making your insomnia everyone else's problem [video]

[tr1xx]

[ It's late, like, super late. Like 'if any of us had a clock to go off it'd probably read 3am' kind of late. The stars are shining clear in the sky and the only light on the feed is from the Heartstone, not even a fire. Wherever Cammie's settled, she's not right next to anyone else in the group for some reason or another.

Cammie is also, notably, not on any watch rotation. Also also, she's totally human, aka: neither nocturnal, nor able to get by without sleeping at all. She's fastening her ears back around her ponytail, as the live feed starts, which means she probably at least gave sleeping a go—there's even some makeshift blankets wrapped around her shoulders—but she's awake now, looking tired as anything but perky, too. Only the particular observant may note the slightly haunted look beneath the teenage bravado and energetic way she speaks. ]

Christ, I'm bored. What's a girl s'posed to do around here when it's too dark an' cold out to go on a walk or somethin', eh? Call me addicted to technology all ye like, but the Ether's a blessin' when—

[ She coughs, does not finish that sentence. She admits she's up because of nightmares and precedent from home tells her someone will stage an intervention. ]

Anyway. Some of youse must still be up, aye? Anyone wanna play like— what did people play before the Ether... —2 truths 1 lie? Truth or dare? Hell, I'd say 20 questions but I think the multiverse makes that kinda complicated. Imagine someone picks somethin' only found in their universe. Practically amounts to cheatin' and ye might not even know ye doin' it.

...but, seriously, I'm goin' out of my mind doin' nothin' right now, surely I cannae be the only one?

[ There's a nonzero chance this broadcast wakes up people who weren't, actually, already awake at 3am, but Cammie's decided that's worth the risk right now. Sorry everyone. ]

Comments

[hallelujahjunction]

Redundant but true. [He grins and reaches over to pull some of the fabric tight, give her an easier canvas to keep stitching.]

You can keep telling them a new skill you done got to keep them on their toes. Just drop in one new talent at a time.

[He gestures with his chin at his longbow and quiver, resting against the wall of the troll home.]

What I do is subsistence hunting. The way I see it, the way I was raised up, you don't never kill something for sport, and the way you honor something that gave its life so that you could thrive is to ensure that you use every part of it, so you don't need to take more lives. When I hunt something, I take the meat, and if there's any way to use the bones and hide I do that, and if there's any parts of it left over that I can't use, I give it back to the earth and let it nourish other living things. If you've got the stomach for it, I can teach you the skills necessary for all that.

[tr1xx]

[ Her ears tilt in lieu of her head tilting, since she's still focused on the stitches, as she thinks. She probably has the stomach for it, right? She's been past the meat prep area a few times and not woofed her cookies or anything, at least. And being able to pitch in to food supply in some way would be one way to be actually useful. ]

Think I could do that, aye; gonna be important out here. More we can make use of what we get better off we are, yeah?

Gotta warn ye I'm a right poor shot, if ye try teach me the actual like, huntin' part. Like, I have drones that aim for me back home an' that's with guns.

[hallelujahjunction]

Exactly. Waste not, want not. [She's got the hang of this shirt, so he pulls out his next assignment, trying to tailor up some pants for himself now that his jeans are begging for both patching and a wash. Trolls are large, and Dan's petite, so it's not just a matter of hemming the legs; he has to essentially undo the fabric and make a new pair out of the panels.]

Shooting's like any other skill. It's something that can be taught, and not to toot my own horn or nothing, but you can't couldn't hardly ask for a better teacher. But let's start with something where we ain't taking lives, first.

[Generally, starting someone off with the most violent part of hunting is a surefire way to get them to dislike the task, unless they're the sort of person who shouldn't be hunting.]

I'll teach you how to cure the meat so it lasts us a while first. I hope you have an appetite for jerky, because that might could be all we get while we travel.

[tr1xx]

Works for me. Gives me longer before I embarass myself when I first give it a go.

[ It's a joke, said with a laugh, despite her actual insecurities about her shooting skills. She spent hours over the course of sleepless nights redesigning her drones to survive bad weather after a hurricane made them unusable and left her vulnerable. Learning shooting the old fashioned way has usually been... frustrating, but there's hardly another choice here. She'll tough it out, when it comes to it. ]

Honestly I'll take endless jerky over some of the stuff we got given on the rig. An' if we make it ourself it's better by default, that's the rules. That's what Gran always said, granted it was usually about her hot chocolate, but.

[hallelujahjunction]

I'll prepare you so good for taking that first shot that you'll be surprised how accurate you are. It's all about form and mindset. You don't need to fire to learn how to do that. [Dan taps his temple.]

She ain't even a little bit wrong. Whatever problems we got here, I'll take it any day of the week over the Rig.

[tr1xx]

[ She snickers. ] If ye manage where all my team failed, they'll be bug eyed at that too.

[ She can actually buy that a lot of it's mindset. When she fucked around with her brain settings when uploaded (which she is now very much limited from doing, because that sure backfired) she could actually kinda shoot. ]

Y'know, first I woke up back there I thought the Union'd got me; didn't think it for long, but... man, it's a contrast. Everythin' there sucked, an' a lot of this sucks, but at least we're free-er. Least there's nature and some beauty. Wish I could show folks a place like this.

[ She gestures vaguely at their surroundings with her head. The crystals and such are beautiful, it really is like something from her favourite fantasy game brought to life. ]

[hallelujahjunction]

Challenge accepted.

[He pulls out his pocketknife and starts using the corkscrew half of it to rip seams out of the pants. He gives her a nod.]

I couldn't might agree more. We may be all tethered together, but even getting to feel dirt under my feet, hear birds singing, see the sky - it's so much less claustrophobic than the Rig was.

[tr1xx]

Right? Christ, I live in the back of a dropship half the time an' that feels less claustraphobic than the whole rig.

[ She's made good progress, with the shirt; might even be close to done, she thinks. She's taken to it well enough, that's for sure. ]

An' I haven't seen so many trees an' animals in maybe my whole life. Not real ones.

[hallelujahjunction]

I spent a few months a year in a bunker underground, growing up. The Rig still felt more claustrophobic.

[He shudders.]

Here, tear out the seams, be slow and careful so you don't ruin none of the fabric. I get cold easy, I want to double-layer those pants.

[Dan takes the shirt back from her, then passes her the pants he's working on and the corkscrew. He examines her work on the stitches and starts making very minor adjustments, not nearly as many as he anticipated with a novice.]

We can add identifying plants and animals to your lessons, then. Almost all the magic in my world is herb-based. Not sure it'll ever come up here, but it can't hurt.

[tr1xx]

Man. That's a damning point of comparison if I ever heard one.

[ She nods as she takes the pants and corkscrew, mumbling a quiet 'slow and careful, right' as she sets to tearing out the seams little by little. ]

Work with what ye know 'til we know what works. That'll help, aye; I'm a city kid, y'know, but also like, a lot of stuff isn't really around anymore? So.

[ She shrugs. The war isn't the only sucky thing about Cammie's future, and it's not the only sucky thing she's far too used to. ]

[hallelujahjunction]

What's it they say about city kids? That they're even scrappier than the country kids?

[Dan doesn't know if that's true, but he knows that he entered the "real world" soft and sweet and has had to resist temptation after temptation, everyone else's effort after effort, to make him harder and crueler. And he has resisted it, but at a toll.]

Alright, so, we don't got to sleep yet but we will eventually. So that means that we won't start our survivalism lessons until tomorrow afternoon. We'll start by going out hunting and you can learn how to track, and I'll teach you all the plants and animals along the way. [Dan grins at her, holding out the shirt so she can see how between the two of them, they've fixed one garment.] And then we do that every day we're here until you're a pro.

[tr1xx]

Might depend on the kinda scrappy.

[ She grew up in a loving home, wanting for next to nothing despite their money situation, and yet life is cruel anyway; she lost so much before the war went hot, a whole generation lost just as much to the time it was 'cold' as they did after New York. She's not sure what her life would've looked like without it and she'll never know.

She grins back at Dan as he shows her the shirt—she's got a good enough eye to catch some of the fixing up, and it's nice to realise she really didn't do all that bad for her first time helping. ]

Sounds good to me. Beats everythin' else I've been spendin' my time on, that's for sure.

[ Hell, it's the first night going back to sleep at some point hasn't felt like a daunting prospect. That she doesn't have to now, that Dan's not pestering her about it, that there are plans for the next day she actually kinda wants to be alert enough for... yeah, maybe sleep won't be so bad, when it comes. Maybe she'll even be tired enough to skip the nightmares. ]

[hallelujahjunction]

Alright, well. We got about twenty more shirts to tailor like that before we leave camp, so I hope those typist fingers ain't getting tired any time soon.

[Dan's planning on staying up until Cammie goes to sleep; he figures, as the adult in this situation, and as the one who offered to watch over her if that made her feel more comfortable resting, that's the proper thing to do. He's got another few hours of energy to call on if he needs it.]

[tr1xx]

Heh. I'd be a way worse hacker if I got hand cramp an' shite that easy.

[ She gives the fingers of one hand a demonstrative wiggle with a smile. Her ears are perked up, and she hasn't set them like that deliberately, it's just the in-built reaction to her being actually happy right now.

It will take a while longer for the exhaustion to kick in, to combine with the relative relaxation of the tasks at hand and company and lack of pressure, and make her drowsy. It starts with a yawn and drooping ears, but progresses quickly to her clearly not being able to keep her eyes open. Even she, as stubborn as she is, realises she needs to actually bed down with the blankets and pillow after that. ]

[hallelujahjunction]

[When Cammie starts to show the signs of drifting off, Dan starts his drinking in earnest, although he hopes it's covert enough that she doesn't really notice. He just isn't going to get to sleep sober. When she lays down, he pops into the little troll house to give Bunny a kiss goodnight, and then he comes and sits by the fire a little longer, blanket wrapped around his shoulders.]

Sleep good, Cammie. I'll make sure the fire's tended.

[And he lets her rest.]