meadowlarklogs | all I want is the world and everything for me

[ being outside on the regular is so much better than being stuck in an office and jyn is never going back to that, happy enough to wrangle wild animals and shove them back outside the wall where they won't get hit by hoverbikes or kidnapped by people looking for a free pet. she understands the urge, as she also has a wild animal turned pet in her apartment, but piglet is different.

she found him before it was illegal.

the appeal is understandable, the tiny fawn in her arms is adorable and affectionate, and these people haven't had pets for generations because of the environmental restrictions. which often finds jyn sat in the park with a calm, non-bitey animal in her lap and a cluster of small children staring wide eyed at the animal and asking her questions she can't always answer. ]

Uh, no. I don't think they eat gummy frogs.

Edited 2021-03-26 17:20 (UTC)

[ nile likes the parks. even if most else about this world and this city is futuristic, at least the parks are similar enough to home. she hopes it'll be that way when she actually gets to experience those 500 years going forward too. ]

[ she's not used to seeing crowds of kids, but she supposes baby animals would do that. squirrels in chicago? outstanding. the occasional bunny? everyone on the block knew within minutes. and from her understanding, wild animals are rare enough outside the cities. ]

[ when she moves over, curious on her own too, she recognizes the woman holding the fawn, an idle awareness of her from the aerie, one of the woman booker befriended in the volary who he in turn seems to have taken under his wing here too. it's good for him, she thinks, squatting just outside the little circle. ]

They don't. [ a beat. ] I mean, deer eat a lot of human junk food when it's there, but it's not like gummy frogs are in the wild.

Edited 2021-03-30 02:05 (UTC)

You shouldn't try to feed them anyway.

[ shifting the fawn, who is half asleep in her lap, jyn opens the deer's mouth to show off her teeth. sharp little chompers! deer teeth are terrifying, weirdly pointed and sharp as shit. if jyn weren't used to the creatures of space she would be much more appropriately cautious, instead she just shoves her hand (gently) right into the deer's mouth. ]

You don't want these near your little fingers. Wild animals are not to be pet. Now go back to school, little ducks.

[ she shoos them all away and they are adorably reluctant to go with little calls of "bye jyn! bye deer!" ]

[ nile has personally never fed any deer, not even at petting zoos, precisely because the teeth scared her as a child. one time a goat ate her map, which was very rude, but all her brother did was laugh. when jyn shoves her hand into the deer's mouth, nile grimaces, fully anticipating a chomp while some of the kids gasp. ]

[ they scatter reluctantly, not but not nile, still crouched over and now regarding the fawn with mild suspicion. ]

Some of them get used to people after a while, but I doubt that includes these guys when all the people are the ones behind bars instead. [ a beat, where she is still watching those teeth. ] You're gonna get bit in like five seconds.

Probably.

[ and yet jyn doesn't yank her hand free, pulling away slowly. the fawn's tongue follows, licking a stripe up jyn's arm like a salt lick. jyn wrinkles her nose. ]

It won't be the first time.

[ sometimes jyn's curiosity is stronger than her self-preservation skill and that is how she gets gored by a buffalion and clawed by a raccoon and licked by a baby deer. ]

Maybe Earth is trying to say something about the walls. [ like bring them down, perhaps. neither people nor animals are meant to be caged and while jyn can ignore it most of the time the creeping feeling down her spine reappears every time she approaches the looming wall on her way out with the animals who have snuck in. ]

You regularly go around sticking your hand in animal jaws? [ it's not really a judgement. not yet. it's like 99% genuine question. she doesn't know jyn's life to make that call! she's not even necessarily in a place to pass any judgements, considering her own wild youthful adventures with animals. ]

[ her brother didn't like lizards, so naturally, nile had to show him all of them. ]

Yeah, I can't say many of the walls throughout history remained upright as long as intended. Except maybe the Great Wall of China. [ a beat. ] I wonder if that's still up. Never thought to check. People keep building them, but they keep coming down.

Sometimes. [ she offers a shrug, unconcerned with any judgment or lack thereof. ] Sometimes I want to pet them and their mouths get in the way.

[ jyn looks up the great wall of china quickly and it is... as advertised. a great wall. huh. she files that away as another neat thing about earth, another place to visit if it remains. she won't look that up, though, that is cassian's job. ]

I've never been on a planet with so many walls. But Earth has a lot of things I'm not used to. Like deer and Santa and white milk.

Pointy teeth are usually a deterrent. [ this is a fact, and she is definitely not including herself in this. mostly because now she is thinking about all the animals she could pet without fear anymore, if she ever gets home. ]

Huh. Yeah, I've been hearing about how some people aren't from Earth. Santa's not real, which always sucks to find out when you're a kid, and there really are a lot of walls. Would have been nice to see some of those gone in the future. [ she pauses. ] What color's your milk?

Blue. I dunno why, before you ask, probably something they eat, like how prawns make those pink birds pink.

[ she saw flamingos in the vr zoo too, even if she can't remember the name right now, she has not seen flamingos in real life but... now that she thinks about it if all these extinct animals are suddenly extant, maybe there are flamingos. she should go back to new honolulu. ]

Am I the first alien you've met?

[ jyn has been working through lunches recently because she is too busy playing with the wild animals. she's glad she no longer works at pulsar since her supervisor already thought she and marcos were having an affair considering their tendency to disappear together — she would have been incredibly annoyed if she had to field any questions about his actual disappearance. especially since she is trying to avoid thinking about it entirely.

when she isn't working through lunch, she grabs food from what turns out to be a food truck very familiar with her as the man at the counter has her food ready. ]

Hey Rafael.

[ this woman isn't even on a first name basis with most displaced but she knows this man and his entire family judging from their easy conversation about his daughter guilia's new job at a bakery called 'piece of my tart'.

she turns, holding her toasted cheese, and finds another displaced also in line. ]

Hey.

Edited 2021-03-26 17:21 (UTC)

[ As someone who is still working at one of the corporations, for better or worse, Jack's schedule isn't nearly as routine as one might think. That has a lot to do with the fact that he's on security detail, which means sometimes he's reporting in for a graveyard shift. In this case, normal lunchtime for most people lines up with his shift ending, and he's definitely in need of a hearty meal before he heads home to crash for the rest of the day.

That's the plan, anyway, but then he realizes Jyn is also here. Once she notices and acknowledges him, he gives a small nod in greeting. His shoulders have the slump of someone who's just gotten off work, but it's not like he's exuberant even on a good day.

Jyn also never seems to mind that much. ]

Hey. [ He can't help but eye the food she's got in hand. ] Looks good.

[ As in, maybe he'll order some too. ]

[ jo has always been more comfortable behind the bar, like the wood acts as a kind of shield between her and everyone else. she's not the weird knife girl with a dead dad, she's just the woman with the booze and she's happy like that. five hundred years in the future and definitely dead, jo takes the same solace behind the bar as she had before, happy to put on a (sometimes fake) smile and coax a reasonable tip from the patrons while eavesdropping on everyone's conversations and tucking away little nuggets of information. ]

What can I get you?

[ she is only marginally more open with her coworkers, maybe due to the solidarity of service work, the way smiles turn to grimaces on the edges with particularly irritating customers.

at the end of the night, jo flicks her dish towel over her shoulder and leans back against the bar. ]

Alright, worst customer of the night, go.

Edited 2021-03-26 17:23 (UTC)

[ joe's days run much the same and he revels in the simplicity of living his life. he goes to work, he plays footie with his family, he falls asleep with his beautiful husband, he does it all over again the next day. no one tries to kill him, no one makes a weird serial killer board about their lives over the past 150 years, he's mortal, it's very relaxing in all honesty and joe welcomes the break.

even if they'd just come off a year long break, this is a different kind of break.

he prefers walking rather than the public transport, having lived centuries and centuries where walking was the main mode of transport, so despite living on the other side of the city from the museum, he walks to and from work (stopping at the hospital to collect nicky on the way home) and often seeks out the company of fellow displaced on these walks.

he speeds up a bit to catch up, falling into step with his easy smile. ]

Fig? [ he offers a glass container of figs he was clearly nibbling on as he walked. ]

Edited 2021-03-26 17:50 (UTC)

[Kyna doesn't really know Joe. She's seen him around, sure, since it's a little impossible for the Displaced to avoid running into each other every once in a while. He's been here for a little bit, she's pretty sure, and tries not to wonder how much longer he'll stay. It's been feeling like a revolving door lately.

His smile puts her at ease anyway, and she tilts her head at the figs.]

Uh, hey. Are you sure?

Of course. [ in case she is still hesitant, he adds, ] Nicky will surprise me with another bag tonight, no doubt.

[ joe doesn't seem bothered that he knows he is going to be surprised or that there is no surprise in his surprise, figs are their love language. his smile goes a little stupid around the edges. disgusting. ]

I wouldn't have offered if I minded sharing.

Thanks.

[It comes out soft and appreciative, and she plucks a fig from the box. And then, because she's nosy—]

Who's Nicky?

[ joe lights up ]

My husband.

[ tiny little words, in the end no more accurate than lover or boyfriend or partner, but joe likes saying them all the same. the feeling of being so indulgently nicky's, for all the world to see. ya’arburnee is the closest joe has come to the feeling and even that does not suit them, he couldn't bear to live without nicky, but nor does he want to die first.

together or not at all. ]

It's not often we can be so candid about our love and I've found myself being quite shameless in announcing it openly.

[ most days are uneventful. someone calls in an animal, jyn picks up the animal, jyn puts the animal outside where it belongs. sometimes she gets to yell at people for fishing illegally but as she would just as soon let that slide, she is mostly on animal wrangling duty.

like now, with what she is told is a horse that was found drinking water from someone's water reclamation barrel. jyn had managed to stop it from running away, in that she'd used a power she'd only used once before and physically stopped it from doing anything, but now she has a horse staring dolefully at her while she figures out how to transport the horse from the apartment building to the wall. ]

Now what? [ she is talking to the horse, who does not talk back. ] Maybe a leash?

[ the horse huffs and jyn glowers. ]

Yes, thank you for your contribution.

Edited 2021-03-26 17:27 (UTC)

( ever since her conversation with nile, she's been thinking about horses. it's been...so long since she's gotten to ride that she finds that she misses it. she misses it much, much more than she thought she would.

so, when she comes upon a woman talking to her horse, andy stops and stares because certainly this can't be a coincidence. this has to mean something, like she was fated to come upon this scene and do something about it.

for a moment, all she does is just watch. she watches the woman and she watches the woman talk to the horse and when the horse doesn't talk back, she chuckles. )

Did the horse talk back and I just missed it?

Edited 2021-03-27 16:46 (UTC)

He did but it was mostly profanity.

[ jyn looks up from the horse, slowly, like she's afraid the horse will bolt or bite her or both — its teeth are huge and its face is huge and she doesn't know how far back the teeth go or if its jaw unhinges like a snake and it can swallow her whole.

eventually her eyes settle on the woman.

well.

andy looks the same as from the aerie, a little more scruffy but that makes sense since they're not the 1% there anymore. jyn looks like the off brand mexican cheetos version of herself in the aerie: messy hair, rumpled wildlife protection and services uniform, healing scratches on her forearms and dirt on her knees. ]

Still got your creepy power from the Aerie?

( it's a reminder that she doesn't want to hear but she can't really ignore either. it happened, it's a part of her and this woman obviously remembers it. after a second of thought, andy remembers why.

she sighs and shrugs one shoulder. )

I haven't exactly tried to use it on anyone. So, hopefully not.

( she doesn't want to be that person. )

I'm sorry if I used it on you.

[ jyn waves her hand, dismissive, and there doesn't seem to be any heat in her placid expression. while jyn can hold a grudge for decades because she is a petty child, emphasis on child, she can't begrudge andy for using her powers on her. jyn was a little twat in the aerie. she deserved it. ]

I don't care.

[ and that's that. jyn moves on like it was nothing at all. ]

Do you know anything about horses? Do they have leashes?

( andy can't help the lift of her eyebrows when jyn just brushes the whole thing off. she'd been prepared to make amends and do what needed to be done.

but apparently she doesn't have to. she waits to see if there's going to be more to it but no, that's it. )

They have bridles. And reins when you're riding the horse. But a bridle is what you're going to need if you want to control the horse and not hurt them.

[ she is too tired of all this petty bullshit going around. andy didn't mean it, jyn definitely deserved it, and jyn actually does still have the power she had in the aerie so. ]

...bridle, [ she repeats, jotting it down as a note in case this happens again, they will need the supplies on hand. much like when she jotted down the note about rabies inoculations. ]

Haven't got one of those on account of horses having gone extinct. [ the horse whinnies and once again jyn addresses it like he has spoken. ] Don't be a baby, we've all been dead before.

Easy.

( it's the horse she speaks to, not jyn as she steps closer and puts a hand on its neck, trying to calm it with a simple touch and some easy affection. )

What are you trying to do? Lead her somewhere?

( it's a fortunate thing the horse hasn't taken off just yet. )

Yeah, back outside the wall to the rest of the... herd.

[ horses have hooves, that's a herd animal, right? like banthas and goats. at comfortable jyn seems with the animal, she clearly has zero idea how she is going to achieve that with no bridle and no other horse accoutrements. her power stopped the horse, she doesn't know if it will do anything else. ]

No one here has experience with horses anymore and I've never been on a planet with horses. [ a beat. ] Except this one now.

I've ridden them a few times.

( a few times. that's an understatement. she smiles, stepping up closer to the horse and sliding her hand along its snout, trying to calm it. )

They're missing out if they don't have experience. I love horses.

( she gives the horse's nose a pat before she glances at jyn. )

You know how to get to the herd?

[ joe enjoys his job at the nieuwe teylers museum, talking about the artists of the vr renditions of historical masterpieces like he knows them personally. he doesn't enjoy that it's only vr copies of the art and that the actual art is squirrelled away in private collections but he keeps those complaints to booker because it's what he deserves.

(also because booker agrees and art is part of their brotherhood.)

at the moment, he is setting up one of the vr displays outside, an advertisement for the exhibit joe had helped set up. after a few moments of fiddling, a meter tall bronze statue appears. out of habit, joe reaches out to pat the bronze griffin, but it's vr so his hand goes right through it. god, boomers. ]

You used to live in my backyard, [ he murmurs to himself, backing up and turning around right before he bumps into any pedestrians. ]

Would you like a tour?

[ Eula loves museums. It's something she inherited from her father, she thinks, a love of old stuff, anything halfway towards decrepit, because there's history in it: nothing as clear-cut as fact, like the history in stuffy old textbooks, but just enough room for her imagination to take root. He told her once about a family trip to Pompeii when he was a kid, and she's always wanted to go, but everything always got in the way, and now she isn't sure if it's even still a tourist trap at all or just a blasted wasteland like half the world is right now.

No point getting miserable over being stranded, though, especially because there's plenty in this brave new world to hold her interest. Not least a question she'd never expected herself to have upon arriving in the future: what counts for being museum-worthy nowadays?

The answer, from the look of the place so far, is exactly what she's used to when it comes to museums. It's hard to keep the disappointment off her face, but maybe there's a wing of the place somewhere with framed photos of Britney Spears and an exhibit about Rickrolling or something. ]

A tour of the museum or your backyard? [ she asks, her lips pulling up at one corner. ] Museum, yes. If it's your backyard, there better be something cool in there. Like a frog or something.

[ it's not joe's fault he is old enough to be in a museum. he was just living his life and now he is medieval.

(imagine his surprise the first time he heard something from his original lifetime called medieval. excuse you, sharon, you don't even vaccinate, go back to your mlm and your cop husband and let me love my husband in peace.) ]

Yesterday there was a squirrel, that's the best I can do.

[ joe named her moonbeam and he would die for her. she does not even tolerate him. ]

Come on then. I took the Mona Lisa down this morning so don't bother looking for her. You know there are six forgeries? Makes you wonder if whoever owns the old girl in their private collection even has the real one.

[ walking into a museum talking about forgeries like this is fine. ]

Edited 2021-03-31 16:37 (UTC)

Squirrels are just rats with wings, without wings, with tails.

[ Does that make sense? No. But she's not about to let that get her down. Forgeries are much more interesting than squirrels, anyway, so Eula just shoves her hands into her pockets and falls into step with him. ]

Isn't she meant to be kinda on the small side anyway? All anyone ever says about her when they see her is, like, 'She's smaller than I expected.' Maybe it's just a penis envy thing, I dunno. I guess I'd rather have a forgery, it'd be more fun to talk about at parties.

She is small enough to tuck under your coat and just walk out door without anyone noticing. [ it boggles the mind, truly, even joe seems as if the idea is somewhat inconceivable. or perhaps joe is still thinking how four drunk assholes stole the mona lisa not once, but twice because well.

they were very drunk.

and sometimes nicky does win bets. ]

His name was supposedly Yves— don't rats have tails?

Yeah, but squirrels have tail-tails. Like, if you're describing a squirrel you'd talk about the tail first, right? That's the iconic squirrel feature. Rats have tails, sure, but they're nothing to write home about.

[ But don't try to distract her with this tail business, it won't work. ]

Why does it sound like you're talking about stealing the Mona Lisa from experience? [ Squint. ] Do you actually work here, or is it just that you know the layout of this place 'cause you need to know where all the security cameras are when you commit the heist of the century?

[ no, no go back to the tails, joe was getting into it. he and nicky are going to have such a weird conversation in bed tonight. ]

I would love to see your letters home.

[ dear dad today i saw nothing love me ]

How do you know I'm not working while working? Unfortunately...

[ he gestures around when they enter the gallery proper and it's 90% vr replicas with some physical copies of art movements from the past 500 years, some modern art renditions of past masterpieces. a day-glo bunny labeled ALBA MACH V. ]

Not much to steal.

You know, I was about to say this is kinda depressing, but... I dunno.

[ Eula pushes up onto her toes as if she'll be able to see further into the place, dropping back down on her heels after a moment when that obviously doesn't work. ]

It's like that Keith Haring, art-is-for-the-masses type thing. If it looks like the original and quacks like the original, then I guess the only difference is, like, proximity to the thing that was touched by a famous artist. Which is probably the least important thing about art, right?

Yes! Thousands of pieces of art hidden away in museum basements because— because— [ he gestures expansively, the kind of expansive they don't like in art museums because of the priceless art, the kind of expansive seen in 100 year old italian uncles judging construction work and 100 year old tunisian aunties at the market judging the pretty white boy who doesn't know how to haggle but those shoulders, maryem.

gah. ]

Yves Chaudron. He made six copies of the Mona Lisa and when Ni- Vincenzo Peruggia walked out of the Louvre with it, to return it to Italy, he sold six copies of the Mona Lisa and every single buyer thought they had the real Mona Lisa. And one of them might because we were, uh, very drunk.

[ placeholder ]

[ jyn erso has creepily strong hands. she's clung to more than one cantilevered catwalk with just the strength of her tiny fingers and somehow managed to haul herself up and to safety. she's strong, yes, but this guy she's walking haul beams is insanely strong.

jyn isn't subtle either, she's not a spy, she's very obviously watching him move beams or posts or whatever the large pieces of metal will eventually be while she eats her basket of samosas. ]

Hey.

[ again, not subtle. ]

Why are you so strong?

Edited 2021-04-01 18:35 (UTC)

all I want is the world and everything for me —

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