Void of Course

[MethodicalSlacker]

"Pollice Verso," Kitty recited, remembering a painting she had read about in a book, "the turned thumb." Admittedly, that painting wasn't from a period or style she was all that familiar with, but there was a very small chance that Seb would get the Latin, at the very least. She had tried not to butcher it, but was unsure of how well she succeeded. Sounded more like "Poh-lee-say Ver-soh" than whatever it was probably supposed to be.

She turned to face Seb a little more, her hands in the pockets of her open hoodie. Then, she sat down on the ground, cross-legged, and took a hand out of her pocket to scratch her head.

Where am I, again? Did I daydream so hard that I missed an entire walk to a different place? Was I not always here?

"You woke up in a field of flowers. You heard a scream, and then you came over here, with the boy."

Well, at least you're useful.

"What's your favorite point in history?" she surveyed, somewhat absentmindedly.

[backslash]

Sebastien mulled the question over for a few moments, idly tapping his fingers against his knee. "I don't know if I have one favorite," he said finally. "I like to learn about the things people usually forget. World War I over World War II, you know - everyone skips over the first one because it seems less exciting, I guess. But there was all this stuff going on, technological advancements that had never been used in combat before, all of this political intrigue between countries on a scale that had never happened before either... It's not boring at all, you know, no matter what people who sleep in class say."

He straightened up somewhat as he thought, eyes still sweeping over the landscape but not really taking it in. "I've been reading this book about the assassination of William McKinley - you know, the president - and it talks about his assassin and the anarchist movement, and all of the stuff that happened to put that kind of perfect storm together. There's just... there's a lot in our history, even just the United States' history, that people don't understand or have forgotten about. And we haven't even been a country that long, in the grand scheme of things. Just think about what other kinds of stuff people have forgotten over centuries."

Sebastien realized he had been rambling and flushed a little, embarrassed. Wee-woo, we've got a nerd alert.

He cleared his throat self-consciously. "Um, what about you? Do you have a- a favorite artist or period?"

[MethodicalSlacker]

"Can't fall asleep in class if you never show up," she quipped, pointing finger guns at Seb. Even if she couldn't resist making a quick attempt at self-deprecating humor, she had to admit that the way that Seb was explaining everything was compelling, in a strange, passionate way. It was nice to hear someone talk so...normally? She wasn't entirely sure that she was picking the right words, here, but something about Seb's words flowed naturally. "A lot of interesting art came out of Germany between World War I and II," she attempted to contribute, "There was this one really cool painting, of this twisted house thing, that I'm totally drawing a blank on right now, but I remember trying to replicate the color scheme at one point in a painting of an eye and failing just miserably."

Favorite period? Favorite artists? Kitty was caught between trying to fake an interest in historically important stuff that Seb would respect - she didn't want her interest to look weaker than it really was - or being entirely genui-

"A-abstract expressionism," she stammered suddenly. "You know-"

"The one with just-"

"Colors?"

The third option presented itself: jump off the nearby cliff.

Instead, Kitty folded her arms across her chest and cast her glance to the side.

[backslash]

"That sounds... cool?" Sebastien offered. The twitchiness was back in Kitty, though it had eased off for a few minutes there while they talked. He supposed it was probably just nerves. Forced social interaction with someone you didn't know well was an ordeal no matter the circumstances.

Kitty looked away again, so he turned his gaze back to the quarry and let quiet settle back over them for a few moments. It was awkward, yes, but not as awkward as it could have been.

"I guess it would be nice to create something here," he said at length.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Kitty said nothing.

Seb didn't understand. He couldn't understand. There was a divide, between the two of them, that could never really be bridged. They just didn't have the time, or the space, to get to know each other. She sighed, and stared down at her feet. Gazing at her shoes, she couldn't help but feel crappy about dragging Seb through this free fall of a conversation.

"Talk. To. Him."

Each word she heard sent jackhammers into her skull.

"Y-yeah, I guess. Some art thing, or some thing in general."

As much of a non answer as she could give.

[backslash]

Making friends had never been Sebastien's strong suit. He didn't think he was a particularly unpleasant person, but he knew that he could be... well, brusque. He didn't have a lot of patience for fooling around. It was a minor miracle that Kitty's general flightiness was more cause for concern than irritation, though that was probably down to the fact that she seemed like she could break down at any moment if she didn't have a steady guiding hand.

She wasn't somebody Sebastien would have sought out or even thought too hard about if he hadn't run into her, but he didn't like the thought of leaving her now, even if they only had about 24 hours of companionship on record. He had made himself responsible for her, especially after what he had let happen to Aaron.

He didn't want to be alone here.

He was thankful that he had fallen asleep so quickly out of exhaustion last night, really. Whenever he started thinking too hard about anything beyond the present moment, that mantra - I can't take this, I can't take this - welled up and filled his head. Better to talk with Kitty and keep an eye on her, think about whether he was eating enough semi-regularly, plan one step ahead and nothing more when he could afford it. Overthinking got them situations like what had happened back at the warehouse.

Sebastien sighed and sat up straighter, rolling his shoulders and shifting from side to side to work out some stiffness. The rock he was sitting on was getting uncomfortable.

"Is that something you'd want to do?"

[MethodicalSlacker]

"It'd be fun."

Kitty nodded her head. Then, she reached down into her pack and pulled out one of her loaves of bread. She tore off a chunk and took a few bites, then held out the rest of the loaf to Sebastien.

"Here," she muttered, "take some."

She needed to show that she could provide for others, that she could carry them forward.

She wanted to show that she could be strong.

And for once, she was being kind not because something inside her was screaming at her, but because she wanted to.

[backslash]

"Yeah," Sebastien agreed, "it would be." Why not try something new? It was, in all likelihood, the last chance he would ever get.

So he made the approximation of a smile despite the gaping hole in his chest and accepted Kitty's gifts of food and companionship with a quiet thanks.

If he kept looking out over the quarry's piles of dirt and blasted rock, bathed in the late morning sunlight, he could almost convince himself that it was a nice view.

"I guess we could head back to the ruin at some point," he said in between mouthfuls, more to himself than to Kitty now. "The tunnels are out. The cabin's out, but I don't think we've been close to there anyway. The field probably isn't a good idea, and the warehouse... that's also not a good idea."

[MethodicalSlacker]

Upon Seb's mention of moving somewhere new, Kitty reached into her already open bag and pulled out the map, fumbling around to get it open while she held her bread chunk in her mouth. He generally had some good ideas on where to go and what to avoid. Somehow, he sensed that the tunnels would be a bad idea - it gave her the heebie-jeebies just thinking about possibly having to go over there. Still, she wasn't sure how she felt about retracing their steps back to the ruins.

"Maybe we could make our way a bit further south than that," she suggested. They could go to-

"The showers."

Yeah, there. On the map, it looked like just one building, but at least it was kind of a protective area, right? It couldn't be that enclosed, could it?

"How about we head in the direction of the showers," Kitty detailed, "and if it turns out that there's somethin going on over there, then we make our way to the shipping yard?"

Reasonable enough? Sure sounded that way.

Maybe I should start to listen to the voices in my head.

[backslash]

Sebastien leaned over Kitty's shoulder to get a good look at the map. The showers sounded... moldy. Still, it was better than wandering aimlessly, and if they eventually made their way down to the shipping yard they might even find something useful, or at least entertaining if that was what they were going for.

"Yeah, I'm fine with having a look around there. Might as well end up at one end of the island eventually instead of wandering around the middle."

Maybe other people had the same idea. Maybe they'd even be nice, reasonable people who didn't wave guns around.

Is this what passes for optimism now?

[MethodicalSlacker]

"Cool," Kitty said, reaching over to put the bread back where it belonged. She zipped up her bag and threw it over her shoulder, almost tumbling over from the sudden shift in weight. She took a look behind her, and saw how close she was just now to falling off the edge. Preferring not to think about it, Kitty started moving in the direction of away-from-here, and tried not to look back again.

Her will wasn't strong enough. One last time, she took a look at the quarry. She looked up at the sun, the sky, and Seb, and felt for a few moments as if everything was going to be okay.

"Off we go, now."

There's a we?

"Always has been."

Dread filled Kitty like a storm drain in a flash flood. She was starting to understand what was happening, here.

I can't remember your name.

Left foot. Right foot. Left again.

Every step she took was a free fall, deeper into her own abyss.

"I can't either."

[Kitty Gittschall continued in 'Cause We Are Young and We Are Sick.]

[backslash]

Kitty took off, and Sebastien had to hurry to try and work out his stiff muscles and joints as he stood to follow.

It was a nice day outside.

He tried not to think about where the path they were headed might really take them - to the showers, of course, but the physical "where" wasn't the real concern. The physical place of it all didn't feel quite real, not enough to be worried so much about location as what might happen there.

Well, maybe that was the issue; even after all he had been through in the last couple of days, sometimes it still didn't feel real. Sebastien didn't think that he might suddenly wake up and find that it had all been a nightmare, that just wasn't realistic, but...

Nothing was. Nothing was.

Reality isn't real and time is an illusion, he thought, and snorted softly as he followed Kitty. He couldn't remember where he had first started seeing things like that, that sort of half-nihilistic postmodern philosophy.

If time wasn't real then this, these few moments of peace, didn't have to end.

Sebastien caught up to Kitty and fell into step beside her, and tried not to worry about where and what they were going to be at the end of the day.

((Sebastien Bellamy continued in 'Cause We Are Young and We Are Sick))