solstice rpg

Who: Sorcha and Joel
When: early afternoon
Where: Joel's place

Sorcha was only over on the mainland because it was cheaper to shop there than on the island. Eldritch, like many island communities, had more exclusive and pricey shops than it did moderately priced ones, and every penny was going to count until she got a job. So she'd gone to the grocery in Darkwater despite the intense heat, figuring that since she didn't have anywhere specific to be, what did it matter if she got damp with sweat? She was on her way out the door with two shopping bags when she saw it, and one of the bags fell from her grasp, splitting and spilling yogurt, celery, pudding cups and a cardboard carton of soymilk-- which fortunately didn't bust-- onto the grimy linoleum floor of the store's foyer.

The face glowered out at her from the front page of Darkwater's small newspaper... the face of the man who'd cut out her sister's eyes and hung her from a tree in Sorcha's dream. There was another photo of a different man alongside it, but his face didn't ring any alarms. She quickly rummaged in her purse for change, ignoring other store patrons who were also exiting and exclaiming over her spilled bag. She managed to fumble out a paper and cram her items from the broken bag into both her large purse and the other bag before fleeing the store. There was only one thing she could think of, and that was to get to Joel, who lived not far away from here.

( Blood was thicker than time, in some ways. In others? It was hard to tell. )

For Cordelia and Art... I think it's Monday...

Who: Jane and Sean
Where: some trees down by the beach
When: Midday

Jane was off work already. She'd gone in at five, and gotten off at noon, and she really didn't want to go home. Well, okay, didn't want to stay home. Her house didn't have air conditioning. So she'd stopped by, changed into cut-off shorts, picked up the little monster, and called her brother. One of the ones she could stand.

Now she was waiting down by the beach, in one of the few patches of shade she'd been able to find, with the little monster romping around in the sand and sun ahead of her, his little chicken-wings spread and all six legs pumping and tossing sand everywhere. He was almost cute. Well, "he". She didn't know whether it was male or female, but "it" was getting old, in her head.

( Eventually. )

Who: Turlough
Where: His place
When: Around 8 p.m.

An orange VW bug fought the oppressive evening air as it puffed and puttered through residential streets. It slowed to a crawl and finally came to a halt at the mouth of a cracked driveway. Up across a dandelion dotted lawn, the bungalow sats dark.

The passenger door squealed like an animal when it opened, the panel dented in by a brush with a guardrail or maybe a light post some months ago. Rust had bloomed like dark melanoma around the wound.

Turlough unfolded himself slowly from the seat, set his boots on the ground. He stooped painfully to pull a ratty duffel bag from behind the seat before swinging the door closed. As he crossed behind the car he offered a stunted salute to the driver, a kind motorist who took a huge chance on a limping stranger trying to walk his way out of Portland earlier that evening. A miracle, given the state he was in.

( Healing wasn't soothing, it was PAINFUL, and the pain only spread )

Who: Taryn and Trevor
When: Evening
Where: Home!

After driving home from the marina, Taryn parked and walked inside, eager to get upstairs and get her boots off. She was still considering that cold shower, but the car ride had helped cool her down a bit, despite the soft swollen, tingly feeling of her lips from where Noah had kissed her. She was torn between feeling frustrated with how the evening ended, and optimistic because it was obvious Noah would want to see her again, if he meant what he said about 'taking things slow'.

Walking upstairs, Taryn was eager to find Torin and fill him in on all the details, but first she stopped at Trevor's room, realizing then that she forgot to get Noah's number to give her brother. Oh well, that was okay. It wasn't as if she could walk down to the marina soon to get it from him. It would be a viable reason for stopping by, wouldn't it?

( And are you seriously comparing Noah to a chihuahua, Trevor? )

Who: Noah and Taryn
When: Evening
Where: Juicy Java, then Noah's boat

The weather was a pain in the ass. Taryn wasn't pleased by the scorching, stifling ninety degree weather, but she suffered through it for about an hour, tanning out by the pool. She already had a lovely bronze color from Italy, but it had started to fade a bit and she wanted to look sexy for her coffee date with Noah.

She stayed inside the rest of the day, and then around six took a shower and blow dried her hair straight. After a lot of consideration, she pulled on a white, strapless - no tan lines, thank you very much - sundress that skimmed a few inches above her knees, followed by her knee high leather black boots. She tied her hair up into a high ponytail, but let a few strands fall to frame her face. After spending a half hour perfecting her makeup, Taryn knew she looked hot. Sexy. Confident. Older. And she fully expected Noah to tell her so too. Maybe not in those specific words, but he would have to be gay not to want her.

Somehow Taryn managed to get her purse and get out of the house without running into either of her brothers or her parents. She got into her car, released a slow breath and then drove to the marina. By then, the sun had set, the night had cooled off a little, and there was a nice breeze that would hopefully keep from messing up her hair.

( You should know that there's a limit to what I'll do on the first date. )

Who: Sam and Anna Lauren
Where: the beach
When: mid-afternoon

It was another excruciatingly hot day, and Anna Lauren had spent most of it holed up inside her house. She'd slept late, watched some TV, played around on the computer, eaten lunch and started work on the friendship bracelets she was making for herself and Sam B. Finally she got restless to the point that she knew she was going to have to find something, and what that something seemed to be was shifting and going down to the beach. She undressed in her room and shifted to her favorite form, the blue-eyed Siamese cat, and then zipped downstairs and out the cat door. The rocky beach nearest to her house wasn't that long of a walk, and for some reason the heat didn't bother her as much in animal form as it did in human.

Anna Lauren padded over the hard-packed sand, pausing to look up at the seabirds overhead. Hunting them didn't appeal to her in the way it would to an actual cat, but anyone watching her would probably think she was plotting out how to pounce on one of them if it flew low enough.

( peculiar )

Who: West and Mac
When: Afternoon
Where: Mac's house

With Jessica still grounded, West was finding boredom pretty difficult to overcome. He'd played basketball nearly everyday since school had ended, he hung out with his friends, kept up with the errands his mom continually sent him on, and worked but... it was really the same. He missed hanging with Jess, but until she got ungrounded, or just snuck out of the house, there wasn't much he could do about it.

So that afternoon, after waking up, eating and taking a quick shower, West sat down in his desk chair and went through his list of contacts for someone to bug. It didn't take long before he was sending a message to Mac. hey! what're you up to? West had no idea if she was hanging out with M, or what, so he didn't want to sound overly desperate to do something with her right away,

( I've wingmanned for the best! )

Who: Shoel and Sofia
Where: The college nearest Darkwater
When: Mid-afternoon

Shoel was excited. Finally, they were getting out of Darkwater and Eldritch, and getting to the college to find someone to look at her map and the letter that went with it. They were even ditching work and her volunteering position at the hospital, to do it, for the second half of the day. After all, trying to snare a professor in his or her office-- his and her offices, in this case; Shoel had looked up the language professors and the anthropology professors, too, and decided which ones would be the best to talk to if they could-- at night would probably be a pain. They'd have class. Or would be at home.

They were almost there, now. Shoel had a map of the campus on her lap, that she'd printed out at home, and now peered ahead for a familiar cross-street they could turn on. "Thank you again for driving me out," she told her aunt who was, of course, being her chauffeur for the day. She really needed to get her own car, sometime. And license, for that matter.

( In the name of science! )

Who: Jesse and Tayne
When: evening
Where: the cemetery, then the rectory

Jesse was feeling unsettled tonight, and he couldn't face an entire evening of sitting at the lighthouse listening for sounds behind that door. It was still way too warm outside, even long after the sun had gone down, and heat lightning flickered on a fairly constant basis in the sky. Earlier in the day, he'd used a boxcutter he'd found in one of the drawers in the keeper's quarters to cut the legs off of one of his many pairs of faded jeans to create a pair of long shorts, and he wore them along with one of his usual long-sleeved t-shirts. His feet were bare; somehow he didn't worry about getting his feet cut or injured. He just felt cooler with no shoes on.

He'd left the lighthouse with the notion of going to see Tayne, and he'd gotten as far as the cemetery just outside the church before encountering a ghost. It was a young man who reminded him quite a bit of one of the kids in his youth group a while back, and he'd seated himself next to a tombstone to talk to him. It was a nice distraction from the numerous things he had on his mind, and he quickly lost track of time. It was a blustery night, with those flashes of lightning illuminating the sky, and his voice was soft as he murmured to the ghost, who was leaning against him and clutching his arm, although he couldn't feel the phantom touch.

( It wasn't that he'd ceased believing in God or turning to Him for guidance; it was more that, after death, God seemed so, so far away. )

Who: Christian, Jesse, and Gwen
When: Midday-ish
Where: A cafe with outdoor seating by the ferry dock

After a lengthy conversation with himself before he left to go get Jesse, Christian had finally given in to himself and brought the kittens along. Schatten was comfortable in a coat pocket-- yes, he had a coat on, albeit a light one, despite the heat of the day; Christian nearly always wore a coat, if he could get away with it-- and Kummer kept climbing out of his pocket to ride on his shoulder or pounce something nearby or claw up and down his pants leg or otherwise, well... get into trouble. His name was well-chosen, Christian thought more than once along the way, given what it meant.

He collected Jesse with much nervousness, and several more rescues of Kummer later, the cafe where Gwen waited was in sight. "She is on her lunch break," Christian said, for the third time. "You do not have to eat, though she might."

( And suicidal young women. )

Who: Ava and M
When: Afternoon
Where: Ava's house

The day was stifling and overbearingly hot, but somehow Ava and M managed to get her garden cleaned up and watered. Ava was wishing the whole time that she was at Cian's, swimming in his pool. Occasionally she would douse her flip flop laden feet with the hose water to cool herself down, but it didn't help at that much. She was sweaty and thirsty by the time she and M took a break, heading into her house to drink some of the sweet tea her mom had made before going shopping with a few of her friends. Ava had heard about the ferry breaking down from the radio, but it didn't sound like both ferries were having trouble, so M probably wouldn't have any problem getting back to the mainland later.

( How do you define neanderthal, exactly? )

Who: Torin and Emmanuel
Where: the Spencers'
When: midday

How much hotter could it possibly get? Torin wondered as he stepped out on the front porch. The air felt like a wet blanket pressing down on his lungs, and he had not one but two inhalers in the pockets of his baggy cargo shorts. He should probably just stay inside, but he was bored and he'd spied M out working in the flower bed beneath the massive picture window that looked out onto the yard from the formal dining room. His mother had hired M the previous week to do yardwork, which Torin didn't understand because they already had landscapers. Maybe they were going to do the heavier tasks. He didn't know and didn't care, since it didn't really concern him. As he crossed the front walkway, he could already feel the sun beating down on his bare arms; he wore a tank top and flip-flops with his shorts and he felt overdressed. The weather was extra crazy this summer.

"Having fun yet?" he asked once he got close enough for M to hear him.

( elementals=the best )

Who: Ashley and Santiago
Where: Vapor
When: evening

Ashley was now arriving a full forty-five minutes to an hour before she was supposed to be on shift at the club. Being Santiago's assistant was demanding in a different way than bartending and DJing were, and she felt that she needed every advantage she could get. The job had gone relatively well thus far, despite a few hitches, and she only hoped that experience would help her smooth things out. She strode through the foyer, dressed in a gold catsuit that made her skin glow and high-heeled boots, her hair and makeup suitably dramatic. Her new position required her to be noticeable, to command attention, and really she didn't dress much differently from the way she had to DJ. Maybe a touch more polished. She headed for the office area, where she generally stowed her flashy, oversized shoulder bag while she worked.

( You know, Marilyn Monroe once said that if a person couldn't handle her at her worst, they didn't deserve her best. That's a lot like you, I think. )

Who: Jessalyn and Tayne
When: Afternoon
Where: The church

Since she didn't have to work until later that night, Jessalyn decided to take the ferry to Eldritch to visit Tayne. She had no intentions of going into the woods to shift again, not after meeting that mean woman. The day was stifling in it's heat, and Jess tried to stay cool on the ferry ride over, although she was feeling sticky and uncomfortable by the end of the commute, even in her sundress and sandals. By the time she walked to the church and up the stairs, she was sweaty and wishing she had brought a bottle of water. Thankfully the church was cool as she stepped inside and started toward the front. With any luck, Tayne was around and she wouldn't have to start searching all over the island for him. Jessalyn was already imagining shifting into a small animal once she got home and finding the beach to splash around in the water for awhile.

Tayne was around, and he was really enjoying the warmth, since he was sure it wouldn't last. It never did. At least in the church itself, it never got that hot, what with the cool stone and the trees on either side. He was working on respelling the church, since it obviously needed it, currently in the farthest corner from the door. When the doors opened he immediately tucked the little wand of rowan he'd been using into his back pocket, where someone coming in wouldn't see it, and then turned to face whoever it was.

"Oh, Jess! Hey." Well, he didn't have to worry too much about magic with her around. And here'd he'd been thinking of calling her, just yesterday, hadn't he?

( There was a woman in the woods I met last week. She wasn't very... pleasant. )