[PRP] A Little Dreamy (Mila & Temperance)

[The Semblance of Unity]

melancholies

Text to: Dreamgirl
Hey Mila, I'm here. I'm by the west entrance. Let me know when you arrive?

This was silly. She knew Mila wasn't a figment of her imagination or just a dream anymore, but here Temperance was. She'd invited her to the aquarium and presumably food after and she had so many important things to begin or continue, but Temperance had just... really wanted to go hang out with someone. All of her other friends (all, what, two of them?) remained busy and she'd felt oddly lonely. It wasn't something Temperance was used to at all.

Sighing, she reached down to straighten the turned up hem of her sundress.  

[Melancholies]

Mila showed up in a flash of color. That was to say, she came running from a distance like she was running from something. "Oh my gosh Temperance! You wouldn't believe what happened!" She looked so embarrassed, her cheeks flushed, "I saw this pretty tall blonde lady and she looked just like you from behind and I totally made a fool of myself! She had a kid Temperance! Gosh, I hope they don't think poorly of that women now..."

Mila was in a loose hanging blouse with a fluffy little skirt and some nice cork sandals. They had a bit of a wedge in them, but that had been intentional (Mila was so small! And Temperance was so tall) and this evened the playing field... slightly. Sort of.

Still she managed to shake the embarrassment with a tiny laugh. "That's what I get for not checking my phone first! Oh—" Her face got red again as she adjusted her glasses, "—I hope you didn't take that the wrong way! I wasn't calling you old or anything. She really was a nice, young lady!"

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Temperance's smile and wave turned a little worried as Mila hurried up like the hounds of hell were on her heels. Then she flushed, just a little, because Mila had mistaken a pretty blond woman for her. Well, she reasoned, it was from the back so that was more plausible.

"I'm so old. Older than the hills," she said in a near monotone. Then she shrugged and let out a tiny laugh. "I didn't take it that way, Mila. You look really cute, by the way." Mila really did and it was kind of unfair that she managed to look cute after sprinting halfway across the complex. She resisted the urge to tug on Mila's shirt. So unfair.

"Need a moment to catch your breath or do you wanna head in?" Without thinking, Temperance crooked her arm for Mila to take if she wanted.

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

"Ohh... are the hills that old?" Must be. She pushed her glasses up on her face again, her cheeks rosy as she smiled, "You're silly. You look really nice too!" Mila was all about self confidence and positive thinking. Now her hands were fidgeting with her hair too, trying to smother herself down, "Nicer than that lady anyway. Oh but—! She was nice too, gosh I guess that's kinda mean..."

She wavered a little.

"Anyway, I guess that doesn't really matter. I'm like! I'm really excited for this! I only moved to Ashdown super recently so I haven't seen much of the stuff." She bounced over to take Temperance's arm too. That was another thing about Mila; she wasn't touchy unless she knew it was okay, but now that she did? Hoo boy.

"Maybe if we're lucky we'll see them feeding the fish! They get so excited..." She sighed wistfully, "It gets me excited too. C'mon!"

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"How-" she paused, not sure she wanted the answer to this question. "-um, how old do you even think I am, Mila?" Temperance smoothed her free hand briefly over Mila's before dropping it. She was inside of an aquarium with a cute girl and going to look at fishes and probably going to die.

She smiled nervously and leaned over to whisper. "You're not mean and I'm, um, really excited too, okay." Then she straightened. "I have lived near Ashdown all my life and I've only been here once. They have a petting pool, too, with sting rays! And a man o' war." Temperance snagged a map, paid for their tickets and then they were inside. Everything was blue, even in the lobby, and she could see things moving in tanks in the distance. "Ah, tunnel, pool - where do you wanna go first?"

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Mila stopped, looking Temperance up and down, and then pursed her lips in a really embarrassing way. "Um. I mean. Not super old?" Her reply was lame, "I-I always sort of assume tall people are older than they are! But I guess I just... assumed you were probably around my age... maybe? I mean, I'm twenty-four." She blinked a few times, pushed her glasses up out of habit, realized she did that and acknowledged that it was probably a habit within the span of a few seconds.

After that thorough distraction at her fingertips, she spoke up again, "Anyway! I don't think age really matters that much, like... in friendships or anything. I guess it can get creepy sometimes but I don't think you're like, fourty-something so it's probably okay." She beamed, "I wanna touch the sting rays! Oh man, maybe the pools'll be shallow enough where you really can do that. I've been to some really high end aquariums where they're... they're a lot deeper so the string rays can get away, which I guess is good for them but this place seems podunk enough that they wouldn't consider that..." She huffed. "So maybe we should start there!"

Mila swayed a little. She didn't say it out loud, but Temperance was definitely getting a gift from the gift shop in return for buying both the tickets. She hadn't argued then, but she was plotting, don't you think she wasn't!

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

She laughed. "You thought I was something like thirty-six, oh my god, I'm so hurt!" Temperance had noticed Mila's desperate attempt at a subject change, but she wasn't about to let her get away without a jab. "I'm 122 in dog years, so I'm only twenty-three." Her glasses were cute, Temperance thought idly.

"But, as the lady commends, the petting tank it is! I think the animals definitely do need a breather sometimes, but I want to touch them..." She turned towards where the map said they'd be. They'd had to disentangle to get the tickets, but she held out her hand behind her. "C'mon, I don't want us to lose each other. Don't let any of the staff hear you call it podunk."

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

"W-Well! Then I'd say you look pretty darn good for thirty-six!" Mila was warbling, her face heating up again because she was clearly embarrassed. "Anyway! Listen!" She paused because she didn't know what to say, "L-Listen! See? You're only twenty-three, that's not bad. You're totally messing with me." Her cheeks puffed out a little bit.

But she grabbed onto the hand again anyway. "Do you think they'll get mad if they do? I mean, there's nothing really wrong with being podunk, it's just like... y'know. It adds to the ambiance. The aesthetic. The gothic or something..." She was rambling, "Like, you enter the Ashdown aquarium, but you never leave." She wiggled her fingers on her free hand.

The actual tanks were pretty... low quality, in the sense that they probably weren't big enough and the glass looked a little scummy from years and years and years of use, but the stingrays seemed happy enough and the tanks were deep enough to allow for momentary breaks. Mila remembered this from years of playing Zoo Tycoon in her adolescence; it was important to give the animals privacy too! "Oh my gosh Temperance look they're so... so... flat." She stared at them, then laughed, "Like literal sea pancakes! Ohhhhh my gosh c'mere c'mere little guys c'monnnn." She was sticking her hands into the water already like an excited child.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Temperance smiled. Mila was fun to rile up - she puffed her cheeks out enough that Temperance wanted to poke the air out. "I hope this isn't Hotel California! I think I'd need to go to work eventually.Also," she looked up. "I don't see any mirrors on the ceiling or anything. But I heard they do overnight stays sometimes, which honestly sounds weirdly fun. Maybe there's a ghost or something."

Mila let go as they reached the petting tanks and stuck her hands in the tank as Temperance watched. "Sea pancakes," she said gravely, then moved over to put her hands in, too. One glided right under her fingers and she let out a small shriek. Then, in a majestic flapping motion, a stingray pushed itself almost entirely out of the water at her. Temperance really did shriek then.

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Mila looked incredulous.

"Oh my gosh! Temperance! It likes you!!!" She laughed out loud, the sound almost a little devilish as she took delight in Temperance's sea-pancake misfortune. For Mila, the experience was a little more Disney Princess-esque, as the creature slid up against her fingertips in a nice, smooth glide.

Retracting her hand, she immediately started to rifle around in her bag. After a moment, she produced a tiny little handkerchief. "This prolly won't help you much, but if any of it splashed up on your face..." She was offering it out, her face still ruddy from laughing and smiling (and boy she was still smiling), "Maybe we should go somewhere less interactive! But that was kinda funny. I wish I'd been recording..."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

She took the handkerchief and dabbed ineffectually at the front of her blouse. A small spray of water had gotten her, but it wasn't anything awful. "Millllaaa," she pouted, just a bit. "Where would you even upload this? 'Giraffe Gets Mauled by StingRay at Aquarium' - a good title, I think."

Seeing how Mile had been amused and the way her face still crinkled up in a smile made her smile again, too. "Holly the stingray just loves me too much. It's... animal magnetism." She huffed a little at her dumb joke. "Let's go see the jellyfish!"

melancholies