shatterverse | (no subject)

One moment, Edwin is tearing through the steppes...

...and the next, he (and his horse) find themselves in very unfamiliar territory. Huxley pins his ears back and snorts at the sudden flash, rearing slightly, while Edwin fights to remain in the saddle as he looks around. "A storm?" he asks himself, looking up a sky that seems anything but stormy. He starts as his attention goes to the rest of the landscape-it certainly looks dry enough, but this...isn't Euloria.

His horse, meanwhile, recovers quite a bit more quickly and begins to move along at a quick trot, apparently not bothered by the fact that he's trotting on pavement rather dirt. Edwin just hangs on, still staring at his surroundings, particularly at the sign that he passes by as Huxley continues onwards-Snakewater, Montana - Pop. 21,500.

At least, that's what it says underneath the scratch marks covering the population number. Beside the former number, someone's painted 15.

Edwin is fairly certain that isn't a terribly good omen.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Mostly painful," Edwin admits. "Velociraptors are small-the ones that followed us were gigantic-but they have sharp teeth. And claws." He paused. "And they're quite good at thrashing their way out of things."

"Well, you seem to've come out of it okay."

"If with feathers," he says with a bit of smile. "I've been trying to keep records about it, particularly the biology-it's fascinating, being able to turn into a dinosaur and see everything that everyone was wrong about."

His mood is definitely picking up. Dinosaur biology is, perhaps not surprisingly, a favorite topic of Edwin's.

"Sure."

Sky clearly couldn't give a rat's ass.

Edwin apparently doesn't notice, caught up in rambling about the subject. (Forgive him. It is his life's work.)

"Like being able to move so quickly-they have to be warm-blooded, or at least the dromaesaurs are, because otherwise I couldn't move half as fast, at least not for a sustained period like that, and the feathers-the feathers are amazing! No one, no one has even put forth the idea yet! At least not in any published papers; for all I know, someone might be working on one now-but it's amazing. Birds have to come from dinosaurs, somehow-some common ancestor species or a more direct path leading towards birds, I don't know which yet. But speed, feathers, warm bloodedness-oh, and the limb positions. Of course, we've had to do quite a bit of guessing as to how one's supposed to set up the skeletons, since generally they're jumbled, but by looking at the skeletons we just found and looking at my animal form, we've gotten that all wrong, too..."

...Sky... is just going to smile and nod, kthx.

Edwin pauses in his ramble for a moment to look at Sky again. "You've seen dinosaur fossils before, haven't you?"

"Yeah, in musems 'n stuff."

"I wonder how close your dinosaurs are to the ones from where I come from-we haven't found that many species yet, but I did hear that apparently some rushes to begin digs were happening elsewhere. Though we didn't have any problems with competitors in Euloria."

"The claws're the same," she offers after a moment. "On those guys and the skeletons I've seen around."

"Do you know what they're called? Obviously they're some sort of dromaesaur, but I've never heard of any bones that were that large, as far as they go."

"Dunno."

"Mm." Edwin looks thoughtful as Huxley plots on, pondering dinosaur family trees to himself. Ahh, the life of a scientist.

Sky just... floats, absently keeping pace with the horse.

Thinking is for other people.

Something finally occurs to Edwin. "How far is to Kansas, exactly?" He's sure she likely knows the right way...but he's curious as to how long it'll take them.

"Dunno. I'm not good with measurements. A while, anyways."

Edwin nods, continuing to ride along. The silence goes on for awhile, so he finally begins whistling quietly. Have to do something to break the quiet.

...

"Quit that," she says, thwapping the back of his head. It's a little like getting smacked in the noggin with a blast from an air cannon (http://www.west.net/~science/acannon.htm).

Edwin starts at the thwap, looking sheepish again. (Sheepish is, apparently, a common expression for him.) "I was never any good at music," he mumbles.

"You got that one right," Sky comments mercilessly.

Edwin sighs a bit too himself. She's beginning to remind him of a few professors he's known. "Do you think we'll find anyone else on the way?"

"Dunno."

Her face goes all distant again.

"Doesn't look like much between here and the Kansas border at the moment."

Edwin frowns at that. He'd been hoping to see at least a few people, if not some actual civilization. "It's a pity we don't have a map. Not that I was ever good at reading them, but..."

"I'll tell you if you get off course."

Until she gets bored and leaves.

He nods, glancing over to her. "Thank you." He then moves Huxley into a trot-they'll get there faster if they move quickly, right? Or at least he hopes.

(no subject)

untidiness.livejournal.com - 2008-04-26 04:04 (UTC) - Expand