sixthiterationlogs | Slow Rider, Slow Rider, Move On a Little More

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Slow Rider, Slow Rider, Move On a Little More

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: 6I's Town Hall
WHEN: July 10th
OPEN TO: Everyone who wants in. There will be one subheader for welcoming back the group and one for the actual meeting
WARNINGS: Nothing so far; please add headers in the comment subjects if something does come up that could be problematic

The return is, when everything is said and done, uneventful. The group who went to explore the break in the canyon walks back into the village in the early afternoon, laden down with most of the supplies they'd brought with them and without any obvious injury. There's some scratches, a couple bruises, but whatever had happened to seal them away from the village for a week definitely didn't happen to them, and they're not buzzing with any news so world-shattering that everyone needs to be collected and reported to at once. There's enough time for the group to separate and grab showers, clean clothes, and something to eat, while the word passes from person to person that the explorers have returned and that there's going to be a meeting right after dinner for them to explain what they've found and answer questions.

At the appointed time, the five of them are there, looking less ragged, and ready to talk. They've brought a few things back with them to show the others in the village, but all in all there's just not a lot to show about the other side that's different - except for that one, giant thing. But the non-changes are going to be shocking enough for most people, and decisions have to be made about what to do with the information they have now.

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Jude doesn't recognize the man as the rangy hermit he'd seen on his way out of the fountain. Truthfully, the encounter is almost entirely gone from memory, a tense thing with rocks at the ready and paranoia crawling his skin that had built into a headache, strobed into a dance of shadows on the wall, cast by a sun that wouldn't set--and ultimately disappearing from his mind.

He's back in the hall, his injuries mending well enough and his strength returning with sleep on an actual bed and regular meals. There had been an actual sketching pad in the supplies strewn against the back wall, and no one had challenged him when he picked it up, or the set of colored pencils. A tired young man had watched him for a moment, then shrugged, telling him to at least put them to good use.

He doesn't know if sketches qualify, much as they're the point of the thing. It's a sturdy volume, one he might recreate with his paper project if he could find some twine and salvage the covers off the destroyed books. He'd have to make two, he thinks: one for Sam, and one for Credence.

The thought is almost stranger to him than what the man is talking about. Jude has taken a seat nearby, not entirely to listen--the same rocks, it's ridiculous, and falls squarely in the I don't want to think about it pile, but Jude's been drawn over by the man's clothing. It has a drape and color that he finds interesting, certainly more so than scrubs, and he likes the way it moves with the man's gesturing arms. The book open on his lap, he has more than one sketch to fill in, the man in pencil and his clothing in its respective colors, graceful lines implying the shift of the cloth.

Bodhi chatters enthusiastically as long as he has an audience, but that does tend to ebb pretty quickly. He's convinced of the significance of what he has to say and he, well, he can see there being a difference of opinion when it comes to how interesting it is. There's a lot to hear and only so many people here. He still did good.

In one of his breaks between people willing to hear about bits of opal, he realizes the man he annoyed weeks ago has been there for a while. He steps away from his carefully arrayed samples, a bit shy in his approach in spite of whatever good mood he's holding onto. He doesn't feel like he made a good impression last time. Kriff, he's not even sure he got the guy's name. Hopefully not, because he doesn't remember it. He comes around to the other side of the table, resisting the urge to peer at what the man's working on. No one likes to have their shoulders peaked over. Metaphorical shoulders. He gets an impression of color but keeps his eyes up. "Hello."

Having looked down to fill in a bit of red on a sash, Jude missed the shift of his subject. He doesn't quite jump for the revelation. He learned at a young age to hold that kind of thing in, just set his eyes straight and finish the breath he was on when someone came up on him like that.

Slow, deliberate, he sets the pad flat on the table. Turning his head, he looks up--getting a closer look at the man he's spent the last hour sketching, but still missing what about him might be familiar.

Maybe a vague resemblance to some far flung part of Parker's family, and even that's just categorizing on appearance. "Hi," he says back, just as deliberate, no more understanding of the attention. "Can I help you?" His hands rest on the table, colored pencils standing up stuck between fingers.

Bodhi handled the poor stranger with kid gloves on their first encounter, and Bodhi trying to be extra gentle is a sort of avatar of the concept of baby bunnies and scented candles. It didn't work all that well, and since the man seems to have settled in okay, he doesn't see the need to be so careful. The canyon's weirdness must have had time to sink in. In other words, he doesn't bite down on his native snark this time.

"Well, you've been there long enough. Should I go over the thing about the chalcedony again, because I'm not completely sure I got the crystallography right, but I could try making some charts." Being chipper about boring people is pretty serious backsass from Bodhi.

"I heard enough about rocks back home," Jude dismisses, head tilt and swivel so dogged on his one-shoulder shrug his neck should creak like an old swing. When he comes back, he's fixed on the pad, and the drawings, not the subject. "Stuff you're talking about makes more sense than the rest."

Holograms, simulations. Sam's explanation of a Skinner Box. The only science Jude can grasp is the kind he puts his hands on, one kind of rock becoming another, decomposing roadkill, germinating plants.

But it isn't why he's been sitting by the man's presentation so long. "Not big on public speaking," he adds; not big on private speaking either. "Maybe if you wanted a picture, you could describe it to me."

"A picture of the other canyon? Because the internal crystal structure of just about everything is, um, mostly just some lines." Despite the lingering snark, he's definitely interested. If nothing else, this chat seems to be going better than the last one. He never likes the idea of having annoyed someone and failed to correct it. Tossing the tail of his headscarf back over his shoulder (he's not used to wearing it again yet, and without the constant threat of windstorms there aren't nearly so many reminders from nature to keep it tight and tidy as there would have been at home), he moves to take a seat near Jude.

Sarcasm and snark were things Jude let roll over him like waves: there were high and low tides, where he'd push back a little, or let it roll in and out without a blink. The scarf is more interesting than crystal structures, and Jude finds a blank space on the page, this time taking what he's learned of the shape to start a kind of portrait, testing his memory and his hands instead of looking at the man while he sits.

He knows he's seen him before, he just can't think of where. This will help him remember for next time.

"I think the weirdest thing about it all," he says, just making basic shapes with the pencil and leaning into his other hand on the table, "is that you're saying it matches after all the quakes, but nothing over there's been tore up."

"That fits right in with the rest of the data, though. It all has to be artificial. If you could build... This," and he pauses to wave a hand he means to encompass, well, everything. "Why not build it so you can only move everything or nothing? That'd just be poor design." He's sure he's right, but he looks more uncertain than he feels from simply not knowing what to do with his eyes. He hates it when anyone watches him work on things that matter--who cares about the dishes, but even basic repairs, he likes quiet for--and he keeps his gaze away from the page. But it's been a pretty tiring day, socially speaking. He's not going to even attempt normal, conversational eye contact. He can't find anywhere better to affix his eyes.

Theories about the soil Jude can deal with: theories about the canyon at large, or why they're here, are things he avoids entirely. When one of those theories comes with a way to get home, he'll start doing the math. Until then, he just wants to get through the day without thinking so hard about it he flops over like a dead fish, or a puppet with all of its strings suddenly cut.

Thinking isn't the trigger, but he's always worse off when he lets the world stress him out.

That leaves him studying his new friend, glancing up to do more than check the shape of the eyes he's suggesting with shadows in the shape of the face. "It's you," he confirms, finding the dashing, dodging gaze an odd level of respectful, much more than he's used to for himself or his work. Flipping the pad under his hand, he neatly slips away from the subject and gives Bodhi reason to look. "I like your sash."

Bodhi didn't actually develop a coherent theory for what Jude might be working on, but had he taken a stab or two at guessing, he definitely wouldn't have happened on this. He's more nervous than flattered. Being noticed is always a bad thing. Scrutiny is dangerous. Too many years in the Imperial machine have left him unable to question those assumptions, unable, indeed, to recognize them as assumptions and not just basic rules for how you live. The rebels didn't exactly lay off on the judgement thing. The same instinct says not to show, and he's happy to catch at the sash. It's a prettier, newer one than he ever owned as a gawky teenager in second-hand robes chosen not to hint at old temple colors. His eyes turn to the trailing ends, woven with simple geometric patterns in the same blue as the tunic to break up the deep, cool red. "Home was always cold and sandstorms that would tear into bare skin weren't that rare. Flexible layers." He sounds a little agitated, but for the most part he's contained his reaction.

Jude can't read the guy well enough to know if the drawing is the rub, or being denied another go-around of his theories. Either way, he spins the book back around on the corner, head down, filling in the lines that denote the profile of one of the sketches. "You can have it when I'm done," he offers, in case there's some offense.

It's just--the kind of thing he wants to remember, or know is really there. It stands out, but not so much he has to blink and try to guess if anyone else can see it. "I just liked the patterns, looks better than most of what we all wear around here."

Bodhi realizes belatedly he's being a bit rude. He tries to sound more even and light, reaching for what's left of his overtaxed optimism. "I think people, well, when they get clothes from--It's things they're used to? Honestly, this is nicer than anything I ever, well, I grew up in hand-me-downs, but this is what I... would have been used to, if things had worked out very differently." And he'd been wiped out when the rest of Jedha was, as a real resident. Or long before that by bombings and revenge raids. Or safe because someone much better suited had taken Galen's mission. Ah, well.

"It looks good on you," Jude says, like he's agreeing with Bodhi's assessment, rather than embellishing it. He's been drawing people long enough to know there's a sense in how they dress. That they don't need the most expensive, best quality items to look good--just like themselves. Like the difference between pulling on his dad's old denim vest or the blazer he had to wear for his admissions interview. "I wouldn't know how to wear it."

As if he's been given some kind of permission, he looks back down at his work, expanding basic shapes with strokes of the pencil to create folds, features. It's the kind of grounding activity that lets him engage the bigger picture again.

"You were saying it makes sense, for one side to get shaken up and the other be untouched. But that's still weird for the samples to match, this side should have changed. Half a cave fell on me and Credence."

Bodhi chooses to simply not acknowledge something that verges on a compliment. He's not sure he's quite comfortable with being looked at closely enough to be in a picture, but he can't actually think of an objection. He'll just work on staying in the conversation like a functional person, which isn't so bad, given it's reasonably interesting. "That was you with him? I--" He stops himself saying he's glad Jude got stuck in a cave for a few days, which is what he'd imply by thanking him for being with Credence. "I'm sorry, you were in there for a long time." A little inane, but reasonably polite. He can only achieve so much at a time.

Looking up, Jude catches Bodhi's eyes, more startled by the regard than any kind of rudeness in it. He shakes his head to break the contact, focusing back on his work. That people have any reaction at all is due to Credence, he knows, and it's an odd feeling--strangers looking at him favorable for something he can't imagine not doing. Like he wouldn't dig himself out. Like he'd just leave Credence to rot.

"It was just a couple of days," he says, shrugging it off like there aren't still cuts healing on his palms. "From what I hear, we got out just after you left for the trip, we didn't even realize the sun had gone down again." That had been a moment unto itself, stumbling out into the dark and rain, reveling in it before hunger and weakness drove them back to civilization.

Information that clearly makes Bodhi more upset, not less. He has some experience with being stuck in a hole for a few days, and while he imagines it'd be better to be thrown in there by uncaring nature than a bunch of fellow sentient beings, he's not really interested in testing that particular theory. And he's still guilty about the whole thing, and not only because of Credence. There must have been a lot of people still badly off. He twists the end of his ponytail in his fingers, fidgeting in a relatively contained way. "That's... I was hoping, um, that everyone who was still, well, unaccounted for was--I just thought I'd be more useful on the trip, but, um, there should have been more active search parties. Our communications are so bad here, and..." There wouldn't really be anything to stop a worse disaster if someone got stuck and couldn't dig out.

"It's not like anyone knew where we were," Jude points out, looking up from the dark cover of lashes and brows to match whatever is in the man's voice to his face. When he looks back down, he picks up a darker pencil, adding lines to suggest the end of the ponytail over one shoulder. "Credence said something about the cave not even being there, last time he saw that part of the wall."

Jude doesn't like to acknowledge much about this place, but he isn't unaware of it. Someone was going to get stuck there, one of them just happened to be some kid the whole place wanted to look out for. "We handled it," he assures the man, pencil stilling against the page. "Where I'm from they teach us about cave-ins, I knew what to do. If I don't blame anyone for not getting us out, Credence sure as shit won't."

"Credence doesn't blame anybody for anything." Pot, meet kettle. He leaves his hair alone but only to fiddle with the ends of his sleeves instead, channeling restless self-recrimination as best he can. "It's not much of a metric. We didn't get a lot of practical--Cave-ins weren't much of a problem up on the plateau, and building collapses are different enough that... alright, I probably wouldn't have managed it, but someone should have."

"Given another day, they might have," Jude says with a shrug. Another day was probably all they could have managed--it was more luck than skill that the aftershock that slid the pile sent them out instead of back in. "Guess it wouldn't hurt to check the walls after the next one, if people are up for it." There are a lot of things that could have gone wrong, but like the canyon itself, he tries not to dwell on them. Shifting piles, worse injuries, panic.

"Credence did a good job, I thought he'd panic more. I don't get half the stuff people say about him."

"I... Wouldn't expect panic, no," Bodhi says, considering. He doesn't really know what people say about Credence (or, before now, that people said anything at all, given how quiet his friend generally seems). "He's smart. It's common sense stuff." And nobody's fault, aside from their unknowable captors'. That's always a sticking point for Bodhi, and he and Credence often seem to come to the same conclusions. He can fly through any weather conditions, but if someone's shooting at him, he falls apart. Things are much more upsetting when they have agency. "Search parties would be nice, but I'd be satisfied with just... making sure roll call happens, for a start."

Common sense being uncommon is a thing Jude's always put stock in, just watching the world grow and fuck up around him. He doesn't even practice his own across the board, making exceptions for Parker, his mother, his own escapist desires--but there is no escaping, here. Just getting out of the dark, sometimes. Just getting to the end of a day.

"Didn't they have that? There was a whole sign-in thing, when we got back. They'd been looking for Credence all over." Credence had even said something, before it all happened--that the crack in the wall was new. "I don't think you can call a thing broken just 'cause it didn't do what you wanted, one time."

Bodhi doesn't miss that Jude specifies people looking for Credence, but he decides not to approach that too closely. The man has a point, after all. He frowns, looking away half sheepishly. "I... I know we do our best, but I hate to think--It'd be so easy for someone to fall through the cracks, especially someone, um, new." Or just antisocial. Bodhi's pretty sure that Kira, Johanna, and maybe Baze would notice he was gone if it happened, but not much of anyone else. Even Credence is a little absent most times and has a lot of people to occupy him. Also, Johanna would think it was funny. "Maybe I'm just missing reasonable technological options. There'd be holos all over the neighborhood back home after a raid or an accident if someone was unaccounted for. And decent chances to scan for life signs."

"That's a little more than we had even where I'm from," he admits, trying to let the strangeness of it wash over him in a wave, then roll back out like a tide. It's weird. He can't change it. Move on. "We had sirens at least, but--someone set them off because they knew a cave had gone in, and that's about what it told us. People in mines makes sense, kids in caves--well that also makes sense, but you don't watch for it constantly."

None of it was perfect. None of it took them back in time and got the cave opened faster. They got unlucky, then they got lucky--that's how the place goes. "Here it's like, you need to aggressively get to know people, if you want to keep track of them all."

Bodhi figures that's the difference between a mining operation and a war zone, having lived in both (however briefly, in the former case), but that's some heavy conversation to bring in at the moment. Instead he snorts lightly, a wry smile creeping out of his uncertain frown. Because Jude's absolutely right, and that's at the root of a lot of his problems, immediate and otherwise. He's not really part of the place, doesn't have the energy or the ease that'd let him worm his way in properly. "Well, I'm karked," he says flatly, amused despite himself.

In the context, Jude can't tell if karked is some kind of future expletive, or the guy's name. It feels like he should know that--but he's forgotten so much of the last two years, a name with a face he only half-recognizes is small change.

At least if he's wrong, it's the kind of joke that can seem like it's done on purpose. "Hey Karked, I'm Jude." It's the kind of shit Charlie would say, just to make him roll his eyes, but rolling their eyes at bad jokes is better than talking about how one of them might die in a ditch with nobody knowing. Laying his pencil flat on the pad, he lets the sketches be done, and admits a bit of their purpose. "I'll at least keep you in mind," he promises, "next time something happens."

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