I am the passenger

Nadia had a few supplies tucked into her backpack and she sat down by the main campfire to wait for Annette.

[ooc: Nadia and Annette are sneaky liek woah! Locked to her, and NFB, please?]

Nadia had spent much of the night pacing back and forth across the circle. Partially to wake up her left foot, which kept falling asleep on her, partially just to keep warm as it had gotten quite cold by around 4 am, and partially just to keep herself from falling asleep.

Now, though, she was seated again. Her hunger, overnight, had grown from an inconvenience to almost making her stomach hurt. Her throat was dry, and her body was stiff and aching from walking for most of yesterday.

It was hard to believe, looking back, that she'd ever managed five years on the street, when the hunger pains, the aching body, and the cold and lack of sleep were things she dealt with every day. Life in Fandom had made her somewhat soft, she supposed. She'd grown too used to eating regularly, sleeping on a mattress, and central heating.

Still, she was determined to do this, and to do it right, so she sat throughout the morning and into the afternoon, watching the patterns the sunlight etched across the water and listening to the sounds of the preserve.

After several hours, she became aware of another sound, behind her and to her left, the sound of water rushing over rocks, and of footsteps through the pine needles.

"Dammit, Walter, I told you not to come until tomorrow," she said, turning to look.

( It wasn't Walter )

When Nadia awoke back to her body, the sun had set, and the moon, just past the halfway point of waxing full, illuminated the clearing.

She was stiff and sore again, hungry and thirsty and very, very tired.

But it didn't matter. She slowly pushed herself to her feet, and something glinted, catching her eye.

It was a round stone, smoothed over by years of water flowing over, around, and through it. A river rock with a hole running through it, lopsided and off center. It was just smaller than her palm, maybe 2 1/2 inches in diameter, and only a quarter inch thick at its thickest point. It was a comforting weight in her hand and she tossed it into the air once, catching it with a solid "thwap" into her palm. After a moment's thought, she went to her pack at the edge of the cirlce and pulled out a small length of twine. She looped it around and through the hole in the rock. As she bent over, something fluttered from her hair.

A feather. Sleek, shining, damp, and black. A duck feather. She smiled, threading it into the knot as she tied the twine to the river rock. Then she slipped the twine through her belt loop so that the rock and feather hung just at the center of her left hip. She had enough necklaces, but she felt she should keep these things. It was her own little medicine bag.

She looked out over the water as the wind began to pick up, a soft smile on her face, then she bent over and put her boots back on, put her blankets away, and lifted her pack onto her shoulder.

She'd be getting back early. Wouldn't Walter be surprised.

[ooc: that Nadia is out on the preserve is fine for broadcast. Anything she sees or does here is NFB, since the vast majority of it isn't technically physically happening, anyway. Not for interaction, though OOC commentary is always welcome, if you can't make it past the tl;dr. Mucho thanks to untouchableskin for helping me figure out Nadia's spirit animal. The Narcolepsy plot is now complete, yay!]

Nadia was dressed in several layers of her warmest clothes and carrying a small pack with extra blankets, a canteen, a compass, the GPS tracking device, and the simple weapons she'd promised Walter she'd bring. She took a quick drink from the canteen and looked out over the trees.

She realized with a start that she was starting off from almost the same point where she'd found Cally after she'd been attacked.

Still, coincidence. It couldn't really mean anything. She pulled a slip of paper from the back of her jeans, and softly read the words written on them to the pre-dawn quiet.

( cut for research babble )

She refolded the paper and tucked it back in her pocket, taking a deep breath of the cool air. "//I really hope this works,//" she muttered softly, and then started into the forest.

[ooc: establishy only. Stay tuned here to see the results of Nadia's vision quest, should you be so inclined. The prayer is from RED DAWN "Walk Softly, O My Sisters, O My Brothers," found here]

The roof of Empire Records and Bidet had been . . . decorated. There were Chinese lantern string lights draped over the giant letters of the lit sign, with a picnic blanket set up with a fondue set on a tripod beneath it. Nadia herself was leaning quietly on the edge of the roof, watching the street.

She just hoped everything had gone according to plan. She'd never tried to organize something this big before.

Still, it was worth it, so long as Walter enjoyed it.

And the bottle of ice wine sitting in the cooler and the pile of blankets and pillows behind the sign? Well, that was so that they could both enjoy the rest of Walter's birthday.

[ooc: locked to the birthday boy. Thankyouthankyouthankyou to badassbutler, kitty__fetish, futurebucsstar, strongestgirl, sogothcally, future_visions, karaoke_lizard, and dramaqmaureen for their help with this. You guys rock so much that there are no words.]

Nadia lay awake, staring at the ceiling, as she had been for the last few hours. At least she'd gotten some sleep, even if it had been filled with images of things Sloane might do that might have been and might not have been prophetic.

The side of her neck was getting a bit raw from her rubbing it to check for wounds or blood.

Something had to happen soon, or something, possibly her brain, would break. Though in retrospect, she was pretty sure her friends probably thought her brain already had.

Her breathing quickened as her eyes flicked down to stare at the door instead. She wanted out. But the door was sealed and so was the window and all three of them were stuck inside. . . .

[ooc: for the 303 residents, since no one can get in until Al un-alchemies the door.]

Nadia was exhausted by travel and the stress of her afternoon and evening trying to deal with the revelation that, while she'd been in Argentina for more than a year, only a few days had passed in Fandom. But she couldn't shut her brain off, even in her drunken state. So after a few hours of tossing and turning on the too-large hotel bed (which had its own, now painful memories to go with it), she fired up the laptop she'd been issued during the training course and opened up a file that had helped her get through seven months of celebacy and not knowing why she couldn't contact her friends.

She hadn't needed it when she'd finally given in to Cesar and then to Roberto. But she got the feeling that her little adventure story would get quite long in the next few weeks.

( She started writing (NWS!) )

She felt better and sat back, saving the file and closing the laptop.

Perhaps tomorrow night, Mario and Elena would be joined by their lover, Calliope, in the back of the old abandoned perfume factory.

( Writing linkdrops is like flying in dreams. . . . )

--and she woke up in Walter's bed.

That was something that was much more fun to do when Walter was also in it.

She sighed, rolled onto her back, and stared at the ceiling for awhile, wondering if Jamie was done twitching yet.

[ooc: dreamy linkdrop brought to you by my insanity. Weeeeeeee!]

Out on the preserve, sleeping quietly in a tent, Nadia dreamed:

( I don't go to sleep to dream )

She woke up blinking and sighed. She couldn't have had one of those dreams while they were trying to figure out the ghosts. Oh, no, she had to have an almost completely useless one like that.

If she ever saw her father again, she was going to throttle him with her bare hands.