[Mara] Day 10 ST morning: Flying Lessons (tag open)

[scarred-muse.livejournal.com]

Nightmares again. Mara had woken on a crackly rough-woven hammock to dawnlight and tears on her cheeks. Alex had been chasing her through an old church, a sad look on his leonine face, his priest's cassock collarless now, giving him the look of an executioner. "I'm sorry. I can't get the sins out unless you bleed to death."

No more sleeping, then.

She got up and Orrie, a warm lump against her belly now slipping into the dip of the hammock, gave a small doggie yawn and went right back to sleep. The ghost was standing like a sentinel at one corner of the makeshift shelter. "Good morning," she whispered to it softly. It didn't react.

Almost nobody was up. Mara was hurting from the dream; even rubbing her newly-smoothed arms, which was her new ritual of self-reassurance, didn't cut the pain much.

But the tide was out now, and almost nobody awake; plenty of time and acres of damp canvas to work with.

The sand-painting was basically a low, sculpted relief, like a frieze; she let her hands pick the subject. An ancient-looking, six-legged beast with an eagle's head and some kind of language-like markings in a motto underneath him. Mosaic-patterns from a mosque ceiling. A sleeping dragon. It took hours, and she still couldn't get Alex's expression out of her head.

Orrie was still napping, having worn her fuzzy little self out yesterday greeting /everyone/. Mara couldn't sink into her emotions to comfort herself or she'd be right back asleep. Sighing, she looked around for Vincent. He was probably in his tent with Walt. No, no....

A faint cry overhead caught her attention, and she spied a gull floating past looking for breakfast. Was it too far away? Deciding what to listen to of all the noise around her was one of the few tricks Mara had managed with some frequency. The simple emotions of animals cut through her own confusion better than almost anything.

She didn't so much reach out to the gull as focus in on it. Letting herself feel its simple hunger, its excitement at a particularly fun snatch of fish-head from a rival, its gloating swoop away....

And then--she gasped, because she felt the lift of the wind beneath her arms, saw the beach and then the ocean flowing away beneath her--and suddenly realized that there was more to this experience than just /relief/.

She stiffened, and stood there like a statue, staring up at the bird while she swooped and circled inside of herself. She was barely aware of her body, or how long she was standing there. Orrie woke up finally and came over, sniffed her, whined, and sat down to wait.

Comments

[Mara] Oh, hi, where'd you come from? (tag Mara, Molly if Purple likes, open)

[scarred-muse.livejournal.com]

Mara sighed a little. "Sand is monochrome," she said quietly. "It only comes in white and black and yellow and grey, and only one color to a beach." Maybe she could experiment with berry juices or something.

She took another sip of soup. "'All right' is relative, with me. But thank you for asking."

Her eyes tracked longingly back to a pair of seagulls dogfighting over the beach, and then she glanced at Chris awkwardly and fidgeted. They were Having A Conversation and she wasn't the best at that, especially with men. "Um," she mumbled, looking at her shoes.

[Chris] Oh, hi, where'd you come from? (tag Mara, Molly if Purple likes, open)

[estirose.livejournal.com]

"Hey," Chris said brightly. "Dyes!"

As Mara looked at him, he said, "Dyes used to be all-natural. So were paints. Plus, we're moving to *caves*. Plenty of canvas."

He wasn't good at lifting peoples' moods, but he felt good trying to cheer Mara up. At least make her look up from her shoes.

[Mara] The next generation of cave paintings (tag Chris, open)

[scarred-muse.livejournal.com]

The caves comment got her attention. "In the earth...like our ancestors. I'll have to find red ochre and yellow clay. Chalk...it's not much of a range, but yes, it's better than sand...."

Or maybe painting mats with dyes. Or something.

She looked at him suddenly. "Thank you. You're up early...I think. Do you have trouble sleeping too?"

[Chris] Insomnia (tag Mara, open)

[estirose.livejournal.com]

"Not until I got to this island," Chris said. He'd gone through a lot in his own life, the result being that he was a light sleeper. Nowadays, it seemed that he couldn't afford the luxury of a deep sleep. "At least I got some, though I'm glad I could be of help."

He paused. "Hey, I thought of something else. Isn't paper made of tree pulp?"

[Mara] Insomnia (tag Chris, open)

[scarred-muse.livejournal.com]

"It is, but I don't know how to make it," Mara admitted. "Still, thank you for your suggestions."

She peered out into the jungle, frowning a little. "I don't know why we're here. But it confuses me, because I keep dreaming that I would have died if I had reached Rome...."

[Chris] Insomnia (tag Mara, open)

[estirose.livejournal.com]

"Rome?" Chris asked. "But wasn't the plane headed for Los Angeles?"

She might have been flying to Rome via Los Angeles - Chris didn't travel by air much, so he didn't know. But he let her answer the question.

[Mara] Insomnia (tag Chris, open)

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Mara smiled. "I wasn't on your plane." At his confused look, she explained, "Faith and I were on a small charter plane that crashed in the foothills the same day as this crash. We were on our way to London, which puts us very much off course." She sighed. "I'm not surprised, though. This place is a trap for many."

"Rome, though?"

"I was hitching a ride as far as London. I didn't know how I was getting any further than that. But I had a....I had someone I cared about in Rome who needed me. He...I imagine he doesn't need me now, though."

Alex...she didn't know what had happened to him, but as crazy as it sounded...she had the feeling that he was no longer human.