ArchivedLogs:Bright Skies

Bright Skies
Dramatis Personae Ash, Dusk, Isra
In Absentia	Friday, December 13, 2019 Part of the Future Past TP.
Location Detainment Camp
Tall, thick walls surround a destitute camp, with guard stations every twenty yards. On each side of the walls there are fences of barbed wire, keeping people from approaching. The ground inside is fairly barren, dirt and minimal grass, mixed with spindly steppe climate scrub vegetation. There are small block like houses lined up in a regulated fashion, filled with nothing but bunks, built out of pressure treated lumber and lined with thin mattresses and basic bedding. There is one large cafeteria building where food is manufactured and assembled, but there are no tables for eating. Two outhouses stand on opposite sides of the camp, providing minimal access to hygienic facilities, simply to keep disease from running rampant. Cordoned off by yet more barbed wire is a little slice of the modern world: two tall concrete buildings with heavy metal doors stand watch. One is the guards barracks, with hot showers, laundry facilities, entertainment and a distinguishably better cafeteria. The third floor is an office space with officer's apartments on top top, providing those who run the camp a place to go over paperwork, strategize plans. The other building, the more sturdily constructed building provides a space for further detainment of more dangerous or troublesome prisoners, those that are not seen for extended periods of time and return to the general population worse than when the left -- if they return at all. These buildings stand on either side of the only entrance to the camp, providing supports for the series of gates that slow anyone coming in or out for inspection. It's gotten cold, windy-frosty-icy; snow fell, and though it's not falling /now/ the entire camp lies under a crisp blanket that looked rather picturesque, really, hours earlier when the camp was asleep. By now it's trampled and dirty, brown in places and grey in others, footprinted and tracked through, red here and yellowed there. Dusk's tracks through the snow are distinct, taloned wings trailing two sharp-tipped points behind his footprints, scraping along behind him in his path from the cafeteria to the outhouses. His wings are curled around him capelike, and he's taken a blanket from the bunks to drape around /them/, though this doesn't stop his shivering. His hair is half tied back in a messy ponytail, though some of it flops down over his eyes -- rather deliberately, it seems, shading them from the worst of the glare of the sun off the snow, today. Wrapped in a tattered, many layered dress of gray and black--likely contrived from other tattered garments--Isra, too, wears a blanket for a cloak. The only color on her is a much-faded purple shawl draped over her horns, hood-like, then wrapped around her neck. She is perched on a barrel, her legs tucked up beneath the blanket as best she can, as they are wrapped only in long strips of cloth. One bare wing extends from the the cover of the blankets, the index talon tracing a right triangle in the snow, labeling two of its sides with numbers and one with x. Gathered around her are a number of children bundled in equally sorry garb. Their ages, where easily estimated, range from perhaps 12 to 16. The smaller ones are curled up entirely on the upturned crates that serve them for seats. They each have thin sticks with which they now begin to work out their arithmetic, save for one black-eyed child who only stares at the diagram as though not seeing it at all. Isra's ears twitch toward Dusk as he nears, but she watches her pupils work a moment longer before looking up. The wing she has only just withdrawn into the relative warmth of her blanket reaches out again, beckoning. Mealtimes in the camp are not as uplifting as meals on the outside are. There's very little warmth to the oatmeal they are serving and the scrambled egg product they dished was cold before they even considered moving it to the serving line. Still, Ash has taken a bowl of both and mixed them together and wandered out into the yard to consume it. With his head down, he spots the tell tale track marks. He heads in their direction on autopilot, only pausing to look around him when he is near the small makeshift classroom. He nods to Isra as he scoops some of his flavorless mess into his mouth. He looks in the direction she is beckoning and nods again to Dusk. He wanders until he is halfway between the pair and turns his attention to eating again. Dusk wraps his blanket tighter around him, head dipping to stifle a rattly cough into the crook of his arm. He moves over, stopping near the edge of the small lesson to tip his head down, watch the children work out the math. He circles around, crouching near Isra's barrel to tuck himself under her wing. "You eaten? There's, uh. Gruel. Could round up this pack of orphans. Get all Oliver Twisty." His chin lifts towards Ash. He pulls one hand out from under his blanketcloak, producing a bowl of delicious breakfast mush to offer Isra. Isra returns Ash's nod and curls her massive gray wing around Dusk, letting the blanket drape down over them both. "Yes, as soon as they work this one out. We're just doing a spot of review at the moment, anyhow." Even so, she accepts the proffered bowl. Her arm, where exposed between sleeve and improvised wrist warmers, is lean and pale gray. "What I wouldn't do for some chalk, though the lighting inside is grown so poor in winter that it may be moot." The students sign "FINISH" one by one, some sloppily and some with excessive flair, and turn their dingy faces up to their teacher. Isra's green eyes dart from one set of answers to the next, nodding as she works on the bowl of gruel, though she returns it to Dusk more than half full. "Very good, the answer is 'x = 6.' We shall recess for food now." At this, the children gather themselves up without much enthusiasm, a few of them mumbling thanks to Isra or erasing their work. Isra unfolds her legs from beneath her cloak and rises, a little stiffly, leaning on Dusk for support. "And how does this dreadful day find you, Sir?" This last is directed at Ash. Ash meanders toward the group once more, stuffing food into his mouth, until he realizes that the kids haven't eaten yet. He pauses his hand to mouth motion and then licks his fingers clean before pulling his bowl closer to his chest, waiting. He is quiet, too, being respectful of the students' concentration. He shifts to hide his bowl behind his back, glancing at the adult pair, shuffling toward them. he's dressed in a couple different layers of clothes over his basic boots, no blanket coat for him at this point, shifting and keeping moving to try to stay warm. When the kids are released and he is addressed, he brings his bowl back around to his front. "Ah. Well. I'm alive. How about yourselves?" Dusk tips his head down, coughing into the crook of his arm again. "Undead," he answers Ash, cheerfully. He curls a wing a little bit up and outward, propping it up to offer Isra support. "/Dreadful/, c'mon. Do you know what today is?" Isra braces against Dusk's wing and steadies herself. "Well enough, all things considered. We're trying to decide if school should let out for the winter. It seems a touch early for it." She rubs firm circles between Dusk's wings with one hand, absently. Her tail sways behind her, pulling the blanket this way and that. A couple of the children offer her a hug before walking on ahead of the grown-ups, chatting amongst themselves. "Today," she says, tipping her head back far enough to take in the sky past the hem of her shawl, "is far too bright." "What's today?" Ash's question is somewhat mystified, confusion wrinkling up his forehead. "I have no idea how any of you keep track of the date anymore. I don't even know what day of the week it is." He gives a little shrug before scooping out the last of the food and stuffing in his mouth. He chews quietly and looks up at the sky. Not finding any answers there, he turns back to his friends. "You know, scratch tally marks with my claws in the wall like any good insane prisoner does." Another sharper cough, this time, rattles through Dusk; when he pulls his hand away from his mouth there's a small pill, wet and a little bloody, held in his palm. He drops it into the snow, crushing it casually under a heel. "Nah. Every other Friday they ship in intake. Newcomers usually know the date and even if they don't you can track two week periods that way. But today," he says brightly, "is Friday the thirteenth. It's historically been a pretty good day for monsters. And today," he agrees with Isra, "/is/ fucking bright." "I feel luckier already," Isra says airily, watching her students break out into a casual snowball fight. "I wonder if we'll get any new students." None of them pausing to take cover or build up stockpiles, just grabbing their ammunition and firing away as they go. "At least a bright day presages a clear night." "Am I monster enough, I wonder, to appreciate the day -- or night for that matter." Ash gnaws on his lip as he kneels down to use snow to wash out his bowl. "All this snow just has me worrying about Jack. I hope he's back somewhere warm again. You'll have to, ah, excuse my distraction. I'm always like this a week after I see him." He draws in a deeper breath and stands up again. "So. Should we have a party? Make it a regular monster bash?" "I've been thinking warm thoughts in his direction," Dusk assures Ash. "Anyway, if you haven't taken a look at the world lately, we're all fucking monsters. I think we'll be okay. It's going to be a pretty kickass bash. Can't speak to the refreshments, though. -- You think we'll have stars? Might need 'em to navigate by." Isra inhales deeply and squints at the bright blue horizon. "We'll have stars." She looks back at the children, her expression calm and unreadable. "Whether we've anywhere to go is a different matter." Her wings rustle under the blanket restlessly. "How big a party are we talking here?" "That is the question," Ash casts his gaze back to the bunk houses and frowns. "It seems like a nice idea to have a big party, but a smaller one may party longer." He turns his gaze downward, kicking at the snow to find the ground beneath it. He squats down and digs two fingers against the damp but frozen soil. There isn't enough to make mud, but he pulls away the little bit of dirt he can and wipes it on his cheek. "Could always have a small party," Dusk concedes, tipping his head up towards the sky, "and bring a bigger one back to them. Stars will be nice. You know, I hear with happy thoughts," at his back, his wings twitch, slightly, claws tracing lines in the snow behind him, "it's possible to even fly." His head tips, eyes tracking over towards the barbed wire surrounding the walls. "New folk'll be coming soon." Isra watches her students, all freshly dusted with snow, tumble into the cafeteria. "I'd rather not rely on happy thoughts, if I can help it." A faint growl runs beneath her words. "Let's hope we don't need any." She stretches her wings out wide, heedless of the cold as they reach well beyond the coverage of the blanket. "But for now, gruel." "I am afraid I will never quite be able to think that happily." Ash exhales and gives a little smile. "Maybe I'll make an appearance at this party and really get into the next. I'll play the good host until then, yeah? New people coming and all." He follows the pair, needing to return his bowl.