revivalproject | Of ceaslessly watching and looking for the sights!

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Of ceaslessly watching and looking for the sights!

WHO: Jon & you~
WHERE: Not!Temba
WHAT: Archivist go exploring. What will he find? What will he wake? What will he run away from?
WHEN: What's left of July.
WARNINGS: None so far.

a Let there be books... [ Not!Library? #5 ]

The moment they have reached the new city and have set foot out of the station one thing has been clear: This city is surprisingly different from Temba. Of course they weren't given a name for it, but the architecture alone already differs greatly. There are also a lot more trees in this city and a lot less flooding. Which seems promising in some ways, but comes with its own difficulties. Difficulties such as plain reaching some of the structures.

But before focusing on the difficulties and differences, Jon keeps his eyes open for similarities. He is explicitly looking for data points and signs of a written language. And he actually finds a trace of the first upon reaching the city center.

The data point is burnt out and just sitting in the center of the fountain that looks so very much like the one in Temba. The arrangement of the buildings around also seems familiar as long as one ignores the way these structures were build and of course the amount of trees surrounding them and making the entire city appear darker.

Jon takes a moment to orient himself and cautiously studies the buildings around the fountain before ultimately stepping into the one that appears to serve the same function as the library he has moved into over in Temba. It's cold and dark within these stone walls and he doesn't hesitate long before turning on his torch to move further inside, listening out for noises that might belong to some of the animals he has been hearing outside and up in the trees.

At least some beings still seem to inhabit this city.

b This looks familiar. [ Quarry #6 ]

Temba doesn't have a quarry, but this city does. And the one present here clearly has seen some ample use while beings resided here. Which isn't surprising given how many things are made of large chunks of solid rock. Jon can swear he has seen entire buildings made out of single boulders!

Having crossed through the quarry and standing in front of the massive stone wall at its very end, Jon runs his fingers over the rock, feeling the texture of the surface. It's not an unfamiliar feeling, but not one he would have expected to encounter on Agra 10.

c Alone in the Woods! [ Overgrown Forest #15 ]

A screech from the canopy above tells Jon that he has ventured too far into the forest taking up a good part of the city. It's not a sound of the sort he has been able to hear around the area with more buildings to it, but a harsher, sharper one. One that makes him spin around where he stands and peer up the stray arrangement of boulders that have drawn his attention this deeply into the forest.

"...shit." He mutters to himself as he slowly creeps closer to one of the large rocks and fishes out his phone only to be reminded that he can't access the network anymore.

Somewhere out of his line of sight something heavy hits the ground and Jon can hear it run either away or towards him. Is it circling him? Why hasn't he brought a weapon? He should have brought a weapon.

Grasping a nearby stone, big enough to feel somewhat reassuring in his hand, Jon backs against the boulder and tries to catch sight of whichever creature he can hear somewhere nearby. He also does the sensible thing: Call for help.

"Hello! Can anyone hear me!?"

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There was exactly one question that Tony was capable of answering about this creature, so he tore his gaze away from it to roll toward Jon with his lip raised incredulously for the asking. His gesturing hand remained suspended in the air, becoming a kind of placating gesture toward the creature as it continued its slightly off-putting, slow examination, more of it folding in through the hole in the roof and its head angling watchfully, all the while mottling with more of the grey stone colour of the ceiling. What Tony could answer was a slightly belated, "Anything you want, boss, you know I'll make--augh!"

The animal was moving so carefully that Tony didn't anticipate that long tongue suddenly darting in between them, sending Tony stumbling back another step and recoiling from the glistening membrane. Almost as fast as it appeared, it went reeling back in, liberally coated now in a still writhing smattering of the nesting beetles and a generous array of pebbles, its sticky surface uncompromising. As the animal thoughtfully considered its bounty, jaw working in that same slow, deliberate way and the inedible rocks falling from the corners of its mouth, Tony tugged Jon closer again and watched with some horror. That was gross. And there was no way they were going to be able to give this place a proper examination if that thing was...watching. Maybe Tony could just startle it away, so after watching yet another stone fall from its lips, Tony tried a sharp whistle.

It certainly didn't like the sound that echoed around the library, startled jerking suddenly as it tried to retreat, but lodged part way through the hole in the roof and in a panic mostly made the creature strain against the rocks and send a new shower of debris down to the floor. Effectively cornered, it used its next best option to retaliate, and spat its long tongue out toward the threat.

It stuck.

The first time the tongue passes him by, Jon backs away from it just as well as Tony does, but he watches the creature much rather with interest than disgust. Nothing wrong with an animal feeding itself. Clearly if they just don't bother this being, they can look around the library and observe it at the same--

That's when the whistle makes Jon jump as well and he first looks at Tony, then up at the animal trying to scramble away AND back at Tony once the tongue lashes out in his direction, hitting his shoulder with the force comparable to being kicked by a goat. Jon winces at the sight and seeing the tongue sticking to Tony's shoulder doesn't hesitate to grab the sticky muscle to pry it off. "Tony! Why did- Are you alright?"

To no one's surprise the animal doesn't take having his tongue grabbed calmly and from above its distressed scrambling sends more debris raining down. Then the creature simply leaps down, aiming to land with its large, clawed feet on that horrible human pulling on its tongue.

The problem was, it was nobody's intention to hurt this animal, and everyone would have been better off if it had made an elegant escape and Tony wasn't suddenly having the air knocked out of him, shoulder thrown back and stumbling slightly with the force of the impact. That was already going to bruise, but what was worse was that dragging suction hauling him forward again, and the grunt of surprise that he made turned into a whining, "Ow-ow-ow--..." as he tried to keep his footing, effectively crashing into Jon as the other man tried to intervene, metal throwing sparks as his heel scraped against stone. One hand went around Jon's wrist, the armored arm flung heavily around Jon's shoulders in protective autopilot while Tony had to very rapidly devise the best way to avoid something currently attached to them.

In the same moment the animal seemed to accept that there was no going back, Tony used the gauntlet to blast the nearest stone shelf at its base, sending it toppling toward Jon and Tony. He barely had a second to glance up and realize the animal was falling toward them before the shelf was crashing down on them, with only Tony's gauntlet raised between their heads and the stone to keep it from cracking them open. Between the weight of the shelf and the creature landing on top of it, they were shoved to their knees, effectively turtled under the leaning shelf while the animal scratched its panic into the stone, its tongue still snaked under the edge and trying to haul them out.

Jon can only stare as the shelf falls, his verbal reaction a soundless curse and then they are trapped under a heavy shelf. He can hear the animal’s frantic scrambling above them, but his attention is on Tony and making sure he’s okay.

“Tony, why did- Jesus. That-“ Between his muttering the almost cartoonish plop of the tongue being removed from the man’s shoulder seems deafeningly loud. It’s followed by the realization that his own hands are now stuck to the creature’s tongue and just a moment later Jon finds his arms and hands jerked up and over his head as the animal tries to get its tongue back. “Ack!! W-wait! Tony! Hold me!”

What follows is another sudden pull, a tearing noise and the removal of the stickiest plaster in existence. In fact, sticky enough to take some skin along with it.

Tony only had the split second to complain, "Ah-..." for his tender shoulder, only just started to slouch in relief when Jon was contorted sharply away. With wide eyes, Tony had to let the shelf drop onto his back to fling both arms around Jon's waist to test his strength against the tongue of the panicking creature, until Jon was abruptly torn free and Tony was just hugging him into the curve of his body while the animal floundered across the shelf above them in a clatter and scrape of its claws as it got its bearings and its tongue back in its mouth. Some of the pressure finally let up as it went bounding across the library, still graceless at this speed and bouncing off of the walls like a trapped and frantic deer until it burst its way toward the doors and away from this very strange threat.

Tony, meanwhile, risked winking one eye open and easing his unarmored arm from around Jon to trace down his arm instead, taking his wrist again gently to survey the damage and muttering, "I really didn't think that was going to provoke it." Most of the time, he was aware of being provocative, at least a little bit.

The moment his hands were free, Jon has pulled them close while Tony kept the rest of him close and protected in a way Jon can't claim is one he is overly familiar with. Being offered safety and protection is mostly an experience from this world and in most cases originating from Tony. And he is thankful for that. Thankful that he can have a moment of weakness without having to suffer for it. Thankful to get a moment to whimper over the burning pain of his now partially skinned palms.

It'll heal, he knows that. But before it heals, it hurts.

Though even with all this Jon is aware that Tony is still buried under a stone shelf and he tilts his head somewhat to be able to glance up at the man, willing the pain to be less important. "Right. Let's- Let's just learn from that. And get you out from under this-" He gestures up at the pieces of rock with a bloody hand, which is a sight that has him stop himself for a moment. Then he adds: "-I brought some first aid stuff. W-we can wrap these up." And tend to whichever wounds Tony has suffered.

With the arm still wrapped around Jon, Tony gave a rhythmic pat to his side at Jon's hiccup, self-soothing at the glimpse of that blood as much as it was meant to be reassuring before Tony eased his hand around to Jon's back. There, he could rest his hand, wait, until he had shifted enough to get the leverage and his gauntlet jammed up against the shelf again and lift it carefully with a grinding grumble from where the shelf dragged on the stone wall it had crashed into. When it seemed stable enough and with enough room to manoeuvre, he gave Jon an encouraging nudge to get himself clear and let Tony shuffle out behind him.

Without Tony bracing the shelf, it dropped abruptly with another grinding complaint against the stone, digging furrows into the wall and leaving the shelf slanted across the aisle. Tony collapsed there with his legs splayed out ahead of him and back against the shelf instead to catch his breath, and gestured for Jon to return to the space between his knees where he could better see what happened now that they weren't under the furniture and the sunlight filtered its way through the canopy high above, and the widened hole that the animal had left behind in the derelict ceiling. "Nothing on the shelf," he took the chance to point out breathlessly, with a muted smirk. See, he was exploring. "As intended."

Jon rolling free may not be the most graceful performance, but it does fulfill the ultimate goal of getting out from under the shelf and while Tony frees himself, Jon starts pick through his bag, doing his best to ignore his shaky his hands still are.

"We don't have these in Temba. Or- The forest around. I, ah- I don't think so..." Jon mutters, also to distract himself from what just happened. In the end they may be lucky that the creature fled this easily. It could just as well have tried to properly attack them.

He does, indeed, follow Tony's invitation and offers the disinfectant and bandages he has spoken about along with an inquisitive look. A wordless question whether Tony is hurt anywhere.

Jon's shakiness was hard to miss, leaving Tony frowning with an inquisitive smile at him as he did take the supplies, but not because he needed any bandaging just yet. He snaked an arm around Jon again to try to get him to relax while Tony peered over his shoulder, miming for Jon to hold out a hand then balancing the bandages out of the way on Jon's lap for the moment while he worked on disinfecting.

"Have you been out in the forest cataloguing the wildlife?" he murmured, with enough of a judgmental edge to suggest maybe Jon shouldn't be doing that. Tony didn't really expect an answer, though, happy to be a distraction; "We could ask Tommy. Or Cal, he seems to like wandering out there. Would that be weird, though? Not the asking, there's weirder questions we could be asking them. If those aren't in Temba. It can't be that far away, it's a little weird, but this place is like--tropical. We don't have these trees over there, either. Is it that far?"

"I was never good at cataloguing animals, Tony. Never had the patience. But I... Enjoy the occasional walk through nature. You can join me if you like, you know? Keep me company and- Iunno. From straying from the right path?" Jon replies while biting back the occasional sharp intake at the burn from the disinfectant. It's necessary and temporary, so he can endure it. And the somewhat nonsensical small talk helps.

"But- It wouldn't surprise me if Cal already has taken notes on the local fauna. Or Master Kenobi." The man knows his way around animals quite well. With a wince Jon looks over to the entrance of the building that the animal has left through. "Christ, we missed a perfectly good chance to take a picture of it either, didn't we."

"You expect me to be a good influence?" Tony said with what should have been a laughing lilt to his voice, but didn't make it far past a guilty grumble with the wincing flex of Jon's tendons under Tony's hands. So far, Tony had led him practically into the mouth of an animal, so it had rapidly stopped being a joke. It left Tony quiet for at least a moment as he tried to focus on what Jon was saying and started to gently, methodically wrap his hand with the bandages much like Tony would wrap his own to work the fire.

"It'll be back," he eventually said with confidence once he was securing the end of the bandage, "it's got a taste of you now." Still holding Jon's wrist, he raised it to his lips to seal his work with a remorseful kiss, then gestured for the other hand. "Can all of them do that then?" he wondered. "The Jedi. Ezra said he could talk to animals, I mean."

“Right. Because that’s what I need: The animals in this town deciding I am tasty…” Jon says, then considers Tony for a quiet moment. He doesn’t blame him for what happened. Neither of them could anticipate how the creature would react, and if Tony hadn’t been here and Jon had provoked it while by himself, this might all have ended even messier.

“Well. I’m glad you were and still are here.” He adds softly as he lets Tony bandage his hand. “As for the Jedi… It seems to be connected to their powers in the Force. Or maybe it’s a Force thing. I haven’t studied it as much as I could have while on Coruscant.”

In Jon's contemplation, Tony gave a slow smirk with a lick of his lips, not doing a good job at all of keeping his innocent focus on Jon's hands to meet his eye with a teasing glint. It was really a matter of when the animals figured that out, his grin clearly said; Tony had been slower than most of the creatures they'd met. Jon's tone then tempered the expression to a gentler affection and Tony gave a small nod, looking like he wasn't sure he wanted to say more than that and managing to keep his gaze averted then. At least while he was focused on treating Jon he could eventually say, "And I'm glad to keep you company. Wherever you want to go." With a tap to his battered shoulder, he added, "As long as you're looking out for me."

That happened more often than not, didn't it? Tony's jaw ticked as he fastidiously secured the final bandage, then kept hold of Jon's wrist to insist, "I'll have to be your hands now. You just tell me where to touch." His smirk was slow this time because it lagged slightly, but it was in place in time to meet Jon's eye again and hold his gaze while Tony dropped his hand to give a teasing tug to the front of his shirt. So they didn't linger too long, Tony was gladly continuing before the fabric had even slipped from his fingers, "Plenty of first-hand sources around, isn't there? Merrin, the like..." He gestured vaguely at his face, clearly intending something by the gesture that he didn't elaborate on. "She said her power is the Force, too, basically. She's happy to show you." Maybe 'happy' wasn't the right word.

Silly as the gesture may have been, it still leaves Jon flustered enough for a little huff. A huff that is followed by a slow, gentle nod of agreement. Of course he will gladly look out for Tony. It will be a mutual looking out.

Tony's decision to be his hands? That gets a pair of intrigued brows to go along with a brush of color on Jon's cheek which he tries to cover up with a shrug. "-remind me of that when we aren't sitting in the remains of an old building. Both, the- The hands-thing and getting in contact with Merrin." He ends rather abruptly there and actually needs a moment before he asks "Uh... We will still take a look around, right?" Oh, they will. That much he has already decided.

Tony started to snicker at the implication that the 'hands thing' was a long term commitment he was making and not just to stop Jon from punishing his tender palms any further, but gladly accepted, or distracted, with an arm looped around Jon's middle again to keep him in place for a tickling of kisses to his cheek while Tony reached for his bag to haphazardly repack for him. With the first aid tools out of sight again, Tony slung the bag over his shoulder with only a small wince of regret, and nudged Jon away and up so they could both get decently back to their feet and no longer reduced to the dirty floor.

"Did you make it upstairs yet? C'mon, check this out," Tony was already encouraging and making his way back the way he had come, following in the chaotic path of the spooked animal to find his way back to the stairs.

The protest those kisses are met with is mild at best and to a decent degree purely cosmetic. Tony does receive a quick little nuzzle in return after all before Jon wordlessly agrees on getting back up, but not without commenting on that wince. "My shoulders are fine, you know?"

"I have literally just entered the building, so no upstairs exploration for me until now." Jon answers Tony's actual question while following along. "I wasn't even sure if there was a second floor until now." He may not say it out loud, but he does hope that the animal does, in fact, not live here and this upstairs is where it actually lives.

"What've you been doing this whole time? Stop messing around," Tony chastised, like he hadn't been sitting on the floor with Jon, as they rounded to the spill of brighter light shimmering down the stone steps. The corners were still shadowy, and the plants still encroached to make the space feel small and dim, but the wide window at the top of the steps had survived whatever had caved in the roof here. Probably because they weren't windows so much as they were screens of strange, intricate stonework that Tony bounded part way up the steps in his excitement to share them before he stopped to also point out, "Look, the stairs--isn't that strange? Like the place where you ate that big flower." Maybe that should have put Tony more on edge, but this space was teeming with more life than those hallucinogenic weeds; if they walked into somewhere without any cobwebs in the corners, Tony might start uprooting plants.

Jon follows, not sure what to expect, but curious to see what has Tony be this excited. His attention is less with the architecture than with what may await them within the rooms they are about to enter. It's Tony's words that make him pause and blink. "... I didn't... Eat it, Tony..."

Is it necessary for him to point that out? No. Does he feel the need to do so anyway? Yes.

At least with that said, he feels more inclined to look around and up at the big window. Though now Tony's words bring up a different question. "You believe there might be one of those here as well? That we may be seeing things again that aren't real...?" It wouldn't be the first time. In fact, it tends to be a rather common occurrence on this planet, be it due to the storms, calibrations or plain magic. If they are imagining this entire city, it could be really bad.

"No--," Tony started to correct, but couldn't confidently say that they weren't collectively imagining this place and corrected, "I mean, maybe, this whole place is weird. Look at the stairs. They're not Agrii sized." A bunch of human brains producing a city would probably have made human-sized stairs. It was less likely they would have made this unfamiliar stone-screen that Tony finished climbing toward to lay a hand against, the other still twirling as he worked up what he was trying to say to Jon over his shoulder.

"And, fine, obliterated it. Scared it away. Did the sexiest thing with a flower since O'Keeffe." Mostly, he was trying to encourage Jon to join him at the window, where it overlooked the library garden. Where the one back in Temba looked abandoned and overgrown, this one appeared naturally lush with thick tree trunks and wide, flat leaves that accumulated the humidity to send it dripping down to the colourful forest floor, like natural fountains. Tony could see a massive, glinting fish drift lazily through what might have at one point been a carefully cultivated pond, and a tiny bird with antennae like a butterfly preening its scaley-looking wings on a branch. It was less expected that one of those dripping leaves started to move, making the bird go flapping away Tony stare in surprise until the colours of it shifted and mottled, and he could see the rolling eye of their curious, sticky friend as it went limping across the garden.

Learning that the creature they scared apparently has recovered will put Jon at ease, but for now he is still staring at the stairs after Tony has made him aware of the most obvious difference between these and the ones over in Temba. He even mutters a small expletive to himself before finally climbing up the rest of them and join Tony, mentally still placing the meaning of those stairs. It is true that the building where they encountered the plant has normal-sized stairs...

"This city hardly seems like it has been inhabited by Agrii, does it." He muses while finally getting to look over the garden.

Oh. That's actually pretty nice. Sure, he has done his best to clean up the garden behind the library and even set up a few pieces of furniture, but he won't deny that this here looks several times nicer even in this wild, natural state. He still finds a moment, however, to cast Tony a look that is meant to appear offended while hiding him being flustered by that comment regarding his actions towards the large plant. But instead of adding a verbal comment, he focuses on the garden below. "I doubt any of these plants will survive in Temba."

Excited that they seemed to be on the same page now, Tony grinned and welcomed Jon at the window with a lazy arm around his shoulders while the other continued to gesture with his theorizing. "Or there was a smaller race of them that was eradicated. Those ones we met survived because of the caves, right? That's what Cal said. If they were mostly segregated like this, they didn't stand a chance. The train station is like--the train itself is made for the big guys, its huge, so they had to have regularly come here. But as soon as they arrive, it's like they're in the kiddie area, tiny furniture, doors they'd have to duck through," he tried to elaborate, effectively negating any looks that Jon was trying to throw him.

He had to take a deep breath to consider the garden before he asked, "You sure? Poe brought a tree back from a whole other planet. Can't be that alien. Hey, train's gone, though, we get to stick around and enjoy them anyway."

"You notice that everything here is made of stone rather than metal like over in Temba..." Jon notes with a glance up at Tony and a wrapped hand placed lightly against the glass-less window. "I can't imagine there being a shorter version of the Agrii that specialize in working stone and building their houses up in the trees. That's too great of a difference in culture and behavior."

He lets his gaze drift back to the garden below, frowning mildly and trying to not too obviously look for that creature again. "And I don't think we should try and sleep here."

Tony wasn't sure that was a solid argument, pouting in contemplation and offering, "People on Earth live in yurts, doesn't make them less human than people in London." Especially with such a shift in climate, it wasn't entirely outrageous that a culture could be so different. Besides, the only people that Tony knew that worked in stone like this and built their houses up in the trees were from a wholly different planet that didn't seem to know anything about space travel.

Like plenty of the people living in Temba now.

Tony frowned, staring out the window as well, but at a blank, middle-distance as he tried to work through just how crazy that thought was, not tracking at all as the giant lizard-thing skulked toward a thick trunk and very carefully, very gently raised its forelegs to hug it. Jon's voice drew Tony slowly out of his reverie, his head tilting and his gaze sliding toward Jon with a wry smile. "Why, you got a date back in town? C'mon, it'll be fun. Sun's still up, we've got plenty of time to find a VIP suite, I've got connections, I'll have my people make some calls."

"But there isn't a yurt-version of London an hour north of the actual city either." Comes the counter-argument. "What I'm saying is, we know we are being seen as entertainment by the Atroma already. You heard that message as well as I did. What if-" Jon gestures out of towards the garden below. "-what if we may as well have ended up here? A different Temba. A different... Season."

Jon falls silent after speaking that thought out loud, his eyes now having settled on following their color-shifting visitor from earlier that now very slowly, very deliberately starts to climb its chosen tree. Of course it's an excellent climber. Coming down and venturing into this building may have been an expedition out of its regular dwelling spaces.

With the creature having left his sight at least for the time being, Jon is left to scan the garden again, but his tone has taken on a nudge towards the concerned. "Tony, do you believe the Agrii--" But he doesn't finish that sentence, instead falls silent as his eyes fall on something else. Something down between the plants. "There's something down there!" He points out quickly, concerned tone gone again.

It was uncomfortable how much that proposal made sense, leaving them both quiet in the abandoned library while Tony considered the implications; that this was, whether by nature or by invasion, an Atroma planet first and the Agrii had been put here as one of their experiments; one of potentially many if they could assume these weren't the only two cities on the planet's surface, or even the star system. It would explain why the Atroma had so much control over the environment, and seemed to know how to anticipate their reactions. But did that mean there were random groups of 'he rows' transplanted to these cities after the 'local' population was established, or was this mix of people an evolution? And Tony couldn't ignore that there seemed to be a very obvious weak point, and spoke at the same time as Jon, "But what about the train...?" trailing off at the catch of Jon's breath.

He rocked up on his toes to try to get a better vantage point on what Jon was seeing, but it looked like a bunch of weeds and nests to Tony. "Something alive?" he prompted to get a better idea of what exactly he was looking for. In the meantime, he threw a glance over his shoulder, trying to anticipate the best route out of the building to the garden, and if this library was that similar to the one back in Temba.

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