2019-06-22 - Stranger Things

Just a few days after the monstrous storm that hit Gray Harbor most recently, it is as if it has been reminded that it is supposed to be summer; heavy mists so characteristic of its early mornings and late nights have been reduced to thin, insignificant, intangible veils, leaving scattered drops of dew glittering against the backdrop of evergreens and brightly colored blossoms. Addington Park has always been one of the city's most beautiful expanses, the fringes of its industrial areas might have suffered the brunt of the economic downturn, but its more natural attributes have always represented the best parts of the Pacific Northwest lifestyle. It is especially idyllic over the sunny seasons.

The very air carries a hint of brine from the coast, laced with floral notes teeming from the surrounding bushes and the minerals of freshly disturbed earth. The narrow, winding pathways that cut through the park pays audience to a pair of sneakered feet as they race through dirt and the occasional cobblestoned walk. Isabella Reede's slender shape, only slightly enshrouded by stubborn, encroaching mists, can be spotted through all the green, the bronze highlights of her predominantly dark hair catching the reddish-gold glow of a bashful sunrise, slowly climbing out of the darker depths of the horizon. Green eyes are locked forward, moving at a quick clip.

As a child, she used to race through the grass barefoot, her hair wild around her face as she chased her twin around the trees.

The headphones she wears drowns out those memories well enough, the cords twisted around behind her back and her phone clipped there, blaring lively jazz into her eardrums as she moves. A runner's hoodie has been pulled snug over a tanktop paired with running shorts. Unlike her early years, her hair is pulled back in a messy bind, thin ribbons of her hair plastered against her cheeks and curled against her nape, surrendering to the demands of self-induced humidity and heat. Her lips remain parted in time with her breaths, signs of her very life made manifest through foggy puffs.

She abruptly slows from her run, however - something pulls at her attention, arresting her breath, and generating a sudden lance of adrenaline pouring down her spine. It's inexplicable - the sense of it has only grown since the storm had stopped, keeping her restless. Uneasy.

But that's familiar, too.

Isabella stops running completely, taking quiet, panting breaths, hunched over slightly in the half-dark cast by the rising dawn. A set of fingers lifts to tug her earphones free, as she attempts to listen for whatever it is through the sound of her rushing blood.

Not even the rain had stopped Byron from his usual fitness routine, something that he'd grown used to morning after morning, sloshing around on wet pavement and soggy grass. Okay, maybe the most recent storm put a damper on in temporarily. Nevertheless, this turn in weather is something that he embraces fully. The air might be thick with fog, the mist clinging heavily against your skin with each movement, but his feet are dry. That's the important thing.

Donning a form-fitting short-sleeved Underarmor shirt, a quarter zipper in the front to go with his mid-length compression pants and performance running shoes, he looks like any other put-together jogger out this morning. Though, you don't find them very often in Gray Harbor -- runners -- as you might in a city like Seattle or Portland. Especially not at this hour. His hair takes on a natural style rather than slicked back gel-look that he often goes for.

He has his own phone clipped to the runner's belt around his waist, earphone pouring out some high intensity rock, alternative or dance number. He has a playlist just for running. At first, he doesn't recognize the woman in the distance, the one who suddenly stopped short in her jog. Though the closer he gets, the more he realizes that she looks familiar. His own pace slows now, only to pick up when he realizes just who this woman is. "Isabella?" He asks, one of his earbuds being removed now, "I didn't expect to see you back here." He doesn't expect anyone to return, but they always seem to do just that.

She immerses herself in her surroundings deeply enough that when Byron calls her, Isabella doesn't respond at first, unsure as to whether it's simply another trick from the mists. It certainly wouldn't be the first.

She slowly straightens up from her hunch, a palm lifting to draw beads of perspiration from her face, turning to focus those green, gold-flecked eyes upon the approaching figure; taller than her, broad-shouldered, the fact that he calls her by name makes her immediately wary, that expressive mouth reflecting the fact by the way it presses into a distrusting line. But the veil parts, and under the growing light of day, he, too, looks familiar.

It takes a moment, but he'd be able to track the changes in her expression easily, how her internal clock winds back to a time when he wore his hair differently and didn't have much facial hair to speak of. Lankier, also, back then, almost always accompanied by an easy smile and quick to laugh, if not just to defy the pervasive rumors about his troubled home life.

She has not seen nor spoken to Byron Thorne in eleven years, but she recognizes him in the man before her. Lips part faintly in astonishment.

"...Ronnie...?"

I didn't expect to see you back here.

There's a slight shake of her head, ever quick to recover from shock, or anything that made her visibly vulnerable, the pliant curve of her mouth tilting upwards in a grin. "Me?" she wonders, tucking both of her hands in the pockets of her hoodie, dark brows arching upwards. "What about you? Didn't we have a deal way back? I take one half of the world, you take the other half, and we have one last wager for the entire the pot?"

She inclines her head slightly, though after a moment of quiet scrutiny, she suddenly laughs - like lightning, it cracks into the morning quiet. "...I thought you'd be in Chicago or New York by now, talking circles around the idiots in Wall Street and dating the entire roundup of Victoria's Secret Angels. What are you doing back here?"

It really was her. That's when the second earbud is removed for ease of conversation. If Byron had been wrong, he would've easily moved on, but luckily for him, he wasn't making a fool of himself this morning. There's this light in his eyes to go with the smile that now forms on his glistening face, wet with exertion and the humidity in the air. "Wow. It really has been a while." He honestly hadn't heard that nickname in ages. Hearing 'Ronnie' being mentioned now adds a burst of amused laughter to that smile, his head shakes slowly. "Right. No one calls me that anymore. Though in truth, it's usually Mister Thorne, which I approve of."

That grin broadens even wider when he's reminded of the deal made. "Hey, I was on the wrong coast. In L.A. all this time, so while it's not Wall Street, I've rubbed elbows with a few celebrity clients. Well, until 2016 when I heard that my mother was in some financial trouble. Now I'm here." Slipping the Bluetooth headset into his pocket, he intones, "Have you made progress with your half of the world, Bella? And if so, credentials or it didn't happen."

"You look great, but I'm sure you don't need me telling you that." By now his breathing slowly begins to be regulated to something more normal, taking in deep breaths which each word spoken. "Where did you run off to?" It's only when he'd asked that question that he's reminded of when she was sent away and possibly the why. Though he might have some regrets about asking this so boldly, he truly is curious.

"Over a decade," Isabella tells him, the shadows in her earlier expression banished in favor of an ever-widening smile, levying the full brunt of its incandescence Byron's way and burning away the traces of her earlier malaise to ash. The remark about his old nickname does nothing to temper the spark of her growing good humor, the imp in her rising to the fore and all too willing to rebel against time and change. "If you play your cards right, I could be convinced to keep that quiet," she tells him. "But for old time's sake, I'll give you a pass just this once."

He effortlessly reintroduces her into what she has missed of his life; a world away from her own, exposed to the glitz and glamour of the city of angels. It can't be any more different than the sphere she inhabits, saturated as it was with scholars, adventurers and the occasional treasure hunter - but in a way, comparably just as cutthroat. It takes a certain degree of moxie to live and thrive in either. As he speaks, he would be able to see it, and be reminded of it - that irrepressible curiosity, her attentive intensity and the ever-present willingness to let the world fall away and leave him the only thing as clear as crystal in the heart of it, digesting the offered details of his journey to date.

In reply to his query about her progress, she reaches behind her to unclip her phone, to access its holder's compartment at the back to hand him a pale white card with the famous emblem of the University of Oxford:

ISABELLA B. REEDE
SENIOR RESEARCH ASSISTANT
SCHOOL OF ARCHAEOLOGY

"Still working on those credentials - somehow my professor convinced me to take a break before I drowned myself in my phD candidacy," she tells him. "But once I get them, you'll be one of the first to know."

Amusement threads through the undercurrents of her expression, surfacing from the delicate lines of her sunkissed mien. "That's me," she tells him, the devil's own mischief on her tongue and the look of her. "Always runway ready." And clearly poking fun at herself in the doing; she's been running for an hour now, her tanktop and hair wicked into her complexion. "But thanks, I appreciate that, I can't be doing too badly if you think so while I look like this. You, too. You look..."

There's a pause. A slow, deliberate look up and down, from the bottom of his quality running treads to the top of his head.

"....expensive."

She's barely biting back a grin; experience might have tempered her recklessness - Isabella has always been the sort who considered herself more a force of nature than a young woman back in their teens and the years have not diminished her love for banter. Pivoting once, she falls in a companionable distance by his side, to start walking.

"I was sent to New Orleans," she tells him. "After what happened, I took the opportunity to get away, despite it being Mom's idea. Finished high school there, made it to Boston for university, and then across the pond to Oxford after for my master's and doctorate. Nothing too glamorous, I mean, it's not exactly the kind of career that'd have me rubbing elbows with the likes of your clients." She turns her head, regarding his profile. "You? Visible, tangible successes aside, how are you doing? How's your mom?"

Byron certainly didn't look like a smalltown boy anymore. For one, he'd cut his hair. It's no longer near shoulder length, wearing a style more reminiscent of something you'd see in a big city. The styled trim of his facial hair is another giveaway. Even in running attire, there's something classy about him. It could be the ensemble he'd put together just to go out on this run, or the expensive sports watch on his wrist. Then again, it could just be his mannerism at times. Either way, she wasn't wrong. He did look a little expensive.

Taking hold of the offered business card between two fingers, there's a quirk of his brow, followed by yet another grin, "Senior Research Assistant? Than in itself sound rather boring," He's teasing her, but is quick to tack on, "But the part where it says School of Archeology? That's some Indiana Jones stuff right there." Those dark eyes lift to her, "Are you doing anything like that then? Have you explored your own Temple of Doom" It almost sounds serious when he says this, but he breaks out into a grinning laugh soon after. "May I? For safekeeping?" He asks of the card.

Byron is fine to talk and walk. They were out running this morning. Why drop that heart rate down this drastically?

Just seeing her reminds him of the days that he'd spent with the Reede twins and the things which Isidore used to tell him. Oh, he'd remembered it all on his return here, especially Isidore's disappearance. Then there was that light within her. He recalled how brightly it would shine as children. Some things never change. "I mean, that's what you're interested in. Though to be honest, it sounds pretty bad ass. Would I ever switch professions out of the blue to do what you do?" He gives her this side glance as they walk and talk, "It depends if it's anything like what you see in the movies."

"I own the Bayside Apartment Complex right. Decided to try my hand at being a landlord. She lives in one of my units, so she's being well taken care of." He says, eyes looking ahead of them now. "So you were told to take a little break from your work and where do you go? You've probably been to so many exotic locations. Yet you return back here. It's as I've heard mentioned before, people tend to come back."

If anyone looked at him now, nobody would believe he came from a small, nothing town in the northwestern seaboard of the United States. Even she didn't recognize him at first, and she has known him for more than half her life.

He ribs her back, though when he teases her for her title and its seeming mediocrity, Isabella's laughter returns, and remains when he falls on the Indiana Jones comparison. "I told you back when we were kids, didn't I? I could leave being the next J.P. Morgan to you, and you can leave the dangerous adventures to me. But if you really have to know, yeah. Lots of it. My master's thesis was on the Antikythera shipwreck, and it was an incredible find, Ronnie. It was built the second quarter of the first century, B.C. and somehow despite lost for centuries under the water, it and nearly everything it carried was still there. I mean, it's no Temple of Doom, mind. I mean, I'm pretty sure none of the crew was chanting Kali-Ma while trying to pluck my heart out, but anything can happen down there in the deep. Dangerous work, difficult work, but when have you ever known me to run away from a little water?"

His laughter does plenty for her exhausted spirit, a rueful twist returning to her mouth at hearing it. "Sure," she says of a card. "But in exchange for one of yours. For safekeeping."

His observations are apt; striding next to him, she burns like a star on the verge of fusion, her deep, mysterious connection to Gray Harbor and its mysteries digging its talons right into her very marrow; she had run to the other coast, flew across the water to another continent, dove into some of the most perilous terrains imaginable, and yet their hometown has managed to drag its prodigal daughter back, kicking and screaming in furious rebellion. In many ways, Byron's presence in the now was a comfort - a walking, breathing reminder of the wonder and magic she used to embrace as a girl until...

"You and I used to talk about partnering up once we got old enough to find lost treasure hoards," she says, tilting her head up to watch the sky above them gradually change color. "You'd hunt down the investors while I handled the research and just precisely how we were gonna get there. I wasn't even worried about whether you'd find it too dangerous, you were one of the only two or three boys in our high school who was able to keep up with me." It isn't just her penchant for getting into good-natured trouble, or her ability to get up no matter how badly she was hurt, but her energy. No force on the planet could ever stop Isabella when she wanted to do something, go somewhere. She meets his eyes when he angles them her way. "I'm sure you could have done it if you wanted to."

He owns property. Real estate was, or at least seventy-five percent of the time, a solid investment. But when he rightly points out that she ended up here...

He was never the sort to hold back what he thinks. It was one of the many reasons they got along so well as children, as young teens. She hated being coddled, and he hated being lied to, and while their friendship wasn't without friction because of it...

"Truthfully, I never wanted to come back here," she murmurs, her earlier levity fading. "I thought if I put enough distance between myself and this place, it would forget me. But it hasn't."

That is when she stops. She turns around to look at him fully, her expression inscrutable save for the steely determination she levies against almost all obstacles.

"Something called me, Ronnie. It sounds ridiculous and weird, I know. From across the country...across the pond. And when I got back here, there was..."

Her voice trails off.

"...I thought maybe if I just did what I had to do here and left, it would all go back to normal and I could return to my life. But something tells me it won't be so simple this time."

"The Antikythera." Byron tries to repeat the name, possibly butchering as he does so. "I'm afraid that I'd never heard of it, but I have a feeling most haven't. So I don't feel overly ashamed. Just a little." The dampness in the air does little to dry him off, so he blots the side of his face and along his neck with the towel that he'd brought. The edge of his lip seen on her view of his profile lifts when she goes all in with this Indiana Jones thing, "They might not have been chanting it when you were there, but whose to say that organ removal isn't what caused the shipwreck to begin with." Letting the towel drape over his shoulders, he turns to regard Isabella with thoughtful eyes, "You were always a better swimmer than I was. I'll admit that much." He shifts once more, eyes staring off into the distance before then once more. "And we've gone on so many adventures."

Wiping his wet hands down against the sides of his damp, yet moisture wicking pants, he sets the card into his wallet, before withdrawing one of his own to hand over. It's made of a clear thin plastic with the name: THORNE written in gray in all caps. It could be Thorne Enterprises or Inc. There's no specification there. However, it does come with his contact information. "Personally, I do various things. I've put on events with celebrity guests in the past. In fact, I'm working on something similar now. A fashion show rock concert. We're working on selecting a venue right now. Then I've worked on some tech investments and just a wide range of things. But that's how I've always been, I've worn many hats in the past."

This mention of partnering up, has him turning to look upon her again, his eyes on her glowing face, "It's never too late to start the partnership of a lifetime." Though when danger is mentioned, he has to laugh lightly, "When have I ever shied away from--" There was a point in his life where he played it safe, but that was when his father was alive. "And no, while I trust myself to hunt down investors for your adventures, I also trust in you to be take care of yourself. I mean, look at you. You're where you want to be."

Only once that's said, doe she he quickly remark, "And I don't mean being /here/. This isn't where either of us want to be, but" His shoulders shrug, "If we never returned home? Who knows if our paths would have ever crossed again." His features sober when told that she believed that something called her back, thus he has to ask, "You're not just talking about coincidence that brought you back here. More of an actual urge, or a dream, perhaps?" Drawing in a deep breath, he murmurs, "There's been a lot of that lately. Dreams."

Her smile returns, however faint. "I was the better swimmer, but you were the better runner, so between the two of us, it balances out," Isabella remarks, unclipping the portable water bottle fastened in her runner's belt and cracks the top open, taking a thirsty swig. "And lucky you were, too. I still remember the last time we raced. If I'd have won, you would've had to help me find a proper date for the Junior Prom. Not gonna lie though, some part of me was really looking forward to the parade of nerds you were going to introduce me to if I had been just a little bit faster. I wouldn't have made it to seventeen, I think, I would have died laughing."

She caps her water bottle. "In retrospect, that wouldn't be a bad way to go, really."

Byron's calling card is one that she takes, that returned amusement growing - and tinged subtly with affection - not because of what is emblazoned across the surface, but rather because the cardboard his information has been printed on looks just as expensive as the rest of him. Some things have stayed the same, for certain, but others have changed significantly. Wordlessly, she tucks it in the pocket of her smartphone holder.

"Career investors tend to do that anyway," she replies, after he's given her a brief summary of his professional life. "I don't think anyone actually savvy with such enterprises would turn down a good opportunity and those rarely ever stay in a single category. I'm glad to hear it though, that you're doing so well. Not..." She emphasizes the next with a lift of her finger. "That I doubted it for a second. You were always good at it, finding gold in the least expected places."

Never too late, he says, and she laughs, jabbing the tip of her index lightly towards his direction. "I saw what you did there," she tells him. "That look. That Thorne maneuver. That thing you do where you look like you're about to throw a golden apple in the middle of a supercharged wedding party among the gods." She sighs, rolling her head back to turn those green-and-gold eyes upwards. "Well, if you're serious about it, the official reason why I'm back here is because of work. Non-disclosure agreements aside, I'll field the opportunity to my professor if my research here turns up anything, see if the outfit we're consulting with is open for new financing. I don't know if you know anything about deep-sea salvages....but when the exploration company tries to keep it a secret, there's almost always a long-lost hoard involved. I think you and I can agree on the fact that while Gray Harbor's relatively poor in most things, it's ridiculously wealthy when it comes to secrets."

He isn't wrong, in the end, unsurprised by his frank, but welcome assessment of her ability to take care of herself, largely fueled as she is by an inexhaustible sense of fiery independence.

For a moment, she watches as his face eases into a more serious facade, and the thing that reminds her that over a decade has passed. His sober expression emphasizes his own changes, whatever maturity he has managed to develop in his time in Los Angeles. "Honestly?" she murmurs. "I'm glad to hear it...you acknowledging that this isn't where either of us wanted to be."

She falls silent about their paths crossing, long lashes brushing against her cheeks when she turns her gaze away from him and towards the multicolored plateau stretching out from the bottom of the hill they've just traversed. He's right there, too - if circumstances never driven them back here, they would have continued to be estranged from one another, though underneath it all lies a twinge of guilt, stemming from the brash actions of a teenaged girl who hadn't just lost a brother, but half of her heart and soul ripped away, never to be recovered. The part of her that decided that the only way to survive the pain and emptiness was to forget Gray Harbor and its denizens ever existed - even Byron.

Easier said than done, in the end, like it always is.

After a long, almost interminable silence, she speaks up. "When has it ever been a coincidence, Ronnie? All the strange things Sid got into....his disappearance. This assignment falling into my lap right when my dreams were becoming...I don't know. I can't describe it. It didn't feel like before, nothing as vivid or immersive. It tastes like..."

She pauses, her lips pursing, visibly struggling to put her rapidly-firing thoughts into words.

"...inevitability," she says at last. "Like something's coming, if it's not already here."

Both hands lift to scrub her face.

"I came back from Oxford right when the storm started," she continues. "I tried to wait it out in the hospital since I had to pick up the parents' medication anyway. But there was something there...something connected to me somehow. Like once upon a time, whoever it was, he shared some part of me...and then he killed a man, tried to kill a woman, then resurrected the man he killed and the corpse tried to kill me. He was dead, Ronnie....the dead don't come back to life. Not even here....do they?"

There are parts of Byron that's all grown up, but much of the Byron of old still remains and Isabella's bringing back a lot of memories. Having the events surrounding her Junior Prom returning to him, Thorne's grin is wide, mixed with a healthy dose of laughter. "And man did I have a list." He slowly bites down onto his lower lip, tasting a hint of salt there, before he idly licks at them to moisten. "I probably would have just taken you to the prom myself." He says probably! "You could've done worse!"

Now that they are back to discussing business and that's something that always excited him. At least, new business ventures did. "You know me, Izzy. I'm always looking for the new big thing." It might make him come off as flighty, but he's always known to chase opportunity." He switches between two nicknames that he'd used for her: Izzy and Bella. Both are often at the tip of his tongue when addressing her. "And I'm not afraid of hard work and putting in some research time to learn more about my investments."

When conversation dwindles into silence, giving both this moment of thought and reflection, their legs never stopping in motion as they continue to trek their way across the infamous park, Byron's own thoughts return to Sid now.

Then it's Isabella who breaks this silence. And this is the point where he does come to a stop, taking pause where the Carousel can clearly be seen in the near distance. She lists down a few 'coincidences', though he can think of some of his own now too. This mention of her assignment, however, gets him to ask, "Tell me more about what you're meant to find here. In Gray Harbor of all places. While this is place a of mystery, I wouldn't have expected it to be a location for archeological finds." He then blinks, something else occurring to him. "Unless this thing you're working on has to do with the darkness? The dreams? All of it."

The topic of the storm is something he's familiar with. Not her story, in particular, but he's had his own experience. That's when he asks, "The hospital? In Downtown? I saw someone down in the sewers, didn't get a good look at him, but after we were... swept down into there, he looked like he was heading Downtown. I could be wrong." The rest of what she says, though, is both surprising and concerning all the same. "A zombie attacked you? Jesus. What did this man look like? The one who tried to kill you all." Do the dead not come back to life here. There's this thoughtful pause, when he considers. "I... I wouldn't rule it out. But the only things I'd been attacked by were in dreams. Some were constructs of the darkness, maybe? Not real. Others were agents of the darkness."

I probably would have just taken you to the prom myself.

If she's surprised by the declaration, she doesn't show it. Isabella returns his grin, leaning hard into the emotion. "I was ready to ask you," she tells him, so simply that nobody would blame him for believing that she's only pulling his leg. But that would go against everything he knew of her - still knows of her, really - no amount of embarrassment or fear of rejection would have stopped her from trying. "I had the dress. The phone was in my hand. I even bought the corsage just so I could tell you that I already have it and I was going to give it to you so the entire school would know that we were taking this partnership thing very seriously. And I know you, you'd get back at me by...god. What was that band you loved that I hated? You'd make me dance to that entire album."

Her laughter subsides. "And yet, I could have done worse," she confirms. "I really could have. I was ready for that, too. I don't know what would've made a funnier story."

She tilts her hand, and offers Byron a drink from her water bottle, her grin giving way to a smile - she has a thousand different kinds, this one a warmer look that pairs distressingly well with those emerald irises and their golden shards.

They had two for each other, not all too strange for individuals who reveled in their rivalry as much as they did their friendship, though the brunette's usage of her chosen monikers for him was often a tell in and of itself as to what he was in for at any given time: Ronnie most days, unless he was in some way hurting, over his abusive father or his neglectful mother. In those instances, it was always, simply, 'B'...and often spoken softly, and held with a delicate, almost hesitant intimacy - understandable, for a young woman who was often uncomfortable with emotion, but has never hesitated to try, either.

"I can't tell you too much until you decide to back some of it," she tells him. "Otherwise the company would have standing to sue me since I signed the NDA. But it's a merchant-class galley that was last spotted around the bay in 1895. As far as I can tell, completely unrelated to what I've been experiencing except for the water....but the family lore is strange in that too, anyway. Mom used to tell me all Reedes Dream of water. There's a lot I don't know still."

She steps up to the carousel when they get close to it, her palm sliding over the arched neck of one of the wooden horses; some of the paint has chipped, but given the construct's age, it is in remarkable condition, her touch a gentle, but curious thing, ever so effortlessly drawn to the artful fragments of a place's history. "The last time I was in a Dream, there were these shadow tendrils coming from everywhere. When I first left for New Orleans, I asked Mom if she could teach me how to make them stop. Or if there was a way I could stop...this..." She gestures to herself. "She told me she didn't think she could, because I was from her line, also. I never asked her what she meant...at that point I was tired of it and what it took from me."

But the familiar thread has her snapping her head up to look at him. "I saw a shadow," she tells him. "Quick glimpses, here and there, but I knew he was...I think he was male. And when I tried to follow, he slipped away...heading Downtown, also."

She frowns thoughtfully. "There was someone else in the hospital who said she couldn't go where it was - brunette, almost too fashionable for this town. That whoever we saw was asking for someone named Billy. I was honestly ready to let it go the moment I heard the doors bang against the wall but....he was familiar, Ronnie. Like he was..."

...family.

The thought sinks in like a stone and her expression changes, though she spares Byron a glimpse of it by turning around and leaning against the horse.

"You okay, though?" she wonders. "Floodings can be bad in coastal cities, you could have drowned."

It's surprising to hear when someone had a similar idea to him way back when and this was surrounding the Prom. Not even /his/ Prom. "You should have just gone ahead and done it then." Byron says in a playful taunt. Not that they could go back in time to change anything. "I would've accepted it and then the laugh really would have been on you." The smile accompanying this statement starts as an almost smug semi-grin, before it widens to reflect the good-humor in his words. "Coldplay?" Look, Byron was a huge Viva La Vida fan. And Clocks... "I could name a few bands that you didn't care for, but Coldplay was just the first that came to mind. And I think there are quite a few who would agree with you there."

They are both adults, there's no such thing as cooties anymore, so when he's offered a drink from her bottle, he'll graciously take it. "Thanks." He says, uncapping it before tilting his head back to quench his thirst. He even lets some of it pout over face. But not too much. It's not his bottle of water. He reaches out to hand it back to her.

"When you have the time, I could invite you back to my office and you can let me know what you are free to disclose. The last thing I want is to get you into trouble." There's a slow nod when she brings up the merchant-class galley, though he's surprised when she says that it may be unrelated to whatever plagues her. "You said it yourself, there's no such thing as coincidences. And from what I've learned, whatever is going on in this town, it's been happening for a very long while."

There's a look of curiosity now in his eyes when she brings up her mother's quote about the Reedes, "Now's a good time to look up some family history while you're here. We have a perfectly good library just for that. Hell," he says his eyes glancing up at one of the horse's faces on the carousel, "I just received proof that I have ties to the Addington family. A Great Grand Aunt or something married an Addington. She was the mother of the current Addington Matriarch now in fact." The look that he gives is both distant and thoughtful when he says, "Don't worry, I"m not planning on knocking on her door to demand recognition. I'm not that needy." Anymore.

He then blinks when she speaks of tendrils, having seen something similar just the other day. "Tendrils?" There's this dismissive shake of his head, "I was looking at a photo shown to me and one of the figures in it, there was something about it and you had this uneasy sense of dark tendrils surrounding that particular figure. It... could be nothing." A coincidence again?

First thing's first, once she says the name Billy, Byron snaps his fingers, "That's it. What's what I heard. When we were on Elm that evening, there was this croaking voice calling out for Bill. Billy must be one in the same. That person, that shadow, sent some... dark minions against us," Dark minions is a better way of saying piles of rancid sewage, "So he could make his escape. He must've went to the hospital next, where you w--" There's a brief pause, when he asks, "Familiar how?" And yet even once he'd asked that, he already has some ideas.

"I was with a few others. We're fine. We weren't assaulted by zombies for one. But I'm glad that you're alright. Have you been checked out by the hospital before you left?"

His insistence that she should have gone ahead draws from her a smile with the slightest trace of regret, though it is one she doesn't explain. As talented as they are with their particular gifts, time-travel is still somewhat beyond them, and there had been other reasons why the phone call that she had just described to him had never come to pass. Because it was true - for all of Isabella's cultivated skill for deception in the times she needs it the most, there was no need to lie to him there, because she did have the phone in her hand. She did have the dress and corsage and she did have the intention. But she also remembers what happened the moment her fingers pressed the buttons to dial his phone number - the sudden, cold drip of apprehension winding down her back and making the hairs at her nape stand on end, followed by the inescapable sense that her twin was about to do something dangerous.

The memories are there, passing over the virid crystal of those large eyes, time slowing to a stop when the phone clatterered on the ground as she vaulted up the stairs, screaming her brother's name, and how the world spun uncontrollably when she realized he was just simply...

"Ugh, Coldplay," she groans instead, flashing him another grin. "And yeah, agreed. That would have served me right - either way, it would have been fun. Like I said, you were one of the only few who could keep up with me anyway. Prom wouldn't have ended at prom." Brazen as ever, with that streak of reckless, ruthless confidence. Her dark brows wiggle at him playfully, with hints of lasciviousness so obvious and exaggerated that at least on this end, it's clear that it's a jest and knowing the young woman, she was thinking of something else - late night runs to IHOP, exploring a haunted house, or wheedling him to help her steal her father's houseboat for the night and take it on a tear towards where the lighter blue of the bay ends and the darker oceanic abyss begins, supplied with enough midnight snacks to last them until the morning.

Isabella reaches for her water bottle, taking a swig from it and watches, with that characteristic mindling of both amusement and affection, at the drops of water sliding down his face. "That sounds good, and I'd prefer not to talk about the search in the open anyway. We're presently alone, but you and I know better than most how well the air carries the things you'd rather not have other people know about, especially around here. Let me know when you're free - between you and me, you're the busy one. I determine my own hours while I'm here...not like I stop working very often, but I have more control over my schedule."

No such thing as a coincidence.

Whatever it is that's been happening for a very long time, there's a hint of both apprehension and curiosity on her fine-boned expression. "What do you mean?" she wonders. She can see him investigating specific opportunities and background checking clients, but the strange things happening in this town? "You're not moonlighting as a paranormal investigator are you? Or is it just you've been running into that more often? What have you been up to on that end?" It bears asking, and much like him, she doesn't shy away from posing difficult questions, no matter the risk of rejection. It's another thing they have in common.

She takes another swig of her water, though strangely, she doesn't answer him about investigating her own family history, a certain faraway look returning in those emerald depths, remembering her mother's face and her sad eyes. But his own revelations banish away the thoughts of her quickly enough. Her attention falls back on him, sharpened with a certain laser focus. "You're indirectly related to the main line of the Addingtons?" she wonders. "You're not-- "

But he answers her question before she can even ask it. Some part of her relaxes at his assurance that he won't go off and demand recognition, that the years have changed, or at least modified, the parts of him that were hungry for validation of his self-worth. She gives him another rueful smile at that, before sinking further against the horse, watching him observe hers from the head of it. Her shadow crosses his own upon the carousel's pedestal. "Well, that sort of explains why we can't help ourselves but try to one-up one another constantly. My mother's from the main Baxter line."

And then, the tendrils. Her brows furrow faintly. "Wait....what photograph? It's strange, was it old? It must've been something if you're getting that much of an indirect impression on something like that."

She also seems surprised, and visibly perturbed, that his encounter at the sewers and her encounter at the hospital may have been instigated by the same entity. "Yeah, that's definitely not a coincidence," she murmurs. Though before she could say any more, he asks about the nature of her familiarity with the supernatural force they had come across separately. Familiar how? Her lips press together in a thin line. Pushing away from the horse to face him fully, she elects to answer his very last question first. "I made sure they saw to me," she says, her tone softened by his apparent concern. "Bruises and a knock to the head, but nothing that aspirin and exercise can't drive away."

But that's her all over too. She could be missing a leg, bleeding out from every pore, and she'll still insist that she was fine.

"...and familiar as in familiar, Ronnie. Like I knew it....or that I should know it. It runs deep, like marrow and blood." She glances down at her hand, turning it over to inspect her wrist and the faint indentation of delicate veins pulsing faintly with the rush of crimson life, flowing in microscopic eddies through the lifegiving channels inside of herself. "I tried to ignore it...I was determined to ignore it even if it breathed down my neck, but I couldn't. I haven't...tried to do anything with what I've got for over five years, you'd think I would have forgotten how, but after a few hours of just breathing the air here, I could follow him, at least at the time, no matter how many surfaces and people he jumped off of. But I remember."

She closes her eyes then, her lashes kissing her cheeks.

I hate that I remember.

If Byron remembered what happened around that time, the darkness surrounding the preparations for the Junior Year Prom, he doesn't say anything about it. For the most part, he's strayed from much of the unpleasantries that they could be discussing, even if some of those thoughts linger in his mind. There's that faint smile on his lips still, one that grows to something far more amused when she 'Ughs' at Coldplay. "Don't diss Coldplay. A lot of people do that already. But you have to admit, Viva La Vida is a /good/ song."

He continues to hover near the carousel, remembering childhood moments spent here, when actually riding on one of those horses was an exciting time. Or when he got older and began taking dates out to this very park. So when he hears her words that Prom wouldn't have ended at prom, his eyes are drawn in her direction to quietly take in her expression, knowing that she has ideas of her own. Or else she wouldn't have brought it up. Yet, he won't pry about it. Instead, he exhales deeply, his gaze shooting off in the direction of Downtown and the hospital, "That was some year." He'll leave that hanging there.

Just as he won't push her about the prom statement, perhaps having thoughts of his own, he won't press her for work information either. No, it's her bringing up fancy idea that he'd be moonlighting as a paranormal investigator. There's this pursed smirk on lips now, his gaze lowered, because he just knows that she'll think what he's about to say is very... unlike Byron. "No. Not me anyway. I've been in contact with Alexander Clayton." The town loon... Most people in town know of Alexander. "He's the one doing research into the town's history, trying to find connections to what happened in the past and..." He gestures around vaguely, but what he means is the darkness. The weird things that go on here.

"It was during this research that he came upon some marriage announcements and obituaries linking me to the Addington family. The Addingtons are one of the old families that really interests him." His shoulders lift lightly, "I"m sure he's a daily visitor to the Addington House Museum." And with a furrow of his brow, he quickly asks, "Did you know that there's an exhibit there that deals with sawmill accidents? There is." Despite the subject matter, that smile returns.

And then she mentions her mother's bloodline, something that makes him blink. "A Baxter. That's pretty interesting, given what we were told of the family in 4th Grade History." There's this moment where he reaches for his phone, his hand gripping around it, but it loosens. "If you're interested in history and this photograph, I could set up a meeting with Clayton." He'll ask this, eyes focused solely on her once more.

If that was some important exchange of information, it should cast a dark shadow over anything that followed it. If what followed didn't deal with what happened to her at the hospital. "I wish I were there to have helped." But, really, he was just finishing with dealing a huge mess on his end. "I... couldn't remember that I had any abilities once I'd left town. I'd forgotten a lot of the strangeness that is Gray Harbor. Only to have my skull cracked open with a sledgehammer once I'd returned." His hand remains at the belt that his phone is attached to. Maybe he really wants to give Alexander that call.

But you have to admit, Viva La Vida is a good song.

"You'll pry that admission out of me from my cold, dead tongue," Isabella tells him mock-seriously, though her amusement lingers; as palpable in the air as the taste of the ocean so ever-present within it.

His next utterance is a quiet thing; in many ways, when it comes to the parts of his life that hurt him deeply, he can be just as elusive as she, but those eyes miss nothing - not just the words he chooses to say, but how he says them, the muted pitch and timbre of his baritone and the way he casts his eyes elsewhere as he thinks of carousels and the ways in which he tried to make the most of his life at a time when nobody expected much from him. Archaeology, in the end, was a discipline deeply entrenched in how people lived in a time when society was less obsessed with documenting the details of their daily lives, unlike the current era of social media - of snapchats and tweets and Instagram. It can be said that her interest in people runs just as strong, just as deep, just as passionate as her interest in their bones when they're long gone.

That was some year.

"It was." Two words, a simple sentence, but each syllable carries the weight of everything she is unwilling and unable to say.

Her expression shifts, however, at the mention of Alexander Clayton - not just at the news that the 'town crazy' was still around after all these years, but that Byron has an active relationship with him. Their circles never overlapped, and their interests couldn't be any more different. "Wow, he`s still at it?" she wonders, visibly surprised. "I never knew he was so determined." What she doesn't remark upon out loud, however, is what his stake was in doing the work he's been performing in mining their small hometown of its secrets. What was his motivation? It couldn't simply be because he was bored, or insane, or any combination of the two, could it?

In the end, however, is he so crazy if he was right all along?

"So he's been focusing his research on the old families in Gray Harbor," Isabella says instead, sliding her hands back in her pockets, her lips pursing in quiet thought, a small crease appearing between the elegant arches of her dark brows as she falls silent in private ponderance. She turns to look at the landscape further revealed by the early morning, the mists dissipating once sunlight spears through the clouds and injects some much needed color in their surroundings. Gray Harbor was always at its most beautiful during the summer...and its citizens know it too, those with the spark and those without. "Do you know why? I mean...he couldn't have just fallen into it by accident." The interesting tidbit about sawmill accidents has her attention swinging back to him, the pearlined edges of her teeth digging faintly on her full lower lip, blood rushing to the surface as she chews upon it. "Well..." she continues slowly. "From what I remember of the town's history, most of its early industrial years were centered around the sawmill's operations, and it wasn't as if safety regulations were something they considered on the level that they should - the 1800s were rife with ridiculous incidents connected with long hours and poor working conditions to the point that the United States Supreme Court at the time even issued an opinion that limiting working hours violated the Fourteenth Amendment." She rattles off these tidbits from memory, effortlessly demonstrating the fact that there is an academic side to all of her adventuring. "...thankfully the SCOTUS justices pulled their heads out of their asses and overturned that, but if I hadn't been born here and was familiar with the fact that things have been so fucking weird here I'd be saying that would be typical of the time."

But that's not so simple, is it? She knows it, and Byron knows it also.

His remarks about her matrilineal line has her pausing, Isabella silently ruminating over her mother's secretive nature. "Honestly, I didn't know until after I had left New Orleans," she confesses. "It's not as if the Baxters of Gray Harbor are the only line of Baxters in the entire world, it's a common enough last name that there's no reason to make the connection immediately, and my father met my mother while he was still a Naval recruit in Annapolis." On the opposite coast, and as far away from Gray Harbor as possible...though is that a coincidence also? Did her grandfather send Irene away as far as he could? If that's the case, then why?

The offer given, the green-eyed academic lifts her stare to meet Byron's - he gives it freely, but she understands his meaning with that look; there is no obligation. In the end, it's her choice.

"...I want to see the picture," she replies, as usual quick to make a decision, though the speed in which she makes it would deceive anyone; it gives her the impression of being someone prone to taking unnecessary risks. Nothing could be further from the truth, however, when she has been so inured with the act of processing information quickly, and discarding what she doesn't need just as quickly. "If he's really interested in it, maybe I can tell him something he doesn't already know."

And I can take the opportunity to ask him why, she adds silently, though she keeps this to herself.

His stated regret is one that has her shaking her head, reaching out; the gesture is almost unconsciously done, her index curling lightly at the first knuckle to tap his chin with it - the touch so light it was almost nonexistent. "From the sound of it, you were dealing with another mess on your end," she tells him, her smile returning. "You're the sort who can carry a lot, but if I had a choice, if I had the power to, I'd keep you away from it as much as I could. I already lost Sid..." That aching, deep-seated melancholy and the acknowledgment that she has yet to recover fully from the loss, even after a decade, flashes over her eyes, as fleeting as the glimpse of the ghost she keeps close to the missing half of her heart. "...if anything you're the only one left outside of my parents who truly knew how I was before. Even now, I wish you had forgotten all of it. Even now, I wish you'd have managed to free yourself of it." Her nose wrinkles faintly. "Then maybe you wouldn't have had to deal with a sledgehammer as a welcome committee."

Her head tilts, as if an effort to examine his skull. "I'm glad you managed to fix it," she decides, followed by a quip: "Did they manage to piece you back together with gold filling or...?" And why not? Everything else about him looks expensive!

This whole discussion surrounding Coldplay keeps Byron in a mostly good mood. That wide grin on his face is evident enough, but as with many of the other topics of conversation, he doesn't push too hard. He knows the truth! People say they hate Coldplay, but they'd still listen to the songs the band's put out!

That quiet moment of reflection now passed, the question at hand is: What are Alexander Clayton's motives?

"He's like us, for one." Byron will start there, his gaze dropping down to stare at one of his hands, now held up and semi-outstretched, his elbow lightly bent. He can clearly see the light within everyone around him, how vibrantly some of them shine. And while he can't really see his own light, there's a part of him that can tell that whatever glow he basks in is nothing compared to many who live here. And for some, even those who were outsiders.

"Who knows how long ago he's had his abilities." The arm lowers, his eyes lift to look on Isabella, though rather than meet her own gaze, he focuses on her cheek, her lips. Anywhere just below her eyes, in thought. "He's far more proficient with what he does than I am and as far as I can tell, we're the same." Aspect. "He knows about the Darkness and the...." Fuck, what's that word that he'd used for them, He won't call them Slendermen. That's Geoff's words. "Dolorphage." That was it, though it sounds pretty foreign slipping from Byron's lips. "In fact, Mister Clayton was there for three of my most recent dreams, if you can call them that." Now it's his turn to ask: Coincidence? But quite a few people were there for all of them as well. Lilith comes to mind now. "Lilith too. Oh, she's back in town."

Isabella might remember Lilith from Byron's childhood. One of B's closest friends and possible love interest, if 13 or 14 year olds could have love interests. She'd disappeared when they were around 14 from his life and for a time, Byron wondered what /he'd/ done wrong to chase her off.

"She was there for all four incidents as well." A pause, he's about to speak of the fourth, but refrains.

When the day begins to pass and the sunlight shines down upon them, Byron lifts his chin, eyes to the sky. "I don't know if his research will explain what happens here. Or this light within us. Or anything." By now, his phone has long released his grip on the phone, his arm hanging down at his side. Though it's when she talks about her mother and the fact she was nowhere near Gray Harbor when she and her husband met that has Byron blinking once, then twice. "I.. I've been so caught up with the town's history that my mind immediately jumped to that conclusion. That and... I'd recently met a woman of Baxter lineage. This town's Baxters. Or so she told me. I'd taken her on as an Event Coordinator for--" A pause.

"We've been doing so much catching up that I'd forgotten to mention one of my big projects for the town. A weekend long, town wide festival. Think the Carnival of Venice, Mardi Gras. Or just this Grand Masquerade. She expressed interested in helping me throw this together and strangely, brought up that her mother, a Baxter, was from here. After Clayton brought that family back to my attention."

Her teasing about the gold fillings brings that all-too familiar amused grin to his lips and a shake of his head, "Despite the fancy apartment, the car," Yes, he has a fancy car... "And the clothes, I can't say that I've changed all that much, if I'm being honest."

The Glimmer residing within the town crazy would be enough for most people, but there's a sense from Isabella that she is unsatisfied with that explanation - she can't be the only one with the spark who would rather see it gone from her overall makeup, and all the troubles that come with it. More than most, she is intimately familiar with the costs of such a gift. But this, too, she keeps to herself, observing him quietly as he turns his hand over in an effort to glimpse his own light. His own spark is faint - compared to Sid's, his was but a glowing ember compared to her twin brother's psychic conflagration, but it was just one small - and to Isabella, relatively insignificant - aspect of him. He could do great things without it.

Even without meeting her eyes, her mouth remains one of the most expressive parts of her, and he'd be able to gauge her expressions just by focusing on that. She notices, however, that he doesn't - his bold manner reflects her own, so when he is decidedly not, she notices it easily. But she doesn't remark upon it. Instead, she turns her attention on his reassurances that despite the healthy skepticism anyone with a healthy amount of common sense would harbor regarding the likes of Alexander Clayton, he was no outsider. He was in the know...and may perhaps even know more about what is happening than her own mother. "Dolorphage, huh?" she murmurs.

And when he mentions Lilith, she smiles - there's a teasing bent to her mouth when Byron mentions her. "Yeah," she replies, her amusement as clear as crystal. "I couldn't believe how early you started, you guys were the Will They, Won't They? of our tiny little middle school. In that arena, you beat me by spades. I don't think I even had my first kiss until I was fifteen." That was typical of her, too, electing without fail to invest herself in things other than the typical teenaged interests, chasing after dreams that sent her to exotic locations and far away places, constantly driven by the desire to be the first, always, to see something utterly wondrous. "So what's the story there, Casanova? Am I getting an invite to the wedding?"

A much-needed tangent towards the brighter side of their lives, until she hears about the incidents. "That's too many," she says quietly, her delicate features carrying subtle strains of tension. "Mom kept telling me over and over again that Dreaming was dangerous, and it might even become more frequent the longer you hang around people like us. I thought it was because I left, and went to a place where the saturation of those with the spark was minimal compared to here, that I was able to keep from doing that too much...but when I was with Sid, and because he always, always wanted to know more, and keep trying to dive deeper, even without him meaning to, I kept getting sucked in. It happened frequently. Maybe there's a correlation...but I don't know. It's been a long time."

His confessions about his involvement with the investigation on her family, and the mention of another Baxter has her pursing her lips. "I don't know a lot about my relatives on the Baxter side...the present-day descendants anyway." She makes the distinction, and for good reasons she chooses not to articulate at the moment. Mention of his project has her grinning faintly, though, her head tilting and shooting him an openly appraising look. "Trying to usher a bit of an economic boom in the year's third or fourth quarter?" she wonders. "Festivals are pretty good for that, gives people from the surrounding areas a very good financial excuse to visit. Though if you really wanted to make it feel like the Carnevale di Venezia, you could see if you could bring in some stained glass displays. I've only been to Italy a few times, but a tourist doesn't go to Venice without coming away with a couple of pieces of its famous Murano glass." And then, a more curious look. "What's her name? Your event coordinator, I mean."

Her expression, however, takes a turn for the comical when he mentions a fancy car. "Please tell me it's not a Lambo," she groans, though clearly still poking him with her teasing. "Don't be that guy, Ronnie. I hope it's a Jag at the very least. You know me, though." Her hand places dramatically over her chest, feigning a swoon. "My heart beats for a good American classic. I'd almost kill to have a chance to burn the tires off a 1969 Boss 429 Mustang."

And the clothes, yes. That rejoinder draws another unfettered laugh out of her. "Well," she begins, and he can already tell that she's about to be her usual, incorrigible self with the way her green eyes glint with that devil's mischief. "It's not as if your visible changes are terrible. I approve of the scruff." She gestures to his face.

It's true. Byron was far from the forces that fueled his glimmer abilities when he'd gone off to college and returned home a seemingly changed man. He had barely a memory of anything odd about Gray Harbor and those powers that he barely knew how to use, those were completely gone. That said, none of that stopped him from becoming the success that he is-- Mind, there were outside factors to get him started. A benefactor, for one, and contacts. From there, it was all Byron's smooth-talking charisma and entrepreneurial mind that netted both he and his investor the wealth that got him dragged back home.

"Dolorphage." Byron will repeat that, whatever seriousness was in his eyes, that light crease of his brow on trying to come up with that word, all of that is gone; his expression replaced by a 'I can't believe I just used that word' expression, those dark brows now raised. "Beings that feed off of suffering and negativity." Though, he's sure that out of the both of them, she'd know more about it than he does.

The talk about Lilith is an odd one for Byron. Despite her still attending their school and her being in his same grade level, they had little to do with one another; something that was not Byron's decision at all. Then they both went off and became adults somewhere, finally returning home. "We were kids, both going through a lot." In fact, the both of them had less than stellar families. There's this almost sheepish grin. Almost. When the word Casanova is tossed around. One that broadens when 'wedding' is added into the mix. "It's been so long. It's like we barely know each other after or paths slipped." His own words slow down as he considers it all, "Though there's some things that just don't change, but it's hard not to look at someone like Lilith, you know," Here, his eyes will seek Isabella's out, "And remember the little girl I used to try and protect."

He'll nod slowly now, when Isabella informs him that four dreams were too many. "I used to get them, sure, but I was always alone in mine. Now? They suck in large groups of random people. The first time it hit, we were all on Tobin's tour boat. Those who shine were fighting for our lives on an island against... twisted characters from old sitcoms and other odd people, who I will assume, are a throwback to yesteryear."

"About these dreams," This was something that had been on his mind earlier, but he hadn't really said. Then again, her bringing up Sid, does spark him to bring this up, "We had one recently," We, the plural, "where Geoff, Tobin, Lilith and I were at Tobin's place. Back when we were around 11." He then finishes with, "Tobin's mom was there. And she was every bit as warm and gentle as I'd remembered." The woman who had vanished around the time that Sid went missing.

The topic of the Festival, gets another nod. This one quick and affirming, "Exactly the plan. Bolster the town's flagging economy a little. Not everyone has faith in my idea, even if they insist that it will probably be fun." There's this pause, his attention on Isabella again, just as he gives her the name was was requested of him, "Melisande Clancy. Said that her mother was from this town. Now, I thought all the Baxters had left, but that's what she said. And.. I'll look into this stained glass and see if I can go about obtaining some in time for the decoration to be set up. I'm planning on holding it all some time in the fall, though I'll probably regret the decision as the rain will start picking up again by then."

He actually does have to laugh when the topic moves to cars and she brings up the Lamborghini. Maybe there was a time, when was a child, that he'd wanted one. "No. No. Nothing like that. I do drive a black Rolls Royce Wraith, which... due to the heavy rain and flooding, I'll probably need to have it checked out to ensure that no damage was done during the storm." The car was just part of his image. And so was the well-trimmed beared that he wore. "I'd probably still look like the kid you remembered if I shaved this off. So in order to look like the adult that I know that I am," This is all said in good humor, "I grew this."

"Mmhm." The sound is an absent one, Isabella's thoughts drifting away from the moment again when Byron continues to explain what he knows about the Dolorphage. The years prior have convinced her that in the end, they were the nameless things that had taken what was most important to her away and now that she has a name with which to call them, for a moment, at least, her hesitation to embrace what she is dies in the sudden fires that rise, unbidden, somewhere within her core, the urge to seek some kind of supernatural vengeance consuming her thoughts. Deadly, she knows. Suicidal. But she can't help it - it would never bring her brother back, and even if he were somehow still alive beyond the Veil, it has been over ten years; there's no way he wouldn't have changed. He might not even be the Sid she knew and loved anymore.

But she is a young woman who has never taken anything terrible done to her lying down. To name them, somehow, makes them seem less the insurmountable unknown she has considered them all her life. That is reckless. She knows it, but there was always a part of her nature that was wild - and will forever be. With Isabella Reede, passions run as red as her blood.

She lowers her lashes then, but takes a deep breath to recenter herself, and turn her face to look at Byron once more. The talk of Lilith serves to cool her head some. "She was luckier than most," she tells him. "To have someone close to her who understood. I'd like to think I did my best to be there for you whenever you needed it, but even then I knew there would be parts of you that I could never relate to. Understanding comes easy - being nice comes easy, when you're equipped with a healthy degree of empathy . But there are limits to that approach's effectiveness because the reassurance that another person knows what you're going through isn't there. "

Her gaze lifts at that, meeting Byron's dark-eyed stare. For a heartbeat or two, she says very little else, holding it with that familiar, steady care. She has never flinched away from whatever she sees in his eyes at any given time, all too aware of what happens when a wounded creature is cornered and pressed when one isn't ready to withstand the consequences of the pressing. Even in the times in which their personalities have clashed, she has never balked at or cowered from his frustration, or anger, or cutting words - oftentimes, she dished them back with equal force. Sometimes it made reconciliation impossible for a week or two, but somehow, they always managed to make those temporary.

Finally: "Even shields break when hit hard enough, B," she tells him, her contralto so soft, the words are almost tender. "Just be careful, okay?"

After that, she withdraws her hands from the pockets of her hoodie, and takes a sip of her water, listening to Byron's detailed recounting of his experiences in his Dreams. Her expression becomes more inscrutable the longer his retelling continues, a fingernail tracing absent circles and creating patterns amidst the condensation collected on the surface of her plastic water bottle. That hasn't changed, either, this constant need to fiddle with something as she listens and thinks, but that intense, diamond-sharp focus remains on him when he speaks of the dark things of which they've only begun to dissect their true, underlying natures. The reemergence of the long missing Mrs. G has the look of her sharpening faintly. "Did it feel like her?" she asks. "Or did it feel more like a memory of her?" It seems like a strange question, but he would get the impression that Isabella wouldn't be asking unless she had a reason.

Melisande Clancy. She files away the name, shutting it within the steel traps of her prodigious memory. "Even if the Baxters had left doesn't mean that some of them couldn't have found their way back. You and I know very well how strong the tethers are to this place, especially with the likes of us. My mother returned out of love, and stayed for love. I'm sure on Miss Clancy's side, there's a similar reason. That's just conjecture, though. I'm only going by what I know of my own branch of the tree." There's a strange note there, when Isabella talks about her mother's side of the family, a prevailing hesitance to venture further in that discussion while being so out in the open, surrounded by things that can listen to whispers in the wind. If she has a reason, at the moment, she refuses to be forthcoming about it - at least, for now.

Instead, she turns her attention to his sudden laughter, her grin returning, the line of it as bright as distant stars. "Rolls Royce? ....I'll allow it." Said with all the gravitas of a judge passing sentence. And when they start talking about his facial hair, it's her turn to laugh again. "Watch, once you hit your forties and start showing gray on there, you're gonna be really quick shaving that off," she predicts. "Nothing wrong with being a babyface, Ronnie....just not around me, or I'll have to pinch your cheeks and call you pretty."

She winks at that, before she pushes off her carousel horse. "Anyway, I think it might be time for some coffee." And suddenly, just like that, she's taking off in a dead run down the cobblestoned way, streamers of her dark chocolate ponytail flying in the wind as she calls over her shoulder: "Loser pays!"

"The thing is, Lilith didn't think we'd understand. No, cut that." Byron corrects himself, his gaze once more seeking out Isabella's. "When she stopped speaking to all of us?" He says all of us, but this really pertains to him, "That's when her own abilities were manifesting and she'd have terrible dreams about hurting us with what she can do. So she cut off all ties." Then this quiet smile quirks at his lips, "She didn't tell us any of that until recently when she returned to town. If we'd only knew then, but unlike with you and Sid, we didn't really talk about those things. That warning was a way for Mrs. G. to protect us. She didn't want us attracting the attention of the Dolorphage."

Tilting his head to the side, giving his neck and shoulder a nice stretch as he lifts a hand to scratch at a space just behind and below his right ear. "Lilith can protect herself now. She doesn't need me. In fact, I'm think she's more than my match if we ever went head-to---" It's weird thinking on that level. Using your powers against a friends in some friendly battle. "She can set things on fire. Tear things apart. But will I ever stop protecting my friends?" He shrugs, still smiling. "Not if I'm there to do anything about it."

"You know," He then begins, her question actually making him go back to that one childhood dream to try and focus on Tobin's mother. "She was gone for most of it. She went missing in our dream and then we found ourselves hunted by some creature." He knows now that this monster wasn't his father, though at the time, with his 11-year-old mind, it was difficult to distinguish between the clawed beast and the real monster in his own life. As time had passed since experiencing the dream, whatever PTSD he'd suffered on waking from it no longer plagues him. "And as children, we made a fort of pillows and blankets, but the monster still came inside. Then before we knew it, it wasn't a monster at all. It was Tobin's mother. Did it feel like her?" His brow creased in deep thought, "She was like how I remembered her. If it was really her, I'm sure she would have more to say to us. Or so I'd hope."

So the Wraith gets some form of approval. Not that Thorne isn't proud of his ride. She even jokes about the idea that he'll be wanting that baby face back once he starts turning old and gray. "Women like that distinguished gentleman look... or so I'm told." However, she doesn't leave time for him to say anything more. There's this mention of coffee, something that he's craving right now. And then she's off. At first, all he can do is stare in surprise as she sprints down the path. This is followed by a slow shake of the head, "Son of a bitch. Nothing ever changes." His features are brigthened by a smile when those words are spoken. Patting down at his pockets, ensuring that his headset is snugly within one of them, rather than slipping them on, he takes off running. Even with this head start, he's sure he'll catch up with her and when that happens, there will be words!