[OPENING] exploration log

[spellbindmods]

Who: Explorers and Co.
Where: Around the island and at the newly discovered house
When: Day 10
Open/Closed: Open to All
Note: Feel free to create your own logs for individual island explorations. A prompt is for house exploring, and you can list off multiple A prompts like A1, A2, etc. for more than one prompt within the house. B prompts (B1, B2, etc) are for exploring the island and may be open to all OR select friends who your character is exploring with.

[It's tough to live on an island that doesn't have many resources outside of the limited food sources and running streams. While Brie is aware of some other minor sources of food, like fish and frogs, one person exploring an island on their own means there are a lot of secret spots left to uncover. Despite adventuring for three years, her time on the hub itself has been much shorter, only staying for days or weeks at a time. Now that there are more people on this journey, covering ground is a lot easier.

Recently she's discovered another large estate -- much larger than her current shared mansion, which might also mean it has some supplies inside. On the morning of Day #, she's called together those who are hankering for more supplies in order to bring as much back as possible. Congrats, you get first dibs.

A. Upon approaching the house, the first thing that's noticeable is its size. It's all one story, but very flat and spacious. There are gardens in both the front and the rear, and upon entering (Brie might have enlisted you to help break the door down, oops) the inside is also quite vast. There are tons of rooms, multiple bedrooms and bathrooms, two kitchens and other rooms that aren't even explorable because they need keys to be entered. Unless you can find these keys, that is?

B. Alternatively, or maybe even aside from exploring the house, Brie's also suggested that you do some exploring on your own. Again, she's one woman with limited time to scout the island herself. What can you find? What resources are there to be harvested? Will you share in this bounty, or keep it to yourself?]

Comments

[splinten]

Then I can leave him at the house with someone to babysit him. It's a turtle. He'll be okay.

[parodeity]

[ another frown. ]

...Sure. Some other time. When things are more settled.

[splinten]

We should set a date and time.

[Dirk is holding an adorable turtle to his chest kinda like a security blanket. Or puppet.]

[parodeity]

We tried that. [ it ended badly. dave doesn't sigh, but tries to gauge when things might be better. john had said dirk probably wasn't in any state to do...whatever this was, either. more or less. ] ...In two weeks, then.

[splinten]

We'll probably be in another world.

[parodeity]

The day after we get back from wherever the fuck, then.

[splinten]

So you want me to stay out of your way indefinitely.

[Just to be clear.]

[parodeity]

I didn't - [ take a breather. stellar advice, but how do you do that?

maybe it doesn't actually matter. maybe what matters is whatever's easiest for whoever else. he agrees after cutting himself off and blanks his thoughts. ] ...Sure. I'll get out of your hair now. Mobile project. Right.

[splinten]

[It twists in his chest, and he reigns that in.]

You're not in my damn hair. You just—keep shoving me away, and then telling me I don't want you around, and it's kind of hard to figure out what to do with those kinds of mixed signals. I'm trying.

[parodeity]

[ a sense of "well, you don't" isn't useful. he doesn't know what to say, so he gives out the same thing he'd told john as some kind of defense and explanation: a true statement twisted to his own purpose because no one understands it as it's meant: ]

I don't want to replace my brother. [ his gaze flicks up and then aside. ] You're - it's like fuckin' double vision. Sometimes you act right and sometimes you don't. I don't know.

[ and dirk sets dave on edge and stresses him out, with too many expectations he either can or can't identify and an intensity that isn't entirely welcome when he doesn't trust it. none of that helps to say, so dave doesn't say it. ]

You didn't enjoy those meet-ups, either.

[splinten]

[Dirk's eyes flicker down behind his shades.]

I'm aware that I'll never replace your brother. I don't match up and I don't act right. That's pretty clear.

[Not good enough not strong enough not enough, not enough ever, not enough at all. Even still.

Even still, he wants to know Dave.]

I won't deny they were awkward, but I liked having time every day when we would meet. I thought it was interesting to talk to you about art and mathematics, and I learned a lot Strifing with you. But I'd have been just as willing to hang out and talk about nothing, or anything else. Like people do when they're getting to know each other.

[parodeity]

You said we could stop.

[ and like so many things he says, dave doesn't entirely mean it in the obvious way it could be taken. ]

[splinten]

Because it's really fucked up not to let both parties have a choice in hangouts, and you seemed to think you didn't.

[parodeity]

[ it would probably be weird to point out he doesn't think he'll ever be happy and relaxed about hangouts in the foreseeable future, so dave...

does not know what the fuck to say at this point, actually. ]

You should probably get your turtle back to your place.

[splinten]

[He takes a sharp breath. It's this thing Dave keeps doing, and Dirk doesn't understand it. Push Dirk out the door and act like being on the other side is Dirk's choice. Like there's no right choice, like the only right choice is to stop existing.

If he could, he would. But he can't. And even if he could, another splinter of him would step in to take the place.

His magic is supposed to be for more than destruction.]

Do you like the idea of hanging out and trading music with each other?

[parodeity]

[ there's always ten lies on his lips but dave finds he isn't willing to lie about this one. ]

Not really, no. [ because music is his thing. it's a thing he shares with people he loves. with rose and john. the sheet music is for rose, to combine with the ridiculous mobile, to see if that makes music. the song itself was written to be played by a quartet.

it isn't a thing he wants to give up to be ruined. ]

Music's - personal.

[splinten]

[Dirk closes his eyes. He doesn't say anything. He's grateful to his shades for hiding it.]

Sorry. I don't—know what to suggest that you won't hate.

[It's impossible not to suspect that Dave hates him. That what it all adds up to, the only thing that makes sense with what Dirk knows. Dave hates that Dirk exists.

It makes two of them. Dirk should just take the damn hint.]

Do you hate me? I won't blame you if you do.

[parodeity]

[ it throws him enough that he hesitates. ]

No? [ but he does hate this; it unsettles him and stresses him out, like he'd mentioned to john without explaining why really. there are expectations he isn't meeting and too many years of conditioning saying he should be, but when he tries to put up with whatever it doesn't work and just gets spun around on him again. whatever peace he'd found sitting on the bench staring at the pond has long since fled, and dave drops his hands from the backpack straps to shove into his pockets. ]

[splinten]

But you—[He rubs at his forehead, an anxious gesture that he never learned not to do.] You push me away when I'm around. Then when I see you again you call me out for being gone, no matter how many times I tell you that I actually want to spend time with you. I can't work out how to just hang out with you without doing... whatever it is that makes you want to push me out the front door.

I thought if we both decided to try, we could just work on hangin' out like normal strangers and then maybe we'd get to know each other. It's probably the biggest lie of my life to pretend to be normal strangers, but it felt better than not getting to know you at all. It still does to me, but maybe it doesn't to you.

I'm lost on this. Sorry.

[parodeity]

You don't in the ways I can manage. [ a frown. he can't do whatever dirk can accept and he wants rose. or john. he wants someone else, a lifeline, and neither of them are there. in his pockets, dave's fingernails start to dig into his palms. ] Every time we try, it ain't good enough for you.

[splinten]

No? [He's baffled by this, confused.] I'm the one who isn't good enough. When we were able to relax a little on that first day and you sort of smiled, and when we talked about math and geometry. That was nice. I'm not... there are things I want, yeah, but I'm not expecting it. I'd rather talk about what to name this turtle and get your help workin' out a terrarium.

[parodeity]

I didn't smile. [ what he did at john the other day was a smile. what he's doing right now is a genuinely unhappy frown. ] I...guess we can do that.

[ it sounds worse than the sparring to him, actually. he doesn't want to sit through dirk caretaking something and actually seeming to give a fuck about it. ]

[splinten]

[He presses his face into his hand, trying to breathe.]

Just tell me what you want to do, man, because everything I say you hate.

[parodeity]

I don't want to do that. Stop...askin' me to decide shit.

[splinten]

Okay.

[God. He doesn't know what to do. He shuts his eyes behind his shades.]

Math?