#primmstart

[ location: henderson hospital ]

[ location: wedding reception. ] 

While Lucía had been learning English from a very young age, and the idealistic child always saw herself living in America one day, her grasp on the language was still less than perfect. You’d think someone who grew up speaking both Catalan and Spanish interchangeably would catch on to English fast, but now that Lucía was older it was harder for her to pick up all the little exceptions and nuances--not to mention the slang. She felt American slang was it’s own language at this point, one that she’d never even been exposed to.

Staring at the wall of unfamiliar, colorful, cereal boxes, Lucía felt so overwhelmed that she might cry. With her phone open to an english-catalan dictionary app, she was struggling through deciphering every single label before selecting what to put in her cart. At the verge of breaking down in frustration, she tapped the shoulder of a nearby shopper. 

     “Please, sorry, can you help?” she asked, holding out the box to the other, “Are there, um, cacauets, um, nuts, in it?” 

Xavier came in quite early today. Then again when someone had been spending the remainder of his life in this hut he could have come in anytime time he liked and that was a perk of being its owner too. However early didn’t mean he would be the first one to arrive there. His fellow trainers took up that responsibility so they could start teaching the eager pupils who wanted to learn self defense as quickly as they could. While combat couldn’t be rushed Xavier was impressed by their determination and allowed morning classes to start way before he arrived for the day. He looked around the place filled with work out equipments and he could see from a distance some of the teenagers and younger were already sparring with each other. Xavier smiled watching all of that though it faded into air of mystery again when he saw someone walk in. He had not expected anyone to apply or visit right now but they might have other needs to be there. “Can I help you?” He asked. “Are you here for our classes or just visiting? Make sure to be mindful if you’re visiting. We don’t want those kids to get too distracted.” 

The missing poster found on the door of Beau’s shitty apartment had hardly phased him. He tore the sheet from his door after sneaking back in past curfew, and once he focused his vision enough to read that it wasn’t an eviction notice, he balled it up and threw it alongside all the rest of spam mail he’d received the last few weeks.

He was, however, much more affected by the establishment of the curfew. Not that he was adhering to it, really, but some of his more nervous after-dark regulars were. Now, it was the crack of dawn (before noon), meeting in places people normally go that early in the day (again, before noon) and Beau stuck out much more than he did in back alleys and scummy bars past midnight. 

          “I will never be a fitness influencer. I hate seeing the sun shine,” Beau grumbled aloud to himself, sitting far back in the dining area of the coffee shop. He looked up from the paper cup of black coffee he was nursing to notice the person standing before him, not knowing how long he’d been ignoring their presence. “What are you looking at?”

It had been a rather quiet day around the shop so Aurelia had told her cashier at the counter to head home early, figuring there wouldn’t be too much else going on before the shop closed in a few hours. It was so slow, in fact, that Relia decided to head back to her office/reading room and do a personal tarot card spread for herself. Having already pulled her mind and body cards, she was about to select her spirit card when she heard the bell above the door jingle. Of course. “Comin’!” she called out in her thick Mancunian British accent, getting up from her seat and hurrying into the main room. Aurelia’s shop was filled to the brim with witchy supplies, like crystals, oracle cards, herbs, colored candles, and the like. The shop smelled of herbs and essential oils and at least to Aurelia, she found the little shop to be incredibly calming. “Hey, how are ya’? Can I help you with anything? Are you here for a readin’ or are you just lookin’ around?”

After successfully helping his team to get the car back on and let the wounded one be taken care of at the hospital Cody took a cabbie ride back into the town while letting out a sigh of relief. He was lucky enough to not be a target but still he had been shocked and tired out by the event. He was sure he needed to file a complaint to whoever hosted the celebration for all the emotional distress he had to go through although he had spent his time making sure Jessica wouldn’t get more hurt while the other went to find help. He was at least no longer in the middle of  nowhere stuck and helpless. Sighing he got out of the cab and walked into a general store to fetch some cigarettes and cans of beer. As he walked out he noticed people from the event had begun gathering. Not all of them but at least some he could talk to. He neared himself and started to smoke while he looked around. “That was shit right?” He said with another sigh. “You won’t believe what happened to my crew. We were attacked by fucking clowns.” He nearly forgot about the corpse but he had stayed in his car mostly.