redshiftlogs | [open] scent of silence under starlight spinning

Who: Charles Smith and YOU. Yes you. You.
What: Exploring Anchor with a new four-legged blob-friend. Come say hey!
When: /wiggles hands vaguely and gestures at month of February
Where: All over Anchor. Seriously, he's just exploring the full extent of what's there, so you can meet up with him anywhere.

He couldn't say he'd enjoyed his time there, but things had perhaps been simpler in the City of Sin than he'd given them credit for.

For one, he'd had a place to retreat to with some kind of certainty, when need be. And the need is rather dire, as it happens. He can feel that itch coming up on him, that sense of anxiety that needed release. It grows as the days go by, clawing, scrabbling to be let out, but he doesn't trust the people here quite the same. Here, there seems to be less space to run.

Granted, it wasn't as bad as the first few times. With practice and help, he had something of a handle on the transformation. But it wasn't as good as being able to control it entirely. When it wanted out, it was going to get out, and what it wanted always remained the same. Run. Hunt. Eat. Protect the Pack.

Better that not be around a bunch of people it didn't know.

---

So he's on the move through the city, level by level, looking for anyplace big enough -- and secure enough -- to work for the time being. He's managed to find some new clothing from the recent appearance of the Alien Hot Topic, replacing his worn-out boots and acquiring a new black leather jacket in the process. It's a strange mix of old and modern, still preferring the shirt he'd arrived in, still wearing his beaded necklace, an eagle feather twined into his hair and hanging delicately against his shoulder.

Charles isn't alone, either. Almost fittingly, one of the blobs seems to have taken a liking to him and is following him around in its current assumed form: a large gray wolf. It trots along at his side, quietly offering suggestions and encouragement through this strong bond they now share as they make their way through the levels, exploring as much of the available space as possible.

Really, they're going to make their way just about everywhere in the complex. They're bound to run into at least a few people along the way.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"That's usually the plan," he murmurs in response, eyes shifting back to the collapsed bits of rubble, pipe and concrete and steel.

"Makes you wonder what it was defending itself from."

Not that this place lacks for excitement, but a lot of those things appear to be buried deep below. This doesn't look like a way to the lower levels, just other areas of the facility that aren't in use.

Oh, she's had this conversation before. The idea of Anchor being in some way sentient is a vaguely unsettling one and she has been trying not to give too much of her brainpower to it. And then here's Charles, bringing it all back up again.

"Defending itself?"

She purses her lips, leaning down to try and peer through any gaps in the rubble.

"We saw things, when we first got here. Like echoes of a battle."

The last city he was in was claimed to be sentient. It's weird, sure, but he's not ruling anything out just because he can't understand how it works.

"A battle?"

Charles frowns thoughtfully at that. "Things around here are broken for sure, but...you'd think there'd be more damage. Or bodies someone might have found. Fortifications set up by people trying to hole up. Or they might have just run."

"Yeah. It was like..." She waves her hand, trying to find the right words for what she wants to say.

"Holograms, or something, I guess? Like the place was remembering something and trying to show us."

Julie scrubs a hand through the back of her hair, shaking her head. "I dunno, but it didn't happen again."

"...so the question is what they were fighting against. And if it's coming back."

Though it appears to have been a long, long time since the previous occupants were actually here, judging just from what he's seen.

"But it's not here now. Which means we've got time." And from the surveying look he gives the broken down doorways, it's clear what he thinks that time should be spent doing. He doesn't know much about tech or the future, but there's usually grunt work that needs doing somewhere.

"We don't think it's here now," she says, moving in towards the collapsed doorway that he'd been examining. She crouches and peers through the debris, tucking her hair back behind her ear.

"But how would it have got out, if it isn't?"

It's said like an afterthought, like it isn't something that's been bothering her since she first thought of it... but it isn't, and it has.

"Depends. Might have burrowed down, slipped out of the doors while everyone was leaving..."

He shakes his head. "Been too long to leave any tracks worth following. A lot can stay in the dust and debris, but people have been moving around. Moving things. Don't think there'd be a whole lot left to go on."

Even the scent would have faded, by now.

"Doubt anyone's been able to get through here, unless we've got someone who can turn into fog or something."

God, but she wouldn't put it past some of the people here to be hiding those kinds of powers. Julie rests a hand on one of the pieces of debris, testing how firmly it's stuck.

"Bet we could clear it. If you wanna see what's back there."

"Might as well."

The wolf lets out a quiet whine, settling down to watch with a tilted head. It can dig and burrow, but only so much. And there's a risk of more debris falling once this initial cave-in has been moved. Better for it to stay out of the way, for now.

Charles doesn't necessarily worry about that, hefting back one of the slabs of rock like it's nothing, and letting it roll to one side. "You...might want to stand back," he adds, glancing Julie's way with a creased brow.

Don't want her getting hurt in all this.

"Er--" Her first instinct - sharp, prodding - is to challenge that recommendation with a 'why'.

Instead, she does what she surmises is the smarter thing, given that obvious show of strength, and she steps back as instructed.

"Sure. You're, uh... stronger than you look."

"I work out."

He says it as dry as a joke, before continuing to move the rubble away and, sure enough, some of the heavier debris on top comes tumbling down. He steps back out of the way just in time to miss a veritable shower of the stuff before shaking his head.

"There's a lot of places like this all over, seems like. Least there's work to be done."

She takes another step back when the debris comes tumbling down, a tiny landslide of rubble that thankfully does neither of them any harm. Her slim shoulders lift in a shrug that makes her hair bob up and down, and she plants her hands against her hips.

"Yeah, but do you ever feel like it feels a bit futile? Like... what's the point of it?"

He pauses at that. There's a heavy truth to those words, and after a moment he nods, glancing back at her.

"Sometimes." Slowly, his brow knits. "But what's the alternative? Do something or do nothing. Even if it doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things...I'd rather say I did something."

In the end, that's all it amounts to. The things you do, the things you can live with. Everything else, the things you can't control, that's not for you to decide. So even if it is futile, there's something that remains to hold onto.

Themselves. Their sense of self, whatever drove them onward.

For Julie, who has been spiralling around the drain for more than just a few days now, those words hit home in a part of her that had been slowly flickering out.

"...Yeah," she mutters, then shakes her head slightly. It's something she needed to hear, really, and yet didn't want to hear all at the same time.

"Guess you're right." And a shrug, before-- "So... what's back there?"

[open] scent of silence under starlight spinning

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