The Field

Held for things!

Who: Thorne, Ryan and Rowan
Where: Somewhere near camp
When: Evening?
What: Post coital cuddling and chatting
Rating: R for nudity?
Warnings: Threesome

( And threesomes occur )

Who: Aaron and Thorne
When: Early, as breakfast is cooking
Where: Beside the cookfire at camp
What: The enaction of various duties, assigned and percieved.
Rating: TBD, most likely G

Aaron sighed as he settled himself next to the fire, pulling the wiggling woven grass basket toward himself. All around him, the camp was coming awake and everyone was making themselves ready for the day. His fellow lumberjacks exited lean-tos and rolled out from under the carts. He saw Coop, barely conscious, urged over into the shadow of Delilah's lean-to by a rather gentle handed Adnan. They'd need the cart she had been sleeping under. He had to smile as his crew leader carefully repositioned her and she obvious fell back asleep immediately. Must be nice to sleep that deep, he thought to himself in a grumbly mutter. He himself had no such luck. His charges were loud enough to wake him up every few hours for their feeding.

He'd woken early and procured a bowl of fresh goats milk. Lucien and Nef had told him he could help himself and he managed to milk Lucy the goat without too much fuss. She tended to bite and obstinately sidle away but she was getting used to him now, Aaron supposed. With one bowl of milk and one bowl of slightly warmed water he'd left sitting by the fire, he settled in to tend to his own morning duty. Feed the kittens and give them a bath. Reaching in to the basket he pulled out one of the two smokey blue grey kittens. It mewed and blinked it's huge eyes up at him and he started. Their eyes were open! That was new. Giving it an affectionate rub he tipped it over to get a look at which one it was. Female, he could tell, and with a spot of orange on it's back flank. "I'm gonna have to come up with names for you guys soon," he told her conversationally as he dipped a corner of his hoodie in the waiting bowl of milk and offered it to her to suck on. This was slow business and it's why he had to wake up so much earlier than the others.

Who: Ryan and Thorne
When: mid-afternoon
Where: headed toward the northwest shore
Rating: PG

After lunch, Ryan and Thorne had walked to the spring to drink some of the cool, fresh water there and then they'd headed off to gather more plants and roots of various kinds that Thorne could use in making medicines. Ryan had finished several airtight medicine vials, so they could collect enough to hopefully make some larger batches than before, since they'd have a way to store it. Ryan had his pillowcase, and he was mostly carrying the things they found, since obviously Thorne's vision was a lot better than his. "Man, it's hot today," he said; he was already sweating in his tank top from the sun beaming down on them with its white-hot light.

( do we really want monkey pets? )

Who: Ryan and Thorne
When: evening
Where: at the edge of camp
What: caring & comfort
Rating: PG

Ryan had been looking for Thorne for a while now. It had been a really bad couple of days for just about everyone, and he knew Thorne would be feeling particularly awful right now. He hadn't seen him at the funeral and he hadn't seen him afterward, and as the day wore on, he'd started to feel more and more anxious about that. He needed to be sure he was all right, so he began searching for him around camp and its periphery, hoping he wouldn't have to venture into the woods where he wouldn't be able to see where the hell he was going. Despite the lightning flickering overhead and illuminating the dark sky, he was always at a disadvantage during the nighttime.

( you can't fix everything by yourself )

Who: Alex & OPEN
When: Day 25, morning
What: Graveside funeral for Quinn
Where: at the newly created cemetery

( Requiéscat in pace )

Who: Jasper and Thorne
Where: Lean-To
When: Early afternoon
Rating: G-ish

Jasper woke up in a kind of hazy not exactly right sort of way; the sort of waking up you do when you just want to roll over in the night. She was hot - too hot - and she felt sticky with sweat. Of course, her body - mostly her leg, but her face, too - wasn't going to let that happen, and she groaned softly in the sudden rather nauseating agony that welled up and melted across her head and leg.

( And so tired... )

Who: Rowan and Thorne
Where: Around the island
What: Talking and Gathering and Finding Things
Rating: PG 13 for kissing and talk of sex
To Be Continued

( Pink scum, cauldrons and radios oh my )

Who: Lucien and Thorne
When: Early Morning
Where: The lake (then the shore)
Rating: G (so far)

( The lake does not equal bed. )

Who: Ryan and Thorne
When: late night
Where: a short distance from camp
Rating: NSFW (explicit M/M sex)

It had been an eventful day, for damn sure. Ryan had spent most of his time during the daylight hours trying to help around their new camp. He was always acutely conscious of pulling his weight, of doing just as much work as anyone else, and he felt he'd done a decent job of that today. He'd braided tons of cord, worked on one side of the fire pit to hopefully make it more usable for his pottery when he got the chance to get back to that, searched for food, brought water in their most water-tight pot to boil. His ambition was to make something big enough to hold a decent amount of drinking water, but he hadn't yet figured out how to do that.

Then once darkness had fallen, there'd been a lot of confusion and two little tiny kids had showed up at camp. Ryan had arrived late for that, being on the other side of the island at the time; he'd gotten caught there without realizing how soon the sun would set, and it had taken him some time to find his way back in the dark. Jasper had brought the children, someone had told him, and she'd been injured but somebody had swam out and brought her back to camp. That was about all he knew about the situation since he'd arrived so late, but he knew better than to think he would have been able to help that much anyway, since he couldn't fucking see.

Once the excitement had died down, he stood on the outer edge of the area where everyone slept, his eyes on the glow of the fire, which was the only thing he could see in the intense darkness. He felt restless and twitchy, worried about things over which he had no control, and he wasn't anywhere near ready to lie down yet.

( something else to think about )

Who: Jasper, the npc babies, Kenneth, and then open to everyone!
Where: The lake
What: Badness
Rating: Oh, let's say somewhere between PG and R for profanity

Jasper had made a severe error. One she hadn't made in, oh, years and she was definitely regretting it now because this could very possibly cost three people their lives - her's included. But she wasn't used to being weighed down by two children and a bunch of things left at the prime camp; she was used to running for herself, with the things she was used to running with. But right now she was going much slower than she'd thought she'd been, there was a large tract of land that didn't have any trees, just open field, and on the other end of said tract of land was the lake. It was also sunset. Jasper could hear the laughers in the distance, but she knew how fast those could run and if she made it to the lake it would be by the skin of her teeth, and there were still the shallows that the laughers would undoubtedly be able to get through before it became too deep for them.

( Laughers Are Not Friendly )

It was closer to dusk than Kenneth liked when the shore of the lake came into view, but the sight and burgeoning darkness sped the feet of the travelers as their destination appeared. So far there was no sound of laughers behind them, which Kenneth was thankful for.

At the beach, it was organized chaos, but the planning that had been done en route was invaluable as they got the heavier things out of the carts. Kenneth was pleased to see they did in fact float, better even than he'd thought. In groups of two and three people, one stronger swimmer to one or two weaker, they held onto the makeshift rafts and made their way slowly across the fifty or so yards that separated them from the mainland.

Kenneth watched nervously, but some of that disappeared as he made out the form of Helena on the opposite shore. She was alive.

By the time the last raft made it across, which left only the heavier clay pots full of resin, collected food, medicine and Bazzer's skins, the laughers were hot on their trail. On Kenneth's orders, the pots were moved into the shallows and he stood guard over them as their strongest swimmers made a second trip across, this time manhandling the heavy clay pots in groups of two, with longer lengths of braided grass they had thanks to Rowan, tied around them to form a sort of sling like carrier. They took the medicines first, then the resin and skins. Food was easier to replace.

Sooner than he wanted, Kenneth saw the glowing eyes of the laughers. He took one shot then grabbed one of the remaining pots and dove into the water with the laughters splashing in the shallows along the bank. He was surprised to see Aaron, Alex and Thorne make a final dash for the remaining pots and swore softly as he saw the laughers lunge forward.

In a blink, he realized that the four of them had gotten away. They'd sacrificed some of the food they'd gathered, but Kenneth would take that. Given the other possibilities? He'd totally take that.

Who: Analiese, Thorne and Rowan
Where: within several yards of the temporary camp in the grasslands
When: morning
What: ...we're not in the Smokies anymore, Toto
Rating: PG?

( she'd never been out of her home state, and now she was... somewhere else )

Who: Kenneth and anyone/everyone leaving on the 20th
When: Mid morning
Where: Heading east
What: Taking a break


There was no way to keep up the grueling pace all day, at least not for most. Kenneth made sure to call plenty of halts, at least as many as he possibly could, but they still weren't making the speed they'd need to get to the safe camp. Fortunately, he'd sort of planned on that, his worst case scenario. If they didn't make it, he'd circle the carts, build a fire and people would just have to stay awake. The Laughers were smart, he hoped if he took down enough of them, they'd just back off. Did Laughers have a concept for unacceptable losses?

Kenneth didn't know, but he did know that would burn through his ammunition, something he'd already decided was worth it to protect those coming with him. He looked around and squinted up at the sun. Sacrificing a blanket, he tore strips of it with his knife then handed them to the closest person. "Soak these with some water and get people to put them on the back of their necks and heads. It might help."

Who: Ryan and Thorne
When: day 16, night
Where: Thorne's hammock
What: rain and darkness
Rating: PG (boy snuggles, innuendo)

Ryan had had a disconcerting day, to say the least. He was usually so mellow that sometimes people had to poke him to make sure he was alive, and it was rare for him to argue with anyone. Usually that only happened when he was forced to defend himself for whatever the reason, like with Bazzer the other day. But suddenly he'd gotten into an actual fistfight with a guy, over nothing. It seemed unreal when he thought about it.

He'd spent most of the day by himself after that, first dragging himself off into the woods and finding a section of stream in which to wash his face; he'd splashed water over his skin for quite a while, hoping it would help the vicious headache that pounded at his temples and the sharp, stabbing pains in his teeth. He'd been really uneasy once he discovered that his vision seemed dimmer. It was his worst nightmare to lose the little bit of vision he had left. Ryan had found a place to curl up and rest his eyes for a while, trying to be as still as possible, and finally during the late afternoon the headache had subsided enough for him to discover that his vision wasn't really any worse. It must have been the effect of... whatever the hell had happened to him and Rook out there in the field.

( stay here with me? )

Who: OPEN to anyone in camp!
When: Day 15, afternoon through sundown
Where: in camp
What: Dressing, cooking and eating of eleboar piglet. Also, there's a live eleboar piglet that needs to be confined in a cage or something. :D
Rating: TBD
Notes: Here's a shot at a group thread. Please feel free to comment, pick a threading buddy or two, and make sub-threads conversations with whomever you please! Thanks everybody!

( Let's eat! )

Thorne had been unable to sleep, his thoughts kept turning to his twin over and over again. Not having Rowan here was like a permenant ache or the constant feeling he'd misplaced something. The thought that Rowan was going through the same thing only made it harder for Thorne to endure. Goddess, what must Rowan be thinking? That Thorne had just disappeared? He had to be thinking the worst.

As soon as the laughers melted away, Thorne climbed down and walked away from the camp. He wasn't going in any particular direction, just moving. Yes, he had friends here and people he cared about, but he missed his home dammit and more than that, he missed his brother. He kicked a small rock and swore softly. It simply wouldn't do for the others to see him getting melancholy. Not when he was supposed to be the optomistic one. He headed to the West, not sure why other than he hadn't really been in that direction.

About an hour's walk out, he decided to climb a tree and see if he could find any pesk nests. Might as well forage while he was out moping.

As he climbed from branch to branch, he looked and finally found a nest with a few eggs. He put them in his pouch and was getting ready to climb down when he noticed a bit of white paper stuck futher into the hollow of the tree. Intrigued, he fished it out and found it was a bunch of notebook paper tied together with ribbon.

Seating himself on a branch, he started flipping through it, eyes going wide. There were descriptions of plants and animals and little faded sketches and all the information a botonist or herbalist like himself could possibly want. But...what planet was it for? Then he saw the picture of a pesk and knew. Someone had been here before..and they'd left the beginnings of a field guide.

"RO!" Laughing, he skinned down out of the tree and went in search of Rowan, she was going to be so happy!

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: Ryan and Thorne
When: early afternoon, day 13
Where: camp, then the stream in the forest
What: a willing abduction
Rating: NC-17 (language, explicit M/M sexual content)

( the only future he was interested in at the moment was the next hour or so )

Who: Thorne and Rowan
Where: Rowan and Helena's hammock? That okay with you?
When: Just after the meeting and onwards.



Rowan was upset. Really upset. And she knew she was being unreasonable in her emotional state but she couldn't really help it. She didn't want to leave, she didn't know why Bazzer was upset, she didn't know why he got so snappy during the meeting, she missed home and she was generally just an unhappy camper. So when Helena went elsewhere for the night Ro crawled into the hammock by herself and curled up in a ball, missing her company and warmth.

Thorne had known that Rowan was upset and wasn't sure how much was hormonal and how much was something else, but he also knew that he himself wasn't exactly thrilled and Bazzer's obvious anger and upset had left him hurt as well. He had been honest and truthful and open and what more did Bazzer want from him? It wasn't like he was going to change, but it seemed like Bazzer was totally expecting Thorne to make himself miserable and resentful just to please Bazzer's outdated notion of what was proper.

( And Cuddlebunnies )