The Beach By The Boardwalk, Monday Afternoon

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

It was the first day of break and Arden was going to spend it the way the goddess had intended it: out on the beach with the salt and the sea and the sun and the sand, sorry Anakin. She was sprawled out on a blanket with a towel or two next to her and a cooler of drinks and snacks. She had a book with her for later, but right now she was enjoying the warmth while sending out a text to all the usual suspects (and a few new ones for good measure) inviting them to come and spend the day out on the beach with her.

[Open to all! If you think you got a text, you did, or maybe you just happened to be wandering up the beach and decided to chill!]

Comments

[mustbeawitch]

"I would not call it friendly," Lydia said, and attempted to explain, "My dear friend Harriet lost her magic and gave herself to the sea. She's a seal now." Lydia did not want to be a seal, Arden.

...yes, all right, so Harriet had burned out her magic attempting to murder Lydia, and before that she had cursed Georgiana Darcy for life, all because she blamed Lydia for her husband catching her cheating. Lydia was sure they could have gotten past that silliness and been friends again, if only Harriet would have been reasonable!

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Lydia, did you ever actually hear the words in your narrative, like, out loud? Just asking.

"You can lose your magic?" Arden sputtered. "And...I mean...if 'giving yourself to the sea' means what I think it means, becoming a seal seems like a much gentler option."

[singlenakedwhat]

Henry arrived carrying a towel under one arm and wearing a red one-piece swimsuit and a pair of cut-off shorts, all looking suspiciously new. Even the cut-offs, which were clearly the kind that had been bought like that and not made from old jeans.

"Hey," she said with a nod to Arden.

[mustbeawitch]

"She burned it all up," Lydia said sadly. "She was gouging out pieces of her own soul by the end." Relatedly, Lydia had spent several days in a coma and almost died, but that hardly rated. Then she shook herself a little and said, "Yes, well, for a witch that's what giving yourself to the sea is, or can be, I suppose. Another witch might become something else. I've no interest in finding out." So of course she kept moving to a succession of increasingly smaller islands.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"Hey Henry," Arden said, waving her over with a gesture that welcomed her to spread out anywhere. "There's drinks and snacks in the cooler, a couple of different sunscreens available, help yourself to whatever, no cost or debt. Have you met everybody?"

[slothbabyproductions]

"Honestly, having you guys there made it easier for me too," Kamala said with a large sigh of relief. "I mean, Captain Rogers told me to have a good time but that's hard when everyone is 40 years older than you."

[slothbabyproductions]

Who said there wasn't a death count? Who knows if Jeremy will ever return after going 'missing'?

"I'm so glad," Kamala said with a huge sigh of relief.

Yes, Eleanor, your experience did count for Kamala. A lot.

"I'm so glad you were there," she said reaching out to give Eleanor a pat on the arm. "Having you there made the evening a whole lot more fun for me."

[slothbabyproductions]

"That I have no doubt of," Kamala said with a laugh. "Do you want a squishy? I brought extras."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"Right?" Arden said. "Like, I chatted some with Dr. Blake, but it's not like we're friends. Not like you, and Cal, and Lydia, and even Eleanor."

Was she watching to see how Kamala reacted to a certain namedrop? Maaayyyyybe.

[singlenakedwhat]

"I have not," Henry declared, spreading her towel out and flopping down on it. "You, Kamala, Charlie. That's it." Well, and Eleanor she recognized at least, but had never actually spoken to.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Lydia, stop daring the ocean to turn you into a turtle or whatever.

"Oh goddess, why?" she asked, horrified. "What was so important that she had to do something like that?"

Was she trying to save England or something?

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"Eleanor is there in the cute one piece and wrap," she said, gesturing, "and that's Lydia under the parasol. I thiiiiiink Eleanor is from the early 60s and Lydia is from the...1810s, I wanna say? So she'll probably call you Miss..., uh, Henry?" Arden just realized she had no idea what Henry's last name was. "...and will be pleased if you call her Miss Bennet, at least at first. They're both cool - Lydia's, like, surprisingly ride-or-die."

[wildgalegirl]

It would be an interesting meeting, that's for sure!

"Of course, my Aunties don't play fair. A charm or two and I think those Aunties would be eating out of their hands. Most normal people don't recognize something as magic even if it jumps up and bites them."

[wildgalegirl]

"Frivolous?" CHarlie considered. "I suppose so. But then you'd probably consider most of my day to day charms to be frivolous. Nothing wrong with that."

Said the one who didn't have to pay for it.

[wildgalegirl]

"Sibling!" Charlie said."I have definitely been failing at my duties. How are you doing?"

[singlenakedwhat]

Henry shrugged. "Busy with shit. You know how it is."

[mustbeawitch]

"Oh, well, she was trying to kill me," Lydia said, brushing that aside as if it were the merest trifle. "We had been quite at loggerheads the previous summer, and after I left Brighton --" and Harriet forged a note announcing Lydia had eloped with Wickham, leading to Lydia's own downfall, again, a mere trifle of an issue "--things apparently went very badly for her. To tell the truth, she was quite ruined, and she blamed me for it all, even though it certainly wasn't my fault!" Okay, the bit with the Order of the Rose was at least a little bit Lydia's fault, but also Lydia had been in the right there, but more importantly, she'd had exactly nothing to do with Harriet cheating on her husband or getting caught at it.

"But, yes, witches and the sea is a bit...complicated, I suppose." Ugh, Lydia did so detest complicated things.

[what_big_teeth]

Okay. A SIGNIFICANTLY smaller death count, then

Was there such a thing as a fish caught in headlights? Because that was probably what Eleanor looked like, at the moment, especially once Kamala patted her arm.

"Really?"

'Things Improved by Eleanor Zarrin being There' was a list that could generally be counted with one hand.

[mustbeawitch]

"And what," Lydia asked warily, "is a 'squishy?'" Was it perhaps some type of pastry she hadn't encountered yet? Do say yes, Kamala.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

And thank the goddess for that, or the entire Otherside would have been discovered and hunted down by now, probably.

"It would be interesting to observe, preferably through some kind of remote viewing apparatus from three counties away."

[mustbeawitch]

"Indeed, I have found that one person's frivolity is another's absolute necessity," Lydia agreed.

Lord, would her life be simpler if she didn't have to pay her spell-tithes, or were amoral enough for any of the extant options for shoving them off onto someone else.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"She was tearing out bits of her soul to try to kill you?!" Arden yelped.

Again, Lydia! Did you hear the words that you were saying?!

[singlenakedwhat]

No one on island had any idea what Henry's last name was, not the school nor the people in charge of her lodging, and she intended to keep it that way. Along with her full first name, because this Lydia chick sounded like exactly the sort of person who would call her Henrietta and no thank you to that.

"Got it," she tossed off a little mock-salute.

[mustbeawitch]

"It's not as if she succeeded!" She only almost died, so it was fine, Arden! "She was rather disturbed at the time, I think." She thought.

"Oh, but this is terrible conversation for an outing! I do apologize."

[wildgalegirl]

"I'm glad you're here to enjoy the beach with us," Charlie said. "It's too beautiful a day to pass up."