faderift | OPEN LOG: A beach party.

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OPEN LOG: A beach party.

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.

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a. On the beach
[ Contain your shock: Byerly's swimsuit is indecently skimpy. As he lays out on the warm sand, soaking up the sunshine, his privates are just barely covered; when he rolls over to get some sun on his back, you can definitely see rather too much of his butt-cheeks.

(Also notable, for anyone who would not avert their eyes: he's rather well-scarred for a fellow who prefers partying to fighting. The Riftwatch life is not an easy one.)

He'll welcome company when company comes, particularly if that company comes with a drink in hand. ]

b. Swimming contest
[ Perhaps a bit surprisingly, By participates in the swimming contest, and actually makes a very good showing for himself. He doesn't win, but he places in the top ranks. And so after the race, he's preening, quite self-satisfied, checking around to see if anyone noticed how excellently athletic and cool he is. ]

c. Puppy!!
[ Did you know Byerly has a puppy? Her name is Whiskey, and she is a hound who is just starting to lose her puppyish features and become more like a proper dog, and as it turns out, she loves water. Throughout the party, she alternates between a) running into the ocean and then running out and barking at the waves b) snuffling around seeing if she can steal someone's grilled meats and c) sleeping soundly on the sand. ]

d. Late-night misbehavin'
[ After dark, By absolutely partakes of some mild naughtiness in the grotto. He can be found either at the gambling tables, cheerfully losing to a professional card shark, or leaning against a wall watching two prominent (and very intoxicated) Kirkwallers make out and commenting to the person beside him - ]

I didn't know they were together. How droll.

Edited 2020-09-23 19:56 (UTC)

[ Some time after the swimming contest, his sunning and butt-cheeks are abruptly interrupted by a bucketful of damp sand followed immediately by a bright and cheerful: ]

Stay still!

[A bit tipsy and sleepy from working and carousing in the sun all day, Benedict is leaned against the same wall with a drink in his hand and a pleasant smile on his face.]

Maybe they're not.

I. GRILLMASTER

Ostensibly under Byerly's supervision, Benedict has been allowed to leave the Gallows for the first time in a year, for the purpose of helping the party run as well-oiled as it can (which is not even to say how well-oiled the guests are).

He spends most of the day overseeing and assisting with the party's various amenities, whether he's keeping a watchful eye on the grill, helping deliver the drinks, or keeping score for the sandcastle and swimming competitions; and while never an especially emotive fellow, he maintains the sort of quiet, pleasant focus with which he was known to conduct business as chamberlain, albeit this time with no shirt on (linen trousers rolled to the mid-calf serve as his uniform) and his hair tied back in a neat little tail.

II. Resting

With a hand-rolled cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other, Benedict sits alone in the sand and watches the festivities. He hasn't personally partaken in much, seeming comfortable enough on the administrative side of things, but there's serenity to be found in just sitting for a while and absorbing the enjoyment of others.

III. Wildcard

He's not getting trashed anytime before sundown, at least, but who knows what can happen?

i. generally/wildcard

[ Despite acting and sounding vaguely vampiric, Kostos is neither pale nor sparkly. And saying he looks comfortable on the beach might be overstating things—he's unwilling to just let sand happen to him, for example, instead of being constantly pissed and brushing it off—but he also doesn't turn to ash in the sunlight or cower under cover. He spends the whole day shirtless, and a while wading hip-high in the water with a drink in hand, and a while longer sitting on the beach and openly making eyes at the least clothed people in his vicinity, and then a shorter while in the make-out cave with one of the locals, before ultimately finishing the night watching the gambling. Watching and not participating. That's character growth!

Or he's just broke. ]

ii. small children.

[ For about three minutes, the scene borders on heartwarming. Kostos, rescuing a crab from two local children and their sticks. The children, actually willing to listen to him explain that it just wants to be left alone. (No symbolism intended.) It turns into an actual conversation and everything. There's banter. Perhaps Riftwatch is not scary. Perhaps there is hope for mages coexisting with Kirkwallers. All that's missing is a rainbow.

But then the banter turns sharp—hard to say who's at fault, honestly, Kostos or a mouthy crab-torturer—and suddenly one of the children turns and runs, face all crinkled up with suppressed tears. The other says, ] Asshole! [ and follows after her, and Kostos stands there, looking not quite confused. More like of fucking course. ]

[Having been enjoying this heartwarming scene while sitting in the sand nearby, his own shirt off with a drink in his own hand, Barrow smiles sympathetically at the As-Of-Yet-Unidentified Averesch when the children flee from him.]

What have you done? [Barrow calls, cheerfully.]

I. sunning/general

[ Having ruined her complexion for the rest of the season for a mission and then spent two weeks on the beaches of Antiva City, Alexandrie has given over entirely and is letting the sun not just touch her but be quite brazen with her. She’s lounging careless and feline on a blanket in its rays wearing a filmy sheer wrap that flutters up when the breeze blows off the sea. Its intended purpose must be something besides covering her, as it does nothing of the sort, and her “swimming” costume (she is not intending to go into the water—sun is one thing, but salt in her hair?) is not making up for it in the slightest.

She has her eyes closed in serene satisfaction beneath the wide brim of the hat that is pinned so securely against the wind it might as well be part of her head, and is, if you were to come close enough, humming quietly. ]

II. truth or dare; (one thread, pile in!)

[ The last time she’d been on the beach and pleasantly drunk in the twilight with co-workers, fire crackling merrily alongside, they’d played a game...

And it turned out so delightfully that it’s going to happen again. Right now. When she turns to look directly at you, smile brightly, and ask: ]

Truth or dare.

[ It’s... more of a command than a question, really. ]

Oh, this feels dangerous.

[He's only just passing by, but had come to welcome Alexandrie back from her travels after she'd been so kind to him in his convalescence.

He puffs lightly at a cigarette, eyeing her with wary amusement.]

Truth, then.

[ She claps delightedly and makes an exaggerated thinking face. So many questions she could ask, but when one is trying to trap people into playing this particular game it’s poor policy to start out with deep personal stories or immediate tumbling into the sheets, and so: ]

Before the wall, what was the hardest thing you had ever punched?

[ Another moment of thought, and then: ]

And you must tell the story.

[Since it seems he might be here a while, Barrow carefully lowers himself to the sand with a little grunt as he settles.]

Let's see, [he muses,] ...well, not my proudest moment, but it was here in Riftwatch. I punched a jar with a skull in it.

i. sand city.

[ Bastien brought a book, but it doesn't wind up seeing much use, except as an anchor to keep his shirt from blowing away when he gives into inevitability and wades into the water. His trousers aren't going anywhere, but he does roll them up to his knees at some point, and he winds up sandy and curly-haired and somewhere between fully- and half-wet at any given time.

The longest he stays in one place is when he settles into the task of building a sandcastle. It's not a very good one. More of a sand country fortress. But he smooths out some roads around it and begins adding little lumps of sand that are sort of house- and shop-ish, to a forgiving eye, sprawling out to make a sand city around the castle.

He's working on an outer wall—to protect against invaders, you know—when the rising tide and a larger wave come too close for comfort. ]

Nooo, [ he tells the sea, like it might listen, and lies out to bodily shield the city from the encroaching water while he tries to dig a trench to avert disaster. ]

ii. dancing.

[ Between dance partners at the moment, Bastien gravitates toward any given familiar face on the outskirts of the music-and-dancing sand patch for one of the following, depending on how he knows them:

(a) An extended hand, maybe with wiggly c'mon fingers, if he knows they're the sort to enjoy a dance or if they look like they wish someone would ask.

(b) A boneless collapse either into their shoulder or straight down into the sand beside them, because it's very hot and he's danced himself to exhaustion. (Not really. He's fine.)

(c) A perfectly respectable falling-into-place alongside them to watch, and a few seconds of silence, and then, ] Are you having a nice time?

iii. after dark.

[ Bastien put in an appearance in both caves, just to see who was there and who was doing what. It's important to know these things. But he doesn't linger long in either before he winds up back out on the beach, standing in the surf and eyeing the anchored little sailboats with an eye gleam that's 70% double-moonlight and 30% man-with-a-history-of-joyriding. ]

iv. wildcard.

Edited (sorry if you're getting notifs hope) 2020-09-23 22:33 (UTC)

Alexandrie comes to sit with him, a drink in both hands. One of them she keeps, the other she nestles in the sand between them. It’s for him, if he’s out. Otherwise it’s for her.

She’s quiet for a while, burying her feet in the sand.

“Which coast is your favourite?” She asks finally.

[His collapse lands him, one would hope, straight down onto the sand rather than on her extremely narrow shoulder. One is something like welcoming and the other is probably pointy enough to wound by accident.

Fitcher, wrapped from throat to thigh in some delicate, breezy thing, offers him her hollowed out orange. Presumably there is something worth drinking left in it.]

Will you survive, or should I call for a healer?

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.

It can be rather offensive.

[This from Wysteria where she is reclined on the blanket guarding them from the sand. The quality of the light somewhat lessens the brilliance of her extremely red face, being somewhat closer to pleasantly hammered than pleasantly tipsy.]

But you must not crack the casing, Serah. I have my suspicions the spirit would vacate the host entirely. The skull, I mean. The jar is merely the binding agent.

[Some vague gesture is made above her prone form to emphasize this bit of semantics.]

[Grumbled and at least 10% joking,]

what a pity that would be.

[Colin kneels to start helping with trench-digging.]

Worst comes to worst, [he says nonchalantly,] we'll build another one upstream. I think we acted in time to evacuate the residents.

[ There's a nice set of legs nearby, of a figure stretched out and sunning herself. One is stretched out along the sand, the other is bent, crossed over. Pale and so probably will pickle pink in the sun before not too long, but maybe sooner to freckle. Nicely toned, shapely, and bare up until a light fabric shift worn about the waist obscures view.

Then a flat belly, and a freckled bosom gathered into a fitted top, but it's probably around then that Kostos will realise who he is looking at because Sabine is relaxedly raising her middle finger to him, eyes shielded in Riftwatch patented sunglasses. ]

I. Sunbathing

It may have started as some mid-afternoon sunbathing, but it has become a nap. A half-drunk beverage beside him, Barrow is shirtless and immobile save for the gentle rise and fall of his broad chest.
He snores quietly.

II. Dancing

Glad to jump in with anyone else who needs a partner and seems willing, Barrow proves himself remarkably graceful in dancing for someone of such bulky construction.
Ever the gentleman, he concludes each song with a courteous bow.

[ Alexandrie, absorbed in ruminating upon the idea that skulls might be able to die, nearly allows Barrow to break her arbitrarily established rule.

But then he stops talking, and sifting through her recent memory she can’t find anything that sounds like him saying why he punched a glass jar with a skull in it, so rolls her head to look at him again. ]

Did you punch it because it was being rather offensive?

It's good to see Bene outside the Gallows. After a short time has passed, Colin moves to relax beside him, rolling out a woven mat to avoid getting too much sand in too many places. His hair fans out under his head as he lies down.

"Good?" he asks, blissed out from the sun and the cold fruity drink.

As a matter of fact, yes.

[He's almost snooty about it-- he'll never back down from the unfairness presented by that particular fight.]

Broke my fucking hand.

[But that's enough of that.]

Are you playing, Miss Poppell?

Shall we steal one?

[ Alexandrie had not intended to go into the water, but here she is anyway, her wrap gathered up and tied around her waist, hugging herself against the evening breezes and the chill of her feet in the sea. ]

I have never wanted to be a real pirate, but I have always wanted to be a false one.

[Her hands flop bonelessly back out of the air, fingers knitting genially across her (very clothed, thank you) middle.]

Of course. It is the height of discourtesy to simply observe a game like this one.

Very well. Truth or dare?

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Page 1 of 32

OPEN LOG: A beach party.

Byerly, open

A

d

Benedict ota

kostos, otcko

ii

Alexandrie, open

II

no subject

no subject

bastien, ota

II

2b

no subject

no subject

no subject

I

o. cameo.

Barrow ota

no subject

II

no subject

III

no subject

no subject