But I'm counting down the hours and I'm counting down the days

[aheartwithwings]

Characters: Rinoa and anyone
Location: Outside, by the lake.
Time: Afternoon-ish sometime, current
Content: Rinoa's still not sure she wants to be back here, she misses Greece. Feel free to stop by for anything really from being another person who's feeling a little out of place after having been in the past for so long to just wanting to bother a

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[pumpkineko]

Blair stalked through the foliage, keeping an eye out for any potential prey. A bit of movement by the lake caught her attention and she peered out from behind a curtain of grass.

It looked like a bird sitting in an awkward position with its wings folded against its back, but a bird nonetheless. Without thinking twice, Blair leapt out of her hiding spot and latched onto the back of its head.

"Nyeh!" Blair mewed when she realized that it wasn't a bird, but in fact a person. "Sorry about that!"

[aheartwithwings]

That must have been one big bird then!

When something leaped out of nowhere and landed on her head, it was all Rinoa could do to keep from flinging it off with a little bit of air manipulation. In fact she almost had moved to when the thing had talked.

It felt like a cat, but somehow it could talk anyway? Rinoa wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but that certainly seemed to be the situation at least.

"It's okay. Would you mind getting off my head though? Your claws are digging into my skin a little and it's not really comfortable."

[pumpkineko]

"Oops," Blair dropped off the girl's head and landed softly in the grass. She wasn't embarassed about mistaking the girl for a bird, but it was admittedly a tad awkward when one accidentally mistook another person for food. "Uh, you've got pretty wings."

[aheartwithwings]

"Thanks." Rinoa just took the situation in stride. She'd just spend over a year and a half in the past, so why would a talking cat be that shocking?

"They're a little big to confuse for a bird's though, don't you think?" After all since they had to carry her they had a several feet wingspan to say the least.

[steelandsilence]

It wasn't anyone who had been displaced in time, but there was at least someone wondering down to the general vicinity of lake all the same. It was one of the better places to think, and after the most recent round of strangeness that the school had suffered through there was more than enough reason to take a moment to get everything properly categorized.

Was everything here as safe as they said? Or was that just so much noise?

It was a question he didn't really have an answer to. Whatever was going on here was something he couldn't quite reach, and even if he had been able to start puzzling thing out, Rinoa's comment broke his train of thought - or at least, the last few words did.

"What isn't the same?"

[aheartwithwings]

"Greece, the air, people as a whole. Take your pick really." Rinoa didn't turn around straight away, but when she did she actually managed a small smile.

"Squall! Seems you learned how to leave your room without someone dragging you out of it while I was gone. Though I hear it wasn't as long for everyone here as it was for me."

Letting the water still she dried her hand off just by heating the molecules around it slightly, a trick she'd more or less realized thanks to Mr. Mustang and had mastered while in Greece.

"It's a lot to get reused to somehow. I'd figured I was just going to have to live out my life in the past you know? Now here I am back in the present and all I can think about is everything I've left behind. All the friends I'd made, they're nothing but bones and ash now and I'd just talked and laughed with most of them a few days ago!" It was a lot to take in with all the technology to adjust to once again on top of mourning the friends and loved one she'd made back in the past.

[steelandsilence]

A lot to get used to? Well, he supposed that made at least some amount of sense. If you'd lived in one place long enough to get used to it, coming back would take some getting used to again. Especially the further back you'd gone into the past.

How far had Rinoa gone?

It was a question that, regrettably, wouldn't get asked. Why make her think more about something that was clearly already bothering her? It would just make things more melancholy in the long run.

"It was about a week," he answered, choosing to ignore the comment about her friends being nothing but bone and ash. That comment wasn't one there was any easy way to answer and he really didn't feel like trying in the first place.

[aheartwithwings]

"Only a week or so?" She looked downright shocked at this. That couldn't be right. "But I was in Greece for almost two years!"

Ignoring her angsty bits was probably for the best, she'd hopefully get over them eventually on her own fine enough.

[fiery_blizzard]

He was one of those people that had gone back in time, and he was just walking along the shoreline of the lake, though he was freezing only the section of water where he was walking on for solid footing, though he was also let any ice formed dissolve back into its watery state behind him. He himself also didn't feel in tune with the world as it was right now - it was a little difficult to adapt after not being around every modern convenience for a long time, but he was slowly adjusting. Except, that he wasn't adjusting to everything as he thought he could. Sometimes, the thoughts of the people he'd left behind came to mind. The memories he'd have of them, the battles he'd fought in, the comrades, the friends, and the people he'd come to care for deeply

[aheartwithwings]

It was more than a little disconcerting to think that all the things that felt so real to them were, really just ancient history now.

They'd shared several classes actually, the perk of having similar powers more or less. It had been a while for her too, despite the fact that Squall had said only a week or so had passed in the present.

He had surprised her actually, she'd been so locked up in her thoughts that she hadn't even noticed him approaching. Still, she sat and let him finish talking before saying anything. Really it was a relief, someone who actually seemed to understand how she was feeling! "If they even have gavestones. I'm sure some of them don't." She sighed, the water swirling a little more under her touch as she created a tiny, and completely harmless little whirlpool. "It's just so weird. It wasn't so long ago that I was talking to them, touching them, sharing meals with them and now there's nothing left of them at all while here I am."

[fiery_blizzard]

He got straight to the point, because even he himself was feeling it, to a degree, "You didn't really want to come back, did you?"

He sighed a little, stepping off the ice and straight onto dry land, letting the ice dissolve back into water almost seamlessly. He sat down next to her, looking at her for a moment before he continued on.

"I will have to confess, that I thought about it for a moment, I really did. Hell, if I had gone to say my good-byes, I know I wouldn't have been able to leave. You just get used to how things are done, and the people, and..."

He paused for a second, giving a slight, sad smile as he looked down at that whirlpool she'd created.

"Everything, really. Once you're there long enough, you really don't mind not being able to use the modern-day stuff, no matter how convenient they are. Before anyone came for me, I thought I had to live the rest of my life there."

[aheartwithwings]

"I did a little bit, but I didn't want to leave either." Rinoa admitted, it seemed he at least knew how she was feeling right now.

"You're right, it's everything. The people, the way of life, the air, and everything about it. It seemed so wrong at first but by the end I couldn't remember life being any other way." The smile she gave him back was just as sad.

"I did too and after a while, I was glad."