Lorna Dane loves rocks and math (compassrose) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-08-29 20:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, lara croft, lorna dane (polaris) |
Strange green-haired girl offers me ice cream in front of a creature from the ice age. Sure, why not
Who: Lara Croft and Lorna Summers
Where: a natural history museum
What: chatting
When: earlier in the week
Warnings/Rating: g
Status complete
Lorna loved the Natural History Museum. She’d always had a fondness for nature, and wandering through the exhibits helped her maintain a sense of her place in the world. She was a complex organism, but not the only one, and not the most interesting one. After her stressful week she needed the chance to roam the place and take in the sights.
While Lara generally preferred human history, the natural history museum was a nice break from her usual haunts. Besides, she knew the two really went hand in hand and Roth had always taught her that she needed to understand the nature around the dig site, as much as the dig site itself. She paused to take a picture of a gigantic mastodon to txt to Sam.
Lorna was also admiring the picture. She smiled at Lara. Oh, but it was nice to look. “Isn’t he pretty?”
The Brit turned and smiled as she sent the message off on her iPhone. “I think so.” She felt a bit like a fish out of water, here, but she was like that in most places. It was something she had in common with Sam, and Roth… really Lara just seemed to gravitate towards people like that. She pushed her dark hair out of her eyes, then reached back to fix her scrunchie. She was casual today with a U2 tank top and army camo cargo pants.
Oooh, and she had a hot accent. Lorna sighed a little. Ah, if only. “Are you on vacation?”
“Not really. I suppose you could call it an extended working one. I’m putting together an expedition. We’re going to find some ruins and dig around in them. A bit ambitious for a fresh grad, but you’re talking to the girl who spent her last summer vacation backpacking across Europe.” Her eyes were alight at the possibilities. “Lara Croft.” She held out her hand.
“Lorna D- Summers.” She had to correct herself, still. “It’s nice to meet you. You’re an archaeologist?” She was very interested in that. The part of her brain that picked up geology from the dreams wanted very much to explore some ancient ruins to learn about the rocks used in creating them.
“Technically, though I haven’t been on a real dig yet,” Lara replied, truthfully.
“Do you have a geologist?” Lorna blurted out, then laughed. “I’m, uh, technically a botanist, but I know a lot about geology.” Enough for a master’s, at least.
Lara laughed. “I’d probably need both, really. You have to be careful of natural formations, and the rocks and plants can explain a lot about how a people lived, you know.”
“That’s true.” Lorna said with a nod. “And I’ve done geological surveys before, so I have a little field experience.”
“I’ll admit that’s more than I have. Although some amatuer stuff when we went on that backpacking trip.” Sam would hopefully be there to document everything on video, but they sure needed a lot more than two people. Assuming she could get people to take a twenty-one year old seriously.
“We all start somewhere. Where’s the dig going to be? Do you have the site picked yet?” She smiled brightly. This sounded like it would be a lot of fun, and it would make her resume more impressive. Double win!
"I've narrowed it down to three. Malaysia, North Africa or Central America." She was reluctant to say exactly where just yet.
“Oooh, I haven’t been anywhere in Africa.” Genosha was off the coast of the main continent, but she didn’t think that counted.
“Egypt, once. Different trip. Didn’t get to go anywhere really unknown, though.” Lara wrinkled her nose. “It’s a real tourist trap, all the things of real value are off the beaten path. Though you have to see the Pyramids up close, and the Sphinx. Or the Philae Temples..Luxor of course. And the temple of Hatshepsut...Really I could go on."
“I see that.” Lorna said with a laugh. “I want to see everything ever. If we do go to Africa We’ll have to make a detour.”
“Probably on the way back, we’d be on a time-table otherwise.” She thought about it. She’d probably want to go to Africa when she had more time, which meant Malaysia or the Americas. She decided that helped narrow it down, anyway.
Lorna nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t want to take too much time off of work, either. I’m a teacher, so the more time I spend away the less my students learn in the long run. Not to mention the kitchen garden I’m trying to establish will need someone looking after it.”
“I suppose it’s good I’ve gotten myself some roommates to tend the house. Assuming I don’t talk them into it. One was a park ranger, could you believe that? Might be handy.”
“Dani?” Lorna asked, with a laugh. “Oh, this will be fun. I bet you anything she’d want to go. We won’t have to worry about local wildlife.”
Lara looked over at Lorna again, tilting her head so that her ponytail bounced off her shoulders. “You know her?”
“We work together. She mentioned having a new roommate and being a park ranger, and how many people could be simultaneously moving and a former park ranger?” Beside, she was used to these kind of coincidences by now. Dreamers tended to clump together. She wondered if there wasn’t some kind of signal they sent to each others’ brains on an unconscious level. Dreamers’ auras were different from normal people’s.
“That’s kind of crazy,” Lara exclaimed, almost too loudly. She winced and lowered her voice, face flushing a little. “That’s crazy, and kind of cool.”
Lorna giggled. She didn’t mind the loudness. This was a museum, not a library. “It is crazy and cool.”
“She’s really nice…” Lara smiled, sticking her hands in her pockets. “That’s just...such a crazy coincidence.”
Lorna giggled. “You get used to that kind of thing.” There would be much weirder stuff down the line.
“So I’ve been told.” She reached behind her head and pulled her tail forward, tugging on it lightly. “I’m not sure I believe half the things I’ve read but that’s been ingrained in me since I was a baby mammoth.”
“It’s good to question things, and not believe anything you didn’t see yourself.” Lorna said with a nod. “I didn’t believe it at first, either. Nobody really does.”
"Do I really want to know? Or should I invest in a nice camcorder so my mate doesn't think I've lost my mind?"
“It would probably be better not to record things.” Lorna noted, and her expression became uncertain and guarded. “The less attention we get here the better.”
“If and when she comes out here, you’d have to pull a camera from her cold, stiff fingers,” Lara intoned. “Film student. I’m hoping to talk her into documenting the dig."
Lorna pursed her lips but didn’t say anything. She didn’t care if someone filmed the dig, but anonymity was very important to her, and mutants in general.
“She’s pretty good. Camera shy?”
Lorna laughed. “I was a political prisoner in Cuba. I only escaped because the warden let me slip out with the garbage. I can’t be on camera, they might take me back.” She gave it her best fake Cuban accent, to sell her silly story. She didn’t expect Lara to believe her, but she wanted to drop the subject.
“What’s what a pixelation filter is for,” Lara replied. At least she thought that was how it worked, but she didn’t really know. She smirked at Lorna. “Do all Cubans have green hair?”
“I’m not Cuban anymore. I’m American, because freedom of speech is freedom to live.” Or something.
“Right.” Odd girl. Lara gave a mental shrug and resisted her natural inclination to dig.
Lorna knew that was the lamest excuse ever, but she didn’t care. All that mattered was that they were off the topic. “Do you want to get ice cream sometime?”
“Mm. Strange green-haired girl offers me ice cream in front of a creature from the ice age. Sure, why not?” She grinned.
Lorna laughed. “What, that’s not weird.”
“Only the weirdest thing that’s happened to me this week,” Lara assured her.
“I’ll have to try harder.” Lorna said with a wink.