close your eyes and trust it, just trust it

Suddenly finding ourselves transported a couple hundred years back to Victorian London isn't a change that most people have found that easy, but there's a part of me that can't help but totally marvel at how wholly the island's changed. Last year's Whoville was definitely a fun little break, but the feel of London is completely different, and instead of just being about decorations or roaring fireplaces, I actually feel like I've traveled. I feel like I'm somewhere that isn't just the tropical island of everyone's dreams. Granted, it's a little gray and dreary, and the corsets are just impossible to breathe in, but when twelve months of the year are just sheer tropical perfection, I can't complain about something that breaks away from the usual. Besides, while it's kind of creepy that there are all these strangers wandering around to help give us taxi rides or find the right corner grocery store like nothing's wrong or changed at all, the fact that we don't even need money to pick up certain conveniences that we never have on the island doesn't hurt my appreciation of the place.

I find some pretty glass ornaments when I'm just walking around the market one day, painted all sorts of colors and textured like broken pieces of glass pressed together in a mosaic. Not everyone on the island celebrates Christmas, and even less people are religious in general, but I've always found decorating the tree to be one of the most enjoyable parts of the season, and it doesn't take me long before I know just the two girls (and a guy) who might appreciate the offering most. Bundling myself with scarves and blankets, I rush over to Neil's apartment with my hands laden with ornaments and freshly baked cookies that I hope won't go hard in the cold. I barely manage to get my hand free to knock.

"Hello? Anyone there to open the door for Aunt Sookie?"

you called me sugar, you called me sugar

For all that her eyes were round as saucers for the first few hours after the change, Sookie Stackhouse all too quickly learns that there are some aspects of this new, tired city that are harder to adjust to than others. Last year, snow was nothing short of novel, beautiful as it fell from the sky and blanketed everything in a pristine layer of white. This year, a close glance shows that it's all grayed, suffering from soot and grime that mars the perfection of the flakes. People trip left and right, no matter how hard they try to hold to their canes— the ones rich enough to have them in the first place, at least. Occasionally, people loiter on the streets, some of them looking cold, miserable, pulling their coats as closely as possible around her necks. If she had the means, Sookie would drag all of them into the nearest shelter, but there seems to be something about the populace. They're not altogether there. Not reachable, notihng but smoke under her fingers.

Somehow, that gets under her skin as much as the rest of it.

Hauling damp skirts to the Compound is no small task, either, and when Sookie finally manages to close the front door of the new building, she heaves a heavy sigh, shivering and quickly rubbing her arms down as she steps further inside. Dressed in a muted gold gown, Sookie heaves a sigh as she makes her way to the box, hoping to find a heavier shawl to protect her from the cold.