She woke up in Kevin's bed half an hour before sunrise and snuck out. She knew she probably shouldn't have left without saying a word, but as she woke up she wasn't in the mood to be social. At all. So she walked out. The fact that she now feels terrible about it makes her feel even worse. She should go back and apologise, and thank them, and tell them she is okay.
In a bit. Just a moment more here.
The park is on a small hill, and she can see the sun about to rise over the part of town beneath her. She leans back and sighs. In her right hand, inside her coat pocket, she's gripping the bottle Sam gave her. It's an incredible thing. She doesn't know as much about magical artifacts, not as much as Kevin, but she knows that objects like this are rare. Rare rare. She can't believe her luck, having met someone who owns one, right at this point in time.
And yet she hesitates. She doesn't want to go back to the garden. Every molecule in her is objecting to the idea. She knows that if she bottles up the fear, the feeling will go away, and then she can go back. She has to go back. And this is the way to do that. But it feels wrong. The fear in her body warns her that she's afraid because there's something to be afraid of. Because that fear will keep her alive. Life isn't better without it. Life is more dangerous without it. She knows it's irrational, that most people like dogs, that this isn't actually keeping her alive. That it is actually making her life a little -- or in this case a lot -- worse. But something in her objects to her doing something that her mind objects to doing, even if she could do it without having mind object to it at the moment.
Wow, that made no sense whatsoever.
The dogs did attack her. The dogs are there, to attack her if she tries again. Taking away the fear doesn't stop her from getting hurt, it just makes her not panic as she's getting hurt. Great.
The sun is now visible just above the horizon. She shivers, gets up. Time to put the self-pity aside for a while and get something done today. She doesn't have the time for this.
~x~
A bell above a door lets out a comfortably familiar sound as she steps into the antique store. The sun has already set a couple of hours earlier, but it's not late yet. That's winter for you. Kevin looks up from whatever he's reading behind the counter.
"Well hello there," he says.
"Hi," she says, now embarrassed. "I'm sorry I disappeared this morning. I woke up, and wasn't feeling very good, and needed some air and some alone time. But thank you for everything last night. And tell that to Sam too."
He simply nods. It's trivial. She waits a moment, to see if he says something.
"So, how was your day?" he asks. He doesn't ask if she got the berries. She's grateful for that.
The truth is, she spent the whole day avoiding thinking about it. She put all her energy to getting one of the other things on her list. She digs it out now.
"I got the token of friendly love today," she says, and hands the bracelet for Kevin's inspection. "It was bad, by the way. There were these friends I followed around for a few hours while they did some shopping, and I found that the one had given this to the other two years ago. It's not an expensive thing, but the way she kept touching it it seemed obvious it has a lot of sentimental value. I hated doing it."
"You feel more upset about stealing something cheap but meaningful to the person than something valuable but unimportant," Kevin says as he hands the bracelet back.
She doesn't know what to say, so she doesn't. They're quiet, for a moment, her playing with the bracelet, Kevin seeming deep in thought.
"So, dogs, huh?"
And there it is.
"I..." she swallows. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Okay," Kevin says and gets up. "Would you like some hot tea instead? You look like you're freezing."
She is. It's been a cold day, and she's spent a lot of it outside. A part of her wants to go home and sleep, but she feels like she owes it to him. And tea does sound wonderful just about now.
"Only if it has plenty of honey in it," she smiles, and follows him as he leads the way to the back room.
_______________________________________________________
What happened in this part? Nothing. Apparently. I'm sorry. I'll do better next time.
Also, about sword as a topic, I also can't believe we haven't used it in all these years. I was sure we would have, but nope. (In case people who aren't the two fo us are wondering, yes, we have a document where we've just listed all the topics we've used since 2013, in which stories, and in which order, and I think there's a couple that have been used twice in different stories in the early years, but after that First snow is the only one that has been used multiple times, and that's intentional.)
Anyway.
The topic for tomorrow is Orange. (See, 'cause we've already done red, green and yellow, and we haven't used any colors since Sorcerer. Though then again, orange isn't necessarily a color, now is it.)
~matleena
Introspection isn't "nothing" ^^ I like "quiet" chapters. And this feels as if it's building up to something. BUT I STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT THE DEAL WITH THESE TWO ARE, AGH!
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