riverviewlogs | got caught up again

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got caught up again

who: Anderson and you, hopefully! Open!
what: Anderson tries to adjust after arrival. Prompts for floor 10 in the communal housing, the shooting range, and shopping. Also feel free to respond with anything! She's on the police force so any potential coworkers have an easy way to run into her, or be doing something suspicious and she'll investigate. Additionally, I have no attachment to prose, so please feel free to switch to brackets.
when: Various
where: Various
warnings: She is telepathic and empathic, although not very aggressive with it. But please fill out her permissions before threading!

    > FLOOR 10

Anderson is an astonishingly easy roommate to adjust to. It might even take a while to realize she's there. She's used to Spartan living, and it shows: she never leaves traces of her presence around in the communal areas, and she cleans up after herself promptly, immediately. That doesn't mean she's a hermit. She's morbidly interested in meeting all of her roommates, just not quite forward enough to seek them out in a concerted fashion.

But feel free to describe something they would be doing on an average day, and perhaps they could run into each other.

    > SHOOTING RANGE

About the only place she still wears her Judge's armor now is the shooting range, where she goes to clear her mind and practice with the local firearms. She intends to get up to snuff on every single weapons comp there is, as one of the only remaining things that she considers inside her comfort zone. Some part of her relaxes just to be back in the uniform with a gun in her hands.

Anderson has never considered herself one of those Judges that can't turn off when they're off the job, but she's starting to realize that only works in comparison to other Judges. Not in comparison to average citizens, or at least not the ones here. She feels completely unmoored, at a loss, pretending she knows what she's doing as she's had to pretend so often before. When she's really having a hard time adjusting, she uses her Lawgiver, keeps up on pure target practice. She's frighteningly efficient, and she doesn't practice only kill shots; she fires to disable as often as to kill.

The new weaponry takes more concentration, but is enjoyable in its own way. She can be found several days a week practicing, if not shooting then stances, smooth reloading, safe carrying positions. She's thorough.

    > SHOPPING

Easily the strangest part of her week is shopping. Anderson's prior shopping experiences have been starkly divided: the dim memories of her childhood in the poorest slums of the city, where her parents could barely afford anything and shopping was fast, sparse; and the luxuries she used her tiny disposable income on as an academy student, the Hall of Justice providing everything she needed to live and nothing more, same as a military cadet. Those were a chance to breathe, an excuse to get out and be among the people she wanted to protect as much as it was to fulfill the purpose of shopping.

Here, in the Quarantine, she is here to shop. She needs clothes. Toiletries. Cooking supplies. Books to read-- for pleasure. It's a bit overwhelming, truth told, not in the scope but just in the mundanity of it. Anderson had gone from poor mutie to terrifying Judge with nothing in-between, and suddenly being thrust into average daily life is a bit baffling. She doesn't dislike it, though. She enjoys the chance to see life from a new angle, appreciates the amount of decisions she can make with no consideration for regulations or for anyone else. She can take her time, since she's still in training at police headquarters and hasn't shifted to a full time schedule yet.

She had to rent a car for the day in order to have somewhere to stash all her purchases. Circumspect and restrained, she doesn't have a ton of them, but here and there she can be found poking through more feminine shopping areas, makeup or jewelry or sundresses, pondering. It's not a part of herself she's ever really considered before, usually on the defensive or the offensive, never just herself, and she's curious.

For about a week, you can run into her shopping for just about anything, poking around in interest even if she has no intent to buy.

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We are.

I'm not saying there's not corruption, or that Judges are infallible. [ She looks so deathly serious it's hard to think Anderson is anything approaching cavalier about it. Truthfully, it haunts her, has since she was very first recruited as an eight-year-old. It's just not something that will be improved by discussing it, at least not for her. ]

But it's the system I got. All I can do is be the type of Judge that will make citizens believe I'm there to help them, not hurt them.

[Chloe watches her silent for a moment, as if assessing her. She's usually a pretty good judge of character; it's what eventually had her department turning against her. That and her unwillingness to put a case to bed when she knew it all stemmed from someone in their ranks.]

That's noble. And it sounds like that's all you can do, really, with what you were given.

[ Anderson would sympathize with that one if she knew that. Here is someone else that in a few years would inevitably end up doing her own internal investigation... But that's a ways off.

She shakes her head, rejecting the compliment. ] It's never going to be enough, but I'm not about to give up. But-- [ She lets out a breath. ] I guess I shouldn't be surprised if they'd pick me as someone who felt like they didn't belong there.

I think it'd be more surprising if you didn't feel out of place about it, to be honest. But that's also coming from someone who's never lived through it.

[A soft sigh, followed by a considering glance.]

Do you want to go back? Home, I mean.

[ She looks away, out across the range at her targets, all with neat clusters of holes in them. ]

I... don't know. I do, in a way. I went through-- all those years of training to get where I am. It's what I always wanted to do.

[ Anderson doesn't follow this up with why she wouldn't want to go back. It's too personal, too raw. She's not sure she knows yet herself, exactly, what words she would use for it. ]

[And Chloe, being a rather private person herself, doesn't push her on it.]

It's hard. Just letting go of everything you've ever known or worked for. I'm not sure what I'd do if they told us we couldn't go back.

[Even the thought sends a sudden spike of anxiety through her, a fear she's been trying to push back this whole time.]

[ Anderon doesn't need to be a telepath to know what she's thinking about there. It's turned off at the moment, but the memory of what she'd seen when they'd first met lingers. ]

But we can, [ she answers immediately, confidently. ] You'll see your daughter again. And if you remember this, you'll have great stories to tell her.

Hopefully.

[That brought a soft smile to her face, that tension visibly easing out of her shoulders.]

She'd probably love the idea of a magic fountain that brings people presents.

[ Anderson can't help smiling back at the idea. ]

You should float one across a fountain to her right after you tell it, [ she suggests. ]

[That gets a genuine laugh out of her.]

I'm not usually the kind of mom that tries to spoil her kid with gifts, but after all this is over? I just might actually do that.

[ She smiles softly while not quite meeting her eyes, remembering her own mother without dwelling on it. ]

Maybe more for you than for her, in this case. You could collect things to give her while you're here.

[ Anderson doesn't think she'll really be able to bring them back with her, but like she said-- it's not really about that. Some people react to loss by trying to push it as far away from them as possible. She's never done that; it warms something in her to remember her parents, and she suspects that since Chloe's daughter is not dead but merely somewhere else, remembering her might make her feel better rather than worse. It seems to be working so far. ]

Maybe...

[It's said thoughtfully, almost on a hum. She also doubts she'd be able to bring back evidence of this... journey? Dream? But either way, she could picture Trixie's face lighting up at the sight of some strange little trinket or magical object pulled from this little moon. That's not such a bad thought, when put that way.]

I'd have to be careful. Next I know, she'll be wanting to come here.

[ Her smile widens into something more natural, less nostalgic, as Chloe's mood turns. ]

Don't most kids grow up with stories about the other side? The wardrobe or the looking glass... this one's not so bad.

She did. But she's always known those were just out of books and movies. If I told her stories about mommy's new friends, she'd want to meet all of them. It's become a habit of hers.

[It's why she once had to scold Satan for trying to teach her daughter how to drive his Corvette, after all.]

A habit? Who else did she have to meet?

Said partner who believes he's the Devil. She adores him and my roommate back home. Who he insists is a demon who followed him out of Hell.

... I guess there's worse things for a kid to believe than that the Devil is a friend of their mom's.

[She sounds a bit dubious at that.] I'd say name one, but you've got a penchant for surprising me so far. So I'm not gonna take that bet.

[ Despite Chloe brushing it off, the answer is so obvious to Anderson that she gives it anyway.

Succinctly, in a bought of black humor, ] That the Devil is an enemy of their mom's, of course.

[She snorts softly, unable to help herself.]

You know, I wouldn't have even considered him being my enemy. I don't know if that says a lot about him or me.

[ She smiles slightly. ]

That you're really friends, whether he's crazy or really is the Devil?

Good point.

[A beat.]

It's still weird for me, putting all of this together. Figuring out why some people come here together and others don't.

[ She sobers instantly at the shift in the conversation. ]

You think we can find an answer to that? Do you have a theory?

Not really. Not yet, anyhow. I'm trying to look into it, though. Someone I met here recently told me he's been sent to other worlds before, so we're both doing some digging at the moment.

I met someone who said that, too. It's hard to imagine.

Do we have any reason to disblieve what they tell us, that it's because we felt out of place? [ It's hard for Anderson to deny just how out of place she'd felt. ]

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couldkillthedevil - 2017-07-03 22:03 (UTC) - Expand

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