Rogue Sloth

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

While he didn’t share Iris’s love of books, Cas could understand why she was drawn to them. It was the same reason why he’d been sucked into the party scene in the capital: escape from reality. When he was surrounded by other high borns who were just out to have a good time, he could forget about his responsibilities and the impending weight of the crown he was supposed to inherit from his father. Of course, there was no getting away from the cameras that followed him around wherever he went, but he could still enjoy the same mindless activities that the rest of the capital’s young adults took part in after dark. Taking shots, playing bar games, getting to know strangers he would never see again in his life… All of it was his “fiction,” the life he would have wanted if he hadn’t been born into the royal family.

When Iris said he was in great shape, a proud smile took over his features. He hadn’t been fishing for compliments when he’d mentioned his habit, but he still liked to hear that she thought he was fit. “Thanks,” he replied appreciatively. “I haven’t put in as much time as I would have if I didn’t have so many other things to think about on a daily basis, but I’m glad you can tell.” He’d met some men who were absolutely shredded because they dedicated all their free time to sculpting their bodies. As the crown prince, he didn’t have the option to spend that many hours at the gym, but he still squeezed in thirty or sixty minute sessions whenever he had the chance. Between his regular workout routine and the healthy meals he ate as recommended by the royal family’s dietician, he still managed to keep up a better physique than quite a few other people he’d come across in the capital.

At her suggestion that he could try to help the other districts rebuild if he went home, he considered the idea thoughtfully. “I don’t know if it’s that simple,” he frowned. “I would love to believe that I could just snap my fingers and bring an end to the fighting between the crown and the rebellion, but do you think your dad is going to let things go that easily?” His tone was slightly hesitant as he mentioned her father. Regis hadn’t struck him as a reasonable man. He suspected that even if he convinced the military to let up on the fighting and focus their efforts on reconstructing the districts that had been damaged, the rebel leader would just take it as an opportunity to strike them while their guard was down. If he cared more about power than he did about peace, they were going to have to knock him down until he couldn’t stand back up again.

“That aside, I wouldn’t be able to do anything without my dad’s approval,” he added, rubbing his injured arm over his jacket sleeve. The torn skin was starting to itch a little as it healed. “He has final say over everything involving the military and the war as a whole. As long as I’m not the king, I can’t make any big changes to the directions he’s already given them.” If he went back to the capital, he did plan to question Atlas about the things he’d discovered about the other districts though. He wanted answers about why the rest of the country was so impoverished, especially when he’d been taught in his classes that wealth in Aspiria wasn’t that unevenly distributed. None of it made any sense to him anymore. If his father was withholding something from him, he was determined to find out what it was.

For the next few hours, Cas walked at Iris’s side, casually looking around the sides of the empty road in a halfhearted watch for other people. He didn’t try very hard though, because it seemed like she was right about the path being mostly deserted. Chances that anyone would notice them looked slim, so he ambled leisurely, sipping at his water bottle on occasion to stay hydrated. Underneath the sun, the hoodie felt too warm to wear, and he was starting to feel tempted to take it off. With no one else around to see him, it seemed safe enough to dress down a bit.

“Yeah, we can do that,” he answered her question, having no qualms with heading into another district for a break. “I’m getting kind of hungry.” Giving in to the need to be comfortable, he unzipped his jacket and shrugged it from his torso. “It’s too warm out for this in the middle of the day,” he explained as he tied the sleeves over his shoulders. “I’m gonna cool down a little and put it back on when we get close to the next district.”

~Bonsoir~

I don’t have discord ^^;; I could give you my email or social media over PM though!

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

“In any case, I’m glad you’re getting some of your memories back,” Cas said to Iris as they walked. Compared to how she had been in the capital, he felt like her condition was improving every day. He could still recall how anxious and unsettled she had been when he’d showed her around the city, neither of them knowing she wasn’t a high born in the first place. Back then, almost nothing had worked to jog her foggy memories. Here, though, she seemed to be returning to what he could only guess was her former self. Back in the part of the country where she had originally come from, there were plenty of things around to help her overcome her amnesia, and he was happy to see her remembering who she was before she’d hit her head in the woods.

When she joked about the walking being too much exercise for her, he laughed. “I’ll have to remember that,” he took note aloud. After reading all the time for the various lessons he took with his private tutors, sitting down with another book was the last thing he wanted to do at the end of the day, so he couldn’t relate to the appeal. However, he could accommodate her later on by making sure she had some time to herself to read if that was what she wanted to do.

At her question, he shrugged, “A little of everything. Before I graduated high school, I played a lot of sports. After that, I pretty much migrated to our home gym. I had a personal trainer for a while who came up with workout routines for me, but after a couple years, I got the hang of it and preferred to write them out by myself. I did some cardio just to stay in shape, but I mostly focused on weight training. It’s rewarding to increase the resistance on the machines or force yourself through a few extra reps and know you’re making progress.” He also felt like the workouts he did in the mornings helped him focus throughout the rest of the day. As long as he didn’t push himself so hard that he was exhausted, he was sharper during his lessons and felt less inclined to doze off.

Listening to Iris describe her favorite district, he felt like he remembered learning a little bit about Il Mheg at some point. He knew it was the sixth district and vaguely recalled something about the gardens. They were supposedly a tourist hotspot. If he’d had the chance, he would have liked to see what the district looked like for himself, but apparently that was no longer an option as she went on to imply that the place had been a casualty in the war. It seemed like the military was sparing no region in their battle against the rebellion, even if they were destroying precious landmarks in the process.

“That’s too bad,” he sighed. “Hopefully this war doesn’t drag out too much longer. It would be nice to see all the wounded districts get repaired after everything they’re endured.”

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Thanks! I still want a good, long vacation sometime, but that probably won't happen until things with the virus calm down ^^; I'd love to travel through New England, because I haven't been to most of those states yet.

Sounds good! I might get a post up a little later. Got a couple other things I want to get done this afternoon :)

Plenty of Sharks in the Sea [BuzzingBee & Dagger]

Alex is taking full advantage xD
She's interested in his unexpected hobby, but she's too hungry to put off getting something to eat lol

Plenty of Sharks in the Sea [BuzzingBee & Dagger]

“Mhm,” Alex pursed her lips in a thin smile as Daniel commented on her “hobby.” She did know quite a few good restaurants thanks to the men who’d come before him, taking her to gourmet spots around the city in their effort to impress her with fancy, expensive dinners. Her favorite dates were the ones in which they told her to order whatever she wanted and that money was no object. If they gave her the option to order the seafood special, she wouldn’t hesitate to take them up on it, even if they were shocked when their waitress set down a pound of lobster in front of her and she scarfed down the whole damn thing.

There was no hunger like the kind a person could develop when she only ate full meals a few days a week. Every once in a while, she stuffed herself so thoroughly that she made herself sick by the time she got back to the construction site she called home. It was hard for her to pace herself when she was veritably starving every time she sat down at a restaurant to eat, and her stomach always punished her for it harshly if or when she overindulged.

When Daniel told her that he was a drummer, she couldn’t stop the brief flicker of surprise that crossed her dusky features. She didn’t take the well-dressed businessman with the Rolex watch to be a rocker in his free time. It just went to show the many layers people could have underneath their polished exteriors. She wondered if he was any good. That he’d been in a band before seemed to mean he had at least some skill, but if the band hadn’t lasted, maybe they were just hobbyists looking for a way to kill time. She didn’t know very much about rock music either. Stuck with only Whitney’s basic playlist to borrow when she wanted to listen to anything, her familiarity wasn’t much broader than Selena Gomez. At least recently. Before she’d left home, she’d had a soft spot for blues.

Rock and roll evolved from blues, right? She mused passively. However, she didn’t have a chance to question him about the subject before he turned the spotlight of the conversation back onto her. Either he found her so-called hobby more interesting than she’d thought or he really didn’t want to discuss the answer he’d just given her. If she hadn’t had an ulterior motive, she might have pressed him for more details, but the fact of the matter was that he was just her wallet for the night. They were never going to see each other again in the overcrowded city of NYC. She needed to focus on getting the meal she was after, so all other subjects were moot.

“Oh man, that’s a hard one,” she folded her arms as she thought it over. “I used to live near Harlem, so Africa Kine will always have a special place in my heart. Closer to this place though…” She paused as if she had to think it over, even though she already had a couple places in mind that she wanted to try. She was still determined to get her Kobe beef dinner, after all. “Kaikagetsu and 212 Steakhouse are definitely at the top of my list. I like a bit of everything,” she added to explain the diverse choices. “Senegalese, American, Japanese… You name it, and I’ll eat it.”

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Just down to Phoenix again, haha. We were gonna hit Sedona, but we decided to save that for our wedding anniversary next month ^^ We got married in Sedona, so it'll be fun to revisit it for our two-year anniversary. We'll probably do a lot of hiking.

You can add them into your next post! Maybe just throw in a little time skip forward to the afternoon so they don't get caught right away :)

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

I don't know if it's the whole weekend or not, just that Mahz said he needs to update the server over the weekend. Either way, I'm going for another tiny trip out of town tomorrow through Monday, so I probably won't be on much even if the site is just down for a day or so.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Yep! I'm good with that if you still want to do it.
Also, just in case you haven't seen it, the site is gonna be down for maintenance this weekend!

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

“Well, I hope you’re part of ‘some people’ then, because yours is the only opinion I care about,” Cas teased Iris as they walked. At one point in his life, he’d used to enjoy the attention he got as ‘Aspiria’s most desirable bachelor,’ but the effect had worn off after a while. The repeated flattery by the media and people he crossed in the streets that had once puffed up his ego eventually left him feeling jaded. So, he wasn’t lying to her when he said that he didn’t care what anyone else thought. The opinions of others, while sometimes nice to hear, didn’t leave an impact on him the same way hers did. He wanted to hear that she thought highly of him, that she found him attractive or was drawn to different aspects of his person. Anything she had to say would mean more simply because he valued her perspective.

When she answered his question, he nodded thoughtfully. It seemed like she’d chosen a path for them to take that would allow him to choose whichever direction he wanted to go. That was relieving. He was also glad to hear that the roadway wasn’t used very often outside of supply runs—for and by the rebellion, he guessed. It was a little unnerving to know that they were going to be borrowing a route that the members of the Scourge used to get around, but at the same time, what ever the odds that anyone would see them if it wasn’t a high-traffic street? As long as they were careful, he still felt confident that they would be alright. They just had to keep watch for cars while they were on their way to the center of the kingdom.

“I beg to differ,” he smiled at her amusedly when she said he was a better tour guide. “I don’t think I would be nearly this good if I didn’t have all my memories. I’m still impressed that you’ve gotten us this far when you’re coping with amnesia.” It was interesting to him how she was able to remember some things about the districts without any trouble, yet details about her own past still seemed to be absent from her mind. If he didn’t know better, he wouldn’t have realized she’d had a head injury at all. Compared to the night when he’d first found her, she was doing worlds better.

Removing his hand from his pocket, he laced his fingers with hers and fell in step a little closer to her side. “I’m definitely making up for all the workouts I skipped recently,” he joked with a shake of his head. “Every day is leg day outside the capital.” Giving her hand an affectionate squeeze, he turned back to her again to ask, “If you could show me any district, which one would you want me to see?”