Log 1

[mayfield_mods]

Who: Everyone (General Log)
What: Make yourself at home.
Where: A new town
When: The first day

Comments

[spitefulvitae]

[Curiosity was a better choice than having an existential sulking fit in a basement somewhere... especially in a town with as many strange, wonderful people as this one. People seemed to be making things happen already. Just small ones, but still, they could catch the eye. Or the nose.

She smelled the flowers a moment before she saw them. And then she saw who was tending to them. Oh. Oh.]

You made it?

[Natalie has... probably looked better. She hasn't gotten around to changing clothes since the mad dash out of town, and there is a ragged hole in her blouse right around where her heart ought to be, bloodstained at the edges. Scarred skin is showing through it. Her eyeliner has run and her hair is jutting out at odd angles. What the fuck, man. But she doesn't seem to care that she looks frightful.]

You made it, Dist...

[There's a lilt of happiness in her tone.]

[buildstherobots]

[At the voice, Dist turns, and he smiles when he sees Natalie though it is a bit pained.]

I lost track of all of it in the end, though I managed to save a couple of things. You...

[He looks a bit uncomfortable, though it's mostly just out of the words being hard to find.]

...I'm glad you didn't die. I lost track of just about everybody I knew in the escape.

[spitefulvitae]

I... I'm glad you didn't die, either.

[It was awkward, but yet... it worked. It seemed to be the right way to put how she felt, too. Then she sighed, rubbing absently at a smudge on her cheek.]

I lost track of everyone, myself. I was lucky to not be simply be left behind... Mmn, so now that the running's over, what do we do?

[She looked to the flowers, not... judging, precisely, but attempting to decide for herself if this was a worthwhile way to pass the time or not.]

[buildstherobots]

We live, I suppose. We won't be tormented here, and I don't know if we'll age, so we'll have to... find some kind of meaning for ourselves.

[Over the course of the sentence he seems to deflate; he'd said multiple times that he didn't want to go home, but now that it's more or less impossible... well, it's a weird feeling. After a moment, he can manage a wry smirk, though his eyes divert to the ground.]

Remember when I showed you my replication machine, and told you it couldn't create a perfect human replica?

[spitefulvitae]

Meaning.... [That doesn't sound like a subject that Natalie's made much progress on, judging by the faintness and apathy in her tone. She steps towards the selenias, and is about to reach for one. But Dist has spoken again. And he's smirking.]

Yes. I remember. I also remember it had problems with just mice...

[Where... where is he going with this? The hand that had been reaching for a flower withdraws and holds at chest level, fingers slightly curled.]

[buildstherobots]

Well, this is a successful version of my research.

[Dist sounds... almost hurt.]

I'm what I could never create, and I didn't even know it. How could I? I think if the real me saw me he'd take me apart to find out how to do it himself.

...You can take one; normally these wouldn't grow out here, so really they only resemble the flowers back home. When I figured out I could make them, I couldn't resist.

[spitefulvitae]

...what?

[She's confused for a moment. Honestly confused, thinking he had made a breakthrough or brought something that belonged to him.... But then it clicks in her head, precisely what he's getting at, and she frowns. And feels an odd spike of sympathy.]

Oh.

[Given the permission, she reaches down and plucks one of the flowers.]

It's for the best that he's not here, then. I prefer you in one piece. And two of you might be a little overwhelming.

[She breaks eye contact with him and laughs to cover up that moment of sympathy, and tucks the flower into her disastrous hair.]