for your next trick, i'll volunteer

[thinkbrave]

Characters: Ellie ( thinkbrave ) & Mahalia ( mellifluently ) :: closed
Date: May 21st, a little after Xion posted about the ocean. (backdating awww yeah)
Summary: Exploration! Ellie being difficult! Mahalia putting up with it! Exciting things! Exclamation marks!
Warnings: Nothing comes to mind, only hazard of dark internal dialogue so... will edit if necessary.

Comments

[mellifluently]

Mahalia and Xion had spent a little while together on the beach after they'd created it, but they hadn't explored the entirety of it, and they certainly hadn't gone out on the water. She's surprised, really, that's it's still intact, had felt some instability in the form of it and had expected it to fade, especially with how long they left it for

[thinkbrave]

She tenses right up at the unexpected voice behind her, turning fast out of habit. Her back is close to rigid, jaw clenched and her entire body prepared for some kind of fight. It's just what experience had done to her, really, made her inclined to jump to the worst conclusion.

For a moment, she just looks at Mahalia, takes in her presence and allows it to soak in that her lack of vigilance didn't just lead to her getting killed. A little shrug, and she scratches behind one of her shoulders before staring at the boats again. “Hey.”

Oh, and a recent memory kicks in. “Congratulations on making an ocean.” It sounds a bit dry, humour-wise. “I think that's classes as being an over-achiever.”

[mellifluently]

Mahalia waits calmly, doesn't take offence at Ellie's tense reaction, her slowness to respond. She's experienced similar from some of her siblings, in the past, but it does leave her curious why Ellie displays the same behaviour. Not something to easily ask about, better to wait until Ellie offers something herself, even if the other girl wasn't really very open.

She doesn't really understand how anyone could be an over-achiever, but asking might highlight the differences between her way of life and Ellie's, and she doesn't want to risk widening any more gaps right now.

"We weren't really sure it would work. Maybe we were just lucky." She smiles, gently, looking out over the waves, then back at Ellie. "Do you like the sea?"

[thinkbrave]

A little scoff - good humoured, though (for once). "Some luck. Don't use it all up on oceans." There's the slightest of smiles, although it gradually fades as she looks back over the waves, thinking. The same kind of thoughts that make her tense up and move cautiously, that cause those vicious sparks of temper.

Does she like the sea? The way it feels? She's pretty sure that she used to. In fact, she did love the sea, the excitement of going down to Cobbler's to swim every so often. The salt water felt different from creeks and billabongs. Ellie just holds her silence, for a moment, because she's carefully thinking it over. She likes honesty, more often than not, even if that's sometime's sacrificed to being flippant. "I like to swim," she finally allows. "The sea is pretty dangerous."

Last time she was in it, she'd been hit by a grey, stormy wall of water that tossed and slammed her to the shore like she was a torn off piece of bark some kid had just tossed into the froth. Without looking back to Mahalia, she asks, "how about you?

[mellifluently]

Mahalia takes the few steps left to stand beside Ellie, looking out over the ocean with her. Yes, the sea could be dangerous. She had been educated as fully as possible for the few months she'd stayed with Nerin and her people, on the dangers of the sea, and the joys of it.

"I think, sometimes," she says, softly, "the most beautiful things in the world are the most dangerous." She smiles slightly at the other girl. "It's nice. Another piece of home."

She misses her family desperately, but she wasn't sure that filling the Gardens with pieces of them would help sooth that as much as she'd like.

fuuu last day of work before my vacation is tomorrow and then I will be less low :'|

[thinkbrave]

There's an odd twinge at the corner of Ellie's mouth, but whether or not it's a smile or something else remains to be seen, the expression twisting a little. "I don't know. I mean, we don't really have sirens or anything like that, back home, and I wouldn't exactly call a brown snake beautiful. Maybe guns are pretty, if you're into that." A little contrary, maybe, but she's hugging her arms across her chest stiffly, like it isn't meant to be that kind of gesture, because Ellie is used to needing to look strong and prepared all the time.

"Does it help?" Her tone is very curious, beneath that sort of flat, even tone she has most often. "I thought it'd make not having everything else even worse."

[mellifluently]

"I've never spent much time looking at guns." Her mother had a few, scattered around the house, but Mahalia was not allowed near them. She wouldn't have wanted to, anyway. She'd meant more the natural world with what she'd said, though, and disagreed that snakes weren't beautiful, even the little plain looking ones, but Ellie's posture has her deciding to move on.

"It... changes. I made a room with some of my parents' things in it, so... it feels like they're always there, with me." Surrounded by them while she slept, it was comforting, reminded her that they loved her, that she wouldn't be forgotten.

"But places like this..." She frowns a little, looking along the beach. "There should be more people, more boats. There aren't even any fish."

[thinkbrave]

"Lucky you." A little bitter, maybe, but more flippant than anything else. She was familiar with guns before the war, but only ever your basic rifle, which wasn't hard to find on almost any rural farm property. Hunting, driving off foxes - the memories play through her mind for a moment before she dismisses them as irrelevant.

Oh. Despite herself, she looks a bit sad at that. To have anything of her parents would be pretty amazing, and she tries not to think about that sort of thing. "Yeah. That sounds nice." Shockingly lacking in bite, that.

"No fish?" That is weird, and Ellie stares down at the water, although she resists the urge to touch it. "At least that means no sharks, I guess."

[mellifluently]

Lucky her. Yes, in many respects. Coddled and wrapped in cotton wool, kept away from society, even in the relative safety of the North. She knows she's lucky for it, but she can only find fault in all the weaknesses it's bred in her.

Sometimes her room with all her parents things just makes her sadder. She'd spent at least day after she'd completed it crying, until it all drained out of her and she'd slept for hours. She'd felt better after that, steadier. She doesn't say as much to Ellie. Even Mahalia can see tears and crying as a weakness, sometimes, and she imagines it's an opinion Ellie shares.

"Even sharks would be preferable to emptiness. Not that it isn't beautiful. But... maybe it's still just a desert, really."

[thinkbrave]

Ellie straightens up a bit, shrugging her shoulder and pulling her hair free of its usual ponytail, running her fingers through. Letting things chew at her, that was business for when she was alone. Right now, though, there was Mahalia here, and while she might be feeling a little more friendly today than other days, that didn't make her someone she was happy to get all broken up in front of. Crying? That barely happened in front of anyone, if she could help it, especially if that person wasn't Corrie (or, lately, Emilia) .

"Preferable unless you're a swimmer."

You know. Just saying.

A faint little smile at her own very dry joke, and she looks back out over the ocean at what had caught her gaze before, gently knocking the back of her hand against Mahalia's shoulder. "Hey. You see that out there? If you made this place, you've got to know what it is, right?"

ew I used the same icon twice in a row I hate that

[mellifluently]

Mahalia's about to protest that sharks don't generally attack strong swimmers, uninjured people who haven't disturbed them or seemed to pose a threat, but Ellie is only joking and she doesn't necessarily want to make it serious again. She takes the knock on her shoulder for distraction, looking out over the water.

She doesn't see what Ellie's talking about straight away, raises a hand to keep the sun out of her eyes, finally spots the low, dark shape against the horizon. Xion had spoken of islands, but as far as Mahalia could tell, those memories had been used to shape the beach itself. Which left her own memories.

"It might be my sister's village," she murmurs thoughtfully. "I used memories of when I visited her to help create this."

omg i hate when i do that too D8 /reaches for

[thinkbrave]

"Huh." Her gaze rests on Mahalia for a second, then the isle, and then the boats nearby. She's feeling restless, like she so often does without reasons to get adrenaline pushing through her veins.

"Well, there's only one way to know beyond a doubt." Although, logically, one could deduce that Mahalia could work it out pretty easily based on who had what memories, that was beside the point. Ellie doesn't wait to explain, but instead just jumps down into one of the boats before looking back at Mahalia. "Want to go explore?"

Or, more accurately, I am going exploring, want to come with me?

[mellifluently]

There is only one way to know, Ellie's right, and maybe Mahalia would like to see that village again, even if it will be lacking in life, absent of her sister or her sister's people. It isn't much to explore a place you've been before, that was constructed from your memories, but she hadn't particularly wanted to be on her own, and accompanying Ellie seems like a good idea.

"Alright." She nods, smiling slightly. She's far more tentative at getting in the boat, sitting down on the boardwalk and staring at her feet hesitantly for a while before she pushes herself off and drops down. Only when she's in the boat does she think about how they're going to get out across the water in it.

"Ah, I've never really rowed before."

She looks back at the beach, thinking that maybe they should have got some sand to try and make a motor with.

[thinkbrave]

Her eyebrows raise a bit, although she's not especially surprised. In fact, she might even smile a little bit. There are little things about Mahalia, here and there, that remind her of some of her friends. Certain elements of Robyn, when she gave herself time to muse on that kind of thing, her seriousness and what she guessed was a more pacifistic nature. That particular comment made her think of Fi, though, making her shake her head as she sits. "Don't worry, princess. I'll just count it as my exercise so I don't have to go running when we get back

[mellifluently]

Mahalia knows she's lived something of a sheltered life, kept away from outsiders and her peers by her mother, her only interactions limited to family. Her siblings have teased her for it, here and there, and she can't deny that princess isn't something she's heard before. It goes well with her love of fairy tales and her romantic ideals, but in this context, even though she knows Ellie is only teasing, she doesn't react well to it. Her mouth presses thin, and she looks down at the wood of the boat stubbornly for a long minute before Ellie asks if she needs anything. She glances back at the beach, then, and nods

[thinkbrave]

Ellie is quite happily oblivious - or so close to that as she can get, these days - to Mahalia's displeasure, focusing on the task she's assigned herself until she hears Mahalaia's voice. It earns a quiet, "eh?" and an arched eyebrow, but she holds onto the rope, relooping it around the mooring post until she gets back