Owen Prichard (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
underpinnings) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sixthiterationlogs2017-08-24 08:00 pm
underpinnings) wrote in sixthiterationlogs2017-08-24 08:00 pm
[OTA] in my right hand, there's the great unknown
WHO: Owen Prichard
WHERE: 6I Woods and river, 6I Inn, 7I Beach, others
WHEN: August 24 - 30
OPEN TO: OTA starters with caps
WARNINGS: Burn scar mentions, possible allusions to childhood abuse (blanket warning for the character and threads)
intro
It’s morning when Owen comes to in the water, swims for the pale yellow patch of sky, and pulls himself out of a fountain. Few and far between, it’s still deeper than any fountain he’s ever known, and the preoccupation with it is quickly replaced with preoccupation with: the trees, the morning sky, the gap between grinding cigarette butts under his foot in the Valley and — this.
Patting at his chest, he swipes the wide collar of a shirt wide over his shoulder, blindly checking himself as he stares wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the trees. Northern species, not even browning for autumn. Foot worn, patchy grass at his feet, a treeline broken in three directions. No tire tracks, no cigarette butts, no wrappers. He was on a street corner, getting ready to bail. Cloudy skies overhead, night painting the clouds purple against a setting sun. Now he’s in the woods, morning dew shining on the grass, starting to shiver in wet — something. Wet scrubs, he finds, looking down at his hands still searching for a jacket that isn’t there, pockets he doesn’t have. When he feels the back of his head for possible injury, even his fucking earrings are gone.
“Fucking shit,” he seethes, coughing once and looking over his shoulder. No one in view. The morning is a quiet one, no signs of who dragged him here, who tossed him in a fountain. Did Eddie sell him out? Is Eddie still in the fucking water?
Catching himself at the fountain’s edge, he searches the clear depths, finding only the shadows of its sides and central pillar.
Do most fountains even warrant pillars? It isn’t a helpful detail, but still — it feels off. As off as a pristine fountain in the woods, the area around it tread flat rather than manicured. If this is some kind of estate, it isn’t the best kept, but maybe it’s hard to find lawn guys you can count on to look away while you toss people into your water fixtures. Staring into his reflection, Owen grips tight to the edge of the fountain, trying to let the questions go until something clicks. His pale face stares back, silhouette against the sky, and he’s neatly distracted a second time when he looks down at his hands.
His arms are bare.
That stabs him in the gut worse than crawling out of the fountain, worse than not knowing where his clothes and wallet are. His left arm holds his attention a moment longer, and he realizes — the lines are too clean. Trisha finished inking those lines two days ago, petals and leaves unfurling around scar tissue, waiting for color, and he’d still been wearing the bandages last night. The skin should be tight and red, itchier than a rash, screaming at him for soaking in the water — but it’s just skin, black ink settled, irritation healed.
How long has he been out?
Owen’s reflection answers only one question: the weight on his back is attached to black straps, stood out against the white scrubs. Slinging one arm free, he lurches it onto the ground. The zipper sticks twice, struggles open on the third try, and he’s relieved to find dry clothes. A trail of water is harder to cover, and wherever he is, whenever it is — it’s colder than LA. Pulling a white shirt with sleeves free, he tugs the wet one over his head without a thought, covering himself rising to the top of his concerns. Overalls aren’t his first choice, but they’re dryer and sturdier than what he’s wearing, and he swaps them out with equal disregard, shoving the wet clothes into the pack and doing what he can to fit the wet boots as well, zipping the bag from both ends to secure the excess at the top.
Replacing the pack at his back, he examines the fountain one last time, confident he’s never seen it before in his life. What he needs is a vantage point, and one he won’t be spotted in from the trails. Following the shadows to turn himself north, he slips past the treeline on damp, bare feet.
i. arrival (OTA to 1 person)
The sturdy pine Owen climbs only puts him so far above the rest of the treeline, more a view of the gaps in the trees than what lies within them. Only one stands out: a two-story building, antiquated enough for the wooded area, but not quite the extravagant cabin he’d expect on any kind of estate. Maybe this is public land, then, and the fountain is just an odd fixture. Maybe rationalizing the fountain is less important than figuring out where he is.
From what he can observe, there are houses spreading out from the larger building. The trees spread out for miles in every direction, but instead of meeting the sky — a wall. Striped with wind-worn rock, the space is almost closed, save a waterfall further north, and a gap to the east.
Unless he intends to climb out, that’s the direction to head.
Getting back to the forest floor gains him some scrapes, snags several parts of his thin shirt, but it’s the kind of physical work that keeps him even. Reassures him that he’s awake and acting, that his body is in sound condition. Too sound, but he’s not thinking about that now: he’ll figure out the lost time when he settles the big question.
Is he safe.
As he skirts between houses — some in better condition than others, raising its own questions — he moves at a calm, even pace. Just a guy taking a shortcut, in brand new fucking overalls. Assuming this isn’t some Most Dangerous Game shit, if he doesn’t linger to peek in windows, he should pass for someone who’s meant to be here.
He’s been brought here: of course he’s meant to be here, in some capacity.
His trek east halts at the edge of a river, running south from the waterfall. As landmarks go it isn’t a bad one, and he follows the flow of water, looking for a fjord or bridge.
ii. the beach (OTA to 1 person)
The gap in the wall isn’t any way out, or any better clue to where he is, but it’s the thing his peers seem to know the least about. There’s some kind of map in the two-story building they call the Inn, a board full of notes on the landmarks and events. The other side is something new. Something he can’t read about from some missing person’s journal.
Setting out with dried boots and no immediate threat of being tossed in another body of water, he walks until there’s no further east to go, just a stretch of water on a beach wide enough to barely see its curve from the shore. He’s never stood on it before, and there are conflicting ideas of how much of a place this is.
Still, it looks an awful lot like the beaches upstate. The only evidence contrary is the slant of the sun over his shoulder, aiming toward the horizon opposite the water, rather than on it.
Eddie didn’t sell him out. Nobody tossed him in a fountain.
Making sense of this is going to be a big job, and for a moment: he forgets. He lets it go, doesn’t fetch the paper and pencil from his pack, doesn’t make notes about the shore. He toes his boots off and rolls up the ankles of his overalls, wading into the cold water, feeling the stones under his feet. He rolls the sleeve back enough to see the smooth lines of the tattoo on his arm, wondering how long it’s been. Wondering if someone’s fed Emrys.
Wondering how many emails his account has sent, deciding he’s been snuffed out. Wondering if anyone is dead for it.
Deep breath: sigh it out. Disappearing was always a possibility. Losing was always a possibility.
Collateral damage with either was a given. He’d set it up that way. All he can deal with is the here and now, and if he gets home to a few dead lieutenants, a few new heads on the ouroboros of the west coast’s trafficking rings — he isn’t going to cry over it.
But he does have to wonder about his cat, and how long before the lady in 4B picks him up and puts him in clothes. Another deep breath, he sighs that out too. For moments at a time, he’s just standing in a large lake, the waves lapping at his ankles. It’s colder water than he’s used to, but it’s clear, and the space is scenic, the kind of place he’d drive out to just to get away from it all.
It isn’t the first time he’s uprooted, with or without a choice. It won’t be the last.
Lifting his hands to his mouth, he cups one to the other, thumbs together. He sends a bird call out over the water, just to see what answers.
iii. the inn (OTA to 1 person)
There are two inns, far as he can tell: two of everything, but the buildings beyond the walls are empty, untouched by inhabitants or earthquakes. The first inn, though more disheveled of the two, is full of stuff.
The first room had a sheet on the nearest shelf to the door, names scribbled, faded with age. It made a kind of sense, signing out the pointy bits — for all they could be lost and traded away after leaving the room. At least they’d know where to start if anything goes missing. He scrawls a half-legible Prichard under the last name, marking down a few knives and an odd, mix-and-match hatchet. The machetes are tempting, but, not yet needing to strike the fear of god into anyone, and not having run into any brush he couldn’t pass, he’s leaving that for someone’s Jason costume.
The second room is a bit more interesting, a free-for-all of supplies, some hand-made, some the moth-eaten kind of robes at the back of a closed theater, or in granny’s attic. There’s information to be gleaned just from what is and isn’t available: no electronics, no firearms — Owen’s surprised when he gets down on his knees to dig at the lower shelves, and finds a collection of alcohol. Small bottles, but still, that should disappear in a place like this.
He puts the whiskey in his second bag, a garish thing with a red cross on it and basic medical supplies inside. A bottle of iodine next, a roll of duct tape.
He doesn’t even know where he’s going to take it all, yet, and before he tries to stuff the whole room in a pack, he stands up, dusts off, and decides to think it through.
Half an hour later finds him standing in the center of an open tarp, between the shelves of the small room, supplies grouped around his feet. “At least there’s no shortage of socks,” he comments, tossing a pepper-adorned pair on the pile.
iv. the inn roof (OTA to 1 person)
An empty room at the end of the hall had provided a place to shove his tarp-full of supplies for the evening, and window-access to a tree that could get him on the roof. The village has a skyline even shorter and shittier than Los Angeles, but rooftops are quiet, and it certainly has the city of angels beat for sunsets.
Nothing beats Hawaii for that, but the universe hadn’t seen fit to dump him back on the islands.
He’s crawled up with only a single pack: a journal, binoculars, whiskey, and one of the fur robes. Spreading it along the gentle slope, he sits cross-legged in a pair of real jeans, thermal undershirt keeping him covered and fighting the chill. Stuffed at the back of the journal is loose sheets of paper: meticulous recreations of the notes on the board, yesterday’s sanity-maintaining project, and he consults them one at a time in his lap, periodically tipping back a sip of whiskey from the bottle.
It isn’t home — or the campgrounds he escapes to — but he’s had worse evenings than a bottle of cheap booze and the fresh start of a case.
v. wildcard (OTA, any number, any prompt)
Choose your own adventure option: tag in with any prompt, anywhere in either canyon, if the other options are full or not grabbing you!
WHERE: 6I Woods and river, 6I Inn, 7I Beach, others
WHEN: August 24 - 30
OPEN TO: OTA starters with caps
WARNINGS: Burn scar mentions, possible allusions to childhood abuse (blanket warning for the character and threads)
intro
It’s morning when Owen comes to in the water, swims for the pale yellow patch of sky, and pulls himself out of a fountain. Few and far between, it’s still deeper than any fountain he’s ever known, and the preoccupation with it is quickly replaced with preoccupation with: the trees, the morning sky, the gap between grinding cigarette butts under his foot in the Valley and — this.
Patting at his chest, he swipes the wide collar of a shirt wide over his shoulder, blindly checking himself as he stares wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the trees. Northern species, not even browning for autumn. Foot worn, patchy grass at his feet, a treeline broken in three directions. No tire tracks, no cigarette butts, no wrappers. He was on a street corner, getting ready to bail. Cloudy skies overhead, night painting the clouds purple against a setting sun. Now he’s in the woods, morning dew shining on the grass, starting to shiver in wet — something. Wet scrubs, he finds, looking down at his hands still searching for a jacket that isn’t there, pockets he doesn’t have. When he feels the back of his head for possible injury, even his fucking earrings are gone.
“Fucking shit,” he seethes, coughing once and looking over his shoulder. No one in view. The morning is a quiet one, no signs of who dragged him here, who tossed him in a fountain. Did Eddie sell him out? Is Eddie still in the fucking water?
Catching himself at the fountain’s edge, he searches the clear depths, finding only the shadows of its sides and central pillar.
Do most fountains even warrant pillars? It isn’t a helpful detail, but still — it feels off. As off as a pristine fountain in the woods, the area around it tread flat rather than manicured. If this is some kind of estate, it isn’t the best kept, but maybe it’s hard to find lawn guys you can count on to look away while you toss people into your water fixtures. Staring into his reflection, Owen grips tight to the edge of the fountain, trying to let the questions go until something clicks. His pale face stares back, silhouette against the sky, and he’s neatly distracted a second time when he looks down at his hands.
His arms are bare.
That stabs him in the gut worse than crawling out of the fountain, worse than not knowing where his clothes and wallet are. His left arm holds his attention a moment longer, and he realizes — the lines are too clean. Trisha finished inking those lines two days ago, petals and leaves unfurling around scar tissue, waiting for color, and he’d still been wearing the bandages last night. The skin should be tight and red, itchier than a rash, screaming at him for soaking in the water — but it’s just skin, black ink settled, irritation healed.
How long has he been out?
Owen’s reflection answers only one question: the weight on his back is attached to black straps, stood out against the white scrubs. Slinging one arm free, he lurches it onto the ground. The zipper sticks twice, struggles open on the third try, and he’s relieved to find dry clothes. A trail of water is harder to cover, and wherever he is, whenever it is — it’s colder than LA. Pulling a white shirt with sleeves free, he tugs the wet one over his head without a thought, covering himself rising to the top of his concerns. Overalls aren’t his first choice, but they’re dryer and sturdier than what he’s wearing, and he swaps them out with equal disregard, shoving the wet clothes into the pack and doing what he can to fit the wet boots as well, zipping the bag from both ends to secure the excess at the top.
Replacing the pack at his back, he examines the fountain one last time, confident he’s never seen it before in his life. What he needs is a vantage point, and one he won’t be spotted in from the trails. Following the shadows to turn himself north, he slips past the treeline on damp, bare feet.
i. arrival (
The sturdy pine Owen climbs only puts him so far above the rest of the treeline, more a view of the gaps in the trees than what lies within them. Only one stands out: a two-story building, antiquated enough for the wooded area, but not quite the extravagant cabin he’d expect on any kind of estate. Maybe this is public land, then, and the fountain is just an odd fixture. Maybe rationalizing the fountain is less important than figuring out where he is.
From what he can observe, there are houses spreading out from the larger building. The trees spread out for miles in every direction, but instead of meeting the sky — a wall. Striped with wind-worn rock, the space is almost closed, save a waterfall further north, and a gap to the east.
Unless he intends to climb out, that’s the direction to head.
Getting back to the forest floor gains him some scrapes, snags several parts of his thin shirt, but it’s the kind of physical work that keeps him even. Reassures him that he’s awake and acting, that his body is in sound condition. Too sound, but he’s not thinking about that now: he’ll figure out the lost time when he settles the big question.
Is he safe.
As he skirts between houses — some in better condition than others, raising its own questions — he moves at a calm, even pace. Just a guy taking a shortcut, in brand new fucking overalls. Assuming this isn’t some Most Dangerous Game shit, if he doesn’t linger to peek in windows, he should pass for someone who’s meant to be here.
He’s been brought here: of course he’s meant to be here, in some capacity.
His trek east halts at the edge of a river, running south from the waterfall. As landmarks go it isn’t a bad one, and he follows the flow of water, looking for a fjord or bridge.
ii. the beach (
The gap in the wall isn’t any way out, or any better clue to where he is, but it’s the thing his peers seem to know the least about. There’s some kind of map in the two-story building they call the Inn, a board full of notes on the landmarks and events. The other side is something new. Something he can’t read about from some missing person’s journal.
Setting out with dried boots and no immediate threat of being tossed in another body of water, he walks until there’s no further east to go, just a stretch of water on a beach wide enough to barely see its curve from the shore. He’s never stood on it before, and there are conflicting ideas of how much of a place this is.
Still, it looks an awful lot like the beaches upstate. The only evidence contrary is the slant of the sun over his shoulder, aiming toward the horizon opposite the water, rather than on it.
Eddie didn’t sell him out. Nobody tossed him in a fountain.
Making sense of this is going to be a big job, and for a moment: he forgets. He lets it go, doesn’t fetch the paper and pencil from his pack, doesn’t make notes about the shore. He toes his boots off and rolls up the ankles of his overalls, wading into the cold water, feeling the stones under his feet. He rolls the sleeve back enough to see the smooth lines of the tattoo on his arm, wondering how long it’s been. Wondering if someone’s fed Emrys.
Wondering how many emails his account has sent, deciding he’s been snuffed out. Wondering if anyone is dead for it.
Deep breath: sigh it out. Disappearing was always a possibility. Losing was always a possibility.
Collateral damage with either was a given. He’d set it up that way. All he can deal with is the here and now, and if he gets home to a few dead lieutenants, a few new heads on the ouroboros of the west coast’s trafficking rings — he isn’t going to cry over it.
But he does have to wonder about his cat, and how long before the lady in 4B picks him up and puts him in clothes. Another deep breath, he sighs that out too. For moments at a time, he’s just standing in a large lake, the waves lapping at his ankles. It’s colder water than he’s used to, but it’s clear, and the space is scenic, the kind of place he’d drive out to just to get away from it all.
It isn’t the first time he’s uprooted, with or without a choice. It won’t be the last.
Lifting his hands to his mouth, he cups one to the other, thumbs together. He sends a bird call out over the water, just to see what answers.
iii. the inn (
There are two inns, far as he can tell: two of everything, but the buildings beyond the walls are empty, untouched by inhabitants or earthquakes. The first inn, though more disheveled of the two, is full of stuff.
The first room had a sheet on the nearest shelf to the door, names scribbled, faded with age. It made a kind of sense, signing out the pointy bits — for all they could be lost and traded away after leaving the room. At least they’d know where to start if anything goes missing. He scrawls a half-legible Prichard under the last name, marking down a few knives and an odd, mix-and-match hatchet. The machetes are tempting, but, not yet needing to strike the fear of god into anyone, and not having run into any brush he couldn’t pass, he’s leaving that for someone’s Jason costume.
The second room is a bit more interesting, a free-for-all of supplies, some hand-made, some the moth-eaten kind of robes at the back of a closed theater, or in granny’s attic. There’s information to be gleaned just from what is and isn’t available: no electronics, no firearms — Owen’s surprised when he gets down on his knees to dig at the lower shelves, and finds a collection of alcohol. Small bottles, but still, that should disappear in a place like this.
He puts the whiskey in his second bag, a garish thing with a red cross on it and basic medical supplies inside. A bottle of iodine next, a roll of duct tape.
He doesn’t even know where he’s going to take it all, yet, and before he tries to stuff the whole room in a pack, he stands up, dusts off, and decides to think it through.
Half an hour later finds him standing in the center of an open tarp, between the shelves of the small room, supplies grouped around his feet. “At least there’s no shortage of socks,” he comments, tossing a pepper-adorned pair on the pile.
iv. the inn roof (
An empty room at the end of the hall had provided a place to shove his tarp-full of supplies for the evening, and window-access to a tree that could get him on the roof. The village has a skyline even shorter and shittier than Los Angeles, but rooftops are quiet, and it certainly has the city of angels beat for sunsets.
Nothing beats Hawaii for that, but the universe hadn’t seen fit to dump him back on the islands.
He’s crawled up with only a single pack: a journal, binoculars, whiskey, and one of the fur robes. Spreading it along the gentle slope, he sits cross-legged in a pair of real jeans, thermal undershirt keeping him covered and fighting the chill. Stuffed at the back of the journal is loose sheets of paper: meticulous recreations of the notes on the board, yesterday’s sanity-maintaining project, and he consults them one at a time in his lap, periodically tipping back a sip of whiskey from the bottle.
It isn’t home — or the campgrounds he escapes to — but he’s had worse evenings than a bottle of cheap booze and the fresh start of a case.
v. wildcard (OTA, any number, any prompt)
Choose your own adventure option: tag in with any prompt, anywhere in either canyon, if the other options are full or not grabbing you!
no subject
Days is disheartening to hear, though he's glad someone at least made the trek. "Lakes can be that big," he says, mostly to himself. "We're not in the right place for it to be one of those--seas, I guess." His lips press down in a line, the need to categorize and understand bumping into more nonsensical obstacles.
no subject
A lake, though, is a slightly better prospect than an ocean, and she has to believe that if they manage to see this plan to fruition, they actually have a chance of reaching the other side.
"Right now the plan is something large enough to carry two people and supplies for about two weeks. At least to start. We're thinking about a raft with a sail." She has her doubts they could manage anything more complicated.
no subject
Maybe it's the mildness of the winters he's experienced, everywhere he's lived previous, but two weeks after the days shorten and the temperatures drop sounds--less than ideal. "That girl," he says, mind swinging back to her bright determination with a downward twitch of his mouth: "I think she's got her heart set on going out alone. We need--more people. From what I've read about this place, we need to account for people getting hurt."
no subject
Her brow creases with a frown at the idea of Moana venturing out alone. Aurora doesn't know the girl, but with everything they know about this place, it's hard to think of a more ridiculous and risky plan.
"She doesn't need to go alone," she firmly replies, arching a knowing eyebrow. "There's no accounting for what might be out there."
no subject
He's blaming her for the fact that he's been here only days, and he's commenting on the welfare of anyone.
"If you need another ax on your team, I managed to loot the storage rooms on my second day."
no subject
It might be a bit cruel to say, but she knows all too well the negative power of complacency. That so many people have settled into their lives here still stuns her.