Day 1 Evening

[Ada Wong]

Dirt as dark as coffee grounds sifted beneath his shoes as he walked, his jacket tugged close about his shoulders while the temperature began to precipitously drop. The nearer he drew to the coastline, the more blinking specks of polar white flame he could see flickering in the swiftly blackening sky.

His temper had simmered down quite a while ago, although he was still sure to fire off a snarky quip every time the firearm made so much as a peep. Face lowered towards his chest and shoulders protectively hunched, every step he took was nothing more than a feeble shuffle as the winds whipped about his pant legs and jacket lapels, the rain sliding through the grass like silver, jingling coins between the slimy rocks of a stream.

Of course, the rain wasn’t touching Crowley. Not at all. An odd aura of relatively untouched ground surrounded him, almost as if there was an invisible umbrella hanging above his head. Indeed, whenever a streak of drizzly, wet lightning forked its merry way across the sky in a flash of fleeting daylight, a spectral flicker of wings could be seen bent in a furling, arched halo above his head as he brushed through the rippling waves of grassland.

It was truly wicked— just truly, completely wicked that he hadn’t thought to wrap a scarf about his neck before ducking out to meet the angel for lunch. Having a runny nose on top of everything that had happened to him today was just the smarting, bright red cherry sitting on top.

“You had better be glad you can’t feel anything,” he said with a waspish vehemence to the gun, not daring to shift his grip on it lest his chilled fingers refuse to unbend altogether. “This is worse than the Second Circle of Hell, I tell you. That's Lust, by the way. Far less fun than it sounds, sort of like this.”

But, he could smell the sea, now— the mountains were now at his back, for somewhere along the way Crowley had decided to take a sharp turn and head in a direction previously unexplored. By him, at least. The euphonious swell of the ocean rose and fell, the tide roaring as it tore along the rocks and shallow bends in the sand. A few gulls, greyish-white and screeching sharply in tune with the howling wind, swooped overhead.

Crowley stopped at the edge of the sharply jutting cliff that ran down towards the rock-studded beach. A pebble or two trickled down the ledge, rapping against several patches of hard dirt and bird nests on the way down. The serpent demon eyed the nests hungrily, but decided not to test his luck just yet with so many sharp-beaked custodians hanging around.

“Hm. That sure is the ocean, isn’t it?” he canted his head to the side, rolling one shoulder to try and get some warmth running back into his limbs. It wasn’t working very well, but at least he gave a good effort.

The firearm let out an ear-piercing sound that was startlingly like the shriek of a car alarm, very nearly causing Crowley to send it hurtling over the cliff in a split-second bout of extreme, flailing terror. Thankfully, he recovered quickly enough so as not to do that, although he still looked daggers at the gun after regaining some of his earlier decorum.

“Don’t do that. I swear, I’ll throw you out the first chance I get, don’t you think I won’t.”

Zzzzrn? Bvrrrrrr.

“Okay, you’re right. I wouldn’t. Just quit scaring me, I don’t think my poor eternally damned soul can take it.”

Crowley huffed out a short, frosty snuffle, turning to look up at the looming silhouettes of rock that were now even further off than before. Maybe he would be better off nearer to the mountains, after all. He would just... head that way in a few, right after he went and cavorted about the beach for a spell. Perhaps he could fool himself into believing he was just on holiday.

It had been a long time since he had visited a proper beach without the incoming apocalypse in mind, after all.