ArchivedLogs:Dirt

Dirt
Dramatis Personae Ash, Kay, Lia
In Absentia	2013-10-19 '
Location <NYC> Village Lofts - Rooftop - East Village
It tends to be windy, up here, but the presence of plastic table and folding chairs suggests that nevertheless building residents occasionally make their way out to this rooftop. With a good view of Tompkins Square Park less than a block away it's a good spot for city-watching. There's a railing around the edge, though it might be possible (if /unwise/) to climb over it to the narrow concrete ledges beyond and from there to the fire escape. Centrally, someone has broken down crates and constructed a small raised-bed garden up here, barren in winter but filled in three other seasons with a small assortment of herbs and vegetables. The concrete wall that rings the roof has been decorated, painted in vivid bright shades by some artistic hand to add colourful cheer to the rooftop. The mural shifts in terrain One wall sports a beach, flecked with grass and seashells and driftwood and shore birds. Beach transitions into meadow, colourful with wildflowers and butterflies and dragonflies; meadow shifts into snow-capped mountains, subsides into piedmont and sprouts into a verdant forest on the fourth, alive with animals. It is a clear, crisp, sunny fall afternoon that is fading into early evening. This suits Lia just fine, as she still has somewhat of an aversion to being indoors for all but the shortest of intervals. As such, she is back up on the roof, sitting on the wall and watching the cars and people move about down below. So tiny. Now and then, she puts her hand into her line of sight, between her eyes and the movement below, so that it seems her fingers could interact to block a person's path, to pluck up a car and turn it about, to act as a perch for a small flock of pigeons. Her tiny form is dressed, still, in too-large clothes picked from the communal donation pile. A large grey hoodie with a paint splatter in green all down one arm is keeping her warm, wrapped over a T-shirt and a pair of brilliant purple yoga pants. The pants would be long enough to drag on the ground, but the cuffs are being held up by the laces from her sneakers (also too large and tied extra-tight), which she has tied in bows around her ankles to prevent them from falling off. Lia's look-alike doll, Coppelia, is seated beside her, also seeming to observe the goings-on below. Ash makes his way to the roof quietly, nodding to people who say hello to him and those that just eye him strangely in their hypervigilant way. He doesn't seem to mind, wandering around in jeans and a gray t-shirt that has a huge bleach stain on it that has turned different splotches white and peach. He wanders merrily along until he comes to the planters, still somewhat green despite the lateness of the season. He moves to one that doesn't seem to be doing so well and reaches his hand in near the dirt, stirring it gently like it is water instead of earth. When he pulls his hand out, he presses it against his other hand and rubs them together. Instead of cleaning the dirt off, it spreads it out across his arms. He then pats his face with dirt until it sticks, a blissful look on his face. As distracted as the girl seems, her head turns quickly to the door when it opens, muscles tensed in just a hint of a jump at the sound. Her wide, brown, doe-like eyes track the newcomer's movements, either out of simple interest or threat assessment. Lia pulls the doll a little closer, cupping a hand around her protectively. When Ash starts playing in the dirt, her posture relaxes again, her observation becoming more clearly curious. Her head cants to one side, as if the tilted perspective is of assistance in figuring this new person out. Ash continues his wallowing, grabbing another hand full of dirt to rub against the back of his neck, cooing softly under his breath. He settles down on his bum and continues to rub the dirt around in his hands, rubbing until it forms a small ball. He keeps turning it over and over, shifting the shape into that of a tiny disk, then back to a ball. He looks up when he realizes that he has Lia's attention and gives her a little smile. "Hi." Lia twists in her seat to better regard the boy playing in the dirt. One of her hands reaches up to wave, each finger flexing independently. The index finger isolates itself, travelling over to point at the back of her neck indicatively. Apparently Ash has some shmutz going on. Right there. Lia is so helpful. "OH! You want some too?" Ash moves to stand back up, the little ball of earth crushed in his hand, turning back into a small pile of lush black dirt. He smiles as he keeps his distance though. "Personally, everyone teased me when I got out and all I wanted to do was be dirty. It was always so ... clean in there. I didn't like it at all. Now I am dirty when I want to be and it's lovely." "In there?" Lia finally speaks up. "Were you in rooms?" Her eyes are following the metamorphoses of the earth-substances more than Ash's face. "Does it...feel nice?" She looks thoughtful for a moment. "I got things in my hair. On the playground. They picked it back out. But it didn't feel much. Grass. Wood bits." She combs her fingers through her loose ash-brown hair. They tangle in it a bit. "Well, hair doesn't feel the same way that skin does, you know." Ash pauses and eyes her before amending his statement. "Well, my hair doesn't and most doesn't, but I've seen so many different mutants, I wouldn't be surprised if someone ended up with hair that feels things." He draws in a deep breath and shrugs, moving to lean up against a planter. "Now, believe it or not, but some people pay a lot of money to be smeared with mud. They call it a 'masque' or a 'mud bath' and they say it does wonderful things for their skin. In the end, they wash it off and smear lotions and other smelly things on. I figure, what's the point? Why not just have nice, fresh, clean dirt on me all the time?" Lia leans forward toward Ash as he speaks. Lean, lean, and then there is really no further to go with her centre of gravity unless she wishes to fall in off of her perch on the wall. She slips down, approaching the planter very slowly--if somewhat /clompily/ in the large sneakers. Coppelia gets a nice seat on the ground, her back supported by the planter. Lia kneel-sits between Ash and the doll, just staring down into the planter's contents. Her hand hovers several inches above the soil. "What do I do?" Because there must be a proper method for these things, right? "OH, nothing special. Here." Ash holds his hand out for her, presenting her with dirt. A pale little hand turns itself palm-up to receive the earthy gift. Lia stares down into her hand as if the dirt is going to /do/ something, all on its own. "It's soft," she concludes. "Ground is not soft. Isn't the ground made of dirt?" Her other hand joins in, a single finger prodding into the handful of dirt, aerating it with a number of cylindrical holes. Ash pours the dirt for Lia to hold, quiet as she gets used to it. "Yeah, dirt's a funny thing. It can be soft and gentle, but at the same time, if you just keep applying pressure, it becomes hard and unyielding. You just have to know how to treat it. Now, dirt like this? Jax and his friends have been taking good care of it, tilling it up, gently watering it, putting delicious plants in it that feed off the minerals while leaving other material behind. It's good earth. It's some of my favorite. I just love the smell of it." He lifts his fingers and takes a long whiff, quiet in his enjoyment. "It's okay if it's not for you. Haven't really found many people who like dirt like I do." "Good dirt," Lia concludes from Ash's speech. Her finger traces through it in formless patterns. When he discusses its smell, she brings it up to her face, the end of her nose touching into it slightly. She draws in a deep breath. "I don't know what it smells like." This may serve as an admission of inability to describe, or that the smell is relatively unfamiliar. "Ahh, well, it's like a flower, I suppose, but less fragrant. Different flowers smell like different things. This one smells..." Ash raises his hand to his nose again. "This smells a bit of peat moss and a little... hmmm, a bit like the cow field the fertilizer came from. There's also the tang of the tomato plant that lives in it, but that will fade unless the tomato is mulched back into it. Don't worry. If you want to learn how to smell where dirt comes from, you can, in time." "Are you a farmer?" Lia asks, with piqued interest. "You know a lot about dirt and plants. I have never met a farmer." Her head tilts again as she thinks. "They write about dirt and farmers a lot. I have /read/ a lot about these things... 'Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys / Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs; / Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet / Clear of the grave.' (1)" Her nose crinkles. "That's not quite the same. It's sad. When they talk about dirt there is almost always dying. But you make it sound happy. And it doesn't smell...like dead things smell. Not like dead people smell." Apparently that is a more familiar odour to the girl than dirt. "I'm not quite a farmer, but I have grown some food. Mostly, before, I was just a kid who played in the mountains, climbing rocks, and sleeping under the stars." Ash smiles as he listens to her recite poetry, his gaze growing a little distant. "That's nice, though, you know, laughing in flowers. It's a beautiful thought." He draws in a deep breath and dips his hand in the planter once more, pulling out another small handful of dirt. "It might seem morbid to think of the grave, but every living thing on this earth eventually returns to the soil in some way and makes the soil rich for future plantings. Granted, it'd be nice if we waited until time made us old first." He starts balling up his dirt again, this time, the shape is that of a star. "That's like magic," the girl declares, wide-eyed again. "Making food. Just dirt. Water. Sun. Food. Magic." Lia's fingers scrunch at the dirt in her hands, feeling the grit and the way it compresses, watching as the grains slip between her fingers and back into the planter. "We don't go in dirt. We go on metal tables and in cold drawers. The keepers poke and cut and measure and there is no dirt." Her hands change from just scrunching to balling up in fists. "Dead people aren't nice. It's not nice to be in them." The door of the roof opens rapid, with the professional 'bump' of Kay's bony hip, a thrust of long fingers through ratty-blond hair, a subtle visible ripple of heat escaping the stairwell with him. Black bandana tied around a bicep, singed denim kutte. For one moment, it's only hard-tanned face turned to the sunlight, slow roll of hips from left foot, a step forward, right - and then upturned amber eyes alight on Ash, on his company, and he's striding towards them with squared shoulders. "The man that can move mountains," he rumbles in his hard-happy coyote tenor. "It's a bit like magic." Ash agrees, smiling. He lifts the star and turns it over in his fingers, looking at the different sides. "You're in luck, hun. There's dirt out here, I promise, I..." He's about to say something else to the smaller girl when Kay comes on the scene. He raises an eyebrow and sets the star down as he stretches up to his full height. "Well, if it isn't the proud eternal flame." He smiles small and warm at first, then lets his grin blossom on his face until his pearly whites are showing. "Kay. Good to see you, man. I tried calling after that thing in Harlem, but I couldn't get through." Lia startles again when the door opens, another little jump interrupting the dark thoughts that had been clouding her face. Her hands open to drop the remaining dirt from them back in the planter, a little too-quick, as if she is afraid of being caught with it. When the new man approaches, she rubs her hands down the front of the hoodie, rapid swipes to remove the worst of the dirt from her hands before she grabs up the doll, setting it in her lap. She watches the pair over the doll's head, quiet. "Yeah, I been getting that," Kay's teeth aren't so pearly but he'll reveal them, wide, a hand thrown out to clasp hands with Ash. To drag him forward, to THUMP a hand on his back. "Had to kinda clear out of the garage, what with all the terrorism." The quiet withdrawing of the young girl may or may not be specifically noticed - it isn't commented on, instead Kay just... leans back on a hip, regarding the girl with his eyes pinched, while his hands go about their own business. Patting through his pockets, fishing inside his kutte, withdrawing a pack of cigarettes. He uses the carton, finally, to draw a lazy little in air around the dirt pot, "What's all this." Ash moves forward to give Kay a back thump as well, a little squeeze added on the end. He turns back to the planters and to Lia, his brows rising suddenly and his smile disappearing. "Oh. no. There's no need to be afraid. This is Kay. He's my friend. He was in the labs with me and now we're out together. He's a good guy. Even borrowed a church for a while to help some people like us escape bad guys." He moves forward to reassure her. "Ahh. and this? This is Jackson's garden. He grows some food up here. It's a pretty good idea and all, for the warmer months. Helps keep his little herd fed - well, the ones that eat plants anyway." He pauses. "Did I tell you my name?" he asks of Lia. "It's Ash." The girl's eyes widen further and further yet, as if they plan to consume the rest of her wan little face. Lia winces as Ash is pulled and thumped. She presses her back up against the planter, dragging the doll further up in front of her torso as if it will protect her. The cigarette pack draws a wary look, uncertain of its purpose but suspecting ill intent. When Kay questions the garden plot, her lip starts to quiver. "I won't touch it again. Don't touch. I'm sorry," she answers in a small voice. Ash's assurance, then, earns a look of confusion. Though she seems reassured to have the boy physically between herself and the new man. "Friend? He hit you." Her head tilts as she thinks on this further. "You hit him, too." She dares to glance at Kay again. "He was in the rooms?" Ash giving his name earns a small nod, a quiet reply of only, "Lia." "Haah, man, you say it like we crashed the church on purpose," Kay murmurs like it's no particular consequence to him, hunched over his to lip a cigarette butt from the pack - but even in this, the side of his mouth his snarled back in a toothed smirk that's either cocky or just... angry. There's no evidence it's at anyone present, contained inward into the raising of a cupped palm, where oily heat-shimmers ignite to lick a small ribbon of flame for him to catch a light off of. He's watching Lia with a long grim gaze - it might be more serious if he wasn't also rapidly shaking out his flaming hand, less like putting out a match and more like 'ouch-ouch-ouch-hot'. "I've been in the rooms," he says. Pulls his smoke from his mouth and leans over to - THRUST a hand into the dirt, seize out a handful, offer it out TO Lia, "And kiddo. You touch whatever you want. Your doll got a name?" "It didn't hurt," Ash admits looking a little sheepish. "It was like a hug, really. Just a thumpy hug. If it hurt, I would have told him not to do it and he would have listened to me." He chuckles a little when Kay fetches some dirt for Lia and moves to take a seat on the ground. "Well, churches are good for borrowing like that. I would have come down and helped, I just didn't know it was serious until it was over. Kind of the downsides to not have a TV. My roommate didn't have one when I moved in and you know how I am." Lia draws back again at Kay's snarl, his assertion that he, too, had been in Prometheus custody not doing much to assuage her fear at his expressions. She jumps at his sudden movement, looking at his handful of dirt like it might /bite/ her. She starts to whimper, but apparently it has been a worse thing in the past for her not to answer a question, no matter how much she might not want to. "Coppelia," she manages at just above a whisper. "I should go now? I should go. Please?" "Oh, I'd listen. But he /loves/ it. Pweeeew," it's not really a whistle so much as the whisper of one, as Lia withdraws. The side of Kay's mouth twists; it doesn't lose the perma-smirk shape but it ages it badly, worn out and kind of nodding to himself, "They've done a number on you." He withdraws the dirt, drops it back into the planter and brushes off his hands, "Nah, kid, I'll go. Was just saying heya. Hang in there, huh? It'll get better." Ash gets a playful slow-motion shadow-box to the forearm, maybe a little gentler for Lia's sake, if the brief 'oh-crap-right' glance to the young girl is any indication, "Keep it together, dirtworks." He's not going inside yet, he has a smoke to mow through, but he swivels his hips to round the side of Ash to prowl off to a more private corner to draw up his legs and blow smoke at the sky. "Oh, Lia. You can go if you want, or we can just back off and let you play out here with Coppelia by yourself." Ash draws in a deep breath and looks over at Kay. "We want you to know you're safe here, okay? No one's going to do anything to you. We're not going hurt you and we're not going to make you do anything you don't want." He rubs his hands on his thigh lightly and draws in a deep breath. Lia just nods silently to acknowledge that she is hearing words. As soon as Ash gives permission to leave, however, she is on her feet in one swift-fluid motion. "I should go," she says again, with almost the air of an apology, before darting to the rooftop door and away down the stairs. *(1) Because Lia-player can't not cite sources for quotations: "Hamatreya" by Ralph Waldo Emerson, stanza 2, lines 3-6.