alice

As soon as Quinn heard the voice call out to him, he realized that he had gotten the wrong house. He was supposed to meet with another shifter after having helped with the rebuild of the island but he must have gotten the address wrong. However the mountain lion had stopped in his tracks and realized he couldn’t just walk away and pretend he hadn’t actually trespassed on someone’s property, albeit accidentally. He followed the voice before making his presence known with a sheepish smile on his face. 

The moment he noted who the voice belonged to, Quinn realized she wasn’t a complete stranger and they had run into one another at the carnival. ‘ Hi, so I have shown up at the wrong place” Quinn replied with a half smile. “ It’s nice to see you again though. You made it out of the island fiasco okay?”

“Oh,” Alice started, stretching quite far across the bed of dirt to the path where the other stood, not to disrupt the seedlng bed which was responsible for the ache in her neck. The face she recognized, even if it had been in a somewhat panicked state and in darkened arena with more chaos than the little life she planned was meant to inhabit. Still Alice was not sure if she should smile, just yet - not sure what he wanted or expected from someone who’d been here just maybe a month. Still she was learning that it was okay to be friendly.

“Oh,” She repeated, “well the fiasco, sure. But the island?” She looked around briefly, “seems like I’m still on it.” That felt like a bad attempt at humor and she scratched the side of her arm, finally feeling the dirt that smeared there, and noting that it was indeed all over her jeans and shoes. “I’m guessing it was same for you, getting out okay I mean...but um...wrong house. There’s only a few other houses over here and I’m afraid I don’t know enough names to help you yet.”

This girl was not comfortable around him, and he had no idea why. Okay….so he was a man she didn’t know following her around the beach. And he’d just yelled at her a moment ago. He suddenly realized he knew exactly why she was uncomfortable with him, so he made sure not to close the distance between them more than he needed to in order to have a conversation. When she mentioned math, his head hung for a second and then he nodded. “Math, magic. Same thing.” That obviously wasn’t true, but Chandler was about equally skilled in both of them.

Alice found herself tightening her grip on the strap of her handbag, not in a fearful way. This was more the tension from her jaw traveling down through her arms and to her fingers. “Unless you do math magic.” She’d never seen it done, but it had to exist. The simple existence of imaginary numbers and pneumonic learning devices for solving equations sounded like some sort of spell. “Do you need other advice on how to get a permit for a private photoshoot since that seems to be what you’re after here? I’m sure they’d figure out one for you.”

“A storm?” He was still deeply confused, but he thought maybe he was starting to understand. When a storm was coming, colors seemed duller since the sun wasn’t shining so brightly. “Almost like a social media filter?” He asked, hoping to clarify and get on the same page as each other. 

“You’ve never seen the ocean get like grey or green after a storm?” She raised her eyebrow. Her lips pursed, holding back her urge to cop some attitude when people didn’t get what she meant. It was worse here than it was even at home, because here...the ‘cultural’ differences could really be...different.  “That’s not what I mean, though.”

Ever since Leda was little, she had a curiosity to her, which is exactly why she’d visited the surface many times before officially being allowed to. She never went far but she took interest in the things above. Some things she hated to admit fascinated her because they were such simple things to those who lived on the surface, and Leda was a royal guard, she shouldn’t be fascinated by something as small as planting flowers, but she was, and she couldn’t help but stop and watch as the young woman worked away. 

Leda took a step forward, which alerted the other, and she immediately regretted it, knowing she should have been more careful and not to let her guard down, especially not over something so silly. “No, I don’t.” She was quick to respond in a cold tone. 

She tried not to look shocked, or at worst, look suspicious. But there was really nothing for her to look suspicious over, this was her place and she hadn’t been doing anything odd, other than maybe muttering the the seedlings but so many people did that. She took a deep swallow, finding her footing back over the dirt and gravel, to the other with the peculiar expression. That would be the actual odd thing here. “Well,” her hands landed to her hips, more dirt smearing with out to notice. “Could you step away from the bed over there?” Her eyes referenced downwards, voice a little more commanding that meek demeanor gave away. “Please, I mean. I just...tried turning the soil.”

Katherine smiled it, she could notice that the woman next to her was a little distracted, and she was surprise when she managed to give it to her the correct tool she asked for. “No, thank you, this one will work just fine.” She said sweetly.

“Are you okay, if you’re tired or hungry you can always take a break.” she offered, after all staying too long in the sun could make some people get headaches, and the last thing she wanted was people to work themselves sick.

Alice let the hammer place from her fingers into the other, trying to keep the engaged smile she saw across from her similar to her own. “No problem.” She nodded again, glancing back down to her work trying to remember what exactly it was that she had been doing beforehand. She was never really the ditzy type, but tragedy had a way of striking several times this year which she could not necessarily process into something tangible. 

“I’m fine, thank you. I think maybe its better to just finish up this bit so it doesn’t..doesn’t end up wobbly or something like that. She found herself back on her knee, propping up the board on one hand, and aiming back a nail where she estimated it would go. “Do you want to get this one? With the hammer I mean?”

She heard the footsteps, it was the change from the cement to the gravel lining the path that caught her attention and raised her line of sight. “I’m over here,” she called and rose from her spot by the porch so that she’d be visible, wiping some dirt from her fingers but barely noticing that it landed on her jeans, “can I help you?” @paradisusstart​

“What the fuck is a wharf?” Xavérie blurted out. There were some human terms that she only knew in French, and maybe this was one of them. Or maybe it was something new altogether. She was happy to hear the blonde had only just arrived, though. “The water’s a little chilly but it’s definitely nice enough to go swimming in.” 

“A wharf?” Alice repeated trying not to seem surprised or shocked by some barrier of sorts, it was a common enough thing she was sure. “A pier? You know...a dock?” She wasn’t sure if anything she said would help or if she was being played again, as she feared. “I wouldn’t usually swim.” She offered back with a little shake of her head. “Cold doesn’t bother you?”

“You must be the one killing the flowers.” He stated, eyeing the other standing by the entrance to the Just In Bloom shop. Were there any dead flowers? No. But she seemed easy to pick on. Those were Doyle’s favorite people to bully around. He pulled his drink up to his lips and took a sip before bringing it down to point at the other. “Makes me wonder if you’re why the Shifter Woods are so bare and grim. You should be ashamed of yourself.” @aliceeckhart​

The blonde snapped back at him, and he looked up from his camera at her. But before he could think of anything to say she was being helpful, which caught him even more off guard. He backed up a bit, getting further from the water, and sure enough got a great shot of the waves against the rocks. It reminded him a bit of Aaron Feaver’s work that had been featured on that one Anberlin album, but without a model as the focal point. It was the exact kind of shot he’d been aiming to get today. After giving the photos a look, quickly walking after the girl. “Hey! That advice didn’t suck!” He called out after her, trying to say ‘thanks’ but still coming up a bit short of an actual compliment. “You, like, specialize in water magic or something?”

Sometimes Alice was not sure what possessed her to speak, unless it quite literally was something but she highly doubted she’d miss that. Yet, she still felt cross as if a teacher had yelled at her or something, as if her mouth was a hard line. “I know.” She answered, her feet uncomfortable underneath her still questioning if she was supposed to leave now until the other just kept speaking. “I don’t specialize in anything. I just...you can literally see the waves coming in right now.” She liked to watch by the town’s lighthouse, it was defunct by the time she was a kid but her parents had known quite a lot of their towns history. “You can literally predict a tide with math, it’s not that magically involved” well for some but not for Alice. 

“Well, that’s the way of the witch, isn’t it?” She laughed gently, picking up a bunch of honeysuckle. She wasn’t sure why, but it felt important to stock up on it. Perhaps for the antibiotic properties or health benefits, though she wouldn’t know why she’d need those coming up. Nevertheless, she put them in her basket. “I mean, trusting your intuition of course. And it sounds like yours is pretty strong.” Her eyes danced along the rainbow of petals, before landing on a little sachet of gardenia seeds. “Oh, perfect! Here,” She picked up the little bag and held it out to the woman. “How about these ones?” 

Alice hummed in agreement, if slightly reluctant to do so. Sometimes, she wasn’t sure if she really had a way, well it was nothing consistent and nothing she could really feel like she claimed as her specialty. Her head tilted looking over the little bag, it was eye-catching and she wasn’t in the place to be rude. “Lovely, I think that’ll be great.” She did smile back, if anything finding herself maybe settling into a rhythm of conversation which she didn’t even realize she really needed until that moment. “Do you plant them in pots or directly in a garden?,” she shifted the packet between her hands with a shrug, “Just curious.”

As soon as Harley put on his implant he realized he had forgotten to waterproof it first, so he quickly used magic to protect it from his wet hair. His eyebrows furrowed as she kept talking. It was quiet down here by the shore and he wasn’t wearing the implant that was closer to the waves, so he was sure he heard her clearly. But the words just….didn’t make sense. “What do you mean? Do….colors not look how they’re supposed to sometimes?”

Alice realized she probably didn’t make any sense, and bit her tongue for the moment. Her eyes gazed critically back out to the water while her brow furrowed, trying to replace her words with something sensical. “The colors are different. These are the right colors, sometimes its more grey or green and not like during a storm.” She crossed her legs where she sat. “It’s just the city side has a different thing happening, this is like a picture or when you look up what a beach would look like.”

Katherine always liked to help, and since rebuilding the docks was a priority, it was where the princess was, just because she was from the royal family didn’t mean she was going to stay in the palace, she was strong, and every person was necessary, how she could ask for everyone on the island to help if she wouldn’t be there herself.

Everything seemed to be going according to schedule, and if things kept going like this, the docks would be ready before they ran out of blood rations, since that would be a bigger disaster. “Could you pass me the hammer?” Katherine asked the person next to her.

@paradisusstart​

The docks were one of her favorite places since arriving. It had only been a short time, but the look of the spot felt familiar and despite trying to leave behind so much the sense quickly drew her in. Maybe it was residual fear, but Alice found herself needing to be useful in a way that couldn’t potentially cause any other harm. She hummed in response until the words moved past the cloud of her mind and she could register the voice again.  “Oh, yes.” delicate fingers lifted the weighted material and gently held it out to the blonde who’s profile she’d only just seen. “Or did you want the bigger one?” Her eyes flashed back to the toolbox, clarity for what she was doing finally kicking back in. She wanted to be kind, and to be helpful even as it felt increasingly difficult these days. 

Mei Lian was still trying to process everything that’d happened. She’d been at the labs when it’d been attacked, felt the fear and the anger that everything she’d worked for could be gone but thankfully the building was still standing and what was damaged would be fixed soon enough. The damage was enough though that the power needed to be restored and some of the walls reinforced, meaning that the labs were closed and blood drawing from humans needed to be done at the hospital. 

Rationing was done there as well, which is where Mei was now, overseeing it all as both vampires and non-vampires made their way in and out of the building–one of whom she accidentally bumped into. “Oh–sorry. Did you get your bag for the day?”

@paradisusstart​

Alice recalled camping as a child, the sense of scarcity was meant to be a delight. She was only about thirteen then, and the leaders of a pack of younger witches who were her brothers and sisters. Her parents had instilled the sense that she was the protector, abilities willing for not, and supposed to guide them. That was something she’d taken seriously until the very last moment. This was not like that sense of learning to take care of yourself, this was facing abandonment all over again. Yet, the sense of care seemed ever present and to be someone other than the care-giver was almost relaxing. 

She’d been bumping into others a lot lately, perhaps her sense of direction had changed. She caught her breath and gave a very polite nod, still trying to navigate the differences of a new home. It was one thing to be a teen witch in a town full of humans, but to be a young adult on their own in what often seemed to be another plants was quite different. “Yes, thank you. I did.”

@aliceeckhart​

Between his two jobs, helping with the island repairs, and juggling a fairly intense workout schedule, Harley had very little free time at the moment. So when he found himself with a rare afternoon off, he decided he would use his time going for an ocean swim and getting some new paints for his art studio. (Did he need more paints? No. But you could never have enough art supplies.) As he stepped out of the water, he noticed someone sitting not far from his stuff that hadn’t been there before. So as he walked over to his things, he smiled at her. “The ocean looks really pretty today, right?” He asked, watching her carefully as he removed his cochlear implant from its case and put the side closest to her on so that he could hear her. 

She’d been distracted again, lost somewhere in thought with her fingers digging into sand. She let the grains sit between her fingers, rolling to the edge under her nails, tracing patterns that a more aware Alice should probably be sure don’t have too much meaning. That was until voice broke through her little trance, and she glanced up. The sun had that effects where things suddenly were not so clear, if she were to go inside things would look green. She wasn’t sure if she was the only person experiencing this since she never really told her mother about it. “Yes, it is.” She responded, squinting and shielding her eyes with her hand as a visor. “Reminds me of the the other islands, Bermuda, Aruba...those sorts of places you know. The colors look the way the are supposed to look, if that makes sense.” 

@aliceeckhart​

Chandler was not used to living on an island. He had spent most of his life in land-locked Minnesota, then spent two years traveling the entire coastal United States. He had spent a couple weeks in Hawaii once, and had covered events on the east and west coasts, but he never stayed long. Settling on the island meant there wasn’t anywhere to go. Who would want to flee paradise? Most people didn’t spend their entire lives running from themselves. 

At least the island meant a lot more opportunities for photography. The nature of his work meant he was often shooting people, and all that meant to him was paying the bills. He loved doing nature shoots and cityscape. That’s where he felt like he was doing something he loved. So he went to the beach with a cheaper camera (he was not risking his favorite lens getting scratched by sand, or his favorite camera getting wet somehow). He spent some time getting the exact pictures he wanted, tweaking settings on his camera until they looked perfect (at least, on a screen so small). He was about to take another picture when someone walked right into the shot.

“Hey, you’re in the fucking way!” He blurted out, motioning for them to move.

@aliceeckhart​

If there was one thing Xavi was good at, it was hiding right under humans’ noses. Well, not just humans. Now she also had to hide from witches and shifters and vampires. But still, the main idea was true; she was good at going undetected. At least, as a mermaid. She was a little too mouthy to totally blend in. So, when she went for a refreshing and much needed swim, she was careful to pick an area that few people used. This was her usual spot, and she never saw non-merfolk here. As she got closer to land she got rid of her tails and webs and fangs, coming up to the surface looking just as ‘human’ as everyone else around here. But she was stunned to notice a blonde girl - not someone from the Pacific Kingdom, unless Priya had recruited more people and she missed the memo. Surely, she hadn’t seen anything. But Xavi needed to be sure of that.

“Hey.” She greeted, walking straight over to the girl. She didn’t want or need a towel. Her skin felt so much better when it was wet and cool from the saltwater. “You been here long?”

It was silent and serene, but not the same. The smell was different here than it was back ‘home’ on east coast shores where the salt spray from the ocean never ending, and docks were busier with the loading of shipments and smaller boats on fishing trips out to the capes. Here there were no boats surrounded by families or solo fishermen, behind her was not the scape of a lighthouse with a smaller city enroaching a few miles behind. It was warmer too, for this time of year, not that New England summers didn’t make her wish to be made of an ice cube but that was the humidity. This was just warmth from sun and sand. 

Alice was not shocked to hear another voice, even if perhaps it felt like a let down from her first moment of serenity since arriving on this island. “Hey.” She softened her voice, still afraid of any enemy that could be lurking. “No, no. I just got here...walking from that...wharf, I guess you could call it.”

@paradisusstart​

There was still an overwhelming amount of chaos and Quinn couldn’t stop himself from trying to make sure everyone around him was okay. He was a trained guard for a living, so he had to make sure Octavia and anyone else within her circle would be okay. If there was anyone else who needed him? Well there was no way he was going to turn anyone away, especially those who weren’t the luckiest when it came to healing. The shifter moved through a crowd of people trying move debris from one of the explosions. There were people struck underneath and he needed to move quick. Time was very important in that moment. “ Hey, help me grab that side. They’re stuck we gotta hurry”

Alice wanted to leave so much earlier, now she thought perhaps she was right about it to begin with. She should have left the moment her stomach felt tight. It was anxiety, she knew that not a premonition. That was not her thing and she doubted it would suddenly appear to be so. But, she was part of this place now - or assumed she would be soon enough. Welcome to town, Alice. Her eyes had settled on what may have once been the wooden banner over a booth. She heard the words, feeling robotic, as if the motions were commands on her old computers when dial-up was first installed in her parents home. She didn’t even think that she didn’t have the strength, she just acted. Bracing her knees below her, and shaking, pale fingers onto the sides of chipping paint and dented edges. “Okay, okay.” The words may have been mouthed for all she knew, Alice could not hear her own voice. The lift, as well, mechanical like some sort of machine. She’d bitten her tongue in the process and hadn’t felt the swell of throbbing till after she had taken her next breath, which was after she’d realized that the debris had shifted eight inches to her feet. “Okay,” she replied again, dizzied but looking to commanding figure across from her. “Are you okay.”