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rilla blythe

The Beach [mid-afternoon]

After a very frustrating class in childcare (honestly, those children had been monsters, and grocery shopping should not be that difficult), Rilla picked up Jims from daycare and went down to the beach.

It was ridiculously hot outside, and while she was careful to put Jims on a blanket in a shady area, she needed to be drenched head to toe in a vain attempt to cool down a bit (in a swimsuit from 1915, so it wasn't like she had much skin showing...).

She was trying to stop Jims from eating a handful of sand when the raven arrived. She let out a shriek of surprise to see it (and another one when it took a nip from her finger), but then realized he was carrying a message for her.

She smiled with relief to hear from Dany after all the time and rummaged around looking for paper to write a very long letter back in reply.

[OOC: Open beach is open. Goddamn, it's hot.]

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Fawn supposed she shouldn't be surprised she'd be the only wanting to be on the beach on a day like today, but she was a little surprised about the little guy.

"I think your kid's trying to eat a rock," she said, finding it prudent to warn the other girl. She would have felt bad if she hadn't.

Edited 2012-06-21 20:30 (UTC)

Rilla sighed, more exasperated than surprised, then removed it from Jims' reach. "He does that," she said apologetically from under her sunhat. "He wants to see if everything is food first."

"I guess that makes sense," Fawn said, though she frowned a little, trying to figure out if her mother would let them continue trying to eat rocks as an expression of themselves or be as firm on the eating of rocks as she was on the eating of Twinkies, but, of course, it wasn't like Fawn could remember back that far. But Caitlin did get away with putting a lot of things in her mouth. "His whole world probably consists of differentiating between Things I Can Eat and Things I Can't right now...And some people never even grow out of that. Fixation on the oral stage of development."

Rilla...really didn't know what the last part of the sentence meant, but she nodded along avidly anyway. "It's not like he's really good at music or poetry yet," Rilla said, "though he's excellent with a pot and a wooden spoon once he's had his supper."

She smiled and held out her hand. "I'm Rilla Blythe."

With the offered hand, Fawn bit her lip and hesitated a great deal. She took in a deep breath and apparently decided that she'd rather be rude than have too much contact with someone else, since she didn't actually take it.

"Fawn Singleton Farrell," she did at least give her name. "And they've all got to start somewhere."

She knew for a fact that pots and wooden spoons were an approved activity for the Farrell children, so...

Rilla didn't take offense, instead putting her hand down to gesture at Jims. "And this is Jims. He'll be a year old in August."

"Happy early birthday, Jims," Fawn offered, and she hoped she was being subtle in eying Rilla and thinking she still seemed pretty young to have a kid. But you did see it all the time where she was growing up. Even Vidamiá's mom was only sixteen when she had her...

But Fawn didn't stick on the thought too long, frowning a little as she looked up toward the sea. "Do you guys come out here a lot?" she asked.

Rilla nodded. "I come from a fishing village in Canada," she said. "I miss the sea." She closed her eyes. "And I can at least pretend it's cooler on the shore."

The Canadian fishing village definitely did confirm in Fawn's mind her perception that the kid was probably the reason why Rilla was here, and she wondered if anyone else on this island spent as much time thinking about that sort of thing as she did. Or what people thought her Freak Cred might be.

"It's not that bad," Fawn shrugged, "but it gets hot in New York during the summer, too. I like it, though. It beats those tents, anyway."

"I feel so bad for our other tentmate," Rilla said earnestly. "Normally Jims sleeps straight from seven to seven, but the heat has made him fussy."

"Who are you sharing a tent with?" Fawn asked, although she knew it was unlikely she would really know the person. Social butterfly, she was not.

"Lady Casssidy," Rilla said. "The one with the beautiful curly red hair?"

Nope, Fawn didn't know her, but with a description like that, she felt a little tug in her gut of wishing she did.

She shook her head. "I don't think I know her. Just the one? I've got three other girls in mine..."

She thought about mentioning that this meant she'd actually be sleeping anywhere but the tent when she could help it, but didn't.

"Maybe they thought that adding Jims was going to be enough?" Rilla wondered. "Who are you sharing with?"

"Umm..." Not being in the test as much made Fawn forget a little, so she had to think. "Karolina, Susan, and Anna..."

And they probably had no idea what they were sharing a tent with. That was the worst part. Not so much the uncomfortable closeness, but the guilt that they didn't know.

"Susan lives on my floor when we aren't forced into tiny tents," Rilla said, sounding pleased to be able to recognize one of the names. "Her hair is amazing, too, isn't it?"

Rilla didn't mean to come off like she had some sort of creepy hair obsession, honestly.

"It's...different?" said Fawn diplomatically. "I've definitely never seen hair like hers before..."

"Me either!" Rilla said, sounding a little relieved. "Your world isn't magical, then? Or full of aliens? Or both?"

That managed to pull a faint grin out of Fawn. She shook her head. "Nope," she admitted. "It's pretty normal. I can officially say I'm the only person from where I'm from that's time traveled before."

"Me too!" Rilla said. "I'm from 1915," which would explain her swimming...dress. "You?"

Fawn was talking to a guy with a metal face the other week. The swimming dress didn't phase her much except for the fact that it kind of made her wonder where she could get one...

"Not that far back," Fawn admitted. "1989. It's still really weird, though. I always wonder if there's another version of me out there in this year, walking around, being 37 and everything."

"It's possible," Rilla said after a moment's thought. "There was a weekend when all of us were older, too, though I don't remember anything about it other than that..."

"There's also a possibility," Fawn said, because these were the sorts of things Fawn thought about, as she looked out over the sea, "that the only reason I'm allowed to be here in this timeline is because the other me is dead. There's probably a million timelines where I end up dead, but, for some reason, in this one, I'm not. Or maybe the older me isn't dead, either, but, if we were to ever cross paths, like dopplegangers, then we would both die and the world might possibly end, to boot. See, you're probably lucky. The older you would have died of old age by now, so you don't have to worry about it, but then it would be possible for you to literally walk over your own grave..."

Rilla was staring at her now, mouth slightly agape. "I think I'll stay of Prince Edward Island in this timeline, just in case," she said faintly. "We're in the midst of a war at home, and I can't bring myself to look up how it ends in the library in case it goes badly."

Fawn opened her mouth to let Rilla know that it didn't, but she stopped herself, figuring that would spoil her or something. She frowned, wondering on that for a little bit.

And then curiosity got the best of her, as it always did. "What if someone told you that it didn't?"

"It would be wonderful, but what if it didn't go that way in my world?" Rilla asked. "Then it would be completely heartbreaking."

She stared out at the sea for a moment. "My eldest brother is in Belgium now, with one of my dearest childhood friends. Another brother and friend will join him in July."

Fawn realized all this talk of alternate universes should have had her thinking about that. She dropped her eyes a little. "Oh, yeah," she said. "Good point. I hope they make it out okay. My father was in a war, too, but he messed up his hand while he was there. But my half-sister's uncle didn't...But if my half-sister's uncle hadn't died in the war, then my father probably wouldn't have gotten with her mother, and then she wouldn't even exist. It's weird; things like that almost seem to happen for a reason, but I'm not really sure I believe that."

Because then she'd have to accept that she was born the way she was for a reason, too...

"You don't believe in God?" Rilla asked, still sounding vaguely scandalized by the idea.

Fawn blinked a little at Rilla, surprised by the question. When your mother went marauding around, making sure that you were raised in an environment completely free of higher beings, it was easy to forget that not everyone else was the same way.

And that she couldn't exactly explain that it was hard to believe in a God that would do to a person what had been done to her, too.

"No," she said. "Not really."

And she remembered Lurleen telling her that she should never be ashamed of that, either. That people who did believe in gods tended to use it as a crutch, and that the world was so big and complex that some people needed something to blame it all on.

Rilla was just going to cling to the "not really" and pretend that meant "I don't attend regularly."

"I don't see a lot of other students at church either," she lamented.

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The Beach [mid-afternoon]

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