InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "What are you, Goldilocks?"

lauren sweet (busk) wrote in bellumlogs,
@ 2010-01-29 20:03:00

Entry tags:

willful child

Who: Aaron and Lindsey
What: Meeting for the first time
Where: In dreams
When: Days after Bellum Black
Warnings: Extreme fuzziness?

At first it was pitch black. Lindsey struggled fiercely to open her eyes but was unable to. Dreams were sometimes prone to misbehave, like trying to run and feeling as though the air had become as viscous as molasses. So instead of trying desperately to open her eyes Lindsey worked around her sleeping body and imagined stars lighting up and filling the dark. They were more like diamonds; white, facetted and twinkling like a lullaby. Lindsey was flying of course. She always flew in her dreams.

This one had to be made from scratch.

So there was a forest made up of ancient weeping willows with silver-green heart shaped leaves and roots as large as any branch creating a jungle gym on the soft forrest floor. The dream got away from her for just a moment, trying to slip out of the reach of her imagination and the ground became swampy and a mist hung low to the ground and reflected the starlight. But Lindsey was not afraid to get muddy. She started to sink slowly down toward the earth but her stocking covered feet never quite touched the ground. Just as well. It was no fun exploring in wet stockings. The air became chilly and the humidity soaked her to the bone. Over bloomers and a doll length night-gown, Lindsey imagined her favorite thrift store blazer, at least two sizes too large for her, a ridiculously lengthy knit scarf and a bowling cap.

What would it be tonight? Pirates? Druids? Monsters? The dream firmly wiggled itself out of her grasp and added details of its own. There was only one way to find out what lay in store for her, and that would be to adventure of course!

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backoff
2010-01-30 05:25 am UTC (link)

Aaron had a lot of dreams. Rather than fairy dust and unicorns, Aaron's dreams were grounded heavy in the real. Pine trees and strong mountain breezes tended to pervade the good ones. The bad ones---he didn't remember when he woke, and it was better that way. "Hey." He took the silly looking dress in total stride, since, you know, it was a dream. "What's up?" Her, apparently. He was standing on the ground, and she was in the air, his head tilted up at her so he could see. He looked devastatingly normal, sweatshirt, jeans, old, old tennis shoes.

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busk
2010-01-30 05:35 am UTC (link)

Lindsey looked down and found herself rather appreciative of imagination; cute, mousey hair, not too tall and sort of lost looking. Floating down to eye level, she reached just past his shoulder to pick at a sprig of sweet mint leaves and tuck them into the band of her hat. She had no idea if mint leaves grew like that but she liked the smell.

"It's very quiet," she answered him with a pensive frown. "Usually there are pirates by now. Or monsters. It's probably not a good idea to be on the ground. The mermaids are the worst."

She offered him her hand.

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	backoff 2010-01-30 05:55 am UTC (link)
	"I'd rather stay on the ground. I don't like going up there. I'll fall." He didn't seem that concerned about the prospect, however, and he put his hands in his pockets so he could roll back on his heels to get a better look at her. "Mermaids? How do you know?" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

busk
2010-01-30 06:02 am UTC (link)

She hovered a little closer to the ground though her feet never touched. She watched the ground beneath them suspiciously as they spoke.

"I don't know. Mermaids just kinda creep me out. They're not even cool like giant squid-- which are real! I did a report in the fifth grade on squid and the teacher docked me down when I said giant squid were real and wanted to fail me just because they hadn't been rediscovered yet. No one ever believes me about these things."

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	backoff 2010-01-30 06:20 am UTC (link)
	"Yeah but mermaids are half-naked all the time," Aaron replied, knowledgeably. "Way better than squids." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

busk
2010-01-30 01:28 pm UTC (link)

"Yeah, so they can drown men who fall for that. It's even mentioned in The Little frickin' Mermaid. Besides, if you're going to enjoy the company of half naked ladies, it should probably be your own species. Just sayin'."

Lindsey slowly floated onto her back staring up at the sky, perpendicular to Aaron's chest. The stars formed a large constellation resembling a radio and though her hands were miles from the sky her fingers started pantomiming the act of twisting dials looking for a song. Blips of imaginary stations whizzed by between static. She finally settled upon a seemingly silent station.

"Ba do, doo doo doo doo," she sang absently. The station started to reply by filling in with a jazzy bass beat. Jazz was always easiest to improvise.

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backoff
2010-01-30 11:30 pm UTC (link)

Aaron grinned at the prod about mermaids, but didn't argue. Their company wasn't the bits he was imagining enjoying. He realized it wasn't that kind of dream, and had no problem with it. "Wow, that's cool. It almost looks like home," he said, craning his neck backward to stare at the sky. "There's a lot of night and sparkle like that there. But it doesn't sound so good."

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	busk 2010-01-30 11:48 pm UTC (link)
	Lindsey tilted the sky like a screen toward Aaron, even though her fingers remained miles below the atmosphere. "You wanna try?" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

backoff
2010-01-31 01:53 am UTC (link)

"Really? Can I?" He stepped up a little closer to her. He smelled like crushed pine needles and a kind of fresh air that smelled sweet, like drying grass. Despite his appearance, he couldn't be less urban. He reached up and dragged his fingertips over the sky, as she had done. A classic rock guitar chord thrummed hard through the entire world around them, shaking loose leaves and crumbling ground. "Rock."

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	busk 2010-01-31 01:56 am UTC (link)
	Lindsey pantomimed drumsticks and added an achingly simple Meg White style beat, swaying her head gently to the rhythm she started to go with the first chord. "Go on," she grinned. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

backoff
2010-01-31 02:00 am UTC (link)

He played a while longer, making things up as he went along, playing a lot of epic rock that had been released in the last year or two, rather than any of this ridiculous pop stuff that kept coming out. Aaron seemed to think more in throbs of bass than in tunes or rhythms, so the whole thing was like a living in a surround sound earthquake. After a few songs, he settled back on his bed, which had appeared sometime between this song and the last. It wasn't the one in #104, it was the one he'd had at home, an old creaky wood frame that his dad had made, with a lot of plaid blankets and clothes hanging off the bedposts. "Good times!"

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busk
2010-01-31 02:13 am UTC (link)

Lindsey landed on the edge of his bed with a bounce before tucking in her legs and landing on her knees. The bed creaked in protest but did not break. Thankfully. She stretched out like a cat over the foot of it, resting her hat on one of the bed posts over a few shirts as she settled on her belly. Her shoulders were propped up by her elbows.

"So. What did you do for fun at home?"

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	backoff 2010-02-01 05:22 am UTC (link)
	"Uhm. Video games." Aaron thought while he propped himself up on pillows. "I hung out with my dad sometimes, and we'd go up the mountain on hikes. Or he'd teach me some moves, or we'd go into West and eat pizza and play pool." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	busk 2010-02-01 05:40 am UTC (link)
	"That's cool. I never got to do any of that stuff when I lived at home. I've done, like, Urban Camping but I don't think that counts. Sorta lacks the outdoor hiking aspect." Lindsey grinned. "So did you live off the wild? Go fishing? Eat berries?" Jealous wasn't the word, but Lindsey was clearly fascinated and had already begun to romanticize it in her head. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

backoff
2010-02-01 06:55 pm UTC (link)

"No," Aaron admitted, a little reluctant to give up the Man vs. Wild aspect of her impression. "But he would tell me some stuff so I wouldn't, like, die right off. Unless it's winter, and if it's winter you just kind of do your best and pray a lot." He looked pensive, and stuck his tongue out to catch a snowflake as it came drifting down with a host of its brethren.

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busk
2010-02-01 07:06 pm UTC (link)

Snowflakes became caught in her hair and eyelashes.

"If I grow up," said Lindsey, who had no intention of doing any such thing. "I want to be like a crazy old hermit lady and live in a tree house. And talk to myself. I think I'll probably chase imaginary hoodlums off my land with a shot gun, like, Dagnabbit! Get off my lawn!" Lindsey did her best to make a crazed, elderly voice.

"Well, all of that is mostly optional with the exception of the tree house. It can be all crazy like in Swiss Family Robinson with the ladders and the ropes and stuff."

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	backoff 2010-02-02 06:27 pm UTC (link)
	Aaron, who considered himself quite grown up already, thanks very much, just shook his head in disbelief that anyone would want to chase imaginary hoodlums. "Treehouses aren't as great as they could be," he said, as if he was the sole voice of reason in a vast land of impossibility. "I mean, usually they leak." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	busk 2010-02-02 06:38 pm UTC (link)
	Lindsey rolled over onto her back and stared up at the sky. "So do regular houses. But if given the choice between a job and a mortgage and paying thousands of dollars to fix a house roof, or just patch up a tree house or make a new one, I'll take the tree house." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	$Aaron Jacobson {willful child}: :\$ backoff 2010-02-04 03:20 am UTC (link)
	"Who's going to pay for the tree?" His recent loss and relative independence--and indeed, the not inconsiderable influence of the building and its inhabitants--had made Aaron far wiser to the world than he had been ensconced in his home in Montana. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	busk 2010-02-04 03:45 am UTC (link)
	"Oh, I'm totally living illegally on state land," Lindsey joked, while nodding sagely. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	backoff 2010-02-05 02:59 am UTC (link)
	He smiled. "They'll so catch you." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	busk 2010-02-05 03:02 am UTC (link)
	"Yeah..." she agreed dreamily. (Reply to this) (Parent)