crushed_pearls | Come Sail Away IC Inbox

"What? What is it? What am I missing?"

Something's making Erin happy, she knows, but that much?

"YOU'RE SO! FUCKING! CUTE!"

Erin rushes over laughing and scoops Helena into a full hug; both arms, both wings, giggling like a maniac. "Where did you get that? Oh my GOD!"

"It's Security's," is the answer she manages around being squished in a hug, embracing her friend back. Completely thoughtless as to the ammunition she's now handing over, but such is the life of being so honest.

"TRULY YOU ARE BECOME BUN - fuck I'm shouting aren't I -" Erin laughs again and tousles Helena's hair. "This is the most adorable shit. You've even committed a traditional act among Americans from my time, wherein lasses steal their beloved's hoodies and never give them back. That's your hoodie now. It is the hoodie tax."

"It's only borrowed! I asked!"

But she's laughing too, because joy is an infectious thing, and the way their laughter echoes off the spa walls is actually a pretty nice sound, all considered. They really went for good acoustics in here, ostensibly for soothing spa music, but right now just for happiness.

"But it is very comfortable, I'll admit."

"It will never wear this hoodie again," Erin whispers in Ominous Tones. She can't keep it up, and busts up laughing again. "Y'all are adorable together, swear to god. It doesn't help that you're like ninety sizes too small for the poncho so you look like a rabbit ghost tried to possess you and couldn't stick the landing."

"If a rabbit ghost chooses to meet me, I hope I'm wearing this at the same time so it knows I'm a friend."

She's grinning, but extracts one arm so she can tug the hood up on herself - which promptly falls over her eyes. Oops. Not like she needed that field of view anyway.

"I'd ask when Miss Crabb is going to steal your clothes, but I have a feeling it's already happened."

"I am the clothes," Erin answers with less than no thought. She finally lets Helena go and takes a step back. "So! Growing your hair out huh? Got a plan for it or are you just looking to exult in big hair?"

"I think I just want to see what happens with it. It's easy to cut it, but it takes time to grow - I can always change my mind."

Plus, longer hair to her means she can try different hairstyles. Even if she can't see it, she takes pleasure in trying them, in feeling them, and after so long not experimenting, it feels good to try.

"Though I'm not keen on emulating those women in books with hair to the floor. That just sounds unmanageable."

"They're definitely committed to the bit," Erin agrees. "The amount of washing and drying alone...country girls have it easier, they get to use horse shampoo sold by the fucking gallon. And for reference that's not an insult, it's great shampoo."

Erin takes Helena's hand. "Hair wash station first, little bird."

She'll come along, but she scoffs.

"Horse shampoo? Erin, I grew up in the country, and I've never heard of such a thing. This is another one of your modern wonders."

"Well, modern-ish," Erin explains as she starts getting everything ready to wash Helena's hair in preparation for trying Many Styles. "In the...nineteen forties? Ish? Of my Earth we had the second Great War, and it kinda fucking sucked. World wars tend to. One of the ways that it sucked was no one could get a hold of any fat to make soap with since it was all being used for high explosives, and the search for alternatives ended up with the shampoos and laundry detergents the ship provides to us all. And uh, well, the stuff made for horses also keeps human hair shockingly glossy and healthy."

"Two great wars, though...I'm sorry your world had to endure that."

She hopes that somehow, her world will avoid such a thing, if it ever looms. Who knows. But bunny hoods aren't ideal for washing hair, and neither are glasses, which get tucked away in a pocket.

"So that's why all the soaps feel so different. I remember what it smelled like when people made it - these smell so much nicer, but I still can't imagine why you'd try out horse shampoo, except on a lark."

"Well it started for budget reasons, same as poor folks who use dish detergent to scrub their bodies down," Erin says thoughtfully. "Which, for the record, also works but it's deeply fucking unpleasant. But then it turned out to be really good, so what started as a habit of frugality continued as loyalty to a good product. 's kinda cute honestly."

Speaking of, Erin identifies some shampoo by scent and starts in on that part after getting Helena's hair wet.

"There's lotsa things like that, some long forgotten, others much-changed, and a few juuuust right. Hell, corned beef started out to save money on not dying in a fuckin' famine and now look at where it's gone in the world."

It feels indulgent to have someone else wash your hair - sure, she could have done it herself, but this is all part of the ritual. She hums affirmatively, thinking about all of it, as well as the sound of the running water.

"Is there anything like that you miss, that you can't find here? Not just something cheap, but anything you really can't find on this ship."

"... Nighttime in the city," Erin answers after a long moment's thought. "Which is a bit fucked when I think about it. The monsters come crawling out of their holes at night to hunt and play, but there's something about it. The music, the sound, the beat of a place that rests but never sleeps."

"Tell me about it. What you remember - tell me so you can refresh your memory."

So it remains in someone else's memory too.

(Look at this nerd who's never had night in the city.)

...Excuse us, are you being a dick to HELENA, of ALL PEOPLE?

(I'm sorry, she's Southern, it's reflex.)

God we've got so much shit to work on.

"...It's genuinely hard to describe. If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many would I need to spend just to describe the scents, the sounds?" Erin's voice takes on a wistful quality. "...From high up, New Avalon at night is a portrait of lights girdled by fog, like a city in the sky. Down low the fog muffles the world, cut through by the lights of cars and the calls of the people. Gunshots in the distance would unnerve me more if I didn't know that might be my people holding the line, but closer, so much closer, you might pass by a bookstore that only opens after midnight, or get hailed on the street by a guy with a street cart who will, inexplicably, make you the best fucking kebab you've had at any time of day. Anyone out that late at night is weird, so you get to see and hear all kinds of fashion, music, walk past people staggering out of the nightclubs eight drinks in and trying not to die. The trains rumble through the haunted subways beneath your feet, making the streets vibrate as they go, catlike and listening..."

She's quiet, listening to Erin's description, letting it weave an idea of a place she's never been in her mind. A full city, frightening and yet lovely, full of life. The warmth in Erin's tone is enough to color it with love, with care. A place she wants to experience, if only to understand that affection in full.

Perhaps it is not an ideal place to long for, but it is still the place Erin cherishes, and Helena cannot fault her for wanting what she knows.

"A network of different heartbeats, discordant and yet working as one..."

The words are a murmur, slipping out of her while she contemplates.

"Yeah," Erin murmurs. "Just as the hive remembers what the bee can never know, the city will teach and love you, if you know how to listen. Each one is a different person, both equal to and greater than its people."

"I wish one day I could somehow take it in. To understand it, not just listen - I'm sure it'd teach me more that way. Your city is different from any others I've ever thought to touch."

There's such a long list of places she wants to visit now. Enough to make at least years worth of adventures on their own.

"...Well, lemme invite you to the mild existential crisis that is me being on this boat: my city seems to only exist on my Earth. No one else here has heard of it."

Because it's Baltimore, she described Baltimore, New Avalon is a historical AU of fucking Baltimore.

"Allowing for the time discrepancies and all? You know I come from further back than you, someone just may not have invented it yet."

Hope springs eternal.

"...Little bird, it precedes the American Revolution."

"...I'd never left my home state before that ill fated trip of mine, so it still could exist."

You never know what you don't know.

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