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Out and Around the Preserve; Saturday Afternoon [01/07].

Libby had set out into the preserve that afternoon (jeans on, hair pulled up, clearly ready for adventure) with the intention of wandering and exploring in the hopes to spark some sort of inspiration for what to write in the absolutely exquisite journal from Kurt's parents. She figures, a journal like that deserved to be used for something really good; maybe the wood would ignite that spark, and she would spend hours after finding a good log or a good rock to sit on, and just start scribbling away until ahe realized she couldn't continue because the sun was setting...

It wasn't really working.

She'd found a good rock (was in incidentally a favorite rock of a certain knight-hopeful's mighty steed? Perhaps it mah have been), and had settled on top of it, legs folded in front of her, pen in hand, journal open in her laps, but...nothing came to her. It wasn't that she wasn't inspired. There were about five different strands of writing tumbling around in her brain right now, but the problem was, none of them felt worthy enough to actually be put in the journal. It was a pretty special book, so what went into it had to be special, too.

So she mostly just sat there and let her mind wander, and didn't do much writing, though she did take some time to write in very fancy letter LIBBY'S JOURNAL and the front page and set to decorate it with an elaborate twisting of trees and flowers and vines.

[[ tentatively hoping for a managable work day; open for all your preserve-y needs! ]]

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After the wedding yesterday and being reminded of everything he had learned and gotten from Prompto and Liz, Kurt was in the mood to take some photos. It had been a while since he had deliberately set out to take some photos so it felt like a good time to go wander around the preserve and see what he could find to photograph.

So that afternoon, with the sun high and warm against the lingering chill, Kurt headed out into the preserve. It didn't take him long until he found a cute little chipmunk to trail after, snapping photos as he went. He was so focused on his cute photo subject he may or may not have realized he wasn't alone in the preserve as he wandered into one area in particular.

Libby, on the other hand, had been actively looking for distractions, so when Kurt came trailing by after a chipmunk, she definitely noticed. And she was about to say hello to him before she realized that, intent on his pursuit, he didn't seem to have noticed her at all! So she closed her mouth and her journal, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, and decided to wait and watch and see how long it took him to notice her there. If he did at all.

"Come on little fella," Kurt said as he crept along behind the chipmunk snapping photos as he went. "Hold still. I just want some pictures that's all..."

Kurt leaned closer to the critter as it stopped and turned as if it was listening to him. As he snapped the photo, Kurt leaned a little too far and started to tumble, camera snapping as he went. Right before he hit the ground, Kurt ported away and appeared a few feet away, landing on his feet.

"Ah phoey..." he said when he realized he had accidentally scared the chipmunk away. And it was then that Kurt noticed someone else in the area. "Oh, hey Libby..." he said, feeling very silly all of a sudden as he gave a small shy wave.

Libby was trying very hard to keep her amusement over the whole spectacle off her face, but she was not doing a very good job of it.

But it had to contend with all the fondness that was in it, as well.

"Hi, Kurt," she greeted back,with a similar lift of her own hand. "Out taking some pictures, huh?"

"Trying to at least," he said, resisting the urge to rub the back of his head awkwardly. "Got some good ones. Would be better if my subject didn't keep running away from me!" he said as he walked over towards Libby. "Sorry for interrupting anything,' he said with a nod in her direction.

Libby shook her head. "You're not," she assured him. "I was just sittin' and thinkin'. Want to join me? I'm sure there's space for both of us here on this big old rock, and it sounds like you could probably use a break."

"Thanks," he said with a smile as he sat down beside Libby, close but not too close. "Wildlife photography is hard!" he said with a small laugh. "Might need to consider a different backup career to the whole X-men thing!"

"You say that like you'll even need a back-up plan to the whole X-Men thing," Libby noted, with a slightly teasing, mostly encouraging tone. "But it looked like you did almost get that one! Maybe you should focus more on squirrels, they seem a little more open to being helpful."

"Yeah, might be a good idea. I did get some nice ones of the deer" he said as he flipped through the camera roll a bit. "Ah here we go!" he said as he handed the camera out to Libby in case she wanted to see them.

Of course Libby wanted to see them! She leaned a little closer, at first, thinking Kurt was just going to show her, so when he offered the camera over, it threw her a little. At least, that's what she was going to blame for the slight fumble when she took it, which caused her fingers to brush against his. Only a little, but it was more than enough to make her cheeks instantly start blushing, and she ducked her head a little more than strictly necessary to look at the picture in question.

"Oh," she said, "that is a good one! Maybe your talents are just more in deer than in chipmunks..."

And, since she had the camera now, she looked over toward Kurt shyly, curiously, hopefully. "Mind if I look through more of them?"

Kurt also felt a twinge of something when Libby's hand brushed his. Something almost... electric, like a small static shock. Yet at the same time, he felt disappointed when Libby pulled her hand away and took the camera. Kurt quickly tried to push the feeling down because, it was silly to react that way. Right? It was just a touch.

"Of course!" he said with a grin. "I even have others from the holidays in there too!"

"Oh, that's right!" Libby gushed, her grin growing a bit more eager. "I haven't had a chance to really see many of those yet, have I? Well, except the ones you sent during the break..."

And then, the camera in her hands, she felt an odd sense of reluctance and uncertainty creeping over her.

"It's this button here," she asked, even though that wasn't where that uncertainty was coming from, and she turned the camera toward Kurt a little, with her thumb tapping the button to indicate which she meant, "to go through all the pictures, right?"

"Aye that's the one, right there," Kurt said as he leaned over and reached out to tap the button, maybe sort of by accident maybe not really, tapping Libby's thumb in the process.
"There's some really funny ones of Logan and the rest of the team in there. And of course some of Muti and Vatti."

See, now, it was actually an incredibly helpful thing, that Kurt had maybe sort of by accident maybe not really wound up tapping Libby's thumb, because she wasn't even looking at the camera when he did it. She was looking over at him instead, with a smile that was quite a bit bigger than she thought it was, and that faint blush only threatening to glow brighter.

"Of course," she then agreed, attention shifting back to the camera and starting to look through them, although, if she was entirely honest, she couldn't remember what some of the pictures even were after she'd moved passed them, finding it a little difficult to pay them all that much attention. But she figured it would just be a little awkward if she just silently went through Kurt's camera roll, so she did eventually come across one that made her turn the camera his way again and offer, "This one's really good."

"Ah that's the garden back home!" Kurt said when he saw what photo she had stopped on. "The flower and vegetable gardens are not nearly as large as they used to be. Folks say they are getting too old to keep up with as much as they used to. But the gardens are still beautiful!"

Kurt looked from the photo to Libby, the unconscious grin on his face larger than it was when they had first sat down to talk. He looked back to the camera, half to see what the next set of photos was and half to keep the red flush that might well be showing even through all the blue fur from being too obvious.

"I kinda went overboard with the photos. Wanted to make sure I had some good ones... to show you."

Edited 2023-01-07 20:58 (UTC)

"Did you spend a lot of time there, growing up?" Libby asked, her progress through the pictures slowing down a little as she spoke, especially with the occasional glance up toward Kurt. "In the gardens? I'd probably spend as much time as I possibly could out there. They really are beautiful."

"I spent every minute I wasn't doing school and house stuff with Mutti or working with the animals and in the shop with Vati, I was outside," Kurt said with a fond smile. "I loved being in the gardens and spent every spare moment in the woods around the farm. I had so many 'pets' that I had adopted while out exploring, most were just frogs and lizards and such, but I did find a baby deer one Spring that we took care of till it was old enough."

Kurt was silent for a moment, a little lost in the memories for a bit, before he came back. "You would love the gardens and the woods and the stream, and of course all the animals, Libby!" he said, the grin on his face sincere and bright.

"From what you've told me, and from all the pictures," Libby said, lifting the camera a little to emphasize the last part, "I'm sure I'd love all of it! Your family's farm seems like it's straight out of a storybook..."

"It was very nice growing up there. But..." Kurt said, dropping his voice as little. "It was lonely at times, with only Mutti and Vatti and the animals around. I... I never really had friends before I came to the states and started at the Academy... and came here."

Kurt pulled his gaze away from his hands, which was where his eyes had drifted to as he talked, and he looked over at Libby.

"It would have been a much nicer storybook world, if I had had someone to share it with. Someone special... like you, Libby." Kurt fought the urge to drop his gaze again as he absent-mindedly fiddled with his hands nervously.

Boy, if Libby thought her face was flushed and burning before, it had been nothing compared to how she felt now. She was glad for the camera in her hands, for something to fiddle with, something to look at as she listened to Kurt.

Until she chanced one of those fleeting glances his way.

Or supposed be fleeting, but once she looked up and saw his face, heard the words he was saying...

Her breath caught a little, and she found herself even closer to that edge she felt herself trying to get closer and closer to these past few weeks, just for a better look, but now she found herself right there at the precipice and realizing she could also just jump...

"Kurt?" she said, surprised by how small her voice sounded, so she tried to fix that with the next words. "Can I...can I ask you something?"

Kurt returned the gaze with the same unexpected intensity and had to wonder silently why his stomach was flip-flopping so much. It was just a question, Libby and he had talked tons of times before, about all sorts of things. Why was he suddenly feeling so 'head spinning and butterflies int he stomach' over whatever it was she wanted to ask?

"Of course, Libby" he said, his own voice soft and a little hoarse. "You can ask me anything, anything at all."

Libby bit down on her lower lip nervously, feeling quite a bit of a tightness in her own stomach as she dropped her eyes back down toward her hands and the camera for this next part.

"Do you remember...," she ventured, "a couple weeks ago, right before the break, those few days where everything went all screwy, where we were ourselves, but not really, it was like we were us, but with some of the details changed?"

And then she looked back at Kurt, because she wanted to see his response as much as she heard it.

Kurt listened and the smile on his face broadened as he gave a small nod, though feeling a little awkward as he thought about those few days... and how he had REALLY felt about it all.

"You mean when it was like we were dating?' he asked simply, directly, but still with a soft gentleness to his voice. "It was definitely different waking up and being different yet the same in so many ways."

Kurt looked at Libby for a moment, forcing himself to stop fiddling with his hands and put them down, not really paying attention to where they went though.

"I... I really like it though," he continued softly, still looking at Libby. "It was surprising but... felt normal... good.. Ya know? It just felt right. At least... to me it did. I liked that version of us." Here his gaze faltered for a moment before he pulled himself back up to look at Libby as he asked the return question. "What about you?"

Edited 2023-01-07 22:33 (UTC)

Libby breathed out a soft laugh, a small sound of relief, as she ducked her head a little, and not just because Kurt's response managed to already take care of the answer to the follow-up question she had all ready to go.

"I..." she started, then faltered, because all of this went so strongly against everything she'd been brought up to believe, when it came to girls and boys and how they should behave and respond, especially to each other, and that made it terribly frightening, but also incredibly exciting, especially when she knew how so much of what she'd been taught was only designed to hold her back, to keep her in some narrow view of how some people thought the world should be...

"I liked it, too," she said, forging forward, no turning back, although her eyes drifted away when she said it, as if she was afraid looking anywhere else would cause her to lose her nerve. "I liked it a lot, actually. And I've been...thinking...wondering...a lot, too, if...if that might...be something that we might...um...."

Her eyes went back to Kurt, cautious, worried, hopeful.

"....want to give that a try?"

Kurt blinked for a moment, almost thinking he had misheard what Libby had said. He hadn't of course, but it was still something that took his mind a second or two to process. And then a few seconds to keep from just blurting out an overenthusiastic 'yes'.

He knew what a big deal it was... what a big step this was for Libby. And for him. And it meant the world to him that Libby had asked him.... him of all people. In that moment, all the times he had wanted to ask her, to bring it up, but had been afraid to- for any number of logical and some not-so-logical reasons. Kurt smiled at Libby.

"It definitely is," he said softly, as he slid his hand the few inches that lay between them and lightly laid his hand over hers, light enough she could pull it away if she wanted, though he was pretty sure that wasn't a concern right then. "I'd love to be able to say that you... are my girlfriend," Kurt said, his voice going a bit soft though the grin on his face made it clear there was no uncertainty or reservation about that statement.

Libby definitely didn't pull her hand away; she didn't move it at all, really, not quite ready to take another huge leap forward into something like hand holding right now, but also just enjoying having it there, and the possibility. And just feeling all pleased and warm and relieved, but maybe just slightly overwhelmed as all the implications of what had just come out of her mouth started crashing over her like a tidal wave.

A feeling that was not at all helped by what she'd somehow managed to say next.

"Well," she said, grinning shly over at Kurt, "I guess that would make you...my boyfriend, then."

Mind-blowing didn't even seem to cover it. Libby almost felt like she was having an out-of-body experience, like there was no way she could possibly be saying these things, and yet, there she was, saying them anyway, and just reveling in every word.

To say Kurt's head was swimming and his heart felt like it was doing free dives from his throat to his stomach over and over again was an understatement. It didn't seem like this could really be happening, that it had to be a dream, one he would be sorely disappointed to wake up from. Yet he knew it wasn't a dream, and that was a truth he was having a little trouble wrapping his head around just then.

"That's a title, I will gladly take," Kurt said finally, giving Libby a small reassuring grin. And then as he fell silent for a moment, he watched her for a moment, trying to remember everything about this moment that he could.

Slowly Kurt gave Libby's hand a gentle squeeze, then pulled his hand away, resting it back in his lap. He knew people 'normally' would hug or kiss or something after an announcement like this. But he knew they were anything but normal. Libby was far, far from normal, and that made this all the more special to him. Kurt was not going to rush things and he hoped that small gesture at least let Libby know he was not going to push anything, and he was ok with going as slow as she needed and wanted.

That gentle squeeze of her hand was good. That gentle squeeze of her hand was perfect, especially as Libby let out a slow breath to keep that overwhelming feeling from taking over a little too much, to stop some of the more panicked, worried feelings from sweeping in as she chalked up another bold act of defiance, another blatant refusal of her father's (her father's, it needed repeating, not God's) plan for her, and everything that might mean, and how much further it was going to alienate her when she told them, if she told them...

It was almost a little disappointing, that Kurt had moved his hand, because if he hadn't, she might have eventually needed to squeeze it back.

The look she gave him now was a little lost, a little imploring. "So..." she said, "what now? I don't really know much about how these things are supposed to go..."

They didn't even have parental approval!

Well, she was pretty sure Kurt's parents, at this point, would have nothing but enthusiastic approval. Libby's, on the other hand...

Well, that hand was still there, and always would be. Anytime.

Kurt gave Libby a small, hopefully, reassuring smile as he thought about her question and the ones running around in his own mind. This was uncharted territory for him as well. New. Different. Stange. Terrifying. Exhilarating. So many feelings, all over the place, all at once.

"Well," Kurt said slowly, looking at Libby with a smile. "Now we get ready for whatever lies ahead of us. See what life... and God... has for us. Together."

We would like to apologize for the upcoming intrusion, Libby.

An arrow pierced through the air, flying out from the canopy and striking a tree a few dozen feet away from her. A moment later, a redhead slipped out from between the leaves of the arrow's source, grabbing hold of a thick branch, which she used to swing herself over to the next tree. She snagged a branch there and pulled herself up, and--

"Oh. Sorry. I didn't know anyone was here."

At least get down, Aloy.

Libby, for all her pretense of being ready for adventure, would have to admit that she was not quite ready for arrows flying from the trees, but she couldn't feel all that embarrassed about the started sound that escaped her.

Then she sighed in relief to find the arrow's target was well away from where she was, and then she followed the rustling of the tree branches until she heard the voice and followed it up.

"That's alright," she said, then hesitated a moment, before adding, "But maybe you should pay more attention if you're going to be shooting arrows all around the place."

She was always forbidden from hunting because that was mens' work (and her bleeding heart would be terrible at it, anyway), but she knew you should probably keep a better eye out for random innocent girls sitting on rocks, really.

Edited 2023-01-07 14:44 (UTC)

"Usually there's no one here," Aloy said simply, reaching up to touch her focus.

A quick scan didn't give her any sign of any other people. "What are you doing here?"

"'Usually' isn't 'always,'" Libby pointed out, with a slightly apologetic kind of smile, because no one liked a nag.

But no one liked unexpected arrows in their backs, either.

"And I was just exploring," she offered. "Trying to get inspiration, for something to write."

She lifted up the handcrafted leather journal that had been in her lap, half proof, half shield.

"I haven't had a lot of luck so far."

Although there was a new thread there, at least, of a hunter, prowling the woods, in pursuit of...

...something. That seemed to be as long as the thread would go, at the moment.

Aloy let her weight settle downwards, until she was sitting down on the branch. "Does walking in the woods help?"

She had no idea.

"Sometimes it does," Libby answered, that smile gone a little wistful and her shoulders slumping in slightly as she settled the journal back in her lap. "Not today, though. I think maybe I'm just trying too hard..."

Or she was simply too...distracted with other things to really let the inspiration in.

"A jog always does it for me," Aloy said, leaning to the side. "Helping me think my way out of a problem."

"Oh," said Libby, "I'm no good at jogging. But I'm not very good at climbing trees, either, but you've obviously got quite a talent for it. I like walking, because I see more, sometimes things I've never noticed before, even if I've been there befofe. And I guess I kind of hope it'll help me see something new with all the things I've got on my mind, too."

"I wasn't born knowing how to climb trees," Aloy said. If she was a little dry, well-- there was a girl with her face and an exact copy of her genes walking around at this school, and Beta, herself, wouldn't know what to do with a tree in any situation. "Maybe you should learn how to do something new."

"Are you offering to teach me?" asked Libby, with maybe the smallest of amused smirks.

Because that sure sounded to her like it could have been. If you squinted. But it was too good of a question to pass up.

Aloy, never the world's most sensitive to snark, tilted her head. "I guess I have some time, sure," she said.

And Libby, eager for the distraction, smile a bit. She didn't figure there would be a whole lot to a tree climbing lesson, but as someone always told it wasn't ladylike to climb trees and having had to be the one to propagate that forward to her little sisters, as well, the idea of it was far more exciting than it should have been.

"Great," she said, shifting her journal off her lap and setting it aside on the rock before slipping off of it, brushing her hands off on her jeans for a moment before straightening and looking around at the vast array of trees surrounding them.

"Where should I start?"

Aloy looked away from her, towards the trees surrounding them. She gave them a cursory scan, until she spotted one that had firm branches leading all the way up. "That one," she said, nodding towards it. "Examine it. Tell me what climbable parts you see."

At first, Libby wasn't entirely sure which of the trees it was that the woman had picked out; a nod was a little bit vague and it was a forest, there was definitely no shortage of options in the direction it had been sent. But she drifted over that way and squinted a little as she considered which looked like it might have been the one she meant, and then, as instructed, examined it, looking up into its branches.

"Well," she ventured, feeling fairly confident about her first answer, "this larger lower branch here, for starters. It looks sturdy enough to hold my weight, and low enough that I can still reach it with a little bit of a jump. I think the real hard part is going to be whether I can pull myself up onto it..."

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Out and Around the Preserve; Saturday Afternoon [01/07].

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