who: open ( @eureka-starters ) where: Ma-le'l Dunes
Insanely early morning walks weren’t completely out of the norm for Levi. Sometimes he’d awake with a start, a dream having disturbed him enough that forced him into consciousness. He could never remember what they were about, although he had a fairly good idea. And then the pain would start. It always began as a pin point in his back, and he was fairly sure if someone were to hold their finger over it, they’d be x marks the spot on a fairly nasty exit wound from a decade and another life time ago. The pain would slowly get less specific and more diffused as it worked it’s way over his entire left side, and it was at that point LJ always found him throwing on a shirt and shoes and hitting the dunes. And he’d walk until it didn’t hurt anymore. Sometimes that was twenty minutes, sometimes it was two hours. He had never been able to get a straight answer on whether the pain was physical or psychosomatic, although at this point he guessed it didn’t really matter.
It wasn’t until rain splattered against tanned skin did he realize just how far he had gone, all the way to Ma-le'l Dunes this time. Despite the time of year, the California rain still had the ability to chill someone down to the bone, so in efforts to avoid it, Levi ducked under the small awning attached to and informational hiking trail board, figuring he could wait it out. He was looking over the landscape, appreciating the fact that it almost looked more beautiful as the rain washed away the humidity that had hung in the air and cast the landscape in a grey-blue hue, when he saw a figure begin to emerge through the gloom, a bit down the trail, seemingly running for what he could only assume was a car waiting for them all the way back at the parking lot. Without thinking about how frightening the idea of a person hopping seemingly out of nowhere, he did so anyways, calling out and trying to wave them down to relative dryness.
