Catch-all

[fistsofchange]

Who: Bai Lin and YOU
What: Exploring and settling in to her new home
When: Over the first, like, 3 weeks since her arrival
Where: Various
Warnings: Nothin' significant as of yet

The Beach

Every morning, without fail, Lin spent an hour or two in the relative privacy of the beach, practicing. She wasn't technically a monk anymore, but the habits ingrained in her at the temple wouldn't easily go, and anyways her skills were useful in a violent world. This world wasn't that violent, as far as she could tell, but she persisted. She didn't want to get rusty was all.

The Soaring Fist style was an ancient martial arts technique that took the philosophy of a thunderstorm. Its practicioners seemed to almost float around attacks like a cloud, and then strike as fast and hard as a lightning bolt. If they were advanced students, as Lin was, that became a bit more literal. When she jumped, she floated higher into the air than made logical sense, like she was drifting on the breeze rather than just jumping. When she struck, you could sometimes actually see flickers of lightning crackling off her body.

She doesn't seem to have noticed she has an audience as she jumps and kicks and punches her way through various forms on the beach.

Residential Level

If you're on the 20s floor of the residential section this afternoon, you can hear twangy country music about (The track list of this album includes song titles like "Red neck, White Truck, and Blue Jeans") coming from the open door of room 26. Within, Lin hummed along to the music as she took the pile of kitschy crap she had gotten from the androids and thoughtfully arranged it around her room. She had never had this many personal material possessions in her life.

Worthy of note is that when Lin arrived in the dream forest, she was wearing the only clothes she owned, and it had been weeks since she'd had a shower. Bathing is something of a luxury in the post-apocalyptic future, and she had long since stopped noticing her own aura of filth. But now she had regular access to a shower, and she was fully taking advantage of it. As a result, the young woman bouncing around this apartment is almost entirely unrecognizable as the sweaty, dirt smudge survivor of the wastes.

At least she doesn't stink any more. The music is kind of loud, though.

Hot Tub

Lin had had trouble believing that there was a hot tub here, at first. Such things were only available to the most amazingly wealthy and powerful members of society, back home. She'd had to see it before she could really accept its presence. And then, after she'd seen it, she'd had to try it. A few minutes of digging through the pile of communal swimsuits had her decked out in men's swim trunks and a rather modest bikini top, and then she was in.

After a while of just kind of melting into the heat and bubble jets, Lin finally realized someone else had come in. She looked up at you from the water. "Did you know I once broke a man's nose for wasting this much water?" She asked, chuckling at herself, "I'm just as bad as he was now, aren't I?"

Viewing Deck

Lin sat on the edge of the viewing deck, kicking her feet back and forth and apparently unconcerned about the potential drop before her. She had a small notebook in her hand, and was chewing on the end of a pencil thoughtfully as she stared at a list written on it. After a minute, she glanced around to see if anyone else was here. Ah good, there was someone. "Hey, what are some fun things you like to do?"

Wildcard

Or throw your own prompt at me! I can be contacted at overbringer, or Overbringer#2743 on discord if you want to plot something!

Comments

[honededge]

Talon won't lie here, when he first hears the music he is peeved. But when he sticks his head out the door and sees which room it's coming from, he recognizes the nameplate. The person from the network who told him that story. He hadn't said it at the time, but it did really resonate with him.

This lessens the annoyance enough for him to remember that he also has tunes (tm). Nothing to play them on, but clearly someone else had something.

So he snatches the cd in its case off his desk and heads out into the hall. He lingers outside the door a moment, kind of just hoping she'll notice him and say something.

[fistsofchange]

After a minute of balancing on a chair so she could reach the ceiling and coat it with glow in the dark star stickers, Lin noticed him and said something.

"Oh, hi! Sorry, didn't see you there."

[honededge]

"S'okay, I step light." He paused awkwardly before clearing his throat. "I, uh, heard the music and figured you might want some variety. Happen to have a CD I got from the fissure and nothing to play it on, so. Have at."

Talon extended the CD through the doorway almost hesitantly, as if he was unsure of whether or not the gesture was even welcome.

"Gotta admit, I'm not totally sure what's on it. Looks like a homebrew kinda thing."

[fistsofchange]

"Oh I've got a bunch I haven't listened to yet." She said, glancing at the CD binder lying on the bookshelf next to the boombox. "But I guess I could try something else. I feel like a lot of the lyrics of this one are flying over my head."

Lin took the offered CD and hopped up onto the bed so she could change it. She, as of yet, did not realize who this was. "You can come in by the way, if you'd like to stop awkwardly hovering by the door. I'm Bai Lin."

[honededge]

"Yeah, country is a Western UCAS thing where I'm from. God only knows what's going on over there, but it's apparently really sad and involves a lot of trucks." There. That was Talon's hot take on country music. He rubbed the back of his neck and took a half step through the door. "And I'm Talon. We've kinda met? In text, anyway."

Talon hesitated, giving Bai Lin a moment to revoke her offer now that she had that information. He wasn't sure what he was hoping for out of this interaction. Socializing for the sake of socializing was never really his forte. But that didn't mean he couldn't try, right?

[fistsofchange]

"Oh, you were the one asking about how to be a good person."

She did not revoke her invitation. Instead, she gave Talon a plastic sleeve full of glow in the dark dinosaurs. "Help me put these up. I think you're a bit taller than me."

[honededge]

Talon just sort of stared at the dinosaurs for a moment before shrugging, opening the sleeve, and reaching up to stick a stegosaurus on the ceiling. He tilted his head a bit, looking at it and wondering if he should decorate his own room as well.

"Yeah, about that. I wanted to thank you for sharing that story with me. Struck a chord."

[fistsofchange]

"Glad to help." She said with a grin. "Everyone does the things they have to instead of the things they should, sometimes. That doesn't define who you are."

Lin's room was looking QUITE decorated by this point. She'd been strictly forbidden from having any real decoration in her room at the temple, and hadn't been staying in one place long enough to HAVE a room until now. She was taking full advantage of her new situation to live it up a bit.

[honededge]

"Ha, I've always thought the opposite. That we are what we do when our backs are against the wall." Talon let out a little huff of laughter as if he hadn't just said something fairly dark. He takaes a moment to place a few more stickers to the cieling before adding: "Your room's looking pretty good. Find all this in the fissure or did the androids hook you up?"

[fistsofchange]

"That's not very fair, is it? To push someone until they snap and then say 'aha! I knew you were rotten all along!' Everyone has a breaking point."

She put the last star up. "It was mostly from the fissures, but the android got me a little bit extra. They're weird looking but I think they're pretty nice." After a moment of watching Talon out of the corner of her eyes, she made a mental image of what his room would be like. She couldn't imagine it as anything other than a bare room with no personality. "...You know what I think that's enough dinosaur stickers for me. You want the rest?"

[honededge]

Hey, his room had plenty of character! The bed was unmade, there was a gun on the couch, a creepy mask on the desk, and a pile of clothes in the closet - clean, but unfolded. All the personality of someone who doesn't stay in any one place for very long. Who isn't used to having a home.

"Uh..." Talon stared at the offered stickers a moment before accepting them with a raised brow. "Sure? Thanks. I haven't really gotten around to decorating yet."

He didn't really have any plans to, either, but maybe he should. Some posters, maybe. The christmas lights kinda seemed like a good idea. He liked the light level they produced. Maybe he would ask the androids about it, or keep an eye out in the next fissure.

Hot Tub

[theosophomoric]

Sonja smiles crookedly, pausing by the door to pick the laces loose on her boots and kick them off, and then pull off her stockings and roll them up inside the boots. She'd already changed before coming down from the station - the navy wool bathing costume she'd managed to locate on her first visit to the hot tub may be brief by her world's standards, but to be honest, with its cap sleeves and bloomers that reach past her knees, it's still more modest than some of the things that people around here wear just around the station.

"I wouldn't say that, it ain't like we've got any shortage of fresh water around here," she says, as she kicks the boots under the table and comes over to step into the hot tub. "Have you been down to the lowest levels of the station? They've got these delightful machines to make fresh water from the sea."

[fistsofchange]

"It'd chafe more if there was anyone else here who needed this water, but it's just us out here."

Wherever 'out here' was. Lin watched Sonja with half an eye as she changed and then lazily waved as she got into the tub.

[theosophomoric]

"And there's a whole sea out to one side, and a sizable lake a few hours journey in the other direction. I don't think we're going to be hurting for water," Sonja agrees, settling herself maybe a quarter of the way around the pool from where Lin sits. "Anyway, the shower-baths in our lodgings are convenient, but there's something marvelously restorative about a good soak."

[fistsofchange]

"Heck, I'm still getting used to having a shower at all. This is just excessive!"

She settled a little deeper into the water so that it was almost up to her ears. "I'll take it, though."

[theosophomoric]

Sonja laughs, but it comes with a little wince. "I hope you don't mind my saying that wherever you've come from sounds just miserable. My condolences."

[fistsofchange]

"You're not the first person to say that." She admitted.

"Mostly it just felt normal to me, since I'd never seen anything else to compare it to. There were definitely things that I wanted to fix, though."

[theosophomoric]

"Ah, well, I guess that's true of most places," Sonja concedes. She's not even native to the Neath, but she's lived there long enough that even her odder passion projects feel positively normal to her at this point. She draws her feet up, sitting crosslegged in her seat. "What sorts of things? I'll wager you have some good stories to tell."

[fistsofchange]

"You mean like the time I broke a guy's nose for having a swimming pool in a town that had almost no water of its own left? That one was pretty good. I got to jump through a skylight."

[theosophomoric]

She laughs. "Oh, I love a good skylight entrance."

Splitting the story into several comments, Sonja can interject where she pleases

[fistsofchange]

"He REALLY had it coming."

She sat up a bit, so she could tell the story without worrying about getting pool water in her mouth. "Okay so, we were honestly just passing through. Wanted to get some gas and some food. But the town just felt...dead. There were people around but they all looked tired and defeated inside."

[fistsofchange]

"We had a lot to do. My friends wanted to just move on without getting involved, but I kinda...guilt tripped them into looking into it. Turned out to be a guy nicknamed 'Turtle' who was the underling of some kinda gang. Zihao Wu came in the front door, while the rest of us sneaked around the building to set up ambushes."

[fistsofchange]

"He pretended to be looking for work, until we were all sure Turtle was just a terrible person. He asked Wu to kill the town's mayor for annoying him with requests for water, while Turtle was sitting in a swimming pool. He was just the worst, and he had a real punchable face!"

[fistsofchange]

"So we went in and beat up his guards in a big fight! I came in through the skylight and it was cool as heck! Felt like a real badass."

[fistsofchange]

"So anyways Turtle himself couldn't fight for beans so when he realized he was in a corner, he tried to bribe us with the water. So I broke his nose."

She beamed. "That's basically the end of that story. In the end, he ended up giving the water back to the town and then ran away before they could catch him and enact vengeance for depriving them for so long."