Helena Chu (lostchu) wrote in thefield, @ 2009-06-29 13:28:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | helena, jasper, z - 1st tribe - day 26 |
Run Again
Who: Helena and Jasper
Where: Around and About
When: Mid morning
What: Just talking
Rating: G
Jasper's fever had broken some time during the night, but at this point she was starting to wonder if she was getting sniffles. She was wet, cold, and rather displeased with the circumstances because everyone was too busy to help her get up and walk. And Jasper was not a fan of enforced inactivity for long periods of time at all. In fact, she wasn't sure if she wasn't hurt worse than she thought - her back was cramped up from laying down so long without moving.
Helena had done a circle of all of the sixe lean-tos. One had collapsed entirely in the rain - the one that Rook had built - but the other five were still standing. The problem was the thatching. The bundles of sweetgrind had pretty much been stripped from most of them in the wind. Leaving Jasper's lean-to for last, she peeked into the gloom beneath the patchy roof. "Jasper? Are you awake hun?" She'd deliberately left the young woman to last, unsure how difficult it would be to move her.
"Mph. Wishin' I weren't." Jasper said dryly, brushing a lock of damp hair from the side of her face that didn't feel like someone took it off with a pick-axe. "Ugh. Jesus. Why is everything so wet? This isn't sweat..." She frowned, raising herself up on her elbows and looking around suspiciously. She had a lot more freckles than she'd left with, and a tan that was going to be a golden-brown that would've been the envy of everyone in Hollywood back home. But hey, that's what you get when you run around in a desert. "Another monsoon?"
"Worse than that," she said as she hunkered down in the mouth of the lean-to. "There were a pair of twisters out in the grasslands. We had quite a storm for a while there. All of the lean-tos have been damaged, everyone's wet and the fire's out." Her face was the very picture of sympathy as she got a look at Jasper's face in the light for the first time. The scar would be something else once it healed. "I haven't checked in on you in a long while. How are you feeling?"
"Twisters? This close to the mountains in these temperatures?" Jasper thought about it for a moment. "If we were in the Rockies I'd say that's turning to autumn, then, but since it's not the Rockies, well... anyway, I hurt. I'm cold, and wet, and I hurt. That pretty much covers everything about that one." She grimaced. "And bored. Really, really bored."
Helena nodded. "I think the turning of seasons toward autumn is pretty much what everyone is starting to think." She reached for the damp sleeping bag. "Ok you, we need to get you up and out of there. Everything is soaked and it's still sort of drizzling but we can't have the blankets moldering. What do you say? Care for a stroll around the camp fire to get your blood moving again?" She knew it had to be killing Jasper to be stuck in one place for so long. "I can tell you all about the map that Adnan found. Have you met Adnan yet?"
"No. He found a map? What's on the map? Are there landmarks? Is it in English?" Well, one could obviously see where Jasper's priorities were. "I found an oasis in the desert. It could sustain us for at least a month, maybe more - it was gorgeous, too. And the stars stretched on for forever." Not really thinking about it, she rolled over onto her side and happily used Helena as partial leverage to haul herself up onto one (good) leg.
Straining herself under the weight of the girl, Helena stood up with Jasper. "We haven't had a really good look at it yet but I think I definitely recognized the blue mountains on the map. Didn't notice any language though. An oasis in the desert? You really did go all the way in to the desert and came back out?" Helena was more than surprised. "What on earth did you eat and drink?" Shifted Jasper's weight a little more comfortably, she started out a slow wander. "You see a good vantage point for sitting and watching, you let me know."
"Helena, you should have seen it. I've been all over Earth. I've ran as far as I could here and back. And it's the most beautiful place I've ever seen." Jasper got a faint, crooked grin on her face. "And that desert is probably one of the most dangerous places I've ever been, too, and that says something. Between the sandstorms, the sandworms - have you ever seen Beetlejuice? - and the sun... yeah. But the cacti are edible, and there were these melons in the water at the oasis."
"Oh, we had those melons at the forest camp too. We brought them with us, the ones we harvesting." She was in awe of this oasis. "So the desert crossing was really dangerous?" she mused. "But it might be worth it, if winter comes here, right?" If the lake froze, they'd all be dead at the first sunset. They knew it, just no one was really saying so. If the laughers could cross the lake, they were out of time.
"There's no laughers in the desert, once you get about six hours out." Jasper said, leaning down and picking up a sturdy-looking stick that would do well something she could lean on. There was a little guilt in using Helena as a crutch, and anything that would help was a good thing. "There's... also this valley. It takes about twelve hours to go through. And it's decorated the entire way through."
"Decorated?" Helena asked, obviously riveted. Why had they not come to talk to Jasper about what she had seen before? Probably because all that Arlo had reported in the desert was sand, sun and more of the same sand and sun. "Decorated how?" She couldn't even imagine a place without laughers after so long.
"Names. Etched into the stone. Just names, and where they were from. It's like a church - you want to whisper all the way through. It's kind of creepy. I, um, kind of named it." Jasper grinned, but blushed at the same time. "Biblically."
Helena arched a brow. "What did you name it?" She was curious. A biblically named valley of names? The answer to her question didn't leap immediately to mind. She could imagine how eerie a place light that might seem. Especially if you were tired and maybe a little bit sunstroked. "Was it a valley or more like...a gorge or canyon?"
"Er. I kind of named it the valley of the shadow of death. It's lame. I had a mild case of sunstroke, I think. I had to sleep during the day and haul ass at night and try to dodge sandworms at night, so sleeping in the sun wasn't the best idea." Jasper shrugged sheepishly.
Helena cringed at the thought of this poor girl making a trek like that alone. They were all so lucky that she made it back. "Why did you call it that? Just because of all of the names carved on the walls?" She can see how that might have been incredibly eerie to see though, no doubt about that.
"The way the walls were positioned, there isn't a way for sunlight to get in there, and the wind seems to whip up from certain directions so there isn't much sand inside - it's mostly rock. Which the sandworms can't get through, by the way, which is, I think, the reason there aren't any at the oasis. But you get the wind racing over the top, and it... moans. Just softly. You want to be silent in there." Jasper looked up at the sky, just thinking. "And you look up and you see this slice of sky that just seems unreal. Like the Sistine chapel, almost. It's like art. And you stare up and up into this bright unreal thing above you with the darker shadows all around and these names carved into the stone, and you just know that the vast majority of the people on those walls, those absolutely thousands of people, didn't make it. It's a graveyard without the bodies." Jasper looked back at Helena. "I don't know how else to describe it."
Helena nodded gravely. "It sounds like a terrifying journey, Jasper, I won't lie. What are the chances that we'd even make it across the desert as a group?" She thought they sounded slim. Frighteningly slim. "Carrying all of our pots and jars and medicines? And the kids." She shook her head. "Bazzer's skins. No, we need to figure out how to get the grazers to help us before we could manage that."
Jasper pursed her lips and thought, then shook her head. "Not necessarily. Replace the wheels with skis to get over the sand, and the wagons could be brought easily enough. And as a group, as long as people didn't do dumb shit? Odds are good. I've been there. I figured it out. It's not easy, don't get me wrong, but it wouldn't be desperately hard." She quirked a grin. "And you should see the birds they have out there. Crazy things. They live in the sand and when they want to protect the chicks they make tents with their wings. And the cactus out there is like watermelon syrup, it's so sweet. There's great stuff out there."
"Hmm," Helena said. "That's a place we might have to visit someday." Birds and cacti that were edible? Not to mention fruit and water and shade and warmth. Sand storms were one thing but the trees would protect them from the worst of that, wouldn't they? And it was much easier to shake the sand off a blanket than it was to dry a comforter on a cold and sunless day. It was something to think about. It definitely was. "I think you should have a look at Adnan's map, Jasper. Maybe you can point out where the oasis is on the map."
"Find me this Adnan! I have no idea who he is. But I want that map." Her fingers were practically twitching with excitement at the prospect, actually, of having a map. "I should find something to make a map with, see if we can match them up..."
Helena jestured across the camp to where the carts stood. "He's the dark haired one who is camping underneath the carts." A few people were sleeping there and even more were completely exposed, out in the open. She patted Jasper lightly on the shoulder, well away from the girl's wounds. "We'll see about getting you two together to discuss the landmarks but you need to know it'll be awhile before Thorne suggests you go running again." Her dark eyes were compassionate. "You were hurt pretty badly."
"I'll run again." Jasper said in the tone of the determined. Running and exploring and racing were her life - she wouldn't be happy if she couldn't run, and she was too pigheaded to be unhappy just because of a little thing like a couple of life-threatening wounds.
Helena smiled fondly at the girl's determination. "I absolutely believe you will." She patted Jasper's shoulder as she moved to head off on her next errand. "I'll make sure you get a look at that map. Don't worry about it." With a smile and a wave, she couldn't help but marvel at the girl's determination. Headed off to her next visit, she was sure that Jasper was right. A little thing like near-death wouldn't stop her. Helena hoped it wouldn't stop any of them.