Theresa "Tess" Servopoulos (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dog_eat_dog) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
returnjourneylogs2022-06-21 08:43 pm
dog_eat_dog) wrote in returnjourneylogs2022-06-21 08:43 pm
1. Round Two
Passengers: Tess and ~*~you~*~
Location: Various locations
Date: Tues, June 21st
Summary: Tess arrives.
Warnings:
1. Arrival
Tess steps off the transport ship and into the loading bay empty-handed. She is out of time: a woman from the 2030s, dressed like the early 1900s, on an undateable but no doubt futuristic ship. Her bio-locked pistol fits decent into the leather holster on her hip. She's alert, curious, and maybe even the slightest bit on-edge. One tends to be, coming into a place like this.
There's something about being in a cavernous loading bay that feels dream-like, especially after the last six months. She pauses mid-step, looking around her like there might be someone watching. Just to be sure.
"Hello?" she calls.
2. A Change in Wardrobe
She takes inventory of her cabin with well-practiced efficiency, every detail and every object in it committed to either memory or a jot note in her CommLink. Funny: she'd been bracing herself to be sleeping in a replica of her shitty Boston apartment again, or perhaps an eerily empty version of her and Arthur's little cabin in the mountains, but this uniform and sterile cabin is a welcome surprise. It's as impersonal as a hotel room, but neutrality has as certain appeal. It's something she can make her own.
She discovers the only real problem when she opens the closet doors wide and sees the clothes hanging inside.
For six months, she's dressed to the period: high-waisted jeans with a button fly and extra room in the thighs for riding, shirtwaists (stupid sounding name, if you ask her) with nipped in waists and full shoulders, wild rags in pretty knots, wide-brimmed hats to keep herself from getting sunburned in a time before sunscreen. Corsets, too: nothing too fancy, plain cotton coutil and whalebone, much more comfortable than she expected, certainly better than her old threadbare bras. It's been doable.
But one does occasionally miss the simplicity of a fucking zipper, or a basic t-shirt that stretches when tugged over one's head.
So out she ventures, meandering the halls, venturing to ask anyone passing by: "Hey–– we have a wardrobe here?"
3. The Mess Hall
Tess had some thought of taking her food back to her room to eat in private –– less concern, more self-consciousness about the childishness of filling up her tray with a bizarre combination of macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets, goldfish crackers, a bowl of sugary cereal, and a few Potato Frowns™ for good measure. But the idea of eating alone feels more mortifying, and lonely at that.
Instead, she slides into an open seat across from someone. If she is not social, she will drop dead from isolation.
"What's the best thing you've eaten here?"
4. For Old Time's Sake - Closed to William
Even with his back to her, she knows him by the slope of his shoulders, but she pauses mid-step to be sure; there's something different there, something beyond his ever-thinning hair, something beyond the modernity of his dress. Isn't it funny, to be the one dressed like she's just spent a weekend in fucking Westworld? Oh well. She'll figure out the details later. He could turn at any moment.
Her leather soles are quiet on the smooth floors as she approaches, speeding up as she gets close, just in case he turns. He's smart, he'll know, he'll notice –– she'd be disappointed in him if he didn't. She winds a hand into the back of his collar at the same time as she presses the cool end of her pistol into the base of his spine. She has to lean up onto the balls of her feet to whisper in his ear:
"Stick 'em up, cowboy."
She puts a little Southern flair into her voice for show. A too-pleased satisfaction, too. Why not?
Location: Various locations
Date: Tues, June 21st
Summary: Tess arrives.
Warnings:
1. Arrival
Tess steps off the transport ship and into the loading bay empty-handed. She is out of time: a woman from the 2030s, dressed like the early 1900s, on an undateable but no doubt futuristic ship. Her bio-locked pistol fits decent into the leather holster on her hip. She's alert, curious, and maybe even the slightest bit on-edge. One tends to be, coming into a place like this.
There's something about being in a cavernous loading bay that feels dream-like, especially after the last six months. She pauses mid-step, looking around her like there might be someone watching. Just to be sure.
"Hello?" she calls.
2. A Change in Wardrobe
She takes inventory of her cabin with well-practiced efficiency, every detail and every object in it committed to either memory or a jot note in her CommLink. Funny: she'd been bracing herself to be sleeping in a replica of her shitty Boston apartment again, or perhaps an eerily empty version of her and Arthur's little cabin in the mountains, but this uniform and sterile cabin is a welcome surprise. It's as impersonal as a hotel room, but neutrality has as certain appeal. It's something she can make her own.
She discovers the only real problem when she opens the closet doors wide and sees the clothes hanging inside.
For six months, she's dressed to the period: high-waisted jeans with a button fly and extra room in the thighs for riding, shirtwaists (stupid sounding name, if you ask her) with nipped in waists and full shoulders, wild rags in pretty knots, wide-brimmed hats to keep herself from getting sunburned in a time before sunscreen. Corsets, too: nothing too fancy, plain cotton coutil and whalebone, much more comfortable than she expected, certainly better than her old threadbare bras. It's been doable.
But one does occasionally miss the simplicity of a fucking zipper, or a basic t-shirt that stretches when tugged over one's head.
So out she ventures, meandering the halls, venturing to ask anyone passing by: "Hey–– we have a wardrobe here?"
3. The Mess Hall
Tess had some thought of taking her food back to her room to eat in private –– less concern, more self-consciousness about the childishness of filling up her tray with a bizarre combination of macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets, goldfish crackers, a bowl of sugary cereal, and a few Potato Frowns™ for good measure. But the idea of eating alone feels more mortifying, and lonely at that.
Instead, she slides into an open seat across from someone. If she is not social, she will drop dead from isolation.
"What's the best thing you've eaten here?"
4. For Old Time's Sake - Closed to William
Even with his back to her, she knows him by the slope of his shoulders, but she pauses mid-step to be sure; there's something different there, something beyond his ever-thinning hair, something beyond the modernity of his dress. Isn't it funny, to be the one dressed like she's just spent a weekend in fucking Westworld? Oh well. She'll figure out the details later. He could turn at any moment.
Her leather soles are quiet on the smooth floors as she approaches, speeding up as she gets close, just in case he turns. He's smart, he'll know, he'll notice –– she'd be disappointed in him if he didn't. She winds a hand into the back of his collar at the same time as she presses the cool end of her pistol into the base of his spine. She has to lean up onto the balls of her feet to whisper in his ear:
"Stick 'em up, cowboy."
She puts a little Southern flair into her voice for show. A too-pleased satisfaction, too. Why not?
3
And she's got sweets. Lots of 'em. Girl should probably eat a vegetable once in awhile but not today. In fact, her fork hovers midair while she glances behind her quickly to make sure Tess is actually talking to her. She tips her head in a sort of who, me? gesture before takes the big bite of cake from her fork. Chewing, she ponders.
"Probably this," she says, very politely with her mouth full. At least she isn't spewing crumbs everywhere. "But honestly I'm happy any day I don't have to eat pickled herring."
no subject
"If I could go the rest of my life without eating anything pickled, it'd be too soon," she replies. Handy for survival, depressing if you want to thrive. "Where you coming from?"
The contents of her plate say compensation as much as Tess's own do.
no subject
"Nowhere special," is what she decides on. Vague but not enough that it leads to too many more obvious questions. She can feel the caginess being a little clunky so she's quick to move on.
"It wasn't anything like..." she waves her fork around to gesture to the marvel of technology that surrounds them, "This. You?"