a whole new world, a dazzling place i never knew

Kaz rummaged along with Cordelia through the electronics, old CDs, newer DVDs. A documentary on dolphins tempted him, but instead he joined her going through old phones and music players. “I didn’t trust it. For a long time. Thought for sure these would all be dead by now. Just the island teasing us.” 

Cordelia posed a question that might easily be from the past. A thing to ask when she needed to distract a younger Kaz from what tumbled around in his head. “Mm. Actually. I have a lot of my old shit on my iPod. I’d like to hear something new. Like, I want to know what music came after we ended up here, see what we’ve missed. What about you? What do you want to find?” 

Kaz set aside an old speaker he’d been messing with to pick through newer looking phones. He searched one to see if any music was downloaded. “So, ah. You given any more thought to what we found on the beach that day? Tao’s watch.” Delia seemed so shaken up over it, even after it was destroyed. 

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"Anything new and interesting, too, but I kind of would love to find anything old. Not like, a couple of decades, but from the past. I know it's probably not going to be here, but it would be fun to see just how far back it was when something washed up." The train fascinated Cordelia just as much as any other, more mysterious and timeless object around this beach.

The Tao question was something she expected - after everything that happened, she didn't think Kaz would not bring it up sooner or later -, and really, it was something that was in the back of her mind ever since it happened, thinking about everything, running over all the potentials over and over again. "It had to have been just the magic of the island. If he was around, there is no way somebody wouldn't already know about it, and wouldn't have told me. In the Labyrinth while we were traveling with the Castaways, we were practically always together, so any one of them would probably ask about Tao in one way or another." She believed it now, she really did, even if there was a tiny voice in the back of her head that was still questioning.

It all felt like every cd, every phone with a new music on was something precious to be kept and something important to keep safe. There was so little now compared to the vast variety they all had access to back in the outside world - and yet all of it just felt so amazing, so important. Maybe it was the over a decade of time she didn’t get a chance to listen to any music, but she didn’t care. It was just nice to have a selection again, and it was nice to be looking through the options with Kaz.

That watch became everything the outside world was. Delia had the capability to inject poetry into simple tragedy. Meaning provided to the smallest things. His thumb ran over the crack in the glass Cordelia pointed out. “Alright. So it didn’t walk itself out here to the beach. And you’re certain Tao never made it here either.” And if Alex took it and thoughtlessly left the watch in the sand, well. He didn’t mean anything by it– fucking hell. A rush of air hissed between his teeth. “Oh? And here I am just learning you two are besties.” Actual stealing and potential stealing apparently now both acceptable on Meridium. Typical.

Not that Kaz shared any of Alex’s ransacking with Cordelia for her to understand his sudden irritation. “Wouldn’t say he’s good or bad. A clueless dickhead is all.” Still, it did not make a whole hell of a lot of sense. If Alex took a dead man’s watch, what was it doing out on the beach. Beyond that, Cordelia’s eyes stayed wild and open. He heard her heart as it continued to thump unbearably fast.

At first, Kaz expected the mention of Wren to go as usual. A cute island baby who bopped happily around. The soft crinkle of an adorable button nose, the sweet as cane sugar smile. Impressions of Wren did not waver in his experience. Cordelia told him before that Mei died in the labyrinth too, but… “Wait, wait. What are you telling me?” This entire time, the body– it was Mei? 

“I mean. The ring was here with the watch.” Made sense in his mind. She was still rattled, so Kaz left those conclusions there in the sand too. And perhaps things hadn’t been so rosy for Tao and Cordelia. Everyone has problems. He heard his mother say the same thing to Ani once. Did Tao treat a stupid old broken watch with more care and concern than he did Cordelia– was that what she was trying to say? 

He went silent. She elaborated without giving much more away. Kaz’s jaw locked tight for a few seconds. “You wouldn’t have to go back to anything.” Firm and final. “But you’ve been so certain too. That he’s gone.” Fingers curled over the watch. Then, his hand opened again. “I’m guessing you don’t want this. So let’s see what happens to it.” Kaz tossed the piece back into the shifting sand. 

He laughed, short and clipped. “There’s a chance, yeah. This could all be the island fucking with you. I’ve seen shit that wasn’t there before. Or, like. The beast. Made me think it was Carmen.” And Ani, but he’d rather forget it. “Made me think my night terrors were following me in the daytime. It’s what I was getting at while ago. It’s not the labyrinth. But it’s not harmless out here either.” Far from it. 

“I’d check around. See if anyone found the watch and, I dunno. Left it here for some fucked up reason.” He stared blankly at the watch. “Maybe we should fucking destroy it, hm? We’d know for sure it’s gone then.” ​

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“If Tao would have made it here, I’d know. People would know. If nobody else, the other castaways would know and would have told me. Redirected him to me,” Cordelia shook her head. There was no way she could not know if Tao got to the beach. There was just simply no possible way. (Was she also trying to convince herself? Maybe.)

Her eyebrows rose at the sudden animosity towards Alex and the apparent bestie statues, as Kaz put it. “I’m allowed friends, Kaz,” she said, her voice sharp, strict - even though probably calling anyone a friend of Cordelia was a stretch, considering how she has kept everyone at an arm’s length, even in the Labyrinth and she had to now figure out how to actually make friends, wanted to make the connections she hasn’t in the past. But if anyone was her friend, it was Alex, and just because the two of them didn’t get along, that didn’t mean she wanted to hear them bash at each other. “Don’t talk about him like that. You don’t know him, sure, and he told me you aren’t the best of friends, but then just don’t assume the worst of him, please.”

The conversation shifted from Alex to Wren and Cordelia rubbed her face. “She killed Mei,” she said it quietly. Wasn’t even sure why she was keeping her voice down, but part of her felt like she should have done something about the information instead of just-- letting it go. But after the initial shock of the revelation, that feeling of relief got to her that she felt right after. And it wasn’t really Wren’s fault, she recognize the fire craze from a mile away. “I don’t even know how it all happened, it was so fast, but it was her thinking-- thinking she was protecting me, that she was fighting a monster. I didn’t know who it was until I ran into her on the beach.”

The ring was here with the watch. But Cordelia didn’t want to believe it. Because the watch could be explained away. It could have some kind of logical explanation, even if it was unlucky. But the watch with the ring? Why would anyone steal a wedding ring from somebody? It would have to mean-- so no, the ring was probably just her mind playing tricks on her.

She let out a bitter, breathless chuckle. “I wouldn’t have to go back to anything, yeah, sure. I kept telling myself that I didn’t have to do certain things, Kaz, for most of my life. And then eventually, mostly sooner than later, I did the thing I was telling myself I didn’t have to anyway.” Would she go back to Tao after all this time? Would she have ever seperated from him if he didn’t try to kill her in a fire craze and she found herself completely alone for the first time in her life, or would she still be with him if she wasn’t forced not to be? Was she still a coward, just thrust into a whole different situation? Probably.

She didn’t want to think about it, though, and instead she focused on his statement afterward and gave a nod. “He is gone. He has to be gone, Kaz, the state he was in. There was no way there is any coming back from it.” But her voice didn’t sound so certain anymore, more like she was trying to convince herself of her own words, not just Kaz.

The island was prone to make people see tihngs, believe what wasn’t the truth. “If this is all just that - the island making me believe, as bad as it sounds, I’m going to be happy. I-- if this is all just some kind of hallucination, somehow, both of us tripping the same thing, I am good with that. I can accept that.” There was more harm in Tao actually being here, she felt that. “It’s probably either the island, or somebody got it somehow. That must be it.” It was a decision as much as a statement - she’d believe it was either, and not worry about the other possibility.

“Oh, it’s absolutely because something is happening.” Tomas kept on chortling, announcing, “This is my happening, and it freaks me out!” Sixties slang, and he had no clue whether or not Cordelia was of the kind of age where she’d recognize it as such, but at the moment it didn’t matter much to Tomas. Probably not to Cordelia either, he realized; she seemed as fixated on rice and its success as he did.

Enough to reach out for the knife so she could feed the rice her own blood.

“Be careful, now,” Tomas cautioned as he flipped the knife in his fingers, holding the blade to give her the handle end. She was a grown woman and had survived the Labyrinth, no less; he wasn’t about to tell her she couldn’t do the exact same thing he’d just done. Besides which, he was curious too.

Cordelia’s blood dripped down into the eagerly waving new rice shoots, and they seemed to still for a moment before continuing their unnatural, rapid growth, reaching for more. “Huh,” Tomas said again, but this time more sourly. It was ridiculous to be irked that the rice paddy wasn’t fussy about blood, that it wasn’t just his blood that was special, but – here he was, being irked about exactly that, his resentment growing as the rice grew taller and taller.

“Good exchange,” Tomas grunted Cordelia’s words, trying not to feel slighted. He felt a tickle at his hand and looked down to see a clump of rice shoots reaching up to where blood was still dripping off his thumb. “Problem is we’ve got no way of knowing if this is gonna hold true when things go back to normal. Because this isn’t normal, is it?” The green green shoots tapped at his hand, like they were pleading for more. “I guess the only thing to do is harvest whatever flower and seed they put out and see if it transfers with us back to…normal.” 

But the plants didn’t seem to be reaching any sort of fruiting stage. They just kept growing, green canelike stalks with long, thirsty leaves, until they were almost chin-height on Tomas. “Okay,” he said, turning to look at Cordelia, “this isn’t … I don’t think we should stay in the paddy. We need to get out.” He rubbed his hand along his thigh, wiping off the blood that had slowed to a trickle. “You’re taller than me. Which way through is fastest?”

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Cordelia closed her eyes before she cut her palm, hissed at the sensation of the pain - she’s never been the best when it came to any kind of pain -, and then curiously watched her blood dropping into the sloshing water, her hands moving around to spread out the blood. And mere moments later the green green shoots shot up around her and she let out a surprised and still delighted laugh for a moment.

“When I was a little girl,” she started, not really sure what made her start to share in that moment, “maybe ten or twelve, me and my friends pretended to be witches doing all kinds of spells, having sacrifices, silly teenager witch things. I feel like this is the closest I’ve come to some kind of blood sacrifice and it’s for rice. Magical rice of some kind.” Her younger self would have been disappointed that it was for something so normal and not for something like love or eternal life or something that was more witchy and fairy-tale-like, but she was okay with it.

Was it normal, though? She could see Tomas feeling not too positively about something, but was it about this or something else? “You’re good?” she had to ask, and then gave a shrug. “Is anything normal or not normal around here? For a general, normal farm no, it’s not normal but-- really, how do we know this isn’t just something that nobody found yet somewhere on the island?” Another shrug. “Maybe it’ll become normal in a few years.” In other words: no, it was absolutely not normal, though that didn’t really bother Cordelia.

She gave a small nod and quickly looked around, scanned each direction and then nodded, “That way should be our best bet.” It was probably for the best - she was going to take direction from Tomas on this, but she did break off a stalk for herself to munch on in a bit. It was probably how she didn’t notice the little stalk that rose out right in front of her and she tripped. She didn’t fall, thasnkfully, she managed to keep her balance enough for that, but she did snap her hand ahead of herself to balance and some of the blood splattered from her palm right in front of them, the greens shooting up, up, up and cutting their easiest way off.

Time: More than thirty years ago… or so it seems Location: An island Status: Closed with @cordeliakwan​

At first it was green. And then it was white. And then it was nothing. White is the absence of color, that’s what the art books had always said, but now Libby’s starting to doubt it. Because there’s this, this horrible… nothingness, when even the striking pain in her chest had dulled, when the world itself had felt like it was at arm’s length –

And then it’s blue. It’s blue and she’s on fire. Something in her gut tells her to move so she does, dragging herself up, up toward paler colors. The surface of water, she discovers only when she breaks it, gasping for air, hacking up the water she must’ve inhaled along the way, that had set her lungs aflame. Her arrival onto the sand is less of a landing and more of a tumble, head over shoulder, legs over head. Waves. She’s being pushed by waves, Libby puts together when she realizes it isn’t shoving hands like she’d initially thought. But that makes no sense. She was walking. She was walking, hiking by a river, and then… and then. 

Libby sits up and the world blurs again, no texture, just color, just ragged, lung-lacerating air. But she has to find words. Because she wasn’t walking alone. “Girls?!” She manages in a voice that sounds a mile off as she tries to find her feet. “Girls! Tomas?! Tomas!” She’s standing, she thinks, as her vision broadens, the ground coming into focus, and then narrows as something else does. Someone else. “Hey!” Libby hollers to the dark head that’s a dot against the horizon to her right now. Still, she staggers toward it, realizing belatedly that she’s missing a shoe. “Hey!”

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Cordelia had no idea how long she's spent just sitting on the beach, staring into nothing. Well, not nothing, no - she was staring out into the sea, waiting, praying for Tao and Mei to show up among the waves. They had to be out there, there was no way she was the only one who washed up after their accident, there was just no way. And if they weren't among the waves, they were already on the shore in which case staying put and not moving too much helped not missing them by accident and and and...

And in reality, Cordelia was in shock. One moment she thought she was drowning and it was the end, still somehow convinced it couldn't be, the next she was on this beach, all alone - no boat, no husband, no mother-in-law in sight. She was suddenly in a nightmare, on a deserted island and shock has taken over.

Which means she didn't even hear the redhead calling and yelling for girls and this Tomas guy, she was in the middle of trying to convince herself Tao was showing up any moment now. The woman had go get close, call out to her several times before Cordelia finally managed to snap out of it. "What--? I--?"

Kaz didn’t think Cordelia was an idiot. She’d been inside the labyrinth for years. Cautious, though– sometimes he wasn’t so careful about himself either. He nodded and carried on with their search. 

She passed the watch to Kaz, and he turned it over to examine. As if the timepiece might tell them both exactly why it was there. “I remember this. Not gonna lie. Kind of impressed he hung on to it for so long.” The fact Kaz arrived on the island the same day Tao and Cordelia had still spun wildly in his head to the point of disorientation. So weird to hold a watch Tao wore the countless times they spoke. Even the last time they were together. And everything turned so tragically horrific that Cordelia had to–

But Kaz couldn’t tell if there was grief in finding the watch. Or fear, but why? 

Cordelia tried to cobble together a rational explanation for the watch. “Yeah. Maybe someone decided to take the watch after they found him. And ended up here.” Who would take a dead guy’s watch? “Did you know that fucker Alex in the labyrinth?” 

He is dead. Said in a way to convince herself as much as Kaz? “Yeah, I know Wren. She was in there for a year. Something like that. She said the labyrinth opened one day and… let her out. Doesn’t know why or how.” Wren stumbled across a body and still too confused to understand what had happened. Definitely not Tao, based on Cordelia’s timeline and arrival to the beach. 

Kaz watched the sand move near their feet. One minute, the outlines of bodies were seen. The next, they stood ankle deep in a high tide that never rose so far up on the beach as long as Kaz had been around. Another string of seconds passed, and the sand looked packed and smooth. Not a grain out of place. “What about the ring I found, the one I showed you that disappeared? Was it Tao’s ring too?” 

Kaz ran over what she said again. I could barely get away. “Delia,” he started. “Was everything alright between you two?” If Carmen hadn’t turned back that day in the ocean, she might well be there with Kaz. Not the same situation at all. They were together for only a short time, mainly because they liked music and they liked to fuck each other. In fact, Carmen would’ve been an asset on the island. 

Was Tao an asset?

Dark brows knitted together. “If he made it out of there, we’d already know.” Right? Unless… “All this we’re seeing here. Think it’s real?” Because so much hadn’t been real at all. Meridium’s game plays to fuck with their heads. To make them believe it was real. But the watch he still held in his hand felt so too.

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The watch was in Kaz’s hand, but Cordelia still couldn’t take her eyes off of it either. “It was the one thing he had that was his, you know? After we arrived onto the island. I had a bag with me on the boat, but that got lost and I only found it recently on the bridge - but we were on a boat, he was driving it, he wasn’t carrying around anything personal. So that watch became everything the outside world was - memories, hope,whatever he needed it to be. He was so mad at himself when he cracked it.” It didn’t even occur to Cordelia just how big of a feat was that it was still in one piece, but maybe that was because she watched Tao care for it, protect it while they traveled through the Labyrinth.

Cordelia felt a bit of relief when Kaz agreed that her theory could be a possibility, though her expression turned into a frown. “That fucker Alex? We were stuck in there together, he mentioned that you two aren’t the best of friends, but he isn’t bad or anything.” He did know that she was glad Tao was gone, though, which would put him finding it into a whole different context. “If it was him who found it and got it, he didn’t mean anything bad by it, Kaz.” In fact, it would have been most likely help to not freak her out like she was freaking out now.

And she was freaking out, Cordelia knew that. Something that she’s never really experienced - Tao and her had their problems and it wasn’t good at all considering she was glad Tao was gone, but still, it wasn’t all too horrible, right? She lived with him for over three decades, two even before the island, it shouldn’t freak her out this bad, right? Wrong, apparently.

Talking about Wren almost felt like a small relief. “Yeah, she-- she mentioned that after all of it she just found a sunny part and it all reverted back before the worst happened. We chatted about it a bit, because--” Wren and those empty eyes, the way she loomed over Mei. “I saw her. In the Labyrinth. She was the one-- Mei, Tao’s mother was with us, too, originally. The three of us landed together. And then we go seperated from the big group and Tao at some point went off to get food or something and it was just Mei and me and then Wren showed up and-- it all happened so fast, I couldn’t even react. And I could see the craze in her eyes, it was clearly the fire that went wrong. And she ran off after, once something clicked for her - never thought I’d see her afterward.”

She could barely remember the ring in Kaz’s hands now - was it really Tao’s or did her mind play a trick on her? “It looked-- it looked like it could have been his. I thought it was his, at first, but I also couldn’t see it up close and I-- I don’t know, Kaz. It could have been, though, yeah.” She then let out a breathless, bitter chuckle. “If you asked him, he’d probably say yes, it was all fine, but-- no, we had our problems. But everyone has problems, right?” she tried to make it sound smaller than how it was.

But not every couple with problems would be happy to know their husband is gone.

When Cordelia pulled out her own little music player, Wren leaned in a little to admire it. It looked sort of similar to Kaz’s but not quite the same. The fact that all these people had their own piece of home that they could just turn on and get whisked away by the music was probably the nicest thing Meridium had done for them. Maybe not intentionally, but Wren was glad they were able to get these items back and actually use them.

“That’s so great. I’ve only heard music being played on a guitar until now. My friend Kaz has actually been showing me music on his music player and it’s just a whole different experience.” She explained, unaware that Cordelia would even know Kaz. “What kind of music do you like listening to? Most of the music I know is from The Beatles cause my parents were really into them.” She paused before adding, “Uh, they aren’t alive anymore if you’re thinking about asking about them to be nice. Most people do when I bring them up so it’s better to just, get that out of the way.”

Cordelia had a point when it came to the progression of things out on the beach, even though she had mainly been in the Labyrinth all this time. Wren had been growing up watching the advancements they made, but similarly to what Cordelia said, it wasn’t all that noticeable unless you really thought about it.

But Wren was more interested in the idea of actually finding fresh food, food she may not have ever seen or tasted before. So she followed along as Cordelia went behind a bar counter and began her search while Wren leaned on the counter and watched eagerly. As Cordelia talked about what she was finding, she pulled them out and placed them on the counter and Wren helped herself to examining everything being put in front of her as if she would recognize it more. Of course, she had never seen anything like these snacks before either, but then the boxes of berries were presented to her and she let out a soft coo of admiration. “Oooh, wait, what are those? I’ve never seen these before.” she said as she picked up some of the blueberries and held them in the palm of her hand. “They’re so small, these are okay to eat?”

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“Oh, there are people here who have guitars?” Cordelia looked around for a second, almost expecting somebody to show up and start playing one for them right there and then, but of course nobody actually showed up. Then Wren mentioned a name and Cordelia raised an eyebrow, “You know Kaz?” Stupid question really, it was a small community, of course they knew each other, that didn’t quite mean much. “Are you guys close?”

What kind of music she liked? “Oh, I like all kinds of stuff. I was really into rock and pop before I got here, most of the songs on my mp3 player are those types, but I have some other things too. I really liked the Beatles, too, I had a whole phrase when I was younger.” She didn’t want to ask about Wren’s parents, so it sounded like a strange disclaimer, until Cordelia started putting the small bits together - only mostly knew the Beatles, everyone expected her parents to be around and asked about them... “Wren, you grew up on the island?” Lily was an island baby, but she didn’t think there were more of them out there, which was just a ridiculous thought, why wouldn’t there be?

Everything she was putting out just looked so interesting - there were some tea buiscitts and some chips and there was a bag of candies and there was something dripped into chocolate, she couldn’t quite tell what, all older brands or some even homemade (or train-made) things, but nothing Cordelia’s seen before - and the fruit, all the berries, her mouth was already watering.

“Ohhh now that is interesting!  In my opinion, there is a lot here to enjoy.  There is a bounty of nature, and places to explore.  Safe places too.  I suppose the people here can be interesting to…perhaps best to travel with a friend, in order to be safe, non?  Harry lives in the jungle, and she’s very knowledgeable.”

Things not stressful?  There was a time like that, before the aero-tram crashed.  “The Labyrinth, from what I understand, was always stressful, was it not?  But to answer your question - North Beach was relatively more quiet.  There were some incidents but certainly not such remarkable phenomena as I’ve seen recently.  I’m not sure what to make of it.”

He chuckled happily at Cordelia’s kindness and warmth.  “And I would like to meet you as well, Cordelia!  I believe together we’ve made very good head way, wouldn’t you say?”  And really, so long as Cordelia was there and chatting with him, then Joaquin figured he’d be okay.  He’d gotten out of worse scrapes than this, not that he could remember any. She disagreed that this strange cube was island-made, though.  “It seems to rely on attunements to unlock aspects - surely a person couldn’t orchestrate that?”

Or could they?  Some very powerful person who had mastery of all the elements?  Joaquin didn’t know why, but he shuddered at the thought.  That sort of power seemed best left for nature, and for God.

“I do not know Kaz well, no!  I -”  But Joaquin wasn’t going to launch into their personal tale, mostly because it seemed a lot to put on someone he’d only now met and hadn’t even seen.  “But he arrived on North Beach, over a decade ago.”  Cordelia’s question ‘why do you say that?’ made Joaquin nervous to answer. He regretted making any opinion about Kaz, joking or otherwise.  “No no, I just meant, he is a very quiet boy! I mean no offense.”

With a loud exclamatory laugh, Joaquin hopped and clapped his hands when Cordelia confirmed the ice was melting.  “We are doing so well!  But I can’t see you yet!  Cordelia, are you still there?”  She piped up to describe what she saw next, and Joaquin spun in a circle, until he located the container of water.

“Ah!  Cordelia, I have water.  Water can fill vessels.  But…I’m not sure how to get it to you?  I’m stuck in here and you’re outside.  Ahhh but you sound so close to me!  If I bring the water to where you are, could you perhaps…use air to cajole the water through the bamboo?  Seep the water between the small gaps, and fill the vessel?”

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“Oh, I’ve met Harry in the jungle while-- while my back-then-husband and I was travelling through it after we got seperated from the Castaways,” Cordelia shared. “She knew her own place and area like the back of her hand, she had some good advice for us. Was grumpy and not too happy with our company, but I still appreciated all of it. The company too, it’s been just the two of us at that point.”

So the North Beach was even more quiet than this one - maybe in a different situation, maybe if she didn’t spend so much time in the Labyrinth first, she would have been more interested in why things changed towards more stressful times, but she was just glad to know that things were peculiar here and it was interesting to hear how it was different. “The Labyrinth was constant stress, yes, but so far this place isn’t anything like that. Guess it doesn’t compare to the North Beach either, but I can’t really imagine a place on this island that is peaceful to the fullest. It could be fun to see, too, but this-- I also don’t mind this so far, though I know I am assuming I am not in the majority with this. But look at this! We are solving a puzzle, that is not too bad, right?”

Cordelia gave an agreeing hum, “Yeah, we are making headway and I can hear you getting closer but without being able to see, I can’t really tell how we are doing and how many boxes and different challenges there are. If it’s just one challenge for each attunement or more.” Could one person make this? Probably not, but... “Maybe it was done by several different people with different attunements? A challenge to put the boxes together and a whole different challenge to get out of it.”

Joaquin didn’t know Kaz that well and she couldn’t see him, but it almost sounded like he got flustered for some reason. “Oh, he’s always been more on the quiet side, didn’t think you were offensive, I was just curious. Do you have anyone here whom you knew before the island? It wasn’t something so prevelent in the Labyrinth, but I talked to several people out here and it’s more common than I ever could have expected.”

“It’s not a–” Tomas started just before Cordelia interrupted, telling him firmly that this did count as a win. He glowered at her, chewing the rice-stalk and swallowing before he said, “Fine. I don’t like thinking of things that way because they inevitably turn out to be big fat losses but maybe you have enough fairy dust to stave that off.” 

Tomas took a more sane bite and chewed it around, pressing the substance into small pellets with his tongue, squishing it against the roof of his mouth. “The thing is,” Tomas said, “that’s what I’ve been doing. Mixing wild rice strains with the cultivars I already have, in all sorts of permutations, trying to see what’ll catch. My last batch was pretty promising. And it did better with blood in the water.” His chewing slowed as he stared down at the broken stalk in his hand, eyelids fluttering at the remembered sound, the force of the bomb that followed the bullet. “My blood.”

He snapped back into the moment, watching Cordelia go through the motions of planting one of the already-grown stalks, seeing it respond immediately with a green green shoot. “Maybe,” he said, and turned his own piece of stalk so he could push the unbitten part into the paddy. The mud glupped and sucked it in, Tomas snatching his hand back, and then the stalk shuddered and green green shoots came up in its place. Lopsided, because he’d eaten one side of the stalk, but all the same. 

“Huh,” Tomas said, and then promptly threw up. 

He slapped his hands against his knees to keep from toppling over entirely as the globs of still-white rice stalk sank into the muddy water, and then rice shoots were coming up everywhere, thick and way too fast. Tomas hacked and spat, blood and froth stringing from his mouth before he wiped it away. “Hah!” he shouted, looking at the red streak on his thumb. “See? Blood! That’s what it wants. All right, all my little Audrey Twos. If that’s what’ll make you grow for me.”

Humming and singing snatches of lyrics merrily, “–given you sunlight, I’ve given you rain–” Tomas took out a small knife from his bag-and-pouch rig and sliced the ball of his thumb, letting blood run down fast and thin from it as he held his hand out over the shoots. They shivered in delight as each drop fell, growing up faster and faster as he moved among them.

｡･:*:･ﾟ  ✺   ｡･:*:･ﾟ

Cordelia was nowhere when the fighting on the farm happened, when Tomas got his head bashed in, Cordelia was deep inside the Labyrinth and so she had no idea what blood in the water of the rice stalks really meant, couldn’t really recognize when he was momentarily remembering to everything that happened to him.

No, she just saw the switch where one moment he was all grumpy and annoyed and confused about everything around them, trying not to take it in all too positively, and then suddenly he was throwing up and Cordelia moved, horrified, as everything coming out of his mouth jumped up and hrew the moment it hit the water (kind of scenic, really, but not what she was expecting, not at all). “Shit, you’re okay? Can I help somehow?”

But he once he stopped throwing up (or maybe even before that), something else snapped in him and then he was talking about blood and cutting his hands and bleeding all over the crops and he was singing. He was singing! “That is... certainly some dedication to farming and rice,” she couldn’t help but say, just stainding there now, looking as Tomas moved around among the green green shoots.

“Out of the blue…”  Joaquin repeated, bemused by the idiom.  He’d heard it before, and had it explained as well; but had somewhat forgotten the meaning.  But Joaquin’s connection was that the sea was blue; and strange things came out of the sea.  He chuckled.  “D’accord, it seems like whatever is happening on Meridum now, ‘out of the blue’, you do not seem too alarmed by it.  I would say this is a small blessing!  As so many other incidents recently have been quite stressful, oh yes.  Were you here for the imposters.  Um…the…dop - doppelgangers?”

If she hadn’t, given how friendly Cordelia seemed, it stood to reason that someone else must’ve told her about it.  Regardless, he smiled and nodded (though she couldn’t see him) about her attunement.  “On North Beach, we would call these ‘powers’ as ‘attunements’.  I believe the reasoning is that we are attuned to certain elements, non?  But there certainly is no right thing to call it.”

Frozen up.  Joaquin gawped at the idea, but when he placed his hand on the wall in the direction of Cordelia’s speaking, he exclaimed.  “Mon Dieu!  This wall is quite cold.  You say it’s frozen on the other side?  How curious.  I believe I can ‘solve’ this puzzle.”  Joaquin turned his staff parallel to the ground, and pressed the flame against the bamboo wall.  Not to light it on fire (which…would’ve been a good idea, to just burn the wall down; but Joaquin was too intrigued by the puzzling of it all) but to heat the bamboo up.  With it heated, it would begin to melt the ice on the other side.

“It will take a while,”  Joaquin told Cordelia. “I appreciate you staying with me to help me, my dear.  Did you know, when we rescued the people captured in the tree grove in North Beach, we needed all elements pressed against each tree to free people?  How curious that we are once more faced with an elemental solution to freedom, non?”

Cordelia had questions that Sisco was happy to answer.  “I do miss a lot about North Beach!  In many ways, it was my home.  Even more than my home back in the world, I dare say.  I’ve been here eighty years, versus my forty in the old world.  North Beach had my friends, and I knew it well.  Do you miss the Labyrinth?”

Interesting, to find out she knew people here, that she’d known before.  “Qué exciting for you!  Has it been nice, to be reunited with people you haven’t seen in a while?  Old friends?  I believe Kaz Raval could do with some friends…”  Joaquin chuckled, because he was slightly hypocritical saying that considering Joaquin himself had few friends, and was perfectly happy that way.

Suddenly there was a loud crack on the other side of Joaquin’s wall.  It sounded like ice breaking - indeed the iced-over vines had cracked and melted into a soggy mess.  Joaquin cried out hopefully.  “Cordelia, are you okay?  Has the ice melted and shattered?  Can you see my cube now?”

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“Oh, I am just trying to look at things from a positive perspective, try to enjoy everything around here.” None of this was as bad as the Labyrinth, and as long as that status que remained, Cordelia could find the good in things. “Was there a time when things weren’t stressful around here?” Cordelia couldn’t help but ask at Joaquin’s words - well, technically mostly she only was around the beach without stress, but Cordelia figured Joaquin meant these incident, not a constant stress like the Labyrinth.

“I wasn’t around for the dopplegangers, no, I arrived not too long after. But several people told me about it, it sounds like it must have been a hard time for all who were affected whether they were taken or not.” She didn’t mind she wasn’t here for that, if she was being honest - then again, maybe a month of sleep in the tree wasn’t too bad (the after effects wouldn’t have been fun though). “I heard you all call it that, it makes sense, it just takes some time to start calling it, I guess. Attunement.”

Joaquin started heating the wall and Cordelia was inspectinc from the outside in case something happened outside, something she could or needed reacted to. “Of course, happy to help. Gotta meet you properly, right? Not just through these different walls.” And it was kinda fun so far, really. “Oh, I haven’t known that - I don’t think this is island-made, this feels too mild for that, but it’s interesting how different ways the attunements can be used. And it’s certainly good that you guys could figure out that was what they needed to get out. Were you among the ones who were switched out?”

Cordelia didn’t miss how Joaquin was talking in the North Beach having his friends in past tense - she didn’t ask about that, didn’t want to bring up bad memories. “That is quite a long time living on that beach. What was it like? How different was it from this beach?” This was pretty good, really. “Oh, no,” she couldn’t help but chuckle. “No, no, I do not miss the Labyrinth. I know some of us really loved it, but I’m just glad to be out of there. No desire to go back in there ever, if I can help it. And really, this beach is super nice, too, I have absolutely no complaints about it.”

She gave a small smile as she said, “Yeah, it’s been quite nice to see them again. Nice to get some news from the outside world and family, you know?” Cordelia tilted her head, “Do you know Kaz well? Is he-- why do you say that?” He’s always been somebody who prefered solitude, but would Joaquin know more than--

@cordeliakwan​​

Had Wren not been so fascinated by everything going on around her, she probably would have been a little put off by Cordelia’s greeting. The oh you and didn’t notice you weren’t exactly friendly greetings. But with how amazing this entire train car looked and felt, it was understandable that Wren’s presence went unnoticed in that moment of wonder and awe. Not to mention that she probably wasn’t Cordelia’s favorite person on the island, even still.

The two of them hadn’t interacted since their first meeting, Wren thought it was best to keep her distance from Cordelia and to not make it seem like she was out to get her. She went about her days as usual and really, it wasn’t like Wren ever expected Cordelia to forgive her, she just hoped they could live here without any issues or confrontations. But seeing this state of the train, completely brand new and lively as it was, Wren was in a good mood. Too good of a mood to be threatened by the other woman’s presence and how she might be perceived.

“I’ve never heard anything around here like this either. It’s so cool. I mean, I only just learned about ipods recently so. But like! It’s so crazy to think about.” she started, making her way over to inspect the gramophone and see what it was doing and how it was doing it. “People used to listen to music on something like this, and now you can listen to it from a tiny little thing you can hide in your pocket. People’s minds are so impressive.” She had no knowledge about the music that was playing, it must have been something way before her parents time even, but it sounded so crisp and clear as if it was brand new rather than something from hundreds of years ago.

Wren happily swayed to the music, enjoying the tune of it until Cordelia mentioned the possibility of food. “You think there could be fresh food in here too?” Though as soon as she asked she thought, why couldn’t there be? If everything else was thrown back why couldn’t there be food stocked? “That sounds like a good idea. Where would be the best place to check?”

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There was a marvel in Wren’s eyes and Cordelia couldn’t help but think about how different the girl looked now compared to how she’s seen her for the first time. That blood-thirsty, manic look, that desire to hurt and kill, that madness was all gone and in its place was nothing but excitement and awe and Cordelia couldn’t help but think that if there was one person who could get out of the fire madness, it was so much better that it was this girl instead of Tao.

Not a very nice thing to say, but oh well, who was there to judge her for her own thoughts? She certainly wasn’t.

Cordelia reached into her own mp3 player and shook it a bit to show it off. “I managed to find my own from before the island on the bridge and honestly? One of my most prized posessions. Haven’t been able to listen to music for over a decade, it feels really nice.” Was she too friendly? Maybe she should have kept her distance and maybe in a different situation, she would have, but Cordelia was too focused on the music and the new discovery of the train and really, this was a whole new life, a whole new beginning and what Wren did wasn’t her fault - Cordelia wanted to move forward from it, not just keep a grudge and internalize it and let the anger rot inside of her.

“The development sometimes is staggering outside of this place, if one really thinks about it. But honestly? The development around here is incredible too. Considering a bunch of people came from a world where it’s much easier to survive, everything on this island is just impressive.” Was she gushing about this place constantly and way too much? Probably, but she couldn’t help it, she just really admired the brains and work ethic of the people around here, and loved the beach a lot.

Kaz gave her a blank look. “I won’t need help.” Not so much automatic as a gentle reminder for Cordelia. Reyansh had been the attention seeker. A stumble over his own feet was enough to send him crying for Cordelia. Ani sopped up any affection like a sponge. ‘I like how she hugs,’ his little sister once confessed. ‘Tight, but not too tight. Like Nani’s were.’ And Kaz, the oldest, built more self-contained. 

Storms. Such a descriptive word, perhaps the best explanation he had ever heard of shifting sky and floor knocked them off balance. A maze. Kaz put questions on hold, as they were in their own little funhouse on the beach. 

A counter-argument, ha. “Missed your calling, would’ve made a good attorney.” A flash of a grin, no teeth. He’d rather she didn’t leap ahead. Simple as that. Easier to ensure she wasn’t hurt. Kaz could say it nor could he tell someone else what to do. “The beach is no where near as bad as the labyrinth. From what I’ve heard. But. Just please, be careful. Don’t get too comfortable, yeah?” 

A ring. Then, Cordelia found… something. “Be nice if a stocked bar rose out of the sand.” A warmer, real smile filtered through. “With a cute bartender. Who liked Indian guys.” She was still. Quiet. Kaz had bent down to push through the sand in search for more, but when he glanced up to her, he rose to his feet. 

It’s his. “Huh?” His gaze bounced between her and the disturbed mess on the beach. “So. What about the ring? Can I look at the watch?” He held out his hand. 

“And he had this with on him, last you saw? When he attacked you?” The first place to start, and having heard her story of fighting off Tao, it might be likely that she ran off. A watch wouldn’t be so important to take. “Was there anyone in the labyrinth who liked it, talked about? Seemed to want it?” An entirely useless object both in the maze and on the beach in general. But people clung to items or coveted things for various reasons. “And you’re sure he’s dead, yeah? Positive?” 

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Cordelia gave a nod. "I promise, I'm not getting careless. I know it can get dangerous here too, I just-- living in the Labyrinth was a whole different beast and it feels like a breath of fresh air out here. That is all, I promise." She wasn't going to be one of those dummies who didn't listen to the ones who've been living in this environment, but she also didn't want to live in fear, she wanted to finally enjoy her time, find the joy and the good parts in living on the beach, in her life.

If the watch wasn't in her hands, Cordelia would have most likely chuckled at the bar mention, but Cordelia could only think about how could have Tao's watch end up on this beach, when he could have been here that would have made sense that happened before everything happened. That-- it all had to happen before or there had to be some other explanation, there was just no other way.

(Or at least she was trying to convince herself of that.)

She automatically handed over the watch when Kaz asked for it - it didn't work anymore, it was more of an emotional support for Tao than anything else. "Yeah, he had it on him, he always had it on him. Only took it down when he was washing up or bathed in a pond or river. And even then he usually gave it to me or Mei."

She shook her head, "not that I know of. I mean, I am sure he talked to others about it, in there you just talk about whatever you can and sharing the personal items and their stories, sure he talked about it, but I don't think anyone wanted it. I might be wrong, though. But people got onto the other beach long before Tao and I did. But..." She thought about it for a moment. "Maybe somebody found him and brought the watch back here." That was a pretty good explanation, yes, that was probably what happened, yes.

“I’m starting to think I made a mistake calling you over here,” Tomas said glumly as Cordelia insisted with great cheer in finding the silver lining to any shit cloud he presented. “Can’t you just let a fella be a complete drag in peace?”

His bark had no teeth to it, though, since Tomas didn’t try to wave Cordelia away. He had, in fact, thought that he’d solved this minor mystery of who’d planted the rice seedlings and was ready to move on, satisfied, when everything went nuclear. In the sense of the plants shooting up into full-grown, that was, and taller than Tomas had ever known rice plants to be. Or rather, thicker; they were approaching the sturdiness of bamboo saplings more than anything else.

Cordelia was still there, though, and she managed to wade through her stalks as well until they met. “I’m okay,” Tomas answered her. He found it an odd thing for her to ask, but then again – she’d been living in the Labyrinth, hadn’t she? Weird zone central. 

Her next barrage of questions, though, put Tomas right back to where they’d started “I don’t think the island’s about to help me with rice at this point in the narrative, no,” he said, bemused and flummoxed in equal parts. He contemplated one of the thick, virulently green stalks, and then grabbed it and snapped the shaft. 

The immediate almost-floral, almost-nutty scent of fresh-cooked rice rose into the air, and Tomas stared at the piece in his hand that he’d broken off. The inside of the stalk was soft and mealy and he looked up at Cordelia in slight consternation. “It’s like it’s ready to eat,” he said, and then before he had a moment to think better of it, raised the stalk to his mouth and took a bite.

His teeth sank into the mealy middle easily, a texture like a boiled potato, and it tasted … exactly like rice. Somewhere between jasmine and basmati, and Tomas couldn’t stop himself from taking another couple of bites until his mouth was full. “It’s fantastic,” he said around all the pseudo-rice. “I mean, sure, maybe it’ll turn out to be mildly poisonous, or make me break out in a rash, or it’ll give me delusions of being the King of England, but it’d go nice with roasted fish.”

｡･:*:･ﾟ  ✺   ｡･:*:･ﾟ

Up until the point of Tomas snapping the stalk of the plant, it was all-- saying it was normal was not quite right, none of this speed growing was normal, but somehow it felt normal on the island. Sure, it grew fast, Cordelia could wrap her mind around it. And then the scent of freshly cooked rice hit her nose and she breathed, "Oh wooow! Does it really taste like rice?" She asked, but she was already snapping a stalk in half for herself to try.

It tasted exactly like freshly cooked rice and and Cordelia actually let out a small moan, "I don't care about the mild poison potential," she said with her mouth still half full, decency be damned, "I haven't eaten rice in over a decade, I'll take mildly poisoned if that's the price. And this is great. Dont try to be too negative about it, just enjoy the win. And before you try to resist, yes, it's totally a win."

Another bite and then a thought popped into Cordelia's head. "You know, what if this is one of those island plants? There are both plants and animals on this place that only can be found here, maybe this is a special rice stalk plant just for here and just for now. And the reason you've been struggling with growing them is because it doesn't quite work like rice exactly. It's just rice adjacent. Or if you harvest this thing, you can grow proper rice later - this is the key here or something. Wouldn't be surprised by anything on this island."

“Cordelia - ah!  Pleased to meet you!”  He refrained from announcing that there was a Saint Delia, because most people didn’t like hearing about saints, but.  Sisco loved the idea that every person had a saint bearing the same name.  Useless, fun trivia for a Franciscan monk.  “I am Joaquin, ayyy how did you know?  How clever of you, my dear.”

Joaquin roamed around the bamboo cube; it was about 7 x 7 square feet, tightly constructed.  “I wonder what this box could’ve possibly be used for.  I’m sure Tomas did not build this here, in the middle of his orchard.  Especially with no way in or out…truly I was simply walking through the orchard to find some lemons, and then this box sprung up around me.  If I were earth-attuned I supposed I could’ve just dug under it.  Pray tell, Cordelia - are you earth-attuned? I’m fire-attuned.” 

Cordelia had a kind-sounding voice, and Joaquin gave a prayer of gratitude that he was found by someone who seemed so willing to help.  He listened as she described what she saw.  “How curious!  A puzzle, or a training ground? Why would anyone construct such a thing…”

…because surely someone had constructed it.  It couldn’t possible be nature, to make something so geometric.  As Cordelia seemed to bustle around outside, Joaquin asked,  “Tell me about yourself, my dear!  How long have you been on the island?  How do you like South Beach?  I’ve been here over a century, but I lived on North Beach.  I do find South Beach somewhat…different.”

A click-pop! like Cordelia had done something above him.  But his box didn’t open.  Instead, the box Cordelia saw (which was 18 x 18 square feet) surrounding Joaquin’s tiny box, had its door clicked open.  Boxes within boxes, and Cordelia had to solve each of them to reach Joaquin in the middle, like unpacking a matroyshka doll.

What revealed to Cordelia, was a vine-walled box.  Thick tight vines woven together…but the vines were all frozen ice, and would give her frostbite if she dared to touch it.

｡･:*:･ﾟ  ✺   ｡･:*:･ﾟ

"Things are changing out of the blue all around us now," Cordelia said as she kept looking for a solution to open the box. "Some things get destroyed, some just appear, it's a whole thing. Pretty exciting, if you ask me, but I can understand it might be less of an excitement for you right now in, given you're inside the box itself."

She shook her head at the question and then after a few moments realized that Joaquin could not see it. "Oh, no, sorry, no earth in me. I have air powers."

She managed to open the door and felt so excited for a few moments but then nothing happened and as Cordelia moved over, she realized that was because there was another wall behind the door, instead of Joaquin. All iced up, nonetheless. "Okay, this might take longer than anticipated, there's another wall. You said you were fire, right? I think I'm going to need your help with this one, because it's all frozen up." She couldn't see him even through the frozen vines, so there might be even more boxes and walls they needed to get through.

Status: closed for @cordeliakwan​​ Location: The Train

The train wasn’t usually a place that Wren ended up spending her time in. It was so far out and too close in the direction of the Heart Tree to her liking. With all the weird shifting things on the island seemed to be doing, it wasn’t actually going to be her first stop but she ended up getting distracted. Not all the train cars were the same, some looked how they normally looked, while some looked even worse and a few looked brand new. The one that caught Wren’s attention was at the back of the train, looking shiny and bright and having music playing inside.

Of course, she had to check it out, and when she walked in to see the interior looking crisp and clean, perfectly upholstered seats, tables waxed so finely that Wren could see her reflection in the wood, it felt like she stepped into a different world. As she curiously looked around, inspecting what this new, lively train car had to offer, she heard the sound of the door sliding open, turning to see Cordelia walking in. Probably as curious about all this as Wren had been.

“The music drew you in too?” Wren asked over the music, her excitement over this overpowering any sort of hesitation she probably should have had when it came to Cordelia based off the last time they spoke. “Isn’t it incredible?”

｡･:*:･ﾟ  ✺   ｡･:*:･ﾟ

@wrenscrest​

Cordelia didn’t quite understand what the changes were, how some thing jumped ahead, erroded, got destroyed, while some things got better as if they suddenly developped backwards, but it was interesting to see the changes all around the island. As long as they didn’t include items from her husband, she was all excited and fine with all of it.

Technically she didn’t know the train was changing, but if there was one thing that would have been cool to see in its full glory, it was the train. She didn’t think rails would appear or anything (though that would have been interesting too, or just in general to see how it arrived onto the island), but it had to include some changes too.

And she was right! There was music and some parts of it looked all shiny and new and she headed right towards that part. She would have been just happy and excited for the music, but everything that welcomed her in the train car was amazing and she didn’t even notice Wren when she originally stepped inside, so mesmerized by the sight. “What? Oh, you-- hi. Sorry, didn’t notice you. But yeah, it’s pretty incredible,” she nodded not quite sure how to be around Wren. “There is too little music around the island.”