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There was something to be said for the Sensoriums. Sure, they weren't real, but they were quiet and empty of the ruins of dead (or soon-to-be) civilizations if you wanted them to be. That was more than could be said of the rest of the ship.

Here Rose could leave the worries of Stacy's mission and her own at the door, however temporarily, and after another extended stay with GLaDOS, she needed the break. Honestly, she thought the perpetual maze-running was more of a danger to her sanity/soul/whatever than the stress of interdimensional travel. Being forced to do anything never sat well with her, even in the name of mental health, so it was a relief to do as she pleased.

Which, at the moment, was nothing.

The location she had chosen positively radiated calm, silent except for the patter of raindrops. It was an old forest, the kind that took centuries to grow and was peppered with trees five metres across. One of the behemoths had been cut down, the inside eaten away by the elements to form a hollow accessible through a breach in the bark. It was here that she stretched out, eyes closed, heedless of the rain.

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Howard's not a fan of forests - too many things that could eat you out there - but he does really love the rain. So when he wanders into a Sensoriums and feels a splatter of water on the crown of his head, he can't help but start looking for who started it.

After catching some raindrops on his tongue, of course.

He sees a pair of feet inside a hollowed tree and lean over, trying to make out the shape. "Hey, you asleep in there?"

Rose briefly toyed with the idea of saying 'yes' and seeing what his response would be to such a blatant lie, but a good bit of her residual frustration had already drained away and she was feeling good.

Blinking up at gray skies, she craned her neck to look for the source of the question. "No? Rocks and roots don't usually make good mattresses." Though the abundant leaves and moss meant that lying down wasn't a complete exercise in uncomfortableness.

"You could always be really really tired. Or narcoleptic." Howard slips off his shoes and socks and squelches some mud under his toes. Not enough rain has fallen to make suitable puddles, but he enjoys it anyway. "I haven't seen you around. You new?"

Rose pushed herself up into sitting position. "True. And I've gotta say, slept on worse before."

She shook her head. "Been spending time running mazes. A lot. Probably should've gotten the hang of it by now..." She stopped herself before she got any more worked up about it. She paused to take a breath, pushing thoughts of retribution from her mind. "Hi. I'm Rose."

"Same here. At least rocks and roots are relatively clean, right?"

Howard makes an 'ah' face. "Quest for Cakelot. I am so glad she hasn't stuck me in that thing yet. I'd lose my mind in twenty minutes, I swear."

He pushes his hands into his jacket pockets, silently signaling that he has no desire to shake hands. "I'm Howard."

"And flat, if you're lucky."

Rose smiled wryly. "Funny; that's the exact opposite of what they're going for. But, honestly, things'd probably go over better if she offered nothing instead of cake."

That's alright; as 'safe' as Stacy was, she liked to keep her hands free to draw if needed. "So, Howard, you enjoying your stay here?"

Zouichi entered the Sensoriums only to find himself in a great forest of trees, many significantly wider than he was tall. He wandered around for a little while without calling out to see who else was inside; somehow, it didn't really seem like the kind of place in which it was respectful to make much noise. Eventually, though, he came to the remains of one of the larger trees, which had apparently been cut down long ago. For lumber, perhaps. He ran a gloved hand along its rough surface, feeling the soft, rain-dampened moss growing on the old bark through the texture of the fabric. As he came around the side of the stump, he drew back slightly in surprise; he hadn't expected to find anyone inside.

The woman inside was still breathing; if anything, she seemed like she was relaxing. Or perhaps asleep. Zouichi stood outside, considering. Finally, he spoke up. "Are you all right?" She didn't seem like she was in distress, but it wouldn't hurt to be sure.

"It's the lie that really gets to people. You get all worked up about cake and then she rips it away and it's like you slept through Christmas." With Howard's neuroses about food, he finds the fact that it's cake clear evidence that Stacy's a sadist.

"Eh. As much as you can enjoy a place where most of your time is spent having fun at work and the rest of your time is spent nearly getting eaten by dinosaurs or ghosts or whatever." He grins and squishes more mud, placing the shoes on a rock. "How about you? Aside from the whole crazy cake AI thing, which is like, the opposite of fun."

From time to time a man could use a bit of peace and quiet - especially given how things often tend to go on the ship. The Sensoriums were a good place for it, and having gotten a bit of free time, Jamie had opted to go down and see if he couldn't find some of it for himself.

The forest wasn't what he had been expecting, but the rain was comforting, familiar in a way. And the forest was as well, despite its vast age. Content enough to wander through it, he very nearly went right past the hollowed out tree without realising it was occupied. Only a chance glimpse down at just the right moment caused him to stop and retrace his steps to take a second look. The woman inside was hard to make out, but seemed familiar. In fact, it almost looked like...

"Rose?"

Edited 2011-11-10 13:37 (UTC)

"I know. I mean, they already told us it's for the sake of our health; there's no reason to play us like lab rats." And now Rose was craving baked goods again, dammit. Any on-ship bakery would probably make a fortune from the recently GLaDOSed. "Though I wouldn't mind being able to sleep through Christmas. Weird, I know, but tends to be a workday for me." And an often explode-y one, at that.

"I'll admit that it has its moments." Her initial enthusiasm for being on a transdimensional ship had waned when she'd learned how little time they spent actually doing things. "But I could do without the revolving door of mates." One part of his list caught her attention, though.

"Ghosts, really?" She was more curious than disturbed by the idea of carnivorous Caspers. "I thought they were all-" She wiggled her fingers in a laughably poor attempt to convey intangibility. "Body-less. No teeth to munch on you with."

Rose waved lazily, as if it were perfectly normal to be lying in the midst of a dead tree. Well, she would be the first to admit that her definition of normal was pretty screwed up. "Yep. Thank you for the concern, though."

She turned her head, opening one eye then the other to better observe him. She didn't recognize him, which wasn't much of a surprise considering the vastness of the ship. "My name's Rose." She smiled and waved again. "Hello."

Now there was a voice Rose hadn't heard in a while. Granted, it felt like ages since she'd heard anyone but herself and that maddening AI, but that didn't stop her from greeting him with a wide smile.

"Last time I checked, yeah." She held up a hand as if to double-check. "Yep, still me. Hello, Jamie. Fancy meeting you in a place like this."

Well, that answered his question well enough. "Zouichi," he said by way of introduction. "Pleased to meet you. If you don't mind me asking, what are you doing in this tree stump? I imagine there are more comfortable places to doze."

"Nice to meet you, too, Zouichi." Rose took care with the name, trying to get it just right; she'd always been rubbish with languages.

She shrugged and ended up with a rock digging into her shoulder, which served to reinforce his point. "It's peaceful. Being in here makes it less likely for me to get tripped over. And, since it's the Sensoriums, I can fill this with pillows if I like. Not a bad place, all in all." She gestured expansively. "There are worse places to spend the day."

"Why? Are you secretly one of Santa's elves?" Not that it much matters here - Christmas is on a 'whenever they feel like it' schedule, and there isn't much in the way of gift-giving, although Howard might make the effort for Zou.

Howard laughs. "Maybe all those teeth are really ectoplasm. Are you going to argue about the physiology of ghosts? They're ghosts."

Rose snickered. "You don't think I'm a bit tall for an elf? Sorry, but I'm just your run-of-the-mill civil servant." Well, some of that was technically true. "No rest for the wicked and all that."

"What? I like to know where I stand when it comes to things trying to make me lunch." She held up a hand, counting off her fingers. "Zombies: bad. Dinosaurs: bad if they eat meat. Aliens: hit or miss. Ghosts: not a problem unless they're able to body-jack someone or aren't really ghosts." Yep, that's the voice of experience speaking.

"Man, you set up the Sensoriums to project a peaceful forest in the rain. That's like, something my mom would do. I'm not sold on your wickedness yet." He winks and wipes his muddy feet on the grass.

He raises his eyebrows. Clearly, she's had some similar experiences to his. "So what are your opinions on talking coyotes and flesh-eating worms?"

"Everyone needs a break once in a while." Did she sound defensive? Okay, she was feeling a little defensive, but it wasn't every day that you got compared to someone's mum. There was some mock grumbling about 'only 25' and 'way to make a girl feel old', but she got over that easily enough by reminding herself that she'd traveled with someone whose birthday cake was a certifiable fire hazard. "That's 'cause I store up my wickedness for the really bad things. Wolf in sheep's clothing. Next time you walk in, you might get jumped by a killer undead cow."

"'Do they speak English?' and," The second one earned a nose-wrinkling of disgust; flesh-eating anything was gross, but worms made it doubly so. "'Ew', 'ick', and 'ow'. Also, 'get those the hell away from me'."

"How about walking fat and cat nuns?"

Zouichi would thank you if he knew, Rose.

He blinked in surprise. "Really? Most people I talk to use it for a purpose, or dislike the idea of being here at all. I'm the former, and one of my housemates is the latter. But a forest does beat most of the rest of the ship."

Howard grins a bit, because he just got a little bit of information out of her (her age), but also because he still has that teenage habit of liking to get under people's skin. "A killer undead cow? Do they demand cud instead of brains?"

He puts his wrist forward in a zombie pose, then drops them again. "A little bit of English. Really bad English." He can't even remotely disagree on her assessment of the flesh-eating worms. They still give him nightmares, or catch him in a cold chill in the middle of the day.

"Walking...fat? How does that even work? My anatomy textbook says you have to have muscles to actually move."

Good luck with it; even Rose doubted how accurate that estimate was. She knew that she was at least 22 and between the TARDIS, the dimension cannon, and Stacy, the rest was anybody's guess. "Maybe they'd make you into a hamburger. Sort of poetic justice: you ate my brother, now I'll eat you."

"Well, English wasn't exactly designed for a mouth full of canines. Or a," She mimed a snout. "Muzzle-thing."

She shrugged; she hadn't had the time to track down the details. "Dunno. They could be mostly fat, with just enough muscles and things to use their arms and legs. Surprisingly cute, considering."

Rose fell rather squarely in the first camp, though she understood his housemate's view; using the Sensoriums required a certain amount of Stacy getting into your head (more so than usual, she supposed) and in the end, it was all an illusion.

She sat up and twisted around to give him her full attention. "But isn't relaxing useful, in its own way? I mean, I could fill this place with mean things full of big teeth, arm myself, and go--which I have done. But what's the point of working all the time?"

"For humans, certainly," Zouichi agreed. "It's just that the thought of the ship rummaging around in one's thoughts tend to put off the whole relaxation bit. Not for everyone, obviously."

He ran gloved fingers along a ring of fungus growing out of the stump. "I take it you're a fan of nature?"

"Wouldn't it be 'ate your sister'? I thought they mostly used bulls for leather and rodeos." Not like he'd know anything about rodeos. They're not a huge fixture of coastal California.

"Oh, no the pronuciation was fine. It was just that they always spoke in the third person. And kind of like Yoda. You seen Star Wars?" Because lordy is he starved for someone to get his pop culture jokes.

"...Cute? Are you kidding? How?"

"Sure?" Rose sounded uncertain, which wasn't unexpected from someone that had spent most of her life in London. "I'm not really up on the details of beef."

She nodded. "It's been ages. Little green guy, really old?"

"They're... little blobs. Little baby fat blobs." Yeah, that explanation was going over well. She sighed and held up one hand. A baby Adipose (http://relliott4.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/adipose1.jpg) appeared on her palm, waving at Howard. "This."

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