{open} → but if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?

[arrowsofsilver]

The door hasn't let Allison back at all since she got here, but that hadn't kept her from trying during her first few weeks here, by trying them again and again. She had things to do, people to get back to, a best friend to save. Then, recently, she suddenly stopped trying to make the doors work for her. Not because the doors suddenly worked for her, and not because she suddenly stopped caring about the people she's left behind (she'll never stop caring). She stopped trying to make the doors work for her because she was told that she dies back home, dies saving her friends, and though she doesn't have an issue with what she dies for -- she'd protect anyone she cares about at whatever cost -- she is still grateful to be here now (even if she thinks that's kind of a selfish thought, which she feels some guilt over) in a way that she wasn't during her first few weeks here. Even despite that feeling of gratefulness at being here, maybe if her last living close family member wasn't here, and she somehow still found out about her death, she'd still be trying to get back home to her friends even though it would mean losing her life. But she can't make herself keep trying now, not when staying here means she gets to be around her dad longer while they're both here, not when he was the one that told her about her death - even telling her how it happened when she asked.

So, now she's going to try to be better here. To be stronger, faster, smarter, than she was back home. To be alive.

While the sun is still up, she does a lot of work with her school textbooks (which she has access to now that their house has recently shown up in Itinere too), reading them and doing the work in them, either in her room or sitting on a bench in a park. She'll never get to finish high school back home, so she's going to try to do it here. At the moments when she's not doing that, she's getting in additional practice and training with her skills.

After the sun goes down, she spends some time outside, patrolling around, dressed in mostly black. She takes one of her bows and plenty of arrows with her, a pair of Chinese ring daggers, and a taser; she has a flashlight, too, if she needs it, but it won't be on most of the time. Don't mind the seventeen year old who's carrying around a bunch of things that the average seventeen year old probably has no idea how to properly use. Or do mind. Sneaking up on her is definitely a bad idea, but unless for whatever reason someone's trying to sneak up on her and get tased at best - an arrow at worst, she'll see them first and be able to tell who it is.

Comments

[salus]

Stefan had taken to making regular visits to deal with his dietary needs and a basically nocturnal schedule given that Lexi didn't have the option of wandering as freely as he did. Not that he was always with her.

This was one of the times they separated, Stefan doing a little exploring on his own while Lexi handled her own meal. He caught sight of a movement up ahead though and one eyebrow arched slowly for a moment before he was in front of the teenager.

"I doubt you'll find much prey in the city."

[arrowsofsilver]

"I'm not exactly looking for deer, or bears, or rabbits." Or, anything else that people typically go out hunting for. When she replies, her voice is more quiet; she's not going to be talking at a normal volume because that would be silly.

[salus]

"So what are you hunting, then?" Stefan heard her clearly, his gaze shifting back to her face from the bow. Not something that could kill him, at least, although it was capable of damage.

[arrowsofsilver]

"Things that might be lurking around in the dark here and proving themselves to be a sufficient danger to the people here. Hopefully I find nothing, but it's a strange long city wide blackout so who knows what could be out here." Precautionary measures, basically.

[salus]

Definitely going to be warning Lexi about hunters in the city. "Do you encounter a lot of things that are threats?"

[arrowsofsilver]

"Here?" Here being a different story than home.

"Not so far, but I've only been here almost two months, so it's not as if I've been here a long time to get much of an overall idea of things in a longer run."

[salus]

"I was speaking more in general. You seem a bit more comfortable with that than someone new to this sort of thing would be." Stefan shrugged a shoulder.

[arrowsofsilver]

"Wellll..." She starts. "My secret is that I'm tougher than I look, I promise." She finishes with an amused smile, though she's serious.

[salus]

"Not surprised at all. Most of the girls I run into seem to fall into that category." For better or worse. He glances at the building behind her.

"Been here long?"

[arrowsofsilver]

"That sounds like a good group to be surrounded by." Her smile becomes a flash of more a smirk. She might be a little biased. "In this entire place? A little over a month. The doors don't seem to want to let me home, and even if they did, I told my dad I wouldn't be trying to get back there." Not after that conversation.