Terrain Event: The Waters Are Wide

Lilybeth turned to Tanner. "If it was regular water, yeah--this though, I dunno for sure."

Isabelle gasped when Riesy grabbed her arm but automatically moved to support shiz elbow. "I really hope that's you, Riesy and not something else we have to fight," she said. "There are angry black squiggles in the air now. All around." Isabelle turned her head to follow one as it inched across the air. "Take it easy," she said, getting a firmer grip around shiz torso. "No one's going in the water."

She glanced at Lilybeth, doing her best to ignore the angry black squiggles around the girl's head. "Lilybeth, if we get halfway through and you falter then we're all dead." She didn't want to be unkind but she needed the girl to be sure. "Have you ever held back this much water at once?"

"Close to it, anyhow," Lilybeth replied. "Remember that freak storm back in August? That's when my Trouble flared, we were out on the boat. Dad did the real heavy lifting, but I kept us from getting swamped a couple times."

Isabelle kept her grip on Riesy and did not pull out her own hair in frustration. Keeping them from getting swamped a couple times did not equal holding back twenty feet of water. She hesitated for a long moment, wondering if Lily failed if her own Trouble would save her. What would it be like making the trek alone after that? Maybe she should send them all back. Isabelle looked around at the determined faces and sighed.

"We've got no choice anyway," Isabelle finally said grimly. "You might as well try."

"Sorry y'all," Riesy croaked, dropping shiz hand and squeezing Isabelle's arm once before letting go. "If the lines are gone now, yeah, that was me. I'm good now." S/he squinted at the lake. "I'm fine."

Lilybeth rolls 4 Fortitude checks

Check 1: 7+2 + d10 (1): 10
Check 2: 7+2 + d10 (3): 12
Check 3: 7+2+d10 (9):   18
Check 4: 7+2 +d10 (6):   15


Lilybeth stepped toward the water and closed her eyes, trying to quiet the roiling in her gut.  She planted her feet like she was on the deck of the Sarah Elizabeth and visualized the water rolling back. For an awful moment, nothing happened.

Then, slowly the waters began to roll back, revealing the asphalt below.  She motioned to her teammates to start jogging across and she fell in at the back.  But this wasn't like ordinary water, which seemed to like her, to want to do as she asked.  No, this fought her every step of the way, and some was starting to leak through, eating at the rubber of her boots as she tried to concentrate on taking steps and holding the water back at the same time.  As her companions neared midpoint, her energy started to falter, and the wall of water  trembled.  No! she thought, and dug deeper, thought of the look on old Vern Douglas's face during that storm.  Their deckhand and friend was still alive because she could do this.  

The wall held, firmer now, and Lilybeth drank in Riesy's soft "attagirl," as it drifted past.  Almost before she knew it, her feet were touching dry pavement--she leapt away as the acid lake collapsed back into place behind her.

The member 'havensqueenbookwench' has done the following action : Dice rolls

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#1 'd10' : 1

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#2 'd10' : 3

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#3 'd10' : 9

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#4 'd10' : 6

Eve clung to Riesy's shoulder as they set out, making sure to keep her tail up just in case.

Isabelle blinked in surprise as the lines vanished all at once. "It was you," she told Riesy, then grabbed shiz hand anyway. "You don't look fine. Can you even see anything now? Just stick with me, I'll cope with the squiggles. I don't know what'll happen if you knock your shoulder into the water once we've started."

Tanner shook his head, trying to clear it, and he was honestly a little surprised that they were gonna try it- but if Lilybeth thought she could do it, well, they didn’t really have a lot of options.

And then they were moving, and Tanner was moving along with the group, music pounding in his ears- guitars and drums and urgency, still not meshing well with the sour ‘sound’ of the lake. There was a terrifying moment, as they started, where the water splashed back into place practically before they’d cleared the first few feet, and Tanner shuddered and picked up the pace, throwing a worried look back at Lilybeth.

But she was holding, she was holding and they were making progress, and then the water was dropping back into place with a splash and they were clear.

“That was badass,” he said, impressed, respect in his tone. “You okay?”

"Ugh, I think so," Lilybeth said. "Hey, can I just...use you as a walking stick for a second?" She swayed a little, and put a hand on Tanner's shoulder without waiting for an answer.

“...Yeah,” Tanner replied unnecessarily, as Lilybeth was already leaning on him- he hesitated a second, but reached out to steady her, one hand landing lightly above the small of her back. “That- you can really just, control it like that? I didn’t realize-” he started, before he cut himself off with a shake of his head. “Very cool,” he said instead.

Isabelle had no idea how her Trouble did not turn on during the trek between the wall of water. She was surprised Riesy didn't say anything about how hard her heart was pounding, she felt like she could feel it hammering against her rib cage. When Lilybeth almost lost hold of the walls Isabelle almost screamed, but screaming would do no good and she had learned to tamp down on that urge early.

Riesy's voice in her ear giggling about "Shoulder" distracted her for a second until she realized she'd said Riesy might bump shiz shoulder into what had turned out to be only waist high water. Isabelle glowered at Riesy through the squiggles.

"You need that hip for walking Riesy McGlynn! If you check that into the acid you won't be laughing any more."

She wanted to collapse to her knees and cry when they finally, finally reached the other side. Instead she turned to watch the others climb out of the basin onto safe, dry land.

"Thanks," she said. "Carsons got lucky in the Trouble department I guess--there's a cost to it, though."

She heard a soft, distant note of guitar music, that made her think of her mom playing old songs in the evening. "That you?" she murmured. "s'nice."

Trying to ignore the prickles and rolls of Tanner's music across shiz skin, Riesy concentrated on goading Isabelle. S/he took a deep breath and let it fuel the word, "Grooooooouch," as it left shiz mouth, low in shiz throat and breathy quiet, "you are such a hardass," finished in the long suffering whine s/he used for ribbing the oldest hands on the farm.

S/he held tight to Isabelle's hand and kept the other twined in Eve's tail.

Once on the other side, s/he pointed a finger under Tanner's nose. "We got to work on your control. You Shepherds got a lot to learn, now we're all just Troubled folk." S/he looked to Lilybeth. "That was hot, little dude, way to go."

As soon as they were past the water line, Eve hissed at the acid over Riesy's shoulder and then jumped back down to the ground.

<Doc!> she called, hoping he could hear her even if he wasn't actively listening, as long as she knew to project at him now. <Please thank Riesy for me... I appreciate the ride.> She flicked her tail and rubbed against Riesy's boot once, bent tail high in the air.

Isabelle laughed at Riesy's words, the teasing "grouch" bringing with it the scent of oranges freshly peeled under a hot summer sun. She was used to being teased about that, it was a good, normal moment in the midst of this terror.

Lilybeth’s relieved smile encompassed the whole party, but especially Riesy, that little bit of encouragement had meant more than her companion probably knew. Even though shiz was practically a stranger, Riesy reminded Lilybeth a little bit of her best friend. Not for the first time, Lilybeth felt the sharp pang of missing Mel. She would have been the one to encourage her, tell her to “free her inner badass” or something like that. Of course, if Mel was here, she’d probably run off and do something wild and half-cocked, and Lilybeth would have to chase after her. That was how things went between them, pretty much, or at least they had until Mel had started dating Rory.

It wasn’t like she disliked Rory, though, and now the two of them had a weird, uncomfortable bond--they’d sat through the latest West Haven assemblies and grief counseling, united by their shared secret. She wondered sometimes, what Amelia was up to, wherever she was--Dwight would only say that she and her sisters were safe when she’d asked him about it point-blank. Were her sisters driving her crazy? Lilybeth could imagine all too well what it would be like not to see anyone but Violet and Rosie, all day every day. She loved her sisters more than anything but…

God, she wished she’d been able to tell Rosie that Sophia wasn’t dead--but Rosie was still just a kid, and Dwight had impressed on her just how much danger the Bentons could be in from people like the Rev, even if the Rev himself was out of the picture. And wow, Lilybeth, didn’t think of herself as a mean person, but she hoped that had hurt. A part of her thought it was kind of cool that Mel had killed a serial killer with her bare hands (claws?), but she also shuddered a bit at the thought that Mel was--not quite human anymore…

Isabelle walked over to Lilybeth and put her hand out. "I'm sorry about the kid stuff earlier. You're as good as your word Lil. That took real courage back there. Thank you."

Tanner blushed brightly at the realization that Lilybeth had noticed the music- but at least it wasn’t anything terribly revealing at the moment, soft and relaxed in the wake of such a startling success.  ...And it was strange, to hear her call it nice, to act like it wasn’t anything to recoil from, but then, he supposed he wasn’t exactly in the kind of company that would recoil from a Trouble.

The music shifted to something slightly more melancholy, a twist of guilt at the reminder, but he forced an apologetic smile.

“Yeah, that’s- sorry.  I can’t make it stop, it just- happens.”  He let his expression shift, brows drawing down.  “What kind of cost?  I mean, it looked difficult, is it just- tiring?  Or- ?”

Did they need to worry?  She hadn’t hurt herself, had she?

At Riesy’s comment, Tanner went completely still, a pulse of sound- sharp and crystalline- breaking the melancholy notes into something defensive and stung.  It was hardly the first time he’d heard that nickname, but it was usually said in anger, was usually an accusation as much as a title, at least when said by someone Troubled.  Habit made him bristle, made him want to defend himself- and he wasn’t even sure, any more, exactly what that meant.  If he wanted to defend his place, the community he’d been raised in, the faith that he’d held his whole life, or if he wanted to deny the accusation that stung so sharply, even if the denial would be a lie.

Instead, he said nothing, ducking his head and tucking his shoulders in, feeling uncomfortably hemmed in.

But he didn’t want to just yank away from Lilybeth, who hadn’t done anything wrong, and even if he did- where was he going to go?  He couldn’t get away from the music, the light was still following, and going back wasn’t an option with a lake of acid between him and the way home.  So he just shifted his weight and tried not to glower too obviously at the ground in front of him.

Lilybeth smiled a relieved smile at Isabelle.

"Thanks," she said. "I can't blame you really--I mean, if I was a team leader I'd rather have Dad too."

Turning to Tanner, she said. "'Bout the cost, well, it depends. The family doesn't really like to talk about it in detail, to be honest."

Riesy shut her eyes against the sting of Tanner's music against her exposed skin. "Tanner, please." S/he wrapped one arm around her middle, letting Isabelle's hand go a beat later when s/he realized it was still there. "Take a deep breath. We're all on the same side, and we'll work on it together, okay? Nobody gets it right away. Don't make that face. Like Lilybeth said, it depends. And we have to find your limits now."