Leaves [gxg]

11

11

For some, unfathomable, reason, River found herself sat upon a rocky outcrop in the centre of a wide ocean. All around, she could see only peaceful, deep blue waters that lapped against the rock upon which she rested. Looking down, she saw that she had no clothes on, her hair falling in delicate ringlets over her chest, hiding her breasts.

She flipped her tail in the waters, then stopped. Why did she have a tail? A fish tail? And no legs? The circle of dolphins, that surrounded the outcrop, all held pretty, porcelain cups in their flippers. That seemed odd. Quite odd. Frowning, she flapped her fish tail again, causing drips to spray high into the air, catching the blazing sunlight and dazzling her with a myriad of colours.

"It is a rather odd situation, don't you think?" One dolphin chattered to her, nodding its head. "Why offer tea without milk?"

"It's Earl Grey." As River spoke, she realised that, instead of words, whistles, clicks and chirrups erupted from her mouth. "Adding anything to Earl Grey is indecent."

A loud beeping sound came from somewhere and River shifted upon the outcrop, the scales of her fish tail scraping against the jagged stone. She couldn't see a thing, only ocean as far as the eye could see and several dolphins that had now started carrying their cups of tea upon their noses. The beeping sound reached her ears again and the dolphin that had spoken to her frowned. She wasn't certain how a dolphin could frown.

"Aren't you going to answer that?" The chattering from the dolphin changed, becoming the beeping sound and River struggled to think of a reply.

As her eyes opened, she could see very little in the darkness of her room. The only light came from a sliver at the bottom of her phone, which she had turned face down upon her bedside cabinet. The beeping sound accompanied the flashing of that light and she tried to turn over to pick up the phone.

Struggling, the bed sheets wrapped around her legs, she fell from the bed as she reached out for the phone, fingers touching it, causing it to spin on the cabinet top and then fall after her, landing with a crack on her head. With a groan, she picked up the phone and tried to see which fool had called her in the middle of the night.

"'Lo. Who this?" She couldn't see the name through half-asleep eyes.

"River! It's Celeste. Listen, I've been doing a little research and thought this might interest you." Celeste sounded completely awake. Even a little cheery, as though it wasn't the middle of the night. "Apparently, there are tea farms, I mean plantations, in Scotland. Scotland!"

"Zuhlest? You know it's ..." Taking the phone from her ear, River tried to focus upon the tiny clock on the screen as she also tried to extricate herself from the bed sheets. "Four in the morning? It's four in the morning! Don't you sleep? Are you, like, a robot, or something. I was asleep. There were dolphins and rainbows and I had no milk."

After a second, River realised that she hadn't put the phone back to her ear. After another second, she realised that, if she wanted to hear Celeste's side of the conversation, she would need to return the phone to her ear. She could hear Celeste saying something, but the details were too quiet. Smacking her lips, kicking her legs in a furious attempt to unravel the sheets, she put the phone back where she could hear it.

"And I thought 'Brilliant!'. We'll do that." On the other end of the phone, Celeste paused. Then she paused a little longer when River didn't say anything. "What do you think?"

"Yes." River had no idea what she agreed to, but she remembered an online self-help video that said saying 'Yes' to things was the path to happiness. It seemed like a good time to start.