sixthiterationlogs | under the stars i'm alone among strangers

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under the stars i'm alone among strangers

WHO: Taako
WHERE: Around 6I
WHEN: First two weeks of September
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: None anticipated, will add if needed

Taako's not settled in. That would suggest he has some intention of relaxing and staying here. But he has finished hurling himself into all the obvious corners at high speed in hopes of finding a simple solution. Time to let those bruises fade and test his surroundings more carefully. And to find a place to actually live, so empty houses feature heavily in his prowling. He climbs a lot of trees in the hopes that the vantage point will make things clearer somehow. And to keep out of the way. He doesn't trust any of these people any more than he does their cute little prison.

Not particularly concerned with social graces--it's not like he ever has been--he sticks his head in wherever seems fair, poking around the inn and any other buildings that look public, accosts hapless passers by with "what's your story" or the occasional blunter "how've you tried to get out so far?"

And sometimes he does have to go have Taako time. He's found a fiddly little fishing setup. It's been a while since he fished, but he's pretty good at it, and it's always been a good way to sneak in a nap while ostensibly being productive. Naps happen a lot more now that he actually needs to sleep. Being a human sucks, and he's awful at judging how tired this stupid body is. (He's also walked into a few walls and trees when he forgets he can't see in the dark.)

Less relaxing but just as reassuring, he also takes up refreshing his very rusty swordsmanship. He hasn't needed it for years and he was never actually good. Just competent. When he has a sword, the other person is more likely to get hurt than Taako is, but the other options are just much better when there's not a horrible arcane dampening field over everything. The missing magic is vast and terrible and impossible to contemplate, hobbling Taako himself and potentially keeping any rescue attempts away. But he's dealt with that periodically, being out of spell slots and components, being up against it. The difference is he's...

He's alone again. The problem manifests consciously as no Magnus, but he's got lots of people he's hidden behind over the years. Even Sazed was... Well, he doesn't do so great without backup. That's just facts. Taako with a shortsword-sized stick versus a tree is a periodically amusing sight. He does more or less know what he's doing, approaches the combat like a saber fighter. He's graceful, if much too showy and not flexible enough in his stances, not a lot of strength behind any of the blows. The tree can take it.

He circulates a lot. Even for the Valley, it might be a bit odd to get used to the sight of the tiny man with three feet of braid dangling behind him, magenta scrubs somewhat inexpertly altered into a wrap skirt and an off-the-shoulder, half-length top. The fabric is crap and he's not used to sewing he can't assist with magic, but he doesn't hate the color and it's better than nothing. He may be stuck as a human with no hair products, but it'd be worse not to try. He's not giving an inch, here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Considering the recent threat of illness, number of people getting by with the bath at the inn, and the sheer inconvenience of leaving his house for a wash, Jude's decided to deal with the loss of his least-favorite piece of furniture. Jax had helped him clear out the crushed tub weeks back, and he'd swept the place clean, made the fallen beam part of his paper-making setup, and just--lived without it, for awhile.

It's time to scout a new one, get it unhooked, and see what he can trade Jax for the grunt work of getting it to his house. With that in mind, he hasn't scouted very far, just going down to the path until he found something empty, enough damage on the back end of the house that he can't be said to be ruining something nice.

Even if someone falls for the facade, a back porch under a tree and no tub might take the shine off.

He's got his hands rubbed raw, now tied up in rags to help him twist the bolts around the pipes. If this were a normal place, normal rules and a way out, all the copper in these houses would be a great thing to strip. The way things are though, better to let a tub be a tub, and a pipe be a pipe. He's just popped the line to the faucet off the line into the floor, an inch moved where he shoved it free, when he hears someone in the main rooms.

Pocketing the bolts for later, he picks up the short pipe, no longer than his forearm, and leans out the bathroom door to investigate. "Can I help you," he says, relaxing the pipe at his side when he finds the--person--in magenta sizing up the dining room like some HGTV afternoon decorator.

This one already doesn't look too promising, though Taako's camped out in some weird enough places that he didn't write it off right away. They're all pretty boring, so unless something's tremendously wrong, might as well make the decision based on color or what trees are nearby (or where and how he could stow any more of his family who showed up here, but he doesn't have to admit that part to himself). Had he gotten as far as the porch he'd have turned around and tried the next one, but finding a fellow prisoner is a little more interesting than finding nothing.

"This one's not taken, is it?" he asks languidly, not as though he'd be embarrassed to find it was. It didn't feel like an inhabited building, and people can put up some signs or some shit if they want to be possessive of buildings with dust all over the place. He leans on the dining room table with one hand and regards Jude with mild interest. His eyes do flick to the pipe, but only for a second. That's... not a bad idea, honestly. He's been using a branch to practice, but there's probably something more solid, even if there don't seem to be any swords available.

"No," Jude answers, shaking his hair out of and back into his eyes as he shakes his head. Even with his problems, he'd remember this guy if he'd seen him anywhere before. Heard him anywhere before. He hasn't heard a voice like that outside the clubs his college acquaintances used to drag him to.

"It's just about to not have a bathtub," he explains. "Need a new one after the quake, and if you keep going through, the back porch and door are all smashed up." In case there was any possible argument for him putting the whole tub back on the pipe, which his hands really don't want to do today.

Since the guy is already here--

"Hey, would you mind--" he stops, taking a second past the outfit, at the person underneath. Yeah, he's probably not moving that tub right now. "Nevermind. You're looking for a house?"

While Taako is certainly tougher than he looks, physical strength is not to be found in his hidden depths. And asking him to do physical labor isn't really the way to start a good relationship with him, either. He raises an eyebrow slightly to acknowledge the near miss, but it disappears into a nod. "There didn't really seem to be a system in place, so I'm deciding which one I hate least." It bugs him not to have a real basis to make the decision on, but without one, he'll just have to ostentatiously own his shallow criteria instead.

The idea of hating or not hating the houses is an odd one to him, and sets him in a considering lean against the door frame. Even at home, it would seem a luxury, to walk into any of the houses here with their hard wood floors and moldings, multiple porches, sometimes multiple stories--and react with disdain.

It wrinkles his nose a bit, but--they all show up in scrubs, they all make do. There's no telling what someone came from before this place leveled the playing field.

"What do you hate least about a house? I've been in and out of a few." It's the charitable thing, he supposes, helping even a picky person find a place to live.

"Um. Don't know about you, my dude, but I'm really into it not being trapped in a creepy forest with a bunch of losers and all the magic shut off." Taako keeps most things to himself. (Like not being able to stop seeing every possible house through everyone else's eyes. Mags would dig that weird bit of woodwork, or maybe make fun of it. Merle could fit a garden there. That bedroom's far enough from his that Lup could keep her boytoy around and not weird him out with the noise. It'd probably be easier to cope with being alone if he could stop reminding himself.) But there's a certain power in owning shit out loud. Not being able to call out obvious shit moves the social awkwardness to other people.

"Besides that, uh, like, I kinda always wanted a kitchen island. I don't know, what the fuck do people do in houses?" Greedy as he is, it's an acquisitive thing. It's the getting, not the having. He hasn't lived in a house as such since he was a kid, and he has no interest for its own sake. Weird as it got toward the end there, he'd rather be back in his dorm at the Bureau than the nicest house here.

Still leaned into the door, Jude waits out the reaction, looking idly up the molding of the door. None of that really answers the question: as far as he knows, no one can fix that for the guy, especially himself. Eventually the beggars and choosers logic seems to sink in, and he gets something he can work with.

"You'd probably have to get one of those built, houses here are--" He isn't sure what they are: they're fancy by his standards, but they also don't have electricity or kitchen islands. "I don't know, they don't have a lot of stuff, nice as some of it is. Most people just look for an empty place to keep themselves fed and clean without tripping over anyone else.

Pointing the length of the pipe back over his shoulder at the tub, he adds, "It's a bit of a wait for the bathroom at the inn, and all."

"Ugh, tell me about it, the flood of suspiciously uniformly human wreckage is super disheartening." Logically, if he's been jammed in this awkward, stupid, useless body with its dumb eyes and need for regular rest, he's not the only one, but he hasn't found anyone who'll cop to it yet. "Still, there's all this, fuckin', I don't know, variety? Seems like a weird thing to include if you're just building a creepy as hell trap." He's curious under all the lazy hostility and smugness. Either this was all set up for a purpose or it's been repurposed. "Kinda wanna see what's out there, y'know?"

Squinting doesn't actually make any better sense of the words coming out of the guy's mouth, but squinting is what Jude's got, right now. In a way, the attitude--too big, detached but not enough--reminds him of Sam, and he hopes this isn't one more person to find having some kind of breakdown in the wreckage of the next disaster. But if he is, so what? He handled it then, he'll handle it next time it comes up.

He's made a surprisingly capable go of it all, so far. Even if it's most surprising to the ugly voice that sits at the back of his head, piping up in his best friend's nastiest tones.

He slept too well to have to deal with it today. Today is just--houses. "I don't recommend exploring the caves alone, for a few reasons, but the rest of it seems fine. There's a big body of water on the other side, and more houses in better shape, but you'll have to hike a ways to come back for supplies if you can't hunt them down on your own."

"Pfft, no way, even if I had my spells up and running I wouldn't solo caves. That's how you end up eaten by jellies." Ignoble way to go, though jellies can actually be pretty dangerous. There's just something particularly ignoble in a capable adventurer ending up digested by a wobbly cube. "Not without some reliable muscle and a healer," he adds absently, because that's just common sense. Of course, common sense says bring someone who knows traps and finesse, too, and then his throat catches for just a fleeting moment, and he has to look down and examine his nails to cover the lapse. "Like, unless the fishing's way better off on the other side, staying central seems like the best call. It's already way too easy to miss shit." No stones of farspeech, no handy intercom systems, he can see falling out of the important loops very, very easily here.

"You say that like there's a lot of shit to miss," he says. Which he says like--like he'd even know, tapped in to the social hub of the village as he is. He got one taste of it at that meeting, and he's done for as long as he's allowed to be. No more crowds, no more public speaking, no more exploring caves with people who have visions.

Which are the only thing keeping his mouth shut, even as his brow raises for spells and healer.

"Anyway," he says, deciding not to delve into that for his sanity, "I bet we could rip a counter out of a house like this and build you an island, if you took up a place with a big enough kitchen." They're all big to Jude, considering, but he doesn't know what's comfortable to basically drop a table into.

"Look, it's not like I want bulletins on the gossip, but people keep telling me how doomed we are. I'd like forewarning when there are... fuckin'... flying electrical multiplying wolves bearing down on us." It's a purely practical problem, here.

He allows himself to be rerouted, though. "I left my carpentry guy in my other planar system, but, I mean, I guess. Not like there isn't time to kill while we wait for the doom and shit to happen." Or, hopefully, for rescue in the form of any of his various reality-hopping allies, or a way out he finds himself, which'd just be even better.

There's a point where you have to turn into the slide, if you want any hope of straightening out, and Jude's been getting plenty of practice in the village. Eventually the weird shit that comes out of people's mouths has to be--funny, or utterly dismissed, and he tends to walk the line for politeness' sake.

Today, his mouth twitches at flying electrical multiplying wolves and shit, like it's a category with a lot of entries. It's the kind of outlandish thing Parker might make up, and then harass him into sketching.

But they'd be real, to Parker, in a way he really hopes those things never prove real to anyone else. "Doomed is kind of an extreme take. I just think we're stuck here until we aren't--until whatever put us here decides. Less doomed, more--there's nothing we can do about it for now. So why not build an island in your kitchen."

empty house

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At the Practice Tree

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