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[A moment ago . . . ]

There is a young woman standing on the shore of the lake.

She wears a long dress, well but simply made, and of a style that could belong to a dozen times . . . or no time at all.

Both the dress and the woman's hair are wet.

She turns slowly, in a full circle, looking all around her.

"What country, friends, is this?"

Would anyone like to let her know it's not Illyria?

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Viola frowns.

Because.

"No. Some poor number saved with me there were."

Who should really be here.

"But my brother is lost or drowned, I fear."

The emotions are real enough. It isn't as though she's pushing herself to exude. And there's nearly always a catch somewhere. A chink of reality that slices through, even in a single sliver.

"And your name is?"

Edited 2011-08-08 01:12 (UTC)

"I'll answer, though this question's rudely put.

"The Lady Viola of Messaline."

Never the given answer. Never until the end. Not Lady with a title. Not so prudent, not so high-minded, and yet--

Edward braced his chin on his rounded fist suddenly looking at her. Actually looking at her. The clothes. Surely, she couldn't.

But this is so near the beginning, she has no other answer to give yet.

"Pray tell, is this the fashion here? To stare
When introduced? And yet we are not so.
I do not know your name, though you have mine."

"Edward," he said simply. Then, "Cullen."

More suspicious, than interest.
And yet. To meet -- to have -- but no.

He stood up, finally, brushing his clothes from detritus.
"Perhaps, we should find you something drier for you."

She blinks.

They're on a shore.

"My trunks and all are lost beneath the waves."

Edward turned, to gesture toward a building in the distance.

"We should be able to find help there. You'll find their used to it."

"And can I, Edward, trust these words of yours?"

Because she doesn't usually go wandering off with young men she's just met.

Not always, is the most honest answer. But he chooses, "I have no plans to importune your character."

But he's sure Carlisle, Meg, Alice, and Esme would all have problems with him leaving a bedraggled washed up waif of a girl -- especially if she's who she's claiming to be -- on the beach fending through her first ten minutes of Milliways.

Viola smiles, for the first time.

"And what would you say if you did, good sir?"

Still, it's not like she has a lot of choices here.

She'll have to trust him.

For now.

Edward snorted, and there was a slight lift to his cheeks, but no smile. Even if there was a flicker of, even if begrudged, amusement in his golden eyes for a fleeting moment.

"Probably the same thing, but I'd work far harder at lulling you into a false sense of security about my amiable nature toward your disheartening state first." He nodded very faintly toward the place and started walking.

"I'll take you at your word and follow you."

And hope that he's being honest, rather than being very clever about being less than honest.

He doesn't specifically opt to say anything as he walks. Glancing at her now and then, in flickers of movement that fall in the millionths of milliseconds. Especially as even her inner monologue foundation does not change.

He has to ponder insanity.

It isn't like there aren't medical cases...

Her insanity, or his own?

Viola sighs.

"Did not you see the storm, that knocked our ship
From off its course and brought me here instead?
Think you . . . perchance my brother is not drowned.
Perchance he too has washed up on these shores."

It's very . . . optimistic.

Rosalie would say his was proven decades ago.

"The storm didn't come here." Edward shook his head, after a slightly too long pause at her words. "I walked the whole of the shore, before I'd stopped. Aside from the joggers, there was only you."

Not there one seconds, and there the next.

So far, he added. But it wasn't like he could hear anyone else in the vicinity that spoke or thought like her, either.

Viola stops walking and stares at him for a moment.

"That is not possible, what you have said."

"You'll find that is common here."
Her sentence, not her inference.

But he'd stopped, to let her talk. Apparently.

"How can 'not possible' be common?"

That makes no sense at all.

"That's the way Milliways is."

It likes to break down assumption, until you are pretty sure it could do almost anything. Even present you with the choices of changing all of the timelines that led to your life.

"That does not make an explanation, sir."

Or, you know, even come close.

Not at all. He'd agree. It's not better once you understand either.

"I'm aware." Is rather flatly even, without being sharp or annoyed at all. "Yet there is no way to justify the oddness of Milliways without simply living through it. You'll see that soon enough."

Viola smiles in faint amusement.

"And you do not the warmest welcome make?
"You truly seem most out of sorts, I'd say."

"And to think this was one of my better days."
It's more commentary to the air than the girl.

"Warmer clothes was all I offered."
Clarification still without sharpness.

He turned to walk toward the door.

"I did not mean to offer insult, sir," she says, following along behind him.