How would we ever know if it was some kind of... I mean, if it is just a contained habitat, at least someone might find an edge someday."
no subject
Either subject is better than hey, which patch of woods is your favorite to have private breakdowns in, points of intersection that they really don't discuss.
"It seems like it contains itself," Kira points out, not sure which theory that swings in favor of. "When I found that crack in the wall, those fireflies chased me out. Other people say they've driven them off the walls, or birds, or the rocks crack under their hands." He's been meaning to make or supply another try at that, with the climbing equipment he'd willed into existence and pillaged from the inn stores. At least with the ropes and pitons, there's less risk of actually falling when things go wrong.
no subject
no subject
As he told Mark, though--science has never really been his thing. He understands basic concepts, can grasp something explained in language he follows, but the big concepts, or the rules: he's as lost as Bodhi is with arrowheads in foreign metals.
"We don't need half the gifts they give us, and if the point was to contain us and keep us placated--well, we wouldn't have earthquakes and hail storms. If containment was the point, just make it paradise."
no subject