OPEN | prompt one | RAIN

[wrens]

prompt one | R A I N I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain - and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane.

 

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tobias "kid" addison | CAMP | post-Event

[shaped]

[ Kid, the name he’s come to associate with himself, has been staring at the rain for more than an hour, fascinated in a way that makes him look far younger than he really is.

He can vaguely remember a time where he knew what rain looked like decorating a window, clinging to glass like little jewels. It feels distant, that memory, almost like it’s never really been his, but he holds onto it for a moment longer before returning his attention to the various beakers and buckets and bottles all turned up towards the clouds.

He’s supposed to be making sure that he switches them over once they’re full, and the last thing he wants is to disappoint Mother Charlotte. Forcing himself down onto a knee, the ground an uncomfortable, painful push back to the present, Kid gently slips his fingers around a colored bottle, eyes peering into its open top to check the level of water. ]

[dogmas]

[ A voice comes from somewhere behind him. ]

A while longer on that one, I reckon, [ it says, its tone something of a sashay, the way it dips and sways like the line of a song only she's not singing, she's speaking. Madchen's been around for as long as Kid has been (longer) and much like him, she was on hard times when she and her husband had first joined the family. Kid was still a scrawny little boy back then and she a young mother bereaved of her unborn babe and so she'd taken a shining to him, as mute and withdrawn as she was.

Other than Johnny, Kid's one of the few people who can get Madchen's mood swings back on track when they pitch sharply out of control but right now, she's cheerful despite the rain. It makes her dress stick to her torso and thighs but she doesn't pay it any mind.

Madchen smiles slightly when he turns to look at her. ] Fancy help?

[shaped]

[ The singsong tone is immediately recognizable, Kid's expression growing more conscious of his surroundings at the familiarity. He's back in the camp now, rain temporarily forgotten aside from the damp making his hair frizzy and the back of his neck cold. It's not a nice feeling, shoulders shifting beneath his jacket as he gets up from his knee, the material of his collar teased away from the skin at the back of his neck as he walks towards Madchen. ]

I can do it. [ Needing to prove himself is a recent addition to Kid's otherwise settled personality, his coming of age provoking the desire to make sure he proves he's worthy of staying in their company. He's never been under the impression that he'll be thrown out on his ass if he doesn't, but it's a matter of pride, now. He's not a stupid little kid now. He's a man. ]

Stay 'nd tell me your favorite thing about the rain.

[dogmas]

[ It's nice, Madchen thinks, seeing something so tiny and meek grow to become something as broad-shouldered and tall as Kid's turned out to be. The world doesn't nurture things anymore, not the way that it used to, and on the rare occasion that someone's able to tease some life out of the fallow ground, it always comes up crooked and stunted. (There's nothing the Event hasn't touched, even now.) But Kid's proof that there are still good things to be had, that there's hope in children and that Mother Charlotte gathers only the best and most deserving.

Running her hands over her rain-damp arms she touches her hair, pushing it back from where it hangs in her face in whiteblonde, wet-grey stands. ] Favorite thing 'bout the rain?

[ She mulls it over, her head moving tunelessly as if listening to unheard music. ] Ain't nothing that can't be washed clean by the rain. If'n you've got enough of it, I'd wager. [ She talks a lot about being washed clean; Madchen does. There are sins for which she'd like to be forgiven, some of which she's guilty of but most of which she's not. It's the hook that Mother Charlotte's driven into her heart and it's the lead by which she drags Madchen and Johnny around. ]

[shaped]

[ Kid looks at Madchen from behind still-young eyes, dark and unreadable to most at times. He might be determined to prove himself a man, but there are still corners of his mind that have been and will forever be babied by a number of their group. Too many times has he been comforted by her to not have grown to think of her as some kind of foster maternal figure. That he can barely remember his own mother now, his biological mother-- his eyelashes flutter as he blinks away the thought and returns to the woman he can reach out and touch if he needs to.

But comfort isn't necessary at the moment, the rain pelting down against the ground a chorus of sound that feels satisfying against his ears, especially when he switches the containers over. The sound of water against plastic and glass sounds even better, a percussion section against the otherwise temporary silence of the wasteland. ]

'nd the Guilty? [ The ones who Mother Charlotte warns them against, the ones she's always warned them against. Kid spits on the ground, the look of pure disgust creeping over his features synonymous with any mention of them. ] Not them. They can't be washed clean by nothin'.