elfstoned | IC Contact Post [for savetheearth]

Clearly I didn't know him like I thought. Shit.

I saw the cops around your house. Do you have a place to go? It's cold out there for skinny people.

There are plenty of places to go. I'll be scarce for a while, until it cools down and another scandal breaks.

Do you have one, though?

Because I know a safehouse mostly surrounded by forest. That's where I went when mafia idiots were stalking me and tore up my apartment, it's where I went when I came back. No one is the wiser. Only drawback is too many cats. [...it sounds trivial but it's not, really, he's had infections from being scratched or bitten.]

If not there, I can break into just about anything I want. Locks take ten seconds. Computer security takes sixty. I bet we can figure out if a place isn't used.

Let me help you out.

[A long pause.

You can practically see him thinking it over, except you can't because you don't know just how hobo-chic he looks right now.]

Where is this safehouse?

It's actually in the rich-people-in-the-woods area! That's what I call it anyway. Kind of a ways from the center of town but isolation is the idea I think.

The head of this company called Stark Industries built this place, got numbers, skedaddled, and left his godson living there. The godson got numbers, offered the place as a safehouse, and lost them. He likes cats, and he's out of town for three weeks.

There's a pretty good security system, and I have it wrapped around my little finger. Metaphorically. But seriously, I can turn it off, or tell it that anyone who shows up there belongs there, so it lets them in whenever they show. I've done it before.

I know the neighborhood.

Address?

How do I know your evil twin won't see this? I saw him on the network a while ago, I know he exists.

Fair point.

Will I have to come get it from you in person?

And what a piece of work he is.

I could leave the address out somewhere if you thought you could get to it before anyone else, if you don't want to talk to me. Though, I will be watching.

Bring it to Freedom Park.

Gotcha. No veren~☆

[actually the star was eight-pointed and circled. Julien is a nerd too.

Anyway, his stealth talent seems to work well when he's in the air. On this rare sunny day his shadow can be seen flickering and racing as he circles over the park in a long and leisurely descent, passing closer and closer to an old picnic bench until he can go into a long and shallow dive that ends as he thumps down on it.

...and it cracks loudly as the weathered rot-eaten boards of the table give way. Julien leaps back, backwings gracefully, lands on the ground, and his tail thrashes.]

Seriously?

Well, you did make it easy to find you.

[Where was he a second ago? You're not sure. It's like he popped out of the goddamn ground, and he's folding up some kind of gray-green cloth and sticking it in a bag. Aaron is -- is it Aaron? The voice is the same, but deeper and rougher. That, though, could just be thanks to a night spent out-of-doors. His clothes are dirty -- not horrendously filthy, not yet, but they're the clothes of someone who's spent more than 24 hours outdoors. Aaron Strider has never looked more homeless, and that's saying a lot.

He pulls down the hood of his jacket.

But he only looks like Aaron Strider if you know to look for him. Aaron is there in the jaw, the eyes and the nose, the chin and the cheekbones, but the whole face looks wilder. The long, lank hair and the week's worth of stubble has a lot to do with it -- and so does the fact that he clearly hasn't slept much -- but his whole face looks sharper, more intense. He looks weather-beaten in a way Aaron never did, and his hair is black now, streaked with gray. He's also about six inches taller.

This is the man that frightened a poor provincial town, the face that launched a thousand nicknames. You wouldn't want to see him coming toward you in an alley.]

[It's rare for Julien to miss seeing something when he was this close. He startles, feet shifting to a more stable stance, head drawing back and up, feathers hackling and bristling, pupils flaring and his wings unfolding part of the way to make him seem bigger. In a second or so he's refolded his wings and his feathers slick down close to his body, but he holds everything else, pupils pinning.

Ever since his eyes changed Julien has identified faces in different ways. He can see Aaron in this man's bone structure, but the mapping of blood vessels and skin damage, old injuries and exposure to the sun, they're totally different. Fascinatingly so. It reminds him, actually, of nothing quite so much as his most recent memory, which unfortunately downgrades the intimidation factor a bit.]

-You look like Hiyoko.

[His mouth twists in a humorless grin.]

Then I pity Hiyoko.

It's not bad. It's how humans are.

[He pauses, blinks. Right. Yes.]

In the dystopian future where humans all live in the wilderness and get attacked by animals a lot.

Point is, hardiness and good blood flow. I think.

You might be the first person ever to compliment Aragorn on his blood flow.

Oh, probably. It's not something normal people see very well. Take it as a compliment! She is or was a wonderful girl.

Galu, by the way. [He tilts his head, draws himself up to be taller.] I didn't know you could do that with the cloak.

There is magic to it, I imagine. A patrol car drove right past me.

...Must be. Gods and dirt indeed. This is a miserable time to go on the run, I'm sure you've noticed.

[Julien goes and tries to walk a circle around Aaron, like nothing quite so much as a dinosaur.]

What's with you and getting long hair? This looks uh... distinct.

[Aaron sighs.]

Where's the safehouse, Julien?

[It's not often that Aaron isn't in the mood to indulge Julien's tangents. It's one of the things Aaron likes about him. Now, though? Aaron looks nothing so much as worn down right now.]

[Julien stops in his tracks and refocuses. He doesn't miss much in his sight, but he can fail to notice some things. The lack of sleep and flagging energy, he immediately feels he should have seen those first.]

-hmm. Well, I don't think you're your evil twin. Okay. [He recites the address. It's a long ways as the roads go, but as a pigeon flies over the woods around the park, it's less far.] I could show you the way.

And bring you something. When's the last time you ate?

[The answer to that is "yesterday," but Aaron doesn't give it. Instead he nods, grimly.]

I'll walk it. Food can wait.

[He doesn't know the area, but point him in a direction and he's sure he'll find the street. It's why he chose this park -- it was in the right general direction.

More than anything, Aaron wants to be out of the open, somewhere he can sleep. He feels like he could sleep for a week.]

[Fortunately Julien came at least a little prepared. He ducks his head and uses his beak and opposite wing to get his messenger bag open and pull out a granola bar to shove at Aaron.]

Here, this is weighing me down.

[And he steps back a pace.]

Come on, old timer. I'll show you the way.

[He accepts it, but doesn't break into it like a starving man. He pulls up his hood and falls into step behind Julien first. Part of why Aaron hasn't eaten is a lack of drive -- he could have gone somewhere earlier today, could have gotten his hands on something, but it seemed like so much effort. It had been easier to wrap himself in the Lorien-cloak and sink into the roots of an oak tree and let the sun warm him and let his mind be blank.

But he opens it as he walks, slowly, knowing he should eat it. He takes a bite, and it feels dry in his throat. But he swallows, and takes another one.]

I'll keep ahead of you on foot for a while. Don't worry, the closest person is like half a mile away.

[Julien just cannot walk or run as fast as Aaron easily could, but right now, he's probably got the right speed. His stealth talents can make him silent but visually... in the weak sunlight he almost glows, somehow seeming like a gap in the trees to the most casual look.

He does know the way, and how to make a detour around the marshy area that he's not sure Aaron can forge through right now. Julien does not get lost anymore. There is a kind of map in his head and he can sense where he is on it, even from here on the ground.]

I should warn you, the house and grounds are walled off. I can get a ladder down, or you can come around to the gate.

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want to turn this to action? I'm down to thread it

[Action]

[Action] forever

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