When Aimee showed up at the stream, I listened to her start to say her name, but she cut herself off and I wondered why.

When we got back to the clearing, I laughed at Lacie's introduction. "You think that's as bad as it gets? That'd be great!" 

I turned to glance around the clearing with interest, watching the guy in the trench coat bag a bird, and then get into a fighting stance as someone else came into the clearing, looking like they just ran a race with death. I headed over and crouched to extend a hand to him, grinning. "It's okay. C'mon." I helped him up-- or not, if he decided to get up on his own-- and turned to stare at the guy with the crossbow.

"No shooting people," I warn him mildly, wincing as my voice gets a little bit nasal as it often does, before heading to the middle of the clearing and thinking. It would be really cool to grow a big strong oak tree in the middle. Maybe there are fast-growing plants here. I should check out how the fauna works, try farming the stuff that's edible... see how long it takes to grow. It seems like the group was having a mite of trouble getting enough meat for everyone considering that they were satisfied with one bird for-- the four of us from the stream, Lacie, the two guys here... and the other guy, that makes seven, right? No, eight, whoops, and I guess a farm could really help out, so I head off to get a big stick and head near the food stash. I judge the distance between that and where I want to plant stuff to be around five feet, and then I move closer to the middle of the clearing by another two feet so it won't be right next to the trees where anything could eat the roots and stuff. Then I start digging and stuff with the stick, making little rows of holes big enough for seeds, and stick my hand in my pocket, pulling out the seeds from the fruits I'd managed to eat earlier without puking it back up. I'd had this idea earlier, but with nowhere to settle down, I'd decided to just... well... not do it yet. I don't notice just how much I'm zoning out and focusing on what I'm doing.

I planted the seeds and buried them lightly in dirt and then drew a big rectangle around where they were planted, snapping the stick into four pieces and sticking them in each corner of the rectangle. Then I wrung some water out of my shirt onto them, and moved on to try to squeeze more water out of my clothes onto the seed's places. If they grew at a decent rate, we'd have food soon, and if they didn't grow fast enough in case we had to move, at least then I'd know how long it'd take for next time. Then I realized I'd look really dumb if this wasn't their actual camp... come to think of it, it didn't really seem like a camp. Well, shit. Too late now.

Then I got this feeling that people might be staring at me and glanced around in a brief instance of paranoia. Hope I haven't been behaving inappropriately for the situation... again. I do it too often. I get kind of an ESP kind of sense that I'm being weird sometimes. Most of the time it's right.