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Somewhere On the Beach, Tuesday Evening

Beau had never really gotten into meditation, no matter how much the monks at the Cobalt Soul had tried to impress its value upon her. Part of that had just been her being stubborn and contrary, sure, but... she'd also never really seen the point. Like, yeah, academically she understood the concept behind it? She just... wasn't feeling it, at least for herself.

Plus that was a lot of staying still and waiting, two of her least favorite things, and it wasn't like she knew how to get her brain to calm the hell down enough to achieve that kind of stillness in the first place.

Not like she wanted to, anyway.

Except she... kind of wanted to learn. Shh.

Anyway, after her conversation with Rey from last week, she thought she'd try something new. So she'd trekked out here with a dozen or so candles and her staff, used the candles to outline her chosen space in flickering firelight, and then started methodically going through training routines one after the other. Some with her staff, others unarmed; some basic, others flashy and incorporating some of the ki techniques she'd learned so far. Just her and a steady string of movements, trying to lose herself in the strain of her muscles and the sound of her staff whistling through the air and the the pure simplicity of the motions themselves. Maybe learning to still her mind was a little bit too much to ask of her just yet, but this? Distilling everything, all her focus, down to her movements so that even if her brain was still working it was just completely dialed in on one simple thing?

Yeah. She could do this, and maybe the rest would come a little bit easier to her someday.

[OOC: So, so open (when I wake up). Hi, distract me please?]

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After leaving the Devil's Nest, Lucifer and his bottle of wine somehow found themselves wandering towards the beach. But the spot he'd had in mind appeared occupied.

He barely even paused, watching Beau as he kept on moving. She kind of reminded him of Maze, he reflected.

He took a big swig from that big bottle and kept walking.

Even if she'd never admit it, Beau actually did need to take a break every now and then, and she was just coming out of a cooldown before a few minutes' breather when she spotted him walking away.

"What?" she called somewhat belligerently. Hey, she was in a fighty mindset, it was totally underst -- okay, no, that was just her being herself.

Lucifer's gaze snapped over to where that came from, and he pulled a face. "What what?" he yelled back. "You bellow at all passing strangers?"

... Look, he wasn't in the best mood.

Who was though, really.

"I mean, sometimes," Beau replied as she planted the end of her staff in the sand and then leaned on it. "Anyway, you kinda had that 'hey, jackass, you took my spot' type of vibe going on."

Given that she'd projected it herself quite a few times and all.

"Please, the beach is hardly my spot," Lucifer said irritably, "At best it belongs to a yoga pirate."

... he had kind of been aiming for this spot, though.

"I mean..." Beau gestured to her ring of candles. "Like, specifically the space that I'm occupying, not the whole damn beach."

Did she sound apologetic or anything? Nah.

"What are you even doing?" Lucifer asked, in lieu of answering her questions further. "Trying to summon a demon or something? Because I can assure you, that's not how it works."

Hey, answering questions with more questions, Beau could totally respect that.

"What?" She let out a disbelieving bark of a laugh. "Nah, man, nah, it's just for the atmosphere. I'm just training."

She'd just leave the demon-summoning for certain warlock friends who actually had access to those spells.

"...why, did it look like that's what I was doing? 'cause not gonna lie, that sounds kinda metal."

"It looks like you're a wanna be cultist who came up with her own secret and utterly ineffective summoning technique, and I have known entirely too many of those over the years," Lucifer told her. "You know there's a limit to how much you can accomplish by beating up thin air."

"Wow, man, wow. I think I might actually be genuinely offended by that," Beau drawled, though there was some sarcasm in her voice. "Like, maybe I had a little phase for a while there where I was interested in that kind of shit, but nah. I'm just..."

She pulled her staff back up out of the sand and gave it an idle twirl. "I'm not really, like, it's not about the actual technique or anything right now. Just the movement, if that makes sense."

"Most people would just go jogging," Lucifer said.

Mostly because he felt exhausted and sad and being prickly was preferable.

A decision Beau could 100% respect.

"Jogging's super boring, though," she said with a grimace. "I mean, I do it too, but I'm not feeling it tonight."

"Well, get back to your mad... candlelit flailing, then," Lucifer said, waving at her with his bottle.

"Hey!" Oh, there was the petulant and slightly whiny 24-year-old. "I'm not flailing!"

"I'm sure," Lucifer said, patronizingly.

Beau totally just flipped him off. Maturely.

"Ah yes," Lucifer said, "The bird. The height of wit."

"Depending on who you're hanging around with at the time, sure," Beau retorted. Kind of almost good-naturedly.

"People with a better quality of snark?" Lucifer suggested.

Beau missed those insult-trading sprees she and Molly used to go on, all of a sudden.

"Or people whose mouths are otherwise occupied," she said with a smirk.

Yeah, that one got a delighted cackle. Some things did override mope.

"Oh, I like that one," he said. "I'm keeping it."

"Do I get a cut of the profits?" Beau asked, only about a third sarcastic.

Liam was going to be so, so glad when today was over and done with and the gnawing anxiety that had been with him for over a month would just... fuck right off and leave him with just regular anxieties.

In the meantime, he had to do something to try and work off that restlessness, and that something was walking. At least, until he spotted that circle of candlelight on the beach. Wondering at first if maybe Nina was up to something dangerous, he quickened his pace, only relaxing when he came close enough to see that it was Beau.

He just stood and watched for a while, waiting for a moment when she'd take a break and notice him there.

Deep as she might have been in what she was doing, Beau was aware of his presence for a few minutes before she actually stopped what she was doing to acknowledge him with a flippant wave of her staff.

"'sup, Liam?"

"Not much," he shrugged. "Just-" trying to deal with trauma related to the very first one of these election cycles he'd lived through, which a lot of people he'd known hadn't.

Lived through, that is.

Which is what happened when the aliens who'd been pretending to be humanity's friends staged an assassination attempt, using the resulting fallout to purge most of the Resistance movement that had been working against them.

"Just wandering."

Yeah, Beau might've been trying to work out some of her frustration -- she was an Expositor-in-training, rooting out corruption was supposed to be her job, except the job was way too big for her and she hated it -- by trying this, which was maybe not the optimal way to try and learn how to meditate but whatever.

"And you just happened to wander this way, huh?" She nodded briefly. "I'm into it."

Taking in the ring of lit candles around her, she huffed a quiet laugh. "Yeah, you know what, this looks way more mystical than it is."

“No, it’s,” he smiled. “I do the same thing, sometimes?” he admitted. “Drives Verity nuts. She’s worried the mice will try and copy me and we’ll end up with an apartment on fire.”

"Which is a valid concern," Beau noted. "I just... thought I'd try something new, to be honest. I kinda like the effect."

"It's calming," Liam agreed. "Kind of helps me focus, you know?"

Tai Chi was... basically meditation, the way he did it. Because he was absolutely not a sitting-still type.

"Rey kind of gave me the idea," Beau admitted, perfectly well aware that she'd given him grief about the Tai Chi in the past. "It's good. It's like... I'm in my zone, you know?"

"Uh huh." And now he was openly smirking at you, Beauregard. Because come on.

"What?" Beau asked like she didn't know damn well what he was smirking about.

"Don't give me that shit," Liam said, wagging a finger at her. "You know exactly what."

"I'm not admitting you were right, you know," she informed him.

"Mmmhmm." That was basically as good as admitting it, in Beau-speak.

"Shut up, Liam," she said good-naturedly.

"I've barely said anything!" Liam protested. And it was technically true!

"I'm just getting a head start on you," Beau told him, playfully feinting at him with her staff. "Before you really get going."

"Oh yes, you know me," Liam said, leaning back out of the way without missing a beat. "Talking a mile a minute, here."

"I know, you never shut up," Beau said with a faint grin. "It gets on my nerves, have I ever mentioned that?"

"Yeah." Liam grinned. "You never shut up about it."

"And yet you never seem to get the damn hint," Beau went on, rolling her eyes in the most exaggerated possible way.

"... you have, like, any tips on doing this stuff?"

Liam shrugged one shoulder. "Honestly? Just focus on the movement; don't let yourself think about anything else but the next step, the next sweep of your weapon."

"Just one step ahead?" Beau frowned. "That seems so... boring, I guess."

Kind of the point there, Beau.

"Basically the point," Liam said, echoing the narrative. "It's about freeing your mind from distraction."

"I'm used to multitasking," Beau said, a little petulant about it. "Going from that to... freeing my mind or whatever seems like a rough transition."

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Somewhere On the Beach, Tuesday Evening

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