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[sunbaked_baker]

It's one of those Spring days. One of those days when the sunlight is bright and warm upon your face, but the breeze is cool and refreshing. When the trees' first leaves are still that impossibly bright green, still just beginning to unfurl and turn to follow the sun. The grass is soft and clean under one's feet, and the garden plants are starting to wake up and get down to some serious growing.

And there is a Sunshine, feeling better - feeling more herself, certainly - sitting on a stone bench in the lee of one of the blossoming cherry trees. Her head is tilted to rest lightly against the tree trunk, her upturned eyes partially closed. The morning sun warms her back and shoulders, but the rest of her is dappled with the shadows of the blossoms above her, fluttering in the breeze.

If one were feeling generous, one might say she is meditating, or practicing mindfulness, or something high-minded like that. A cynic (or someone who knows her) might remark that she's probably fallen asleep. With more accuracy, one might say that Sunshine is just letting herself be, at the moment. Not thinking or worrying or trying to accomplish anything. Just soaking in the sunlight and existing, for a while.

It's very easy, when she lets herself unfocus, to let her gaze drift into the more visionary depths of her Dark Sight. At the moment, Rae is following the cascade of little sparks following the veins in each flower petal, basking in the tree's delight in the warm light of the Spring sun, the way its branches stretch and reach for it with every fiber of their being, and the tree's trust in the strength it draws from its roots, spreading, searching, down in the darkness under the earth.

It is occasionally good to be reminded that one can be pulled both ways and still sometimes, somehow, find peace.

Comments

[man_without_fear]

Matt is a study in the opposite direction. There is a storm of frustration and worry tangling him up on the inside and he's as close to roiling with anger without actually being angry on the outside as one can get.

He would be, if there were a target for it and an action he could take towards physically expressing it, but without either of these things his ire stays locked down and festering.

He's been sick the last week and spent days in his room waiting for the hallucinations he's heard about to take hold, but in the end all he had was a cold that played hell with his senses.

It's abating now, and he can finally use his nose and ears again now that his sinuses are clearing up. The time shut away may have helped him break through the illness, but it did nothing for his restlessness over being Bound. With still no door leading home he uses the other exit from the bar and winds up outside.

The cherry trees are a new surprise. His senses are returned to about eighty-percent, but he still has the cane with him as he walks amid the blossoming trees; trying to distract himself from everything else going on within him.


[ooc: Ack, instant slowtime for a few hours, sorry! I've got to head to the dentist :( But, wanted to tag before I did. <3]

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine's breathing is slow and even, her heart rate calm. The lingering illness is still fading from her, a slight soreness to her lungs remains, and her nose is still slightly raw from going through a multitude of tissues. But all other signs of illness that could be scrubbed and scoured away have been; time and sunlight will take care of the rest.

She lets her gaze drift down from the multitude of glimmering flower-shadows above her when she hears footsteps approaching. Matt, with his shadows roiling in restless tangles of red and black. Frustration and worry and bitter anger dammed up inside without a convenient outlet. Pressure building in unseen pipes. Never a good thing. The texture of his shadows suggest he is recovering from illness, as well, which she can be sure didn't help.

"Good morning, Matt Murdock," she muses, unfocused, her Sight following his shadows rather than resting upon his face. "I'm afraid I may have gotten you sick."

(ooc: No worries! <3! I'll be in and out until around 10pm CDT tonight, then'll be around more reliably until a little after midnight or so.)

[man_without_fear]

He's dressed down again today, this time in blue jeans and a grey sweatshirt with a white t-shirt on underneath. His tennis shoes scuff on the dirt and crush down the new spring grass that's starting to sprout, and his cane keeps up a steady 'tap', 'tap', 'tap' cadence.

The cherry blossoms are fragrant, but in a mild way. Their scent permeates the air, but it's a pleasant fragrance and Matt finds he rather likes it.

Distracted by the new flora and his own inner agitations he's trying to keep at bay, he almost doesn't pick up on the familiar heartbeat nearby until Rae speaks.

Stopping beneath one of the trees he turns his head towards her voice and finds a smile for her.

"Good morning, Rae. Or, at least I hope it's you," he teases lightly even as he takes her in, assessing her health and finding good signs that she's on the way to being well. The calmness of her heartbeat doesn't go unnoticed, either, and he's glad to hear it after reading a tiredness there so often before.

"I'm fine, getting on to better, at least. Given how many people who've been sick around this place I can't really blame you."

[sunbaked_baker]

"It's me," she replies with a slight smile, her head still leaning against the trunk of the cherry tree. Her tone remains unfocused, musing. In another person or circumstance, she might sound drunk, or merely drowsy. In reality it is more the purposeful unfocusing of one trying to see the reflection on a glass rather than through the glass. "Or it was me last time I checked, at least."

"I'm glad you're getting better too," Rae murmurs, her Dark Sight following a particularly bright red eddy in Matt's roiling shadows. "Though the main problem remains, doesn't it? You are still Bound."

[man_without_fear]

Matt cants his head, reading the slight distance in her voice for what it is. He doesn't know about her Sight, but he knows all about shifting focus to perceive the world in a different way. Foggy sometimes calls him on 'spacing out', but Matt knows there are many ways to 'see' things around you, and sometimes that calls for a little distracted listening.

He's not sure what Rae has her attention on, but he opens his senses a little more to try to pick up on anything he should be aware of.

The question causes a spike of aggravation, though it isn't directed at her. His grip tightens a bit on the top of his cane and he nods, "Yes. Apparently I haven't found what I'm here for, yet."

[sunbaked_baker]

"I'm sorry," Sunshine says. Her heart rate remains the slow, steady pulse of a body at rest, her back warmed by the sun while the rest of her lies in shadow. Her breathing is deep and slow, almost more like one who is asleep than awake. Her gaze remains on him, but not still, looking more at his shadows than at him directly. Sometimes, especially when she is already a bit spacy from cold meds, it's a long way back from the deeper, more visionary end of her Dark Sight. "It's easier to find something when you know what you're searching for. Sometimes you only know it when you see it."

[man_without_fear]

His mouth quirks in a bit of a smirk, not above finding humor in the irony of a blind man not seeing something.

He feels like she's studying him and it causes him to shift his weight and force his posture and hands to relax a little. Considering their surroundings he nods to a tree near hers.

"Mind if I sit?"

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine squeezes her eyes shut and blinks hard, shifting on the stone bench - affected perhaps by the power of suggestion upon seeing him consciously shift his weight and posture, or the awareness that she's perhaps making him somewhat uncomfortable - with the deep inhale and momentarily held breath of one trying to wake oneself up.

"I don't mind at all," she replies, making the effort to focus, to retreat from her Dark Sight. "There's a bench..." But some part of her mind still not yet fully in the daylit world suspects he probably already knows. Gods, Sunshine, you'll know it when you see it? Really? Good going, Seddon. "I apologize. I'm not quite thinking clearly yet today."

[man_without_fear]

Matt smiles and shakes his head, dismissing the apology and accepting the invitation to the bench.

Sitting down, he rests his cane between his knees.

"You seem... relaxed," he says after a moment of searching for the word.

[sunbaked_baker]

She smiles slightly, looking up again at the boughs of pink blossoms fluttering overhead - their sun-dappled petals not looking wholly normal to her, even now. "Just mulling over some inadvertant life lessons from an aspiring starlet from the late nineteen-thirties, and a piece of advice from a cherry tree."

"I feel relaxed, though perhaps that is just the relief of making a decision. Doubt and second guessing hasn't had time to set in yet."

[man_without_fear]

Matt tilts his head at her, smiling at how nonsensical that sounds, but only because she is.

"Delysia made an appearance?" he asks, feeling some guilt for not being there to help the hallucinating Rae as he'd promised to try and do.

Wondering at what the lesson was, he can feel there's a weight in her next words and his expression turns questioning. "Decision?"

[sunbaked_baker]

Odd as the words might sound, she meant them when she said them.

Rae gives a faint laugh, little more than a slight exhale with a catch in it, wondering how to explain. "When the flu is at it's worst, the hallucinations are quite stable for periods of time. A few I had... we're practical. Lois knew she couldn't be out there putting her co-workers at risk, even if there were a story to chase. Delysia, not so much. She doesn't like being alone. She got her rehearsal in. Serenaded the bar."

"She was..." Rae winces slightly looking for the words. "Ever hear a story and wonder why the characters make such foolish decisions? Approached from the outside, a spectator or reader, the shape of events in the story is easy to determine. We can make snap judgements about what they should do while the characters are waffling about what to do or making bad decisions." Sunshine is slightly worried that she might lose her point, trying to figure out how to explain it.

"Delysia is... terrified of losing the life she has grasped for herself. Her hold on that life is tenuous, and always at risk. But she is torn. Nick is powerful and abusive, but with him she has a beautiful place to live and a steady job. Phil is rich and is offering her a chance at stardom, what she really wants, but is using her desperation to his advantage. She knows it, but feels she has to go along with it anyway. For the sake of her future."

"And Michael... Is penniless, serving a short jail sentence, is her oldest friend in the world and perhaps the only person who actually knows the real her. And he wants her to marry him and run away to New York to try their luck there, together. She would have to throw away everything she has been able to build for herself, every little bulwark against ever grasping poverty and the life she left behind when she decided to live the life of a person named Delysia LaFosse rather than Sarah Grubb, a steelworker's daughter. And she isn't ready to commit, to risk the life she's built for the sake of the life she might have. She's delaying and avoiding making the decisions she'll have to make eventually..."

"And... When I woke up as myself the other day, when the fever first broke, I was wondering immediately how she didn't know Michael was the answer, that she should shed the fiction and security of Delysia and build a life under her own name with Michael, however insurmountable the risk - that's how all good stories work, right? - and then I realized that... though the details are different, I've been doing the same thing as her, this past year."

[man_without_fear]

Matt listens as she speaks, nodding her to continue when it seems she seems to hesitate a little.

The story she tells sounds like an uneasy situation, but he's more struck by the depth and detail of it, considering it's all part of a hallucination she had while sick.

When she gets to the end his chin lifts, his attention sharpening from the story of this stranger to Rae and her decision.

"Which was?" he prompts, mostly sure she hasn't been waffling between three men and that the similarity lies elsewhere within the story.

[littlegreycells]

Poirot has taken a walk to admire the cherry blossoms. Such flowers were not to be seen in London, or in Europe in general, so it is something he wishes to see, to admire.

And then there is a familiar face. The charming young woman he met a few days past. Only...her hair seems different. As does her clothes. As if she is pretending to be a woman not of his time but the times afterwards.

"Mademoiselle LaFosse?" He does not say it loudly, in case he is wrong and she is not his new friend.

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae drifts back from her reverie, eyes somewhat unfocused as she blinks at the small, neat man addressing her by the name...

"Ah," she murmurs, her gaze clearing. "I'm so sorry, sir, but I am not she." The face is the same, the hair the same apart from being pulled back in a utilitarian ponytail, the clothes, decidedly modern. The accent and manner of acting, also quite different. "You must be Monsieur Poirot. I'm apologize for the confusion. My name is Rae Seddon, not Delysia LaFosse."

[littlegreycells]

Poirot stares for a moment. "But you were she I spoke with? Why did you do such a thing?" He's not angry, but he isn't happy either.

[sunbaked_baker]

She winces, apologetically. "It isn't something I would do deliberately, I assure you."

"Every year or so, a localized epidemic comes through the bar, and people fall I'll with something like the flu, but with a significant additional symptom. Vivid hallucinations that one is someone other than oneself. One might believe one is someone of a completely different temperament, from a different world and time. As I was with Delysia, this past week. I myself have never been to London, but in my memories Delysia remembers it vividly."

[littlegreycells]

Such a thing, it is hard to believe.

But he is dead and in a strange afterlife. So maybe such a germ would exist in this place. And there is no reason for this woman to fool him so, and then drop the charade.

"And you cannot sing, either?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"Not well," Rae admits, apologetically still. She is sorry to disappoint him. Delysia had liked him.

She adds, with a lightly wry smile, "I can carry a tune all right if I get a good grip on it first, but nothing to write home about, certainly. I'm a baker by profession, specializing in pastries and cakes and breads worth writing home about."

[littlegreycells]

"It is a pity that you do not sing. You...she?...was a singer most excellent who reminded me of other times.

"But," he adds with a small but growing smile, "a baker is also most appreciated. Do you make the creme brulee, or the croissant, or the baguette?"

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine chuckles, appreciating the hopeful question. "I do indeed, all of those and more."

"Delysia was... is... I'm very glad you enjoyed her singing. She has such great ambitions." Rae hesitates, trying to figure out the right words. "Sometimes the hallucinations the flu brings are so vivid and detailed... Like an entirely different person's life has been plunked down behind one's eyes. I don't know if Delysia is a real person, living out her dream in an actual world, or not. But I like to think she is."

[littlegreycells]

"Perhaps she is a soul wandering, in the afterlife but not in a body, seeking to finish life, or an echo of life." He pauses. And smiles softly.

"I apologize if I get too metaphysical, mademoiselle. It comes with the end of life, with the state in which I am.

"Though I do not ask if you are still among the living or a soul in the beyond. Or, it would seem, your name."

[sunbaked_baker]

"Perhaps she is," Rae muses, then smiles at him. "Though Im not sure. My memories of... being her are somewhat jumbled, but they feel unfinished. I hope she did accomplish her dreams of being a star. Her hold on the life she had built for herself was so tenuous."

Rae knows the feeling.

"For my part, I am still alive." Despite the efforts of many vampires. "And my name is Rae Seddon, though most call me Sunshine."

[littlegreycells]

"Then I am pleased to meet you again, Sunshine." Though it seems odd to call one's self that. "And I do hope that somewhere, she has achieved what she seeks. And that you do as well, as long as you have life."

[sunbaked_baker]

"Thank you," she says, genuinely. Rae hopes beyond all hope that she accomplishes what she seeks to do before she dies. Much depends on it.

"It is good to meet you as well, Monsieur Poirot, as myself this time," she smiles. It is a much more assured smile than Delysia's. Not an actress's smile, so coquettish or flirty, but a smile as true and honest and warm as well-made bread.

"May I ask what you did in your world before you came here?"