WELCOME TO RAYVEN'S REIGN.

[♙ Geluvir]

”Come back here you dick!”

He should’ve known better. He should’ve known that girl was an addict from the look of her sunken eyes and broken fingernails. He should’ve known that a girl like that is only interested in a guy like him when she thinks she can get money out of him for her next fix. He most certainly should’ve known that she’d have an angry boyfriend at home that would react badly to him coming home with her. A strong dealer-type with a gun and who looks like could probably break a stone block with his face. Hell, even if he didn’t have a book with his future written out warning him of stuff like this he should’ve known. Skan often told people he was smart, certainly didn’t seem it at this point of time did it?

If he wasn’t running the very fastest he could at the time anyway, the sound of the bullet ricocheting of the nearby wall would’ve make him jump clean out of his skin. He could hear the yells of the guy behind him and the heavy thud of the guy’s boots smashing the ground with each step toward him. The guy was gaining and each time the guy shot at him the bullet seemed to land a little closer. He couldn’t keep this up for long, sooner or later his asthma was going to catch up with him and he’d have to either use his inhaler or become a gasping mess on the floor. That was the last thing he needed when being chased by a guy that was trying to ’pop a cap in his ass.’ he forestalled the onset of his asthma by forcing himself not to breathe until he absolutely had to; frequent short breaths being the prime cause of setting it off. Well, besides cats. However, no matter how hard you try to stop a tidal wave with barricade, it doesn’t change that fact that what’s coming is unstoppable. A loud bang followed by a sharp pain as the very tip of his right ear was shaved by an oncoming bullet pushed him over the edge- a combination of fear, adrenaline and insufficient oxygen mixing together to create a situation that could either be seen as salvation or the end for Skan.

The world went silent for Skan. The gun, the bullets, the shouting, the steps, all of it gave way to one resounding pounding. He knew what was coming and pre-emptively slapped his hands against his temples in a vain attempt to reduce the terrible pain that stuck the centre of his brain and spread out in waves down his spine. He howled with pain as he continued to run as fast as he could, his vision robbed from him as his eyes went pure white and a million images flicked across it. The man chasing him came to stop around where a sonic boom had struck the alley and taken Skan from this time period. Scratching his head with his gun and looking around for a moment he decided to give up and return to his flat.

”Man. I need to stay off the hard stuff...”

---

A bright flash followed by a cacophony of noise from the resulting carnage of his arrival cut the previously calm atmosphere like a... well, like a jackhammer. Unfortunately for Skan, he was still running when he slipped, so when he appeared in the office the velocity threw him straight into a metal cabinet face first. He slammed hard into the cabinet leaving a massive dent, the recoil causing him to then stumble back and trip over a desk, sending every object on it flying in all directions. His nose broken from the impact was the least of his worries as the usual disorientation from slipping crept up on him and combined with the blow to create an overpowering sense of dizziness and nausea.

Skan struggled to his feet, using the nearby desk for balance, propping himself up with his left hand whilst holding the right side of his gut where he had collided with it moments before. As he regained his balance and the room started to spin a bit less he sat on the corner of the desk and raised his hand to his face to check the state of his nose. Finding that not only was it in a great deal of pain but it was also out of position, he took a deep breath before placing a thumb either side of the middle and forced it back to where it should be. Thankfully, his glasses seemed to have avoided most of the blunt trauma, most of it having been concentrated into his nose and forehead. He removed them for a second and rubbed his eyes in an attempt to get some of the dizziness to go away and it seemed to work, the world falling back into recognisable order once more.

Replacing his glasses he took a look around. The office he’d slipped into was a total mess, and not purely because he’d swept in like a tornado and upset the status quo. There was paper and stationary littered everywhere, like someone had torn the place apart looking for something, yet there was no sign of anyone anywhere. Wiping most of the blood from his face with his sleeve, he made his way slowly over to the windows that lined the side of the office to make a fourth wall. He ran his gaze across the city below him and was horrified by what he saw. He was about twenty stories up over looking a city that had most certainly seen better days. A lot of the windows down below were smashed and it looked as though there had been a huge car crash at one of the major intersections. Between the hundreds of broken cars and ruined buildings he could see a fair amount of movement. It looked like people but he couldn’t be sure from this high up.

”Oh what fresh hell is this?”

He asked bitterly to no one in particular. Well, he’d avoided certain death at the hands of a crazed drug dealer at least. However, he had no clue where, or indeed when, he was. He had two options, make his way to the elevator or the stairs if it wasn’t functioning and go check out the situation himself, or he could flick open his best friend and see what the deal was. Deciding to take the safer of the two options, something he’d learned from experience over the years, he reached down and pulled on the leather cord at his waist that held the book firmly attached to his pants. Taking a seat on the nearest desk he slowly untied the binding around the volume and began to troll through its pages. Totally unaware of the dangers that waited for him around every corner. The dangers that might be lurking in the offices at this very moment plotting his demise...

[♔ Bridget]

Sniffle. Sniffle. A young woman rubbed her nose, sniffling a few more times before finally giving up in trying to stop her runny nose in favor of simply wiping her nose on her sleeve. It was cold and despite being infected, Blaire's body was struggling to keep up with the changing weather and relatively thin clothes. In fact, just last week it snowed; Blaire stared into the sky for a good hour before deciding that it wasn't going to stop soon and went on with her business. But that was last week and the white flurries had already melted away, adding to the dreariness of the city. Personally, Blaire found it morbid and unwelcoming; she wanted to leave it for better, less bloody scenery. But there were still survivors to help in the city and she wasn't certain if she could easily find food out in the countryside. She didn't want to become an enraged monster again--the idea of killing someone, even an infected, to eat made her stomach churn. She shuddered involuntarily at the thought and began climbing up the stairs to an office building--the power had long been out so the elevators weren't an option. Even then, it was unlikely that Blaire would know how to work them. The infection wiped most pre-infection knowledge away; after all, she didn't need memories to kill other beings. She figured it was a good thing; if she had trouble unlocking doors, it would be practically impossible for unintelligent infected to do it--a bonus for survivors.

An unfortunate thing about the snow, Blaire had realized a bit too late, was that it ruined any of the picture books she had acquired and left outside, not thinking the white flurries could hurt it like rain would. She was proven wrong much to her grievance--the flurries were made out of water and made the ink from the photos run together in a disgusting collage. Not finding many things on the lower floors, she continued upwards, a bit flustered with her lack of findings. Just when she was about to give up, a loud crash from a few floors above caught her attention; she froze, her eyes trained on the ceiling and her ears listening closely for anything. "”..what..hell...” Infected couldn't speak; an uninfected was upstairs.

She exhaled sharply and started up the stairs again, making her footsteps obvious so she wouldn't startle anyone; God knows she'd been shot, stabbed, sliced and bashed with everything and anything before. Despite having accelerate regenerative abilities, being wounded still hurt; she most certainly didn't want to have to pull out another bullet or clumsily patch up another gash on her battered, bruised and scarred body.

Her pace froze when something else caught her attention; it was a quiet squeak, like wet tennis shoes on a linoleum floor followed by a quiet, almost whispered guttural growl. Her milky eyes widened fractionally and she tore up the stairs, pushing her aching muscles by taking the steps three at a time. Even then, she barely made it.

The uninfected man had bright red, disheveled hair and was completely unaware of the uninfected secretary quietly approaching him from behind, preparing herself to attack. Her own shoes squeaked loudly on the floor as she pushed herself towards the woman with as much force as she could, her tangled dark hair whipping behind her for the few seconds before she collided with the infected woman, earning herself an almost inhuman shriek of surprise.

Dispatching the woman was easy--Blaire had much practice with this from both before and after she began regaining her humanity. Even without morals and reasoning, Blaire had always been a clever and strong infected despite her tiny size. She tackled the woman to the floor, her knees on each side of the woman's stomach; before she could rear up to attack and push Blaire off, the infected girl had jabbed her clawed fingers into her throat, slicing it open in a quick motion. Blood poured from her throat and onto the clean floor and the woman gurgled for a few moments before becoming still; Blaire was quick to get off her stomach and turn her attention to the man, raising her bloody hands in submission and backing away from him to give him room. She was only too aware of how skittish survivors were; she hoped he would realize that she had just saved his life and would not try to bash her brains in before she could show she was harmless to him.

[♙ Geluvir]

' 25/12/2012-1-b-b. By now you'll have broken your nose on the metal cabinet and sorted yourself out. I know you won't have read the section about the coke addict so I'll take the time here to repeat myself and call you a total moron' Skan rolled his eyes as he read more of the passage. His future self often threaded insults into the relevant information in judgment of what he’d done. The reason this didn’t come across as hurtful to Skan was because for his future self to know what had happened, he must’ve done it first. That fact made things amusing to Skan, so he couldn’t help but smile before continuing. ’If you’ve bothered to check my code key yet, you’ll know that you’re still on earth and that unfortunately, everything’s gone to shit. You’ll find out in a second what exactly has gone wrong-‘ That sentence worried Skan and his head turned so he could quickly check his surroundings. He didn’t see anything that posed any threat to him so he shrugged, the distant sounds of Blaire coming up the stairs coinciding with an old, loud wall clock that covered each bump completely. ’All you need to know for now is that she means you no harm. So when you’re done shitting yourself, calm down and make sure she knows you aren’t going to hurt her either.’ Skan shot the book a quizzical look, like it was going to suddenly speak up and tell him what the future him meant. Looking up from the book at the window in front of him he muttered ”her?” but no sooner had he said it, his question was answered and he saw the reflection of the secretary sneaking up on him in the glass.

He Leapt clean off the desk and span round to face his assailant just in time to watch her get tackled to the ground by a second person he was unaware was in the room. The sudden movements caused him to slip on some fallen debris and collapse on the ground with a heavy thump, his head bumping against the glass to gift him with even more head pain. Thankfully the angle he was no at shielded him from the view of Blaire tearing the infected woman’s throat out, but the blood-curdling sounds still reached his ears. When Blaire sound he scrambled back and few feet along the glass, the book dragging along the ground in front of him as he backwards crab-walked, his chests heaving with the shock.

”What the flying- huh?!!”

Skan swallowed hard and tried to take in Blaire’s form all at once; the dirty clothes and face, the fresh blood on her hands, those sunken eyes and pale skin. What really worried him was the blood that seemed to be caked around her mouth, almost as if she’d been eating... raw meat? Oh. That’s what he meant. He noticed she put her arms up in the air and backed away from him so he raised his left hand to his chest, propping himself up with his left. It rested there for a moment before extending forward and giving her a signal to wait for a moment whilst he caught his breath. After a few moments the pace of his breathing began to slow, but nevertheless he fetched his inhaler from his left trouser pocket and took a quick puff before making any attempt at standing. The moment he stood he spared a glance to the now dead body of his previous assailant and quickly wished he hadn’t, turning his back on them both and almost throwing up into his hand at the sight of the blood and gore. He waved his other hand in her general direction in a sort of ‘Don’t come over here’ motion with his eyes firmly closed.

”That’s... oh god that’s disgusting.”

Still a little shook up from his violent entrance and his sudden surprise, he limped over to a desk a few yards away and sat on it with his back to Blaire. He gave off the impression that he wasn’t afraid of her in the slightest and why should he be? He’d already read that she meant him no harm so that meant he wasn’t going to be attacked. Not right now at least. Not making the same mistake twice, he didn’t look back toward Blaire and the dead body but instead beckoned Blaire over to him with his right hand, pointing to what had to be the only upright chair in the entire office about eight feet from him towards the direction of the doorway. Cracking open the book again he turned each page with a shaky hand until he found the page he had been at a couple of minutes ago. He pushed his glasses further up his nose and read the next couple of sentences. One sigh of relief later, he closed the book and turned his head so that he could catch Blaire in his peripherals.

”It’s safe to come over here... ‘Blaire’ is it? Don’t worry. Even if I wanted to I couldn’t hurt you. Not with these noodle arms”

He raised his arms as he mentioned them and did a sort of chicken dance motion, his attempt at humour testing the water to see whether she could truly understand him or not. He knew a little about her now, but it would be rude just to sit here and read with the real thing stood in front of him so for now, he’d see what he could get out of here. Hell, what if the book was wrong and she suddenly went feral on him? He’d be a goner! Well he’d have to wait and see now wouldn’t he?

[♔ Bridget]

She watched the man scrambled away from her and very patiently waited for him as he extended a hand signaling for her to wait. Blaire was patient and nodded to his request, awkwardly shifting from one foot to the other; she was surprised that he didn't appear too afraid of her. He caught his breath after a few moments and a puff from a little tube and carefully stood up; she watched him glance at the infected woman on the floor and swiftly turn his back to them both--he looked like he was about to puke. He vaguely gestured for her to stay away as he composed himself; Blaire didn't understand what was so horrible about it. It was just another corpse now, nothing to be afraid of or grossed out about. She simply rolled her shoulders as she waited for him to control his weak stomach, her clouded eyes scanning the office carefully and her ears listening for any other infected--she heard nothing, thankfully.

”That’s... oh god that’s disgusting.”

Blaire simply shrugged at that--it was a matter of opinion, after all; this man was odd to say the least. He didn't seem used to the blood and gore and fighting that all other survivors she'd seen had to endure; no, he didn't have that world-weary look in his eyes that betrayed exhaustion and hunger and an almost constant fear that radiated off of survivors. He wasn't normal.

She watched him limp over to a desk and sit in it with his back to her; she tilted her head to the side, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion. Did he always show his back to infected girls? If so, she couldn't see how he had survived this long to start with; why was he so trusting already when she'd done little to nothing to earn it? Her confused expression lifted slightly when he gestured for her to sit in the only other upright chair in the office; it was a bit distant from him and she nodded in response, making sure her footfalls were obvious as she approached the ragged, weather-worn chair and sat patiently.

She had a good view of him from this spot; he didn't seem much older than her, either. Her eyebrows furrowed again and she focused on him, noting his rather absurdly clean clothes; how had he managed that? She glanced down to her own clothing, taking note of their griminess with a bit of a wishful expression. She sniffled again and wiped her nose on her sleeve again as she watched him take out a book and read; why was he being so trusting?

A sigh brought her eyes to focus on him again instead of simply zoning out in time for her to realize he'd turned his head enough to catch sight of her in the side of his sight. She stiffened, wondering what he'd decided to do with her; would he attack now? ”It’s safe to come over here... ‘Blaire’ is it? Don’t worry. Even if I wanted to I couldn’t hurt you. Not with these noodle arms.”

She perked up a bit when he said her name; kind of how people naturally perk up when their name is mentioned. She watched him raise his arms and do a funny dancing motion; she was initially surprised that he knew her name but she grinned at the motion he made--if she could laugh, she would.

She stood up from her seated position and walked over him; not too quick to be startling but not slow enough for her not easily close the distance. She then crouched down to meet his sitting height, pulling her tangled hair over her shoulder and watching him curiously, a small smirk still on her face. Either this man was indefinitely clever or abysmally foolish for trusting her so easily despite her being infected; maybe he had run into another intelligent infected to explain why he was so relaxed? The thought brought a spark of hope to her chest but she quickly squashed it down; hope was a bad thing in this world--it got you killed.


ooc; Sorry for my suck post. >_<

[♙ Geluvir]

Skan had never been particularly good with blood and gore. After all, he'd grown up in a sheltered lifestyle being taken care of out in the country. There wasn't even that much crime to speak of. Just fields and cattle. That said, he did have a brief period where he was trying to connect with his farmer heritage and went out with the ol' grand pappy hunting, but the entire time he held the gun with a sense of disgust and couldn't look at the birds after they'd been shot. He understood that the birds made good game and he was brilliant at cooking them, just the rigmarole of it all and tending to the corpse put a sour taste in his mouth and an anvil in his stomach.

Skan had just about pieced together what was going on in this world from the current situation along with the little pieces that he’d read and had determined that Blaire was some sort of amalgamation of a human and a zombie. Perhaps she had been recently bitten, scratched or however it is that you change and was slowly becoming a mindless wretch like the one who had attacked him? Or perhaps she’d been, let’s say ‘infected’, a long time ago and was getting better? Of course the latter of the two was a much more optimistic idea but it was the one Skan was inclined to go with. Not purely because his personality leaned toward optimism however, there were other markers as well. The way she dealt with the other infected for instance. She used her nails, no weaponry or anything of the sort as one would usually do if they were a human, which suggested that she’d been at this for a while and had learned how to make her new body work for her. Unless the incubation period of whatever caused this was enormous, there’d be no way she’d last this long before becoming as bad as the one who was now sleeping with married men in whatever life awaits us after death. Of course, Skan could just read a bit further and know all about Blaire but sometimes just knowing everything wasn’t ‘fun’. He had an interesting specimen here; why not add a dash of mystery to his life for once?

His face visibly brightened when she smirked at him. Success! He knew at the very least that she was capable of appreciating humour, even if she was just laughing at his pathetic mock-dancing and not at what he actually said and her perking up at him saying her name confirmed (although the book was never wrong it was nice to know) that it was indeed what she was called. Or used to be called, hard to tell at this point what tense to use. Though that was the story of Skan’s life, being a time traveller and all. As she walked over to him his body tensed and he shifted back a little on the desk, unable to control his natural reaction to being approached by someone who looked so ghastly. He made an effort though and swallowed hard before leaning back toward where he’d been a second ago, trying to show her that he wasn’t afraid, just cautious.

”Okay. So. I’m guessing from the fact you haven’t said anything that you either can’t anymore or don’t understand English? That’d make sense, I mean I don’t even know- Oh how rude of me! I should thank you for that,”

Speaking as though he was trying to set the Guinness world record for most words per minute as per usual, the speed was halted for only a moment when he interrupted himself to say thanks accompanied with a loud clapping of his hands and a tilting back on the desk. Skan vaguely gestured over his shoulder toward where the corpse of the woman now lay, making sure he didn’t spare any glances in that direction. He was smiling now, a lot more relaxed now that he felt he’d established a dialogue with Blaire even though it was decidedly one sided. Now that she was in front of him he leant forward, almost falling off the desk in the process, putting his face mere inches from hers and began checked her out, his strangely intense eyes attempting to pierce through the muck and grime to take stock of the individual.

”Y’know, under all that crap you’re actually pretty beautiful. Huh. But I digress, can you understand me? Am i speaking the right language? Hello? Ahalan? Parev?"

Skan went through about fifty different ways of saying hello in as many languages, seeming to take an alphabetical approach instead of using what was most likely to work. Of course, he was saying them much too fast for her to get a word in edge ways but each one was accompanied with a jerking of his head to a different position to check her out from a different angle. His idea of personal space, even with someone that up until now he’d been wary of, was still but the dream of a pixie in the magical land of Putangabunga- totally non-existent. Presumably this was because he’d judged her as mostly harmless and she’d gone from potential threat to exquisite curiosity in a matter of minutes. To put an end to his ramblings he backed away from her face and picked up a random sheet of paper of one of the desks and checked the language.

”Ah. Okay. I was right the first time. Apologies. So, can you speak at all? Write things down? Speak sign language? Play charades? Ha, I used to love charades do you love charades? Damn. Keep on topic Skan- Oh yeah. I haven’t introduced myself yet. I, am Skan! Mighty Time traveller!”

Skan really needed to get a reign on his enthusiasm and hell, his train of thought! As he introduced himself he turned his head to gaze off into the distance and clenched one hand into a fist in front of his elevated chin, an overly comical look of faux-machoism coating his facial features. Dropping the pose he rapidly returned to the previous friendly looking face and leaned back in.

”No no, I’m kidding I’m not mighty. Though I am a time traveller. Might explain a few things for you I’m sure? That’s if you understand me... do you understand me? Boy am I gunna feel foolish if you don’t...”



((Yours was wonderful <3 The quality of this post however is somewhat dubious... apologies ^^;;))

This post has been edited by Geluvir on Dec 24 2011, 02:00 PM

[♔ Bridget]

He tensed up when she approached; it didn't really surprise her--she looked quite grisly covered in blood and bits of gore. He swallowed thickly though and made an effort to shift back to where he was before he subconsciously moved back and away from her. At least he was trying, right? ”Okay. So. I’m guessing from the fact you haven’t said anything that you either can’t anymore or don’t understand English? That’d make sense, I mean I don’t even know- Oh how rude of me! I should thank you for that,” he added, gesturing vaguely towards the corpse. She blinked, processing everything he'd said; he had rushed through everything, leaving her quite dazed for a few moments as she figured out what he said. He was smiling and obviously more relaxed now that he was talking and by the time she'd sorted everything he'd said out in her mind, he was leaning forward towards her. She visibly tensed up for a moment before relaxing again; having someone so suddenly get close to her like that with very little interaction before made her think that perhaps she'd done something wrong in introducing herself and conveying her harmlessness. But he was still smiling so she rationalized that she was wrong and quickly relaxed again without much concern about it. His face was inches from her own and she used the opportunity to examine him just as much as he was observing her; he wasn't bad looking by far. Albeit he looked a bit geeky with the thick black glasses but it didn't bother her too much; she was a bit of a nerd in high school anyways. Not that she could really remember her own high school experiences--she merely subconsciously recognized the style of clothing. He looked at her with an intense glint in his eyes whereas her own blank eyes merely blinked and searched his face. ”Y’know, under all that crap you’re actually pretty beautiful. Huh." She was a bit surprised at it but only shrugged, the motion very slight and possibly unnoticeable. Beauty had little value in this new, bloodthirsty world.

"But I digress, can you understand me? Am I speaking the right language? Hello? Ahalan? Parev?" She stared nodding but quickly stopped, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion as he quickly ran through multiple languages; she didn't understand them and simply remained quiet while looking at him as if he were a strange alien. She didn't mind him moving around her, further inspecting her and allowed him free range, her posture relaxed. She had a concept of personal space--most people didn't like it when she got too close and she could understand why. But he didn't seem to have any such reservations so she allowed him to do as he wanted, feeling pretty comfortable herself. She lifted her dominant hand--her left--to scratch an itch on her face, wary of her sharp, mutated fingers and applied as little pressure as possible. He eventually ran out of foreign languages and stepped back from her face and picked up a sheet of paper, his eyes glinting over it for a moment. ”Ah. Okay. I was right the first time. Apologies. So, can you speak at all?" She shook her head 'no'. "Write things down? Speak sign language?" Again, she shook her head no. "Play charades?" She started to shake her head no again, not understanding the word 'charades' for a moment before the information popped in her head, much like the other knowledge she had of uninfected did. Charades is talking by pointing and using examples, right? She listened to him continue, "Ha, I used to love charades do you love charades? Damn. Keep on topic Skan- Oh yeah. I haven’t introduced myself yet. I, am Skan! Mighty Time traveller!”

She blanked at the "time traveller" bit and her face showed it; she had no clue what a "time traveller" was. Unlike the word "charades" which had unlocked it's meaning upon being spoken, this word didn't reveal anything to her. Skan, as he'd just introduced himself, turned his head and adopted a smirk at his pose; she found it amusing and he quickly dropped it and leaned in closer to her again. ”No no, I’m kidding I’m not mighty. Though I am a time traveller. Might explain a few things for you I’m sure? That’s if you understand me... do you understand me? Boy am I gunna feel foolish if you don’t...”

She nodded her head to convey she did understand him and raised her dominant hand up to point at her throat with her index finger in hopes of signaling that she couldn't speak. Not for the first time, Blaire was thoroughly annoyed with her lack of communication skills. It wouldn't do to mope on it though, so she quickly pushed away the annoyance and refocused on Skan and sniffled once before quickly lifting her arm and sneezing into her elbow. A soft, unpleased moan lulled at the back of her throat afterwards, showing her displeasure at sneezing; could infected even catch colds? She didn't know but couldn't see why not--what horrible timing too. She smiled apologetically at Skan and made a "follow me" motion before making a walking motion with her index and middle fingers. With that conveyed, she turned and started towards the exit, beaconing for him to follow her down the stairs. This building was damp, wet and cold--the chill from the previous snow hadn't quite left it yet and she was surprised he wasn't freezing up here. Speaking of which, why was he up here to start with. She gave him a questioning look, one of her eyebrows raising as she shrugged her shoulders then pointed at him then at the floor in the question 'Why are you here?'

ooc; Bah, yours was great. :]

[♙ Geluvir]

Okay, so she didn’t blush at being complimented. This either meant that she was one of those people that knew they were good looking and a bit pompous in their attitude regarding it or the concept of beauty and being complimentary was lost on her. He hoped that it was the latter of his two assumptions if any, he didn’t really like cocky people all the much. Maybe it was a jealousy thing, like it was because he didn’t have any real confidence? She replied no to his various questions and a look of almost-annoyance crossed his features. She’d stopped her reply to his charades comment halfway through though and that suggested she maybe didn’t know exactly what he meant, after all she’d seemed to react to his gestures with some form of understanding and that wasn’t much different right? He was suddenly consumed with thought over the whole thing. Sure she’d made it clear that she understood him just fine but it was more than a little bit of an issue that she couldn’t communicate. He took her pointing at her throat to mean exactly what she’d meant it to mean and began putting his mind to work to solve the problem at hand. Crossing his right arm along his lap he rested his left elbow into it and his chin between his thumb and forefinger, his gaze drifting off into the distance through Blaire as if she’d become non-existent. It was a bit of a habit of his when he began to think seriously to go to such a level and because of this he almost missed her motioning to him. He shook his head and re-focused his vision however just in time to see her make the walking motion with her fingers and make her way toward the door. He raised an eyebrow in curiosity and dropped down off the desk, brushing his backside off with his hand before following her. Where was she going to lead him? Oh god, maybe she hadn’t killed him yet because she was going to lead him to her hive of infected? A sort of ‘drone bringing a meal back to the hive’ scenario? No no, wait. He’d read in the book that she meant him no harm. It wouldn’t be something like that. He’d let his mind wander again however and almost collided with her when she stopped and acted out her ‘question’. He leapt back a couple of steps, missing contact by a inch or two at best and started breathing hard like she’d scared the life out of him, bending at the knee and holding his left hand to his chest.

”Phew! Sorry, was miles away. Okay, so. Me? You‘re pointing at me so I’ll assume that’s it. And down? We’re going to go down? No that’s not your body language is more liek you’re asking something. Floor? Ground? Place? Oh! I get it, you wanna know why I’m her don’t you?”

His face beamed with a smile of success and his back straightened, his hands clapping together in a sort of ‘pose of triumph’ looking as though he felt pretty good about himself for working out something that really, was pretty simple. The answer to the question however, was anything but. She didn’t seem to have given him the general reaction he got when he told people he was a time-traveller so there was a pretty big chance she didn’t understand what he had meant by it. This either meant that him trying to explain the concept of time-travel would be like trying to teach a baby how to ride a jet-ski, or that she just needed a little prodding to realise what he meant. Looking thoughtful for a second, taking up his thoughtful pose once more but this time his arm hovering in front of his chest, he decided to just go with it and if she didn’t understand then it’s only time that he’s wasted. And he had plenty to waste.

”Well, being a time traveller... Which basically means that I don’t just walk around from place to place, town to town, city to city as it were, I go to ‘when’ as well as ‘where’. For example right, I don’t come from round ‘ere. I mean, I suppose I come from here like the planet earth, but a long long long time ago when there weren’t any zombies or infected or whatever you’re called. No offense. But yeah, I was running away from someone and I kind of- I guess you could say I fell and ended up here? Man I’m not making any sense am I”

Skan made a lot of motions with his body and hands as he spoke; alternately raising his right and left hands as he talked about places, gesturing with both hands at the ground as he if were measuring the size of a fish when saying ‘here’, waving his left hand and looking her in the eye when he said no offense and finally looking away from Blaire and pulling the ‘classic Skan’ move of removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes when he realised he was making little sense. There had to be a better way to communicate here, like a way for her to ask him things and tell him when she did and didn’t understand something so he could clarify. He was a time traveller for god’s sake, there had to be a- Wait. Would that work? Okay that’d be a little paradoxical. Technically though, it should work perfectly. There was only one way to find out. Skan looked as though he was hit by sudden inspiration, clicking his fingers on both hands and made a motion for Blaire to stop with both hands.

”Wait! I have a crazy idea that just might work and solve all of your communication problems! Albeit I don’t know if it’ll work right this second but if you give me a minute I’ll be able to find out. If it does, I’m a genius and time is my bitch. Sorry, as you can probably tell I don’t get to be intelligent often. Well I mean I am intelligent I just don’t get to put it to good use. Then there’s the fact I kinda know what’s gunna happen so being innovative doesn’t really happen. Really that’s all I dislike about the bo- god I’m doing it again! I’m so so soooo sorry I’m easily sidetracked! Just wait one moment”

Even a person with complete cognitive capacity would’ve been lost with the speed of Skan’s words in that particular little speech. If Skan spoke fast normally, the frequency of his speech when he was excited could probably break the sound barrier if it was somehow harnessed as engine fuel. The overflow of energy caused him to shake and flap his hands, his eyes glowing with delight and glee comparable only to a child on the night before Christmas. Taking off from the floor with a push of his legs he leapt back up onto the nearest desk and cracked open the book, violently turning the pages in such a way that it was a miracle they remained intact when they looked so old. Maybe they were made of something other than paper? It took him a minute or two but he found what he was looking for and the grin that appeared on his face looked as though if it were left unchecked it would consume it completely, the light of the slowly setting sun making its way through the window behind him creating one of those ‘angel-like’ portraits you only saw in museum paintings or church murals.

”Okay. This might get a little confusing so I’ll try and speak slowly and make myself as clear as possible. You ready?”

He gave it a couple of seconds so he could read her expression but he was going to continue talking even if she didn’t give him the go ahead. An idea this convoluted and downright crazy just had to be explained. To not do so would have been sacrilege to time travel theorists everywhere! Skan took a deep breath before speaking and made sure that this time he spoke slowly and clearly, giving her a moment after every sentence to take in and process what he said. If she understood it would become apparent to him immediately, his left hand marking an exact page in the book for a very specific reason.

”Okay. So I tried to explain before how I can travel through time right? I’m sure you didn’t understand a word of it but that’s okay, you don’t need to understand it, not really. But this book see, it’s from the future. I’m not supposed to have it, but I gave it to myself in the past so I’d be better prepared for the future, well, my present I guess. Damn, that was difficult to understand, maybe I shouldn’t explain the theory and just tell you what I’d like you to do. Okay. Here’s what I’d like you to do. I want you to think really hard of what you want to say to me right now. It can be anything from ‘You’re a total nutjob’ to let’s say... ‘Roses and phonies and kittens on ponies.’ Y’know, something mundane or abstract like that. Now, I want you to remember what you want to say to me right now for as long as you possibly can. I’m sure you want to know why? Well. I promise you Blaire that one day, maybe next week, maybe a month from now, maybe years from now I’ll come back here and find you and when I do I’ll have found a way to make you better, or maybe you’ll have gotten better under your own power who knows? And when I do I want you to tell me everything you wanted to say to me now. Then, in the future when you tell me what you wanted to say, I can write it down in this book and I’ll know now what you wanted to say. Do you understand?”

The theory behind his plan was dodgy at best. After all, if he knew what she wanted to say in the present then surely she wouldn’t need to remember what she said and then she wouldn’t tell him int he future so he couldn’t write it in the book? But then again, if it say, happened that way the first time around and then because he already knew he just wrote it down again and sent it back to himself it wouldn’t matter in the first place. No, he was pretty sure it would work, after all he read many things telling him information about people that he could only have known by either talking to them or reading it in the book where it was written down. It operated on the same theory right? He was sure of it. All Blaire needed to do was concentrate now on what she wanted to say, no matter how simple it was and remind herself of what it was until that fateful day when she met him again. It could be thousands and thousands of years for Skan before he met her again but he never broke a promise.

”If you understand then think of something now that you want to say and keep it with you always. Okay...”

Skan crossed his fingers and looked down at the page in front of him. If his plan worked, this would be where her words lay, allowing her a means of communication with him. She would be able to ‘talk’.



((Know when I asked you whether you’d go along with a ridiculous plan? This is it xD But feel free to make up a reason why it doesn’t work if you want to <3))

[♔ Bridget]

He nearly bumped into her when she stopped; it was only by inches that he managed to stop herself. She noted with a grim expression that he seemed scared out of his mind--was she really that awful looking? Feeling a bit bad, she pulled at her sleeve and wiped her mouth; the cloth came back covered in blood flakes but did remove most of the blood--unfortunately the grime would be harder to remove. ”Phew! Sorry, was miles away. Okay, so. Me? You‘re pointing at me so I’ll assume that’s it. And down? We’re going to go down? No that’s not your body language is more like you’re asking something. Floor? Ground? Place? Oh! I get it, you wanna know why I’m her don’t you?” He looked rather pleased with himself and she smiled back, nodding to confirm he was right. Blaire watched him, rather amused and smirking to show it, as he looked thoughtful for a few moment, her milky white eyes roaming down from his face to his pose then back up to his face where she momentarily debated on it before deciding to keep eye contact with him. Some people found it creepy for Blaire to look them in the eye and she didn't take offense to it; she'd seen her reflection in mirror's and puddles enough to know how blank and dead her eyes could appear to someone who didn't know her well enough to catch all the tiny expressions she could manage--both purposefully and subconsciously. She focused her full attention on him again, feeling that he was about to speak again. ”Well, being a time traveller... Which basically means that I don’t just walk around from place to place, town to town, city to city as it were, I go to ‘when’ as well as ‘where’. For example right, I don’t come from round ‘ere. I mean, I suppose I come from here like the planet earth, but a long long long time ago when there weren’t any zombies or infected or whatever you’re called. No offense. But yeah, I was running away from someone and I kind of- I guess you could say I fell and ended up here? Man I’m not making any sense am I?”

She watched as he made various motions to explain himself; he eventually removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes upon realizing she wasn't really understanding what he was saying. Her face was scrunched slightly in confusion, her forehead wrinkled as he eyebrows knitted together. She waited patiently and he seemed to come up with a solution for their communication dellima; he looked excited and snapped his fingers before motioning for Blaire to stop. She obeyed, turning to face him completely with a tilt of her head, the posture offering a silent question. ”Wait! I have a crazy idea that just might work and solve all of your communication problems! Albeit I don’t know if it’ll work right this second but if you give me a minute I’ll be able to find out. If it does, I’m a genius and time is my bitch. Sorry, as you can probably tell I don’t get to be intelligent often. Well I mean I am intelligent I just don’t get to put it to good use. Then there’s the fact I kinda know what’s gunna happen so being innovative doesn’t really happen. Really that’s all I dislike about the bo- god I’m doing it again! I’m so so soooo sorry I’m easily sidetracked! Just wait one moment.”

She blinked blankly, her mouth hanging open sightly as she tried to understand what he'd just said; he said it so fast! She watched him as he excitedly darted over to a nearby desk and opened the book she'd first seen him reading, violently flipping through pages without much regard of damaging them. She shuffled from one foot to the other, patiently waiting where he told her to as she observed him from a small distance. After a few minutes a bright grin split his face apart and he turned back to her to explain his idea. ”Okay. This might get a little confusing so I’ll try and speak slowly and make myself as clear as possible. You ready?” She nodded to him, giving him the go ahead. True to his word, he spoke slowly and patiently to her; she understood not only exactly what he meant but it also unraveled what a "time traveller" was to her.

”Okay. So I tried to explain before how I can travel through time right? I’m sure you didn’t understand a word of it but that’s okay, you don’t need to understand it, not really. But this book see, it’s from the future. I’m not supposed to have it, but I gave it to myself in the past so I’d be better prepared for the future, well, my present I guess. Damn, that was difficult to understand, maybe I shouldn’t explain the theory and just tell you what I’d like you to do. Okay. Here’s what I’d like you to do. I want you to think really hard of what you want to say to me right now. It can be anything from ‘You’re a total nutjob’ to let’s say... ‘Roses and phonies and kittens on ponies.’ Y’know, something mundane or abstract like that. Now, I want you to remember what you want to say to me right now for as long as you possibly can. I’m sure you want to know why? Well. I promise you Blaire that one day, maybe next week, maybe a month from now, maybe years from now I’ll come back here and find you and when I do I’ll have found a way to make you better, or maybe you’ll have gotten better under your own power who knows? And when I do I want you to tell me everything you wanted to say to me now. Then, in the future when you tell me what you wanted to say, I can write it down in this book and I’ll know now what you wanted to say. Do you understand?”

She nodded her head in affirmation and lifted a finger to her face, tapping her cheek with her dominant hand while the other folded against her stomach as she thought of something she wanted to convey to him right now. ”If you understand then think of something now that you want to say and keep it with you always. Okay...” She closed her eyes, repeating a phrase into her mind until she was certain she could remember it for good. You're not a nut-job but it'd be nice if you slowed down when you speak. You sound better like that. She opened her eyes again, tilting her head to him in question of whether or not it worked. She hoped it would; it would be so nice to actually talk to someone instead of them guessing what she wanted!

ooc; THIS IS A BRILLIANT IDEA. :3 I'd like it if it worked. :3

[♙ Geluvir]

His gaze was torn away from the page as she took her own thoughtful pose, it was a very human thing to do and fairly interesting to watch. The more he ‘studied’ her, the more he thought that she must be recovering from the infection under her own power rather than be subject to losing her humanity. Her completely blank expression from trying to understand him from before seemed all but gone now that he’d tried to better explain it with an example and Skan knew that the first thing that breaks in the human brain is the ability to learn things and keep a hold of memories. If this worked, he would consider it as proof of his hypothesis’s factuality. Shaking his head to clear it from the distraction he looked back down at the page and ran his left index finger along a couple of lines of text. There was a moment of silence that seemed to hang in the air for much longer than it actually lasted and it was impossible to read on Skan’s face whether his plan had worked or not. Then the corner of his mouth began to twitch and the twitch became a smile, the smile becoming a loud booming laugh that was completely abnormal coming from a man his size. Tears welled in his eyes that he soon had to wipe from his cheeks with his spare hand, struggling to breathe with every laugh that echoed from him. It took him a while to calm down, his eyes now red from recent activity and he sniffed to clear his nose of excess mucus created at the same time as his tears.

”Oh man. You must be the only person alive, in any time period that doesn’t think I’m crazy. Thank you”

He locked eyes with her from across the room, one more tear leaving his eye that he let trail for a bit before removing from his face. His smile seemed impossible for him to get rid of at this point as brief stints of laughter still bubbled from his throat. It wasn’t so much the sentiment of what she had said that he’d found so funny as much as the idiocy of the situation. He’d thought up this convoluted and whacky plan, that would usually only be found in a film about a loony scientist or a couple of teenagers and a time travelling phone box, and made it a reality only for Blaire’s grand first message to be something like that?! He found it hysterical! But nevertheless it was proof that Skan was a total genius and he was proud of that. In fact, you could say he was ecstatic!

”I’m so happy right now I could kiss you. Then again the last time I tried to so much as hug someone it lead to an... unfortunate reaction”

There was an odd amount of sincerity in what he’d just said, raising his hand to rub the left side of his face as he remembered the pain of being slapped. Lesson learned though, women brainwashed by thoughts of ‘sexual harassment’ are dangerous, even if you’re just trying to be friendly. Okay, so it wasn’t the best method of communication in the world, if she wants to convey something quickly she’d still have to rely on hand motions and such as he wouldn’t really have time to find the correct entry in the book and respond to it. Then there was the problem that if she felt different about him in the future she might change what she wanted to say in the past to reflect her new feelings as opposed to her old ones. Giving an example; if in the future, and this is really stretching the imagination, they somehow fell in love, she might change what she wanted to say now about his comment of wanting to kiss her to be something romantic. The issue then being that it would be completely misleading and he’d be thoroughly punished for it by present-day Blaire for thinking she said something she didn’t mean at the time. However, having thought about this Skan decided to take everything written here with a pinch of salt and try to confirm with her everything she said so as to not cross any wires. It’d make the communication longer but it would avoid miscommunication. After all, this wasn’t exactly an exact science... Or really ‘science’ of any kind really. Coughing to clear his throat, Skan began to speak about half as fast as he normally did, making sure to enunciate each word so that she would understand him as per her request. This also meant that he eliminated a large portion of his accent (Missing ‘h’s at the beginning of words, missing out the ‘t’ sound in the middle of words like butter and water, ‘s’ sounds coming across as ‘z’ sounds and the like) so he sounded closer to proper Queen’s English.

”Okay. We’ve established that it works. So from now on whenever you want to say something to me just point at the book and I’ll find it okay? Also whenever I ask you a question I’ll check of course, it’d be stupid if I didn’t otherwise!”

He offered her a short chuckle and looked down at the book to see her response to the question he’d posed mid sentence. For ease of access’s sake, he grabbed a random sheet of paper from the desk next to him and folded it into a long thin rectangle, placing it into the book and folding the top over the edge to act as a kind of bookmark. That way, whenever she said something he could flick straight back to the page at a moment’s notice without having to break the flow and troll through a bunch of pages first. He looked up at her once more, cocking his head to the side and offering her a smile.

”So. Anything you want to say to me?”


((Bleh, Hope this is okay >.<))

[♔ Bridget]

Blaire watched as he flipped through the book again and waited to see if it worked. A smile worked up his face and transformed into a booming laugh; she startled from it, blinking wildly and giving him a look that quite obviously questioned his sanity. Tears rolled down his face from laughing so hard and she looked fairly concerned; uninfected people crying was a bad thing because it meant they were in pain, right? Then why was he laughing? It took him a little while to calm down and when he did his eyes bloodshot and he was sniffling. ”Oh man. You must be the only person alive, in any time period that doesn’t think I’m crazy. Thank you." His eyes locked onto hers from across the room and a grin spread across her face; despite having previously being a flesh-eating mindless monster, her teeth were still surprisingly white--it was it's own testament to her recent diet of what little food was available to her in the city. Speaking of which, her stomach flipped in hunger; she was losing weight from not eating often enough. But what could she really do--go back to eating bodies? She mentally cringed at the thought of it. Not again, she decided firmly. ”I’m so happy right now I could kiss you. Then again the last time I tried to so much as hug someone it lead to an... unfortunate reaction.”

At this, Blaire shook her head in a firm 'no'; if there was one thing she knew for a fact about the infection, it was that it was transmitted by bodily fluids. Bites, saliva, or blood was the surest way of becoming infected with whatever this disease was; kissing was decidedly not a good idea. Blaire had questioned before whether or not she was still infectious--just because she could reason didn't exactly mean she couldn't still pass it on to someone else right?--but had never really wanted to put it to the test. Hell, it was bad enough being like this; she wouldn't wish it on anyone. You can't come into contact with blood or saliva of infected or you'll get whatever this is. She firmly thought it, ensuring she'd repeat it to future Skan to tell this one. She didn't want to infect someone over a simple kiss; the thought made her guts wrench. ”Okay. We’ve established that it works. So from now on whenever you want to say something to me just point at the book and I’ll find it okay? Also whenever I ask you a question I’ll check of course, it’d be stupid if I didn’t otherwise!” She nodded her understanding, smirking again as he chuckled and looked down at the book; maybe he'd see her earlier response. She watched him bookmark the pace with another sheet of paper and look back up at her with a smile; she couldn't get over how weird it felt to have someone not looking at her as if she would pounce on them and eat them alive right then and now. She liked it though; being trusted like this made her feel warm inside. ”So. Anything you want to say to me?”

She tapped her face with her claw-like finger again, her eyebrows furrowing in thought; what else did she want him to know? She broke her focus for a moment to gesture at Skan to follow her again and pointed down, signaling that they would be going downstairs. With that, she started down the stairs again, tapping her chin thoughtfully; maybe she was just over-thinking this whole thing? Grinning again, she turned to face Skan again, looking up at him to meet his gaze. Your really tall compared to me. It didn't have much meaning but did it need to?

ooc; Gah; sorry about the short post. D:<

[♙ Geluvir]

He’d kind of expected a bad reaction to his thoughtless comment. Even disregarding the context of the situation entirely, Skan had never been particularly lucky when it came to women. Therefore when she shook her head in a resolute response of ‘no’ he wasn’t surprised. Didn’t stop him looking a little bit sad though. Looking down at the book though actually made him perk up a little bit. Even if there were other reasons why she’d say no besides this one, it was nice (and a completely human reaction) to be able to blame it all on the problem of infection. What was more interesting, was that there was a little side note in the margin written by Ulysses on the subject of the infection which made Skan raise both his eyebrows in surprise. ’Just so you know, as it turns out we’re one of the lucky few who can claim to be immune. It probably has something to do with us being removed from time. If time doesn’t flow for us then how can a disease spread or come to fruition? This is all just a hypothesis I’m sure you realise, but in any case we’re unaffected.’ Well that was a load off Skan’s mind. It also confirmed for Skan the terminology he should be using to refer to the ‘zombies’ of this shattered world. Feeling the need to share, he dropped down off the desk and began following Blaire as she had gestured for him to.

”Handy piece of information for you. I would appear to be immune”

He said it in such a way that she would be able to tell that he thought she wouldn’t care at all. Whether this meant Skan now was a carrier for the disease or not was another matter entirely, and in fact the thought of that was rather frightening. What if he going back in time with the disease and infecting someone in the past was what caused all this to happen? He couldn’t live with himself if he turned out to be the cause, but Skan was relatively sure that wasn’t the case. If it was then surely Ulysses would have infected someone by now and warned him about it? Putting those thoughts aside he caught sight of Blaire looking at him and raised a single eyebrow in curiosity. Checking the book he got her question, immediately leaping down the three or four stairs that separated them so that he was directly in front of her and comparing their relative height. Even with the difference between steps he was ever so slightly taller and he chuckled. Looking kind of pleased with himself.

”Y’know I didn’t even notice? I’m pretty average height to be honest so I rarely ever get a chance to say I’m taller than someone. Doesn’t matter though if I don’t have the upper body strength to back it up though right? I think I’d rather be small. I’d be able to hide better! As long as I was still big where it matters”

He offered her a smile and stepped to the side so that she could take the lead again before following her down more flights of stairs. He’d actually been referring to his brain when he’d made the comment but a few moments later he realised what it sounded like he had said and went bright red. Hoping that she’d just let it slide without ‘saying’ anything. He hesitantly checked the book just in case but snapped it shut before he could read anything. He really didn’t want to know. At this point he realised that he needed to keep his eyes and ears open for more people that would be a threat to him, this epiphany having a dramatic effect on his personality. His eyes began to dart right and left, his head jerking around as he did so. His ears twitched with every noise and the mere sound of a rat scratching around in the debris made him jump out of his skin. He got incredibly close to Blaire as if he was trying to hide behind her, even taking such steps as bending his back a little to reduce his size. It felt strange for him to be cowering behind a girl like this but there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. He wasn’t a fighter; he couldn’t even claim to be a lover. In a world like this Skan was very much one thing and one thing only. Useless.

”Where are we going exactly? Do you like, ‘live’ around here someplace? Or did my arrival interrupt you looking for something? Or maybe someone?”

His habit of asking a million questions at once was one that would die very hard. Still keeping as close to her as possible he tried to check the book for the answer as well as walk, but he ended up stumbling slightly and bumping into Blaire’s back by accident. Not so much that she’d fall over mind you, more like being shunted by a train passenger trying to make his way down the train. In any case he mouthed a few words of apology and decided he’d need to be more careful if he was planning to do that again, this time looking up from the page every now and then to check where he was walking.


(( Naw it’s no problem. I think we’re reaching the point where posts normalise to a certain amount so the interaction is more smooth. Making them too long breaks flow y’know? <3)

[♔ Bridget]

He looked a bit sad about it but he perked up a bit after reading his book. Blaire felt bad for upsetting him by telling him he couldn't kiss her; from what she'd seen from other uninfected, it seemed as a way to display affection. Not for the first time, she felt frustrated with being infected; what was the point in becoming more human if simple barriers like infection kept you from being around other people? It was then that Skan interrupted her thoughts: ”Handy piece of information for you. I would appear to be immune.” She audibly sighed in relief, smiling at Skan; well, it wouldn't be such an issue then. If he couldn't catch the disease then she didn't have to be very careful to ensure he wouldn't get it. He seemed like it wouldn't affect her much but she showed him wrong by grinning brightly in response, very much pleased with this new information.

She watched him raise an eyebrow and check his book; he got her question and immediately jumped down the few stairs that were between them to stand on level ground with each other. She grinned at him, having to tilt her head up to look at him from such a close distance. He looked rather pleased with himself. ”Y’know I didn’t even notice? I’m pretty average height to be honest so I rarely ever get a chance to say I’m taller than someone. Doesn’t matter though if I don’t have the upper body strength to back it up though right? I think I’d rather be small. I’d be able to hide better! As long as I was still big where it matters.” He smiled at her and stepped to the side to follow her again; her pace was quick and she wasn't even close to out of breath as they reached the bottom of the flight of stairs. It was something that Blaire had noticed was a difference between infected and normal humans; infected rarely overexerted themselves. Climbing down, or up for that matter, a flight of stairs didn't really affect them as harshly as it would a normal person. Maybe it was partially due to the fact that the disease warped them into excellent killing machines or maybe exhaustion just wasn't conveyed the same way; Blaire didn't know for sure but she was still in fine shape when they reached the bottom. She had time to think about his statement and found it funny; again, she couldn't really explain why it was funny. It just was. She decided not to comment on it though; she could see that his face was bright red in the corner of her eyes. Whatever it was that she subconsciously found funny, he obviously found embarrassing. Good thing I didn't say anything. She noticed that he visibly tensed as they made their way outside and onto the streets; as per her usual standard, she stuck close to the walls when traveling. There weren't many infected out on the streets and Skan stayed close enough to her that they simply stared holes into him, growling quietly. In return, a quiet rumble echoed at the back of Blaire's throat, warning them off as he fingers flexed, her lethal claws ready to rip at a moment's notice. She had proven to the other infected that disturbing her while she had a normal human resulted in death; even with their very limited capacity for learning they had caught on and eventually left her alone. For the most part at least. ”Where are we going exactly? Do you like, ‘live’ around here someplace? Or did my arrival interrupt you looking for something? Or maybe someone?” She half turned to him and pointed at the book; she didn't drop her guard an inch and continued forward quickly. Despite his rushed words, she caught all of his questions and tried to answer them accordingly. I keep a safe house for uninfected. Was just looking for picture books to replace the ones I lost. Not a big deal. With his nose in the book and Blaire warily watching the few infected they passed, neither of them realized that he was as close as he was until he stumbled and bumped up against her. She felt her blood-caked shirt peel off of her lower back a bit; it felt a lot better. She caught his apology and nodded in acceptance of it while taking a moment to tug at her shirt. It audibly peeled off of her skin from the dried blood; she glared at it for half of a second before carefully wrapping her right hand around his wrist to guide him while he read. It would undoubtedly leave flakes of dried blood on his skin but cleanliness was the least of their worries. Another two blocks of glaring at passing infected and occasionally hissing back at them much like a cat would, they reached her back alley safe house with it's thick metal door. Leading Skan inside, she shut the door behind her and locked it with a heavy dead bolt.

She sneezed again into the crook of her elbow before shaking her head as if it would make her stop sneezing; she smiled at Skan and gestured around the room in a universal meaning of "make yourself at home". She then proceeded to walk to one of the few chairs in the room and sit down, drawing up one of her knees to her chest and rubbing at her face with her sleeve again; more grime and blood came off this time and she exhaled sharply, flustered at being so filthy. She pointed at his book again, thinking very pointedly: How do you stay so clean?


ooc; Feel free to find anything in her safe room. :3 It has power and running water; solar powered generators are great, yeah? x3

[♙ Geluvir]

The sight of her being pleased to hear that he was immune perked Skan up a bit. Something he needed before the descent down the staircase began. The stairwell seemed almost endless to him and the longer they travelled the more and more out of breath he became. About ten stories down he had to stop and take a puff of his inhaler, struggling to keep up the pace that Blaire was travelling with. If a normal human would get out of breath with such a venture then an asthmatic like Skan stood no hope of fairing any better! This got even worse as they ventured outside as not only was it now a matter of life and death to keep up with her, the nervousness of being stared at by so many people that wanted to kill him was spurring him on to move more and more quickly, much to the dismay of the muscles in his legs that began to ache. It was an interesting feeling being lead through the streets by an intelligent infected. The way she interacted with him was close to the way a child interacted with an adult. Unable to put into words what they want and holding a fairly limited understanding of things unless they’re properly explained, but able to make accurate gestures and act out what they need pretty effectively. But the way Blaire interacted with the other infected was more like an animal. It was primal, the bearing of claws and the characteristic hissing noises of a beast protecting it’s young. Skan couldn’t help but see the irony in the juxtaposition of the two roles but was far too busy worrying about his own skin to laugh about it. Looking in the book to see what Blaire wanted to say had become a welcome distraction from his surroundings at this point, Skan adopting the ostrich mentality of ‘If I can’t see them then they can’t see me’ to prevent himself from panicking too much and doing something stupid. When she grabbed his wrist however he leapt clean out of his skin at the sudden contact and breathed in sharply as if he was going to scream. Holding back from making any noise however he allowed himself to practically be dragged by the wrist to their destination, the book falling to hang by his side on the tether attached to his belt with the supporting hand now robbed from him. The bookmark fell out of the unwrapped pages due to his inability to close the book properly, so he’d have to sort that out later if at all possible.

When they finally reached their destination Skan fell to his knees, both hands slapping against the floor and propping up his upper body as he panted uncontrollably trying o get his breath back. Knowing that rolling onto his back was by far the worst thing he could do to himself right now, his right arm struggled to maintain his entire upper body weight for long enough for his left to find his inhaler once more. Man he was going to need to slip into the modern centuries soon or he was going to find himself up asthma attack creek without a gas paddle. He wasn’t used to this much excitement and running- Well, maybe the running he’d gotten used to. He hadn’t exactly made any friends since his powers manifested. Thinking about it, maybe he should change his approach a little? Kind of a moot point right now, he needed to focus on the present instead of worrying about the future. Taking a puff he shakily returned to his feet and straightened himself up, brushing off some of the dust and grime he’d accumulated from the ground. Taking a look around he noticed that the safe room he’d been lead to was actually pretty well made. It had obviously been created for the purpose of surviving this holocaust though the original owner seemed to not reside her anymore. That was unless Blaire was the person who created it, but somehow (and meaning no offense to her whatsoever) he doubted that very much. The first thing he did was take a look around the place, trying out things like lights which he wholly expected not to work but they did, proving that this place must be powered by some sort of self-sustaining generator. The next thing he tried was the water, again thinking it wouldn’t function but sure enough when he found a sink and turned the tap it spluttered into life. Clean, or at least clean looking, water erupted from the end of the tap and drained away into the plug. He was impressed with the state of things here that was for sure. Turning the tap off as to not waste any precious water, after all he didn’t know where it was coming from or how long the supply would last, he turned back to Blaire in time to see her pointing at his book. Presuming she had some sort of question he checked the book and sure enough there it was.

”How do I stay clean? Well I literally just got here so I haven’t really had the time to get dirty. And I’m forced to change clothing most of the time after a slip so I suppose my hygiene is something I couldn’t neglect if I tried. Or wait, you couldn’t possibly mean...”

The thought occurred to him that she was here in a safe room with perfectly good running water and still looked a total mess. Had the infection robbed her of the very basic ideas of cleanliness perhaps? Maybe she didn’t know that it was as simple as applying water and cloth to skin to remove dirt. It was a basic animal thing to bathe in water to remove grime but there wasn’t any large bodies of water around here to trigger that kind of instinct. Taking a chance that that was actually what she had meant to ask he started digging through the stuff in the safe room looking for something he could use as a rag. Coming across an old first aid kit he cracked it open and pulled out the roll of bandages that came with every pack, cutting a large piece of it off with the medical scissors also included within it. With the bandage in hand he returned to the sink from before and scrunched it up into a ball, soaking it thoroughly with water. From that point he went and stood in front of her, using the makeshift rag to wipe the mess she’d left on his arm away, leaving wet clean skin in its place. He then offered the rag to her, water droplets falling from it and gently settling into the floor below.

”Is that what you meant? You have all the facilities here to keep clean if you wanted. Hell, I could probably find you some clothes around here somewhere too.”

Upon saying that his eyes began flicking around the room they were in. Maybe there was a wardrobe somewhere with some clothes in it she could use? If that were the case she could probably manage to get herself clean in the bathroom and change into something relatively dirt free. From the sounds of it she cared about the fact she lacked hygiene and if that was the case then Skan was determined to correct the issue for her. He did owe her after all. He didn’t look forward to trying to explain what a bath was to her however and he hoped that she would remember now that he’d tried to jog her memory. Otherwise it was going to take an awkward conversation or helping her bathe to achieve his goal. Both situations he wasn’t entirely comfortable with...

[♔ Bridget]

Blaire was patient--God, she was always patient--while he flipped through his book for her question; after a few moments her waiting was rewarded as he answered. ”How do I stay clean? Well I literally just got here so I haven’t really had the time to get dirty. And I’m forced to change clothing most of the time after a slip so I suppose my hygiene is something I couldn’t neglect if I tried. Or wait, you couldn’t possibly mean...” Coudn't mean what? Her eyebrows furrowed together in confusion as she waited for him to continue. She watched with the curiosity of a child as he rummaged around the room before finally coming up with one of those health packs that humans seemed to value so much; she didn't understand why they were so important. Couldn't their wounds heal without wrappings like hers could? The question answered itself: Probably not. She reached out and scratched the still healing gashes on her upper right arm, not feeling the faint pain from disturbing the healing flesh; so it was finally healing. Good. Refocusing on Skan, she watched with wide-eyed curiosity as he took the cloth he got from the pack and wet it with water before coming back over to her. She watched as he wiped the rag on his arm where she'd grabbed him; the grime was gone! Her face showed her surprise and she accepted the rag from him when offered, turning it over in her hands as if it was a foreign object. It was that easy to get clean? Really? ”Is that what you meant? You have all the facilities here to keep clean if you wanted. Hell, I could probably find you some clothes around here somewhere too.” She looked up at Skan and nodded vigorously; clean clothes too? Oh, that would be a welcome relief from these blood-caked tattered rags she had on now. She sniffled, her nose starting to run from the slight warmth in the room and started rubbing the cloth on her face. She had to rearrange the cloth a few times as her claw-like fingers kept puncturing it but she eventually managed to clean off her face for the most part. Unfortunately, the rag was already pretty gross but she ignored it and started working on her arm and hands. She was met with some frustration there as her fingers continuously ripped the rag until it was nothing but shreds.

She huffed in agitation before violently twitching her fingers to make the rag slide off of it's spider web trap her fingers had ripped it into. With a plop, it landed in her lap and she glared angrily at it before lifting her hands to glare at them. Oh, how she hated her hands at times like this! She flexed them while glaring at them, thinking of a few very choice words she'd say out loud if she could right now. Meanwhile, Skan seemed to look around for acceptable clothing; Blaire had some, actually. It was a funny thing, but most people she helped felt like she owed her. Not on a single occasion was she rewarded with not only food but clean clothing; she figured out after her first ruined pair that these long sleeved shirts were impossible for her to put on without ripping them to hell and back. And as winter had been starting, all she was given was warm winter clothes. She stopped glaring at her hands long enough to point at a small dresser tucked in the corner of the room; it's where she asked for the clothes she'd been gifted with to be put. With that out of the way, she returned to glaring at her hands for a few more moments.

Giving him enough time to find the clothes, she pointed at his book again, while thinking I can't put on the long clothes without ripping them to shreds. I will need help with the long shirts. Her fingers flexed at the thought of ripping more clean clothes. She picked up the dirty rag again--well, rag was a nice term; it looked more like a fluffy ball of cotton now--she fisted her fingers into the material and focused again on cleaning her hands and arms before getting frustrated again and throwing it on the floor with vigor, earning a satisfying "SPLAT!" as the dirty water hit the hard floor. She glared at it and crossed her arms across her chest; whereas she could be infinitely patient with other people she had no such patience for herself. If she couldn't get something so simple she didn't feel like embarrassing herself further. She had given up.

ooc; Sorry that it's a bit shorter than normal. o:

[♙ Geluvir]

Skan was gobsmacked to discover that it really was that simple. So that’s how bad the infection was? That you even forgot the basic ideas of cleanliness that the most primal of animals had? He couldn’t help but watch her attempt to clean herself off out of the corner of his eye as he rummaged around looking for clothing. Doing so allowed him to notice her redirect him to where the clothing was kept and he gave her a nod before making his way over to the dresser to see what was inside. Sure enough it was chock-a-block with clothing created with the sole purpose to fight the cold. Some were obviously more male orientated than others but that probably wouldn’t matter to Blaire in the slightest so he pulled them out and set them in front of her anyway. Looking up and opening his mouth to speak he caught that she wanted to say something to him and pulled on the tether at his waist, the book leaping up into his hand. Oh, now that was a problem. Not only did it seem that putting on the clothes was impossible for her but from the state of the cloth that seemed out of her abilities as well. So not only had the infection robbed her of the knowledge of how to get clean but apparently not the want, it had ‘adapted’ her in such a way that she could fight but not keep herself clothed and warm. Her constant sneezing was also starting to bug him. It was obvious she’d got a cold of some kind so these clothes were becoming necessary to keep her healthy. Skan took up his thoughtful pose once more, letting the book flop back to his side once more as he looked over the clothes and the damaged rag. There was only one thing for it really, but the issue there was that it was something he really didn’t want to do. Well, he owed her he supposed and this would be something that would dramatically impact her quality of life. This was all if she agreed of course, which he would understand if she didn’t as it was an odd circumstance.

”Okay. Uhm. Just throwing this out there but. Would you like me to help you? You’ve obviously caught a cold and you need to improve your quality of life if you’re going to defeat it. Usually at this point you’d take a hot bath and wear clean clothes but you obviously have a bit of an issue with it. I mean, I understand if you’d rather I left you alone, I’m not sure if I’d want me around given the situation”

Skan scrunched his mouth up toward the left corner and looked away from her, his face going a little red at the thought of what it was he was proposing. Struck with a sudden idea however he clicked his fingers and ducked into the bathroom he’d checked out earlier, running his gaze over the place before he found what he was looking for. Grabbing it from the sink behind the tap he returned with it and held it out to Blaire so she could examine it.

”In the bath you could just use the soap to clean yourself without a rag, its hard so shouldn’t be decimated quite as easy as the rag I gave you. Using that you could probably do all but your back by yourself. You wouldn’t even have to let me see you...”

He trailed off, going red again instead of finishing his sentence. He tried to diffuse the atmosphere by coughing into his free hand and avoiding eye contact with her, his eyes falling onto the clothing he’d laid out a few moments ago. Retracting his hand with the soap in it, he pointed at the clothes and looked at Blaire with the corner of his eye.

”Which ones do you like anyway? Do you have a preference?”

He began to rub his hands together a little nervously; he wasn’t very good at handling situations like this one, the soap leaving a slightly oily residue on his hands as he did so. He didn’t seem to care however, as his mind had begun to drift again as he looked over the clothes. He began to think of what would happen in the warm months if she was trapped in clothing like this. Well, in that case she could probably just shred it to a level where she could handle the heat, but that would put her back into the cycle of being too cold when winter rolled around. Skan probably wouldn’t be with her then, in fact he knew that his time for this world was a relatively short one, it was what was fuelling him to try and help Blaire as much as he could right now. Without someone to help her, Blaire would have to struggle again with the elements like she had before and Skan felt upset about that, a frown growing on his features. He hoped that when he returned here and met her again that not a lot of time would have passed for her. He thought about how lonely and frustrated she must feel trapped in this god-forsaken hell hole, with no one to talk to except those she occasionally came across that looked upon her with fear and perhaps even disgust. Placing a hand on his chest he could feel a pain in his heart. It wasn’t exactly the same as her situation, but he knew what it felt like to be alone. There was no one else in the universe like him and not only that, but he had no control over his destiny, it was all pre-written and pre-determined he was merely playing it out to its inevitable conclusion. More than once he’d slipped to a time with no humans, no animals, no life at all and wondered how long he’d be forced to walk barren plains hungry and alone before fate saw fit to drop him somewhere else. More than once he’d had to deal with people that saw him as strange and claimed he must be ‘dealt with’ for reasons that dumbfounded him. Being faced with Blaire’s situation made him remember the great sorrow that clung to his heart and soul like an infection. He couldn’t possibly understand the pain she was going through; but he could empathise. His eyes refocusing from where they’d stared into space he turned his head back toward her, tears welling in his eyes. When he spoke his voice cracked a little, overcome with emotion.

”Please. Let me help you”


((Don’t be silly, it’s fine <3))

This post has been edited by Geluvir on Dec 31 2011, 02:19 PM