My heart will lead me there soon [Locked & OTA]

[posilutely]

WHO: Queenie Goldstein
WHERE: Graves' House/Inn & Hot Springs
WHEN: 1 week after her arrival & March 22, evening
OPEN TO: Graves, Credence & All
WARNINGS: Half-naked witch? IDK
STATUS: Closed

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backdated: about a week after arrival (for graves & credence)

Queenie Goldstein is not the sort of girl who looks a gift horse in the mouth, she really isn't. Ask anyone -- She's just a regular ray of sunshine. Too much of one, some people think, but Queenie's always felt it's better to err on the side of being grateful.

She and Teen, they didn't always have a lot. Somebody needed to find a silver lining for them both.

It would be a real understatement to say that it's been a challenge to maintain her typical upbeat demeanor since she found herself whisked so abruptly away from New York City's familiar clatter. She knows the silver lining's there, but there's only so much the universe can ask of a gal when she's been pulled from her home, her job, the only family she's got left. Does she have a roof over her head? Yes. Does she have food to eat? Absolutely, even if it makes her feel awfully guilty to not have much to give in exchange. She's got a couple of familiar faces around, too, even if technically they both tie her stomach up in knots.

It could be so much worse. She's been trying to remember that this whole last week as the full weight of reality settled on her slender shoulders. She really has. Some days it's just harder than others.

So, it's no real surprise that when she woke up today and found a big, ol' box sitting on her kitchen table, and then she opened the box and saw what was inside, that she had to sit down and cry for a minute. But a minute was all she was giving it; she dried her face on a towel, plucked herself up, and did the only thing she could do: She made cocoa.

The first she carries next door, a single tea cup shivering in her hands as she waits on the porch, hoping that Mr. Graves is home. A little later, she carries another to the inn, saucer fit over its top to protect the hot liquid inside as she looks for a skinny, sad boy with wide eyes.


current: at the hot springs (ota)

The hot springs has, by far, been the flat-out, absolute best thing Queenie has discovered about this place. A chance encounter on the road a couple of weeks ago, a teenage girl with big, tired eyes and a towel looped over her arm, dark hair still pinned high on her head.

I don't want a scar, is what the girl had said when she'd pulled up her sleeve to show the ghostly web of lines tracing her skin. It's great for your hair, too.

Queenie's been slipping out into the forest every few days since.

The girl hadn't been wrong; curls once limp were now bright and bouncy again, and Queenie just felt better each time she took the time to go the springs. She could swear she had more energy than ever before, but even if she didn't, she thinks she'd go anyway. Sure, she's got a tub at home, but it's just not the same.

Today she's carried along a couple of bath towels and an empty teapot to fill with water to carry home. They're set neatly aside under the nearest tree, under a low branch draped with her coat and clothes, black cotton fluttering gently in the warm mist skating off the water. She's kept on her underthings -- She's not that bold, no matter what her sister might think -- but there's not all that much left to the imagination as she gratefully sinks in, all the way up to her shoulders.

Comments

[posilutely]

Months and months, it's apparently been -- Close to a year, according to some of the people Queenie's talked to, and the thought is enough to make her head spin. It's hard to imagine being in a place like this so long, almost no control over your life at all.

"How do you do it?" she asks now, all curiosity. This whole time, she's been thinking of being here as a temporary gig, but what if it's not? What if a year from now she's the old hand talking to the fresh face?

"D'you ever really get used to this place?"

[hawkeyesniper]

Riza considers all her experiences, both back home in Amestris and her time in Manhattan facing monsters both big and small. "One day at a time," Riza admits, it's a lame answer, but it's what she's got. "You get some people to trust and support, and then you band together and try to find your way out. You have to hold on to that much," Riza said, thinking of the many times she'd nearly died. Here she hadn't even come close to the dangers she'd faced in her life, but there was time enough for that to change.

She could give up, but she'd made a promise to two different people that she wouldn't. She would find her way out and she wouldn't give up on that for anything. But, she shakes her head, "But...I would say you never really get used to it. You...adapt, I suppose, and accept what you've been given. It stops seeming so strange and you just continue on."

[posilutely]

"I guess you kinda have to," Queenie agrees. She's not so young that she can't remember how the city had been in wartime, although she'd been at school for most of it. You just make do and keep moving.

"But it's not so bad, huh? Most of the time, anyway." Her face pinches a bit as she recalls some of the stories she's heard -- Most of what's gone on just sounds like a hassle, but a couple of people have actually died.

[hawkeyesniper]

"No. There's good people here and we can make the most of little moments like this," Riza admits. Giselle had been similar in her attitude -- keep positive, have parties, and enjoy the good things. You couldn't focus on all the horrors or they would overwhelm them all.

Riza tilts her head, "You've been thinking about this a lot, hm? It's hard, but it doesn't mean you have to resign yourself to it."

[posilutely]

There's no way for Queenie to explain the particulars of why she worries about this, about her personal theories on why they've all been stuck here and who made it happen. She doesn't know how far the law extends, if they're even still in the U.S., but she knows it's not smart to talk about any of it with a No-Maj.

So she just shrugs instead. "I don't mind the adjustment so much, but I think we all kinda wonder. It's hard to settle when you don't know how long you'll be in a place."

[hawkeyesniper]

Riza understands that all too well. She'd been in that other place for a year, but by this point in her stay they'd certainly had more clues. Or maybe in hind sight it seems that way because they eventually made it out. Instead, they have...well she supposes they are technically clues but they are so beyond anything any of them understand that it's hard to make sense of them. The pods, the documents, the scrubs, the creatures...all of it has to mean SOMETHING. But what? That's the part that is frustrating. They only have a few pieces and none of them seem to really fit.

"I think humans are fairly adaptable. It might seem difficult to settle now...but we work with what we're given and while we want to keep finding a way out we also have to survive to find that way out in the meantime."