xp_logs | log: [Cain and Jennie]

Out for mutual morning runs, Cain runs into Jennie. Almost literally.

Cain wandered through the woods, the early morning sun casting dappled shadows through the bare-limbed trees. The walk around the property seemed to take a lot less time in the winter, oddly. The snow on the ground made it simpler to see if any trees had come down or animals were caught in the fence. While the mansion's environs weren't in any way closed off from the surrounding county land, the almost-undetectable security pylons every thirty yards or so would have registered anything bigger than a rabbit moving on the premises.

Satisfied that the property was clear, Cain checked his watch and took a deep breath. Winter air was cleaner, in a way. Making his way to one of the trails around the property, he lowered one shoulder and began to go for a run.

Further down the path, a figure in dark sweats was leaning against a tree, panting heavily. Running was the suck, Jennie had privately decided. But it was better than running on the treadmill like a gerbil. If she was going to mindlessly run, she felt she'd should at least get a change of scenery.

However, it was freezing-ass cold, and every breath hurt. "I guess smoking all those years really was a dumb idea," she muttered to herself. She looked around, seeing the probability shimmer slightly around her like it always did. She squinted, sharpening it. It was a habit she'd picked up after Monte Carlo, constantly checking to see if everything was balanced and in order. It was for the most part, except for a lumbering white shape that was much further down the path. As it passed, things around it became red-tinged.

"Huh, that's...bizarre." Jennie titled her head, and then her eyes widened. The white shape was starting to move very fast.

Even though he didn't need to work out to maintain his strength, Cain always had loved to run. Even in his high school and college athletics days, he'd never been the fastest or a marathoner, but blitzing around the football field or hustling up and down the lacrosse pitch had been where he got his rush. Of course, now forty-plus years later he could kick it up around eighty miles an hour if he pushed it, although today he was keeping it around a normal jogging pace to enjoy the morning.

A low-hanging branch loomed ahead, something a runner of a normal height could have just ducked under. But at seven and a half feet tall, Cain simply swung one arm up, the edge of his hand snapping the thick tree limb like a piece of straw while he caught it out of the air with his other hand and tossed it into the underbrush. The entire time, not even missing a step or falling off his pace. Invulnerability and nigh-limitless endurance, he thought, had their perks.

The big shape (had to be Mr. Marko, who else would it be?) was now coming towards her, and didn't show any signs of slowing. Jennie curbed the impulse to climb up a tree, and stepped off to the side of the path, squeaking a little as she stepped into a deep snowdrift and coldness soaked into the cuff of her trackpants.

Catching the motion as he passed by, Cain broke step, planting one huge booted foot into the snow and sending up a rooster tail of white as he brought himself to a stop. "Howdy," he said with a wave, reaching down to grab a small handful of snow and rub it against the back of his neck. "Great morning, huh?"

Jennie tried not to swear as she was showered with snow. A little bit went down the back of her collar. Okay, so there were definite advantages to treadmills. Lack of the fucking snow, for one. She blew her sweaty bangs out of her face. "Fantastic," she said, "Absolutely stunning." She brushed the snow off her sweatshirt.

Cain stopped, letting the melting snow drip down his back and soak the flannel shirt he wore. "Ain't any call to get all sarcastic and snippy, missy," he said quietly. "Unless one of the docs went and done told you to go run yourself until you look about ready to keel over -which you do, by the way - seems as if the only person you've got reason to be snotty with is yourself."

That got a slight eyeroll. "I really love having to run into a snow pile because the big guy is coming towards me, and getting snow down the back of my shirt." She stepped gingerly back onto the path. "And I was just finishing up, I've never really run before, unlike the rest of the health nuts around here. I'd rather wheeze by myself." She shifted to try and rid herself of the last of the snow down the back of her shirt. "How'd you do that? You're almost all chaos-free, and yet it kinda follows you."

Arching an eyebrow, Cain held up a questioning finger. "Chaos who to the what now? Not sure what you're talking about..." he looked back along the path, seeing his large footprints breaking the surface of the shallow snow. "Sounds like what Wanda used to talk about with her, you know, dealie with the whole potentiality... probability... whatever. Chaos and order and all that highfalutin' stuff. I never had much of a head for it myself. I mean, I got an architecture degree, I know about structure and stability and what makes things fall down, but this whole 'new math' and chaos theory goes right over my head." He shrugged briefly. "I might have an answer if you could dumb it down for me."

"'kay," Jennie paused, with her hands in front of her, trying to think of how to illustrate it. "The whole world exists on a 50/50 scale of good, and bad. Say this um, branch over here," she pointed above Cain's head to a dead branch that was creaking precariously with its load of snow. "That branch has more than half a chance of snapping and breaking and a slightly less chance of staying where it is. With my power, I can see that. I see lights on things. Like, the red light is bad, or chaos, and the white is good, or luck. The branch is going to break, so more red light." Jennie stopped, arching an eyebrow, "This making any sense?"

Thinking for a moment, Cain nodded as he looked at the branch. "So it's like, whatchacallit, a breaking point? Like you can only bend something so far before it snaps, right? So the more pressure you put on it, the more red you see?"

"Exactly!" Jennie said, clapping her hands together. "So, way my power works? I can see how much energy I need to use to bend something before it breaks, that way I don't overextend myself. Because the universe wants to stay at 50/50, and if you push something too far in either direction, it'll snap back." She stuck her hands in her sweatshirt pockets. "Now with you, you're different. You have no red in you at all. Everybody has at least some, and some people have a lot. And I can't figure out why."

"I suppose it's 'cause I don't break," Cain said matter-of-factly, lacing his fingers together. "Ain't a thing on this planet can move me if I don't wanna be moved, stop me if I don't wanna be stopped. I figure it'd take a hell of a lot more than a little breeze and some snow to push me to a breaking point. Everything else, however..." He looked back on his footprints in the snow, acutely aware of how the ground felt giving way beneath his feet as he ran, small rocks grinding into powder under his soles. He remembered when he'd been wandering the country for those years, when he decided to face down a speeding freight train, and the locomotive had been the one to yield.

"Dunno," he finally said with a shrug. "I'm big, suppose things are a bit more likely to break, yeah? Bull in a china shop's what it feels like sometimes."

"That could be it, it's the balance thing. You have none, so the rest of the world picks up the slack." Jennie gestured with her hands still in the pockets of her sweatshirt. "I mean, it's totally not a bad thing at all. There's a balance and you do not want to upset that. Trust me." She didn't even want to contemplate the amount of energy she would have to use on Cain to even begin to try to nudge him where she wanted him to go. More than she would ever be able to produce. Probably going back to the whole 'can't be stopped' thing.

Cain snorted at that. "Trust me," he replied, "I'm the last one wants to go upsetting the natural order of the universe any more. Get sucked into some timeless hell dimension to fight a cage match with a god just the once, that's pretty much enough there. Next time a god shows up, I say we put Clarice on the welcoming committee. Then again, that much goddamn perky's got to screw with some kind of cosmic balance."

"That's um...huh. Wow." Jennie blinked, "You would think I'd be more shocked by that, but no."

"Wasn't all it's cracked up to be," Cain said sheepishly. "Just the everyday 'Hi, kneel before me or I'll destroy the world' stuff. Blah blah... what's the word Ramsey uses? Bitchcakes? As big speeches go, I've heard better. That's what you've gotta love about most of these folks think they can destroy the world, or exterminate humankind. They love their speechifying."

"Yeah, those wacky elder Gods," Jennie said, slightly dazed. "World almost got destroyed again? Must be Tuesday."

Nodding, Cain looked out to where the sun was starting to come up over the trees. "Never could get the hang of Tuesdays."