lucetilogs | New Feather Party, Summer Edition!

[Woah, when Gai said 'swimming', he actually meant swimming, didn't he?]

[Elizabeth laughs and starts going further out to meet up with Gai when he surfaces. But then he doesn't...]

[She looks further down the beach both left and right, looks behind her in case Gai let the wave take him back to shore. She can't see him. What if he was caught in kelp or something and couldn't resurface?]

Gai! [She starts running for the spot Gai disappeared into--at least, she's trying to run through water, but the breaking waves keep pushing her back or slowing her down.]

[Still no sign of him in any direction she looks-- no blond hair, no red swim trunks, nothing. It's as if he's just vanished into the ocean.

He waits until she's almost on top of him to surface, launching himself up out of the water just enough to grab her arm-- and then try to pull her down into the water with him, or at the very least unbalance her. It'll be quite a surprise, if nothing else.

In retrospect, he realizes that it was probably a bit mean of him to frighten her like that. But he has memories of Shu doing exactly the same thing to him when they'd played in the ocean more than ten years ago, so to him, it seems like a perfectly normal thing to do in the water.]

[It is very much a surprise.]

[Elizabeth shrieks when she's grabbed and yanked. And of course, faster reflexes and more muscle means that Elizabeth goes down into the water in the next second.]

[The last person who grabbed Elizabeth out of nowhere got punched in the face. And while Elizabeth can't see anything, she's flailing and kicking in the direction of whatever is holding her like her life depends on it.]

[Also of note, the area under her appears to be littered with blue transparent harpoons.]

[Gai realizes his mistake the instant she shrieks, the instant she starts struggling so desperately against him. Immediately he releases his hold on her arm, pushing himself away through the water to signal that he isn't trying to hurt her... but he's pretty sure the damage is already done, and he's mentally kicking himself for it.

His eye catches a brief glimpse of those blue harpoons as he surfaces. A tear. He'd upset her enough that she opened a tear. And not just any tear, one filled with weapons. Weapons that she probably wouldn't have hesitated to use against him.

He feels sick, almost afraid to look for her, to check if she's all right.

This is all his fault...]

[Elizabeth drags herself up out of the water, immediately realizing why some women chose to wear something a little less cumbersome to the beach. The wool of her suit is completely soaked, and heavy. She looks a little ridiculous with her hair plastered to her head and her clothes sticking heavily to her torso.]

Gai! [She wades through the water again over to him, clearly incensed and weighed down by her clothes. Once she's close enough she gives him a hard shove (...which isn't hard at all but she tries).] I thought you were drowning! And then a giant squid! [You know, like any Jules Verne fan would think out in the middle of the ocean.]

[She looks back down at the blue glow under them. Wow, what a mess. This was more or less exactly why Gai was nervous about Elizabeth startling him while asleep, wasn't it? Elizabeth did strange things when started too, but at least she couldn't actively do anything with her tears. ...not that she could use a harpoon but.]

[Her heart is still hammering in her chest, still scared over Gai potentially drowning. It won't go away until she calms down--so she reaches out for Gai's hand again, trying to catch her breath.] I thought you were drowning...

[Gai doesn't even make any attempt to avoid that shove. Instead, he just allows her to push him, looking down at the water the whole time to avoid looking at her face. He can't look at her face. He already knows what he's going to see there; looking would just confirm it, something he's not sure he can bear to do just yet.

He screwed up. He scared her, and now she's angry, and rightfully so. HE'S angry at himself for doing that.

"Why don't you already have a girlfriend?" How ironic that she'd asked him that. Well, now she knows. And now he knows that he was an idiot for ever thinking that he could.

When she reaches for his hand, he pulls it away before she can touch him, still keeping his eyes averted while he searches for a way to respond.]

[Elizabeth pulls back when Gai does, eyes widening slightly. That's never happened before... and he won't even look at her. He looks angry.]

[It doesn't cross her mind that he's upset with himself. It seems more likely to Elizabeth that he's angry she materialized half a dozen harpoons on the bottom of the ocean just for a little pull. This was all her fault...]

[She twists her hands in the fabric of her skirt and tries to calm down so she can force the tear away. But now she's upset because Gai won't look at her, won't let her even touch him. What had she been thinking? It was obviously only a matter of time before she materialized something strange or dangerous, and Gai would be well within his rights to revise his feelings on tears.]

...Please Gai... just look at me this once. I can make it disappear, I can control it better-- [What a lie that was.] --I was just surprised, I'm sorry.

It isn't you.

[That came out sounding far sharper than he'd intended, but at least he turns to look at her now. Yes, there's anger on his face, just as she'd thought-- anger mixed with guilt and pain. He isn't blaming her, he's blaming himself. If she'd thrown those harpoons at him, he would've deserved it. Maybe she should have.]

I was the one who thought it would be a good idea to play a joke on you like that. I was the one who was enough of an idiot to think that it would be funny. You have every right to be angry at me for that.

[He WANTS her to be angry, because it's what he thinks he deserves.]

Edited 2013-07-23 02:58 (UTC)

[It's a little hard for Elizabeth to be angry though, because she looks so flummoxed and confused by the correction.]

I... was angry, but I'm done now. [Why would she hold onto being angry over something like this? It was over, Gai wasn't drowning. So she was soaked and probably looked less attractive than when she first waded in, but she would dry off.]

[She stands in the water, looking for the right thing to say, and after a moment she clears away the images of the harpoons.] It is a little funny. I just wish I hadn't thought you were dying. But I guess you can swim really well, hm?

[But Gai just stands there silently, fists clenched by his sides as he stares into the water. The fact that she's apologizing to him and feels bad for snapping at him like that just makes him even angrier at himself. None of this is her fault at all; she shouldn't feel even the slightest bit responsible.]

... I'm sorry.

[And then he turns to start wading back into shore. He knows it's running away, but right now he feels pretty reprehensible and like he shouldn't even be around her. He just wants to go off somewhere and be mad at himself for a little while, maybe destroy a few things.]

[Elizabeth watches him go for a few seconds, then frowns and wades after him.]

What does that mean? Gai!

[There's a rising sense of desperation stirring in her now. Gai said that as though he was walking out of her life, and Elizabeth didn't know what to say to get him to stop walking. Or turn around.]

[She hears a wave crash behind her and she looks over her shoulder. Well, that's one way to figure out what's going on here. Elizabeth turns around and starts wading back out, away from the shore and towards the waves. She raises her arms up as the water comes up to her waist and she looks back towards Gai. This could end up being a very poor decision if he isn't looking...]

[He isn't looking, not right now. In a way, he feels like he isn't worthy of looking at her after that-- self-loathing at its finest, something else he's mad at himself for right now. He's usually so much better than this at keeping his feelings in check, so much more self-aware... it feels like he's somehow losing control and it frightens and angers him.

If only he really COULD turn off his emotions. That would make everything so much easier.

But he can't. No amount of trying has made him able to not feel things anymore. He may be messed up, but that doesn't mean he needs to drag Elizabeth into it too. She deserves someone who can really make her happy, not... him.]

[So he isn't looking. But maybe he hasn't noticed yet, that she isn't following him back to shore. Either way, Elizabeth isn't giving up yet. She's going to make Gai turn around if it kills her.]

[...which it very well might. The water's come up to her chest and she's having trouble keeping her feet on the ground. She slips off her beach shoes and keeps going. The waves are sliding her back, but she's learning to brace herself and keep her head above the wake.]

[It isn't only Gai's decision to leave her in the middle of the ocean, especially if he thinks it would be better for her to be there alone. When people made decisions about her life without telling Elizabeth and getting her input, she had a tendency to take drastic measures. Like now.]

[So absorbed is he in his own self-hatred that he hasn't even noticed that she isn't chasing after him. He's almost to shore now, the waves just barely lapping at his calves as he makes his way back up onto the sand. It's there in the ankle-deep water that he pauses and waits for the sounds of her splashing up behind him, certain that he'll hear them in just a moment. Of course she'd follow him; she's stubborn. There's no chance that she'd just let him run away so easily.

There's nothing. She isn't even calling his name. She isn't even YELLING at him.

So he turns around, trying to see where she is in the water and half-expecting that he's going to end up getting dunked the moment he does so.]

Elizabeth?

Edited 2013-07-23 04:33 (UTC)

[Technically she is behind him.]

[Just... not as close as he expected.]

[Elizabeth chances another look back, the water up around her shoulders now. Gai's facing her, maybe looking for her in the waves. She pushes up off the bottom of the ocean and raises her arm, just so Gai can see how far out she is.]

[She treads water after coming down and turns forward again to keep going. Apparently putting her back to the waves was a bad idea, there's one coming right over her now. It's not a terribly big one, but it does catch her and push her under the water.]

[Gai has already spotted her even before she raises her arm, his stomach sinking when he sees where she is. No no no no, this is bad. Can she even swim? He hadn't thought to ask her earlier, but given her background, he's guessing the answer is a no.

He's about to yell to her to tell her to come back in closer to shore when the wave approaches her from behind. Before he can tell her to look out, it breaks right on top of her, taking her down with it.

That's all the incentive he needs to start half-racing, half-swimming out to the spot where she'd been not moments before. Big wave or not, if she's never been in the ocean before, this could spell real trouble for her.

Like hell he's about to let anything happen to her, especially since she had clearly been trying to get his attention.]

[She can keep her head above the water, but that's about it in terms of being able to swim.]

[After the wave passes, Elizabeth breaks the surface of the water to breathe. She was rolled head over heels underwater, but she managed to keep the water out of her mouth. The worst of it is she's soaked again.]

[And she can see Gai coming at her as she tries to stay above the water again. Mission accomplished, clearly. Elizabeth starts fighting the water to meet Gai halfway... and realizes she's being pulled backwards and into a wave.]

[Yes, this is not what she had hoped would happen, but it was a risk she had accepted. The wave sucked her in and threw her back down with surprising strength, but at least she held onto her breath. This was like being pulled off the ground and flown off by Songbird, she'd never felt anything so strong that wasn't him.]

[Her attempts at swimming towards him make it quite clear that his assumption about her not being able to swim was indeed correct. Now he's even more concerned, though the fact that she was able to surface on her own the first time allows him to breathe a little bit more easily. That doesn't mean he's going to slow down, though; once he gets deep enough that wading is difficult, he strikes out towards her in a strong breaststroke so that he can keep his eyes on her.

And then the next wave breaks, sucking her down under again, and this time she doesn't come back up right away. So he too dives down, searching for her hand, her arm, any part of her that he can grab to help get her back up to the surface.]

[Elizabeth can't see anything, she doesn't even know which end is up as she rolls with the wake. She has to keep moving though, has to find where to go so she can breathe again. Her eyes sting when she opens them, but there's light and a stream of gold hair coming towards her. She reaches for him, and he grabs her arm to haul her up.]

[She gasps for air the second she breaks the surface, feeling dizzy and sick, but she grabs the arm Gai is holding her with--just in case he gets an idea about swimming off now that she's above water again.]

[That's the last thing she'll need to worry about-- once they're both safely above the surface of the water and out of that wave, Gai shifts that arm to wrap around her waist and secure her against him as he sets off for shore again.

At least the trip back in is much easier than the trip out thanks to the waves pushing him from behind. His limbs feel heavy, leaden, something he realizes as a sign that the virus' symptoms are acting up, and a sign that he needs to rest.

Their return to shore is far from graceful; he makes it as far as ankle-deep before his legs give out beneath him, dropping him to his knees. Not unlike a beached fish, ironically, though at least he isn't flopping about quite that badly.]

[Elizabeth helps as much as she can, but she's exhausted from fighting the water for so long. Once they get back to the beach and Gai collapses, Elizabeth goes down with him, panting and sitting on her hip in the water. That was close, even she can't say that wasn't close.]

[She pushes her wet hair off of her face, and looks at Gai. He's tired, she can tell that much, so maybe she has a chance to talk before he can stand up again.]

Are you angry?

[The way she asks it, it sounds as though she's expecting to hear him say that he is. There isn't a single thread of hesitation or concern in her tone, she might as well be asking him to pass the salt.]

[It takes him a moment to get enough of his breath back to even think about responding. It was close, far closer than he would've liked. He suspects that brief moment of panic when she went under didn't do anything to help with the virus flare-up, either.]

Not at you.

[His response is equally matter-of-fact; there's no hesitation in his voice, nor any anger there. It's just calm, resigned, and most importantly, tired.

He drags himself a little farther away from the water, then rolls onto his back, just staring up at the sky while he tries to gather himself. Well. There's no lack of adventure when he spends time with her, that much is for certain.]

Why not? [Elizabeth follows him, crawling most of the way before resuming her position on her hip.] I nearly got myself killed out there because you wouldn't look at me. I think in most circles, that would make me insane.

Because you aren't the one who thought it was a good idea to make you think that I was drowning. I think that would make me stupid and thoughtless.

[He tries to lever himself up a bit on one arm, only to wince and sink back down.]

[Oh no you don't, Gai. Elizabeth shuffles over some more and puts her left hand on the other side of Gai's torso. Now he'll have to push her off to get up.]

You aren't the one who thought it was a good idea to make an attempt at drowning. [Not exactly, of course, but she'd known the possibility was always there.]

Were you scared, then? When I went under?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject