OPEN LOG: A beach party.

[bouchonne]

WHO: Everyone.
WHAT: A beach party.
WHEN: On a very hot day. At some point during the month.
WHERE: A beach just outside of Kirkwall.
NOTES: It is a beach party.

During a particularly hot and oppressive week in Kingsway, the Diplomacy division announces it will be diverting some of its funds to organize a party on a nearby beach. Kirkwallers are invited as well - a relationship-building sort of effort - but the party is mostly intended for morale boosting for Riftwatch itself.

The party features the following:

• Transportation to this lovely beach from the Gallows and from Kirkwall.


• Sunbathing and swimming in skimpy (or non-skimpy, if you're a fuckin square) bathing suits.


• Live music and dancing.


• Delectable grilled meats (and some vegetables, if you're a fuckin square).


• Rum drinks served in hollowed-out fruits.


• A sandcastle-building competition.


• A swim race.


• A few fun little sailboats bobbing around out on the water.

Does all that sound too wholesome? Great! There's also a cave system in the cliffs next to the beach. These little grottos are full of nooks and crannies and are perfect for a bit of sinful action after dark; in one cavern, there'll be some gambling games where some of Kirkwall's citizens are losing money; in another, you're likely to run into people making out.

Have fun! Soak up sun! Don't get in trouble! Or do, whatever, it's a beach party.

Comments

[altusimperius]

He's a little surprised to see her-- both because he knew she was out of town, and because they haven't been on the warmest terms lately, though at this point he can't even remember whose fault that is.

Probably his own.

He picks up the drink with a gracious little nod, extending it towards hers to clink it gently before taking a sip.
"Nothing like the south Nocen," he admits, in a low voice, as though afraid of being overheard.

[coquettish_trees]

She wraps both hands around her drink, cradling the coconut husk as she might a mug of tea, and hums softly.

"My lord grew up with it," she muses softly. "Marnas Pell. It is still his favourite of the Asgard holdings. I regret I have never seen it, nor any of that coast." She sips her drink, watches the waves.

Looks terribly lonely, for a moment.

"Tell me of it?"

[altusimperius]

He's quiet for a long moment. She's sad, missing her husband, needs the warmth of remembering or at least imagining a kinder place.

But some places, to some people, need to be forgotten.

"I'd rather not," Benedict says slowly, looking at his feet half-buried in the sand, "that place is gone to me now."

[coquettish_trees]

"If you say," Alexandrie replies with a genteel incline of her head. The silence following sounds like she's not finished, though.

She isn't. "You need say nothing of it, but... the land is not its people," she continues, unburying and reburying her feet as she speaks towards the water. "The coast of the south Nocen sea cares little for politics. Perhaps the city is gone to you, or the country, but not the land. The land can still be yours, even if you never see it again in this life."

[altusimperius]

It's a bit rich, coming from her: he knows that ultimately he is responsible for what happened to himself in the past year, but for the direct facilitator of his imprisonment to lecture him on how not to be homesick...

...it takes a fair amount of restraint not to snap at her and become the petulant child to which he's so capable of reverting.

Instead, a measured "I'd prefer not to talk about it," will have to suffice, accompanied by a tentative sip of his drink. No good to cause dramatics at an event intended for harmless fun, especially with himself and Byerly on fairly thin ice to begin with.

[coquettish_trees]

That it might not have been the comforting sentiment she'd thought it doesn't occur to her in the slightest. Ah well, she'd tried. A dip of her chin to acknowledge the refusal and she goes back to watching the sea, the children that run on the sand.

If he'd like to say something he may, otherwise she'll simply do her best to make it a companionable silence.

[altusimperius]

Perhaps surprisingly, Benedict isn't content for the silence to continue; in this time of mending (or entirely reconstructing) bridges, uncomfortable silences can't suffice anymore.

He doesn't have to just roll over and sulk when he's unhappy, and he doesn't have to lash out about it either. He can just.

Be a person.

"How was your trip?" he asks after a short while.

[coquettish_trees]

"Entirely lovely," she says. Broken from her lazy reverie, Alexandrie sips at the drink she'd just been holding. "Surprising." Another drink, this one a considerable mouthful to tide her over so she can lean back on her elbows—a poor position to try to lift a rum-filled fruit from.

"The purpose was to check in with a contact whose correspondence with me has been, without fail, a quarter useful information, a quarter fretting about being dragged off and being tortured by the Venatori for providing me with it, and half transparently soliciting reassurance about the quality of the opera he is writing, which his mother is quite critical of.

"I thought it would quell his fears in a more substantial manner if I went to visit him, but I did so fully expecting that I should have to lie quite dreadfully to him about his opera," she idly grasps a handful of sand and lets it sift back through her fingers, looks over at Benedict with raised eyebrows and a little half-smile, "but it was good."

[altusimperius]

Already far more invested in this topic, Benedict smirks, his eyebrows arching with intrigue.

"Really. What's it about?"

[coquettish_trees]

"A Rivaini goatherd in the eastern mountains and a siren in the Rialto Bay who fall in love, and the travails of their courtship," she replies. "It ends with their formation of a particularly lush valley halfway between the two in which there is always the right amount of rain." She lifts and sifts sand again.

"He is trying to decide whether it ought to be a tragic or celebratory ending."

[altusimperius]

"Huh."

He tilts his head, trying to form the mental image.

"...seems celebratory, doesn't it?"

[coquettish_trees]

"It seems so," she agrees readily, "and pastorals are often so, but I think he wishes the sort of grandeur that one can only truly receive from moving ones audience to tears."

[altusimperius]

"Well one of them will probably have to die then." He furrows his brow.
"Or both."

[coquettish_trees]

"The last I heard it was the both of them, and the price for creating the valley where they might truly love one another." More sand. "A lovely conceit, I think. One last duet, as they make a space in the world for themselves that they shall never be together in."

Alexandrie opens her mouth as if she might continue, but sinks into silence instead and looks back out at the water for a moment. Then, softly, "In a way I suppose they would always be." Another moment.

"It is a good opera."

[altusimperius]

"It sounds like it."
Sipping from his drink, Benedict casts her a sidelong glance, but doesn't comment. He knows the source of her sudden pensive gaze, and although it will never entirely sit well with him, he doesn't see a need to rub it in.

"Are you splitting your time, then?" he asks, changing the subject slightly, vaguely hoping for a happier turn. "Or will you be here until the effort is done?"

[coquettish_trees]

If Benedict catches it with his glance, his vague hope will promptly be dashed by the look of absolutely incredulous affront Alexandrie turns on him in the split second before she tamps it into mild courtesy.

There are several different things he could have meant, after all. And given what she knows of him now she would be willing to wager that whatever it was that left his hands, it was not the knife that hit her.

"I will be where I am needed, as I am needed," she replies gamely. "For now my place is here."

[altusimperius]

He does catch it, and it's there long enough to turn all his blood to ice and his guts to water. Coming from her or anyone else, it's not a good look, but even worse for someone of his standing, who has only barely managed to claw his way out of Traitorous Wretch status.

"Mmhmm," he hums with a quick nod, leaving it at that rather than stick his neck out even further.

[coquettish_trees]

The problem is that she so often wants to wail, and there is nowhere she can except in the dark in their room into a pillow, curled around it so tightly it aches when she lets go.

Split my time between here and where.

“I am going to walk in the sea,” she says, not unkindly. And once she is standing, more softly, “It is not your fault.”

[altusimperius]

By the look on his face, it's clear her reassurances were needed. A bit of tension leaves Benedict's shoulders, his expression still slightly wary, but verging on sympathetic.

"...I meant to say," he adds, before she can walk away, "thank you for the clothes."

[coquettish_trees]

She looks over her shoulder and nods slightly in acknowledgement.

“It is Colin who deserves such thanks, but...” Granted, she had suggested the tailor, had encouraged the use of her credit with the same. “You are welcome.

“It matters, how we are able to present ourselves,” Alexandrie looks away again, watching the horizon. “Despite the circumstances, you are a lord of Tevinter; your blood, your lineage, those things cannot be taken. I wished to do Colin a kindness, but I wished also to remind you that there is still at least one here who remains mindful of that.”

[altusimperius]

Unsure of how he feels about that, Benedict simply nods. Being a lord of Tevinter has encompassed his entire identity up until recently, only for him to realize he's not certain he ever wanted it in the first place; there's been something freeing about disappearing into commonness, away from his mother's judgmental gaze.

He doesn't burden her with it-- she wanted to walk in the sea, after all. He lets her go, watching pensively after her.