Author's Notes: I'm sorry I kept putting this off, but it turns out these are two characters that I have a hard time writing for.
Current Interaction: Dawn and Zoey.
"I'm sorry that you got eliminated," Dawn said.
Zoey shrugged. "It's okay. I actually got a lot farther than I was expecting, and it was a lot fairer than the way that you got kicked off." She paused, taking a bite of her salad, then kept her eyes down a bit sheepishly. "And besides, what I really wanted was to meet people. And now I've made some new friends, got a boyfriend..."
She shrugged, unable to repress a smile. When she looked up, however, she saw that Dawn still watching her, her gaze somehow even more wistful than usual.
"That's nice. Especially since you never had many friends or a boyfriend before coming on the show."
Zoey winced. "Um...yeah."
Dawn continued to stare at her for a moment, then finally looked down at her own food and began to eat. Zoey looked away too, making a face. Dawn could be hard to talk to sometimes.
"So—you've been at this resort for a while," she said, hoping to break the awkward silence. "What is there to do for fun around here?"
"There isn't much to do in the hotel," Dawn said vaguely. "I like going into the forest, personally. It's a nice place to meditate and commune with my animal friends."
"Oh," Zoey said simply. Then, attempting a joke, added "I'd rather stick around the resort, though. Most of my friends are humans."
"I don't have many of those."
"What?"
"Human friends."
Zoey blinked. "Why?"
Dawn looked down, picking vaguely at a crouton. "Unfortunately, I find that people tend to be more judgemental and out-of-touch with the natural flow of the universe." She paused. "That and they get put off by my aura-reading."
"Well, you can be a little..." Zoey searched for a nice way to phrase it. "Glib, sometimes."
"I suppose."
"But the people around here are nice. Well...okay, not all of them." Zoey glanced across the pool area, where Jo and Anne Maria were having a loud argument. "But what about Mike, or B or Brick?"
Dawn shrugged. Zoey sat back, looking at her thoughtfully.
"Come on. How about today, you and I stay here and hang out with the other contestants? We only have a couple days to get to know them before we all have to go home."
Dawn's dreamy expression turned skeptical. "Come on," Zoey continued. "If I can make friends with actual humans, I bet you can too."
"...I suppose. But tomorrow, would you come with me to meet some of my animal friends in the forest?"
"That depends. Will any of them try to eat me?"
"No. Chris reserved those poor creatures for his barbaric challenges."
"Then sure," Zoey said, flashing her friend a smile.
Next Interaction: B and Staci.
