Needle in a haystack |open|

[dixierose]

Dust covered boots worked quickly as she climbed the wooden ladder up into the hayloft. Not many go there for many reasons other than for hay. She wasn't there to play teenager. She'd grown up too quickly to even act her age but then again she saw no problem in that. She liked who she was now and she especially like the silence that the hayloft could provide. She sat atop a bale of hay and over looked the entire stretch of the barn.

She couldn't believe that she was here. Barely even a month ago she was handcuffed with dried blood on her clothes looked at the same bland, battered faces of those captured and the same angry faces of the rebel bastards that took her. She'd been a fighter. They had often referred to her as the feisty one. She remembered vividly how they loved throwing her in a cold 'cage' and poked and prodded her with numerous weapons. Every once in a while she was lucky enough to grab ahold of a kinfe and plunge in into an unlucky guy who'd grown too close. A light smirk crossed over her lips. One of the very few pleasures about the camp was the opportunity to get back at your captor. She'd killed the guy who'd taken her in. Needless to say that had been one of the higher moments that she'd had at the camp.

She looked over the stalls once more to see the stalls that her horses were staying in. She found Aeromatti's easily, his proud, curious head poked out everytime someone walked by. Random was more difficult. Random was more reclusive then Aeromatti. Random wanted nothing more then to be left alone unless someone was taking him out to the pasture. That was more of Random's home. He loved to be free range, not some cooped up old nag in a wooden box. Emily'd always loved his spirit. She admired him. He took no crap and dished out a handful. But she'd learned his ways and she grew accustom to his moody times. She respected him, and he had times when he respected her. Aeromatti was a different story. Sure he loved the outdoors but what he loved most of all seemed to be the closeness. He wasn't the most gentle of horses, it took a sturdy handler to ride him but overall he was much more willing to accomplish things.

A quiet breeze blew through the barn gently rustling Emily's hair. She sighed and played with a strand of hay, watching the dust settle. How different this place had been from anything else she'd ever experienced. She was glad to be out of those bad conditions but more and more she couldn't help feeling uneasy at Wild River. She supposed she could get used to it but was this much of a good thing really that good for her?

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[Sasha Cole]

Walking away from the pasture Sasha tried to focus his mind on the sound of his own footsteps instead of his stallion’s screeching protests in the field behind him. Why couldn’t the horse just be left alone for even a few moments? It was really starting to get on his nerves, and Sasha had never lost his temper with the horse, and that was saying a lot since he lost it with absolutely everything else. Now, though, Sasha just wanted the screeches to leave his mind and not to feel like he was ignoring a crying baby, which was exactly what it was like leaving Strider alone in the pasture or his stall everyday. Did the horse not realize that he would always come back?

The sound of his footsteps changed from the springy green plant life which grew from the terra firma to the hard concrete of the barn aisle. Slate orbs closed quickly before opening again as he walked down the aisle. He didn’t know what to do today; he had called in sick, which was halfway true. His head throbbed with every beat of his slowly pounding heart, bringing pain across his forehead and down his temples, tightening the muscles across his face unwillingly to only make it more painful. He also felt like he was about to feint from exhaustion. He hadn’t gotten more than three hours of sleep in the last week and felt like he was about to fall down where he stood, which was a tiring feeling when the only drug you were on was ibuprofen, an overdose of ibuprofen.

Deciding on what to do he lazily turned on his left foot and headed towards the hayloft. No one ever showed he there, that he had found out as soon as Strider had been settled when he got here, which actually took about six hours to calm him enough to let Sasha actually leave his side. He needed a place to could turn to, to be alone. Just some time to calm himself when he was angry or have important talks with the guys back home, just incase something was wrong. He just didn’t need the human contact during such times, nor did he ever want it. He could live easily without human contact for a very long time, or at least any of the humans within the state.

Now, though, he was only heading up to lie down for a little while. Sleep if he could, though he doubted it. Every time his eyes closed he saw allies of blood, his friends’ unconscious or dead bodies or just staring down the barrel of a gun, memories he really wished he didn’t see daily. Pushing the thought away he made his way up the latter slowly before coming to the top and standing carefully. Lazily he sighed as he realized that new hay had been added, and once again had messed up his pattern her worked so hard to keep. His OCD was very annoying most of the time, especially times like now when this had to be put back together before he could even think about anything else.

Pushing the bales to one side with his foot, then lifting them up to put them back into some nice rows he just sighed deeply before looking over and seeing some girl through his half opened eyes. A deep, annoyed sigh leaked from between his lips before he just shook his head. Why would anybody else be here? Getting the last hey bale he put it carefully where it belonged in his mind before looking around and nodded carefully at his own success to calm his needy mind. Then, with another sigh, now out of relief, he slinked down so he sat against the ground and leaned against a bale of hay gently. His slate orbs stayed open and he kept his eyes on the girl, though wasn’t staring at all. He just didn’t trust her.

[dixierose]

When life hands you lemons you make lemonade correct? The statement only made her roll her eyes as if brought back cheerful yet still painful memories. She used to say it, that ancient, wise woman that had taken her in. She remembered so much about Annie Gram and so little about the rest of her family. Though after what had happened to her she wasn't quite sure she wanted to remember her thieving family. She'd turned ou better, and that wasn't saying much considering all that she'd experienced. Nope, her father was in prison or out on bail, her mother worked overtime to afford the bail, her brother took after her father, really she wasn't proud of anyone in her family. They'd never done anything respectable, no they always lived above the law, or caught in the law. Emily didn't really care much about them anymore, they weren't family as far as she was concerned.

No family was something she'd always dreamed of and never experienced. Family was a mother who was there for you when you scraped you knee with a brightly colored band-aid and a pile of kisses. As far as she was concerned family was your mother cooking big meals for the entire family so they could gather around the table and talk about their day. Family was a father who would go to work ever Monday through Friday and still come home cheerful because the highlight of his day would be seeing his family the first moment he walked through the back door. Family was a brother who, annoying at times, still was there for you because he was your bigger brother and he made it his job. Emily's family could be nothing farther from that. Her mother worked twenty two hour shifts at a factory making what she could because she knew that whatever she made would go toward her husbands bail. Her father sat locked up in the local 'pen' waiting for a bail hearing because he stole once again to 'keep the food on the table.' Her brother'd been no better. All her life she'd looked up to him, then he started working like her father. The whole bunch of them were deadbeats to her and no matter how much she didn't want to admit it, she'd give anything for the fantasy that maybe her family could be a little more decent.

No, she'd pick herself up off the ground and shake off the pain. She came home regularly to an empty house or to her brother and his latest hooker girlfriend in his room. She ignored her mother for all the crap she let her father get away with. She shunned her father for using his family as an excuse because he had a major problem. She'd been on her own since she couldn;t remember. Then she'd been taken by that group. She didn't even understand their purpose but apparently they'd been rebelling against the government and they'd taken hostages, lucky her she'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time. She hated taking about it, she hid the scars, mostly from herself because just the sight of them brought back horrible memories that no fifteen year old child should experience.

She only good thing to come of her life so far had been Annie Gram. Thinking about her made the word appear in her mind once more. 'When life hands you lemons Emily, you make lemonade.' A smile appeared on her features at the thought of the woman whom she referred to as her mother. The smile wiped away quickly almost as if it were never there. Someone was here. Glancing to her right she noticed the stranger. By the look on his face he hadn't expected anyone to be here. Well surprise surprise. Her fist balled as he sighed in frustration. What was her presence really that bad? He seemed to be busying himself with other bales of hay so she didn't worry about it. By the way he was acting it seemed that he had numerous problems as well. Between the two of them they probably could fill a grove with however many lemons they had. She snapped back as she heard him fall to the hay. From her comfortable position she looked out over the stalls once more. She glanced at Aeromatti and smiled. Once he calme she would ride him. Random was quiet and secluded like always. She felt uneasy as out of the corner of her eye she could feel him watching, she could see him watching. Her eyes darted toward his and met his gaze with an unamused and unappreciated glance. Why was it that if she ever did anything new that it bothered somebody?