I am nothing but an artist, and I'll never understand [OTA, multithreads welcome]

[itchafes]

Neal starts the day sitting behind his cabin, shirt unbuttoned, trilby in place, a piece of slate and several bits of charcoal gathered from around the camp sitting in his lap. He doesn't look like he's slept much, if at all. On the slate, there's a half-completed rendering of Vuillard's The Stitch. He stops often, rubs things out, not showing an

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[fellbychoice]

Anna liked the library. Out of all the locations she had seen since her arrival, she valued the library the most. It was the place where she knew they would find more clues about their location, and it could have been a good central area of activity if someone took the time to clean it up. So when she saw a man inside the library, straightening things up, it brings a smile to her face. Apparently, someone else had the same idea as her.

She didn't want to interrupt him or his hard work, and so she just silently slid into place nearby him, and started doing her part to help hold up the shelves that needed to be nailed into place.

"Thank you, for doing this. It's very proactive of you." She tipped her head up to offer him a smile, but it was short lived, and she was all too soon focused on the task at hand. "I can help you move the shelves to better places, and put up the books - if you don't mind me being here too."

[itchafes]

He flashes a grin of his own, studying her while she focuses on the task. Pretty, businesslike--a Diana type, probably, though hopefully not with all that entailed.

"Not at all. It's not really that proactive." He rests a nail in place as she holds the shelves and starts knocking it into place inexpertly with the rock. "Honestly? I'm kinda bored. And I'm in here enough that cleaning it up helps me as much as anyone."

[fellbychoice]

"Of course it is." She argued as they continued to work, and she debated on whether or not to just use telekinesis to shove everything into place. That probably wouldn't make the best first impression, though, and so she settled for just keeping up with the hard manual labor. "Everyone else is still busy finding friends and making shelter for themselves. No one else is thinking about the big picture, not yet."

That thought made her frown, and she reached over to take the rock from him. She nodded for him to hold a shelf in place, and began knocking the rock into the nails with a force surprising for someone her size and gender, but she didn't glance up at Neal to see what his expression was. She just focused on working.

"I'm Anna," She introduced herself as an afterthought, glancing up in his direction only briefly. "And I think that we should be making plans for long term survival here."

[itchafes]

"...Neal." He holds the shelf obediently, eyebrows raised, while she pummels the nail. Mental note: do not upset this one.

At the idea of long-term survival plans, Neal doesn't-quite-twitch. He'll admit to being one of those who--quietly, privately--hopes this whole thing is just going to sort itself out and he'll wake up and tell Moz about that ridiculous dream he--

Moz.

Neal clears his throat. "Probably. You sound like you're used to this kind of thing."

[fellbychoice]

"I'm used to survival," She corrected him gently, not venturing into the details of all that she's had to do in order to survive. "But not ever anything exactly like this. This is new to me." Being trapped didn't sit well with her, and she frowned as she continued working on assembling shelves.

"Do you think that we're trapped here, Neal?" She paused in her work, and turned to fully look at him, wanting to see the expression on his face as he answered her question. She doesn't want to crush any hopes and dreams he has of escape, but she felt that if they were going to be let free anytime soon, the being that had brought them to the wood would have made their demands known more quickly.

[itchafes]

He's a little startled by the sudden attention, though that doesn't hide his brief, pained look. He buries that with the ease of long practice and shrugs.

"I think if you're going to take hostages, you make demands." And then there's Kitsune. If they were going to be leaving any time soon, Neal's pretty sure she wouldn't have insisted that they'd meet again.

Trapped. No matter where he goes, what he does, it's just another different kind of cage. He can't leave the walls of this place without Peter panicking, he can't leave the cabin without the other man shadowing him, there's nothing here to keep him occupied except reading story after story with endings he can't find. Not even the idea of refugees from a dozen other worlds is enough to keep him centered.

He's going to lose his damn mind waiting for something to happen.

Neal pinches the bridge of his nose. "So yeah, I guess I think we're trapped."

[fellbychoice]

"Exactly." And they were hostages, no matter what way someone wanted to spin it. They were taken from their own homes and trapped in this strange place, with no way back to where they had come from. Anna strongly disliked the situation, and she knew that most of the others felt just the same, so she was aware it was only a matter of time before the group of hostages exploded and started turning on one another

[itchafes]

He rocks back on his heels, almost stepping away, but his sense of wonder is kind of on overload at this point. Instead, he moves forward, brushing his fingers against one of the books in the air, and then taking hold of it to see if he can pull it out of her invisible grip.

He's curious. He can't help it. "How do you do that?"