ph_logs | In Which The Boy Realizes He Has Aged

In Which The Boy Realizes He Has Aged

Who: Bart Torgal and whoever is interested in his BIRTHDAY!

What: Bart's 20th Birthday (and the immediately adjacent days

When: September 2-4

Where:The clinic, the Velvet Ambrosia and Silk, the beach, Bart's house, etc

Warning(s): n/a (will update as necessary)

The Day Before
On the second day of September, after he's figured out his budget for the month and realized how tight he's let things get, Bart makes a decision:

He's got to get out more, so that he can make more stable connections with other people again. This habitual self-isolation is doing him absolutely no favors. He'd promised First Aid that they would try harder to meet one another halfway, so...he should do that. He looks down at his sending stone, sitting neat and faintly glittering to one side of his desk, and debates on calling the protectobot to see what he might be up to when his work was finished. His fingers come to rest lightly against the outer edge of the stone and...

He hesitates. Dammit, why are relationships so hard?

Birthday, Morning
When Bart awakens on his birthday, he wants to have a quiet, simple day. Half a shift at the clinic, a bit of time spent outside working in the garden that he'd started that was coming along very well by now. It was a vegetable patch with newly planted, strong stakes in the midst of the climbing stalks, and even a space where he wants to eventually install a little fountain so that he could have the sound of water closer by. He's proud of it, especially considering he'd done the majority of it alone in the back lot of his property.

Settling into his seat at his desk, Bart whiles away his time writing little notes in his journal as he awaits incoming patients or perhaps other doctors in need of an extra pair of eyes or hands. But it's a quiet day, peculiarly so considering the semi-frequent upheavals in the regular goings-on of the town, but he's certainly not complaining. It means that what he's planning for the evening, after whatever else may happen to him in the intervening hours, may actually go down without a hitch.

He can hope, anyway.

Birthday, Evening (but possibly the next day, thread-dependent)
Later into the evening, when he's got time to do so, Bart can be found standing anxiously just outside of Velvet, Silk, and Ambrosia. He's dressed well in a fine button-down shirt and comfortable trousers that make his legs look even longer. His hair has been combed before being pulled back in a low ponytail. He looks every bit the very nervous first-timer to an establishment like this, and the reasoning is twofold:

1) The Madame of the establishment makes him very nervous. She has used him as a weapon before, might as well have been responsible for the death of his roommate, and took every opportunity to poke fun at him, which he considers to be very rude indeed!

and 2) It's a brothel. It's advertised as a "love hotel with breakfast options", but the general consensus is that it's a high-end brothel. Which is fine! He has nothing against that! He's just never, ever been this close to one in his life.

So now, here he is, hovering just outside the door with his hand out, as if to test the barrier that he knew had been put in place for the peace of mind of the staff and villagers alike. He can press through it and be permitted to enter.

And he will.

In a minute.

The Day After
The day had been long, and now he wants to take some time alone to decompress Being social takes so much out of him at times, and this was certainly no exception. Bart leaves a note on the front desk at the clinic to let the others know that he would be taking the full day off to get his head back in order, and that he could be found down by the waterfront in case of emergency. Then he simply leaves, heading down toward the beach to spend his day there with his pantlegs rolled up and his feet in the waves coming ashore in their rhythmic patterns. He looks, and feels, at home here, holding his shoes in one hand and just watching the ocean a while.

Wildcard
Belated birthday greetings and/or gifts? Just wishing to say hello in general or run into him early in the month? Prod here, DM me, hit me on the Discord, and I can set up a toplvl to make threads happen.

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"Oh! Are you a doctor yourself, or perhaps a professor of some sort? What kind of research do you do?"

That's two questions, she knows, but her mind can't help but flicker back to old allies. Professor Diruse and his work with lizards - he'd probably love this island, fall to his knees at things being alive and well here. The eagerness to know is transparent on her face, Helena simply cheered to talk, to make a new friend.

Edited 2024-09-09 07:27 (UTC)

"I'm a biologist, actually. Specifically I work in agriculture. Before I came here, I was meant to assist the development of sustainable food production on space stations between star systems," he explains. "Now though, I just grow food as a hobby while I try and bolster the local antibiotic supply via penicillin manufacturing, and work at the clinic to be able to provide what knowledge I can to the others that don't come from quite the same time period. My research into the environment here has led to some really remarkable encounters with the wildlife both deep in the forest, and out in the ocean immediately around the island. I want to try and get the money together to buy back my personal submersible and go out into the water for longer periods." He just has to convince people to move it when he can afford it.

Oh. Oh. The look on her face is sheer wonder and delight, suddenly full of dozens of more questions, but what bursts through her full force is:

"You've been to space? To different systems?"

If it wouldn't have upset the sandcastle, there's the feeling that she would have rushed over to hear more of it.

"How? From all I read, people have to pack supplies when they go on spaceships, like for sea voyages - I didn't think you could grow anything there, without earth and sunlight to do so with." A tiny pause. "...there is a companion I have, but it isn't very knowledgeable about these things. And it wasn't as though we could simply...yes, download is the word, we couldn't do that for more information."

"You're not wrong! And the amount of energy that it takes to get all of that into space is incredibly costly. That's why it's important for space stations, especially those between systems, become self-sufficient. The fewer things needed to be transported from elsewhere, the better for individual planets' healths and the less likely it is to be taken by pirates in between.

"It is possible to grow things without natural sunlight or earth, you just have to be very particular with how you do it. Special lights that generate the same wavelength of light, a foam latticework for roots to hold onto, and water with as much nutrients in it as soil would have. A hydroponic structure is ideal for an interstellar system because the water itself can be cycled through different plants and oxygenating processes and be used near constantly with occasional top-ups from ice deliveries from frozen worlds."

That sure is a lot of information all at once, sorry Helena.

It is, but Bart's explanations have led to one young woman with metaphorical stars in her eyes, trying to envision everything. If she didn't know Security, if she didn't know Wayne, this would be a harder conversation to grasp. And now there's space pirates, and whole worlds frozen, and an entire branch of things she does not know but apparently wandered into the right person to talk about these things. Oh, the worlds are grander and bigger than she could have ever expected.

"Did you grow up with all of this? I confess I have a hundred questions, but I'm equally happy to just let you elaborate on your field...where I'm from, I've never so much as thought of a plane, so this is amazing."

She's recovered enough to start working on the sandcastle again, not quite sure what it will be like in the end, but happy enough just to make it and listen.

Even with all of his experience I'm his field and the knowledge that he's gained over the course of his education and then the practical application thereof, Bart himself still finds great joy in and fascination with it all. He loves his work, and the enthusiasm with which he talks about it here absolutely gives that away.

"I did! I was conceived on Earth, but shortly thereafter I went to one of the near-Earth stations and grew up there. The childrearing infrastructures in place are perhaps a bit...sterile, but for better or worse, it put me in exactly the position that I was supposed to be to continue along the path laid out for me. I would get to see dozens of stations, dozens of ships, new planets when the phase gates were in progress. I assisted in cataloguing hundreds of new creatures from orbit. If it weren't for my immune system not being able to stand up to a mutagenic bacteria strain, I might still be at it!"

He's smiling as he scoops more sand around a little stick structure and pats it into place, adding a shell when it looks like it's stable enough to stay put.

Her attention remains firmly on him, her hands carefully shaping damp sand into the shapes she wants to feel. The things Bart speaks of are fantastical to her, but at the same time very real through the medium of friends. Though her expression dims some as he says the last line, drawing the worst conclusion.

"Is that how you came here?"

That's terrible, but she hopes this place is kinder, both to his immune system and to him. It also doesn't occur to her that asking how someone died is rather rude - neither the manor nor the ship kept it as a taboo topic.

There is a definite reason that ideas like the ones that he's laying out before her have been written about as pure science fiction for decades by her point and centuries by his.

He's not sure whether she's actually joking, or asking an earnest question regarding the nature of the bacterium in question, but nonetheless he answers honestly as he always does. "Unfortunately, yes. It's one of the things that keeps me from directly engaging in high impact activities like the diving that I would love to be able to do, if not for how quickly the bends sets in on me now when I go a little bit too deep in the water. It's a terrible thing, really. It isn't as if I was a target though, it was more that we had stumbled into a quarantine situation without realizing it and couldn't get out," he explains as he shifts on his knees around the opposite side of the castle to start shaping it in a similar fashion to how she was. "It had affected a huge amount of the wildlife on the planet, and seemed to have actively decimated the intelligent population. Terribly sad, and as much as I do like to be hands-on with my work, it was...uncomfortable, to say the least. Have you ever had pneumonia?"

"Not that I can directly remember, but it may have happened when I was very small. It was an illness that took my sight, after all - I wouldn't be surprised if there were other illnesses there."

She pauses, feeling for what she thinks might be some kind of bit of a shell in the sand, pressing it into their structure.

"But I can understand what you're getting at. So there was the bacterium, and it had to stay where it was, and since you walked in you couldn't go out lest it come with you. Someone should have put up a message beforehand." She shakes her head a little bit. "What's the bends, though? Is it another sickness?"

Bart nods to himself as he listens. That sounds right, sometimes illnesses could be incredibly devastating when not caught and treated appropriately in a specific window, and it sounds like she was a victim of that.

Settling back on his knees, Bart lays his sandy hands atop his legs, debating on how to explain everything that had gone wrong with their unplanned detour. He takes a breath, then huffs a quiet laugh. "Unfortunately, there was a warning, but it was in a language that we weren't able to translate in time for it to save us. Our ship was destroys and the broadcast was confined to short-wave reception. The bacterium had already infected us by the time we had started to go toward what seemed like it would help us.

"As far as the bends is concerned though, it's a bit more complicated. When your body is compressed by a lot of pressure, like that of deep water diving, it tends to cause gasses to dissolve into your bloodstream and starts to bubble. Imagine your blood starting to turn to foam. And then when you return to your normal pressure atmosphere, it causes your tissues to expand and rupture, and there aren't many treatments for such things. You get very sick." He knows it's a lot more complicated than that, but he also realizes that he's talking to someone that, while intelligent, may not understand if he lays all of the details down in rapid order.

"Oh dear."

Her reaction is horrified enough that Bart will know she's understanding the concept of your blood turning to foam in your veins very well.

"And...are you better here? Since you're out and about, and the intelligent population here seems unaffected, or at the least, you didn't start running when you found me." Just a little joke. "Maybe you're immune now, since you lived through it already."

Bart cringes slightly, biting on the insides of his lips as he nods absently. "I'm sorry, it really is an awful description to be sure. I count myself very lucky to be here," he adds, and the smile comes back to his voice. "I've met many good and interesting people here, and the hazards really aren't anything that I can't deal with. Death is real and it happens, obviously, but then I'll be right back here, building a sand castle, making a friend.

"But as far as the infection is concerned, I did consult with the goddess that allowed me to be here, and then with one of the doctors that had come in before me that had the capability to run a proper blood panel to be sure that I wouldn't infect anybody else with my presence. It was such a comfort, not to need to be quarantined."

There's a smile that rises to her lips, honest and true, to hear him describe it as making a friend. That's exactly what it is. And it only grows, to hear that he's well, that he has nothing to fear.

"We would have figured something out, even if you needed to be. I'm sure of it - people have been so helpful here. But I'm very, very glad you don't need to now. It'd be a shame to only get to speak to you through the stones, or over letters."

She'd have figured out a way to teach someone Braille long distance, if she had to.

"And you get to enjoy the entire island, as well. It's incredible - I confess, I've spent quite some time being unable to take in anything natural, anything that grows, so even with the barrier, this isle is extraordinary."

You don't realize how important grass is when you don't have it.

"Oh yes, the people are very kind, and very resourceful. I'm sure someone would have been able to figure something out for me whether it was strictly necessary or not. I'll just be grateful that things have gone the way they have and that I can safely move among the rest of the village. It's nice to be able to go and explore on my own in the mornings."

Bart carves little details in the soft towers that they've molded, giving it crenelations that would almost certainly crumble away sooner rather than later.

"Would you perhaps like to join me on an expedition out into the forest some time? With the turn of the season it is going to be very cold, but there is a hot spring a bit further north, and not far from that is the entrance to an underground realm with its own enclosed ecosystem that tends to stay quite warm."

Her eyes widen again, and what Bart will see is a rising hope, mixed with hesitance.

"An expedition...the concept sounds wonderful, the idea of a whole other realm, but...would it really be all right? It can take me more time than others to get places, and I wouldn't wish to slow everyone down for my sake."

She's well aware of her limitations. Navigating things that aren't steady and safe ground takes time, when she cannot simply see a path through.

"While that is a reasonable worry, I assure you that I wouldn't offer to take you if I didn't think that I could see to your safety. You deserve to experience life outside of this, especially when you're coming from a place where there was nothing green for you to experience."

She'll hear him shuffling about to place himself a bit closer to her, and he clears his throat. "Are you comfortable with contact? I want to be sure, in the event that you need help over something on the forest floor."

"Yes. I appreciate you asking."

Easier to trust the hand of a friend rather than struggle. When she turns her head his direction again, it's to showcase a smile, as she really begins to contemplate the idea. An expedition. She'll have to tell all her friends.

"You're a kind soul, Bart. I couldn't thank you enough, except to be what assistance I can be on the journey."

He likes her smile. She is very sweet, and he's glad that he'd managed to find her out here even while he was in his own rather unhappy mood. He returns to working on the sand castle, carefully creating little moldings while she worked on the structure.

"I'm sure that you'll catch things out there that I miss while I'm making visual observations. I've heard a great deal about heightened sensory perception making up for a lack of other senses, and I'm sure that I'm not quite as keen on certain details when I've been so distracted by others. I imagine that you'll be invaluable when you find your comfort."

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In Which The Boy Realizes He Has Aged

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