(Untitled)

[river_meimei]

The days are getting shorter, and colder. It's well into autumn now, and before too long it'll be too chilly to be comfortable without heavy jackets and boots

Comments

[simple_aeronaut]

There's a basket, just on the edge of the woods, not so far from the lake, with a heap of red and yellow cloth attached to it.

Lee's sitting on a tree stump nearby, lighting a cigar, Hester at his feet. He notices her, and waves a casual greeting as she draws nearer.

[river_meimei]

River glances at him, sidelong.

More or less at him, anyway.

[simple_aeronaut]

He smiles slightly, striking flint to match.

"Afternoon."

[river_meimei]

River looks down at Hester.

Directly at her, unlike the way her eyes landed just a little to the side of Lee.

[duck_bill]

Splashing out from the lake is a small, green, and slightly shivering... creature.

Not that Ducky will admit to the shivering. Nope nope. Tiny wet footprints track in a weaving path up over the mud, across the grass, and incidentally into River's way.

[river_meimei]

River jumps, staring wide-eyed at the tiny dinosaur in her way.

She's not scared, though. Just very startled.

[duck_bill]

"Is not too cold it is too late to be in the water, yes yes-"

The scraping of River's boots is what makes Ducky look around, and then, after a moment, up.

And up.

And up. It's a long way when you're six inches high.

"--Hello!"

[river_meimei]

"October," River says blankly.

She's still staring, rather.

[patches_x_x]

This place has an outside. One that isn't exploding. Or, on the opposite end, one that doesn't mean death.

Zekka Thyne doesn't hide. Doesn't retreat unless he needs to. Doesn't flee from his enemies to get a break.

But what he does do is take walks. To think. Plan. And, maybe, watch young girls meander around the lakeshore.

Maybe.

[river_meimei]

Maybe.

There are plenty of things to watch around here.

Sometimes they halt, head turning slowly, and watch you back.

[patches_x_x]

And, sometimes, you meet their eyes and don't look away.

Walk towards them. Smile or grin or leer with black, shiny teeth.

No words right away. Might just be watching, after all.

[river_meimei]

River flinches visibly, sucking in a breath as if against sudden vertigo or nausea. Her hands jerk upwards, one hand tightening white-knuckled on the leaf's stem.

[his_fathers_sin]

Standards of cold are a little different for Tidus.

Okay, a lot different. It's enough that since he's trying not to think about most of what's happened today, Tidus dove in a bit ago, blitzball under arm.

It's really, when he surface and uses his head to knock it into the air, more like watching dolphins at play than anything else.

[river_meimei]

River's head snaps over, her eyes wide.

And then the smile starts. She may or may not be aware of it.

They say that for penguins, swimming is like another bird's flying, all graveful speed and swooping dives; this is like that.

[his_fathers_sin]

It is.

The ball's hit once, and he lets it drop.

And then he dives deep as he can--and he doesn't even realize he's looking for fiends, already, as he does so--and surfaces to knock it up again.

And then--

It's a kind of art. You have to be able to flip and kick at just the right moment, or else you look like an idiot falling back to the water.

If you do it right, though--if you do it right, it's almost like magic, and Tidus knows how to do it right. The ball goes flying, and he dives back in, neatly.

[river_meimei]

If River were someone else, she might say that you can't do that -- you can't get enough speed up with human limbs to burst out of the water like that, to spin up and up and hover for just an instant at the apex where momentum and gravity cancel out for a breathless weightless moment before the fall.

But River knows Crowley, and River remembers -- and besides, he's just done it.

The ball rockets past her and ricochets hard off a tree two hundred yards away; River ducks as it whizzes back, and laughs silently.