Who: Echo Bishop, Phanuel Where: Town Limits When: Late/Early What: Beer and getting acquainted Rating: Low
When Echo lived on the water, sometimes she would sit on the deck of her boat in a folding chair and watch the sky. Right after a storm was the best, when the clouds had receded and the blue was so deep it seemed as if the salty waters of the Gulf had melded with the firmament. Sunrises were a close second, darkness receding to gunmetal gray, then light blue, then orange-yellow as the bright ball of the sun came up to announce the start of a new day.
Searchlight had no lakes, but the Were had found a spot for sky-watching nonetheless. Just on the edge of the town limits, with a blanket and a couple of beers, she’d just found Orion’s belt as her watch beeped, telling her the hour had changed from one to two in the morning. Everything was closed, and she guessed most people were in bed. But she’d always enjoyed a space for silence, to help her think.
In the morning, she would call James, ask how the spell was supposed to work.. She could feel the place pulling at her, as if her Otherness gave it an edge, and she hadn’t really made any headway in finding her unknown sibling. Half-sibling. As if that made a difference. The draw to the quiet little town had made her a little nervous, but not enough to make her just pack up and go home. She was here for a reason, to regain the sense of completeness she’d had before.
If nothing else, the other woman deserved to know what a shit their father was, if she didn’t already.
Her Father was a shit, but He did do some things brilliantly. Like the night sky. Something about the astronomical twilight, viewing the stars in their entirety. Phanuel was taking the proverbial road barely travelled back home from her excursion into Vegas and subsequent shopping trip with Celeste Henry. The bags of electronics had been deposited at the recycling depot and in exchange she held a bag with a brand spanking new iPhone 12. ’In for a penny’, she reasoned.
She was so enamored with the view that she nearly walked into a woman sitting on a blanket enjoying the night sky as well.
“Whoops!”
Quicker than normal reflexes saved the open bottle of beer from spilling, and Echo set it just out of reach before trying to shift the blanket backwards. She hadn’t expected foot traffic at this hour, but the residents of Searchlight seemed to keep different hours. Or maybe it was insomnia.
“You okay? I didn’t mean to startle you. Kind of didn’t think I’d see anybody else movin’ around.”
“Yup, totally fine,” Phanuel responded, taking in the woman whom she’d almost walked over. For those with sensitive ears (or noses), they would pick up on a very slight slurring of words and the smell of alcohol on her breath. “Better than fine. I just bought one of these.”
The Angel held her bag aloft, spinning it slightly so that the logo would catch in the starlight. “Did you know you can text anyone, anywhere? AND it plays music on something called Spotify. Which I have to fuckin’ remember to set up when I get home.”
She examined the scene a little more closely now. Open bottles of beer, blanket. “Oh shit. Am I interrupting something? You expecting someone?”
“Huh? Oh! Naw, it’s nothin’ like that.”
The tips of Echo’s ears reddened as she realized the other woman thought she was intruding on an assignation, and she gestured self-consciously at the sky when she added, “I was trying to find Canis Major, but I don’t think I’ll be able to see it from here. Mostly I just wanted to sort my head out.”
Silver light from the half-moon washed over the scrubby grass, and the shifter played with the corner of the gray blanket as she looked back at the blonde. Tall for a woman, a little unsteady on her feet. Sharp features that bordered on the androgynous. Echo pulled in a breath as her attention drifted back towards the heavens.
“If you don’t mind me sayin’ so, missus, you seem a little…”
She flapped a hand in the empty air, finished the sentence with, “...I dunno.”
“Inebriated? Sauced? Blotto?” Phanuel had a dozen ways to describe her present condition, but felt three was sufficient.
“Yeah. Like that.”
The brunette gave it three long beats before she broke the silence, and the night around them was so quiet that you could have heard an owl fart from a mile away.. The other woman couldn’t be that far from her own door. Not in a town so small. The bag caught her attention, and she watched iit sway back and forth for another two beats.
“I’m Echo. What’s your name?”
Straight to introductions? Fine by her. She was in a pleasant enough mood for small talk with a stranger. As long as she didn’t offer candy. The Angel wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“Phanuel. I live near here. The trailer with the Christmas lights and the flamingo.”
She admired the woman seated opposite her. Phanuel wished it were a bit lighter so she could get an accurate sense of the woman she was talking to.
“Haven’t seen you about, but I’ve been a hermit for an age, so I honestly don’t know my neighbors all that much and--”
Phanuel paused. She could’ve sworn an owl just farted.
Phanuel.
From Somewhere Else, Echo decided, because she detected some sort of accent but couldn’t place it. Normally she’d have offered a hand for a shake, but she kept them at her sides instead. Maybe she was too forward. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d misread a situation initially.
“Yeah, uh, no, I just got here. Been trying to figure out what to do next. Still getting used to the terrain, y’know?”
More than most. “Mind if I sit, Echo? I’ve been walking for miles and could use a fuckin’ break.” Phanuel didn’t wait for an answer; she bent down and placed herself just off the blanket, folded her leg on top of the other. “Despite the ghost-town vibe of this place, there’s a shit ton you can do. I recommend Terrible’s if you haven’t been there already.”
“So what in your head needs sorting?”
“Fathers. And the messes they make.”
Echo watched Phanuel sit down, decided she didn’t mind. Given another minute, she might have asked if the other woman wanted to stop a while, but there was something nervy about the lack of waiting for an invitation that she liked. Her open beer was half finished.
“I think that’s the word for it, anyway. ‘Father’, like it’s this set thing with no exceptions. I didn’t really have that growing up, not the way you see it on TV, so I guess I wouldn’t know.”
“Ward Cleaver doesn’t exist,” the Angel replied. “And I know all about fathers. Haven’t talked to mine in… well, a long time. My choice, but he hasn’t exactly reached out to bridge the gap. There are times I think he’s watching from his barcalounger, casting silent judgments.”
Phanuel ran a finger through the dirt as she spoke, absently drawing Orion’s Belt. “I just try and shake it off. I’ve done things his way for the longest time, and when I finally began to question his methods, he tuned out. His way or the highway. So I hitched a ride away from home.”
“He hasn’t always been wrong, and some things he’s done really stood the test of time. But that doesn’t make him infallible.”
“You’re lucky. You got to make the choice to leave.”
There was no rancor in the shifter’s voice as she looked out into the night, and she picked up a handful of loose sand and watched it sift through her fingers, The kids she’d grown up with - both human and otherwise - had had fathers, who came to pick them up from school and talked about sports and sometimes how to get into college. Who showed up, and she hadn’t realized she might have been cheated of that until she started poking around. And she had to keep reminding herself that it was weakness that had driven the other wolf away. Not all shifters were strong, or even noble.
“When you left, what did you do? Sounds like you might have been in his shadow. How did you get out of it?”
“I’m not sure I ever did.”
The Angel kept her eyes low, continuing to draw in the grit. Stick figures, mostly, with halos. She quickly rubbed away her artwork. “I walked. A lot. Met a shit ton of people. Made my way across the land. In the beginning, without shoes.” Phanuel grinned. “Made me feel more connected. I still do that, sometimes.”
She drew in a deep breath. “Recently, a friend challenged me to do something different with my life. Like I said earlier, I’ve been a bit of a recluse. My way of hiding from the world, trying to escape my father’s shadow. But now, maybe,” Phanuel paused a moment, “it’s time to create my own.”
“You feel it too, don’t you? Hear it?”
Echo’s voice was very quiet in the stillness, and she was molding the dirt into little conical piles. As a child, she’d spent hours playing in the dirt. Mud or sand, it made no difference, and she’d come in filthy more than once. Unca would laugh and get out the garden hose to rinse her off in the backyard, clothes and all. Good memories of a mostly happy childhood.
“Like a radio station you can’t quite tune into through the static. Playing a song you can almost remember, just not the name of it.”
She regarded Phanuel with benign curiosity, and the light from the moon was silvery and cool on the back of her neck and her shoulders. The full phase was coming in a few days, and she would have to take to the desert so she could run. She offered the other woman her unopened beer with a hand grainy with loose sand.
“I don’t think I’m gonna drink both of these. You want it?”
Phanuel set down her bag and extended her hand. “Thanks, Echo.”
She brought the bottle back to her chest and used the forefinger and thumb of her free hand to untwist the top. The brown liquid easily slid down her gullet. The Angel continued to swallow the beer until there was not a drop left. She then placed it on its side, and spun it. When the bottle stopped, she continued. “I feel it. That’s why I put roots down when I got to Searchlight. It’s a curiosity. I think I was gonna figure it out once upon a time. Heh.”
“You’re very beautiful.”
The Were let it hang between them for a second, brushing her hand off on the leg of her jeans, then added, “If you wouldn’t mind, could I draw you sometime? I’ve mostly been doing scenery, the sunrises out here are amazing and there’s so much natural light that I’ve filled at least one sketch pad just on stuff around town. But I’d like to sketch some of the residents too. If you’d be okay with that, I mean.”
The Angel blushed.
Slender fingers pushed through her hair, an act of self-consciousness. She’d been a muse before, but generally not for artists. It was uncommon for her to receive praise for her looks. Phanuel eschewed makeup; she basked in the image she was made.
“Come by the trailer sometime, and I’ll sit for you.”
“Great. I’ll find your place in a couple of days.”
Echo glanced at her watch, realized she’d been sitting out there for a couple of hours. The stars had moved a little. “I should probably drag myself off to bed. It’s nice to have met you, Phanuel.” And she was sure she’d screwed up the pronunciation, but she could work on it later. She got up and started to fold the blanket into a manageable square after shaking more sand off of it, downwind of the blonde.
“You’ll be okay gettin’ to your door? Not much light out here.”
Phanuel nodded. “The stars will guide me, should my feet fail me. And they never have.” She stood as well, and brushed off the dirt, then wiped her hands and extended one to the brunette. “It’s nice to have met you, Echo. I look forward to sitting for your art.”
The shifter took the hand after picking up the empty beer bottles. Always leave a place the way you found it, that was her rule. She dropped a barely-there kiss on Phanuel’s slender knuckles, then let go of her hand and took a few steps towards town.