[open] beach episode volume 2: gallows edition

[altusimperius]

WHO: everybody who wants
WHAT: (lukewarm) BEACH PARTY (on rubble, in harbor)
WHEN: late Justinian
WHERE: the Gallows, amidst its newly-acquired sea view
NOTES: he's trying

I. Prep

He didn't ask for help overtly, but Benedict is clearly working hard setting up the space he's designated for the company to have their beach staycation: drapings taken from his own stash and salvaged from the Gallows' erstwhile guest rooms are drawn across glyphed-in-place poles to create shade. He's hauled out a table, onto which he proceeds to place a variety of whatever canapés he could afford to procure with his own wages-- it's not a feast, all right-- and beside which he rolls two barrels of decent-ish wine.

From the baths come a stack of towels piled high in his arms, hindering his vision to such a degree that he may crash into someone not paying attention; pillows and the like come next, in armloads that take multiple trips, by the end of which he's visibly out of breath.

Lastly, it's his very own water pipe making an appearance, which he arranges amidst comfortable ground seating mimics how his room used to look: in fact, most of the accoutrements here are his personal belongings.
As such, he knows just how to set everything to create an attractive, if minimalist, space for an afternoon's leisure.


II. Party?

It may not be an all-out bash like their excursion to the sandier shores of the Waking Sea some years ago, but this, if nothing else, is an opportunity for work on the Gallows to pause in palatable increments. One can be clearing rubble or cataloguing property for the morning, then pop over for an hour of sunbathing and a glass of wine; they're all within calling out distance of the courtyard, and the party likely bleeds into the day's work in a manner somewhat more comfortable than if it were sequestered.

That said: the early summer sea water is cold, the sun is out but meek behind occasional cloud cover, and the festivities are on clean-swept stone rather than sand. The view across the water is of mainland Kirkwall, and all that that entails.
But it's none of it so bad, for anyone looking to take a break. A few musicians even show up a bit later in the afternoon, and Benedict provides a bonfire in the center of the party space as the sun goes down.

Anything brought to share is met with effusive thanks from Benedict, who ensures its appropriate placement and distribution. He doesn't spend much time relaxing himself, instead making the rounds with the air of a fussy host, where he's quick to offer refills or alternatives in libations, or diversions for unsatisfactory activities.

[make your own starters, do your thing, go hog wild-- if you have logistical questions feel free to ask on plurk or discord]

Comments

griffons

[laruetheday]

Clarisse is at the party. That much can be said.

And, honestly, it's not like she's moping around. She seems mostly pretty normal, has been carrying a drink around and refilling it from time to time, nodding her head to the music. She is even laughing at things that are funny, and smiling when it's appropriate, and talking to people. But as soon as she's not actively engaged with something, she gets this look on her face, like she's not sure why she's here or what she should be doing. Sort of lost.

At one point she starts wandering down the beach, not for any particular reason, just to walk. And to kick rocks. When she comes upon Potato (and Astrid, underneath her), she pauses to watch for a minute, taking in the harness and the fetch items scattered around.

"Are you working or messing around right now?" No judgment. She's just curious.

[brennvin]

“Can it be both?” Astrid asks, a little muffled from somewhere beneath the griffon. She levers one of Potato’s wings out of the way, lifting it so she can peer out from a faceful of feathers and look at Clarisse.

She’s seen Clarisse downbeat at a party before, but there’s something else to it now that she can’t quite put her finger on; as if in stepping away from the fire and the music and the bigger group of people, something in the other woman’s face has slipped.

For her part, Astrid tonight seems unruffled and cheerful as ever. This is a day, the same as any other day.

“Since there’s more distractions around, I figured it’d be a good way to train her to be around crowds, like, but I’m startin’ to think someone let her cuddle too much when she was little. She doesn’t get that she’s too big for laps now.” Potato clacks her beak as if in affirmation. “You wanna help me or hang out?”

Or both.

[laruetheday]

Oh, right. Clarisse gets it. Like training a service dog, kind of—expose them to all kinds of different distractions so they don't go nuts if they happen to fly past a beach party at some point in the future. It makes sense.

"Still pretty dedicated considering it's supposed to be a party," she says, but without much bite. She even whistles to try and get Potato to hop up from the spot where she's crushing Astrid. See? Helping.

For a second she thinks about telling Astrid that if she likes working with the griffons so much, maybe she should apply to be griffon keeper. But she can't bring herself to actually say the words out loud. It would feel like a betrayal, somehow. And she's been kind of enjoying working with the griffons and heading over to check on the horses every day. Maybe enjoying's not the right word, but it's been... comforting, in a weird way, having that routine.

[brennvin]

“What’s that thing some of you rifters say— I contain multitudes,” Astrid announces, a little proud to have remembered the turn of phrase. “Well, that and I was planning on training her a bit anyway, so when Benedict announced this party, why not.”

Clarisse’s clarion whistle cuts right through the distant music and Potato starts to scramble off Astrid, although she accidentally still leaves some of her haunches draped over the woman. This, too, is familiar: some of the hounds back home absolutely didn’t remember how big they were when they were no longer puppies, and that had been nice. Gathering some warmth in the winter months, each furry companion like a walking radiator.

“You’re good with them,” she points out, noting how Potato perks up with recognition at Clarisse’s presence. (Not Ellie, but as good as—) “I’ll have to learn how to do that whistle.”

[laruetheday]

Clarisse snorts. Has she ever said that? She doubts it. But, sure, she's heard it before, on TV or something probably. She'll let Astrid have this one.

"They're just used to me," she says, which is selling herself a bit short. She is good with them, she's just comparing herself to someone who was even better. "When I first rifted in, they gave me a temporary assignment as griffon keeper. I did it for a couple months. Then Ellie applied for it. She was always really into flying."

It tastes like metal in her mouth every time she has to use past tense when she talks about Ellie, but she's forcing herself to do it anyway. She comes closer so she can scratch Potato's chest with both hands.

[brennvin]

While Clarisse scratches Potato’s chest from the front, Astrid notices an irregularity at the back of the griffon’s neck where Potato couldn’t reach it for grooming, an old feather in the middle of moulting. She takes it with thumb and forefinger and gently pulls it off the sheath of the new feather bristling beneath it. Like combing out a dog shedding their undercoat. (Sorry, she can’t help that her main frame of reference is dogs.)

She was, Clarisse says, notably past tense. “I heard you announce her going,” Astrid says, tentative.

And she might have had a better sense of these relationships, except that her hunting trips always took her into the woods for a time. Her Riftwatch missions have sent her out at sea for a while, scouting ships with Xio; with Gwenaëlle and Loxley. She knows she’s missed details back at the Gallows, the shape of things.

“Ellie, she was your…?”

Best friend, girlfriend, those lines were so hard for a bystander to interpret sometimes.

[laruetheday]

"My girlfriend."

Clarisse has decided that it's a pretty stupid word. It sounds so casual, like it doesn't fit, considering the circumstances, the depth of everything she feels. But she doesn't have an alternative that sounds better, either.

She's not upset that Astrid didn't know. She and Ellie didn't make a big deal out of it, especially around everyone else, and Astrid's been in and out a lot since she joined up. Hard to have personal conversations when you're flying, too. All that wind in your ears.

Not sure what else to say, Clarisse keeps scratching Potato's chest. It's something to do with her hands, at least, something to focus on.

[brennvin]

“—Oh, fuck. I’m sorry.”

The words come blurting out, kneejerk instinctive condolence, and then they’re just sitting there with it.

What a weird thing. At least with death, there’s a concrete feeling, a measurable grief; you know they’re gone, you can bury them and eventually move on. Astrid’s heard rifters come and go, so presumably there’s that infinitesimal thread of hope that they’ll come back someday, but she hasn’t really encountered it much herself. Loki was a friend, briefly, but that’s not much. Clarisse is the first rifter she’s really gotten to know.

Clarisse, too, could up and vanish someday.

“Are you the ‘talk about your feelings’ kind of person or, like, ‘punch things about it’ kind or ‘let’s just avoid it please’? Because I can go with whichever.”

[laruetheday]

"Yeah."

Clarisse has known plenty of people who've died. This is different, and it makes her grief feel fake and overblown. Ellie isn't dead, but she doesn't exist anymore all the same. She's been erased, and there's no closure, not even the shitty kind that comes from setting fire to a funeral shroud and watching it go up in smoke.

Astrid's question is kind of nice, letting her go with whatever's going to be least uncomfortable. Clarisse clears her throat. "Uh, the punching things about it kind, usually."

Seems rude to do that at the party Benedict organized, but it's not like she's ever let that stop her from doing something.

[brennvin]

“Oh, well, in that case—”

Astrid shoves the rest of Potato’s haunches off her, and the griffon gamely shifts her weight in order to go flop a few feet away instead. “Stay,” she commands, stern; and after a moment’s consideration, tosses the griffon some jerky to keep her busy while she stands up and squares off opposite Clarisse. She has to tilt her chin up a little; the demi-god’s tall.

“You must be good at fighting, right? Y’could teach me. I get by, but I’m in Scouting not Forces, so I’ve actually been thinking— I need some more practice in hand-to-hand, more knifework, stuff like that. For when we get into scraps.” Which is more often than her old life, where she could skulk away from most trouble, or the worst she had to face were wild animals or the occasional bandit. “Used to spar with my brother, but I don’t really have anyone to kick my ass anymore.”

[laruetheday]

Clarisse laughs out her nose at the sight of Potato snapping her beak at the jerky, and Astrid standing nearby with her chin tilted, all squared up like she's waiting for a punch. It's kind of a fucking relief, actually. Both that Astrid isn't going to try and make her talk about her feelings and that she seems like she wants to fight, which has always been one of Clarisse's favorite things.

"Yeah," she says, "I could teach you. Melee weapons and wrestling are my specialties."

She shifts, digging her boots into the sand for purchase and watching Astrid, looking for an opening. To be clear, Clarisse's method of teaching things is very much the "throw your kid in the deep end and let them figure it out" kind.

[brennvin]

There is simply no time like the present, and this is how she learns best too—

Astrid sees that familiar shift of weight on the sand, a newfound tension in Clarisse’s limbs and the sense of waiting, and her own balance shifts in response: the way a dog might dip into a play-bow, or a cat wiggles ready to pounce. There’s a gleeful grin growing on her face, sizing up the other woman,

and rather than wait and gauge and suss out careful angles of approach, Astrid goes ahead and seizes the opportunity and launches herself at Clarisse, a single indelicate charge to try to tackle her on the sands.