It's the second night inside the little gardener's hut and she wants to try searching the town through Mr. Bitterberry's eyes again but he isn't having it. The day's earlier "attack" by the shockingly young Algernon and his friend has left the bluejay upset and well...sulking.

I didn't even take. No pecks no screams.

"I know hun," America consoles him with a chagrined smile. "Maybe they're used to pigeons?"

This was offensive, and he let her know it. This obviously called for a different tactic.

"Listen, that's not your Algie-friend, okay? It's an Algie but not the friend sort. When we get back, I'll bet he'll be very sorry this one was mean, okay? You can probably con him out of the other cufflink and then you'll have a match, right?"

Puffing up, the bird turned away to stubbornly stare out the window.

"Right, right," she sighs, "guess I'll be looking about myself tonight, so you keep watch while I'm out. Be back in a few."

She was not back in a few.

This is, in it's way, the perfect decade for America to freely mix and mingle and blend. She tells the truth more often than not, all stories of roaming, of seeing beauty in the places and people of the country. There's small slips, time to time, but she's a Country Girl and they talk a bit funny don't they? Real nice, right? Rootsy and tootsie, us country girls, she tells a boy to an eruption of laughs and giggles as he tries to explain away the word instagram before she can even bother. It's a piece of high school really, inviting herself to the party, thick with smoke and talk and loud music. It's nice and maybe she's a little high for it, but that's nice too.

A girl braids up her hair real nice, singing a song in her ear, voice a little sweet, a little husky. They're talking war and politics and music and art and it's both sincere and full of posturing and America likes both. The best parts of people are what they are and what they want to be. America collects a few stories herself, and the bit of pleasure she gets at the idea of sharing them soothes a bit of her lingering discomfort at time travel for ******** sake.

Late in the night she gets in long discussion with a boy about his tattoos. He's pointing out the ones he got and where he'd gotten inked and he'd served you know? He's a ********' atlas of flash. This one was most recent, though. Yeah, yeah, got in-state even, he's knows a good guy with a clean operation even it's back alley.

"They're illegal here you know." He's got pretty eyes and he says illegal like it's both a gift and a thing to bite into with a snarl. "People got stupid in the New York scene, caught and passed around all sorts of s**t. Massachusetts banned 'em, like it's their body, not mine. Throw it at a war, tell them how to look, it's the same s**t everywhere, and it's the stuff that seems small that trains us to accept the big."

He takes a deep drag before gently coughing up the smoke with a smile, "This guy's good, though. Real clean, better than a lot of hospitals I've seen, that's for damn sure."

He offers to show a few of the hidden ones and America grins, tells him her old man is the jealous sort, so he better do a good job of describing them 'cause now she's curious. He does and even better, directions to the guys he knows.

That night sees America taking her day's wages to a little basement apartment and a small, skinny guy with a shaved head and an assessing look. It's illegal and it's not cheap but it kinda is, compared to 2016 at least. It also hurts, a lot. Teeth grinding against the pain, the girl watches the old but apparently very modern tattoo gun work away on her tender flesh and listens to the man's surprisingly deep voice lecture her on Buddhism and tattoos and Japan and seeing the world as both separate and connected. She wants to tell him magic is real and tells him about Wyoming instead.

The first to see it is Mr. Bitterberry as he lectures her on staying away until it was so dark-dark-darkest and coming back with strange smells. Was that blood? He would tell her mate, he warned while she took off her coat, that she was being fed by others again and not sharing. It cuts off though, when he notices the freshly inked and pinked flesh of her shoulder, the elegant swoop of feather and proud crest. It's a simple design, of course, more symbol than picture but maybe that makes it all the easier for him to recognize.

The preening, affectionate butting of the head, and energetic danging side to side is all America could have wanted and more. Her little friend was beside himself, hurt feelings long forgotten and she's laughing, joyous, until her eyes burn and her throat starts to close. Maybe one door opens another a too much of anything leaves the way clear for fear and hurt and determined desperation.

She suddenly doesn't know what to do with her hands and she's staring vacantly for a moment before reaching for her phone (72%). What follows is a series of messages she knows Sunny can't possibly get, detailing the past two day's events and the tattoo and the bluejay's proud elation. Because at some point, Sunny is going to get them, right? When everything is back to the way it should be, she'll want to know the story, right?