→ and all the branches burst abloom

[bothgodown]

Miranda had been reading. She is not reading now and likely will not be reading any time in the next hour. The evidence is scattered about, a resting on the blanket that she had been seated on moments before.

There is a rather battered looking copy of a book titled The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's pages are well-marked and dog-eared

Comments

[pointzerothree]

He hasn't been here very long and still doesn't know many people, so Eduardo is surprised when he hears someone call his name, lifting his head from where his gaze has been fixed on the sand. (The beach is the one place on the island he really does like, but it's strange, still, to look out at the water and know that it leads nowhere, that they really are completely isolated like this. Fortunately, it's a thought he's all too willing to rid himself of.) Squinting a little against the sunlight, he lifts a hand to shade his eyes, smiling when he realizes who the person in question is, and hurrying to close what distance there is between them.

"Miranda, hey," he calls back, waving slightly. It's still weird as hell to him, the fact that she could come from so far in his past, but she's someone he's glad to see all the same. "What have you been doing?"

[bothgodown]

Having paused to wave Miranda picks up the task, finishing the act of gently erasing her work. Coming to a stop after she finishes, she waits until he closer to answer. It would not strike her as odd to have the conversation across a lengthy stretch of sand, but if she can avoid then she shall. There is something rude in it, which she does not care for. The more she thinks of it, manners are better in theory and confining in practice but she is a lady. A lady does not holler for all the world to hear unless danger is involved.

Reaching up she rubs the back of her hand against her cheek to scratch an itch, leaving a bit of damp sand there. "Reading, largely though I shall confess that a map had taken my attention as of late." She looks down at the stretch of sand and shakes her head. "Tis gone now. And what of you? Have you found a means of occupying your time?"

[pointzerothree]

"Yeah, sort of," Eduardo says, and shrugs. There isn't much that could even qualify, at least that he would do, being neither a cook nor a builder nor a doctor, but it's not like he's sitting around doing nothing. He doesn't think he could stand that. As it is, he misses Harvard far more than he has any right to. He'd been looking forward to graduating, of course, but at least then, there'd been the promise of a career, a future, regardless of what Mark Zuckerberg did to him.

None of that is especially relevant now, though, so he shrugs, a movement that's mostly casual. "A few classes, mostly. What kind of map?"

[bothgodown]

Some days Miranda considers locking herself up in her hut, staying there until she's learned all that she can. There isn't enough time to prepare her and she knows that such a wish is a very foolish one indeed. Books have taught her some things, told her of feelings that she can only just match with her own or has never known. Staying away from this world or any world would only make things worse.

"Oh I am much the same. I do find the classes to be most interesting in nature, in their way." It is a way that does not teach statecraft or have much use in the world of men, but are all very interesting. "Twas a map of Milan, not a very good one but I wished to see if I could repeat what I know. Ah well, twas a idle distraction nothing more."