There's something about the smell of the place. Earth, wood, moss. Damp earth, sun-warmed. It's beautiful, it's strange; it coaxes from the depths of the OA's mind the memory of a shattered window, of the sound of a living body tumbling heavy down a spiral staircase, of the shocking warmth and solidity of that body against her palms as she'd pushed. Her own body remembers. That scent marries the moments: she is here, gazing out over the lake, sleep-addled, pamphlet clutched tightly in one hand. She is also there, in that long-ago and elsewhere place, charging blindly through the forest, desperate to be anywhere else, for an escape.
It's this echo, this note of repetition that has left her so incandescently, helplessly angry. The words on the pamphlet -- painstakingly parsed, in places sounded out -- did not frighten her, they enraged her. Or maybe... maybe that is fear, maybe she's afraid that it's only this, that it will always be this, across dimensions, across lives, across time. Always living hip to hip with death.
If it's a joke, and it might be, then it's a bad one. One that hits a little too close to home.
The scintillae of light dancing over the surface of the lake blur and spread into pools of brilliance; OA ducks her head to swipe the furious tears from her eyes and in doing so catches the silhouette of an interloper, another wandering shadow. Much as she'd favour a few moments more of solitude, she manages a watery smile, brushing at her cheeks with her thumb.
"Hi, um." She clears her throat. "Sorry, do you know where I could find some different clothes?" She looks down at herself, at the fitted, white suit -- expensive, which doesn't matter, and definitely not ideal for a place this wild, which does. Looking down reminds her of the pamphlet clutched in her hand, and she flashes that too. "And did you get one of these?"
ii. the woods
It isn't necessary to love the place. A gilded cage is still a cage. If one is to rejoice in it -- and it can be done -- one must nonetheless come to know it. It had been easier before: three paces could bring her from one wall to another. She'd known that space with perfect intimacy: the glass, the rock, the stream cutting a sluggish path through it. Her lumpy, too-hard bunk. The scratchy, fraying blanket that had, when she arrived, smelled of someone else. Her own microcosm, her universe.
This task is more daunting, but still, once she's equipped herself with a more suitable outfit and what gear she can find (or thinks to gather in the first place), she begins her forays.
The trails are lovely. There's no denying it: there's something distinctly beautiful about the forest, this panoply of life, however dark and close it may grow. It is, at best, ambivalent to her presence, and that too is lovely. Disarming. Whatever her mood when she set out, walking seems to distance her from it; in short order, she's craning her neck to look up through the tangle of branches to the patches of sky above, filling her lungs with forest smells.
One hand comes out here and there to brush the trunks of trees as she passes, not with fingertips but with knuckles. It's a habit, a holdover: one who reads the world with fingertips had best preserve them from harm. That's why the blossom of pain when she reaches out to grasp the stem of a berry bush and angle the heavy clusters of fruit towards the light is so startling.
"Ah, fuck!" she hisses, jolting and pulling away. It tingles, just shy of a burn, a sensation she can't shake out. There's a strange note of wonder in her expression when she seats herself heavily at the edge of the path to watch a bead of blood well up where the thorn had pricked her.
iii. wildcard (Feel free to surprise me, or reach out to me at v__ or viveri#0501 to plot!)
The OA | OTA
There's something about the smell of the place. Earth, wood, moss. Damp earth, sun-warmed. It's beautiful, it's strange; it coaxes from the depths of the OA's mind the memory of a shattered window, of the sound of a living body tumbling heavy down a spiral staircase, of the shocking warmth and solidity of that body against her palms as she'd pushed. Her own body remembers. That scent marries the moments: she is here, gazing out over the lake, sleep-addled, pamphlet clutched tightly in one hand. She is also there, in that long-ago and elsewhere place, charging blindly through the forest, desperate to be anywhere else, for an escape.
It's this echo, this note of repetition that has left her so incandescently, helplessly angry. The words on the pamphlet -- painstakingly parsed, in places sounded out -- did not frighten her, they enraged her. Or maybe... maybe that is fear, maybe she's afraid that it's only this, that it will always be this, across dimensions, across lives, across time. Always living hip to hip with death.
If it's a joke, and it might be, then it's a bad one. One that hits a little too close to home.
The scintillae of light dancing over the surface of the lake blur and spread into pools of brilliance; OA ducks her head to swipe the furious tears from her eyes and in doing so catches the silhouette of an interloper, another wandering shadow. Much as she'd favour a few moments more of solitude, she manages a watery smile, brushing at her cheeks with her thumb.
"Hi, um." She clears her throat. "Sorry, do you know where I could find some different clothes?" She looks down at herself, at the fitted, white suit -- expensive, which doesn't matter, and definitely not ideal for a place this wild, which does. Looking down reminds her of the pamphlet clutched in her hand, and she flashes that too. "And did you get one of these?"
ii. the woods
It isn't necessary to love the place. A gilded cage is still a cage. If one is to rejoice in it -- and it can be done -- one must nonetheless come to know it. It had been easier before: three paces could bring her from one wall to another. She'd known that space with perfect intimacy: the glass, the rock, the stream cutting a sluggish path through it. Her lumpy, too-hard bunk. The scratchy, fraying blanket that had, when she arrived, smelled of someone else. Her own microcosm, her universe.
This task is more daunting, but still, once she's equipped herself with a more suitable outfit and what gear she can find (or thinks to gather in the first place), she begins her forays.
The trails are lovely. There's no denying it: there's something distinctly beautiful about the forest, this panoply of life, however dark and close it may grow. It is, at best, ambivalent to her presence, and that too is lovely. Disarming. Whatever her mood when she set out, walking seems to distance her from it; in short order, she's craning her neck to look up through the tangle of branches to the patches of sky above, filling her lungs with forest smells.
One hand comes out here and there to brush the trunks of trees as she passes, not with fingertips but with knuckles. It's a habit, a holdover: one who reads the world with fingertips had best preserve them from harm. That's why the blossom of pain when she reaches out to grasp the stem of a berry bush and angle the heavy clusters of fruit towards the light is so startling.
"Ah, fuck!" she hisses, jolting and pulling away. It tingles, just shy of a burn, a sensation she can't shake out. There's a strange note of wonder in her expression when she seats herself heavily at the edge of the path to watch a bead of blood well up where the thorn had pricked her.
iii. wildcard
(Feel free to surprise me, or reach out to me at