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[stand_unshaken]

 

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[stand_unshaken]

"You're likely right. You have to be strong to survive intact."

He straightens up, groaning when his back cracks. Getting old. "You did good."

[dog_eat_dog]

She pockets the bag and stands up straight again, dusting off her hands. Bizarre, touching earth.

“Wasn’t that hard,” she remarks, though she smiles. Compliments! “Smugglers use caches too. Our maps are just a bit more... legible, I guess.”

[stand_unshaken]

"Most people in my time can't read or write," he explains. "They gotta rely on drawing things like that."

[dog_eat_dog]

Colour her surprised.

“Really? Huh,” she replies. “I mean, even when drawn —— buildings look a whole lot more specific than a tree.”

[stand_unshaken]

"Well, can't hide all your treasure in towns. How 'bout you take a picture of that map, and we can do the next step next time?"

[dog_eat_dog]

Can in her world!

“Sure.”

Tess fishes her communicator out of her pocket to do just that. And then she thinks of something, communicator still in hand.

“Hey. Take a picture with me.”

[stand_unshaken]

He looks up from where he'd been putting his gloves into a pocket, now that he's no longer climbing, and looks pleasantly surprised.

"--sure. How d'you want to?"

[dog_eat_dog]

She grins, reaching to link her free arm with his and step in close. She holds the communicator up with the other hand, selfie style.

“Say cheese.”

[stand_unshaken]

"I-- sure? Cheese," he says, not understanding the prompt but gladly obliging. Cameras obviously can't do this in his day and age, and he wonders what this will even look like.

But he understands the gesture. Wanting to remember a moment.

[dog_eat_dog]

She laughs and takes the photo.

“It supposedly makes you look more natural.”

She turns the communicator so they can look at the resulting photo.

[stand_unshaken]

He's leaning up against her, one hand on her shoulder for balance, to look at the photo. He snorts a quick laugh when he sees it, huffing it out.

"Don't we make a fine pair?"

He still can't stop being amazed at the technology behind all of this.

[dog_eat_dog]

“We do,” she agrees, pocketing the communicator again. It’s nice to hear him laugh, too, and she has the fleeting thought that she lucked out here in a lot of ways. “A lifetime ago I used to take these all the time.”

[stand_unshaken]

He grins a little and pulls away with another little clap to her shoulder.

"I can actually see why. Kinda nice, a memory like that."

[dog_eat_dog]

"Yeah," she replies, and she smiles at him sidelong. "Used to keep thousands of pictures that way, just scroll through whenever I wanted. Not quite as personal as a journal, but it does the trick."

[stand_unshaken]

"I like that idea too. If I could do 'em both I'd be happy as a clam."

[dog_eat_dog]

"No reason you can't," she replies. An idea comes to mind, and she pockets it for another day –– she's gonna have to see what she can finagle. "You'd probably have to work on your angles, though. No more..."

She gestures like she's holding the camera way too low.

[stand_unshaken]

"No more what?"

He genuinely doesn't sound like he's grasping her point.

[dog_eat_dog]

"Holding the camera at an angle that goes right up your nose."

[stand_unshaken]

"...Oh. 's that look funny or somethin'?"

He maybe gets that. Maybe. But also, he's getting the job done!

[dog_eat_dog]

"You ever seen someone take a picture from that low?" she replies, amused. "Or draw them from there, for that matter?"

[stand_unshaken]

"With all the damn tripods you gotta carry around, don't think you can even make that angle in my day," he points out, grumbling a little. Okay, she has a point.

[dog_eat_dog]

She chuckles.

"Not built for all this new-fangled technology, huh?"

[stand_unshaken]

He makes a face at her. "I like the washing machines and all that crap, but I don't know that I like the rest all that much."

[dog_eat_dog]

“Most of it, people don’t need,” she replies. “But once you’ve had it once, you miss it anyway.”

God knows she got by for eons without much of it, and it’s strange to think that her entire adult life has been more like 1899 than the future the Jetsons promised her when she was a kid.

[stand_unshaken]

"I'd miss bein' able to call friends," he admits, as he starts to clamber back down. He knows he can just ask for a door and get it, but it's more fun this way.