redshiftlogs | [OPEN]

Entry tags:

[OPEN]

Who: Julie & OPEN
What: Zombies, farming and getting really, really drunk
When: Septemberish
Where: noted in-post
Warnings: none yet
Format: Prefer brackets but will match.

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i. way too much like home | SEPT. 01. | "Whole Foods"

[How can someone used to foraging and scavenging for anything they might find useful turn down a massive supermarket right on their doorstep? Julie... could, and probably ought to, but curiosity is a frequent silencer of good reason and Julie finds herself sneaking into the place with the kind of inevitability that even someone who barely knows her has probably come to expect.

And she's been through this enough now to realise that this entire place probably got here in a similar way to how they did. She knows that, and she knows she might just find something here that could be better than what they have in Anchor.

She might find something worse, too... but such are the risks we take.

In an old, worn-in habit she grabs a basket on her way in, hooking it over her arm. The radiation suit she opted to wear makes it harder to see what might be around each corner, and she pauses at each to check what might be there. Over time, she relaxes, and spends more time perusing the shelves than she does checking for danger.

That's when she spots it. Out of the corner of her eye at first, and initially she thinks it's just someone from Anchor who made their way over here to join her, but... no. There's something wrong. Something about the way it's moving.]

Uh--... [Oh, shit.

She drops her basket with a noisy clatter and starts to run before she even finishes the thought, completely unaware that she isn't being followed with even half the speed that she's moving at.

Zombies! Why is it always fucking zombies!]

((open to her being found at any point in the post))

ii. that farming life | Agriculture Level

[In the upper level of the agriculture area, Julie is sitting on the ground with a small blanket spread out in front of her, carefully sorting through a selection of seeds. Now and then, she finds one that's dried out or showing a hint of rot, and puts it aside.

It's a little like being back home. The planting, the farming... but there's a lot less of them here, and a lot more food to go around. It would be nice, if she didn't just want to go home. But then... there's a lot she'd miss if she went home, too.

Julie tilts her head back, looking up towards the roof and the light streaming in from above her.]

Places like this suck. [She mutters to herself.] Never as easy as just taking the first opportunity to get the hell out of dodge.

[She'd second-guess it now, after so long. It's not fair.

The seeds get her attention once again. Something simple, easy to focus on. She tosses another dud aside.] At least I've got you to keep me busy.

iii. just another tequila sunrise | Bar

[Farming only keeps a person busy for so many hours of the day, and there are only so many times you can go to the spa for a hot soak before it feels like you're just wasting time.

Some people would say that being in the bar getting drunk by yourself isn't a good way to pass the time in any respect, but to those people, Julie really only has one thing to say. It isn't something that can be repeated in polite company.

She's four tequila sunrises in by the time anyone finds her, and is making a move to get behind the bar to make something that isn't a tequila sunrise.]

God-- fucking damn it, I know you have something back here that isn't tequila or fucking grenadine. [The bartender bot, being in no position to really do anything about it, just watches her while she lifts a half-dozen bottles up onto the bar.]

If I ever see another tequila sunrise when I get out of here...

[Much later, when she's been successful in her search and is no longer really capable of getting to the bar, she sits at a table nursing what's left of a bottle of flavoured gin and staring glassy-eyed at the other side of the room.]

It's not fair. [She says out loud, to anyone who might be listening. What's not fair? A lot of things, probably.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Reynir is on his way back from a little while tending his new plot of crops when he spots Julie. He can see her from quite some distance away, sitting on her blanket and focusing on some small task: beads, or seeds, hard to tell from a distance. He knows he'll be visible approaching for some time, as well. Or he would be, if she looked up at any point.

He gets as close as he dares before he thinks that perhaps he should call out, not wanting to startle the distracted girl. He stops, bending down to scoop up Kisa into his arms, settling the cat comfortably against his chest before he calls out, all friendliness and smiles: ]

Hello!

Hey.

[Distracted, though not so much that she doesn't realise she's being spoken to, she takes a moment more before she looks up and quite audibly gasps at the sight of the cat in the other person's arms.

Her expression shifts immediately from pensive distant thought to charmed bewilderment.]

Ohhh my god. Is that cat even real?

[Can she pet it?!]

[ Whatever it is that's managing to make them all understood to one another is doing the best it can to translate, but some phrases are just going to slip through the cracks. So Reynir doesn't get that she's just expression admiration for how unbelievably cute the cat is, and thinks it is a serious question instead. ]

Yeah, she's completely real.

[ The eager look on Julie's face needs no translation, however, so when he's close enough he bends down, dropping Kisa and giving her a little pat pat to encourage her to walk the last few feet over to the girl. Kisa, being a cat - even a grade B graduate of the Cat Academy in Reykjavík, is not inclined to be dictated to. She plops herself down right where Reynir put her, lifting a leg high in the air and promptly starting to groom herself. Well, he tried. ]

I'm Reynir, and this is Kisa. I would say she usually has better manners than this but... she doesn't.

[ Kisa, as if she knew he was talking about her, stops licking herself and looks up at Julie, her tongue still hanging out though she seems completely unaware of it. ~~They might be from a post-apocalyptic nightmare world but cats gonna blep.~~ ]

Are you working on planting, too?

[It's a good answer in any case. Julie makes a small effort to coax the cat over to her for pets, to no avail.]

Ugh, the worst kind of heartbreak. [She says, pressing one hand dramatically to her chest and shaking her head. Such a terrible thing when a cat won't come to you for scritches.

But that blep is hella cute and maybe she'll forgive the indiscretion.]

Uh, yeah. I guess so. I did this kind of thing back home sometimes. Everyone pitched in with the farming now and then, unless they had something more important to do.

[ Reynir grins, amused by the mock theatrics. ]

You can just pick her up if you like, honestly. She's very friendly.

[ And tolerant, too. Kisa had been scooped up enough times and swept out of danger when she was a tiny kitten that she is entirely accustomed to being held by humans, and has no aversion to it at all. Reynir has walked around for hours with her perched on his shoulders, or even, on occasion, the top of his head. ]

Mmm, sounds familiar. My family are sheep farmers but we had a few little plots to grow food for ourselves, too.

[ Whatever technology or magic or forces are making everyone in this place understood to one another, Reynir's version of English is still lightly accented - lilting and sweet. He looks at all the seeds Julie is sorting through and asks: ]

Would you like some help?

[Maybe she will pick the cat up in a while. Maybe, when she's figured out whether or not said cat would actually be amenable to that kind of arrangement, because she's met cats before and they're not all too keen on just being picked up by strangers.]

Oh, huh, sure. It's kind of boring doing this by myself anyway.

[God, yes, please come and keep her company.]

Just getting rid of the bad ones. But the stuff here's kept really well, considering.

Whaaaaat?! Farm stuff, being boring? Who would've thought!

[ His sarcasm comes with a grin of camaraderie: even if she'd only helped with planting and harvest now and then, surely she's well familiar with just how dull all this stuff can be. It's one of the reasons he'd offered to help. He knows how much faster a task can go when you've got somebody to talk to or sing with, even if the time itself is not all that much less.

Reynir plops himself down cross-legged close by, reaching for the pile of unsorted seeds and starting to go through them much as Julie is doing. Not the most interesting work, no. But new people are interesting, and he loves to be useful.

Without shyness, he prompts: ]

You didn't tell me your name. Unless you want me to just call you Cat-Loving Girl.

[ Her little joke about heartbreak earlier makes him think she has a sense of humor, but it's still tentative, this little tease. If she seems unhappy with it, he'll know to be a little more cautious. ]

[Julie snickers softly, but welcomes the company. People are far more interesting than seeds are, and it makes the task go faster to have someone to talk to.]

Wouldn't be the worst thing I'd been called. [She replies flippantly as she tosses one of the dried-out seeds to one side. A small smirk follows that remark and she shrugs, shaking her head.]

It's Julie Cabernet.

[Like the wine. If he knows about the wine.]

I also answer to 'Blondie' and 'Oi, you'.

[ The fact that he doesn't make any reference to wine really implies that, no, he doesn't know shit about wine. ]

Julie Cabernet.

[ It sounds a little different in his accented voice, and it's a very strange name to him, but that's to be expected with foreigners. Julie. He can remember that - it's simple. ]

'Braid-boy' is the one I usually get. Or just 'Braidy'. Sometimes 'Freckles'.

[ That gives him a pang of sadness - he misses Sigrun and her smile and her bloodthirstiness and her mean nicknames. ]

So, you're not from a world where machines grow all the food like almost everybody else, here?

[ Okay maybe that's not strictly accurate but close enough. ]

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