truth be told, elian had trekked out here on a pathological whim. he’d felt heinously restless that morning, trying to cull a peculiar itch under his skin that’d yet to dissolve, and it had been the day’s good graces and lucid sky that gave him the added incentive to stray beyond his preordained route. he was well acquainted with losing traction, with losing grip on the reality he’d exacted, but there was something new and secular about the way it was all evading him this time. it wasn’t to say that he’d had any sort of jurisdiction over himself to begin with — given everything he’d had to hunker down to, bowed, bent, dogged, the world’s worth of grievances at his back — but he was forgetting the shape he’d been aching himself into. seven months. he had to last longer than that.
jericho was never meant to be a vessel for absconding his troubles, nor a leeway for what he’d done ( or rather, didn’t get around to doing ) and certainly not where he’d intended to linger. it’d simply worked out this way, and elian was still trying to weave himself something worthwhile out of all the threads he’d let hang loose. vertices of a web he’d kept in his back pocket, requiems of people and places — a person, a place — that he was vying to shake off. funny, how you came apart easier in the fever of trying to piece everything back together.
elian had, of course, been up to his elbows in it, this debacle of his, when astrid collided headlong into his person. the initial surprise at the interaction passed quickly under the wrought steel of his usual composure and was replaced by an inkling of unbidden amusement at her demeanour. the articles of notepaper and ebullient inflection of tone suggested very little about who she was, but he’d gathered enough to be interested. ❛ what on earth about me could have been so fascinating that it warranted … this ? ❜
astrid was always one to be drifting to sources with energies she herself could not register, being intrigue or mystery or fear. the small frame that carried this mind was not as strong, however, so taking cover is always the best option upon being discovered in astra’s comfort zone. which, happened to be other’s personal space - shitshitshitshit. Fingers buried themselves into her scrambled papers, bent and torn with words she would later throw away, anyways. the sadness fell on her only at the idea of her observations going unfinished. but with him, astrid had once crossed his path.
stopping in her tracks, astra tilted her head down from the light above, clearly abashed. ❝ well honestly ... i quite thought you knew who i was. a lot of people in this town have a tendency to , uh , be cross with my career. ❞ her chest was booming with pressure, first impressions with a man she had created a whole fictitious biography to describe her study in his person. astrid had known it was unfair, to live in make-believe and never approach her subjects, like she was captured in the idea of them. it was odd facing the male, once known as rhett willis whom plants flowers in too empty spaces and dreams of being someone’s role model and loves the color orange. such vivid lies, she thought, but astra had always made it clear when she was wringing out fantasy words or exposing someone for wrong-doings. her styles varied between the two, but they were always D E F I N E D lines.
❝ i find everyone fascinating , especially the life in this town , ya know ? i feel a duty to document the stories & events & people. but uh , gotta work on not looking like i have mob ties or somethin’ , ain’t it ? ❞ a nervous tick makes the girl almost drop her books again, as astrid tries to let out a calming breath, eyes focused on the distance.
