(Untitled)

[themanclion]

He will never understand this place. Time moves in ways it bloody well shouldn't. It's only been twenty minutes since he was last here, only now it appears to be Christmas, if the decorations are to be believed.

He walks to the bar. 'You're tryin' to tell me somethin', aren't you?'

There is no reply. He waits a moment, then sighs. A pint appears.

'

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[sunbaked_baker]

There's a baker carrying a tray of cinnamon rolls out to be sold.

It's nearly solstice, and Rae is trying to save up some money for gifts and things, but that doesn't mean she can't offer a cinnamon roll when someone is looking like they're dreading something.

She sets one of the cinnamon rolls on a small plate and scoots it over the bar towards Gene. "Everything all right?"

[themanclion]

He looks at it and frowns, like he's trying to place something.

Then he smiles, just a little bit.

'Bloody 'ell. Been a few years since I saw one of them.'

He takes a long drag on his cigarette, and glances up to see her.

'Alright, luv? How are ya?'

[sunbaked_baker]

There are a few new, un-baker-like scars on her shoulders and arms, but nothing major and nothing that hasn't healed already.

"I'm all right," she replies with a smile. "What about you? I don't know how long it's been for you, but it's been about half a year for me."

[themanclion]

'Longer than that, for me.'

He scoops up a bit of the icing with his finger, and licks it. Still promises to taste like heaven.

'Ten years, give or take.'

He thinks the two questions about whether he's all right should answer themselves. He's here, and breathing. By default, he must surely be all right. He's not going to complain about anything else, no matter how he feels.

'These still look good. Nice t'see you haven' lost your touch.'

[sunbaked_baker]

"Hells, ten years?" she shakes her head. "I'd not believe it except it's Milliways, and this place likes to take people saying something is impossible as a challenge."

"Ten years, in any case, is too long to go between cinnamon rolls." Especially those that are roughly the size of human skulls and are edible pieces of heaven. Sunshine bakes to feed people, and to make them feel better. Good, delicious food can help people feel more hopeful, if just a little, even if the world is pretty much torn to pieces. Like the sun coming out after a long, dark, dreary day.

[themanclion]

Where he is at the moment is almost exactly like a long, dark, dreary day. He has no hope in the power of sugar to make it better, but he'll give it a shot. Mainly because ten years is definitely too long to go without cinammon rolls.

He rips a small bit off, and eats it.

'It might not be exactly that. The younger version of me is aroun' more often. This place thinks it's funny t'pull me in from two timelines.'

And it's a sad day in any man's life, he thinks, when he can utter a sentence like that and not be taking the piss. Or drunk.

[sunbaked_baker]

Long, dark dreary days - metaphorical or not - are when Sunshine feels her calling most sharply. Feed people, give them hope, give them a refuge, make the days less dark.

"It hasn't pulled you in from when you were a kid, has it?" she asks, taking a cinnamon roll for herself. "I've talked to some friends here who've met me when I was seven years old, but I don't remember being here as a kid."

"Of course, I spent most of that year really ill, and don't remember much of it anyway."

[themanclion]

The notion brings such a jolt of horror, he visibly recoils.

'No, it hasn't.'

And it better bloody not, either.

He glances down at the roll, and breaks a bit more off.

'What were you sick with?'

[sunbaked_baker]

"It's complicated," she says, shaking her head. "None of the doctors we went to could figure it out. Just... all-pervading lethargy, inability to sleep, and abject misery, with no known cause."

Turned out Sunshine was suffering from the ultimate case of seasonal affective disorder.

"I think, from what I've found out since then, that it was because we were living in a basement apartment. Mom and I were in a pretty dire place, financially, after we left my dad, and it was all we could afford. I had to be taken out of school so Dad wouldn't find us, so I didn't get to go out much. The apartment didn't have any windows."

"And I need sunlight." Like a plant. "When Mom got a raise at her job, we were able to move into an upstairs apartment. I spent months lying in front of windows - doing my school work so I wouldn't be held back a grade - just soaking it in. And after that summer, I wasn't sick any more."

[themanclion]

His face closes down a bit at this information about her father, but he chooses not to touch on it just yet. For one thing, what could she tell him about that subject that would be new? All those stories are the same, in the end.

'I've never heard anyone say that before. An' never heard of anyone gettin' ill because they've been out of the sun.'

Beat.

'...good job you're not English.'

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae laughs. "So I've heard. I've never seen it for myself, so all I have to go on is what some of the local" refugees "transplants have told me. We get plenty of sun in New Arcadia, though I wouldn't mind winter being shorter."

[themanclion]

He can't help feel there is a degree of deflection going on there. Though OK, if she doesn't want to talk about it then he can understand that.

He eats a bit more cinammon roll. It does, actually, help a little. But he's always been a fan of sugar.

'So it's an actual disease, then?'

[sunbaked_baker]

"I don't know if it'd affect someone else the same way, or to that severe a degree," she replies, after a moment. She sounds hesitant, but that is just residual unease from not being able to talk about this in her world. Thankfully, Gene is not from her world.

"I'm actually dependant on the sun, as my affinity is for sunlight. It's where I get my strength, or whatever, as a magic-handler. And why I get to deal with vampires."

Woo. -_-

[themanclion]

He frowns minutely. And for a moment, racks his memories. He genuinely cannot recall if she ever told him she used magic, though he doesn't think so.

'What magic?'

The piece of roll in his hand - he puts that down. Maybe it's delicious for all the wrong reasons.

[sunbaked_baker]

"I don't use magic on my baking, or anywhere near it," she says, quickly, seriously. "I wouldn't."

People back home don't like magic-handlers near their food, either. Usually for good reasons.

"My dad and his family were all magic-handlers. And, ta-dah, genetics. I am, too."

Belated, mostly untrained, and still biased against it, but still a magic-handler.

[themanclion]

He lights another cigarette, and eyes her through the smoke.

'What's it do? I mean..what's it for?'

It does make a bit more sense of escaping from a load of vampires, he supposes. Maybe.