Maddie slipped on her jacket before heading down to the lake that Archer sat at. She could tell that another matter had held his mind of the late. The disappearances. Well, the disappearances had been on everyone's mind lately, but Archer seemed to be more effected by it than most.
She sat down at the edge of the lake beside Archer. "Don't feel like swimming?" She asked, pulling her legs up to her chest and wiggling her toes in the grass. "The weather is pretty nice today!" She joked.
Archer snorted, though it was unclear whether it was at her joke or because he was in a bad mood. He decided to respond in the way that would be less sarcastic, though he waited a beat before responding. “I’d rather think up here than down there today,” he responded, gaze still on the opposite end of the lake. “It’s easier to sulk up here,” he added with a tinge of humor, glancing down into the lake. “How are you holding up?”
Maddie shrugged. "I don't know. You think we would notice if someone new can into the loop but no one has noticed anything ususual." She said. "Discord said he hasn't seen anything odd except what's going on with Mrs. Dove."
(i just realized i said responded like three times in a row in that last post lol, btw it's actually Miss Dove bc she's not married)
"It's weird, right? Kids keep disappearing for no apparent reason," Archer said, glaring at the ground. "Maybe it's a hollow, since we don't have any kids with the ability to see them now, but wouldn't we notice if a hollow came into the loop? It's crazy. We should be leaving this loop and finding another one. Bird knows that this isn't the only loop." It was a topic that Archer had mentioned several times throughout the past week.
Jack was seated a ways away from the pair, his sketchbook laid out in his lap. He was drawing, though his hands trembled a little bit as he drew. He was drawing his memories, knowing that he should be over it by now. He should be over this. But he wasn't. He wasn't. It had been a century, and he still woke up crying and gasping as memories of the trenches blasted through his head. Rotting bodies, blown apart friends.
Maddie nodded. "But I thought hollows couldn't enter a loop, only wights." She brought up. "So maybe it's a wight?"
"I've heard tale of a hollow entering a loop before," Archer said darkly, glancing at Maddie for the first time since she had sat down. "But wouldn't we know if a wight entered? Perhaps he could come while we all were asleep. Have you heard of a hollow entering a loop, Jack?" As soon as he asked, Archer felt bad, noticing that Jack seemed to be quite upset. Archer was never sure what to do when he got like that. He looked back at Maddie.
Jack jumped slightly when he was addressed, shaking his head quickly. "Right. Sorry. Got lost in my own head for…a bit." he set the sketchbook aside, raking his fingers through his hair to hide the fact that they were shaking. "I…can't say I've ever heard of that happening, no. That doesn't make it impossible, though, just highly improbable."
"I swear that it's happened before, though that's probably not what is happening now," Archer added, trying not to sound like a two-year-old who didn't get his way. He sighed, blowing air out of his mouth angrily. "You two probably don't want to hear me complain about this again anyway. Let's talk about something else."
"Again, just because I've never heard of it happening doesn't mean it hasn't. I mean…let's be honest here, I've spent so much time locked in my own goddamn head that I probably wouldn't even notice an actual goddamn hollow." he let out a faint laugh, shaking his head.
Archer pressed his lips together, unsure how to reply to that. He glanced at Maddie for a moment, hoping she would somehow telepathically help him. He hated seeing his friend like this but he had no idea how to help. "The disappearances have to be the work of wights though," he said after a moment. "Don't you agree that we need to do something about this?" He definitely sounded like a whiny two-year-old.
"Miss Dove will take care of it. Didn't she say she was going to contact someone to help?" Maddie said, burying her head in her knees a bit. She didn't want to talk about this. She had bad experiences with wights.
"She did…" Archer admitted, though he wanted to say more. He bit his lip. Great, now he had made both of them feel worse. This was why he usually stuck to himself. The second he said how he was actually feeling, he managed to hurt someone else's feelings. "What do you think we'll have for supper tonight?" he asked, attempting to change the topic in a very unsubtle manner.
Jack blinked at the sudden change in topic. "I, er, I would suppose whatever Miss Dove feels like preparing." he said slowly. "I cannot imagine that she would make something too strange, but maybe I am wrong." he shrugged his shoulders slightly.
"I hope that it's potatoes," Archer added, trying to think of where to go with this conversation now. It was clear that he was a bit uncomfortable, but he did his best to hide it. Archer supposed a hundred years of not talking much didn't exactly help his social skills. Maybe he would go swimming after all. He skipped another rock in the lake, this one actually doing several skips before sinking.
Maddie perked up a bit at the mention of dinner. "I hope it's mashed potatoes and gravy!" She said, a smile spreading across her face.
Jack smiled a little. "Mashed potatoes would be delicious." he agreed, nodding his head and pushing aside his memories, just wanting to sit in the sun with his friends.
Archer smiled as well. “They are, especially when there are rolls,” he agreed, relaxing into a more reclined position. He squinted up at the sky for a moment. “It would be great if there was a tree here to provide some shade. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten sunburnt out here.”
Holly sat nearby, only half listening to their conversation. She was engrossed in a book, not really paying attention to anything the others were saying, until Archer mentioned sunburns. She looked up. "Shade is practically impossible to find here." She smiled slightly.
Archer quirked an eyebrow. "Is it even possible for you to get sunburned?" he asked, curious. While he didn't sunburn as easily as some of the others, he had gotten sunburnt a number of times. But Holly's peculiarity came from the sun, and Archer didn't remember her having a sunburn recently.
"Yes," Holly said. "I have to actually want the sun energy from my skin to lift, and then I can burn. But I don't want to. I haven't had a sunburn in a long time." She looked up at the sun, squinting, then back down, blinking at the sudden light. "But that sun is still hot. I can't help that." She smiled at Archer.
Jack glanced down at his sketchbook, letting out a breath. He personally didn't sunburn all that much, but when he did it was…not great. He was hesitant to describe anything as being "hell", since the only thing he could think of that was truly hell was what he had gone through in the trenches. A sunburn was a kiss, in comparison. But he still knew that sunburns were horrid to deal with.
“At least Miss Dove didn’t make this a loop in the hottest part of the year,” Archer replied. “Or on a rainy day. It used to rain a lot.” He shrugged. The first few months of being with Miss Dove had been somewhat rough, though he was sure it didn’t compare to what some of the others had gone through. “Do you ever wonder what the world is like now? They might have invented flying cars already and we have no way to know.”
"I don't think we'll ever find out." Jack replied to that. "But…yeah. That would be amazing to see, I think." he looked over at Archer with a faint little smile. "Imagine what the future could be like. Well. The present, I suppose. We're in the past."
“We could find out,” Archer added, realization blooming on his features. “We have to go to keep the loop open now and again. What if the next time we go, we explore the future, er, present? We could see all of the technological marvels, if only briefly. Wouldn’t that be cool?”
