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Jessica steps out of the 'defunct spa' in her bike leathers, and mounts up. The chimerical horse that appeared following Samhain is interesting; few horses are big enough for a troll to ride. Still, for this trip, she wants the speed and thrill of the motorcycle.
She drives a short distance, to a small roadside shrine set up in a stone house. She pops the kickstand and swings off the bike, taking an object from the saddlebags as she turns away towards the shrine.
Inside the little hut, a statue stands; a vaguely female skelaton dressed in robes to which jewelry has been pinned. The room is decorated with colored candles (none in black), and offerings are heaped in front of the statue; fruit, bowls of water, flowers, and coins.
Jessica lingers outside the morbid room, looking at the statue with some internal conflict. Finally, with a sigh, she enters and sets something on the altar. It's a multicolored candle in amber, blue, purple, and yellow. She lights it from one of the others.
"Ok, so... I don't know. I mean... wasn't really raised in a faith. But, if there's anything you can do... I have two requests. First, most important... Duff. He's not a bad guy. But he could take better care of himself, take a little less damage. I'd like him to stay healthy. And wise, wisdom would be good. But mostly health. So that's why the candle, ok?
"And... if asking for it like this, from a Mexican spirit... if this maybe makes a good impression on the local Fae? That would be good too. I want them to come back to the table, I want them to see I'm trying and... and I'd like to talk with them. Just ... to understand better.
"So anyway, I'll stop back in. See how things are here. I'll help take care of this place and a few others. Just my way of trying to connect. I'll do it whether Duff stays healthy and gets wise, and whether the natives make contact, or not. I'll do it." She pauses. "That's all." After another pause, Jessica sets a bar of chocolate on the altar.
She gives the statue a bow, and goes back out to the bike. Soon she's roaring away, down little streets and dirt roads, near the edges of her domain. There's a cluster of 'dancing pines,' trees that local legend say got lost on the way to a dance back when animals and trees acted like people. The blonde troll, so out of place in this landscape, doesn't speak. She sits in quiet communion with the trees, striking no lights and leaving behind only a bar of chocolate and the diminishing echo of her motorcycle motor when she drives away.
Drives out to the sea-cliffs, and stops at a shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe to light a candle there as well. She also leaves the Lady a bar of chocolate, deciding that it can't hurt. Again, she asks for protection for Duff's health, and contact from the Nunnehi.
On the way back to town, she pulls over and walks about a mile into the arroyo. She finds a pile of decomposing granite littered with soot and red pottery shards. Again, she sits quietly with these artifacts; they are relics of a time, a century or so ago, when native people would gather for the harvest. They would sing, and dance, hunt small animals, and the children would play and climb trees for pine nuts. The native people are long gone. All that remains could be considered garbage. Still, Jessica lingers, turning a piece of pottery over in her fingers before gently replacing it where she got it from before she leaves. A bar of chocolate remains behind.
Several hours after she left, she motors back up to the 'spa,' and stows her bike before she goes inside. Some sleep, and then the business of the day.
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