entrancelogs | [open to all]

Entry tags:

[open to all]

Who: Anyone and everyone!
Where: The beach
When: 12pm, April 27th
Rating: PG for now, just in case. I don't see it getting higher, but who knows.
Summary: Beach day for the residents!
The Story: Yesterday, you would have found the below posted in at least three places per floor. All the important places, plus a few shoved under doors where Feferi had spare or knew who was in said room:

For those who dislike images and/or trollspeak, it's an invitation to a beach gathering this afternoon. Which is where Feferi is right now. Not knowing much about human beach gatherings, she hasn't brought much with her other than herself, but who needs stuff when you have an overenthusiastic Sea Dweller, right?

So, bring forth anyone who would come along! Anything goes, let's just give our characters the chance to escape the mansion walls for a while and enjoy the beautiful outdoors!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Akihiko offered a bow to Feferi, losing the balance of the weight in his backpack and taking a step to the side to regain control of it before standing back up. "Hey! You did." He smiled, noticing the few patches of unabsorbed lotion. "I guess I should put some on now before I forget. This looks as good a place as any to set up."

He set his backpack down in the sand and unrolled the long towel, appropriately covered in aquatic wildlife designs, on the ground, then began to dig in the bag for his sunscreen. Maybe she'd get the idea of how to apply it by watching him. It was full of all sorts of things: some bottled water, sunglasses, a frisbee, shovel and pail, and a bunched up piece of colorful plastic meant to be blown up into a beach ball, just to name a few.

Feferi grinned, clearly pleased with herself for remembering. She backed up a little to give Akihiko space to set up, peering curiously into the mouth of his bag to see if she could see anything in particular.

"So is it a common human tradition to claim spaces for themselves when on a beach?" At least she assumed that was what was happening - between Akihiko's setting up and her previous time watching the two doctors, she was intrigued to see if this truly was custom or mere coincidence.

Something about Feferi reminded him of his little sister, just grown up a little and...well, not human. Miki would probably be about the same age if she were still around.

"Well, usually there's plenty of space for everyone, but yeah, you pick where you'd like to be for the day. Some people like to set up under trees for the shade. Me, I like to be close to the water."

First things first. He anchored the towel at the corner with his bag, and began to apply the sunscreen.

Feferi nodded as Akihiko's explanation of how humans tended to approach their beach trips. While she was technically, by human equivalent, a teenager there was still a very child-like fascination when it came to learning more about the humans.

"That makes a lot of sense. Though I think your choice of location makes the most."

There was a playful hint to her tone, despite the fact that she truly meant what she'd said - it wasn't, after all, as though she would be likely to disagree with someone's love of the water.

She continued to watch as Akihiko started to apply sunscreen, intrigued to learn the "proper" way even as she was quite proud of her own attempts.

"Really? That's right, you're a sea troll. The best part about the beach is swimming in the ocean. The water resistance makes the workout a bit tougher than if you just walk or run on land."

He tossed the bottle back into his backpack after finishing, then bent over and retrieved a pair of blue goggles for later. He gave the pail a questionable look, but immediately remembered why he'd brought it and pulled it out. "Oh, I brought some stuff for sand castles too. I wasn't sure if you wanted to see how it was done."

Feferi gave a slight smile as Akihiko spoke of some form of "workout". "Well, I wouldn't know about that. I just know I feel more at home in the water...which makes sense, of course."

As she continued to watch him remove items from his backpack, Feferi gave a sudden gasp of shock as he brought out the pail. A faint purple tinge crept into her cheeks as she scanned the beach, making sure none of the other trolls were near enough to notice. Lowering her voice slightly, she commented, "You never told me sand hives involved...that!"

Akihiko scratched at his head. "Is that bad?" He blinked, trying to make sense of why she might be blushing. He never did quite understand girls, so it probably wasn't a surprise that he wouldn't understand girls of other humanoid species as well. "Putting sand in a bucket?"

Feferi fought to get her embarassment under control, keeping her gaze pointedly away from the bucket.

"But it...and you let wrigglers play with them? That's obscene!" She hadn't meant to sound so outraged, she was just stunned at the blase nature with which Akihiko was displaying the bucket. Had humans no sense of shame?!

"I-I don't understand, Feferi!" The bucket? He put it back in the bag. Obviously it was causing her distress. "...We don't have to make a...sand hive. It just helps the sand look more like castle pillars."

Now that the offending object was away from her eyeline, Feferi was able to think a little more rationally, and it was here it finally twigged that humans might not view buckets in the same way as trolls.

Still blushing, she explained, "I did not mean to peturb you. It's just..." She paused, trying to find the words to explain. "What is something which humans find embarassing to look at because it reminds them of reproduction?"

"Reproduction...oh! Uh," His face flushed deep red with embarrassment, even though it was hard to wrap his head around how a bucket played a part in troll mating. "Several things...skimpy clothing I guess is one." Akihiko was one of the few young guys who went to the beach and didn't care what the girls were wearing, or that they were barely wearing anything at all. "Condoms too."

He dug in the bag once more, spying the bottled water. "Sorry, I'll keep it in here...Are plastic bottles, um, offensive to trolls?"

Feferi nodded. "Well, that's what buckets are to trolls. Though evidentally that is not the case for humans."

Blinking slightly as he asked about the plastic bottle, she shook her head. "Nope. Just buckets." Pausing a moment, she added, "But if there is something else we could use instead to create sand-hives, that would be okay."

"I'll remember that." He was curious of their culture, but he hoped that he wouldn't continue to absentmindedly offend them. He couldn't even understand his own species yet.

"You read my mind." He opened one of the water bottles and got to work on drinking most of its contents. One he'd guzzled about three quarters of the bottle, he poured the rest over a patch of sand. "I think I brought a Swiss army knife..." He pulled out a small, red object, and carefully pried a knife tip from its center. "We can use the bottle. I'll cut off the top part, and we can make thinner pillars instead." He laughed a bit to himself as he worked on cutting the plastic. "Wow, this brings back memories."

Feferi grinned as Akihiko explained he was going to make the bottle into something they could use. She had to give him credit, he was giving a fine display of human adaptability.

"I promise you, no mind-reading occurred. Psionics are not something I have a talent for." Of course, unaware that mind-reading was even less common for humans than it was for trolls, she had taken his claim literally and was responding as such.

With a smile as he metioned memories, she responded, "Oh? How so?"

Akihiko examined the cup he created, and started to scoop the wet sand inside of it with his hands. "Gotta pack the container with sand first. If it's a little wet, it packs better." He didn't really need the small shovel for the task anymore, but it did help in smoothing the top of the mold.

He scratched his head briefly at the mention of psionics. "Trolls must be pretty amazing."

"My little sister and I used to play in a sandbox. I'd build her a sand castle, and she'd pretend to be a monster and destroy it." He laughed.

Feferi watched as Akihiko demonstrated the castle-making process, grinning slightly as he mentioned the benefits of wet sand. After all, underwater all sand was wet, and thus apparently prime sand-hive material.

Shrugging at his comment about trolls, she replied, "I don't know, are we? I guess it all just seems normal to me. I think humans are pretty fascinating." Not that she knew very much about them. But she liked what she'd found out so far. Mostly.

Blinking slightly in confusion at his story about him and his sister, Feferi asked, "You keep sand in a box? Is it that special to humans?"

"There's a saying...'the grass is always greener on the other side', I guess. I don't mind answering your questions."

He soon had six sand pillars constructed in a rectangular frame. Slowly, this castle was coming together. "Well, since kids like to play in the sand, they make a space for it in a shallow box. That way you don't have to go all the way to the beach to play with it. So what do...'wrigglers' like to play with?"

Feferi gave him a confused look at his saying. "Grass? What does grass have to do with anything?"

She continued to watch him build, unable to deny that he had a fair grasp of structure, even by the standards of someone who'd had to build their own hive at an early age.

"I see. So it's like a mini beach that can go anywhere? I didn't realise humans liked sand that much."

At his question, she shrugged. "Wrigglers don't really play, at least from what I remember. I just remember pupating, and then the Trials...and then I was assigned Gl'bgolyb. I don't remember any playing until we surfaced and finished the hive."

"Uh, it means we both find each other's lives interesting, even though we both think of our own as normal."

He nodded. "Pretty much."

Trials? Assignments? Troll childhood sounded pretty rough. And they had to build a house on top of that. "Wow. Are those tests?" Perhaps it was like school for them? He could only try to find similarities to help him make sense of things. He did try to remember what she'd talked about during their previous conversations though. "That's your...lusus, right?"

"Oh. Okay. Though I don't see why the colour of our grass has an effect on us finding each other interesting. We're just open to different cultures." Which, given some of the trolls, was refreshing.

She shrugged at his question. "Of a kind. Only those grubs who survive the Trials get to surface. They're rather dangerous if you don't know what you're doing."

Nodding as he mentioned her lusus, she replied, "Yes, that's correct. We share a blood colour, which is what determines which trolls fall into the care of which lusus."

The more Akihiko hears about troll childhood, the more respect he has for them. But still, he continues to craft the little 'sand hive', building up walls to connect the pillars. He's done it so often, he doesn't even have to look down at what he's working on as he talks to Feferi. "Sounds like you've had a pretty exciting life so far. Hmm, maybe I should go down by the water to look for decorations." He chuckled a bit, pleased with his simple but standard-looking sand castle.

"It's been an adventure, it's true. But that's what makes life so exciting."

She can't stop the glub that escapes, even if she'd wanted to. Then, as he mentioned looking for decorations, her eyes widened with enthusiasm.

"I'll go! There are a lot of pretty things by the water's edge. Underwater, too. We can make the prettiest sand hive in all of Wonderland."

"Sure. I'll stick around in case someone decides it would be fun to smash it."

"Well that wouldn't be nice, but okay!"

And Feferi's off towards the water's edge in search of pretty things. She may be some time.

Which is perfectly okay with Akihiko. He looks out at the water and smiles a bit. He's a busy body, but sometimes he likes to sit back and take in peaceful surroundings like this. When he last went to the beach with his friends, it felt like they were on their feet the entire time. Part of that trip had been 'business' too.

Satisfied, he went back to working on the castle, trying to make ridges in the walls like the ones in storybooks.

[open to all]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action] Ah, cultural differences

[Action] Oh dear, and I just read that part too xD

[Action] It completely escaped me until it was mentioned in his post xD

[Action] Oh Aki, more female!fail for you

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action] Sorry, LJ is doing some odd stuff.

[Action] Business as usual then xD

[Action]

[Action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action] Sorry, I keep switching tenses ^^;

[action] No worries. /will also stop switching

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]