maskormenacelogs | [ closed ] carry me on the waves

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[ closed ] carry me on the waves

WHO: Artemis Crock & Annie Leonhart
WHERE: A marina, then at sea on a glass bottom boat.
WHEN: 05/31
WHAT: Following up on Will Graham's recommendation of wildlife viewing by glass bottomed boat, Annie contacts one of the most adventurous, in touch with this Earth business people she knows to use as a buffer in the pursuit of "fun" - Artemis Crock.
WARNINGS: "Fun" may or may not be extremely relative. Will update as necessary!

Annie pulled off her helmet once her military loaner bike's kickstand was out, tucking the bulky equipment under one arm and running her other hand through her hair. "The boat's supposed to leave for the tour at 9:15. What time is it?"

She still didn't automatically look to her communicator for this kind of information, instead checking the relative position of the sun in the sky. The last month and then some has made her more familiar with the fluctuations of heat and humidity in Florida, though it made her no more fond of them. She was getting a decent sense of time without relying on the clocks and timekeeping devices she didn't have on her world, regardless of how exact people liked to think they tracked time in this here and now.

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Artemis pulls up alongside her, similarly ditching the helmet. Her own hair fluffs out immediately into its usual long and bouncy ponytail. If having ridiculously long hair that retained its shape even after having a helmet crammed down onto it were a super power, Artemis would be ranked right up there with the Kryptonians. But it isn't, and she's in the Arrow family instead.

She is not wearing her cowl or costume for this occasion, instead going for a plain white (midriff-baring, of course) tank top and shorts. A cowl on a pleasure cruise? You've got to be kidding. She does have her utility belt and a few tricks tucked away in her pockets, just in case.

Since she is one of the most in touch with this Earth business people that Annie knows, she immediately looks at her comm to figure out the time. It's awfully early for a teenager to be up on the weekend, but Artemis is used to not sleeping and the ride here was fast enough to wake her up.]

Close enough. Where's the boat?

[ Artemis is blessed with that hair! Annie's still looks like a mess, albeit a slightly tamed mess. Annie unstraddles the motorcycle, squinting and looking toward the multitude of docks. This is a tourist attraction, which seems to mean there'll be a sign and a group of people collecting in one place as if they knew what was going on. Annie looked for the largest group of milling people, then saw the ticket stand close-by. ]

Down to our left, across this lot, I'm assuming. I was told our tickets are "on call" at the stand.

[ She's not sure what that means, but she knows a stand when she sees one, and that one says TICKETS in bright blue. it's a place to start. ]

The marina's bigger than I was expecting.

[ Marina being the name listed out front, along with the location. It's the first time she's run into the word and been able to apply it to anything. These boats... there are so many, in so many different styles. Annie's a little wide eyed taking them all in, pressing her lips together and swallowing. Will this world ever stop feeling so large? ]

[She glances over at Annie and notices that the other girl seems to be somewhat taken aback by the sights. This is even more new to Annie than it is to her, she realizes. She gets off her motorcycle and secures her helmet.]

The bikes should be fine here--come on.

[She grabs Annie by the wrist and pulls her towards the ticket booth.]

What name are the tickets under?

[ Annie tells herself not to twist her wrist away immediately like she's about to, instead picking up her pace to pull even with Artemis and hope that prompts her into dropping her hold on her arm. It's not a threatening move, but habit puts Annie on the defensive regardless. ]

Either Annie or Will.

[ The older woman manning the ticket stand scratches away on a newspaper, doing the crossword puzzle. She looks up at both blonde girls, glancing over at a computer screen and making a humming sound in the back of her throat. ]

One of you the Annie girl we're waitin' on? Here you are, hon, they've got the rest of you all lined up by the gates at the dock.

[ She smiles at them both, pushing the tickets themselves out through the window and waving them on through. it's much less painful than Annie expected. She nods her head to the woman in passing, reaching out to grab both tickets before they angle toward the gates. ]

That's much more trusting than I was expecting.

[ All expectations are seriously off base so far! ]

[Artemis lets go easily, not really thinking of it or noticing Annie's discomfort. She was just trying to get Annie moving, after all, it wasn't like she wanted to hold hands.]

It's a fish-watching tour, not a high security prison.

[As the go to the gates, the boat they'll be taking comes into view. Speaking of expectations, it's much... bigger than Artemis was expecting. Somehow, despite the need for tickets and the crowds at the marina, Artemis was still expecting something more like a rowboat. Surely a rowboat is the biggest possible boat that can safely have a glass bottom.]

That's... big. Are we really all going to fit on that?

Well, folks, it looks like we are ready to board. Everybody here for the 9:15 Glass Bottomed Boat Tour come on up to the ramp and we'll get started. Please have your tickets ready.

[It's not that Artemis is nervous--after all, she can swim just fine and she has Robin's rebreather just in case--but for some reason she's suddenly remembering what someone told her about evil mechanical sharks. A glass bottom wouldn't be much of a barrier if they showed up.

... Hopefully that person was just trying to mess with the new arrival.]

[ Annie hadn't been along with the Miami trip, but she did know about the sharks - and the footage of what had happened - and her own wary eyeballing of the boat and its admittedly small frame when compared to the mass of the sharps...

She shivers, steeling herself and walking forward. ]

If the Captain says we will, we will. It's his job to know his boat.

[ And be responsible for all their lives. There may not be a navy where she's from, but the ideology of a captain on any boat seems like it's pretty... standard.

Hopefully this guy wasn't crooked. Will didn't seem to be the sort to support people of that nature, but one never knew what one didn't know about a person until one... did. Awkward.

Annie straightens her back and marches right into the line, handing back one of the tickets to Artemis. Look, a numbering system. What a waste of resources. These don't even look reusable! ]

Can you swim?

Yeah, I can swim. I'd be dead like six times over, if I couldn't. [It's still not her favorite thing in the world, though.] Can you?

[She hands over her ticket and files onto the boat after Annie and gets her first look at this glass bottom. There's not much to see yet, even with military-enhanced vision, but the water is still very blue.]

Okay, folks, welcome aboard! Everybody take a seat and we'll get going. Forecast says it's going to be a nice calm day, so hopefully we'll be able to show you a lot of great stuff!

[Artemis kind of wishes the captain would stop calling them folks, but his voice is reassuring. This is someone who does this every day and presumably they haven't gone all Titanic yet.]

I can doggy paddle.

[ There's her full disclosure. She'll need to, you know, develop something more than that one day. At least she's a darn good doggy paddler so far! ]

So let's hope it doesn't come down to swimming our way out.

[ Annie is practically dwarfed by the man sitting to her other side, taking a seat alongside the metal railing that kept them off the glass directly. She peers down at the glass surface, keeping half her attention on what the Captain's saying, along with listening to the passengers there along with them. A shadow glides underneath the viewing windows - no, not a shadow, that's some sort of fish. Silver scales and green with yellow. Small, about the size of her thumb.

Then crabs, as they start moving out, where the sediment on the bottom of the marina and harbor didn't interfere with what they could see through the clear water. ]

What are those?

[ She indicates one of the blue-gold crabs that scuttles across the sands the boat slowly moves over as it navigates out of the docks and toward the open sea... so to speak. ]

[Artemis peers down, half expecting to see some crazy deep-sea creature blossom out of the sandy ocean bed. Instead she sees... a crab?]

Those? Pretty sure those are just crabs.

[Throughout their encounters with Annie, Artemis has eventually noticed that in comparison to this world, Annie's world is far more different than her own. This is, as far as Artemis is concerned, the first solid proof. Because, come on, how do you not know what a crab is?]

You don't have crabs where you're from?

[No one seems to be listening to the captain, who keeps droning on and calling everybody 'folks,' It is something of a relief for Artemis--at least the general chatter covers their conversation.]

[ Wait, that isn't a crazy deep-sea creature? Annie slides her eyes toward Artemis, wondering how best to explain. ]

I wouldn't say we don't. More that they're not something I've seen. Do they live in freshwater?

[ She's seen crayfish of a sort, and frogs, and toads, and fish, yes, possibly freshwater eel, freshwater clams... there may be crabs in the freshwater too, but she hasn't had the luck or the right market to move through to see them. ]

I've never seen the sea until I was brought here. I'm still not entirely convinced something as big as this... [ she nods her head toward one of the windows to the outside, where the last of the masts in harbor pass by, skeletal trees sporting white flags of surrender against impossibly blue skies ] ... won't swallow all of us up, never to be seen again.

[ This might just explain the way her feet are planted, or how her knuckles alternate between going white with the pressure she exerts in holding the railing and between normal bloodflow. Annie has a lot of tension... and wonder. It pulls her eyes back down, seeing more of the yellow-silver forms of an unfamiliar school of fish flitting by. ]

[Artemis usually thinks she's a pretty savvy person, but she has no idea about freshwater crabs, or really anything that lives underwater, so she just shrugs.]

I grew up in a city, I have no idea about this stuff. I mean, I've been to the beach before, but...

[The fish are growing more plentiful and more interesting the farther they get from the marina. Even Artemis, who admittedly doesn't have a whole lot of interest in the natural sciences, finds her eyes glued to the scenery below the glass. Annie's remarks about the ocean swallowing them whole just gives the scene below that much more weight.]

I've got a friend who would know... This would be probably like watching pigeons and rats for him.

[Aqualad's origins suddenly seem a lot more unearthly now that she's seeing it first hand. She's hit with a weird sense of homesickness. She hasn't known him long, but if there's anyone she misses more than her mom or her bff, Zatanna (and deep down, her long gone sister), it's probably Kaldur. Out of all her team, Robin is the one she looks up to the most and Kid Flash is a familiar (if frustrating) sparring partner, but Kaldur is the glue that holds them all together.]

[ ... but the world is larger than what either one of them knows. Annie acknowledges that easily enough, leaning forward to watch the progress of nature beneath their feet. It's a bizarre experience, this kind of passive, accidental voyeurism into the lives of animals that pay little heed to the movements of surface dwelling creatures. ]

Why do you say that?

[ Annie looks away from the glass, curious as to Artemis's phrasing. Fish as pigeons and rats? She wonders if Will ever feels that way. Probably not, unless he has an equal fondness for those two people-cohabitating vermin. She doesn't see the octopus reaching a tentacle out of a tin can, wrapping around a glass jar they're passing over. ]

[She glances up at Annie, startled. She'd hardly noticed that she'd said something that could be revealing. She feels comfortable around Annie, and aside from the two bozos she already knows from home, that is more than she can say about anyone in this alternate reality.]

He's... he's from Atlantis. [She shrugs. If Annie's world doesn't have crabs, then she has no idea how she's supposed to explain Atlantis.]

I just guess... fish and crabs would be normal if you're from under the water? [That sounds lame... Oh look--an octopus tentacle grabbing a glass jar!]

Hey, look at that!

[Please look at that and not ask questions Artemis doesn't know how to answer.]

Atlantis?

[ There's nothing close, not even a mythology that'll clue her in. Her look of curiosity remains, turning a little perplexed - ]

Under the water?

[ How does someone even - aliens? More of them? The distraction works, though Annie counts it as being one, allowing it to pass since Artemis has been a kind of grounding stabilization and connection to this world. Neither of them are from it, precisely, but she understands and relates to the situation in a way Annie doesn't - and it's harder to admit, but she likes that sense of fun which relies on some kind of adrenaline rush too. She has respect for what Artemis can do, and it's not complicated with the kinds of goals and competition that'd been natural and necessary back home. ]

What is that?

[ The octopus oozes out of the can, expanding as it does so, filling more of the glass frames as they move over, section by section. ]

[At least this is a sea creature Artemis can confidently identify.]

It's called an octopus. Because they have eight legs.

[If nothing else, she's seen the Little Mermaid and knows what an octopus looks like, though she didn't realize they could get so big and still fit in a tin can. The rest of the audience is paying attention too--oooo-ing and ahhh-ing as the captain relates some fact that Artemis can't be bothered to listen to. Admittedly, his facts are probably better than "they have eight legs."

Artemis catches sight of a streak of grey out of the corner of her eye and a moment later the captain is making a new announcement.]

Folks, it looks like we're in for a treat and some dolphins have decided to join us on our tour today!

[The tourists on board immediately forget about the slimy eight-legged thing below them and start craning their necks to spot the new arrivals. Artemis has enough of a gooey Lisa Frank center to her tomboyish soul that she is one of crowd]

[ Octo. Annie nods, slowly, like that makes more sense than it does, but the octopus is already gone. No point in wondering too hard over it, though a sense of wonder lingers. It's hard for it not to.

Dolphins comes as a word she's read before, and an idea that's been given to her in piecemeal. Annie leans forward, since everyone does, and while she looks down, she finds herself examining the faces of this crowd surreptitiously rather than tracking the darting grey shapes below. Trying to understand the people around her comes down to trying to see the world from their point of view. Who are they, and what do they get out of this? Is it so different from what she and Artemis get? Or more the same? Gasps and excited call outs seem to suggest that everyone here is excited for what they might see.

Everyone likes that glimpse into the unknown when it's safe enough to be fascinating, not terrifying.

She notices one of the working attendants move along the walkway behind everyone, pausing to ask a parent to hold their child further away from where they were climbing up on the rail. He walks down toward the cubbies and storage spaces for people's extraneous belongings, pausing to answer a question here, point out something else there.

Her eyes are drawn back to the dolphins, inevitably. ]

They're so quick.

[ And strange, and interesting, a sense of intelligence coming from them as they drove schools of fish back and forth under the viewing windows, before a younger male swam sideways, staring up at the people staring down. He opens his mouth, seeming to grin all the larger, before rolling over and swimming off with a powerful thrust of his tail. ]

What kind of animal is a dolphin? They look intelligent.

[ A whale. They remind her obscurely of the orca in her tank, hanging perpendicular to the water's surface. What do they look like, when not held in cages made by men? ]

Any idea where you can find wild orcas?

[Artemis is trying hard not to squee. The dolphin's sense of fun is infectious--it's like they're purposefully letting the people on the boat in on how awesome their lives are. There's even a moment when she thinks that the young male makes eye contact, but that would be ridiculous. She laughs despite herself--he's so clearly showing off.

Surely even Aqualad would think this was exciting... unless this is just like watching dogs playing in somebody's yard... You know what, forget Aqualad. This is exciting.]

Yeah, dolphins are supposed to be super smart. That's why people catch them and teach them stupid tricks.

[Which, now that she's seeing them, makes her pretty angry. Why would you ever want to see a dolphin bounce a ball on its nose when they're so willing to show off their own stunts right here in the wild where they belong?]

Orcas? I don't know... I think they like colder water. Like, in the Arctic? [She tears her eyes away from the dolphins for a moment to glance at Annie.] Wait, how do you know about orcas and not crabs?

[ Annie meets her gaze, giving a small shrug of her shoulders. ]

I saw one. At the zoo in Nonah. She was...

[ Trailing off, Annie looks back toward the dolphin-absent waters beneath them. ]

Larger than life.

[ Trapped, caged, and sad, even as she'd been awe inspiring. Annie lapses into that thought, recalling what she'd looked like in those too-blue waters.

I will watch you burn. ]

They might have had crabs somewhere. There was a porcupine. I hadn't seen anything like that before.

[Even though Artemis has never seen a living orca, wild or captive, she feels a strange sort of sympathy. It clearly affected Annie and that has to count for something. Coupled with the strange underwater scene below and the distant retreating dolphins, it makes Artemis feel strangely thoughtful.]

What is your world like? I know you said you've never been to the beach, but do you even have orcas? Or porcupines or crabs or whatever else. The way you talk about it, it's like they don't even exist.

[ Annie watches the fish passing beneath, considering her words before she answers. ]

They might, or they might not. I don't know what there is in the world that I haven't seen.

[ Her world is larger, in some senses, but it's still restricted. What's there to be seen is something she hasn't had time to consider. She couldn't dream that far, because there isn't an after for her to look forward to, just the fallout. ]

There are certain barriers we find hard to overcome. Something about the Walls we build for ourselves to keep things safe means you're cut off from seeing what else might be beyond the places you can see.

[ Very real places, with very real rewards, for what they're worth. It's that worth that's difficult to encompass. ]

Some people have more of an issue with it than others.

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[ closed ] carry me on the waves

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