sixfeetofdirt | TLV: IC Contact

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."

"I'm a little more practiced with a bow and a static target than I am with...all this," he points out. "I promise I'm not doing anything so untoward."

"Uh huh."

She's still skeptical, but she doesn't think he's lying to her. It lets her smirk and add, "I'd hate to have to toss you in the water, so that's good."

She's off her rhythm, though, so her next rock sinks, too, and she mutters a casual swear under her breath.

Astarion chuckles under his.

"I'd hate to be tossed," he agrees. "I can...only sort of swim. I'd say Johann taught me, but it was more the case that he watched and laughed while I worked it out for myself."

"Okay first of all, I'm not sure how far you think I can throw you, but it's not deep enough that swimming would be a problem."

Only first of all so she can get it out of the way, because: "Second of all, that's bullshit. Is this the Johann that's here?"

"That was here," Astarion corrects gently. He left with surprisingly little fanfare, really. "But yes, it was he."

Well that's annoying. She frowns, and glances up from looking for another rock to finish off their little impromptu contest.

"I could actually teach you sometime," she says instead. "I'm decent."

"I'd like that. And it's rather easy to teach someone who can't drown, I imagine."

He picks up a stone near his foot and offers it to her.

"Not how I generally rate my teaching ability," she huffs, but she accepts the stone, and hesitates, looking over at him.

"Look, I know - it's been rough for you. Lately." And she's well aware he won't want to talk to her about it. "You're not doing anything ill advised to try to work it out, are you?"

Astarion tucks his hands in his pockets and looks out across the water.

"'Ill-advised' like what, darling?"

She'll take that as a yes.

"Anything you wouldn't want to try to explain to Jacob."

"Then no. I'm not doing anything Ill-advised."

He is, in fact, not doing....anything, really. Not unless he's invited to. All his ideas are pretty terrible!

She raises an eyebrow, hesitates a moment.

Then tries, "Or to me?"

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