The Boardwalk, Monday Afternoon

[boneyard_girl]

The boardwalk wasn't the carnival, but it had funnel cakes and ice cream, vendors, tourists, and there were the rails. It wasn't the same, but close. So close. The sun on her skin felt good, and if she focused, she could ignore the constant tugging of the nearby ocean in the back of her brain.

Autumntime was harvesttime. Harvesttime was Carnival time, and Ada had to do something or she was going to scream in frustration at being away from her family for so long. If she couldn't go back to the carnival yet...she'd make her own.

And so it came to pass that Ada was currently balanced atop one of the rails, bare feet running lightly along the metal as executed a pirouette, much the joy of her enraptured audience. They were too busy enthralled by how effortless she stood there to notice the slightly-webbed toes. Besides, she'd body-glittered it up today even more than usual, to hide the scales. "To your left, we have the shopping," she said, sweeping a bow and kicking one leg out behind her to the applause of passing NPC people. "You could go down to the beach and get sand in uncomfortable places, of course, but we have funnel cakes and ice cream, entertainment and a lighthouse. Restaurants galore, and trinkets you've never seen before. And when the sun goes down, we're just getting started!"

"Now, who's going to be next to try and find my pretty seashell?" Of course she was running a shell game. She didn't have an actual event to barker for, so Ada might as well make some cash for herself. "A dollar a try, four tries for three!"

[OOC: 1st DAY OFF IN 21 DAYS. OPEN POST IS OPEN!]

Comments

[good_for_six]

Isabela had come to the boardwalk with the intent of supplementing her own near-non-existent finances (albeit in a more direct fashion) when she caught sight of Ada.

"Oh, are you playing a game," she asked as if she'd never ever seen a shell game before. "What are the rules?"

Isabela, wide-eyed innocence looked far more convincing on Merrill than you.

[boneyard_girl]

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Ada was giving you distinct stink-eye, Isabela. That wide-eyed innocence was a terrible look on you. It doesn't fit right at all, and like could see like.

"No game I'll play with you when there's townies about," she muttered sotto voce while still smiling. "That's what card games in the back of the bar are for."

Card games she could bet on with other people's money.

[good_for_six]

Coincidentally enough, other people's money was exactly what Isabela had been planning on betting.

She grinned shamelessly and moved to lean against the rails, leaving the shell game free for the next mark who came along. "I don't supposed you've ever learnt Wicked Grace?"

Ada looked like a girl who'd appreciate the cheating intricacies of Wicked Grace.

[boneyard_girl]

Teaching Ada how to play Wicked Grace was possibly the worst best idea that Isabela had ever had. Ever.

"Can't say that I have," Ada mused, "Or if I did at some point, I don't recall."

[good_for_six]

Isabela was full of terrible brilliant ideas like that.

"Oh, sweet thing, someone's been neglecting your education," she said. "We'll have to fix that."

[boneyard_girl]

"I'm here because my education didn't stick," Ada drawled. "Textbooks aren't my talent."

[good_for_six]

"They're not mine either." Though in Isabela's case it was more only learning how to read in the last year than any dislike of it. "There's some things you only really learn by doing, and a hands-on teacher comes in, well, handy."

[boneyard_girl]

"And you're offering to play teacher?" Ada asked skeptically, running her fingers along the ridges of her seashell. "What's the catch?"

[good_for_six]

"No catch, sweet thing, it just gets lonely playing with yourself."

Make that no catch unless you counted Isabela's love of the double entendre...

[boneyard_girl]

Ada just snorted in exasperated amusement and rolled her eyes. She had enough male cousins that she knew dirty puns when she heard them. "My name isn't 'sweet thing,'" she said dryly. "It's Ada. Ada Miller."

[good_for_six]

Sweet thing was a description!

"Point is, Ada, most of the people around here are too nice, or too boring." Even if some of the boys were pleasantly distracting. "It'll be good to spend time with someone who's clearly go her head on straight.

"And if there's anything else you might happen to want hands on lessons for, I'm very good with my hands."

[boneyard_girl]

"Can't promise you my head's on straight, but I'm never boring," Ada deadpanned. "That good enough to be good company?"

[good_for_six]

"It sounds like you'd be marvellous company."

Somewhere in Ferelden a not so tiny redhead suddenly had the inexplicable urge to make a large sign with 'DON'T' written on it.

[boneyard_girl]

Oh not-so-tiny and far-away redhead, the best way to get Ada -- or any Miller -- to do something was to have some non-Miller tell them NOT to do it. They might be legitimate carnival and pay taxes and do approved-ish homeschool curriculums... but people who became carnies usually didn't do it because they played well with rules. It was actually quite the opposite.

"So what's your 'Wicked Grace,' then?" Ada asked, curious. "Cards? Dice?"

[good_for_six]

The not-so-tiny redhead was never going to let the apparent futility of an action stop her, not if it was the right thing to do.

"Cards," Isabela replied. "Different deck to the ones people use here, but luckily I have my own." Multiple ones even, and some of them weren't even marked!

[boneyard_girl]

"Uh-huh. And what are the odds that deck is unmarked so that I have a chance in Hell of not losing every penny I made today?" Ada asked, smirking.

[good_for_six]

That was a hurtful insinuation, Ada.

"I'd never teach someone with a marked deck." Not when there were so many other ways to cheat at Wicked Grace. "It's not sporting."