It's a double edged knife, but there's always tomorrow [open; multiple threads welcome]
Neal Caffrey is in the barracks' library, near the back, picking his way between piles of books and broken shelves. Not many would be able to tell, but he has a bit of a sulk on. He pokes a board aside with one toe and gives the book under it a very neutral look.
He's got several books in his arms already, two of which have identical painted covers. They depict a dark-haired man and a fair-haired girl standing back to back in the shadow of a dragon. One is in Cyrillic, the other a bizarre script that looks like a combination of spikes and curls. Code and key, more or less.
Coping mechanisms 101: when in doubt, distract yourself.
From there he drifts outside and pauses in the sunshine. After the cold of the arch, the blue skies and warmth are welcome, but...
Neal heads for the general store, already examined and deemed useless. He doesn't feel like being in the open. There's a very practiced unobtrusiveness about the way he moves--nothing distinct. Not too slow, not too fast, not too many strides or too few. If it weren't for the fact that he's dressed for a black tie party sans jacket and plus a layer of dirt, he'd be totally bland. Too bad about that.
- - - - -
From the blacksmith shop, or what was the shop, a clangor of noise and shifting debris goes up. Karrin Murphy is inside, uncovering what's left of the equipment. She's surprised at how much is left intact given the state of things elsewhere. Probably too much to hope that she'll find molds for .40 caliber bullets, but hey. A girl can dream.
Dust clouds up the air as she moves around, finding tools and pieces of tools and piling them near the door. Her own clothes are ruined as well, at this point; she shed her blazer back in the cabin she's sharing with Harry.
She pries apart a pile of mixed crap--boards, fallen from the roof; metal bars that look like they've been hammered and heated at random; a few random bricks; the lid of a trunk with no base--to get to the forge itself. Like most colonial-era contraptions of its kind, it's open-air, the soot from its last use still swept into the backmost corners. There's a an abandoned nest there as well. Mice maybe, if this place has any normal-sized mice.
"It's a start, anyway," she murmurs.
He's got several books in his arms already, two of which have identical painted covers. They depict a dark-haired man and a fair-haired girl standing back to back in the shadow of a dragon. One is in Cyrillic, the other a bizarre script that looks like a combination of spikes and curls. Code and key, more or less.
Coping mechanisms 101: when in doubt, distract yourself.
From there he drifts outside and pauses in the sunshine. After the cold of the arch, the blue skies and warmth are welcome, but...
Neal heads for the general store, already examined and deemed useless. He doesn't feel like being in the open. There's a very practiced unobtrusiveness about the way he moves--nothing distinct. Not too slow, not too fast, not too many strides or too few. If it weren't for the fact that he's dressed for a black tie party sans jacket and plus a layer of dirt, he'd be totally bland. Too bad about that.
- - - - -
From the blacksmith shop, or what was the shop, a clangor of noise and shifting debris goes up. Karrin Murphy is inside, uncovering what's left of the equipment. She's surprised at how much is left intact given the state of things elsewhere. Probably too much to hope that she'll find molds for .40 caliber bullets, but hey. A girl can dream.
Dust clouds up the air as she moves around, finding tools and pieces of tools and piling them near the door. Her own clothes are ruined as well, at this point; she shed her blazer back in the cabin she's sharing with Harry.
She pries apart a pile of mixed crap--boards, fallen from the roof; metal bars that look like they've been hammered and heated at random; a few random bricks; the lid of a trunk with no base--to get to the forge itself. Like most colonial-era contraptions of its kind, it's open-air, the soot from its last use still swept into the backmost corners. There's a an abandoned nest there as well. Mice maybe, if this place has any normal-sized mice.
"It's a start, anyway," she murmurs.