pennysheets | Eldritch PSL: Ellever

Ellever hums quietly, as she turns and starts walking — toward where they can secure snacks, and where Ellever can grab her last bag and the few items she hasn't tossed into the van yet.

"Let's try not to go into the water with an unknown being," she says, though she's grinning as she says it. Like she finds the idea exciting, even with the danger involved. "Especially when we don't have fins and, reportedly, it does. But you should expect to get wet, hopefully. I've got some waders in the van just in case."

She shrugs.

"Really, I'll be happy just to see it, at this point, and to maybe get a picture or some video for now."

"You know, I haven't actually tried to swim with this thing, that I remember?" he says, holding up his metal hand, but following her out and towards the cafeteria and, eventually, thank god, the van out of here. "Pretty sure I know how to swim, and this ain't drowned me in the bathtub, but it'll be an experience if we have to."

As they push open the doors to the cafeteria, he asks, "So that's what these trips are for, mostly? Just exploratory, not any kind of collection or retrieval?"

Ellever nods, glancing at his hand when he calls attention to it. She puts it in a note in the back of her mind though, like she says, she isn't planning on anything more than wading. And wading's just a possible necessity of navigating around the river.

Having a large piece of metal on you like that can't be great for swimming, she thinks.

"It's like a research trip," she confirms, selecting a large can of iced tea for the road from one of the fridges. Though she hardly needs the pep, she's already wired just from thinking about everything. "I just want to see if this is real or a story. It's a fifty-fifty kind of thing, I've found. I haven't found any reports of people with mysterious wounds or anything, so it looks like if the river beastie actually lives, it likes to be alone."

He starts stuffing anything non-perishable into his backpack, with the spare clothes and books. Most of it ranges from only vaguely healthy to not healthy at all, and he pours himself a to-go cup of coffee with plenty of sugar and cream.

"And probably doesn't eat people," he guesses from that. "That's a plus." Anything that doesn't see humans as something to potentially hunt is less likely to be a danger to Ellever. "Are there any big fish native to that area maybe? Might be one way to track it down, through what it could eat."

"Ooh, that's a good idea. Food supply," Ellever agrees, plucking up a few bags of chips and other small-sized snacks kept around the office to keep employees from crashing. Classic road trip food.

"And that should be easy enough to research on the internet. No need for any of my big ol books. ...although I've got a bunch of those in the van anyway."

She doesn't heavily favor one over the other. The internet is great because it's kept up to date. Her books are great because they were written by intensive researchers who knew their shit. It's just a matter of what kind of information she needs: broad, or specialized.

Once she sees the space in the backpack start to fill up, she meanders slowly for the door.

"We just have to hope that it's real," she jokes.

"Even if it's not, the trip's worth it," he answers, zipping up and prowling after her, having a sip from his coffee and making a pleased face at it. Honestly, his mood is just improving by the minute.

There's going to be some bad time while they get out of town, but he's had weeks now of not even noticing the urge to slaughter people for more than a few minutes at a time, barely a twinge and that only at peak times if he dares leave his room. He can keep a lid on it, he's sure he can.

"What was your last one?" he asks on the way to her van. "Before, you know. Me."

Ellever doesn't have to think too hard about the answer, even if it's been a very busy and interesting couple of weeks since. Sometimes having to attend a fancy party and wear a nice dress is enough stress to make her crash for days on end and futz with her memory. But when the memory is this notable...

"I went to New York," she answers. A long drive, but enjoyable. "We got a call about a Light that showed up in a neighborhood trying to get into a couple of sheds and garages. Found 'em, though, and brought 'em back here. They were one of the ones you met."

She smiles, wry, as they reach the exterior door, and she opens it for him while she digs the keys out of her pocket.

"It was in a couple's garage and was trying to sell us their belongings. For fun, I guess."

"They weren't all together? The Lights?" Trying to track down all of the separately sounds like a chore.

He stops a moment in the sun, shutting his eyes and breathing in. Outside. Freedom. Sort of, anyway. It's nice. (And it smells. But that's okay, it's a smell he's used to.)

Then he has to wonder, given the situation they found that one in: "What would a talking ball of light want with money, anyway?"

"They're all over the place," Ellever explains, as she performs a last-minute mental double-check to see if she has everything she needs. "But generally they're in the wild, and people don't see them much anymore. We only go get them if they turn up and show a lot of interest in people. ...kind of like bears, I guess."

Minor things can be bought in convenience stores along the route. Equipment is harder. But she thinks she's got it all in order. This is a recon sort of situation, so she doesn't have to worry about containment or anything drastic. Just tracking. Tracking is the fun part.

Assuming there's anything to track.

"It didn't want money in return," she goes on, unlocking the black Sprinter van and opening up the driver's side. "It wanted our cherished memories. Got a little upset when I didn't want to trade the story of my first dog for a rusty piggy bank. Hard, considering I've never had a dog to begin with. But it calmed down when we brought it here."

"What are the Lights like when they're upset?" he has to ask warily as he reluctantly swings up into the car's passenger seat. He's kind of glad he didn't have to deal with that. He's hardly got any memories to trade anyway, and he doesn't want to lose any of them.

Hopefully if they run into this cryptid, it won't want memories, too, Jesus.

She squints. "Loud."

Ellever's grateful that caring for the Lights is so easy. They don't ask for much, and they like having the company of other Lights. Over time, they've drifted apart, and asking a Light to find anything is an exercise in frustration. Living at Zier Security's seemingly done a lot for them. But every so often...

"And bright. They get super bright and screamy and usually fly away, depending on how upset they are," she says, settling into the driver's seat and closing the door. "This one wasn't bad. Just bright. Like a stage light."

But despite the conversation topic, her face is bright. They're really doing this! She's finally getting a break from the mundane side of the job.

"This trip's going to be nicer because we can be off doing our own thing," Ellever adds, cheerfully humming as she starts the van. "I don't like trips as much where I have to talk to people a lot."

He's glad the Lights seem happy enough, then. At least they'll make it known if they're not, apparently. He doesn't visit them as much as he does the bunyip or the wendigo, let alone Fuzz or Elle herself, but he does kind of crave company even though humans aren't safe, and they're definitely company.

"What, I don't count as people?" He's joking, and that's clear. He kind of doesn't count as people, anyway.

The Sprinter has a deep, relatively quiet engine that Ellever likes the sound of. She isn't sure if she likes the sound for the sake of the sound, or because it means that she's going off on a trip, but either way, her amber eyes glint as she buckles her seatbelt and puts the van in motion toward the freeway.

She laughs quietly at his joke.

"Talking to one person's easy," she says, shrugging. It feels too forward, somehow, to say that she likes the sound of his voice. And that she feels comfortable around him. They're still technically getting to know each other.

And Ellever has been told, in the past, that she should be less forward. Less rambly. More focused.

"I'm not people, anyway."

"Well, if you're not people, I guess neither am I," he points out, and leans his head back against the headrest.

Breathe, he reminds himself. Don't focus on the feel of people in the cars all around him as they pull out into traffic. Proves the point, he supposes, reminded more tangibly than he has been in weeks, now, of just how not like a person he has to be now. "So maybe you're right. As long as I'm not too bad of company for you."

"I don't usually have any," Ellever notes, "so it's nice to have some."

Doctor West has come along on a few trips, but that was a while ago. They'd discovered that, unless it was a pivotal moment, maybe it was better for the two of them to do their research separately. Nolan is impulsive, chaotic; Ellever is precise and strategic. Their methods do well for them when not working together.

She relaxes a little when she pulls onto the freeway. For the near future, this is where they'll stay. Once they get out of Los Angeles, the traffic will even out.

"How're you feeling?" she adds, looking over at him.

"Not gonna explode out of the car and kill anyone," he answers, aiming for try but instead it just sounds a little tense. "But I can feel everyone in their goddamn cars, around us. All those lives."

He's had peace, for a while. Not necessarily comfortable peace, he's finding he really doesn't like being alone all that much, but peace enough that he has some reserves to draw on. It's less like a raw, painful nerve and more like an irritating little scratch. "I'm okay," he says, and keeps his eyes open to watch the more distant scenery. Buildings and scrubby hills.

Her smile is just faintly more frazzled as he talks about exploding out of the car, but her face returns to normal as she glances back ahead at the road and keeps her eyes there. Eventually, they'll clear bumper-to-bumper and she won't have to stay quite as vigilant. For now, it's LA traffic.

The worst.

"Good," she says quietly. Ellever's had a few thoughts as to what she might do if he loses control of himself. They aren't great thoughts; she'd prefer they stay in her head. "We'll get to open road soon, here."

She sighs. "I'm looking forward to seeing the countryside. And greenery. The brown just doesn't do it for me."

Just being honest, Ellever. He doesn't notice, anyway, eyes firmly on the scenery as if that might help him ignore all the dying people around him. It's been weeks since he's had to, and while that makes it all seem so much louder and more insistent, he's also not stretched so thin anymore that a little noise is going to send him over the edge. He's pretty sure.

Conversation. That'll help. "Yeah, green is better. I keep being surprised by all the brown here, like this. Isn't where I used to be," he says.

This is already a hundred times more conversation than she's used to, in a car, but she doesn't mind it at all. It's nice to have someone to commiserate with — someone else who isn't like all of the people in the cars they're passing. And yet, someone who isn't like one of her cousins, who require every ounce of her concentration and come with tense conversations attached.

"What was it like, where you were?" she wonders.

There wasn't much data that she could parse, before, and that had been by design.

"It was." He pauses, grasping futilely for something more then ephemeral sense of his past and failing, like usual. "I don't really remember. I just know it was green. Busy, but not like LA. Different kind of busy. It had seasons."

Ellever chuckles. She wouldn't mind being somewhere else. This is the only place she's ever lived, and part of her life had been behind closed doors. Maybe when she gets to an age she can retire. Most people retire in their sixties or seventies, don't they? That means she only has a few more decades to go.

"More than sunny and hot, and rainy and cold?"

Somewhere the leaves change color would be nice.

"I grew up here. And I'm still here," she muses. "But we'll get to see a lot of green on this trip, at least."

"Would you go somewhere else? Somewhere green?" he asks after a moment, frowning. Feeling thoughtful. "If you could?" He knows she probably doesn't feel like she can live anywhere else, given the residents and given her own nature. And he certainly can't go anywhere else, not unless he wants to hermit himself in a cabin in the mountains or something.

But if she could.

She hums quietly in the back of her throat, thinking of all the places she's been lucky enough to travel to. Always like this: looking for new information on a myth or legend that might turn out to be all too real. Finally, she nods, tapping her fingertips thoughtfully against the steering wheel.

"I mean, if I didn't have to take care of the money-making side of things? Maybe," she says, thoughtful. "Just give me a bunch of books and an internet connection and I'm happy. Maybe the pacific northwest. Or another country."

Maybe if she's isolated, whatever... might happen in the future won't happen. Ellever glances over at him.

"What about you?"

"What, if I wasn't a murder machine unable to stand human company?" he drawls at her, but he does give it a good stab. A wistful stab.

It's not possible, and he knows it, but the thing he wants isn't hard to conjure up: "A city. Not LA, it don't feel right. Somewhere else. Somewhere with taller buildings. Chicago, maybe. Or New York. Get an apartment somewhere high up enough the windows aren't sniper-bait, where I can see lights all night and hear the city breathe."

Ellever laughs quietly. "It's a hypothetical, right? We can daydream. I haven't spent a lot of time in tall buildings, but the view's always nice."

Looking at people makes her feel guilty. She isn't sure she'd like it as much as somewhere with fewer buildings. But this is a pleasant, hypothetical conversation, so she keeps that part to herself. No need to drag in the guilt of being... what she is.

"Do you like people-watching? You know. In this scenario we're dreaming up."

it's going around!

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