>> EXPLORE THE CHANGES [The trees around Blue stretch up to the sky, creating a canopy above her head where only flickers of blue can be seen between the leaves. Sunshine — warm and golden — floods tree trunks and gnarled roots and rocks covered in lichen on the forest floor. It’s light that obeys no law of physics or logic. With no obvious source, it casts no shadows. It just is. Around her the leaves of the trees rustle, shaken by a soft breeze that Blue cannot feel.
It sounds like voices. Not one, or a couple, but as many as there are trees in the forest.
hello. hello. hello. hello.
Say the trees.
Her name is threaded in there, barely heard underneath the chorus of greetings — English flowing into Latin flowing into the secret language of trees — but woven into the tapestry so tightly it’s almost a portrait of her.
It feels like a dream.
But then again, Cabeswater always feels like a dream.
Blue braces her hands against tree trunks as she climbs over broken and scraggly rocks covered by giant and gnarly roots. Each tree trunk she touches glows a dim blue and she’s filled with a kind of calm no human life span would ever hope to achieve. It’s the kind of calm born out of hundreds of years of growth, and slow flowing sap, and leaves falling and budding anew.
Blue doesn’t know where she’s going, but she’ll know when she’s arrived.
It’s the kind of summer’s day that wraps around you. Not sticky. Just firmly present in its warmth. The sun shines warmly on the nape of Blue’s neck, it caresses the back of her hands as her palms curve against rough bark.
If someone asked Blue what she did this morning, what she means to do this evening, or how she arrived at the edge of the forest, she wouldn’t be able to tell them. But there’s no one around to ask so the lack of an answer goes unrealized. A potential lost.
It might be hours or days that she spends walking the winding paths of the forest, or it might only be minutes, before she arrives at the clearing.
A giant, hollowed out tree stands guard over a pond of clear water sparkling with the directionless sunlight. Somewhere in the corner of her eyes, a rusted out car has nearly been overtaken by the moss and ivy. The burnt orange of its paint almost completely covered by the green.
The strange slow calm radiating from Blue’s palms and through her entire body glitches. It’s sharp and sudden. The trees bleeding black from trunks and leaves, and the rustled voices turn to sorrow. Then the sunlight is back, dappled with green, the tree trunks normal. Calm restored.
The ground is soft beneath her as she lays down next to the pond, her fingertips playing across the surface of the water, her body pillowed on leaves and the sweet scent of fresh grass tickling her nose. She thinks of flowers shaped like stars, and pink petals begin to drift through the air. Summoned by her thoughts and given shape by the magic of the forest.
It might be hours or days, or it might be only minutes, that she lies there — watching the sky through the leaves, feeling little silver-bodied fishes nibbling at her fingertips — before the calm is disrupted again. This time by a thought.
Blue is alone.
That’s not right.
Blue doesn’t know what alone feels like.
It twists at her chest, the newness of the feeling, the rootlessness of it. Maybe she thinks too hard, feels too much, because there’s a swirl of something and a dark shape begins to take form in the middle of the clearing. Like the rose petals earlier.
Blue pushes up into sitting, her fingertips wet and her palms stained by the grass.]
Are you real or did the trees make you for me?
[A perfectly valid question, though five years ago Blue herself wouldn’t have thought so.]
>>AT THE SAFEHOUSE [Blue is angry.
It’s not an uncommon occurrence by any means. Anger is an old friend. The kind who don’t even have to knock anymore. It just walks straight in the front door, and kicks off its shoes on the way in.
A lot of things make Blue angry.
A non-exhaustive list would include someone stealing the bathroom right as it was her turn, the milk left out on the counter over night, potential stymied by circumstance, the kind of customer who looks straight through their waitress, pollution, the inequity of society, arrogance, and Orla.
This anger is different.
It’s taking a tree, with strong roots stretching deep below the dirt, and chopping it off at waist high. It’s taking that tree and carrying it away from everything that it knows, until it’s no longer on the same continents as the roots it was severed from. Until it’s separated by time and space from everything that it’s ever known.
That’s the first cut, and the deepest. The others may as well be paper cuts in comparison.
Blue runs a hand over the knotted curls that stick close to her scalp. It feels strange. Another thing to be angry about perhaps. A log to toss onto the blazing bonfire.
Blue thinks she might never be not angry again.
In the small kitchen of the warehouse, she keeps opening cabinets and then slamming them shut again, the anger spilling over into her motions like hot liquid sloshing over the edges of a cup and scalding everything it touches.]
What kind of society doesn’t have coffee? [The question isn’t directed at anyone, but it’s spoken out loud at the very moment the sound of foot steps behind her makes Blue aware she isn’t alone anymore.
They told her, the people who brought her down to the safehouse. But she had to make sure for herself. Maybe, she thought, it was one of those practical jokes people like to play on newcomers. Tell them there’s no coffee on this world/planet/hellscape and watch them go through caffeine withdrawal for weeks before they figure out the lie.]
Do you think it’s religious, ethical, or scarcity of resources?
[This question is more pointed, and Blue turns towards the other presence in the kitchen, expression clearly demanding answers.]
>> THE NETWORK @ blue.sargent I need a favor. Anyone with an easy to show off, but clearly limited power interested in meeting up? I want to test a theory about my own power.
Blue Sargent | TRC
[The trees around Blue stretch up to the sky, creating a canopy above her head where only flickers of blue can be seen between the leaves. Sunshine — warm and golden — floods tree trunks and gnarled roots and rocks covered in lichen on the forest floor. It’s light that obeys no law of physics or logic. With no obvious source, it casts no shadows. It just is. Around her the leaves of the trees rustle, shaken by a soft breeze that Blue cannot feel.
It sounds like voices. Not one, or a couple, but as many as there are trees in the forest.
hello. hello. hello. hello.
Say the trees.
Her name is threaded in there, barely heard underneath the chorus of greetings — English flowing into Latin flowing into the secret language of trees — but woven into the tapestry so tightly it’s almost a portrait of her.
It feels like a dream.
But then again, Cabeswater always feels like a dream.
Blue braces her hands against tree trunks as she climbs over broken and scraggly rocks covered by giant and gnarly roots. Each tree trunk she touches glows a dim blue and she’s filled with a kind of calm no human life span would ever hope to achieve. It’s the kind of calm born out of hundreds of years of growth, and slow flowing sap, and leaves falling and budding anew.
Blue doesn’t know where she’s going, but she’ll know when she’s arrived.
It’s the kind of summer’s day that wraps around you. Not sticky. Just firmly present in its warmth. The sun shines warmly on the nape of Blue’s neck, it caresses the back of her hands as her palms curve against rough bark.
If someone asked Blue what she did this morning, what she means to do this evening, or how she arrived at the edge of the forest, she wouldn’t be able to tell them. But there’s no one around to ask so the lack of an answer goes unrealized. A potential lost.
It might be hours or days that she spends walking the winding paths of the forest, or it might only be minutes, before she arrives at the clearing.
A giant, hollowed out tree stands guard over a pond of clear water sparkling with the directionless sunlight. Somewhere in the corner of her eyes, a rusted out car has nearly been overtaken by the moss and ivy. The burnt orange of its paint almost completely covered by the green.
The strange slow calm radiating from Blue’s palms and through her entire body glitches. It’s sharp and sudden. The trees bleeding black from trunks and leaves, and the rustled voices turn to sorrow. Then the sunlight is back, dappled with green, the tree trunks normal. Calm restored.
The ground is soft beneath her as she lays down next to the pond, her fingertips playing across the surface of the water, her body pillowed on leaves and the sweet scent of fresh grass tickling her nose. She thinks of flowers shaped like stars, and pink petals begin to drift through the air. Summoned by her thoughts and given shape by the magic of the forest.
It might be hours or days, or it might be only minutes, that she lies there — watching the sky through the leaves, feeling little silver-bodied fishes nibbling at her fingertips — before the calm is disrupted again. This time by a thought.
Blue is alone.
That’s not right.
Blue doesn’t know what alone feels like.
It twists at her chest, the newness of the feeling, the rootlessness of it. Maybe she thinks too hard, feels too much, because there’s a swirl of something and a dark shape begins to take form in the middle of the clearing. Like the rose petals earlier.
Blue pushes up into sitting, her fingertips wet and her palms stained by the grass.]
Are you real or did the trees make you for me?
[A perfectly valid question, though five years ago Blue herself wouldn’t have thought so.]
>>AT THE SAFEHOUSE
[Blue is angry.
It’s not an uncommon occurrence by any means. Anger is an old friend. The kind who don’t even have to knock anymore. It just walks straight in the front door, and kicks off its shoes on the way in.
A lot of things make Blue angry.
A non-exhaustive list would include someone stealing the bathroom right as it was her turn, the milk left out on the counter over night, potential stymied by circumstance, the kind of customer who looks straight through their waitress, pollution, the inequity of society, arrogance, and Orla.
This anger is different.
It’s taking a tree, with strong roots stretching deep below the dirt, and chopping it off at waist high. It’s taking that tree and carrying it away from everything that it knows, until it’s no longer on the same continents as the roots it was severed from. Until it’s separated by time and space from everything that it’s ever known.
That’s the first cut, and the deepest. The others may as well be paper cuts in comparison.
Blue runs a hand over the knotted curls that stick close to her scalp. It feels strange. Another thing to be angry about perhaps. A log to toss onto the blazing bonfire.
Blue thinks she might never be not angry again.
In the small kitchen of the warehouse, she keeps opening cabinets and then slamming them shut again, the anger spilling over into her motions like hot liquid sloshing over the edges of a cup and scalding everything it touches.]
What kind of society doesn’t have coffee? [The question isn’t directed at anyone, but it’s spoken out loud at the very moment the sound of foot steps behind her makes Blue aware she isn’t alone anymore.
They told her, the people who brought her down to the safehouse. But she had to make sure for herself. Maybe, she thought, it was one of those practical jokes people like to play on newcomers. Tell them there’s no coffee on this world/planet/hellscape and watch them go through caffeine withdrawal for weeks before they figure out the lie.]
Do you think it’s religious, ethical, or scarcity of resources?
[This question is more pointed, and Blue turns towards the other presence in the kitchen, expression clearly demanding answers.]
>> THE NETWORK
@ blue.sargent
I need a favor. Anyone with an easy to show off, but clearly limited power interested in meeting up? I want to test a theory about my own power.
> WILDCARD
Choose your own adventure!