milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Well, this is new. And that's OK! New is good. Unexpected is not, particularly, and that's why this particular young man's surprise at finding himself wandering strange corridors has quickly melted to suspicion, and then anger.

He schools himself out of it by the time he finds the stairs. He waits at the bottom of them, perfectly still apart from large, dark eyes that flit over the whole place, taking it all in with no expression on his face. Only the Window gets a second look, and when he's finished his surveillance he walks over to it and stands there, staring in mute wonder, one hand pressed to the glass.

He can investigate the room later. This is more interesting for now.

[OOC: Open all weekend! <3]

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"You look out at everything." Isn't that enough?

Tess is a mess herself, leaves in her hair, but she doesn't care about all that. She's messy all the time.

No. Nothing is ever enough. James rubs at the green mark on his knee, then abandons it in favour of jumping for a branch above his head and dangling off it.

'You can look at stuff from the ground, it's all the same.'

Tess is too busy climbing up further until her head pops up above the highest leaves.

"Non, it's not the same. This way better."

He drops back down to his original branch, and starts climbing. He's not going to stay low when she's all the way up there.

'This way is better,' he says, when he joins her at the top.

'If you're going to have classes on your own, you should learn to talk.'

The view is OK though, he'll concede. It just doesn't do anything, or gain him anything, so it's still pointless. But he looks at it, wondering what she finds so enjoyable in this and whether it's worth learning.

"I talk like everyone else, 'cept you." There's a bit of defensiveness there, because what's wrong with the way she talks? He can understand her, can't he?

Then she turns back to the view of the forest, the lake, even the mountains. "You can see all over this way. See places you might wanna go, see what's different and what's not."

'Everyone else is stupid,' he mutters, mostly to himself.

But fine, yeah, what does he care? she can sound like a hick all she wants. It's not like there weren't plenty of them back in Dublin.

'Well, do you want to go to them? We might never see the place again, so we should make the most of it. Unless you're too scared of your dad.'

He knows she is and she knows he knows it. But this place is really fun and like James said, they may never be here again.

"Yeah, I want to see. The lake?"

'OK.'

Now to get down out of the tree. Well, it's not complicated, but it is a bit messy. His hands smell like sap by the time he's at the bottom, and he wipes them on his jeans with a distasteful expression.

He doesn't know what to do with a lake any more than he does with a tree, but it's nice and big and maybe they can throw things into it.

Tess looks happy and messy by the time she gets down, swinging off the bottom branch and landing on her feet with a soft thud.

"Too bad we ain't got no lines, else we could fish. I doubt they got any crawfish to catch, either."

'You eat fish straight out of a swamp?'

Yuck. But he doesn't actually look judgmental, because he's looking over her happy expression with a calculating one of his own. How can climbing a tree and running about outside bring that look on to someone's face? It's weird.

"Sure!" What's wrong with that? "Crawfish, too. Eat them a lot."

Once lakeside, she starts looking for flat stones to throw. "You know how to skip rocks?"

'I've never done it, but I know how.'

He looks too. He's read about people doing this, and flat rocks just make mathematical sense.

''Isn't crawfish a fish?'

"Non," she giggles softly, picking up a smaller stone. "They like little lobsters, with claws 'n everything."

'They are like,' he says quietly, and tosses his stone up and down in his left hand.

Force, angle, trajectory. It's a simple formula, or should be. The variable lies in himself bending his arm and body correctly, so he spends some time considering it, getting it right in his head before acting.

'Don't laugh at me.'

"They are like," she repeats and throws her rock, getting three skips out of it.

"And I weren't laughing at you, I guess I just never heard of someone not knowing what a crawfish was." She's not well travelled.

He stretches his neck to one side, thinking. Then throws his rock and watches it sink without trace.

'Wasn't. I wasn't.'

It comes out cruel, and he snatches up another rock. Think, think, think, visualise, do not fail, think, think...

'We have other fish. Better fish.'

The rock skips out a good way, and his flash of internal temper calms. Better, yes. Better.

So this is what it's like to get corrected all the time. It isn't fun, especially not in that tone. Sill, she gives him a smile when his second rock skips away.

"There's lots of fish out there. What kind do you have?" It's a little stilted and the accent's still there, but she's trying her best to speak proper now.

And look at that. Talk to someone like shit, and they still want you to like them.

People are so weird.

'I don't know. Cold-water stuff. Cod, and bass, and plaice and all that. And all the river fish. Trout. Salmon. Mackerel.'

The natural world is so not his thing. But his mother cooks fish, and they eat it, and crawfish has never been on the menu.

'You can get lobster and crab in Ireland.'

This might be a concession that seafood she'll recognise might not be all bad. It's the closest he'll come to an apology for speaking roughly, mostly because he's not really sorry.

She can't remember the last time she had a friend. James may not officially count, but he hasn't told her to go away yet.

"We have bass, and catfish and sunfish." Lots of bigger fish, too, though she's too small still to catch them. "Is that where you're, from, Ireland?"

'Yeah.'

There's an edge back in his tone, like isn't it obvious? It would never occur to him that an American wouldn't be able to tell the difference in European accents.

'But I live in England. Do you live in New Orleans?'

He pronounces it wrong. Or at least, the European way. New Or-leens.

She won't correct him this time. Even if it is kind of annoying.

"Non, I live in Houma, south-west of New Orleans." Said properly. "I never even been there. Why'd you move?"

He frowns. He thought there was mostly just sea south of New Orleans. He'll check his map when he gets home.

'Work. Parents.'

And just maybe, because some things have happened that caused suspicious eyes to be cast in the family's direction. He gets the feeling that contributed too; a vague sense from his parents they thought at least one of their sons could do with a change in environment...not that he's sorry. He'd do all that stuff again, and no one can prove it had anything to do with him.

'New Orleans,' he says musingly, exactly as she said it, Louisiana accent and all.

'I don't care. There's better schools in England, mostly.'

Back to Irish, switching between them like it's nothing.

It's always parents, isn't it? That's why she doesn't ever get to go anywhere. Well, they're also poor, which she knows but doesn't really like to be reminded of.

"You like it there in England?"

She grins when he says the city correctly. "There, you got it!"

He flashes a hint of a smile at that, though it's dry because of course he can do that, why can't everyone do that?

'No. But I didn't like Dublin much either. There's nothing much interesting to do.'

It's his age that's boring. He's in a hurry to grow up and get onto more interesting pastimes.

'Do you like the swamp?'

Tess isn't in much of a hurry to go anywhere just yet, mostly because she isn't sure what kind of grown up she'll be, but she'll get there.

"Sure. There's lots to do, fishing, chasing rabbits and fox kits, reading in my tree. Can't do that everywhere." She tosses another rock which doesn't perform as well as her last one.

"What do you like to do?"