Rick has gone back to Lams and Lions with Fiona for classes a time or two, but he has also realized that they are very mismatched, skill-wise, and so he has let her know that it is fine for her to go by herself if she wants to, and he will also be going by himself sometimes. Mostly so that he does not hold her back. All that to say that this is one of the days that he has gone by himself, and afterwards he had asked Grace if she would like to go to get some coffee, and she has, presumably, said yes. So that's what they're doing.
"As long as there's someone with me who can actually hit, I'll be good," he's saying a little wryly as they walk. "Or I just have to dodge and dodge until they get tired." Since he is better at dodging, it has been shown, than doing anything offensive.
Grace smiled lightly, looking over at Rick with her brows raised just enough for the expression to be obvious to him, if not to anyone not staring at them. "Or, perhaps you simply have to get better at running, then you wouldn't have to deal with the concept of striking or being struck. The biggest component of self defense is keeping yourself out of harm's way in the first place, Rick." Her soft tone was filled with its usual, European intonation. Gentle, yes, and lilting only a little on the vowels as what must have been her native Mandarin accent colored it. "I'm sure you'll be doing fine in no time and will be able to hold your own to a stronger ability when it comes to having to disable attackers." She reached out and placed a feather light touch to Rick's shoulder, squeezing gently, before taking her hand away.
Grace had taken a moment to clean up in the women's locker room, and therefore wasn't dressed for work any more. Instead, she's wearing a set of pea-green pants that featured many a pocket and cinched around her ankles. For shoes, she wore a set of low-profile, white with blue striped Adidas trainers that could well have doubled for rock climbing shoes. As for her top, just a simple, spaghetti strapped tank top that fit her tight, and apparently had some sort of shelf bra built in to keep her somewhat surprisingly ample assets under wraps enough that walking or even jogging would become uncomfortably filled with excess movement.
"Hey. I'm //great// at running. That's, like, one of my specialties." Rick looks over at her then with a grin, and nods. "Yeah. Guess then it's just a matter of remembering all the stuff that you tell me when I actually need it." He seems to think that this is definitely going to be the difficult part -- or at least, one of the difficult parts. The other, of course, being that a person who is attacking him will actually want to hurt him. "Used to be I just killed 'em with kindness and no one ever messed with me. Guess I'm getting meaner as I get old." he sounds like he's joking, though. He sticks one hand in the pocket of his shorts, which he has changed into at the dojo, as well as a button-down shirt with a 'Hawaiian'-esque pattern, though the pattern is actually rather understated. At least, for a Hawaiian shirt.
"Most seem to do the same, Rick. I've always associated it with becoming more or less jaded. The discovery that the world was not what you imagined it could be when you were young, let alone the magic you believed could exist when you were a child." Grace's movements as they walked were easy, everything done with the least amount of effort, as if even when she moved in normal moments it was about conserving energy, not using more than she needed for any particular task. Much as she was in practice, and during any moment of fighting. It was about precision, lethality, and necessity. Everything else was apparently given no leeway. At least that anyone had seen. "So then, where is this coffee shop you'd mentioned? Or did you want to simply head over to the Tea Cozy?"
The tide is high and slack.
"Girl, sometimes I swear you sound older than me," Rick says with a little laugh. "But you look like you're barely twenty-one." Okay, it's a little bit of an exaggeration, though not much. "Guess you got an old soul. That's what my abuela used to call it." He certainly doesn't think it's anything besides that. No sir, he does not. "Just down here," he says, as he turns them down a street that looks a little bit less traveled. It's certainly not creepy or dirty, but just doesn't hold as many touristy shops as the other. "They got the best coffee on the island." While, again, it might be an exaggeration, he certainly seems to think it's true.
Grace just shook her head, looking over at Rick with a soft, almost there smile. "I'm older than you believe me to be, Rick. But it might just be that I've lived more lives in this one lifetime of my own than I would ever care to admit. Perhaps I was born old, it would make sense given a bird's eye view, but I feel as though I've earned enough of the miles to call myself a geriatric at this point." She turned down the street he was leading them to, looking this way and that, curiosity there for a moment, though it wasn't in any way something that overshadowed her avid attention to the change in surroundings. "I'm always interested in finding some new thing that is better than the previous best of the island's I've had."
"Yeah. So you're like, twenty-eight?" Rick grins as he walks, but he doesn't try to get her to actually tell him. That's rude, right? "Good. The best thing to do is get this coffee, and go sit down on the best bench, and enjoy it. That's my idea of a perfect day." He comes to a little hole in the wall type place with one table and two chairs outside it, and it doesn't look like there's many people in there, but when he opens the door, it does smell amazing. He holds it for her to go in, and then follows after. Unless she doesn't go in for whatever reason, in which case, he'll go first.
Simply nodding her thanks, almost a small bow, to Rick, Grace walked through the door into the coffee shop, glancing around to get a lay of the land. Rather than loiter or block Rick's entrance, however, she immediately walked to the front of the shop, to where it was obvious one would have to go to order food or drinks. She'd inhaled deeply, and seemed pleased, if the small smile on her face was any indication. And when she got to the front of the line she ordered simply, a fresh dripped coffee with three sugars, no cream. Then she waited for Rick. "I think coffee outside on a bench sounds like a lovely way to relax for bit. Quiet, too, as this isn't much of a tourist's area."
Rick orders a latte, though does not get anything weird in it, and does not add any sweeteners. You can tell a lot about a person by their coffee order. Or maybe not that much, but still. It doesn't take him too long to get it, and when he does he heads back to her. "Yeah, it's nice to get away from the crowds sometimes," he replies as he starts toward the door of the shop again. "I don't mind the tourists or anything, but you know. Sometimes you just want to not have to move out of the way for a picture, right?"
The tide is high and ebbing.
When Rick opens the door to let himself and Grace out of the cafe, a shimmer, something like falling stardust, along with a strange sort of sway in the world, much like heat warping the horizon, seems to catch his eye. There, on the far side of the lanai at the coffee shop, that odd visual sits in the air, without moving, or falling away.
Grace accepted her coffee and moved to follow Rick out the door of the coffee shop, nodding her head in agreement. "I often do what I can to get away from the crowds, just to enjoy some peace without the noise of others. And sometimes just to feel the energy of Oahu instead of feeling the energy of its tourists." Grace shrugged her shoulders and looked up at Rick, her dark eyes fairly inscrutable. "I'm not anti social, but sometimes, other people's energy seems to be far too easily absorbed, and not all of it is good."
Rick often sees weird things that no one else sees, and so he's a little bit inured to it -- but this is different. He squints, peering at that spot, and so when she looks at him, he's looking that way, and not at her. Perhaps she will just chalk it up to him being a little bit odd, as she probably already has gleaned that he is? Or not. "Yeah," he replies, but it sounds a little distracted, and he's still looking at that place in the air. He's quiet for long enough that it may run into awkward territory, before he speaks again. "This is gonna sound crazy," he says, "but do you see anything weird right there?" He points to the spot that he's looking at.
Grace peered at the spot that Rick was motioning to, her head cocked to the side a touch. She narrowed her eyes and then shook her head. "It looks kind of like the light keeps catching on dust, but I don't see anything strange to that. There's always some sort of pollen in the air here, something moving with the dampness." She looked back at Rick and raised her brows, looking at his eyes to make sure they were both dilated equally. "Have you been seeing things since our practice earlier, Rick? If your head was injured, you just have to let me know. I would never expect you to keep working after a possible concussion." Grace reached up to hold one finger out ahead of Rick's eyes to get his attention, then moved it back and forth to make sure his eyes were tracking.
Rick shakes his head, reaching up to rub his face before he squints at the spot again, his eyes narrowing a little bit more. He turns his head a little bit, so that he can look at it with his peripheral vision, as though this might make it either disappear, or become identifiable, but it does not. He does look at her when she holds up the finger, though, and he looks like he's tracking it fine, for as long as he does. "No," he says, "it's not that. Don't worry, I didn't hit my head or anything." He looks like he might leave it, but he can't quite put it from his mind, and so instead he starts over there, though a little cautiously.
Grace seemed a little more concerned now, and followed after Rick, a slight frown causing her brows to knit together. "Rick?" Reaching out to touch his arm, she peered ahead of them, her lips taking on a soft frown. "What is it that you're seeing? That might help me look for it better?" She scanned the area, looking for anything, ANYTHING, out of the ordinary, and only seemed slightly more frustrated when nothing made itself obvious.
"It's like...something shimmery." This is probably not very helpful. "Like when concrete gets real hot. But with shiny stuff around it." Rick continues toward the thing, and when she touches his arm, he doesn't shake her off, though now he really //does// just seem like he doesn't notice. "It's right here," he says once he gets there, and after a moment, he reaches out to touch the space where he's seeing...well, whatever he's seeing. "What the hell?" he murmurs, and he doesn't seem afraid. Just intrigued.
As Rick touched that which he saw... Well. It simply opened. Somehow, he specifically had the key to it, or the door just recognized him. Either way, his next movement forward carried himself, and then Grace as she was touching him, through the veil between realities. Instead of standing at the coffee shop, on the lanai, he and Grace were suddenly transported to somewhere else, within the NeverNever.
Light and sound are usually two separate spectrums. They usually exist separate from one another or even entirely without the other. But not here. Here every shard of light that entered the massive, thunderously huge cavern made of salt carried with it a strummed chord of sound.
The cavern is easily 50 feet high, with outcroppings that reach out from the walls and create shelves 8 feet thick with surfaces the size of an entire football field. It creates the issue of having a huge, 8 foot thick, 100 yard long shelf of salt hanging out over the sides and nearly to the middle of the cavern at random intervals.
The light that pours in comes from cracks and seemingly drilled fissures in the actual cavern itself, but each ray of light is a different color (if studied very closely) and carries a different tonal quality.
Overall the room itself is loud and filled with echoes and light that cuts its way through the darker corners of the room without any issues at all. Despite the overall immensity of the room, no one is ever more than a few feet away from some solid, wall-like structure, or a heavy mountain of roughly chipped salt that almost reached to the ceiling.
Grace's hand on Rick's arm gripped rather firmly when she found herself staring ahead at... Something completely outside of her experience. She blinked, her eyes darkening more so, becoming orbs of black as she stared at the environment. "Gao shenme gui?" Her words were spoken in Mandarin, the accent perfect, as if she'd never spoken in English a day in her life. They were soft, but even those quiet, breathed words caused light to shimmer and radiate away from her mouth, like her voice carried with it a colorful light spectrum it had never contained in the real world. Covering her mouth with her hand caused her elbow to rasp almost impossibly quietly over the light blue fabric of her shirt, and then a radiating spray of blue light left from that point of contact, casting out to the salt-shelved room as she stared in shock.
It really does feel like he did it. Like something he did specifically made it open. And before he knows it, they are through, and into this place that is actually nothing like the other place where he had met Adena for the first time. It feels the same, though. "Holy shit," he murmurs, and the words pour out of him like Grace's did, like they are physical things. It makes him laugh, a startled but quite happy sound that speeds on its way, bouncing off those salt pillars and mingling with the light. He looks quickly over to Grace then, though, his eyes wide, checking her over to make sure she seems okay.
Grace blinked her eyes against the brightness that left Rick's mouth when he laughed, the color being absorbed by the black orbs in her eyes rather than reflected. The hand covering over her mouth had fallen away, moving to the side of her neck, where her pulse was thundering, giving off a pulsing, red glow. Her mouth had then dropped open and she was panting softly, though little wisps of pink and pale green moved from her mouth and outward as she did so, even that light sound making colorful waves of movement. Sweat beaded on her forehead as Grace looked around, probably glad her hair was back in a ponytail, as all the bright white light being caused by it rustling over her shirt would have blinded her if it was falling into her face. Even as Rick watched, though, the blackness of her eyes bled back to their usual, so dark brown iris and pupil, and her pulse began to slow, steady, even, until it no longer could be seen at her neck. Her breath began to slow as well, and she seemed to be coming back into herself fully. "This place, it is filled with life. Even the sound is alive." Her quiet voice sent light waves flying everywhere, and she closed her eyes, inhaling slowly and deeply, her cheeks going flushed to a peachy color, like she'd suddenly had too much to drink.
The sudden blackness of her eyes is worrisome, and Rick takes in a little sharp breath, though he does not try to do anything yet. He wouldn't have any clue how to help her, anyway. When her eyes start going back to their usual hue, he relaxes -- somewhat. He's still on edge, even though his nerves seem more akin to a kid on Christmas morning than someone who fears for their life. The smile starts to grow on his face again when she speaks, widening to a grin, and he nods, his eyes moving away to follow the words as they leave her mouth. His own face is flushed, too, though more like he'd just been on a run. "It's amazing," he murmurs, and then he watches his own words leave him to bounce off pillar after pillar. "I think...I did this. I got us here." The disbelief in his voice is evident -- and yet, what other explanation is there?
There was a moment of stillness in Grace, before she opened her eyes and looked at Rick again. She was still flushed, almost as if her own blood pumping through her veins was giving her skin a fine glow. Like the first trimester of pregnancy, she almost looked like she was being infused with life. Rick, too, carried the same countenance, and Grace just watched his face, wonder clear for a moment as her smile curved up into a sweet, wholesome thing that looked disturbingly like pure happiness. "I imagine we're in the NeverNever, though I've never been able to come through to a place like this. There's no doubt it was you and not myself, as you likely would be horrified to find where I can tear through the veil." She reached up to touch at his temple, fingers not shaking, but the pulse of her heart could be felt in those fingertips. Little waves of peachy colored light moved down along the air from where their skin rasped all but soundlessly against each others, even from that delicate motion.
The smile suits her, especially as it's quite different than her usual expression. Rick can't help but let out another happy laugh when he sees it. "Yeah," he agrees, and when she touches him, he doesn't move away. It's just as though he's experiencing everything that he can, including the touch. Everything is different here. "Sorry," he says, but he doesn't sound as though he's actually sorry. There's too much happiness there. "I didn't know that would happen...I never did anything like this before." He takes in another deep breath, his eyes bright, even their usual deep brown seeming somehow to transcend their everyday appearance now. "I mean, I was here once. Not, like, right here. It wasn't the same. But I didn't bring myself."
A sound started to resonate deep within the caverns. Drumbeats. Heavy, and the color of their approach was moving through the darkness like orange and yellow flashing waves that painted themselves along the sides of the salty shelves. Whatever was making the noise wasn't visible yet, but the sound waves made by those drums caused the other lights, and other sounds, in the entire cavern to start to move in a wave pattern, like the drums were the stone dropped into the lake, but a stone large enough to cause it to rise and take on a new current.
Grace took her hand back away from Rick's temple and nodded once, then spun around with wide eyes to look toward the sound of impending drums. As there was no visual other than the sound wave coming through, she backed up a step, nearly running into Rick, but stopping just short of it. "I don't know if that's... Friendly or a Foe." The fact that drums and their sounds are used for so many purposes, it would make it impossible to know, until the source was in view.
Rick hears the drums, too -- how could he not? He turns to look, but yes, it's difficult to pinpoint the direction in which they are coming. Or impossible, rather. "Me neither," he admits with a little shrug, and while he's still sort of giddy about what just happened, maybe some other thoughts are creeping into his head. Thoughts of some less nice things than Adena that he knows exist in here as well. He doesn't seem //scared// yet, but there does seem to be a little more wariness to him now than there was before. His eyes narrow a little bit as he looks around, trying not to let himself be distracted by the light patterns, though mostly failing.
The sounds of the drums was growing closer now, and with it... suddenly a sound of a horn. Not a large horn, something smaller. Like to be heard on the beach when grace is paid for the Gods of the Sky and Sea, like someone was blowing through a conch shell. When this sound was added, the intense lights of orange and yellow were then layered with a magenta wave that moved through them, passed by, as it seemed to move faster than the simple drumming sounds. The horn calling was only one note, so the color was static, and heavily colored.
Grace turned her head to look over her shoulder at Rick, the imperceptible scratching of her hair over her shirt and back making brilliant, white rays flow into the cavern. "Do you, per chance, know anything that announces itself with drumming? And perhaps also use a horn of some sort?" Her words were coming slightly more loudly now, and the colors leaving her mouth ranged from azure blue to yellow, with all the colors in between. When she blinked her eyes and her eyelashes rubbed together during the transition, little waves of white light traveled outward, as she looked up at him. She, sadly, seemed to have no answer herself.
Rick squints against the glare made by the sound of the drums. He never imagined that sound could be seen, but there's no other way to describe this. Something is niggling at the back of his mind, though, even as his eyes try to take in everything that he's seeing. But almost exactly when Grace asks what she does, he gasps audibly. And visibly, too, in here, though the sound just bounces away and mingles with the other colors.
"Get undressed," he says, and as he says that he starts to do it, too. The happiness from before is gone, and there is genuine fear -- or maybe reverential fear. There is a distinction. "You gotta lie down on the floor. Don't look at them. If you do they'll fuck you up." He discards his shirt, revealing a body that looks about like one would expect it to look like, considering that he is //really// in shape. The only thing of note on is a mark on his chest. It looks like a hand print has been burned into it.
He finishes disrobing and gets down quickly, lying prone on the floor. "Hurry," he urges her from his position.
The sound of the drums came closer, as did the noise of the conch shells. It was getting to the point that the noise they were creating literally overwrote every other sound wave entirely in the salt cavern, because it was just that loud. Other sounds and lights that were hit seemed to be just swallowed by them entirely, strengthening the resonance of the horns and drums. And that was when it hit. The scent of the grave. Stale earth, rich with the nutrients of a dead body having fed it. Fetid breath, the scent of worms and rot, the overwhelming smell of decay.
Grace looked at Rick and blinked, her eyes widening as Rick started to get undressed in front of her. "Wait... What?!" Incredulity filled her gaze as she stared at him, not turning away or acting as though she was at all offended by nudity, more that it might just seriously be a surprise. Of course, then he was bare ass naked and she lifted her gaze up! Yes, up to the EYES. Until he went to lay down on the ground, leaving her gaping. "Are you sure that... that's necessary?" She motioned to him, laying naked on the floor, which consisted of him laying naked on a salt shelf. Then, the smell came to Grace, and she seemed to visibly react, a shudder running up her spine as goosebumps came to her flesh and the small hairs at the back of her neck and her arms moved to stand on end. "Getting naked before something that smells like that shows up seems like a REALLY bad idea... Especially if you're laying DOWN..." Yeah, that whole plan just goes against almost everything involved in self defense.
Yes, his eyes are up here, Grace. And it does seem...well. But Rick does not seem to be playing a trick on her, even though he did bring her here. And she may not know him that well, but it just doesn't seem like him from what she //does// know. He turns his head to look up at her, his own eyes wide now. "I know it sounds crazy," he says urgently. "I know I'm not the brightest crayon in the box. But I //know// this, Grace. You have to do it or you'll probably die. Trust me. Please." Even as he speaks to her, and looks up at her, he keeps as much of his face down on the floor as he can. It has to be supremely uncomfortable. It's very far to go for a joke, and what could possibly be the payoff? "Please, just do it quick. And you can hit me later if you want."
The scent of death was now giving off its own light, so it seems even scent created color and light as much as sound did, here. The scent, however, seemed to make a sickly, dark yellow that resonated only along the floor, and about 2 feet up the walls and other formations that stuck up into the air. It was intense, like laying in a grave, or standing in one if you weren't laying on the ground already. The sounds created a cacophony of color and light now, and all seemed to ring together, as if from the other end of the cavern the conch shells and warrior's drums were reverberating and sending their sounds back down to meet the oncoming Marchers.
Grace looked down at Rick for a long moment, then just nodded once, keeping her mouth shut in a flat line as she kicked out of her shoes, then started undoing her pants. They came off easy enough, and she pulled her socks and panties off at the same time, leaving her naked from the waist down. She quickly pulled her top off over her head, which had her entirely nude, displaying herself in such a way that she obviously didn't feel comfortable at the moment. Who would, after all. Physically, she wasn't anything but defined, though there were softer curves than one might expect of her, since she usually wore such binding clothing, and her breasts proved to be far heavier than even her shirt earlier had let on. When she laid to the ground, at least she had some padding, so that was nice. Turning her head to Rick, she looked at him, then let out a soft breath. "Alright. Just be right, if you would be so kind?" Then she simply closed her eyes, and breathed slowly. Now, she looked almost like any woman might, if they chose to lay out naked and sunbathe.
Rick relaxes -- barely -- when Grace listens to him. He looks just enough to make sure she's doing it, before he shuts his eyes, too. "I'm right," he murmurs, his voice barely above a whisper. She has never heard him sound so convinced of anything before. The slightly vague, almost stereotypical 'surfer' cadence is gone from his voice, and in its place is pure conviction. He takes in another breath, letting it out inaudibly, though in here, not invisibly. Since he is not looking, though, it doesn't matter. Then he just quiets, and waits, his whole body as taut as a coiled spring, begging to be released.
It wasn't long that they waited, laying face down on the floor of the salt cavern. Feet, charging and marching, in cadence all with one another, and coming single file made their way noisily across the cavern floor. The drum called the timing of their steps, and the conch shell seemed to randomly interject. While it wasn't long that they waited for the stream of spirits to reach them, the time it took for them to walk by was utterly interminable in comparison.
The line was enormous. Like all of the dead, those hallowed warriors of Hawaii's past, were coming through at once. Perhaps this was a normal pathway for them to make their smaller groups move easily to other islands, or multiple locations on the island, but easily over 100 sets of single filed feet marched on by. They weren't hurried, they were in fact, moving as if they knew themselves to be inevitable. Once they'd come and gone, the sounds they made began to fade, and the scent of pure, enriched tomb left with them, slowly being drug down along the corridor like some sort of errant scribe following behind.
Grace waited, her eyes shut, her face expressionless, her body almost looking like she'd relaxed enough to sleep, though who could sleep on a bed of hardened salt was a question for another time entirely. Proving she hadn't been simply napping, though, she opened her eyes to look at Rick after a little time had passed, until the scent of death had faded to the point one would have to wonder if it was just the memory of the stench rather than the scent itself they were still smelling. "Are we... Alright?" Her voice caused pink and pale yellow light to bounce around from her lips, refracting off the floor, to head up toward the ceiling.
Rick may not be Hawaiian, but he has been living there for long enough, and loves it enough, that the passage of those famed warriors is almost enough to get him to forget what he knows, and open his eyes, so that he can see them here in this place. Almost, but not quite. He has recently come to like his life quite a bit. So he keeps his eyes tightly shut, not at all relaxed as she is. He barely seems to breathe as they pass, and even after the sounds fade, he stays on the floor with his eyes closed.
It's only her voice that makes his eyes open again. It's slow, first one, then the other, as though checking to make sure. He peers about the cavern once, before he nods, and starts to push himself up with a wince. That salt was unforgiving. "Yeah," he says. "We're okay." He reaches up to rub a hand over his head, before he turns away, grabbing his clothes. Suddenly his cheeks heat up with more than just the life that's in the cavern, and where he wasn't seeming to worry about being unclothed before, now in the wake of whatever that was, he is. "Sorry. That just...could've been really bad."
Grace pressed herself up from the floor, brushing off along the front of her body to get rid of the salt crystals that had pressed into her flesh and managed to stay there when she stood. Nodding, she simply smiled slightly. "It seemed as though. With so many of them I'm sure I couldn't have fought them all off, especially if they're so dangerous that people willingly remove their clothing as they pass and go prone to show their respects." She shook her head and gave a soft sound, almost like huffing, which might be remembered as her soft laughter. "I can't say I've ever gotten naked with a man in a situation like this, so I'll always remember it, Rick." With him turned away, he couldn't see what she was doing, of course, could just hear her voice, and see the lights it caused to move through the cavern in waves.
The rest of the cavern's light and sound had returned to normal now that the nearly deafening procession had walked through. It was back to being a myriad of light and cords, one causing the other, one feeding off the other, to fill the entire void of the salted space.
Rick does let out a little huff of a laugh as he stands, still with his back to her to put on his boxers and pants. At least once that's done, he doesn't seem quite so vulnerable, and he puts his arms through his shirt, rubbing his hand over the mark on his chest absently before he starts to button it. "Well, I'll take what I can get," he jokes, his voice sounding just a bit breathless after that brush with death. After a fashion, anyway. "You just got a crash course in Hawaiian mythology." He looks around then, though only out of the corner of his eyes at her, making sure that she is dressed before he looks at her directly. "We should probably get back," he admits. But how? He has no idea.
Grace, actually, hadn't redressed entirely yet. She'd pulled on her panties, yes, but had her back to him, to the entire room actually, and was looking at the wall of salt closest to her. Holding her hand to it, she blew a gentle breath around her hand, including a delicate, minor chord hum, and watched as the light bounced around her hand, and off of the salt, all of the colored waves flying off at different angles, different directions. When his own voice caused light to hit the walls in blues and greens and pinks, she watched that as well, something causing her to be fascinated by the movement. The flush that had come over her cheeks had colored her shoulders along her back as well, and over the lines of her hips just above the waistband of her black, bikini-cut underwear. "It's... really quite beautiful. I haven't felt life like this since a very, very long time ago."
Rick starts to say something else, but he catches a little bit of a longer look at her, and he quiets. And okay...he looks. He may justify it by telling himself that it's just her back, but let's be honest, at this moment he'd probably look at her front, too. His cheeks are still flushed, and as his eyes trace the curve of her back into her hip, they get even more so. He manages to look away and down, though it doesn't actually help, since the remnants of her speech sail across his vision in a cacophony of color. Every sense is heightened now -- it's overwhelming. "It is," he agrees quietly. Whether he's just talking about the cavern now might be up for debate.
Grace reluctantly moved away from the wall, moving the few steps over to her top so that she could pull it on, covering herself as effectively as any one piece swimsuit would have. Then, she pulled on her pants, in easy, deft motions, someone used to having to get dressed quickly, for some reason or another. "I'm sure we can get out the same way we got in, Rick. Do you remember how you brought us here, the way it felt?" She tugged on her small, white socks, then pulled on her shoes. As she stood up from that, she stretched her arms up high above herself, seeming to glory in the movement of all that light and lush sound that moved through her. Notably, she hadn't lost the flush over her cheeks in the slightest, and even her collar bones carried a blush of health, like her blood was warmed and she'd been pleased to have it that way.
Rick clears his throat and turns away fully again, in an effort to compose himself. He rubs a hand over his face, then shakes his head quickly, as though trying to clear it. "Yeah," he says. "I think so. Maybe." The usual slight vagueness is back into his voice, though it's slightly less so now than usual. He may not be the brightest crayon in the box, but it's a big box, and it seems he's not as dumb as he might come off. He lifts a hand, starting to move it around the place where they had come through, and the other hand reaches for hers, in the hopes that he will be able to pull her back the same way he'd gotten her there.
Grace looked at Rick and nodded to him. "I think you'll be able to, just remember the sensation, how it felt. What it looked like." She reached out and took his hand, the touch gentle, but the pulse in her skin was obvious, as was the heat that had developed there. She stepped closer and looked at the beautiful wall of solid salt, the slight redness to it, the pinker lines, the pure white marbled through it, and her eyes seemed to be unable to pull themselves away. Coming closer, she reached out to brush at the wall ahead of him, smiling softly as the lines of their words bounced around. When she looked over at Rick, she maintained that smile, then spoke, watching attentively "It's so seductive, to stay here. To feel this. Like it's offering to give life without any sort of end to it." And, while she talked, her eyes followed the lights the sound made, the bright blue, pink, orange, and yellow bouncing off of his shoulder, then further to bounce off of the wall of salt, all of it making her eyes wander.
"Yeah." Rick is still feeling around, but his movements slow a little bit as Grace speaks, and he looks over at her again briefly. "People come in here sometimes, and stay. Someone told me." He turns away from her again then, though he doesn't let go, lest he leave her here inadvertently. "I almost went with her," he says suddenly. He's not quite sure why he says it -- it just comes out. "I wanted to. I still want to. It's hard." Whoever 'her' is.
He seems to be getting a little frustrated with his thus far fruitless search, and he lowers his hand, taking in a deep breath, then letting it out slowly. He does this one more time, before he tries again.
There was a squeeze at Rick's hand, Grace attempting to reassure him, before she reached forward with her other hand and pressed it to his abdomen. "Rick. Be calm. We're OK. And you'll find the way home. Everything is alright. I'm not hurt, you aren't hurt. We have time." She offered him a soft, gentle smile, rubbing his tummy once in a slow, delicate circle. Almost like one would do with a family member whose stomach hurt. "Don't let this frustrate you. It came naturally before. It's still there."
When his efforts again yield no result, Rick lets out a little grunt as his hand drops again. It's doubly difficult because, as he's told her, he doesn't actually want to leave. At least, not completely. However, he takes another breath in, and coupled with her ministrations, it does seem to relax him a little bit. "Next time I'm gonna watch out for shimmery places in the world," he remarks, but though his tone is a little wry, it does sound like a joke. He closes his eyes then, tipping his head to the side, blocking out the colors that spill from their lips as he lifts up his hand again to feel for the way back.
As Rick seemed determined to find the way home, something caught. That sensation of a breach, the strange heat over it, a shimmer that could likely feel like a distortion. And again, somehow, as if it simply made sense in his mind how it worked... the doorway opened.
The sound of the city was back, awake and alive. It's well into the morning and the sound of traffic can be heard through Downtown, Honolulu. People are talking on the lanai of the little coffee shop they'd be in just.. well. Not long ago for the two of them, but it was clearly no longer close to 9pm... They'd obviously been gone longer.
Grace opened her eyes and blinked, though the sunlight wasn't any brighter than the lights of the cavern they'd been in, the shadows of the real world were much, much darker, and it took her a moment to reorient herself to the color scheme that included so much verdant green. She slowly let go of Rick's hand, breathing in a shallow, quiet sort of way as she tried to acclimate. The air was wetter here, not dry and arid like the salt cavern. "We're back." She said the words in her usual, quiet tone. Though there was some mark of disappointment when the colors didn't leave her lips. The flush of health hadn't faded from her cheeks, though, at least not yet. And it looked like she'd been out in the sun, running, or doing some other physical activity that had her flush up.
The tide is low and slack.
When they come through, Rick stumbles, but catches himself on the edge of a trash can and manages not to fall. He squints as his eyes adjust to the sudden harshness of their world. He would never have described Hawaii as harsh before now, but after being in there it does seem like it is. "We're back," he echoes with a nod, and there's a little note of regret threading through his voice, too, even colored -- though no longer literally -- as it is by relief. He shakes himself, looking around more normally now. "That was...really freaking cool." He looks at her then, and as he does something seems to strike him. He even opens his mouth to speak, but before the words leave his lips, they close again. He shakes his head almost imperceptibly, and waits a beat before he does say, "Thanks. For believing me."
Looking up at Rick, Grace nodded softly, almost more a bow, and gave her small, quiet smile. "Of course, you have my thanks for saying something so that I wouldn't be murdered in my ignorance." She looked around, probably glad she'd just worn the tank top last night, as she'd be warm now if she'd worn more. "Well, I suppose... I should call and apologize to my morning appointments for not calling to cancel before I was absent." She cleared her throat and nodded to Rick again. "Thank you for getting me home safe, I'm not sure how long I would have had to wander to find some place I was attuned to be able to get back to this side if I'd been alone."
Rick lets out a little laugh, reaching up to scratch his head. "Yeah," he says, apologetically, "you probably should. Me, too." There's a nod, though, at her last words. "Sure. I mean, you know. Of course. Couldn't leave you in there." He leaves out the fact that she would not have been in there in the first place if it weren't for him. That's clearly neither here nor there. "I'll see you," he says, before he lifts a hand to her in a wave. "Be safe, yeah?"
Grace gave rick a soft smile and nodded. "Yes. Aloha and be safe, don't touch anything else shiny for a little while, maybe?" And with that, Grace's smile went a little lopsided, as she was obviously making a quiet joke. Then she shook her head and turned, walking toward the main road that would lead her back to her dojo. She didn't run, of course, just walked, but she also didn't seem to be moseying along, as her pace was purposeful.
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