Ep 2 - Readjustment Blues (Closed)
Nov 11, 2014 1:31:28 GMT -5
Post by Dart on Nov 11, 2014 1:31:28 GMT -5
Dawn.
The clouds had mostly burned away over the night.
The sunrise turned the red rocks in the landscape gold and pink. In between the scrub and sagebrush, mist was slowly burning off, lifting away from the branches and silvering the dry grass.
This part of Oregon was the one most people didn't every really know.
Most of what folks knew about Oregon came from television shows. That it was green and wet and full of hippies. Which was true if you lived in Eugene. Then it also had a plethora of special brownies and professors that wore old tweed coats with leather patches on the elbows usually eating the brownies during a quick lunch break. Portland was full of hipsters; drinking coffee with the foam elegantly turned into leaves and other forms of art. Then there were the coastal towns; Bandon, Florence, Canon Beach, Seaside... all the beaches, from the soft dry white dunes to the dark sand and hugs basalt stones jaggedly rising from the sea.
Steens Mountain was in the part of Oregon that no TV bothered to show except in cheaply shot westerns. It was arid and dry. Temperatures dropped dramatically at night and bounced hot during the day, like all near-desert areas did, even in the summer. It had sharp ragged cliffs of bare red and deep washes where the thin grey soil ran off during hard thunderstorms. It was formidable to both animal and plants, and yet somehow things survived and thrived in this wilderness with its distinct lack of human intervention. That's probably why they did.
In front of the entrance, the courier stood waiting. She had her nose tipped slightly into the wind that was blowing into the gully. She'd found a little spot of sun to stand in, and since no one was around at the moment, she had relaxed just a little. Her toe was cocked under herself, weight off her left hip.
It was just her and her thoughts for a moment, and Dart quietly sifted through them as she did scent and sound. She'd run the north ridge early, come back and waited as she'd been told to show the new fellow the patrol loop he'd be taking...
Pyrotech had said he was going to pick up a transfer. She'd been surprised last night the mech's sheer size. Was he a frontliner? They'd never gotten one before, if so. He couldn't be. If-if a frontliner didn't do his job he simply became fodder.
Also, she had to wonder what was with the Pine Sol? That was one of those smells you never, ever ever quite shook out of your memory. It was like sugar and pine, it wasn't a natural smell. Well, it was, but it was as if someone had bathed themselves in a tub full of tiny cardboard stinky trees.
Those came in the oddest smells. Vanillaroma. Bayside Breeze. And oh, Pina Colada.
Which was good when you got caught in the rain.
A little smile drifted across her expression, and she settled her hand comfortable over the top of her hip carrier, playing with the little pressure latch with a thumb.
The clouds had mostly burned away over the night.
The sunrise turned the red rocks in the landscape gold and pink. In between the scrub and sagebrush, mist was slowly burning off, lifting away from the branches and silvering the dry grass.
This part of Oregon was the one most people didn't every really know.
Most of what folks knew about Oregon came from television shows. That it was green and wet and full of hippies. Which was true if you lived in Eugene. Then it also had a plethora of special brownies and professors that wore old tweed coats with leather patches on the elbows usually eating the brownies during a quick lunch break. Portland was full of hipsters; drinking coffee with the foam elegantly turned into leaves and other forms of art. Then there were the coastal towns; Bandon, Florence, Canon Beach, Seaside... all the beaches, from the soft dry white dunes to the dark sand and hugs basalt stones jaggedly rising from the sea.
Steens Mountain was in the part of Oregon that no TV bothered to show except in cheaply shot westerns. It was arid and dry. Temperatures dropped dramatically at night and bounced hot during the day, like all near-desert areas did, even in the summer. It had sharp ragged cliffs of bare red and deep washes where the thin grey soil ran off during hard thunderstorms. It was formidable to both animal and plants, and yet somehow things survived and thrived in this wilderness with its distinct lack of human intervention. That's probably why they did.
In front of the entrance, the courier stood waiting. She had her nose tipped slightly into the wind that was blowing into the gully. She'd found a little spot of sun to stand in, and since no one was around at the moment, she had relaxed just a little. Her toe was cocked under herself, weight off her left hip.
It was just her and her thoughts for a moment, and Dart quietly sifted through them as she did scent and sound. She'd run the north ridge early, come back and waited as she'd been told to show the new fellow the patrol loop he'd be taking...
Pyrotech had said he was going to pick up a transfer. She'd been surprised last night the mech's sheer size. Was he a frontliner? They'd never gotten one before, if so. He couldn't be. If-if a frontliner didn't do his job he simply became fodder.
Also, she had to wonder what was with the Pine Sol? That was one of those smells you never, ever ever quite shook out of your memory. It was like sugar and pine, it wasn't a natural smell. Well, it was, but it was as if someone had bathed themselves in a tub full of tiny cardboard stinky trees.
Those came in the oddest smells. Vanillaroma. Bayside Breeze. And oh, Pina Colada.
Which was good when you got caught in the rain.
A little smile drifted across her expression, and she settled her hand comfortable over the top of her hip carrier, playing with the little pressure latch with a thumb.