abraxaslogs | A much deserved vacation day!

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A much deserved vacation day!

Who: The Free Cities Summoned
What: Beach Party Episode, aka the Summoned take a break and enjoy the new portal
When: June 6thish, post Nocwich weekend. We can timey wimey it folks.
Where: Aquila!

[ooc: these are just suggested prompts, please feel free to roll with any ideas you have! Thanks to Hannah for sharing the code. Descriptions about Aquila are taken from the settings page here and credited to the mods. A player-made Pinterest mood board was created here for inspiration, but keep the world of Abraxas in mind for the reality.]

The Aquila Portal / Time to Go!

An invite shows up on the network from Jesper Fahey to the Free Cities Summoned stating the following:

Hey everyone, I managed to score funds from our money makers to have a group outing through the Aquila portal. We deserve it, don't you think? We did vote it into being after all. So get out your beach day clothes (or lack thereof) and meet at 9 AM tomorrow. If you come later, I'll let the portal people know the list allowed. They've got chairs and such to rent there, so don't worry if you don't have anything helpful.

Let's party like we're in the Horizon! If you need some extra cash while there I know the people to beg.

PS - No arguing, Crows. (That means you Kaz.)

True to his word, Jesper will be waiting at the newly opened portal to mark the Summoned so they're allowed to get through with the money he's collected. He'll smile and wink at them as they go through. He is dressed casually himself for this outing and in high spirits. Summoned can meet up here and go through together if they'd like or maybe be persuaded if they're not really sure about it.

Welcome to Aquila!

Aquila is the world's fastest-growing economy and the scenery in Aquila is also considered some of the most beautiful, with both the mountains and beaches of Andromeda Bay nearby, making it a popular destination for vacationers.

The beach may be exciting, but it isn't the only part of Aquila to enjoy! The massive public market takes up most of the city's center. Anything you might want can be found here. Countless booths and stalls and carts fill the town's center, and traders from all across the nation congregate to offer their wares. From raw materials such as fabrics, dyes, exotic wood and stones, to finely crafted artisan everything. Furniture, clothing, foodstuffs, weapons, art, magical oddities, it's all here. The market opens at sun-up and shuts down sometime after sunset - plenty of sellers will linger, hoping for one last sale of the day.

Art and fashion thrive in Aquila. Studios and galleries of art are scattered all over the city and artists sketching or painting out on the streets or on the nearby beaches are a common sight. This is the time to go looking for new clothes as seamstresses and tailors are all looking to outdo themselves and create the next big fashion statement.

But if it's the beach fun you're looking for ....

Fun in the Sun!

It's more crowded than usual in Aquila thanks to the emergence of the portal, but the Summoned will manage to camp out their own area on the right side of the beach and have freedom to enjoy themselves alone. Nearby one of the entrances of the beach is a local business called The Wave Palace. There people can buy or rent chairs, cloth to sit on, hats, and other beach items to feel more comfortable.

Once settled onto their spot on the beach, the Summoned can enjoy a full day of various activities to either relax or be active. They can swim or race to see who is the better swimmer, do the same on a sand race, and head up to a popular nearby cliff that is perfect to jump off of. Challenge each other to the perfect dive or laugh if someone ends up belly-flopping.

Anyone can lounge comfortably in the sun or maybe they want to get creative and build sandcastles. They can rent bowls and sticks and other instruments at the shop to gather sand correctly. Maybe your castle is remarkably impressive or dismal at best, but the point is to have fun. If you're feeling mischievous you can bury a friend in sand, or even a stranger if you want to test fate. You can find rocks or shells to collect and bring home as a reminder of the trip here.

There is a bar down the beach called The Wave Crash Pub where people can sit and listen to live music or carry drinks back to their chair. At some point in the day, someone suggests playing a game of volleyball or something similar, and a net and ball can be found to set it up. Test your might against each other and no cheating! (Just kidding, cheat away.)

As the day comes to a close, stay long enough to watch the sunset together or do some night swimming to cool off. When it's time to go home, don't forget to either return your rented items or decide to buy it. See if you can convince a friend to get a keepsake or ask their opinion of one on the way out. Hope you all had fun in this beach day episode!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Why would you need to do a lot of climbing? Does this have to do with being an assassin?" The question feels like the most natural one to ask, particularly when she spots his gaze dart towards the cliff. Not that she can read minds, but why did she get the feeling that he considered just leaping out of this conversation?

Surely he wouldn't do something so rude. Even if his initial intent had been to come up here and dive off anyway, there were easier ways to leave a conversation that didn't involve that. Then again, Hilda wouldn't put it past him. Her eyes narrow. "Oh my gosh, you were just thinking about just diving right off, weren't you?"

"No."

Is that an answer to her first question or her second? Or both? Who can say.

"Did you come up here just to interrogate people, Hilda?" If he doesn't want to stand here for ages as the object of such interrogations, he may as well push back. "Or am I a special case? Is there anything else you think I've hidden from you that you'd like to know about now?"

Hilda's mouth opens and closes in an attempt to formulate a response to the very valid question. Fine, he's got her there. There hadn't really been any particular rhyme or reason why she had decided to pursue him to the top of the diving cliff apart from being completely shocked that it was him in the first place. Now that said shock has worn off, she's left with little steam left.

Had she not been already bickering with someone else, she might have had more nonsensical reasons, but as it stands she doesn't. Maybe Altaïr had the right idea to dive off the cliff. "Of course I didn't come up here to interrogate people," she finally manages hotly choosing (for once) to back down. "I'm just surprised that's all."

With her arms crossed she looks like the spitting image of a younger her when she didn't get her way. Instead she chooses to change the subject - they're here now, aren't they? "Where did you learn how to dive off a cliff?" Because that's what she assumed he was coming up here to do in the first place before she had so rudely interrupted him.

His retort is apparently good enough to win him a few seconds of silence. Altaïr supposes he should be glad but mostly he finds it disconcerting; it's too rare an occurrence when Hilda is around to be comfortable with it.

Thankfully, she moves on. For the moment. He won't trust that it will last.

"I live among mountains, with a river running below the cliffs that surround our village," he says. "The young people of Masyaf train for high leaps from a young age."

Entirely true. Of course, they're generally not leaping into the river.

It's not the first time she's heard about the world someone has come from, but this is the first time that she's heard much about Altaïr's homeland. They've never had the opportunity to, now that she thinks about it. The first time they had any real extended time together after they had initially met had been looking for clues at the bandit camp. The environment and scenario didn't really foster 'get to know you' vibes, but had she really not had the opportunity to ask after that?

"What were they training for?" Young people diving off heights into water for fun isn't unheard of, but it's the word 'train' that throws her off. Her thoughts immediately go to what he had told her at the gala and her voice lowers, as a group of locals pass by them. Even though she lowers it, there's a hint of it sounding like she hasn't quite taken it to heart yet or accepted it for the truth.

When they've passed by she still continues on in the lowered tone asking, "Is it because of what you told me before? You know the...assassin thing?"

Edited 2023-06-27 23:54 (UTC)

He's not sure if he should count that as a slip or not. True, it's rare that anyone — no matter how prepared for life in a war-torn land — would train for their leaps of faith, designed equally for intimidation and escape. He should have expected that Hilda might press the point if he wanted to avoid questions about his past.

But does he? The thought comes more out of habit than real concern. He's already revealed quite a bit to her, though he's aware she didn't necessarily believe much of it.

Altaïr joins her in going silent as locals draw near, then walk away, though thanks to Hilda he's aware that at least two of them give him a lingering glance as they pass.

"It might be. It's convenient in a tight situation." One of his making, most often. "But this—" he gestures at the cliff "—was just for enjoyment, I thought. Or supposed to be."

He's not particularly enjoying himself right now.

If the added on 'supposed to be' was meant to draw attention to her bratty behaviour and make her feel guilty about it, it certainly does the job. She can feel the cloying feel of having done wrong creep up on her and the light dusting of pink across her cheeks deepens.

Truth be told, she hadn't exactly thought through what her plan was after this. Like so many times before in the past she had simply acted on what she felt was best, making it up as she went along. She was no Master Tactician, no brilliant commander. She was just Holst's younger sister and only daughter of House Goneril. Planning was usually reserved for parties and outfits, not handling the feelings of a friend. At least not usually.

So in some ways, she acts impulsively again, not quite thinking about the consequences to her actions and blurts out, "Okay, well can you teach me how to cliff dive then?" She'll probably regret this in about five minutes, but that's a future Hilda problem.

Once again, Hilda has completely surprised him. He pauses before replying, and the expression on his face clearly says no, but he refrains for the moment.

"Not the way I was trained," he says. "You'd likely break your neck. I don't want that on my conscience."

Into the water, though...he glances back at the cliff briefly, and considers.

"You might still break your neck diving into the sea with no experience, but it's less likely. And up to you whether you want to take the chance."

Put that way, it doesn't sound like a terribly enthralling prospect, but he has a feeling he knows what Hilda's response will be anyway.

This is supposed to be her apology in some ways, but she can't stop the completely unimpressed, flat look she gives him at his vote of confidence. Here she is trying to apologize (never mind that she hadn't actually uttered the words, "I'm sorry") and he's being stubborn about it.

Her jaw sets and there's a look in her eyes that clearly says she'll show him who's going to break their neck before marching right over to the edge of the cliff. She arrives just in time to see the last local from before leap off the edge and it doesn't look elegant by any definition of the word. And while it doesn't look elegant, she watches as their head emerge from the waters sans a broken neck. If they could do it, so could she.

"Well if you don't teach me then I'm just going to dive off. It can't be that hard."

He meets her look-for-look. If directly pressed and unable to avoid answering, Altaïr would admit that he likes Hilda. That doesn't mean he's going to act as though her behavior during this encounter is anything other than what it is.

"The diving is easy," he says, having followed her over to the cliff. Just to make sure she doesn't do something extremely foolish. "Landing is harder. From the right height, even something soft won't do anything to cushion your landing if you fall wrong."

Which means, he realizes, that he will indeed have to instruct her. He sighs.

"Have you even dived before? From a lower height."

Hearing his footsteps behind her, she scootches over to make room for him all while keeping her gaze below them. The longer she stares down at the waves though and the bobbing figures of the people below the dizzier she gets. Finally she tears her gaze up and back towards Altaïr.

"Does a dock count?" Goneril never got especially hot even in the summer months. But on the days that it did, it wasn't uncommon for her to rush to the lakes and diving right now. "I used to swim in the lakes with my brother when it got really hot back home," she says aloud, a wistfulness punctuating the word brother as she looks back to where the horizon meets the waves. "We didn't have much of an opportunity to the rest of the year. It was cold so you definitely wouldn't catch me in those glacial lakes."

As if she catching herself sounding too sentimental about her brother, Hilda shakes herself from her stupor with a bit of a lilt to her voice. "He's the one who taught me how to swim so if something happens to me after I dive it's on him."

Edited (💀) 2023-07-10 01:54 (UTC)

He's about to say no, absolutely not, but Hilda continues and he listens. There's a fondness and nostalgia in her tone that Altaïr has never heard before, and it eases some of the bristling she's prompted.

The scene she describes sounds utterly mundane, but the way she describes it is as though it's something personal and precious. Maybe because it's a memory of family. He wouldn't know.

"I doubt that will be the case unless you decide to be even more foolish than usual out of stubbornness. Here, let me show you."

He explains as best he can without being able to demonstrate (it would take far too long for him to dive and climb back up the cliff), attempting all the while to remember his own teacher's words. In the end it comes down to body positioning and calm thinking and, ultimately, faith.

Altaïr looks at Hilda, and looks down at the water. It's not so very far below, but it might seem so to a first-timer. "Are you ready to try?"

It is mundane. If prompted, Hilda would probably be the first to brush it off as neither personal nor precious; it was just swimming around in a lake with her older brother and his friends after all. That had been done more than once, and those summer days of her childhood blurred together so seamlessly that it's sometimes hard for her to pick apart how old they had been at the time.

But being so far from home, having been granted in a very roundabout way, the space she wanted from her overbearing brother, has resulted in a strange wave of nostalgia in an unexpected place. The sentimentality probably stems from feeling a little untethered too given the current state of her friendships from home - but diving takes precedence over thinking about that.

His statement is met with puffed cheeks and a pout, but she doesn't retaliate, listening instead to Altaïr's How to Dive for Dummies mastercall. When he's done there's a beat of silence before she gives a hesitant nod, stepping up to the edge of the cliff. Apparently her consequences now catching up to her actions.

"Do you really think I'm going to land flat like a pancake and break my neck?"

...Or we're going to stall. That could be an option too.

The lengthy pause and hint of a skeptical expression make it clear what Altaïr's internal response is to her question...or so it seems. After a moment, he shakes his head.

"Only if you don't believe that you can do it," he says. "It's a leap of faith."

So to speak.

"You have it in yourself, or you don't."

The seriousness of his tone seems like it should apply to something other than a recreational cliff dive — yet it doesn't feel out of place, at least not to Altaïr. He means what he says. And while he may believe in her, it comes down to Hilda's belief in the end.

He's lucky she's already made the executive decision to be less bratty in that moment otherwise that look would have been met with some sort of reaction. More than that though, it's the seriousness and gravity of his words that really gives her pause. ...It was just a cliff dive, wasn't it? It wasn't some big deal, he's simply stating a fact. He isn't being mean, and she isn't actually going to fall flat like a pancake but she's unlikely to dive spectacularly the first time around.

Perhaps it's a good thing that his impassive face is difficult to read. She's probably just reading into the seriousness of it all. This is some elaborate Altair-style joke - and frankly thinking that helps take the edge off. Expectations usually made her balk and run in the other direction.

After another beat of silence Hilda moves towards the cliff's edge huffing, "Well I guess we'll see." She steadies herself, toes wiggling themselves into the dirt as she tentatively inches herself towards the edge. Everything he'd just said flips through her mind and after another breath - she leaps. It's not so different from the feeling when she's hurtling towards the ground with Waffle to aid her. Except Waffle isn't here. It's truly just her and the hope - or faith - that she was going to land and not completely bungle this somehow.

She crashes through the water, surfacing moments later with the feeling of water having gotten up her nose. No one looks elegant surfacing from the water with sopping wet hair and spluttering because of the awful burning sensation in her nostrils, and she can't help but cough, "Oh Goddess -," But realization settles in and joy bubbles through the knee jerk reaction.

"Altair - ," she calls up the cliff side to him with a resounding laugh, "I did it!"

He stands and watches at first, gaze locked to her falling form. There's nothing else he can do to aid her, or save her if it came to that — just as he'd said, once she's taken the leap, its success comes down to Hilda and Hilda alone.

But it's fine. If her dive lacks the smoothness borne of experience, it has more grace than he would have imagined, a testament to her focus and perhaps some innate talent.

Altaïr makes his own dive moments after he sees her surface from beneath the water, taking care to arc out in a way that will help avoid him landing on her and breaking bones in both of them. (He meets her eyes before he goes — probably she can't tell from that far away that he's smiling. But maybe she can.) It only takes a few seconds for him to paddle over and tread water by her side.

"You did," he confirms, as if she really needs him to. "Well done."

She can't quite tell if he's smiling from this distance. Hilda has good eyesight but not that good - but she'd like to think he is. She's treading water but the afterglow of her successful, if mildly clumsy, dive feels like the real thing that buoys her.

There's some level of awe in her gaze as she watches Altaïr leap from the cliff. It really does look like he's flying. It's inspiring - which feels embarrassing to even think about, never mind saying it out loud. It's not so unlike the feeling that she gets watching Holst do something amazing. Unsurprisingly, when he hits the water there's barely a splash. By the time he swims over to her she can't help but grin at the compliment.

"Aw, shucks. It was all thanks to my teacher." She splashes at him playfully. "You weren't too bad yourself."

He nods in casual acceptance of the compliment. On some level, he's aware that this is an increase in humility, though people who've only known him as long as Hilda has would not see it; not so long ago, rather than accept praise, he'd have expected it as his due and barely acknowledged it at all.

Things are different now. He is not the same person, and it's grown easier and easier to live as the same man he wants to be. Whether it's time or living in Abraxas that has done this, he doesn't know.

"A teacher can only do so much if the student has no potential." He casts his gaze up at the cliff's edge, which seems farther away from this vantage than when their position were reversed. "Though practice makes a difference as well. But I don't think I'll turn today's venture into a training session."

Hilda floats onto her back, staring up at the blue sky above them, the sun beating down on her skin. The bite of it isn't as strong as it would otherwise had she not been in the water. "We are definitely not turning training into cliff diving," she warns despite him saying as much. His compliment (?) doesn't go unnoticed either, but she doesn't quite know what to say to it apart from teasing him. But even that moment comes and goes as it brushes up against the idea that she has any potential or propensity for things outside of what she knows to be true about herself. Which is not being good at very much at all.

She stays floating on her back, eyes skyward. After a moment she rights herself, hair dripping wet with the salt of the ocean. There's no hint that what he's said made her feel a spark of anxiety. Instead, all there is her usual chipper grin. "Let's go again! I guess it wasn't so bad the first time around and you can give me more pointers on how not to get water up my nose, Teach.

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A much deserved vacation day!

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i think we can wrap here? 💕