What Have I Gotten Myself Into? Pt. II ((--Nicky!--))

[Anonymous]

Skah thought for a moment, then looked around the escape pod interior. "There should be a viewport somewhere around here," he mumbled. Then, after five minutes of searching, he found a steel circular viewport with the metal slats closed. "Ha, here it is," he said as he found a button next to it. He pressed it, and the slats opened, revealing the outside world.

After hearing all the stories of the earth dying, Skah expected to see a wasteland. But what he saw now took his breath away; they were in a forest that seemed relatively untouched by pollution. It was far from a paradise, but far from a wasteland at the same time.

"Hey, Katrina, take a look at this," he said, beckoning her to the viewport.

[Anonymous]

Katrina made her way over to him. "Wow" She said with a smile. She hadn't had much opportunity to see forests. Her family hadn't been the outdoor types. If there wasn't a spa, her mother wasn't interested. "Does it look safe to go out?" She asked, attempting to peer through the viewport and spot any potentual attackers.

[Anonymous]

Skah shrugged. "I guess so...if there's anything that tries to attack us, I'll protect you," he said. Did he really just say that just now? He shook it out of his mind as he headed for the vault door. He punched in a few buttons and the door slid open. He then just stood there, surveying their surroundings. "Looks safe to me. Come on."

[Anonymous]

Katrina smiled, but followed him down out of the ship. She'd been promised protection before, but had stopped relying on it. No one could protect her from everything. She rubbed her arms to brush the memories away. "So where to now?"

[Anonymous]

Skah puzzled over this for a moment. Then he looked around, and he noticed a dirt path to their left. "I guess we start walking down there," he said, pointing to the path.

[Anonymous]

Katrina glanced the trail over before picking her way along, offering a mental wince as she thought about how thrashed her shoes were going to be by the time they got back to the ship. She hadn't often participated in activities that would scuff and sully her shoes. "Do we need supplies or anything?" She asked as she cast a glance back to the ship. She wasn't sure what the winged-man had in mind. For all she knew, she had just signed herself onto a camping trip.

[Anonymous]

Skah paused. "Y'know, I never thought of that," he said before plunging deep into thought once more. After a few minutes of thinking, he finally said aloud, "Crud, we didn't bring any supplies like food or tools or anything." H smacked his head in annoyance. "I'm such an idiot," he groaned.

[Anonymous]

Katrina considered it "Shouldn't an escape pod come with a kit or something? I mean, emergancy shelters are always stocked with at least canned goods." Though, water could be a problem. It wasn't like warm, tropical water had been good for drinking back in the old days, certainly with a dying earth, it would be that much more hazardous.

[Anonymous]

Skah sadly shook his head. "I don't think I saw anything like that in the escape pod," he said. "But that would have been convenient to have. Whoever built that ship should've taken that into thought." Really, he wished that he saw something like an emergency pack in the escape pod.

[Anonymous]

Katrina shrugged "Oh well, we don't plan to be here that long do we?" She asked as she paused to look at a flower. "Have you heard any stories of why the earth is dying?" She was curious, and hadn't managed to pick many up in her travels. After all, it was kind of old news and no longer the hot item for the gossip. People being picked up for experiments was much more interesting than the fact that the earth was still dying. "Even if we wanted to stay over night, we wouldn't starve in a day" She looked up "well I wouldn't...would you?" Her tone suddenly became concerned. She had forgotten that he wasn't exactly human, and so might have different requirements to survive.

[Anonymous]

Skah shrugged. "Just one or two," he said as they continued walking. "One was that some country...Aedolis, was it?...kept causing many wars and dumping its waste all over the planet. I don't understand or know the details to it, though." The bartender at the tavern told him about this, and he didn't seem to know why. "And to your second question, I don't seem to get hungry as often as most people. They say I could go a month without food, and maybe a week and a half without water...though I've never tried to."

((ooc--sorry about not replying sooner...school's a bitch.--))

[Anonymous]

"Oh, then we should be just fine for a bit" She said brightly as she gazed around them. She hadnt' actually had the chance to go wandering through a rainforest before, and it was an interesting experience. "Is your sense of direction good? Or should we mark a trail so we can find our way back?" She sure didn't want to get lost without food or water.

((ah, yeah, school is good at that. Life is good at that too recently))

[Anonymous]

Skah looked at her. "I've never been here, so it's hard to tell which way's...eh, north, was it? Wait, there were three more directions....mmmm. ..south....east.... .and....weast?" He really had a hard time remembering.

[Anonymous]

Katrina smiled sweetly "North, south, east, west" She reminded "Let's mark a trail, do you have a knife, or anything like that?" The only thing she could think of, other than a giant ball of twine, was to notch the trees they passed. "What do you hope to see out here?" She herself was excited, but slightly nervous.

[Anonymous]

Skah smiled. "I just want to see...I want to see whatever beauty is left of this planet before it dies..." Though he was smiling, there was a tone of sorrow in his voice.

[Anonymous]

Katrina nodded, his sorrow mirrored in her eyes. "I used to call this planet home" She mused, gently touching a tree as she passed it.  "It seems so long ago now. I mean, I was so sheltered from the death of the planet, I barely even knew there was a problem, let alone that it was so advanced." She turned to look at him, but didn't seem too upset about it. "Then one day, I guess the power, or science that kept our area alive and pretending nothing was wrong, and all of a sudden everyone was leaving, and I was being called back from boarding school, but I had left after my dad stopped paying for it...I'm not sure how he thought I could stay there if he took the funding, but he didn't know where to get ahold of me after 'disowning' me...so they left, and then I eventually got word of what was happening and headed into space myself." She paused to look up into the trees overhead. "it's so different out here than it is in space." Plus warm. It was nice to things to be warm again.

[Anonymous]

Skah nodded, taking Katrina's words in slowly...though he would be bound to forget them anyway. "I feel...I feel as though I want to save this planet...but they keep telling me I can't..." He paused, trying hard to look for more words to add to his weak reasoning.

[Anonymous]

"Well, I don't know that anyone can. I mean, the scientists and everyone tried I'm sure, so I don't know what you or I could do to save it." She picked up a branch from the ground, twirling it between her fingers. "but it would sure be nice. I miss it." She glanced up at him, but then smiled "But we're here now, let's see what we can find. We may not get this chance again."

[Anonymous]

Skah nodded. "Okay. Let's keep going. Maybe we can find people here."

They walked for a good ten minutes more, observing their surroundings every now and then. But Skah heard a faint rustle and stopped abruptly, looking left and right. "Shh...did you hear that?" he whispered, putting an arm out in front of Katrina.

[Anonymous]

Katrina haulted abruptly, straining to listen for whatever it was that Skah had heard. She'd heard something, but it hadn't registered in her mind as something to be watching out for. She'd assumed it was Skah. "What do you think it is?" She whispered, now catching the rustling and keeping an eye on the surroundings, expecting something to pop out.