Adam, Alden, Eshana, Ilad
Clouds scatter the sky, chilling the California weather to the point where a jacket would be acceptable, especially for extended time spent outside without the comforting rays of sunlight. Given the gray cast of clouds and drawing of autumn, the minigolf course that they occupy is uncrowded, only a teenage couple already half played-through by the time they get to their first tee. Alden keeps the scorecard because he obviously has the most experience, glancing to the others as he asks, "Who putts first, then?"
Leaning slightly on his putter with both hands, treating it like an impromptu cane, Ilad surveys the grounds with a mild bemusement about his expression, and cocks an eyebrow slantwise at Alden for his question. "Perhaps you ought show us how it is done," he says, his accented voice a low ripple of dry warmth.
"Are you saying there's not some minigolf rule that determines this?" Adam says, sounding skeptical that there is a minigolf rule that Alden doesn't know. Dressed with a great effort towards casual comfort, he's actually managed jeans today, although they are paired with a button-down. The sleeves are rolled up? Look, he's trying.
Eshana finds jackets acceptable very early into the fall season, even in California. Thus, she is bundled into a sheep's wool coat with the collar turned up, her hands wrapped about her putter and her eyes bright. "There are as many mini-golf rules as there are families and friends that play mini-golf," she allows. "So I'm happy to just apply peer pressure and join Ilad in nominating Charles."
"The only rule, really, is that if your ball is furthest away, you putt, but since we're all starting, then it is whoever wishes to," Alden says in response, explaining dismissively as his gaze flicks with a small smile towards Ilad before slipping along to Eshana. "Or whoever is forced to." He nods simply, stepping forward to place the bright pink ball that he has claimed on the indentation marking the tee. He swings, doesn't miss, and gets the ball over there, near the hole.
"Alden," Ilad says with a mild but distinct emphasis on the paired syllables, "must be my guide in this. I am not very familiar with this game." He takes up a turn second mostly because that is where he falls in pose order and let's not be silly. His ball is yellow. Maybe he likes yellow, or maybe he didn't care. He takes rather an inordinate amount of time lining up putter and ball and tee, frowning with the concentration of somebody too innately competitive not to take any contest unseriously. But he is not as awesome as Alden. There.
Adam glances at Eshana with a slightly arched brow at whatever detail of her nomination before looking back to Alden. "Fair enough," he says, apparently having no qualms with Alden going first. And clearly he goes third because it is my pose. His ball is blue. He has the putter's look of someone who probably plays real golf at country clubs, which means he might be a little closer than Ilad, but not as close as Alden.
Eshana has chosen electric green for her own ball, possibly because this is a colour favoured by mad scientists. She twirls her putter with gentle good nature and then, when her turn comes, taps at it with inordinately concentrated precision. This does not result in a hole in one. It -does- bump her ball into Alden's, provoking an "Oh dear. Sorry!"
"Don't apologize for playing the game, flower," Alden says on an almost laugh, shaking his head at Eshana in obvious amusement before he glances towards Ilad. He even bumps him, slightly, murmuring a "It's your turn again."
Ilad dips his head in a nod, fingertips ghosting lightly over Alden's arm as he sidles past him with the tap of his club against the grass. He examines the ball, standing over it with a faint frown, and circles it a bit like a vulture as he considers its placement relative to the hole. Then he sets up to tap it toward the hole. He gets closer! That is about all I can say about his golf prowess.
"It sounds like she is not very competitive," Adam says, flashing a small smile in Eshana's direction. It's like he doesn't even notice the touching. La la la he is a good friend. Oh his turn? He sidles up to his ball and gives it a tap. It also gets closer! What a thrilling game.
"I'm plenty competitive," Eshana protests, and hops up on the edge of the course to gain a tiny smidge of relative height. "I just don't want to turn a game of mini-golf into a game of curling on the first hole."
"It would be a rather rude way to say goodbye," Alden adds /mysteriously/, leaning against his own putter with a sidelong glance towards Ilad as he waits on the two to duel it out. Who is farthest away now? Idk.
"What is curling?" Ilad asks blankly.
"Curling," Adam adds, just a bit incredulous. You ~Canadians~ and your ~Canadian sports.~ At least he knows what it is. Glancing at Alden, he adds, "Is she going somewhere?"
"Curling," Eshana explains, with a playful crinkle of her nose at Adam, "Is a fine way to consume a lot of beer while hurling polished granite rocks down a sheet of ice to try and knock other people's rocks out of a circle... and I'm not going anywhere," she concludes, on an uptalked note of mild confusion as she peers at Alden. "Am I?"
Alden shakes his head, doing something golfy and sinking his ball since no one else is while calling back a simple, "Ilad and I are leaving soon to Algeria." He marks his score. Probably 0, since the first hole was probably a par 2.
Ilad lines up another shot and watches with mild consternation as his ball rolls around the hole, dipping across its edge, but fails to fall in.
Any obnoxious remark Adam might make about particular Canadian pastimes is interrupted by this news from Alden. He looks quickly between him and Ilad. "I -- what?"
"Ah..." says Eshana, more thoughtful than startle,d like someone frantically trying to remember if they've been told something already. Distractedly, she taps at her ball again and balances it on the lip of the hole. "Business or personal?"
"Business," Alden answers, though his own attention is drawn and focused on Ilad as the other man putts. After a moment, he steps forward with fingers going to brush against his hip. "Lock your wrists, love. It'll give you a better shot."
Ilad quirks his eyebrows with a particularly baffled slant in Eshana's direction. "I don't know about you, but I do not think of Muslim North Africa as much of a vacation spot," he intones with a particular dryness. Lifting his golf club, he weights it across his shoulders and hooks his wrists over it like a bar. He glances sidelong at Alden with humor bright in his dark eyes as he approaches, he is apparently taking a brief break for explanations. Or sulking. Maybe both. "Our competitor's interest in the continent is considerable. Our mission is to build some useful connections in the sphere of Algiers and the surrounding area."
For a moment, Adam is just quiet. "Oh," he says. "That is -- a logical step forward, I suppose." A fact that he is clearly narrating for his own benefit as much as anyone else's. It is hard to deny the quiet concern in his eyes, though.
"There are some fascinating archaeological sites," Eshana offers up solemnly, if not without a rueful curve of a smile that acknowledges Ilad's point. "But... true enough. I wish you well, and an absence of being caught on the wrong side of any stray revolutions." Covertly, she studies Adam as he narrates.
Alden's lips twist, lightening into a smile where grey eyes meet humored. He doesn't linger all touchy against Ilad, fingertips falling away as he directs his gaze back towards Eshana and Adam with a nod. "Hopefully a span of a few weeks will be enough to establish a groundwork, some few contacts. If we're lucky, we won't be there long enough for any brewing revolutions," he answers with a quiet amusement of his own. "But maybe we'll have time to see something archaeological."
Ilad draws down his putter again to tap his ball into the hole with a simple, swift tap of triumph. Collecting it, he grumps under his breath about his crappy score, and steps aside to clear the hole. "I do not expect to find much danger," he says. Does he sound disappointed?
"It has been a source of danger for us in the past," Adam points out quietly. After a moment, he drags some humor forcibly from hidden reserves. "I do hope you take care of yourselves. You are something like 50% of my friends."
Eshana tips her ball into the hole belatedly -- three on a par two hole, alas. "Just don't bring me back a camel," she warns Alden with a crinkle-nosed smile before she steps over to hole number two and awaits the others. "And if you need someone in Analysis, well... you -can- call me day or night."
"That is why I am bring Ilad with me," Alden assures Adam easily, his laugh a soft thing where it escapes with words. "I'm sure he will keep me out of trouble." Eshana's words just bring a curved brow upwards, challenged. No camel, you say?
"I will watch both our backs," Ilad promises, solemn and certain despite the humor that the others have chosen to infuse this prospect with.
Ilad's seriousness is what draws Adam's attention and appreciation. "Thank you," he says, his forced humor slipping away.
"Come back safe and well," Eshana murmurs, all thoughts of unwanted camels suppressed for the moment as she reaches across and pats earnestly at the arm of whichever of the pair is nearer.
Ilad's, obviously. He's the more touchy feely one and Alden is already escaping from seriousness to withdraw to the next course. "We'll be fine," he phrases, though he at least doesn't laugh. "I doubt they'll have minigolf there, though."
Ilad favors Eshana with a slight smile. He squeezes her shoulder once, briefly, and then inclines his head to Adam with a grave nod before turning to follow Alden on to the next hole. "I am sure that we will survive without minigolf. I have survived my whole life without minigolf."
"Perhaps you should import it, as a goodwill gesture," Eshana suggests with a little bubble of laughter as she twirls her putter like the baton of the young gymnast she was... a very long time ago.
Whose turn is it, anyways? "Perhaps that is all they're missing from the Middle East," Adam suggests with a bit of dryness to his tone. "Minigolf."
Alden putts first again to keep the tee order, and still manages to miss the hole in one by only a slight margin. "I could pack the set you gave me," he offers to Adam as he steps back to hang out with his club and watch others putt.
"It would certainly have something of the element of surprise," Ilad murmurs in an undervoice as he sets up and hits the ball. It goes far wide again. He frowns after it.
Eshana takes her time with this hole, pacing along it to stop and use her putter as a measuring device to calculate angles and the bounces required to navigate them. Possibly it's this, or possibly it's sheer luck, but her putt goes up to the edge of the hole, bounces off the back wall, rolls sloooowly to the hole... and stops just short, just as Eshana is risen fully up on her tiptoes with a look of raptly hopeful encouragement. She sighs. "I wish," she says, stepping back to let someone else take a turn. "I was telekinetic. For just a moment."
"So you could cheat?" Adam says disapprovingly. You know what? He will get his ball in the hole. Since nobody else is.
Alden also seems disapproving of this, surprisingly, tsking with a shake of his head, because this is /putt putt/ and putt putt is too serious of a thing to ruin with cheating. "I would hate to play this with someone who was," he answers, glancing towards Adam consideringly as if he might be one secretly as he sinks a hole-in-one. "The temptation would be too much to resist."
Taking his next shot, since he sucks the most and it is therefore his turn again immediately, Ilad says blandly, "I save 'by any means necessary' for those competitions where it is a matter of life and death. Which is probably why I am losing very badly at this game," he adds, as his ball rolls sedately past the hole.
"Impulse," Eshana tsks. "Passing one. I'm a good person, not a perfect one." She eyes the hole and her ball balanced on the edge of it as if daring it to be knocked further back by anyone else's shot.
"You are probably losing because you haven't played it before," Adam says, reasonable and encouraging. He hangs around waiting for the lesser players to sink their balls.
Alden steps up and makes his ball neatly, not requiring more than two shots and managing to avoid Eshana's teetering ball altogether. Maybe Ilad will be mean and knock it out of the way in his place. He adds with a smile, "Or possibly because you aren't as invested. Certainly not because you aren't competitive enough."
Ilad says to the point of investment, "Why, what do I get if I win?" He does not knock Eshana's ball out of the way. Too much force behind his next shot makes his ball bounce right over the hole. You guys aren't getting the sense that I have a lot of experience with ways to suck at minigolf, are you?
Eshana neatly knocks this ball in, with the satisfaction of someone making par. She collects it and then perched on one of the rocks that provide decoration to the place. "A camel," she suggests, lips twitching as she burrows into her coat a little deeper.
"I would not make bets with Charles," Adam suggests. "He can afford more."
"Only because you bought a yacht," Alden accuses with a smile, humor warm on his words where they're directed towards his friend. He does get smooshily affectionate, however, stepping to curve an arm around Ilad as he presses into his back briefly to murmur a quick, "I could think of something," before drawing away.
Ilad slants a look after Alden, narrow-eyed, but the quirk of his mouth is dry. "I suspect that it will not come up," he says. But he does finally get his ball in.
Eshana's role as awkward-diffuser ends up more awkward-sharer as the smooshy affection leaves her glancing over to Adam with a crooked little smile. "If you two would like a moment to, ah, discuss your business trip, we can move on to the next hole," she offers, with a hint of a tease.
Alden's smile is bright to teasing, a flash of white teeth and squinted eyes as he answers, "I think we'll have enough time to ourselves shortly." He does stop touching, though, for most of the game that's left.
"No, thank you," Ilad says, tone gone thin and a little crisp. He takes the teasing a little more tensely than Alden does. Who is surprised.
"Well then," Eshana says, with a hint of apology in her smile to Ilad which carries over in her glance to Adam immediately following. "Play on, MacDuff."
Adam is so (not) surprised! He clears his throat and -- does not say much of anything. Are we finished with this hole yet?
Yes, totally finished. They will play on to other holes.
Ilad sucks at putt putt.