sixthiterationlogs | 001 → all these things that i have done [open]

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001 → all these things that i have done [open]

WHO: Oliver Queen
WHERE: fountain, 6I woods, border of 6I village
WHEN: 13 August - 16 August
OPEN TO: All (one locked starter)
WARNINGS: TBD

➡ fountain (locked to Felicity)

Oliver doesn't expect the water. He's made his way onto a boat to try and save William from Chase, to try and make a play to save someone from a madman who doesn't play by the rules and he hopes that his team can figure out a way to survive on their own. They're savvy about this stuff now and if the island is rigged to blow, there's nobody better than Team Arrow to figure out how to defuse the situation both figuratively and literally. Oliver puts his faith in that because, otherwise, he's had to make one selfish choice to prevent the consequences of another and he doesn't like being put in that position.

He's not the same man he was ten years ago. He's not the same man he was five years ago. He's someone who weighs consequences, who knows that a final solution has lasting effects and that he cannot be judge, jury and executioner in all instances. He has to put his faith in the law and the blind scales of justice; he's different now than he used to be. He doesn't have to bear it all alone.

Still, he doesn't expect the water. He'd been int he boat moments before, making a play to save his son over everyone else and now he's in water and being pushed upward somehow. Oliver rides the swell, too out of it to really comprehend how he'd gotten from the boat to overboard and when he opens his eyes, he's shocked not to feel the salt of the ocean stinging them. Is that possible? None of this seems possible or likely.

When he breaks free, it takes him a few seconds to get his bearings. There's a fountain, a little park. He pushes himself up and over the lip of the fountain and collapses onto the ground, coughing up the last dredges of water burning his lungs.

This is not Lian Yu.

➡ woods

As soon as he gets some semblance of self, Oliver heads for cover. If this is Lian Yu or another prison like it, he doesn't want to see other people until he knows exactly what to expect. He's not armed and he only has his brain and his fists to get him out of any trouble. While that's more than sufficient in most situations, he doesn't want to force an encounter if he doesn't have to. He wants to spend some time in the woods, wants to see the comings and goings, and then he wants to make a plan.

He'd bolted from the fountain to the woods almost immediately and luckily they're thick enough to provide good cover. He's found enough to eat by foraging but that's going to run out soon and without something to hunt with or clean with, he's not going to survive for long. He needs food, eventually, but he has a little time before he has to start making decisions on his belly.

When he hears a rustling in the woods beside him, he stops short and takes cover behind a tree, trying to see who or what it is. He's not exposing himself unless he has to; he's going to take any measures necessary to keep himself safe.

➡ outskirts of village

After three days, his curiosity gets the better of him and he draws up closer to the buildings that serve as some sort of town center. Oliver has watched people come and go long enough to realize that this isn't a prison in the traditional sense. If it's a prison camp, that's one thing, but there's no shackles from what he can see and people can travel freely. There's nothing inherently dangerous, either, from what he's seen and he's hungry enough and desperate enough to draw close to the village and try to decide if he wants to join their society.

Who is the leader? Who are they loyal to? Is this another one of Adrian Chase's tricks? Oliver doesn't know. He can only trust in himself, for now, and anyone he knows from home. There's nothing else he can trust until he's vetted it with his own eyes and for now, he's going to be cautious. He doesn't want to reveal too much of himself or his skill - that's a great way to get a target on his head. Still, he steps out into the village and greets the first person he sees, tries to pretend like he hasn't been there hiding in the woods for three days.

It's a step.

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Aurora knows every, single face in this village. Whether this ends up having any purpose beyond a sense of civic duty remains to be seen, but taking stock of everything, including people, had been one of the first things she'd done.

She knows he's new and doesn't make any particular attempt to hide it, her posture poised and careful as her gaze drops to his feet and then slips back up to his face. If he's acting casual as a coping mechanism, she can't exactly blame him; she'd done the same.

"Welcome," she says, and arches her eyebrows.

Edited 2017-08-13 20:41 (UTC)

Oliver isn't certain why this woman is arching her eyebrows at him and he plays off her welcome, determined to just blend. If she wants to be nosy, she can be, but he's not going to act like it's affected him at all. If you say that down is up long enough, people start to believe it out of a desire to assimilate. He'll keep saying down is up for as long as it will take.

"Do you say welcome to everyone on a daily basis? I'm not new."

"I say welcome to people who I've not met who arrived after I did," Aurora smoothly replies. Surely he must know he doth protest too must, if it's really that important to him.

"Were you here for the earthquake? The recent, big one, that is."

"Yeah, I was here," Oliver says. He doesn't recall an earthquake he'd describe as big, considering he's from the west coast where earthquakes are almost weekly occurrences but he's following her lead on this and hoping it's not a trap to catch him in his lie.

"Still haven't completely explored the other side, though." Oliver knows enough that there's a breach in the canyon wall a few miles from where he is now and there's another stretch of land beyond it. He hasn't explored it yet.

"Yeah, neither have I," Aurora replies with a glance in the general direction of the crack that had opened up that day she arrived. Truthfully, she hasn't completely explored this side, either, but she isn't trying to plot a map.

"I'm glad the heat broke," she adds as she glances back. "It was unbearable those first few days after the quake. Trying to clean up without getting heat stroke."

"Seems like it's more of a normal temperature for now," Oliver says. He doesn't know if her exact timing of that heat stroke is accurate or not and so he decides to just be vague for the time being. It's getting harder to keep up the ruse that he's not brand new, though, and eventually he thinks he'll have to let it drop.

"Although it gets hot when you're hiking all day or moving debris around."

The vagaries have begun to give him away, but there's only so much pushing Aurora's interested in doing. The details tend to reveal themselves with enough time, and god knows they have enough of that here. Not to mention that she can't fault him for being cagey.

"I'm Aurora," she says, having given up on false names after the first day. She'd been lucky, having Neil's experience to inform her.

"Oliver," he gives in return. That, at least, has never been something he's really done. He's tried it a handful of times but no matter what roles he plays or what mission he's on, he's never been able to disassociate himself enough from Oliver Queen to stick to a fake identity and make it seem like it's real. It's not in his particular set of skills.

"It's good to meet you. Maybe you can answer a question for me, since I haven't settled on it. Is it better to stick to the Inn or take one of the houses. I've been trying to decide which house."

"Well, I would say that likely depends on what you're looking for," Aurora replies with a considering tilt of her head. "I didn't really have much of a choice, I had a friend here already when I turned up, and it was natural to bunk with him. I suppose I've been avoiding making an actual decision on getting my own place."

...which was something she hadn't even realized until that moment.

"If you're looking for privacy, the Inn definitely isn't the best choice. And then there's always the new area through the breach if you really want to keep to yourself."

"I haven't really done much looking over there but I figured most people live over here, right? Since it's the more established part?" Oliver has been considering a house on the other side of the breach and he has to run it by Felicity, naturally, but he's leaning toward staying away from the bulk of population if he can. It isn't such a bad hike (for him, anyway) to come to this part from that one anyway. He can manage it on a daily or every other day basis. Besides, being that far out means a little insulation in case something goes down in this village.

"I probably need to just look at what houses are available and start clearing one out. I was thinking about snagging one with a fireplace in case those furnaces ever go out. It doesn't look like there's a way to manufacture parts here."

"Probably not a bad idea if you can find one," Aurora agrees with a nod. The state of the furnaces hadn't been anything she'd given thought to, but it was smart to think ahead; she had only just begun to realize that she might still be stuck here come wintertime.

"It'll be interesting to see if the new area stays isolated. It's a long walk over there, and some people depend on that daily meal they serve at the Inn."

"If you've never hunted or cooked over an open fire, it would be easier to stick to the Inn and the guarantee of a meal that is going to be served. Still, as people are here longer, won't they get more self sufficient?"

It's kind of rhetorical but still, Oliver wonders what she thinks about it. Aurora seems to be clued in, at least, and maybe she's thought about things outside of just a day to day routine.

Steve's been trying to be useful in this strange village, doing whatever he can. He's not exactly a hunter by trade, but to provide for himself, for Diana and for everyone else, he'll learn and do whatever he can. He'd been out trying to snare some rabbits in the woods when he comes across a rustling sound nearby. Glancing around, Steve searches for an animal that might have caused it, his steps slowing down as he grows wary.

If it's an animal, he doesn't want to spook it. If it's a person, well, someone probably has a good reason for wanting to hide in the woods. So long as he doesn't end up killed because of it, he should be fine. Careful, he keeps his gaze sliding around and shrugs when it doesn't seem that anything is amiss, bending to check on one of the traps, hauling the line along slowly as he crouches, poised to move if he needs to (whether it's to chase something down or just plain run away).

Oliver is trying to keep out of sight as well but when he sees that it's a man, alone, he watches for a moment before deciding to step out of the shadows and see what he can find out. More than one person and he'd have stayed hidden but with just one, alone? He might be able to get information.

"What are you hunting?" Oliver asks, trying to seem nonchalant even if he's really, really not. He has no idea where this place is or if he can trust anyone in it.

Later, Steve's going to be embarrassed about the full body jolt he gives when someone steps out of the woods and almost scares him into a heart attack. Some spy he's turned out to be, though he has the feeling that after the plane, he's jumpy for at least a decent reason. Exhaling to work those nerves away as best as he can, he tries not to look like he'd been shaken.

"Rabbit," he admits. "I don't know if hunting is the right word, though," Steve says, gesturing to one of the snares he'd assembled. "I mean, I'd like to think that it counts as hunting, but it's more like a big prayer and hope that something stumbles into a nice looking trap."

Oliver snorts a little. He'd made traps and hunted on Lian Yu but it's been a while since he's hunted game. Most of his target practice tends to be at bad guys these days and while he shoots to maim, not kill, it's still a lot different than hunting rabbits.

"Do you have any experience with traps or is setting them part of the whole prayer part too?"

"Where I come from, not many rabbits left to hunt," is what Steve says, because the prospect of any animal somehow surviving on no man's land is a strange one, but also he knows that if they did, then it wouldn't take long before the men descended on it like a pack of ravenous wolves. "I figure the concept isn't too hard," he admits, head bobbing back and forth as he tries to pretend he's somewhat okay at this.

"What about you? You got any knowledge?" Steve asks, starting to get a little hopeful. "I know there's other people here who provide, but my pride is kind of on the line here."

"I'm better with a bow but I'm not bad with traps," Oliver says. He needs to set his own traps anyway, snares to catch rabbits and other small game, and if this guy has rope to do that with he is willing to show him how it's done.

"The trick is to make it loose enough that they fall for it but not so loose that they're able to wriggle free. It's a Goldilocks problem."

"I'd rather rabbits not end up sleeping in my beds," Steve can't help the joke, knowing that it probably falls a little flat, but it's better than thinking about the situation he's managed to find himself in, which definitely isn't normal. "I don't suppose you feel like hanging around and helping a guy out?" He's pretty new to all of this, and he thinks that's probably fairly clear given how terrible he is at what they're doing.

"I can owe you later, although my skill sets don't seem like they've got much bearing here."

"I don't mind helping," Oliver says. The guy's face seems honest, for all that's worth, and he doesn't seem like a threat that Oliver can't handle on his own. If it's just tying some snares, it'll benefit them both.

"It's kind of tricky to get the hang of it at first so you weren't doing too badly," Oliver assures him. "It's just a finesse operation."

Steve can't help his strained laugh. "Finesse operation," he echoes, because that's actually pretty on-the-nose funny considering what he'd just come from. The stress lives in his eyes and it's not really fair of him to think about this without explaining, he still feels that gallows humor swimming around him. "Sorry," he apologizes. "If you knew where I came from before this, finesse operation is a stark difference."

"I'm Steve Trevor," he introduces himself, extending his hand. "And who am I performing this finesse operation with?"

"Oliver Queen," he says, offering his name in kind. He doesn't know of anyone named Steve Trevor back home in ARGUS circles and there's a chance that he's not even on Lian Yu or anywhere that his enemies can reach him now. Besides, Oliver's never been good at giving a false name. He's Oliver Queen, now and forever, and he doesn't mind offering that part of himself to someone else.

"So, does this place have a name? I've been here for a while now and I haven't picked up on a name or a nearby place or anything. Seems weird."

"If it's got one, no one's telling me." Steve wishes that he could be more light-hearted and joke around, but for all the good that this little village has given him (and with Diana being here and him being alive, that's a lot of good), he can't shake the feeling that he really dislikes this place, seeing as there's no one giving orders and for a soldier like him, it's hard to adjust.

"I mean, you want to name it, I bet you can go nuts, but I'm not sure if everyone plans on following your example," Steve says apologetically. "If it's something good, maybe I'll make the effort?"

Her shared house with Clint was the furthest on it's row and the closest to the forest. Most mornings, Wanda would leave her home at dawn and return around lunch time to tend to things around the house and the animals that lived there.

From Dusk through night, Wanda spent great lengths of time staring out her window. Sleep came in unexpected waves which meant that Wanda was up at random hours of the night, unable to work in the dark and instead staring out her window. There was never an answer in the forest but Wanda noticed a shadow dance across the trees as Oliver slowly moved closer to town.

At first she thought it was a wolf or something that might prey on her small furry and feathery family. It made her extra careful of the chicken coop, keeping a watchful eye towards the tree line as she feed the six chickens that were all ironically named thanks to Clint.

A bowl of finely chopped roots was in her arms when Oliver finally stepped from the woods. Her fingers sank into the collected food and then tossed a small amount out for the chickens to eat. Wanda's hair was up and she was dressed in a pair of jean shorts and a sports bra to combat the heat. She had long since discarded her scrubs, not wanting to feel like a test subject.

"You're new." It was a guess but spoken as a statement, her accent rounding and tugging at each word. Wanda didn't know everyone in the village but most of the people she met wandering around her home were new. It wasn't on the way to anything except the forest and this man looked to tense to have been here for long.

"Are you hungry?" She had salted meats inside and eggs, not much, but Wanda made a habit of sharing what she had.

[ooc: let me know if this is okay.]

Oliver doesn't recognize the accent as anything other than Central European and Slavic, but he can't pinpoint the actual country. Her English is good, though, and he wonders if the bratva have any presence here. That could be a good or bad thing, depending, and Oliver's glad his tattoos are covered for the moment.

"Not that new," he lies. "You just haven't seen me before. I tend to keep to myself for the most part."

Wanda’s lips tugged into a frown. He was defensive and tense, it was hard to believe that he has been in the village long, so he was either lying or naturally prickly. Wanda had met many naturally prickly people in her life but there was something off putting about the stranger in front of her.

It was almost as if his eyes didn’t match the rest of him.

"You didn’t answer my question." She pointed out in a calm tone. "Are you hungry? I have some cured meat inside."

"I could eat," Oliver says. He doesn't want to trust food from a stranger but he is hungry and he's had less luck with foraging than he'd hoped. If he can eat some of this, he can save everything he's foraged for Felicity.

"If you're offering, anyway, I would appreciate it."

Wanda nodded her head. "I help preserve the meat at the inn and I always have a little extra." She kept it with her just in case and usually used it for moments like this. "Do you want to come in?" It felt like a valid question given how tense the man looked.

"If not, I'll package some up." It wouldn't take Wanda long, she was already trying to feed the animals and herself.

"I'll stick to the woods for now. I've been foraging for herbs," Oliver says. It's a lie, yes, but it isn't exactly a full lie. There's things in the woods that he needs and he's been looking for them so he and Felicity have food to eat; the food is coming in the form of roots and berries right now, yes, but they have something.

"I'm not the best at it but I haven't died so I must be doing something right."

"Be careful." Her words were soft but earnest. "The trees have a habit of moving around on you." There were also a lot of animals in the forest though Wanda didn't think that it needed to be said. If he'd been hanging out there then he knows.

"I'll be right back with some food." Wanda didn't know about Felicity but she was quick to wrap up about a weeks worth of preserved meats. It was more than she had to give but she could tell that Oliver was stubborn. It wasn't a bad thing to be stubborn, unless you were stuck in the middle of a canyon that didn't care if you died.

When she stepped back outside, Wanda held a small parcel in her hand, wrapped in makeshift paper. "Here. This should last you." As she stepped out of the house so did a very large puppy. It happily bounded up to Oliver to see who this new person was.

Oliver has always liked dogs even if he hasn't had time to be a pet owner in the past several years. He gives the puppy a scratch or two behind the ears before taking the parcel, saying a quiet thank you.

"So, what's his name? He seems excited to see a new friend."

"Arado." Wanda replied softly, looking down at the pup. He was a very large puppy and slowly growing into a very large dog. "She's friendly." She assured Oliver.

"His owner vanished so we took him in." The dog seemed to be doing well but Wanda was sure that it remembered the blond woman who had once taken care of it.

Oliver gives the pup another pet or two before looking at him again, trying to determine just how big this dog is going to get. The answer, of course, is big.. That isn't necessarily a bad thing when trekking through the woods and he wonders just how many dogs are in this village and how he might get his hands on one too.

"Thanks for the food. You didn't have to, but you did, and I remember people who do me a favor."

Wanda didn't think it was very much but it was what little she could do. In reply she inclined her head and then called the pup back to her side. Like a good dog it listened though it looked longingly at Oliver's hand before running back to Wanda.

"If you ever need anything. You can find me here." Usually. Wanda didn't go out very much since she had a dog and six chickens to take care of. "Be safe."

Being in the water wasn't nearly as traumatizing as it probably ought to be, at least at first. What Felicity thought was happening versus what was actually happening was the only thing that saved her from the inevitable freak out. Her thought? That the explosion from Lian Yu had thrown her into the water and now she was climbing out. When that climb resulted in an actual climb and she ended up on a flat surface before tumbling to dirt, she was a little freaked, but the surroundings still lent themselves to her previous surroundings so... no harm done that hadn't been before.

Except the trees weren't on fire, there weren't any explosions, everyone else was gone, and suddenly... fountain?

She climbed, a little waterlogged to her feet, and that's when she caught sight of Oliver doing the same.

"Oliver?" Yup, it was him. "Oliver. Are you okay? Did you find William? Where's Chase?"

"I was in the boat with them both," Oliver says, focusing on Felicity for a moment. Other than being soaked, white cloth plastered to her skin, she doesn't seem to be harmed and his mind has to catalogue that and retain it as a fact before he can move on to anything else. He'd just seen Lian Yu blow up, just seen his entire world disappear in a flash. Now at least one part of it is right here in front of him.

"I was in the boat with William and Chase and Chase...he blew up the island. But we were safe in the boat. You got off, somehow?"

He was in the boat with them, but... the water they'd just climbed out of was not an ocean and Felicity's eying it with a huge amount of distrust.

"So, if you're here, and I'm here, where's everyone else?" She looks up at him, that confusion transferring to her expression, and clearly she's not liking their odds. "If you were on a boat, I thought maybe I'd been blown clear since we were all on the beach, but--" She glances around their surroundings. "I don't see anyone else here. John?"

"I haven't seen anyone but you," Oliver admits. Then again, he's in what looks like a small park with a fountain at the center and that's not anything he recognizes from the island. For a fleeting moment, he thinks it's the afterlife or what passes for it; it makes logical sense that they might both be dead. Still, if this is the afterlife, why is it that he's only got Felicity and no one else?

"I think we need to take cover and make plans, though. I don't know where we are but I can definitively say that I don't think it's Lian Yu. I don't know what we're dealing with."

If he's in the afterlife and all he's got is Felicity, he's not doing too bad. Of course, the reverse is true, too, and it's already crossed her mind, but she'd have been hoping for somewhere a little more tropical, with cabana boys and drinks with umbrellas in them. This has an air of something sinister and mind-fuckery and, to be quite honest, she's a little sick of that.

"You'd know your favorite island," she mutters as she half-turns again, not disagreeing with him. "Over there?"

Oliver looks past her to a copse of trees and gives a quick nod. Tree cover means a chance to hide and if he can observe for a little while and get the lay of the land, he can make decisions on whether or not to risk the town or if he should stick to the woods for the time being.

"We'll take to the woods for now, watch and see, and then if things seem to be relatively safe we can venture out. I just don't want to risk your safety, Felicity, and I'm sure you don't want to risk mine, right?"

"The woods?"

She looks over her shoulder to where his gaze had gone and then over his toward what looks like a town. "Oliver, I'm sure that whatever's in town won't be anything that we can't handle, I just--" She takes a breath and scans the area again. "I'm not sure that hiding out in the woods is any safer given we don't know where we are." A pause. "Or why."

Looking over the two of them, she motions. "It seems like a pretty specific clothing choice, don't you think?"

She's specifically not touching on safety. Not now.

"I just want to observe for a little while before I throw in our safety with some townspeople that I don't know in a place I'm not familiar with," Oliver says, adamant on that part.

"We'll observe for a while and if it seems safe, we can venture out." He looks to his clothes for a moment, the green cotton sticking to his skin as the sun started to dry it.

"Seems like someone likes a joke, anyway."

"All right." Felicity nods. "I trust you."

She does, always, but she's not sure how she feels about being in a wooded place after Lian Yu, much less hiding out. If there are people out there and this isn't where they just came from, maybe those people have answers. Unlike Oliver, she's not one to distrust right away, though given their previous circumstances, she probably should. Which is why she's trusting him to keep them both safe.

At his comment, she looks down at herself, the bra she's wearing not quite showing through the cotton she's been placed in.

"I'm not sure how I feel about the white."

"It's going to make you stand out like a target," OIiver says, frowning at how bright it is among the cover of trees. It's not exactly what he'd choose if he were planning to hide and the deep green he has seems much more suited to blending in. Still, he's not going to let Felicity get hurt and he knows of ways to make white look not so bright without using dye or anything else.

"We can try to get mud on it, make it darker. It might help you a little in the short term, anyway."

"I'm pretty sure they're going to get dirty, no matter what. Especially if we're." She inhaled deeply and picked up the pack she'd been wearing, then shrugged. "Going camping."

Tossing the bag over her shoulder, she looked around again. "I don't know what's in this, but this doesn't seem like the kind of place with a sturdy wi-fi connection. Let's get going."

"I doubt there's any kind of signal out here. Look at those trees," Oliver says, starting to head toward the treeline. He tries to keep a pace that Felicity can keep up with; luckily their boots appear to be pretty sturdy and that's not an issue.

"Trees that tall are going to interfere with any kind of mobile or wifi signal even if there are towers out here where we can't see them. That might work to our advantage if Chase thinks we died on Lian Yu. We won't be spotted and reported."

"I don't think there's any kind of anything here," she countered. Just the quick glance around was an indication of more than just dense trees.

Following Oliver was easier in scrubs and boots than in dresses and high heels, so she managed to keep a better pace than normal. That and her morning yoga and sit-ups had been coming easier, so he didn't lose her as quickly as he might have thought.

"Do you think Chase survived?"

She had no idea what he'd been through on the boat with Chase.

"I really hope not," Oliver says. If Chase had survived the blast and he's here, somewhere in this place, Oliver needs to find him before he's caught unawares. Chase is dangerous and he's a loose cannon. He's a threat that needs to be eliminated.

The irony is not lost on him that he's going to have to kill Chase when killing is what got him into this in the first place.

"If he's here, we need to be out of reach. I don't want him getting the drop on us, Felicity."

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001 → all these things that i have done [open]

Outskirts

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Woods

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➡ outskirts of village

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Fountain

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