bigapplesauce | The pretty Rain from those sweet Eaves / Her unintending Eyes [closed]

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The pretty Rain from those sweet Eaves / Her unintending Eyes [closed]

Well, rain isn't the worst thing that could have happened. This was meant to be the day Daine helped her set up the new hive, and it wouldn't be impossible in the rain, but it doesn't feel very welcoming, and it wouldn't allow Bee to spend all her time up on the roof like she would wish. And no one would want to come up to join her! That wouldn't do at all.

She'd sat in her apartment for a while, picking at the book Spike gave her, alternately pouting at the rainbeaten window and staring glumly at the ceiling - wondering if she should try to foist her company on one of her new friends - before she finally decided to snap herself out of it on her own. Which is how she found herself in the park, in the downpour.

Shoeless and armed with an umbrella she just bought from a convenient little sidewalk kiosk, Bee marches through the puddles, enjoying the smell and sound of rainfall, willing herself to feel better. This is certainly preferable to sitting inside. And if the weather clears up tomorrow, then she can set up her hive, and all will be well.

There aren't as many walkers out as usual, given the conditions, but it's not too long before she gets a glimpse of the telltale Rift-patterns - another rifty nearby. She focuses her gaze, seeing a young woman walking a dog - oh, how sweet, wearing a matching raincoat and little boots! Bee's delighted by the sight, so she comes a little closer, focusing on the dog, and - no, no, not a dog at all. It came through the Rift as well - and it isn't of this world. She stops and frowns intently. What on earth?

She comes a little closer, deeply curious, discerning scales and teeth beneath the raincoat, and...

A name flashes through her head: Quarkbeast!

Suddenly she remembers her dream - so real and so eventful, so many people she'd met! And the little man, Aglet, who told her about his friend and her Quarkbeast, who eats metal - what was her name? Jennifer? Yes, Jennifer.

No amount of practiced social grace and keep Bee from hurrying up in excitement and exclaiming, "Are you Jennifer?" to the unsuspecting fellow rifty.

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"Huh!" Bee purses her lips for a moment, thinking this over. "How funny. So it's similar but quite different." She hesitates. She can see Jennifer started out lonely, and doesn't want to delve too deep in cause that's a difficult subject. Instead she says, "What do you do now?"

"Paperwork, still." Jennifer can appreciate the irony. Then again, she's very good at navigating needlessly complex bureaucratic nonsense. Compared to what she's used to, Romac's system is a walk in the park (and on a nice day, too). "I help process new arrivals, mostly on the back end."

She glances curiously at Bee, then asks, "What about you? How long have you been here?"

"Oh," says Bee politely, and not without a little caution. So Jennifer actually works for Romac. That makes this a little trickier. Bee doesn't get the sense that Jennifer means any harm - she's probably only doing the work, not really part of the system. But she can't know how they'll react to learning her affiliation.

"Not very long," she says. "A little over a week now." Maybe she can avoid naming the faction?

Fortunately for all parties, Jennifer isn't inclined to pry - especially after learning how new Bee is to the city. She doesn't recall seeing the woman's paperwork, but it might have been processed by someone else. And if she wasn't found by Romac, well… the thought of inviting a rebel over is a little unnerving, but one week is a bit quick to have been brought into the fold. Meeting Aglet in a dream and wanting to visit him is a more plausible scenario than 'shiny new rebel spy.'

Rather than ask about factions, Jennifer says, "I didn't realize you were so new." Her inclination is to apologize - that's standard for new arrivals - but if she's been here a week, she's probably tired of hearing it. "How are you getting on?"

"Quite well, as a matter of fact!" says Bee with pleasure and mild relief at not being asked her allegiance. "I kinda like it here. I've made lots of new friends, and I'll be able to set up some beehives soon. That's what I used to do back home."

Hm - better not mention where the beehives are being set up. And who any of her friends are! This is tricky. And it'll be worse if they find out later and think she was lying to them. She makes up her mind to tell them who she is, but only after they've gotten into the apartment. Once they're all settled and acquainted, she'll find a way to admit it. It's only right.

"I know most people want to go home," she says, "but... I'm enjoying myself so far. It's a new adventure."

Well, that answers the question of what Bee does for a living. Before she'd realized how new Bee was, Jennifer had wondered what had her out and about at such an hour on a weekday - especially with the weather so miserable.

"I didn't know you could keep bees in the city." Not that it's a subject she's given much thought - or any thought, really. "How many hoops do you have to jump through to get something like that set up?"

She smiles at Bee's refreshingly optimistic take on being dimensionally relocated as they leave the park, then shifts a bit more focus to the sidewalk they're traversing. The pounding rain makes it a little difficult to tell if there's broken glass or anything else unpleasant ahead of them, but she doesn't want Bee stepping on anything easily avoided.

"Not as many as you might think," says Bee, keeping a careful eye on the sidewalk as well, not so much out of caution but simply out of habit. "It was fairly easy, really. You have to get permission from the Department of Health or something like that, and make sure there's a water source."

She notices Jennifer watching the ground and says, "Oh, don't worry about me. I almost never wear shoes. My feet are tough - and I know what to watch for." She smiles encouragingly.

That sounds almost unbelievably straightforward… but perhaps it isn't that surprising. Bees are a lot less complicated than new arrivals from other dimensions, and barring allergies, there isn't much about bees anyone could find objectionable.

Jennifer glances over, a little sheepish at being caught out despite the fact that she wasn't doing anything embarrassing. "Got it," she says, before adding, "I'm used to watching out for the Beast, too; he picks up all sorts of things if left to his own devices." Said tendency is demonstrated a moment later as the Quarkbeast spies a crumpled Sprite can in the gutter and angles over to crunch it up with noisy enthusiasm. "Cans are all right," Jennifer hastens to clarify, "so long as he doesn't eat too many in one go."

Bee laughs delightedly as the Beast crunches up a can with no difficulty. "And he's cleaning up the litter," she remarks. "What a good boy." Looking back up at Jennifer she says, "How lucky he came through with you."

Jennifer's smile is a little bit pained. Grateful as she is to have the Beast, she still misses her Quarkbeast - the first one. "There's a legend in my universe that they show up to be companions during times of... difficulty. This one appeared right before the rift got us both." She hesitates a beat, then adds, "I had another Quarkbeast before, but I lost him."

"I see," murmurs Bee. That makes sense - she hadn't noticed a lot of concurrence with these two prior to their Rift origin. "I'm sorry." On a whim, she reaches out and gives Jennifer's raincoat-clad arm a little pat. "Are we close?" she asks gently, taking the cue to change subjects.

The Beast glances back at Jennifer and gives its tail a broad wag, and she resolutely tamps down on her sorrow. This Beast is as much hers as the last one was, after all. She manages a more genuine smile for Bee, then nods at a building up ahead. "Yes - this is it."

It's a relief to get in out of the rain, and Jennifer pushes her hood back as soon as they're inside. The Beast gives itself a little shake, wellies squeaking against the tile floor, then leads the way to the elevators. At this hour - and this weather - no one else is around, which is just as well; it means not having to wait for an empty lift so the Beast won't alarm other tenants.

"Well, this will be a nice surprise for Aglet," she says as the lift rises. She hasn't bothered to text him; she didn't want to pull her phone out in the rain, and now they're so close that there hardly seems any point to it.

"Oh yes, I hope we don't startle him too much," says Bee. "Poor dear. The world must seem so overwhelming to him."

She takes a moment to brush her feet on the front rug, but there isn't much need - par for the course, she's drying quickly and the dirt seems to have sloughed itself off magically, not even leaving much trace on the floor. What an odd, handy little thing that is.

She follows Jennifer to the elevators - a bit impressed, and surprise, by the interior, much more luxurious than in her building.

Jennifer steps into the lift and presses the button for her floor with a wry smile. "He's good at getting back to his shelf in a hurry, and I did tell him this walk wouldn't be as long as the usual." She tries to keep Aglet posted on when she plans to return, despite his insistence on pretending that she doesn't know full well that he's sneaking around the place and nicking things in her absence. She's been more than a little tempted to set up little obstacles for him just to keep him on his toes (and get a better idea of where he's actually going), but hasn't yet gotten around to it.

Once she reaches her door, she gives it a few gentle raps with one knuckle - fair warning - then unlocks it and steps inside. She had the foresight to set a towel near the door before she left, so she sets to hanging up her and the Beast's dripping rain gear, and (after realizing with some surprise that Bee doesn't appear to need any drying off, herself) giving the Beast a rub-down with the towel. "Aglet?" she calls. "We've got company."

Aglet has no doubt that Jennifer would pitch a fit if she had any idea how many little modifications he's made to the furniture and cabinetry. It's something of a point of pride that she doesn't, actually; a good borrower hides his tools and his trackways.

He's been tracking the time and knows that she's due back soon, so he's already on his way back to the shelf from where he's been working on his latest project: making a nice little hole in the back of one of the lower kitchen cabinets. Odds are there's nothing in there he even wants (and that Jennifer would let him in if he asked nicely), but it's good to keep busy and to set the place up the way he likes it. He crosses the apartment the way he usually does, which is to hurry alongside the baseboard, ducking under or behind any furniture he comes to. Striking out across the middle of the room would be less distance but is nearly unthinkable.

Her knock comes just as he nears the base of the bookshelf, and he hurries up the back of it in order to be well off the floor when they get inside. He's about to climb out onto his own shelf when she announces company, and abruptly changes his mind and continues up to the very top so he can look down on the beans from a vantage point where Jennifer won't expect to find him. All but holding his breath, he lays down on his belly and shimmies through the dust to peer over the edge and find out just what kind of bean she's expecting him to talk to.

Bee steps in, and is momentarily further impressed/surprised by how lovely this apartment is compared to the one she was given. Perhaps she shouldn't be surprised - being some sort of corporate entity, it's only sensible that Romac has more money to spend on amenities.

She scans around, looking for any side of a borrower hideaway, but true to his nature, Aglet is marvelous at hiding. She could probably pinpoint him if she focused hard enough on his patterns, but where's the fun in that?

"Hello, Aglet," she says, assuming he's watching. "Do you remember me?"

"She says she met you in a dream," Jennifer helpfully supplies from the floor, where she's trying to dry off the Beast's paws without tearing any holes in the towel. She glances in the general direction of Aglet's shelf, but she isn't surprised not to see him there. Whether he remembers Bee or not, his first impulse will probably be to hide from a new human.

Aglet stifles a gasp as the vague familiarity of the woman coalesces into dream-memory. Resisting the urge to stand up and greet her in return immediately, he pushes himself backwards until he can scramble down to his own shelf unseen and emerge from behind the paper barrier that shields much of it from view. He's forgotten to brush the dust off, which will be interesting to explain later when he tries to tell Jennifer about his quiet morning of lounging about on his shelf and Not Borrowing.

"You're named after a bug," he blurts out, not remembering her name but remembering that he'd liked that about it.

"That's right!" Bee beams as he comes into view. She steps a little closer, peering up at him. "Bee. I'm glad you remember me. I was lucky enough to run into Jennifer and I remembered what you told me about the Quarkbeast. And Jennifer was kind enough to bring me here to meet you." She seems to recall Aglet using the word bossy to describe Jennifer, so she's sure to emphasize her particular kindness in this matter.

Edited 2014-07-22 04:27 (UTC)

Privately, Jennifer thinks it's a pity Aglet didn't remember the dream so well as Bee did - then he could have given her some warning along the lines of 'so, I've told another human about you and the Beast.' But Aglet willingly interacting with another human is novelty enough that she's not going to complain.

Instead, she strips off her damp socks and announces, "I need to change my trousers, but then I'll make cocoa." This will give Aglet and Bee a moment to talk in relative privacy. She pads over to her dresser and pulls out some dry jeans, then heads for the WC, pausing en route to grab a chrome bumper from atop the fridge and set it down on the floor for the Beast.

On waking up this morning he'd mostly remembered he was supposed to do something with his phone and that he'd met someone nice. Unsure if it had been a shared dream or not (and not remembering Bee's phone number), Aglet had resigned himself to not knowing and gone about his usual business.

And now, here she is! Bashful in the face of a 'new' bean in the flesh, Aglet lingers by the edge of his privacy screen, not quite coming all the way out. "I don't remember much," he admits. "Mostly that it was a pretty bad dream until the part where I met you."

Bee nods at Jennifer as she goes by, then turns her attention back to Aglet. "Well I'm glad I could help you," she says earnestly. "Do you remember anything else? Like what we talked about... going exploring?"

Jennifer slings her rain-dampened trousers over her towel rack to dry and pulls on dry socks and jeans with a little sigh of relief. Maybe the rain will let up before she has to take the Beast out again.

Said Beast has sprawled onto its side, bumper clasped between its forepaws as it licks at the chrome. Jennifer gives the creature an approving smile as she heads into the kitchen to start making cocoa. She keeps half on ear on the conversation, a little curious to hear Aglet's waking response to the idea of exploring.

Since Bee's here, she might as well make cocoa on the stove rather than nuke things separately in the microwave. She sets a saucepan on the range and starts to heat up some milk, then rummages for the powdered cocoa mix. Now that it's summer, it's migrated to the back of the shelf, but there's still some left.

Aglet does remember, but he was hoping he'd made that part up. "Oh," he says, wondering what it is about beans and being so insistent on taking him outside. She's only just got here! "I don't really remember that," he lies, trying to remember if he actually agreed to anything.

"Do you want to see my room?" he asks too quickly. "Jennifer got me the paper and things, it's really not bad for being so out in the open."

"Hmm," says Bee with a small smile. She can see the lie plain as day, but there's no need to pressure him. He'll come around. "I'd love to see it!" she says gladly. She looks around. "Jennifer? Is there a stepstool or something I can stand on?" She glances back at Aglet and gives him a friendly wink. "I've always thought of myself as very small, before I met you."

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