1. BAD IN WINTER, SULTRY IN SUMMER, AND GOOD AT NO TIME
[It’s not often that Jon has cause to be glad that weapons aren’t really carried in the camp, but since the flooding began and the lights went out, and the rations were shortened, tempers have gotten dark and short, too.
He’s been the man to cut rations once, the man to go on an unpopular mission. It had ended with knives in his ribs.
So these days, he looks troubled much of the time. He has two meals a day: most only have one. He lifts and carries what he can, what is needed, curious weights for a man of his size, at least twice as much as he looks like he should be able to handle.
If you’ve only been getting one meal, maybe he pulls you aside to a dark corner and tries to put something small in your hand, something that passes for food here.] It isn’t much. It’s what I could spare.
[Or maybe you want to ask him how he got so strong when hunger is making others weak. Maybe you wait until you’re both trying to hang flower bulbs to do it — maybe not.]
2. POLLINATED
[Or maybe you’ve just seen him trudge through a puddle that reflects the red lights on its surface. He stops a moment later, glances one way and the next, then at you. He keeps his voice low, but his words are blunt.]
If things don’t change soon, they’ll be killing each other here.
[Or maybe it’s something more like —]
I don’t think much on my father’s wife, but if she could see this — she’d think it was fit for us.
DESALINATION PLANT
[It isn’t hard to convince him to go: it seems he’s likely to be needed more out there than back at camp. But what they find in and near the plant suggests that their problems may be greater.
The young woman, the lone survivor, can’t tell them much, or she won’t. Can’t now, because she’s sleeping; they’ve made sure of that. But he does not know what state she’ll be in when she wakes, and he does not know how to repair the plant himself. He’s here to offer his strength and his willingness to range a wilderness.
At some point then, or when he’s helping to repair the pipes, or helping to bury the dead, his gaze turns to the person nearest him.]
What do you make of her? This place? Other than that she is lucky to have run out of bullets.
[— Isn’t she? He doesn’t know how much she’ll have to live with… here, of all places… but he does think the last bullet would have been for her.
Why, though? Why did she do it?]
KIDNAPPED — RESCUE
[It took a while, following his instinct and the feeling of the tunnels, to get to where someone is being held. Not everyone they started with.
Now, he’s trying to move quietly in the water. It’s up to his neck. The air is foul and faintly glowing. He half-swims his way over to where he can see someone sitting, where he knew they would be sitting, and begins to rise from the water with his finger to his lips.]
Come on, [he whispers, mouthing the words more than voicing them.] We have to go.
[He holds out his hand — a little.]
KIDNAPPED — CLOSED TO BALTHIER
[Balthier manages a good cheer, a sort of jollity, that Jon sometimes wishes he could have, and that has lightened moments here and there since the hatching. But he is not light now; there is no gladness to him.
People who have been stolen, or hurt, or lost… they’re often like this, but sometimes the difference is hard to see. In Balthier, it’s marked. So once they’re back in the plant, Jon turns to him, frowning, and says,]
Jon Snow ⚔️ OTA
1. BAD IN WINTER, SULTRY IN SUMMER, AND GOOD AT NO TIME
[It’s not often that Jon has cause to be glad that weapons aren’t really carried in the camp, but since the flooding began and the lights went out, and the rations were shortened, tempers have gotten dark and short, too.
He’s been the man to cut rations once, the man to go on an unpopular mission. It had ended with knives in his ribs.
So these days, he looks troubled much of the time. He has two meals a day: most only have one. He lifts and carries what he can, what is needed, curious weights for a man of his size, at least twice as much as he looks like he should be able to handle.
If you’ve only been getting one meal, maybe he pulls you aside to a dark corner and tries to put something small in your hand, something that passes for food here.] It isn’t much. It’s what I could spare.
[Or maybe you want to ask him how he got so strong when hunger is making others weak. Maybe you wait until you’re both trying to hang flower bulbs to do it — maybe not.]
2. POLLINATED
[Or maybe you’ve just seen him trudge through a puddle that reflects the red lights on its surface. He stops a moment later, glances one way and the next, then at you. He keeps his voice low, but his words are blunt.]
If things don’t change soon, they’ll be killing each other here.
[Or maybe it’s something more like —]
I don’t think much on my father’s wife, but if she could see this — she’d think it was fit for us.
DESALINATION PLANT
[It isn’t hard to convince him to go: it seems he’s likely to be needed more out there than back at camp. But what they find in and near the plant suggests that their problems may be greater.
The young woman, the lone survivor, can’t tell them much, or she won’t. Can’t now, because she’s sleeping; they’ve made sure of that. But he does not know what state she’ll be in when she wakes, and he does not know how to repair the plant himself. He’s here to offer his strength and his willingness to range a wilderness.
At some point then, or when he’s helping to repair the pipes, or helping to bury the dead, his gaze turns to the person nearest him.]
What do you make of her? This place? Other than that she is lucky to have run out of bullets.
[— Isn’t she? He doesn’t know how much she’ll have to live with… here, of all places… but he does think the last bullet would have been for her.
Why, though? Why did she do it?]
KIDNAPPED — RESCUE
[It took a while, following his instinct and the feeling of the tunnels, to get to where someone is being held. Not everyone they started with.
Now, he’s trying to move quietly in the water. It’s up to his neck. The air is foul and faintly glowing. He half-swims his way over to where he can see someone sitting, where he knew they would be sitting, and begins to rise from the water with his finger to his lips.]
Come on, [he whispers, mouthing the words more than voicing them.] We have to go.
[He holds out his hand — a little.]
KIDNAPPED — CLOSED TO BALTHIER
[Balthier manages a good cheer, a sort of jollity, that Jon sometimes wishes he could have, and that has lightened moments here and there since the hatching. But he is not light now; there is no gladness to him.
People who have been stolen, or hurt, or lost… they’re often like this, but sometimes the difference is hard to see. In Balthier, it’s marked. So once they’re back in the plant, Jon turns to him, frowning, and says,]
You all right?