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

[tender]

"Can we fit four?" is the more pressing question, though is a little bit of an opening for Yseult to dismiss them both.

[staysail]

"We can fit four," Darras says with great magnanimity, "it's small, but it's not that small--c'mon--"

He's already wading back out to the boat to join Yseult, who is not being allowed the option to dismiss. He's the captain here. (Of course if she wanted the option to dismiss, as captain, he would let her have it, but that's not applicable to the moment.)

[hassaran]

Yseult is too late to slide out of this and too polite to openly refuse, so when she turns back to find Darras urging Athessa and Derrica into the boat, she just smiles in her usual minimalist way and nods her agreement. "Of course."

She's wearing his shirt (presumably, given the size). It's open and almost transparently thin in any case, but she twitches the corner further over a thigh before settling back on her hands and looking at Darras, expression expectant even with the glasses. Just because he's the captain doesn't make her crew here.

[sulahnan]

Well, if he says they can fit four, they'll fit four. It's not weird to hang out, scantily clad, with your similarly scantily clad boss and the Vice Admiral. It's not, don't worry about it.

"I take it we have permission to board, then," Athessa says, hauling herself out of the shallow surf and onto the sailboat and automatically offering a hand down to Derrica.

[tender]

The gauzy tunic Derrica's unearthed has a scattering of wet droplets across the front, as if someone had slung a handful of water across her. She's plucking at the side, a little anxious, right up until the moment Yseult acquiesces. The anxiety ebbs, enough for her to take Athessa's hand and pull herself up on board.

She's sailed with Darras enough times now that it is familiar to turn to him and smile, tip her head towards the flapping sails.

"Where are we heading?"

[staysail]

Darras clambors up with a great sluicing of water. He's not at all careful with it, and if Yseult is splashed a little in the process, well, who can say that wasn't his intent.

"Oh, I dunno," he says airily, "wherever this wind takes us, I'd say. Off to Calabar, to meet the Calabarbarians. Or just out into the open water and turning around again before we get out too deep. Any opinion?"

--This to Yseult, even as he's pointing Derrica toward the sail. The flapping of the cloth puts them downwind; time to let it out.

[hassaran]

"I don't have the right wig for Calabar," Yseult replies, with the air of an inside joke. She flicks her arm to send a smaller spray of water back at Darras. "So a lap out around the sandbar will have to do."

There are two glasses tucked in the narrow gap between the bench and the boat's edge, and she picks up one for a sip. It's visibly chilled, containing clear liquid, a couple slices of lime, and a stone cube. "Darras tells me you've spent some time at sea, Derrica?"

[sulahnan]

"Guess we'll have to settle for Sandbarbarians," is Athessa's quiet aside, though she makes a point to shield her eyes from the sun and peer back the way they came towards the rest of their company. Look, there's some now!

[tender]

Yseult's direct address inspires the same anxious spark of stage fright it had the last time they'd been out on the water together, regardless of how relaxed the setting. Derrica glances quickly to Athessa, eyebrows raising slightly before she falls to working deftly on the ropes as Darras directed.

"I came to Kirkwall by way of Llomerryn," Derrica answers delicately. "I'd been sailing for five or six years before that."

Side-stepping the logistics of what she'd been doing at sea, because some instinct warns her against saying the nature of it outright even with Commander Flint and his ship comfortably having resided in Kirkwall as long as they had.

"I'd heard a little of Darras," she adds, eyes moving between him and Yseult, trying to read their level of comfort with that.

[hassaran]

"Had you," she replies, casting a look up at Captain Rivain as he takes the helm. If her gaze lingers there a moment longer than is strictly necessary or in keeping with her typically tightly-reined professionalism, who could blame her. "Entertaining, no doubt. He could give Bastien a run for his money when it comes to stories."

She look back to Derrica again, though the path of her eyes sweeps Athessa in as well. "Llomerryn has its points. It's not so different from Kirkwall in some respects, except for the weather and the number of pirates."

[staysail]

"It is completely different than Kirkwall," says Captain Vice-Admiral Rivain, with some indignation, while still managing to present a decent view.

He is more concerned with this than with being known. A man doesn't become a pirate captain and not have a reputation of some sort. Or so he would say today, as it is sunny and fine out, and there's rum, and he's on a little boat headed out for open water. The darker shades of the past, the little rooms in Llomerryn, those are all very far away.

"You can't say that in front of Athessa or she'll never want to go and she'll be missing out." As an aside now to her: "You wouldn't have made it that far south, would you? Don't listen to her, and Derrica, back me on this. It's far better'n Kirkwall, because of the weather and the pirates and the food, and the wine, and the flowers, and the culture. And a thousand other things which Yseult is downplaying for mysterious reasons of her own."

[sulahnan]

"I believe it," she says, nodding and giving Darras and expectant look. He's the captain, she's waiting for something to do. "I think I saw Llomerryn, on the way to Afsaana, but I never got there myself. It's not hard to be better'n Kirkwall, anyway."