Temba Beach Party!

[beholding_archivist]

WHO: EVERYONE!!
WHERE: Temba Beach
WHAT: BEACH PARTY TIME!!
WHEN: noooooooow
Notes: Mix & Match the prompts as desired. Any format goes!
WARNINGS: Pride Birbs. It's Pride month. So. PRIDE BIRBS! Oh. And you may add your own warning labels to the respective threads, I suppose.



Isn't it amazing what people can achieve when several come together and pool their ideas and resources for a shared goal?

It certainly is in Jon's eyes, whose innate lack of creativity originally has gone as far as bringing some blankets to the beach and hoping for a good mood. What has ended up being set up on the bluish, almost purple sand of the beach is far beyond anything he would have imagined and he won't deny being glad he has reached out over the network with his little suggestion.

Of Barbecues, Grills and other Beverages

Do you remember Cobb asking for a grill to be made for him? Right. That grill can be found at the party. Kyle has offered to prepare burgers to be grilled along with whatever meat selection the diner has to offer and Clarice is the person to thank for the home made ice pops, created from native fruits such as glueberries and mangourd. Of course these are kept fresh under a parasol and in an insulated box mostly buried into the sun. That's how the majority of the drinks offered at this party are being kept cool as well.

If you want to catch one of those fat green lobsters roaming the beach as well and toss it onto the grill, you sure can try.

INTO THE OCEAN!!

You better bring your swimwear, because jumping into the water is an option. No actually dangerous creatures are this close to the shore, making swimming or potential swimming lessons very much possible.

Tony also ensured there is a little kiddie pool for the babies. And Cobb.

Someone brought an inflatable Eyeball?

Before anyone asks, it wasn't Jon. But it's there. An inflatable eye beach ball.

Any questions? Yes? Good.

Lounging in the Shade & Music

Parasols, blankets and a guitar borrowed from Cayde's bar. Sit down, relax, chat. And if you know how to play this instrument, you're very welcome to do so.

Let there be BIRBS

Have you wondered yet why those birds are in the banner for this party? It's because they are here.

At first they linger in the trees near the beach, watching and squawking and being colorful parrots. As a little time passes, they leave the safety of their trees and start coming over, sitting on parasols, hopping curiously between this oddly large amount of people gathering at their beach and in all likelihood attempting to steal a snack or two.

But if you pay close attention, you can also observe them swooping down at the nearby lobsters, easily picking them up and carry them back into the nearby forest. Apparently these birds aren't just colorful and curious they also hunt lobsters. Who could have known...

Don't forget the Caves

Actually not far from our little party waits the entrance to the caves. Take a wrong turn in them and you will find yourself in a large chamber filled with those energy crystals that make all your technology glow and go insane or result in your powers to fluctuate greatly. Take the right turn, and you find yourself at those mysterious hot springs only few know about.

To be fair, the actual party is at the beach, but who knows when the need for some privacy arises.

When it gets Dark we gather around the Rainbow Colored Fire Pit

While set up at the edge of the gathering, the fire pit Tony and Cayde have set up to have a bonfire in easily is one of the center pieces of the party. Benches and seats either brought over from Temba or crafted from different material are set up around it and once the sun begins to set and the bonfire gets lit along with the many torches set up around the party, the invitation to remain a little longer couldn't be clearer.

There's more to it than just a cozy fire, a pleasant atmosphere and the company of friends. Next to the fire pit sits a small box. In that box, wrapped in plain tissue paper, are what at first glance are little more than lumps of wax. But mixed into this wax are different chemicals and tossing these into the pit will result in the fire burning with different colors or even sparkle. Way to set the mood and linger as the party winds down.

Due to health concerns Jon does not recommend cooking any food over the chemically altered flames, thank you.

Comments

[in_extremis]

That was quite alright, Tony clearly admired his own beauty more than enough for both of them and had plenty of more direct compliments in store for Merrin. His enthusiasm extended to trying to follow her directly instead of waiting and watching anymore, which led to far more stilted movement and a jolt of surprise that had him quickly drawing his own arms back, tucked in close to his sides, at the effect on the fire. He probably wasn't going to be able to perfect that one any time soon, and Merrin really wasn't kidding about the magic thing.

"Is that--that's not the Force?" Tony had to ask, sure he wouldn't be able to identify an application of this power if he saw it at this point and already starting to think it was an umbrella term that the Jedi used for a disparate range of abilities that anyone else would have had a different name for. He didn't mean to lock Merrin into some awkward religious discussion, so Tony quickly added, "On Earth, it's not easy to guess where an effect like that is coming from. Sometimes its magic, we'll call it that, too, but sometimes its a mutation, a genetic ability from someone who's evolved to do this specific thing, and sometimes its...We call them metahumans, people who aren't genetically different but have been--altered in some way."

[noch]

She turns to face him again, her head tilting slightly to the side. Maybe she should've expected questions, since Nightsister magick is rarely seen outside of Dathomir even in her own galaxy—so are Nightsisters, for that matter. Luckily, the answer is straight-forward enough, since he's already familiar with the Force, apparently—she hopes.

"It is, in a way. The Jedi believe it to be the dark side of the Force, but it is energy. We draw it from the heart of our planet, Dathomir," she explains. The Jedi like to complicate things like that, from what she can tell—how can a tool be inherently good or bad? It can only be used for good or bad things.

"I will show you." That's the warning he gets before she lifts her hand between them, summoning a small cloud of bright green ichor that hovers over her upturned palm. It shimmers and shifts like an opaque fog as she continues, "We use our magick for many things. More than the Jedi." No offense, Jedi—except full offense.

[in_extremis]

It didn't look so much darker than the telekinesis or animal empathy that Tony understood the Force to be, so he frowned dubiously, eyeing Merrin to ensure that they both thought that sounded illogical and wondering if this was Merrin's poor telling that she had to defend, or something to get Cal to explain. But there that weird pattern was again--the one that Ikora didn't seem convinced of, as someone who wielded one of these forces, but it was so specific..."Directly from Dathomir, nowhere else?" Tony started to clarify, just in case, but then Merrin was committing more magic.

Tony took a rocking step back, one hand up defensively like Merrin was showing him a particularly unfriendly looking bug. Unlike Ikora's Light, this display didn't look so much like energy as described, although the action was again eerily similar. "Oh, yeah, I can see how that's super useful," Tony said dryly. "But--you think that's coming from your planet, not from this one." A planet that was in a whole different dimension, as far as any of them knew. Unless they happened to be standing in the dimension that was natural to Reeve's Midgar, Ikora's Earth and Merrin's Dathomir.

[noch]

She raises her eyebrows a little in return—look, she doesn't fully understand what the Jedi mean with light and dark sides either, or how the Force can be either/or, so he's going to have to ask Cal about that one. All she knows is that most Jedi believe Nightsister magick to be inherently dangerous and evil. Obviously, she disagrees.

His reaction to the ichor in her palm is understandable, probably, so she lets it dissipate, almost like a flame puttering out, and drops her hand. There's a thoughtful expression on her face, almost incredulous because of his sarcasm, but she doesn't bother to defend her magick and its uses—he'll probably get to see it sooner or later.

How can she explain this? "I am always connected to Dathomir, wherever I go. It is in my spirit," she says, placing a hand over her chest. "But it is true that my magick is weaker here. A Nightsister is always most powerful on Dathomir."

[in_extremis]

While Tony might have been in for a slightly uncomfortable discussion with Cal, hopefully he could set Merrin up for a more productive one with the various magic users in their strange community. With an encouraging gesture to invite her to take his hand again, because they had gotten a little off track of their very important exchange, Tony said, "You know that other guy with the awesome beard and the cat doll? He says his magic comes from the energy of his planet, too." Meanwhile, with their hands raised aloft between them, Tony twisted to repeat something like that first move that Merrin tried to show him and he had totally perfected, but with a ballroom flourish that was more familiar to him to lead Merrin into a closed hold. "I've heard a version of that from a couple of people now, and--I'm not a magic guy, and Earth seems to be the outlier, so I'm way outside of my field. But to me, that sounds like you still have a direct connection to the point in space and time and if that's in any way tangible, then we should be able to...follow it home." He shrugged helplessly, feeling entirely out of control of that theory and hoping one of them would finally listen to him. Magic really sucked.

[noch]

She doesn't, in fact, know the other guy with the awesome beard, and... cat doll, but she'll definitely keep an eye out for him now, so that she can learn more about his magick. She hasn't had anyone to talk to about magick in... well, a very long time.

In any case, that hold catches her a little off balance, since this definitely isn't the style of dancing that she's used to, and she stiffens a little, just for a second, at their sudden close(r) proximity. Tony is then treated to a very brief, very rare moment of uncertainty from her as she struggles to catch up with what he's saying and figure out where she's supposed to put her free hand. His... shoulder? Is this what dancing is like off Dathomir?

In any case, he has a very good point, and one she hadn't really considered before now. Rather unwillingly, her respect for Tony goes up a notch. "Perhaps. I have not tried anything like that before. But I had never left Dathomir before Cal came." Immediately on the heels of that, she adds, "Is this how humans dance?"

[in_extremis]

In this position, it wasn't so difficult for Tony to feel Merrin's panic and tried to encourage her with a smile and a subtle nod. She wouldn't really have to do much if she could trust him, to feel capable of this dance she hadn't been prepared for. "Broadly," he replied, tilting his head slightly to allow generous room for the probably more appropriate, 'kind of'. There were definitely more humans and whole cultures that never danced like this at all, but some fundamental principles were the same; "Most humans don't do magic or anything, so dance is always an expression of connection. There's a lot of dances that tie whole groups of people together, but when it's just a couple of very charming individuals trying to get to know each other, it helps to be close." At least, in Tony's experience a tactile experience was always more meaningful, like being able to feel Merrin's nerves in the tension of her hand. She wouldn't have to do anything too alien to begin with, mostly following a similar step to the one she was comfortable with back and forth until Tony was fairly sure they could call that a salsa, and broke the pattern by twisting her in a rapid, wild spin that she was going to have to lean into fast if she didn't want to break away completely.

[noch]

Broadly is certainly an intriguing answer, but she doesn't ask. Instead, she's busy studying his steps, her head bowed slightly, and mimicking them as best she can—it isn't too difficult, thankfully, similar enough to what she's used to that it doesn't take very long for her to pick it up. She was a passable dancer among her sisters—nowhere near the best, but certainly nowhere near the worst either.

But she was young then, and she hasn't had anyone to dance with in a long time. It's probably why there's still that tension in her as he spins her around and she—well, it's not quite a stumble, but it's definitely not as graceful as it could be. She recovers quickly, though.

"And we are the very charming individuals," she says dryly, when the spin appears to be complete. "So this is not a mating ritual, but a way to bond." Just so she has this straight. "Is this why you asked me to dance?"

[in_extremis]

With a theatrical shrug, Tony raised their joined hands again, letting Merrin's slip from his gently to trade the lead back once more if she had anything else to show him. She might have been easier to read up close, but Tony didn't think figuring out when she was having fun was going to be such an easy puzzle and so far all signs were pointing to no. Maybe spinning wasn't her thing. "Uh, I wasn't thinking about it that hard," he tried, because it wasn't like he could just say that he was trying to figure out how she might be treating Cal, and what Cal might reveal when Tony asked him how his night by the fire went later. Maybe Tony was just trying to get to know her; he was capable of being very normal about that kind of thing. Probably. "So, sure, bonding. You never know, we might end up on Dathomir next and I'm going to have to impress your sisters, and you're going to have to translate for the rest of us when we start trying to serenade them."

[noch]

Look, don't take it to heart—even before the war, her coven was as isolated as they could get on Dathomir. Cal was the first new person she'd met in over five years, and the last new person she'd met before him, Taron Malicos, was a complete bastard. Meeting strangers and getting to know them —let alone men, and let alone men as unsettling as Tony—is not in her wheelhouse, so getting her to relax was never really in the cards, no matter what they did.

And not to put a complete damper on things, but the second he mentions her sisters all thoughts of their dance are driven from her mind, if she was even inclined to teach him something new in the first place, and she kind of... instantly sobers, her hands falling to her sides.

"You will not need to impress them. I am the last of my sisters," she says, and her tone isn't... sad, necessarily, since she's had six years of distance from the loss, so much as solemn. There's a pause, and then she adds, "So you only need to impress me."

[in_extremis]

The moment Merrin's posture changed, Tony's followed, his arms going tense at his sides again with his hands still raised like they were ready to catch the problem that he could tell was coming. He should have read the signs, they were so obvious now that she said that, so Tony's hands clutched closed guiltily as his brow furrowed in sympathetic apology and his eyes darted, trying to read Merrin's expression. That sounded like it should be sad, Tony didn't know if there was a limit to a grief period after some kind of, what, genocide? If the magic that Merrin was talking about really was just the Force by a different name, maybe she had more in common with Cal than Tony had realized.

He had to do something with his hands now, so they both folded over his heart and he gave a slight bow of his head to offer his condolences if she wanted them without forcing her to talk through it any further. "How'm I doing so far?" he prompted under his breath with a shadow of his teasing smirk, like this was a secret conversation that they were having while a more sober version of them maybe dealt with that heavier stuff.

[noch]

For whatever reason, his reaction ends up being the right one. It's easier now, most of the time, for her to talk about the deaths of her sisters—her entire coven, wiped out in a night, and her entire life changed just as quickly. Her and Cal do have a lot in common, in that regard. It's what made her take a chance on trusting him.

But the grief is always there, endless. It might be a little easier to talk about now, but it's still not easy. So she appreciates the silent gesture of condolence and what it means, her expression softening a little.

"You are a very strange man," she says bluntly, and her tone makes it clear she absolutely means it. Then she pauses, her head canting slightly to the side as if she's reconsidering her assessment, before adding, "But not terribly." Which might actually be the best answer he could expect at this time. "Though I still do not know your name."