shatterverse | (no subject)

Entry tags:

edwin dobson,
sky

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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.

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"Do you mean a cart?" he asks. "Those still need horses, of course-or other animals, depending-but I know what those are..."

"Okay, think of it like a cart without the horses."

"What makes it move? I can see how pushing it might make it move for a short distance, but after that, it wouldn't work."

"It just does. I never was very patient with human things. Oh, and it puts seriously nasty smoke out the back, too."

Edwin looks thoughtful at that, peering up at the sky as he thinks. "...Like a train then, maybe."

"Train smoke's actually pretty okay for the most part, but sure, little bit like a train."

"How little?" he asks, looking to her again. "And are they common where you come from? We have trains-well, at least in Fremmenland-but horses, carriages, and carts are more common."

"Cars are all over the place. Well, usually. Not many of them around here, obviously, but then there's not much of anything else either."

Edwin looks around for a moment, then nods. There's a whole lot of nothing in every direction. "No, there isn't. Where do you think everyone went? There has to be some reason they changed the number on the sign I saw..."

"Yeah, 'cause the rest of them died. This whole country's torn all to shit. Most of what's left is in Kansas."

Edwin looks around again in a decidedly more nervous fashion. He's fairly certain he can outrun most anything that would come after him-but that doesn't mean he wants to have to run from anything in the first place.

"...What killed them?"

"Don't know. I can't see through time, just what's going on right now, and what's going on right now is... not much."

"...Oh." That's...not reassuring. "You don't see anything that could attack us nearby, do you?"

"That could attack you, you mean."

He should know from the oddly windy handshake that she's not exactly solid.

"Gimme a minute..."

"--okay," says Sky, focusing on the world at hand again. "Now would be a good time to go that way, very fast."

That's all the encouragement Edwin needs, really. Clicking his tongue, he goads Huxley into a gallop, glancing behind him quickly. "What did you see?"

Perhaps more importantly-does he want to know what she saw?

"Dunno exactly."

She's never seen Jurassic Park, see.

"Quick. Low. Claws. Three of 'em."

"Cats?" he guesses. Well, cats are low to the ground, they have claws, they can (and will), in fact, eat you...

He keeps Huxley at a gallop, still looking behind himself for any sign of whatever's chasing them.

"Nah... more lizard-y. I'd say dinosaurs, but that's a little weird even for this place."

Oh, if only Sky knew.

Edwin looks over to her for a moment-just long enough to ask "Dinosaurs?" before going back to trying to watch the landscape as it passes swiftly by.

Quick, low to the ground, claws...well, that certainly sounds familiar.

"Like I said, weird, isn't it?"

"Not really," he mutters to himself, then calls "I'm a paleontologist," more loudly. He has a particular interest in wanting to actually see what's chasing them. (Both in the name of science and curiosity, to see what they think of him.)

"That's why I was in Euloria-we were digging for fossils."

"Well, now you get to have some dinosaurs try to eat you! Isn't that lovely."

...it's hard to tell whether she's joking or not, here.

"They'll have to catch me first!" he calls back, spurring Huxley again-okay, so maybe he doesn't want to be too close to the dinosaurs. But he still wants to be able to see them.

...aaand there they are, sprinting up the road. Long tails. Sharp claws. Inexplicably, no feathers.

And inexplicably, way, way too big. (For velociraptors, anyway.)

Huxley lays his ears back and snorts, squealing a little and continuing to gallop-but he's slowing down. He can only take so much running, after all.

Edwin, meanwhile, is staring at the raptors. At least he's fairly certain they're some sort of dromaesaur, albeit some that were plucked somehow.