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 Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 9:14 pm
"I'll bring it up with her," Lorenzo mused. "I'm not her parent, so I can't demand anything of her. Nothing that doesn't have to do with standard necromantic procedures for clients, anyway. Well, not even that, really." Vesna seemed to be only half aware of this. Part of Lorenzo felt like he was deceiving her, but a smaller and considerably less noble part of him adamantly insisted that this was probably for the best.
"No prob, Bob," Vesna said airily. "I can spell really well. I can also spell 'really well'. The only kind of spelling I'm not so good at is Russian spelling, but that's because I'm still getting the hang of their alphabet. Oh! And I can spell things in Japanese. Well, in katakana. But it looks really cool."
She floated over to Claire and Lorin as Claire joined them in the water. "Anything that looks pointy or dangerous isn't good," she agreed. "Go for pretty shells and stuff since we're gonna write pretty words!"
There was a splash as Lorenzo tentatively waded towards them. Vesna asked "If all these shells used to be alive, can you resurrect them??" she asked.
"The short answer is no," Lorenzo replied. "And the long answer is-"
"-Something I don't care about, probably," Vesna intuited.
"Probably," Lorenzo relented. "If anyone gets hurt, I brought a small first aid kit, though."
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Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 2:28 pm
With Claire next to them and Lorenzo wading closer, Lorin kept his attention on Vesna, and his face did little to mask how impressed he was with her. "You know lots, don't you?" he asked, awestruck. All of the Raevans he had met so far were varied and talented: Amity with her interest in sci-fi, Cesc and his baking skills, Eth and her green thumb, and now Vesna with her knowledge of justice and different languages, work in progress as they were. He looked down at his hands, the lapping waves blurred underneath them as he focused, wondering what exactly he was able to do that he could share with others in this way. He could color a little bit, and he liked to read, but he was not particularly good at either of those things. Could he still be an ally of justice like this?
Vesna's back and forth with her guardian warranted a small laugh from Claire and distraction for Lorin from his soft worries. His hands lowered to his sides and scanned the sand beneath the waves; even if he did not have any particular talents yet, he could at least find the prettiest shells for them, just as Vesna had advised.
"Always good to be prepared," Claire replied with a thankful nod. 'Prepared' was a word that she had quickly come to associate with the necromancer, but it was a welcome one. She then turned to Vesna with a sympathetic smile. "And even if it were possible, I think that would be bad news for our beach art, wouldn't it?" She saw in a flash the shells skittering for the safety of the water, reluctant to stay put. "It's harder to get pictures of a moving target, after all." Lorin's gaze, ever travelling and focused on his new mission, enticed him away from the group as he searched, and he let loose a gasp of delight at a small peach-colored conch beneath his ribbon. He plunged forward and plucked it from the waves, feeling the rough exterior and the smoothness of the inner shell as he turned it over in his hands.
"Look at this one, Vesna!" he called, holding it over his head. Claire waded the few steps towards the honey Frei and he lowered it for her; she turned it over to peer inside, and thankfully it was empty.
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Friendly Conversationalist
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Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2017 12:54 pm
There were plenty of small, swirly snail shells on the beach, and mussel shells to boot. Vesna wasn't squeamish picking them up, having lived in an office where dead, rotting animals were also known as clients.
"Dad," she said, bringing back a fistful of shells and depositing them in his hands, "Can you put these somewhere?"
"If you want," Lorenzo agreed. He looked around, and obligingly set them on the towel he had brought, laying it out on the sand and pulling out a book entitled NAUTICAL NECROMANCY- FROM MINNOWS TO WHALES, which Vesna supposed passed for his situationally appropriate light reading material, and setting it on the towel to keep it from blowing away.
"Help us look," Vesna asked before he could sit down to open it, and he waded uncertainly into the water with her, keeping his eye at a fixed spot in the middle distance. "Look at the ground to find shells," she explained, swallowing a laugh at his obvious dismay.
"Lorin!" she said, as he called her over. "You're a natural!" The shells she had found were all pretty drab, but Lorin's really stood out. She waited until Claire's safety inspection was over to examine it properly, and asked, "Do you wanna keep this one safe? It's too pretty to just use to spell a word out, don't you think?"
Lorenzo waded over after Vesna, more slowly than either her or Claire. "That's a nice shell," he agreed. "Whose home do you think it used to be?"
"Something with great taste?" Vesna guessed quizzically.
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Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2017 9:25 pm
"A sea snail, I'd think," Claire offered as Lorin turned the opening towards her again. He squinted into its recess, trying to find a sign of its former resident, but it was as his mama had discovered - it was vacant. "And definitely very good taste."
"Musta found a better home," Lorin commented with a nod. He imagined a grander shell than the one in his hands, white and rosy pink, perhaps shiny like the shells Vesna had collected and passed off to Lorenzo.
"You could use this as a flourish," Claire suggested, tapping her chin in thought. "Dot for an I, perhaps. But I agree; maybe it'll be a good memento for your trip today. You could put it on your shelf, honey." Her hand landed softly on the boy's shoulder, tilting her head towards him as she voiced her question. Lorin held the conch to his chest with one hand while the other slid along the rim, feeling the different textures. With some careful deliberation, he nodded anew to himself and held it out to Vesna proudly.
"You can take it home, Vesna," he said with a growing smile. "It's a present! I'll find a new one, then we can have matching ones." The idea of both of them taking something tangible with them after their fun day together felt more appealing than him being the sole owner of a new shelf decoration. Already his eyes were on the move, scanning below the water line for another flash of pink; if they found one, there was certain to be another somewhere. Claire's hand dipped below the waves to pluck a sand dollar from the sand beneath her feet, flipping it over to make sure that it was not still alive.
"Have you figured out what kind of word you want to spell?" she said, directing her gaze to Vesna before it briefly flickered to Lorin. The honey Frei paused in thought, hovering low to the lapping waves which tickled against the edge of his ribbon. With such a limited vocabulary (and even more limited spelling), the choice was difficult for him, but he glanced at the growing pile left on Lorenzo's beach towel.
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Friendly Conversationalist
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Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 6:23 pm
"For me??" Vesna gasped. "I'll put it somewhere extra safe. And I'll find you a cool shell! Watch this." She flapped her fin wings and took a deep breath, diving under the water and rushing off along the shore- not so deep as to worry Lorenzo. Surfacing a ways away, she shouted, "Found one!!" and floated back to them- above the water's surface this time.
Lorenzo worried anyway. "Vesna!" he said, and sloshed uselessly after her for a few paces.
"It's not the same, but I think it's pretty cool!" She held out a molted white crab shell with delicate pink spots. "I double checked to make sure it was empty. Crabs lose their shells, too, right?"
"They molt," Lorenzo offered. "Vesna, you should really tell me before you just rush off- underwater, no less!"
"Sorry Dad," Vesna said, just a touch insincerely. "My soul is aquatic though, right?" She flapped her wings. "And my essence is, like, literally water. I thought it would probably be fine." She looked at Lorin and warned, "You should probably practice swimming first, though. Leave this stuff to the experts for now, and then when you're read to be a hero of justice, we can race!"
She handed Lorin the crab shell gingerly and looked to the shore, where the other shells were collected. "We don't have quiiite enough yet, but how about we spell 'friends'? Since we made new friends today, right?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 9:24 pm
"Ah!" Lorin's eyes rounded in surprise and joy at Vesna's dive and the treasure she managed to find. "Thank you!" He admired the colored spots, and the similarly rough and smooth alternating textures on it - their choices were not so completely different, after all. He listened with interest as Lorenzo explained, glancing to the shell briefly and leaning sideways to peer inside out of curiosity.
"Yeah, I gotta learn still," he admitted as he craned his neck to look at his leaf-like wings, damp from the salt spray. Compared to Vesna's aquatic fins, he was at a slight disadvantage in the water. Lorin knew enough about his composition to realize that both were land-based, and as such, he deferred to Vesna's wisdom there. The bid to train to become a true hero of justice was part of the title, he assumed - it was something prevalent in the movies he had seen so far, training montages, and he was determined to do what he could.
"We've got plenty of time, honey," Claire added kindly. "We'll have to get you some swim fins." Lorin nodded, slowly, but not quite in comprehension as he looked to Vesna's fins - he had no idea that was something one could buy. The shift in conversation back to their word choice brightened him immediately as she passed him the shell and he nodded with as much fervor as he could muster.
"That's a good word!" he agreed, beaming at them all in turn. His gaze landed on the shore as well, and he clutched the crab shell to him, floating towards it to deposit it with their other finds. "We got lots more to find but we can do it." Of that, he was absolutely certain.
"Then we'd better get to work, shall we?" Claire noted with a soft smirk as her hand dipped below the waves for another shell.
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Friendly Conversationalist
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