SALTBURNT 💙 INBOX

[internship]

WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK

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STACY

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[kobes]

I beat you to it, so. You first?

[internship]

I’m fine. [ lying liar who lies. ]

You don’t have to worry about me, I mean.

[kobes]

So, I think I'm going to make business cards.
And start handing them out, for people to keep.
And they're going to say "I'm an empath who can feel your feelings if I think about you too hard, so I know when you're lying, sorry, it's not on purpose it just sort of happens, but it means I'm hard to lie to, so if you tell me you're fine when you aren't, I'm going to assume you want me to stop talking about it and ask if you want to see pictures of Lincoln".

Do you want to see pictures of Lincoln?

[internship]

Oh. [ Give her a minute to process all of that. ]

I don’t think I’m ready to talk about it yet.

But I would definitely like to see pictures of Lincoln.

[kobes]

That's okay. I have a lot of pictures of her for this exact reason :)



She's on my lap right now.

[internship]

Hi, Lincoln.

How did you end up with a pet duck, anyway?

[kobes]

I found her inside a pumpkin in a hedge maze the first October I was here.

[as one does.]

[internship]

Is that how most people end up with pets here? People find tigers in hedge mazes?

[kobes]

For the most part, yes. There's Shadowhen, she was also from a pumpkin, and there are the wolves's pets from the commune. Some more I'm missing, I'm sure.

And the horses and dogs that belong to the Balfours, of course.

[internship]

You know, I never had pets growing up. Aside from one goldfish my little brother flushed down a toilet. Maybe I should ask the Balfours for a pony?

[kobes]

That's a terrible thing to do to a fish.

But yes, I think you deserve a pony at LEAST.

[internship]

My dad tried to tell me it swam to the Hudson River, but. That cover-up didn’t last long.

You’re a good friend, Koby. You know that?

[kobes]

Maybe it did. Maybe it lived in the pipes and grew big as a whale.
Goldfish can, you know.

So are you, Gwen.

[internship]

[ She’s about to ‘ha ha’ at that, but then she remembers it’s Koby, who’s from a weird ocean world, so: ]

Wait. Can they actually do that where you’re from?

[kobes]

Grow that big? The Sea Kings will probably eat them before they get there, unfortunately.

[a pause, then, by way of explanation:] Sea Kings are enormous sea monsters that can swallow ships whole.