What do you do when you find something horrible? Bury it.

[morethentheend]

Today had seemed like just another day - one of those days that's pretty much like all the others. Violet woke up, stared out her window for a while and wondered why, exactly, the birds were so very loud and also exceedinly cheerful. She got out of bed. She brushed her hair (still damp from her shower the night before), and changed out of her

Comments

did somebody call for a hero?

[todoright]

Angel has a tan.

It's very slight and very subtle, but it's a tan all the same, and after two hundred years of ridiculous pastiness, it's a change. And now that he can finally look into a mirror and see something reflected back, these little things are details that he notices, because he'd almost forgotten what he looked like.

And the sun, in his opinion, was a great thing. From time to time. His eyes preferred the shadows, but his skin liked the warmth (that he could actually feel) and this was the reason why he was currently jogging across the beach. It's a strange thing, to have human limitations - to have his heart beating in his chest so fast that it's painful. To have to breathe deep breaths in order to chase the stitch in his side away. It's strange and new, but at the same time it's important for him to keep his strength up - even if it's no longer supernatural

Re: did somebody call for a hero?

[morethentheend]

"Thanks, I guess I didn't... think." That isn't precisely true, to be honest. Violet had been thinking. Was thinking. Is thinking, but except for the last minute or so it's mostly been focusing on the face that she had a deadly fungus in a diver's helmet sitting three feet away on the sand and remembering what it'd been like when Sunny had been infected and was choking to death. One spore.

She took a swallow of water, then another when she realised just how thirsty she was. After handing the bottle back, she shook her head. "Should be at least..." How deep does it have to be until no one finds it?

"Four feet deeper. At least." She looked up at him, even though she was about level with his kneecaps at the moment. "I'm Violet," she said absently, looking at the hole she'd been digging, grimacing as she flexed her hands.

[todoright]

"That's at least seven feet. Pretty deep for a-" his glance was drawn back to the helmet, sitting there, looking (apparently) innocuous and yet inspiring such a panic in this girl. It wasn't hard to put two and two together. "But it's not about the helmet, is it. It's about what's inside." Taking the bottle back and screwing the cap back on, Angel set it down on the ground and and leaned down, extending his hand.

"How about we make a deal? I'll dig, and you can tell me about that helmet, and why you need to bury it so bad."

[morethentheend]

Violet bit her lip, and looked at him and then back at the helmet. "You have to promise me. Promise me that you won't open it." She wasn't moving yet, hadn't moved, just staring up at him in a way that would be (to a majority of the population, anyway) a little bit unnerving.

Then again, Violet Baudelaire had been through enough that most would call very, very unnerving, so it took a lot to rattle her.

It, obviously, was the helmet. She kept looking at it, and at him, her head tipped all the way back. "Okay? I- I'll keep ahold of it, but no matter what happens, you can't open it."

[lonewolflives]

There was a helmet, and a hole. Arya wasn't quite sure how they fit together, so she lurked at a short distance for a while trying to figure it out, then wandered up.

"Are you looking for the rest of the armour?"

It seemed like a sound guess.

[morethentheend]

"Needs to be buried," Violet said, biting her lip as she dug deeper. It'd have to be at least twice as deep. "It's- there's something inside of it that's poisonous. Could poison the whole island."

Another shovelful of dirt sprayed onto the pile. "It's from home. So I'm burying it."

[lonewolflives]

Arya stared at her, and then crouched down to peer at the glass section of the helmet, to try to make out just what was in there that was so dangerous.

"The whole island? Just from what's in there?" she said.

[morethentheend]

"It's a fungus - it... you breathe in the spores, and they grow in your lungs. If you don't cure it, you die, and then you spread the spores. And all it takes is just one spore, and then..."

She swallowed. "My sister got poisoned. Back home. We cured her, but- she almost died. It's- less than an hour, and you're dead."

[iwillresume]

Robbie was walking along the beach, hand in hand with the boys, when he noticed the girl digging a hole in the sand rather energetically. Will, of course, was eager to see what all the fuss was about and tried to run ahead, but Robbie kept a firm grip on his hand and kept him close. The last thing he needed was for one of his boys to fall into a hole.

"Everything all right down there?"

[morethentheend]

"Uhm, it's fine." Violet flashed a smile at the man who stood on the beach. Her eyes flicked to the helmet. "Don't- don't let them near that. Please?"

"It's dangerous." She'd paused in digging long enough to watch him, her brow creased with worry. "I'm Violet," she said, almost distracted.

[iwillresume]

Of course, when she said 'dangerous', Will thought it was an invitation, and Robbie had to scoop him up onto his hip to keep him from going further. Heath clung to his leg. "I'm Robbie," he said. "And Will, and Heath." He nodded to each boy in turn.

She looked as though she'd been digging for some time, and Robbie wondered why a girl so young would be doing such a task. "Do you need some help?"

[morethentheend]

"No," Violet said quickly. "No, I-" She swallowed hard, and flashed another all-too-cheery smile. "Just something I have to do." Robbie seemed like a perfectly nice man, and she could remember all too well what it'd been like when Sunny had gotten infected. She'd only been- God, she'd been just a baby, it seemed like- a toddler, but she'd almost died.

"It's dangerous for them to be here. If something happened..."

[percy_jackson]

I was walking along the beach, Mrs. O'Leary bounding beside me, when I saw movement, and caught the frantic edge behind it. Curious, I raised my hand for Mrs. O'Leary to wait and, miraculously, she actually obeyed me. For now. Taking this opportunity, I stepped closer for a better look.

I recognized Violet. She was the girl with the peppermint allergy, and I'd last seen her trapped among the candycanes. There was something of a tragic edge around her, and now looked no different.

I drew myself up. The girl needed help, and me, a demigod hero (albeit in the form of a teenage boy), wasn't going to shirk his duty. I strode towards her.

"Violet? Are you okay? You need help?"

[morethentheend]

"I- uhm. It's fine." She paused in digging, chewing on the inside of her lip. "I mean- I've got it." She flashed a smile at the boy, a sort of distracted 'I know I should say something' sort of smile before her eyes flicked to the helmet and she determinedly moved another shovelful off dirt.

[percy_jackson]

Violet kept digging, and I kept watching. There were a bunch of questions in my mind, but Violet didn't seem interested in answering them. I wasn't sure if the answers were troubling to her, or just plain troubling. I opened my mouth to say something -- either to ask more questions, or to offer to help dig, when Mrs. O'Leary trotted over, nosed into the hole, and started digging. Dirt went flying behind her in a stream that arched up into the sky and down into the ocean. I ducked out of the way and pulled Violet back to safety.

But within two minutes, the hole was six feet deep. She looked up at us for approval.

[morethentheend]

"Deeper," Violet said, her brows knotted into a thin line. "Not much - I have to be able to get out, but... it should be deeper." She didn't appreciate being pulled around - and god, if that pig knocked over the helmet...

But apparently she had no room to protest.