TEL VISHAN BEACH PARTY

[akito]

Characters: OPEN
Date: Saturday, August the 9^th
Location: The Shell 'Coastline' nearest the Water Sector
Situation: Baby Turtle Beach Party!

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At the edge of Asti's shell there are coastlines of natural deposits that make up the closest thing to a 'beach' that they'll ever find in Keeliai. It's here that the official Tel Vishan Beach Party is set to take place. All turtle 'parents' will have gotten a message from their respective hatchlings about said party (perhaps a nice change from the whining and the temper tantrums).

Temporary shaded areas built with poles and sheets for weary parents or hatchlings who do decide to come, and some simple snacks and refreshments have been set up as well. There's a fishing net set up to act as a volleyball net for the day, and a ball waiting in the sand for some players.

The rest is up to those who come.


((ooc: feel free to comment under the headers, or start your own top-level comment!))

Comments

[unetrustworthy]

[She shook her head, but in agreement.]

I understand what you mean. Their presence has a strange effect on us. Even on our emotions. I know I should worry about that...but, for some reason, I don't.

[solo_patria]

Should you? It IS strange to know that whatever guard I put up will not work with someone. That has hardly happened to me before.

[Combeferre had done it, sometimes Courfeyrac, but other than that, people rarely had.]

I almost like it, someone knowing what I think for once. There is so much less pressure to say it, now.

[unetrustworthy]

It helps that they don't seem to judge us for what they hear.

[Her biggest concern.]

[solo_patria]

Yes, there is that indeed. There is...so much wrong inside me, and so horrible. There are those times I am not certain anyone could understand, but then...

[Well, Taraja knows his darkest moments now, and seems, at any rate, to take them with a sort of stride.]

I think if I had seen my caregiver administrating an execution, I would rather have my doubts. It's been...a common enough dream, reliving it. I am so grateful she does not.

[unetrustworthy]

[Likewise, Midii had far too much blood on her hands--albeit indirectly--to be considered innocent, or to judge him for anything he may have done. She could empathize.]

[...perhaps that was why the Turtles were able to do so as well, if they were so honed in on their caregivers' emotions. They would sense that empathy as well.]

I'm grateful too. I always will be.

[solo_patria]

[Perhaps so, at that. For his part, right now, Enjolras was mostly relieved that Taraja had managed not to end up too terribly disturbed because of that. She'd kept rather quiet about asking about it too, after the first night when he'd woken from it, after he'd explained that it was part of his work in Paris.

Knowing what he did of Midii now, there was obviously something behind her answer there, but this was not a place to dwell too much on all of those things, now was it?]

I suspect that this is not exactly the sort of conversation for most beach parties, I am sorry.

[unetrustworthy]

That's alright.

I haven't been to many beach parties for this one, so I'm not really certain what kind of conversation we should be having.

[solo_patria]

[That gets a laugh from Enjolras, because, honestly? He does have to agree.]

I can safely say that this is the very first turtle party I have ever attended, now you mention it. I think there was a bonfire of some sort before this though? Maybe.

I, ah...most of my parties tend to happen in cafes.

[unetrustworthy]

...you built bonfires in cafes?

[solo_patria]

Ah, no I meant the other party on the beach, rather.

[There is rather an amused sort of grin crossing his face, not laughing at the assumption really, but at what it reminds him of.]

We only set fire to a cafe once, and it was just a small explosion.

[unetrustworthy]

Oh. That one.

[She...actually remembered that one quite fondly. Because of certain reasons.]

Why did you set fire to it?

[solo_patria]

It seems so long ago, that one. Odd, isn't it? Time seems to move so slowly sometimes, and then to speed up when you least would like it to.

[Here, Enjolras is eyedarting just a little.]

We were attempting to make gunpowder. Things got a little...out of hand. Mère Hucheloup, the owner, did not seem to mind so much at least. She fussed a little when she came in and saw a bit of smoke, but then, I suspect now, that it was less about the room than about us. She was our...something of a mother to us while none of ours were near.

[And she had stayed with them, at the barricade, until things became overrun and they had sent her home, along with the men with families who had been convinced to leave. Enjolras had thought her something of a friend back then, but now, after being the lieutenant of a crazy dragon, and the adopted father of a Taraja(because there was no way to describe her as just a turtle hatchling, really), he could see it differently.]

I wonder now, what she might think of, well, this world.

[Personally, Enjolras can imagine the woman marching on the Emperor's palace herself, demanding answers, with, perhaps a broom in hand. She'd never taken hearing of injustice quietly, as much as she had been a great help to them in planning, and helped hold everyone back from doing worse in 1830.]

[unetrustworthy]

[Ah. She had suspected, at first, it would have been some sort of deliberate act of defiance. Revenge against those who had betrayed or defied those who sought freedom.]

An accident, then.

[solo_patria]

Indeed. Wherever Combeferre and Joly were concerned, well, fire is likely to have especially dangerous results for men of science, who have spent the day in dissection or chemistry labs. Really, it seems that we were lucky, many times.

That said, our cafe very nearly was set on fire again, much later. Our barricade was built around it. We had a very good area to block off right there and such, and Marius did threaten to blow everything up when the National Guard drew close enough to demand our surrender.

A lit torch, near gunpowder...it would not have been a very good ending to it, really.

[unetrustworthy]

That cafe hasn't had much luck in life, has it?

[solo_patria]

Not especially, no.

[He has to smile a little, considering. Not so much the barricade itself, though that did establish that Marius had stood with them then, but the other incidents. It makes thinking of Corinthe easier.]

We rather tended to take over two of them, but Corinthe is the one which saw most of our share of actual attempts at reform. Really, I do not wonder that we were not thrown into the street more often.

[unetrustworthy]

Maybe the owners were worried at how much destruction would occur if they didn't leave you be most of the time.

[solo_patria]

To hear Mère Hucheloup speak to us, one would have thought so. Yet every time, someone else complained, it was always she who first came to our defense. She'd marched on Versailles when she was a young woman. I think she wanted to see us succeed.

Although...

[There's that wry look in his eyes again.]

We did not exactly make it easy.

[unetrustworthy]

[She caught that look, and was instantly curious.]

How so?

[solo_patria]

Well, we were all rather young when we really got started in the way of holding our meetings and becoming a society. Rather young and overexcited and a bit prone to enthusiasms that must have seemed a little out of place.

Things tended toward the loud, the over the top and the exciting with us around. Sometimes being exciting is not the best way to stay on the good side of a proprietress, even one who is very fond of you. We were so happy then, and so very stupid, and full of life. I miss those days, sometimes, more lately, but it would be wrong to have hoped for change and not attempt to embrace it.

And I've been going on about this for quite a while. Have you been present yourself, for many of the parties or goings on here? It seems as if your life at home was not entirely full of them if I can be bold enough to say that.

[unetrustworthy]

[She actually smiled a little when he admitted to having been speaking on the subject for some time. Really, she didn't mind. Midii was far better at listening than talking herself, and she was learning a lot about her(?) history. And her fellow Frenchman.]

Not many, no.

Back home, only the wealthy could afford to host such parties without the threat of attack. And here...I would go sometimes, just to see, but there was never much reason for me to stay too long.

[Except for those rare occasions Damian or Jack would get her to linger, either thought talk or dance.]

[solo_patria]

That does make a good deal of sense. I often feel, well, rather out of place at things like this.

[His expression is rather thoughtful, really.

My parents would have them, from time to time. I rarely went to them after I started school. ...I rarely spoke to them after then, either.

[unetrustworthy]

You and your parents did not get along?

[One of the few things in life she had difficulty imagining, given how her family had been all she had.]

[solo_patria]

It was more that I stayed away in order that we could get along.

[It all makes Enjolras a little sad now, when he considers it. His work was the work of revolution, and that could not have been stopped, but, like with his friends, perhaps he could have taken more time to let them know.]

The year I turned fourteen, I discovered politics. And I started to get myself in trouble. Nothing so major as a barricade, but it made something of an impression at school, and when I came home for the summer break, I was, I suppose, different from the son they'd known.

[It's a story that is somewhat sad, actually, more because there was a distance there that could have been breached so very easily. It is not like the family stories of some of his friends, at all, because there was so much room for things to have been different.]

I overheard them speaking one night that summer. And, perhaps I stayed to listen when I shouldn't have. My mother said she was afraid of me, of what I might become.

I missed them, and I loved them,especially my father, but... It was easier in the end to insert some sort of distance between us. Not only because of my mother's fear, but I hardly wanted sedition to be something that hurt them.

We all made sacrifices for the republic, I suppose. That was one of mine.

[unetrustworthy]

[She could not quite focus after he mentioned politics. Government. Opinion of social unrest and economic disparities. Such a thing...it separated his family. For Midii, it had been just the opposite. Growing up poor, she had no one else. Everything she had done was for them.]

[It was one of the few things she couldn't understand. Not fighting for one's family.]

Did they fear your beliefs, or your actions?