[META PRP] Ground Crew; Flight and Might

[Buzzwulf]

400 words for 11/20

"Hey, Selune!" Quella called out, looking over the greenblood's handiwork. "Whatcha doin'? I thought you were gonna spot me!" She released the crane's load with a twang, the rope parting high in the air and dropping a load of heavy metal girders a good twenty feet to land with a splat in wet concrete. There was an audible groan from the entire construction site as they realized exactly who was going to have to pull those girders back out. Quella ignored it. They were just lazy.

"Yup!" the blueblood said as she grabbed the markers from Selune's hands. "I dug all the holes! like a hundred of them. No, like two hundred! Also, this is taking you too long, so I'm gonna do it." Quella looked at the machine parts scattered around, then shrugged. Without pausing, she slapped a marker on every single machine part she could find, moving at a dead sprint. She laughed as she did it, and collapsed on the ground in a heap as soon as she couldn't find any more.

There was a shout as a supervisor rolled around and told them to take all the markers back off. It wasn't like they were toys! "Oh yeah?" the blueblood asked. "How do you even tell what machines work and which ones don't? I'm not gonna go around hitting all of them to make sure that they start." The supervisor shook his head, and told them to just figure it out. "Fine." the blueblood responded in a huff, ripping several markers off nearby machinery. As soon as he wasn't paying attention, though, Quella hopped up a bit of nearby scaffolding, waving for the swamp troll to follow her. They were going climbing!

"That guy was WAY too grumpy," Quella said to Selune, quietly, up in the evening air. "He's gotta chill out a little." She was looking at the stars wistfully, wishing she was out among them like the older trolls. If only she could just grow up faster somehow! She gave the greenblood another quick hug, making sure that neither of them were in danger of falling off their little platform. "Thanks for sticking with me, I guess. I know i'm kinda a handful sometimes, but everyone else just moves sooo slow." The blueblood lay down on her back, and watched the stars and ships move up in the darkness for a little while. This was nice.  

[Micillia]

Selune Maidaz Lunara Zediam

"O-oh!" Selune said, jumping up. What had she been doing that distracted her anyway? Probably nothing, it didn't matter. "On it!" But of course, as soon as Selune got up there, Quella jumped off and raced around, putting markers on too many things. Selune visibly paled. "Wait! Quella!" The greenblood called out. But what was she supposed to say? Making them all as duds would attract attention to her illegal agenda? Yeaaaah no way was she saying that to Quella.

She stepped down from her spot on the machine Quella had been on momentarily before. Jeez, the blueblood was just crazy with energy! Zooming this way and that, here and there, doing everything imaginable, and most of them unhelpful. Then Quella said something heartwarming, and Selune smiled. "Of course Quella! I like hanging out with you!" The greenblood said. Then she noticed it, Quella was staying still. Lying still to boot. She played with the blueblood's braids for a second as she sat next to her, also watching the same night sky. "Oh, i know what you mean tho. I wanna get out there so bad."  

[Buzzwulf]

312 words for 11/21

Quella turned to Selune with a beaming smile. "It's ok. Probably just a matter of time before they figure out they needed our help after all." The metal of the scaffolding was cold under her back, and kind of sharp on the edges. She missed the warm stone of her cave, where she could lie on top of her little outcropping of rock and just watch the stars whenever she wanted. Quella let out a small, contented sigh as Selune played with her braids. "You like those? I can braid your nugstrands if you want. Here." Quella took Selune's hair gently as the greenblood turned around.

"It's pretty easy," Quella said, gently weaving the greenblood's hair into two tight braids that hugged her nugbone. "Kinda hard to do yourself I guess, but it's pretty good for keeping hair outta your face. Although trolls really like to grab em', I guess, but there's only so much you can do about that, less you wanna cut it off completely." Quella squinted, observed her handiwork. Selune looked like a real forest troll now! She could maybe use a few more sticks and spiderwebs poking out of it, just so trolls could tell she was rough-and-tumble, but she looked fierce.

"Welcome to the pack!" Quella said with a winning smile, slapping the greenblood heartily on the back. Selune wasn't so bad, she just needed some toughening up. Quella hopped to her feet, balancing carefully on the thin girder, arms wide. "Looks like they're starting to pack up down there," the blueblood said, pointing down at the milling drones below. "We should probably be getting on to the next site before we get launched into space on accident." She started shimmying back down the structure quick as her prongs could take her. Off-handedly, Quella wondered why Selune hadn't just flown up to their little roost. She'd ask her when she remembered to.  

[Micillia]

Selune Maidaz Lunara Zediam

When Quella suggested the braid Selune was a little taken aback. In a good way tho. "Ide, wow, yeah that would be really great!" She said as the blueblood got up and turned her way. "Oh yeah? How do your braid your own hair?" Selune figured one would need a mirror for something like that, but if Quella was able to do it without even a mirror, well wow. Maybe her wolf lusus did it... Selune couldn't see it. There was no way Quella's lusus was into braiding hair. "Have you tried beads?" Selune offered, "They are kinda nice to put in your hair, and besides, you can give um to others as gifts and then you can show um off and stuff." Selune had been giving beads to some of the other wigglers back at the swamp, she hoped it would take off as a fad.

The greenblood giggled, "Thanks!" She said, admiring her new braid, "Its a pleasure to be here!" The winged troll really wished that her wings were not hidden at that time, a braid would look so good with them! Oh well. Cant bring attention to one's self, that was what Byakko said. Wings would kinda obviously bring attention to herself. "Yeah, i guess this site is pretty much all ready, huh?" Selune said as she looked around the site. It was amazing how fast things were going! It seemed like only yesterday they were leaving site Alpha and heading to Beta, and now they were onto Gama? Yeah, very quick paced!

The greenblood giggled as an idea popped up onto her thinkpan. She grabbed the blueblood's hand, and pulled her back a bit, "Quella, wait!" She said, making sure the blueblood was standing still. Then, when the other girl was facing her, she let go of her hand, yelled, "Race ya to the transporter buss!" Then zipped off.  

[Buzzwulf]

342 words for 11/22

Quella's eyes went wide as Selune sprinted past her. Maybe she wasn't quite as tame as the blueblood had thought! She couldn't quite keep a grin from her face as she chased after the sprinting greenblood, desperately gaining ground on the other troll. Quella was almost certainly faster overall, but Selune had tricked her a bit as she'd taken off. Quella just decided to return the favor, reaching out as they ran neck and neck and yanking one of Selune's new braids just hard enough to throw the greenblood off balance. She surged ahead just as they got to the free bus, and she threw up her arms in victory, huffing and puffing to catch her breath.

She felt kinda bad about the hurt look in in the greenblood's eyes, but Selune had started it. "I told ya that trolls like to grab 'em!" she called out to the crestfallen greenblood, who decided not to look her in the eye. Awww. She hadn't meant to hurt her feelings. She was just trying to win the race. Quella felt kinda bad. It kinda felt like she was picking on the other troll, and that wasn't what she'd had in mind. She gave the greenblood a serious face, and said "Sorry, I was just really wanted to win. Tell you what, I bet we can get some super good seats on the bus. I'll share some of my snacks with you!"

They found a seat at the front of the bus easily, and had to wait a while before it finally got started up, but Quella managed to produce a pair of danishes she'd stolen from the ground control mess hall and half a honeycomb from the forest. She and Selune shared the goodies, dripping honey on the pastries and getting their prongs all sticky. Quella wiped hers on her pants as the next site came into view. "Look at that one, Selune! Nothing done at all yet! I guess we get a whole fresh site to play around in."  

[Micillia]

Selune Maidaz Lunara Zediam

Selune let out a yelp of surprise as her hair was pulled on and she went tumbling backwards. It was lucky that there were soft things behind her. "HEY!" She yelled back in surprise. "That was dirty! How can you call that wining?" She said as she got up and then dusted off her butt. She had been trying so hard to keep clean! The girl grumbled as she made her way over to the blueblood, hands on her hips. When she saw Quella throw up her hands in victory and dance around like a grubling, she could not help but roll her eyes. Of course, leave it to Quella to rub in a victory, a fake victory to boot.

The greenblood finally reached Quella, a frown on her face, and was quite surprised with an apology. She didn't know what to say, really. Quella? Apologize? While it was true that the greenblood was not mean in any way, Selune did not exactly expect an apology from her. The greenblood did the thing her mother taught her, and patted the blueblood on the head.

Selune fallowed Quella onto the buss, and her eyes went wide at the treats. "Wow!" She said as she held the sweet treats in her hand. "Oh man honeycomb is the best!" She said as she licked the honey that was dripping down her wrist. The greenblood managed to lick up all the sweet before they got to next site, and she jumped off the buss with the other girl. "Humm," She mused, looking at the options. It was odd to see such an incomplete area after spending so much time seeing one that was ready to go. "What do you want to start out with?" The greenblood smiled as she looked around. There were things to clean, things to organize, information to steal...  

[Buzzwulf]

312 words for 11/23

Quella licked some leftover sweet nectar from her prongs as her and Selune hopped from the transport bus to the fresh site. Quella could hardly contain her excitement. There were rows of tools and drones at attention all throughout the site, getting started pouring concrete and tamping earth all over. Quella grabbed a spade from a rack, tested it against the ground. Nice and sharp! She grabbed a pair of heavy gloves as well, since her fingers still were pretty sore from all those holes earlier.

"So," Quella asked Selune, conversationally. "Why aren't you flying around? You could get a lot more done if you didn't have to walk everywhere like the rest of us." The blueblood stabbed her spade into the ground, marking a line carefully around a pour site before she began to dig it out. She marked the edges with little flags on sticks, then began to dig at a feverish pitch. Quella enjoyed the feeling of the work, how she could tell that she was getting her projects done little by little with nothing more then a whole lot of sweat and maybe a pack mate or two. It felt like progress!

"Or maybe you're just trying to be low-key about it? Like camouflage?" Quella continued to muse to Selune. "I know if I could fly, I'd be showing it off all the time. I really wish I could, it seems like such a cool thing to be able to do. Freeing and all that." Quella drove a post into the soft ground with a grunt, reaching for another. The concrete would have metal rods intersperced thoughout it once it was completed. She wasn't really sure why concrete needed more reinforcing, it seemed plenty tough to her, but it was how it had been explained to her, and she wasn't about to start doing it wrong for no reason.  

[Micillia]

Selune Maidaz Lunara Zediam

After they had hopped off the buss, and Selune had taken the time to marvel at the work site, she picked up one of the workbooks they gave out to wigglers. She flipped through book, looking things over as she heard Quella simply pick up the tool and start pounding around. Really, the greenblood was pretty sure someone else was going to have to fill that back in later. Then Quella asked about her wings, and she clutched the booklet to her chest, as if it would help hide her. The greenblood hadn't been too concerned with Quella using her real name, since neither names were really in the database, it didn't really matte. It was the question of her wings that really worried her. A winged troll attracted a lot of attention, and that was not what Selune wanted. She was always amazed at how flamboyant Autumn was with her wings, sometimes even a little jealous, but not at a time like this. Now was for subtly.

"I, Uh, well you see, um," The caught off guard troll stuttered. Quella spoke the greenblood's though tho, and Selune let out a sigh of relief at the blueblood's understanding. "Yeah, that's exactly it, really." She said, wiggling around a bit, trying to get her strapped down wings comfortable. "Wings are a good way to attract a lot of attention, you know? And really, I just wanna..." She shrugged and smiled. She tilted her head to the side as she listened to Quella talk about if she had wings. "I wish you had wings too Quella! That would be so fun!" She thought over the blueblood's last statement. Freeing.... "I guess it is freeing, in a way. But in another, it... binds you to yourself? Like, if you wanted to be someone new, start something over, you could! With wings? Well, they stick out, your... you know, tied to them." She frowned, not really sure what she was talking about. Instead she shook her head, and opened the booklet again. "But, uh, dont you think we should look at what the booklet says first? Before we, uh, well," Selune looked at the blueblood's work.  

[Micillia]

Selune Maidaz Lunara Zediam
155

Selune read the booklet a little more thoroughly, really looking at what they were even supposed to be doing. She could have tried to make heads or tails the confusing mess for another good hour or two, without really getting anywhere. The greenblood was holding the booklet out to one of the pages, which just happened to be a centerfold, and the pages proceeded to unroll all the way down to the floor. "Well, i tried." Selune said, dropping the manual and letting out a sigh.

Selune looked up at Quella, a thoughtful look on her face. ""Hey Quella," Selune started, "What do you mean by "free"?" She asked, picking up a shovel herself and kinda making a halfhearted attempt at digging. "You seem pretty free to me. I mean, Qulla Fehtan, jungle warrior," She looked up at the blueblood, making a motion with her hands as if the name was on the big screen. "Who could even contain such a troll as to take her freedome away from her?"  

[Buzzwulf]

312 words for 11/24

Quella grinned at the greenblood. She liked hanging out with Selune. The young troll seemed like she thought lots of complicated things, but Quella didn't feel stupid around her. The opposite, really. "I mean, yeah," the highblood said, scooping a shovel full of earth onto her swifty growing pile. "I'm as free as trolls come! No one's more free than Quella!" She scooped another pile of earth from the dig site in silence, thinking for a second. "But I mean I see birds and stuff all the time, and I kinda wonder what they're thinking, you know? Like if they get to see the world a different way."

Hole done, Quella hopped out of their pit and waved over a concrete crew, who began pouring the thick grey goop slowly into the two trolls perfectly dug hole. It burbled and garbled as it slowly shifted into a flat, mostly even plane. The concrete trolls handed out trowels and scrapers for evening the stuff out, and they quickly went to work.

As soon as the grey gritty goop was evened out, Quella yawned, stood up, and stretched out her sore muscles. It had been quite a day for her, even if she was the toughest troll on the dig site. Well, dig sites, she guessed. Suddenly, an idea went through the blueblood's thinkpan. She bent down over the concrete, taking a quick look around the site to see if anyone was watching.

"Hey, Selune. Keep an eye out for a second, ok?" Quella crouched over the still soft concrete, and scrawled quickly with her finger. Standing up, she admired her handiwork. A quick sketch of two figures with shovels, and a scrawl of "QUELLA + SELUNE: JUNGLE WARRIORS". She measured the drawing against her prong, then turned to the greenblood. "Not bad, huh?"  

[Micillia]

Selune Maidaz Lunara Zediam

The greenblood grinned and repeated the line. "That's right, no one is more free than Quella!" She giggled at the blueblood before joining with the leveling of cement, and all the little things that came with it. It was hard on a troll's back, the cement work was. She got up, grinning at Quella, "Oh? I mean, yeah ill keep watch!" The greenblood said, a little quieter she added, "What are you doing?" Only a little nervous. She looked over at the drawing Quella had done, and grinned. "Not bad at all!"

The greenblood craned her neck around, doing another check for adults or tattle tails. "I think it needs something tho, something we can measure up against when we come back..." Selune said as she grabbed Quella's hand, and pushed both the blueblood's and her own into the muck under the picture. "Lets come back in a couple of sweeps, Quella, and see how much we've grown." She thought, maybe, someday, she would come back here, and place both there hands here again, and see how far they had come. Maybe it would even be in a world that was safe from the empress, a free world, more free than Selune or Quella could ever be. She squeezed the blueblood's cement covered hand, thinking of the future.  

[Buzzwulf]

330 words for 11/25

Sirens were beginning to whine off in the distance, signalling that the site was considered completed. Quella squeezed the greenblood's hand for a moment. The cement was gritty and cold beneath her fingers. "I bet I'm a lot taller than you when we come back," the blueblood said with a grin. "I'd like to come back with you."

The blueblood took a second to wipe the wet sandy stuff from her hands on some nearby foliage, then got up and took a position on a nearby rock. Shading her eyes, she stretched out and looked over the dig site. "Looks like they're starting to pack up again. This site went up pretty fast, huh? Guess we'd better find a bus or something." Looked like there was some buses beginning to crowd into a nearby lot. Quella galloped towards the buses, hoping to find another good seat. She'd really like a chance to drive one of these buses sometime, but she didn't have a super clear idea of where they were going, so she guessed it would have to wait for later.

One uneventful bus-ride later, the whole crew came to a stop at the final site. This was it. Quella could feel herself starting to get excited. Only this one last site, and they'd be done! And then... she didn't know. Something, she supposed. Well, she was looking forward to something. She and Selune were nearly the first off the bus, and Quella looked with anticipation on the new site. It was further along than the last site they'd visited, structures already up and wiring begun. She listened, foot tapping impatiently, as an older troll told all of the ground crew in an endless drone about their duties at this last site.

In the milling crowd, as other trolls began to droop from the uninspired lecture, Quella whispered quietly "Hey, I bet no one would notice if we just snuck away and started working. This guy is boring the teeth off me."  

[Micillia]

Selune Maidaz Lunara Zediam
393
Selune squeezed Quella's hand back, tickled that the blueblood felt the same way. "You taller?? I doubt it!" She said. She was pretty sure Quella was right, but there was one thing she knew, Quella would be strong, no matter how tall she became. "But yeah, ide like to come back too." Selune wished her wings were free. She would have fluttered them right then and there, to express herself. She would have to make do with wiggling in place instead. The greenblood looked around for a rag, finally finding one. She started to offer it to Quella but the blueblood had already wiped her hands "clean" on some bushes nearby. Quella; forest animal till the end.

"Oh!" She said as she noticed the others packing up too. "Wow! Already!" Selune had to run to catch up. Luckily the blueblood had saved her a seat. It was nice, being with Quella. Usually she would have worried herself sick on being "even" with favors, help, and the like, but Quella? She didnt seem to give a fluff about who had been helping who more. It let the greenblood relax. It seemed like they had just gotten onto the buss when the vehicle stopped and the blueblood girl jumped up. Selune was hauled out of the buss as Quella dragged her out, making them the first two trolls at the ready.

The usual speech was boring, like usual, but Selune payed attention, being attentive the entire time. Until that is, that Quella whispered something in her ear. Selune giggled behind a hand, and whispered back; "Well gosh we really better get going! I cant imagine a Quella without teeth. I bet such a sad thing would end up starving to death left with just her bark." Selune looked this way and that, and slipped away with her friend.

The greenblood dragged the blueblood over towards the more technical part of the work site. She lead them to a secluded place near where all the scientists were working. "Hey Quella," Selune started, not really sure how to word this. The rebels could use all the raw resources they could get their hands on, but what they really needed was the tech, the knowledge. "See that?" She said, pointing at the papers, USB drives, and other information storage devices, "I need help getting those, and, um, quietly."  

[Buzzwulf]

405 words for 11/26

"Selune," Quella replied, cocking a brow at the greenblood. "Teeth are THE most important thing for eating bark. Come on. I'd have to eat like berries and stuff." She gave the winged troll a smile just so she knew she was messing with her, then turned to the little scientists tent. That seemed like it might actually be kinda hard, at least to grab the stuff quietly, like Selune wanted. She spared just a second to wonder what Selune could possibly need all that paper and tech for, but then she shot the greenblood a toothy grin. "So... is that a challenge?"

The tent itself was pretty simple, held up by six poles, four on each side and two in the middle. This kind of temporary shelter made a lot of sense for the kind of rough and tumble sites that they were constructing, but they were all pretty open to air as well. That meant that it was pretty easy to see all directions from the inside. If Quella wanted to get that stuff without attracting a ton of attention, she'd need a distraction. She wracked her thinkpan for something that could work, visibly straining just a little. The blueblood thought she might have a bit of an idea though.

A moment or two later, she was slinking through the shadows at the back of the tent. She crouched just outside the line of sight of the tent as she waited for the signal. Selune should be pulling the tape off right about... now.

There was a screech of feedback as Selune turned on the megaphone they'd grabbed earlier, then the shouting started. "Hey!" yelled the rustblood Quella had blindfolded, tied up with baling wire, and stuck a peice of tap over his ignorance chute. Quella chuckled a little as all the scientists turned almost at one towards the source of the amplified noise, their glasses pushed up onto their noses almost comically in unison. Paid to look smart she guessed.

As the oh-so-smart trolls craned thier necks to try to find the source of the commotion outside the tent, Quella slunk into the tent from the back and grabbed pretty much whatever she could find and stuff it into a little sack she'd found just for this. Without a second though, she slunk carefully back out into the night, ignoring the shouts from behind her. This stuff better be pretty useful.  

[Micillia]

Selune Maidaz Lunara Zediam

Well, that was the way to do it. Tell Quella it was a challenge, and she was all over the idea. Selune smiled, "Oh you bet it is!" She whispered. "I also bet you cant do it without anyone noticing." She listened as the blueblood unfolded the plan.

Sure, Selune wasn't going to issue a bet and then not help on it, especially if it was what she had even asked for help on. But still, this felt just a little excessive, convoluted, and most of all, dangerous. Tying up trolls?? Booby traps?? Oh jeeze was she in over her head. There was no room to back out now, especially with Quella involved, there was no way she would abandon the blueblood. What was she supposed to do when the blueblood just threw a captive into her arms, asked her to hurt the captive when Quella gave the signal, and not feel some sort of guilt? Well, she had to go along. So, when Quella gave the signal, she ripped the tape off of the poor redblood, making him yell out in surprise. Thank glub the captured, bound, and gagged troll was blindfolded as well, or this was going to cost her her wings. She quickly scrambled back to where she was supposed to meet Quella.

"Quella!' She said with a panicked voice. "This, uh i dont think this is exactly an okay thing to do, you know?" She tried to hold back her fear, her guilt at what she had just done. "I mean, how could we do that to another troll? What are they going to think when they find him all tied out? Whats he going to think? Do you think heard our voices?" The words spilled out, luckily no tears fallowed. "Quella, what if we get caught?"