The Field

Who: Helena and Thorne
Where: one of the trees
When: Day 8
What: Brainstorming!
Warnings: None
Rating: PG?

Thorne climbed up the trunk of the tree, some fish that Kenneth had given him in a pouch around his neck. He was looking for Helena to see if she had any ideas about the upcoming hunt. The rain had delayed them for the day, but Thorne was still fairly sure they'd be able to leave in the morning. "Helena!" Thorne called out when he spotted her, swinging up onto a nearby branch. "Do you like sashimi?" He held out the pouch of fish.

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: Angelica and Alex
What: Alex gets through to Angelica about her behavior.
Where: Leaning on a tree.
When: After monsoon, late morning/afternoon
Rating: PG-13

( Father Tight Ass )

Who:  Jasper and Open to Everyone
When:  Late morning, the instant she can see more than a foot in front of her
Where:  Jasper's Tree
What:  Party
Rating:  G, with potential to change depending on language

Jasper had built herself a nice little nest with a roof-like thing just before sunset the day before, but just before dawn a lot of the "roof" had been torn away.  She had debated for a while whether or not to fix it, then decided no and hung up her sleeping bag upside down so the water couldn't get in - luckily the rest of it was waterproof.  Then she got a long vine, put a noose in one end, and got a dead branch with her other hand.  She stripped it of all the little twigs and things, and broke it so that it had a good, sharp end.

Then she went down the tree, with one foot in the vine so that she wouldn't fall into the water where those big sharp-toothed fish were.  That way, instead of them eating her?  It was the other way around.  Merrily, as she got one and pinned it against her tree so it wouldn't flop away.  It didn't really occur to her that she might have to cook it first.  At the moment, Jasper wanted to catch as many fish as this bounty would allow.  Loudly, without thinking about it, she started singing 'Living Dead Girl' by Rob Zombie

Who: Helena and Alex
What: A slip and fall
Where: From the tree
When: During the afternoon drizzle
Rating: PG (minor injury)

( Rescued )

Who: Bazzer & Meredith
When: Day 8, morning
What: discussion of growing up and school
Where: in the tree

( Welcome to Wonderland )

Who: Kenneth and Bazzer
When: Day 8-noonish
What; Talk
Rating: PGish
Warnings: None

( Two men getting to know each other. )

Who: Carlita and OPEN
Where: The Field.
When: Dawn
What: Arriving. Freaking out a little.
Rating: None yet.

( Am I really asleep? )

Who: Clay
What: fun with Mother Nature
Where: the main climber tree, in the rain
When: before dawn, during the monsoon
Rating: squeaks by as a G, I think

( 'too damn stupid to come in out of the rain' )

Who: Ryan and Olivia
Where: the climber tree
When: arse o'clock, when the storm blows in!
Rating: PG

( rain, rain, go away )

Who:  Helena, Rowan
What:  A noticing
Where:  In the tree, in Rowan and Helena's hammock
When:  night
Rating:  G

After finishing off or packing up the food, everyone collected their belongings and headed into the branches for the night. Bracing themselves for the loud night full of laughers it was almost...eerie...when the noise never came. Nothing. Not so much as a single chuckle. It's not that there wasn't movement. There certainly was. Those who were in an area with a thinner canopy bore witness to dozens upon dozens of the hulking shadows slipping past the tree, moving with quick purpose to the east. Not even the infant or young laughers, seen in the wild for the first time, made a noise as they vanished eastward with their brutish parents.

Though it had been still and quiet all night long that stillness was coming to an end long before dawn approached. The wind picked up from the west, coming in chilly gusts. The heavy foliage of the tree shook and trembled, some large leaves hitting the ground. Just when it seemed as though the wind would rip the hammocks off the tree, then came the rain. Such rain!! It drilled down into the earth. The stream swelled in the wrong direction. Though the stream normally flowed from east to west the force of the landfallen storm in the west forced much more water upstream than could travel down. By the time light lit the world again, water lapped around the trunk of the tree and the field looked like a boggy swamp. Unfish flopped in the shallows created between the tree roots, as well as a large, bright blue breed of fish with big teeth that no one had seen previously.

The worst of the rain stopped by mid-morning but it continued to drizzle and spit or come down in quick showers until well after sunset. The laughers do not return during the day or that night.

There was no fog at dawn. There was no sound of arrivals, no sight to show that a transport of any kind had arrived, and yet...

( Mod Note - Please Read )