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lysistrategic) wrote2012-01-31 02:40 pm
lysistrategic) wrote2012-01-31 02:40 pm
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[Log] Jan 13-14: Disappearance: Through the Looking Glass Again (Joan, Emily)
An evening visit to the museum n Victorian London turns into a Jurassic Park adventure, the night the island changes.
Joan's ankle throbs a little more than she would like, but with the boot laced up tightly it doesn't keep her from enjoying their evening tour of the museum. A few other people stroll the galleries, but for the most part, she and Emily are alone with the holograph people. It's growing late and in a real city populated by real people, it would probably already be closed.
"There's a movie, Jurassic Park, that makes those--" Joan gestures to the skeleton of a velociraptor, a slim smile curving her lips. "Out to be the most terrifying killers since Jack the Ripper." It seems an apt and amusing comparison, considering where they are and where Emily is from. "Are they?" Her companion claims to have experience of fighting dinosaurs and while Joan is not yet convinced of anything in this place, least of all the place itself, she has no reason to doubt Emily within the parameters of her general suspicions.
Emily tilts her head, considering the remains. "I don't know about Jack the Ripper, but in my experience, yes, these are dangerous. They're smart, agile, and quite aggressive. Just one of them came through a gateway to London in my time and the killings were some of the most vicious the city had ever seen. The papers called it Spring-heeled Jack. Of course, they were looking for a man." Or a woman. Emily knows quite well that had she remained, she would have been tried for the murders. "Still, there are worse creatures to find yourself facing."
"Spring-heeled Jack," Joan murmurs the name thoughtfully. She remembers it from an Abnormal Psych class or lecture back when she was in college, yet she can't quite pin it down. "An urban legend, wasn't it?" If a dinosaur had come through to London, she could easily imagine how that might come to be. "Since, apparently, there are dinosaurs here when it is a tropical island and not a Victorian city--" Joan shares a mildly skeptical smile with her companion. "It would probably behoove me to know which the most dangerous are, and, although I've no plans to go antagonizing them, how to elude or fight them."
"Traps if you have time. Running if you don't. In most cases, climbing a tree is a decent way to avoid a land-dweller but there are plenty of tree-dwellers to worry about in that case. Keep a sharp knife on you, a gun if you can manage it. Fire helps and there's safety in numbers." Emily didn't have to think about it. They'd given a similar speech to every new member of the tribe as they'd taken them in. "They're not more frightened of you than you are of them and in most cases, they'll defend their territories aggressively."
Her head cocks, eyebrows lifting at the certainty in Emily's tone. She sounds, in every respect, like Joan or one of her better analysts running down the characteristics of a target or mission. It's practiced, fluid, informational with no dross, as though she's said it countless times. "Well." Joan considers the skeletons again. "I can see we'll have to arm ourselves if we're still here when the island becomes tropical again."
* * *
Emily looks around the pub in ill-concealed amusement. "This London has it all over the real one. In my day, this would have been so choked with smoke, I could hardly have seen you across the table." Instead they're enjoying a spot of supper and a drink before they go home. It's odd to be out unchaperoned but Emily's taken to thinking of this London as more like the ARC's London than her own. Certainly the sensibilities are far more modern in most cases.
"Would it have been open so late?" Joan finds the opportunity to consult Emily on the details of this bizarre version of Victorian London something of a pleasure, one of the few this place affords. If she allows it, she can almost forget for an hour or so that she's been forcibly removed from her home, her job, her husband and enjoy it for the ingenious construction that it is. "I haven't studied Western history for a very long time. My memory of the Victorian era's spotty at best."
Emily shrugs. "I honestly have no idea. It's not the kind of place that's very appropriate for a lady and certainly the only time I was out this late I was visiting or at a ball. Henry was often out rather late but I believe that he was at his gentleman's club. The idea of dining out is a very modern one and not particularly British."
"A concession to not employing servants and not being able to cook," Joan agrees and then adds, "As well as the advent of the forty-plus hour work week for men and women." She can cook, of course, and so can Arthur to some extent, but they rarely have time anymore. "That must be strange for you, women in the workforce alongside the men?"
"Not quite as much as you'd think. After dinosaurs, social constructs carry a lot less power than they used to. I suppose I fall back into the manners I grew up with but this place. It brings it out of me." Emily can cook over a campfire but hardly at all anywhere else. Modern London had takeaway and the ARC had its cafeteria. "Being allowed to work in the future was wonderful. I spent a lot of time being very bored growing up."
"I can't even begin to imagine." Joan's head cocks slightly to the side as though she's listening to the thought, considering it, letting it roll around in her head, but when she's given it a moment, she closes her fingers around the bowl of her wineglass and lifts it, a very mild dismissal of the idea as completely incomprehensible. "I wouldn't have the slightest idea what to do with my time."
"Embroidery. Music. Reading. A mind-numbing amount of tea with a mind-blowing number of other bored young women." Emily lifts her eyebrows. "Dinosaurs were preferable."
"In other words, unsurprisingly similar to this place." Although her expression remains placid, there is a wry bite to her tone and her mouth twitches slightly bitter along with it. "Auggie and Annie--" whom she has explained to Emily as colleagues from several taskforce projects. "Insist it will be tropical again soon, but I can't see how it will be any less stultifying then."
"I'm looking forward to wearing pants again. And not wearing corsets." Emily's hoping that the others are right. She's had enough of this London. She left it behind once already.
"Agreed. I would absolutely kill for a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, or a sheathe dress with no boning." Actually, she would kill for a return to DC, to the DPD, to Arthur, but nothing good will come of mentioning it. It only makes her vulnerable and she cannot afford the weakness.
* * *
Instead of returning home immediately, Joan and Emily decide on a late stroll to settle their stomachs. It is cold but clear, more gunmetal gray than midnight black even though it is rapidly approaching that hour. When they stop to ask a hologram-gentleman in a top hat for a pleasant path to walk, he looks entirely scandalized and tells them it isn't proper.
Ring hidden in her glove, Joan replies, "A spinster may do as she likes, without concern for her reputation," and it's only a little scathing. Joan wonders if she'll have to point out that he's obviously on his way to a gambling den, but he gives in and points them on their way. Since he's only a hologram, he fades as soon as they walk away.
"I won't miss men and servants commenting on my behavior at every turn," she says to Emily as they walk north on the recommended road toward a park with a pretty 'prospect' by moonlight.
"Try twenty-seven years of it." Emily tucks her hands into the warmth of her shawl, not coincidentally resting one on her blade. This London is not nearly so violent or dangerous as the one she lived in but she isn't willing to take chances. "I will rather miss the food."
"If Auggie is right, there will be plenty of time to learn how to cook it," Joan suggests. She notes, naturally, her companion's hands and approves. She's carrying a knife, too, but their immediate environment contains a large number of objects that can be used to her advantage in a fight.
When she hears a bell tolling and clouds slip across the moon, Joan consults her watch. Mere seconds to midnight. It's still pleasant out, but she suspects Emily will soon wish to go--
Once again, Joan's foot lands in something unexpected. Loamy dirt instead of cold paving stone. Her breath no longer mists the air and the sounds have changed from a gray Victorian night to the dark, lonely damp of the jungle. She pats down her slacks and shirt for her knife and finds a switchblade tucked into a pocket.
"Speak of the jungle and she come," Joan quips, then trips, and twists her ankle again. She suppresses a yelp, but even with modern, comfortable boots to protect it, that's going to be a bitch in the morning.
The dress with its heavy skirt and layers of undergarments is gone between one moment and the next. Her boot hits a twig, snapping it loudly. She's in pants and a dress shirt, belted around the waist. Emily pulls her knife, the jungle so much darker than the city had been. "Are you all right?"
"Yes, fine." For now she is and she knows her body well enough to know when she'll have to lay off. It's a twinge at the moment, a sprain, nothing worse. "I'll need to find ice or put my foot up in awhile but my boots will protect it for now." Steadying her breathing, Joan considers the situation they're in. "Assuming that we're still on the island, we were northwest. If the geography persists, we need to head south." Unfortunately, she lacked a compass.
Emily glances up, trying to spot the stars or the moon through the trees. "I could get us better bearings but assuming the island isn't much larger than the city limits were, we should be able to cross it in a few hours." Stepping over to the nearest tree, she cuts in a small hatch mark. "I've never asked...how are your nature skills?"
"Better suited to Kenya than the jungle, but I can handle myself." In less dangerous circumstances, Joan might feign less ability than she has, but she won't take chances in a potential crisis. She retrieves her own knife and moves toward Emily. It has occurred to her that if Emily is actually the threat, now will be her moment, and Joan remains on her guard. "We may do better to move west or east to the ocean," she says thoughtfully. "As long as we don't head north, we should be fine."
Emily's listening to the night with her eyes closed while she lets them adjust to the dark. If she considers Joan a threat, it's not readily apparent. "Unless we're already at the north-most part of the island. I think you're right. West and south is best. Quietly as we can."
Joan also closes her eyes to adjust her vision more quickly, although it has already begun to show her more of their surroundings. Her hearing is less acute from having spent most of the last few years in the office. With a slightly wry tone to her voice, softer than a whisper, Joan says, "You should go first, in case of dinosaurs," and then falls silent and waits for Emily to move.
Emily lifts her eyebrows at that but only says. "We're in luck that it's night. Most dinosaurs settle down after sunset, to conserve their body heat. Unfortunately, the ones still active are likely to be rather aggressive. Stay alert."
* * *
They've been walking over an hour when Joan hears running water. She needs to untie and retie her boot, and it's warm enough and they've been sweating enough that water, if it's potable, would be welcome. "Let's check the water," she suggests as she draws even with Emily. The woman has good sense, and Joan doesn't feel the need to elaborate the reasons.
Emily hesitates. Water would be welcome but if it's worth drinking, it'll also be high-risk. They aren't the only creatures looking for refreshment. After a moment, she reaches up and strips a few of the flat, wide leaves from the tree above her. "I'll check it. Wait here. You can't run on that ankle."
"Trust me," Joan says with a quiet snort. "If I have to run, I can run." For a brief moment, she feels the soft pang of another loss she has been ignoring. She and Meg used to function like this in the field, and there was the time that... This is no time for nostalgia, Joan chides herself and gestures to Emily. "But you're right, there's no reason to risk it if we don't need to."
Emily gives her a thoughtful look then nods. "Right. Give a whistle if you spot anything." She slips away without waiting for a response, moving quietly through the dark like it's second nature instead of lessons hard-learned in the worst of conditions. It's easy to be over-alert, to jump at sounds when being still is wiser. To rush when patience is needed. Emily creeps down to the water and dips her hand in, bringing a handful up to her. She smells it first, then tastes it. Clean enough and fresh. She drinks the rest, always watching and listening to the night.
Thirst is a silent killer, Joan knows, and also that by the time they are thirsty, it's too late to start finding water. Their bodies are already suffering the lack of water with the alcohol they drank earlier and the caffeine in the tea. If the water Emily finds isn't potable, they will have to make more a very high priority. They can survive awhile longer without it, but Joan doesn't relish the thought. Already it's easy to let the mind stray to cataloging the bodies responses and desire for water, but she forces herself not to dwell and instead, as she was taught what seems like a hundred years ago, tunes her senses out, away from her, to listen for anything moving toward them deliberately. That's the difficulty, the possibility of missing deliberate movements for not knowing the normal sounds in a environment teeming with unfamiliar life, but within a minute Joan picks out several larger creatures in their general vicinity. She quietly backs herself to a tree and continues to listen for any changes and for Emily's return.
Once Emily's tested the water, she sets herself to fashioning a bowl out of the leaves she'd picked. She fills it and drinks deep then refills it to bring back to Joan. "The finest waters in the land."
Joan takes the leafbowl - it's clever and shows evidence of long practice; Emily has clearly had some survival training or the experiences she claims; at the moment Joan is leaning toward both - and raises it to her lips. The first sip is slow, careful, with her tasting it for anything it shouldn't have in it, but all there is is water and the green taste of vegetation. "Fit for a queen, or a Lady in any event." She takes another sip to wet her mouth and says quietly, "There are some larger creatures not far off to the east. They haven't come any closer yet, but they are moving around," before finishing off the water. "My ankle will hold up another hour before I need to retie the boot. Let's go."
Emily nods, more than willing to continue moving. The water source makes her nervous and if Joan's sure there's something nearby there's bound to be more that she's missing. That's just how it is. "Right. Do let's." She starts to move forward without waiting for confirmation from Joan but a rustle nearby says they're too late. "You said you can run?"
Joan hears the rustle at the same time as Emily and before she asks, Joan is already doing the mental exercise she taught herself years ago to focus through pain. "Even if I couldn't, I would. Go!" she says and takes off away from the water and the noise. The pain lances through her and steals her first full breath and her second, but it doesn't slow her down.
Not that it matters when they're being chased by a small herd of angry hadrosaurs.
Emily stays a step behind Joan deliberately, risking a look behind her as they run. It could be worse. Emily has to be grateful for that. At least it's hadrosaurs and not tree creepers. They're fast, agile, but they have no talons or shielding. The small family group just wants them gone but the angry barking from behind the women is no less threatening for that.
The clearing narrows, trees and undergrowth making it harder to run in the dark. Joan listens while she runs and thinks she hears five distinct barking sounds. Emily is close behind but they dinosaurs are close and closing. She doesn't know anything about them, whether the knife she grips in one hand will be at all effective, but she has no intention of dying here tonight.
Within seconds of that determination, Joan feels the scrape of leathery skin against her arm. A dinosaur, two, perhaps three have pushed between her and Emily, separating them as they run past. At first she feels jostled and weaves off, but she catches a foot on a root and trips. When she lands on the sprained ankle, she bites her lip not to cry out. And then she is abruptly out of breath and flying through the air.
The hadrosaurs separate them and Emily doesn't have a chance to reach for Joan before she's pulled out of reach. She hears Joan trip, skids to a stop and runs right into a good sized adult duckbill. The thing barks at her and whips around. Emily doesn't bother to stifle anything as the creature's tail catches her and flings her out of the way. It's a momentary flight and it ends with an abrupt explosion of pain and then nothing.
Her hip connects with something, the force of it sending shooting stars of pain behind her eyes, but Joan is conscious when she hits the ground. She is still conscious and gripping her knife when the dinosaurs nudge at first Emily - who doesn't make a sound - and then come for Joan. Since they have left Emily alone, Joan decides they may not be carnivorous and it may be that Emily is playing dead. It is far too much uncertainty for her, but without real knowledge she can only guess and has only seconds to do it. She lets herself go as limp as possible and is rewarded by "only" being pawed on the thigh and then tossed another five feet where she waits, motionless, for the dinosaurs to kill them or go away.
Eventually, an endless few minutes later, one of the dinosaurs barks loudly and all of them turn and trot back toward the water. Joan doesn't dare wait more than another minute before crawling, painfully, Emily's way.
Emily awakes with shooting pains in her back and she bites her lips closed against the hurt noises she can feel in her throat. Remaining quiet and absolutely still, she listens around her while she takes stock of her condition. The hadrosaurs are gone and from the sound, Joan is alive and moving. Aside from her back, which Emily is pretty sure is only bruised, Emily's feels fairly well. Her wrist burns like a new scrape but that's nothing to worry about. She can feel all her fingers and toes and when she lifts her neck, it moves without pain. Carefully, she sits up, a little dizzy, her head aching -- must have hit that against the tree too -- and reaches out into the darkness. "Over here."
Joan's ankle throbs a little more than she would like, but with the boot laced up tightly it doesn't keep her from enjoying their evening tour of the museum. A few other people stroll the galleries, but for the most part, she and Emily are alone with the holograph people. It's growing late and in a real city populated by real people, it would probably already be closed.
"There's a movie, Jurassic Park, that makes those--" Joan gestures to the skeleton of a velociraptor, a slim smile curving her lips. "Out to be the most terrifying killers since Jack the Ripper." It seems an apt and amusing comparison, considering where they are and where Emily is from. "Are they?" Her companion claims to have experience of fighting dinosaurs and while Joan is not yet convinced of anything in this place, least of all the place itself, she has no reason to doubt Emily within the parameters of her general suspicions.
Emily tilts her head, considering the remains. "I don't know about Jack the Ripper, but in my experience, yes, these are dangerous. They're smart, agile, and quite aggressive. Just one of them came through a gateway to London in my time and the killings were some of the most vicious the city had ever seen. The papers called it Spring-heeled Jack. Of course, they were looking for a man." Or a woman. Emily knows quite well that had she remained, she would have been tried for the murders. "Still, there are worse creatures to find yourself facing."
"Spring-heeled Jack," Joan murmurs the name thoughtfully. She remembers it from an Abnormal Psych class or lecture back when she was in college, yet she can't quite pin it down. "An urban legend, wasn't it?" If a dinosaur had come through to London, she could easily imagine how that might come to be. "Since, apparently, there are dinosaurs here when it is a tropical island and not a Victorian city--" Joan shares a mildly skeptical smile with her companion. "It would probably behoove me to know which the most dangerous are, and, although I've no plans to go antagonizing them, how to elude or fight them."
"Traps if you have time. Running if you don't. In most cases, climbing a tree is a decent way to avoid a land-dweller but there are plenty of tree-dwellers to worry about in that case. Keep a sharp knife on you, a gun if you can manage it. Fire helps and there's safety in numbers." Emily didn't have to think about it. They'd given a similar speech to every new member of the tribe as they'd taken them in. "They're not more frightened of you than you are of them and in most cases, they'll defend their territories aggressively."
Her head cocks, eyebrows lifting at the certainty in Emily's tone. She sounds, in every respect, like Joan or one of her better analysts running down the characteristics of a target or mission. It's practiced, fluid, informational with no dross, as though she's said it countless times. "Well." Joan considers the skeletons again. "I can see we'll have to arm ourselves if we're still here when the island becomes tropical again."
Emily looks around the pub in ill-concealed amusement. "This London has it all over the real one. In my day, this would have been so choked with smoke, I could hardly have seen you across the table." Instead they're enjoying a spot of supper and a drink before they go home. It's odd to be out unchaperoned but Emily's taken to thinking of this London as more like the ARC's London than her own. Certainly the sensibilities are far more modern in most cases.
"Would it have been open so late?" Joan finds the opportunity to consult Emily on the details of this bizarre version of Victorian London something of a pleasure, one of the few this place affords. If she allows it, she can almost forget for an hour or so that she's been forcibly removed from her home, her job, her husband and enjoy it for the ingenious construction that it is. "I haven't studied Western history for a very long time. My memory of the Victorian era's spotty at best."
Emily shrugs. "I honestly have no idea. It's not the kind of place that's very appropriate for a lady and certainly the only time I was out this late I was visiting or at a ball. Henry was often out rather late but I believe that he was at his gentleman's club. The idea of dining out is a very modern one and not particularly British."
"A concession to not employing servants and not being able to cook," Joan agrees and then adds, "As well as the advent of the forty-plus hour work week for men and women." She can cook, of course, and so can Arthur to some extent, but they rarely have time anymore. "That must be strange for you, women in the workforce alongside the men?"
"Not quite as much as you'd think. After dinosaurs, social constructs carry a lot less power than they used to. I suppose I fall back into the manners I grew up with but this place. It brings it out of me." Emily can cook over a campfire but hardly at all anywhere else. Modern London had takeaway and the ARC had its cafeteria. "Being allowed to work in the future was wonderful. I spent a lot of time being very bored growing up."
"I can't even begin to imagine." Joan's head cocks slightly to the side as though she's listening to the thought, considering it, letting it roll around in her head, but when she's given it a moment, she closes her fingers around the bowl of her wineglass and lifts it, a very mild dismissal of the idea as completely incomprehensible. "I wouldn't have the slightest idea what to do with my time."
"Embroidery. Music. Reading. A mind-numbing amount of tea with a mind-blowing number of other bored young women." Emily lifts her eyebrows. "Dinosaurs were preferable."
"In other words, unsurprisingly similar to this place." Although her expression remains placid, there is a wry bite to her tone and her mouth twitches slightly bitter along with it. "Auggie and Annie--" whom she has explained to Emily as colleagues from several taskforce projects. "Insist it will be tropical again soon, but I can't see how it will be any less stultifying then."
"I'm looking forward to wearing pants again. And not wearing corsets." Emily's hoping that the others are right. She's had enough of this London. She left it behind once already.
"Agreed. I would absolutely kill for a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, or a sheathe dress with no boning." Actually, she would kill for a return to DC, to the DPD, to Arthur, but nothing good will come of mentioning it. It only makes her vulnerable and she cannot afford the weakness.
Instead of returning home immediately, Joan and Emily decide on a late stroll to settle their stomachs. It is cold but clear, more gunmetal gray than midnight black even though it is rapidly approaching that hour. When they stop to ask a hologram-gentleman in a top hat for a pleasant path to walk, he looks entirely scandalized and tells them it isn't proper.
Ring hidden in her glove, Joan replies, "A spinster may do as she likes, without concern for her reputation," and it's only a little scathing. Joan wonders if she'll have to point out that he's obviously on his way to a gambling den, but he gives in and points them on their way. Since he's only a hologram, he fades as soon as they walk away.
"I won't miss men and servants commenting on my behavior at every turn," she says to Emily as they walk north on the recommended road toward a park with a pretty 'prospect' by moonlight.
"Try twenty-seven years of it." Emily tucks her hands into the warmth of her shawl, not coincidentally resting one on her blade. This London is not nearly so violent or dangerous as the one she lived in but she isn't willing to take chances. "I will rather miss the food."
"If Auggie is right, there will be plenty of time to learn how to cook it," Joan suggests. She notes, naturally, her companion's hands and approves. She's carrying a knife, too, but their immediate environment contains a large number of objects that can be used to her advantage in a fight.
When she hears a bell tolling and clouds slip across the moon, Joan consults her watch. Mere seconds to midnight. It's still pleasant out, but she suspects Emily will soon wish to go--
Once again, Joan's foot lands in something unexpected. Loamy dirt instead of cold paving stone. Her breath no longer mists the air and the sounds have changed from a gray Victorian night to the dark, lonely damp of the jungle. She pats down her slacks and shirt for her knife and finds a switchblade tucked into a pocket.
"Speak of the jungle and she come," Joan quips, then trips, and twists her ankle again. She suppresses a yelp, but even with modern, comfortable boots to protect it, that's going to be a bitch in the morning.
The dress with its heavy skirt and layers of undergarments is gone between one moment and the next. Her boot hits a twig, snapping it loudly. She's in pants and a dress shirt, belted around the waist. Emily pulls her knife, the jungle so much darker than the city had been. "Are you all right?"
"Yes, fine." For now she is and she knows her body well enough to know when she'll have to lay off. It's a twinge at the moment, a sprain, nothing worse. "I'll need to find ice or put my foot up in awhile but my boots will protect it for now." Steadying her breathing, Joan considers the situation they're in. "Assuming that we're still on the island, we were northwest. If the geography persists, we need to head south." Unfortunately, she lacked a compass.
Emily glances up, trying to spot the stars or the moon through the trees. "I could get us better bearings but assuming the island isn't much larger than the city limits were, we should be able to cross it in a few hours." Stepping over to the nearest tree, she cuts in a small hatch mark. "I've never asked...how are your nature skills?"
"Better suited to Kenya than the jungle, but I can handle myself." In less dangerous circumstances, Joan might feign less ability than she has, but she won't take chances in a potential crisis. She retrieves her own knife and moves toward Emily. It has occurred to her that if Emily is actually the threat, now will be her moment, and Joan remains on her guard. "We may do better to move west or east to the ocean," she says thoughtfully. "As long as we don't head north, we should be fine."
Emily's listening to the night with her eyes closed while she lets them adjust to the dark. If she considers Joan a threat, it's not readily apparent. "Unless we're already at the north-most part of the island. I think you're right. West and south is best. Quietly as we can."
Joan also closes her eyes to adjust her vision more quickly, although it has already begun to show her more of their surroundings. Her hearing is less acute from having spent most of the last few years in the office. With a slightly wry tone to her voice, softer than a whisper, Joan says, "You should go first, in case of dinosaurs," and then falls silent and waits for Emily to move.
Emily lifts her eyebrows at that but only says. "We're in luck that it's night. Most dinosaurs settle down after sunset, to conserve their body heat. Unfortunately, the ones still active are likely to be rather aggressive. Stay alert."
They've been walking over an hour when Joan hears running water. She needs to untie and retie her boot, and it's warm enough and they've been sweating enough that water, if it's potable, would be welcome. "Let's check the water," she suggests as she draws even with Emily. The woman has good sense, and Joan doesn't feel the need to elaborate the reasons.
Emily hesitates. Water would be welcome but if it's worth drinking, it'll also be high-risk. They aren't the only creatures looking for refreshment. After a moment, she reaches up and strips a few of the flat, wide leaves from the tree above her. "I'll check it. Wait here. You can't run on that ankle."
"Trust me," Joan says with a quiet snort. "If I have to run, I can run." For a brief moment, she feels the soft pang of another loss she has been ignoring. She and Meg used to function like this in the field, and there was the time that... This is no time for nostalgia, Joan chides herself and gestures to Emily. "But you're right, there's no reason to risk it if we don't need to."
Emily gives her a thoughtful look then nods. "Right. Give a whistle if you spot anything." She slips away without waiting for a response, moving quietly through the dark like it's second nature instead of lessons hard-learned in the worst of conditions. It's easy to be over-alert, to jump at sounds when being still is wiser. To rush when patience is needed. Emily creeps down to the water and dips her hand in, bringing a handful up to her. She smells it first, then tastes it. Clean enough and fresh. She drinks the rest, always watching and listening to the night.
Thirst is a silent killer, Joan knows, and also that by the time they are thirsty, it's too late to start finding water. Their bodies are already suffering the lack of water with the alcohol they drank earlier and the caffeine in the tea. If the water Emily finds isn't potable, they will have to make more a very high priority. They can survive awhile longer without it, but Joan doesn't relish the thought. Already it's easy to let the mind stray to cataloging the bodies responses and desire for water, but she forces herself not to dwell and instead, as she was taught what seems like a hundred years ago, tunes her senses out, away from her, to listen for anything moving toward them deliberately. That's the difficulty, the possibility of missing deliberate movements for not knowing the normal sounds in a environment teeming with unfamiliar life, but within a minute Joan picks out several larger creatures in their general vicinity. She quietly backs herself to a tree and continues to listen for any changes and for Emily's return.
Once Emily's tested the water, she sets herself to fashioning a bowl out of the leaves she'd picked. She fills it and drinks deep then refills it to bring back to Joan. "The finest waters in the land."
Joan takes the leafbowl - it's clever and shows evidence of long practice; Emily has clearly had some survival training or the experiences she claims; at the moment Joan is leaning toward both - and raises it to her lips. The first sip is slow, careful, with her tasting it for anything it shouldn't have in it, but all there is is water and the green taste of vegetation. "Fit for a queen, or a Lady in any event." She takes another sip to wet her mouth and says quietly, "There are some larger creatures not far off to the east. They haven't come any closer yet, but they are moving around," before finishing off the water. "My ankle will hold up another hour before I need to retie the boot. Let's go."
Emily nods, more than willing to continue moving. The water source makes her nervous and if Joan's sure there's something nearby there's bound to be more that she's missing. That's just how it is. "Right. Do let's." She starts to move forward without waiting for confirmation from Joan but a rustle nearby says they're too late. "You said you can run?"
Joan hears the rustle at the same time as Emily and before she asks, Joan is already doing the mental exercise she taught herself years ago to focus through pain. "Even if I couldn't, I would. Go!" she says and takes off away from the water and the noise. The pain lances through her and steals her first full breath and her second, but it doesn't slow her down.
Not that it matters when they're being chased by a small herd of angry hadrosaurs.
Emily stays a step behind Joan deliberately, risking a look behind her as they run. It could be worse. Emily has to be grateful for that. At least it's hadrosaurs and not tree creepers. They're fast, agile, but they have no talons or shielding. The small family group just wants them gone but the angry barking from behind the women is no less threatening for that.
The clearing narrows, trees and undergrowth making it harder to run in the dark. Joan listens while she runs and thinks she hears five distinct barking sounds. Emily is close behind but they dinosaurs are close and closing. She doesn't know anything about them, whether the knife she grips in one hand will be at all effective, but she has no intention of dying here tonight.
Within seconds of that determination, Joan feels the scrape of leathery skin against her arm. A dinosaur, two, perhaps three have pushed between her and Emily, separating them as they run past. At first she feels jostled and weaves off, but she catches a foot on a root and trips. When she lands on the sprained ankle, she bites her lip not to cry out. And then she is abruptly out of breath and flying through the air.
The hadrosaurs separate them and Emily doesn't have a chance to reach for Joan before she's pulled out of reach. She hears Joan trip, skids to a stop and runs right into a good sized adult duckbill. The thing barks at her and whips around. Emily doesn't bother to stifle anything as the creature's tail catches her and flings her out of the way. It's a momentary flight and it ends with an abrupt explosion of pain and then nothing.
Her hip connects with something, the force of it sending shooting stars of pain behind her eyes, but Joan is conscious when she hits the ground. She is still conscious and gripping her knife when the dinosaurs nudge at first Emily - who doesn't make a sound - and then come for Joan. Since they have left Emily alone, Joan decides they may not be carnivorous and it may be that Emily is playing dead. It is far too much uncertainty for her, but without real knowledge she can only guess and has only seconds to do it. She lets herself go as limp as possible and is rewarded by "only" being pawed on the thigh and then tossed another five feet where she waits, motionless, for the dinosaurs to kill them or go away.
Eventually, an endless few minutes later, one of the dinosaurs barks loudly and all of them turn and trot back toward the water. Joan doesn't dare wait more than another minute before crawling, painfully, Emily's way.
Emily awakes with shooting pains in her back and she bites her lips closed against the hurt noises she can feel in her throat. Remaining quiet and absolutely still, she listens around her while she takes stock of her condition. The hadrosaurs are gone and from the sound, Joan is alive and moving. Aside from her back, which Emily is pretty sure is only bruised, Emily's feels fairly well. Her wrist burns like a new scrape but that's nothing to worry about. She can feel all her fingers and toes and when she lifts her neck, it moves without pain. Carefully, she sits up, a little dizzy, her head aching -- must have hit that against the tree too -- and reaches out into the darkness. "Over here."