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[stand_unshaken]

 

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[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.

[stand_unshaken]

He'll take that as a compliment, and focuses on the rest. "We're not telling William," he says, definitely thinking along the same lines.

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess has to bite back a smirk.

“You read my mind.”

The trip back to her cabin is quick, but by the egg is persistently whining about being jostled around in a backpack.

[stand_unshaken]

Arthur can feel it, and eventually he reaches out to put a hand on it through the fabric. He can stop when they get there, and he stays a little clear of the egg when she takes it out.

He really doesn't like how this feels.

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess glances back at him when he reaches to touch it, but she doesn't say anything. She just lets them into her room, and she shucks off the bag onto her bed and fishes the egg out, holding it up to the light to see if there's any transparency to the shell. None. The egg just seems happy to be out of the bag, but it's still whining for more than that.

"There's something fucked up about this."

[stand_unshaken]

"You're telling me," he agrees, stepping back and crossing his arms. "I don't like it."

Which the egg just hates to hear. The pang he feels makes him physically wince and step forward, closer to the egg.

[dog_eat_dog]

Her gaze drifts to him when he winces. She'd consider herself pretty good at managing pain and discomfort, but if she can avoid some measure of it, she'll try. Easier to play along than fight it every step.

"You might have to put on a smile anyway," she remarks, running a thumb over the shell and then holding it out to him. Your turn, cowboy.

[stand_unshaken]

He does it, because it's her, asking it of him. He takes the egg, and it fits easily into the cradle of his arm. It's warm, and beaming contenment when it settles there.

And Arthur just looks miserable.