blessingone | FIVE.

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FIVE.

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[Ever since Shirley disappeared to another dimension, Fenimore hasn't been getting much sleep. The previous night hasn't been an exception, as she spends most of it tossing in her bed. Eventually, in the wee hours of the morning before it's even light out--possibly even just a few minutes before everyone returns from the Closed Space and she could stop worrying--she gives up.

Throwing on some clothes, she leaves the house to start wandering the village, keeping to the roads. She's not entirely sure what she expects to accomplish by doing so. She's come to the conclusion that Shirley has probably been mallynapped and the only other possibility she can think of is that Shirley was kidnapped by a villager. In either case, she isn't going to be able to help her any by walking through the streets in the dark, but she has spent the storm day yesterday cooped up in the house surrounded by people who were fretting just as much as she was, in their varied ways. She didn't want to spend any more time sitting in the kitchen, wondering what Shirley would be doing if she were still there.

Early dawn finds on a bench in the village centre. It seems four nights of little, restless sleep had caught up to her. She's asleep, with her head resting on her open journal, her legs curling slightly, and her arms crossing across her chest. Too tired to notice the light that filters through the clouds today, she'll be asleep either until mid-morning or until someone interrupts her.]

[Accidental "Voice"]

[It seems that before she fell asleep, she was debating asking whether such a silent mallynap as this one was normal--the only ones she had encountered were either the loud ones that made it over the journal or one that had involved a smashed window. So, with the journal half-ready for an intentional post, it doesn't take much for it to accidentally turn on in her sleep as they are wont to do.

This results in an extreme close-up of Fenimore's face and, due to the proximity, a fairly loud rendition of the normal slow breathing of someone who is fast asleep. At least she's not snoring.

The page also looks like it's getting wet, though the actual moisture is not transmitted any more than the actual ink in an ink spill would be in more standard written transmissions. Since it's not raining today, that water must be coming from Fenimore. Perhaps...tears?

...But a closer examination of its source will easily determine that it's just a little drool as she breathes open-mouthed on her journal-pillow. Her eyes are dry and there's no sign that she's upset at all as she drifts in peaceful unconsciousness.

~~To anyone who wakes her up, I apologise in advance. Fretting over her best friend + four nights of restless sleep = a very rude and cranky Fenimore. ...Correction: a ruder and crankier Fenimore.~~]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It's okay. Only a select few truly understand the twisty and turny ways of Buffyspeak. Spike and Faith do, of course. Bones is--ahem--getting there.

She sighs and breaks it down for her:] Do you have a home you could maybe go to? With a bed and blankets and less chance of getting ambushed by crazies? Admittedly, the psychopath population's refreshingly low in Luceti but the few that we've got are particularly nasty.

(ooc - frak, man...sorry about the gratuitous edits today)

Edited 2010-05-25 16:37 (UTC)

Of course I have a bed. What did you think, that I've been sleeping in a tree since I got here? [~~no, she thinks you've been sleeping on a bench since you got here.~~] I was...on a walk.

[...She doesn't like that reminder about psychopaths. She doesn't know any, personally, but the rain of flaming logs and the sudden flesh-eating butterflies from someone's world kind of suggests they're out there.]

(ooc - never fear, I'm kind of slow at replying today anyway, so it gives you plenty of time to go through them. My inbox may be less forgiving, but it has 2222 unread messages. It is used to pain.)

And do your walks usually end up with a snooze on a bench? [Buffy's eyebrows lift.] Like, was this planned?

...It was more a spontaneous thing.

[She actually looks worried.]

You didn't..pass out or something, did you?

No! Not...really. I was...resting my eyes.

On a bench, at dawn in Whacko Wing World. [This? This is her unconvinced face.

Buffy sneaks a seat on the edge of the bench. She has the completely wrong reading on the situation, but steams forward regardless.] Look, is there some reason why you can't go back home? Y'know, a freaky house-mate or, uhm, worse?

[She was starting to look a little sheepish after the first part, but at the second part, she changes over to incredulous.] What?

Hey--no judgments here. I've seen it all. I've lived with ex-convicts and reformed murderers and demons and, well? I think you get the picture. If it's a dangerous home-zone? Don't worry. You can tell me about it.

[She'd probably be less bowled over by this misinterpretation--or even not at all--if she had a full night's sleep under her belt. But as it is, she's fairly astounded.] No! They're the least dangerous people here! The only dangerous thing about my "home-zone" is people disappearing from their beds, and that's not going to change wherever I am in this stupid village!

[Oh. It clicks into place. Buffy frowns.]

Someone was kidnapped, weren't they? [Sigh.] I'm sorry.

Edited 2010-05-25 19:34 (UTC)

[With a "tch", she looks away.] Like that ever helps anyone.

Oh--and sleeping out in the benchy wild does?

Edited 2010-05-25 19:38 (UTC)

It's not like not sleeping back home is any better!

They come back, y'know. The kidnappings don't last forever. I mean--they suck. Big time. But they end.

[But then another concern strikes her.] Oh, God...unless--your friend or house-mate or whatever? All of their things are still there, right?

All her things were there, except for what she was wearing. Which means she's...it'd be better if she had gone home!

[Buffy has been in Luceti for a year. She has also loved and lost in this place to the point where someone going home didn't always equal the best of news. She feels Kirk's return most keenly.

But she nods, giving in.] Of course, right--home's better. It'd be nice if we could all get back.

[Fenimore might come to understand this point of view in time, when she has more people she would miss that much and she learns what happens after her point in her world's timeline. But for now, the idea of a mallynapping being better than someone going home is foreign to her, except possibly in the case where the person is dead in their world. Even then, she has doubts.]

Yeah. "Nice." That's one way to say it. [She's thinking "nice" isn't strong enough of a word for it.]

Sure, there are plenty of others. Perfect, excellent, needed. But they all kinda lean towards the dramatic, don't you think?

Maybe we need dramatic! Way too many people here are under dramatic about it! They act like they don't really care that they're exp--that they're trapped here under their thumb!

Panic is exhausting. [Buffy answers with no small measure of sadness.] After a year and some change, you don't want spend every day emotionally exhausted.

[Fenimore knows this is true--she accepts it to be true on most days and usually follows it herself--but she doesn't feel like being rational now. Yet there isn't anything that she can argue against it, so instead she looks down, biting her lip, as her face turns red from suppressed emotion--mostly anger, but also a mixture of others she doesn't want to come to the surface.]

[Buffy acts on instinct. Although her stint as a guidance counsellor had been brief and only barely successful, she still considers herself vaguely qualified for this kind of conversation. She reaches out and sets one hand lightly on the young woman's shoulder.]

It's frustrating and it's one of the worst feelings in the world. I know that. But until they come back? Well, all you can do is get exceptionally ready to help them.

[Says the hypocrite. If someone close to her had been kidnapped (as they have been in the past), she would be out hungry for justice.]

[For a moment, Fenimore lets Buffy's hand rest on her shoulder, even if she is tense both by touch and by sight. But then she tries to push Buffy's arm away with her own, a clear message of "don't touch me."]

What do you know?! You have no idea! The things that happen out here are a joke! But when they kidnap people, it's just like.... [She stands, suddenly, but doesn't turn to face Buffy again.] She should never have had to go through that! Even when-- And now she has to deal with it! It's not fair!

[Her low sleep state and high stress from Shirley's disappearance makes her even more selfish than usual and causes her to entirely forget the possibility that Buffy could have easily been mallynapped in her time here.]

[Twice, in fact. The most recent occurrence of it had left her, for five months, in the weakest position she'd been since the age of fourteen. But she respects the boundaries and pulls her hand back, folding it demurely with its twin in her own lap.

She stares hard at the back of the other's head.]

It's like they take that last bit of power from us. I get it. Really, I do. It's bad enough that they leave us in his disgustingly domestic attempt at a prison...but then they add a second kidnapping on top of that? Just so they can get their science on? [Buffy's eyes drop.]

It'll never be fair. Even when any of us get sent home, it's not because of anything we did. It's all random and it's all way, way unjust. I've seen a lot of people kidnapped in the past year. Friends, co-workers. Boyfriend and ex-boyfriend. Adopted family. Whatever. They've managed to turn all of us into victims.

[And now her own anger is bubbling to the surface. Clearly, she doesn't like being a victim.]

[action] does the slayer have to lay down some staketastic justice?

[action] but I sparkle so prettily....

[action] /got distracted by star wars

[action] good excuse in my book (even though I am apparently not distracted even by looming work)

[action] admittedly? i'm a first-time star wars watcher!

[action] well, I've only seen the first of each trilogy. But I have played the LEGO Star Wars game!

[action] i think that puts you one up on me

[action] free life! ...wait, wrong 1up.

[action] but equally applicable!

[action] so if I one-up people more than they one-up me, I live forever?

[action] who wants to live forever? /shot for queen references

[action] I don't know. ask me in about 500 years.

[action] five hundred is a long time!

[action] I think I can think of a few things to fill that time with.

[action] like...work?

[action] ...it would be rather long until retirement, now that you mention it.

[action] poor you. ;_;

[action] granted, I would have the biggest resumé ever so I'd survive any recession

[action] the king of resumes!

[action] first person to become supreme ruler of Earth solely by power of a good resumé

[action] you pretty much get to hire yourself.

[action] this 500 year lifespan's sounding pretty good.

[action] i think you should let me in on your secret!

[action] only if you swear loyalty to my eventual new world order.

[action] will there be math involved?