Participants:
| Scene Title | Xanadu |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A scheduled drop and a dip into "fantasyland." |
| Date | October 14, 2013 |
Staten Island, outside the Dome
The night sky is filled with stars and some would say it was even a beautiful night but the Resistance knows better and as a pair of Resistance fighters perch on rooftop far enough away from the gates to not be in direct eyesight being this close is dangerous for someone that is SLC-Expressive but Eve has said they’d have about twenty minutes maybe before patrols made their way back around or as the seer said, “Once the pigeon flies I’m outta here.” But seeing a friend off on a dangerous journey was the right thing to do, danger or not. The redhead runs a hand through the fresh dye job before tugging her dark hood over her head again, the color wasn’t the most practical for hiding but that’s what hoods and caps were for. Eve Mas also had eyes watching, in her dreams or when she induces.
The journey was fast with the two of them traveling, Eli and the others left back at the camp for the evening, not many knew where the two women were off too. Eve often left without a word, always coming back. Lynette and Eli knew what to do when she turned up missing, there was always some string being pulled or blocks being put in place. Eve had been on overdrive since she had awoken inside that coffin thanks to Peter.
A cigarette gets stomped out and the pale woman looks over to her companion, “You’ll do great. You don’t look fishy at all.” Trying to keep the mood up though one of them was marching right into the maws of hell. In the distance, west of them a long line thick with families and refugees making their way to the only city left alive on this side of the country. Some vehicles but must walked, a few stragglers laid out on the ground outside of the moving line. Dead or alive nobody checked, they just wanted safety.
“Fishy,” Kaydence repeats, a grin on her face. “Thanks. That’s really reassuring, Eve.” She adjusts the lay of her knit cap around her ears, tucking a strand of brown hair back. She stares out at the horizon, remembering lights of a thriving city that didn’t need to hide under a dome. It seems like a million years ago now. So much changed in only two.
Her home is inside of that dome. She’s even welcome there, being that she’s not SLC-Expressive. She’s just trying to make a life for herself there. At least, that’s what she says. Like when she says, “The next one is going to cost you, you know. You’re running low on freebies.” They both know she doesn’t mean that. Kay Damaris has charged Eve Mas for a run back and forth from the domed city approximately once. Everything else has been a charity case or a good cause or an I owe you one.
“Put it on my tab, you know I’m good for it,” this dialogue a recurring thing between the women as she crouches to go through the supplies that Kay has brought. It’s a lone box but it’s one that’s important to Eve, food including a few bottles of milk are nestled neatly inside. A few pieces of clothing nothing too much for the smuggler to carry out herself though Kay also found a way. “How are you holding up?” The question is a pleasantry, Eve might know just how Kay was faring inside but what fun was a one sided conversation?
Eyes lift to the line of refugees in the distance and her lip curls, “False paradise. Prison. It reeks from here of terror and sickness.” She’s not here to start a fight though, not tonight. Not yet. Testing the weight of the box in case she needs to run, the seer looks again to the sky, no birds. Her mind briefly goes to Eileen, wondering where about her. She would need to check in. “We took out a robotics facility back west,” wind pulls at the tail ends of her coat as she addresses the other woman. “Wish you were there for that.” Kay isn’t a full on member of her group but Eve likes to think she is, one tribe. One family. One goal.
“For now,” Kay teases. She watches Eve go through her offered supplies. “I tried to get more, but… You know how things are. Too much and the risk gets to be too high.” Getting some supplies is better than getting no supplies. “We might have better luck next time.” Which means she’ll probably chip in some of her own food for the cause, but she’d never admit to it.
Dark brows lift and Kay whistles low. “I bet that was some light show. I’m almost sorry I missed it.” They both know she’d have gone if Eve asked her, even if she put on some big show about needing to get paid for her work. Every time she helps out with an op, she’s just temporarily helping. It’s not like she’s joined up or anything. “And you’re right. The place is… not great. But it’s keeping a lot of people alive that wouldn’t stand a chance out here. They can’t all be you and your band of merry men, Mas.”
“You did amazing as always, we’ll manage. I don’t get the munchies as much as I use too,” said gruffly and the stoner who wound up a leader in the Resistance frowned, she didn’t have much time to grow her own not when she was running from the DOEA constantly and being a thorn in their side. Something the red headed woman loved and didn’t care to hide it, they had taken so much from her already. From everyone and Eve wouldn’t rest until they were like the ash that lifted in the air in her nightmares of Kazimir.
A rogue grin blasts those negative thoughts away back to that battle, “Oh there was flash and flair,” throwing a hand out into the sky and snaking her finger in a Z formation, “I would have loved to have you, how about next time?” Promises are something the oracle aims to keep always, rushing into danger was something she could almost always promise you would happen if she was around. Eve looks more closely at Kay before nodding her head in agreement, “Kay you’re right and I’m not able to see it myself,” not in person anyway. “I just wish..” a frown replaces that grin and she stops her statement, obviously everyone just wants things to be fine now. “I wish you didn’t have to live with them.” Their oppressors, the tyrants. Mayes.
“One day, we’ll take that city and things will not just be keeping you alive, we’ll thrive again. Somehow, some way.” Wine colored lips press into a line and she shakes her head, a piece of a speech she’s given many time before, with a much more convincing tone. Showing weakness around Kay doesn’t scare Eve, Eve isn’t omnipotent and she could only do so much. A truth she rebelled against any chance she got.
“If all this shit really hits the fan,” the smuggler points out, “I need a place to stash my kid.” It’s no secret that for now, ‘Ella Damaris lives upstate, away from the city where things are still tough like they are everywhere, but it keeps her away from the worst of the conflicts. Or so Kay thinks. But if things go from bad to worse, the domed city might be the only safe place left. So, Kay keeps her head down and tries to keep in enough good graces to keep walking the razor’s edge that she does.
Kay lifts her head and fixes Eve with a long stare and a longer sigh. “Okay. Next op, I’m in.” She raises a finger, issues a warning. “But you know if I get grabbed, I’m turning your ass in.”
They both know that’s a lie.
“I don’t envy you, being so far from her.” It had to hurt but Kay was doing the greater good and Eve had much respect and admiration for that. The Dome city for as much of a hellhole was the only option for many folks like Kay said already. A tough pill for Eve to swallow. Her gaze flicks to the sky and then the ground, no bird but movement in the alleyway two streets over, Eve crouches down low and watches as a trio of human guard walk through the empty abandoned streets, ushering straggler refugees to the line away in the distance or arresting suspicious looking people.
Only when the three guards past does Eve relax and even then her hand is laid to rest lightly on her Desert Eagle that is strapped to her hip. Slowly letting out a long held breath the precog looks up over at Kay and shrugs, “Your funeral if you do.” Give her up, another part of their running script. She tries to smile but the presence of the guards so close have it so it doesn’t quite reach her doe brown eyes. Checking the pack on her back and then slinging it over her shoulder to fit snug, “Where would you go, if anywhere. Right now.” The random question something Eve had been playing with for a few days now, what fantasyland would work for her? One where the war never happened? An island with unicorns, monkeys and all the weed she could ask for?
“I’ve thought of two places.”
“If I’m in a position to turn on you, Crimson Tide, I’ve got bigger problems.” Kay gives her a wink. It’s almost as if the whole situation doesn’t leave her scared shitless. Almost. But Damaris has had one foot sinking into the soft earth of the grave for years now. When she lost her husband, she lost a lot of her self-preservation. But there are much better ways to die than the ones she seems to be racing toward.
She falls silent, falls still when the guards pass by. Relaxes visibly once they’re gone and turns a shaky little smile back to her friend. “Okay. You go first then.”
Of that they can both agree.
That wink is thrown right back, both women smiling in the face of danger. Stupid or brave? At the prompt to go first Eve does a show of thinking by tapping her chin, “Hmm well I could see myself in a nice small cottage, a hut maybe. All the trees.. And the tree. There would always be honey buns on the stovetop. My sisters would be there too, alive.” A small smile from Eve at the memory of losing first Jezebel and then Bethany, a polaroid with the three women sits folded back on Nancy, she didn’t cry as much as she use too. Waste of water she would laugh to Eli.
“The second.. Well it would be.. A roller skating rink.” The woman suppresses a snort, “We’d just be rolling along. Endlessly to wicked tunes. No weapons allowed. Only good vibes.” In another life maybe, “Mayes’ head would hang as our disco ball though, squeamish people might not want to be there. But the rest of us? We’d just be sailing on around, wind in our hair. Stevie Nicks remixes playing and endless popcorn,” she could go on. She sees the faces of her friends, of PARIAH and of everyone that’s died in front of her. If Eve could just snap her fingers and make them all come back, well the two women wouldn’t be sitting here now chancing capture or worse to meet up. She knows the clock is ticking until the bird flies but just a few more minutes in fantasyland. Just a few more.
There’s thoughtful consideration given to Eve’s fantasy settings. Where she’d rather be than here. Or where she’d like to be next. She snorts a little at the mention of Georgia Mayes’ head replacing a disco ball. That’s just the perfect kind of over-the-top for Eve. “Okay, I’m in for that one. But only if we’ve got Xanadu in the rotation. No Olivia, no skates.”
Kay leans back on her heels and thinks for a moment. “If I had my way, I think ‘Ella and I would be in New Orleans.” N’awlins “Most likely with—” She cuts herself off with a quick shake of her head. “Friends,” she offers as cover. “You know, not like I’ve got any.” This time it’s her smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Your dreams sound real nice, though. Sorry about your sisters. Don’t remember if I ever said.”
She doesn’t wish for her husband back. She wouldn’t want him to see what this world has become.
“Oh you thought I’d forget? Pfft,” throwing her hand out in a wave, “You’re on.” A wide grin for Kay’s playing along. It’s stupid in this dire time but a little slice of paradise in the mind couldn’t hurt could it? They were all grounded in the reality of their situations most of the time. “Oooh send Marie Laveau a postcard for me I’ve got some voodoo to cook up,” snickering she rubs her hands together and winks at the friends comment. “Hmm I bet.” Thinking of what kinds of friends Kay would be meeting down there. “I’d kill for some gumbo, that’s fishiness I can take.” A hoot sounds in the distance.
Out from the corner of Eve’s eye not a pigeon but an owl flies up above in the sky, dark brown feathers not noticeable in the nightlight. An eyebrow quirks before Eve is waving a hand dismissively, “Close enough,” the metaphors weren’t clear ever. “That’s my cue.”
Snapping her fingers lightly she looks over to Kay, “Almost forgot, you didn’t happen to come across ya know.. Some of my herbs,” a shifty look from left to right because getting pot was still sketch, but drugs always found a way to people. Always. “Having trouble staying asleep some nights,” and that won’t do, not if she wanted to stay ahead.
Kay seems about to say something else when she follows Eve’s sightline and sees the owl. She isn’t sure how that is the woman’s cue, but Eve Mas moves in mysterious ways and Damaris has learned not to question them.
“Not this time, I’m afraid. I’ll keep my eyes peeled, though. For you.” There’s a sliver of a smile at that before Kay is slapping the other woman’s shoulder in a friendly gesture of farewell. “Get outta here, ya old bat. I got a line to go join. I’ll see you again soon. Tell Lyn I said hi.”
“Drat, at least I have a bit of my stash left,” Eve still shares so it’s running low but she’ll survive. Just another thing to ration, luckily she had friends could help with fire if she ran out of lighter fluid. Perks of evolution. Taking the box with both hands she lifts with her knees and stands as she begins to back away to a propped open door leading into the building and down. “I’ll tell her! Be safe Kay and be ready for the call, bring your big guns lady.” A wink and Eve is scurrying away and through the doorway and down into the building.
Just as she descends the roar of a Hunter bot can be heard in the distance, she was indeed cutting it close.
“A place where nobody dared to go, the love that we came to know..” Eve sings softly and it echoes up the stairs to Kay. “They call it Xanadu..”
The notes echo and soon stop as the woman must have reached the street, she makes it back mostly with no error. As Kay is in line though later, she hears an explosion a shriek of laughter that echoes through the near hollow neighborhood.
She’ll be fine.