talentsgirl | [ Action, Video, and Voice! ] Good Golly, Miss Molly .001

[Molly woke up on her side, in pain, and cold.

That's strange. I wasn't asleep a moment ago. Was I?

Also, her brain felt fuzzy. That wouldn't do. Deep breaths, Molly, and she remained still and safe for a moment - movement was a tell, and until she had her focus back she wasn't going to do anything until she was sure she could hide. Then slowly, Molly sat up.]

Woah.

[She was on top of a tree house. In what looked like a tree village, no less. And where the heck were her clothes?]

Let me guess. I'm not in Kansas anymore.

[Molly twisted around to try to see the source of pain on her back, only for bright pink to meet her eye - a single pink wing! With a blue one to match. Oh. Hahahahahaha, this must be a dream. She gave a light tug on one of her wings and the dull pain turned into a shooting one which made her grit her teeth against the sudden flare behind her eyes. OK, girl. The wings stay on. And if this was an illusion, it was a hell of one to sustain that much pain. She glanced around, found, and opened the journal.

Huh.]

...a magic book with my name on it. That's not at all suspicious. Well, I guess I'm already through the looking glass...

Hello, in the book! I'm looking for a white rabbit, he was supposed to give me the time. Or maybe the place? Either way, I'm late for an important date.

[No time to say hello, goodbye... either way, she couldn't sit around waiting for the magic book to talk back. Magic didn't work that way. And it was still here, she could feel it humming but... faint. And very much like it was through a looking glass. Strange.

Either way, she wasn't one to just sit around in a tower - or a treehouse - and wait to be rescued. She held the book carefully opened by inserting one finger in it and closing the book around it in case of a response, not knowing that flashes of video could escape through it as well, and began to make her way down as best as she could in a dress entirely too short for her long legs and thin enough to hint at just how low the thorn tattoo starting high at her neckline curved down. Time to wander the forest in hope of... something. Some kind of clue or direction.]

[Part the Second: Or if you'd rather not rescue/inform a New Feather]

[Clothed in jeans a light jacket, and boots, one tall young lady is poking about all the shops in the square. Maybe you'll run into her there?]

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"Oh, sure!" Rue smiles happily, easily scaling up the tree again. "Wait there, I'll get some for you!"

Before there's proper time for Molly to reply, Rue is gone, silently leaping and swinging through the trees and back to the treehouse. Their supplies are limited, just enough to survive as they can out in the forest before making a supply run the following week. But sparing a pair of socks for a stranger is something Rue finds reasonable. Maybe she can be an ally for them too.

Ten minutes later, Rue silently swings back through the trees and drops down in front of Molly, offering a pair of wool socks.

Wow, that was fast. Molly paused to watch Rue go - very quick, very silent, very impressive - before she glanced around and, for lack of anything better to do, begins to thumb through the journal, starting at the beginning.

...what a strange book.

She glanced up, startled a bit at Rue's reappearance. Between the girl's silence and her own absorption with the journal, she'd not noticed her return. "Oh - thank you."

She smiled and reached out to take the socks. "I'll have to get you another pair later."

Not 'wash and return' them, because Molly anticipates them being pretty much trashed.

"You're welcome, though don't worry about bringing socks back. We can always pick up more in the village. There's lots there." Rue responds before dropping back down. "Sorry, I should have brought you a coat too."

Molly shook her head. "I'll be fine in the dress while I'm walking, if it's not too far to the village."

She put on the socks and stood up. There. Better than nothing. "Thanks."

"It'll be a bit of walking, but if you follow the river upstream, it'll take you right there. I'll go with you too."

Smiling, Molly agreed. "That would be great. I'd like the company."

She tilted her head inquiringly, "I'm Molly. What's your name?"

"I'm Rue," she replies. "I haven't been here much longer, almost two weeks. But it's been nice so far!"

"Rue is a pretty name," Molly said, and meant it. "I'm glad to hear it's been nice. I'd like to hear about it."

Rue begins to walk at an easy pace, weaving a path through the trees to take them closer along the river. "Well, there's no money so everything is free. You can have all the food or items that you want, even a house. And they have all sorts of restaurants and cafes if you don't want to cook. No one ever goes hungry here."

Molly processed that on several levels. One, this girl was finding the most practical things relevant. Two... "Wow. That sounds almost too good to believe."

"I couldn't believe it either, but it's what everyone says and it's true! If you go into a store, you can take what you want and no one says anything. But then you have the Malnosso taking people too and causing experiments." Give and take, give and take.

"Taking people?" Molly didn't like the sound of that. "On top of us already being taken?"

She gives a small nod. "Sometimes they take people away to be tested on. They always come back, but sometimes they're a bit different."

"How are they different?" Molly paused and turned to look at Rue seriously. "Have you seen it happen?"

Did it happen to someone you care about?

"They might have different memories, or come back in a different body, or be odd in some way. People say it's not permanent and they go back to normal after some time." Rue looked back at Molly and gave a firm shake of her head. "No, but I don't know a lot of people around here either."

Okay, okay Molly. Don't freak out. Focus on what's important - and that's easy to do when what's important is the safety of a child. "How could you? I mean, if they take us from different worlds, who could you know?"

Edited 2012-03-22 05:47 (UTC)

Who could she know? A good question. Her parents and siblings, of course. Any of her fellow orchard workers. Certainly the other tributes, though the ones she wants to see are outweighted by the ones she doesn't.

Rue hesitates because there is someone here she knows, but is it safe to tell? Molly seems friendly enough, and if there's any trouble, they could always move deeper into the treehouse village.

"I have a friend here. Katniss. She's from my world so we're taking care of each other."

Molly pictured another friend of Rue's, imagining a girl of similar age... but then, these socks fit her a lot better than she'd imagined Rue's would, and Molly was no small girl.

"I'm glad that you have a friend here."

Her mind was running in a million different directions, so she'll just leave it at that for now.

Rue smiles, warm, genuine, happy. She's very glad to have Katniss here too, her dear ally from the arena.

"Maybe you'll have friends here too."

Youthful optimism such a beautiful thing.

"I... can't say I'd mind right now if I did," she said, stepping carefully through the forest. "How did you find out that your friend was here?"

"I found her through the book! Or she found me first, but then I talked to her, and then I found her in the forest. Maybe you'll find a friend too if you look in the book."

They're all in the book, huh? So everyone who comes here gets a book?

Rue nods. "I think so! It's how you can talk to everyone at once. We don't have anything like that where I'm from."

She wonders what it would be like if everyone could talk. It'd be nice, just talking with other people, learning about their lives in the other districts.

"That's... pretty impressive communication. Even for a book."

"Oh yes. And you can write in it or record your voice too! There's even pictures in it."

[ Action, Video, and Voice! ] Good Golly, Miss Molly .001

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