applesaucedream | This is My Island in the Sun [Open to All]

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This is My Island in the Sun [Open to All]

The Rift wouldn't say it's sorry for the fit it threw the other day, because the Rift never needs to apologize. It is (mostly) perfect, and all of its decisions are well reasoned and just. Obviously. But perhaps it has fallen into a bit of a post-tantrum sulk, because this dream is milder than one might expect. In fact, it's downright nice.

The dreamers will find themselves in an archipelago of small islands - most only a few acres in size - connected by narrow strips of sand or pebbles. The surrounding waters are calm. Little waves lap against the shorelines, and no rising tide will cut the islands off from one another. The islands themselves seem to have been lifted from every climate zone on Earth and several from beyond. Some are tropical, some colder and home to hardy conifers, some mossy and boulder-strewn, some covered in multicolored sand and odd, coral-like trees.

Most of the islands boast some kind of manmade or otherwise non-native structure, be it as small as a bench or as large as a pavilion, though there are no houses or shops to be seen. It's more like parkland, just civilized enough for a nice picnic. Some of the islands even have little grills, and a sufficiently motivated dreamer might be able to rustle up some hot dog or burger fixings if they poke around a bit.

And they'll have an extra pair of eyes to help with their searching, because their beloved dæmons have returned… again. Or perhaps they're being introduced for the first time. Regardless, it's the bi-annual dæmon dream party!

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"A walk would be nice," Greta says, because it would - and because she doesn't like to think about what saltwater and sand would do to Angus. The odds of him staying on the beach and behaving himself seem slim, and he has so much fur he'd probably never dry out. As if reading her mind, he grins up at her innocuously from beneath his Aqil hat. "Besides," she says, looking at him sidelong, "if Angus got wet, he'd be a mess."

"Maybe I'll jump in anyway," he says, ambling toward the path. He probably won't make any sudden moves with Aqil as a passenger, though.

"You've a bit of a mischievous streak, I see," says Iman lightly, not sure if she's saying it to Angus or Greta - is there a difference, when one gets down to it? Angus essentially is the mischievous streak, if she's reading this right. She leans into Greta, grinning, and ignores Aqil's knowing little cluck from down below. "A walk, then. We'll see what we see."

It'll be nice. And then they'll wake up and everything will be normal. That's the nice thing about these dreams.

Greta raises her eyebrows and turns down the corners of her mouth in a deliberate and not very successful attempt to hide a smile. "Me? Oh, no." She shakes her head, slow and grave. "I am a good and proper woman; I do what I'm told. As does Angus, I'm sure."

Angus lets out a faint whuff of amusement. "No running off into the Woods or lying to royalty for us."

It's a little odd to hear him speak so casually of things he hasn't witnessed, but Greta's enjoying herself and disinclined to question it. "No, indeed," she agrees with matronly severity. Glancing at Iman, she adds, "So I won't have you dragging my good name through the mud."

Edited 2015-05-06 04:15 (UTC)

"Lying to royalty, you say," says Iman lightly, unable to keep from grinning - it's great to see Greta like this, seems like it's been a long time. "A woman after my heart."

Was that too much? Maybe it was too much. But Greta doesn't ever seem to notice these things so it's probably okay. She can feel Aqil staring at her and she resists the urge to wave him off.

"So what are the chances of me hearing more details about that?" she barrels on, maintaining her grin, though slightly more strained.

Edited 2015-05-07 06:20 (UTC)

Greta stops trying to hide her smile, though it's far more embarrassed than proud. It doesn't make for a very thrilling tale when all is said and done. "It only happened twice," she says with a sheepish flap of her hand.

"Thrice if you count Rapunzel," Angus chimes in, unhelpfully.

Greta gives him a look. "She wasn't royalty at the time."

"So we were just impersonating royalty, then," he says with a broad grin, entirely shameless.

"Wh-!" Greta starts. The question of how Angus even knows all of this is in the back of her mind, but at the forefront are her surprise and exasperation over all his cheerful undercutting. The back-and-forth feels a little too familiar - she could almost be arguing with her husband - but Angus is less... inhibited.

Is this what her husband felt like when he argued with her? Perish the thought.

She sighs. "I only lied to the Prince because he was looking for Cinderella and she didn't want him to find her," she explains to Iman, ignoring her ridiculous dog-thing for the moment. "I was doing the woman a favor." A rather inexplicable favor, or so she'd thought at the time. "And with Rapunzel, I just... needed some of her hair, so I put on a deep voice for a moment, so she'd let it down." Giving Angus a pointed look, she adds, "It was hardly an impersonation." She's still surprised it worked at all.

Iman can scarcely contain her glee over all of this - first at Rapunzel and Cinderella, holy fuck, she knew Greta was from fairy tales, but did she know it was that literal? If she did she'd forgotten, sort of wiped away under how normal and down-to-earth Greta's always seemed, but now there it is - and then with the mental image of Greta putting on a deep voice to get Rapunzel to let down her proverbial, or apparently literal! hair... it's too much. Iman doubles over with giggling.

Aqil watches her dubiously from his perch on Angus' head - if crow's could blush - and looks at Greta. "She thinks you're the coolest."

"You shut up!" she yelps through her laughter, wiping tears away. "She IS the coolest. Lying to princes is metal as fuck."

"I didn't say anything to the contrary," says Aqil airily.

Greta shrugs bashfully in the face of Iman's amusement, though she can't help her smile widening a fair amount. It's rather flattering, such appreciation for a silly story bluntly told. Her smile turns into a sputter of surprise when Aqil speaks, though. This might be too much appreciation.

"I'm what?" she squawks with an undercurrent of laughter, pressing her hands over her burning cheeks. "'Metal'?" What utter nonsense.

And if this is the reaction she gets just for having lied to a Prince, how would Iman react to the rest of it? She turns to give Angus a preemptively quelling look in case he feels like sharing that bit of information, but he's looking distinctly embarrassed. "It all happened quickly," he allows with belated humility.

"Are we going to introduce her to metal bands now," says Aqil with an incredible show of calm in the face of this adorable catastrophe.

"It's just-" Iman flaps a hand, finally reining herself in and straightening up. "Wooo. It's just a saying. Means you're legit."

"Well that's just defining words using more words that you need to define," says Aqil.

"Shut up, bird," she says, unable to even sound irritated. Aqil huffs, but Iman just beams at Greta. "You are cool. You did things most people probably wouldn't do. That's badass. S'why I like you. One of the reasons."

Aqil cocks his head sharply at her. Slow your roll, dipshit.

She swallows and gives Greta a soft, slow-motion punch in the shoulder. "Buddy."

"You're an embarrassment," says Aqil flatly.

"Metal bands?" Angus repeats, taking the phrase as literally as it can be taken - much like Greta, who's trying to figure out what else it could mean, presuming it has nothing to do with the things that hold barrels together or what have you. 'Legit' is similarly unhelpful, to no one's apparent surprise.

But 'cool,' and what follows, are a bit more enlightening, and Greta shakes her head, her hands still pressed over her cheeks. Yes, she's done things most people probably wouldn't do, but she hadn't expected anyone else to see that as a good thing - not necessarily, anyway. She knows some of the choices she'd made without shame or hesitation would make other people squirm; her husband certainly wasn't impressed with her until she'd managed to obtain Rapunzel's hair. Even just speaking generally, most people back home don't smile upon those who wander off the metaphorical path.

How odd to be appreciated for that very thing. Not bad, but definitely odd.

Almost as odd as the bizarre little punch Iman throws her way, and Greta swats back at her with a proper laugh. 'Embarrassment,' indeed. "Well," she starts before realizing she has no idea how to finish it.

Angus leans over to look at Iman, either recovered from his own bashful spell or bolstered by the fact that everyone aside from the crow has abandoned any pretense of dignity. "What are the other reasons?" he asks, a deliberate layer of obnoxiousness not quite masking genuine curiosity.

"Oh, stop," Greta scolds him.

"You wouldn't like it," says Aqil in response to Angus' confusion. When Angus speaks again he fluffs up and practically buries his head under a wing.

Well this is dreadful. Iman can't stop grinning even as the gears in her head grind to a halt, well now what, genius.

"What's not to love?" she says finally with a little laugh. She passes a hand through her hair and halfway dislodges her hijab, which comes off the rest of the way in the breeze. She lets it billow around her like a ridiculous hood. She turns on her heel and carries on walking, hoping Greta didn't catch her blushing. She'd rather like to just walk right into the sea.

Greta's frowning at Angus, which makes it impossible not to notice poor Aqil's mortified reaction to the question. Well, it was a terribly vain question; of course he's embarrassed. She tsks disapprovingly, and Angus has the good grace to duck his head.

Iman, of course, manages to come up with an answer that is as flattering and ridiculous as everything else she's said, and Greta dismisses it with a flap of her hand and an incredulous snort. Honestly.

And there goes her hijab. Greta's seen her without it quite a few times, now, but it's still a jolt. Granted, Iman gave the impression that she didn't take it too seriously... but she always seemed to wear it as a rule until that evening at Wilmot's. Now, Greta watches the scarf billow out behind her friend - who makes no attempt to fix it - and wonders if she ought to be pleased or vaguely embarrassed that Iman doesn't seem to mind if she sees her without it.

Well, she's not going to tell the woman to put it back on if she doesn't want to. "Mind you don't lose it," she says instead, hustling a little to make up for lost ground with Angus shuffling through the sand alongside her. Then, once she's caught up, "Your hair's going to end up all over the place." Not the most graceful subject shift, perhaps, but it was necessary, she thinks. And, to be fair, the wind is having its merry way with Iman's hair already.

Iman shrugs, bemused and sort of touched at the show of concern. "It's just a dream," she says, pulling the fabric down entirely and mussing her hair up further. "Anyway, it's always all over the place, just battened down so now one can tell. That's my big secret." She grins, raising a conspiratorial eyebrow, relieved that things are somewhat back on track now. This is a flirtation level she can handle.

"But you have such nice hair," Angus blurts. Greta looks down at him with a wry smile. He'd only said what both of them were thinking, but it sounds particularly hilarious coming from him, and Greta can't resist adding, "So says the walking haystack."

Angus huffs, affronted. Well, that's what he gets for being so obnoxious a few moments ago.

Greta turns back to Iman, curiosity piqued. "Do you ever put it up or anything? You could do all kinds of things to your hair and then just hide it beneath the hijab with no one the wiser!" She grins, rather taken by the idea, though it would be a lot of work for nothing more than a fun little secret.

"Oh, I mean - yeah, in like a bun sometimes," says Iman bemusedly. "I never put much effort into it. Doesn't really matter if no one can see it." Present company excluded of course. It's not that her hair is some big secret - she doesn't follow sharia law on many, many levels, wearing it is part habit, part personal choice. It's partly a gauge on how comfortable she is with someone, or how much work she's prepared to put into being a certain way with them.

Greta has always been someone she doesn't want to hide herself from. As much as she practically can, anyway. It's a mysterious, novel experience. And it's nice.

"Are you perhaps suggesting something?" asks Aqil, since Iman has apparently taken to awkwardly contemplative silence.

"Well, you could," Greta gestures vaguely, "I don't know, braid it or something." She shrugs. It would probably take more time and effort than it would be worth - certainly not something to do on a regular basis - but it might be fun once in a while.

"Or you could braid it," Angus suggests, glancing up at Greta. "You're good at it."

Greta shrugs again, bashfully. She and her friends used to braid one another's hair all the time; they were all good at it.

Iman draws to a casual halt and turns around, tilting her head first at Angus, then Greta. That isn't something that would ordinarily appeal to her, she thinks - she doesn't have patience to deal with her hair - but... if Greta did it...

"Doooo you wanna?" she says a little sheepishly.

Greta hesitates, mildly embarrassed by how much the idea appeals to her. Her displacement in New York and friendship with Iman have afforded her something like a second adolescence, all her former adult responsibilities stuck a world away. It's grated on her a little, because this wasn't what she wanted, or what she'd worked for, and it feels silly to indulge herself for no reason other than because she can.

But her job and her family are unavailable to her, at least for the moment, and refusing to enjoy herself at all would be just as silly and considerably less fun.

"It's been a few years," she admits. And she certainly hasn't had the time to do anything all that interesting with her own hair in the past several years; getting most of it up and out of the way was as far as she ever went. "But it would be fun." Provided she doesn't make a botch of it, but she doubts she will, and it's not as if there are mirrors here, anyway.

Iman breaks into a sort of dumb grin, entirely (and a bit guiltily) charmed by the idea. Aqil chooses not to say anything.

"Yeah," she says, gathering her hijab up and pulling it off entirely to let her hair roam free. "Let's give it a try."

She leads them onto the nearest island from the little bridge, and settles down into a shady spot near the water's edge, patting the sand beside her for Greta to sit. This is weird, or is it? Whatever. She is going to goddamn enjoy herself and that's that.

Some of Greta's embarrassment dissolves in the face of Iman's enthusiasm for the idea. It's a bit silly and a bit juvenile, to be sure, but there's no harm in it, and she imagines it'll be relaxing for both of them.

And they could probably both do with some relaxation, after the week they've had.

Greta plunks herself down on the sand behind Iman, Angus lowering himself with a bit more care and then stretching out into a lazy sprawl. "I won't try anything too complicated," she says as she starts to run her fingers through Iman's hair, gathering it back into some semblance of order, making sure the wind hasn't blown any snarls into it. "But let me know if I'm tugging too hard or anything."

"You're okay," says Iman quietly, trying not to burn too bright red - even though Greta can't see, Angus could. Calm down, this is a perfectly normal procedure, girls playing with each other's hair. Just don't think about how nice Greta's hands feel and how good she smells no, incorrect, chill the fuck out. Aqil flaps over abruptly, lands in her lap and pecks at her hand.

"OW," she yelps, indignant, then immediately to Greta: "Sorry! Sorry. You're fine, it's just my dumb bird." She tosses him lightly and he recovers in midair, landing back on Greta's dog. "He's starved for attention."

He gives her a reproachful look. Just trying to help distract you. She scowls back at him. Little shit.

Greta hums in acknowledgment, still finger-combing Iman's hair in an assessing fashion - it's a bit shorter than the average back home, but not to the point of being difficult, she doesn't think - when Iman suddenly yelps, and she freezes in astonishment. She hadn't even hit a snarl. But Iman explains a moment later, and she arches an eyebrow at Aqil in surprise.

"Is he?" Angus lifts his head from the sand and peers at the crow perched on his side. "I'll pay attention to him." He rolls onto his back, forcing Aqil to either take flight or be dumped into the sand, and lightly bats a massive forepaw in his general direction.

The two animals are so mismatched in size that Greta can't help but wonder if that's really a good idea, but they also seem to be sturdy enough, so she huffs out a quiet laugh and leaves them to it, returning her focus to Iman's hair and finally starting to braid. Her fingers are a little clumsy at the outset - it really has been a while - but her hands soon remember the work, and she settles into a familiar rhythm.

It is relaxing - surprisingly so - to just sit here by the water and braid Iman's hair. After a few minutes, and without any trace of self-awareness, she ends up humming softly to herself as she works.

"Whu-!" Aqil lets out a startled, half-indignant squawk as Angus dumps him, unsteadily flapping himself over in midair and narrowly dodging the paw. "I'm not-" He doesn't bother finishing the protestation, too engaged landing delicately on Angus' nose.

This is embarrassing to watch. And weird to laterally experience. But Iman is sort of stuck not moving, and Greta's humming is soothing, so she just keeps quiet and sits and listens.

Angus lets Aqil get within an inch of his nose before darting his tongue out obnoxiously, landing a glancing blow on the crow's feet. Greta huffs once, caught between amusement and disapproval, and says, "Behave yourself."

"Oh, hush," Angus replies, wriggling into a more comfortable position. "We're fine."

Greta rolls her eyes, but soon lapses back into humming as she focuses on Iman's hair. It really isn't the least bit complicated, just four loose little braids running back from her forehead and temple and meeting in the back, twisted together to make up for a lack of any kind of ties (which she noticed very belatedly, ah well). But it seems secure enough to withstand the breeze. Greta lets out a satisfied little hum as she gives her friend's hair a settling fluff, then pats her shoulder. "All done. That should keep it out of your face, at least."

Aqil indeed seems to be enjoying his dumb little self, buzzing around Angus' head before landing back in his fur and - grooming it, apparently? What, to return the favor? God make it stop.

She grins when Greta announces she's finished, reaching up to feel the work delicately. "Feels nice," she says. "Thanks." She tilts her head up to direct the grin at Greta. "Maybe you can do this in the real world sometime."

Terrible. No. Terrible and irresponsible. But what's the harm really. It'd be nice. It'd be nice!!

"You made her look dignified," says Aqil with vague alarm. Iman rolls her eyes at him. Thanks so much.

This is the second time Angus has enjoyed a little light preening; as far as he can tell, it's the Done Thing - or close enough as makes no difference. Besides, it's nice and relaxing. He leaves off batting at Aqil in favor of just letting the crow play with his fur, trusting he won't mess it up ~~more than it is already~~.

"But there are mirrors out in the real world," Greta mock-protests, tucking some wayward strands of her own hair back behind her ear. She grins wryly at Aqil's comment, 'dignified' not being a word she would have chosen for the style. It's hardly something a grand lady back home would choose, with their tendencies towards complexity (and an overabundance of curls). But then again, if all Iman typically does with her hair is cover it up, she supposes this could qualify as fancy.

Angus doesn't even lift his head off the sand. "Of course she'll do it," he says drolly. "There are combs and ties in the real world, too. And ribbons."

"Oh, shush." Ribbons, honestly. To Iman, she adds, "I'd be happy to, though. Nothing complicated, but..." she shrugs cheerfully.

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