Welcome to Gaia! ::

Just about twenty-four hours. It was strange to think of it in those terms. A day. The span of time that could slip by in the blink of an eye. She thought of how she had spent twenty-four hour stints in the past - shopping or studying or partying. This had been a very different sort of twenty-four hours.

Misha shook her head, freeing herself from those thoughts. Everyone was back at Prytaneum and, by now, most were up and around and back to their routines. Heaven knew, she had run into enough of them in her wanders through campus. The few who were still in the infirmary were healing fast. It was reassuring. This place had become reassuring. Go figure.

She stood just at the line where sand met water, bare toes digging into the cool wetness, and smiled a bit vaguely off towards the horizon. The sun had begun its slow slide down to meet Lake Huron. The colors streaking the sky were brilliant, pinks and blues and golds and deepening purples. Her fingers toyed with the fringe decorating the edge of the large pashmina shawl she had drawn over her shoulders. The grey sweatshirt beneath was fairly warm but the way it drooped off her bare shoulder let in drafts.

Tipping her head back and closing her eyes, Misha inhaled deeply, chest expanding to enjoy the cool freshness of the lake air. Perhaps it was the magic of the place but she could only remember a handful of places that smelled so clean and pure. She willed the muscles in her back and shoulders to relax. Then she tugged the scarf up higher and wrapped it more firmly around her curvy figure.

It was the first time she had been truly alone in almost twenty-four hours. She knew it wasn't long before she sought someone else out. Maybe Brian. She hadn't seen him since they returned and the thought that it could be presumptuous never crossed her mind. After all, she had crashed Beth's room only just the night before...

Silence hung between them as the colors in the sky deepened. Misha's eyes remained shut and she made no move to indicate she knew he was beside her. She seemed perfectly content to focus on breathing. In and out. Slow and steady. Deep and controlled.

As they stood, Misha relaxed further and her grip on the shawl around her loosened. The soft fabric fell open a bit, slithering slightly down her shoulders and back. The cool breeze from the water raised goose flesh on her neck but she only smiled a bit, watching the sky through lowered lashes.

"So."

Despite the soft music in her voice, it still rang like a starter's gun shot in the deep quiet.

"Beautiful, right?"

"Not long, nope." Out the corner of her eye, Misha saw his hand fall but only noted it, saying nothing. She allowed her eyes to search the horizon for long moments more. Now she listened to his breathing as if she could mark time with each inhale-exhale Brian made at her side. Her body relaxed even more and the shawl slid further down until the fringe nearly brushed the sand.

Suddenly, he felt warm fingers twine in his. Misha smiled ahead at the water and allowed more contact until she had fully tangled their hands together. "Have you ever noticed how there's always that one magic point in time when the water and the sky bleed together perfectly and you can't tell where one begins and the other ends?"

"Sunrises and sunsets. They're both pretty but in different ways. I've had more sunsets than sunrises, though," she admitted. "I kind of like to lie in bed for a while after I wake up and the windows in my apartment back home don't face the right way."

She wondered how long he had been out walking the beach. She hadn't run into him so it couldn't have been any longer than her own stroll. It was hard to tell, too, from the heat of his hand in hers; her own body temperature was always on the slightly ridiculous side. Idly, she traced a single circle with her thumb on the back of his hand. That just led her to wonder where he had been, though. He had been hurt but not too badly. She had made sure to notice. Had he gone back to where he was from? Where was that? Twenty-four hours...

"The moment's coming," she added. Looking at him sideways, her smile grew as if she read his mind and didn't at all mind what she found there. "Wanna make a wish on it?"

"Not yet but that doesn't stop me from trying every so often. Wishes are fun." She paused, her hand in his, and turned her gaze back to the water. She almost added that you should never pin everything on wishes because they only get you so far but that seemed too sober for this moment. It was peaceful on the beach and she had not been lying when she said she thought it was beautiful.

Misha stole another look at Brian's profile out the corner of her eye and smiled before copying his intensity and staring out ahead. "If wishes where horses," she murmured. "It'll be soon. I just know it." She laughed softly. "Just don't forget that you can't tell me your wish or it won't come true."

All of her focus shifted ahead then, on the horizon and the water and leaving any darker thoughts behind. No birds or snow or choices that she should never have had to make. Her thumb again briefly rubbed the back of his hand in another thoughtful, slow circle. She leaned forward a bit more, licking her lips, concentrating. "Almost..."

She squeezed his hand. "Now."

Only to find Misha looking at him directly with a soft smile and thoughtful eyes. When his gaze caught hers, the chemistry in the look changed and smile took a turn for bigger and brighter and just a little bit proud of herself. "That was perfect," she assured him. "We timed it just right. You saw it, too, didn't you?"

He hadn't seen her move but she seemed ever so slightly closer to him, not touching but he could feel the heat radiating from her skin. Their only point of contact continued to be their twined hands. Misha was okay with this. It felt comfortable and warm and safe. Her hand in his shifted slightly until her thumb was pressed lightly against the inside of his wrist, against his pulse point.

Then she turned her head and nodded with her chin to the horizon. "I'm glad you saw it with me. It makes me feel a little less... Crazy, I guess."

"Did I say crazy?" Her mouth twitched as if she were fighting a giggle. "How about sentimental? I don't know. I think we're all a little crazy. You have to be in this world." Her free hand lifted to indicate not just Prytaneum but also everything beyond, everything out in the "normal" world.

She sighed softly and turned her head to look at him again. The temptation to giggle melted into a warm smile for him. He was very easy to smile for, she thought. "I'm a city girl, believe it or not," she admitted, seemingly out of the blue. "But there's something about nature that just... Does something to me. You?"

"I've never been to Texas. I wonder if it's anything like the deserts in Arizona. I have family out there so I used to run around the cacti, getting stickers all over me." A teasing light shone in her eyes but the story seemed truthful enough. Even if it was hard to picture her a wee, pig-tailed little ragamuffin. "I'm from Philadelphia. A total Yankee girl. Are you still allowed to talk to me, Tex?"