"Oh, what a cutie," Eden said, smiling down at the dog and the woman as she passed. Her intention was to go in out of the heat for a while, but it was hard for her to pass by an adorable dog, especially one as small and cute as this one was. While the woman wasn't familiar, that was hardly uncommon here, with people coming and going all the time. "Is he yours?"
"Apparently," Mikal replied after looking up, a little surprised, but still grinning. It was just as nice to see someone else smiling as it was to do so herself. She'd spent far too long around people who were nothing but miserable. The dog really was a cute one, too, all bouncy and cheerful. "It just ran up out of nowhere, but my name's on the tag, so I guess it's supposed to be for me. I've heard things like that have been happening, right?"
"Right," Eden said, smile turning wry. "That's how I got saddled with a cat earlier this week, but it's not all pets." She was just relieved Grigg was in one piece still, frankly, but not exactly disappointed for herself. She'd never been especially material, and a pet was a more welcome addition to the household than most things would have been anyway. "Seems like everyone gets something."
"Well, my -" Mikal wasn't quite sure what to call him, though, and she faltered, but only for a fraction of a second. "A friend of mine got a guitar," she explained instead, figuring it best to leave it at that, as something simple. "That's about all I've had time to see, though. I've only been here... a couple hours now, I guess." Reaching down to pet the dog again -- decidedly a girl, from what she could tell -- she shrugged. "Apparently it's been long enough for somebody out there to decide I needed a pet."
"This place does that," Eden said with a laugh, moving to sit nearby and offer a hand. "I'm Eden. Your friend already gave you the whole speech, right? The grand tour?" She waved a hand, self-deprecatingly dramatic, and grinned. There was only one person she could think of who'd got a guitar yet, but that didn't mean he was the only one.
"Yeah, he's got me pretty much filled in," Mikal laughed, "and showed me most of the Compound, at least. And, well, everything between here and the beach." That, though, she admittedly hadn't been paying as much attention to, but that was beside the point. Placing a hand in Eden's offered one, she smiled, and shook it gently. "I'm Mikal. It's nice to meet you, Eden."
Eden nodded, smiling, liking her instinctively. There was a softness to her shake, but nothing of weakness. "You, too," she said. "You're settling in well. Got a dog and everything." Few people took it all that well, all things considered. It was a nice change of pace to meet someone who didn't seem to mind being stuck, therefore leaving her feeling less as if she ought to feel stuck, too. There was a strange note of guilt in being the one who wanted to stay. But then, she had nothing to go back for. "Well, if you need any help and you can't find your friend around, I've been here for... god, a year and a half now."
"A year and a half," Mikal echoed, almost incredulous, though hardly unpleasantly so. She couldn't even imagine having been stuck wherever she'd been for that long. The thought only served to make all of this seem more appealing. It was a weird place, to be sure, but there was nothing about it she could find displeasing thus far. Having someone offering to be helpful only added to that. "That long, god. Well, I'll definitely keep that in mind. It'll at least be nice to know more than one person around here."
"Oh, that won't last long." Eden shook her head, reaching out to offer her hand to the dog now. "It's a small place. You get to know everyone sooner or later. At least know of them." She only had a sparse handful of acquaintances, but that was more by choice here than anything else. It was hard not to know people, and in a place like this, there wasn't much else to do but hear all about what everyone else was up to.
"Sounds nice," Mikal said, her smile widening a little. "I really like it so far. I mean, I know it does all these weird things, but..." Trailing off, she shrugged. Trying to explain where she'd come from wasn't something she wanted to do, at least not just yet. She was bound to wind up just sounding completely crazy. "It's not so bad, you know? There are worse places to end up with no way off. She knew from experience. She'd already been to one of them.
Eden nodded. She understood the need to see the best in the place. It was most potent when new, she was sure, for most. For her, she struggled blindly forward, and it got easier to love, knowing it was all she had. "I really like it here," she said, hooking her hands against her knees, fingers twisted together. "Just when you think you're gonna be bored to death, everything becomes a madhouse. Or you remember those worse places."
Boring, she could deal with. It was better to be bored and alive than bored and dead, anyway, and so the way she saw it, just as Eden had said, she would only have to keep that in mind if it ever got unbearable. Besides, she doubted that would be the case. "What sort of things happen?" she asked, leaning forward a little, hoisting the little dog up to settle on her lap. "I heard it's weird, but haven't really gotten any specifics yet."
"Well, first," Eden said, mock-serious, "you show up here to begin with." She shook her head, some of the theatrics fading away, fingers twisting in the hem of her shirt. "And then it's all more stuff you never thought'd happen, unless where you come from's weirder than where I come from. People out of stories you read or watched, just walking around. Or waking up in someone else's body like a bad sci fi movie from the sixties. Or last month, for a month, all this was..." She waved a hand wide to indicate the jungle, shook her head. "Snow."
Mikal wouldn't have doubted that where she'd actually come from was stranger than wherever Eden was from, but even that description sounded a little unbelievable. Some of it, she'd been filled in on already -- Zia had prepared her well enough to see people who were fictional -- but the changing bodies and snow were phenomenons she hadn't yet heard about. She gaped a little, eyebrows raised, but shook her head with a quiet laugh. "I think I'm kind of sorry I missed that," she said wryly. "The snow, not the changing bodies. That's just weird." She hadn't been the hugest fan of snow before, but it was so damned hot all the time where she'd been, she imagined it would have been something of a relief.
"I liked it," Eden said, smiling to herself. "But I grew up with snow, you know? Still, it's good to have the warm weather back." By the time the snow rolled around once more, she'd be tired of the heat again. It worked wondrously well, as far as she was concerned. "Your friend at least mention the dinosaurs?" That had been one of the stranger things to wrap her mind around, all things considered.
At that, Mikal was shocked, looking almost wary. She had no reason to doubt Eden, and she wasn't surprised that there were things Zia hadn't gotten around to filling her in on, but that didn't make news like that any less appalling to hear. "Uh, no," she said a moment later, unable to help sounding a little skeptical. "No, he didn't, I - you're serious? Fucking dinosaurs?" Well, that was one more thing this place had that the afterlife hadn't. There had to be a downside to everything. "What, just walking around?"
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