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Eden nudges her horse just a touch closer to the High King: Peter seems like the only person who was more conned into the trip than she was, and his stony silence seems...well.

Okay a little hostile, but Eden's not exactly clued in on most people's hostility, as hers ranks at about a permanent 9.9.

She pulls a trail bar out of her bag - baked herself, naturally, and offers it over in silence. They've been riding for hours. He must be hungry by now.

Amory doesn't know how he was shafted with tent duty. Perhaps it was a collective decision to watch him suffer, or repentance for leading the campers through uncharted and unbroken trails without any certain destination in sight. At least for part of the way until someone else took over. But if they hadn't taken chances, would they have landed in a secluded valley like this? It's picturesque and almost stereotypical with a sliver of a stream running through green meadows; a forest borders the land behind them, and tucked within the pines is a small lake.

Someone in there group must have good luck, but surely not Amory who's still trying to figure out how pole A fits into hole D, or whether it should go perpendicular or vertical and why this fucking piece of tarp keeps on collapsing with every shift of the wind. It's an experiment in his patience and temper and the results are as clear as glass when one of the metal poles hits the dirt with a metallic thud, succeeded by a sharp curse.

He's never been good at this, okay. Usually people put things together for him because Amory is a spoiled brat like that.

Edited 2010-06-23 02:29 (UTC)

While Amory may be a failure at the art of tent assembly, it takes him only five minutes to rig up his new toy. One of those high-powered telescopes that can turn the round disk of a moon into a pale, pockmarked cheek. In many ways, it ties him back to his world, and binds him further to this one. Stars and Stargazing are key to his past, and it took him nearly a year and half to save for the thing. It took him equally as long to finally accept this place as some kind of home.

Eden definitely helped with that.

The whole thing reaches a little above Amory's chest, weighing in at fifteen to twenty pounds. He's currently positioning the angle of the telescope, focusing on a thick patch of stars already shining prominently against the black ink of the sky.

Edited 2010-06-23 00:39 (UTC)

Since he made the effort to agree to this trip, Amory has chosen to taper back his usual level of dickery. To say he's being congenial is too far a stretch, but he has made an effort to displace his acrimony and a portion of his general unpleasantness for another day.

Amory has even decided to assist Claire in her expedition for firewood, treading a brisk pace from the tents to the edge of the wood where she currently stands. The crisp crunch of breaking leaves should alert her of his arrival, and if not, well- who can forget his voice.

"Need help there?"

Looking for firewood is a guise, when you get down to it. Even for someone with Claire's level of skill when it comes to camping wouldn't take as long as she has to collect as little as she has. In the cradle of her arms there is a small gathering of sticks, various sizes and circumferences, the longest and fattest gathered in the palm of her hand, digging into the underbrush and soil as she clambers loudly through the surrounding area, the glow of the firelight still close enough to highlight her when she turns back to face the campsite. She doesn't go far, but she's far enough to stare into the woods around them, peering here and there, unafraid as a look out even if it is only momentary.

She hears Amory's footsteps before she hears his voice, and there is a brief moment of blind consideration that it might be something unwanted before it is overtaken by the hope that it is actually Caspian or Peter coming to keep her company. As it stands, Amory is a double-edged sword: she'd rather have him over something bent on eating her alive but does it really have to be him, of all people?

Claire takes a moment to consider him, thumping her walking stick against the ground a few times before she takes a step closer and bends to transfer the small load of sticks she's been carrying to arms she expects him to stretch out. "I don't need it," she says, looking up at him, blowing an errant strand of hair out of her eyes, "but I'll take what I can get out in the middle of nowhere." Not wasting time for idle chatter - it isn't as if they'd be good at it anyway - Claire jerks her head to left, indicating the area behind her. "I think there's more back this way, if you can carry more."

Amory actually accepts the load without fuss, shifting the sticks onto his arms with a bounce to settle them into a comfortable pile. It's only the bottom of the pyramid, and there's ways to go until the bulk gets too heavy. But not a word drops from his mouth, not a single insult sniped back coolly in regards to the expediency (or lack there of) of Claire's decided task, or any barb reflecting back to the horseback novice's trip up the mountain. In fact, you could almost say he's pleasant, showing Claire he understands her directions with the slight nod of his head. Maybe nature had a pacifying effect on this beast. Or maybe it could be the night descending upon the fading blue light of post-dawn, a pitch black pooling against columns of sky.

The fire snaps and cracks along with a faint murmur of crickets, and for once, Amory thinks he's discovered absolute peace in this City. High on the mountain top, they almost seem disconnected from the deities, disconnected from all the oddities that separate this world from their own. Amory could almost forget where he is.

"Have you been in the forest yet," he responds calmly, adjusting the pile with a jerk. "We could probably find more there, and even if we don't, it would be interesting to investigate." Amory finishes his words off with a small grin, a benign one lacking any trace of sarcasm or duplicity.

Hey, miracles can happen.

She doesn't return his grin, too taken aback by it to offer anything herself, standing still for a moment in the shadows cast by firelight this far out into the darkness. Claire does feel her expression soften and relax automatically, some of the tension and necessary defenses in her shoulders and up and down her spine drain away as she takes a breath and lets it out in the humid air. It's not as warm as it had been on the journey up, but she still feels as if she has a film over her skin, and the edge she constantly feels like she's standing on thanks both in part to the unknown trees and growth around them and the members of this little party in general don't do much to alleviate it. Claire doesn't feel as at ease out here as Amory does, has already found her little chunk of peace, of feeling out from under the deities' eyes and thumbs, and it isn't here in these woods with Amory, no matter how polite and restrained he's being.

After what feels like too long, she comes back into herself, shakes her head at him and decides that one good turn deserves another, especially in the case of putting aside differences, in a sense, and trying to get along in the face of things. It helps that she wants to explore, the same perspective that she had when she and Wanda had gone into the Underground the day the City stood still.

"Not yet. I didn't want to go too far away from the camp and risk getting lost." She says this with a very straightforward tone, her voice belying no fear or concern, just matters of fact. "I think there's kind of a path over this way, though. I dunno what made it, but that's where I found most of what you've got so... there's probably more down further." Claire inclines her head, a grin finally flashing in the dark. "Come on."

Her stick, nearly taller than her and heavy enough to beat back underbrush, strikes the ground hard as she takes a step toward the direction they're aiming for. Of all the things she thought she'd be doing up here, especially after today, playing explorers with Amory is still last on the list.

Eden doesn't know what she's done, except get irritated everytime Amory did something obnoxious, and refuse to speak to him if he didn't apologize. But tonight isn't about that, and she meanders her way from the tiny fire they've lit to were Amory is setting up. His huge ridiculous looking telescope interests her because all her stargazing has been done with just her eyes, and her gran's stories, and that's all. She's never really been interested in stars: at least not like Amory. Her world is based in her surroundings, in Ireland, and now in the City.

"Can yeh see anythin'?" She knows that the City might not have real stars, just dots at the top of the sphere that they inhabit masquerading. This place is so strange: the land doesn't speak to her, like it does in Ireland, but that's...

That's different.

Eden is watching this miraculously hilarious event with a half a smirk to the camp dinner she's preparing: stew and bread (of course), with greens and even a pudding, all things she had to dredge up from her memory of when her fam spent nights out in the fields for fam reasons, but they didn't have fancy tents; just the caves under Cruachan.

But the thing about this is that she's going to have to sleep in one of those tents: maybe one to share (with Amory, if they do share, she has orders to kick) and she's not exactly thrilled with the prospect of getting squashed in the middle of the night by shoddily done pole work.

Eden watches him for another minute before she walks over to the tent he's building and looks at the poles and the tarp and the shafts, and in five minutes she has the tent erected.

She can build a bomb in less than an hour, of course she can put up a tent.

Wordlessly, Peter glances at the proffered sustenance for a moment, just out of the corner of his eye before he accepts it, breaking it in half before offering one half back to the similarly silent Eden riding beside him now. Sometimes the best conversation is no conversation at all, and conned types perhaps should stick together to a degree, even if the blond still feels he is set a bit more apart, not for worse insuffering or the like, but just as a result of several factors that perhaps amount to something close to that.

Eden takes the other half and takes a bite: she's not feeling particularly chatty herself, today, but that's all right. Peter is so tall and so blond, and not particularly Eden's friend: she doesn't remember any conversation they've had beyond a perfunctory hello at the Blue Light back when Eden used to be able to go into bars that served mostly alcohol. But she's seen Caspian's friend on the Network, and she knows he's not the friendliest sort, so she doesn't push it.

Instead she rides in silence next to him and watches him move. He sits on a horse like he was born there, comfortable like Caspian in the saddle. Most of Eden's riding was done without one, and it shows in how she keeps her seating: a little more roughly than the others, maybe, an uncertainty if her hand goes to the horn or not, her feet not in the stirrups because that feels precarious to her. She pulled those up and tied them around the horn of her saddle, something she would ditch if she could but she knows they're expensive.

But there is something comfortable about not speaking, and something comfortable about Peter. Maybe it's that he's obviously in so much more pain than she is, irritation wise. He cannot be liking this trip.

Eden's sort of set up her base of operations at the fire; she had packed enough food to make sure that everyone would eat well for all the meals they were having up on the mountain, and she's tending the pots and the ashes with a measure of caution. She hasn't cooked without a stove for a couple of years now so she's trying to get the practice back, but the food smells good and Eden knows it'll taste good, too.

Those who are closer to Peter are the ones who see the more genuinely brighter side of him, the side that smiles with surprising ease and laughs because someone makes a silly face or bats at a hand ruffling his hair. For the most part, however, this is a select set of people, small because Peter is accustomed to small or has become so, or did rather during a year in-between. It was easy to stick to family, to siblings, when they were the only ones who knew the truth and what was more, could therefore believe it. There was and still remains the Professor, but he is a time apart, himself and it was the challenge of wrangling two ages into a body denied one altogether that also kept Peter from being the nicer fellow he might have been without all that extra experience under his belt.

Some people would say to simply be glad for what time he had, but those people just don't understand. He did not lose the crown. The crown moved on, fine. But it's deeper than glass ceilings and a citadel on the sea.

Peter lost a home on that hunt for the white stag and it would only be dramatic to say he will never fully recover if it was not true, but it is. Very much so.

Keeping his friends few and far between is habit more than insistence, not a conscious way of barring people off because for the most part Peter is easy to get along with. To befriend, that's another matter as everyone who's ever had a friend well knows, but that's fine too. Different strokes for different folks. Eden, he knows of through Caspian for the most part and he's noticed her speaking here and there on the network to one of the Blue Light's barkeeps, and that's about all there is to be said for 'their' interaction beyond this communal moment of mild mannered misery and victuals. He doesn't mind and he likes her silence, a pleasant veil against whatever conversation is happening, if only because 'conversation' has seemed to amount to one or another person vaguely making prods and pokes at another on this literal uphill climb.

A sandbox sort of arena, he thinks, but overcrowded.

Funny enough he rather likes Claire Bennet, likes being around her, likes talking to her, would stand to and want to know more of her over time if time provides. It's just the combination of environment and having not wanted to go anyway that sours his mood on the whole into a thin-lined expression of tolerance and letting his thoughts wander elsewhere. Caspian, it goes without saying; they are friends, more than friends though this will ever remain a subject for two. History and the future, a common home between them. Amory was once the kind of person Peter felt could be an indirect sort of friend and has not lost that potentiality, but its tainted quality is not lost on anyone who knows what has transpired between them. One does not simply forget losing what went missing not so long ago, and one shouldn't, but Amory is a perhaps surprisingly good employee and this is majorly what Peter focuses on of late.

Swallowing the last bit of the bar, he folds his half of the wrapper and tucks it away into a pocket before glancing Eden's way a bit more directly this time.

"It's been pointed out to me that the weather is nice, at least." And though he says it wryly, his note of appreciation for this truth is evident in plenty too.

And that's precisely it, the constant mending and shattering of their friendship, each ragged piece stitched together with a stronger filament after every tear. That's the case for Amory, who with every loss, realizes that one cannot sever themselves from their own nature so easily. Even incessant insistence and firm declarations hold no strength to what is inherently grounded. It takes a lot for Amory to like someone, but once he has his claws in, it's difficult to pull them out without something catching and ripping.

There are different reasons he likes Eden, never in a way that a curse has forced upon them, as the two of them with similar firecracker temperaments could never function as one unit, amongst other reasons. But this is an explanation for another time, another day. For now, the stars are center stage and the two of them are the audience.

"The moon," he says, distracted as indecision sends him adjusting the angle to focus on the moon. Last week, he had been able to observe it, and surprisingly, it didn't have the consistency of cheddar or a cryptic sigil indicating the origin of the City. It was a familiar view of shadowed craters and white-gray dust, a carbon copy of the same celestial object that rotates around his own world. "You may even recognize it."

Edited 2010-06-24 00:10 (UTC)

An impossible quiet punctuates the air, and Amory observes that perfectly erect tent with an expression that would coordinate well with rotten food. Not so much because it's a challenge to his manhood, but simply because he couldn't do it himself, and his pride dictates that once he has a task underhand, he damn well better finish it. It's only a light dusting of embarrassment though, nothing that will negatively color the rest of the trip.

His lips flat-line, and with a gruff sigh he turns to face Eden.

"I've never had tent duty before."

Eden was in the army, right? Doesn't that automatically come with tent-assembling skills?

A propensity for adventure has been a steadfast trait throughout twenty-three years, curtailed little by the stark reality that had tempered both the desire and idealism in his life. From childhood explorations of scouring every furrow, hill and waterway of his father's vineyard, to digging through mounds of sand at China Beach in hopes of excavating an orange crab or some rarity of seashell, Amory has always been in search of some mysterious, brighter thing. Funny for someone who's life is the epitome of mysteries, but a distant perspective of an outsider is unlike that of one who actually owns that life. Unusual things become normal when it's the only constant you know.

There's no need to tell him to follow, for Amory has already launched off to following that awfully strange path, keeping courtesy in mind in making sure his steps keep in line with Claire's. Curiosity helps keep his lesser qualities at bay. The murmur of crickets crescendos the closer they get to the thick spread of trees, to the point where it's more of a chorus of tiny singers than a murmur. But where they really crickets? Who knew in a City like this; they could be chirping rabbits for all they knew.

Or they could be crickets, just as the moon was just the moon. (Or a projection of a moon)

Branches and cobwebs form of thick tangle of overgrowth, of what should have been the clear entrance their path would have cut into. Luckily, Amory's not scared of spiders, and few brusque strikes against the spidersilk makes that opening a bit more inviting. Pushing aside the branches, he dips through the entrance and into the first layer of the forest.

Claire lingers a moment after Amory has passed under the branches, through the opening into the belly of the beast, so to speak. Not because she's hesitant or feels uneasy but because she needs the time to roll her eyes and scoff at him and what amounts to a display of some kind of hyper-focused bravery. Or something. Spiders make her itch and bugs make her arms curl up against her clavicles but there's no fear for them or anything else that might be out there in the late hour. At least not as far as Claire's person goes, which is as much of a reminder to catch up to him as the sound of him breaking through stick and vine is.

One hand extends to push aside the branches for herself as well, muttering something under her breath about pride and chivalry, and she pops out on the other side with a sharper degree of ease than he had. Being petite often has its advantages in surprising ways and places, and Claire finds herself barely needing to stoop under the same branches he has to at least angle his head to miss. Sweat makes her t-shirt cling to the dip of her back and uncomfortably along her shoulders, and Claire streaks dirt across her forehead - a product of carrying that stick everywhere she goes - as she pushes hair damp from her forehead out of her face.

In a way, it is sort of nice out here, looking up through the canopy to see the moon peeking through leaves and branches, crickets and other noises Claire can't place - not that she would be able to back in the real world, either - but there is still a lingering sense of discontent as they move further and further from the camp and from the City. What if something goes wrong and she can't get back to help? What if they get lost out here and she has to spend the rest of her life wandering in circles with Amory? What if he gets eaten by a bear?

The soles of her hiking boots - hastily bought and barely broken in - crunch over a particularly tangled group of twigs and snap everything with a bone-breakingly loud pop. Claire winces. "Maybe I should lead."

With Claire's offer, he raises an arm to usher her forward, hanging backwards to give her the lead. Amory has no urgent need, or any need at all, to display his chivalrous qualities. Honestly, he's more of a reptile than a lion, and if the indestructible Claire offers to lead the party, then she's fully welcome to.

And there's nothing to fear in terms of getting lost, as even a prick like Amory comes with unspoken insurance in the form of the ability to cross distances in a single blink. (Though do add in some hard concentration and effort.) As long as he's not trying to break invisible barriers, like that incident where he was snapped backwards like a rubber band and dropped on top of Caspian, then Amory can get them back to camp. Obviously, this is no remedy to Claire's worries, as he maintains his no disclosure policy. There's safety in precaution, and perhaps Claire herself is familiar with the saying, given the months preceding her own admittance on the network.

But don't forget, in a state of adventure, nerves and worry can compliment the press of tension, providing a good breed of urgency and climax that transitions the everyday into a movie scene. Gets your adrenaline pumping, that sort of thing. In any case, Amory's not pondering anxieties like Claire, focused on the trees and dirt floor around him. He swears that something just darted out of patch of thick ivy swaddling the bottom of a tree trunk. Too quick to catch with a human eye, barely there in a way that it might have never been there. His attention quickly disconnects from the ivy as what sounds like a ringing of bells resonates through the dusty forest air. Or like someone hitting one note of a xylophone over and over again--- suddenly, an repetitive shriek from what must have been a bird; a call that imitates the sound of screaming human all too well.

"I can't tell whether this place is creepy or corny. Maybe a portion of both."

It's all making him roll his eyes, to be honest.

I ask myself the same thing about you everyday, she thinks but doesn't actually bring herself to say. They're supposed to be cooperating, getting along to the best of their mutual abilities, and it's only going to give him wiggle room if she lends him a step up over her on top of making the rest of whatever sort of side-quest this turns out to be unpleasant. Instead of quipping anything over her shoulder, Claire sweeps her gaze up to the tops of the trees, looking wherever she can for the source of whatever that was. Her gaze settles on Amory's face and she raises both of her eyebrows.

Having been here as long as she has, the endless parade of monsters never gets old in much the same way that it never gets necessarily anymore frightening. The Underground had provided enough horrors when she'd gone down there to investigate with Wanda - orange-skinned monsters with missing fingernails and yellowing eyes, bulbous bellies with faces pressed against the skin - and plenty of the things that she's seen that have nothing to do with monsters at all have served to prepare her for most things. But still. That bird had sounded familiar, in the same way that hearing someone you love scream is something you never forget.

She bounces back, as she always does, and extends her stick a considerable distance, like taking a step to make a point. "It's like one of those haunted corn mazes that they put on during Halloween. With maybe a little bit more of a creep factor," she admits, coming up short as something rustles in the bushes not far off from where they're moving less than silently. Claire pauses, watching the moonlight glow off the tops of shivering leaves. "I doubt that's a guy with a chainsaw, though."

At least, she hopes. After all, she did say something about Big Foot and yodelers.

"Yeah well I would have let yeh fumble with it until yeh exploded but I have to sleep in that tent." Eden checks the ropes and the poles. "'sides yeh can do the cleanup."

That takes no assembly at all. Eden's got the kind of smirk on her face that says well, this is how we do things where I come from, sorry Amory. It's the fact that her social skills are stunted to the stone age that gives this ability, okay?

Or something like that.

Weather. Really? Eden grins a bit. "Well it would only make this trip more of a fuckin' hell if it rained, right? Gods must take pity on us mortals." She tips her head a little. She doesn't know what to make of this High King, of this boy who is sometimes a man. There's magic in his blood but she isn't looking, she'll let it sit there. None of her business, anyway.

He's so serious. What to say?

"How'd they manage to get yeh up here, anyway?" There. Good enough.

Eden wonders if he's being cynical or just plain sarcastic. Sometimes it's hard for her to gauge tone, but she looks up at the mood. "What do you mean?" Does he mean that the moon looks different?

Eden's never seen anything up close: not really. Not stars. There's never been a reason for her to look up when all her problems are so much so close, so immediate. There isn't anything up there that can solve what's going on down here.

"What do you mean you have to sleep in that tent? This one is mine," he blinks, then motions to another pile of tent pieces beside him. "Yours is there."

No, he hasn't realized how the division of tents is going to go, or that they forgot to bring a fourth one that would have allowed Eden and Amory to sleep by themselves.

Well, this shouldn't be too awkward. Unless another curse similar to the one they will never speak about again occurs. Hopefully not?

It's the fact that they seem part of another world all together that has always enchanted Amory, an escape from what was far too close and far too immediate. Different personalities, different reactions, but he thinks that anyone can enjoy a close-up of the stars. For thousands of years people have done it, such that the attraction between humans and the night sky must be inherent.

Amory's not being sarcastic here, but genuinely honest. He's too caught up in his work to waste his breathe on cynicism or sarcasm. "Come here," he glances backwards, lifting a hand to wave her over, "Take a look."

She looks into the eyepiece, carefully, just bending over. It's an incredible sight, she has to admit: the moon, with all the crags and crevices, scarred just like she is. She wonders in a brief poetic moment if the moon is like her, ashamed of the dark half that no one ever sees. She moves back and looks at Amory in surprise for a second.

"That's what it really looks like!" It seems like such a childish moment, but Eden's never had this, she's never had astronomy lessons, it's never been anything that the moon had shadows.

Eden turns and points to the tents one by one. "Claire and Caspian can sleep in that one, they're friends, and Peter's gonna wanna sleep alone and considerin' his face I think we should let him, so that leaves this one..." she indicates to the tent in front of them, "Which yeh'll be sharin' with me."

Eden's eyebrows raise and fall a couple of times, and she sighs. "Good with yeh?"

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Campfire ][

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sdjfahjl UGH i keep on getting back when you sleep. ;;

It's a vicious cycle

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