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Sere Adams collects pretty straight boys. ([info]seregeturgun) wrote in [info]paradisolog,
@ 2016-04-22 20:27:00

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Entry tags:~briseis (prizeofachilles), ~chester adams (seregeturgun)

WHO: Chester Adams & OTA Briseis
WHERE: Waterfall
WHEN: Around sunset
WHAT: Introspective waterfall shower; talking to herself.
WARNINGS: Nudity, mention of graphic violence and passing implication of sexual assault, language. Mild PTSD.
STATUS: Complete

I do believe in the light. Raise your hands into the sky. The fight is done, the war is won. Lift your hands toward the sun.



While most people were probably turned off by the very idea of walking around in wet clothes, it was something that Chester had just learned was a part of life in the new, awful world that had surrounded her back home. She and Cassie had packed bags before they'd fled from the IU dorms, but they hadn't had time to grab them before they'd had to run again, leaving Chester's truck behind in an unmoving traffic jam of abandoned cars on the highway. Ches had time to grab her weapons bag that she'd had stashed in the back, more than likely against campus rules, but neither of them had time to get into the bed of the truck to grab their overnight bags stuffed with everything from their dorm room that they could fit into them. She'd lost everything but the clothes on her back and that bag of weapons that never left her side that day. Everything including Cassie.

So with one outfit, if it rained, she got wet. If she needed to wash the clothes in the river, she put them back on still wet and let the sun dry them on her body. Chester forgot what it felt like to have warm, clean clothes until she got to the island six years later and, a short while after that, she'd received four outfits that she distinctly remembered tossing into that bag all those years ago, all of a sudden, along with a few toiletries, apparently from the gods. The rain didn't bother her, here. She couldn't tell if they were being cruel or kind by giving her a pair of yoga pants with a big SEXY emblazoned on the ass in hot pink — a gift from Cassie their first Christmas as a couple — among the rest. Days later, she still hadn't decided, but she emptied the bag of weapons except for her buck knife — dull, but still dangerous in a pinch — and wrapped a pair of panties, a gray tank top, and those yoga pants from Cassie in one of the big towels and then wrapped the big towel up in the other big towel before shoving all of it, along with her shampoo, conditioner, one of the toothbrushes and a tube of toothpaste, and a chunk of the soap that woman Ruby had been making into the weapons bag. Then, she made her way through the rain and down the path that led to the waterfall everybody, including herself, seemed to be using as a makeshift shower. Chester took out the soap, shampoo, and conditioner, and then stripped down to nothing and tossed her dirty clothes on top of the bag that she stashed under a little formation of rocks to try to keep it dry before stepping under the waterfall.

She was trying to be a part of the community here, she really was. The problem was that new people made her anxious and nervous and, admittedly, a little afraid. Back home, new people meant one of two things: more mouths to feed or mauraders against whom the group would have to fight to keep their shelter and food. The outbreak changed everything. Chester used to think about getting married someday to Cassie and adopting children, working in a hospital, maybe in the children's or maternity wings as a nurse when she'd finished her schooling. She'd always just assumed that when they graduated from IU, she'd be settling down with the love of her life in a cute little house in Bloomington, with a white picket fence, maybe a dog or two, and waiting impatiently for Indiana to legalize gay marriage so they could legally and "officially" start their lives together.

Instead, the outbreak snapped her into a new reality with the harshness of watching first a few of her classmates and then Cassie being torn apart right in front of her by things that looked like they were straight out of a horror movie, parading around in rotting versions of human bodies, literally eating every living thing in sight. It had felt like a nightmare when they'd fled the school after seeing the massacre on the quad outside their dorm, but when she'd heard Cassie's bloodcurdling scream from further behind her than Chester thought she would've been, and she'd turned in time to see one of those fucking things bite into Cassie's shoulder and tear away a chunk of flesh while Cassie reached for her, crying, it felt like the whole world stopped and it was like the universe flipped a switch. That was real...and there had been nothing she could do. Her only choice had been to keep running. Six years later, she could still hear Cassie screaming when she tried to go to sleep. Chester wondered if it would ever go away.

She wasn't actually sure how long she'd been under the falls before she realized she'd lost herself in her dismal thoughts and hadn't even started to actually wash herself in spite of the fact that she was covered in goosebumps and shivering. This world was not home. These people did not want to steal her shelter or rape or pillage. Chester pumped some shampoo into her hand and started to lather it into her hair. They didn't want to hurt her. These people were a group and she needed to integrate herself into it with less fear and more faith. It was easy to pretend she was comfortable from the safety of her shelter while using the little comm bracelet because that was a buffer zone; they weren't speaking face to face. Joining the efforts to build the medical facility was more difficult. Every time someone turned on a power tool or hammered a nail or even just reached for a supply that was too close to her, Chester stiffened and she was sure she'd seen at least one of them give her a pitying look at one point or another. She wondered if it was because they had happened to be a werewolf and it was true that wolves could smell fear or whether she was just that painfully transparent and jumpy.

"Get a fucking grip, Sere," she muttered to herself as she rinsed out the suds of the shampoo and moved on to the conditioner. "Just get a fucking grip. Nobody's here to hurt you."


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[info]prizeofachilles
2016-04-24 01:21 am UTC (link)
Briseis had always had some way to wash her hair - there had been that, at least. The men wanted them clean and pretty. But it was never good smelling, and it was never conditioner. Many times it was only sand used to scour, and it never did as well as Briseis would have liked.

She took the bottles as the other girl instructed, and smelled them first. It was a lovely smell, like fruit and flowers in a bottle. She was familiar with perfumes, of course, and had even put them in her hair on occasion...but this was an entirely different thing.

She put on the shampoo first, working it into a lather as she'd seen the other girl do. It felt lovely, as did the clear water cascading over her nakedness. She wouldn't have cared if the other girl was staring at her, but she didn't see it. She was too busy pampering herself for the first time in a very, very long time.

When the shampoo was washed away, she took the bottle of conditioner, and repeated the process. She could feel the tangles disappear under her fingers, and her hair acquire that silky smoothness that the other girl's had. And she couldn't help but gasp a little in delight as she finished and ran her hands through it.

She took the towel and turned back towards her with a smile.

"It's nearly as soft as yours!" She ran a hand over her head again. "My name is Briseis," she replied. "And I think that I am truly blessed to have found you here."

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[info]seregeturgun
2016-04-24 01:36 am UTC (link)
After drying herself off, Chester dressed in the outfit she'd brought, those goddamned SEXY yoga pants and the tank top under which she couldn't be bothered to wear a bra. She squeezed sections of her hair in the towel as the other girl finished her impromptu shower and wrapped herself in the other towel.

Chester grinned a little, finally turning to face her. "See, it's good stuff," she reiterated. "If you wanna use it again sometime, just let me know. God knows it'll take me months to use these whole bottles by myself anyway, so why not share, right?" she offered.

The girl gave her name and Chester looked impressed. "Briseis," she repeated. "Like in the Iliyad, that's cool. Were your parents like really into classic literature or something?"

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[info]prizeofachilles
2016-04-24 01:51 am UTC (link)
"I would love that, if you don't mind," she said. What could she say? The way her hair felt smooth and clean and shiny was nice. And if she was willing to share...well, Briseis would take advantage of that.

"The Iliad?" She repeated, looking a bit confused. "I'm sorry, I don't know what that is." Her question seemed a bit like a non-sequitur and Briseis was, frankly, puzzled. "I supposed they liked the tales enough?"

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[info]seregeturgun
2016-04-24 02:02 am UTC (link)
"Yeah, sure. Totally," Chester replied casually, finally folding the wet towel she'd been using and shoving it into her bag. When she got back to the shelter, she'd hang it. For now, it'd be fine.

"The Iliad? Oh, uh...it's like this Greek poem about the Trojan War and King Agamemnon and Achilles and stuff. We had to read it in my lit class freshman year at IU. The old style language made it hard for me to stay engaged, but I got through it. It was good, I guess. As good as a story about war and death and gloom and doom can be, anyway, in retrospect," she replied with a meh sort of tone in her voice as she shrugged.

Those sorts of stories had never really been her thing. The thought that the concubine from the story and the girl standing in front of her were one in the same never once occurred to her at all.

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[info]prizeofachilles
2016-04-24 02:09 am UTC (link)
Briseis paled, her face set in horror. She couldn't speak as the woman rattled off names from her past, speaking of them as casually as if they were characters in a story. Which she realized, as her mind caught up to the words she was speaking, they were.

Why did they - why would they - did men always have to record the most horrible things that happened for all posterity?

"They...wrote an epic about it?"

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[info]seregeturgun
2016-04-24 02:14 am UTC (link)
Chester looked a little taken aback by the reaction that she received from the woman and she blinked a little, running her fingers through her hair again to comb out the clumps that towel drying in sections had created.

"Yeah...?" she asked more than answered. "They? You mean Homer?"

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[info]prizeofachilles
2016-04-24 02:19 am UTC (link)
"And they make children read about what happened in their schools?" That, perhaps, was more horrifying than anything else - knowing that her story was being forced down the throats of children - that all of history knew her shame.

"I do not know anyone named Homer...but that story...is not a story to me. I lived it."

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[info]seregeturgun
2016-04-24 02:31 am UTC (link)
"Well...not children... I don't know, I was fifteen, I guess? Fourteen or fifteen when I was a freshman," she said. "So not little kids or anything."

"Homer wrote the poem," she reiterated, looking taken aback. "...how? It was set like a bajillion years ago. In Greece...you're speaking English, though, modern English..."

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[info]prizeofachilles
2016-04-24 02:32 am UTC (link)
That earned her a sad smile, and Briseis looked down at her bracelet, pushing the button that turned the power off.

"I am not speaking English now, am I?"

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[info]seregeturgun
2016-04-24 02:40 am UTC (link)
Chester blinked rapidly and shook her head a little. "What the fuck? Holy shit, are you serious?" she asked, wide-eyed with surprise.

How...what the...

Literally what?!

How would that even work?

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[info]prizeofachilles
2016-04-24 02:47 am UTC (link)
Briseis turned the bracelet back on so that she could converse with the girl.

"Yes," she said softly. "The story you read was of me."

She didn't like the idea of it one bit; she would have preferred that her story been consigned to the past where it belonged.

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[info]seregeturgun
2016-04-24 03:02 am UTC (link)
"So wait..." Chester said, allowing for a suspension of disbelief for the moment insofar as Briseis's role in the story she'd had to read in ninth grade English.

"...right now, when I'm talking, do you hear English?" she asked. "Or do you hear, like...Ancient Greek?"

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[info]prizeofachilles
2016-04-24 03:25 am UTC (link)
"I hear my language," she said softly. "I hear what makes sense to me and you hear what makes sense to you. I'm sorry I can't explain better but I don't really understand it myself. To me, it is only magic. Mr. Cisco was kind enough to make it happen for me. He clearly has the war of the gods in being able to perform such miracles."

He had, of course, attempted to explain it in other ways, but that made more sense to Briseis.

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[info]seregeturgun
2016-04-24 04:37 am UTC (link)
So these things had an automatic translation device in them? For voice? She blinked. That was...more advanced than she remembered tech back home being before the world changed.

"No, it's okay, I don't understand all this garbage either, I'll be honest. I never did," she said, waving a dismissive hand.

She supposed she ought to address the elephant in the room with that surprise explained away. "...I'm so sorry, I didn't...realize. I wouldn't have brought it up," she said quickly, looking appropriately apologetic.

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[info]prizeofachilles
2016-04-24 12:53 pm UTC (link)
"It's...it's okay," she said softly. "Don't worry about it. It doesn't change anything."

And it didn't. The things that happened to her still happened, whether the world knew about them and read about them in their schools or not.

"I suppose I won't have to explain it as much myself, then."

And that, at least, would be a blessing.

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[info]seregeturgun
2016-04-24 03:15 pm UTC (link)
Taking a deep breath, Chester nodded. Yeah, there was that, at least. She didn't really recall Briseis being a major focus in the text, but she also hadn't been interested in it when she'd read it; she'd slogged through because she needed to pass English. Even not remembering much other than the name — and even that only because of the huge fuss that had generated an entire class period worth of discussion over the pronunciation; a joint effort of the students to waste the class period dragging their teacher off on a tangent — Chester had gotten the gist.

"Yeah, no, you don't have to explain," she confirmed. A small smile slipped over her lips. "I won't say anything. Like, to the others, if they don't already know. It's not my place."

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[info]prizeofachilles
2016-04-24 06:14 pm UTC (link)
"I'm grateful for that," she said softly, and drifted into silence. She'd been afraid of this - it had become awkward quickly.

"I - well, thank you very much for the conditioner. It truly is lovely." She reached up and touched her hair and a small smile came to her face.

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[info]seregeturgun
2016-04-25 08:04 am UTC (link)
If this was indeed the same girl from the Iliad, then she could use some luxury in her life and maybe most of the people on this island would feel entitled to something like shampoo and conditioner, but after the world went to hell, Chester knew better. Nobody was owed any creature comforts, least of all in a place like this, and Chester was used to that by now. Most of these other people couldn't ever really get it like she could; like Briseis could, having been from so long ago.

Chester's eyebrows lifted and she raised a hand to wave with a gentle dismissive gesture. "No, any time, sweetie. Seriously, any time you want to use it, just give me a shout, okay?" she asked.

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[info]prizeofachilles
2016-04-28 02:43 am UTC (link)
"I will," she said softly. "Thank you."

[Wrap]

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