[OTA] Is there life on Mars?

[reprobate]

WHO: Sirius Black
WHERE: Fountain & Bridge outside of town
WHEN: 26 June, 28 June
OPEN TO: ALL - Please mind the notes for the prompts
WARNINGS: Standard Padfoot warnings

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It's a God-awful small affair;

Open to ONE thread, fcfs

Sleeping was always a bit of a risky prospect within the hallowed walls of Azkaban prison. If you were the steady sort and could dutifully ignore the constant wailing, it was one of the few activities a prisoner could manage with any consistency. The trouble was, the ratio of steady to unsteady wasn't exactly through the roof to start, and it was nearly guaranteed that whatever marbles you brought in were well lost within weeks.

And a bad dream, the sort that everyone in the place eventually fell into, night sweats and jolting awake to a heart hammering in your ears? Like honey to the Dementors. Good luck staying sane then.

As a matter of fact, Sirius reckoned he was the sanest person in the joint, which didn't say much for the general level of mental health in the British wizarding prison system. And it was only being a dog most of the time that allowed him that dubious distinction — With a few notable exceptions, he'd spent most of his life as the dodgiest person in the room.

The days ran together, but he got his hands on a newspaper every now and then, and was clear enough on the date. Nearly five years he'd been locked in this cage, fueled by a deep-seated anger, his savior the very thing that had allowed his nemesis to escape (relatively) unscathed. The wailing didn't bother him anymore, nor the fleas. He gladly ate what slop he was given, and kept a sliver of his strength up by tenacity alone. He stayed a mangey black dog more often than not, and his sleep was blissfully simple.

The shift now he felt before waking, the heaviness of human thought sliding into the watery place between sleep and awareness—

Wait, no. That was actual water.

Sputtering, he surfaced with a spate of violent coughing, his arms skinny and wobbling as they pulled him over the lip of the fountain and to the worn stones surrounding it. On hands and knees, he hacked up the rest of his dinner, indifferent to the mess as he blinked into the startling brightness of a clear summer day.

So much for being the sanest person in the place.

To the seat with the clearest view;

OTA

As unlikely as it had seemed even then, at first Sirius had thought he'd been victim of an apparating accident. Granted, he'd not been trying to disapparate, and certainly wouldn't have been aiming for someplace so far from England, but it wasn't unheard of.

Well, unheard of from inside bloody Azkaban, but not generally.

But apparently that wasn't it at all, it was something that was odd enough and inexplicable enough that two full days later, he was still not entirely certain he hadn't simply, finally had the mental break loads of people had been predicting for years. Not that he was complaining, really; if this was what a mental break was like, he reckoned he ought to have had one years back — Free food that tasted better than he remembered anything ever tasting, free lodging with an actual bed with an actual mattress, loads of sunshine, a giant box full of cigarettes with his name on it, along with the freedom to go wherever he liked... If Peter had been here to strangle when he'd first arrived, it would've been practically paradise.

Presently, he was seated on the edge of the wooden bridge that crossed the river just outside of town, his long legs straddling one of the supports for the railing, idly swinging heavy black boots over the water while he smoked a cigarette and just took it all in. It was loud and quiet here all at the same time, all the sweet, everyday noises he didn't realize he'd forgotten replacing the cacophony he left back in prison.