RE:Action

2. view

A park at sunset.
Of course it's a park at sunset.

Julian sighed, watching the children play on rusted swing sets and the parents who couldn't be any less vigilant than they already were. He reached into the pocket of his hand-me-down jacket and pulled out a small handheld journal with his initials written prettily on the cover and with the ballpoint pen kept secure in his backpack, he began to write. A soft breeze blew past his messily self-cut hair and the sky blended from blue to orange with hints of green in between. He smiled to himself as he wrote.

--

Sounds of screams and ambulances filled the silence. Orion waited in cover a bit, waiting for the guards to stupidly scatter before he got up and silently escaped the now very dangerous area. He mentally crossed another name off his list.
Mateo Ortega, gone.

Orion took a deep breath once he was in the clear. He sighed, at ease now that he was in the clear, and began to dismantle his rifle, effectively hiding it in his relatively flat bookbag. He walked as though he had just come out of a college class, complete with an expression that portrayed him as being half asleep and half regretting every choice he made in high school. Orion was a pretty young person, only 22. It was believable.

The tall male began for the meet up point he has established with Julian. Being careful of not getting sidetracked, he walked down the buzzling marketplace street. A slew of languages were heard -- some of them even Orion understood. English, French and Esperanto. He made a note of that last one -- Esperanto had become the standard language of this city-state. He walked out until he reached the shoreline, near the pier. Very few people knew what this land was called before the war, and Orion was not one of them. Calli was the only city-state in America to be so diverse. He took in the smell of the Pacific. Sighing happily for the first time in awhile, he turned to see a small-ish shop with a painted "Libroj" above the windows. The vellichor of the shop drew him in, pulling him towards a section of small novels. He sighed once more and gave into his urge.

--

Julian looked up at the setting sun as it gradually went into hiding for the night. He looked down at the time on his watch -- 7:35 -- and sighed. Where was Orion?

"Julian!"

He turned to the trail and stood up. His shoulders relaxed as he reached out to smack Orion's shoulder.

"Where were you?"

Orion hid his smile, holding out a novel to Julian.

"Le prince et le pauvre." Julian read aloud.

"I saw a bookstore on my way down, and I remembered you saying that you wanted to read something in French, right? I saw this in the window."
Orion grinned when he saw Julian's beaming smile. If there was anything he truly loved to see, it was Julian smiling.

"I got a travel guide too, for all of America. I say we head down to what used to be called Cajamarca."
Orion looked down at him.
"It's called Nantu."
Julian nodded.
"How far?"
"Two, maybe three days nonstop if we hitch a ride." Orion put a finger to his lip, tapping it as he thought. "But I have a friend who could get us down there in day. He owes me one."

And there it was again — Julian's smile. Orion would kill to see that view.