Isabelle "Izzy" Shaw (izzy_shaw) wrote in low_tide, @ 2009-11-17 22:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | isabelle shaw, rhiannon lee |
Vegas on the Carribean.
The sense of strangeness had followed Izzy all through the rest of that first day and into the next. There had been no escaping her housemates, but she'd managed to keep them unaware of her change of personality so far. It had been easier than she thought, so either she was a good actress or they didn't care. She wasn't sure which.
She'd gotten a call from someone called Mark, and she'd let it go to voicemail. The witch had gotten a strong sense that the 'old' Isabelle had been deeply involved with him. That was something she had no idea what she was going to about, yet. Hopefully something would come to her. Maybe he was actually a good guy, but so far everything she'd seen of her old self was rather shallow and she didn't know if her taste in men would be the same. Her family seemed to approve of him, that much she knew for sure.
Tomorrow she'd have to go to work, and judging from the ID badge, work was at the Hyatt-Windward. For now Izzy was content to walk along the long stretch of beach on the south side of the island, Smather's beach she thought the locals called it. Of all the realities to wind up in, she could have done far worse, but how in the world could this reality's version of herself be an airhead?
For Rhiannon, income came from two places. She held down a job with the local tourism board, designing promotional materials and graphics for their website. On the side, she took an easel and paper to tourist spots and drew portraits. She didn't like caricatures, but they were quick and easy and they put cash in her pocket. If the day was slow, she offered to do intricate pictures. It made her feel less like a sell-out with a marker.
The best place to sit was the crowded Mallory Square. When visitors on shore destinations finished their planned activities, they often stopped and had one done before boarding the cruise ship. However, newly into this occupation, Rhiannon wanted to break herself in at a lower-key spot. She picked Smather's Beach. She set up two folding chairs and an easel near a guy renting jet skis. After clipping the rustling paper in place, she uncapped her marker and began to draw.
"Look out!"
Izzy's head snapped up from her woolgathering and saw a great dane at full speed headed for the water, the leash dragging along behind in the sand. She jumped back out of the way and lost her balance, depositing her rear directly onto the beach. The owner, a rather portly man in khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, dashed off a hasty 'sorry!' as he lumbered past and Izzy nodded in understanding.
The young woman got to her feet, brushed herself off, and looked up. What were the odds the first thing she'd see is one of the last people she ever expected to see again. "Rhiannon?" Izzy couldn't believe her eyes, the other woman was just sitting there with an easel sketching away as if she belonged there. Maybe she did.
The shout got Rhiannon's attention. She looked up, a cap in her mouth, the tail of her red bandanna flapping along with her hair. When it was just a loose dog, she went back to inking a cheekbone. The sound of her name gave her a second pause. "Yeah?" Leaning around the easel, she looked for anybody who might be watching her, and hoped to God she could place them. It was a blonde girl, sort of tall, with wide-set eyes. "Izzy?" Rhiannon stared, struck by the cosmic strangeness of it. Maybe Key West was going to be just like Nevada and Chicago, where the same people kept showing up, like they were drawn to one another as much as any mystical circumstance. "Or... no?" In Chicago, they were casual acquaintances, knowing one another through mutual friends. Once, Izzy sold Rhiannon a piece of magic-tech, binoculars that read unusual energy signatures.
"Definitely Izzy," the blonde nodded, her face breaking into a wide grin. "Everyone here seems to know me as Isabelle. Thank god I'm not the only one!" She moved toward the other woman, who looked similarly youthful compared to the image the tech witch had in her head from the last time she'd seen her.
"What are the odds?" Izzy was so relieved to see a familiar face that she nearly hugged her, but settled for moving next to her and glancing over at the easel. "I wasn't sure if I was in heaven or hell, the last thing I remembered was the wave of light coming across the lake..."
"Yeah, I know." Rhiannon's eyebrows pinched together. She was caught off-guard, not only by running into Izzy, but by the increasing number of familiar faces. How many of them, now? It couldn't only be this set. The bud of hope in her chest opened a little more. She watched the blonde beneath the visor of a hand, then remembered simple decency. "Hey, sit down," she said. She removed her foot from the other chair's rungs and let the blonde have it. "By the way, it's not just you and me. Connor and Purity came, too. He said he ran into another girl. I'm not sure if you knew her. Hannah. But this Hannah belongs here." A smell of cigarette smoke wafted by, the filter clasped between a man's brown fingers. Rhiannon's eyes ticked toward it. She wanted it automatically, but was attempting to keep with this body's kicked habit. "So it could get weirder."
"I don't think I met Hannah," Izzy frowned slightly, searching her memory for a 'Hannah' and coming up blank. Why would someone belong here that they knew back in Chicago? "Connor and Purity? That's a good mix at least, if we're here for a reason. Two fighters and two witches." She wasn't sure why this was important, but it seemed to be. It made her think there had to be some reason they were here.
She sat down on the offered chair and ran a hand through her hair. "It's already weird enough for me. The Isabelle here? It's fuzzy but I can't help but get the vibe that she was a spoiled airhead, and my mother and brother are still alive." She sighed, and brought her hands together in her lap for lack of something else to do with them.
"Is anything different here for you? Aside from the location I mean."
Family differences gain, just like Purity's. Rhiannon nodded and pulled a knee to her chest. "Age. I'm only twenty-two, but I'm not gonna complain about that." She smiled. "Occupation, although it's close enough." She rubbed at her shin through the threadbare jeans. Black ink decorated the denim: exotic vines intertwined with words, her random poetry and those of famous literaries, too. Sometimes, faces peeked through the leaves. She rubbed her thumb at a profile of a man in a hat. "My roommate's different. So's my leading man. But nothing's... really different, you know? It's only skewed. I could've made all these choices instead, easily. I keep trying to sift back through my childhood," she said, twirling a finger at her head, "To see what caused the little changes."
The brunette twisted a thread around her finger. "You look... I dunno." Well, that wasn't true. Like a girl who spent a lot of time sunbathing, but Rhiannon kept her mouth shut.
"I look like a well tanned airhead." Izzy said it for her, almost disgustedly, remembering her inspection in front of the bathroom mirror the day before. The blonde took a deep breath and tried to let the irritation go. There wasn't anything that could be done about the past, only to work on making the best of the present. "I work at the Hyatt, at least that's what an ID badge says. I don't know how much work I actually do there, it's still fuzzy. You look good though, more content maybe than I remember from before."
She shrugged, circling back to Rhiannon's comment about choices. "Maybe I could have ended up this way if I hadn't had the urge to make something of myself. Momma didn't remarry in my timeline, in this one she married money when I was still a toddler." It was funny how she said it like it was a bad thing, but this dimension's Izzy seemed not to have the same drive and it irritated the hell out of her.
"At least this time I didn't have a gun to my head as soon as I woke up." She shrugged and changed the subject, feeling that she was bitching too much about herself when there wasn't a need for it. "So where are you staying? Here in Key West or over on Stock Island?" She opened up a small purse and pulled out a notepad and pen to jot down her own contact info to give to the other woman.
More content? Rhiannon filed that information for internal review. Maybe it was the whole freckled, sitting in the sub-tropics look. Or maybe she needed to get her ass in gear and find a bad guy to punch. "Um, we're not too far." She hooked a thumb towards the northwest. "Me and Connor rent a house on Amelia Street. Here." She reached across and used Izzy's notepad to share their address and numbers, too. "It can't be just the four of us," she said. "Let me know ASAP if you run into anybody else." Once the pages were traded, she sat back and studied Izzy for a moment, then took up a marker.
"Sit tight." Rhiannon flipped the large sketchpad and curled a leg underneath her. Once she was comfortable -- semi-perched on the seat -- she began to draw. "Tell me more about airheaded Izzy. How'd you figure that out? She got every season of Desperate Housewives on dvd?" With the fine point of a marker, Rhiannon drew the tech-witch as she remembered her in Chicago, casual and comfortable in a t-shirt, her hair swept up in a loose knot.
"Flashes of memory now and then for one thing," Izzy told her as she settled down and kept herself still for the portrait. "The lack of any books on my shelves aside from a few trashy romance novels and fashion magazines." No tan lines, she didn't add. Hopefully she hadn't been giving the neighbors a free show. "I might be a little bit biased, I admit, but I'm a trained engineer in both magic and conventional technology with a degree from one of the toughest programs outside of the Massachusetts Institute of Magic and Technology or Cal-tech." She deflated slightly. "I was in my past life anyway, I found her diary but I'm too chicken to read it yet."
"I hope we're not the only ones. It'd be good to see Hayden again, or Juliet. At this point I'd even be happy to see Sonya!" The fact that she and the other renter in Hayden's home hadn't seen eye to eye was well known in their circles, or so she thought.
"Read the diary and burn it in effigy," Rhiannon suggested. "I'll bring the lighter. Cast off anything you don't want." As for rites of flames, she had her own planned, only it didn't involve tossing items from Amelia Street. She needed to slough away the trappings of her former life... Do a ritualistic letting-go of anything that held her back here. Sleeping in the blue bedroom, she couldn't hear Connor breathing in the other bedroom, or see his face, but she sensed him there. Twice in the middle of the night, she got up to knock on his door, but talked herself out of it. The past had her by the ankles and it wouldn't let go until she cut herself free.
"I need to find Whistler," she said. Rhiannon knew he existed. His face was inked on her pants. A tattoo on her wrist told her plainly that he was important to her. But where was he?
"Maybe we could have a group burning," Izzy mused aloud. She'd have quite a few things to burn, including that hello kitty pillow on her bed. "I could bring my stuff to burn to where y'all are staying along with some booze, make a party out of it." Rhiannon was right: they were stuck here, it was time to let go and try to make a fresh start. She would just have to work on steadily ridding herself of the airhead reputation the other Izzy had left her.
"Whistler? He's here too?" She hadn't met the hatted man aside from the battle of the wall, but it was good to hear that another member of the Chicago group had been deposited in Key West. "You think he might have a better idea of what's going on?"
Rhiannon's pen made a slow, long arc down the page. "I dunno. The Powers did this, and they're notorious for leaving him in the dark when his own fate's involved." Using a knuckle, she scratched her eyebrow. "My fingers are crossed that he's not like Hannah. You know, doesn't have our memories, just the kind we inherited when we got here." She looked over the sketch.
"A burning party's not a bad idea." She penned a quick set of initials in the bottom corner and capped the pen. "Once we've got a foothold, me and Connor will invite you guys over. We'll make a fresh start. It'll mean... whatever we want it to." Rhiannon tore the paper off the pad and handed it to Izzy. "See? It's still the same you. I can see past the tanning bed glow." A wry smile.
"Thanks." Izzy made a face at the idea of tanning beds, but accepted the wry comment in the spirit it was offered as Rhiannon handed over the sketch. She didn't mind a healthy tan, but her alternate had taken things to the extreme and Izzy wasn't sure she hadn't acquired the darker hue a more old-fashioned way with solar power. Maybe there was a spell that could undo the skin damage? The witch shrugged and returned her attention to the here and now.
She looked at the picture and nodded. That was her all right, with casual clothes and a wide smile. "This is good, you'll be raking money in hand over fist from the tourists. The Powers kept you in your comfort zone."
Izzy pulled out her cell, sorely missing the handheld computer she'd brought with her to Chicago when she'd fallen through the portal almost a year and a half ago now. She glanced up at Rhiannon as she entered the information the Slayer had written down. "A party where we can all let our hair down sounds like a great idea, let me know when you want to do it and I'll be there. If I don't hear from you by Thanksgiving I'll call and touch base. Gonna be weird having a Thanksgiving dinner with family again." And one cooked by servants to boot.
"Yeah, good luck with that." Rhiannon settled back in the chair, her fingers fiddling with loose threads around the knee of her jeans. "Family's both a gift and a curse." She thought of Purity, who found photos of a happy family on her refrigerator. What about the loose family Rhiannon built at home, made of people she counted on and trusted? If she was to follow her own advice, she needed to let go and begin building a new one, the old-fashioned way: Get out at night, hit the streets, and see who else hunted what went bump in the night.
She pulled out her cell phone and texted Connor. 'We need fist-time. Stop hiding behind your mom's skirts. ;) R'
"This out-dated tech's gotta be killing you," she said, closing the device and eyeing Izzy's. "It's amazing what five years can do. I guess you've been re-antiquated twice. Lucky for me, stakes are pretty much stakes no matter what the year."
"Low-tech has a certain appeal," Izzy agreed with a smirk. "Can't go any lower than a stake unless you just use a broken tree branch or something." She glanced down at the phone with its black sleeve; one of the first things she'd done was ditch the pink cover for something more functional. "This isn't too bad. Top of the line in late 2009 isn't anything to sneeze at but, yeah, it feels like working with a slide rule compared with what I was used to." She laughed a little and glanced out over the water. "I've had more trouble adjusting to this dimension so far than when I dropped into Chicago. You ever see that old TV Show 'Quantum Leap'? Where the guy was jumping into different bodies all the time? That's kind of what this felt like, only there's nothing to solve and jump back out."
She glanced back at the Slayer. "So have you actually tried to patrol or anything yet? Or still adjusting to the change? Just think, you have the reaction time of a twenty-two year old again with five years extra experience."
"Not yet," Rhiannon said. "But soon. I can't stand more than a couple of days. I think that's when I'll really feel right, you know?" She tapped the marker against her shoe. "What I am liking is how nobody knows about demons yet. The integration project doesn't happen for what, three more years? God, if we could shoot that thing down before it takes off..." It would take a bit of memory probing, but Rhiannon thought she could dig up what triggered the government to look into it. Some foreign dignitary getting mauled on U.S. soil. Prevention was half the battle.
"Either tonight or tomorrow night," she decided. "Gotta take the new body out for a spin sometime, yeah?" Rhiannon tossed the marker a few times. "Have you tried magic here?"
Izzy had her own opinions on the wisdom of common folk being in the dark about the supernatural, but she held her tongue. No sense getting the only people who knew the real her annoyed with her, and everyone else would just think she was crazy if she told them anyway. "No, I was too messed up yesterday to try anything and I haven't had a chance yet today." She fidgeted in her seat and toyed with a strand of her hair. The blonde considered cutting it to a shorter length, but apparently one of the few things this dimension's Izzy and she had in common so far was that they both liked it long.
"I know I can though, because I can feel it in here." She brought a hand to her chest for emphasis. "I don't think my other self knew about magic but it's here. I also felt something very powerful out in the water when I first woke up here. Powerful and old. Not something I'd want to try and mess with, that's certain."
The brunette chewed on her marker. The plastic clacked between her teeth. "This place reminds me of Searchlight," she said. "It's bigger and so not the desert, but the feeling's the same. Only back there, old and powerful came from the silver mines." She looked at the ocean, the tropical blue so bright it seemed unnatural. "Big evil likes to hide in beautiful places. It gets its claws into you while you're dazzled by the pretty sights." Yeah, thought Rhiannon. Key West was the small-town quaintness of Searchlight and the vacation tour de force of Las Vegas, all rolled into an island.
She sat up straighter and reached for a bottled water. By now, condensation rolled down the sides and wet the plastic label. Rhiannon unscrewed the cap and took a few swallows. "Let me know how the magic works out. It seems I left those binoculars you gave me in my other pants."
Izzy chuckled knowingly. "I hear you. All my supplies, tools, and references are back in 2014. My housemates are going to think I've lost what little mind I have if I suddenly come home with crystals, soldering irons, wire and candles." She didn't want to show too much change too fast, it would raise too many questions. But she could start small and gradually work up to it.
The blonde stood up and stretched, plans already forming in her head. "I'm going to try something tonight, just to get some of the rust off. I'll put a set of binoculars on the list of things to do, they should only take a day's worth of work once I get started." She looked out at the beach. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm really glad you're here Rhiannon." She told the brunette quietly. If she'd been plopped out here by herself she might have gone crazy. It was a great comfort that there were others on island who had made the transition between the dimensions as well.
"No offense taken." Shifting so that her elbow rested on the back of the chair, Rhiannon fiddled with her bandanna and the long hair underneath. She wound the dark coil around her fingers. "I've only traveled between dimensions twice. The other one was a hell. I'll take margaritas and drunk college kids on break." She pinched her fingers. "Just barely." Then she smiled to let the other woman know she was kidding. "Give me a call if you need anything, couch space included."
"I could think of worse places to be, like Chicago in January." Izzy joked back. It was a good feeling, knowing there were others who had her back if things went sour. "I hope I don't have to take you up on the offer of couch space, but I might steal enough space for a work bench if you've got it to spare."
Rhiannon said, "There's a shed out back. It's small, but it might work. I haven't checked to see if it's wired for power." A group of girls carrying beach bags caught her eye. One pointed at the easel and talked animatedly to her friends. "I think we're about to get interrupted." She straightened and flipped to a fresh page on her sketchpad. "I'll text you after I open it up and take a look. Assuming it's not full of junk, you can store your stuff in it."
Izzy saw the girls and smiled knowingly. "Sounds good, I should only need it for a few months at most. I figure by then my housemates will have adjusted to the new Isabelle, or I can get new ones who don't know any different." Worse case scenario was she would be crashing on the Slayer's couch, but once she got a feel for her family she'd know how likely or not that would be.
"I'll let you make some money," the blonde told her, and started to get out of the way of the girls. "Take care and say hello to Connor and Purity for me."