Main campfire [afternoon]

[rilla-myrilla.livejournal.com]

Glancing up occasionally to make sure the clouds didn't turn to rain and ruin her letter, Rilla leaned her back against a log and finished up her weekly correspondence to her brother Walter.

She hadn't tried to light a fire, but she had brought out some strawberries to share if anyone passed by.

Comments

[see-beyond.livejournal.com]

"Even when it's really rather warm?" Jonas asked, taking a seat and glancing up at the sky. "I wonder if the rain would help or just make it hot and wet."

[RILLA HAS CHANGED SO DRAMATICALLY!]

[rilla-myrilla.livejournal.com]

"Normally a good storm off the coast will cool everything down," Rilla said, "but that's at home. I'm not sure about what it would do here. I just hope it doesn't ruin my letter."

[see-beyond.livejournal.com]

"We never got storms off the coast but that could be due to not being near the coast," he mused, shaking his head. "Rain was rare. Everything seemed rather temperate which got a little dull after awhile."

[rilla-myrilla.livejournal.com]

"I can imagine," Rilla said earnestly. "I don't know how I would survive if I didn't go to sleep near water. I grew up with the sounds of the waves crashing to lure me to sleep."

[see-beyond.livejournal.com]

"I did live near a small stream but it pales in comparison to an ocean," Jonas agreed with a nod. "I'd only seen pictures before. I never thought I'd get the chance to see it. It's amazing."

[rilla-myrilla.livejournal.com]

"Where did you grow up?" Rilla asked. "Somewhere out West?"

[see-beyond.livejournal.com]

"I...don't exactly know where it is in reference to Fandom," he confessed. "It was a place called the Community. Very small, very restrictive. Everything outside the Community was called Elsewhere. It's difficult to know where it was."

[rilla-myrilla.livejournal.com]

"And they picked the dullest place possible for it to be located?" Rilla's hazel eyes went wide. "It sounds like something out of a story."

[see-beyond.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't be a very happy story if that was true.

"Since it was all I knew, I thought it was exciting," Jonas explained. "And then I came here and I know better. It was small and not very inclusive. If you were there, you were supposed to be there forever."

[rilla-myrilla.livejournal.com]

Rilla nodded. "That sounds like the Glen," she admitted. "It's so strange not to know anyone here by their family's reputation."

[see-beyond.livejournal.com]

"Where is the Glen?" Jonas asked, not recognizing the word. "And I'm not sure how you'd know someone by family reputation either but that's probably because everything was very individualized where I'm from."

[rilla-myrilla.livejournal.com]

"It's my home village," Rilla said, blushing faintly. "Glen St. Mary. Most of the families have been there for generations. You don't have families?"

[see-beyond.livejournal.com]

"Oh no, we do," Jonas said, blushing a bit himself. "I've a brother, at least. I would assume some of our families have been there that long as well but it was never really addressed."

[rilla-myrilla.livejournal.com]

"But however do you gossip about them?" Rilla teased.

[see-beyond.livejournal.com]

"I didn't even know what gossip was till I arrived here," he said and laughed. "I think we might have missed out on quite the activity."

[rilla-myrilla.livejournal.com]

"However did you fill your time at church picnics?" Rilla asked with a light laugh.

[see-beyond.livejournal.com]

"We didn't exactly have church picnics," he told her, shaking his head. "We weren't really...religious in the typical sense of the word."

[rilla-myrilla.livejournal.com]

Rilla tried not to look as judgmental as she felt. "Oh really?"

[see-beyond.livejournal.com]

Jonas nodded. "Really. I didn't even know there was such a thing before I arrived here. Gods and goddesses, worshiping, we never did that sort of thing. We never learned how."

[rilla-myrilla.livejournal.com]

"Did missionaries not visit you?" Rilla left off the "you poor heathen," part of that sentence, not wishing to offend.

[see-beyond.livejournal.com]

"Missionaries?" Jonas asked, deciding not to go into the part where no one really got into the Community that easily.

[rilla-myrilla.livejournal.com]

Rilla nodded. "Men and women who travel to sad and desolate locations where they haven't heard about Jesus yet," she shared earnestly.

[see-beyond.livejournal.com]

"No one like that ever came to the Community," Jonas said, shaking his head. "I doubt they would have been granted entrance anyway. The Community was very, very... sheltered."

[rilla-myrilla.livejournal.com]

"I'm beginning to understand that," Rilla said. "I thought the Glen was pretty out of the way, but we had a train station and a few churches at least."

[see-beyond.livejournal.com]

"We had nothing of the sort," Jonas said, blushing a bit. "We weren't living in tents or anything like that but a lot of the establishments here were not present back home."