infomodder | IC contact [Mask or Menace]

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IC contact [Mask or Menace]

"Gone fishing."

[ so don't leave messages to ruin the after fishing glow !!!

your one stop shop for not leaving him alone ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Nothing important. See you later.

[ "Nothing about your murders, Will. (Potential) Murderers Unite, club 4 liaf." She does mean later, too; it's five hours before Annie ends up stepping over the threshold of the bait shop, looking a little overheated, but calm enough. No sweatstains on her hoodie; she's been avoiding strenuous activity in Florida today. ]

Is Gunther with you?

[ Arrives at store, asks about dog: Annie Leonhart, in How to Make Friends and Alienate People. ]

[He doesn't reply, though as the time ticks by, he feels tempted to send her something, ask how it is, if there was a delay. He ends up telling himself that if she's not there by the regular time shop closes, he'll call, which just makes him more grateful to see her finally step through. Him on a stool leaning over the counter and flipping through a magazine full of rods and reels, not a stupid punny shirt to be seen in it. Gunther, unseen on the floor behind it, passed out like a log.

Or, he was, until he heard his name. Paws hit the floor, the dog's head appears right next to Will (who is looking at Gunther instead of Annie, not a repeat of before), tail going from still to wagging. Faster when Will says nothing, the dog furiously seeking the word of yes you can or no you can't and getting neither. The beard trembles, not wanting to be bad and barking but not getting an answer, and finally Will gives him all he can get at the moment: a pat on the counter.

Gunther can't cross the line and get in her face like last time, but he can scramble up to lean across the counter, legs stretched out just shy of smacking Will's magazine off, tongue licking the air in front of him. Will doesn't have to even crook a finger with the dog around.

Perfect. Lure.]

Not sure if he's with me or I'm with him at this point. Fridge in the back is full, if you're thirsty or anything.

[Gets friendly visit, tells them to get their own shit: Will Graham, in How to Make Yourself Comfortable Because Fuck if I Can Help Anyone There.]

[ Not even bothering to mind the fact she comes at the beckoning of Will and his dog; she was there because she wants to give Will a gift that's not very gift-like, to most people. Bringing home spoils of ... what, exactly?

She reached over the counter, patting Gunther's head, enduring the wild happiness of his tongue. ]

I'm fine, thank you.

[ A half assed answer. Annie's attention flicks over to Will, her free hand dropping down to her kangaroo pocket. They're mostly new. Pockets weren't part of her at-home wear, not on her hoodies. She doesn't mind the addition. ]

I have something for you.

[If Annie says she's fine, he'll take it. Not because he's lazy, doesn't want to move from place, but because Will knows that when someone says I'm fine, doing anything to suggest otherwise or hint at how they could be more than fine isn't exactly welcome. If some sort of game was afoot, he might have insisted on a drink, on a seat, but Will was tired of games and couldn't be bothered to start new ones when they weren't necessary. Cat versus cat with the Leonhart in the room wasn't the same as cat versus cat with the lion he didn't know in the room.

He looks at Gunther, tail hitting Will's leg as he greets her in his dumb, doggy way, shifting on his back legs and generally being noisy for it. It's not until he starts getting his claws on the magazine that Will picks it up and tosses it to the other side, finally narrowing his eyes at the pocket she reaches into. For his part, his so frequently plaid-covered part? Will quite likes the hoodie.]

Not gonna pull a sleeping puppy outta there, are you?

[It's a joke. He has no idea what it is where his finger's pointing, but as long as it's not a location of a mutilated, displayed body he needs to go back to work for or a body part from one, well...he's pretty much fine with just about anything.]

[ She takes it as a joke, given how ridiculous the mental image is. Annie shakes her head. ]

Something that small still needs regular care. I've seen them that little... with their mothers.

[ Though he's not wrong to believe that should Annie find a too young pup on its own, she'd bring it to Will, hoping Will would be able to handle it better than the shelters, even. What is faith, but not in dogs and baiting?

Her hand is closed around something she keeps hidden in her palm, showing him the top of her hand as she reaches out, hovering her hand over the surface of the counter. Gunther is a consideration she makes, moving her hand after a split second. Her fingers uncurl against the countertop, making for a muffled transfer of object from hand to counter. When she pulls her hand away, there's a motley collection of shark teeth resting on the countertop.

White teeth, but that doesn't mean fresh. Not on its own. ]

[Sussing each other out was a continual process, the joke made because he honestly hadn't the first clue what she might have been bringing him. He didn't expect anything upsetting to come out of the big pocket, though his ideas of upsetting were at an extreme. Still, the teeth caught him by surprise. Will looked at them, thought he knew for sure what that little collection was, but it couldn't hurt to double check. Triple check.

Gunther received a gentle push, a sweeping of Will's arm that let him to know to get back to the floor as he reached into a drawer under the counter, rummaged for a moment, and pulled out a magnifying glass. The way he grabbed up one of them spoke to respect, quick but careful, turning it just the same as he inspected it closer, down to the bits that would give away exactly what it was or was not.]

These are— [Legitimate shark teeth. His eyebrows lift, confused, as he looks back at her.] —you go fishing and run into something unexpected?

[ Annie's pause before answering is a long one, almost bordering on being irredeemable. She rests against her hands, holding on to the edge of the counter top as she looks down at the teeth, watching them and seeing the indoor room, painted with clouds, but sunrise, midday, and sunset all at once. ]

You could say that.

[ She says in the end. ]

Though I hadn't set out to be fishing in the first place. It seemed like the viable alternative once I was... there.

[ Sasha, holding on to the teen girl who'd been dumped in the water. The lasers cutting through to the surface, scouring the dock, burning Annie, mostly avoided as the sharks didn't breach. It had been a matter of time before those red lights with their burning fire would have cut through the material of the dock.

Fishing with her arm as the bait. Annie personally didn't recommend it. ]

[Once she was there. It doesn't give him much, but it's what she gives him, and it's not so important that he feels the need (or right) to press. The tooth gets set down for the biggest one, hardened fingers still treating it the same he might treat a broken piece of ceramic.]

Sharks shed their teeth constantly. Read that some of them can go through over three thousand in a lifetime. [Voice low, quiet, but it doesn't need to be very loud. No music, no one else in the shop, the dog finally taking his spot on the floor again.] Like these? [The magnifying glass tilts up the direction of Will's own teeth.] If any of these fell out or somebody took them, I'd be in a bind. I'd know, I'd have a problem with it. These? [That tooth gets made front and center.] Shark could lose one or two and not have any idea.

[But this is not one or two. This is more. This is not a walk on the beach that led to an interesting find, and who would know more than Will? She brought them to him, but whether it's to leave them behind (and thus make a gift of something she'd rather not have around) or make them something else, he's not sure. The lecture comes free of charge, easy in what might still prove uneasy. There was a reason he used his own teeth as an example instead of saying human teeth or people like me.]

I could make a necklace or something with them, if you want.

[He might have to ask for a bit of help, but he's pretty good with his hands. It can't be too difficult.]

[ Titans shed their teeth like sharks, when injured. Annie wonders if she'd ever hit a limit. If her teeth would ever stop growing back, pulled out again and again and again. It's a nightmare thought, lurking back around with concepts of torture relying on physical rather than psychological means. She'd be hard pressed to say which one she'd fear more.

So there's no comment from her while he talks, only blue eyes focusing on his hands, on the magnifying glass, on his teeth when it's his teeth that are brought into the equation. People in the United States have nicer teeth in general. She's noticed that. More cavities, too. ]

They're a gift. You can make of them what you like.

[ Of the gift, or the gift into something else, transforming a collection of teeth forced out of a shark's mouth as it was made to swallow more flesh than it could handle, split open and filleted for its brethren, who'd eaten and eaten and even eaten the decaying flesh of her partial transformation as it faded out of existence.

Teeth that had ended up with all three young women on the battered dock in the painted room within a mountain.

So it goes.]

Shifter teeth grow back.

[ She says, relatively out of nowhere. ]

Like flesh. Limbs. We don't scar.

[ Not even easily. At all. We don't scar. Stated as the fact it is, nothing attached to it, but a kind of confession that she doesn't touch on often with anyone.

If I cut off your arms and legs, they'll just grow back, won't they? Levi's words, mixed in with screams, with her own scream calling Titans to devour her Titan form. She has to shake her head to rid herself of the sound. ]

[Technology changed. Dentistry, orthodontics, treatment to keep teeth white no matter how badly treated they were or were not. If one was crooked, for the right price, anyone could pay to have that changed. Not that Will was ever well-off enough as a child to have to deal with the teasing that came from the earlier sets of braces, but had he had bad teeth, had he gotten older...he could have easily changed that.

With money.

So it goes.

He's not sure what to make of them as gifts. At all. Is there significance to it other than Will liking fish so he'd appreciate them, is he the easy dump spot, is it meant as more?

Relatively out of nowhere, followed by him carefully putting that tooth back on the pile and the magnifying glass down on the counter. He leans against it further, adjusting his watch before he interlaces his fingers and looks past her. Past that shake of the head, not at it. Unfocused but present, not uncommon.]

Have you ever seen a starfish? They can regenerate. Grow lost arms, some can do more than that. [Depending on species and all.] They're pretty interesting. Regrowing things, with or without scarring, it's not really so unusual out there.

[A nudge of his head indicates a direction that leads to water. He cannot relate in the way that he can grow things back, has his own scars that can never heal, will never grow another tooth if he loses an adult one. But there's one place he knows where that's not the case. Of course he runs the risk that she might find it in some way an insult, compared to the creatures of the sea, but coming from someone who spends more time with dogs and nature than people if he can...it's not meant as an insult at all.]

[ She listens, and she does so completely in the moment - she's heard of seastars, has seen a few clinging to rocks and old docks below and above the waterline the few times she's been down in a marina.

Everyone has scars in places that won't show. Can't show. Psychological and emotional, part of the fabric of being human or sentient enough to feel and care and not all be suffering from anti-people-matter-at-all-I-can't-actually-relate-because-I-don't-have-empathy-pathy. She doesn't end up finding an insult in the star of the ocean; her lips quirk, hinting at amusement that reaches her eyes. ]

Us and the starfish. At least one of us was born that way.

[ Again, no bitterness, but a factual statement. Shifters were made, not born. Much like Titans... exactly like Titans. Except unlike Titans, shifters tired, they needed sustenance when out of shift, and they didn't get inactive at night.

What must it be like to live in the sea? Do creatures of that realm that don't cross between the two ever wonder at the empty fullness of air that presses down on the flexible roof of their world? ]

Mmm, let me know if you end up making anything out of those things.

[ The teeth. A memory. ]

I'd be curious to see it.

[ Art is not her strong point. It's not any point at all. ]

[There's a part of him that wonders if Annie will take it upon herself to read up on starfish, if she'll do some research and see what Will left out that may also apply, other than regeneration. He wonders if she'll come across it and find his bringing them up at all gauche—or worse yet, meant to be an insult. It's certainly not, but he's not about to get into more than the very basic details. Not going to tell her about the times when people got sick of starfish and thought they could kill them only to find out they were making them stronger, when torture was seen more as pest prevention, perhaps, than anything else.

And how they all flipped humanity an ungodly amount of extra middle arm/fingers before carrying on being their starry selves.

It is too close to a Hobbs thought to consider making something that honors out of them, honors the shark that lost its teeth and Annie for whatever her part in getting them might have been. He knows it as it passes through his head, as he reaches back out to turn one over his fingers again, as he considers it. He could make a display or shove them in a box for later as much as he could make anything decorative out of it. He could throw them away, but here he is, idly wondering what sort of wire and wrapping and colors would look best on her, even if that tooth ends up hidden by her choice of clothing.]

There's plenty here to make something. [And none of them fossilized in even the simplest of ways, making it more difficult.] I'll give you a call whenever I get done with them.

[He could sell them, too. There are quite a few people who would definitely enjoy a collection of shark teeth straight out the shark, but these are not going to be on any shareable list, on any menu. Hobbs shared his honors with his family, as far as Will can gather. Will's family, his crew from home, is a dysfunctional mess that frequently does what they can to, really, cannibalize each other, and he knows it. He takes part in it. He sinks and wallows in their bloody mire, shoves the disabled under a metaphorical bus knowing the abuse suffered already. Knowing he played a part in it. The mess of Baltimore seems to not be uncommon, though in different ways. Annie's own gathering here in this world has made plenty of their issues known, publicly and loudly.

There won't be any sharing with family, either—at least, not until Annie has had her say in it.]

Was that it?

[Almost it—unseen, his other hand tucked between him and the counter, Gunther takes the quiet snap cue for what it means: you can cross the line. Better behaved this time, there won't be any jumping. There will, however, be a short tail wagging excitedly as he comes around the counter to sniff and say hello, his beard a shaking mess.]

[ Enough to make something. Annie shakes her head after his remark, as if ridding herself of the mental image. It may as well serve as an answer to his question as well, a negation of the idea that she could want anything more, or had any intention she realized beyond the one that ended when she set the shark teeth on the counter. Yet a shake of her head makes it seem like there's more - something she needs to rectify in words.

Gunther finds her attention and hands turn toward him, gentle fingers stroking over the dome of his skull, slipping back behind ears for a scratch, one that continues down his neck into his ruff and further along his back. A full body petting, and a softening around her eyes. No automatic smile. Gunther is one of the easier parts of life these days. ]

Yes. That was it.

[Gunther is obviously delighted at the attention, turns to give her more room, pushes into her hands, tail wagging so fast his back legs shake, shuffle around, boat incapable of staying still due to it. There is no jumping on her this time, the licking staying to her hands other than one given in the direction of her face. Will's not prone to physical appreciation, hugs, whatever else—Gunther does it for him well enough, if the way he looks at the two of them is anything to go by.

Well done dumb bearded dog guy.

All she wanted was to get rid of some teeth, drop off something she'd rather not remember and leave it with, what, someone who'd appreciate them for what they physically were? He wonders if he should do anything with them now, or if he should go quite overboard with toothy crafts. Overboard. He might just go overboard with it, given enough time.]

I found some vegan ice cream the other day at the store when I was stocking up. [He's not going to say they were on sale, because that could imply he only thinks Annie's worth a little investment when it's been knocked down in price. Even if it's expensive, as far as ice cream goes, he won't risk that.] Doesn't have any dairy in it. [Possibly why it's called vegan, huh.] If you're headed back to Nonah, you can take it with you. It hasn't really interested anybody else.

[He totally didn't put it in his freezer just for her or anything, no way. He totally shoved it in there with all the other extremely fattening and milk product-laden frozen goods like it belonged without thinking about who it would go to. Skye had her options, Abigail hadn't shied away from meat just because of her father, Will was fine with milk products. The idea that he didn't buy it specifically for Annie is something like legitimate, if she should choose to take it home. That box has already been opened and is missing one container.

Because Will ate it.

He was curious.

He was rounding out a design.

The way he says it, though, it sounds more like he picked up a box of ice cream, tried it, didn't care much for it, and figures Annie might. That he'd rather shift it off to someone who would use and might like it than let it sit in there and go to waste. Force himself to eat something he doesn't care for much. He's not about to get away with giving any sort of food to Freddie Lounds, and going to people (or robots) he doesn't know well at all to dump his food on them is...well, that's a little gauche, isn't it? Poor Will Graham bought a box of something he didn't like and needs help getting rid of it. Someone help Will Graham. Won't the lion in the room this time be much better than the one he's been dealing with for months.]

[ She's not watching Will for the moment, able to ignore any looks he's tossing their way, Gunther much easier to allow her attention to linger over. Her lips twitch - she knows by now she doesn't want to own a dog of her own, too much responsibility, not enough guarantee she'll be around for one year, two, five, ten, fifteen on an average lifespan - and she almost smiles again.

Doesn't quite, but it's close enough. She's less reserved for a moment. It's a change of pace, tip toeing forward across that line into expressiveness.

Or closer, at least, than she's been for a long time.

She looks up when he speaks, fixing him with a knowing look. Vegan is a word she's learned like the other fancy words that had to be nonsense, but were all somehow serious. The implications behind vegan are more strict than vegetarian. No animal byproducts - blue eyes study Will, unblinking. He'd said it himself. Doesn't have any dairy in it.

Vegan ice cream, huh. ]

Other than you.

[ Interested the one who bought it, and made available something she's bypassed almost every time. Annie's one experience with ice cream at one of the stores had been on Stiles' insistence, and while it had been a sweet treat, it was almost too sweet, and not easy on her digestive system.

There's so much sugar in this world. She's still not used to it.

But she recognizes a gesture when she sees one. The lioness stretches and yawns, ignoring the eyes watching through the thicket. She's not interested in confrontations.

Acceptance of the opportunities offered... perhaps that much. ]

Sounds interesting.

[ Another pat on Gunther's hip, and she's saying yes, as much as she's not mouthing the word itself. Let the pretense be what the pretense is. ]

Thanks for thinking about me.

[ Because she's content enough in pointing it out, lips finally curling up at the corners. It's the beginning of what might be a smile, or might be the self satisfied smirk of a content lioness surveying someone else's kingdom. Territory crossings carry rules, but she's not in danger.

Not right this moment. ]

[Will's not keen on eye contact and has plenty of bullshit reasons whenever it's brought up, but Annie watches him and he can't be bothered to to look away. The behaviors probably don't translate to her in the same way as they might to other people here from worlds similar to his own, takes away the point. He stays completely focused, lucid, eyebrows furrowing slightly as he reaches a hand up to rearrange the hat on top of it.

The eye contact stays put, what could be seen as nervousness taking place elsewhere. This is one territory where the crossing rules might be different, might boil straight down to the most basic of basics: thou shalt not kill, everything else is pretty much okay.]

Mmhmm. [Calling him on his shit isn't against the rules. If he's going to tell her she's welcome somewhere, he's going to do what he can to make sure those words don't prove empty in the long run. Promises people make get broken, people get broken, it happens. The little things is what he's banking on.] It's the only one in there that's vegan. It's on the box. You'll see it.

[And Gunther will happily follow her wherever she may go. Will seems to be fine staying perched on the stool behind the counter, grabbing up another one of those teeth like he's totally not going to be following her with his eyes or waiting to hear any reaction, leaning back to see if he can catch a glimpse of her as she digs through the freezer and quickly getting back into place just in time for her to not know. No way, not him. He's 100% interested in this shark tooth and the world around him is a mystery.]

[ There's nothing here I want to kill. Nothing anywhere, and no flinching away from eye contact. She's appreciative that he holds it, for once also not the one who feels she needs to look away. She's not hiding anything, no motivations that haven't been spoken on, no secrets that aren't polite more than necessary. She doesn't need to tell him the story behind each of those serrated teeth. The screams, the pain, the terror, where she'd been dumped next. No need to talk about having her wrist rotted through. About breaking the mirror with the help of the person who'd been responsible for the rotting, and desperately cutting through. How her healing, her seastar body hadn't been able to do what it usually did in those tacky underground motel rooms.

How she'd cut off her hand and they'd shoved it in the microwave to keep it from rotting in the trash. How she'd sat in the bathroom, in the bathtub, the flow of blood staunching, and the flickerings of powers coming through to heal her, slowly.

Those aren't secrets. They're memories, but like memories of his, ones that are quite and fine in their gilded cages behind watchful eyes.

She wonders at that. Wonders, too, if she likes Will's eyes.

Turns away to head to the ice box, deciding she does. Gunther is a steady warm reassurance at her side, one she encourages to brush against her fingers, tongue and fur and wet nose all interchangeable. Dog. She doesn't look back, merely makes a noise that might have been disapproval, or might have just been her clearing her throat as she eyes the contents of Will's carefully over-stocked appliance.

He's kind to his collection of wandering souls, evidence by the display of what's inside. Vegan doesn't take long to find, but she eyes the rest, too, cataloging and storing detail away that may never matter. He collects the odd ends. Annie pulls out the box of vegan ice cream and wonders if she can eat it all before she gets home. The travel time to the Cape, to the porter, to the other porter, to the train, then to her house isn't insignificant in this lingering heat. ]

You know what I thought was one of the biggest luxuries back home?

[ Unlikely. It's phrased in that annoying way that begs for asking what it is she's talking about. If he wants to know, is what she means. Do you want to hear. ]

[She's free to like his eyes, to roam the bait shop, the house in De Chima, whatever anyone might mark as his territory. As long as that like, that wandering stays to what it is now, as long as that curiosity and everything contained within remains pure (compared to the kind that threw him in a hospital for the criminally insane), Will doesn't mind it. There's no pressure for his eyes to be anything but what they are (yet), which is refreshing. Strange, but good. He's not used to good with his morning cup of strange.

He doesn't watch her leave—at least, he doesn't make a move to look after her until she's slipped through to the back room. He does, in fact, lean back on his stool to make sure she finds everything as it should be (and that Gunther doesn't screw anything up requiring who is seen as the owner to click his tongue and reinforce what is okay and what is not). When Annie comes back out, she won't find him in either position. She'll find him still behind the counter but leaning down, looking for something, and when he pops back up? Unshaven and shaggy and silly fishing hat still there, but with the addition of a small cooler, what might pass as a lunchbox. What someone who has to travel from De Chima to Heropa for work would require if they ever once wanted to pack something cold to go with it. It's big enough for the box of ice cream, has two hard, mostly frozen blue blocks in it to keep the temperature down, revealed when he presses the sides to slid it open and shoves it across the way. He leans on the counter, careful of the shark teeth, eyebrows raised.

Annie's the focal point of his universe at the moment, if that look is anything to go by.]

What'd you think was one of the biggest luxuries back home?

[I want to hear.]

[ It's not a look she finds she likes. The only time she's been the focal point of any universe, it has been for ends she doesn't like. Her father's focal point, but not seeing her, only seeing what she could be, when properly trained. Armin's focus, and what it had seen, stripping down all the quiet and solitude she surrounded herself with to discover why it was that Annie had always held herself apart. Even Eren's focus, when he hadn't been able to deny the reality of what Armin had been saying.

Mikasa's focus, when she'd cut off her fingers and told her simply to fall. ]

Ice.

[ Is all she says in the end, looking into his small little cooler, at the blue blocks inside. She hesitates before reaching out, setting the box of ice cream bars on the counter. She reaches her hand in, touches one of the blocks, feels the chill on her fingertips. A flickering of her eyelashes as yet another small wonder of the modern world comes to her attention. ]

Whenever you wanted it. They sent it downriver during the winter, when it was harvested in the Northern regions. Only those in Wall Sina could afford to have had enough to keep it in a cellar for year-round use.

[It would be impossible for him not to notice that Annie's either never encountered one of those freezer blocks or has not yet been able to touch one herself. He moves, slides a little bit on the counter to give her plenty of room to investigate, so used to needing near total privacy to do his thing. It's not the same at all, of course, but far be it from him to crowd someone making a new, strange discovery.

Bit by bit, Annie volunteers more information about her world, and bit by bit, Will eases into a new puzzle in his head, connects, disconnects, dumps it all out, starts anew. Staying in walls, and one being home to something of the elite. The wealthy. Heirs of former glorious leaders in some political fashion or another, a hodgepodge of those who earned their stripes and those who were fortunate enough to be born into families that had, some taking initiative and others not giving a damn provided they could stay within a comfortable living zone. The Military Police, working under the head honcho himself—he's assuming a king is a king is a king. And Annie still found it a luxury, perhaps too new, perhaps too old to ever be used to it, perhaps a poor child an only child a child who strove for excellence a child who had someone to impress a child with only one parental figure a lonely—

—Family friction usually serves as a catalyst for personality development.

The puzzle gets unpleasantly blurrier the more he tries to turn the world's focus on her, ends up shaken like a magnetic sketch with knobs that won't behave.

Restart?]

These are just. [What do they look like? It's what they are.] Blocks. [As if it's not obvious enough, Will gingerly reaches to turn one of them to show the very obvious title, the other one having no label at all.] Sometimes they're in packs. Got a certain kind of gel in them, a chemical that freezes and stays cold for a long time. [He squints a little, uncertain of when that small smiley face sticker got stuck to it. Uncertain because he's become so used to it it's taken for granted by now, wasn't even a blip on his radar when he set the whole thing up for her to use as transport.] Toxic if you ingest it.

[So please don't ingest it in any way.]

You got an ice maker in your freezer at Nonah?

[He's still trying to figure out where that sticker came from, it looks like. Better to let that serve as distraction and ask anything but what he's got truly running through his mind.]

Trays.

[ Takes a little effort, but no effort at all when weighed against what she's used to, in the larger sense of things. Annie is both rushing headlong into understanding as much as she can, and stumbling over the little details, the things people take for granted and never discuss as the here and now, as the small parts that make up the whole. Will is better about that - better in giving avenues to seeing the minutea, letting her ask questions, with half his answers being as leading as others.

There's little to the block other than textures and sights - the feeling of cold, btu he's explained that, too. She has to wonder. A chemical gel that can do all that? ]

What compound?

[ But it's an irreverent question - she shakes her head, setting down the ice block into the container, unconcerned with the little smililng face that looks up from something as frigid as she was meant to be. She'll remember these. Temeprature influence and control, like so many aspects of the modern world, made portable, convenient. ]

Didn't need ice if you were in the mountains, so much. Even in the summer, the creeks were still cold.

[ Mountains outside the Walls. Her outside perspective, taken in, during those years where personalities adapt and form. There are many parts of Annie stuck at eleven. Shy, unsure of herself with social interactions and her peers. The way she oscillates between the professional, the steady, the calm, and the quiet, the concerned, the unsure. When is it okay to care. When isn't it? Is she allowed to be this way, or that way, can she change, truly, in the end, can she be someone who takes the flow and finds a way to cut through the current?

Is she going with the flow here, too? In so many ways, she is. Adapting, pulling on whatever she must to be part of this society, this culture. Stumbling in ways she can't make up for in observation alone, opening herself up to asking, questioning, exposing her ignorance, letting it be used against her as much as she uses it to misdirect attention.

Learning about what she can. Wondering which things will matter most. Letting it all slide by, like words about friendship and obligation, honor and duty, ideals and the idealism that destroys. (That's why you're dangerous, Light. It's why any idealist is a danger, even as they might inspire.) Drawn like a moth to an oepn flame, she's not sure where she can draw the line between the infatuation of trying in this place, and the very real possibility of being incinerated in the very heat she seeks out.

What a way to go. The moth don't care... ]

Nothing much like Florida's been during the summer.

[He feels relief when she shakes her head after the question, when she continues instead of stopping to get the answer. It's not that he doesn't know the answer, but how he knows it, the reasons behind it. His work with the human body is a morbid, rotting line of business. Perhaps he could answer and her assume that he knows because he read up on it, because he was curious himself. But it's more likely that someone who puts the worst of the worst away knows from something much darker, and he's grateful he doesn't have to get into it.

Mountains, more pieces to add to her world, pieces got from her mouth and no one else. In the midst of it all, Will decides to take the box of ice cream and set it up himself, to see if she can understand why he does it one way as opposed to another. The box gets put in with enough room that she could reasonable stuff the blocks on either side and rather freeze it in place. But Will puts it in and places the blocks on top of it instead, puts the greatest source of cold right on top, covers almost the entire thing with them rather than just covering the sides. It's no genius method—there will be some slipping around and noisiness in place of what could have been quiet, but it's not something he would expect to be completely difficult to figure out. Better to have a few shuffling clunks than to lose product, as far as he's concerned.]

Depends on where you go in Florida. [Back to almost mumbling.] Down here, that's hard to find. You want a cool creek, you'll need to go somewhere with plenty of shade. Still won't be anything like it would in the mountains, but there's ways to make do.

[A hint of a smile, enough to suggest that Will's done his own searching for shady, cool places. That, no, this Heropa, this area doesn't offer the calm, coldness that comes with mountains, but with a little looking, some willingness to break outside the normal and get dirty...it's possible to find more than what's advertised, easily seen.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

IC contact [Mask or Menace]

hey they serve a nice function in live ones too let's not forget

BARFARONI KC EWWWWWW

ROTFLASLDJK LATER I REFIND THIS FINALLY

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this smile is too happy so think this one dialed down to like, 1

no i can't read the tag i need the icon to match exactly omg hdu

rping with me must be a personal nightmare for you i am sorry

truly hellish tbh

adjusts horns on headband

the power of christ compels you

compells me to party

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