firekisst

By now, the beach might be Ygritte's favorite place in Darrow.

After a few sunburn related incidents she doesn't care to speak about, Ygritte's finally able to stay out in the sun for a while without several applications of sunscreen. She's noticed her freckles seem to be multiplying as a result, but it's a very small price to pay for such warmth and freedom.

She talks anyone she can, anyone who will accompany her, into going with her, and today it's Jaime.

Even having invested in an umbrella to put in the sand, and having applied a couple of mists of sunscreen to herself, she's doing her face again as soon as they're settled. "Did they have beaches like this in the South?" she asks Jaime. "They must have."

She eyes him as she studiously rubs the special stick of face protection on her nose, setting a certain sheen to her skin. "Not that I suppose people were able to enjoy them."

At some point, Ygritte begins to really understand the fact that Spring does truly come to Darrow each year, and more than that, Spring only grows bolder and greener every day. Warmer, too, and with the promise, she realizes, of actual Summer, which is something she's not sure she can even think about, not yet. Standing in the park in Spring, warm enough that she doesn't even need her jacket, she finds she's overwhelmed by it all.

Sitting herself down on soft grass, she's digging her phone out of her pocket, when a sight out of the corner of her eye becomes too much to ignore.

The idea of flowers isn't new, but there are so many, looking for all the world like colorful cups to drink from. When Ygritte runs her fingertips over the bright red petals, a tiny fuzzy creature flies out. He's yellow and black and not a terribly good flier, she thinks.

"Hello," she says, and tries to touch the soft fur on the little-- is it a bird? She's not sure, but it somehow bites her, leaving her with a painful, swollen fingertip. Even worse, the creature drops down onto new black sneakers she'd bought, clearly dead and stiff on the canvas.

It's not panic that has her dialing Steve, and asking him to come to the park, but it's close. "There's too much Spring," she says, but describes her location, and then waits. She can't quite shake the feeling that the little flying thing wouldn't be dead but for her.

It starts when Ygritte finds yet another strange thing that's not exactly what it should be, based on its name.

Flea market.

She sees the sign and figures out what it says through some sounding out and listening to the folk talk nearby, and then she sees it a couple of more times, in the big concrete fields outside the mall or at the park in front of tents. By the third time she sees it, she's reasoned out that it can't really be what it sounds like, else people wouldn't go in and out so steadily.

Ygritte wanders into the tents, and after a good hour of exploring items both known and unknown (mostly unknown), she spots something that seems both beautiful and hideous, something that immediately inspires a need in her to have it. She manages bargaining bit with the man selling it, and she's sitting in her own living room, examining it thoroughly, when it begins to hiss like a snake.

"FUCK," she yelps, and goes for the knife she keeps under the sofa-- only to have the golden owl remain where it is, continuing to make the horrible sound. It doesn't respond to the knife or anything else she does, and not wanting to simply be rid of the awful wonderful thing, she finds her phone and calls Steve.

"I've broken something or made it come alive or something worse," she says, as soon as he answers. "Come over."

"I ought to knock the smug look off your face," Ygritte tells him, though she's clearly delighted to be able to say it, "just on principle."

That's hardly what she does, though, pulling him to her by the gold hand and rising up on her toes. She pulls him by the front of his shirt, until he's mouth level, and does her best to take care of the smug smile that way-- if it doesn't work, there will be plenty of time, it seems.

"How much money d'you think that they make from that plant?" she asks, releasing him and tugging him up the stairs. "Not that I'm anything but pleased by the little fucker, at this point."

No, this is a very satisfactory end to a rather unsettling day.

[Messages and texts go here.]