It had definitely been an interesting few days. Earlier in the week, Emily had been stuck inside an underwater bubble with several others. It had actually reminded her of what she’d already grown up believing the real lost city of Atlantis was - a hidden city under water. That’s what Disney had always taught her, right? Thankfully, between all of the different magic users that had been stuck with her, they’d managed to get to the surface and back home safely. Her group wasn’t the only one during the week to have a similar adventure, and she was thankful hers was over. There was a reason she managed a coffee shop and chartered the waters of keeping caffeine addicts happy instead of fighting COS agents.
She wasn’t managing a coffee shop today, though. It was the first time Emily had a full Saturday off in a while, and she was going to take advantage of it. She got dressed in a bathing suit and cover up, gathered up beach supplies, and headed off to the beach around mid-morning. Her dog, Kona, was hot on her heels and seemed to be able to anticipate a day of fun.
Since it was a little early, the beach wasn’t too crowded yet, so she took the opportunity to get her chair set up and Kona settled. She let out a sigh of contentment when she leaned back in the chair and let the sun shine down on her. She lifted her sunglasses at the sound of a light yelp from Kona who was pawing and trying to nose through the bag of toys that she’d already managed to find. “You’re such a mess,” Emily said to her dog with a laugh and rubbed her head. Kona’s hopped a bit in the sand and looked at Emily with her tail tagging.
“Okay, okay,” she said and got up from her chair. There was a ball inside the bag that she pulled out and took a few steps down closer to the water. Kona was already jumping up trying to grab the ball from her, but she threw it out into the water and the pup went barreling off after it. Kona secured the ball in her mouth quickly and ran up to show Emily her prize so she could throw it back again. Beach days were some of the best days.
If there was one thing that Erica and Emily would completely agree on, it was that beach days were absolutely the best days. So much so that the blonde werewolf had been spending quite a lot of time there.
Today, she just wanted to relax even more, laid out on the beach in her bathing suit with her shades on and a big umbrella she bought at the Shop Til You... mall. She couldn't remember what store, but it was nice to have it stuck in the ground above her. The sun was great, but it was difficult to get a good tan when your skin pretty much healed immediately in seconds.
She'd been laying there for an hour when she felt something hit her feet. Blinking, the young woman leaned up and took a look only to find a little ball sitting there. A quick scent proved that there was a canine nearby and, sure enough, it didn't take very long at all for a little puppy to scamper up after the ball.
Erica smirked as the puppy stopped a little bit away from her, no doubt scenting what she was, but she'd learned how to coax an animal easily with her abilities. Derek had shown her once. He'd shown then all.
Moving her hand out, Erica made herself seem less predatory as she picked up the ball. A few moments later and the puppy was letting her pick it up as she stood and scratched it behind the ears. It was an adorable little thing and made Erica want one of her own. Though, to be fair, Erica would rather have a puppy that would grow into a very large dog. She'd always wanted a big dog.
Making her way down the beach, it didn't take long at all for Erica to take in the sight of a pretty brunette. When the puppy started struggling in her grasp, Erica figured she'd found the owner.
Dropping the puppy and the ball, she made her way towards the woman just as the puppy did. "Hi. This one found me while looking for the ball. Figured I'd try to see if his owner was nearby."
After accidentally throwing the ball a little harder than planned, Kona had raced after it only to run into another girl lounging on the beach. Emily jogged over just as the other girl was starting to head her way. Kona picked up the ball and bounded back over to her.
“Hey!” She said with a bright smile. “Sorry about that. Usually she doesn’t get away that far. Or I don’t usually miss throwing it to her that far.” The ball was dropped at her feet again with dark eyes looking up at her with expectation, but Emily ignored them for the moment. The ball could wait just a second.
“I hope she didn’t disturb you too much,” she said. Just then there was a few seagulls to land a little ways over. Emily reached down to grab Kona’s collar but the dog was too fast for her and had already gone chasing after them. The bird were back up in the air before Kona had gotten close. Emily just shook her head with a laugh. “She loves coming down here to the beach if you couldn’t already tell.” She smiled again and looked back over to Erica. “I’m Emily, by the way.”
"Erica." The blonde introduced herself with a confident smile, sliding her sunglasses up to her head. "And everyone loves coming to the beach. It's perfection out here. I mean, just look at that water." She grinned, placing her hands at her rounded hips and watching the puppy.
"She really is precious. Where'd you get her?" Erica thought about getting a pet, something to make her less lonely, but dogs were sometimes a hit or miss because of what she was. Dogs didn't tend to enjoy being around a more predatory canine, and that's what Erica was: a predator.
"So, you're not a native," Erica could smell it. The natives of Atlantis had a much different scent. "Where are you from?" She was curious as to how different the worlds were. How they might be the same.
Emily smiled and gazed out at the water. It wasn’t even comparable to days spent out at the beach on the east coast. Nothing was this beautiful. She and her family had visited the Gulf a couple of times when she was younger, but even that didn’t compare. “It really is, isn’t it? I don’t think I could ever get tired of coming out here.”
She turned her attention back to Erica. “At one of the shelters here in Atlantis. A while ago they held an event encouraging people to adopt, so I decided to go for it. She can be a mess sometimes, but she has me pretty much wrapped around her paw.”
Kona was laying down and chewing on the ball that hadn’t been thrown for her yet. It thankfully had her undivided attention for a few seconds at least before another bird flew by and she thought about running off again.
“Rosewood, Pennsylvania?” There didn’t seem to be any sparks of recognition, so she just shrugged. “It’s… well, I can’t say that nothing crazy never happened there because it totally did, but it was much different than here. Witches, portals, superheroes… they’re all new to me. What about you?”
The last time she was at the beach, she had a pretty in depth conversation with Peter Parker about whether the beach was what it was because of their imaginations or because it actually existed. Possibly a combination of both. There had been a nice kiss as well.
Erica hadn't known that there was a shelter here. Knowing now had her make a mental note to check out the place as soon as possible. The possibility of a pet, someone she could nurture and someone who would never make her feel alone. It was a good plan, she just had to find an animal that wouldn't be on guard with her. She'd managed it with the puppy, maybe that meant she could manage it again.
"Pennsylvania, huh? Other side of the continent then," she stated, nodding slowly. "Beacon Hills, California." She couldn't say anything about superheroes, but the other... "I'm pretty familiar with the supernatural on my end."
Emily smiled and nodded. “I moved around a little when I was young, but I'd been in Rosewood for most of my life.” She hadn't ever heard of Beacon Hills specifically, but she did have some experience of her own living on the west coast. “I actually went to college in California - Pepperdine University. I loved it out there.”
College life had been the break she'd needed from Rosewood. Yes, it ended up coming with its own complications and things weren't always going great while she was there, but the looming presence of A was 3000 miles away. Thankfully, she had that here too.
It had been a while since Emily had really thought about home, but watching Erica for a moment, she had this weird flash of another confident blonde that was waiting for her if she ever decided to go or was unexpectedly sent home.
“Yeah… other than a tech savvy stalker here and there, we didn't have anything like that back home. It's actually kind of cool finding out all of it is real. I mean, in the being fictional kind of real that we are here in Atlantis.”
Erica heard of Pepperdine. It had been on a long list of college applications at one point, but that was so long ago that she didn't think things were going to be going in that direction. But, well, things could always change. This place had a way of making the not so little blonde rethink things about the directions she was going to take if she went back home...
And that was a big if.
Hearing the brunette talking about something that they both always thought to be fictional at some point in their lives was humorous. To Erica, the supernatural was nothing more than everyday life now. Sometimes scary. Sometimes funny. Always unexpected. But it was her life now. And she wouldn't go back for anything.
Being a werewolf meant being normal. No, it meant being better than normal, which was so much more enticing. She didn't have seizures anymore. She wasn't a social pariah anymore. At least not in the regular sense. She was stronger, faster, definitely more.
But it came with more curiosities as well.
"Now that you know they're real, what are your thoughts on it? Werewolves, banshees, vampires?" She still wasn't a hundred percent certain on the vampires, but if she was real, then anything must be possible, right? "Any favorites?"
Emily glanced down at her pup still rolling around with the ball and trying to chew it into all sorts of pieces. Her fur was covered in wet sand by this point, and Emily knew she was going to have to give her a good bath before ever letting her back into the apartment. She didn't want her roommates hating her for letting the dog bring the whole beach back with her and spreading it out all over the carpet.
"They're just people," she said with a shrug. "I mean, people with a little extra umpf, but still the same as anyone else. We all have something that makes us a little complicated." God knows she had ten years of complicated.
Did she have any favorites? That was a good question. "To be honest, I'm not sure. Most of the time I don't even realize I'm talking to someone with different abilities until afterwards." None of her roommates were enhanced as far as she knew, and Sara herself wasn't even if she was still a badass who traveled through time to save the world.
"As long as no one tries to make a horror movie come to life then I'm okay with all of it, I think. I think I've probably been around mutants and witches more so than any others. It could be cool to be a witch, right? There are so many different kinds here too."
A little partial to witches. Okay. Erica could probably roll with that. But still...
"I'm a little partial to the beasts myself," she chuckled, eyes glowing that amber yellow that marked the beast within her. She didn't mind letting people know who and what she was here. It was a great way of weeding out those that weren't strong enough to handle the the friendship that came with her and her already strong personality.
This girl, though, she was nice. She kind of reminded Erica of how she might have wished to be before the epilepsy had taken all control from her. Before her peer at Beacon Hills turned her into a social pariah to be picked on instead of cared for.
Now... well, now Erica didn't know if that girl would ever actually live. She was too full of vengeance. Too full of power to not use it to steer her life in a completely different direction than what it would have been. Too angry. That Erica would never see daylight. That Erica died when she was shown just how cruel people could be.
But here, things could be a little different here, at least. These people would never know the Erica that was human. All they would know was the werewolf. "And trust me, horror movies are overrated." After living her own, Erica found she liked the actions and comedies a whole lot more.
Emily frowned a little, confused, but when she saw the girl's eyes glow a bit and then change back to normal a few seconds later, she realized what Erica meant. She probably showed her surprise but that's all it was. Not shock or fear, just surprise.
"Oh! That's cool. I mean, I know that sort of thing can be useful around here with the missions and things." Sometimes Emily wondered why she was here or if her sole purpose in Atlantis was to serve the more hero types their daily caffeine fix at the shop, but she wasn't itching to go home. She'd made herself a home here no matter how much she missed her friends and family in Rosewood - and Ali and the twins thanks to the memories she received a while ago.
"I could have used some of those beastly-type powers back home," she said with a small laugh but shrugged it off. Or having a friend with those abilities - or a badass girlfriend who traveled through time - would have been super helpful too. Alas, Rosewood was utterly normal. Sort of.
"It actually happened last year. The whole scary movie come to life thing? I never had any real run-ins, but some pretty notorious villains randomly decided to show up last Halloween throughout October. Pennywise, I think, and Leatherface ran after a couple people with his chainsaw. I'm not disappointed I missed out on that fun."
*Pennywise* and *Leatherface* had been in Atlantis? If the surprise on Erica’s face was anything to go by, it was a good bet that part of the werewolf might want that to happen again just so she could go up against these guys and come out the winner. That could be major bragging rights should Isaac or Boyd or even Derek show up in this place.
“You don’t seem like anyone who would get into trouble, so now you’ve got me even more curious. What kind of trouble could you have *possibly* gotten into in your world?”
Sure, some people would look at her and never even *think* that she was an epileptic human at one point, but Erica didn’t do it to be judgmental or assuming. Erica was of the mind that if you never asked, the answer was always no or you never learned anything. Emily seemed interesting to her, and with the circumstances of trouble she’d already alluded to, she was becoming more interesting by the second.
Emily raised a brow and shrugged a little. She wasn't exactly jumping at the chance to get super detailed in everything that went on back home with A, but she could still get into trouble all on her here and there. There was The Jenna Thing and her years in college that attested to that. Still, she'd really only told Sara any specifics about what happened with A and a handful of details here and there with other friends. Ever since Mona had left Atlantis, the subtle reminders of her bad memories of home crept back into her mind less and less.
"Rosewood was sort of a small town," she started. "Trouble is easy to get into when you live in a place where everyone mostly knows everyone else or they know someone in your family or whatever. High school girls can be serious bitches?" She said with a smile.
"My friends and I were stalked for a while, but we eventually figured out who was behind it all." The A ordeal was a lot more complicated than that, and technically they figured out who A was multiple times, but that was way too much to get into right now. Kona was starting to run around again, and Emily scooped her back up in her arms.
High school girls can be serious bitches…
Yeah, Erica had lived that one on both ends of the spectrum. She’d been picked on for years because of her Epilepsy. Made a pariah and an essential verbal whipping girl.
But then Derek had given her The Bite. It changed her. Cured her. And it she reveled in it so much that she out did every single girl who’d been mean to her. She turned it around on them and made them the victims. And she’d loved every second of it. To the point where some of them actually stopped bullying other students.
“Trust me, that’s one fact I am definitely aware of,” she replied, simply, running a hand through her hair and smirking.
Stalking, though, that was a bit much. She’d hated being stalked both times it happened. She couldn’t imagine being normal and being stalked. It had been nerve wracking enough as a wolf. Those heightened senses she loved so much weren’t always fun all the time.
“You and your friends must be some type of Scooby Gang if you figured it all out,” she replied, reaching out to scratch the puppy behind the ears once Emily scooped her up again.
"Maybe," Emily said with a small smile. She was pretty sure that Fred and Velma would have figured out who A was a lot faster than she and her friends did. Then again, it hadn't helped that there had been multiple people who had taken up the mantle as A, Big Red, Uber A... whatever. There had been many different people who had tried coming after her and her friends over multiple years. It had been such a mess, but thankfully it wasn't anything she'd had to worry about in Atlantis.
Kona started to get restless in her arms after a few moments, so she finally plopped her back down on the ground but not before latching the leash to her red collar to keep her from trying to run off after a seagull, crab, or a shadow. You never could tell with the pup sometimes.
"I think I ought to get going. I'm meeting my girlfriend later tonight, and I need to wash off this monster before she brings the beach back with us," she said and rustled the dog's sandy head.
"It was really nice meeting you, Erica," she smiled. "Stop by Coffee Me Better sometime, and your next order is on the house."