strangetrip | [EP] Lunar eclipse

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[EP] Lunar eclipse - OTA

Sunny was not a natural star reader. Tall though she was for a woman, it wasn't such a remarkable attribute that it played any part in her abilities. Still, Anatov and Sugar Cream has seen to it that she had a thorough education and she could do it. She had a question that needed answering and a night with such an unusual moon seemed like the right night for such an important question.

When the hell are we next getting out of here?

She wouldn't ask about a final escape. She was pretty sure that even if she did have a knack for this that the sky would only laugh at her efforts to answer that question. So she looked for signs of a portal. Of a break from this tedium.

There was a window of about an hour starting just after 8:40 where the moon was swallowed from the sky. Sunny sat herself down in the grass, watching the black and the stars. The night was cool, but still not cold. It was never properly cold here. This was like trying to read a language that you had only been learning for a short time and wasn't related to any other tongue you knew. She could do it, but she had to read it one letter at a time. While the letters were moving.

What was normally a frustration became a thrilling challenge and source of delight. And who knew, maybe she'd actually learn something.

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"Yeah..." Emma couldn't deny it had been awkward in some ways. Or maybe she could, but she wouldn't with Sunny. "But it was good too. I think I needed to see for myself. And it was my choice. Ollie showed up and offered, but if I'd said no, he would've gone." From what she'd heard, not all the ghosts had cared about consent.

She shrugged. "But you know me, always wanting to know. And I'd been in a reading when he showed up, first as the Hermit, and then in the room."

"Polite," Sunny said, approving. "Learn anything helpful?"

"Other than what could have been, or how much terrible this place truly is?" She shrugged. What she'd learned, some of it she was still working through. But that had probably been the worst of it, seeing Jag the way he'd been before.

"The me you knew before is really lucky. Finding the home she did."

Sunny wasn't sure what could have led to the observation of how terrible the inn was, but she could take a guess or two. But given it was threatening to crush her, too, she didn't want to dwell on it. She nodded her agreement. "She always spoke very fondly of her family."

Emma nodded too, glad her other self had had that, and understanding better now she'd met Ollie and seen her with Jag.

"Would it be easier for you, if I wasn't so much like her?" Maybe it was a cruel thing to ask, when she couldn't do anything about it, but Emma was used to that sort of impotence when it came to things she needed to know.

Sunny blinked, visibly surprised by the question. "What does it matter what I feel about that? I should think it's much more unfair to you to have people expecting things of you based on their connection to another person."

That wasn't how Emma had meant it, and she shook her head as she tried to figure out how to explain.

"It's not the expectations," she began after a quiet moment. "You and Jag have both been really good about that." Since those first moments, when they hadn't had any reason to think she wasn't the Emma they knew.

"I don't know. It's kind of something Ollie said, that I really am a lot like her. And the first real conversation I had with Jag, he wanted to know more about me, because while he knew I wasn't her, he didn't really know it deep down. Only the more we talked, the more like her I seemed and it made things worse. And I knew that, and some of it's just being stuck in this place, but I didn't realize, I couldn't realize, how much Jag doesn't let himself be himself around me. And..." Emma shrugged again. There wasn't really anything more to say, but there was so much more than the words seemed to hold.

Oh. That.

"Jag's got a lot of feelings he's trying not to foist on you." An obvious point, but one that needed making. "And he's not good at... not feeling things. I don't have that same road block." Sunny shrugged. "Plus I tend not to associate with people I need to watch every little thing I say and do with, I have to compartmentalize enough. We're fine."

Jag was, obviously, a special case, and Emma hadn't thought it was as difficult for Sunny as it was for him. But Emma also had a tendency to overthink, especially when the alternative was feeling too much. And just because she was used to not being the person someone wanted, didn't make it any easier, especially when the person she wasn't was another version of herself.

"Don't mind me. I'm just..." Another shrug. "A lunar eclipse is a good backdrop for long, dark teatimes of the soul maybe."

Even before Em had finished saying 'don't mind me' Sunny was moving to close the distance between them. Settling by her friend's side, she put an arm around her shoulders and drew her into one a one-armed embrace. "Yeah, that's fair."

Emma's arm fitted around Sunny's waist as she leaned into the embrace. "I'm okay really. And I am glad Ollie showed me what he did. I can see why she'd like him too."

She didn't pull away, but her spine straightened as she deliberately set aside her issues spiral for another time. "Okay. Enough of that. What are the stars showing, or not showing you, and is there any way I can help?"

"Truth be told I stopped paying attention for a while there," Sunny laughed self-deprecatingly. "And I'm not sure how to describe it in any quick and easy way..." Turning her eyes back up to the sky, she had a brief flash of understanding. It was weird how that could happen. Not unlike books in some ways. You could throw yourself against them for hours, and then so much would make sense all in a rush. "Before spring," she said.

"What's before spring?"

Timing could be one of the more difficult things for Emma to read in the cards, unless she was specifically asking about it, and even then, when past, present, and future could all look the same, dates and times got blurred. And Sunny hadn't said what, if anything, she'd been looking for in the stars.

"Our next field trip," Sunny said, smiling a little self-deprecatingly when she realized she hadn't explained what she was looking for. "Whatever it is, whenever it is, it'll happen before the equinox." Time indeed could be the most difficult thing to predict, regardless of medium. A natural star-reader would likely be able to pick it out, but Sunny wasn't about to try to push her luck so far.

"A break from the cabin fever would be good." How long had it been since they got to go to Europe? Emma mentally counted back. Six months. No wonder they were all going crazy from being stuck here.

"I could try to find out more. What, where, when, that kind of thing. Or we could anticipate the surprise of it?"

"I don't know," Sunny mused. "So much around here is routine. It's almost... nice for at least something to be unexpected."

Emma nodded. As much as she liked – okay, needed was probably more accurate – to know more about what was coming, she couldn't deny there were times it was better to be surprised.

"We have a time frame, something to look forward to in the not too distant future. Details can wait."

That made Sunny smile. "By all means, find out if you want to. And then tease me with the fact that you know something I don't until I just crack and ask."

Maybe. But Emma wasn't sure she would look ahead of time.

Unless...

"Maybe. It will probably depend how antsy people get about being stuck here," she admitted. Jag was 'people'. That counted.

Only Emma wasn't sure whether knowing they were going to get another break from the monotony would help, when they couldn't get home, and they were going to get dragged back here soon enough.

Sunny snorted. "People been antsy. It's been pretty quiet since the summer."

"That's why I said how antsy. There's only so much we can take before things implode. But knowing more and not being able to do anything but wait and wait until almost spring..."

Anticipation was a tricky thing. Knowing there was some kind of temporary escape coming in the next couple of months could help. Then when it got to feeling like that time would never get here, maybe find out a little more.

"In the meantime, we're all trying to find ways to hold on. Or blow off steam."

"Ah, and did you have a gauge for that?" Sunny grinned. "Like how on fire everything needs to be?"

"Dani always told me I should trust my instincts." Unfortunately, Emma's instincts weren't always as accurate as she would like. Especially when it came to understanding fiery types.

"Besides, the inn could use a good burning down sometimes."

"Sometimes, yes," Sunny agreed. "Though maybe not right now. I'm good for once."

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[EP] Lunar eclipse - OTA

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