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The Beach, Monday Early Evening

The weather wasn’t the greatest, and there was a good chance she’d be stuck out in a thunderstorm, but Yeul had wanted to walk down to the beach and… well… the weather had not been much of a deterrent. (It seldom was.)

She walked along the beach for a while before taking a seat on the sand and rock and just watching the waves.

It was nice.

Yeul appreciated that.

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Tired of ceaselessly dragging Ozzy away from the ducks, Evan had decided to let him chase after gulls instead. Because, if nothing else, the gulls could take off and fly, and he wouldn't have to deal with some sort of seabird-related dog incident. Probably. He wasn't really expecting that Ozzy would take off running after non-birds, too, but then, he didn't often run into people when he was out walking the pup, either.

So... That would be Evan, tripping through the sand after a wet dog who was quite pleased to see Yeul up ahead. He liked Yeul! She had taken good care of him and he was going to wriggle into her lap!

"Ozzy! Wait up!"

One moment it had been her, the birds, and the waves.

The next moment she heard Evan’s voice and had managed to turn her head before she had a lapful of wriggly, sandy dog.

"Ozzy!" she said, as the dog licked her face, tail wagging excitedly. Yeul couldn't help but laugh.

[Ozzy modded with permission!]

"Ozzy, relax, boy," Evan chided, a few steps behind the dog and looking a bit on the apologetic side. "Sorry, Yeul. I thought it would be okay to have him off-leash around here, but he still gets excited when he sees people he likes."

Because he was a little cuddlemonster that way.

"Should I... I mean, are you okay like that?"

The laughter didn't seem like a 'no, get off!' kind of laugh, so Evan figured he'd at least ask, first.

He was a little cuddlemonster and Yeul adored him.

"It’s alright," she said with another laugh, pressing a kiss to Ozzy’s face. Her skirt and shirt, being blue-ish white were going to look pretty sorry when she stood but Yeul didn’t care. "I do not mind being liked."

"Well, that's good," Evan decided, plopping down to take a seat on the sand beside her, "because I'm pretty sure he could stay there licking at your face all day if you let him."

At least until he tired himself out and had a nap, instead.

"How are you today, attack-puppy aside?"

"It’s been a quiet day," Yeul said, despite the fact that both her classes had ended today. "I have been enjoying the peace of it." It wasn’t the timelessness of being on Pulse where days went by without schedule but it was nice. "Though I do not mind having it interrupted either."

She didn’t want Evan to worry about that!

"And you?"

"I'm pretty good, I think," Evan decided, making himself comfortable there on the sand. "I have a final in first aid class tomorrow that I'm kind of worried about since I missed so many practical lessons as a dog, but I studied what I think I missed while I was working in the library last week, so I think I'll do okay."

"I will hope you will," Yeul said, nodding and scratching behind Ozzy’s ears. "Though I do not think the teachers will be too harsh in their grading when you did not miss class on purpose."

She glanced at him. "It was a nice thing you said in class today."

"It was true," Evan replied, looking at Yeul, offering her a tiny smile. "Everyone in that class has been really supportive... or at least they didn't speak up and start name-calling, which is kind of what I'm used to at my last school. Professor Wiggin, you, Bay, Sholeh... Just... it's a class full of really understanding people. It was kind of refreshing."

"There’s a lot of nice people on the island," Yeul said, smiling at him. "You’re one of them, you know that, right?"

"Sometimes, it's good to hear again, even if I've been told before," Evan decided with a shrug, ducking his head to hide a blush. "You are too, you know. You're one of the kindest people I know."

Actually, it was possible that she was the kindest person he knew.

"Thank you," she said softly, turning her gaze out to the water. "It makes me happy that you feel that way."

Evan gave a little nod, looking out toward the water as Ozzy settled down in the sand between them.

"It's true, though. I mean, plenty of people around here are nice, but there aren't many that make it a point to call you when you know they can't lie to say something as simple as 'I'm not afraid.' That meant a lot."

He'd cried.

"I only told the truth," Yeul said gently. "I do not know if that is unusual or not but it seemed like something I could do, so I did it, because it was a small thing that mattered."

"It mattered a lot," Evan repeated softly, biting his lip. "I hold on to that, you know. I got that message not long after everything went horrible back home, and I was just... I don't know how to put it except that I felt like a monster, like I was completely alone and I was always going to be. It's a small gesture, but it meant the world to me."

It still did.

"I’m glad," she told him, reaching out over Ozzy to rest one hand on his arm briefly. "I just... wished to give you some measure of peace."

Yeul didn’t take her eyes off the water.

"It’s an important thing to have."

Evan nodded, looking out over the water in silence for a moment, and then turning to glance her way again.

"How do you do it? How do you stay so peaceful all of the time?"

Yeul laughed softly, running her hands down Ozzy’s back, and then looking at him.

"Practise," she said simply. "That’s all there is to it. Being angry, being worried, being afraid... they were tiring."

And worse.

"I got tired of being tired."

"I do a lot of being angry and scared," Evan noted, looking at her thoughtfully, and then looking back out over the water. "You might not be afraid of me, but there are a lot of people who still are."

He ran his fingers quietly through the sand.

"How much practice does it take, before you stop being afraid?"

"I think it’s different, between me and you," Yeul said gently. "I had to stop being afraid of my circumstances. I think, though I could be wrong, that you have to stop being afraid of yourself."

She took a deep breath and leaned back on her elbows.

"It took me a long time to stop being afraid though. A long, long time. I remember that."

"My circumstances are kind of scary too," Evan noted, picking up a small stone and throwing it into the water. "It might take me that long, long time to figure it out... To be as easygoing about things. Was it just time, for you?"

"The funny thing about circumstances,” she said, "is that they’re almost always scary to those who find them in midst of them. I did not mean to say that they weren’t scary for you and I am sorry. I meant that... in my case, what I was did not upset me that much, even from the beginning. My circumstances were the sticking point. In your case, the first hurdle to get over seems to be yourself, though I could be wrong."

Yeul watched the circles made in the water from his stone. "Time," she said, nodding, "and experience and understanding."

Circles in the ocean, wiped away completely by the next wave. Like a life wiped clean, and if you threw another stone, the ripples would start over again, only to be wiped away again.

Evan threw another stone.

"What I am scares me the most," he allowed, "but it's hard not to be afraid of it if I'm afraid of everything else, too. When the whole world that I knew was peace and perfect, I never had a reason to be afraid of what I was. I could probably use some experience and understanding, too. I'm not like the person I came from, thousands of years old and angry. I... I'm maybe two, maybe sixteen, maybe five thousand. And I'm scared. And I'm tired of being scared."

Yeul considered the water solemnly.

"Evan," she said softly, "I think you need to be gentler with yourself. It’s okay to be scared. It’s tiring but it’s okay. It’s not wrong. If you never stop being scared, if you never stop being angry, if you never stop... that doesn’t make you bad. It doesn’t make you weak either. Experience and understanding are things that only time can give you but only if you give time a chance. Take a break and let the days go by. Just breathe and enjoy what you can."

She picked up a stone and tossed it. It skipped three times on the water before sinking.

"There’s no switch," she said. "There’s no way to just wake up one morning and be all right with everything. Be kind to yourself, though, and everything else will begin to follow." Yeul smiled faintly. "In time."

"The person I came from was always angry," Evan noted, softly, as he watched Yeul's stone skip, then vanish beneath the waves. "He spent thousands of years angry, hating everything that hurt him. And then he started to hurt people back. And then, when those people were gone, he just kept hurting. He'd go away and come back and die and come back and every time he did, someone suffered for it. I can't imagine that. I can't picture being that angry for so long. But... then I actually look around, and see how decayed the world can be, and it's hard not to want to stop everything that caused me pain."

He shivered a little.

"That... that was really you, wasn't it? The other weekend, at reunion. The little girl."

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The Beach, Monday Early Evening

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