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

[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?

[solo_patria]

[It had been difficult, certainly, and Enjolras had not necessarily liked pulling away, but it was one of those things which had needed to be done, for everyone's own good. A letter every month or so, which he'd kept very brief had been rather the most conversation they'd had in years. Now, where there was time to regret it, Enjolras found that he did, a little, though the question made him laugh a bit.]

Well, they certainly were not republicans themselves. I would guess that it was somewhere in between those two. Afraid of what I might come to someday do, and of the things I said. I was...well, it was not until after the July Revolution that more moderate minds were able to reach me.

I did not realize it then, but I am told that I can be somewhat intense. I was a little more-so, then. We...hardly understood each other, really, and I did prove some of their fears true. I do not think we loved each other any less than any parents and children who are relatively happy but, I think, estrangements like ours were more common then.

I do not think that they were right, but they were common and no harm was done.

[unetrustworthy]

And you never considered staying with them?

[She did not doubt that he was--as he put it--intense. Having experienced such passion first hand, and those were just words. His actions, the way he made it sound, seemed so much more so. She could only feel sorry that his family did not share his passions, and this is apparently what tore them apart.]

[solo_patria]

Not especially, or at least, not entirely in the way I think you mean.

[He doesn't want to rush this conversation, or explanation, really, though a lot of the specifics make it a little difficult.]

I was already close to seventeen when I came to Paris to begin studying law. I had no aptitude for medicine, [A fact which seems slightly ironic now, considering he helps at the hospital here.] so law it was, and well, it was actually rather expected I'd remain in Paris, once I had finished school enough to sit the bar, and set up practice there.

For a lawyer, there was much more of a chance at finding work there. So, that in and of itself was not so much a problem as all of that. It was rather expected, really, that law students in Paris...how shall I put this?, lingered for rather a long time. I would have probably stayed there for a while yet, if I had not managed to die.

Paris was...I did miss home at times, but it became a new one. I would probably not have returned to Cassis to stay unless I was badly needed there after that point. I was an only son, so someday, I suppose it would have happened, but until then, keeping my letters short, and doing my best to limit our face to face contact to the times that it was truly necessary became the better choice.

I do not mean to...my parents were fine enough people, but there became a point, after I was first sent to school, when they were less my parents and rather more like glamorous strangers whom I sometimes saw at holidays. It was not an uncommon situation for many like us, then, so that, when I found politics, perhaps it is a bit more understandable than it might have otherwise been.

But then, Les Amis de l'ABC became a family as well. [It is odd. Enjolras still hates that they are all departed,save for him, but it is easier to speak of without feeling like he may need to go excuse himself while getting those thoughts in order.]

Better brothers I could not have found anywhere in all the world. I was lucky to have them as I did, and luckier still, that many of them were here, for a while. It...helped quite a lot, and I do miss them, still.

[unetrustworthy]

[It didn't feel rushed to her. Maybe some of it was still beyond her comprehension...but those were the parts that an entire essay wouldn't be able to sway her thoughts or opinions about.]

[Blood verses brotherhood. Different kinds of family. It was like...comparing her father and brothers to the soldiers who had taken Nanashii in when he was barely old enough to remember. People who cared for you. People who may have even loved you. Who shared your views and passion. But...to forgo your own parents?]

I...see.

[It was all she could offer. She did see. His reasoning made sense, and she couldn't fault him for that.]

You did what you had to do.

[solo_patria]

It was a different time. We, the world, really, did things differently.

[It came out sounding like an excuse when Enjolras meant it to be something of an explanation, instead, but it was what he had,right now, in this moment. He takes the time though, to be glad things hadn't turned to out and out loathing, on anyone's part.]

I once said that the republic was my mother, and,in many ways, it was true. I do longed for the day, and fought for it, when all mothers would be happy because war and murder would be no more. In that sort of a world, things may have been a little different. I think we might have known each other there, instead of mostly...acknowledging that the other existed.

[He could not, honestly, imagine his mother crying at the news of his death,though. Not because she lacked love for him, but because they barely knew each other. It must have been rather more like the death of a distant cousin. Sad enough that one felt badly when they heard, but that they moved through, rather quickly. His father though? He did suspect his father, being closer to him, must have been upset.]

I did, yes. I would have saved more of my brothers from it, but that plan was tossed out the window with the bathwater only not very many hours into the rebellion at our barricade. We loved each other, all of us, and I could never have had better brothers had I chosen them myself and begged my parents to take them in.