Second Sight

Come Closer

It wasn't the alarm clock that woke Ava from her futile sleeping. Rather, it was the ceaseless pounding of a heavy Irish rain on the ancient glass windowpane of her cozy room at the inn that stirred her. The sleep stuck to her eyes as she dragged herself out of the bed. She tried to be a decent roommate and not wake the three other girls that had decided to tag along on this adventure of hers.

It wasn't that Ava disliked company... well actually, it was precisely that. But seeing as how she and these three girls were sharing a flat in Belfast together this semester, she felt obligated to invite them along on her self-guided tour of the far north. Not as though she had anticipated them saying yes. For the semester's majority, the ladies had preferred Belfast's night "life," if one could call it that, nursing aggressive morning-after hangovers. Ava figured these party-types had realized that they'd missed the adventure part of their adventures abroad, what with the nearing end of their time in the UK's bit of the Emerald Isle.

Her deep thought was interrupted with more of a start than was necessary. Hannah, a girl from Oklahoma, turned in her twin bed and mumbled something along the lines of "Ava? Is it raining?" Getting a sole "Mmmhmm" from Ava, not bothering to try and speak this early in the morning. Four o'clock in the morning was too early, even if there was an incredible adventure to behold on the horizon.

Ava headed to the small bathroom shared by their floor of the Inn. It was a convenient combination; the group had come just before tourist season, and Ava was up early enough that any casual sightseers were still fast asleep in bed. The bathroom was all hers.

She took a quick shower, just to rinse off the stiffness from the long night's rest, then set to work. She pulled the top half of her hair, the part that she kept just long enough to cover her undercut, to pull it up into a tight messy bun. There was no need for her to leave her poor mousy brown hair down to be tossed by the whims of mother nature today. It was due time for Ava to focus on the adventure ahead rather than the way that she looked. Ava confidently stared into the mirror, her fierce green eyes staring back at her, as though she already knew how incredible today's adventure was going to be. Satisfied, she turned the light off and returned to her room to awaken the others.

The group had hit the standard tourist attractions in the Northern Ireland area: they had gone on the tour of the Belfast wall—a history that was shockingly dark, what with the bombings and a city-wide wall having been around longer than that of Berlin. Ava's favorite so far (other than the castles; those were on an entirely different level as far as she was concerned) had been that massive Titanic museum in the shipyard. They had everything—history of the ship being made, history of each of the crew members, how tickets were dispersed, evidence of the wreckage, pieces of the iceberg... it was a morbidly-fascinated nerd's dream come true. Nothing could stop Ava from pursuing what had drawn her to Ireland in the first place; ancient castles, ruins older than anything, and the myths that made Ireland, Northern or not, famous.

It took what felt like ages to get Hannah and friends out of the room at the inn. Several reminders on Ava's part served the information that they were indeed going to be outside in the rain all day and that, no, they shouldn't straighten their hair at all because it will have been done in vain. The group had the best of  luck concerning where they were staying, and it added to the adventure that it sounded like something straight out of Ava's favorite stories. A creaking wooden sign, just barely held up by two rusting chains outside the front door, read "The Smuggler's Inn," and it felt like the inn itself had fallen out of stories of ancient sailors and pirates staying where they could find an inn with a pleasant view of the ocean. The combination of the howling winds, accompanied by a symphony of crashing waves and stinging rain, set the perfect mood for the grand finale to Ava's long-dreamed adventure.