Dinosaurs - [Veronica]

[plantfood]

Three weeks on the island now and Mathias thinks he's ready to leave the Compound without assistance from alcohol. He stands near the front steps, watching the trees with a faintly wary gaze and waiting for Veronica. He'd asked her a few days ago to show him the dinosaurs, thinking that he'd need those few days to prepare mentally, but even with that time he's not sure just how prepared he really is. Maybe the only thing that can prepare him for going back into the jungle is actually going into the jungle. It's not ideal, but it is what it is and Mathias can no more change the island than he can change what happened to him before this place.

The weather is warm, hot and humid, and already he can feel sweat prickling his scalp, but it's a comfort to know that no matter where he goes on the island, the Compound is never far away. Despite this, despite knowing he's in no danger here, he's learned his lesson from last time and is carrying a small pack with enough water to last two weeks and several bags of nuts he's found in the kitchen. It isn't enough to survive on for longer than a few weeks, but it's more than he'd had in Mexico. Just in case anything should happen.

Around him, there's constant movement. People coming to the Compound from their homes elsewhere on the island, people leaving, fresh from showers or breakfast, clean, warm laundry piled high in baskets. There are children in the playground nearby and he watches them for a moment, watches their parents, wonders which of them came to the island on their own and which were born here. It's still strange to him, how this place exists, but it's preferable to whatever might have happened back in Mexico.

He's early, he thinks, but it gives him time to think and to watch, two things he's very good at. So he waits, his thumbs hooked tentatively in the straps of his pack, making sure not to aggravate his healing burns.

Comments

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Veronica grinned. "That would be correct," she said, nodding. "My good side, though, is one of the best places to be on this island." She turned her head from side to side, playful, almost striking a pose, pretending to mix up the meanings of the phrase. "Many have tried, many have failed."

[plantfood]

"Ah, yes, I can see the difference," Mathias teases, studying both the sides she's presented to him with a smile. "I'll make sure to stand on your left from now on and make sure people see I am on your good side. That has to speak well for me, yeah? I can build a reputation on this island before I'm here even a month."

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"Hey, there are worse people to hinge your reputation on," she said, smirking. "I'll have you know, I'm a fine, upstanding member of this community." They did let her help run it, after all. As far as she was concerned, that was a sign that some intelligence actually persisted around here.

[plantfood]

"Then it is good for me that I've met you," Mathias decides, leaning back on his hands and tipping his head slightly, as if to study her more closely. "I could have easily fallen in with the wrong crowd, being new to this place and I would never have known that they were the wrong crowd until I began to get into trouble."

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, you seem the kind," Veronica deadpanned. He was anything but, so far as she could tell, a genuinely nice guy. They were a rare breed, even here. Even that kind of guy had its dangers, though. Sam had been one of them, after all, and everything they'd been through had fallen completely flat. She didn't want to fall into that trap with anyone again. "A real rebel without a cause. Don't worry, kid, I'll steer you right."

[plantfood]

Lifting one hand, Mathias places his palm against his chest, feigning a look of deep gratitude. "I have no words to express how thankful I am," he tells her, even as his mouth curves up into a grin he can't control.

Shifting, he returns his water bottle to his pack, gaze flickering toward the sky for a moment as he tries to judge where the sun is and how long they have before it sets. He isn't nervous, exactly, Veronica has more than distracted him, but the fear is there. Always there. "Should we get back?" he asks, looking back to her, defaulting to her knowledge of this island.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Veronica just looked over at the dinosaurs for a long moment, considering it. "Probably," she said, nodding. "They'll still be here anytime you want to see them, but the wolves come out at night." She was only teasing, but it wasn't exactly a lie. She just doubted the direwolves would injure anyone who wasn't asking for it. They were Starks in their own right, after all, a fact that probably wouldn't mean much, if anything, to someone as new as he was, but which said everything to her.

[plantfood]

"It's not the wolves I'm worried about," Mathias admits, but he'll say nothing more on the subject right now. Instead, he climbs to his feet and shoulders his pack, then offers a hand to Veronica. It's a slow process, this recovery, but he's made this trip today and he thinks it's a fairly large first step.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

The roughness of his hand as he helped her to her feet was a reminder of just how valid his fears were. "Thanks," she murmured, dusting her hands off against her hips and starting to walk. "How are you doing, being out here?" She wasn't the kind to talk about feelings or whatever, but it seemed worth asking. He'd been braving the jungle pretty well so far, as far as she could tell.

[plantfood]

Instead of answering right away, Mathias gives the question some consideration as they walk, taking a careful inventory of how he feels. "Not terrible," he says when he's satisfied that it's the truth. "I can't stay inside forever, after all and all things considered, this is not terrible."

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"It's a start," Veronica said, shrugging. It was, anyway, a lot better than the alternative. "You just have to keep at it. Either you go forward or you keep letting what happened back there shut you in, and that's, I mean, that's hardly an option." She knew that well enough. She was willing to bet Mathias wasn't the type to be held down by his past either.

[plantfood]

"I keep hearing that time heals all things," Mathias says with a vague, passive smile, not quite looking at Veronica, but no longer looking at the dinosaurs either. There's no sense in it, but he's thinking back to finding Henrich's body, still wishing he'd taken the pendant he always wore.

"I guess I'll find out just how true it is in time," he adds, then gives Veronica a smile.