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Laura Moon (spitandviolets) wrote in mirage_rpg,
@ 2009-01-24 23:41:00

Entry tags:

arrival, complete, day 30, l lawliet, laura moon

Who: Laura and L
What: Arrival
When: Day 30, Sunset
Where: Forest's edge
Rating: PG-13 for adult implications in Laura's past
Status: Complete

Death hurt Laura. She was not talking about the act of dying; that had actually been exceptionally easy. Really, one moment her head had been in Robbie's lap, it occurred to her that oh my God, I'm going to die, and the whole nasty ordeal was over. She didn't even remember going to the hospital, though she knew that she did not die at the scene of the crash. She had waited, for some strange reason, until Wednesday morning. So, a more accurate statement would be that undeath hurt Laura. There was a constant, parching thirst in every cell of her body; there was a complete absence of heat in her frame. She had been such a warm person in life that she would murder for even a fraction of it. In a way, she had murdered for it. Blood, hitting her icy flesh, imbued her with a bit of warmth until it went cold. And in death she had learned that people were so easy to kill once you weren't so prejudiced about the whole thing. It was like they were taunting her as she was able to feel the blood pumping through the veins of the living. There was also the matter of decomposing. While she was not exactly dead, she was certainly not alive, and her body was subject to the laws of nature that affected any body. The maggots in her lungs created a nasty cough, and she felt things moving deep inside her now and then. Really, the whole mess was quite disgusting, and it was almost painful - if she could feel pain.

Death was not as painful as drinking from Urd's Spring had been. The Norns had given her the water than nourished the tree of life, and she honestly thought that she was dying again. It had frozen her insides cold, and it felt like liquid ice, if one could imagine that as anything other than water. Though she had thought it impossible, she had blacked out. When she had awoken, though, the side effects were remarkable. While the water had not restored her life, it had restored her death. Months had been shaved off of her decomposition and decay. For the first few hours, she had possessed breath, blood, and warmth. She was not alive, but she was less dead, and there was a certain mental clarity that had come to her. She knew where she must go, what she must do, and she left Ash Farm (as well as her poor Puppy, her only love) to fulfill her destiny.

Destiny, however, seemed to be wanting to throw another wrench in the works. As of late, Laura had taken to traveling under cover of the forest. While she looked, most times, like a sickly living person, she hated passing for alive. What she really wanted was to be alive. Her second largest desire was warmth, and she wasn't sure what she would do to find it. She had learned what being unfaithful to her husband could cause, but there wasn't much that could hurt her anymore. Karma was a bitch. The forest got denser as she traveled through it, which seemed odd to her as she should have been approaching a highway. She needed to hitchhike in order to get where she was going. An eerie feeling came over her as she walked. Faintly able to see the sky, she noted that it was getting lighter, not darker. Where was the storm that she had seen on the horizon? Why did it seem that the light was coming from the opposite direction? No stranger to strange events, she did her best to ignore these anomalies at first. The trees thinned, however, and she found that she was out of the forest much, much sooner than anticipated.

Before her, a ways off but easily visible, was a set of buildings that looked more at home in Indiana than West Virginia. This turn of events was wholly illogical. Why was there a log cabin? And why was it suddenly beautiful out? She thought she had been heading towards the eye of the storm, the site of the last battle. Where was this place? And if she had gotten turned around, where was her Puppy? Noticing that the sun was beating down on her from a low angle, warming the ice that was her flesh, she stepped back into the shade of the trees. Inconvenient. Laura preferred to avoid daylight almost entirely, and avoiding people was also a preference. She closed her eyes, reaching out, trying to sense what sort of population she was dealing with. Maybe this was one of those hippie communes from the sixties that had never gotten the memo that the Age of Aquarius was over. She felt them, and for a moment her ability to sense them was trying to sort itself out, but their lives washed over her, covered her like a blanket. Stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place, between being lost and being surrounded by an ocean of the living, was an ocean of sun, no matter how faint. Hopefully she'd have time to wait for darkness before deciding what to do. Lost in her thoughts, the typically alert Laura Moon was completely oblivious to the world around her. This was one of those moments when action was required, one of those places that she always hated to find herself.

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meticulous_soul
2009-01-25 09:42 am UTC (link)

L was not far off; the sun was setting, and he was armed with star maps and a red light, prepared to watch the first stars rise in the east. He knew that it would be different from earth, that was obvious, but he wanted to see if he could locate a celestial pole here and attempt to determine their latitude. When things got rough, confusing, or illogical, L's solution was usually to get busy. He was not the type to fret; all the young man knew, for a fact, was that he was on a different planet, and that he would have to adjust his logic to fit this world's rules.

He'd learned some things, about the other inhabitants, mostly assorted facts that lacked coherency. He knew a few names, and congratulated himself on the fact that he had yet to reveal his. There was safety in secrecy and stupidity, and as long as he had the appearance of those things it was likely that no one would single him out or try to hurt him. He seldom spoke off the journal network, and stayed away from people because the rules of social interaction were far over L's head. He thought and communicated differently from other adults, in part due to his intelligence, but mostly because of his autistic tendencies. Though he was all of twenty-five years old, many placed him at up to ten years younger simply because of his childlike posture and mannerisms.

Hunched over the star chart, L tilted his head upward. He'd heard a sound nearby, soft footfalls, and could see a woman standing a short distance away from him. She appeared young, but in the growing dusk, L couldn't determine much more from her appearance.

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spitandviolets
2009-01-25 11:58 pm UTC (link)

Laura's head snapped up and had she been in a more advanced state of decay probably would have snapped due to the violent jerk of her neck. She could feel it, like a light in the darkness. How had she been so careless as to miss it only moments before? There was a human being nearby; not just nearby but practically on top of her. His aura burned like a lantern in her mind, a thought that actually made her curious. Most people were faint, like flickering candle flames. Shadow burned with the intensity of a bonfire. This individual was fairly strong in life force, however, and she could not just ignore that such an alive individual nearby. People like that caught her attention. People like that had purpose, had motive, had drive, all of the things of which she'd been stripped.

Her eyes began to scan the area, and with little effort they fell upon the hunched figure. Interesting, she thought, to meet someone in the middle of nowhere who seemed to be stargazing. Maybe she wasn't really lost after all. She caught the fact that he had noticed her, so it seemed that there was no walking away. At least night was closing in. As much as she hated it, she could at least pass for a living person at night. Perhaps, with his help, she could figure out where she was and how she could get to where she needed to be. It was worth the interaction, though she really tended to avoid people, especially since that gas station job had fallen through. Bastards.

Laura reached into her purse and pulled out a package of clove cigarettes and a lighter. If she was lost, she'd have to ration them carefully. Though they didn't do much for her, it was a habit that reached beyond the grave - why stop now? What, was it going to kill her? Ha. She lit the black death-stick and put her supplies away. Moving slowly, cautiously, and stopping a few feet from him as not to get in his way, she took a long drag on the cigarette. She held the smoke inside of her, wishing that she felt something other than a distant pressure, then exhaled in a slow stream.

"What are you doing?" she asked, her voice flat and expressionless. The fair, dark haired woman didn't even sound bored or disinterested. Her tonal quality was blank, making a question sound very odd. It was hard to peg if she was interested or asking simply as a formality. For a stranger, though, her question was incredibly blunt and straightforward. There were no hellos, no how-do-you-dos.

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meticulous_soul
2009-01-26 11:14 am UTC (link)

L had glanced quickly away, hoping that the woman would simply walk away. He was not skilled, with people in general, but it seemed like he was a special kind of clueless with women in particular. There were so many little things that could be so easily mistaken, so many possible pitfalls and missteps, that L tended to be extraordinarily wary of even attempting communication, at least of the casual kind. Subtle expressions, the art of encouraging or defensive body language, politeness versus sarcasm versus teasing versus the completely serious... all of this was lost on him.

That may be why he responded so well to Laura's direct question. There was no colloquial, wasted greeting to take too seriously ("How are you?" "...Well... not good. Actually, I'm hungry and lonely in a world where no one is taking care of me and the North Celestial pole is not making itself readily apparent. And you?"), and no frivolous, wasted small talk that L disliked so much. It was a question, to the point and straightforward.

"I am trying to establish our position relative to the surrounding stars and use that information to determine our position in the galaxy," he answered, making the answer both as simple and as complete as he was able to match Laura's style of addressing new people. He glanced up at her, both their pale faces dim in the deepening twilight. "Your cigarette smells like cloves... I hate cigarettes, but the cloves are not so bad. Do they in any way preserve your health?"

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spitandviolets
2009-01-26 11:31 am UTC (link)

Fortunately for L, he had probably met his social match. Laura had been a wonderfully loving, caring, vibrant person. She had loved long conversations and fruitful silences. All of that had been stripped away. Now she just loved long conversations about nothing in particular. There were none of those easily mistaken cues from her. The dead girl was a blank slate as far as impressions went. If anyone thought anything of her, it was more likely than not that they had imposed their own meaning on her. It was an interesting phenomena, though she could still manipulate responses enough to get someone to think various and sundry things. At this time, however, there was no need for manipulation.

His response was baffling to her. She'd managed to graduate high school but had not gone much farther in the education system. She wasn't dumb, but she was not particularly intelligent at the same time. That was why she hated philosophical questions so much, and moral debate was just as bad. At least now that she was dead she had something to add to the questions of life, death, and the afterlife. First hand knowledge and experience was always a winner.

"I don't want to know our position in the galaxy. It would be easier to figure out where we are if we just had a GPS or a map of the United States. We can't be too far from West Virginia. I didn't walk that far or that fast." No questions. Just comments and answers, and blunt ones at that. She liked the way that he spoke, though. People weren't usually so direct. Maybe that was why she had felt his aura so strongly, had seen it so brightly in the darkness of the empty world. It was sad, in a way, people existing as flickers of light in between everything else. She couldn't remember if they knew that they were alone. Then again, he was looking towards the heavens. Many people tried that in a desperate attempt to prove that they weren't all by themselves. "For some, the idea of some other life existing somewhere in the universe is more comforting than existing in a world filled with people. It kills the loneliness."

Another long inhale was taken from her cigarette, and she held it, considering his comments about them. "You shouldn't like cigarettes. No one should. They're deadly. Then again, there are lots of things in the universe that can kill you, most of them unexpected." A pause, and she exhaled the rest of the smoke. "I don't think I really need to worry about my health. And I don't know what you mean about preserving it."

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