[SE] Evergreen (open)

Aurelia

and that the world is always our fault
when we did nothing, how did we do wrong?

Aurelia was making her way through the city towards the Slagveld, wearing her trademark poncho to combat the chilly fog that swept over the morning. The sun was just bright enough to light up the streets, which were somewhat busy. The usual crowds were not gathered in their usual pockets, though, so it was relatively quiet. How strange.

Aurelia was just beginning to feel like something was wrong when she reached the center of the city, where throngs of people had collected around the main square. At first, she halted and tensed up, looking around to try to gauge the situation. People were smiling and chattering about something and, when she crept closer for a look, she realized there was a tree at the center of the city. What is this? She wondered, an inquisitive smile pulling at her lips.

She moved closer as a small group of people moved on from the sapling. It wiggled about, shaking its branches at her, and her brows raised in surprise. She'd never seen a tree so animated before. Walking around it in a circle, she tried to determine if it was actually an animal disguised as a tree, or to determine anything about it at all. No such luck.

"Where did you come from?" She wondered aloud, reaching out to touch a branch curiously.

It giggled and swayed backwards. Aurelia's eyes widened with pleasant surprise.

and I've been thinking that when we thought
the world would break us, that we weren't wrong

Theo loved nothing more than curious crowds. He didn't know why this one had gathered, but he didn't have to: whatever was happening at its center kept its members too distracted to notice him slipping among them and picking their pockets, so he was happy with it. Eventually he worked his way into the center of the crowd, close enough to see the tree twitching, and hear it giggle when the woman touched it. He'd managed about as many ill-gotten gains as he could carry, so he might as well check it out.

"Don't suppose you've ever seen one of these before?" he said, the words half-addressed to the woman currently touching the tree and half open for anyone to answer. He wondered if there was a way to turn the tree to a profit -- or if perhaps someone else was already doing so. The movement and giggling would be simple enough effects for an Abandoned with telekinesis and illusion powers to create. Theo didn't see yet how making the tree move would actually benefit anyone, unless the goal had been drawing a crowd to steal from, in which case Theo had already inadvertantly benefitted himself.

Theo

"Poker" by ND Strupler is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

Aurelia

and that the world is always our fault
when we did nothing, how did we do wrong?

A man materialized from the crowd with a question, seeming to aim it toward her. Unlike many other people around them, Aurelia and this man appeared to be traveling alone. She straightened up and regarded him, his scruffy and unassuming appearance. For a moment, she wondered why he wasn't with anyone. But her suspicion only reached her eyes for a brief moment of consideration before she let go of the idea that this guy was any sort of threat. He seemed alright, if just to be another person to bounce her thoughts off of.

"No, never," she said, resting her hands on her hips with a shrug. "Nothing with this much personality, anyway. I think it's some sort of... pine tree." Glancing around at the other faces around them, no one else seemed to be any more knowledgeable on this than she was. If they were, they weren't sharing the information. "All I know is that it wasn't here yesterday."

And then, as Aurelia fixed her eyes on it again, it seemed to stretch and suddenly grow. The fact that she could see a cone sprout along one of the branches made her brows scrunch together. "Did you see that?" She motioned towards it quickly, hoping he would catch it too. Sounds of awe and surprise echoed around them from the crowd, confirming that she was - in fact - not crazy.

and I've been thinking that when we thought
the world would break us, that we weren't wrong

Theo didn't miss the brief moment it took the woman to evaluate him; in it, he did some evaluation of his own. If this woman made a habit of checking out everyone who approached her as if they were potential threats, she was probably a bit sharper than Theo's preferred mark. Not that he had intended to try to scam or steal from her right now -- he was more interested in the tree. But just as Aurelia automatically assessed people as threats, Theo automatically assessed them as targets.

"Must have grown pretty fast to get this big overnight," Theo said. That, or someone had brought it here and planted it -- though the soil didn't look disturbed enough for that. But he was still considering the theory that this was a trick -- though Caido had enough strange flora and fauna that it shouldn't have been hard to take this one at face value. Maybe that was why Theo doubted it, though. He'd told plenty of people extravagant lies about creatures that didn't exist, too.

The pinecone popping out, though -- that was beyond telekinesis, though it could still be an illusion. Nodding to the woman's question, he reached out to touch it.

Theo

"Poker" by ND Strupler is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

Aurelia

and that the world is always our fault
when we did nothing, how did we do wrong?

Aurelia nodded with a scrutinizing expression, trying to determine what in the hell was going on. A random sprout in the middle of a city was not something that normally would draw her attention but, this was unique. It giggled and waved about as if playful, as if inviting people in. She already kind of... liked it.

But then the pinecone blossomed and the sapling grew an inch or two, and clearly her new companion saw it. He reached out to touch it, and Aurelia tensed at the idea that he might pull it off. A sapling with such personality might feel wounded from such a violation. But she relaxed, why am I protective of a tree?

The sapling shivered at his touch, though, drawing her surprised attention. The giggles that filled the air were child-like and cheerful. It was a graceful, ethereal sound that prompted a smile of Aurelia's own. It was almost contagious, if only she were in more of a laughing mood.

Curiously, she directed her eyes back to the stranger before her and said, "It is growing pretty rapidly, so I guess that's the only answer that makes sense. In a strange, nonsensical way... Hey, I'm Aurelia by the way. What's your name? I feel like I've seen you around." Perhaps they'd passed on the streets before, which wouldn't surprise her. In any case, she wasn't against making another connection to a fellow resident of Torchline. So long as he didn't give her a reason not to trust him...

and I've been thinking that when we thought
the world would break us, that we weren't wrong

Theo didn't try to pull the pine cone off; it did occur to him that maybe he could make something of a pine cone from this magical tree, convince someone that it was worth something -- but he could make that claim with an ordinary pine cone just as easily, and he hadn't missed his companion's protective reaction. Interesting.

"I'm Theo," he said, with a courteous little half-bow -- a smile tugging at his mouth because he knew quite well that such courtesy was neither expected nor welcome in Torchline. But what could he say? He always enjoyed a bit of dramatic flair. "You may have indeed -- I've been in Torchline for a couple seasons now."

He considered adding a line about how he surely would have remembered such a beautiful woman, but left it off. After all, it would only spark the question of why he didn't remember her. Plus, she seemed the type to be put on her guard rather than flattered by such blandishments.

Turning back to the tree, he touched its needles again, feeling it laugh and shiver, and had to admit that this was no illusion or trick. So, a giggly tree. Just another day in Caido.

Theo

"Poker" by ND Strupler is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

Aurelia

and that the world is always our fault
when we did nothing, how did we do wrong?

Aurelia's arms came undone from the warmth her poncho provided, revealing the bare, scarred skin along them. She crossed them over her chest and leaned her head to one side, catching Theo's half-bow with an amused look. She nodded when he informed her of how long he'd been in Torchline.

"My name is Aurelia. I've only been in Caido since the end of Longheat," but I've adjusted pretty fast already she wanted to add, though she decided against it. If anything, that was more and more evident by the day. She was beginning to settle and she could feel it. How the place had grown on her - and the people, too. Aurelia had always been adaptable but, she'd never thought she'd have to adapt to an entirely new world.

She watched with a more relaxed interest this time as Theo turned back to tickle the sapling.

"Maybe it's been enchanted by someone," she remarked suddenly, eyes narrowing, "I don't think it's actually alive. I mean, anymore than any other tree. Couldn't be, right? Well," she scratched the side of her neck, "Then again, I've seen some kind of weird things happen so.. I guess nothing's impossible here." She lifted her chin, stepping closer to him and to examine the tree a bit more closely again. "So where do you come from, if not Torchline?"

and I've been thinking that when we thought
the world would break us, that we weren't wrong

"I've been in Caido for a little over a year," Theo lied. In reality, it was a little over a year since he'd started posing as an Outlander -- so there was no chance that this woman knew him from his prior life in Halo. "Came from some sleepy little town no one's ever heard of. I prefer it here in Torchline, truly. The weather's a lot better."

He returned his attention to the tree, nodding. "At first I thought it might be an Abandoned, using their magic to make the tree move and seem to laugh. But no, I think it might be genuine. Maybe someone made it, maybe it's natural -- maybe the gods made it. Who knows?"

Theo

"Poker" by ND Strupler is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

Aurelia

and that the world is always our fault
when we did nothing, how did we do wrong?

No, there was no chance she knew of the other man's past. In many ways, she hardly new of certain things about her own. Alas, that was an issue she'd confront another time, should it ever breach through long-buried memories to her conscious mind. She nodded, oblivious, taking his origin at face value. Her brows even tilted up at the fact that he admitted to being an Outlander, too.

"I like it here better, too... my home was..." she shook her head, trailing off. There were too many descriptions she could use in that instance, and words wouldn't be able to encompass everything. At least, none that were easy to say.

At the list of possibilities, Aurelia shrugged her shoulders. Who knew? Well, not her, for starters. She only had hunches. "Wherever it comes from, it's growing fast. I wonder how big it will get." Tilting her head towards Theo again, she asked, "What did you do? Um, before Caido."

and I've been thinking that when we thought
the world would break us, that we weren't wrong

Despite Aurelia's failure to finish her thought, Theo nodded as if he knew exactly what she meant. "I wasn't having a great time at home either. Ending up in Caido -- it was confusing at first, of course, but in the end? A blessing."

He sounded perfectly sincere; it helped that the idea was sort of truth-adjacent. Theo might not be an actual Outlander, but moving from Halo to the Hollowed Grounds and then Torchline had been a blessing. It had probably saved his life -- people in Halo had started getting really tired of his antics. And in Halo, confined by the cold, there wasn't much room to run or hide.

"Oh, you know ..." He shrugged. "I was always at loose ends at home, doing odd jobs and such."

Theo

"Poker" by ND Strupler is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

Aurelia

and that the world is always our fault
when we did nothing, how did we do wrong?

Aurelia nodded sympathetically, though at the end when he called it a 'blessing', she found herself hesitating and her nodding head stilled. She would probably never think of it that way. At least, that's what her pessimism told her. Maybe. Maybe one day she could reach that point but, for now, all she was trying to do was make the best of the worst. The only thing truly holding her back was the fact that her sisters had been left behind, left to live in that dim, gray, underground world. Otherwise, she might've shared such a sentiment.

At Theo's next statement, however, her gaze shifted. "Well, hopefully you've found something more fulfilling in Caido," she eventually replied, letting her shoulders roll, "I used to be a hunter but, now I work on the Ark. Dunno if you've heard of it, it's one of the ships. Only set out to sea once since I got here, though, and we ran into ghost whales. I... lost all my lunch." She chuckled, embarrassed to admit it, "Hopefully the next voyage goes better."

and I've been thinking that when we thought
the world would break us, that we weren't wrong

Theo noticed Aurelia's hesitation, the shift in her mood, and switched to a more sympathetic tone: "Of course, there's always something you leave behind, isn't there? I imagine I was pretty lucky, not being particularly attached to my home; I know that's not the case for a lot of people."

He'd heard of the Ark, vaguely, but never in such detail; he raised his eyebrows. "Never seen a ghost whale. What was that like?"

Even as a Natural, he wasn't well-versed in Torchline's fauna, since he hadn't lived here that long. If she were to ask him about Halovian animals, he'd do better -- but he'd probably want to play dumb, to claim he'd hardly ever been to Halo.

Theo

"Poker" by ND Strupler is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

Aurelia

and that the world is always our fault
when we did nothing, how did we do wrong?

Aurelia eyed Theo when he changed his attitude to something more sympathetic, more privvy to the hardships of being an Outlander. Her expression softened and she offered him an amicable smile. For now, though, she didn't quite feel ready to open up about the emotions he so easily read.

"I didn't see much of 'em," she admitted about the ghost whale, "but they were big, with a real bad temperament..."

She paused, watching as one of the sapling's branches sprouted a new twig. All that this prompted was a surprised blink and another curious poke at the tree. She listened as its giggle faded and returned her attentions back on Theo.

"I left my two younger sisters. They depended on me after our mom died. I can rest more easy knowing that there's still a version of me there to take care of them but..." Her lips pressed together into a small grimace, "I miss 'em a lot, probably always will." She shrugged her shoulders, attempting to dismiss the sad fact by pretending it didn't hurt. Really, it had carved a deep wound, a whole facet of who she was.. gone, and she could never get any of it back.

and I've been thinking that when we thought
the world would break us, that we weren't wrong

Theo grinned. "Matches up with what I've heard. Now, what does a whale have to be so grumpy about?"

He'd almost stopped paying attention to the tree, more interested in the woman in front of him -- he always found people to be greater puzzles than any magic or creature Caido's environment could serve up. The sapling got a glance next time it moved, nothing more. He winced in sympathy as Aurelia spoke of her sisters. In truth, he couldn't really relate -- he was an only child who'd always floated through life without great attachment to anyone; quick to smile, slow to bond. But truth wasn't Theo's stock in trade. "It must be difficult to be without them."

He could have added several other unfortunate aspects of the situation -- the fact that Aurelia would never see her sisters again, the fact that she'd never even get to know how they were doing -- but he wasn't trying to make her feel worse. Instead he said, "Do you think they'd be impressed, if they could see you now? Going out on adventures, running across ghost whales?"

It occurred to him too late that this would probably only make Aurelia feel worse too -- a reminder that she was here and her sisters were not. Oops.

Theo

"Poker" by ND Strupler is licensed with CC BY 2.0.