[Thread] Who knows where the sidewalk ends

[never_stay_home]

Characters: Rose Tyler (OU), OPEN
Where: The Park
When: A little before sunset
Summary: Skipping stones is a decent way to occupy one's hands when one has thinking to do. Unfortunately, Rose isn't really very good at it.
Warnings: Probably not!

Comments

[steelninja]

Kurogane was dressed in his usual black, hood pulled up over his head as a clear sign of 'leave me alone'. If that wasn't enough he was reading a thick medical book as he stalked along through the park. Odd reading material but he was in the middle of learning all he could about what Fay possible had. This book seemed to enjoy words that took five minutes to read each. Idiot doctors. They should never be allowed to write books.

The tall man was horribly distracted with his reading as he walked along. A horribly distracted ninja didn't mean that he would run into things, his senses were too sharp for that. Flying things may get to him though. Usually being horribly distracted just meant he would mumble whatever popped into his head without noticing. So as he walked by the woman on the bridge, glancing up at her briefly, Kurogane muttered, "Need smoother stones." And then kept walking on behind her.

[never_stay_home]

Rose had noticed the man's approach, at least insofar as to recognize that there was someone coming from that direction and so she should be certain not to send any of her little stone projectiles astray. And so she wasn't too terribly surprised when he spoke up. She swivelled her head to look at him for a moment, then peered back down at her pile of stones. Definitely a little on the rough side, though they'd been the smoothest at hand when she'd taken a notion to search for some to toss at the water. She grinned just a little, hitching a small shrug, one hand reaching for the rail beneath her to balance herself better. "Maybe, yeah," she admitted. "These were close by."

[steelninja]

Why was someone talking? Kurogane blinked up from his book and halted to look back at her looking slightly confused. Oh. Right. Stones. Inwardly he sighed, he had done that talking thing again, how annoying. Now that he seemed to accidentally started a conversation, Kurogane decided to just hope it was a short one. His eyes could use a short break anyways. He lowered his book and turned to face the railing. "Sure there's better ones down at the edge of the water," he muttered. This was absurd. Kurogane hadn't talked about skipping stones since he was a kid.

[never_stay_home]

"Yeah. I like it up here, though. It's comfortable." Which was an odd thing to say about an old bridge, as opposed to the no doubt softer seating offered by the grass near the water's edge, but the reply was genuine enough. Rose cocked her head and studied him thoughtfully. They were talking about stones. Why were they talking about stones? She almost laughed, lips quirking oddly as she swallowed the reaction. "My name's Rose," she offered after a moment's pause. "What's yours?"

[steelninja]

He grunted in a way that could pass for interested, looking out over the water. Didn't really matter where someone liked sitting. Kurogane himself had taken to sitting in trees here. That was another thing he hadn't done since he was a kid, but up a tree was one of the few places he could find where people didn't bother him. Usually. Gods help him when certain annoyances discovered he was climbing trees. He gave a small nod of recognition for the name and gave his, "Kurogane."

[never_stay_home]

He wasn't very talkative, Rose thought, for all that he'd been the one to strike up a conversation in the first place. Even taking into account that her standards for what counted as talkative were set higher than most, he wasn't. "Is it any good?" she asked. It was worth a try, in the interest of being social. "Your book, I mean. Is it interesting?" She stole a glance at the spine, blinking in faint surprise when she noted the topic. Not exactly light afternoon reading, then.

[steelninja]

Kurogane looked down at the book, frowning at it. He shut it completely now and turned it over so he could frown at the cover too, "'Good' isn't the word I'd use... 'Helpful' hopefully." Hard to say at this point. Looking annoyed, Kurogane released some of his frustration by muttering to himself, "Not that this doctor is making it easy to read..." He'd still get through it, he wanted to know all he could in order to help.

[never_stay_home]

A quicksilver flicker of amusement lit Rose's eyes, and she flashed him a slightly crooked grin. "I think they're allergic," she said. "Simple explanations makes them break out in hives. Are you studying, then? To become a doctor? ...Do they even have a school for that here?" She knew there was a school, or at least a building that had been used as one once, and that some girl had been trying to set up lessons over the network earlier. But higher education seemed oddly out of place in such a place as they were in.

[steelninja]

Kurogane wouldn't doubt it, arrogant idiots. They can waste twenty words when all they really needed to say was 'high fever'. He would gladly crush this doctor's hands so they couldn't write this excessive medical nonsense, but the book was a bit helpful. If you got rid of the useless jargon. The idea of him being a doctor was slightly amusing and Kurogane scoffed, "No. I'm no healer." His job actually put him on the opposite end of that chain.

[never_stay_home]

It wasn't much to put two and two together and reach an answer that vaguely approximated four. No one would be reading a medical text for fun, or rather, she amended almost immediately, very few people would, and the exceptions wouldn't likely complain over obtuse jargon. If he wasn't a student, that probably meant he or someone he knew was ill. "I'm sorry," she said, sympathetic if not outright sad.

[steelninja]

Kurogane looked a bit surprised at that. He looked Rose over again thoughtfully before tucking the book under his arm, burying his hands in his pockets. "There seems to be a treatment in this world..." Kurogane let a bit of worry come into his eyes, not as much as he felt or would show people he was close to but it was still there. This wasn't the first time he'd seen this disease. But here, if the treatment was written down in the books here then surely they could just request it from the computer.

[never_stay_home]

"There's a sort of medical clinic here, isn't there?" Rose asked. She was relatively sure she'd spied one earlier, when she'd been exploring the compound. She hadn't done much more than stick her head in the door; not being ill or injured herself, she'd had precious little use for the place. "One of the doctors there could maybe help, if it's something they know how to treat." She looked a little vague as she wondered how the systems there even handled medication and other such things. If they needed a doctor to order it, or dispensed it for the asking, or not at all.

[steelninja]

"Yeah, there is." Kurogane ran a hand over his hair, knocking the hood off. "Just a question of if we can get a hold of what we need." It was then that Kurogane realized he was talking to a stranger who didn't really need to know about any of this. Guess he was more tired then he thought. He looked off over the water and slipped his hand back into his pocket, "I'm sure it'll work out."

[never_stay_home]

Rose regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, and not without curiosity, though that was tempered somewhat by her own lack of knowledge regarding anything more medically complex than wrapping a mild wound or cooling a low fever. "Of course it will," she said, and frowned slightly as though finding the words inadequate.

[steelninja]

Kurogane fell silent for a short moment. It'll work out. Not like he would let another person die. He glanced sideways at the other, "Why are you skipping stones anyhow?" Changing the subject, yes. But it was still odd to see someone grown sitting alone, chucking rocks at water.

[never_stay_home]

"Well, just pitching them in seemed a little petty," Rose replied, an answer likely no less peculiar than the skipping of the stones had been in the first place. "So I thought I'd see if I could get the hang of it. It's something to do for a bit, yeah? If you're sitting by the water anyways." She smiled guilelessly and offered a stone. It was an amiable gesture, an invitation to company as well as to joining her somewhat childlike passtime.