Still like a child lost in the wood

[alonelikeme]

Who| Cosette and YOU
What| Cosette just arrived and is just kind of... wandering and exploring.
Where| Pretty much anywhere.
When| Just after arriving!
Warnings/Notes| None, but will be updated as things come up.

Cosette wasn't sure how to take any of this, to be perfectly honest. She'd blame it on being all a very detailed dream, but even she didn't believe her imagination to come up with such strange things. She felt lost and alone, two things she hadn't imagined capable after so long a time with her father and in his care. She had not been entirely pleased with him, mind you, after his insistence that they leave for their safety... But that hardly mattered now. She did leave. Without him, it would seem... and not for somewhere safer, but somewhere far more dangerous. She was expected to fight. To die.

She made her way from the 8th floor in a kind of a haze, not entirely sure of where she was going or what she was doing. All she knew was that she didn't particularly feel like being cooped up in yet another room. She'd had plenty of that in her life as it was. Still, idly she thought of Marius and what he may be doing currently, unaware that she had not left for London, but for another place entirely. Of her father, who must be stricken with grief and worry. She thought of the square card they'd given her and explained it as a "credit card", of the map of the city, of the communication device that she had no idea how to use... But perhaps she should give it a try.

Once she found her bearings... Once she broke from her trance and accepted this for what it was, or at least until she found a way to anchor herself to the reality of this place. It wouldn't do to withdraw and submit to what they wanted of her... The strong would survive and the weak perish.

Comments

[alonelikeme]

Cosette passed off her uneasy feeling as the surroundings, not that she had someone following her. Perhaps that was too naive of her. Unfortunately for Howard, she was currently holding the few things she was provided with in her hands.

Overwhelmed, however, by the large crowd, Cosette stops where she is to look around and gather her bearings. She doesn't even know where she had been planning on heading, but now she has to figure it out. Turning to head in a different way just as her shadow decided to get closer, she nearly bumped into him. Wide eyed, she smiled softly and murmured a quick apology.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard pauses in that split second of bumping into her with his hand splayed on the things on her arms, on her belongings. Caught. The light glints off the cuff around his wrist that marks him as a troublemaker.

Immediately, rather than waiting to see if Cosette noticed that he's trying to feel her up for carriables, he goes on the defensive.

"Hey, watch where you're going!" Her smile speaks to goodheartedness, and that smells like weakness to him, so his tone is as vicious as hers is gentle.

[alonelikeme]

Cosette's gaze flicked to the cuff on his wrist briefly, but didn't linger. She glanced back at him, brow furrowing as her smile faded. There was no reason for him to be as upset at he was when she had hardly bumped into him.

"I'll be more careful next time," she replied softly. "Neither of us were harmed, though, so there's no reason to take such a tone with me."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard is, in essence, something like a chihuahua. The fact that he's small, barely tipping the scales at eighty-five pounds now, seems to make it all a more pressing compulsion to hold his ground.

"Are you telling me how to talk to you?"

[alonelikeme]

"I was suggesting that a more courteous approach may be more favorable," Cosette began carefully, taking a step back from him. "It is, of course, your choice in the end how you speak and I would not take that liberty from you, even by suggestion."

But she does not like being spoken to in such a way and does not plan on cowering from the tone.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Damn right you wouldn't. I don't really like having my liberty taken away." Theoretically. He tends to get it yanked away pretty often, especially by the people here who make him dance-monkey-dance for their murder games.

"What's that you got?"

[alonelikeme]

"I can't imagine anyone would. But we've already had some of the most basic ones taken, now haven't we?"

Cosette glanced down at the things in her hands, then back at him. "The same as what everyone was given when they arrived, I've been told."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Don't remind me." He paces around her like a wolf sizing up significantly larger prey. There's something in his eyes that's seeking weakness, looking for seams.

"You didn't hit the training room first thing?"