miggy anniversary

“So?” Dandelion smiles, as chipper and airy as her namesake. “What do you think?”

Joan blinks, pinkie finger snugly fit all the way up his nose. 

It didn’t take a genius to realize he wasn’t paying attention, but the true extent of his inattention would shock even the laziest soul. No, Joan hadn’t caught this person’s name, and in his quest to dislodge a particularly annoying booger from his nostril she’d forgotten entirely where she was.

To Dandelion, Joan's expression is one of great thought, a pensive demeanor to rival philosophers of a long lost era. Man, she’d lucked out! Joan was a living piece of their species’ history, around to see kingdoms rise and fall and rise again; he remembered names long forgotten, no, not just that— he could have even witnessed the extinction of ancient traits! Brimming with delight, she watches with baited breath as the sage Joan pulls his finger out of his nose, looking around as if drawing from his endless reservoir of well-archived knowledge.

Time to break it down, Joan thinks. The year was two-thousand and two, probably. The last time he’d looked at a calendar it was nineteen ninety three, but it was definitely the twenty first century for sure. Damn, he was getting old— nowadays all he could categorize his memories by were pre- and post-Y2K.

Great. Next— where was he? He takes quick stock of his surroundings: the sun’s still high in the sky, casting a thick, sticky heat down on the city. Summer, probably. He’s standing outside of his place of work, a cigarette perched neatly between his ring and middle finger— what was that place called, Burger Prince or something? Right on. 

Clarity washes over him, and he smiles, pleased by his ability to rack his mind so quickly. It’s Friday, and he’s on break from the mindless change-counting of his current job. 

There it is! Joan was having a wonderful time reminiscing on her youth in fifteen century France during his break, until this person approached him camcorder in hand; not that her presence was unwelcome, just surprising. And though Joan had little issue maintaining his disguise, it’d slipped just a bit, the scarred skin of his arm having twisted into white flesh, its pink eye staring blindly ahead.

Rad. He knew exactly who he was, where he was, and what was happening. And how long had that taken— only thirty, forty seconds? Record timing! There was the matter of what exactly this person was talking about, but that was as easily resolved as..

“Sorry,” he sniffles, flicking the cigarette out and snubbing it under his shoe, “my tinnitus got me— real son of a bitch y’know. Say that again?”

It’s a minor hitch in Dandelion’s plans, who’d waited eagerly to hear the wisdom from an older generation of Mignyans passed down to the new. But where was the harm in repeating herself? She'd been doing plenty of that in her interviews!

“I’ve been looking into some recent rumours about a totally new, emergent trait in our species. It’s pretty exciting, right? I’m no closer to figuring out what it is, so—“

“—What’s a trait?”

Dandelion trails off, staggered. He really was serious, wasn’t he?

“Well..” She murmurs, letting the camcorder hang— only a little bit dejectedly— at her side. “It’s what makes us all different, you know? They’re the common attributes that differentiate us; the colors and qualities of our flesh, what parts of our host’s forms we take over—“

“Oh.” Joan interjects, and Dandelion thinks this might be the revelation, so she waits, eager. 

“Cool. No, yeah, that’s cool. As long as my hard-earned tax money isn’t going toward it.”

Dandelion says nothing.

“Ha, ha.”

Another beat of silence. Then Joan stretches her arms above her head, apparently none the wiser about how awkward all of that was, and seems poised to go back to work.

“Well, it was nice to meet you, flower girl.” As he speaks, the undisguised stretch of skin on his arm sinks away, patched by scarred skin once again. 

“Hey, keep me posted on that new doohickey you’re looking into. Sounds cute.” He waves, meeting Dandelion’s eyes rather earnestly but blind to his own stupidity. “Bye now.”

Staggered, Dandelion watches as he sinks back into Burger King, the door fluttering shut behind him. She blinks, looks down at her camcorder, and turns it off.

..Onto the next interview, then?