Tara Maclay (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
moontothetide) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
towerofanimus2012-07-16 01:43 pm
moontothetide) wrote in towerofanimus2012-07-16 01:43 pm
Entry tags:
2nd Spell - [Backdated to the 13th]
Characters: Tara Maclay and whoever she comes across
Setting: Floors listed below
Format: Starting with prose, will match you
Summary: Life can be a bit complicated when you're on hallucinogenic drugs. Even more so when you don't know you're taking them. All the same, Tara tries to go to work with a few plans
Warnings: Dark thoughts and near death by drowning, but nothing else at the moment
((ooc: Don't worry about timelines - a lot of the situations described here are likely to happen a few times. Tara's going to try picking the petals off flowers again after her traumatic flashback, try to find another shelf of plant books after getting hit in the head, and have to go back down into the pool a few more times to finish cleaning. So, feel free to toss your characters in wherever without fear of breaking something.))
Floor Twenty-Five (The Meadow)
Magic was part of her. Magic was a basic, essential part of her very soul. It wasn't the greatest part, no, she knew that now. But it was a part that couldn't be denied, needed to be acknowledged...;and, occasionally, practiced with.
That is why Tara can be found sitting cross legged at the edge of the meadow today. Her eyes are closed, her awareness apparently completely elsewhere. But, slowly, a flower plucks itself from the ground and drifts through the air to hover at eye level before Tara. One by one, with delicate care, a petal parts from the flower to lower carefully back to the ground. It's an exercise in control and grace.
At least...until the last petal. When there was only one petal remaining on the flower, Tara's eyes fly open, and she gasps and doubles over as though she's just been punched in the stomach. The stem drops lifelessly to the floor, all power gone and control broken. The reason being that, as she'd been just about to finish, Tara had felt two familiar hands moving to hold hers', and an achingly familiar voice complementing her on the beauty of her work...
Floor Thirty-Three (The Farms)
Hard work concentrated the mild wonderfully.
And so Tara could be found on the thirty third floor, among the tangle of plants and weeds and cultivation and wildness. She stopped off at the shack to grab a rusting spade and a shovel with half its handle missing before making for a little corner she'd spied on a walk a few days before. She found it, still apparently unclaimed by anything but thistles and kudzu, and set to work clearing the ground for what would hopefully, one day, be a functional garden for use in case of another food shortage. Tara had gotten by all right, with a little help from the library...but the creeping dread of not knowing if there would be another meal wasn't a feeling she wanted to experience again, and she'd spoken t enough tower residents to know they felt the same.
Tara can be found determinedly pulling up weeds, sometimes by hand, sometimes digging into the dirt with her spade to cut out the roots where they've grown deep. Sweat beaded her face and muscles she still wasn't used to having stand out against her skin. There were frequent pauses for rest, where Tara sat back on her heels and stares at the ground and contemplated having to continue.
But occasionally, when she was resting or even when she was working, Tara suddenly tensed in fear, before whipping her head round to stare at...empty space. Surprise came over her face, after a second, as she apparently realized that there was nothing there. With a shudder and a soft sigh, she returned to work, only for the entire strange dance to start up again a few minutes later as she apparently saw something else out of the corner of her eye that just wasn't there.
Floor Nineteen (The Unfriendly Library)
With her introductory book to edible plants still lent out to the Dolorosa, Tara found herself in need of another trip to the library to continue her personal education. Especially with others having expressed an interest in assisting her, she knew that she needed to have more than a beginner's, slapdash level of education if their plan to provide a bit more food for the tower is going to be at all a success.
And so, Tara stopped off at the reference library. Unfortunately, despite all her best hopes, she...couldn't seem to focus. This could be seen at one of the long tables that line the library, where a trail of books goes from one end to the other, where Tara was absently flipping through yet another. They were all on plants and the identification and care thereof, edible, medicinal, or otherwise.
Finally, the library itself grew tired of her indecision, and a few books from the very top shelf flung themselves off to give Tara sharp whack back to reality. With a yelp, she dropped the book she'd been reading, covered her head, and tried to move clear. The fact that dropping the book had caused it to dogear, however, meant that the shelf she sought cover at also saw to it that a book fell off to hit her sharply in the shoulder.
Floor Seven (The Pool)
Tara was a pool cleaner.
She'd apparently been the last one to know this, having received a sternly worded note on her pillow the day everyone had gotten back from the pods. But, yes. It was apparently her job to clean the enormous, labyrinthine pools on the seventh floor. Just her, a scrub brush, and an oxygen tank with ten minutes of air.
Tara was not a strong swimmer, and had a healthy fear of drowning. Even now, she refused to venture into the tunnels connecting the different pools, instead focusing all her efforts on the central pools that open out into open air and allow for a quick push to the surface when her tank runs out. And, over the last couple of weeks, she'd gotten better. Her cleaning was a little better, she could stay on the bottom a little longer, and she hesitated a bit less before fitting her mask in place and lowering herself beneath the water. But she was always, always careful. They could do what they liked to her, but she would never, ever trust herself in the tunnels. Not with only ten minutes.
So when Tara regained focus and found herself swimming out of a tunnel into an unfamiliar pool that didn't open up into the surface, she felt the seeds of panic growing in her heart. And, when she checked the needle on her oxygen tank and found it contained two minutes and counting, the panic bloomed until it threatened to suffocate her before the water did.
But panic also gave her energy. Two and a half minutes of frantic, flailing swimming followed, until Tara saw through her fading vision the harsh fluorescent lights of the world above. She struggled, pushed, swam, and finally surfaced, and there was air. But there was also water in her lungs, and her muscles were burning with her recent exertion, and Tara coughed helplessly, hacked water from her lungs, and her body was heavy and suddenly so tired that she couldn't find it in herself to swim any further, and sinking back beneath the surface seemed an imminent danger...
Setting: Floors listed below
Format: Starting with prose, will match you
Summary: Life can be a bit complicated when you're on hallucinogenic drugs. Even more so when you don't know you're taking them. All the same, Tara tries to go to work with a few plans
Warnings: Dark thoughts and near death by drowning, but nothing else at the moment
((ooc: Don't worry about timelines - a lot of the situations described here are likely to happen a few times. Tara's going to try picking the petals off flowers again after her traumatic flashback, try to find another shelf of plant books after getting hit in the head, and have to go back down into the pool a few more times to finish cleaning. So, feel free to toss your characters in wherever without fear of breaking something.))
Floor Twenty-Five (The Meadow)
Magic was part of her. Magic was a basic, essential part of her very soul. It wasn't the greatest part, no, she knew that now. But it was a part that couldn't be denied, needed to be acknowledged...;and, occasionally, practiced with.
That is why Tara can be found sitting cross legged at the edge of the meadow today. Her eyes are closed, her awareness apparently completely elsewhere. But, slowly, a flower plucks itself from the ground and drifts through the air to hover at eye level before Tara. One by one, with delicate care, a petal parts from the flower to lower carefully back to the ground. It's an exercise in control and grace.
At least...until the last petal. When there was only one petal remaining on the flower, Tara's eyes fly open, and she gasps and doubles over as though she's just been punched in the stomach. The stem drops lifelessly to the floor, all power gone and control broken. The reason being that, as she'd been just about to finish, Tara had felt two familiar hands moving to hold hers', and an achingly familiar voice complementing her on the beauty of her work...
Floor Thirty-Three (The Farms)
Hard work concentrated the mild wonderfully.
And so Tara could be found on the thirty third floor, among the tangle of plants and weeds and cultivation and wildness. She stopped off at the shack to grab a rusting spade and a shovel with half its handle missing before making for a little corner she'd spied on a walk a few days before. She found it, still apparently unclaimed by anything but thistles and kudzu, and set to work clearing the ground for what would hopefully, one day, be a functional garden for use in case of another food shortage. Tara had gotten by all right, with a little help from the library...but the creeping dread of not knowing if there would be another meal wasn't a feeling she wanted to experience again, and she'd spoken t enough tower residents to know they felt the same.
Tara can be found determinedly pulling up weeds, sometimes by hand, sometimes digging into the dirt with her spade to cut out the roots where they've grown deep. Sweat beaded her face and muscles she still wasn't used to having stand out against her skin. There were frequent pauses for rest, where Tara sat back on her heels and stares at the ground and contemplated having to continue.
But occasionally, when she was resting or even when she was working, Tara suddenly tensed in fear, before whipping her head round to stare at...empty space. Surprise came over her face, after a second, as she apparently realized that there was nothing there. With a shudder and a soft sigh, she returned to work, only for the entire strange dance to start up again a few minutes later as she apparently saw something else out of the corner of her eye that just wasn't there.
Floor Nineteen (The Unfriendly Library)
With her introductory book to edible plants still lent out to the Dolorosa, Tara found herself in need of another trip to the library to continue her personal education. Especially with others having expressed an interest in assisting her, she knew that she needed to have more than a beginner's, slapdash level of education if their plan to provide a bit more food for the tower is going to be at all a success.
And so, Tara stopped off at the reference library. Unfortunately, despite all her best hopes, she...couldn't seem to focus. This could be seen at one of the long tables that line the library, where a trail of books goes from one end to the other, where Tara was absently flipping through yet another. They were all on plants and the identification and care thereof, edible, medicinal, or otherwise.
Finally, the library itself grew tired of her indecision, and a few books from the very top shelf flung themselves off to give Tara sharp whack back to reality. With a yelp, she dropped the book she'd been reading, covered her head, and tried to move clear. The fact that dropping the book had caused it to dogear, however, meant that the shelf she sought cover at also saw to it that a book fell off to hit her sharply in the shoulder.
Floor Seven (The Pool)
Tara was a pool cleaner.
She'd apparently been the last one to know this, having received a sternly worded note on her pillow the day everyone had gotten back from the pods. But, yes. It was apparently her job to clean the enormous, labyrinthine pools on the seventh floor. Just her, a scrub brush, and an oxygen tank with ten minutes of air.
Tara was not a strong swimmer, and had a healthy fear of drowning. Even now, she refused to venture into the tunnels connecting the different pools, instead focusing all her efforts on the central pools that open out into open air and allow for a quick push to the surface when her tank runs out. And, over the last couple of weeks, she'd gotten better. Her cleaning was a little better, she could stay on the bottom a little longer, and she hesitated a bit less before fitting her mask in place and lowering herself beneath the water. But she was always, always careful. They could do what they liked to her, but she would never, ever trust herself in the tunnels. Not with only ten minutes.
So when Tara regained focus and found herself swimming out of a tunnel into an unfamiliar pool that didn't open up into the surface, she felt the seeds of panic growing in her heart. And, when she checked the needle on her oxygen tank and found it contained two minutes and counting, the panic bloomed until it threatened to suffocate her before the water did.
But panic also gave her energy. Two and a half minutes of frantic, flailing swimming followed, until Tara saw through her fading vision the harsh fluorescent lights of the world above. She struggled, pushed, swam, and finally surfaced, and there was air. But there was also water in her lungs, and her muscles were burning with her recent exertion, and Tara coughed helplessly, hacked water from her lungs, and her body was heavy and suddenly so tired that she couldn't find it in herself to swim any further, and sinking back beneath the surface seemed an imminent danger...
no subject
Knowing this place, it's probably not. Tara snaps sharply to attention at Fuhito's words, his confident, calm voice cutting through the morning glory haze, and nods.] R-Right. Um, and th-thank you.
[With a threatening "thud" of an encyclopedia, Tara turns and dashes towards the reading area.]