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 Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2016 9:52 pm
Clove cigarettes were, unfortunately, illegal in the state of Massachusetts. Something about protecting public health, which was a weird argument to make since you could still buy a pack of Menthols at any gas station along the turnpike. Finn, being a nice guy and all and also having a magical Jeep that never ran out of gas, had volunteered at some point to make the trek to Connecticut and pick Sunny up her preferred brand. And then she's just kind of expected him to keep doing it every few weeks. And he'd done it, because he was a sucker. Anyway, here he was, mooning around down by the beach with a pack of smuggled kreteks in his back pocket, waiting for the local haunt to show up. "C'mon, Sunny," he mumbled, looking off towards the water. "The tide's coming in."
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Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2016 9:59 pm
Sunny had been doing whatever it was Sunny did when not directly observed, which might have been: sleeping. Or staring blankly into the wall. Or swimming. Or... basically, she was Shroedinger's person. When her box opened, she popped out, but until then there was no knowing if she was alive or dead in there. Anyway, the siren song of the tide and Kreteks had drawn her from whatever she had been doing, and she held out an open palm for her cigs. "Yeah," she said. "It is. My tide." She said it with no ds, so it came out mai tai. Then she grinned a grin that was more of a sneer, and lit one of her new cigarettes as she held it up to her lips. "What d'you want, Finn? S'just the tide." She arched her eyebrows at him, and padded her way down to one of the benches lining the beach-break. "There are bigger things to worry about. Like your hairdo. S'gonna frizz up like hell, mijito."
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Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2016 10:16 pm
Finn followed her down to the beach break. " Your tide," he said, glancing back up towards the bulkhead. The angle was too steep to see the tops of buildings, to see if he'd crossed over-- It was a stupid thought, he decided. It wasn't raining. It was always raining in the other place. "My hair does what it wants," he said, looking back to her. "I've stopped worrying about it." He took a seat, stared out over the water. It was an overcast day, clouds cleaving close to the horizon. Finn felt it again, the pricking of electricity at the back of his neck. "I've been feeling something lately," he said, breathing in the fragrant secondhand smoke of her cigarette. "Like there's a big storm coming, but I don't know when it'll get here. I was wondering if you knew what it meant."
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Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2016 10:36 pm
Sunny frowned, and gestured through the air with the lit tip of her cigarette, vaguely in the direction of the water. "Yeah. Storm's coming, like I said. Your hair's gonna be truly spectacular. A halo. All frizzy and full of... whatever human hair does when it gets frizzy." She was delighted by the thought. "...Frizz," she finished. She flicked ash into the sand. "Means destiny, short stack. Mijito. My little sweetheart. It comes for all of us."
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Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2016 1:03 am
Finn shivered, all the little hairs on the back of his neck standing up at once. Sunny looked human, even if her ethnic origin was a bit difficult to pin down - he was pretty sure she'd just picked up the spanish as an affectation - and it always unnerved him when she started talking like she was something else. Maybe that was just an affectation, too...? But he could walk in and out of the otherworld at will, and he didn't have the luxury of assuming. "When," he asked, resting his head on his hands, "will it be here?"
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Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2016 1:35 am
"Ask me tomorrow," said Sunny. "And if I don't know then, then I don't know. But right now, you should ask me tomorrow. When the sun goes down. If I'll ever know, that's when." She blinked at him, slowly, dark eyes odd and luminous in the shadows of the beach. The cherry-red ember of her cigarette bobbed and wove as she rocked from heel to toe, exhaled a delicate whorl of smoke. " Big storm," she repeated. "Spread it around. It won't be pretty."
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Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2016 8:33 am
"Okay," replied Finn, feeling irrationally bothered by Sunny's professed ignorance. He knew it was possible for her not to know - always in motion, the future is, and all that - but he didn't like the idea. Especially that the she might not ever know. He'd never had an apprehension like this. He wanted some warning, some time to prepare. Batten down the hatches. "I'll do that," he said. "What do you think it'll be like?"
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Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2016 4:37 pm
"Bad," she said. "You're gonna be needed. Or they're gonna be lost forever. After three days of fog, the rain will come. And that's when it'll be." Sunny dropped her cigarette and kicked sand over it. The butt had already disappeared by the time she stuck her hands in the oversized pockets of her big purple hoodie. "Don't know why you humans can't walk the paths normally. Like a real thing. S'just you? Are you sure you're real?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2016 12:39 am
Finn narrowed his eyes at Sunny, not sure he liked any of what she was saying. Real was a loaded term, a question with no correct answer. "It's a talent," he said, studying the sand where her cigarette butt disappeared - as a park ranger, her littering made his soul cry out in agony. He suspected she knew that. "I'll spread the word," he replied, shoving the frustration aside. "Aleksy can spot dreamers. Together, we can get the word out." A storm coming. He bit his lip, thought he could hear distant thunder.
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2016 12:42 am
Sunny stood in silence for a moment, black eyes glassy. Then she said, "Bored now. Got anything else you need?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2016 12:44 am
At least she didn't mince words. "No," said Finn. "How about them Red Sox."
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2016 12:46 am
Sunny shrugged. "Not wearing any." She flicked a glance at him and blew out one last plume of clove-scented smoke, though her cigarette was long out. "Be seeing you." There was a pool of shadows behind her. Sunny disappeared into it without seeming to move, as if she'd never been.
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