The Preserve; Sunday Evening

[ihuntkillers]

Skulking about in the preserve might not really be the best idea Jasper's ever had but it'd been something he'd wanted to do for awhile now. Most of this island was a mess of wide open spaces, water and small, dark alleys that were one cigarette smoking guy in a trench coat away from a film noir.

Comments

[rhymeswithtable]

It was an excellent evening for - what? For exploring! Mabel had knitted about fifteen thousand sweaters by now, and Waddles was napping back in her room, so she'd decided to put her adventuring skills to good use tonight by going for a walk in the preserve to check out the little green deer she'd heard about.

So, here she was, armed with a camera and a backpack that was mostly just holding her grappling hook, wearing a sweater with a funny-looking owl on it, and... mostly just wandering around lost. It was dark. Did deer even do things in the dark?

Well, too late for that now. Maybe she could find some other elusive Fandom species of the nocturnal persuasion, like a--

"Hi!"

-- Like an elusive 'guy against a tree.' Those were pretty rare this time of year.

[ihuntkillers]

"I just can't see a place where people are suddenly older and the deer are different colors and delivery men just give you free food could flip itself so severely at the change of a season," he explained. "Doesn't seem possible."

[rhymeswithtable]

There was a long pause at that. And then Mabel shrugged.

"I guess. I kind of figured that if this was the way things always were, people were just used to it. The school seems to be teaching pretty standard summer camp things right now. But then, I suppose the school is a castle..."

[ihuntkillers]

"Are you planning on leaving when the summer's over?" he wondered. "Just in case it does go all normal and boring?"

[rhymeswithtable]

"I..." Mabel blinked. "Don't actually know."

Well, that was super useful, wasn't it?

"Like I said, we just sort of ended up here. Our parents think we're in Oregon, and we can't stay here forever without worrying them, but if we left, it wouldn't be because of 'normal' or 'boring.' Piedmont is pretty normal, too."

[ihuntkillers]

Jasper nodded even if he didn't quite understand the whole deal there. But, he'd been booted to this place through legal means so it was a bit different.

"Were you staying with someone in Oregon?" he asked her. "No one's tried to come looking for you?"