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We keep getting it wrong until we get it right;
CHARACTERS: Annabeth + open.
WHERE: Around the Station.
WHEN: Anywhere around Day :41 - Day :43.
SUMMARY: [Rocky theme intensifies]
WARNINGS: N/A. Will update if necessary.
I. IT'S THE EYE OF THE TIGER
[ for lack of a whole lot of clean clothing options, annabeth's conceded to wearing her standard-issue gray suit from the lockers. her hair is pulled back in a ponytail so it won't get in the way while she trains, and her camp necklace is visible: a simple leather string carrying nine painted beads, a chunky class ring, and a coral pendant. her bronze dagger stays at her waist, but she doesn't unsheathe it today. she's more interested in finding out what's available to them in the training wing.
annabeth bypasses the gym in favor of the training hall and range. she can be found training with a variety of weapons, clearly favoring the old-fashioned. she practices archery, using the provided readouts to work on fixing her aim and stance; she's a decent shot, though it's clearly not her favorite way to fight. if she finds a javelin, she be found practicing her throws. she also gravitates to the blades, practicing her swordwork against the dummies with gusto...and, if you catch her at the wrong moment, also more anger than strictly necessary. if she seems like she's been handling weapons like these for years...well, that's because she has. that doesn't mean there's nothing to critique, if you're so inclined: she has more ferocity than discipline, more experience in survival than organization. she's a little slow on her feet because of her recovering ankle, pausing to take breaks every so often.
you may catch her practicing or stopping to catch her breath, nodding in your direction by way of hello. ]
The selection here isn't too bad, [ she has to admit. ] But I wish there was a climbing wall...
[ the one from camp flashes through her mind, and thereby across the mental link. camp half-blood's climbing wall looks fairly normal, aside from the lava that periodically gushes down the sides. and falling boulders.
you might also find her by the pool, dangling her bare feet into the water. there's a book in her hands, but she seems distracted; she keeps fiddling with the coral pendant on her necklace, her homesickness palpable. ]
II. AND HER NOSE STUCK IN A BOOK
[ annabeth's been in the recreational wing before, but this time she moves past the ping pong table and games with purpose; today, she's headed for the library. she can be found perusing the selection with a thoughtful look, occasionally pulling out this or that book to take a look at it. the books that aren't in english make her scowl, but she takes a look at them anyway, seeing if she can pick up anything useful from them. if she notices someone else there she might turn to them with a question. ]
Hey. Have you read this?
[ or you might find her sitting in a corner working her way through a stack of books. she's concentrating intently, but the approach of just about anyone is likely to make her look up and glare; no matter how quiet they're being, she can feel another presence, after all. and it's enough to break her concentration.
she can also be found clacking away on a laptop (where did that come from?), with the symbol delta glowing in blue on the lid. a glimpse over her shoulder might show you complex blueprints of buildings, things that look like robots, or a schematic of very large chinese handcuffs. weird. ]
III. THE SKY'S THE LIMIT
Wildcard option! Feel free to PM me so we can hash out any other scenarios. Also I'll match prose or brackets, no problem.
WHERE: Around the Station.
WHEN: Anywhere around Day :41 - Day :43.
SUMMARY: [Rocky theme intensifies]
WARNINGS: N/A. Will update if necessary.
I. IT'S THE EYE OF THE TIGER
[ for lack of a whole lot of clean clothing options, annabeth's conceded to wearing her standard-issue gray suit from the lockers. her hair is pulled back in a ponytail so it won't get in the way while she trains, and her camp necklace is visible: a simple leather string carrying nine painted beads, a chunky class ring, and a coral pendant. her bronze dagger stays at her waist, but she doesn't unsheathe it today. she's more interested in finding out what's available to them in the training wing.
annabeth bypasses the gym in favor of the training hall and range. she can be found training with a variety of weapons, clearly favoring the old-fashioned. she practices archery, using the provided readouts to work on fixing her aim and stance; she's a decent shot, though it's clearly not her favorite way to fight. if she finds a javelin, she be found practicing her throws. she also gravitates to the blades, practicing her swordwork against the dummies with gusto...and, if you catch her at the wrong moment, also more anger than strictly necessary. if she seems like she's been handling weapons like these for years...well, that's because she has. that doesn't mean there's nothing to critique, if you're so inclined: she has more ferocity than discipline, more experience in survival than organization. she's a little slow on her feet because of her recovering ankle, pausing to take breaks every so often.
you may catch her practicing or stopping to catch her breath, nodding in your direction by way of hello. ]
The selection here isn't too bad, [ she has to admit. ] But I wish there was a climbing wall...
[ the one from camp flashes through her mind, and thereby across the mental link. camp half-blood's climbing wall looks fairly normal, aside from the lava that periodically gushes down the sides. and falling boulders.
you might also find her by the pool, dangling her bare feet into the water. there's a book in her hands, but she seems distracted; she keeps fiddling with the coral pendant on her necklace, her homesickness palpable. ]
II. AND HER NOSE STUCK IN A BOOK
[ annabeth's been in the recreational wing before, but this time she moves past the ping pong table and games with purpose; today, she's headed for the library. she can be found perusing the selection with a thoughtful look, occasionally pulling out this or that book to take a look at it. the books that aren't in english make her scowl, but she takes a look at them anyway, seeing if she can pick up anything useful from them. if she notices someone else there she might turn to them with a question. ]
Hey. Have you read this?
[ or you might find her sitting in a corner working her way through a stack of books. she's concentrating intently, but the approach of just about anyone is likely to make her look up and glare; no matter how quiet they're being, she can feel another presence, after all. and it's enough to break her concentration.
she can also be found clacking away on a laptop (where did that come from?), with the symbol delta glowing in blue on the lid. a glimpse over her shoulder might show you complex blueprints of buildings, things that look like robots, or a schematic of very large chinese handcuffs. weird. ]
III. THE SKY'S THE LIMIT
Wildcard option! Feel free to PM me so we can hash out any other scenarios. Also I'll match prose or brackets, no problem.
'TIS THE SEASON (closed to Sam)
Her expectations for familiarity around the Station are pretty low, but the tinsel, wreaths, and lights? Still manage to surprise her. She actually stops in one of the hallways to look at them; they're nice, but the contrast against the alien, insectoid architecture of the Station (which is not how she'd design a space station if anyone asked her to, she's just going to say) is...strange. Still, the decorations make the place almost look a little homey, in a spacey way.
A horrible thought strikes her, and she frowns.
"Please tell me I didn't lose five months," she says to no one in particular.
It's possible; her boyfriend Percy lost months of his life when Hera, Her Royal Annoyingness, decided on her forced exchange program between Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter.
no subject
She might be asking no one, but Sam lobs out an answer easy enough as he comes to a stop next to her, smiling slightly at the decorations. He should probably start taking them down soon, really, but - he's reluctant. Sam's the kind of guy who starts putting Christmas decorations up right after Thanksgiving and keeps them up until New Years; the couple of days that they've been up just don't seem long enough.
"It's hard to keep track of time up here; I actually got no idea what month it is back home."
no subject
There's a note of resignation in her voice and a grumble that passes through their mental link; for a girl pretty used to the fantastical, she's still irritated that she now has parallel earths and aliens to worry about.
"Time can flow differently in other dimensions," she adds, sounding fairly matter-of-fact. "Time could be going faster, or slower, or barely at all."
She's speaking from experience: a glittering green ocean, dark underground passageways, and the inside of a fancy arcade all flash through her mind.
no subject
His eyebrows raise at her comment, though, curious.
"Sounds like this isn't the first time you've run into it." It's an invitation to talk more about it - but there's no pressure there. He won't push if she doesn't want to, and he sure as hell isn't going to go prying in her mind to get more about those brief flashes.
I
You've real experience with a bow.
[ As she speaks, she lifts her own bow and nocks an arrow as looks down towards the targets. She hasn't drawn it back yet, seemingly waiting for Annabeth to reply. ]
no subject
I have practice, [ she says, turning to aloy. ] Not a lot of battle experience, though. [ she tends to prefer close range, partly for sentimental reasons she'll never admit. ] You definitely seem like you know what you're doing.
[ she pays attention to aloy's form, respect seeping into her voice. ]
no subject
[ Aloy speaks simply and matter-of-factly, as if that should explain everything. As she finishes, she raises the bow and presses it, pulling the arrow back with barely a sign of exertion before she looses the shaft down towards the target. It lands with a solid 'thunk.' It's not a bulleye, but it's solidly within the center ring of the target. ]
IT'S THE KING OF THE FIGHT
But walking around in so much tattered leather and fur, with knee-high steel toe boots and a metal-lined hood made him, shall we say, stand out a little.
He wasn't willing to sacrifice all of the uniform, though. He wears the gray sweatpants from the Station, coupled with the standard issue shirt to match the Kingsglaive uniform. It was charcoal, with an intricate, large, and frankly overwrought design of a sword spanning from the collar down to his navel. His twin kukri are still strapped as they always are: one on his thigh, one on the small of his back.
It's only now people could see the extent of the tattoos on his arms. Admittedly, they weren't many on his arm, but most of them remained hidden underneath the jacket. A single, thin band is inked on his forearm, a matching tattoo to the one on his index finger on his right arm, the middle finger on his left. The shirt exposes more fully the tattoo on his neck as well, the same sort of thin lines that cross each other from behind his right ear down to his Adam's apple. The rest are across his face, on his ears and under his eyes.]
You know what you're doing.
[Yeah, he'd caught her stabbing and slashing, let her have her moments as he simply watched from a distance. The ferocity rippled in the link, as did the anger. He felt it keenly, almost as keenly as his own anger of his youth.
He moves to sit next to her at the pool, cross-legged, and lets his tattooed finger skim across the pool. No Galahd, no natural coursing rivers covered in trees, but it's not too cold, and it's not too hot.]
You'll wear yourself out like that, though.
[The necklace catches his eye, the homesickness swells in his heart. He didn't need the link to figure that one out.
He knows. He knows. Though he has no home and nowhere to go, he still feels the pang of homesickness.]
I've got some like those, too.
[He pulls the kukri at his right thigh out from its sheath. Dangling by a black leather cord from the very tip of its handle are a pair of teeth, yellowed now by the passage of time, and a few small black beads. Nyx simply holds it in his hands, glancing at her.]
no subject
and because if she thinks about going home instead of being here, then she doesn't have to feel like she's seven years old and alone all over again. none of her friends are here. not chiron, who practically raised her, or her cabin, half-brothers and sisters who took her in when her mortal family rejected her. not her dad, who she'd finally started fixing her relationship with. gods, not even her mother, watching from olympus.
not percy. who isn't just her boyfriend and one of her best friends, but also has been solidly constant in her life since they were both twelve. one of the only constants she's had all this time. they haven't even been reunited for that long and now she's separated from him again, for who knows how long. ]
I might've needed to blow off some steam.
[ she admits, raising an eyebrow at his tattoos. she doesn't comment or ask about them just yet, but she notices, takes in the shapes. annabeth doesn't exactly enjoy battle, you understand, but the few days she's been in the station have been quieter than anything she's ever known. monster attacks are just a part of normal life, and without them she has too much energy, too little to focus on.
she leans a little to better look at the beads and the teeth, eyebrows furrowing. ]
What are they?
no subject
[As soon as he says it, he realizes that Annabeth might not know what that is. Most people back in Eos knew of them, but never up close.]
It's a big cat with long whiskers, usually spotted all over. They're dangerous, especially if you run into them alone.
[A grayish-white coeurl, a giant beast that took the deadliest parts of a leopard and a tiger and put it into one, with wicked long whiskers crackling with electricity, that's the image that flashes through his mind. It seems to circle and stalk with bright violet-blue eyes fixated on the viewer, himself.]
Couldn't exactly get its giant fangs so I had to stick with the smaller teeth.
[Days beyond days, of when he hunted and skinned beasts in Galahd. When he had to learn how to fight off daemons as best as he could when he wandered off into the fields and the forests.
Besides, it wasn't his kill alone either. It would be presumptuous of him to take the fangs when he wasn't the one who fought it a majority of the time. The killing blow was his. The credit was not.]
They used to be whiter than this.
ii books, books, books.
Burying himself in a book was meant to keep him busy. The copies in alien languages are interesting but impossible to decipher. He has one clutched in his hand when Annabeth approaches. The presence of her mind registers before she asks the question, and he's already looking at her as she turns to him. ]
No. Can I see it?
[ It looks heavy, bound in something Bellamy would classify as leather if they weren't on an a living Station hurtling through space. He holds out a hand to her, shifting his own selection up under his arm. ]
no subject
in her head. in their heads? she tries not to think about it too hard because she suspects it'd give her a headache, and she really suspects shared headaches are not something she wants to experience.
so before she answers his question she cants her head, a smirk briefly tugging at her lips. ]
You weren't kidding. You actually are real.
[ always a relief to know she isn't just hearing voices in her head. well, not imaginary ones in any case.
she nods after that, handing over the book carefully. ]
I was hoping to find a historical record of this place. The Station, the Nest -- anything.
[ anything potentially useful. ]
no subject
[ Whether or not people believed them though seemed to be constantly in question. Bellamy could leave that up to her. ]
Half the books here are in languages I can't read anyway. That'd be just our luck.
[ Not that Bellamy was some language savant, but he doesn't think he even has a chance with aliens in the mix. He turns Annabeth's selection over in his hands. Bellamy's always reverent when he handles books. They'd been so scarce for so long in his life. The abundance of them still shocks him. ]
I haven't read this one either. You'll have to tell me if it's worth my time.
no subject
[ bellamy treats the book with such gentleness that annabeth feels careless by comparison. between schools, public libraries, and the athena cabin, she's rarely been left wanting. ]
Me neither...so far. [ at first, she'd thought her dyslexia was acting up, scrambling the letters. then she'd realized how many of the books she picked up weren't even in english. she frowns, grumbles, ] More books in English would be great, but there isn't even anything like Greek. Or even Latin.
[ surely even space ancient languages would come more easily to her than...well, whatever all this is. she heaves a sigh. ]
Will do. But...that kind of depends on what you consider worth your time.
[ annabeth, for instance, tends to prefer non-fiction. not a big surprise, maybe: she likes spending her time learning. partially for the fun of it, like when she reads about architecture, dreaming of the buildings she wants to construct one day. and partially to wield her knowledge as surely as she does her dagger, because remembering a god's name or a monster's weakness could be the difference between life and death. ]
no subject
[ Being so spoiled for choice, even with a language barrier limiting him, was never something Bellamy had expected to encounter. Books were scarce. They had been low on the list of priorities to evacuate from Mount Weather, and they'd been among the artifacts destroyed when the Ice Nation set off their bombs. The sprawling library present here was a gift Bellamy was attempting not to waste. ]
Maybe next place we touch down, you can try to buy a translator. But that might...we still don't know any of these languages.
[ Another road block. Asking Prince felt inevitable, but he could only push Annabeth so far, so quickly. ]