riverview | (I refuse your merry making and offer annoyance instead) Voice: TheStrandInstitute

Have you drunk anything?

[He is, concerned.]

Nope, I mean I got this weird stuff spilled on me a little while ago, but it was fine. Just sort of wiped off like water.

[She's going to keep brushing it with her thumb like a mother trying to get a smudge off her kids face.]

What weird stuff?

This black stuff. It just felt like water it didn't even stain or anything.

God what the hell?

Did you ask the seller what it was?

No.

[It's not a lie, because she didn't. She also... may not have told him that she spilled any on herself either.]

Go ask.

[He assumes it got on her skin.]

[She gives him a sigh before she moves into one of the stalls]

Excuse me! Hi. I was wondering if...

[And then there was the voice of an older woman who sounded excited. "Oh! You have a soulmate mark. Those are a true rarity in this day and age, dear!"

And of course Alex just sounded confused when she asked:] A soulmate mark?

["Yes, did you get any of the black on your skin somewhere? Well, after it washes off, it leaves a matching mark on your soulmate's arm. It's such a wonderful thing. The moon needs more love don't you think?"]

Um yeah, always. Do you sell anything that causes color blindness?

[ "Oh are you colorblind as well?" Then another voice interrupts them, and the woman instead just offers, "rainbow potions, dear. On the house, on the house."

Alex doesn't know what to say for a minute, so she's just going to go:]

Huh.

Edited 2018-09-08 05:15 (UTC)

These idiots are a menace.

[He's rolling his eyes over here.]

Well, it's a romantic love holiday, Richard. What did you expect?

But I've got a few vials of the stuff.

I should be there shortly. Do you need anything else?

[...That's probably not good that neither of them are mentioning it.]

I didn't expect them to be so careless. Although I should have.

[There's a pause as he pointedly thinks about that.]

I should be fine.

[Still avoiding this topic like the plague.]

[A beat.]

Okay.

[There's things that she wants to say about how good and comforting the magic of Riverview can be, the way it makes you feel warm and happy and light or helps you sleep. There might have been something even silly in this if it hadn't been forced upon.

If they both weren't not mentioning the tattoo on her wrist.

So Alex is just going to make her way through the festival traffic towards the university.]

[He'll be there, waiting for her.]

[Alex may have taken a little bit longer than she otherwise would as she wandered towards the university. After all, the whole soulmate question was one that was very much a question. At least for her. For Richard, she already knew what his answer would be, the same thing that it always was whenever there was anything that seemed unnatural. That it wasn't true and it didn't matter.

And of course there was Coralee. Thirty five years of Coralee at this point. That is a lot of life to not have one's soulmate.

Telling herself that it was just silly Riverview stuff and that it didn't matter wasn't working all that well, and Alex sighed as she knocked on the door. It didn't matter, it was just Riverview, whatever if anything was on his arm.

Without waiting for a response to his knock (he was expecting her) Alex just entered wearing a red sundress and a smile.]

Got it.

[Richard wasn't pacing. He hadn't been pacing the whole time with a glass of scotch in his hand.

When she opened the door all he could see was red, red and Alex in complete color. The longer he looked at her the more the edges around her began to bleed into color.]

Odd.

[His eyes narrowed, squinting as the color seemed to return to the world.]

[Alex is used to Richard looking at her in strange ways during the three years that they'd been working together, and the four months that they've been here together, she'd added a few more of them. But this was like nothing that she'd ever seen on his face before, and she walked towards him, the expression on her face one of intense concern.

He was Richard Strand after all, and everyone knew that Richard Strand was the master of the understatement.

Her eyes crinkled up below her glasses, and she just frowned as she reached out to touch him, the tattoo on her arm very much visible because it was right there on the wrist of her dominate hand.]

What is it? What's wrong?

[He'd hard that lovingly concerned voice before, even before he'd gotten sick. Even before he'd gotten there.]

It's gone.

[The words are simple and curious. Suddenly the world was back to the way it was meant to be and he wasn't sure why. The only alteration in the equation was Alex, and, of course, that was where the change had occurred.

He ignored the wrist, conveniently, focusing on her face and the color that was there instead of black and white.]

Gone? [There's a questioning frown that Alex can't help but make and she feels the need to reaffirm it with him, she can't help it. Alexs gotta Alex after all, and Alex is always at her most Alexy when she's with him.]

The colorblindness? It just like... went away? Really?

[Without thinking about it, Alex's fingers reached up to ghost against his cheek without thinking about it, so that her wrist was easily viewable.]
When I just walked in?

[Trying not to jump to conclusions is not Alex's speciality and she was trying so instead of mentioning herself and the whole thing that was happening she just added:]

Maybe it just wore off?

Doubtful. The effect seems to have ...

[He frowns because it sounds so stupid.]

You seem to have been the catalyst.

[Seriously, what the hell Riverview, don't be stupid.]

[He's not saying it, so she's not saying it. But she looks at him for a moment before she takes a step back. Richard Strand with his phD in the fact that there was actually no magic in the world and no demons and you know everything else that he didn't believe in, does believe in testable data. So, testable data she would give him. So instead of kissing him as she would normally do, Alex just takes a step back, and then another moving towards the door.]

Hold on, I want to see if it comes back if I'm not around.

[Which would be one: more evidence and two: potentially bothersome for him if he needed to depend on her when it came to the ability to see color for the rest of the feastival. Of course it would give Alex leave to be creative with the color of his clothing, and she just smirked on that before she stepped out the door and shut it, calling through (which he was the one who went on and on about his walls being so thin so... Well, he should easily hear here.]

Are you still colorblind now?

[He gets what she's doing. Testing a theory that he, himself had, but that doesn't make it any less silly.

Still, when she calls through the door he can easily hear her (because the walls were that thin).]

No.

[There is no denying that what Alex wants to do is just roll up his sleeves and see what was there on his wrist if anything was. But there were several reasons that she didn't do it, and the largest one wasn't that soulmates were stupid (even if Alex was a romantic and did believe you ended up with the person you were right for right then sometimes) but because what if this was just silly Riverview magic and they were happy and still somehow this stupid city thought she should be with someone else? If there was something that Alex hated, it was not being able to make your own choices and your own mistakes, and did the things that defined you.

The idea that someone was supposed to just... be your unchosen endgame bothered her and if nothing else, she would never want to be a choice that Richard didn't get to make. Not anymore. It wasn't fair to him, and she wanted to be fair to him so for now she's just going to come back into his office and perch on his desk.]

I have some of the stuff. Do you want to try again and see if you get the same results or are we going on the hunt for a prankster?

[Richard frowns, thinking heavily about the idea.]

I think it's prudent to.

[For scientific research.]

Okay. So I think we need to start with me outside of the room and then coming back in, right? Like a control?

[Richard, you are the scientist here, Alex is just supposed to be annoying and ask questions and look cute. She is trying very hard not to screw up and she's a wordsmith, but these are weird sciencey words, Richard. Weird. Sciencey words. ]

Agreed.

[He pours a small amount of the rainbow liquid into a glass, waiting for her to leave the room.]

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