Standing on the Edge of the Unknown || Lyn

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Sitting at the edge of the questers' camp, Edmund started to think of his life before it turned upside down. Before the fire. Before the Legion. That was pretty much how his life was split up: before the fire/legion and after the two. The seventeen year old exhaled in annoyance. He shouldn't be thinking of this, but it happened from time to time. Especially when he had time to himself; when he had time to himself, it lead to thinking. Exactly why he had taken up plane making, fighting, and eventually forging. He had to have something, anything to distract him from his own thoughts. Today's random before the legion thought (even though he was on hyper quest guard alert) was about his room and sleeping patterns. Even back then, he was a horrible sleeper. He would wake his parents up at odd hours. He would have dreams about it. He remembered some sort of teddy bear. He remembered liking pancakes and chicken parmesan. Pancake. Was that the name of his stuffed, brown bear whose image was as blurry as the faces of his parents? So innocent. So far away. Now, the thought that he had once had a stuffed animal was repulsing. What was the use or function of something like that? Then again, he could ask the same question about himself...

With one hand on his side dagger, one of four weapons that he had, he waited quietly as the quest member, whoever it was, showed him or herself. After a few seconds, Lyn came into view. Youngest and most naive quest member they had, rivaled only with Hunter. He had tried hard to show her the reality, and from what he had heard, so had Felicity, but the ten year old hadn't budged. Oh well, whatever. It would blow up in her face one of these days, even if she was the daughter of luck. Heck, Ed believe in luck as much as he believed in the gods. Aka, not that much. Luck had nothing to do with anything. It was going to be a hard crash into reality for her, but hey, not his problem. No one could say that he didn't try to warn her. The antisocial grump's dark brown eyes looked over the curly haired ten year old. Awake, semi sleepy, semi peppy and.... holding a teddy akin to what he had just been thinking about. "Hi Lyn," Edmund nodded at her, his voice in its usual dull state. Tired? Not at all. Edmund was on high alert. No no, dull and monotone was just his normal speech pattern; one that the younger girl had probably gotten used to by now. "Where'd you get that?" he asked suspiciously, eyeing the bear. No buzzers were going off inside his head. There were no traps or explosives rigged to it that he could detect, but still, Edmund wasn't exactly the most trusting person ever.

"I'm fine." Usual, standard answer with a shrug. "You? You should be asleep." True, it was probably hard for anyone to fall and stay asleep on a quest, but still. If she could get some sleep and had the opportunity to so, she should take it. He looked down at the metal box beside him, who met Lyn's outstretched hand half way. It gave a mechanical, yet cat like purr at the younger girl's pet. Cinny: all purpose (including flesh) shredder and loving pet all rolled into one. How the heck did he make something like this? Sure, Cinny became a bit tamer around the questers since they were "off limits" in its programing system, but Ed would have no problem making it snap at Rogers's and Hunter's heels. Just for entertainment.

OOC: ugh sorry for that wait D:
IC: 633

credit to this blog right here

Looking at the bear, Edmund thought of no logicality for real stuffed animals. Comfort? But then came the question: why did little kids feel safe and calmer with a stuffie? At the moment, he wasn't coming up with any good ideas. Sinclair's stuffed bear though, seemed to serve a purpose. He nodded slightly as Lyn described how she found her new plushie, and then watched as she opened the back up, exposing the items. He had to admit, whoever had made that hidden compartment did it really well: using the natural seem of the bear. He wondered if Lyn could feel everything that had been placed in there, or if the manufacturer (whoever it was) put enough stuffing around it so she wouldn't feel it. Still, a bear from a stranger didn't exactly sit well with him, so Edmund took to scanning his suspicious brown eyes over the items: nectar, ambrosia, mortal money, a cell phone. "Emergency only," he agreed. Combined, the questers probably had probably smuggled enough ambrosia and nectar out of camp to overdose and burn themselves, and a couple of mortals into crisps. His eyes gave a quick glance at the cell phone, lingering for a few moments since he hadn't seen one in a while. "Especially the phone." One of the oddest concepts that he had come to accept about Roman life: cell phone use would attract monsters. What'd the cell phone do? Absorb and transport the DNA of the halfblood through the shell material, register it as a half blood, and then use the signal waves to ping a message down to the underworld? Sometimes this world still made no sense to him. Including the people in it (rather, more the people on a daily basis than the world). He looked sideways at Lyn and gave his head a slight shake. "Far from the case, Lyn."

Edmund watched as Lyn sat, just holding the fluffy bear, and looking at him. The thought had crossed him mind multiple times, but he had been refusing to really think too deeply into it. However, now that they were on a life or death quest, why not admit to it? She reminded him of Meg. A little. Fine, a lot. Being that they were in a gods forsaken forest in the middle of only Pluto knew where and that they could die at any given moment, Edmund's thoughts about everyone should have been going in the opposite direction. He should have been detaching, as in more than usual, but, much to his dismay, he wasn't. It was sounding stupider and stupider to him, but the longer they were on this outing for the gods, the more Edmund started to feel protective of them. As in, more than usual (not that it showed, but still). Heck, even the annoying Hunter kid. Yeah, he was an idiot; stupid feelings, why did humans have to have them? Edmund tried not to have them, but it didn't always work out. He knew he was just making it harder for himself, because if something did happen, he wouldn't only be failing the person as a quest member, but he'd be failing them as an acquaintancey/tolerable/kinda friend too. But try getting that out of his mouth. "And you'll have to be awake later." Beside him, Cinny was cautiously nuzzling the fur of the bear; even though Edmund had swapped chips, the fuzzy thing was coming from Lyn, so the machine had no problem with it. "Sometimes he goes into sleep mode," Ed shrugged. "But he's a machine, so he doesn't exactly get tired." Lyn had a point, Ed didn't exactly get tired that often; mostly because of forced habit of not sleeping for long periods of time. He gave his head a slight shake. What was he going to do with this kid?

OOC: Hi Ed muse >.>
OMGODS RHIA HE'S GONNA EAT ME FOR THIS POST.
IC: 655

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Edmund's appetite usually came and went depending on his mood, stress level, and work load. Taking into account that he was training all the time, usually had forge work to do, was nearly always grumpy, and sometimes saw little point in eating, he didn't eat much. Good for his health? Probably not, but neither was training under the hot California sun for forty-eight hours in long pants and inhaling forge smoke whenever that wasn't the case. Being on a quest for (well, you guys've heard the spiel already, so I won't bore you), Edmund could count his stress/anger level as pretty high. Hungry? No. Hypervigilance, yes. For the few months and year following the fire, his therapist had just written it off as PTSD. Now he was just hypervigilant because of a) the Legion and b) his previously undiagnosed ADHD. Useful for a demigod, horrible for a school student (which he was forced to be for eight years of his life). He followed her gaze up, the same sight greeting him as it always did when he looked up at night: stars, constellations. They both saw the same physical things, but he doubted that they actually saw them the same way. He could barely remember his dad's voice on the rooftop, but Ed was pretty sure that the ghost voice was trying to explain how different starts connected and made pictures in the sky. Edmund never got it, not as a child... and definitely not now. Kind of ironic when he thought about it. Didn't he "connecting the dots" (albeit in a more complex manner) whenever he made something?

The seventeen year old gave a slight nod. Keeping the battery out of the mobile would help, just in the case that something accidentally bumped into the phone, turned it on, and dialed. Knowing stupid demigod luck and as if they weren't in a life endangering quest already, that would happen to them. Gunnar... He was pretty sure that he had heard the name around camp, but like almost everyone, Edmund didn't exactly know him. "Hm?" he asked, looking down at Lyn's curious brown eyes. "Oh, battery. It's anything that contains energy to power a device." Short. Edmund all around. Along with the thought that batteries extended to humans. Unfortunately for them though, their ultimate battery was not rechargeable. A slight sigh drifted out of Edmund's mouth. Lyn was just so... naive and trusting. She couldn't realize that they were just a band of badly flawed misfits who were walking right into a death trap. Being that he was probably going to die, Edmund should have been terrified or even angry. Instead, he had pretty much accepted it. Even though he hated this quest with a burning passion, there was no other way he'd want to down. He'd live fighting, and he'd die fighting. Besides, his life wasn't going anywhere.

"Alright," Edmund agreed with a slight shrug. If she was tired later, then that would be her fault. Then again, from what he remembered, kids needed less sleep than adults. Maybe it had just been him though, the nightmares keeping him up or not allowing him to sleep, or just across the board. In addition to that, Lyn had survived a forty-eight hour drill with the first cohort in the days leading up to the quest. Staying up for days straight got easier after the first forty-eight hour drill, which was the hardest. "No," he said in his usual voice. "Machines don't feel." Odd, he sounded like he was giving a double meaning for something. Oh right. Himself.

OOC: Omgods. So late. Not even excusable.
IC: 619

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Simplicity was always the best way to go. Especially with kids. Not that Edmund claimed to be any sort of expert on humans of any age category, but still. They all had ADHD which entailed short attention spans. He knew that he didn't want to sit through an entire lecture about something as simple as a battery. Besides, it fit with the less than five words thing he had going on. Most of the time. There were two developing exceptions to that rule... and he wasn't liking it. He sighed slightly, crouching down with his back against the tree. Now that he thought about it, he had become slightly rusty with regular mortal technology. Of course he had become well versed in whatever the armory and forge had to offer as far as Roman technology, but something as simple as a mobile? He hadn't seen one in a while. Lyn decided to open her mouth for another tirade of questions. Edmund couldn't say that he was surprised though. Her questions always came in multiples that were usually all related to eachother. That being the case, it usually only took a short explanation on Ed's part to answer all of them in one shot. After a moment of silence to make sure she was done with all her questions, Edmund opened his mouth. "How long depends on the type of battery. They all give different lengths of lives. Yes, it'll run out and then you'll have to replace it. The battery won't disappear, the phone just won't work."

Interesting... Lyn didn't have a comment to that. He expected her to go on a tirade about how it would have to feel in order for her to interact with it and for the machine to respond properly. "Neither of them can," he stated simply. Straightforward and blunt. That was always the best way to do things. No reason to soften a lesson just so it could punch you back harder when you were older. Edmund studied her face for a moment and took note of her tone, the way her eyes looked. Sad. He had upset her. She obviously liked Metal Bird and Cinny... so telling her that machines didn't feel meant that they couldn't reciprocate those feelings. Well, it was no different than him really... All of them, when he thought about it. The Legion was just filled with fighting machines. Then you got the even more extreme version of a machine: the ones that became emotionless.

Just when he thought Lyn got it, she decided to have an optimistic take on it. He'd never get anywhere with her, would he? In that way, she even reminded him of himself. Ed exhaled and stayed quiet. It's not like his argument with her was going to wind up anywhere productive. She'd keep countering him, but then one day, she'd see the truth of it all. Edmund just wasn't sure if he wanted to be around to see that or not.

IC: 515

credit to me!

A good way to detach yourself from emotion was to convince everyone, including yourself, that you didn't have any. Unless there was a serious hormonal imbalance, the fact stayed that most people had emotions. Most people had them... they just chose not to show it as much as others. Could Edmund count himself as one of those people? Maybe. Either that, or the Legion had knocked a few of his important emotional genes out the window. Ed hated to admit it to himself, but biologically speaking, he still had emotions. It was just mentally he didn't. He didn't need anyone to care for him. He didn't need anyone to like him. Wasn't that the whole point of having "friends"? Even the concept was odd after all these years. If he was younger, he could have considered himself and Weingarten as somewhat friends. What they did kind of emulated what regular people called a friendship: pulled off pranks, teased each other, and verbally bashed the gods. That's what regular people did in a friendship....right? And then there was Lyn. The way she trusted him and liked him so much went as far as scaring him. With each passing day she was reminding him of Meg. That just scared him even more. Why anyone would decide to choose him as someone to follow around and like and think highly of? He had rock bottom no idea. Maybe she just liked his inventions and in turn equated them to him. If that was the case, she couldn't get more wrong.

His eyes went to wander back to the bushes, but then Lyn spoke up. For a moment, it became apparent on how much time he had spent around Felicity. Still half looking on a diagonal (not exactly at the bushes, but not exactly at Lyn either), his eyebrows scrunched together the way Felicity's did whenever she was either thinking hard, or confused. He blinked, trying to process that; an honest, dumbfounded confusion broke through his usual expression. What the hell could he say to that? He knew the correct social response from when he was little, but now... now all he could do was avert his eyes to the grass and stare at a fixed point without meeting her eyes. Beside him, Cinny was giving small impulses and a purring noise. Lyn must have been hugging or petting him. And then she hopped topics. For once Ed was grateful for it. "It's alright. Good to get out." Finally, he was able to look back over to her. "How was it? Legion life must be really different."

OOC: No month long wait this time
IC: 445

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stxllion.tumblr.com/

Edmund didn't consider himself good with small talk or anything, but if he had to do it to get out of a situation, he could get by. Barely. He supposed it was one of the first thing he noticed when Lyn started hanging around him: if you got her excited, she'd overlook things and go right on to the next task. Partly thanks to her ADHD (and he supposed they were all like this when they were younger) his reaction to her affection was forgotten. Good thing too... He watched as her smaller body inched closer to him and he lightly slid down the rest of the trunk so they would be more or less eye level with each other. It was a harmless enough question. It wasn't like he was asking her backstory or anything. Then again, this was Lyn. She'd probably add in her own backstory if she wanted. Most people in the Legion (including him) would avoid history. Not many demigods had happy ones; after a while, it became repetitive. It came as an occupational hazard, a fact, a part of the territory, especially if you were a half blood. Besides, if he was honest with himself, Lyn's way of living did sound interesting. What would it be like to be raised under the sky? No roof and out in the open?

He just listened quietly to her, as he always did. Lyn usually talked fast, but for once, she slowed down, as if reminiscing. She was young. She had just gotten into the Legion. Of course she'd still remember what it had been like before. If only he could forget. He let her go on for as long as she liked, only nodding slightly. "..... that sounds nice," he said quietly, following her gaze up to the sky. Same stars. Same sky. Anyone could look at them and miss each other at the same time. Or some variation of that mushy stuff that he had heard in a movie. From how she was talking about them, her community still seemed alive, which was good. At least she had somewhere to go back to if she so decided. "Seems like you had a pretty good community going for you there." She had even managed to rebuild it slightly at the Legion. Some sort of a family, anyways. He had been invited to campfire things with Charlie, Felicity, Clare, and Prometheus. There were probably more people, but those were the only names that had stuck with him, besides, he had never even gone. Circle, happy talking time just didn't go well with him being.... well, him.

The older demigod's eyes drifted towards the younger girl. Still looking upwards at the stars. She had grown up outside, with no buildings to obstruct her view of all the stars. He wondered how many hours she had spent as a kid looking at them. "I didn't really get to see a lot of stars as a kid, but it never stopped me from climbing up on the roof and trying," he said with a slight smirk.

IC: 523