[Santo - The Beach]

[walk_ins]

[master post]

You have to walk down a ramp to get to the sand. The ramp stretches over sand dunes, with sea oats dotting them, blowing in the near-constant breeze. On the same level as the ramp: a boardwalk, dotted with places to get sketchy-looking fried food, to try your luck at a number of games of chance, to watch performers, to ride roller coasters of the future!!!!

When you walk down the ramp, it's all white sand and blue water. Down about half a mile is a pier that juts out several hundred feet.

It's a nice beach. Not too crowded.

Comments

[river_meimei]

"You're like you."

Beat.

River brushes a light hand along the edge of the boardwalk, her eyes still on Rose. She's lucky, or she calculated well: the wind and water and sand have worn it down too much for splinters. "I'm a gunslinger."

Her other hand hangs at her side, dangling easy; dangling just where a holster would be, if she were wearing one over her loose ruffling sundress.

[ofthatantet.livejournal.com]

"My mom," she says slowly, "didn't tell me there were other gunslingers at Milliways. Anymore, I guess."

[river_meimei]

"Just me."

That's soft. Shadowed, a little.

"Trained and trial."

And then the shadow slips away again, and she tilts a smile up at the boardwalk, and the other girl. "I'm on the beach," she adds earnestly, in case Rose missed that detail.

[ofthatantet.livejournal.com]

It's not River's fault; there's a lot Rose's mother doesn't tell her.

"And it's a nice day," she says, smiling, picking up the thread again.

[river_meimei]

"Got the sky."

River lifts her boots again, and sets them on the edge of the boardwalk. Both palms rest flat on the wood, now, presumably preparatory to pushing herself up; she doesn't move just yet, though.

"Always do," she confides instead. "But now there's sun."

[ofthatantet.livejournal.com]

Rose regards the sun. "Is there not usually?"

It's an alien planet. There was a story she read in the fifth grade, something about a world where it rained all the time...

[river_meimei]

"Sometimes it's stars."

[ofthatantet.livejournal.com]

"At... night?" Even as she says it, she knows it isn't the right answer.

[river_meimei]

"That too," River says cheerfully, and twists to sit on the edge of the boardwalk, bare feet dangling. She's been wading, it seems; there's damp sand clinging to her skin, up to the ankle.

"They're shy," she says to the sky, a little distantly. "Atmo's a veil."

[ofthatantet.livejournal.com]

Atmo, she repeats subvocally; you can almost watch her gears turn. Atmosphere.

"You mean in space? There's no sunshine in space?"

Is something wrong with this girl, or is this some opaque future jargon, or a language issue?

[river_meimei]

River glances up at Rose again, this time over her shoulder.

"It's the black," she says patiently, though without condescension.

"Depends on where you go. You can see them. Every one in the direct optical line."

[ofthatantet.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, but you can't tan." She grins.

[river_meimei]

River grins back.

"The melanin logistics are complex," she agrees.

Well, her tone seems to imply agreement, anyhow.