2015.08.20 - Drowning in a Beautiful View

*The demon of drowning finds himself awake after a long dormancy, and meets Ainsley D'Cruze at lookout point.*

August 19th, 2015

Beacon Hills - Lookout Point

It's been quite a walk from the shore for the demon. But with his endurance and his complete lack of an agenda, he was able to take his time. What a beautiful vista! What soaring mountains and sweeping forests! And the river below, how beautiful!

The creature was cloaked in the visage of a man long gone beneath the waves. A high widow's peak and a whimsically old-fashioned cut of facial hair curled over his mouth and connected to his sideburns. It would look like a hipster's fanciful approach to grooming, but the man looked more mature than /that/ particular subset of youth culture. He was perhaps in his early forties or late 30s. Handsome, in a vaguely scruffy way, with twinkling blue eyes and a frame that spoke of hard work and labor instead of gym-lifting and modern 'sculpting.'

To add to the oddness, he was barefoot, wearing homespun trousers, suspenders, and a linen button-up shirt. He looked like he had gotten lost on his way from a period costume party and misplaced his shoes. Perhaps he was one of those weird california runners who believe in the sanctity of 'free running' with one's toes exposed. But he certainly didn't look like he had been exerting himself. He gazed out over the lookout with beaming, abject, appreciative joy.

~~

The sound of Ainsley's jogging precedes seeing her. She doesn't jog with music, she doesn't jog with any sort of fancy gear. She just wears sweats and running shoes and moves at a constant pace down a dirt path that she's memorized the route to. Having not taking too far of a jog away from her car, she comes to a slowing halt when she spots an unusual man here in the forest. As she approaches, she gradually slows her gait in stages, until she walks up to a comfortable conversational distance to the strange man.

"Hey," she greets him, her voice carrying her Spanish accent easily, "Hey, you." She already seems confused. "Are you alright? Where are your shoes?" As a nurse in training, she's already running down possibilities, like this being a man in serious need of psychiatric assistance lost out in the woods, or having experienced a mental issue and needs to get to a hospital.

~~

Yes, let's be honest; mental 'issue' is probably a fitting description of the man's peculiar combination of affectations. He had been distracted by the view - the view! - when Ainsley trotted up and broke the spell with her voice. The man's gaze whirled to her with intense pleasant surprise, as if Ainsley was an old friend who appeared unexpectedly at brunch. "Hello! Good /morning/!" The intensity is probably not doing well for Ainsley's assessment of the man.

But his smile - and those bright eyes. It's hard not to catch his mood like a friendly contagion. "I'm very well, thank you! I..." he looked down at his feet. Shoes. Right. Those things. He looked up with an amused, contrite expression, "...have no shoes. Keen eye, you've got. Very keen!"

He swept his glance back to the vista, taking in a deep breath of the fresh air. "What is your hurry, running up here? The view won't run away!"

~~

The look on Ainsley's face is developing into a weird mixture of confusion and uncertainty, the way her mouth half-opens and she can't be sure if she should frown or not. The more he speaks to her, the more uncertain she is about this. Fresh out of an encounter with things that eat human flesh and turn into strange half-wolf creatures, the possibility that this man is some sort of horrible monster is not lost on her, and so she flexes her fingers at her sides a few times while she assesses the eerily cheerful man here.

Is he mentally ill, or is he going to attack her?

"I was just..." she pauses, "Jogging. Exercising, clearing my head.I'm a nurse, I could help you, if you need it." The more she talks to him or even stands anywhere near him, the more she smells seawater. A smell she's familiar with, and a smell that does not fit the area. Her instincts are definitely leaning toward the supernatural now. Nonetheless... "Do you live in Beacon Hills?" she goes on to ask.

~~

The demon is out of touch with modernity. But he's not dumb. He knows he's probably confusing the woman - but he's also a demon. His opinion is that a little bit of bewilderment is good for a mortal. Keeps them on their toes. His grin is perfectly /pleasant/ as his gaze slides back to her. "I do." Perfectly truthful response, right? At this moment, he lives no where else. He is here. And here is Beacon Hills.

"A nurse. That's very noble of you." He clasps his hands at the small of his back, tilting his shoulders back and hips forward to work out a little 'krik!' of a stretch. "I worked as a bit of a sawbones at one time. Nothing official, of course, but when you're out at sea and someone needs stitches, /someone/ has to know how to do it, mh?"

~~

Ainsley steps away from the strange man and finds a tree to lean back against, assessing her surroundings a bit in case she needs to start running very quickly. His answer to her question doesn't really offer her a lot of comfort, his very cheerful demeanor striking her as... too cheerful. Like he's constantly thinking of a joke he heard one time but doesn't want to say what it is. Her eyes watch him with the keen gaze of a skeptic. His story about being a 'sawbones' is another odd one to her, antiquated terminology and some sort of stuff about being at sea. Did he take the ocean with him? And why didn't he put shoes on? How did he even get out here? A lot of these questions are weird questions and she doesn't know how to approach it, creating an uncomfortable pause.

"Right..." she puffs a small breath and lids her eyes at the strange man. "If I keep jogging, you'll be fine out here, right? Will you have any trouble getting home?" Despite him making her supremely uncomfortable, her first instinct is apparently to be mindful of if he really is just an eccentric old guy that lost his way out in the wilderness.

~~

If the cheerfulness is faux, the way he's taken with the view is entirely genuine. Or a little mad. As she removed herself to the tree, the eccentric turned his gaze back to the sprawling forest and sweeping mountain swells with nothing short of absolute awe. Her voice brought him back after a moment. He looked over his shoulder at her with a merry loft of his brows, "Absolutely. Enjoy your constitutional, miss."

There's another one of those out-of-date words, dusty as a knick-knack in an antique shop.

~~

Again taken aback by a word -- 'constitutional' is just not SAID in the modern age, let alone in this context -- and Ainsley's decision to leave is cemented. She has had enough weird for a month and she's not going to sit around and wait to see if he starts vomiting fish heads or something. She holds up her hands with palms exposed and fingers splayed and says, "Alright." Her lifted brows drop, she gives a big sigh, and turns to continue her jog, letting him linger and enjoy the wilds of Beacon Hills for however long he wants.