Mal's out by the lake. Practically lives out there, now, it's summer and the air is warm. She likes being outdoors somewhere ungutted by fire or war.

So she has her back to a tree, humming under her breath and flipping a strand of grass in her fingers. The cat is hunting moths somewhere nearby, but she's content to watch the flickering stars.

Orion's been spending more time cooped up in the bar, now that it's winter. And he's really, really not happy about it. He's taken to bothering patrons, chasing their shoelaces about and hunting small scraps of paper ( Read more... )

So, it's another day in the bar. And even if Mal's just a little confused that Sands doesn't seem to be anywhere, she doesn't show it.

Just takes her coffee upstairs, curls up on the unmade bed, and stairs into space while the cat purrs at her ankles.

Sands-

Gone home. Back in a day or so. Watch the cat for me?

-Mal

Because LJis being a whore and not letting me upload my photos on my mun journal, I will upload them here and then link them from
( Read more... )

Mal wakes up on her own, as it turns out, three hours later and curled on Parker's bed next to Sands. She wakes slowly and not entirely happily, cursing under her breath and stretching abused muscles.

Glances over at Sands, frowns, and lightly shakes his shoulder.

"Wake up."

It's a little after dusk, and Mal's sitting in her room next to the window, hands wrapped around a cooling cup of coffee. Maybe thinking. Maybe waiting.

Maybe neither.

It's morning.

Mal's in a bed.

Mal's in a bed with someone else.

Mal's in a bed with Sands.

"...morning."

Mal's spent time in her room already, very determinedly not crying, but there's a point when she just can't do it alone anymore. So she wanders down the hall, before stopping at a familiar door.

Hesitates, then knocks.

The door opens to outside. The landscape is hilly, and covered in mud and a few stunted trees, although there's a forest in the distance. Ruined buildings in various states of collapse are all around Shalla and Mal, casting weak shadows. Behind them is the half-wrecked Duchess Inn, and Mal sticks her head in the door ( Read more... )