[Less Creature from the Flona Lagoon, more An American Were-Jockey in Olympia. Think a little more modern, baby.
He's sure that's another person over yonder. He has to squint a bit, take a few extra steps and get around all this budding foliage. And person it is, seemingly. Looking soggy and sorry as he feels. Human shaped, that's nice. Lady-shaped, even.
(His heart picks up the pace, his mouth is going dry even in this sopping mess, but he can't begin to hope—)
She speaks.
Richie goes very still.
It's odd, you know. He'd only really had one day to know her as a woman. A sprinkle of time in his youth, where she had been just a girl with coltish legs peeking out from tartan skirts and the odd purple moon swelling up the side of her cheek. But there are people whose presence wrestled down within you. Wriggled through the pores of your skin, swam in the divides of sinew to wedge into your bones. Make a home in your marrow. And in spite of the fact that there were a good twenty five years any old Joe could have come up to him and asked, "Hey, you ever hear of a Beverly Marsh?" and Richie would have said, "No sir, why? Is she single?", this year was different. This year, a voice like that has line cast straight into the core of him, hook and bait catching on the meat of his innards and giving a mighty yank.
He straightens some. He feels emptied out somehow. Bubbling up. Ludicrous, clear, electric. Richie opens his mouth and like so many times before, the thick catalogue of party jokes has a zinger up and ready to fire before his mind gets to put a veto on it.]
Me?! Bye the be-yird hairs of bushy-jawed Jaysus, can't ye use yer oiyes, lassie? It's only Aloysius Nell! Deh-rry fhoot patrol, checkin' the ole woods for ohll that skulks and luhrks and lies a-waiting for a foine thing like yerself to come skippin' along unawares, splashin' in ohll the mud an' the puddles like she was fit for a second round o' baptism! What in the bleedin' hell do ye think yer doin' out here?
thank you for accepting my criticism gracefully, tabs out of wg
He's sure that's another person over yonder. He has to squint a bit, take a few extra steps and get around all this budding foliage. And person it is, seemingly. Looking soggy and sorry as he feels. Human shaped, that's nice. Lady-shaped, even.
(His heart picks up the pace, his mouth is going dry even in this sopping mess, but he can't begin to hope—)
She speaks.
Richie goes very still.
It's odd, you know. He'd only really had one day to know her as a woman. A sprinkle of time in his youth, where she had been just a girl with coltish legs peeking out from tartan skirts and the odd purple moon swelling up the side of her cheek. But there are people whose presence wrestled down within you. Wriggled through the pores of your skin, swam in the divides of sinew to wedge into your bones. Make a home in your marrow. And in spite of the fact that there were a good twenty five years any old Joe could have come up to him and asked, "Hey, you ever hear of a Beverly Marsh?" and Richie would have said, "No sir, why? Is she single?", this year was different. This year, a voice like that has line cast straight into the core of him, hook and bait catching on the meat of his innards and giving a mighty yank.
He straightens some. He feels emptied out somehow. Bubbling up. Ludicrous, clear, electric. Richie opens his mouth and like so many times before, the thick catalogue of party jokes has a zinger up and ready to fire before his mind gets to put a veto on it.]
Me?! Bye the be-yird hairs of bushy-jawed Jaysus, can't ye use yer oiyes, lassie? It's only Aloysius Nell! Deh-rry fhoot patrol, checkin' the ole woods for ohll that skulks and luhrks and lies a-waiting for a foine thing like yerself to come skippin' along unawares, splashin' in ohll the mud an' the puddles like she was fit for a second round o' baptism! What in the bleedin' hell do ye think yer doin' out here?