[There's no immediate response, but after a day or so, the original "music?" note is returned with the "yes" checked, circled and underlined, with a postscript:]
( after much deliberation — the next cd is the sweet escape by gwen stefani. a classic.
additionally, in return for her many cinnamon rolls, there is a piece of yellow cake left out for her in the bathroom, protectively covered from troublesome frog hands. ash has resigned himself to his fate. )
gooey butter cake (it’s a delicacy where I’m from) (Missouri) yes ☐ no ☐
[Alia carries the CD player around, wears the headphones around her neck, an echo of the girl she could never have been, music too loud, thrumming in her bones like an approaching storm.
The cake is devoured, there in the bathroom, crumbs left scattered across the counter. "Yes" is underlined, circled, checked again and again.]
Where is Missouri? [Left on a handful of quartz from the lake, water-smooth and glittering white.]
( hehe. ok, well whoever they are, they clearly like sweets. )
It's a state in the United States of America. Almost the exact middle of it actually, landlocked on all sides. I'll try to track down a map. Where are you from?
( this note stuck under a cd of evanescence's fallen. trying to feel out her music taste. )
[The Evanescence CD is absolutely on rotation nonstop for the next several days, loud enough that it’s audible through the walls. Alia also finds a map of the USA in a book, tearing out the page and leaving it folded with her next note (sorry @ whoever that rude twink in the library is).]
Show me. I’m from the desert. It’s not on any maps here. It’s another planet entirely. Do you believe me?
[Then, the same day, another note, scribbled on a corner of paper torn from somewhere, a margin of a book she didn’t like – or, maybe, one she did, to make the sacrifice greater:]
I’m Alia. Who are you?
[This last, with a still-damp water lily, plucked from the pond.]
( snagging a yellow highlighter, ash fills in missouri's shape on the map. he even goes so far to circle the little dot on the bordering side with kansas labeled kansas city, and writes ) Home. ( in his blocky, presidential script.
it, and his following note, are tucked into the cd case of blink-182's enema of the state. )
Ash Colchester, at your service. I like rooming with you, Alia.
( it comes with a lot of frogs, yes, but also a lot of cute gifts. )
[The map is examined, turned every which way, the lines of the area (the state, a method of defining territory that seems laughable to a girl used to thinking in constellations and galaxies), traced carefully. She likes this CD perhaps the best, listens to it eardrum-aching loud as she lounges in bed.
There's no note the next time -- instead it's Alia herself, perched on the counter, meticulously painting her toes crimson, bent close over her task. She's focused, tongue poking out the corner of her mouth, the strap of her white-and-blue pajama top slipping down over her shoulder as she paints. When Ash enters, she looks up with intent, wide-set eyes for a long, still moment, like a deer in the woods.
Then she smiles, all teeth.] You look like I thought you would, Ash Colchester.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Show me more.
no subject
additionally, in return for her many cinnamon rolls, there is a piece of yellow cake left out for her in the bathroom, protectively covered from troublesome frog hands. ash has resigned himself to his fate. )
gooey butter cake (it’s a delicacy where I’m from) (Missouri)
yes ☐
no ☐
no subject
The cake is devoured, there in the bathroom, crumbs left scattered across the counter. "Yes" is underlined, circled, checked again and again.]
Where is Missouri? [Left on a handful of quartz from the lake, water-smooth and glittering white.]
no subject
It's a state in the United States of America. Almost the exact middle of it actually, landlocked on all sides. I'll try to track down a map.
Where are you from?
( this note stuck under a cd of evanescence's fallen. trying to feel out her music taste. )
no subject
[The Evanescence CD is absolutely on rotation nonstop for the next several days, loud enough that it’s audible through the walls. Alia also finds a map of the USA in a book, tearing out the page and leaving it folded with her next note (sorry @ whoever that rude twink in the library is).]
Show me.
I’m from the desert. It’s not on any maps here. It’s another planet entirely.
Do you believe me?
[Then, the same day, another note, scribbled on a corner of paper torn from somewhere, a margin of a book she didn’t like – or, maybe, one she did, to make the sacrifice greater:]
I’m Alia. Who are you?
[This last, with a still-damp water lily, plucked from the pond.]
no subject
it, and his following note, are tucked into the cd case of blink-182's enema of the state. )
Ash Colchester, at your service. I like rooming with you, Alia.
( it comes with a lot of frogs, yes, but also a lot of cute gifts. )
no subject
There's no note the next time -- instead it's Alia herself, perched on the counter, meticulously painting her toes crimson, bent close over her task. She's focused, tongue poking out the corner of her mouth, the strap of her white-and-blue pajama top slipping down over her shoulder as she paints. When Ash enters, she looks up with intent, wide-set eyes for a long, still moment, like a deer in the woods.
Then she smiles, all teeth.] You look like I thought you would, Ash Colchester.