Solo Tremble, tremble, tremble

[Ashka]

46 Winter 517

Ashka looked out over the sea. It was still red, which meant there would be no fishing today, and no foraging in the tide pools. She sighed, and went to fetch a pineapple from the stored bag of fruit instead. She missed fishing, and the break it gave her from weaving and other work. She pulled out a plate to use as a cutting board, and drew her knife. She laid the pineapple on its side, gripped it cautiously, and hacked off the leaves and a thick slice of the top of the pineapple with her knife. She set the leafy top slice aside to plant and reproduce, as James had suggested a couple of days before. Then she swivelled the fruit round to point the other way and cut a slice off the bottom of it as well. That gave her a flat surface to stand it on, so she stood it up on end and began to slice the skin off as well.

Her first cut was too thin, and left pieces of skin still attached to the pineapple, and she had to cut again to get them clear. After that she was careful to make thicker cuts and try to follow the curve of the pineapple as she sliced and turned and sliced and turned. Finally, she had all the skin off it. She cut it into quarters, and hacked out the core. Taking one quarter for herself and tossing another to Chaya, she set the rest aside for later, and gnawed on her piece of pineapple as she stared out over the red waves.

Behind her, the never-quiet jungle suddenly went silent, and a cloud of birds took abruptly to the air. Ashka scrambled up, as started fear crawled across her skin and all the little hairs stood on end. She just had time to turn and face the trees, searching for the approaching danger, when the earthquake hit.

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

The ground seemed to drop out from under her and then jolt back. She cried out, her voice joining Chaya's, lost her balance and sprawled on the sand. The birds circled, adding their voices to the chorus. Below her, from the depths of the earth, came a deep groan. The sea retreated from the land as if even it was fleeing like the birds. The sand clutched at her legs and arms, trying to suck her down. It did suck the firepit out of existence. Her tent collapsed. A tree crashed somewhere in the closer part of the jungle. Everything seemed to go on forever.

Then it stopped, as abruptly as it started.

A sound part gasp and part sob clawed its way out of Ashka's throat. She dragged herself up to crouch on the no-longer clutching sand. The plate she'd used was on edge, half drowned in sand. The pineapple was gone completely. She stared at it for a moment with her mind running so slow, like trying to run in waist deep water, then picked the plate up and set it down flat. That seemed somehow important. Then Chaya barreled into her, and clung, trembling for another endless moment.

Ashka held her sister tight, trembling almost as much as Chaya was, and trying desperately to calm down for both of them. The sea wasn't going to stay gone forever, and they needed to move, needed to act, needed something - anything - to focus on other than the earthquake. "It's ok. We're ok. It's ok," she repeated, as much to herself as Chaya. "Come on," she coaxed, "I bet Juli needs some help after that. Let's go and see what we can do, hmm?" The Mercantile was close, at least, and raised high off the ground, and familiar. Once they started moving, maybe it wouldn't be so hard to keep moving.

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

Chaya continued to cling as Ashka edged them towards the Mercantile. Ashka didn't entirely blame her. If it had been left to her, she would be clinging to someone too. As it was, her arm was tighter around Chaya's shoulders than it would usually be and only some of that was to reassure Chaya. The Mercantile steps looked sound enough and Ashka pulled free and ran up them with Chaya at her heels. "Hello? Juli? It's Ashka and Chaya..." There was no immediate answer and Ashka wondered for a moment if Juli had gone swimming as she sometimes did. Then she remembered the red tide. No one would have gone swimming in that.

The Mercantile was a mess. It looked as if everything that had been on shelves or hooks had come tumbling down in the earthquake and now made a tangled chaos on the floor. One pile, mostly pans and other metal items, had an arm sticking out from under it.

"Shyke!" Ashka skidded to a halt, looking at the arm, her mind still slowed by the shock of the earthquake. Then she knelt and began to clear the pile away. She stacked the fallen pans in a neat pile beside her and, with Chaya's help, soon had them cleared from Juli, who was beginning to stir.

"What happened?" Juli asked.

"There was an earthquake and some stuff fell on you," Ashka explained. "I cleared the worst of it - can you move yet? Are you hurt?"

Juli moved cautiously, wincing as she did so. "I don't think - ow - I'm going to forget this in a - ow - hurry."

Ashka moved more goods out of the way to make space for Juli to sit. "Where does it hurt?" she asked. She wasn't up to anything more. She hardly knew how to look after her own hurts, let alone someone else's. She looked out across the terrace of the Mercantile for inspiration and saw a limping Duncan heading slowly towards the Panacea, supported by Stu.

Behind her, Juli was saying, "My head hurts. And my shoulder. And I think I'm going to have some very interesting bruises..."

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

"All right," Ashka said, taking a slow breath to steady herself as she turned. "It looks like anyone with an injury is being taken to the Panacea. I saw a couple of people heading that way."

Juli started to nod, and then stopped with grimace of pain and closed her eyes. "Makes sense. I hope their stores are in a better state than mine."

Ashka bit her lip and pretended she was a real Lia of a real pod, rather than a makeshift, land-bound, whatever-she-and-Chaya-had, thing. "Up you get then. We'll go and see. All of us." She shuffled round so that she could get an arm under Juli's good shoulder, and all but half lifted her to her feet. "It isn't that far." It wasn't, by Syka standards, though it probably was by the standards of other places.

Far enough, at least, that she was supporting Juli a lot more when they got there than she had been at the start. She was, for once, glad to see the Akalak and let him take over, despite the memories he roused of Riverfall. When he mentioned having to stay put and not go checking on people, Ashka saw a chance to escape and jumped on it. "I - We - can go check." She nodded to herself and Chaya. "Might not be much good at healing myself, but I can take messages and clear damage."

"You don't have anything to deal with on your own land?" he asked.

Ashka shrugged. "We were on my acres when the earthquake hit. The tent fell down, but that's easy fixed. And we've no shelves yet for things to fall off, so no, not as much as some."

"Well then, I thank you. And yes, if you could direct people here that would indeed help."

Ashka nodded, and managed something of a smile, then took to the beach again and ran over the sand with Chaya loping beside her.

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

It felt good to run, pounding all the nervous energy left by the earthquake out through her feet into the sand. She came to someone's camp first, only a tent and a collapsed firepit in the sand. She paused to catch her breath, called the message, and listened for any reply before she set off again.

The Tidepool was next, and she saw that Stu had beaten her to it. He must have come on from helping Duncan to the Panacea. She called the message anyway, and he paused his sweeping up to wave an acknowledgement. "I'll have work for you later," he called down. "A couple of the hammocks tore - they need mending or replacing. Can you?"

"Can do," Ashka called back and set off again along a longer empty stretch. There wasn't much along there yet but sand, sea, and trees, although one of the palm trees had smashed down across the beach. She studied it for a moment then found space between the broken branches to slide through. She went on around the arc of the bay, and slowed as she reached the camp just before Treasure Point. After catching her breath and stretching out legs that were beginning to ache, she walked the last small stretch, called a greeting and her message, and looked around to assess the damage.

Then she was off again, back along the same stretch, over the tree, and on to the Panacea. She stopped long enough to pass on what she had seen on the southern end, then left again, heading north this time, passing the message and mentally listing the damage to tell the Founders when she caught up with one or more of them.

There was a tree leaning perilously over the Commons, but not fallen yet. The Mercantile was a mess. She passed several people sorting out their own areas and gave them her message. One of the thatched roofs on the Bungalows had torn, but that could easily be mended, perhaps with the fronds from the fallen tree?

Randal, when she finally met him, was doing his own rounds, and was glad to hear her report. She admitted to a little ability with building, and that was how she found herself, a couple of days later, up a ladder, mending someone else's roof.

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Gossamer]

The Fates Have Spoken
Here is your thread grade!

Character: Ashka
Experience Awarded: Observation +5, Cooking +1, Planning +2, Medicine +1, Body Building +1
Lores Awarded: Earthquake: Experienceing One First Hand, Crisis Management: Checking On Others After An Earthquake

Notes: I wish we had a skill Crisis Management... but there's not much of anything I can give you other than that. Great job helping out the community in the event of a crisis. I hope all of Syka's citizens are this thoughtful! I gave you one medicine for getting Juli out from under the stuff, and to Jansen.

As always PM me if you have issues.