Participants:
Scene Title | Otter Eyes |
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Synopsis | A strange dream leads Eve to a beach in Mexico, where she meets someone new. |
Date | July 07, 2013 |
La Barra de Sontecomapan: Veracruz, Mexico
It had been one of Eve's stranger dreams.
It involved an otter. A slightly odd looking otter, too, but still recognizable as an otter. One that padded about a beach, with a tiny, button up blue shirt on, the roar of the ocean in the background. It didn't walk like a person, but somehow, in her dream, she knew it should have been. It stops at a beach towel laid out, where perfectly crafted salted margarita glass sits, practically overflowing with tequila in margarita mix. Standing up on his back legs, front legs held up like little arms, he looks out into the ocean for a moment.
And there's a black gash that suddenly appears in her dream once again, surrounded by sparks and lightning.
She's seen that before, but she never knew what it had been, even after she figured out the firefly part of her dream.
Then the otter turns away from it, dark eyes looking back— and somehow she knows those dark eyes are looking at her— even as the whole beach seems to get pulled up into a swirling vortex, sand by sand, drop by drop, the margarita rising away, salt rising off of it, frozen liquid rising up from the glass, suspended in air for a time as it all just… stops.
She sees a sign, a sign frozen mid air as it flew toward that gash in the sky. La Barra de Sontecomapan.
And there it was. The sign. La Barra de Sontecomapan. A small town on the edge of a peninsula, flanked by beaches and the pale blue gulf.
It started with a dream.
Doesn't it always for Eve?
A dream that as she woke up from she hooted with laughter. The dream wasn't funny exactly but, "OTTERS DON'T DRINK!" Is yelled in a sleepy fashion as the oracle awoke. She had left a note on Gillian's bedside. Had to go speak with an otter, I'll find you soon. <3 P.S. Make sure Chicken eats her veggies! Lene's well being is always on her brain. All of her friends are, but something about this otter. Eve always follows the signs, this time no different.
Fastfoward to a few days of travel, linking up with some coyotajes and after playing them and beating them in five games of some card game she knew, Eve was across. She had never been to Mexico. Her mother and father didn't really talk about it much, BUT SHE LOVED tacos. And also, she loved tequila.
And so that is what Eve is doing, padding barefoot on the sandy beach shore she carries in both hands slightly overfilled glasses, filled with tequila and margarita mix. A hum rises from her wine colored lips, a plastic bag of something intertwined in her fingers of one hand she ways on the beach some of the liquid spilling onto her pale hands. Her dress is light today and a royal purple, the fabric shifting in the wind along with her long raven dark hair.
Her beat up messenger bag hanging on a pale shoulder, slaps against her bare thigh as she makes her way down the beach.
"A down in a mexicali.. There's a crazy little place that I know? Where the drinks are hotter than the chili sauce.. And the boss is a cat named.. JOOOOOOOOOOOOEE!" her voice going up in a raspy squeak at the end of the lyric. Eve is enjoying her time in Mexico thoroughly.
The beach isn't exactly full of people. The restraunt nearby had been more than happy to sell her margaritas (and the glasses they came in), due to the fact the area doesn't exactly get much in the way of tourism. The town is too run down to be considered tourist bait.
But that's exactly why it had to be here, on this nice summer day. Anywhere else would have been too populated. And even loners need a break.
The surf hitting the beech sounds much like it had in her dream, but softer, more calming. There'd been this roar to it that had accompanied the gash in the shy. But there definitely is no gash in the sky.
There are just a handful of men, putting boats into the water, sitting around talking. All in Spanish.
But it's the blue shirt that catches her eyes. Buttons undone, a white undershirt underneath.
Mateo Javier Ruiz doesn't seem dressed for the beach, but he sits on the sand, NO TOWEL, and watches the waves with dark eyes, as if waiting for something.
Upon spotting a blue shirt Eve jumps a little and blinks, stopping her song mid-way, "Otters don't wear shirts either.." she whispers to herself before starting to make her way towards the seated man. She walks in a zigzag her feet making a constant Z formation as she nears him. "Hey! Buddy! Helllooooooo~" comes her voice over the roar of the ocean. That roar sounds so much like.. In her dream. Eerie light gray eyes twinkle in the sunlight as she comes to stand near Ruiz and tilt her head midnight dark strands flying into her face.
The plastic bag is tossed on the beach near him but not at him. And Eve wiggles her toes up in greeting because her hands are full.
"Are you friends with any otters laying around here?"Her eyebrows raise as she tries to peer down at his face. Maybe the blue shirt is a way of saying he knows where the otter is. Makes sense.
The drop of the bag at his side snaps him out of whatever thoughts might have been transpiring in his head. When he looks up at her, face holding the beginnings of a beard, she can see those eyes. Not quite an otter's eyes, but close enough.
"Perro de agua?" Mateo responds, sounding amused. "No— we don't exactly have otters in this region." While he started with one of the common Spanish names for the creature, a water dog, he knows what she means by otter and seems amused she's looking for one.
Glancing at her hands, he pushes himself to his feet, dusting the sand off before he offers his hand, to hold one of the drinks, most likely. "Are you lost, cause this isn't exactly the place most Americans would choose to get drunk." Though he imagines there's a lot of Americans fleeing south and north or whatever direction they can go with a war going on.
"Oh oh you!" Eve barks out laughter as she sees his eyes. Snickering she nods and hands the drink over to him. "I got this for you, otters don't drink but they don't wear shirts either so!" Eve uses her now free hand to tap at her temple. "They like to play games, leave me running in circles." She rolls her eyes and throws her head back to move the strands of hair out of her face.
"Ah! Am I ever lost? Gilly doesn't seem to think so." she wrinkles her nose as she takes a healthy gulp of her drink after clinking glasses with the man. "To Otter Eyes and Lady.. LUCK." Cuz Eve is nothing if not lucky. Light gray eyes stare at him from under the rim of her glass. "I'm on a break from blowing up buildings." she says over a mouthful of ice, very casually. Her cheeks puffing out as she sinks to the beach floor and tears open her plastic bag. Reaching in to pull out..
Tacos! Eve's eyes light up as she stares at the six tacos sitting on a little paper plate. "Here." she says as she tears into one, holding the plate out to him, she places her margarita in the sand digging it into the sand to support it.
The whole thing is a whirlwind to Mateo, as he stands there holding a margarita and watching her move about, tapping her head and talking crazy talk. Or at least it seems crazy, but they happen to be in world of crazy. So maybe it's not so much. "Well there's definitely no war going on down here…" No buildings to blow up. Those who live here focus on their fishing, their lives and very little else— It's a rough life, but no war. Which is why he chose to stay here.
He's seen enough terrible things in his life, he doesn't need to see a war, too.
For someone in Mexico who looks like he's probably at least mostly Latino, he speaks very good English, "My usual approach is not to accept food and drinks from strange women, but— since there are no otters around." Well, except him, apparently. It's said in a joking fashion, as jokes are often his method of deflection. He takes a sample sip from the drunk before moving accept the taco. "So what brings you all the way down here?"
"Oh Otter Eyes, there are wars everywhere.. All the time." she taps her chest with a salsa drenched finger it leaves a red dot on her chest that she doesn't seem concerned about wiping up. "The war inside, the war in.." she taps her temple again. "Your mind. Sometime there is peace, how long does it last?" it's an afterthought when she says that about wishing there was peace.
"A dream. They always bring me." she says it simply and without much ado as she wolfs down the taco and pats her belly the rest remaining for Ruiz or saving for later, whichever. She gets her feet out in front of her and she grabs her drink for another sip before digging in her bag, pulling out.. You guessed it. A lighter shakes out after and she uses it to light the joint blowing smoke up into the air.
Eve fixes the man with a stare through the smoke. "Why are you here?" A pause as an eyebrow raises, "Running from the black holes?"
His answer for her question on how long the peace will last is simple. There is never peace in the first place.
As she makes her motions, Mateo finds her less and less crazy, watching her for a moment before taking the taco and sitting down next to her. A dream brought her here— is he running from black holes?
"El umbrals," he corrects, even as he settles back onto the sand, putting down his margarita much in the way she did so that he has both hands free while he holds the taco. He doesn't start to eat yet.
"So you must be some kind of psychic." A half dozen years ago, he would think that insane. All psychic's phonies. Not no. "Keeping them from other people, more like it," he offers, before he he takes a bite out of the taco.
"Umbrellas?" Eve squints her eyes and looks up at the sky suspiciously. Where?! After a moment she looks at Ruiz and shrugs her shoulders lightly. "Psychic, Coocoo for Coco Puffs. People call me all sorts of things. I call people all sorts of names.." she puffs on her joint as she looks out at the ocean and the men with the little boats. She digs one hand behind her in the sand, supporting herself. She's pale especially for an Italian but the days of travel have given her more of the skin tone of her heritage. Though her mother's powerful Dutch genes make it so she doesn't always take to the sun well this week has been good for her skin, she likes the weather here. New York is hot but can be stuffy and so humid. This.. with the gentle breeze blowing in from the ocean? This feels like paradise.
"Eve."
An elbow is extended towards him since his hands are full and hers are holding that joint. She flicks her gaze to his hands and furrows her brow. "Is your control hard then?" a shiver snakes up her spine as she remembers the details of the dream. Nothing can withstand his.. El umbrals..
No. No umbrellas. But the reaction to that makes Mateo laugh. He finds this strange, crazy woman to be quite funny, even if she’s talking things that— might have worried him in another situation. She doesn’t seem to be sending people down upon him. This area would have noticed helicopters, or even trucks. The roads are so dusty and small. Unless she’s working with a scuba team, they aren’t going to sneak up easily. And he’s often far too aware of things like that. And she’s smoking a joint, that also gives a feeling of security.
“It’s difficult sometimes,” he responds to her question on control. Sometimes is more like always in his case, but he has come up with… mechanisms lately.
“Mateo Ruiz,” he responds, giving his name as he moves his covered elbow to bump hers, giving her a kind of greeting. Since she doesn’t seem to understand Spanish, and he doesn’t want her to try handing him an umbrella next time, he adds, “El umbral means ‘threshold’. Like when you’re on the edge of something.”
The crazy, strange lady is enjoying her new friend. “Mateo Otter Eyes Ruiz.” She says with a wide smokey grin. Eve reaches to take another sip of her drink and nods her head at the continued discussion on control. Most people would say Eve has none, “Most people would say I have none,” she repeats her thought aloud to the man and she nods again. “But sometimes a little crazy is good to get shit done.” She shrugs but fixes him with a stare as he explains what that word meant. Ahhh.
“Maybe uncontrolled thresholds are not so good to get shit done though.” Nodding sagely she continues puffing the joint but she's not rushing it to finish. Ruiz must join her after his Taco. “Where..” She looks out at the sea drawing her knees up to herself. “Where do they go? Do you go with them?”
Looking back out at the sea, much the same way the otter had, Mateo’s shoulders shrug. “They’re not getting anything done. Them getting nothing done is the point.” With another bite out of his taco, he shakes his head, in answer to her last questions. “They don’t go anywhere, and if I went through one, I have little doubt I’d be gone for good.” He doesn’t follow up on that, because, well— as far as he knows nothing that has gone in has ever come out. It’s just gone.
Forever.
In an attempt to change the subject, he asks, rhetorically, “I’m guessing the otter thing isn’t going away?” He gathered it was here to stay. “So am I a river otter or a sea otter?” he decided to play along with the nickname, for the moment, but from her dream— he was definitely a river otter. He had feet not flippers.
“Are you sure?” Eve says in a singsong voice and a wink, “Most openings lead to another! Like tunnels funneling into one another. Maybe we see them,” she takes a puff of her joint blowing the smoke upwards watching it waft away. “Maybe we don't.”
Her fingers idly draw in the sand humming softly to herself as he asks the question of what body of water he is destined to swim in. “You're in the river.” A faraway look enters the oracle’s eyes as she speaks, “Never seen you near my river though.” Or maybe not yet. Nobody is ever in that forest with her. But just because nobody has..
“My friends, the Ferry.” She says the name with ease, her gaze ahead at the beach shore. “I left them to the fighting while I came here.” A twitch of her finger throws a little bit of sand forward into the air and Eve turns an eye towards her river otter. “The dream of you, pulled me out of the bombs and bodies.” Her tone is clear, she is grateful for this brief reprieve from the fighting.
“I owe you a favor.” It seems to be the currency that Eve barters with nowadays.
Most of them lead somewhere. “Not that one,” is all Ruiz says, sounding mildly bitter for some reason. That one goes nowhere. Or he hopes so. He wouldn’t want to be the person who had to find some of the things that went through those swirling vortices of doom. Or what was left of them.
“I didn’t expect to be reason for anyone to take a Mexican holiday,” he says with some hint of his humor back. Or at least he’s smiling. “This isn’t the best location for it.” Middle of nowhere, as it is. The beach might look nice, in certain lights, but between the fish smell, the dirt roads, one hotel and a handful of restaurants and no tourist shops, it would not actually be a destination most people would pick.
“You don’t owe me anything, Eve. It sounds like you owe your dreams.” Not the person in them.
Or river otter, in this case.
“We never expect half the things that go ticking so we?” She probably does but. Light gray eyes bore into her dark ones. She likes this guy, he is gentle, kind, has a sense of humor and doesn't mind her crazy. Eve is delighted. Shaking her head she reaches into her messenger bag, rummaging around the joint hangs out of her mouth.
“There are favors to give to kind souls.” A wink in his direction and she puffs on the joint absently. There's a clinking noise and something.. musical. “You ever find yourself in a forest fire..” as she draws out a golden object. A simple mini golden bell is dangled between her fingers. “Just climb to the top of that tower and ring my bell.” She grins.
Tossing the bell over to Ruiz she leans back and digs her toes in the sand. “It's quiet here.” She's silent for a moment as she puffs on the joint.
Climb the tower and ring the bell. There’s a laugh from Mateo. Not really at her, but at the idea of there being a forest fire with a tower and him just climbing the damn thing and ringing a bell instead of trying to escape. He flips the bell over in his hand, letting it ting slightly before he nods. “Alright. Who am I to say no to a psychic,” he jokes, letting the bell rest on his knee while he goes back to eating his taco. As he moves, she catches sight of his a tattoo that darkens his arm. It looks like a maze, inside a circle. With a sun in the middle, partially blocked out.
An partial eclipse in the middle of a maze.
“If I manage to find myself in a forest fire with a tower, I will remember to ring the bell.” He won’t ask what’s supposed to happen after that. But at least he’s playing along with the idea.
“It is quiet. One of the reasons I like it here.” He keeps coming back, every few weeks. He won’t stay for fear he’ll hurt someone, but he can’t seem to stay away, either.
As his tattoo is revealed she reaches an arm out and taps it. Her eyes peering down to study it. “You know of the eclipses?” She's had many dreams of them.. including.. the very first dream she ever had. “They are one of the apexes of power. Miracles happen on these days.. disaster too.” She says the last bit with a bit of a sad look.
Eve’s joint almost out she puts it ember first in the sand. Smoke sizzling up near her hand. She traces a freshly scarred over mark from a knife or a bullet. Her body healed of all the old scars she had before the events at the Institute’s Arc.
A troubled expression crosses the Oracle's face and she nods at Mateo. “I sometimes want the quiet but the whispers and the kookoos like to talk at the same time.” She taps her noggin again with a hard thud. “It's like a hurricane of crazy in here and shifting through takes..” She grimaces, “Concentration.”
Her uninvited invitation to her mind’s workings go on. “The weed and meditation.. and these sorts of places.” She waves an arm around her to signify the town she's in. “They make it easier. I can almost shift through it all easier. But I don't think they think it's that fun. Just being able to pick the puzzle apart.” A furrow of her brow, “We’d get bored and lazy.” And lazy Eve is not.
"They're kind of well known celestial events," Mateo teases with a grin when she asks about the eclipse, looking down at his tattoo. Knowing of them doesn't quite explain why he got one permanently inked onto his body in the center of a circular maze, but that's another story all together. "You're right, though— that they're … apexes of power." He remembers one, in particular. And he obviously got it inked onto his skin for some reason.
"So it's like you're constantly stuck in a maze, trying to find your way out, but keep running into dead ends." He says, nodding toward his tattoo. Mazes he understands. Labyrinths. The twisting paths that seem insurmountable. "I'd think that a flashlight would help better than drugs, but whatever works."
He raises the margarita, almost in a cheer, cause like he said, whatever works.
Drugs don't work for him. They don't quiet or haze that dead noise in the back of his mind. He's not sure anything ever will.
"I have been stuck in a maze for a very long time." the dark haired woman looks out over the ocean absently rubbing her knees with delicate looking hands. "Dead ends, sometimes I feel like the dead ends are all there is." Eve's mind traps her, her ability keeps her running all over the place, it can be exhausting but the prophet has a gained a renewed spark of energy, of life. This isn't over.
As the subject of flashlights are approached Eve looks to Mateo. "Sometimes I think a flashlight would be better than a candle. Candle's flame are fickle. Too strong of a change of wind and it just," she blows a puff of air out of her mouth cheeks puffed out. Her hand snakes down to her margarita and she lifts hers as well before taking another healthy gulp.
"I lost control of myself a while back, did somethings.. That people wouldn't like." Eve thinks back to that day at the Arc, so much changed that day.. And then the siege.. And Eileen.. Gillian.. The gray eyed woman looks up at the sky, "I've stopped blaming myself it's not like I listen to fairies." A soft breeze blows some of her hair into her face and she raises a hand to ward the locks off, "When did you last lose your control?"
"I don't want to think about it," Mateo says almost as soon as she asks the question, looking out into the ocean. No— he doesn't like to think about it. He still remembers the sound. Still remembers the screams. No— he doesn't like to think about it at all. "It won't happen today." He won't let it.
Was it supposed to happen today? Is that why she showed up? Dreamed of the otter eyes? The sound of the ocean and the emptiness had started to blend together for a moment, before he heard her voice— maybe he had been about to.
It had always happened when the sound warped, when it drowned out everything else. When he lost all sense of who he was and who he wanted to be.
"Blaming myself is a dangerous path, so I try not to do that, either," he admits, though it sounds as if he had in the past. "I'm glad you somehow found a way to stop on that."
Eve is silent as he speaks, thinking. Of course he doesn't want to relive those memories. He blocks himself off from the memory, she had learned to look the other way so to speak. Both of them, still hearing the sounds and the screams from just behind them, right near her ear. Those didn't seem to fade, not really.
A hand goes out to touch Ruiz on the wrist, "I am glad you have as well." A light smile and Eve shifts her gaze to the sands they are sitting on, taking another sip the smokiness of this blend of tequila on her tongue, setting the glass next to her, "I'm from New York. Are you from here?" she settles back now lying fully in the sand, eyes gazing up at the sky. She doesn't care about sand in the hair. Shifting the conversation to things that they know are easier, or maybe not.
"No— though I've crossed into Texas and California a few times," Ruiz responds, glad to speak about something other than his ability. And blaming himself for all the damages it has caused in the past. He leaves out that he crossed illegally both times, to assist in other people either often trying to get into Mexico. A definite change in immigration in the last few years, with everything going on. "I was born in Argentina."
It's almost said as a joke, but— it's not a joke. Even if his accent doesn't give any of that away. He sounded like he could be from a generic American town, from the way he spoke decent English. But that could have been good schooling that got rid of his accent.
"New York's pretty rough, though. A lot happened up there in the last few years."
"They've got goodies up there." referring to the drugs that she has gotten from the west coast. "Everything is bigger in texas, especially the cheeseburgers." she snickers as she thinks back to the Texas debacle. In truth Eve has been fighting the war on many fronts, her roles shifting as quick as the wind. Her movements known mostly to herself and boy has she been moving, all over. Tiny actions here, larger actions there.
Thinking of her home makes her brow furrow and she nods her head up at Mateo. "Things went KABLOOEY a while ago but now.." she trails off, her eyes fading as she thinks back. Those moments she fought in the streets and back alleys of the city. "We thought we were doing the right thing in PARIAH. I still don't know if any of it was right. Vanguard.. Institute.. Peter.." his name brings a wave of sadness over the woman and she bites her lip.
"I guess I have lost my home." A thought she hadn't really processed what with the war and such.
"Home is a tricky thing," Ruiz responds, leaning closer to shove her with his shoulder, almost as if he wants to cheer her up. Almost like a brother might. "You think it's a place, but then you lose the place. You think it's a person, but then you lose the person…" Okay, maybe he's not so good at cheering up. Or he is showing that, he too has experienced the loss of home in many forms. Place, person, country.
"Sometimes home is just wherever you happen to be. But I think, one day— we'll find it again. Somewhere."
He just hopes when they do find it, they don't cause it to go kablooey. Or in his case, to disappear into the great unknown.
As she leans over on her she grins and rubs his arm, like a sister would. He's experienced loss, so has she. She's not sure there's anyone in this world who hasn't at this point. But the comfort from this new friend, her otter is much appreciated and Eve is finding herself even more happy that she made this trip.
"Home is where the heart is?" She had a brother figure once. This new one is pretty cool. If she can keep him from going kablooey.. "And our hearts are right here so, here we are!" Eve laughs the sadness lifting a pinch, her eyes close as she basks in the sunlight.
"Maybe there's a paradise out there, a garden of eden." The woman blinks as she grins over at Ruiz and juts her head towards the trees and plants not to far from them. Maybe paradise is that way. "I'd have to grow some weed. If it isn't there. I'd share it's rude to be selfish."
The waves, the food, the beach, maybe she had already found it.