whatever you want is fine by me

There's an entirely new color palette that stretches across the sky when dusk settles. That's one of the surprising things to Sookie, that the sky should be able to switch without hardly a second thought, and that it doesn't hold any control of its own. The clouds are able to mar its appearance. The sun chooses when to spread its colors across. And even when they feel so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, even people are able to affect its color, the dust of coal making the sky look just a little dirtier than it did on the island, and maybe in that, Sookie feels just a little more at home.

A little more like they have some amount of control over their surroundings, even though it's ridiculous, and the sky here is nothing more than painted on by the magic that's inherent in the island.

She sits with her hat lowered over her eyes, the sun still hot where it casts over her skin, legs draping over the edge of the Compound roof. However changed her settings are, there's no doubt that sitting higher up and staring at everything below lends a sense of peace so rarely found on the island.

Gives her time to think.

that had me believing

Sometimes, Sookie Stackhouse just needed to find some time to herself. She thought that the need would have lessened with thoughts no longer being open to her scrutiny, but the truth was, even the bustle of the island population was sometimes more than she cared to handle. Adding on the setting change was just another push over the edge, stress and frustration aligning to draw her patience thin indeed, and when she found herself unable to put on a sincere smile one evening at the Winchester, she decided that she was past overdue for a walk.

She'd heard murmurs about all the landscapes available on the region, and no one had yet to find the edge of the land newly open to them. The place of most interest to Sookie was the Grand Canyon, or else the best approximation that the island could provide— she hadn't managed to overhear quite that much at the restaurant. Whether or not it was the same as the canyon back in Arizona, Sookie didn't know, but the idea of seeing cliffs around was too tempting to pass on.

Armed with a large bag of flattened blue marbles to mark her trail, Sookie leaves a note on her door to let others know of her whereabouts, and once the trail to the canyon starts, drops marbles down one by one. It takes a good hour for her to make it out to the canyon, and the sun's too high and hot to do anything but stay in the shadows once she's there, and Sookie isn't even anywhere near the peak or ideal vantage spot, but it's beautiful. Unlike anything on the island.

"Wow," she murmurs, leaning to rest her shoulder against the rocky wall.

breathing whisper, what is this

While it was taking some adjusting to, Sookie found that there was something about her current surroundings that was far better than the change the island underwent only a few months ago. Rather than endless lines of tall buildings, gray in the hazy atmosphere and imposing in their size, the Western scenery took up an endless myriad of color. There were parts of it that Sookie didn't care for, of course. It was too arid, drawing out nosebleeds for the first time in her life, bleeds that she carefully tried to conceal whenever possible, knowing that they could be a trigger to any number of people in her life. The clothing was a bit too gaudy for her taste. The snakes had her pretty much terrified. But color splashed across the sky, and so Sookie settled down and tried to adjust as well as she can, always careful now to lug a hat around, heat stroke a much more common occurrence there than on the island.

Sometimes, she found that the best end to a day was when she got to return inside at last, her temples damp and sweaty from the day's excursions and ready for the cool press of glass and ice to the skin. Today, she didn't quite make it so far, needing to take a break while still about half a mile from the Compound, and so she made a turn to duck inside the horse stables, a few whinnies of surprise sounding as she stepped inside. Sookie remembered having had plenty of the standard dreams as a little girl. Wanted her own pony, wanted to be a ballerina, wanted that perfect house with a white picket fence, and while all of it remained far from her still, the sight of horses was enough to pull a grin to her face, faint and nostalgic. Not sure exactly how to approach any of them, she lingered by the entrance of the open stable regardless, leaning against the beam and watching them with faint curiosity.

there will be an evolution of the human soul

About once a month, Sookie Stackhouse likes to check the bookshelf for anything familiar. With as many fictional characters running about Tabula Rasa as there are, Sookie thinks it's inevitably just a matter of time before she sees her name somewhere. Watching Snoop Dogg sing with her in the background was already enough of a shock, but sometimes Sookie wonders if there isn't more out there, because to choose someone with her face and country belle appearance doesn't make sense for a musician of Snoop's type and genre— and, although it seems silly to be picky or concerned about such a small detail, the idea that she's popped up out of a music video almost feels demeaning. Her story must be out there somewhere, Sookie figures, and even if she doesn't spend most of her days consumed by the desire to look, still she casts glances that way. Just in case.

This month, again nothing seems to crop up, and her shoulders sag lightly with the disappointment.

"Is it totally narcissistic of me to be looking for something with my name on it?" she asks aloud to nobody in particular, tapping the heel of her boot against the floor as she tugs out a volume of Buffy and cringes, shoving it back onto the shelf.