caveofsapphires | smaller patch of fading sky [ open ]

WHO: EVERYONE. All PCs thus far will be in this log, through active tagging or implication.
WHAT: THRILLS. SPILLS. Hiking trip toward the Diamond City.
WHERE: The Overworld.
WHEN: Forward-dated to May 1st (Tuesday) through May 7th (Monday).
WARNINGS: May contain violence or other mentions of physical harm. This is not summer camp.
NOTES: More information can be found on the OOC post here. Please read it!

Gathered in the morning haze, Sleepers were brought to the mouth of the Cave with plenty of supplies and equipment. Compasses that would point them toward the City. Backpacks full of clothes and food, medical kits, tents and even weapons. Stun rifles and knives — to fight off any unwanted company, they said. ("Watch out for their bite," Ryan had commented. "Those fuckers are downright feral.") The straight and narrow path would get them there in six days if they kept a good clip. They were sent off just like that. Refusals to leave were met with a wall of guard force officers blocking the entrance back into the cave city. No way to go but forward, unless someone was particularly stalwart about remaining.

From the exterminator's station near the mouth, leaving the Cave was as simple as a short hike upward into the fresh air of the Overworld. Dust and an uncomfortable sort of heat pervaded the atmosphere, light winds stirring up the sand and teasing the meager bits of vegetation that had grown. No matter what direction you looked... it was all wasteland, cracked ground and desolate emptiness. Jutting up from scarred ground were boulders and small spires made entirely of glass and patches of stone; instead of reflecting the harsh sunlight, they seemed to absorb it and only add to the muted loneliness of the atmosphere. As far as the eye could see, there was no life to be found.

With no other option, the Sleepers eventually made their way onward.

Caprica had never been anywhere this arid — this dead. Not even Caprica City after the attacks looked like this. The air was thick with dust, and she had to keep herself from coughing on nearly each breath she took. Something about it made her believe it didn't always look this way, that once there was beauty and life here, animals and growing things.

She still wasn't comfortable with this — with any of it, the thought of being told that her entire life was a dream, the reality that she had very little choice but to cooperate for the time being. Being human... she hadn't even begun to process that yet. As much as she'd always wanted to understand what being human was like, she'd never wanted to give up what she was for it.

Wandering a little away from the main group, she noticed the man examining the outcroppings of glass. Drawing in a breath (and suppressing another fit of coughing as a result), she addressed him as she drew closer.

"What do you think caused it?"

Edited 2012-05-04 18:13 (UTC)

There are been a few desolate planets that Jonas had visited with SG-1 but this felt different. Perhaps it was because on those planets he knew he had a place to return to while this...this for the foreseeable future was home.

Jonas had his head angled down, thankfully blocking much of the dust, but he too cough a bet as he looked over at her. "Usually, glass is formed through a large blast of high temperature." The implication this caused was not a pleasant thought. "If it was natural lightening, I don't think we want to be caught outside in a storm."

Her lips pursed at that suggestion, apparently as perturbed by it as he was, and she glanced up at the sky — bare of clouds for now, but that could change in a flash.

"Maybe. Or it could have been nuclear."

She was all too familiar with the devastation left behind by nuclear weaponry. A high-yield blast in a desert area like this would have had a similar effect. Weapons testing, or something more sinister.

After a brief moment, she smiled faintly. "That's only speculation, of course."

Jonas had been trying his best not to think of that, though the idea of a nuclear blast had crossed his mind. It was just too painful, as he'd helped developed a weapon like that for his country, who had then used it after his defection to Earth.

A disaster had happened, that they knew.

"It could have been." He looked to her and returned the faint smile. "I don't know about you, but I'm hoping for lightening."

That smile of hers lingered — faint, unreadable now — before she turned away for a moment, picking up a small piece of the glass that had broken off in the sand and turning it over between her hands. As if she could discern what had happened here by touch.

"It's strange," she said, after a few moments' silence. "How no one seems to know what happened."

She'd done her fair share of research in the library before the pilgrimage had started, and what she'd been able to glean from the history books had been very, very sparse on that subject.

"Or they know and aren't telling." That was Jonas' theory. How could something like this happen and no one know? No evidence to tell a story of it's own? It just didn't seem plausible.

He too had been doing research in he library ever since he'd woken up and the lack of information still rankled him. "Well, we know there are no answers behind us, even if we could go back. The only way to go is forward." Logical optimism.

That was also a possibility she'd considered, and not something she would put past the ones who seemed to be in control here. The behavior they'd displayed so far didn't make her inclined to trust them.

"Of course," she answered, tucking the piece of glass she'd been examining into the pocket of her pants. She was curious about what might happen once they reached the city just as much as the rest of them were.

Dusting sand off her palms, she regarded him, thoughtfully. "What's your name?"

smaller patch of fading sky [ open ]

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