checking around

[singindemonhq]

Smoked around checking out the town. It is not the Sunnydale that we left. (I'm not clairvoyant, but I can foresee an argument with Erynne in the near future.

Maybe she's right, and I worry too much. At first sight this place is no more dangerous than the original Sunnydale, but some of the people here aren't the people we knew.

I don't just mean the population has changed - the Sunnydale we left was almost empty, but this place hums with life, some of it unexpected. I almost walked up to a Jetta at the kerb from habit - then I remembered that I'd last seen it wrapped around the front of a fire truck.

The people have changed, too.

I thought saw old Phil crossing the road just outside town. There were a couple of other demons around who'd been dead in the other reality, too - but Myk was the shocker. He was a well-meaning burrowing demon in Sunnydale #1, very obliging. Here, he sells meat pies and sends his customers on their way with a sly smile and a secret hope that the rat filling is toxic...

I'd have been pushing for us to be on our way, but when I passed Willy's bar I thought I picked up just a trace of Astraeia's mind. That was another difference - in the old dimension Astraeia and Willy had been on their way to New Jersey to meet Willy's family.

The bar was closed and I had a feeling that it wouldn't have been a good idea to intrude right then, but, if my talisman exists in this dimension and Astraeia has it, I'm going to need to get it for Erynne.

We'll need to go to go to Willy's bar tomorrow, but I have different plans for this evening. There's a new Indian Restaurant on that side of town and we've both been daydreaming about food that isn't fish or berries...