Uprooted and replanted somewhere else (Arrival)

[houmaprotector]

WHO: Alec Holland (+1 thread for (oorah and reactions + OTA)
WHERE: Bunker / on the way out to the forest.
WHEN: 11-13th
OPEN TO: Anyone. Anyone who wants to pick up on that welcome thread and find him be warned. He'll be angry and panicky because he's been disconnected from the green. Feel free to comment with reactions though if you're in the bunker. For his run to the forest it's fair game.
WARNINGS: Alec is a panicked swamp monster who has been replanted in a strange place, proceed with caution. He can't really do much apart from run around and roar at you and shove through you (he's a pretty strong dude.)

arrival; you've been replanted.

[All he knows is solitude. That's all he's known since he returned to the green.

It is a pleasure not to think. Not to be human. To dissolve and become something else entirely, to lose his shape and his humanity. When he forms himself again, When Jonah and Capucine come to speak on him, he abandons them and they leave him be. When he them all he remembers is Abigail. The look on he face. The grateful smile. The sad little look on her face as she faded away like a storm of leaves in the wind. It's not even that he doesn't want companionship. It's that he's far too tied into the green now and when he thinks, when he feels, it shifts and disrupts itself. It's better not to think.

Better to set Alec Holland aside. Better to hide. Better to fail to feel. The world can move on without him and he can govern this realm with the parliament's will without opening his eyes and seeing her. In time it starts to fade (though he has no real concept of time. persay.) but then-

The words day and night blur into one another before he dreams and the dream is not of the green. He hears Abigail, calling his name, and he runs after her. Don't leave, Don't leave - Abigail don't leave me please, don't leave me Abby-! Foolish. They'd agreed to this. They both knew what they had to do. For humanity, for...

All of his burdens are gone then and he sleeps. The green, the world, it all falls away.

On the outside, one of the tubes, a particularly large one has begun to drain but the water isn't clear. It's sludgy and thick, green and overflowing with plant parts. There are pieces, leaves and sticks and twigs that rush out of it as a big green hand grips the edge of the tube. The hand clenches and the thing starts to rise. Slowly, water and plants drip across the floor before the massive being drags a big hand over his face. The creature is hideous, plants and leaves growing from it's shoulders. The water sloshes over the edge of it as the creature takes a great big step and he's...

Out.

Realization dawns on the thing and Alec Holland growls. Fingers...toes...shoulders...eyes...I must be logical. I have to...gather my thoughts because...I'm...not...not in the green. The creature lets out a grunt, a low rolling noise that echoes through the chamber. Must...try to think. The green. Where is the green? Where...]

...The...Green.

[The creature's moan deepens, echoing through the surrounding area. An inhuman sound.]

Where...am...I the green...

[I'm not in the green. I'm not in the green -where is it? Where-where is it?! I can't-

His panic doesn't really articulate itself well. Instead there's just a pained and muted roar and the thing lashes out, desperate red eyes glaring around the room looking for an enemy, a scapegoat, someone. anyone who could explain what was going on.

If they can calm down a giant green monster.]

--

Oh sinnerman (where you gonna run to?); To the woods.

[I'm disconnected from the green. Maybe if I get out of...this. Away from...that...I can figure it out. Get out into nature. See what's going on. Try and...Try and center myself because...because...

He made an impression in that bunker and despite the scrubs (he resolved to get rid of those clothes as soon as he could.) he's...still a monster. I stick out like a sore thumb.

Weaving through the inn and houses is a large greenish/black shape. If I'm not connected to the green, I can't regrow my body. I might die. I might actually die.

The thought makes him pause behind one of the buildings, hand gripping it. If he passed on he might go where Abby was. He could be with her.

In his contemplation, he might be far easier to spot, a great green lump attached to one of the buildings.]

Comments

[oorah]

Frank grimaces, but doesn't shrink away. He still hates loud noises, but he's coping. It's fine, right? Right, it's fine. If this monster kills him it won't even be the most horrific death he'd suffered before, and he's convinced this place will only bring him right back.

"If I knew, I would. The people here just call 'em the Observers." He looks and sounds helpless, voice pitched low and gruff like always. "No one's ever seen 'em face to face." At least, not that they could remember.

[houmaprotector]

The Observers. He frowns and stares at the sun.

"They are...powerful. Very...powerful. They pulled me out of...a place that no...no man could reach. Be wary."

He stares, "Be...wary. I was...mourning. My...Abigail..." He's still reeling. He had been nothing up until being dragged into the sunlight. His eyes are wide and frightened, "They've cut me off...from my powers!"

He stands, "...Will we...fight them? I can fight." He clenches his hands, "I'm...strong either...way. I'll...protect you."

[oorah]

"Hey... calm down," he urges softly, frowning. He hasn't seen someone this messed up over a place like this in a long time. Frank reaches out a hand for a massive plant-bearing arm, but he never lets it connect, unsure how it would be received. "If we get a chance to fight, we'll do it side-by-side. But right now you need to chill. OK?"

[houmaprotector]

Chill? How can I chill?! He twitches and moves away, staring at the green before pushing a hand into it and looking back at him, "...I'm cut off. From...the green. The plants. I was in...the plants. I was the plants. That's...why I can't talk."

He pauses, "...Where can I get...water? If I drink...I can talk. I think."

He tries to give him an understanding look but it might be scarier then he gives it credit for, "Must be hard...to understand me."

[oorah]

He doesn't get it, but he nods anyway, letting go of Alec and waving him onward.

"There's a pump, out here." In the peach grove. If there's any place to get connected, he thinks that'll be it, whatever it means to a creature like this. At least the Observers didn't make him this way, he's confident of as much now. It's a small consolation, in the end. Frank leads him to a clearing that opens into a field of peach trees, there's a spigot for irrigation that comes from the stream, pipes visible above ground.

[houmaprotector]

Alec studies the trees with the air of an expert, "...How are you fixed for food supplies?"

This he says while moving to turn on the pump very carefully and soak his hands before burying them in the soil.

[oorah]

Frank moves to sit on an old tree stump and shrugs. "Not bad, actually. Greenhouse is pretty well stocked. And there are fields behind the Town Hall. Word has it these peaches and the spring can heal minor injuries too." It's a fair sight better than they'd had in Reims, even if it was a more favorable environment for growing coffee, that doesn't mean he's going to give up.

[houmaprotector]

"This is rich soil."

He considers the man for a moment, "Medically? How are you fixed for medicine? I can...brew multiple simple medicines from the stuff around here."

He rolls the earth around in his hands, "I'll have to have a look at the property to see if I can help anyone with anything."

[oorah]

He shrugs. "Other than the magic fruit, I don't think so. Claire's a nurse though, she's my across-the-street neighbor and she'd definitely know better." Frank wants to help, too, as long as no one knows it's him doing the helping, so he stays quiet on that subject.

[houmaprotector]

"I'd like to talk to her. It'll be easier for people to accept that I'm here if I can provide something useful."

He shrugs and digs his roots in again.

"Is there anyone I need to watch out for?"

[oorah]

It's almost funny, someone asking him things he's been trying to tell these people for months. It doesn't matter now, and Kilgrave wouldn't be a threat to a creature like this anyway. Does anything truly matter anymore? And when the hell did he become a nihilist?

"I'm the wrong guy to ask." For everything. He's officially Checking Out.

[houmaprotector]

Alec has experience with being silent, with knowing too many things for his own damn good. He pulls his hands from the earth to stare at him for a moment before nodding slowly.

How do I find myself on the opposite end of this? The person who could help me out of it was Abigail but she's dead.

He wants to feel something, some stab of pain, some emotion, but instead his features are impassive.

"It'd be wise to find someone who'd know. This settlement is only growing bigger." He raises an eyebrow at him, "I'll have to investigate."

"Do you like it here? Besides being trapped?"

[oorah]

"Try Mark. He's good with all the plants."

What a question... Frank looks away for the answer.

"I don't hate it. It's not even close to the worst place I've been."

[houmaprotector]

"...I think we can both agree on that. Yet we've both been taken here against our will."

He pulls himself into a sitting position and sits, cross-legged, "It says a lot about you that you're comfortable here, having been kidnapped, then other places."

[oorah]

Frank is seldom taken places any other way so he supposes it does say something about him. Reims certainly says everything one would need to know, but everyone else has told him just to repress it, that it isn't relevant to what's going on now. He thinks it's significant, of course, but he isn't sure if he can make himself that vulnerable again and share an experience that will probably be dismissed again.

"If you say so," he manages, looking at the stream behind Alec instead of his face.

[houmaprotector]

Alec was never traumatized persay. Apart from the...trauma that brought him to this existence, he had a good life. He knows people who have fought, bled, died however and he's so far removed from that it's hard to read the subtle emotion on the other man's face.

He wishes he could. It's like a puzzle. Like one he's lost the pieces to.

It's...frustrating. To say the least.

Still, it has to pass and he sits and stares out at the greenery.

"Before I was here, I was in the green."

He pauses, "And I'm...It's hard to describe but there are some places where you lose who you are even if you think that it makes you happy."

He pauses. It does make him happy. It's his place now. It's the place he will go when he finally passes on. It's the only goddamn reward for his efforts, for how much he's given up, Linda, his work, baseball games and movies and- Abigail.

"I had just done something that I had to do. I made a sacrifice. A powerful one. One that saved a life. It took a life as well. And I went into the green because it was easier to feel nothing. To leave behind humanity because you all continue to disappoint me. Extensively."

He's removed in a way from Alec Holland despite the man's emotions, his memories. He can say that.

"...My point is, that when you are happier in a place where you feel no struggle, have no life, you have to ask yourself why you are there."

"And perhaps I must ask myself why I was there as well instead of seeking out human beings and their comfort."

[oorah]

"Yeah," Frank agrees, thinking he knows exactly what Alec means even if he doesn't have a place like that. He probably never will again. But there is one person, someone he hasn't stopped circling around since they met, and it loses him to his thoughts all over again before he can circle back and really focus on the other man's speech. The conclusion has him snorting, offering up a lopsidedly wry look. "'Cause people suck." If you had any doubt he was from New York...