tushanshu_logs | Ellie ➭ open ➭ arrival

Entry tags:

Ellie ➭ open ➭ arrival

Characters: Ellie ➭ open
Date: 9/16/15
Location: Central Sector
Situation: Ellie arrived four hours ago and is on her way to either the Welcome Center or The Midnight Hotel when she thinks she spies a familiar face!
Warnings/Rating: Swearing/R

Juulans, Ellie thought as she made through a busy street named something she had no idea what. It was important to be alert and aware of her surroundings, that was for damn sure, but she was significantly overwhelmed.

She woke up about three or four hours ago, she couldn't be entirely sure, but what she did know was that she had a lot to keep in mind. She had been told about a consoles that were available in some hotel and at the welcome center that would be beneficial to check out either of those two locations first before she wandered off too far and too deep into this place.

Something more about these beneficial computer-biological anatomic features veined into the buildings was that there were handsets that were a part of this network if she had interest in picking one up.

Either she could communicate widely through the consoles featured throughout the city or she could use her own headset which she likened to walky-talkies of her own world. My own world.. Ellie still didn't feel comfortable wrapping her mind around the fact that she was on a different world, on the back of a turtle, and already walking in a 120+% increase of population she's ever been around in her whole entire life. It was common to see people, sure, see people back on Earth in groups, in communities, but their numbers were barely on the scale to how many people she's already seen!

It helped to soften the blow about the variations of style the kedans came in to have one with scale-green skin, big oval eyes, and feathered hair explain all this to her. It took about an hour before she was receptive to the native's helpful endeavors, however, on the account the novelty of everything was still freaking her quite the fuck out.

Even still she walked with a numb feeling in her stomach and held her arms close to her body in a fold over her chest. Her goal was to get to the center or the hotel, whichever one came first.

"What––?" Ellie narrowed her eyes and looked ahead. There she could have sworn she saw someone she knew, someone familiar. But was that possible? Would they be here?!

"Hey! Hey! Wait!" She started to shove her way through the crowd to try and catch up with them. "Hey! Wait!"

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Louis was not the object of her interest, though he was aware of her discomfiture trying to catch up with someone. He happened to be one of those on her way to find that friendly face in the crowd. Normally Louis was very good at dodging any unwanted touch but the throng of people here was to thick for him to evade the girl child without making a scene himself.

When she bumped into his arm, Louis reached up to gently touch at her arm in return to be certain that she did not lose her balance or hurt herself. When their eyes met, he gave her a small smile though he did not expect her to be comforted by it. Normally his overly bright eyes and exceptionally pale skin were enough to make any mortal recoil.

"Be careful, you may fall."

Ellie was so focused on that familiar sight that whoever she bumped into, brushed past, stepped on was a casualty she could live with. She didn't stop to apologize, but she did try to warn people ahead with things like: 'out of my way!; come on, move it!; excuse me!; Jesus Christ...! Move!' but no one seemed to pick up on her urgency.

No one was moving!

Ellie then came to a clumsy stop as a hand came to touch her. "Hey, woah!" She turned to face the hand which brought her eyes up to the man's face and she froze.

He was so pretty! It was so weird! Ellie lowered her eyes then down his arm to his hand then brought her green eyes back up to his own. "Uh.." Her pursuit was completely forgotten alongside her general life ambitions, goals, morals and lack of, as well as her name.

Right off the turtle's back.

A small parcel tucked under his arm, Robert was intending on making his way home, and to take advantage of the relative freedom of the rest of the day. Either through more tinkering, or maybe some conversation with Thomas, or-

He paused, looking back over his shoulder as he heard what sounded like a young lady's cry. Was someone-? There was, apparently, by the sight of a youth weaving her way towards him. Brow furrowing, he moved off to the side to get out of the thicker parts of the crowd. Hopefully it'd be easier for her to make her way...

"...is there something I can help you with?" he asked, once she'd gotten close enough.

Ellie made her way through the crowd with only a few more shoves and stomps on people’s feet. She was getting short of breath and began to think it was far better a fate of too little rather than too many!

Perhaps she was bias — she’s only used to a few people running across her path every once in a blue moon! But, Hell, everyone and their friends were in her way now! Maybe this is where all the people from earth went after they’ve kicked the can.

Doubtful, but it was irritating.

Ellie had time enough to push aside her agitated thoughts by the time she caught up with the man who she mistook for someone else. Perhaps it was her foolish hope but she knew about ten feet back this was not who she thought it was, yet she kept moving forward.

“Ah - uh..” Her breath was heavy and her fingers anxiously wiggled to the sides of her thighs. “Well.. I .. just.. I guess I thought you were someone else.. I thought.. I knew you..” She shook her head and mentally scolded herself: Dammit, I should have just stayed back and made sure before I went crazy like that.. wonderful, great, this is how I’m going to start my life here. Chasing ghosts.

“Sorry..” She shook her head as an awkward feeling settled in her lower gut.

Louis had the hint of a smile on his lips, only detectable in the very minute muscle movement of his cheeks. His eyes were watching hers, green like his own, though much more beautiful in his opinion for the mortality in them. When she stared over-long at him, he cocked his head slightly and looked over her form.

She seemed unhurt by the bump. He straightened himself, then lowered his chin as he continued staring. "Are you lost? Do you need any help?" It was somewhere to start anyway.

Enjolras was fairly certain he was not the one being addressed personally, but he also sort of assumed this was one of those times that a stranger was still calling for assistance, and a young lady at that. He turned, shifting an armload of books, scanning the crowd until he located the girl in question, and made his way over, smiling a bit.

"Mademoiselle? Can I be of some help to you?"

Ven was minding his own business, wandering around the city without any particular destination in mind. He was still a bit shaken by the executions that went on-- it was just too much for him to grasp. The invaders had harmed, even killed people, and that was inexcusable, but was murder really the way to go? The sentimental side of him longed for a different approach-- imprisonment, maybe, but then, justice had to be served, and some people were beyond saving.

Normally, he'd be bobbing around, engaging in friendly conversations with the locals, and waving to friendly faces with a big, bright smile, but today he was lost in thought. Well... at least until Ellie called out to him, snapping him out of his daze and making him jump.

His shock was short lived, and he spun around to find a new face coming his way. A welcome distraction that he faced with a smile. "Uh, hey there!" Well, at least he might be able to make a new friend.

The weird displaced feeling came and washed over her but as soon as she started to dry she became aware again of her situation and of the person she was pursuing. She quickly looked ahead in the direction she last saw that familiar sight and found that they were gone, gone and without a trace of where.

"Ah, shit.." She said with a furrow to her brow and she jerked her hand toward that direction. "I thought I saw someone I knew but.. they're gone.." She looked to the guy who was at fault for distracting her! Jesus, he could be like.. a model. She thought briefly of historic magazines printed that she found along her journeys back home.

"Ah, uh." She felt awkward again and shook her head. "Okay, so.. I'm not from here, actually I just got here ... a few hours ago, that's all still running around in my head.."

Ellie slowed to a halt as she caught sight of a man coming toward her. Her natural response would be to high-tail it out of there but this wasn't an infected person coming to bite her face of. But that didn't mean his clear complexion and soft smile meant there was a monster beneath that skin!

She shook her head, though for more to clear her own thoughts than to respond to him.

"Ah.. what?" She didn't catch the first thing he had said but there was definitely recognition for his endeavor to be helpful. "Yeah, sure.. thanks, I––" she glanced away from the man to see if she could get a better angle on her subject of interest to find that the familiarity washed away to a strange face with feathered features perked out from the outline of the man's face.

"I guess I don't know that person," she gestured down the way with a furrow to her brow. "I was on his tail, I thought for sure he was ... from my world but.. we don't have uh.. bird-like people where I'm from.. just," she brought her attention back to the stranger that approached her. "Just mushroom-like people."

Louis was patient as he waited, still as a statue except for a slight tilt of his head which came once she used a curse word. He rather thought her too young for it but then again the teenagers of the year he came from were quite a bit more rough than he had experienced in previous decades and generations. Naturally that was not to say she was anywhere from near his year but at least this decade of his had prepared him for such behavior.

Once she looked back to him and finished his thought, he had a nod for her and straightened himself. "We are in the same boat then, as the saying would go, or more aptly 'on the same turtle.' Would you like me to help you find whom you were looking for?"

When the boy turned around she nearly stumbled over in surprise. The face was not who she was expecting! At first she thought this kid was someone from the East Boston military school she ended up, but she was highly mistaken! "Woah!" She managed to regain her balance as she had come to that quick stop in her jog to catch up with him––

I think his name was Billy.. Mistaken aside, at least she was greeted friendly enough!

"Ah, hey!" She responded with a little apprehension as a warmth came to her face. "Sorry, I .. thought you were someone else!"

It wasn't hard to pick out someone projecting their voice toward you in a crowd. Maybe a learned skill, but once you had the mind to pay attention for it, you never quite stopped paying attention. Cain stopped where he had been heading down the street, just another dead end into his personal research when someone called out to him. He turned, located the source of the voice, and waited for her to catch up with him.

Young was the first thing he noticed, with foreigner being the second, slightly-less familiar distinction he had to make. No kedan would stop a foreigner in the middle of the street like that, and most kedan prided themselves on not blending in with the human population even if they did like the humanoid form. There was usually some kind of difference in the way a human wouldn't be able to approximate. No, this was a young girl flagging someone down — maybe because he was a foreigner?

"What's up?" he asked. Even if he didn't look a day over his mid-twenties, he was obviously concerned enough with the exclamation, responsible enough not to turn around an ignore it. Nice enough to not automatically ask if she had any guardians around or if she was lost right off the bat. Chances were yes and no, and not in that order.

The same boat? She briefly thought about Ish and his boat before she was brought back to the present and to this man. "I, sure.. uh, well he's tall, kind of has blonde hair, has a beard.." Ellie shifted her feet and then began to walk back toward the direction she last saw the guy. Tommy.

"I'm not sure if it really was someone I know but I have to see, I need to know.." She turned and went forward, with or without this guy.

Tall, blond, beard, male, he repeated to himself. Louis followed along behind the girl, slowly as all mortals walked, his eyes open wide and hardly blinking in order to take in every detail of the people they walked past and in the distance. Louis was quiet as they walked, though frequently he would glance down at the reddish-brown ponytail of the girl and moreover, noticing details of her clothing and mannerisms.

After some time and many twists and turns through the city he spoke up again. "I fear we may have lost your friend. Do you know where he might have gone? I understand there are different districts in the city."

Ellie had pushed herself to move faster, to reach further, to overcome her barriers of people shuffling around her and in front of her. It seemed impossible and daunting but with some preserverance she did not give up and she fought like Hell to get before this man––

Who she mistook for Joel.

Ellie put a quick and painful halt on her pursuit and stopped about five feet before the strange young man and nearly tumbled over herself. Her breath was heavy and her heart was racing. A mix of emotions came through her mind and dropped down to the pit of her stomach and she felt the emphasis on depression. She then felt a swell in her throat which was likely where the frustration and anxiety settled for her predicament. This turtle, the amount of people around her, her loss of her companion, and most of all the feeling of loss that was associated with being thwarted from her world and her experiences into this strange new land.

What would face her here? Would she have to continue fighting for that peace she faced with Joel on their way to Tommy's town?

"Sorry, I." Her voice croaked and she cleared that lump and tried her best to swallow that down. "I thought you were someone else..."

He saw that. She really did think he had been someone else, someone close if not good or safe but someone familiar in such a new and otherworldly place. Cain grimaced for the obvious pain and discomfort she was feeling, then looked around briefly. He gestured for her to follow him out of the general flow of foot traffic against a building; still plenty within public sight but slightly more private than standing in the way of everything else.

"It's fine, I get that a lot," he said. It wasn't even a lie. Having his genetics passed down over countless generations, not to mention the ghost of an identical twin brother lingering around the world, tended to get him a lot of turned heads just for the sheer familiarity he invoked. This reaction was more painful than most, however, and he could relate to seeing phantoms in the corner of your eye. "Now don't let me stop you if you want to keep looking around, but you look new here and I'd be remiss if I didn't offer to help out if there was anything I could do."

Ellie had to shove herself through a few more people, though she veered to the closest building to walk beside so she could focus on watching just one side of her for that familiar body.

It was his hair, even that jean jacket with stains on it. The more she walked, looked, and watched for him, the more she became less enthused that this person was actually Tommy.

She looked over her shoulder to the man's sudden voice and for some reason she had expected him to wander off in lost interest. After all what investment did he have in her, what investment did anyone have in anyone? When and where she came from, people were measured for use and it was not too common for people to just gather people for the sake of it. Friends of necessity rather than anything else.

Right?

She thought about Tommy, he seemed to be the type that would help the fellow last of us. But he was few in between. Out in the wilderness, out in the world, outside quarantine zones, it was every man for themselves.

Bill came to mind.

"I don't know." She shook her head and brought a hand up to pull her palm over the top of her head and squeezed her ponytail. "I have no idea where they went. I don't know about this.. place or why people would choose one district over the other! This is so fucked!" Now, in the face of defeat, frustration boiled over and brought an irate tantrum from her. "Why the hell am I here! Why are there so many goddamn people here! What's a turtle even doing this big! I can't believe it!"

Besides Claudia, Louis did not have too much experience with children. This girl was not quite a child of course, she was a teenager, but even still. He watched with fascination as she became frustrated and he assumed it was born from fear although he couldn't be certain. He was so far from his own years of frightened mortality that he could scarcely remember what it felt like, to be afraid.

He thought of losing Claudia and that fear came back strong to him, and Louis felt strongly for this child then. He frowned softly as he watched her, and he let her vent her frustrations. When it seemed she was done talking, he tried to offer some kind of encouragement.

"I can scarcely believe it myself. The city is quite busy, but that also means there could be much support for you here. There is a hotel, mentioned at the welcome center, which you are able to stay at for the time being. I could lead you there if you like?"

Ellie followed the stranger's direction to move aside the moving crowd. However, moving through the crowd she allowed a few bumps, shoves, and collides as she filtered through the motion.

She felt a rush to her head yet also a numbness that made her feel heavy and lethargic. Ellie couldn't decipher if it was the thoughts that were scattered and she couldn't keep her feelings up with those thoughts or if her feelings were scattered and her thoughts could scarcely make sense of the rush of them.

The stranger began speaking again and she brought her eyes up to the man's face and with some focus she managed to stay in this moment with him. Rather than float away into that abyss of chaotic mix of emotions, information, novelty, and response to her circumstance.

Just keep it together. It's going to be fine. I can do this. I got this.

"I'm new." She nodded, though she couldn't even begin to conceive of the best direction to respond to his offer for help. Ellie ended up shaking her head and lowering her eyes to her feet. "What can.." you do? Though she didn't think it with any connotation of dismiss, but with honest desire for some help but without understanding of what kind of help to ask for. "I don't know how you can help me." She looked to him feeling vulnerable and awkward after her honest admission.

Ellie tilt her head up toward the sky and for a long moment she stared up at the darkening light. "Is this even the same sky I know.. the same sun? Am I human here? Am I sick?" She straightened her head after that last inquiry and looked to Louis with a grunt. "I was on my way to either the welcome center or the hotel." Was she still sick here?

She sure as shit still had the mark of the infected on her arm, but she wasn't crazed and she was still aware of herself. She had her memories and future ambitions––

well she had future ambitions for her world but she would have to know new ones here. Finding the hotel or the center was a good one to start with she figured.

Cain dipped his head to the side, just a slight motion, pity for her crawling down into his heart. He wasn't one to be moved by a single person's plight, but it was different here in another dimension where there were so few people in comparison to the crush he was used to; where there were only so many that could be relied upon. Here in the Dreaming, on a floating turtle, there was nowhere else this girl could turn and she obviously recognized that fact.

"Since you're new, you probably didn't show up in the city proper," he surmised. The same thing had happened to him on his own return to the city. He shifted, gestured around them and down the road. "There are a few shops and cafés around here. Not all of them like people like us, but how about we get something to eat while we figure out where you want to go from here. I've learned the city pretty well by now, so we can help you make an informed decision. Sound good?"

Food was a hard offer to resist, and Cain knew that one for a fact. For someone who looked to still be growing and had probably been out in the heavy humidity for who knew how long before coming into a city full of strange people and stranger circumstances, he would put good money down on her accepting the offer. Even if she didn't, there were other things he could do such as guiding her to the Hotel or putting a word in at the Welcome Center or the Healers' Guild. He just didn't want to see someone willing to accept help being forced to stand alone.

"We haven't any of either where I come from, myself." Enjolras answered, "The kedan take...a bit of getting used to." The same as they probably had taken to get used to the foreigners, Enjolras realized now, since he'd been here a while.

"I do know what you mean though, about some people looking similar to those from home. There've been a few times I thought the same thing about some people who look like others. You see them everywhere, that sort of thing. It DOES get better, after a while though." He adds, since she's obviously new. "You ARE new, aren't you?"

That answered that, but at the same time, raised a few more questions. Callaghan could tell just by looking at her that he'd never seen her before - or, at least, hadn't met her, as sometimes faces could blur together. But in a way, she almost reminded him of someone...

He pushed that thought aside, nodding and offering a small smile. "It's all right, young lady. After all, sometimes this place can play tricks on you. Do you know if they're already here?"

Ellie shook her head with a huff through her nostrils and a frown to her lips. She stilled then looked up with an intake of fresh breath and a quick exhale before she returned her eyes to the man. Ellie held his eyes with her own and recalled some novel she picked up some time ago in a place far, far, away that described the impression of a character having kind eyes ––

Just plunge right into fiction there. Ellie grunted because she couldn't help but think for a foolish, childish, moment that this guy had kind eyes. Who says that?! She brought her hands together and began to pull at her long sleeves with either hand on each wrist. Maybe it had everything to do with losing her head and being swept up into the clouds and dropped on a turtle's back.

"Ah. No. I.." She cleared her throat and drew in another breath that raised her shoulders. She ducked her head and looked to his shoes. Oh, what kind shoes you have! She mentally, unkindly, teased herself sarcastically. "I just got here, I have no idea how to even.. find out if there's someone here.. I would know."

"Yeah, I'm new here." She brought her hand to subconsciously scratch at her sleeve where he bite was hidden beneath her shirt. She thought about how weird the feeling was when she thought the person she knew turned out to be a man with feathers out of his face. It couldn't be helped, she really only saw the backside of the kedan so it's not like she went following knowing that detail.

She then thought about mentioning the mushroom-people from her home land and it didn't seem weird for her at all to know them, all too well. Would it be like that with the kedan? Would she know them all too well that the surprise on the non-human biology would soon be lacking?

"Has anyone ever come from where you are.. from?"

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Ellie ➭ open ➭ arrival

Making this dusk if that's alright with you!

pshh.

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BLECH sorry about the delay

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