Spliced

Kass found herself standing on a beach and she couldn’t remember how she had come to be there. A small lighthouse stood perched on a cliff further down the shore. She turned to find Sirius standing next to her and looking equally as confused.

“Where are we?” she asked. But as the words fell from her lips the question faded from her mind and she found herself wondering instead at the shoes on her feet. It didn’t feel right to be wearing her work heels on sand. She kicked them off and barely noticed as they sunk into the sand, disappearing from her thoughts as quickly as they fell out of sight.

“I don’t know,” Sirius replied.

“Huh?” she turned to him, unsure what he was referring to.

He frowned. “What?”

They stood staring at each other for a few moments, no discomfort, not even confusion, just listlessness, as if they’d just been born again. And as they stared at each other, as blue eyes met green they found themselves caught in a new trap.

Sirius couldn’t remember where what who or why but he saw those eyes and the colour that reminded him more of the sky than the sea, of life that soared, of something he was forgetting.

Kass looked away first. The sand between her toes was warm and she couldn’t help but glance down. And then she smiled. When she returned her eyes to Sirius again she knew him properly, remembered something, forgot the rest.

His eyes were on the sky. “There’s no birds,” he wondered aloud. But just as he spoke, a flock of gulls rounded the lighthouse at the south end of the beach and circled overhead, cawing in raucous discordance. It caused him to frown. Something deep within himself told him that the birds were wrong. But whatever chance he had then was snatched away, distracted by Kass’s laugh. Such a pretty sound, so seldom heard, and he wondered how he knew that.

She was watching the birds.

“I’ve never seen gulls like that,” Sirius remarked in a cautious tone.

“Really? They just look like regular gulls to me.” Kass glanced up at him then turned to look back at the circling gulls.

“No, the head shape is different, and the bill.”

Kass looked between him and the gulls, trying to discern both a difference in the bird and whether or not Sirius might be teasing her.

Eventually he sighed. “It’s hard to explain.”

“No I get it. When I was fighting in the north I saw these giant rabbits, not hares. I know what a hare looks like, and these were different, but I could never quite explain how to people. Some things you just have to see.”

They watched the gulls in silence for awhile and then together they started walking along the beach, side by side.

“What were they like? The rabbits?”

Kass tilted her face up toward the sun as she tried to remember. The light highlighted the softness of her skin. “They were as big as hares, maybe bigger but they had the roundness that rabbits have and more cream in the colour.” She gave him a crooked smile, then shook her head. “Truthfully, they could have been hares but they looked like rabbits. The hares I saw were more stretched out and pure white. They’d blend in with the snow. Often you wouldn’t see until you were almost upon them and even then they’d dash off fast as anything and you might only notice it by the kick of snow left flying behind them. They were real quiet too.” She turned to him. “Have you travelled north much?”

“Not that far, but I’ve been south as far as the ice and I’ve seen snow hares in one of the Eastern elemental pockets, not during the middle of winter though, so they didn’t have their full coat.”

“Are they introduced there?”

Sirius nodded. “I think so, I don’t know. I don’t travel to the eastern pockets often.” He paused. He couldn’t remember why he went there. Something tugged at the edge of his memory.

“Where’s your favorite place you’ve been?” Kass asked interrupting his thoughts. She looked at him sideways, chin now tilted downward as if feeling shy about asking the question.

Sirius gave her a gentle smile. “I don’t know.” There was something wrong with his memory but he couldn’t quite focus his mind on it. He knew there were places he’d been, many places, but he couldn’t quite put an image or name to them. The places he did think of filled up enough space that what was forgotten didn’t seem quite so important after a little while. They appeared like a fly on the wall, a small blurry black dot. They buzzed for a bit and then were still.

“There’s an island I visited once where all the people had natural blue hair, like a bright blue, not electric or light, kind of...” Sirius floundered for what colour it been like.

“It’s hard to explain?” Kass finished for him with a smile.

He laughed. “Yeah.”

“And they were all the same?”

“Well no, there were some subtle shade differences, but mostly pretty similar, except for the Queen. They were a monarchy. But the Queen, her hair was turquoise.”

“You know that’s a kind of blue right,” Kass teased with a smile.

He chuckled. “Yeah, but...”

“More green?” Kass finished for him again and when he glanced at her she blushed, ducked her head and mumbled a “Sorry.”

But she quickly glanced back up and he met her soft smile with one of his own.

“Yeah.” he replied softly. “That’s not all though. The whole island, everybody on it, were all water elementals.”

“All of them?” Kass frowned.

Sirius held up one hand. “I swear to the old crone.”

She laughed at hearing the outdated phrase.

“Was that your favorite place?” Kass asked.

Sirius stopped walking.

Kass stopped as well, giving him a curious and surprised look.

“No...” He trailed off. The buzzing of flies on the wall of his mind changed to the more piercing whine of a mosquito.

The hair on the back of his neck tingled. He shook his head to loosen the thoughts. Another image popped into his head. Another redhead, with longer hair and brown eyes, Amanda.

He looked down and saw Kass’s lack of shoes. Saw his own boots. He looked up at her again and for a moment he didn’t want to ruin it.

He grabbed her wrist. “Kass...” He spoke softly.

She barely glanced at him, before looking back away at their spectacular surroundings. Shiny sea and soft warm sand. A place of distraction.

“Kass. I think something’s wrong.” He kept his voice low, worried he would be overheard but not sure why that concerned him yet. They were coming back his thoughts. Memories of being a kid. Memories of his sister. Memories of her powers.

Kass was studying him now and he could see the worry in her face.

“What?” she whispered, mouth parted slightly, lower lip hanging out such that Sirius almost forgot himself for a moment. Then she licked her lips and his heart skipped.

He got a hold of himself. “I think we’re in a dream.”

He watched her eyebrows rise and come together, the slight hint of a smile. She thought he was joking. As he kept his expression still he watched her smile fade, and her rosy cheeks pale.

“A dream?” she asked so quiet he almost couldn’t hear her.

“The dreamworld.” He kept a hold on her wrist, not wanting her to fade away. He knew from dreamwalking with Cat when they'd been younger, that the dreamworld was no playground. He was also now painfully aware that Amanda had been with them a moment before.

Kass studied her surroundings, confusion marring her soft features. “But,...” She had been about to say that it didn’t look so bad but at the look on Sirius’s face she understood that things weren’t quite what they looked like. “How do we get out?” she asked finally.

Sirius looked around the beach-like scene, so life-like, so deceptive. “I’m not sure.”