#*pinky

Suddenly, Agatha stopped right in her tracks and blew out a frustrated white puff of air. She gazed up at the new height of the wire fence; previously, it had been short enough for her to hop over, but between the last time she visited and now, her father’s underlings must have extended it too high for easy entry. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered. She kicked the fence petulantly and sighed. “Guess I better climb up.”

The fence rattled noisily as she grabbed on and hooked her feet into it. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t climbed a fence before, but after her massive growth spurt about a year or two ago, she hadn’t really needed to. The fence had stayed exactly the same in all of her six years hopping over it, and as she grew older, it grew shorter and less intimidating. Granted, she hadn’t been all that intimidated by the ‘KEEP OUT’ sign when she first saw it--in fact, she had felt intrigued by it, at least enough to climb over and ruin her favorite shirt in the process--but climbing it every day had still been a daunting task.

Many things about the effects of the nuclear winter had always been kept secret from the children of the town. The forest was blocked off by the infamous wall, which had been built twice as tall as her own mother and father stacked on top of each other lengthwise. Other children and even entire families mysteriously moved away little by little without explanation; it wasn’t until Agatha turned twelve that she learned that these families had been exiled for stealing food or embezzlement. The town, boring as it was, had very strict rules about everything from rations to curfews to restricted areas no one was allowed to visit. Specifically, entry to the shore had been banned for a long time, not only because of the monster June encountered, but because of the accidents that occurred on the abandoned boardwalk. After both of those incidents, no one wanted to go anywhere near that place.

The snow softened her landing as she fell on her back with a solid thud, though the impact still knocked the wind from her. Regardless, she hastily picked herself up and ran down the cobblestone path to the beach, slipping carelessly on a few wet rocks on the way. Her back was sore from the landing, and there was a pebble in her boot--or perhaps her stocking--that stabbed her heel with each firm footstep, but she kept running anyway because she hated being late for their daily meetings and she was very, very late. It wasn’t as if Pinky had never been late a day in their life, but they were almost always the first one there when she arrived and she felt guilty for that. She couldn’t imagine how long they had been waiting.

“I’m here!” Agatha exclaimed as she skidded to a halt at the shoreline. She stopped, the snow well above her ankles at this point, and squinted out into the darkness. Upon confirming that yes, she was practically blind without proper glasses or a light, she clicked on her headlamp, but all she found was dark water rising and falling in its usual motions. When there was no response, she added, “I’ve got food!”

After a long moment, a familiar tentacle hesitantly shot out and rubbed her cheek in greeting. Agatha held the tentacle close to her face and smiled apologetically. “Sorry for the wait. Here.” She reached into her messenger bag and shook the jar of dead fish for emphasis.

Impatiently, Pinky pried their tentacle off her face and wrapped it around the jar, leaving bright red suction marks in their wake. Agatha sat down cross-legged and watched them dump their meal into the water hungrily. “You must be starving, huh? Since I didn’t stop by for lunch.” Pinky used their other tentacle to splash water at her, so she instinctively held up an arm to shield herself from the spray. “Don’t be like that; it wasn’t my fault! It’s all because of that stupid guy who got me in trouble...” She removed the headlamp from her head and shined it on Pinky’s tentacles as they gobbled down the rest of the fish. Their skin glistened with sea water in the lamplight, but it was difficult to see anything clearly with the way Pinky constantly swayed and fidgeted and, once their meal was over, tapped their tentacle against the shore demandingly. 

Agatha rolled her eyes. “I don’t have any more.” Pinky made a disapproving noise. “Well, what do you want me to do? Break into the food warehouse and smuggle all their salmon to you? Don’t you already have fish in the water, anyway? What’s up with that? Is our fish just more tasty than yours?” 

Pinky blinked their many eyes at her pleadingly while she frowned and crossed her arms. The blinking outlasted the frown, however. “...Oh, fine. I’ll try finding something bigger for you next time. And people call me spoiled.” Pinky rubbed her cheek with the underside of their tentacle, their skin smooth against hers.