InsaneJournal

Who: Maya Lopez
When: Sometime during her impromptu getaway
Where: Oklahoma, the Cheyenne-Arapaho reservation where she grew up in the Storybrooke alternate timeline (going back a bit, I know)
What: Two dogs still fighting
Warnings: Just a couple of swears

It's not raining anymore, but water still drips from the trees above her, occasionally hitting somewhere on the back of Maya's neck to roll down her spine like a shiver. The first time she'd done this it had stormed, and when the first drops of water had started filtering through the canopy she'd hoped it would again, but instead it had lingered for a while before moving on westwards. She feels better for it anyway. Her lightheadedness had been the disquieting type that feels as though her mind might stretch into pieces that drift away off on their own, and the rain had given her a little bit of weight back, a connection to the living world that had been at risk of fraying. Now when she breathes she can smell the forest, the wet and the soil and the trees reaching their arms out to drink their fill. Maggie's dozed off and Maya thinks she might have done for a bit too when she first sees the dogs. She watches hazily, interested more in the abstract than the active sense, as they run towards the clearing where she sits. The one being pursued is clearly tiring and it's not much of a surprise when it stumbles and goes down, but by the time the other catches up it's at least had time to rally a little. Not that it looks like it will help. For all that it snarls and stands its ground, its attacker is clearly in better shape. Suddenly she realises where she's seen these two dogs before, and the anger that rises is jarring after the sense of almost floating above the scene. "I know!" she says, hands moving sharp and fierce as they form the words. Not that it matters. The universe doesn't much care for her objections though, and as the meaner of the two dogs - the crazy one, the one that was as likely to bite a hand as take food from it - started to bear down on the other, she grabs up the first thing she could find to throw at it. She'd been hoping for a rock, but it seems there's never one to hand when you need it; instead she finds the crushed-up can of Maggie's dog food that she'd been keeping to carry out of the woods with her. That might almost be better, with the jagged edges. It works, too, and she rises to her feet as the dog switches its attention to her. They stand like that for several long seconds before the stretched thread of her frustration snaps, and this time she speaks out loud. "Get out of here. Fuck off!" The words must break the stillness, because the dog dashes away. It only takes a few moments for the other to do the same, slower and in a different direction, leaving Maya standing alone but for Maggie, still dozing a few feet away. "Fuck," she whispers again, reaching up to wipe angrily at her face. She almost would have preferred to see nothing - that at least would have just left her with a nice relaxing time to re-focus herself. But then, she supposes she had asked. She can hardly complain that she doesn't like the answer, even if she doesn't have a clue what she's supposed to do with it. She's been trying, dammit. She sinks back down slowly, uncaring of the wetness of the ground or the tree at her back. The thought of going back to Tumbleweed is exhausting; the whole town feels like some foreign, far away place she can't even hope to understand. Would it be so bad to just... not go back? Just because no one else has relocated doesn't mean someone can't be the first. It's a nice fantasy. But she already knows that's all it's going to be. The portal is too tantalising a possibility to leave behind for long.