Mid to Late Week 66: Running

Fenris was walking through the streets of Jerusalem, trying to ignore the looks she got from the locals. She felt.. Out of place here, but at least there was enough space to move... Unlike there. But no! No. She wouldn't do that now. She was on her way to see Silvia. Hugo had said she was OK, but Fenris didn't know how truthful he had been. After a while, she found the HQ, and entered gingerly. "Silvia? You here? Are you.. OK?"

Like pretty much every other visit this week, Fenris' caught Silvia by surprise. At the sound of her friend's voice, she startled from her position on the bed, legs drawn up beside her and eyes closed.

"Who...? Oh, Fenris. Sorry, I...I was thinking. I'm...not too bad, I don't think. Considering the...um...circumstances." She looked a little guilty at that, perhaps thinking that she shouldn't remind Fenris too much of their shared captivity. "...How about you? Are you...holding up okay?"

There was a short pause before Fenris replied "Well enough." She looked a lot better, Silvia couldn't see any physical evidence of what had happened. "I was going for a run.. Take advantage of the space.. If you get what I me-" She suddenly stopped. "I... Didn't interrupt, did I?" Fenris looked quite concerned. "You weren't wanting to be left alone, were you?"

"Oh, er, no," Silvia replied hastily, then hesitated for a moment. "Well, I suppose kind of, but it's fine, really. I was...meditating. Just...thinking. But I've been doing that a lot and not really...talking to people that much. So it...it's good if you want to talk. Get back to...to social stuff."

There was a moment of awkward silence, and then Silvia spoke again, trying to fill the conversation. "So you were...running? That's...good. Getting back into the habit, and all. Maybe...maybe I should come with you some time."

"Um.. I've not been yet... I thought you might want to join me.. Explore this place a bit.. Though if you wanted to you would have done it by now." She was becoming a bit flustered, she had just got here, and was already seeing glaring holes in this plan. "And I do tend to go over roofs and stuff."

"Well, I...just because I haven't done it myself doesn't mean it wouldn't be nice," Silvia tried. "Especially, you know, with company." She offered Fenris a smile at that. "Be nice to spend time with you. And, well, I can probably manage some roof running. Not quite what I'm used to but hey, I'm decent at this kind of stuff."

She stood and glanced around for a moment, before bending down to pick up a pair of shoes. "Just give me a moment to get ready, and I'll be with you."

Fenris smiled back tentatively and waited for Silvia to get ready. This had all seemed so simple back at the Hospital. But now she was here, Fenris was terrified about doing or saying the wrong thing, and reminding them both of.. It. "Um... There anything in particular you want to see?"

"I...er, I don't think so," Silvia said, bending down to get the shoes on. "I mean, you probably know the streets much better than me by now. I'm happy to just follow you and see if I can keep up," she finished with a smile, standing back up. "Okay, then. Shall we make a start?"

"Uh, right." She tried to smile reassuringly. "Let's go." She needed to get her bearings, so she turned round and left the building. Once out of it, Fenris ran straight at the wall, scaling the compound in a few seconds, and using her vantage point to try and work out where to go. "Come on up here, you must want to see one of these buildings, and they can't all be off limits."

Silvia followed Fenris out of the building and, at Fenris' instruction to follow up the wall as well, she glanced from side to side, gave the wall a quick once-over and ran at it...before miserably failing to get a hand-hold and sliding back down to the ground (Agility+Athletics fail by 4).

She frowned and looked up at Fenris, rather embarrassed at her failure. "Uh...give me a moment. Just need to...get back into practice, that's all." With that, she took another run-up at the wall, and this time almost bounded up it, reaching the other Agent just as quickly as Fenris has scaled the compound (this time, pass by 10). "...There, that's better," she said, apparently slightly surprised at her own success. "Just...needed a moment to get back into it."

Fenris smiled in encouragement as she watched Silvia climb the wall. "Like a Pro!" She was trying to sound supportive, but she was still a little on edge, and it cane out a bit patronizing. Silvia wasn't to bad, but it was worth taking it slow to start with. "I never really asked you, what was it like in South America? Is it as dangerous as they say?"

Silvia didn't really seem to notice Fenris' attempt a compliment, too busy trying to analyse her own successful wall-climbing. At the mention of South America, though, she turned to look at the other Agent, her face thoughtful.

"South America? Well, quite a lot of it's okay, really. I mean, there's plenty of built-up areas - more than you'd think - and quite a lot of frontier stuff where you just get the odd marauding creature. No more than a few deaths a month in that kind of region," she added, dismissively. "But, if you head out into the wilds...then things get interesting," she continued, a slightly disturbing gleam of delight appearing in her eye.

"I mean, you get your big predators, obviously. And you really don't want to take them on - some of our Agents might be able to take down one or two of the smaller ones, but generally speaking they hunt in packs if they're that small. Stops them falling prey to the bigger ones. I mean, they don't tend to hunt - or at least, not exclusively - but big ones still kill small ones. But generally speaking, they're not too hard to avoid. But you definitely want to run, rather than fight. The problem is the small stuff," she continued, warming to her topic.

"I mean, for example, there's this kind of spider that's only about, oh, this big." She held up her fingers, held close enough to indicate something a couple of centimetres in size. "And if it bites you, well, you're going to die inside a couple of hours. And not pleasantly I mean, I saw a Fed Agent with a full toxin filter take a bite from one, and inside half an hour, he couldn't move a muscle and was on the floor foaming at the mouth. I left at that point, but I could hear him screaming for another half hour at least. Probably only stopped when his organs started liquefying," she added, casually.

"They're probably one of the more common problems, but there's lots of that kind of stuff," she continued, in full exposition-giving mode. "It's the stuff you don't expect that will get you - insects, trees - even some of the mosses. There's one type that secretes some kind of gas if you put pressure on it that seeps through the skin and starts removing the oxygen from your blood - it's just about treatable if you spot it in time, but if you don't, it's not pretty."

She hesitated, suddenly aware how much she was saying. "Uh...sorry. Didn't mean to...go on for so long."

Fenris gave her a reassuring smile. "It's fine! If I wasn't interested I wouldn't have asked." Fenris looked around for something interesting to climb, that would give a decent view, and after a few seconds, she spotted a church bell tower. "We should get a good view off that." She said, as she set off. Fenris was trying to subtly keep an eye on Silvia, to see how she was coping with the freerunning, but Silvia being Silvia, she wasn't subtle enough.

"You're right, we should," Silvia replied, setting off after Fenris at a pretty decent pace. She seemed to handle the running pretty well, as Fenris might have expected - she wasn't going at quite the speed Fenris was, but she was holding her own at least (pass by 4). Her expression was focused, intense, as she tried to balance moving so quickly with keeping as aware as ever of her surroundings.

As they got going, Fenris became more immersed in the sensation of moving. After... The last week, it was the best feeling imaginable. She soon started to push herself a bit more, taking the more challenging routes, though making sure there was an easier option in case Silvia needed it. After a while, she noticed that they were drawing a bit of attention from the street. "Um. Silvia? We are allowed up here right?"

Silvia had been following Fenris down the trickier routes, though she was having to spend a lot of effort to keep up. The ex-EI woman's question almost threw her off, but she recovered with a slightly apprehensive look on her face.

"I...don't actually know. I mean, it's not like I actually ever thought to, you know...check."

Fenris would have shrugged, if she wasn't climbing up a wall at the moment. It was a bit weird, but then this whole place was weird. "I'm sure it'll be fine..." As they neared the church she had pointed out Fenris perched on a set of chimneys to survey the area.

"I...okay, sure." Silvia sounded less confident than Fenris, but followed along anyway, apparently not troubled enough to turn back. While Fenris did her surveying, she stood for a moment - not to regain her breath, which she still had in abundance, but to regain her focus.

Fenris bode her time, watching the wide street below, waiting until it was clear and she wouldn't be seen, before springing into action. (PER + Stealth pass by 8 ) Sprinting down the roof, she leapt. Crossing the gap between the buildings, and catching herself on the lip of the church roof. (AGI + Athletics pass by 6) After pulling her self up, she turned to see what Silvia would do.

Silvia waited until Fenris had finished her jump before trying anything of her own. Like Fenris, she waited until she saw a good opportunity to make the jump. She moved so quietly and quickly that if Fenris hadn't been keeping a lookout, she wouldn't have seen Silvia make the leap (Per+Stealth is a pass by11). She took the same route as Fenris, and used the same technique - unsurprisingly, doing it about as fast (Agi+Athletics is a pass by 6).

"Nice!" Fenris now turned towards the belltower. "But now for the more difficult part." Looking up at the tower, they could see that it was very plain, no windows, and only a small amount of ornamentation near the top, where the bells were situated. The only real hand-holds visible were the cracks between the bricks. "We might want to stay quiet for this bit. I was told the Order could be a bit touchy about religious stuff." From her tone, Silvia could tell that the other woman found this prospect.. fun.

Silvia nodded, a smile creeping across her face. "True, they can be. I guess we'll just have to stay silent, then." She sounded almost as eager as Fenris, and she had a focus about her that Fenris had only ever seen on missions. "Ready when you are," she said, scanning the brickwork to see if she could determine the best route up.

After a brief pause to focus herself, Fenris silently ran at the tower, she was able to jump off the wall and latch on with her palm thorns, skipping the well lit section, and hiding in the shadows.(PRES + Stealth pass by 12) She shot up the tower, her palm thorns and the gaps provided by the brickwork making it too easy. (STR + Athletics pass by 12) Within a minute she was at the top, and after a quick peek to make sure no-one was up there, she pulled herself over.

Silvia gave a small smile and extended her own palm thorns. "Right," she murmured, and made her way after Fenris. She didn't manage quite the same level of stealth as Fenris, but she still hid herself well enough, making breaks out of the shadows only when the timing was right (Pres+Stealth is a pass by 5). She climbed even faster than Fenris did, though not by much (Str+Athletics is a pass by 13), and the two of them reached the top of the tower at almost exactly the same time, surveying the wonderful view together.

The view was stunning. Everything was so old. The sandy cityscape was spread out beneath them, and to Fenris' eyes, looked as though the slightest nudge would bring it all crashing down. The tower granted an excellent view of the old city, complete with its temples, churches and mosques. But they were all dominated by the Temple of the Rock. It's Golden Dome proudly bearing the scars of some past conflict. "So... Like the view?"