sixthiterationlogs | racing through canyons of angels ♙ closed

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racing through canyons of angels ♙ closed

WHO: Jess Brightwell.
WHERE: The inn, then into the wild unknown.
WHEN: Aug. 9th.
OPEN TO: Raven Reyes.
WARNINGS: Children at play?
STATUS: Closed.

The morning was lightening into butter-yellow sunrise when Jess started getting ready to head out into the canyon.

Water, a makeshift knife, and an extra pair of socks went into his pack along with his other gear. Every couple of days now he'd taken his bag with a day's worth of supplies and picked a direction, hiking as deep into the canyon as time and circumstances allowed.

Towering rock walls in every direction made an excellent place to disappear a town, Jess scathingly had to admit, and the rough terrain and thick foliage in the forested areas didn't make it easy to scout. More than once these two weeks past, he'd been willing to trade an arm if it'd get him a proper knife to clear the way. But setbacks or no setbacks, someone had brought them here, and someone was providing them supply boxes. Jess had every intention of finding them, or barring that, a road out of this bloody primeval village.

And he knew he wasn't the only one who felt that way.

Before stopping by the storeroom to grab the rations he'd need, Jess' first stop was Raven's room. "You ready to go?" he asked, rapping on her door.

She wasn't a friend he'd trust at his back like Glain, but she was just as hungry for answers. Shared interests made them allies in this, at least.

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She thought she'd already been treated well enough to the "great" outdoors. It hadn't been so great after the first rain shower she'd experienced. Her first storm had been a tornado of one, with Finn almost dying of poison, Lincoln being a nonentity who held so much power in his bare hands. She hated the great outdoors with every fibre of her being.

Space had never been this cruel.

Looking at him with the arch of her brow he loathed so much, it broke off when she frowned. She didn't spend too much time looking at him. Raven peered into the kitchen and wondered what food she could steal that wouldn't be missed by anyone in particular.

She knew the answer to that already, though. Even a dumb dandelion would be missed in this small town.

"Do you compare a lot of people to animals?" Then she tacked on teasingly, "Sounds kind of lazy."

Jess had no qualms about taking a share of food, and he set his pack on the counter so he could grab the bundle he'd set aside in the pantry the night before. Whatever he took, he'd replace eventually, and he was getting better at it everyday by taking cues from the others' survival experience. Mapping the area was worth the cost, regardless. Staying complacent inside the town limits wasn't going to get them anywhere.

Halfway to the storage room, he looked back at her, more incredulously amused than anything else. "Coming from the girl who's named after a bird?" By that logic, the people who'd named her must have been at the height of laziness.

Grabbing the rations wrapped in cloth, he added it his supplies, then looked at her expectantly, having not failed to notice she'd come downstairs almost empty-handed. "Are you sure you don't want to bring your bag? Water?" He wasn't her dad to order her around if she was making a conscious decision to put herself through hell, but it could also be genuine inexperience on her part.

Raven had been named after a bird, but it the reason behind it hadn't been as plain and dull as he might think.

Mom might have been a woman she hadn't wanted to aspire to be, but she had been kind once. She'd been named after the bird associated with Apollo, and her mother had believed she'd been brought good luck. Or maybe it'd been her father instead. Sometimes Raven attributed the kinder stories to a man she barely remembered.

She wished the reasoning behind her name it had been the kind of luck Abby Griffin would credit her daughter for, but Raven believed she knew better.

She went quiet, but only for a mere moment, before picking herself up once more. She opened a cupboard and stood on the tips of her toes, stretching her long legs and relishing in how she felt the pull of skin and muscle in her left, and reached for her own water.

Settling on her feet, she moved to him. "Figured we'd just use yours. Two birds, one stone." She smiled. "Or more like one bird, one strap that wraps around the leg of a hawk," she gestured toward him, shrugging her shoulders.

Edited (icon change bruh #cantbetamed) 2016-08-23 08:16 (UTC)

In his bag? Ah, now he read her loud and clear. She meant two hefty stones and one pack horse lugging them both, along with his gear, her gear, and anything he might find along the way. He smiled back. Not a chance.

"Oh, no," Jess said around a genuinely amused laugh. "No way. I'm sure that line works on a lot of people when you bat those eyelashes, but if you're coming with me pretty faces pull their own weight, same as the rest of us. You won't this hawk carrying your water and change of socks if I should happen to fall off a cliff."

Just because he was willing to help her survive didn't mean she should trust him to do it. Give a guy your water, he could just as easily refuse to give it back.

Raven laughs.

"You really need to lighten up, Brightwell." She moves away from him, water bottle in hand, and, from inside a cupboard close to the ground, she pulls out her own backpack. Though she's used to having her own space in Arkadia in the form of her workstation, she'd wanted to keep her backpack downstairs for the sake of not forgetting it in her new room. She was still getting used to its small size and cleanliness, and a part of her was so used to leaving her own tools lying about in Wick and Sinclair's private sections of the camp.

She takes note of how far she can push him, which seems to be just a little further than she had believed when she'd first met him and after that second conversation over stew and dandelions. Raven's all restless energy and an almost childish excitement to put her leg to use. It's been too long since she's been able to fully feel it, push it until she's complaining about sore muscles and blistered feet.

She knows it's strange to look forward to it, but she can't wait to feel her leg in all of its mortal glory again.

Slinging it over her shoulder and placing it on top of the counter, she secures her water bottle in it, and glances over her shoulder, smiling. "I guess I didn't need that much beauty sleep if I was up this morning getting all ready for our big adventure."

Still in a good mood, she slips those straps over her arms, and bounces just a little to get that pack right on her back before she stills.

She kept moving toward him--but not with his bag in mind. From another cupboard, she pulled out a matching bag with the flame insignia he'd come to think of as a close cousin to the Medica symbol. Very funny.

"You're a riot. I'm laughing on the inside," he deadpanned dryly for her benefit, though his mouth curved crookedly like he was torn between a smile and a frown. Lighten up? That might be a lost cause for a Brightwell, but she'd had him going for a minute there, he'd give her that much. He made a mental note not to act on the assumption she was like other girls who would expect a gentleman to do the bulk of her work for her.

Glain would like her for that, he thought. And for being able to pull one over on him, which she'd probably find the most amusing.

Choosing not to shove his foot further into his mouth, Jess ignored her self-satisfied smile and moved around her while she got her pack in order. "You were up this morning to find a way out of here, don't forget." It's not an adventure, it's work was heavily implied, but he managed to resist the impulse to reel her teasing back in. She was doing well enough pinning him with a reputation for seriousness without him helping her along.

"Are you always such a stick in the mud?"

She knew why she'd been up early. She couldn't sleep, as per usual, and so she'd put herself to use. Good use. The kind of use that didn't require her to sit on her ass all day and take pitiful scraps from those who could give her work.

She was up and bouncing on her left leg, and she'd relished in it. As she had for the last several days of being in this town, able to move her legs freely and without pain, she'd put herself to the test yet again, and had ensured she was ready for this trip long before Jess Brightwell had awoken to begin his day of being a bit of a pain in the ass.

"Come on, Brightwell," she said, and made to move toward the arch doorway. "We can't find a way out of here if you're as slow as a snail."

Always. Or so plenty of people would say, no doubt.

His strides were long and had already carried him halfway to the front door when she turned the teasing around on him. Jess flipped her a smile that probably wouldn't improve the impression of his being a pain in the arse. "Did you say something? I didn't hear you from way back there."

Off to a good start.

The door's old doorknob creaked under his hand as he opened it, and he swung the door wide for her to follow him out. The temperature was more moderate at this time of morning than it would be in the Alexandrian humidity; the cool, fresh air called to him, sending him bounding down the porch steps and onto the grass beyond.

"Nice day for a prison break."

That's such a childish response.

And it reminded her painfully of Finn.

Her smile didn't waver once. Though there was a slight ache in her chest, Raven did as she had advised Finn to do once, and built a brace and sucked it up. Taking to the adventure of exploring the land outside of the town required her to have her head on straight. Missing a ghost wasn't the best way to navigate herself; it wouldn't let her take in the sights and sounds and scents of this particular spit of land, and memorise it for when she needed it most in the future.

She didn't bother to make sure the door closed behind her. Strides long and quick, Raven took pleasure in forgetting for a brief moment her leg wasn't supposed to work. Down the porch steps, she glanced down at her left leg, but didn't throw it out or stop as she strode to walk side by side with Jess, and then overtake him.

Turning around so she could walk backwards, she arched her brow and gave him a once-over. "You've been in prison?"

Edited (shira curse.) 2016-08-30 11:11 (UTC)

Jess had already broken the canyon into grids with a plan to search each of them. The maps arranged on the inn's ground floor were built on a similar system, and it was a perfectly fine one in and of itself, but Jess had been taught to rely on himself. For that reason, he had his own internal map he intended to follow, tweaked slightly to suit him and what he suspected of their captors' surveillance habits.

With his route held in his mind's eye, he arrowed in the direction of the river where they could then follow it to the southeast. The southeastern quadrant was still one he wanted to comb more thoroughly. "If you count this, it's my first time," he said, watching her walk backward alongside him. If her heel caught on a rock like that, he wasn't going to feel bad if she fell.

"Have you been to prison?" Temperament aside, he didn't completely buy her as a hardened inmate.

"In a way," she shrugged her shoulder, and turned on her heel to walk with her back to him. She figured he was heading toward the river. It's where she'd choose to begin, if she was the one who'd paved a path for them to travel along. Raven, much like a bird, just flew north or south, and waited until she hit the end of the earth before she swung on her wings and flew back in the direction she'd came.

In a way, Raven would be in prison. Repairing a hundred year old pod behind the Council's back and plummeting down to Earth, along with her being the reason the Ark had lost a good chunk of air, she should be in jail. Worse, she should be floated.

Raven suspected she'd broken free of her own prison with her left leg moving as easily as her right, but she didn't so much as wish to allude to it.

Keeping slightly in step with him, she purposefully made sure she was just a little ahead. It was her attempt to bait him, as well as avoid him scrutinising her expression, if he so much as chose to try and study it. "Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not a jailbird."

Her answer didn't invite more questions, and so Jess didn't try. In a way could mean a lot of things, just as his had been honest and yet not entirely the truth.

She was in the mood to push ahead and establish a place at the head of the pack--that was apparent from her effort to outpace him. The dirt road outside of the inn led to a four-way intersection, and he selected the one that would take them toward the boathouse, not minding her insistence in taking the lead. The walk was easy now, but then they hit the harder terrain neither of them would have the energy to spare on showing off.

"Why would that be disappointing?" he asked, humoring the thought. He'd spent his life around criminals, was one himself, but he wouldn't say he found them more stimulating company than someone who hadn't seen the inside of a cell.

Despite her purposefully long strides, Raven evened them out. She knew she worked herself too hard. Staying up too late, not getting enough sleep, keeping her mind busy when it needed to rest so it could remain sharp — it's a lesson she'd been poor at learning on the ground with Finn at her back, and it was one she struggled with even now, with another boy at her back who cared very little as to whether or not she burned herself out.

It wasn't as though she didn't know where they were headed — she didn't, not really — but out of a desire to not be worried about her back. Jess might be a pain in the ass most of the time, but he was one of the very few familiar faces in the town.

She didn't quite trust him. But she didn't not trust him, either.

Falling into step beside him, she kept her gaze straight ahead when she shrugged her shoulders. "Because I'm otherwise a boring person?" She looked to him, lips quirked up slightly, brow arched. "It'd make reasoning why we're here easier. We're all criminals. It's been an excuse used before."

"You have a funny way of judging people." He lifted one corner of his mouth back at her, amused at the scale she was using to decide interesting character features. That was certainly one way to look at juvenile delinquency. "I'd say falling out of space and ending up climbing out of a fountain is pretty interesting."

We're all criminals. Ah, but there was a theory he had to be careful around.

Jess had to admit, he was in the same sort of middle ground regarding his feelings toward the others in town--he didn't have concrete reasons not to trust them, but that didn't mean he did. Trust was a luxury he couldn't afford, and his history wasn't something to be shared lightly. It had been too dangerous at home. Dangerous for him, and for those involved with him.

"Does everyone really come off as the same caliber of criminal to you? I could see some petty theft for Veronica like palming a lipstick or two, but that's about it. If greens are misdemeanors, what would the greys be charged with?"

She doesn't quite know what he's talking about with Veronica, but she can easily adapt what he's implying to something she's familiar with. Hadn't Murphy told her about his dad stealing medicine for his sick son? It was enough to tug at her heartstrings, but not enough to blind her to the raging pain slowly seeping her of her life John Murphy was responsible for.

"Greys are the badasses," she declares, and there's a slight smugness to it, tilting her chin up to accompany it. The greys have to be the badasses, if she's to be in their group.

"We're here for a reason, and it's not because Veronica likes to put … lipstick on or whatever." She waves her hand dismissively, wanting to sweep that particular into the dirt. She's wondering if pretending to know what he's talking about may help her assimilate into the comfortable shoes he wears, but she doesn't think it'll work. He'll always pick up on something, because she'll always let him catch her confusion.

"You and I both know what it's like to live in a world where someone's always got the upper hand. Maybe that's what the greys are." It's after a beat, and her voice is slightly softer when she says, "Survivors."

Badasses, huh? His smile bloomed a little wider. He played his confidence in his own abilities closer to his chest like he did the rest of his cards, a shade subtler but no less there. "I could live with that."

As for the common thread between them, he'd agree this wasn't a conventional prison for conventional crooks. He wouldn't put it past the Artifex to throw him to the wolves, but the purpose of the town had to be more than that, or he'd have Wolfe and Santi beside him, and likely Glain, Khalila, and Dario, too. Not a bunch of strangers whose first reactions to the word 'Artifex' was usually an uncomprehending blink.

His gaze cut to Raven as her playful boasting gave way to a more frank observation. And an apt one, where he was concerned. It made him curious how she defined survival where she was from. "Is that how it was for you?" Anit had said something similar once, that she and Jess were two of a kind, a product of the same dark places; after time spent with her, Jess thought she was right, and not merely because of their shared upbringing in the book trade. She knew loss like he did, and she'd endured it without the luxury of a grave to lay flowers on as he had.

Raven, he was less sure about. He had little context to place the bits and pieces she'd revealed about her life before now.

Raven didn't look at him.

The topic of home wasn't one she liked to shy away from, but after discerning not too many people understood what she was hinting at when she spoke, she chose to keep those particular cards to her chest. As someone who liked to boast and puff out her chest, Raven was taking her survival more seriously than she ever had before.

How did they end up where they currently were? Telling the Grounders everything had weakened them. Much like a generator lacking a panel over its most crucial organs, Raven's made it a point to never follow in Clarke Griffin's footsteps and wear her heart and intentions on her sleeve.

"It's how it's always been," she said, keeping her eyes on the environment around them. She wasn't trying to memorise it. A tree was a tree, a rock was a rock, and a riverbed was a riverbed. She was looking out for what was in those trees, holding or hiding behind those large rocks, and if anyone happened to be swimming in any pools of water.

"You wake up every day not knowing you'll see the next. It's not a way to live," she shrugged, "but it's something."

He adjusted his bag strap on his shoulder. She wasn't jumping to offer details on her life back home, and he wasn't about to push for them. In every place, human nature dictated that someone had power, and others didn't. Mostly likely, those others suffered for it.

Jess didn't need details to understand the sentiment.

"Staying alive is good enough sometimes. You can't do anything if you're dead."

That was when Jess heard it--rushing water. Not the sound of the same lapping river he'd walked along just the other day, but louder. Nearing a roar. The current definitely hadn't sounded that powerful yesterday.

As the river revealed itself in the distance, he could see that his ears were telling him the truth. The water was rushing past, flecked with white tips, spilling over the embankment again just as it had when it had flooded few days ago. No one would be swimming today. Not if they wanted to avoid getting swept away to kingdom come.

"It's flooding again? It was fine yesterday," he said, unconsciously drawing his brows together in a frown. They were in the middle of a canyon. He didn't like this irregular flooding given their low elevation.

With camp set up away from any grand lakes or rivers, Raven hadn't grown used to the differing sounds of running water. The two camps she's lived in have been set aside from any water, a good walk away from being able to hear the rush of them.

Raven slowed to a stop. She looked in the distance, her expression studious as she tried to see if she could glean an answer to Jess' question. For the girl who understood how almost anything worked in camp, she couldn't quite find a reason for this.

"Did it rain earlier?" She glanced down at the ground and found her boots didn't squish against any mud.

Jess picked up his pace, winding his way down toward the riverbank. What was left of the riverbank. A large portion of it was underwater, saturating the grassy bank.

Crossing the bridge was no longer the easy task he'd been imagining; the top of the rapids licked at the edge of the walkway, the boards probably slick with water. "Not here. It could've rained further upriver, I suppose." Having been so far unsuccessful in seeing what lay beyond the canyon, it was strange to think that heavy rains were one of the few pieces of evidence that a world existed outside of their enclosed bubble.

"I guess we should count our blessings the plumbing wasn't backing up this morning." He sounded doubtful.

Raven shoved Jess lightly. "Jinx," she said, rolling her eyes. It would be a problem she'd have to fix, unless there was someone who understood breaking and fixing plumbing already positioned at the inn.

Looking out toward where the river was, the sound was loud and unfamiliar to her. She had been bed bound, kept within a perimetre where people could observe her and rush to her rescue if she so happened to fall. Despite being out in the open for a few months, there was still so much of the world Raven had yet to see.

"Maybe we should follow it," she said. "The river has to start somewhere. Maybe we'll find something." Or maybe they wouldn't. But the river was safe to follow, wasn't it? Embedded deeply into the ground, it'd lead them to wherever it was she wanted to go, and it'd bring them back home. It was better than trying to memorise the shape of a tree that had a thousand twins in the woods.

He blinked at the shove, picking up on her meaning a second after. Guess he shouldn't tempt fate, should he? "Slip of the tongue. Maybe our first order of business should be for you to eye on me for the next little while in case I step into some poison ivy. I hope you know what it looks like so you can warn me."

Jess preferred to hope that the inn's plumbing not backing up was a sign of good luck, and it wouldn't end up being one of those days they'd come to regret. He already distrusted the wilderness and any manner of trouble they could find there--too many places for someone to hide. Too many opportunities for something to happen.

Already nodding, he gestured to the south, in the direction of the raging current. "The river empties out to the southeast. I've been up north a few times, didn't turn up much. I'm thinking let's flip the switch and try the opposite." Though now Jess was starting to wonder about his plan to use the bridge to cross to the other embankment.

On approach, it didn't look in danger of breaking up and floating away just yet, which was a positive sign. Slick but still solid. He gave Raven a questioning look that asked what his mouth didn't. Was she up for a river crossing?

Birds flew south for the winter.

Supposedly.

Winter was coming back home, and she wondered if this was a sign that something much cooler was to come their way. Or perhaps she was thinking a little too hard on a metaphor she didn't so much as make a sound about. She guessed he'd take it and run with it, and thus introduce the poison ivy she knew the look of. She'd made sure Monty taught her what berries to eat and what plants to never push Finn into.

She noticed his look, and glanced toward the bridge that didn't make her feel very confident. It didn't surprise her the one way to get to their chosen destination was to walk on something so flimsy it didn't inspire much trust.

She looked at him, arching her brow. "Do you want me to hold your hand?"

For the girl who couldn't swim, she didn't care about walking along a bridge that could see her falling into the water that had almost pulled her to the fountain's floor. A part of her wanted to find another way, but Raven Reyes had never let anything stop her.

She'd destroyed a bridge not even the bombs could touch. She could handle a stupid wooden one.

Trust Raven to shrug off an easy out. He'd meant the offer as a friendly gesture, knowing better than to judge someone's abilities on appearance, but he was starting to get the impression she wasn't one to accept the easy way out or the comfortable path.

That was fine by him; he had no doubt about taking the bridge. (All right, not a lot of doubt. Not enough to stop him.)

Plainly intending it as a joke, Jess held his hand out as answer, not for one second believing she'd actually take it. "Was it that obvious? I'm trembling in my boots."

"The poor nerd," she answered dry before slapping her hand into his and wrapping her fingers around it. She tugged him along, and not too gently, either.

It was a bluff if she ever saw one. Raven never was one to turn down a challenge, even if it was in the shape of someone joking with her. She always had to prove herself, and sometimes Raven found she had to show herself to not be a stuck-up mechanic who was as stiff as the metal she worked with.

She might have reservations about the bridge, but she knew she'd survive it. She'd gotten through much worse than a wooden, flimsy walkway.

"You can hold onto me if you're so scared. I'll only judge you just a little."

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