cat mafia wrote:[CLAN] Gumiho: '>g< btw anyone have an extra demagnetised compass? need it for the romantic.'
[CLAN] Mischief Managed: '[a] isn't that the second time you've been asked for a rare cosmetic?'
[CLAN] Mischief Managed: '[a] who'd you kill for this shit luck? remind me to stay away from them.'
[CLAN] Chi Squared: '[^2] I think Vers got the last one that dropped.'
[CLAN] Chi Squared: '[^2] Otherwise, let's farm the run when I get back, I want more drop rate data anyways.'
[CLAN] Gumiho: '>g< thanks!! it would be my honor to contribute to chi's spreadsheets. c:'
And so life continued, as it always did. Nestled as comfortably as she could be - not very - in the rocky niche she'd found for herself, snuggled in a fairly thin, but ostensibly dry, blanket she'd packed, snacking aimlessly, she could almost imagine she was in her apartment, sitting in bed with the lights off, her laptop on her lap and a bag of wasabi peas on her nightstand, simply content to exist.
A drop of hit the ground a few feet away. Almost.
Honestly, it felt like it had been a very long time since she'd felt that way.
What had her life been like, the past year or two? Grading homework sets, grading papers, grading exams, teaching; a smidgen of research, here and there, when her university had the budget to support it. She'd met a boy at a networking event - he had been brilliant, far more brilliant than she thought she'd ever been, and she had fallen for him like a rock for Galileo.
She had known for a very long time. When she started scheduling her office hours later and later so she could sneak back into her own apartment, when she spent late nights putting together spreadsheets for her helpsite just to indulge into the feeling of being useful again - she had known. She had just always thought, maybe, she could fix things; she had even thought they'd get back together after this, if she just let the anger subside and begged for his forgiveness or something.
But now, miles away from civilization, alone with nothing but stone and water, she felt less lonely than she had in years.
'This sounds so contrived,' Chi complained futilely to the sky. 'Girl breaks up with guy. Girl goes on adventure that turns out to be a journey of self-discovery. Girl discovers the treasure was actually in our hearts all along.'
'I'm too old for my life to be a shitty young adult novel.'
(chi voices my own thoughts about this post. i'm not sure i like how i handled this, or even that i actually should've included this in my caving plot.)