~!~ cherry chan ~!~ (seresa) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2016-06-30 21:40:00 |
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The bonfire and the crowd raging around it feels nothing short of bittersweet tonight, like a party and a funeral all at once. A dramatic sort of outlook, maybe, but Cherry doesn't know how else to feel as she looks out on the near-riot of a scene and remembers how it once was home. Though she hasn't left the Greenbelt yet, the moment she first announced to someone her intentions to move the more of a distance she felt between this place and where she is now, like she's straddling a dividing line between two parts of herself she may never fully be able to align together. But tonight isn't a night for retrospection or sadness, though, even if part of her wants to give in to that. After all, Cherry isn't fully sure when the next time she'll be out here will be or whether she'll even be allowed back once she leaves. Sure, Austin's changing and the borders between districts are down, but she knows just how proprietary and insular the Greenbelt can be. No, she better make the most of her last night here if she knows what's good for her. One jar of moonshine turns into two and before she knows it, she's reaching for a glass of water instead of another refill. Noa, too, seems to have the same idea. "Fun night," Cherry says, reaching out to gently clink their waters together. It doesn't scratch the surface of what she's feeling in the slightest, but it's a start. Maybe it’s because Noa feels like the familiar days of the Dog Park are being whittled down to single digits, or maybe she's just in the mood, but she’s spent most of her night drinking and dancing. Enough that she knows she’s put too much moonshine and whiskey into her system and she’s feeling the familiar telltale signs that she’ll be hurting tomorrow. If not sooner. So it’s water for her, in a mason jar, and she laughs when Cherry clinks the two jars together and water sloshes over the top onto her curled fingers. It was barely a nudge of the glass, but she’d overfilled hers. “A real riot,” Noa agrees before she downs half the jar in a few swallows. “Ain’t nothing like this.” Nothing buttoned up and pretentious, and it’s possible that’s what she loves about this place and these people. “Soon they’ll be selling tickets like it’s a circus. Or a zoo.” It’s not bitter, because she’s not bitter, but she's wondered what people outside of the Dog Park or the LBJ really think about the tent city in the Greenbelt, beyond the Hellhounds and their former mayhem. “Suspect they’ll be putting a noise ordinance in place before we can blink.” She laughs with that statement as proof of how much of a joke it had been. She doesn’t actually believe the US government is going to bring the hammer down on all of them, as long as they keep to the rules. "I'd love to see them suggest that to Bishop." Cherry's fondness for their President, for their way of life, is obvious as her laughter joins Noa's and she looked out onto the craziness before them. "Or maybe I'd better like to see his response after they do just that." Noa raises an eyebrow, but she’s smirking at the thought of their President and how he’d respond to rules being placed without his collaboration. “Less incendiary than Rodeo would’ve been,” she muses. “But no less entertaining, I suspect.” Part of her believes that Bishop could talk his way out of the rules too, if he was so inclined. Without bodies on the ground at the end. That is one of the few things that have made him a good leader for the Hounds. It's easier now to imagine how the others in Austin must see them, now that she's gone out of her way to reconnect with Mina, but she's sure that there are some things -- and a way of life -- you just can't change. She just hopes that the two sides of her will be able to reconcile one day. "At least we won't be ending these kinds of parties any time soon." Despite her plans to move the next day, Cherry hopes she still has the right to use the word 'we.' “Might get a few visitors, though,” Noa replies, with a crook to her mouth. “People wanting to see how the Hounds and their people live.” Though she thinks it’s only the brave that would go through the effort of that. "You'll have to let me know how that goes," Cherry says, and then just like that she's remembering that she won't be there to see the day that the Greenbelt turns into adventure tourism. She bites her lip, hiding the sudden pang of sadness behind her glass as she takes another long sip of water, then smiles. "And I better not hear about you taking in any other bitch in your home." The reminder is like ice water to Noa also, a damper on her mood momentarily. She’ll miss Cherry, but she respects her reasons and wouldn’t be so selfish to ask her to stay just so she could be saved from one more person leaving the park. It’s not the same as the last, and she reminds herself of that also. “Honey, I don’t like any of them near as much as I like you,” Noa says with a smile of her own, strained at the beginning as she shakes off the last of her sadness. Despite the situation at hand, Cherry's own smile broadens into a full-fledged grin at the unlikely show of emotion. “Not enough to let them crash my space, for certain.” Without much thought, Noa draws Cherry into a one armed hug with her free hand, mindful of both their drinks. She doesn't trust herself to say anything, but she trusts her actions can speak for her. “It’s yours whenever you feel like visiting.” For however long that it’s still there. "Thank you." Cherry hangs on tight for a moment, her arm wrapped around Noa's waist as she takes a deep breath and draws in the comfort of what they have between them. It's not a goodbye, not really, nor is it anything final, but it still feels like the closing of one chapter as she eventually pulls back. "How about we go kick up a little dust at the bonfire?" Noa smiles around the rim of her glass, and downs most of what’s left before she answers, “Get ‘em to change out that honkey tonk, too.” and hooks her arm through Cherry’s before she moves the both of them back into the noisy fray. |