Sandy
◇ *Flick.*

□ Two weeks had passed since the inciting incident that got her shipped halfway across Europe once again. Two boring, uncertain weeks, rife with the pulling of her roots and emotional goodbyes. She'd grown past bitterness, and now simply existed in a state of acceptance, yet as she lit a cigarette out in the cold and shivered in her hiking boots she couldn't help but wonder what she'd be doing if it weren't for the incident. Working? Watching her roommate's cat be a weird little creature? Loitering in bookstores until close like she always tended to do?

▪︎ She had no way to know for sure. She took a drag and stuffed her hands into the deep pockets of her coat, producing a pair of gloves and slipping her hands into them.

□ It was cold. So very cold.
Agnes
Fennel closed the gate behind them. It rattled in the way that only a metal gate ever does. They took a deep breath, expecting fresh, chilly winter air, and instead got cigarette smoke. They coughed.

"You shouldn't smoke. It's bad for you."

Not that Fennel was really one to judge. They'd been down that rabbit hole themselves, and with stronger substances than nicotine. But they, of course, didn't remember that. Some things, though, they couldn't forget, and caring about the well-being of others was one of them.

Fennel had already bundled themselves up. The cold wasn't too foreign to them; they owned a lot of warm clothes for the winter months. Sweaters, jackets, gloves, scarves. It all helped ward off a little bit of the biting cold, even if they didn't really know how to dress anymore.

They turned to the girl smoking, expecting to see a face they'd at least recognize, but they didn't. Whoever this was, she was foreign to Fennel.

"I don't think I've seen you before. Are you new here?"
Sandy
◇ Somehow, she hadn't been expecting company.

□ Realistically, though, she should have. She was new in a small facility, full of the bored and the curious, so there was no reason for her to have expected solitude out in the courtyard. Instead, she was now face to face with a curly haired individual, dressed up for the winter a little better than she'd done herself, and they were saying something about smoking being bad.

▪︎ She knew that it was bad for her, but she found it tough to care. Now, though, she had to respond, and *That* Was the tough part.

◆ "Er..." Her face twisted into an uncertain expression, throaty hums buzzing out while she figured out how to reply. "I am. Yes." Distant and awkward, Akvilė kept her sight fixed on a random tree in the distance. This was among the worst parts of moving to a new town: meeting people. She'd already moved to southeastern Lithuania, then Poland, and now she was in Sweden. A real world tour!... Save for the lack of novelty and wonder. "I, uh... Arrived yesterday. They took me here by plane... How are people fine with them? They are *Tubes* In the sky... Unnerving."
Agnes
"Oh, that makes sense, then." Fennel nodded. They'd noticed that the girl wasn't looking at them, but rather staring vacantly into the distance, so they elected to do the same. It felt awkward to be looking at someone who wasn't looking at them.

They figured they wouldn't comment more on the smoking. Some people were going to smoke, whether it was good for them or not.

At the stranger's distaste for aeroplanes, Fennel could only chuckle. "Oh, yes. They're... Well, they're really something." Fennel remembered being annoyed by commercial aircraft in the night sky. They didn't remember why. 

"I think most people are a little scared of flying. Otherwise they wouldn't have so much security involved." Fennel had flown maybe twice in their life, but the excessive security measures both before and after boarding made quite an impression. "But it seems like a small thing when you're looking at the rest of the world, I think. War and disease and natural disasters make the tubes in the sky feel a little less scary by comparison."
Sandy
◇ And she looked forward as the other person spoke, hands nervously toying with the belt strap fastened around her waist.

■ "Algirdas was saying they're common since someone rode a plane into a tower. Seems like a waste of the resources Dievas gave us." Her speech ebbed and flowed haphazardly, syllables getting tangled up and spat out like verbal hairballs. "But maybe. Though, war is a part of the human experience; we'd still be living in mud houses and running ourselves to death for food without it."

▪︎ She took a long drag and exhaled, her straight brown hair getting casually blown about by a soft gust of wind.

◆ "But in war you have a chance of getting home. Or you find a new home. A plane goes down? Giltinė relishes when one goes down because everyone dies. I don't like them."
Agnes
"Mmm." Fennel hummed quizzically. "I'm not sure I agree." Though they didn't care to elaborate. They'd elaborate if they were asked to. "But I don't like planes either." Akvilė's religion, or friends, or whatever the foreign words referred to, was really very little of Fennel's concern. They didn't bother to ask, or even to be concerned about someone relishing plane crashes. It wasn't their problem.

"Planes disconnect you from the Earth. It's not healthy, spiritually speaking. And once they're up there, they block out the stars and shine bright like fake stars instead. It makes it hard to..." They trailed off. What were they talking about? They had no idea where they got any of the information they just shared.

They didn't really feel like making a point out of saying that, though. They would grapple with their amnesia on their own time.

"Oh, by the way. You moved in yesterday, right? Have you seen the whole campus yet?"
Sandy
◆ "Yeah." Was all she said in response as the other spoke. It seemed sensible; planes separated man from the earth in a way they simply weren't meant to. "The natural order gets broken, and that's a sin."

□ She fell quiet afterwards, taking a drag off her cigarette and exhaling sharply with a cough. For someone so young her cough sounded awful aged; maybe she'd been at it a while? Jury was out. "I-I did, yes. I had little to move; I was kind of a nomad beforehand." She quietly spoke after a few moments. "And I haven't seen the full breadth of it. I don't want to, quite frankly." She continued, shooting a glance at the cancer stick between her fingers. Halfway done; she silently nodded at it. 

● "What I'm wondering, though, is the why of this place. Do families just not teach their kids how to responsibly bend their powers in the outside world? Seems a waste of potential, and a waste of land space that could've been taken up by lingonberries and forest cover."
Agnes
*Sin.* Ugly word, Fennel thought. Judgmental. They did occasionally forget that some people thought like that - that some people believed the higher powers to be angry with people, or to want to control people. Fennel didn't like to think like that.

"Ah, me too." Or so they were told. Relating to things was harder without any memory. It was perhaps the part of amnesia they felt the most - they couldn't relate to people. "But I had a foster home for a while. I'm not sure what I prefer, being on the road or not." They didn't remember anyway.

Fennel leaned on the fence. It provided a bit of support. They were still a bit weak, and they were starting to feel themselves needing it. "I think most people wonder that. It seems like people agree that there's more to it, but I don't think anyone knows what. Except the staff, of course."
Sandy
◆ "Oh, you were a nomad too...?" Akvilė mulled over the new information for a few moments before exhaling softly. "I mean. Cool. I think I preferred life on the road; felt more natural. More connected."

□ And that was the truth she was sticking by. Looking up into one of the trees in the courtyard, her eyes fixed themselves on a squirrel up on a branch. Chubby yet nimble, it raced up and down a branch, stuffing random bits of food into a nook in a tree as if the winter would never let up and it was preparing for the icy apocalypse. It was a beautiful thing, and she found herself barely even registering what her fellow nomad was saying.

▪︎ She finally turned to face them, and looked straight through them for comfort's sake. A direct gaze with no focal point; lights on, nobody home.

◆ "I didn't catch most of what you said." She muttered matter-of-factly. "Just something about the staff. So this place has secrets?"
Agnes
"That's alright," Fennel reassured her. It wasn't that important anyway. They continued. "Oh, yes. The reason this place even exists is a secret." 

They looked back at the building. Tall, imposing, even at only three stories. The concrete was hardly friendly, and the wire fence probably didn't help matters either. But they still had to live there, in that awful monolith of a building, where "Feng shui" May as well be a condiment. The people seemed alright, at least.

"You'll get used to it."
Sandy
◆ "Weird."

□ A puff of smoke rolled off her lips, and she flicked her fingernail against the butt of it while thinking over what she knew. It was a secretive government facility, nominally for the education of people, yet it seemed to be one with plenty of skeletons in its closet. Akvilė was no stranger to skeletons – neither real nor spiritual – yet the idea of being in such a lavish yet haunted place seemed to bother her just a touch.

▪︎ Another puff. 

◆ "So, uh..." The old awkwardness reared its head as she went to open her mouth again. Nervously she twirled a few locks of hair around her fingers, intertwining it with the stub of a cigarette she had left twixt her fingers. "H-how'd you, y'know. Get off the road?"
Agnes
"Weird." Akvile said. Fennel agreed, but didn't respond.

They did their best to breathe cleaner air than the deathly smoke from Akvile's cigarette. It wasn't working particularly well, and they still found themselves coughing now and again. They hoped not to get used to it, though city life made it more and more likely every day that they'd get used to breathing that kind of toxic air.

They looked at Akvile. She didn't look much better. Her demeanor was strange, but the cigarette combined with her eyes said enough. She had her own problems.

"Oh," Fennel said nonchalantly, "My parents died, and I went into foster care. I was a child, I didn't really have a choice either way." They seemed unbothered, because they were. They'd read all this in a file. They weren't attached to it. How could they be? They didn't remember their parents, or their foster parents. They remembered words on a page.

"I went back on the road again when I got old enough. Then I lost my new caravan too. Then I went here."
Sandy
◆ "Circumstances out of your control. Hm." She commented, eyebrows raising slightly in thought. "You must be Romani if you're talking about caravans. One of them passed through once; fine enough people. Oft-vilified, but fine people."

□ Perhaps a weird way to put it, but what about Akvilė *Wasn't* Weird? Her hands, bony and slender, had holes all along her fingers. The skin on her neck showed bones clear as day. Every word she spoke seemed to take a ninety degree turn from where it seemed she was going. Digging out a small weathered can from a messenger bag hung over her shoulder she dropped the extinguished butt of her cigarette in and turned on her heels.

▪︎ She'd done what she came to do.

◆ "Before I go back in to sit by the electric hearth." She turned her head to face the curly-haired wandered. "Your name? I-I need familiar faces here."
Agnes
Fennel nodded. "Yeah. Romani and Traveller. That's- *Irish* Traveller." Most people outside Ireland probably wouldn't know much about Travellers, they had to remind themselves. They were an unlikely mix.

Oft-vilified was right, though. Fennel had read about a particular incident in their file, one they weren't even sure they could have remembered. Their caravan had, it seems, been attacked by angry farmers.

They watched Akvile retrieve the cigarette butt from her mouth and place it in a small can with at least a little surprise. Littering seemed to be a favorite pastime of urban smokers - it was nice to know that it wasn't all of them.

*Electric hearth.* Quaint phrasing. The idea had been new to Fennel too, once, of indoor heating, but they didn't quite remember learning about it. Still, the comparison of modern indoor heating to a hearth was charming. It elicited a little smile.

"It's Fennel. Yours?"
Sandy
◆ "Akvilė." She replied, hands awkwardly dangling in the air. "I-I guess it's nice to meet you. Stay, uh... Safe?"

□ And with an awkward wave she turned her head and walked away, half-jogging to the door and holding her arms around herself to keep warm. As she walked away her thoughts raced onwards – *Too open,* They shouted at her – and she wasn't entirely sure if she'd ever seek Fennel out again.

▪︎ But. A familiar face was a familiar face. It was a start.