sixfeetofdirt | TLV: IC Contact

"Did you ever get to travel... anywhere outside of the city?"

She crouches, the water still far too shallow to get her wet, and crosses her arms loosely around her knees.

"Not before the illithid took me. At least, not while I was a vampire," Astarion says, with a shrug. "There's a village just outside the city walls, Rivington - I went there a handful of times. But no further. There was a limit to how far I could entice someone to go in pursuit of a good time."

And if he wasn't hunting, he shouldn't have been outside anyway.

"And before you were a vampire?"

She doesn't mean it to be a trick question, although she's interested in the answer; he's said he didn't remember anything, and then had a whole story at the Solstice campfire. She sets her chin on her crossed arms, letting the sun warm the slope of her back.

"Mm. Probably? I recall almost nothing, up until the time shortly before I was turned. That being said, I don't think I was always local. I doubt I had family in the city."

She's been working on that, working on an idea, but she has to vet it fully first.

Now isn't the time. The sun sparkles off the water, and she spots something and smiles.

"Will you make fun of me if I show you a pretty rock?" she asks, lightly.

"....No," he says, with a sly smile which then relaxes. "No, I won't. I promise. I like pretty things as much as the next person."

"Well, it is a rock," she allows, mouth quirking in return, but she reaches down into the sand in front of her to scoop it out with her fingers, then holds it loosely in her palm to let the movement of the waves wash it out for her.

It turns out to be a shell instead of a rock, about the size of her thumb, glistening pearlescent white and coffee gold spots along the spiraled outer walls.

"I wish we could keep it. I could make a good necklace out of that."

Astarion laughs softly, taking it if she'll let him, turning it over in her hands.

"Not a rock. But you're right. It is very pretty. And the colours would suit you," he adds.

She hands it up willingly, rinsing her hands in the surf again.

It's a compliment that gets a familiar sly kind of smile.

"All colors suit me," she asserts, reaching down to sink her fingertips into the sand and water, too. "I made a necklace out of a broken piece of taillight, once. Accessories are important even at the end of the world."

"Small pleasures are important," he agrees, quietly. "However you might take them."

"You ever tried to skip a rock?" she wonders, settling back into her compact crouch.

"I have! I'm rather good at it, actually. Not dissimilar in principle to throwing knives," Astarion says, casting around for likely candidates.

She had the same though, honestly. She points helpfully a bit further up from where they are.

"Think you can do it on waves?"

"I'm game to try," he says, rising from his own crouch with a little handful of pebbles. "Feeling competitive?"

There is absolutely no way she'll win this. It's what he does.

She scrunches her nose up as she considers the beach, then unfolds from her crouch and holds her hand out.

"What, you think it's gonna be an easy win?"

He giggles and gives her half his stones.

"I can't possibly guess at your own skills, damia. If I was sure I'd win, I probably would have thought of something to win."

She smiles, sifting them between her palms.

"Wise stance. Alright then - challenger goes first."

"I feel like that was you simply by bringing it up, but very well," he chuckles.

He weighs the first pebble in his hand, testing the feel of it, then watches the waves for a few moments and throws. It manages four skips before catching the crest of a wave and going under.

"I just wanted to watch you show off!" she protests, raising one hand to shade her eyes to watch.

"You're the one who asked about being competitive." Dammit. She's good on a flat lake, but that's not this.

She does almost the same, shamelessly taking the cue from him, but her rock only skips once in the trough between one wave and the next.

"Pinche pendejo."

"Now, now, no need to pick on yourself." He doesn't know what the words mean, but he knows the intonation.

His next throw only manages two skips, and he clicks his tongue in irritation.

"The door is open," she narrates, smirking.

She's a fast learner, and not starting from scratch on this skill at least. Her next throw does two and a half skips, eaten up right before it would have landed and spun off the third time.

Astarion nods, impressed, and proceeds to utterly fluff the next toss. One skip and then a wave he didn't anticipate.

"That was the ocean's fault," he grouses. "Umberlee has cursed me."

She raises an eyebrow, then looks over at him.

"Are you letting me win?" she asks, tossing her next stone in her hand.

Astarion gasps and looks back at her, a hand on his chest.

"Darling, I swear on all that I hold dear that that was a completely authentic moment of ineptitude."

"I've watched you shoot exploding mushrooms from half a football field away," she reminds him.

"And I'm sure you were barely trying."

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