[ closed ] i'm sure you've heard it all before

[lyingheart]

WHO: HOUSE 001, NONAH, NC HOUSEMATES
WHERE: ... House 001, Nonah, NC
WHEN: August 18th - August 31st.
WHAT: What happens when three titan shifters, a demi-goddess, a clone, and an alien live together? Let's learn.
WARNINGS: None yet, will update as necessary.

Most days were probably normal, in that the sun rose from an Easternly direction, it tended to cross over the sky regardless of precipitation or cloud coverage with a remarkable degree of steadiness, and each later afternoon, spanning into the evening, it found a way to sink beyond the Western horizon, chasing down a further shore. Nonah, being Nonah, bustled with business and people, trains sounding as they ran through downtown, as ever perpetually in motion. Even the fear of months earlier with the monorail crash has faded from the forefront of memory, outside of extra signs and warnings, and officers who chase away those who loiter near supports of all sorts of road and travel structures.

In Government Townhouse 001, the days run like they always do: absolutely senseless, in the way that five (no, six) completely unique individuals getting along in their attempt at normalcy in handling school, work, and the various details of living together.

Go forth, housemates. What's your adventure today?

[ ooc: Set up your own top level comments and tag around as you can! ]

Comments

[lyingheart]

[ Snow man - figures made from snow. She should have known, but the imagination she'd indulged as a child hadn't touched on creating anything with her hands like that during the winter. The ones she's experienced as an adult (to her, she's been an adult for years, albeit a young adult) have been in a wildly different context, largely away from the cities and towns where children might have indulged in those exact things.

She wonders if the people she knows ever built snowmen. Meanwhile, watching Aracely is a constant experience in adjustment. ]

Hotter than Florida? No, I haven't. I've heard there're deserts somewhere in the States... there are giant ones on other continents. I can only imagine what they're like firsthand.

[ Dry heat has never been exactly the same where she's lived than it is in the South West of the United States. ]

[huitzilin]

Mm, yep! Kaine and I came from Texas and there's a lot of sand and cactuses and sometimes people try to grow grass but it doesn't work that well. There's really good barbecue there.

And rodeos and big cowboy hats!

[ these memories are all too exciting, and she sits cross-legged in the air, fidgeting a bit as she sorts through her thoughts about it. ]

Sometimes I'm dreaming and I'm standing in sand.

There's also a flaming salamander.

[lyingheart]

Most of those things don't make any sense to me...

[ She signs internally, tamping down on the frustration at her core. It feels like she's walking around always four steps behind anyone from a "Earth modern" era, even more so if they know the United States, or are from it. All Annie has is her determination to ask questions and glean from those answers what information is important to have for context or personal knowledge, and what's extraneous.

Barbecue is food. Cowboy hats are hats, for all she doesn't know the style. Rodeos - she's not sure about that one. ]

Texas is further West from here. That much I do know. What's a salamander?

[huitzilin]

[ Aracely doesn't seem to think much of it. she can pick up on the frustration, but she doesn't necessarily slow herself down. it's either confidence that Annie will be able to keep on pace with her, or ask questions where they're relevant, depending on how relevant Aracely's trains of thought were at all. ]

Yep, right above Mexico. That's where I'm from.

[ there's a thoughtful expression. ]

Salamander is a guy that's on fire.

[ ...don't hold her to that one, Annie... ]

He came after me and then Kaine saved me but sometimes he's in my dreams, too.

[lyingheart]

Is that how you met Kaine?

[ She asks, her attention completely focused on Aracely by now. She needs to make more of an effort to understand this woman, much like with Kaine. They live with her. One's a confessed murderer, and Aracely is an unknown.

An unknown from Mexico. ]

Salamander had powers on your own world, or just a love of fire?

[ What brand of lunatic is her? ]

[huitzilin]

Kind of.

[ despite being very topic-changey, Aracely was pretty open about herself. she didn't have a lot of the drawbacks that a lot of people had when it came to sharing, mostly because everyone was sharing with her already. ]

Salamander was a big guy who had powers and I think he had god powers, I dunno.

[ which is partially true. ]

Kaine saved me before that, though. They brought me up from my home, he saved me from a pile of dead people.

[lyingheart]

[ God powers? It's sad how that makes a sideways impact, where being saved from a pile of dead people sounds horrible... but not completely out there. ]

That sounds... unnerving. Or disturbing, but probably both. How long ago was that?

[ Not a why; that's Aracely's to tell, without Annie needing to prod. It's more about balance than anything else, with what's relevant to be aware of, and what's less immediate in importance.

She does feel her own degree of horror. Piles of dead bodies... half eaten, torn apart, blood splattered on walls, people whose names she knew but with whom she'd never really spoken - in her mind, it's Trost. It's not a comfortable place to be. ]

[huitzilin]

[ there are times she thinks about it, and times when it's simply fact. this is a moment where it's fact, and where the tact of "a pile of dead people" escapes full emotional impact. it was gone and over, and those memories couldn't hurt her anymore, because that's all those memories were.

memories. ]

A year ago, I think! We were in Texas for a long time and we stayed in a hotel. Then we left to go to Mexico because something happened and a lot of people were hurt. Kaine didn't want to hurt people anymore, so we went away.

[lyingheart]

[ By now there's a suspicion in Annie's mind that most everyone has a shitty story about the lives they've lived through before, with a few exceptions... and those ones tend to not understand the depths of how horrid it is to endure and endure and come out in some semblance of whole.

Memories are memories. They're past, but still formative. ]

Have you been helping him with that? With the not hurting people anymore.

[ It's complicated and sparse on detail, but pressing still isn't Annie's concern. General understanding is... for what it's worth. She herself is a bastion of calm, interspersed with pangs of familiarity, or something like understanding's bastard cousin. ]

[huitzilin]

[ she pauses, actually thinking about her words before they come out of her mouth. sometimes emotions were difficult to express, especially Kaine's in this context. she had a bond with Kaine—to the point where she could connect with him so far that she felt his physical pain. ]

Kaine tries really hard to help people and not hurt them, but sometimes people get hurt anyway and it's not his fault. He blames himself for it a lot.

I can't help him with the way that people feel.

[ but she can be there, and she has stuck around for a long time, knowing exactly what he was and all aspects of him in one way or another. ]

So when something bad happens and they're just bad. People get hurt because those things are bad. Kaine's a hero. He doesn't think he's a hero, but Kaine saves people too. He'll save me again, too. [ it's hard to tell if that's her kind of confidence speaking, or some kind of premonition. ]

You can't make up for hurting people by saving people, but he wants to be a better person. I can remind him what kind of person he can be.

[lyingheart]

[ Annie listens, not making any move to interrupt. What Aracely says takes time to settle in, time to be considered and turned over. You can't make up for hurting people by saving people, but he wants to be a better person. I can remind him what kind of person he can be. It's too easy a sentiment to understand. You don't undo pain by helping others, and in trying to help, pain might happen anyway.

No one owes anyone the benefit of the doubt, but starting from a place where you're the one who's caused pain can be a setback for a long time. What she can't help herself from thinking is what she ultimately says. ]

I think... people can use someone around them who can remind them when it's hard for them to remind themselves.

[ That people need to have those like Aracely around who believe in the same thing that person wants. Sometimes it's healthy, most the times it might not be at all, but that sense of needing people who care to any degree...

As someone used to self imposed isolation, she knows how difficult it is to be one's own source of strength. It's easy to falter. It's easier to make the compromises or justifications for what you don't change, when on your own.

It's also easier to say it doesn't matter... and easier to betray yourself, and not feel regret over that much, at least. ]

I'm glad he has you. I'm glad you have him, if he's going to be the one who keeps finding you when things go bad. He sounds like a good teammate.

[ Which is what registers for her. Teammates and comrades in arms are easy to understand. Far easier than friends, though the terms are hardly mutually exclusive.

Annie is no good at these things, but she tries to articulate them, in her own way. ]

[huitzilin]

[ she turns in the air again until she's hovering just a few inches from the ground.

Kaine's been as self-depreciating as he's been pseudo-heroic. Aracely usually spends her time dragging him out of bed and chattering him into things, and if she wasn't, he'd be completely alone. maybe a part of her knew that, too. maybe a part of her knows that here, in this situation. ]

Oh, you're silly.

[ and she leans forward abruptly before almost diving into a sudden hug. ]

You have me too!

We're all a team right now!