Stranger Dreams

Participants:

bf_eve_icon.gif vf_ruiz_icon2.gif

Scene Title Stranger Dreams
Synopsis A dreamer follows a set of dreams to a beach in Mexico. Just like another one did at the same time in another world.
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.

Half a world away, the dream woke her and she hooted with laughter. It wasn’t that the dream was funny, exactly, but, "OTTERS DON'T DRINK!" Is yelled in a sleepy fashion as the oracle awoke. She had left a note on the bedside she shared with her current bed partner and left that morning. There had been something about the dream that told her she needed to be there. Eve always follows the signs, this time no different.

Fast forward to a few days of travel, through nice airports and car rentals she found her way to Mexico. She’d been there before, for a concert, for an art auction. And she had dreamed during the trip as well. The sooner she reached the beach, the better. But before she stepped foot onto the beach she made sure to stop for tacos, even if she ended up posing for pictures and signing napkins for the locals.

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.

A trendy, yet worn messenger bag hangs from a pale shoulder, slapping 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 restaurant 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 morning. Anywhere else would have been too populated. And he just wanted to listen to the beach one last time, while he waited for the Negoxan to wear off.

The surf hitting the beach 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. Open, 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. The heavy beard on his face also seems out of place for this nice weather. He hasn’t even trimmed it recently.

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. Almost as dark a brown as his hair. He squints in the light for a few seconds, before inhaling in surprise.

Because he recognizes her.

Eve.

He doesn’t answer, because his words get caught in his throat. Even in another world, she compares him to an otter. Even so far away. She looked different than the one in his world. Less crazy, less dirty. She looked clean, though some would say wearing the dress she chose to wear would not be at all considered beach attire.

Shifting, he got to his feet, so he could take one of the drinks. He doesn’t get to say anything, before she’s talking once again, with her hand free. “Look at those otter eyes,” she responds with a grin. “You’re gone and jumped into another river, haven’t you, la nutria.”

Ruiz had to pause, watching her for a moment before he nods, looking down at her dress. No, definitely not something she should sit on a beach in. With a nod, he gestured with the margarita toward a set of chairs that no one happened to be using. He bends down to pick up the bag of tacos as well, so she doesn’t have to. “I guess I did. Do— did you know me?” he asks, because, if anyone else in the world would know what they might be looking at, it could be this woman.

With a nod, Eve follows him, grinning as if she has a secret, which he bets she does. After all, she’d had a bunch of dreams that suddenly made a lot of sense lately. Not that she’d known really what they meant until they were finished. They’d all led to here. “Never met you. But you have the eyes. An otter in a river not his own, but it’s not the river or those in it you have to be careful of, is it?”

No. It wasn’t. Ruiz could feel the churning of energy in the back of his head now, it had been the softest whisper. He had been waiting for it to start. He had been hoping it would. The voice that had once called out to him, the sound of an ocean against the sand, the sound of wind through leaves, of distant thunder rumbling the earth.

Had she somehow known what he had been considering?

Yes, of course she had.

.With a heavy sigh, he sat down, and a few moments later she joined him, holding her free hand out for the bag. “You don’t even find it weird that I recognize you.”

“I’m used to being recognized! You want an autograph?” she smiles back at him, flashing perfectly white teeth, even as she pulled out a taco when he held her the bag. “I did pack a CD for you if you want it.”

As he took the bag back, Ruiz grabs one of the tacos as well, more inclined to eat on that rather than drink on the margarita. The dreamer seemed intent on doing both. At the same time practically, not caring as lettuce dropped down onto her dress. She probably would have sat on the sand without concern.

“So you managed to make music here? Successful?” It felt so strange but so familiar all at once. They were strangers, but not all at the same time.

Around a mouthful of taco, she spoke, voice a little mumbled, “Triple Platinum on my first album” She set down the margarita and fished out the CD, passing it across to him. Eve Mas, My Painted Dreams, it had been titled, and a painting on the cover of a forest of creeping vines around a cityscape made up the cover. He recognized the style. An Eve Mas painting. She had even signed it. “Speaking of,” she continued once she had less of a mouthful he, tone dropping to a whisper“I can’t stay long. I lost the papps a bit ago, gave em the ol loopy loop but it won’t take long for them to find me.”

“There better not be any songs about otters on here,” Ruiz jokes quietly, before he set it down on his lap, shaking his head a little. He would be interested in listening, though, seeing of any of her songs had been about her paintings, about the future.

She shook her head, big hair a little frizzy as she responded to that like so. “No otters. Though I might have to add them to my third album. You can buy the second one. I saw a cute border guard and I couldn’t resist giving that one away. He.. is mi puercoespín,” she snorts with a hand to her hair. He had to laugh, nodding. Yes, he would probably go buy the album. He’d avoided looking into anyone else from his past. After… everything.

A flock of seagulls flew by and she made a tsking sound as he could hear the beginning of cars pulling down the dirt roads leading up to the beach. She took one glance, but did not appear to be surprised by what she saw, “And that’s my cue. The camera jockeys have found me.” She stood, leaving behind her half-sipped margarita, and shoving the last of the taco into her mouth. She’d leave the rest with him.

“It was nice to see you again, Eve,” he whispers quietly, though he looks out at the ocean for a moment, that sadness creeping back into his eyes.

“There’s an address in there. With a date and time. You should go there. It’s an auction for some of my paintings. It’s even in Mexico.” He blinked, looking back up at her as she took the first barefoot steps away. “Don’t miss it, otter eyes. It might just be what you need to keep swimming, as the fish says.”

What he needs to keep swimming— because yes.

Mateo Javier Ruiz needed something.

“I think you just saved my life,” he muttered quietly, as the precog continued away with a crazy little grin on her face.

“I know, silly.”


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