nadia costa (treta) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2015-09-21 01:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2018 [09] september, hazel dolan, nadia costa |
upon a path of old primrose, beyond the smoke and smoldering chrome.
Who: Bunny Dolan & Nadia Costa
Where: The Dog Park
What: Bonding, making friends, heading to breakfast together.
When: Hella backdated to morning of Sunday, September 1
It wasn’t the best sleep she’d ever gotten—sharing a tent with Marina was small and stuffy, and it was so hot out here in the Dog Park, baking slowly under the hot sun in what had once been a green belt but obviously wasn’t anymore—but it made up for it in other ways. Nadia’s back might have a crick in it, but her soul felt better. So she woke early, and went tiptoeing through the mess of tents to relieve herself while Marina still slept—and then, hearing the clamour of voices in the distance, followed the smell of breakfast towards the resource hangars. Nadia was groggy, still disoriented, but there were other early risers all congregating like lines of shufflers. After a moment, she ended up drifting towards Bishop’s small home and the tent Bunny and Nate had taken up the night before, waiting and hoping to spot a familiar face before attempting the hangar by herself, lest she be turned away. Nadia’s stomach rolled a little queasily; she’d drunk too much the previous night, again, which led to that age-old craving for something warm and greasy to settle herself. Civilisation might have ended, but the needs of a hangover never changed. Always an early riser herself, even after an unusually late night, Bunny nevertheless stayed in the tent as long as possible, until the rumbling of her stomach drove her out and into the bright morning sunshine. Her head felt a little tight, with a slight, dull ache behind her eyes, but it wasn’t much to show for the drinking she’d done the night before. Stretching the kinks out of her muscles, she glanced around, taking in the sights and sounds of the stirring camp. Despite the hour, a fair number of people were milling about, yawning and rubbing at their eyes and generally trying to rouse themselves enough to get on with the business of the day. Her stomach growled again, and Bunny reflected that a cup of water and some breakfast wouldn’t go amiss. The problem being that she wasn’t entirely sure where to get either, and wasn’t over fond of the idea of wandering off on a search by herself. Looking around again, she at first glanced past the newly familiar form, then turned back, a smile spreading across her face. “Morning, Nadia!” she called, shading her eyes against the sun with one hand as she waved with the other. “Did you have a good night?” “I did.” The woman’s smile was slow but wide, like a dawning brightness on her face that matched the freshly-risen sun above them. It wasn’t oppressively hot out here yet, which was nice; they could still enjoy some of the desert coolness that sank over the camp at nightfall. “It felt a bit like a sleepover, to tell you the truth. This whole thing does. This is also your first time spending the night at the Dog Park?” Nadia’s voice was light, politely inquiring, but it didn’t sound forced; from all she had seen she did like Bunny, genuinely. The woman had noticeably relaxed once the blonde appeared from the tent, once there was something more in her surroundings than total strangers. "I'm very glad to hear it." Bunny had been thinking about Nadia last night, hoping her meeting had gone well, and so she took heart from the warm smile that spread across the other woman's face now. "My first of many, I hope," she confirmed. Not a thing she had seen here in the camp since their last conversation had changed her mind on that account. Though heaven only knew when they would be back, with the Capitol and the Dog Park at each other like a pair of bucks locking antlers during rutting season. "I'm happy to have had the chance to get the whole experience." As the two of them had been exchanging words, Bunny noted which way most people seemed to be heading and turned an interested eye in that direction. They went to the bonfire again, maybe? Or toward the food? "Are you hungry too? I thought I might seek out some breakfast." Nadia’s eyes followed hers, head turning like a dog sniffing where the wind was blowing—and the more that they concentrated, the more it seemed like they could catch small whiffs of… not exactly sizzling bacon, but perhaps heated beans and bread. “Let’s. I believe I heard that breakfast was over there, by the hangars, and I will need something before I get a headache.” Nadia’s expression was sheepish; they both knew the effect of Bishop’s moonshine, and Bunny was even more familiar. As they walked side-by-side, scuffing up dirt and dust with each step, Nadia kept sneaking little glances at the other woman. She was around her own age, if she had to guess. And still so bright and fresh-faced, as if even the apocalypse couldn’t touch her, couldn’t dim her sweet spirit. “How long have you and Nate been together? Where did you two meet?” She bit her lip, abashed at the questions having slipped out like that—but the curiosity was consuming her, this need to hear others’ stories, and catch glimmers of something happier. Better memories. “Apologies if it is strange for me to ask! I just… you two are very happy.” Nadia’s questions about her and Nate brought an immediate, reflexive smile to Bunny’s face, just the way the subject of her fiance always did. “Oh, no, please don’t apologize,” she hastened to reassure Nadia, seeing the discomfort pass across the other woman’s face. “I don’t mind talking about that at all, if you don’t mind hearing it.” Mindful of the fact that Nadia had mentioned before that Nate hadn’t said much about her at all, Bunny paused for a moment, considering just how far back she ought to go in her answer. A dog loped past in the opposite direction, without an owner in sight, and she started to reach to pat its ears before thinking better of it and drawing her hand back. Better not to disturb a creature with a clear mission in mind. "It must be at least 15 years since Nate first set foot in Harlan. I was just a little bit of a thing back then, though. The first time he met me as a woman was at a party many years later, and I'd already fallen in love with him by then. All told, we've been together seven years." They might have spent two of those years apart, but Bunny counted them just the same. She had simply carried the relationship for both of them, the most important provision for her journey. Seven years. Fifteen years. Nadia’s mouth made a small o of surprise. After talking to him about it she could understand, a little, why he wouldn’t mention a fiancée if he genuinely thought she was dead; there was no reason to dredge up loss. And she hardly spoke of her mother, after all, except with Marina and when the interview stirred up that pot. “Oh, goodness. That is fantastic. That is almost a decade! None of my relationships were ever that long.” She was biting her lip. “My oldest connections in Austin are only a few months old,” Nadia admitted suddenly. “It is… strange to have no one who knew you before. Who knows what sort of person you are, and can remember you, and carry shared memories with you. It means that sometimes I do not feel real, somehow.” She was untethered, loose and drifting. Bunny said she needed more friends, and Nadia needed it right back. Nadia’s words struck more than just a chord with Bunny. They struck an inner cacophony of chords that ended in her recognizing in someone else an emotion she'd felt all too frequently during the time she and Nate were apart. She'd been a piece of fabric stitched into the quilt of home, and leaving Harlan left her all torn edges and dangling threads for a long time. “I know,” she said, softly. Bunny barely knew Nadia, but despite being unsure of how the gesture would be received, still she found herself placing a hand, just briefly, on the other woman’s arm. “It’s not an easy thing to leave everything you know and journey into what you don’t on a single strand of hope. You have a strong heart to have made it so far.” At Bunny’s words and the touch of her hand, a sudden heat pressed against Nadia’s eyes—but with an effort she blinked it away, as if some of the constant blowing dust at the park had gotten into them. She crooked a warm smile instead, her other hand fluttering up to pat Bunny’s in return. They seemed to be walking into a slightly busier section of the camp now. Though still a far cry from the noise and the crowd that had circled the bonfire the night before, Bunny glimpsed more people moving down adjacent paths, and now and then the sound of voices floated across the air to her ears. The two long resource hangars, which she had only seen from a distance the day before, must be near. “Did you learn anything from the person you met last night?” Bunny asked, keeping her own voice low so that it wouldn’t carry. “Good news, I hope?” As she had when answering the same question from Nate, the thought of Marina made Nadia’s smile broaden even further. They’d chattered themselves into sleep like a pair of girls at a sleepover. They didn’t have that wealth of shared history yet, but there was the hope that, someday, they might get there. “Very. I mean, not as good as it could be—my brother is not just simply sitting at this camp waiting for me, he is in another city—but I found out that he was alive just a couple of months ago. Which means there is hope. And you of all people know how very important that is.” “Just a couple of months ago -- Nadia, that’s wonderful!” Though the news that she had learned might not be what Nadia wanted, it was still news. That her brother had been seen so recently was, in Bunny’s mind, nothing short of a miracle. Yes, a lot might have happened in that time, but surely this was just the first sign of many that Nadia’s reunion with her brother couldn’t be far in the future. But, then, Bunny had always been a believer. “Hope. Yes, it’s hope.” The word rolled on her tongue, sweet like her mother’s homemade strawberry jam. She grinned at Nadia, spirits buoyed by the other woman’s good news. “For me, at least, that was the most important thing. I couldn’t have made it without that little speck of belief to keep me company.” They’ve been down similar roads, these two, and Nadia thought she could see it drifting and shifting beneath Bunny’s skin sometimes. There was that bright light in her eyes, but Nadia could occasionally catch a hint of her long path, a glimmer of familiarity and kindred experiences between them. They’d both made it across two years and the long empty road in the search for someone they loved. So Nadia nodded, even as her stomach twisted and gave a plaintive rumble. She clapped her hand to it sheepishly; she’d grown used to the gnawings of hunger, and only the last few months in Austin had made her accustomed to more regular meals, at which point her body had learned it was fine to complain about it once more. “I’m glad to get to know you, Bunny,” Nadia said. It was a sudden blurting out of a sentiment, an on-rushing of gratitude. Any initial reason she might have had to envy this woman was trivial, miniscule, silly, and she had felt it ebbing away as the days went by. Having these friends mattered more. At Nadia's words, Bunny’s steps paused, and she turned to the other woman wearing her brightest smile yet. “I’m glad too,” she said, sincerely. "It might be fortune guided us both here, or it might just be chance. Either way, I'm pleased to have crossed paths with you." She would have liked Nadia no matter what, just because Nate did, but it happened that Nadia was exactly the kind of person Bunny would've been drawn to on her own. For many reasons, but there is strength in her spirit, and a realness to her that many of the appearance-obsessed Capitol folks lack. Even in another life, she thought, they would have gotten along. As the two women began walking toward the hangars again, it occurred to Bunny that she was no longer in the company of a near stranger but a friend. She liked the thought. It's an unrecognizable world, and when you're far from home finding like-minded people means everything. She caught herself humming a few soft notes of an upbeat tune, her feet feeling a shade lighter than they did a moment before. "I hope they've cooked up something good," Bunny said. "I'm starved." |