sixthiterationlogs | (no subject)

WHO: Oliver Queen
WHERE: along the river in 6I
WHEN: 3 November, afternoon
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: TBD

When Oliver was younger, his parents used to refer to this as snow weather. It's just a little above freezing, from what he can tell and there's clouds low and heavy in the sky. It's getting darker earlier in the day; by his reckoning, there's only about eight good hours of sunlight now and there's not much of it to speak of. It reminds him a little bit of home, if Star City were in the middle of the pristine wilderness instead of an industrialized and globalized city.

He's not running today. Instead, he's walking along the river, trying to skip stones across it like he had as a kid. It was good luck to get one all the way across and he remembers his father being really successful at it almost all of the time and Oliver himself failing miserably about 90% of the time. Later, when he'd gotten older, it'd been him teaching Thea how to do the same thing. The stones along the river here are flat and smooth, just right for getting them to skid across the surface.

His first attempt isn't so great. It skips for a moment and sinks down to the bottom with a plop and a splash. His next is better, though, and it skips about halfway across the river before it falls beneath the water. There's a scientific principle to it, he's sure, but that's not what he's interested in right now. Right now, he's wondering what's going on in his city, what he's not able to prevent because he's stuck here.

Oliver closes a hand tight around a stone and curses beneath his breath, frustrated by his impotence in this place. This place holds him here just as much as it holds everyone else and no matter what he's done and what he's capable of, he's held by the same strange power that keeps them all trapped here. He's no better or worse than anyone else. Maybe he has a little edge on some of those who've never had to survive outdoors before but that's it. That's his only advantage in the world.

"Looks like I've turned into just one more madman railing at the sky," he says, frowning deeply. The heavy clouds don't respond.

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"No, I would guess that the desert kind of knocks that right out," Oliver says. He forgets about Felicity being anything but sprung fully-grown from a mainframe in the bowels of Queen Consolidated and when he is reminded of her life before he met her, he's almost always a little stunned by it. Maybe it shouldn't be that way.

"I've never lived anywhere dry. It's always been Star City, you know? Always the rain and the clouds keeping me company. The idea of Vegas is too exotic to really attach feelings of home to."

It's not that Oliver is selfish, exactly, but he does have a tendency to conveniently forget things that aren't immediately important to what he's thinking about, be it the team or skipping rocks. If she'd started talking slot machines and the need to do a mission there, he likely would have remembered. Maybe.

"Exotic unless you're living there, I promise," she tells him over her shoulder with a fake grin, hoping to remind him of her mother's role in the Vegas scene. Then she flings another rock and watches as it goes across the water with several hops. "I think... that's kicking your ass."

Swaying her hips, she gives him a face and then grins.

Oliver laughs when he sees that she's managed to get a rock across the water and have it skip several times further than any of his without dropping. She has kicked his ass and maybe it's because he's more than a little distracted.

"What's the prize for the winner? We didn't settle on one, did we?" He has a feeling whatever Felicity asks for, it's not going to be simple.

Having distracted Oliver from whatever his thoughts had been is a good thing, even if it's with a simple thing like rock skipping; to be fair, she hadn't know it was a talent she had until now. She would do almost anything to hear his laugh; it charms her down in her soul to hear it, to see the accompanying smile, and in that moment, she forgets that there's nothing there for them except each other.

"No, we didn't." She slides her hand into his and looks up at him. "I'm sure we can come to some sort of arrangement. Maybe... something social, even."

Edited 2017-11-23 18:08 (UTC)

Oliver snorts a little. Leave it to Felicity to push him outside of his comfort zone just because she's caught him in a rare moment of disadvantage. Still, she's not wrong, and they could stand to get outside of their own house and talking to each other for a little while.

It seems like the people in the village, at least, seem to be as clueless as he is. They don't know why they're here and none of them seem to have any ulterior motives.

"What did you have in mind, exactly?"

"Dinner at the Inn."

It comes out quickly, as if she'd been preparing for such a question, but the truth it, she hadn't been thinking that way at all. In fact, other than a person here or there, Felicity is probably less social than Oliver himself. But the lack of being able to do anything, of living in some strange place that has no wi-fi, no electronics of any kind, is wearing on her and she needs to see people. People being normal, even if the people themselves aren't exactly... normal.

"Dinner at the Inn? That's it?"

It's more than he'd normally offer, honestly. He's not enamored of spending too much time getting to know their fellow captors if only because relationships can be exploited. Attachments can be exploited. It's easier to keep to themselves.

Still, her request to eat at the Inn for one night means he doesn't have to hunt and capture anything so he nods. "Eating at the Inn, then. We'll do it."