Location: The Telescope Room @ The Crows' Nest // Date: February 23, 2057 // Time: 09:40 // Interactions: Erik, Ajax
Lysandra did not answer the questions put to her right away. Sometimes it was more important to know where they were coming from first. As Erik stepped up to the telescope and occupied himself with peering through it momentarily, she glanced up at Ajax and narrowed her eyes in concern.
"You seem even more brooding than usual, Trenchcoat. Something up with the Cerbs?" She paused.
"You think they're using us as cannon fodder or are they trying to lure you back in?" Furrowing her brow, Lys glanced Erik's way for a split second. Even he seemed a little bit... more concerned than usual.
“Perhaps," Ajax replied,
"Or they come to us to do a job that they couldn’t, and would rather not spend more resources...” He paused, eyeing the ground momentarily.
“Or lose anymore; feeding the city.”Lys pursed her lips and arched an eyebrow.
"So, option one, basically." She backed up a couple of pushes from the table and grinned impishly.
"Don't worry, big guy, I got your back." She winked and let the smile fade.
"But as for the threats..." she settled her hands in her lap for a moment, not sure what to do with them. She shrugged.
"There's lots. Mostly thralls - the usual assortment of melee weapons, but a couple have guns." She twisted to glance over her shoulder at Erik.
"Only saw a couple of grimes, but they're usually in the dark or enclosed spaces. You know the drill with those by now."Truth be told, Lysandra had spent a good amount of time focused on the terrain, mostly just seeing if it was something she could reasonably traverse. She'd identified three tough spots and that meant Iron Horse but, in practice, there always ended up being a couple of unseen ones. She was just grateful that people here didn't huff and puff and make a big deal of it. If she needed a boost once or twice, she could get one. She blinked once and found Ajax's eyes. There was more.
"Thing is," she admitted,
"I saw a big steel cylinder... right near the mistle. At least... I think that's what it was." She tucked some hair behind an ear.
"I hope, because it if isn't..." she trailed off, wondering if Ajax might come to the same conclusion that she had.
The phrasing of her words clearly caught Ajax’s attention outright.
“…If it isn’t, we must be ready… In a dream scenario, we lure it away. Since we don’t have the luxury of dreaming, it should be our quickest members taking the sample...Suppose we might see how your failsafes for my mask stand under pressure…” Were his words of reply before starting off, presumably to his armory.
"Ha. Ha. Ajax," she called after his retreating back.
"Better go sharpen your edge some more." She rolled her eyes.
Seriously, who says 'must' that much, she thought, secretly appreciating his ripostes nonetheless. Pivoting on the spot, Lys took a few pushes toward Erik, letting herself coast to a stop.
"How 'bout you, Gramps? Notice anything?"He paused and looked up, twisting to regard her, and he was smiling, of course, like he always was. When Lys smiled that much, the muscles in her face got tired.
“Just saw most of the regulars. The Provisional Government is giving us a freebie for once.”She forced a smile back for him, tempted to ask for another look, but she was worried that'd come across as paranoid. Even in the off chance that the cylinder
was what she feared it was, she told herself that Ajax was on it. He'd have it covered, and they had numbers now: literally four more people since the last time she'd gone into the field.
"Almost sounds too good to be true," she replied, keeping her tone skeptical but light. She drew in a breath and exhaled. They were the only ones left in the room.
"I'll catch you soon. Don't get fossilized there, hmm?" Lys turned and wheeled out the door.
The cracked and battered floor tiles caused her casters to shudder as she rolled over them, and Lys made almost a game out of dodging them and sticking to the exposed concrete below. Agility was something she'd worked on extensively last summer and fall and, on top of some mean-looking biceps, it had started to pay dividends. It wasn't in any way comparable to how she'd been
before and never would be, so she'd forced herself to finally let go of those unproductive comparisons to a Lysandra who was both irrelevant and not coming back. She darted and slewed from side to side, hair flicking back and forth, fingers light on her wheels, ready to dodge those hated spots of roughly tiled floor.
She kept this up, a grown child and totally unself-conscious, all the way into her room. Lys was a quick packer, mostly because she kept her space organized. Two pre-prepped bundles of clothing, two headsets, four walkie-talkies, her battery bag, portable toolkit... she paused and rolled across the room: Journal. She opened a crate: Dried, dehydrated food. She pulled a drawer out of a shelf: Two cheap little quadcopters for scouting.
Soldering iron, pistol... She took a moment to secure her quiver to her wheelchair's leg frame. She twisted around and felt like a contortionist as she looped, tied, and velcroed the straps that held her bow to her backrest. It wasn't much of a backrest, to be honest, but a taller one would get in the way of her elbows while pushing.
It would also get in the way of dressing, which Lys presently did. She kept the black leggings but swapped her loose cutoff t-shirt for something a bit warmer and more form-fitting.
And not the boobs-popping-out shirt. She considered the motorcycle armour, but it was heavy and sweaty and she'd need to be mobile, so it went into her duffel for now and she threw her favourite brown leather jacket on instead.
Knee pads? she pondered.
Yup, knee pads. You can never have enough storage. She also anticipated being de-chaired at least a couple of times, as usually happened, and it'd be nice not to smack her knees, feeling or not. Reaching down, Lysandra picked up one of her legs and slid the knee pad up its length, settling it around her knee, before doing the same for the other one. They weighed next to nothing and she tried not to scowl.
So fucking skinny now. Her thighs were like deflated balloons, her calves like twigs. As much as she'd grown used to the atrophy, there were still moments where the dissonance between reality and a slow-to-change mental self-image was overwhelming. She shook her head to clear the thought and slipped on some leg warmers for more pseudo-pocket space. After stuffing her feet into a pair of ankle boots, she clipped her choker around her neck, pocketed her medallion, and grabbed a beanie and settled it atop her head. She took a second to look in the mirror and adjust her hair beneath the hat. She looked better without bangs, she decided, trying to distract herself.
Nope, stop, she scolded.
Deep breath. Nothing to be scared of. Nothing you haven't done dozens of times before. You've got this. She gathered her bags and the Lysandra who emerged from her room was a much-encumbered one: dressed for a mission but carefully balancing a duffel bag on her lap as she made her way towards the van.
It was sitting in its usual place, doors open, bags and equipment piled around it. She admired the lift kit, bumper guard, and skid plate that she'd fashioned for it with Erik: a job well done. After a couple of seconds, however, she noticed that there was nobody actually
there, loading it.
"Where are my galoots?" she muttered to herself, half-audible under her breath. Annoyed, Lys cast about for them, but there was only a distant Akaia being attended to by Poppy and consoled by Cerise for having to ingest that abominable thing that Pops termed 'soup'. The human made a point of avoiding that area, lest she be forced into 'caloric intake'. Pulling up to the open rear doors, Lys clicked her brakes on, hefted the bag, and tossed it inside. She couldn't be bothered with anything else. It bugged her. Her instinct was to assiduously organize every aspect of the interior of the van, but that was a lot of work, she'd need her energy today, and she still had the Immortals to go and load up and her specialty arrows - recently crafted - to retrieve. Lysandra backed away and made for the nearby storage room, where all of the goodies were kept and where she could already hear voices coming from.
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