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"In my society... this is how we show affection for one another." he said gently as he ended the song. "Holding someone like this shows that we care for them, that we want to protect and shelter them." He gave her a soft squeeze. "We share our warmth and our heart with them."
Slowly though he let go over her, opening his arms so she could retreat. He didn't want to hold her against her will too long or it wouldn't have the effect he wanted it to. He wanted to show her that other people could be good things, warm things. He just wanted her to understand she didn't have to be alone. "...I'm sorry if you thought that rude of me. But my people express themselves very physically." |
She had backed away as soon as possible and sat down on the bed. She looked confused for the most part and not quite sure what to do. Her head was bowed as if she were ashamed of something and she wouldn't even dare to look at him.
"I need some food," she said after a moment. "I'd prefer noodles, whole grain. My brother once told me that if I ever was kidnapped that it's what I should ask for because it's the most filling. I would like some of that white substance that you serve that comes from cows. It' a liquid I think. It kind of looks gross but I heard it is supposed to be good for you." She was trying to fill the silence now, not willing to even look at him out of embarrassment. It was at this point that she seemed as though she were trying to recall something. It was a creamy white substance that she'd seen on the food that her brother had given her a picture of. Sadly she hadn't had it with her at the time. "And some of that white stuff that goes on top of the noodles... Alf.... ree... dough," she said though pronouncing it so incorrectly that it would be difficult to realize she was trying to say alfredo. |
Neal for the most part guessed she meant Milk and some kind of cheese to go on the pasta. He couldn't go get anything for them but he could and did ask the guard out front to bring them both something to eat. Whatever they could get that was the most filling since he wasn't sure what was being prepared for dinner that night...or what ever time of day it was.
The silence was awkward and Neal rubbed his still sore throat, there was a much cleared imprint of her hands this time over the older bruise. It was strange but it almost looked like a butterfly on his neck. Sitting on his bed Neal was surprised with out quickly food had been brought down, they must of already finished cooking. It was two large does of mashed potatoes with meat and brown gravy on top of it mixed with corn. There was also a glass of water and milk. Neal set the tray of food with the milk down besides Olivia and returned to his side of the room. "The potatoes have alot of starch like grains do, and there pretty filling since there so heavy..." Picking up the spoon, the only silverware either of them had been given he took a bite of his meal, chewing the mixture quietly. Hopefully Olivia would eat this even though it was probably horrible looking to her. |
She was starving at this point so she starting eating right away but she wouldn't touch the meat since it looked hard to chew. After a moment she poked in and then lifted it up with her pointer finger and thumb to inspect it. She tried biting it but when she found it hard to bite she put it down on her plate.
She was continuing to separate the strange yellow things from the white substance since she thought it looked like poison. She was always taught that this substance wasn't good and would get stuck in her teeth. She looked up at him after a moment, mashed potatoes covering her face since she had difficulty using a spoon since she'd never really used one before. The problem she was having was that she wasn't using the handle but rather the part that you eat with to hold. She kept trying to scoop the mashed potatoes up but every time she got them eye enough to get into her mouth she'd either miss, make it, or fling it in her face. She looked frustrated and knew she would need new clothing soon. |
It was almost painful to watch her try and feed herself. Setting his open food aside he picked up up and napkin and sat on the bench. "Here." He wiped her face for her and took the spoon out of her hand. "Like this, you have to keep the spoon flat or it will spill."
Scooping up a bite of the gravy and potatoes he offered it out to her. "Ah?" He asked to get her to open her mouth. He couldn't imagine what it was like to have a diet that you never used a spoon for...he used spoons all the time! He smiled a little as he got a spoon full into her mouth for her. Despite your adult body she really did have a childs heart. |
Olivia had obliged because she'd been clueless. It tasted good though and having it off her face was a comfort. She took the spoon after it was in her mouth and slid it out. the food stayed in her mouth and she mashed it up a bit more in her mouth before swallowing. She looked amazed for the most part and tried to pick up some food. She stopped though and turned the spoon around so that she could scoop it up.
"It's like a shovel," she said with a smile. "I never knew people would use shovels for food. Why is it so small though? I didn't know they'd made miniature shovels before." She stuck more food in her mouth and seemed to be pleased with herself. She was letting the flavor sink in for the most part and she found it better than any of the food she'd tried at home. Of course they never had soup because it was unsanitary and easily poisoned. Most of the time they had things that were processed and filled with all different things, and the flavor was changed to be something else also. |
"Well it has to be small or it wouldn't fit in your mouth, now would it?" He chuckled as he watched her eat, she was getting the hang of it now. She seemed to like it so he was glad, she'd have to eat a lot to be able to function till her body got used to not depending on processed enhanced foods. It almost surprised him how fast she ate all but the meat.
"Are you still hungry?" He asked as he turned to get his own food to offer the potatoes to her. He wanted to make sure she had enough and didn't faint on him again. "Here, have some of mine." Taking his glass of water he sipped the clear substance as he held his plate out to her. |
"I want to know what this is and how you eat it," she said pointing at the strange brown substance in front of her. "It reminds me of some food from home but it's much harder to chew."
She had picked it up again and tried to tear it in half with her hands. When she succeeded she bit into the piece, this time it being a bit easier since she was knowing what to expect. She looked confused for the most part as she chewed on it, not sure when she would be able to swallow it. She looked frightened almost but then managed to swallow it. She took a drink of the liquid almost immediately. "Do you have lemonade?" she asked. "We have a lot of that at home since it has a lot of vitamin C." She was putting up a partial facade at the moment and she knew it was working. Half of it was genuine though. She picked up the other part of the meat and tried to stick the entire thing in her mouth. When that didn't work she tried to tear off a small chunk than the time before. |
"We have it sometimes, but only when the trees are bearing fruit, Its a little early in the year yet for that but an scouting team might bring some back from the city." He said thoughtfully as he took a bit of the food himself, eating the corn that Olivia had rejected. "But milks good for you to, lots of calcium."
"Oh and it's rehydrate beef jerky with gravy." He explained. "It is a little touch but fresh meat is hard to come by for us, most the time we just used stuff he had dried in the past." Sipping at his water he relaxed back, the bruise on his throat growing darker as it settled into his skin. He wondered if Olivia would attack him again...she was so hard to predict. Grandfather had to know what he was doing though...He wouldn't risk Neals life so easily after how hard he had worked...would he? |
She continued to eat it and she was noticing how the bruise was forming. She'd been taught not to attack people early in her life but then they'd said to attack people so she was a bit confused at times. She'd never seen a bruise before and it was sucking the guilt out of her, making her actually feel it. Olivia's eyes were downcast for the most part, the small specks of the variation of green could be seen from the light and the shadows now.
"I'm sorry about your neck," she said quietly, almost too quietly for him to hear. She'd gone back to eating after that, devouring the food as she went, avoiding the corn. She left his food for him though even though she as a tad bit more hungry. She drank more milk after a bit and then look at him. It was hard for her to do that since she always felt miserable because of it. |
She really did mean it when she apologized, Neal could tell. Tucking one of his arms up onto his shoulder he did his neck from view so she wouldn't have to feel to bad about it. They were after all stuck in this room together so he should at least try and make things as least awkward as possible.
"Just...don't do it again." He requested softly. As they finished eating he smiled at her and wiped her chin with his thumb, a piece of corn coming away with it. "Ah, tricky little bugger almost got to your mouth." He laughed as he ate the corn himself, not liking anything to go to waste. |
She'd see the corn and almost feel over for some reason. She watched though and her expression softened slightly. She wanted to sleep, not just be passed out, at this point so she stood and walked over to the bed. Olivia stopped though and turned to look at Neal. She was wondering why exactly she'd tried to kill but then she shrugged slightly. She would attempt to kill anyone that was cruel to her here, that's what she'd decided after she had apologized.
"Do you know when they'll start questioning me?" she asked as she took a seat on the bed. |
"Hm...we'll probably take you for a walk tomorrow.." He smiled a little as he stretched out on the bench. "I'd love to show you the garden we have here, it took us years to get to grown to the point it is now." He laughed a little as he imagined Olivia skipping through the garden as many of the young girls did here.
"Though as for 'questioning' I'm not sure its going to be quite like you expect it to be...its not like were going to interrogate you or anything. Thats not the point of all of this." |
"Then why did you kidnap me in the first place," she asked. "It's not like I'm going to change what I believe so easily. I do not skip or gander through gardens either, that is a foolish and whimsical thing to do."
She had laid down on the bed crawled under the sheets, curling up into a more comfortable position before looking over at him. If she woke from a nightmare she was hoping she would do anything to him or that he could at least help her calm down. "I can't imagine them not interogating me to get information about my parents and the other families. It'd be such useful information for you people too," she said. |
He stared at her long and hard, his face surprisingly grim all of a sudden. There was no mistake in what he had hear, he was sure of that. Licking his lips a little Neal sat up, his dull brown eyes watching her slide into her bed sheets and settle down. He felt fully unsettled now, if this was what he thought it was...then they were all in alot more trouble now.
"...Olivia..how did you know I was thinking of you skipping?" |
"How am I supposed to know you were thinking about skipping?" she asked a bit perplexed. "Did I do something bad?"
Olivia was only inquiring this because it looked he was angry or something close to that. She did not know what it meant to be distressed over hearing something a coincidental as 'i don't skip' right after they'd just been thinking about skipping. She turned over so that she couldn't see him now, afraid that he would do something to her even though he had said he wouldn't. "I want to go home," Olivia said. "I don't like it here. There are no windows." She wasn't quite sure if she really wanted to go home though because the things that they'd told her about had been interesting. She had been rude in the beginning but that was because she had been scared. She wanted to escape and go home now, but if she kept saying 'i want to go home' she could very well possibly give her desire to escape away, but then again the should already know that by now. |
"But you said.."
Neal relaxed a little as he watched her reaction. There had been frightening thoughts of telepathy being genetically engineered in some of the modified humans. If such a thing was true their cause would be doomed. But at least it didn't seem that was the case here Olivia...it had just been a coincidence, that's all. "Nothing, nevermind. I was being paranoid." Settling on the bench he gave a relived sigh. He knew she wanted to go home, but tomorrow she'd get to see it wasn't so bad here...assuming she didn't attack anyone again. Like him... His throat hurt when he swallowed and he knew some people were going to make a fuss tomorrow when they saw him. And it wasn't like the guards had helped him at all... |
Olivia was frightened again and she had sense that her parents were keeping something from her again. She'd felt like her brother had known her thoughts before but then he'd said some incorrect things and she'd been assured that he couldn't. She would sleep tonight, how much she wasn't sure of but it would be more restful than the previous night.
"I want to sleep, I'm going to sleep now," she said with a sigh. "I don't even know if it's night time or day time." She hadn't been sure of that since she'd passed out and even then she wasn't sure if it had day time or night time when she'd been taken. She could recall the burning she'd felt in her lungs when she'd inhaled that noxious stuff and she covered her ears with her hands, trying to drown out that imaginary sound of hissing gas. |
Neal laid on the bench for a long time unable to sleep, he was questioning a few things in his mind as he stared up at the ceiling. Like what Grandfather had been planning when he locked him in here with Olivia. He couldn't tell if she had made any progress at all in the last day but it was still very early to tell. He stood and went to his own bed, laying down on his stomach to sleep. But even then he only found himself staring at Olivia. He wondered if she was going to have another nightmare...
And as the nightmares drifted at the edge of her sleep, never really getting to her but threatening it all the same, Olivia's night passed. When she was woken up Neal was shaking her gently. "Hey..." He said softly as he roused her. "There here to take you around the complex. Wake up." |
The nightmares hadn't been enough to wake her up this time and she was a bit confused at first. She had been tired enough to sleep through something like that and having someone shake her awake perplexed her. She tried to turn over but the word complex made her almost jolt upright. She was stopped though when Neal was in front of her and she scrambled back from house close they were, falling off the opposite side of the bed with a loud thud.
She stood up a moment later looking rather confused as she straightened out the dress that she was in. She hated falling out of bed but she wanted to get out of here and she looked at the door with a large amount of interest. Escape now? She thought it was possible. She'd at least get out of their grasp for a while, maybe run away from them in the garden and climb the first stable tree she could find. Then again they could easily chain her arms up so it would be far more difficult to deal with that sort of thing than was imaginable. She walked over to one of the mirrors and started primping herself slightly, though her hair was nearly impossible to fix now because she hadn't had a shower in a while and she felt disgusting for the most part. "Are we going now?" she asked. |
"Mm hm." He nodded. He was a little worried shed get scared with all the strange people she see but at least he knew he'd be there to keep her company. "We're going to go to the garden first." He smiled as he watched her primp and was reminded that he hadn't changed his clothes in three days. Hopefully the both could get something new to wear on there way back.
The pair was lead, at gun point, through a large maze of concrete tunnels, people peering out at them from off shoots and small rooms. Eventually they reached a stair case that lead up and emerged into a huge room. The sound of running water filled the air and looking up Olivia would see a huge false sun set up in the ceiling. They had built an underground garden. Trees flourished in the artificial sunlight and a small river ran through the left side of the garden. Plants of all kinds were growing through out the garden, some bearing fruit or vegetables, some just flowers. The air smell sweet and alive and Neal smiled to see this sight again, he loved coming here. At the moment no one else was here, everyone had been cleared out for Olivia's visit. "What do you think?" Neal asked. |
She had been trembling when the gun was being pointed at her the entire way here. The eyes that followed her movements frightened her more than she realized they would. They beautiful but there was something strange about these people, something that wasn't right, or maybe it was her that wasn't right. She shivered along the way and attempted to step closer to Neal but was pushed back to where she had been walked. When they reached the garden though she was shocked to see it. It was more beautiful than a lot of things that she had seen and she was struck speechless. For a moment she forgot about her plan.
Her eyes started to scan the room and she walked forward, pretending like she wasn't going to do anything. Sudden movement might make the guards shook and she did not want that. When she spotted a good tree she went to it, slowly but surely. She clambered up it quite smoothly though and sat down on one of the highest branches. She was nimble and the climb had been quick and easy. She situation herself comfortably, crossing her arms and intending to be very difficult at the moment. She had a coy smile on her face now as if she was laughing at the guards that had taken her here on gun point. She wasn't sure if it was real bullets in the gun or if it was a dart gun with a sedative. She could never be sure until she got shot. "I'm not coming down by the way," she said in the direction of Neal since she wouldn't dare look at the guards and if they so much as touched her she would probably attack them out of fear and instinct. The nook she had found in the tree was perfect for someone her size and if she wanted to she could sleep there. The bark on the tree felt strange and she kept running her fingers over it, trying to identify it with someone she'd felt before. It wasn't a big enough distraction though and she kept her eyes on the guards at the current moment. |
The three guards gave Neal an annoyed look and pointed at the tree. He sighed. "Oh come on guys what harm is it if he stays up there for a bit."
"Fetch boy." One said sharply. With another sigh Neal started to the tree and looked up its branches to find Olivia. "What are you a cat? You can't just stay up there Olivia we wanted to show you around more." Gripping a branch he looked back to the guards as they pointed yet again to the top of the tree. With a slight whine he pulled himself up a few branches. Olivia just had better not shove him out of this tree, he may of had a hard head, but it wasn't that hard. "Come on Olivia." He called up to her as he climbed higher. "Please come down!" |
Olivia had heard what the guards had said to Neal. 'Fetch boy' seemed a bit ridiculous and she glared at them a brief moment. She had learned that it was a command that was usually given to dogs and for a moment she freaked out since she didn't get along with dogs at all. His pleading didn't help either and the temptation to slide down next to him but she always had a harder time climbing down things than up things.
Her fear increased when she saw that they were holding weapons and she almost formed a death grip around the branch she was on. She started to slide off so she was moving in the direction of Neal. There were two things that she hated the most in this world: guns and dogs. They seemed to go together a lot and if there was a dog down there she would not come down. "I have a question," she said quietly so that only Neal could hear. "Are there any dogs in this place? Why do they keep pointing guns at me?" If the answer was yes she would probably be rooted to the spot and if the answer was no she would willingly come down. It seemed that dogs hated her for the most part and her parents only laughed when she met a dog while she was out. She was unaware of the feline genes that had been grafted into her dna though. They had tracked down what made the cat so agile and then picked on specific genes. She was the last attempt they had made and since it worked out they were thinking about creating more people like that. There were complications though, her curiosity was intense and it was dangerous at the same time. She'd found one of those hounds one day and had almost been attacked. It took them a year to brainwash her into thinking that her life was something else. She kept the nightmares though, another flaw in their science. |
"Dogs?" he repeated perplexed as he clung to a rather unstable branch. "Well unless you count me we don't have any down in this level of the complex. The only dogs we keep are either companions for children or the two or three retrievers we have for hunting." Clutching to the tree Neal really hoped she come down, he hated climbing trees ever since he fell out of one as a child.
He'd been called a dog on more then one occasion, and it didn't really bother him since he knew why. He had been trained to retrieve Olivia for ten years, it wasn't hard to see the comparison to one of there hunting dogs at all. It was a little derogatory when he was called it by some of the other members but he never tried to let it get to him. He was younger then they were so he should value what they have to say...even if it was mean. "Please come down now?" He begged as he looked down at the guards. "Your making the guys with the guns nervous." |
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