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[stand_unshaken]

 

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~Eggs~

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess is a light sleeper even on the best nights, and when there's turbulence, any chance of going back to sleep vanishes. Tonight is no different, and she's up on her feet immediately, her boots already on. Something's happening. It's no train, but it's something, something immediately calling to her.

She drags on a hoodie and shoves her communicator in her pocket, and she slings her backpack over one shoulder, her pistol still inside. She lets herself out of her cabin and glances down the hall, and thinking better of something, she pauses by Arthur's door for a moment. She fishes the communicator out of her pocket and types to him:

Something's up. I'm going to take a look around.

She considers briefly that he might not be checking his communicator at midnight, even if he is awake, so she raps on the door quietly with her knuckles. If he isn't awake at all... well, she'll see him in the morning.

[stand_unshaken]

He's sleeping like the proverbial dead, but the turbulence does enough to wake him up- an earthquake is nothing so sleep through, out in the open. When he realizes it's nothing much he's just about to go back to bed when the knock comes.

Maybe it's his state of half-awakeness, but it's only when he gets up to get the door that he feels the same pull inside his chest. He frowns when he sees it's Tess, and he looks in the direction of the stairs and notches his chin at them. "What's happenin', huh?"

[dog_eat_dog]

"There's something calling to me," Tess replies, feeling well aware of how insane that sounds, especially if he's not feeling the same. "I'm going to go find out what it is. You don't have to come, just figured I'd let you know in case something bad's going on."

[stand_unshaken]

"Almost certainly something bad going on," he tells her, and then opens the door and gestures for her to wait. She's going to have to, if she wants him along, because he's wearing his red long johns right now and he's not going out like that.

[dog_eat_dog]

"Never know with this place."

She glances him over and has to hold back a smile at the sight of his long johns, but she nods. Better to have someone watching her back.

She leans against the doorframe to wait, and her gaze drifts out back to the hall. Nobody else stirring that she can see.

[stand_unshaken]

The feeling is getting stronger by the minute, and he's itching a little by the time he's out. He's just wearing a rough-knit, ratty sweater and dirty trousers over his boots, but he's got his gun on him.

"Alright. Let's see."

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess is getting antsy too, and she has half a mind to nag him for being slow, but getting moving is enough. Off they go.

"You want to know something real strange?"

[stand_unshaken]

"Go on," he says. She has his attention, but he's focused on the trip ahead, too.

[dog_eat_dog]

"It feels a little like Ellie wandering off on the train. Not knowing where she was."

[stand_unshaken]

"Huh." His fingers ghost over his pistol, but he doesn't really expect to be using it.

"Sense of foreboding?"

[dog_eat_dog]

“Maybe.”

Hard to say. Hard to pinpoint a direction, too. She stops at a split in the hall and has to gauge for a second where she thinks it’s coming from, and then she knows.

“Maybe more on the something needs me side than anything being in danger. You feel that?”

[stand_unshaken]

He considers the feeling, then nods. He hasn't been needed by an awful lot over the past few years, and it's making something coil in his stomach that he doesn't like.

"Don't think I like what it might mean. Something playing with me."

[dog_eat_dog]

“It’s not a great feeling,” she agrees. “But I’d rather know and head it off before it decides to come looking for us.”

[stand_unshaken]

"Right you are." It's pulling them easily towards the deck, his trepidation growing as they go- but it feels good, to, to be going there. Like he's going in the right direction.

"Let me-" When they get to the door, he pushes forward, a shield if need be.

[dog_eat_dog]

What a gentleman. Tess steps in behind him, letting her backpack hang low off one shoulder in case she needs her gun. She peers around him, though, and is both surprised and bothered when no one’s there. Nothing immediately obvious, anyway.

[stand_unshaken]

There's really nothing there that he can see, yet, but there's a pull inside of him anyway. He keeps his arm stretched out a little, not exactly keeping her from moving ahead of him but... urging her not to.

And then his eyes drop to an egg, lying comfortably against the headrest of one of the deck chairs, and it just feels right to go towards it. He throws Tess a concerned look, frowns- what the hell?

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess meets his gaze with a somewhat confused look. An egg? It looks like a giant egg. She knows, somehow, that it’s the thing calling for them, and it feels that much more intense the moment she knows that’s what it is.

She looks out to open space and it’s star field and then back to Arthur.

“We should grab it and go. Figure out what it is when we’re not in the open.”

[stand_unshaken]

"You get it," he tells her, somehow reluctant to pick up something that's making him feel protective and strange. "I'll cover you."

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess nods, slipping around him and bee-lining for the egg. She gives it a cursory look before picking it up — no moisture, no spores, nothing indicative of a trap or hazard.

It’s surprising to her how quick the plea to be found turns into contentment. She almost hesitates to put it in her bag. Tess isn’t so sure she likes that, but it is what it is.

“What the hell...?”

[stand_unshaken]

He can feel it, the knot in his chest unspooling, easing up. He glances at her bag, then shakes his head.

"Let's get back, first. Your place." Since his is smaller than hers. He puts a hand on her shoulder and urges her back towards the stairwell.

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess nods, and she lowers the egg into the bag only to feel it flinch when it sets down against her gun and the other things she has packed in there. She closes the bag up anyway. They’ll figure out what’s going on soon.

“I wonder what’s inside. It’s huge.”

[stand_unshaken]

"Some kinda bird," he guesses. "Don't know how it's making us feel things, though. Don't like that."

[dog_eat_dog]

"Me either," she replies, shifting the bag's strap against her shoulder.

She pauses.

"You think other people are getting called to it, too, and we're just the first ones here?"

She's not sure she'd fight for it, if it came to it, but she finds herself preparing for the possibility anyway.

[stand_unshaken]

"Got to be," he agrees. "Be a fine fucking coincidence if it's just the two of us."

He really doesn't want other people to get to it, though. That's troublesome.

[dog_eat_dog]

"More of a coincidence than us being paired in the first place?" she remarks, leading them back off the deck, taking corners slow. "Most people here won't fuss if we have it, but some..."

She can imagine how competitive someone like William might get for a mysterious item.