[SEMI-OPEN]

[acreage]

WHO: Amos Burton, James Holden, Wysteria, Ellis, and YOU
WHAT: Two spacemen fall out of a rift, later explore scenic Kirkwall
WHEN: Nnnnowish? Waves hands
WHERE: The Wounded Coast, then Kirkwall
NOTES: A closed arrival thread, plus open individual threads for meeting Amos and/or Jim after their quarantine period.

Comments

THE WOUNDED COAST, OPEN.

[innerharbor]

Amos has to go back to the ocean. He didn't get a good look at it. The water is blue. It comes right up to the sand. There's no wall, no decades old trash, no grime.

It's just a beach. A natural beach. He's seen things like this in holos and paintings and advertisements. Baltimore is right next to the ocean-- Amos had his own boat, even-- but the ocean wasn't like this. The islands were made of trash, drowned barges and plastic tubing. This is... something completely the fuck else.

He takes off his shoes and wades forward, before spotting something dying in the sand. He doesn't know it, but the thing he's poking with a stuck is a dying jellyfish. "What's got a nose big enough to sneeze you out, huh?"

you needed another thread with me, right

[acreage]

"Careful."

Holden's busying himself, mostly, with the idea of keeping watch. Making sure no more green rips in the sky open above them, or any unfriendlies find them with their guards down. Or, who knows, any other goddamn monsters try to kill them.

"It could be poisonous."

It's less that he remembers any jellyfish facts specifically, and more that he has a vague impression from a picture book from childhood, and also knows that there are non-fish things in the oceans, that can be poisonous. Which is about the extent of his sea creature knowledge.

uh yes.

[innerharbor]

It could be poisonous. Amos immediately stabs the thing in the gooey bit he's decided is the head.

He looks up at the Cap. "You been chatting up a fisherman?"

[acreage]

He doesn't quite laugh, but he exhales in a way that's halfway there.

"Not yet, but that's not a bad idea. We could use more information about this place, while we're here."

Avoid another poison slugs incident, for example.

[innerharbor]

"Yeah, I'll leave that to you," Amos stands, moving the jellyfish back into the surf. It's low tide, he's been informed. That probably means something.

"I'll scope out the city," he says, like he hasn't been already. "You been to Darktown?"

[acreage]

"No."

He leans back against a tree, after a glance upwards to check if there's anything up there ready to fall on the unsuspecting, then looks back to Amos.

"Should I?"

[innerharbor]

Amos continues to wander in the shallows, getting his feet wet. There's nothing like this, the way the wet sand moves underneath him, the gentle rhythm of the surf... it's kinda fucking amazing.

"Not really," Amos says. "Reminds me of Ganymede."

After the mirrors fell, but that goes without saying, doesn't it?

[acreage]

A flash of memory, from their arrival on Ganymede: Reminds me of Baltimore. Either association is enough to make him frown, even as he keeps his eyes on Amos, enjoying the water.

"Speaking of Ganymede," he says, crossing his arms loosely, "Never thought I'd see so much fresh food in one place anywhere else."

[innerharbor]

Amos knows the subject is being changed, and lets it. The Cap doesn't have anterior motives, he's just himself. If he makes a sudden swerve, Amos will compensate how he can. He learned that from Naomi.

"Cheap fresh food," Amos says. "I asked a guy about the money here. You can get a whole slab of beef for maybe a few day's salary?"

[acreage]

It's one of those things, where he isn't sure if it's right to push. If Amos brought something up, he probably has a reason to; but at the same time, Holden worries about veering too far into prying, into the things that'd hurt him. Sometimes, like now, he overcompensates.

"Really?" An eyebrow quirk. He's been here the same amount of time, noticed how bizarrely low prices are, but hadn't thought to ask about something as exorbitant as real meat. Then again, "Paper, too. In some ways, it reminds me of what people think Earth is like."

But only very specific ways. There's clearly no Basic assistance here, no recourse for the poor.

Which is a thought that circles back to the previous topic. So after a pause, he tries,

"What about Darktown?"

As in, what was there about it that Amos wanted to bring it up?

[innerharbor]

A snort. "Martian'd have a field day."

Which Martian? Any Martian. Alex and Babs, sure, they're the good kind, but people are just people in the end. Everybody falls back on the old shit they used to know eventually. Amos is living proof of that.

"Don't go there without somebody watching your back," Amos says, quite simply. That's the only thing Holden needs to know about it: that he won't know everything.

[acreage]

"Not all of them," he says, a little half-heartedly. Like he can't not, even if he knows where Amos is coming from. He doesn't think Alex would, at least.

There's a moment where he considers pointing out that he can take care of himself, he is a grown man, and then decides to take the advice in the spirit it's offered.

"That bad, huh?" Well, he does remember Ganymede. "How much have you been down there?"

Could sound more like a jab coming from someone else's mouth, but he's just idly curious.

[innerharbor]

"Enough," Amos says with a shrug. He leans forward, one hand on his knee, to put his other hand in the water, feeling the coolness. As though distracted, as though it means nothing at all, "they do the baby trick."

[muckspout]

Edgard is collecting seashells and putting them in a jar when he sees a man he hasn't met poking a jellyfish. He approaches the man, but stays well away from the water.

"If somebody sneezed that out, they have bigger problems than the size of their nose. I wouldn't touch it."

[innerharbor]

"Should I kill it?" Amos stares at the dirty ocean thing, and the dirty human thing, and considers his options. "Is it dead?"

[muckspout]

Edgard looks at the jellyfish and then cocks his head looking at the stranger.

"I don't know if its alive or not, but it won't hurt you if you don't touch it. The ocean will take care of it either way."

Edgard is a little suspicious of a man so quick to kill something not bothering him.

[innerharbor]

"That means it could hurt me, right?" He says, eyes open and convivial. He grins as he drives the stick he's holding into the jellyfish, straight through, before flinging the thing into the ocean with the a smooth strength of a practiced predator.

[muckspout]

Edgard raises his eyebrows and then sighs.

"It stings. It hurts you if you touch it. Alive or dead, I think."

He leans down grabs a seashell and places it in the jar.

"Showed him, I guess." He deadpans.

[innerharbor]

Amos' cheerful expression stays firmly in place, friendly and vacant, nothing really reaching his eyes. "Kinda a strange way to look at it."

Like it was Edgard's idea, not his. The idea of 'showing anyone' hasn't honestly occurred to Amos, but that's not exactly obvious, especially from his actions.

[muckspout]

Edgard stops what he's doing and turns to the man.

"How is it strange?"

Edgard isn't sure if he means his joke, the creature, or something else.

[innerharbor]

Amos shrugs, and wades a little deeper into the water. Lightly, "tryin' to play big man to sea snot."

[muckspout]

Edgard makes an incredulous gesture and laughs. He uses a blue shell to point towards the man.

"Is that not what just happened?"

Edgard is not used to being the normal one in the conversation.

[innerharbor]

Good fucking news, Edgard. Amos scans the water, looking for fish. His voice remains cheerily distant, a vague memory of anything genuine. "You said it, man."

And then, as if suddenly realizing it- Amos turns to his beachside companion to ask: "Hey, you from around here?"

[muckspout]

Edgard's face scrunches up, but he shrugs and lets it go.

"No, I'm from Orlais. You?"

[innerharbor]

Amos realizes belatedly that 'from around here' meaning 'this planet' to a civilization that apparently hasn't managed air travel yet is just layers upon layers of wrong. Some part of his mind needs to go back to Baltimore to survive this place, and he keeps rejecting it, unsure why.

That's to fuck around with later. For now, he plays along... or does his best approximation of it. "They fish in Orlais?"