InsaneJournal

You know, Miss Moonstar...
Who: Dani Moonstar, Gandalf
What: Mainly, Dani and Gandalf share a few joints.
When: Today
Where: A small clearing outside of town.
Status: Complete
Rating: PG-13 for casual drug usage.




A park ranger truck was parked in a small clearing beneath the trees, with just the perfect amount of shade. An older gentleman wearing a pink and blue hawaiian shirt and a fedora sat on the wheel hub in the bed of the truck, blowing smoke rings, "And that, my dear, is how I met Janice Joplin."

"I can't believe this," the park ranger replied, while trying to blow her own smoke ring, "There's no waaaay that story is true."

The ranger had flopped into the bed of the truck, herself, not far from the older gentleman. Her cowboy hat - she refused to wear the park ranger one if she could help it - was tilted forward on her head, covering her eyes and resting against her nose.

She leaned back against the cab of her truck a bit further, and stretched her legs out, "You're so full of it, old man."

Gandalf chuckled, puffing out more smoke rings, "Believe what you will. When you've been around the block a few more times you'll understand."

"I've BEEN around the block a few times... how many more times am I going to have to go around it?"

Dani snorted and shifted a bit, then took a nice long drag off her joint. Her experiences with pot could be counted on one hand as of today, and normally she'd kick the ass of anyone who suggested that they smoked it, let alone offered her a joint. But that was last week and this week involved meeting random hippies on their weed farms. Life was funny like that.

And pot wasn't so bad. Except for this growing frustration she had with her inability to make smoke rings.

"... How are you doing that anyway?"

"You have to purse your lips just so," Gandalf demonstrated. "Pretend that you are kissing a fish." He snickered.

"You know, Miss Moonstar. There's as much of this weed as you want, if you forget you ever found this field."

"Hmmmm," Dani sounded like she was going to have to seriously think about this proposition, but instead she was thinking about how to contort her lips in the right position to make a smoke ring.

She gave it a try, but ended up with something that looked more like a really fluffy smiley-face. After she was done giggling about that, she lifted her hat a bit so she could look him in the eye, "You know how much trouble I could be in if my boss found out?"

Not that she really cared. Her boss worked in the local office and hardly ever bothered checking up on anyone or anything unless the forest was on fire, anyway.

"It's well off the beaten path and you only found it by accident," He pointed out. "But I could never ask you to lie." Puff puff puff, a ring, a smiley face and what vaguely resembled a balrog.

"...Rad."

"... You are way too good at this," Dani reflected, as she plopped her hat back on her head. She chalked it up to what she figured was yeaaars of practice, and gave up.

This old man was pretty awesome, though. She definitely didn't want to turn him in. Especially if it meant she could come back here and get some more sometime. You know. In the far future.

"Fiiine, I won't tattle on you. It's not like MY people don't have a long and steady history with various uses of recreational drugs."

Whether her people did or didn't actually have any history with recreational drugs was really besides the point. She may well have been fibbing, but it was a great way to self-rationalize.

Ah. The power of self-rationalization, Gandalf knew it well. He reached over and patted her knee, "Practice. Long years of practice." He smiled at her. He had a great deal of respect for the native peoples of this land. He'd spent several years in the 80s on reservations throughout the southwest, learning all he could. He'd come away with an appreciation of Peyote and a love of native artwork.

Dani definitely believed that. She figured this guy was like... one of those people who went to woodstock and then just never left. She wondered what he was doing out here.

You know. Besides growing weed.

"You sound like the kind of guy that's been all over the place, how'd you end up out HERE? ... and can I get another joint?"

Rolling up another joint, Gandalf replied, chuckling, "I've been here and there. Sometimes I go where I'm needed, or called for. Today, that's here. In this truck." He patted the truck, "It's a nice truck."

"It's a nice enough truck," Dani replied amiably, while taking the joint and lighting it up, "I'd like it better if it didn't have 'I'm a park ranger' plastered all over it."

She really wished she could take her own truck to work. It was rusted and clunky and cranky and had all kinds of issues, but Dani knew every single one of them. That truck was her baby. She'd learned to drive in that thing. She'd learned all KINDS of interesting things in that truck.

"So did you just wake up this morning and say to yourself, 'a Park Ranger is going to come through here today, I should greet her with pot and cookies'?"

"Yes." He replied, then laughed. He was fond of old, rusted things. He did have that VW van after all.

"Well if that's true, where's the cookies?" She was suddenly starving.

"I don't have cookies, but would beef jerky suffice?" He held some up. Where had it come from? He handed it over as a squirrel climbed into the bed with them, "Well hello there."

"Beef Jerky is WAY better than cookies. You're alright, Gandalf." She took the beef jerky and munched on it a bit, then pulled a baggie of trail mix out of her pocket and set it down on the bed of the truck.

The squirrel skittered over to the food and Gandalf laughed, "Friend of yours?" He leaned over to offer the squirrel a puff.

Dani put her hand in front of the joint, "Doom here is my best friend, we've been through a lot together. He doesn't smoke pot, though. He's high on life."

"You named your squirrel Doom?"

Doom the squirrel twitched a little. He wasn't just high on life - there were second hand fumes. His eyes dilated a bit and he flopped onto his back, hind legs twitching. Whoa..his paws were so big!

Dani glanced down at her squirrel and poked him gently, "Yeah, I named him Doom. We rescued him after he had a fall from his nest and he came to live with me and the kittens. He pretty much thinks he's a cat, but when he was younger he'd chitter angrily at me sometimes. Like he was Dooming me. I don't even know."

She hoped he was alright, though. The eyetwitch was pretty disturbing, "You okay, little guy?"

Twitch!

Gandalf put his joint out, "We should probably stop smoking. I don't think there'll be any permanent harm though, but I'd hate to see a mellowed out squirrel." It would be a crime against nature.

"Doom doesn't need mellowing, that's sooo true, man."

Dani felt mellow, though, and that was a really really nice feeling. She put her joint out and gently picked the squirrel up, patting him a bit.

Doom hiccurped.

Gandalf started chuckling, then couldn't stop. He slapped his knee, "I love squirrels."

His laughter was infectious! Dani found herself suddenly laughing hysterically.

Laughter cured all ills. Gandalf was certain there were many that plagued the woman. Laughter would do her good.

It was certainly doing her good right now! She couldn't find the laughter-off button, either, and though she was almost in tears from laughing, she just kept right on doing it.

Gandalf's laughter died down to the occasional chuckle, and a snerk. Eventually he asked, "What do you dream of, Danielle?"

The laughter on Dani's end died down a bit, and she glanced over at him with an expression on her face like she'd decided, again, that he was crazy.

"That's kind of a creepy stalker question, especially coming from... like... this guy in my truck with a hawaiian shirt and a really long beard you know?"

"I keep my beard trimmed." He hmmphed at her. HMMPH.

"It's a perfectly valid question, of late."

"I don't know. I dream about stuff. You know..." Dani waved her hand, "Stuff. Like normal people dream. Bears eating their parents and then stomping through the forest. That's totally normal."

"A normal nightmare perhaps. For many people dreams are doorways to other worlds. Sometimes better places. Sometimes not. I was..curious."

"I'd love to go to better places." Dani sighed.

"So would we all."

"I don't have any dreams like that, though. Just dreams of the past, mostly." she shrugged, and got up, tucking Doom in her jacket pocket along with his trail mix.

"If you ever want to travel through some doorways," He replied, hopping out of the truck. "I know a nice little mushroom patch."

"I'll ... Keep that in mind. Do you have a way that people can reach you besides driving out to your pot farm?"

"You can find me on that fancy net thing," He replied, cheerfully. "I've just learned how to emoticon!"

"I've heard of that thing, yeah." She'd been reluctant to use it, herself. She had a laptop and internet connection, but she rarely used it to surf the web or anything.

Still, this Gandalf guy was alright, so maybe there was something to this that she should check out.

"Emoticons are super serious I guess." she held up her radio, "I need to take this, though. Some idiot kids are trying to start a bonfire."

Gandalf's eyes lit up, "A bonfire you say?"

Dani squinted at him, "Yes, and no, you can't go, because I have to go shut them down and be mean to them."

He laughed, "I should be getting back to the city, anyway. Thank you for an enjoyable time."

"Thank YOU for the pot!" Dani blinked as she opened her truck door, "I never thought I'd ever be saying that."

"We learn new things, every day."

"True enough." She swung up into the driver's seat and shut the door, then tipped her hat at him, "See you around."

Gandalf tipped an invisible hat to her, and wandered off, whistling to himself.