fandomtownies | The Beach, Sunday Afternoon

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The Beach, Sunday Afternoon

It wasn't cold out, even if the sun wasn't shining too heavily. Decent weather to go out, some cans of varnish in hand, and finally deal with some of the main problems Ender kept running into with the raft.

It was going to be a lot of work, but he didn't particularly mind. It bought him some isolation and, in turn, probably some time away from whoever it was Ben claimed shared Peter's face. He'd gone through his share of emails that morning - that part of his life was settled for the day - and now he had time.

So Ender took his brush and began the painstaking process of applying varnish to his raft, one log at a time. His legs left imprints in the sand that got progressively deeper as time went on.

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Oz rather liked the beach, particularly on overcast days. Wasn't too crowded.

Oh hey building a raft, cool.

"How's it coming?"

"It's been finished for a while," Ender replied, looking over. "I'm just getting it seaworthy again."

"It get damaged over the winter?"

"A little," he agreed. "I had to get some new logs in to patch up the worst parts."

"The varnish to keep it good for the summer? Or will it help over the winter too?"

"We'll see how it holds for the summer, first," Ender replied, "Then I might add a few more layers." He cocked his head. "What brings you here?"

"The beach or the island?" Oz asked with a slight smile.

"Either," he said. "I have time."

"The beach, just felt like taking a walk. The island, I came here for one of the conventions. It was interesting so I thought I'd stick around for a bit, see what happened. You?"

"Here to fix my raft," Ender said, grinning a little. "My previous school thought it was a good idea to transfer me." That was... close enough to the truth.

"You agree?"

The campfire had been a nice distraction for a little bit, but it couldn't completely abolish one strong fact: nice as it was here up on land, Ariel was starting to feel homesick. She was starting to wonder how things were going on back home. Was everyone worried about her being gone? Did they care? Was her father trying to find her? Was he upset, or saddened by it? The heaviness of what she had done had started to settle on her shoulders this last week, and she, despite the fact that it seemed like a risk, was taking a walk on the beach, looking out with a frown, almost hoping to see some break in the water that might signify...

...but she just found, so far, another person, working on something that looked a little like a boat, and she tilted her head curiously, not sure whether to disturb the boy or not, as he seemed involved.

Ender slid the brush carefully along the line of the second log, taking care not to miss a single dip. The upside of this work was that you could turn off your mind and just keep going.

He was aware of eyes on his back, but he ignored it until he was down at the end, and he could put the brush away, push the hair out of his face (ignoring the stench of the chemicals in the varnish) and send a slight smile in the direction of his silent onlooker.

"Hey," he called, "It's okay to come over, if you want."

And of course she wanted to. Not only was it was a distraction, but it was a cute boy with a boat, which made it an excellent distraction. Ariel banished all her maudlin thoughts with a smile back, picking up her step to drift over toward the raft.

She nodded toward where he had put the brush, lifting her eyebrows in question as to what he'd been doing.

His eyes slid from her expression to follow the stretch of her gaze. Landing them on the brush, he pursed his lips, then glanced back at her. Not very talkative; not that he minded. "I'm putting a few layers of varnish on my raft," he said, "Just to make sure it survives the elements next time."

Ariel's eyebrows arched a little more, this time speculatively, with a little glint in both her eyes and her smirk that capitulated on that next time at the end of the boy's answer. Next time suggested that there had been a first time that hadn't gone over so well and, always a fan of shipwrecks, it was clear that Ariel was expecting there to be an interesting story to go along with it. And hopeful that he would share.

Not that it was much of a ship, but...

"Nothing that exciting," he said, "It just didn't weather the winter well."

Ender let a short silence fall; then he added, carefully, "Do you have trouble speaking?"

Ariel snapped her fingers, trying not to look too disappointed at the lack of an exciting high seas tale, but it wasn't as if she was really that surprised by it, either.

The question, however, earned the boy a cool sort of glance from Ariel, lifting an eyebrow because trouble didn't really seem to cover it. She placed a hand to her throat, tapped it, and then shrugged, that useful, universal gesture for showing off its complete and utter futility.

Ender nodded in understanding. So she couldn't talk. Simple enough. He glanced back towards his raft. "Do you have a lot of experience with boats?" he asked, wryly, "Or are you just interested?"

Smirking a little over the fact that, even after they knew you couldn't talk, people still tended to ask you two questions, Ariel shook her head slightly, having to trust it to fate that he knew it was in response to the first part.

And then, because now she was feeling a little wry herself, she looked at the raft with an expression of doubtful appraisal, because, really, now, could you even classify that as a boat?

Not that she wouldn't have been just as stoked about a trip on it as she was the motorboat from class, but that was beside the point.

Again, Ender followed the line of her eyes, and--

"It's seaworthy, you know," he said, "That's all I really ask."

Ariel folded her arms in front of her, the quirk of her brow making it very clear that she'd believe that when she saw it. Or, in this case, experienced it.

Which might have just been her trying to take advantage of a chance when she saw it, really.

Ender's brow wobbled in an amused kind of way.

"Want to try it?"

Ariel was incredibly proud of her ability to keep a straight face and not let the excitement of her victory show, though, stoic as she might make herself seem, it lit up her eyes, making them dance and giving her away. She passed one more cool, skeptical glance toward the raft and shrugged a shoulder. Sure, why not?

All the while, however, her brain was sort of bouncing with a jaunty little boat, boat, boat! chant.

He nodded at her, easily rising up onto his feet. She really didn't need the pretense to get him to do it - it's not like he cared particularly that anyone insulted his raft. It fit his goals.

"You'll have to help me push it in," he said, kneeling down by it.

Have to? Ariel would be delighted to! Granted, she didn't really know what she was doing, but she was hoping that 'push it in' was pretty self-explanitory.

There was more than enough eager bouncing to the raft before Ariel settled in, mimicking the boy, and then watching him to await the orders or the countoff or whatever.

"Three," said Ender, predictable to a fault-- well, in this case-- and put his hands to the edge of the raft. "Two... One."

He shoved it; it scraped along the wet stand, a little difficult at first, but it quickly gained some speed. "Until it floats," he instructed, feeling the salt water brush against his knuckles.

Ariel's head bobbed with the counts as if to make up for what she couldn't offer vocally, trying to watch the boy and pay attention to the raft at the same time. The shock of the water on her toes (why, why hadn't she thought of sticking them in the water until just now?) made her falter a little, but then she laugh, silent as it was, and charged forward with a newfound excitement, one that wasn't going to take into consideration how difficult it would probably be to get into the raft once it, as he put it, floats.

Once the raft hit the water, Ender's movements slowed. For a few seconds, anyway. "And now you need to climb on," he instructed - somewhat belatedly, as he was already crawling onto the raft himself, lifting himself easily onto one of the beams.

And that, at first, seemed to Ariel like it would be the difficult part. Getting used to walking through the water was a little different, threatening to mess her up a little as the wet sand squished between her toes, but she realized that, if she didn't think of her legs as legs and, instead, thought of them like they were still a tail, pulling up on the raft was almost no trouble at all! Not quite the same as pulling up on rocks or shore on the rarest, bravest of occasions, with the water still underneath them, but she did manage.

And couldn't help beaming over at the boy in excitement over the success.

So much for the stoic look.

Ender beamed back at her, though - mostly an involuntary motion, but it worked well enough. She seemed very set on this idea of spending some time on the raft, which was... interesting, if not indicative of anything just yet.

"And now we get it to the right depth," he said, reaching for one of his paddles.

How had she not even noticed the paddles before? Ariel must have just been too excited about the raft itself, but paddles made it even better. Of course, she'd seen dozens of these through all of her scavenges through shipwrecks, but she could never really understand what they were for, and they were too awkward to try to bring up to ask Scuttle about. So her attention was very focused on the boy, and how he took one up, and she took one up herself, waiting to see what he did with it.

Ender's eyebrows, which had returned to their easy resting position, wobbled slightly upwards again. You weren't going to catch him saying a word, though; instead he stuck the paddle into the water, and pushed it back, back through the water. It made the raft shift sideways a little.

"You have to move yours at the same time."

Ariel couldn't help an amused smirk at the drift of the raft after the boy had paddled, but she dutifully put her own in the water, giving it a little try, and noticing the slight drift back.

It was so brilliant and simple; humans were incredible...

She got an encouraging nod for her efforts. Ender moved his paddle again, slowly this time, hoping she'd picked up the point of the motion, now.

And she did. Ariel's ability to pick up on new things actually matched her enthusiasm for learning them, and she grinned over at the boy once she had it down and the raft began moseying along.

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The Beach, Sunday Afternoon

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