OTA | Those Left Behind

[duel_wielding]

WHO: Agent North Dakota
WHERE: Around South Village
WHEN: Feb 26 - Mar 4, March 16th
OPEN TO: Anyone Still In Town
WARNINGS: None

---

All Along the Watchtower | OTA

When he'd asked Maine what it was he could do to help his friend, he hadn't had a problem with the suggestion, and frankly, sometimes you needed time alone. Or to watch out for what might be coming seeing as their 'hosts' had taken a lot of people away. Even though he hadn't had much practice with it yet, North still took one of the bows from storage, a collection of arrows, and put himself up a watch tower shortly after the news that people had disappeared comes in. Still, he's not sure what he's going to do now. Other than sit around. And then there's a sudden noise behind him, and North about jumps out of his skin.

"Someone there?"


Around Town | OTA

There's a lot to be done with a group of people out of town, isn't there? Other than, you know, worrying about people. Worrying about the people you can't be there for, worrying about the people who wouldn't want you to be there for them. But he goes about a pattern, trying to help everywhere he can. In the mornings he opens the dojo and lingers around while he makes his breakfast in the back kitchen. He promised that Nida kid to look over the place while he's gone, which includes offering his powers to pull pain away if someone injured themselves so they don't squirm as much while he deals with first aid. Afternoons have him checking in on animals owned by people out on walkabout, including the ones Vanille had been teaching him about as well as those in the jailhouse. He shuts the dojo down earlier in the day despite having lights now, mostly so he can go to the inn to help out with anything that needs cooked and to just seek company. Thing is, he used to be so social, and it's weird not to have people to see around all the time.


[OOC: Want a specific starter? Poke me. North needs to meet people.]

Comments

all along the watchtower

[vidal]

"Don't shoot, don't shoot." An amiable voice but ratcheted in surprise, the man's hands raised in the universal mark of harmlessness. There's a bow and quiver slung over Reyes' shoulder as well, and he'd climbed up into one of the watchtowers without realising it was already occupied. Most places in the village were unoccupied, on this eerie day.

"Sorry. I thought everyone-- or at least, almost everyone-- was off on their vacation." It's obviously not a vacation, but Reyes prefers that dry, askance way of looking at it. It's far better than the panic of jesus fucking christ, this time all my friends are gone and I'm left here.

[duel_wielding]

Don't worry, North hadn't even bothered drawing the bow, knowing better than to have it in position where he could hurt someone. He's still learning this stuff, and trigger discipline was the first thing a sniper learned. One shot too early could get you killed. And other people of course, but that was less of a concern at times of war.

"Yeah," he says, waving off the apology. Tries to catch his breath as he looks over the man.

He was at the speed thing, where you were completely failing to flirt, Theta provided, quite unhelpfully. He was seated too. I think I heard someone say 'Reyes' to him.

Probably his name then.

North holds out his head to try and make some ease here for them both.

"North Dakota. Wish I could say that I came to the same conclusion you did, but I'm mostly here because... Well, what else am I supposed to do in these situations?"

Maine had asked, and he was okay to obey.

[vidal]

"Don't I know it," Reyes says, shaking the offered hand as if they're schmoozing at a party, and not standing guard over an empty village. He doesn't name it, but it's pretty apparent: the helplessness, the casting-about for something to do and feel useful. It's like his usual day in the village, really, but cranked up by a hundred.

Then Reyes' own memory is ticking over, placing the unusual name. "You were the one on the network, weren't you?" he asks. "Doing the Q&A on artificial intelligence."

It had been wreathed behind a username, but of course Reyes always tapped through to check on the real names behind the accounts. Jotting down mental notes, particularly when the subject had forayed so close to something he knew from home, to the life that the Pathfinders lived with their own embedded AI.

[duel_wielding]

"I got a few bites there, T and I. So I don't suppose you could let me know which one you'd be?"

But after he takes his hand back he turns his attention back to the view from the watch tower. Sorry, he's a sniper, he doesn't like taking his eyes away from the potential threats that might come in. If someone gets inside his guard? Well, he has to deal with that. Though the question was what Reyes was going to do with a full name of 'Agent North Dakota'. That was a hard one to explain.

"Sorry, I like being high up. Eyes on everything."

[vidal]

"I know the feeling." Reyes has always liked the birds' eye view himself, keeping tabs on everything, watching the action all unfold from a safe distance. So he settles against the other side of the watchtower, elbows against the wall as he looks out in the opposite direction. Might as well.

"I was the one from a world which had four people with embedded AI. I was pretty close to one of them. Sounded pretty similar to what you have." If by pretty close, one meant had to politely ask the AI to turn off the neural link whenever fooling around with his girlfriend.

[duel_wielding]

At least Reyes's girlfriend got to fool around.

His name is Reyes Vidal, Theta confirms, furthering their knowledge from overheard words at the mixer, because one of them remembered to actually get that information from the network whenever they interacted online, and it wasn't North.

"So, you come up here often?" North asks, turning just enough to try and get a glimpse of the man. "And I promise it's not a cheesy pickup line."

[vidal]

Reyes bites back a laugh. "Fancy meeting a man like you in a watchtower like this," he says instead, leaning right into that tongue-in-cheek cheesiness. It's one way to cope.

"I don't usually come up here, actually. Not when things are humming along like they should be. Normally I'm out in the woods hunting for game, but since I'm used to a bow and arrow, it sounded like a good idea to keep an eye on things if I could. Honestly, I just-- don't know what else to do with myself. Everything feels suspended."

And the former smuggler hated being at such a loss, his usual resources and contacts suddenly missing overnight.

[duel_wielding]

"I know what you mean. Except I'm not even good enough to hunt yet," North sighs, shaking his head. Patience matters, he gets that. Snipers are all about that, but he doesn't... he doesn't know how to handle this. Doesn't know how to handle all of this.

"My friends are out there somewhere. And I can't do anything about it."

[vidal]

North has described the exact problem with the situation, that seething helplessness. And Reyes isn't a man accustomed to having friends -- moreso wary business connections -- and therefore that vulnerability stings. They've both wound up here here in the same boat, somehow.

"Shitty, isn't it?" Reyes' smile is tight around the corners; nothing more than a piece of armour mustered up to cover that flicker of hurt, the fleeting worry and pain that he's suppressing. And because he prefers focusing on the pragmatic details and on what they can fix in the moment, he mulls over a thought. "My housemate offers archery training every morning. So she's obviously the expert and I'm a poor substitute, but I could pass on what I've learned, if it helps." A beat. "Until she gets back."

The implication there is clear. Reyes' friends are out there, too.

Watchtower

[killorder]

Jake just about jumps out of his skin. Startling, hands going up and trying to keep his balance on the edge of the ladder, eyes wide. "Whoa. Whoa. Hey. Sorry. Was just checking for someone," he says, used to Cougar staying out all night in the tower, happier being as high up as he can get than he is on ground level. "I can do the whole name, rank and serial but it won't do you much good to prove who I am."

Re: Watchtower

[duel_wielding]

Name, rank and serial? Now that actually earns an amused look from the startled sniper. He offers Jake a brief nod and moves back from the edge, offering the man room to come the rest of the way up. He doesn't want to be responsible for a fall.

"I'm more or less alone here, but I wouldn't mind name and rank. Figure out who is saluting whom."

Re: Watchtower

[killorder]

He chuckles at that. For most it sounds too often like a joke out of a cartoon or a movie. For Jake though it's something they tell you to offer in case. He's not yet truly been in that in case, even if he's had a lot of guns pointed at him.

"Captain Jake Jensen, United States Army. You?"

Re: Watchtower

[duel_wielding]

Ouch, definitely a salute, even if the guy is from an outdated army. Still, he smiles and offers what he can, because you know, OpSec.

"I was a Lance Corporal once, in the UNSC Marine Corp. Which, if the United States really is still an entity armies are measured in, won't mean anything to you for centuries. You can call me North Dakota."

He hasn't used his real name in so long that it might even sound foreign to his own ears, so why bother?

[killorder]

Jake chuckles at that, waving a hand. "I've spent so long with a special forces unit that I don't consider rank meaning much except outside the unit. And if we're all here? Guess we're all the same unit," he says, not seeing much reason for that to be different in how this place is.

He arches a brow though at that. "Like the state? Or the battleship, I guess might be," he says, figuring that makes sense. "Jake's fine."

[duel_wielding]

Well, North considered it even less given he was a sniper, but that's that. However, he doesn't see them as a unit, but North's not going to say that. He'll just give that smile-but-not-smile that he offers COs.

"State, not that I've ever been there. I'm from a different planet. A colony. But that's sorta not important now I guess. Only name I've gone by for a long time, so I'm used to it."

[killorder]

"So we've moved off Earth then? Huh. Not surprising," he says, thinking about how things are in his world, and what they seem to be coming to. Not surprising at all.

"Until we know why we're here, everything is and could be important."

[duel_wielding]

"Very far off of Earth. If it wasn't for the war, I'd never have even set foot on it," North shrugs. There is only so much he's willing to mention, though. In case this guy is from an earlier version of his own world.

But this guy isn't wrong. Everything could be important. Even his confusion over the idea that they are clones. Because that doesn't work from his knowledge of them. But that's not here or there.

"Who says there has to be a purpose for why we're here?"

After Nida's disappearance

[firacrux]

After the notice went out Seifer had spent the next few hours scouring the area around the bunker for Nida. He left no stone or creepy pod unturned. Unfortunately his search proved fruitless, even the strange devices within the bunker couldn't offer any insight. Having come up with nothing yet unwilling to completely surrender hope he returned to the village. His first stop the dojo, if anyone had heard anything by now, certainly North would be appraised.

It was with building worry and anxiety that he arrived at the dojo, rapping loudly on the door to make his presence known should the man be upstairs. "Hey! You around?" If not, he'll just have to head home and see if Rinoa's back. Close on his heels is his new pet, a crocdog still without a name. Honestly he didn't know if the reptile would be capable of tracking but he'd brought a stolen shirt anyway, just in case. Who knows, maybe his companion could detect things he couldn't. So far, no dice.

Re: After Nida's disappearance

[duel_wielding]

He's been back for a bit actually. Given all he'd heard other people say, North hadn't been holding out much hope. Seemed like the guy had gone missing, just like so many other people here, and that was about all that could be said for him. Still he'd gone to look and when he'd come back he'd immediately started about the sorts of tasks that came with running the dojo. If nothing else the guy hadn't been wrong about the importance of this place. They were just going to have to find someone else to head it up.

But the knocking brings North out of the kitchen in the back of the house, the one place on the first floor off limits to the normal users of the place and he found Seifer.

"Any sign of your friend?" he asks, voice soft. Pitying even, because he understood. The guy was gone. And there was nothing anyone could do about that.

[firacrux]

It would seem, until Nida returns that North's inherited the dojo until someone else wanted to take up the mantle. Seifer didn't have the patience to act as a long term trainer for anyone so it wouldn't likely be him. Besides, he was busy learning how to make things out of metal most days.

He shakes his head at the question. "Any word on your end?" He wasn't ready to give up hope yet. They'd already lost Squall, he didn't want to lose more family as soon as he got them. That would be cruel even for his typically terrible luck.

[duel_wielding]

If Nida ever returns, but North doesn't bother to point something as important as that out. Because frankly, no one wants to hear any of that. Especially not from him.

"None. I've had a few people checking into it but no answers. You might have to accept the fact that your friend could be gone. I know it's not something anyone wants to hear, but I'm sorry to say it might be accurate."

[firacrux]

No one needs nor wants the obvious pointed out to them. It's too early for that, and Seifer's nowhere near ready to accept it as a possibility. He knows it's the most likely explanation, he also knows that he couldn't forgive himself if he didn't give every ounce of effort until he was absolutely certain.

"I'm not giving up on him and I'll tear this Hyne-damned island apart to find him if I have to!" He spits, displaying a sudden and unusually fierce display of emotion. Seifer could usually keep himself somewhat reigned in, but not about this. It's his brother.

[duel_wielding]

It's sad, when you fail to realize what you're doing, what you've done. When people are hurting and it doesn't make any sense. The world isn't an easy place to deal with and he's taken that in stride.

"If he was with your friend last night, there is a limited area he could get to, right? Searching past a certain area will be a bit much. I've heard this happens, right? People leave sometimes. Maybe he went home."

[firacrux]

The world has never been easy. Not a single part of it has been forgiving or kind. Not back home at least. Here it had been easier, too nice, so of course something had to give and he knew that. It didn't mean he wasn't going to fight tooth and nail to preserve what he could as long as he could. Even if the effort was futile. It's never stopped him before.

"Not necessarily. We've been teleported all over the damned place lately. If the Observers took him, there's no tellin' where he could be." The look he shoots North is a dangerous one, cold and furious all at once. While he has a point, he's not giving up yet.

[duel_wielding]

Yeah, that's a look North knows. This kid really does remind him of his sister in some ways. And that makes him want to try even harder.

"Come here. Have a bowl of stew before you head back out. We can try beyond the North village next. I'll go with you, but you should eat first."

Basic truth of the world was that North was going to be protective and helpful to anyone who needs it.