the children will take care of themselves
[Aw, my stupid baby's all grown up and getting his first real EP. ST/LT is just fine, I'll be around all week.]
Roger turns a bit of driftwood over with his bare foot, nose twitching under his new skin of annoyance. It moves with him, goes wherever he goes, and encompasses too many things to settle or dissipate. It's not just that he ought go into the jungle to find a decent stick for his spear, it's also his reluctance to leave the beach, to make a spear at all.
He wants to hunt, truly, but it doesn't mean the same thing, here. He can't say what it meant before, but he knows nothing here feels much like the other island. The skin tightens, and he looks around, thinking of March and Marian. It's good that it doesn't, he thinks sullenly, knowing that's what people would think. Other people, at least, even if they don't know what it was like. He scuffs his foot on the sand, drawing a line and redrawing it, sloppily. They don't need to know for him to know what they'd think, Marian sounding like Ralph, talking down to them for setting the jungle alight. Maybe this isn't a good island.
It probably wasn't, he thinks, picking his way over some rocks to explore a tide pool, uselessly. But maybe that's why he ended up there. Maybe that's why he disappeared before they left. He picks up a rock and drops it in the pool, watching vague, silver fish-shapes scatter to the other end.
Roger turns a bit of driftwood over with his bare foot, nose twitching under his new skin of annoyance. It moves with him, goes wherever he goes, and encompasses too many things to settle or dissipate. It's not just that he ought go into the jungle to find a decent stick for his spear, it's also his reluctance to leave the beach, to make a spear at all.
He wants to hunt, truly, but it doesn't mean the same thing, here. He can't say what it meant before, but he knows nothing here feels much like the other island. The skin tightens, and he looks around, thinking of March and Marian. It's good that it doesn't, he thinks sullenly, knowing that's what people would think. Other people, at least, even if they don't know what it was like. He scuffs his foot on the sand, drawing a line and redrawing it, sloppily. They don't need to know for him to know what they'd think, Marian sounding like Ralph, talking down to them for setting the jungle alight. Maybe this isn't a good island.
It probably wasn't, he thinks, picking his way over some rocks to explore a tide pool, uselessly. But maybe that's why he ended up there. Maybe that's why he disappeared before they left. He picks up a rock and drops it in the pool, watching vague, silver fish-shapes scatter to the other end.