OPEN | the waves still crash on the bonfire ash.

[evite]

who: skye & you, hopefully.
what: getting settled? getting hype? what's soon to be the usual, probably.
when: throughout the month of may.
where: city-wide!
warnings: none yet.

✈ in memoriam.

( she doesn't want to mourn. not like this, anyway. skye has too many guilt-laden memories that hang off her ribs to let them free into this city yet; she's half-convinced she'd light too many lanterns and burn the place down. so, instead, she opts to observe. she finds a quiet place off to the side where she can draw 8-bit patterns across the lantern someone had so helpfully placed in her hands and thinks back to all the people she'd left behind.

she draws a pattern on one side, jagged lines that don't quite meet so much as attempt to cross each other out, and hides a name in the blur of ink in the middle. trip, four letters, but they're hard enough to write as it is. another side depicts the layout of the bus, a messy blue print from an untrained hand. the lines are thickest for a square off to the side; not her bedroom, but the sparring room. a place that left her mourning for something that had never been real in the first place. ward. what could have been.

at one point, someone approaches her, lighter in hand and ready to help lift the lantern up into the sky. there's a beat of hesitation before she shakes her head, fingers clutching reflexively over the paper between them. )

No, I think I'm going to keep it, actually.

( is that weird? it might be weird. )

Is that okay?

✈ in officio.

( they offer her a job. well, to be more specific, they tell her to find her own work, which seems a lot more real than anything else thus far. she's not used to having things handed to her, anyway; the idea of having to find her own work seems much more skye than playing cheerful worker drone and just going where they tell her to.

not that she really has to try, anyway. the city seems more than happy to request software codes — mostly inconsequential things, housekeeping projects that likely are a little too blase for anyone they might keep on staff full time, but skye doesn't mind. it puts money in her pocket and boredom on the back burner, the former of which she prefers and the latter of which is probably better for the city.

as a freelancer, though, skye doesn't have an office. there's no official place for someone to meet her or come calling; ultimately, it means that everywhere becomes her office. depending on the day or her mood, she calls a few places "home away from home" — the coffee shops, of course, with their comfortable seating and plentiful selection of baked goods; the local university's library, naturally, and its expansive collection of quiet working tables and reference materials; and in a twist, the local gym, where skye can scout for someone she might want to approach after hours, in the hopes of filling up all that precious free time.

she thinks may might even be proud of her for that. sparring voluntarily? who would have thought. not skye, that's for damn certain, but she's trying new things. like talking to people, for one. such as: )

Hey — ( hey you, no, that's rude. ) — listen, can you hand me that?

( "it" could be anything. a lamp, a book, a muffin someone dropped on the ground. go crazy. get weird. make things happen. )

✈ wildcard.

( y'all probably know the drill. if you want something particular, please shoot me a pm and let me know! ♥ )

Comments

[evite]

( there must be something about the science-y slash investigative-y types. always so quick to ramble on or to reassure her. alex could give jemma a run for her money — all she was missing at this point was a handful of phds and a clipped british accent.

not that skye doesn't appreciate the reassurance, because she does. she could use it. there's something to be said for going into a chat with a free muffin and leaving with the knowledge that multiple versions of the same person exist with an alien refugee camp. something weird. )

I'm — you know what, I'm actually just going to pretend you didn't say some Dr Evil wannabe didn't babyray you, because I am so not equipped for that on just one cup of coffee. ( though, to be fair, she's not sure any amount of coffee would prepare her for that kind of conversation. ) I'm used to weird, but... definitely not that kind of weird.

[11calls]

[Alex just laughs softly, and waves to get the baristia's attention, gesturing to both her and Skye's cups. There's something to be said about being a regular here and also being a good tipper. (And probably just being nice to the workers in general and knowing their names. They also know Alex will always settle up after.]

Well, if it helps there definitely wasn't a Dr. Evil. It was just a thing that happened when you shared particular flowers with someone. I think they're generally pretty big here on wanting you to get your actual feelings out and not hiding them behind a facade, so there's a fair amount of those sorts of things. Which sucks to hear about, I know, but I also think it's better to know them to just get sort of randomly smacked with them one day.

[Which is pretty much what happened with Alex, of course, when she'd gotten here and been semi-convinced that none of this was real.]

[evite]

So basically what you're telling me is this place is like a sentient old lady shrink who wants us to be good sharers in the therapy circle?

( is it obvious that skye has had Not Great experiences with psychological analysis during her years in the foster system? probably. but alex does have a point. it is better to know the goals of a place, if only to try and prepare herself for them. she can make a plan, in any case. )

Got it. No weird flowers, no free lunch. ( makes sense, anyway. there really is no such thing as too good to be true, in her experience. why would that change just because she found herself on an alien planet's moon? ) I can work with that. I think.