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xxxxx『 〄 A Somewhat Unexpected Truth 』
xxxxxxxxx〆 ┊ Siren's shore, desperately en route to Tesla's farm
xxxxxxxxx〆 ┊ Tuesday morning. A normal Tuesday. Roughly one week after Eli's meeting with Magnolia
xxxxxxxxx〆 ┊ fairly chilly and cloudy. with such a fine mistiness, it might rain

The soft scruff of Eli's boots had begun to grate on his ears. Pausing briefly, he gingerly lifted the lid to his small bundle. A gently abrasive scent drifted upwards to assail his quivering nostrils: smoke, old smoke, the smoke of a fire that was once, long ago. Not an unpleasant smell, but Eli's hawk-squinted eyes widened fractionally and he slammed the wicker lid shut. "Just... just stop it!" he hissed softly to the basket he carried. Woven tightly, plain and brown, the basket was not the subject of his ire. Rather, the basket's current rebellious cargo was what kept Eli so agitated. His little smoke-filled bottle, so beautiful and secret (for he'd only told Magnolia, and she... she just didn't see what he saw), his smoky glass had begun to leak. The curls of smoke flying up from the bottle dispersed quickly, but they lay gently near the bottle itself, twisting into patterns just like the smoke within.

This might be a weird sort of betrayal, Eli mused, or a progression. He trudged onward, muttering to himself crossly. Maybe he had caused this: these small wisps of alarming smoke. By talking to the bottle, touching it, keeping it near him, had he imparted some sort of odd life into the warm glass? If he believed in souls, Eli might have feared for his; the bottle could have absorbed it whole, like a silent succubus. As it stood, this was a puzzle, a fantastically panic-ridden puzzle. Eli couldn't put a name to why he was panicking. Illogical, unreasonable, he was usually so accepting, so why did this small, small piece of glassware unnerve him so? He skittered a bit on the soft ground, nearly dropping his burden. Finally, Eli admitted to himself the suspicion, ever-lingering in his number-filled head; it had been there since the beginning, unacknowledged but there, like an ugly stain covered by an ornate rug. Maybe his little bottle was something more, something growing.

And so, Eli was walking rather briskly, at a near-jog, along Siren's shore towards Grey Farm. The normally calming waves only spurred him further. How could this world be so cool and collected when he was fluctuating inside? Eli was likely being melodramatic, but he would never admit that. His resolution burned hot and low in his stomach, a thirst for the exact knowledge. Eli could never handle the unknown very well; when a child, he would follow his father around, looking, observing everything, finding their places within the whole. This bottle of his, it stood out. Where did the small bauble fit, what was it?A fine mist dampened his shirt. The memory of his coat, left behind in the hall, laughed at Eli: fool's errand. In his mind, his bottle sent tendrils of smoke to waft around him, brushing against his skin like a child's laughter. His ale-colored eyes saw nothing.

Grunting, he crested another slope. While his home was flat along the shore, this was a cliff. Starkly beautiful, it stunned him for one moment. The sun, a pastel gray behind the clouds, rippled and illuminated each lap of the sea below. He wondered if the sea stretched forever. With a boat, he could sail and sail and see nothing but the sea for an eternity. A wild thought, but perhaps there was nothing Eli could look at for so very long, but the sea. He shook his head. There was a 1 in 5,239 chance that Eli would die in the sea. Perhaps the sea would eventually consume everything.

Turning his head, he forced his eyes from the horizon. Dangerous thoughts, that's what the strangeness of the bottle had done to him. A trickle of smoky smell teased him, but he was so near Grey Farm at last! There was even someone about nearby, head-down, walking somewhere. From this distance, Eli couldn't tell exactly who it was, but taking a chance, he cupped his free hand near his mouth: "Hello there! Is that Tesla?" Feeling a little silly, he began to walk forward, but his pace increased with each step. Tesla would know. She had to.

As Tesla cupped his elbow, some measure of her calm nature seemed to flow to him. As his tension seeped out of him, it was replaced by something else: a kind of sheepish embarrassment. He could have handled this with more thoughtfulness, more aplomb. Instead, he had gone off the deep end and ran, not thinking of anything at all, only panicking. Suddenly, Eli was acutely aware of his coat-less state and shivered. The cold north wind plucked across his raw nerves and the acrid tang of the bottle's smoke taunted him. He stumbled on a rock and his foot blossomed briefly with pain.

Tesla's braided hair bounced as she walked him towards her house. That cheerful, redder than red hair, the color of sunsets or the dawn before a storm, shone as brightly as any lantern despite its captivity. Really, it was a shame to keep it bound so. Eli glanced at her sideways. Dressed in working clothes, a bundle at her side, Eli had clearly interrupted something. A stab of guilt forced his mouth open. "Telsa, I'm sorry. Have I interrupted something? I.. I can leave, if you'd like...?" Truth be told, Eli did not want to leave. He wanted her knowledge, her straight-forward way of talking that seemed to lay everything out in a logical line. His basket felt heavy in his hand and he resolved to assist Tesla with whatever he had disrupted.

Even as he opened his mouth to speak, to spill the tale of his smoking bottle, the cold wind stole the words from his mouth and mockingly whirled them around his head before casting them far far south, beyond the realm of men. "M-my story, why I have come to call, I shall h-have to tell you inside, w-w-where this damned wind doesn't ice me for speaking out of turn." Eli flushed and muttered sorry. He shouldn't have cursed in front of a lady. As he forced his words out, his teeth chattered in a most un-debonair way. Although his nose was numb, still the smell of smoke haunted him, the unrelenting reminder of his panic: the rebellion.

Eli smiled at Tesla's chatter: a wide, toothy grin tinged more than a little with relief. Her home was cozy, as he had somehow expected it to be. It felt lived in, loved, and was far more like a home than his drafty house. He wondered if it was because of her or simply that she had lived there longer than he. Regardless of the reason. he felt the muscles in his neck slowly unbunch.

"You have p-pegged me c-correctly, madam. T-tea is my weapon of choice." His teeth chattered as he spoke, a staccato that broke his sentence into fumbling half-words. The cold hung heavily over him, draped like a greatcoat and his body gravitated towards the fire. The faint smoky smell sadly reminded him of his errand. The puzzle of the bottle rose to the forefront of his mind and he fiddled with the straps on the basket. He opened his mouth, looking for a moment much like the fish he shared his last name with. (But at least he was a handsome fish) Closing it, he gulped and ran fingers through his tousled hair.

"I... I have this sort of glass bottle, you see...." Unfortunately, he trailed off there, entirely unsure of where to go. This was a fool's errand, his mind whispered. His fingers tapped a rhythmless beat against the basket.