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 Posted: Thu May 13, 2010 8:17 pm
Doucette neither flailed nor clung to the man that lifted her off the ground without her permission. Eyes went wide for a whole second before they fluttered closed like any good damsel in distress and she promptly passed out in his arms. With any luck they'd be kind enough to say she swooned rather than the rather uglier term 'fainted'. Either way she was now resorted to being a worthless sack of weight. Hopefully there would be no more stag chasing and the woman's rather plain directions would lead them right to the well-lit home.
And find it they did, thank god.
As Vivi opened the door and the pugs came running and their excited yips stirred Doucette out of her emotional overdrive. That was about when the flailing began, though she wasn't nearly so wild as to start smacking people in their faces, just enough to give Shepard a difficult time holding onto her squirming figure. With many promises of being fine and her face brighter than a Christmas tree, Doucette begged to be let down and when Shepard finally relented she demanded all of their clothes to be put into the laundry. There wouldn't be any ferries for them to leave off of anyway.
For Doucette and Vivi there were soft, fresh piles of clothes, hardly sweats and hoodies bit at least they were more comfortable than, say, business attire. Unfortunately for Shepard though she could only offer him a number of towels for she was neither tall enough or in general large enough to cloth a full grown man. Especially if that man wasn't interested in wearing tailored shorts and frilly tops.
A bag of ice was also nabbed before she settled down at the kitchen table with Vivi, pulling out her vial essence and newly filled soul bottle before sinking into her chair with a happy sigh and propping her foot in a good position.
Noticing Shepard's disinterest she offered him the freedom to wander around her home or to play with the pugs. The only rule was to not let them outside. She was not willing to imagine the horrors of the two pugs in her home after they went thrashing about in the storm.
Now, warm and snuggly though still in a bit of pain, the whole adventure seemed like a weird dream. If not for Vivi's own glowing soul bottle and the way the bottled Borealis seemed energized around it, Doucette would have certainly written off the whole thing as pat of her imagination.
It was strange though, very very strange. Although Doe herself believed her little Borealis bottle was alive and quite the irritating escape artists, she had never really seen proof that it was anything other than a cylindrical item which reacted naturally to slope and gravity. Now, in the close proximity of Vivi's own essence and bottle, the Liquid Borealis began to glow and shift in a way that seemed to show happiness and the vial itself began rolling ever so slightly about on the table though with no discernable direction and not in a big way that would make her feel truly terrified of the haunted vial.
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Posted: Thu May 13, 2010 9:54 pm
It was good to be warm and dry again, but that was about the extend to which Shepard Ryan's comfort ran. While Vivi discovered a teapot and put it on the stove, Shepard padded silently around Doucette's house, both looking and feeling a little like a caged panther. One towel was tied steadfastly around his waist, while another was draped over his head as he idly scrubbed the wetness from his hair.
He was totally and completely unsure of what to do with himself.
He first spent his time hovering uneasily over the washer and dryer, the quiet expression on his face silently compelling the spin cycle to spin cycle itself faster. He then leaned over to pet the pugs, but thought better of leaning as the towel's ties strained against his motion. He thought of sitting on the couch, but wondered blandly whether one sat on someone else's couch wearing practically nothing. He was not, as a rule, a particularly modest man, having loved the beach vigorously all his life, but in this particular situation, he felt bizarre and restrained, and resigned himself to silently ghosting throughout the area.
At least there was some interest in Doucette's home. It was an adorable little place, he thought to himself mildly, pulling the towel back from his hair to rest against his neck. Everything was pleasant and matched the Irishwoman's personality well. Shepard ran his fingers along the side of an end table as he walked by it. Pleasant and pretty.
Vivi let out a sigh from her position at the kitchen table, running her fingers through her damp hair, collecting the raven strands and tying them into a loose bun at the base of her neck. She threw Shepard a look of sympathy as the tall man continued ambling about, the naked expanse of his back to them. The tattoo on his shoulderblade shifted as his arm moved to examine something... and then, Vivi noticed, Shepard went very, very still.
The Frenchwoman decided to ignore it in favor her host.
"So nice to be out of the weather, n'est pas? I cannot apologize enough about your ankle. I will do what I can to make amends," Vivi said to Doe in a soothing voice, propping her head up on both hands. Her eyes flashed a look of sincere apology. "But, I must admit... I am rather happy to have this soul-gathering finished! I have noticed that you are also finished -- congratulations! I hope your gathering was not so ... troublesome as was mine."
There was a soft clink as Vivi spoke, a sound unnoticeable from under the tones of the Frenchwoman's voice. The Dawn vial tinked quietly against the Borealis, the warm golden glow radiating calmly onto the myriad of colors swirling within its fellow vial. The pieces of shattered morning seemed to shift imperceptibly inside the glass. Was it just a result of the motion?
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Posted: Fri May 14, 2010 10:03 pm
The woman was feeling quite terrible on Shepard's behalf. No doubt puttering around in a stranger's home was awkward enough, but he'd been lowered to having to wear some fluffy towels to do so. It was the first time Doe ever regretted not owning a pair of something baggy and boring. At least the pugs were tailing dutifully after him for comfort, or at the very least as a means of distraction for every now and then they would jump up and attempt to dis-robe him.
Poor Shepard.
"Oh Vivi, you don't have to bother with that!" she said dismissively, waving her hand at the tea pot before frowning a bit. Oh, that was probably something that she should be offering to the both of them to get them warmed up. Blue gaze settled upon her bad ankle though, and it throbbed at the thought of having to get up and make tea for everyone. Doucette colored with shame and seemed to sink in her chair slightly, eyes squinted and frown evident. She looked extremely petulant but managed to busy herself with watching the way the two vials seemed drawn to each other.
Or was that just another one of those tricks that stupid bottle was teasing her with?
When Vivi mentioned the souls however Doucette lit up and she eagerly pushed her filled soul bottle towards Vivi so she might better see the soft, iridescent glow that swirled within. Silver and light blue mingled merrily with a pale gold and the three created a color palette that any artist would have longed to dip his brush in. Doe was warm with pride and pleasure at her capture.
"Mine was significantly less adventurous as yours," the red head said with a laugh, pointing out in the direction of the beach, "I decided a jellyfish was the best way. They are always throwing themselves upon the shore you know, and there is no hard feelings to give it a better life." She would have said something about faces and sad eyes, but with the stag so recently passed on she did not want to trouble Vivi's heart. For her, the stag was the perfect match. There was no need to fret about it now.
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Posted: Fri May 14, 2010 10:47 pm
He'd... broken something.
Shepard had no idea that Doucette was currently feeling awful for him, and if he had some inkling of it, he would have quite expected for that feeling to fade quickly -- partly because he had the sneaking suspicion she had to resent him after he'd apparently caused her to faint, and partly because, well... he'd just ... broken...
... was 'broken' the word? He had just been looking at her decorations; namely, her various little bowls filled with stones and gems and whatnots. They were bright, innocuous little ornaments, and Shepard had glanced at each one with only a cursory interest -- until, at least, he'd come upon the bowl filled with some sort of stone he'd never seen before, so dull and flat as they were. They seemed... almost burnt? He couldn't quite place their wrongness... hollow? It was definitely something strange.
He meant to just lift one, just take a single stone from the bowl for further examination, but as his hand gingerly touched the side of one stone, it... crumbled.
Right there, before his eyes, the stones collapsed into a bland, decaying ash.
He blinked, and stared, and waited for something else to happen. He waited for the stones to reconstruct themselves somehow, or for a shattering sound to fill the room, or for Doucette to proclaim that the joke was on him -- something, anything else to happen. How could he have caused the much damage so quickly? Shepard turned just slightly to see if the women had noticed, his face pale with shocked embarrassment.
While Vivi may have noticed the stiffness of Shepard's motion from her periphery, she made no outward signs of interest or recognition, her focus instead entirely on Doucette's gorgeously lit soul bottle. The colors swirled within, crowded against each other in the most lovely of ways, each shade folded prettily against the next.
"A jellyfish!" she repeated in a sort of hum, her eyes bright with enthusiasm. A jellyfish... perhaps Doe's Raevan would have floating, colorful locks of hair, capable of stinging? Or iridescent eyes, or translucent skin? How intriguing! And a ... a much easier soul capture, to be sure.
Briefly, just briefly, she thought of the white dashing figure of the stag.
"It is true that there are often jellyfish are washed up -- how very lucky for you to have found a compliant little friend. Such a quick job to have done! " Vivi mused, imaging Doucette bonking one lightly with the soul bottle and the color quite immediately bursting into the bottle's belly. She smiled to herself, and rose to attend to the whistling tea kettle. "And such a beauty I am certain it will become. Ah, yes, mugs? For you as well, Shepard?"
Shepard cleared his throat in a noncommital sort of way, his brainpower still entirely focused on any possibility of repairing the disintegrated stones.
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Posted: Sat May 15, 2010 9:05 pm
Doucette was not really someone who looked towards the future, and so she'd thought very little about appropriate combinations and visual possibilities with her soul capture. The then and now demanded that she find a soul and her reasonable nature pointed her in the direction of the most simple outcome. That was as far as she'd thought about the jellyfish unfortunately.
But she was excited to tell her friend about her own capture, dull and eventless as it had been. "I must have found the most stubborn jelly in the world though! It clung onto its soul for near on hours I tell you. Even let myself take a nap while the bottle was doing its thing." Doe touched her cheeks where the sunburn had been, finally fading away into the recesses of her pale complexion. "And even when the bottle had been by it for several hours, I hadn't noticed a difference, so I'd give up for the day. Put it in the bowl where I leave it over night and went to bed. When I woke up it was glowing like it is now! I guess it takes a bit for the soul to actually cement itself in the bottle." For a moment the Irish woman frowned, thinking hard, "I do hope I didn't harm the process by moving the bottle away though...perhaps I should have left it by the jelly overnight for a complete capture..."
As usual, Vivi's infectious nature brought a grin to her lips in a matter of moment and she was nodding her slow drying curls along the wake of the French woman's words. "Mugs are there," she said, pointing to one of the cupboards near the sink and then motioning to one of the drawers under the counter where she put her selection of tea bags. Hopefully Vivi and Shepard were not herbal tea fans, for Doucette loathed the stuff. The closest they'd be able to find would be some soft white teas, but the majority were dark and strong flavored.
Curling around in her seat, careful not to dislodge the ice on her ankle, Doe peered curiously at Shepard who, though obviously usually stoic and quiet, was acting unusually peculiar in her opinion. Not that she had a lot to go on since they weren't exactly on the BFF scale yet or anything. Perhaps he was just so thoroughly disgruntled with the towel situation he couldn't bring himself to be more comfortable.
"Join us for tea Shepard, we promise not to talk too much about the Lab," Doe offered, shooting a side-grin at Vivi because there was little possibility in that.
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Posted: Sun May 16, 2010 9:14 pm
Stiffly, Shepard obeyed his summons. He tore his mind forcibly from the little pile of ash he'd just somehow created and slid into the seat across from Doe, folding his arms on the table. He managed a smile as he looked at those clear pretty features; Doe didn't seem the type to hold grudges over accidental stonicide. "What, no oo-ing and aa-ing? And Vivi's been waitin' for it all day, too."
"Ah, the Shepard, he pretends not to be amazed by the beauty of the Borealis," the Frenchwoman said, returning with three mugs carried in a rather careful balance, the steam rising softly from each and mixing in the air. Outside, a rumble of thunder reported that the storm was continuing.
"And, my goodness. An intensely stubborn jellyfish indeed. I wonder if perhaps the soul had already been quite far away before the bottle summoned it?" Vivi continued in a pondering tone as she dealt the mugs of tea. She turned the thought over a few times in her mind as she took a little pot of sugar from the countertop, her fingers drumming lightly against it as she mused. Overnight? The stag's soul -- perhaps she had lost track of time more than she thought? No, no, regardless of her lack of perception, overnight was out of the question. Maybe, she wondered, just maybe the reason hers had gone so much more swiftly was because the stag had been a... well, willing participant?
"How curious..." she breathed, looking at that fine soft mist swirling inside the grey-clothed bottle.
"You said you left it in a bowl overnight?" Shepard interjected a littler jerkily, his eyes finding Doucette's. He had been surreptitiously studying the little vial of Borealis until just now, and a soft sort of appreciation had begun to pass over his face. Now, he cleared his throat in a rumbling manner, and a slight look of discomfort returned itself to his features. "The bottle didn't usually -- ah, crush the stones it was sitting in, yeh?"
Might as well own up to a thing. He hoped the answer would be a nonchalant 'yes', really. His own touch to the stones certainly hadn't been heavier than the weight of one bottle! Either that or he'd developed a super destructive power within the last five minutes. Shepard's fingers curled gingerly around the mug, and when the ceramic didn't break under his gentle touch, he felt a very mild, very stupid sort of relief.
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Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 2:46 am
A wide and genuinely happy grin grew upon the Irish woman's lips. Her mother had always worried about Doucette's ability to make friends and so she'd been semi-sheltered in terms of social interactions with others. But Vivi and Shepard were so...so inviting. It made her feel a little depressed that she could not honestly say she had a close friend, someone she could talk to in the same way Shepard and Vivi spoke with one another, but she had never felt sorry for herself over it before and she wasn't about to let it upset her now.
The vial of Borealis, as if noticing it was being talked about, ceased it's gentle rocking for a moment, no longer bumping against the vial of Dawn either for attention or affection. For a brief moment it swirled and danced like a child before the glow dimmed slightly and it returned to the slow, soft click of glass on glass that none of them had really seemed to notice. Doucette was sure her table wasn't totally straight, so it wouldn't have surprised her if gravity and incline and what have you could explain away the movements.
Shepard's words filtered into her ears through the fog that was drifting about in her brain, the usual, lazy sort of drugged state that resulted in the beginning of an emotional hang over and the calming effects of tea.
"Crush stones?" Doucette's tone was bordering on curiosity and a friendly sort of skeptical humor, her thick lashes fluttering as she attempted to blink the question into sense.
Eyes roved around the living room, always grateful that her home was mostly open and airy without many walls or doors blocking out views of other parts of the home but the private ones. After a moment her bright blues settled on the jar that Shepard had been standing so stiffly at just moments ago, though she thought nothing of the connection, nor could she see that the stones within had grown dull and lackluster, a few of them chipped and now covered with the ash of the ones Shepard had handled.
"I usually left it in that pale gold and silver bowl over there, though I guess I don't have to worry about it stealing an unsuspecting soul anymore so I haven't kept it there recently. That's also where my collection of moonstones are. I do adore moonstones. Did you know, people believe that a moonstone is the home of moonbeams and that spirits will reside within stones which have been recently recharged with the light from the moon?"
The Irish woman beamed with pleasure. She loved to talk about little tidbits like that, and she had spent hours researching the Aurora since it had come into her hands. Like almost everything natural in the world, there was mythology about it, and mythology was something she could eat in droves. Doe was guilty of the sin of gluttony when it came to mythology and religion.
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Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 9:51 am
"Is that so?" Vivi's face lit with interest. "How fascinating! For a stone to have his own spirit. I once hea--"
"--moonstones?" Shepard broke in incredulously, his nonplussed manner revealing his complete unawareness of having trampled over Vivi's speech. The girl turned her head to look at him with an expression of faint annoyance, but Shepard failed to take note, instead managing to sputter: "In-- that bowl. That one." He pointed with one hand at the bowl in question, but then apparently decided the gesture was unclear and rose, quickly making his way to the object. "This one." He lifted it. "Moonstones."
"... I ..." Words failed Vivi as she slowly turned her head to Doucette, a baffled apology scripted across her features. What on earth had gotten into the imbécile? "Shepard, are you ... feeling ill?"
"Look, I'm feelin' a bit like a whacker myself here, but moonstones are the shiny, whirly kinds of rocks, yeh? And I'm -- look, just touch one." And he held out the bowl with the dispirited stones in all their ruined glory to the Irishwoman, his handsome face earnest in its confusion.
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Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 9:14 pm
Doucette was a bit taken aback by Shepard's sudden outburst; wasn't she the one that had the emotional break downs? Looking to Vivi and then back to the Aussie she frowned slightly and gave a short nod, "Yea, that bowl..." she said very slowly, as if confirming his fears would cause him to further spiral into some dark and unpleasant place. Needless to say, she was very worried about the man.
Until he brought over the bowl of decay and held it out to her.
"Someone stole my moonstones?" Doe asked in a weak voice, her eyes brimming with tears as she reached out and picked up one of the ashen orbs. Why would someone steal her near-worthless moonstones and replace them with ash? The stone flaked but thankfully didn't disintegrate between her fingers. Her lips turned down, "No...these were once my moonstones. What happened to them?"
Though she knew Shepard had nothing to do with it she sent him a hard sort of look. There was nothing accusing in the blues, but there was a question, a belief that even though he hadn't done it surely he knew why it had happened. Had he seen something while he was over there? Was that why he was acting so strange.
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Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 12:07 am
Shepard balked momentarily before Doucette's teary gaze, but then -- as they always did in the face of discomfort -- the corner of his lips tugged downward into a kneejerk scowl. He looked away from that doleful gaze quickly, and his clenched jaw just barely twitched. "I didn't -- they looked like that when I found them," he asserted grumpily, slouching into the seat beside Doucette. "Hardly touched the damn things and they bleedin' disintegrated in my hands! Someone sold you a lot of junk."
Vivi, who at this point might usually have airily commented on Shepard's grouchiness, remained silent. She had half-risen from her chair and leaned over the table, her eyes sharply narrowed as she studied the stones in Doucette's bowl. They were... distinctly not right; that much was immediately obvious. But there was something more there, something just as obvious but less distinct in its nature...
"... they look dead," she murmured thoughtfully to herself. And then -- yes, that was it, they were dead! The thought clicked itself so neatly in her head that she cried out, looking up at her companions in surprise. Shepard snapped his gaze to her, opening his mouth to comment on her sanity, but she continued hurriedly, gesturing at the stones. "Wait. Doucette, yes -- did you not say that you left your soul bottle in there overnight? And just now, you also said that stones have souls, non?" The excitement hummed through Vivi's breathless tone.
A look of blank understanding mixed with relief slowly dawned over Shepard's features. If the soul bottle really had filled itself with that mystical moonstone soul... if that were true, then it really wasn't his fault about the ruined stones. This whole soul-collection thing made remarkably little sense to the Aussie, but then, this whole ordeal was forcing him to broaden his mind: yesterday, he'd have been hard pressed to admit that stones had souls; last week, that magical stags existed; and last month that things could exist without more than half a torso...
He rose slightly from his seat to snatch Doucette's soul bottle from the table, looking rather intently at the colors. Vivi leaned as well from her spot, her gaze full of interest. The colors inside continued their passive eddying, unaware of the sudden audience it was holding captive... the colors, which no longer resembled a jellyfish to either of the onlookers in the least. Vivi looked from the bottle to Doucette, filled with anticipation.
"Damn," was all Shepard had to say.
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Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 12:54 am
"What?"
Doucette leaned forward to look at the dead gems before looking between Vivi and Shepard with a look of childish confusion on her face.
"What?"
The red head tried asking again, feeling like she was missing out on some important secret, her brain reeling because there was clearly something she was missing but unable to put together the pieces in a way that would help her understand on her own.
Reaching out she dragged the bowl to her side of the table, cradling it against her chest as the two of them began studying the effervescent curling of colors within the bottle they clutched in their hands. "So what if I left the bottle in here? I had to be careful. After I found out that it wasn't copying souls, but stealing them instead, I had to make sure I was keeping everything safe. I couldn't just leave it anywhere!" Somehow she felt like she'd made a bad choice in that, but certainly she wasn't going to sleep with the murderous thing in her bed to keep it safe!
"Wait! You mean..." Blue eyes scrunched at the corners as she contemplated their words as well as her own, and even all the other people she'd talked to about soul capturing. Finally she sat up a bit straighter, "You mean that I...caught two souls? Or something? Did the jellyfish need more strength or something?" Doucette was out of her depths. Stones didn't have souls, so what had happened that the jellyfish had had to drain her souls as well?
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Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 6:44 pm
"N-no." It was Shepard who spoke first, sliding back down into his seat to better look at Doucette. Her sweet look of uncertainty made him waver in conviction; he cleared his throat and shook his head, his brows furrowing as he turned the clues over in his head again. He rolled the soul bottle slowly between his palms. "You said you put the, ah, bottle next to the carked jellyfish and waited, yeh? But nothin' happened until yeh stuck it in yer bowl of moonstones overnight. Yer moonstones, which yeh just told us have spirits and whatnot hangin' round them."
"Mm, I believe it seems as though your jellyfish was more withholding than you had expected!" Vivi added with a touch of wistfulness, realizing just then that a floaty-haired jellyfish Raevan was no longer in the works. She smiled all the same at the Irishwoman, though -- a moonstone spirit would certainly be just as magical. "It would seem as though the jellyfish refused to give you his soul, but that your moonstones were far more... obliging."
Obliging. Yes, that could be the word.
"Perhaps we could call Mssr Zeke, from the Lab? He was greatly helpful to me when he gave me my vial and bottle," suggested Vivi, her smile broadening as she remembered the friendly ambassador. He, certainly, might have some clarification about these matters that they, as total Raevan novices, did not. "We can invite him to Vermillion together, if you should like? In any case, we must give to him the vials and bottles."
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Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 8:32 pm
The red head looked between them with a sort of blank curiosity. Thin brows were lofted slightly, eyes just a bit wider, and lips curling at the corners in the patient 'I'm waiting' gesture. Neither of them were really making sense. It still seemed far more logical to her that the jellyfish was indeed the captured soul, and that her poor stones had been but a mishap in the long road to their current point. Stones simply didn't have souls to be sucked out of them. And so many stones at that!
But there was something curious to the way that all that inner light was gone from the various shapes littered in the bowl. Curiouser and curiouser.
"Zeke?" she asked in a soft echo with a serene sort of calm, licking her lips as she looked between the stones and the soul bottle once more. She'd never heard of such a person, and had simply planned on re-phoning the woman that had given her the bottle. A small talking to was obviously in order in the matter of giving future guardians more information about the general process they were about to undertake.
Perhaps that information had been in the contract though. Perhaps that information had even been discussed at some point to the woman while she was distracted with other thoughts. Ah well, it was most probably her fault in any case. Vivi and Shepard had, after all, had no other possible ideas about the task they were undertaking.
Vivi's words brought a nod to the curly haired head as the ding of the dryer interrupted her thoughts. "Yes, better if we do it together I think." Doucette sighed and then winced as she pushed herself out of her chair to get their clothes, eyes glancing at the two vials curled together like happy cats before tearing her gaze away.
She'd not let Shepard help her get the clothes, for he'd suffered enough at her hands already and she was happy to present him with the warm, folded pile of cloth bearing none of the signs the possibility of the bad night. And even now the storm was clearing and the ferries would start again. The girl longed to ask them to stay longer, but they'd risk being stuck on the island for the night and she didn't have the heart to place them in such an awkward situation.
"Please be careful."
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Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 10:47 pm
Shepard could not deny how much more comfortable he felt to be clothed again, but nonetheless he felt a slow reluctance settling into his belly as he and Vivi made for the door. Now unafraid of accidental flashing, he had managed to give the pugs the scritches and belly rubs that had been coming to them, and he was forced to admit that everything else was in order: the storm had settled, the teacups had been taken away and rinsed, the soul bottle and vial had been collected. Everything that needed to be done had been done.
And yet, between he and Vivi, there drifted a feeling of ... emptiness, perhaps? Some manner of incompletion. Even the vial had flickered in its glow as Shepard plucked it from its place beside the Borealis. Hours ago, the bottle had been empty, and now it wasn't. Hours ago, they'd mused over how to lure out the stag, and now... there was no stag to muse over. And hours ago, Shepard hadn't worried about leaving Vivi alone, to herself, but now he was, and now that he thought about it, he was damn pissed.
And now that worry had extended itself to Doucette; Doe, who he genuinely liked now, and who should never have been placed in the position she'd been in. This he knew Vivi felt as well, and it was plain to see the guilt on Vivi's clear face every time Doucette made a move to walk on her swollen ankle.
They neither of them wanted to leave, but all the same they collected their things and said their prolonged goodbyes, and slowly made their way out onto the wet sand.
"I cannot thank you enough," Vivi said earnestly to Doucette on the porch, and even after she and Shepard had made their way off of Doucette's property and back onto the beach, she did not stop peeking over her shoulder back at the redhead's quaint little home.
She and Shepard walked in silence together to the ferry, both very aware of the other's presence but firmly ignoring it, and both thought together the exact same thought: they would make it up to Doucette.
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