001 - Every time that I wake it's like I only wake into a dream

[want_take_have]

[she dreamt of a picnic.

Mayor Wilkins was there. Happy. Whole. Cracking his stupid, corny jokes that should have made her roll her eyes...except they didn't. There was a nagging sense of deja vu, like she'd seen this before and it hadn't ended well, but they finished their meal and he talked with her and...nothing happened. It was perfect.

She was content enough that she laid back on the grass and closed her eyes, just enjoying the breeze against her face and the fact that, for once, she didn't have to be on edge.

When she woke, she could still feel the hint of that breeze. An illusion, of course. Something left over from her imagination, because you didn't get wind in prison cells. She kept her eyes closed though, trying to pretend, because she wasn't quite ready to let it go...except there was a dull ache between her shoulder blades that wouldn't let her fully relax. Finally, she swore, grit her teeth, and opened her eyes-





...And stared.

It takes a few minutes of quietly freaking out before she finds the journal, and a few more before she gets ahold of herself enough to attempt to use it. She was from Sunnydale...She could handle screwed up. She'd figure it out as she went. Right?

When she actually speaks, she sounds pretty chill, especially to anyone who doesn't know what she sounds like when she's wigged.]

So...not saying I totally buy the whole "this is real" thing, 'cause this is all kinds of messed up...but pretending I did...where's a girl gotta go to get a hard drink around here?

[because she really, really needed one]

Comments

1/??

[herotypical]

[ that. voice. ]

[voice]

[thedicearecast]

Good Spirits. The bar.

[Given the season, Amelia only pauses for a moment before she adds:]

Need directions?

[voice]

[simplestgift]

Any number of places. As I am sure someone has recommended Good Spirits--an excellent alehouse--I might as well recommend Cloud Nine. It's a night club and I didn't think of the name, but I do seem to be running it at the moment.

[voice]

[godbent]

I actually recommend getting tea before a hard drink, so I'll put something in for that one - Celsius Tear. It's even above the Welcome Center.

[snikting]

Good Spirits. There's another place, but if you're wanting to drink to believe, that's the best place for it.

[Hell. It's where he is now.]

1/eh

[jewitch]

...

[voice]

[cop_an_attitude]

All too real, I'm afraid. Lucky for you, there's more than one place here to get a hard drink, but it sounds like that's been covered.

Need any help? I take it you woke up close to the village.

[Voice/Let me know if the first-person prose is a problem]

[quicktoanger]

Another evening of browsing the journals, and another face new to town. I managed to catch her pretty quick after she asked, even.

She didn't ping my celebrity radar. Still, anybody who gets stuck in this hole deserves directions to the freaking bar, if nothing else.

"It's a nice little place called Good Spirits. If you can find the plaza, it's just a little ways from there, near the fork in the road."

I paused.

"And I'm sorry to tell you this, ma'am, but that thing where you pretend it's a dream never works for long."

[hisdarkmark]

"All kinds of messed up" is very, very much an understatement. Check Good Spirits. Or Seventh Heaven. Or Cloud Nine. Loads of people have a tendency to want a quick fix.