Sunny days and clear blue skies, that's what I'm looking for. The wind dances among treetops overhead, rustling through the leaves and dragging small clouds of dust along the road beside me as my brief companions. With the sun peering down from overhead and warm soil below on this dusty road... I can hear the crashing of waves from the shore just out of sight. The crunching of sticks underfoot, the quiet rustling in the woods, a lark's song overhead. Sunny days and clear blue skies, that's all I'm looking for. A young woman, her name is Victoria, steps out of a storefront, it's a little place called "Ben's". She turns at the last second to give a small wave and smile to the girl she'd met at the counter, but she can't see anyone there anymore. Instead an elderly woman, sitting at a table between her and the counter, looks up from her paper and stares back with disinterest. Victoria's cheeks redden and she turns back away, letting the screen door snap shut behind her with a thud as she steps off the freshly-painted white porch and takes in the smell of clean air... accompanied by that of a rubber-grass welcome mat and the tire replacement service next door anyway. She walks over the tire-tracks her parents had left behind when they dropped her off, unwraps a piece of gum from the little brown shopping bag in her left hand, and starts down the path and into the woods. Where the road is long and winding, but she doesn't have far to go.
She'd kept time by kicking a stone most of the way, it was always just a little ways ahead of her... it'd roll ahead and drift slowly back again with her approach. Eventually she took out her phone, but she has to cup her hands around the screen to even see it against the glare of the sun. Her face scrunches up and she mumbles when she sees she has no bars anymore, but that's not surprising, she'd only been able to get two at Ben's to begin with. So she slips the phone away again and begins to hum softly to herself as she admires the treeline. It's a little after noon when her song ends, she steps lightly on her rock, and looks up from the end of the driveway at the cabin her parents had rented for the summer. It's not small, but it's not huge either, two floors, two bathrooms, bedrooms, the works. The outside looks like a typical log cabin with a long stained porch, and the inside is fairly rustic but has all the comforts of a modern home.
Climbing up the steps and fishing the key out from under the mat, Victoria smirked. Because maybe it wasn't the most original place to hide a key, but it definitely fit the atmosphere of this place. She unlatched the screen door, letting it rest against her hip as she unlocked the front-door and stepped inside. The screen-door swung shut behind her with a loud bang, and she froze for a moment before looking back at it and pausing, face drained of colour, only to giggle to herself as she relaxed. Her things were all set on the couch opposite the entryway; a suitcase, her laptop and a few other essentials, all having arrived earlier in the day prior to her own arrival. There were little paintings on the walls of each room, paintings of other cabins, and some of animals. On one shelf there was even a wood carving of a fish which made her smile fondly along with a raised eyebrow. She passed the hallway by, only looking down it at the long spiraling steps before she entered the living room, only to freeze, her face lighting up, as she saw the lake outside, crystal-clear and shining.
After taking some time to explore the house, checking each room as she went, Victoria eventually took her things upstairs. Selecting the room on the left side of the hallway
(Room K) as her own, and she dropped her things unceremoniously onto the bed in the North-West corner of the room. "I hereby dub this room,
the girls room!" she said to herself, and then, after a moment of silence, brought her right hand up against her face lightly and sighed before brushing upwards through her hair and then letting it drop down to her side again. Returning down stairs to the entryway, she laid on her back on the couch facing the door, head and feet on opposite arm-rests, and closed her eyes. All she had to do was wait, it's around 1:00pm and everyone should arrive soon, but... for now, the quiet is enough, it's pleasant even. The sound of crashing waves, of rustling wind; sunny days and clear blue skies.
