#tomas 01

[caskalomidze]

[ DRUNK + REVERSE ]: çaska finds tomás drunk. @tomaspriestley

The girls are all partying, but she is quietly strolling - hunting, actually. It's cold, the fireworks of this whole new year affair have subsided, and the soft snow has chased most everyone indoors.

Strange then, that she finds some poor sod out and about, his gait demonstrative of somebody too in his cups to see the good sense in finding warmth. A smile perks the corner of her lips, and in a blinking second she's beside him. "Are you alright?" She asks.

In this cold the heat chased to the surface of his skin by spirits makes his blood practically sing, even with his heart slowed to a kick-beat one could waltz to. She hazards a hand to his shoulder, manicured and ungloved in the frigid air. "Are you lost? Looking?"

Are you alone, is the hidden question, because I am hungry.

[amberxbolt]

location: the High House post-Beast closed with @sagetomashardy​

It was the nice thing to do. It was the good, neighborly thing to do. Tomas was rarely out in the field these days, content to let Akbar and Madi do the work, and she wasn’t quite sure what he was up to now that he was less insistent on personal supervision.

And that was why she was leaning through the doorway of the High House with a bouquet of hand-grown flowers in a flower pot she’d picked up from the kiln. To check on Tomas, who had taken her in after the chaos of the flight’s crash, who was still recovering from his terrible, terrible head injury.

“Professor?” she called, stepping inside. No sign of the daughters or the wife. Interesting. “Professor Hardy? It’s Amber! Amber Casey. Are you home? I wanted to check on you after this whole Beast thing, see if there was anything I could do for you?”

[frank-hauptman]

Date: Mid-to-late November Time: Late Afternoon Location: West Beach Cliffs @sagetomashardy​

It’s a coincidence running into Tomas. Not an unwelcome one, they are friendly with each other, but it’s not his goal when he’s taking a jog along the trail and spots him coming from another direction. He no more than raises a hand in hello before someone else comes sprinting down the trail at a run, arms windmilling, crashing into Frank’s back.

“Ow,” he complains, catching the person’s arm before they can go crashing into Tomas and start a three man collision down the slight slope. Not steep enough to hurt, but any slide down the western cove is an unnecessary pain. One of his hands stay on the person’s shoulder as they pant, pointing over their shoulders. “Alright, mate?”

The man launches into rapid Spanish and a gesture. Frank shoots Tomas a bemused look, and the man follows his gaze. His words escalate in fervor, and he sharply points towards a trail leading up to the cliffs. “Uh, I don’t need to speak the language to know something is wrong,” he says, not that it matters when the man is half a breath away from dragging them both. Frank follows, and tosses over his shoulder: “Coming, Tomas?”

[briarcarnahan]

where: hollow tree, probably near his home when: mid-evening @sagetomashardy​

It’s not hard to find a place to nap usually, but the beaches have more people than Briar has seen in her entire life. And every single one of them has some claim on the land. Not here, it’s for the goat, which is said with such reverence that she doesn’t argue out of pure confusion. Not here, it’s for me, which is said with such defensiveness that she backs away with her hands up.

But this? A tree with its empty insides? No one argues when she walks up to it, nor do they question her when she taps her knuckles against the bark, or nudges it with her ill-fitting, uncomfortable shoes. Not even when she blatantly asks "Whose tree is that?” to the first person she spots near the farm. No response is good enough reason for her to slink into the crevice and plop herself down on the ground. Her legs stick out, dangling over a root.

Briar dozes only some. It’s not much of a place to sleep when there’s strangers all around, and the sounds of footsteps, but she ignores them. At least until a pair held her way. “If this is yours, I don’t understand the way you islanders think. This is mine, this is the goat’s,” she says, imitating the two voices she’d asked earlier, a scoff to her words. “Do you not share anything?”

[mallorycastle]

location: jungle time: is meaningless in the deep, dark woods @sagetomashardy​

Long story short: she’s lost. The jungle around her is densely packed, each tree looking like the one next to it. Each little trail she leaves behind seems to disappear when she turns her head, as if the jungle swallows up any attempt to organize it. “I just saw this tree!” she exclaims as she hops over a rock and comes face to face with a tree whose drooping branches remind her of someone striking a pose.

“Where am I? No, wait, I don’t want an answer.” She stops, wary, listening for the sound of any wayward ghosts. She made a run for it ten minutes ago, and she hasn’t heard a peep from them. Or anything else, either, she realizes with a start, frowning. Mallory crouches on the ground, feeling around on the ground, drawing water up from beneath the leaves and bringing it to her second canteen. One for drinking, one for playing.

It’s silent. She hates the jungle - where’s the noise? She misses the echoing of her cave, or the crashing of waves. When she climbs back to her feet, she can’t take it anymore and calls loudly: “Hello? This time I do want an answer, so don’t--”

A twig snaps. Mallory whirls around, flinging a handful of water into the face of the man approaching. “Oh, hot sauce, you scared me, Curly!” The water changes direction, splattering into the posing tree. “I thought you were a ghost. You realize how eerie this shit is? Jungle didn’t want to shut up a few minutes ago, and now it‘s so quiet, I can probably hear Tamyra bitching from the north beach.”

[reclusiveharry]

Location: The Farm, a few days into the drought. @sagetomashardy​

"No rice then?" Harry asked as she came up next to Tommy. It was just past midday, which only the fire-attuned could bear to walk about in. The rest of the mere mortals had to find some shelter from the heat, or risk perishing. Tommy looked properly shattered, too many long days bossing everyone around the farm, working himself to the bone. Harry had done her bit, erecting earthen walls to shelter the more tender crops from the full brunt of the heat. It probably wasn't enough for some of them, the taro was wilting again.

"Some of the amaranth is seeding," Harry offered, pulling out a carefully wrapped bundle of rags from the small bag she slung across her body. "You have a seed bank?" Harry asked, only offering to donate this find to the communal seed bank because she had her own thrifted store. That, and she wanted to get a feel for what Tommy's plans were, if he was prepared.