The Field

Who: Sophie and Quinn
What: Off gathering herbs for Thorne and for cooking
When: Early morning on Day 24
Where: A little further away from camp than the spring.
Rating: PG-13

( Unexpected Tragedy )

Who: Quinn and Open to Ken
When: That darkest hour before the dawn
Where: The spring rocks
What: A finding

( What's This? )

Who: Alex and Quinn
What: Lunch for the faithful and unfaithful alike doesn't end so well.
Where: At Alex's new church
When: An hour or two after noon.
Rating: G

( Due To Sudden Illness )

Who: Sophie and Quinn
When: Later afternoon
Where: A little ways south of the wagon train
What: Keeping a lookout and defacing a grave for baby goods.
Rating: PG for the slight downer and urine mention?

( Don't Peek! )

Who: Quinn and Delilah
What: Packing up the carts
When: Afternoon time, day 19
Where: Under the climber tree
Rating: Tbd

With a grunt, Quinn hefted the braidgrass basket full of heavy milk melons up off the ground. Long unused muscles in his chest and back groaned in protest but he just sent a mental curse their way. He wrestled the basket up onto the bed of the cart and heaved a sigh. The baskets were a stroke of genius on Rowan's part, he had to admit. They were flexible in their shape but sturdy because she'd treated them with climber resin. They conformed to what they contained and fit around each other in the back of the cart just like a tetris game. It was important, considering how many melons they had harvested. It was true that there were a lot of grazers where they were going but as far as they knew, that was it. Sure, there was a whole mess of the sweetgrind game but he still felt like actual bread was a lot of work away from being a reality. He had no idea how to go from wheat swaying with the wind to flour. He considered that to be a concern for someone more domestic than himself.

Then again, what use had he really been? Sure, he could talk deadfall traps with Clay but they had not had any time to put them into effect. He didn't have any weapons other than the little blade he used for carving and so far his only real contribution had been to locate and warn of a deadly threat and to carve a chess set. He'd stashed the chess board and pouch of pieces at the back of the cart where it wouldn't be left behind.

With that on his mind he gave up on loading the melons for the time being and wandered over to the root where he had stashed his own split melon. He'd already slurped the citrusy tasting juice out of the coconut-like fruit, deciding that it did taste a lot like pink lemonade. The flesh did as well but he had saved that for his break, which he decided should be now. He sat in the shade, scraping the meat out of the inside of the hard shell with his fingernails and watched people coming and going. As they finished coils of grassbraid rope or pulled the grassmats down out of the trees they stacked them next to the cart. Mostly people were just dropping off their harvests or projects today, not their personal belongings. Theft wasn't really a concern here but the small bits of home that some people had were too important to risk.

Lost in his own head, he watched the stacked cages of pesks that people had caught. The inquisitive nature of the little half-lizard, half squirrel creatures had made them fairly easy to catch but they seemed pretty upset to be caged on the ground now. They tumbled over each other and rattled their bars, desperately trying to find a space wide enough for them to squeeze through. He was sorry they had to take them and he really hoped they would adjust to captivity. If they could survive outside of the forest, their eggs would continue to be a vital part of the human diet here. Quinn, himself, loved those eggs once they were boiled. So crunchy. They reminded him of eggy M&Ms.

Who: Open to any and all in camp.
Where: Not smack in the middle of camp, but close enough to be noticeable.
When: Mid-afternoon.
What: Tempers flare. Yeah, we know the meteors were yesterday, but Payne and Clay fight every day.
Rating: TBD (It's already R because, um. Payne and Clay.)
Warnings: Language, violence, domestic abuse, tattooing.

( ''...you wish!'' )

Who: Clay and Quinn
Where: Somewhere along the stream.
When: Mid-afternoon
What: Shootin' the shit.
Rating: G

( Murder and Mayhem )

Who: Quinn and Open
What: Disecting fallen pesks for food.
Where: Beside the campfire
When: Morning time.
Rating: G?

Maybe it had been a rather grisly experiment but Quinn was pissed off at life enough to take apart the dead pesks left by the fire. He had the borrowed pocket knife out and the bucket, a flat rock set across his lap and a scowl on his face. When no one was around to blather on or bug him, he was attempting to channel his high school biology teacher and the lab where they had disected frogs. These guys were about the same size as those big old amphibians, just arranged a little bit differently. As he sheered tiny bits of meat off he dropped them in the bucket and figured he could make some sort of soup. Pesk soup. It was best not to think about it too closely.

Like always, he'd slept miserably and the shadows under his eyes had long replaced the bruising. Even though his injuries were getting better and better each day, there was a black mood creeping in. Prolonged lack of sleep was making him feel run down and today was absolutely no different. The weird behaviour of the pesks got on his nerves. The fact that no one else was looking to salvage the meat from the little squirrel-sized animals also pissed him off. In short, he was brooding.

Who: Quinn and Kenneth and Thorne
When: Late Afternoon
What: Quinn's not doing so well, Kenneth reacts strongly and Thorne finds his booklet isn't so helpful.
Where: Near the stream at the camp tree
Rating: PG-13-mention of dead girls.

( That's a hell of a long term hallucination )

Who: Baz and Quinn
What: Finding something
When: Morning
Where: North woods
Rating: PG (dead bodies and drugs?)

( Being Eaten Fast And Messy Or Being Eaten Slow While Dreaming? )

Who: Everyone
Where: Around the campfire
What: Catching Up and Discussing The Future
When: Sunset
Rating: G to PG, depending on how the language goes.

Helena returned to her log by the fire and settled down next to the pouch of yarnballs, taking them up once again. She worked at pulling them apart as people began to drift back in to the camp, pausing to breath in the smoking grazer meat and pop boiled pesk eggs into their mouths. Some of them chewed strands of sweetgrind or braided fieldgrass as they chattered and caught up. Once everyone had arrived, she stood up and cleared her throat. "I just wanted to say a few things before we pack up for the night," she said over the din.

"Firstly, welcome back Thorne, Cross, Alex, Kenneth and Jasper. We're really glad to have you back and it's nice to see that you found a few things on your adventure. The grazer hide and meat is especially welcome." She flashed a smile around at the more tanned and sunburned faces in the circle.

"Secondly, I want to pass on a bit of bad news before you hear it from others. We lost four women while you were gone." She cleared her throat, clearly upset by this happening and with good reason. No one had voted Helena as the leader of the group, it had just happened. She still felt responsible and she should, if she were actually the leader. "There's been no sign of Annie, Lauren, Nancy and Jeri."

"Lastly," and here her gaze lingered on Bazzer. He looked...not like himself. She wondered what was eating the younger man. Still, she moved on. "Bazzer and I were discussing the tribe's prospects the other day and I said I would bring up an option to the whole of the group when we were all together again." She clasped her hands infront of herself and tried to organize her pro opinion in order to deliver it well. "Plenty of small tribal societies living without large advancements in technology, much like we are, survived for generations as nomadic peoples." She felt more than heard a hum move around the circle. "I believe that becoming nomadic might be a good answer for us. We're stripping the food supply here nearly bare. We don't know how the weather might change here over the next few months as well. Also, how can we know if there is no city in this world if we don't forge farther out than we can do in a day's run? I think it is safer for the group as a whole if we travel together, look out for each other and move forward rather than wait around here for something to happen." That said, she waited for the questions and opinions of the others. "What do you think?"

Who: Alex & Quinn
Where: the smoking pit
When: Day 12, afternoon
What: ministry of a different kind


( He didn't need religion to lift spirits, though it did help )

Who: Quinn and Carlita
When: Morning of Day Eleven
What: Taking care of the homestead.
Where: The climber tree
Rating: G so far!

Quinn had decided that treking out into the middle of nowhere, freaking out while Payne was killing a huge eleboar and then having to help rescue her, butcher and carry a chunk of the animal home was...more excitement than he was up for, honestly. The pain in his chest had been awful the day before and he had pretty much lingered on his flat rock by the stream. Counting stirpips and flying leeches, watching their unending struggle against each other. He'd dozed through most of day ten, just rousing long enough to chow down on a crispy skewer of eleboar meat when it was handed to him. The meat was juicy, salty and sweet at the same time. So amazingly like pork.

Day Eleven saw him feeling much more like himself. Someone had made a spade out of shale and climber vines left to harden so he had ventured away and dug himself a small latrine to use for theday. He knew that the librarian guy wanted people to pee in his leather pit but Quinn couldn't quite bring himself to do that. Call it a touch of lingering fragile modern sensibilities. Once that was taken care of, he's gathered as much wood as he could carry and brought it back to get the firepit going. Since then, he'd sat at the edge of the camp next to the fire, gazing out at the field, chatting idly to anyone who passed by as he fed to the fire.

Who: Payne and Quinn, then Clay
What: A crime of opportunity
When: Late morning/early afternoon
Where: About fifteen minutes away from the camp.
Rating: R (drugs, innuendo, violence, gore, all the good stuff.)

( Kids Who Do Drugs Always Die In The Movies )

Who: Quinn and Clay
What: Misery in the tree
Where: The climber
When: Afternoon of Day 8
Rating: PG to start.

Clearly, he was dying. Quinn was absolutely certain that all of this tossing around was going to cause some broken rib to puncture his lung and kill him right in this ridiculous hammock. Or maybe the whole thing would let go and he would blow away. That would surely kill him as well. He was ashamed to admit that during the worst of the storm and while battling the absolute agony that was shivering a bucking around, he'd wet himself right in the hammock. Not out of fear, just out of need and the inability to get himself up and down the tree. He hoped enough rain had come down on him since to have washed away the worst of the evidence.

Now, as the wind quieted down and the steel gray sky above drizzeled down on him, Quinn was hot. Uncomfortably warm and parched like he'd spent the day out in the desert, not drowning in a lush tree. Bad news. He knew this must be a fever. His jaw ached from teeth chattering even though he felt like his bones had turned to molten lava and now, after the worst of it had passed, he slept fitfully.

It was during one of those deeply passed out segements of his day that Quinn climbed out of the hammock. In the trance of a sleepwalker he somehow managed to make it to the tree trunk without slipping and falling. Blindly, he groped for the handholds and made his first attempt ever at climbing down the tree instead of being lowered with his foot in a vine loop. All the while, he was mumbling about going to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

Who: Quinn and Thorne
When: Early on Day 7
Where: The tree
What: checking on Quinn's wounds
Rating: PG?
Warnings: None

Thorne still had his few precious vials of homeopathy left and knowing that they hadn't had nearly enough time to find medicinals here. He moved to Quinn's side and knelt down next to him. "Hey...I'm Dr. Baker. I thought if you didn't mind, I'd take a look and see how you're doing?" He'd heard that Quinn had already been treated at a hospital, which was fortunate and that Jeri, whom he really needed to talk to, had already seen to him as well, but Thorne couldn't possibly resist the compulsion to check for himself.

Who: Rowan and Quinn
When: Mid-morning, Day Six
What: A little logistical problemsolving
Where: Beside the stream, under the tree.
Rating: G so far, and that's all that Quinn says he's good for.

( ...You Look Like Utter Hell )

Who: Jeri and Quinn
When: Day 6 - dawn/early morning
Where: The field
What: Waking up
Rating: PG- minor swearing thus far

( Is anyone here )