Participants:
| Scene Title | We did SHROOMS! |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Zachery in particular is very proud of this fact. |
| Date | July 20, 2019 |
Behind Rene Dumortier's Creekside Cabin
It's officially a thousand degrees outside. Or, at least it's very high. Humid. Air conditioning isn't exactly a commodity out this way. The cabin's copse is under shade enough that it's not quite as unbearable to be outside, not that inside is much better. Lucky for anyone living here or visiting, the creek is fattened up by the torrents of summer rain.
The bank is easy to sit on, a rock here or there, but Rene has sat himself down in the shallows in a pair of shorts, nothing else. And he's holding a chubby, disgruntled salamander. Because look at it. Just look at it.
"I don't know about you, but I don't think he's coming in." Free hand skims around on the surface of the water, barely touching as his attention refocuses on it instead of the critter. Who is still attempting escape.
A second voice comes, sort of distantly, from somewhere off to the side. In a tall patch of grass, Zachery stands — looking entirely too warm as he puffs out a breath, because not only is he standing in the full sun, he is also fully dressed in - well - slacks and dress shirt, naturally, because that's probably about a third of his wardrobe, if not more. At least some of the buttons have come undone, so he's not DYING of the heat.
He blinks, looks up at a tree for a moment, then steps out from the grass in one very much less than smooth movement so he can focus his attention on Rene fully, fake and real eye both narrowing. "You didn't make the leaves greener, did you?" Then, more seriously, "Did you."
"No? Maybe. No. Maybe yes?" The ends of blonde hair sticks to his shoulders and back when Rene leans around to look up between holes in the canopy. "They always look like that to me." Finally putting down the salamander, who darts away immediately, Rene lets out a spark of laughter, hand up to squint past it and blot out some of the sun. The grass at Zach's feet does get greener now, likely putting it all way past emerald.
"You're gonna get a stroke and I'm not coming out of here to save you again." comes unprompted as thoughts hop tracks. The agrokinetic sloshes his way to his feet only to back up and plop down on the surface of the deep end of his little swimming hole. It took some effort to make this, okay? He's going to enjoy it!
"Oh, look at all the birds!" Floating and pointing makes his frame sink a bit, the breeze in the branches gusting out of reach. No birds, but definitely ten-thousand fluttering leaves.
"They're weird birds." Zachery says almost before even looking up from the greenery, and his posture seems to relax a little once he does get a good PEER at the leaves. Neat birds. "How come they don't get heat strokes? Birds are animals. We're animals. I feel like I should know this. But they're…"
His words come to a slow halt as he wanders forward a little more, out of the grass properly, apparently barefoot. "They're up there, and I'm down here. And I'm not getting a heat stroke, because I'm smart." He flashes a proud grin, makes his way onto the rocks that make up the bank, and then promptly STOPS and looks down as the sensation of the changing textures makes his nose wrinkle. "… Christ, these rocks are too alive, I think."
The sound of some great beast galumphing— oh, wait, no, it's just Kara.
Well, Kara's on a horse.
So that explains most of the heaviness.
She slides off the side of her tired bay steed to land with a thumph in the softened grass, one hand on the rein still to lead him closer to the water. "Rene," she calls out as she comes into view, for the sake of not startling him. She last thing she wanted was to be caught up in some horticulturally-fortified tree net trap made of … who knew, roots or something. She figures he might be up at his cabin, but isn't surprised at all to see him floating in the water. On a day like this? Who could blame him. The horse at her side is less enthused, but she tugs him on anyway. "Semej," she murmurs at him, along with a few short words in Farsi before reaching across her chest to pat his side.
Zachery, though, is an enigma to her, one she doesn't call out as she leads her horse down to the shore, striding right past him. "I'm out on community check-ins," she explains as for why she's here, letting her voice carry. The bay tosses his head before leaning down to drink from the water, because horsing around in this weather is thirsty work. It makes it easier for Kara to look over him and glance in Zachery's direction finally. "You… two? hanging in there?"
"Don't you love it, though?" Blue eyes darkened with the widened black of pupils blink up from the water's surface. It takes about ten seconds of standing on the rock before Zach gets splashed with water- - though it is from waving, rather than intended splashing.
"Kara! Kara's horse too! Kara. Kara." Trying to get her attention! Is she paying attention? Okay, now he's splashing around, moreso because he tries to find some footing on slippery creekbed rocks. One hand pushes wet hair back, cheeks flushed and speech getting even more chattery. "This is Zachery. He gets his butt kicked a lot but that's fine, I like him anyway."
The splashes of water hit Zachery like they're waves, and he throws both of his arms up in front of his face. hNGH. But. Then Rene's off looking elsewhere, and Zachery's attention follows the trend.
"Whoah, horse!" This is said this with all the child-like enthusiasm of someone who's never seen a horse before but REALLY wanted to. Really really. "Hold on I wanna— get a look at his insides." All at once, he starts moving toward Kara, full of WONDER and bright enthusiasm.
The childlike behavior of Rene earns a motherly response from Kara, one eyebrow arched in his direction. "Oh, do you?" she asks evenly, a forced lightness. She wants to show she's engaged, but not let him ramble. And now, now she's wondering just what is going on here.
She almost immediately sees why the one called Zachery 'gets his butt kicked a lot', her look flattening as he runs at her and her horse. The bay lifts his head to confront the thing he's charged with, but no need — Kara is stepping around the horse to better put herself between him and the human trying to bowl his way over to lay hands on him. She's already let him be run up on by children once today, after all, she needed to prove she was looking out for him.
The only reason she doesn't have a more terse reaction than physically impeding Zachery's path is that he's a friend of Rene's, though a shoulder holster hangs pleasantly by her side in case she'd like to overescalate matters. "Don't think we've met," is how she chooses to snare his attention away, figure out what the hell he means by look inside her bay.
"I do!" The reaction to seeing the horse nearby isn't a familiar one, and another laugh bubbles from the smallest of them as he props his arms on the rock just vacated. "Don't poke out his good eye he needs that one merciiii." Is Rene's helpful commentary when Kara edges between her horse and Zach.
He doesn't stay long against the bank, sinking back and ducking under the water briefly. Maybe not briefly. But he does bob back up soon, spitting a bit of water. "He won't come in here, do you want to? I think he's scared of the water but it's so nice and it's such a good hugger, Kara."
Whoop. Zachery comes to a grinding halt when Kara puts herself in between him and the horse, but he seems unperturbed. He stops just short of a crash, stumbling the last few steps.
"Rene is a liar. I could beat that water in a fight if I wanted to, hugs or not. Easy." He tells Kara this, but is still looking directly at the horse's head. Maybe past it, truth be told, eye glazing over a little. "There's so much gut in there. It's just working, all the time. Sort of like me, in a way, some days. Do you know what I'm talking about?" Now he looks to Kara, the one functional eye's pupil dilated as if to tell a story that wasn't already fairly obvious at this point. "I don't think we have met. Your face is… really fucking interesting." Handshake? It's offered, either way.
The water is a good hugger? Kara would ask if Rene was drunk, but that's odd talk for even the most mercurial of drinkers. It's such an odd thing to say that her gaze actually tears away from Zachery, brow twitching as she tries to figure it out. Then her attention stoically returns to the Brit, unmoving.
She's taken a moment to think about it, and through context clues, thinks she's placed just who he is.
His is a face indeed fit for punching.
But just as she's shown restraint in dealing with Sharrow's presence of late, so does Kara now as she regards Zachery. She takes a moment to listen to him, hear him with all the patience of a saint. Her head rotates slowly back in Rene's direction as he burbles up, attempting to hold him as the elder of the two children here at the moment. "My god, what did you take?" she asks patiently. "It's a hundred degrees out, and you…"
The handshake with Zachery is foregone as she instead rubs the side of her palm against her forehead.
Kara's stoicism doesn't look to bother Rene much, and he's already snickering when he refocuses on the two. "Exactly, it's a hundred degrees out. That's why I'm swimming and that I should be a We but he's too chicken." For a moment there's a serious note of threat, as if taunting him might work. "Take? Uhm. Psilocybe semilanceata."
"Now stop looking at that horse's guts and Kara's pretty face, she's not gonna let you touch either one of them! She'll bite you. With her fist." Rene snorts with laughter.
"I just said I wasn't a bird, so how could I be chicken?" Zachery calls over his shoulder, but his attention stays on Kara, amusement clear across his features, even if there's a few… twitches of uncertainty. His hand, for a moment, stays sort of… hovering, unshaken, until it gets clammily smacked, instead, against the side of his neck in an idle, thoughtless motion. Alrighty then. "But I should probably also stop being rude by staring." He continues, however, to stare, head angling upward as he sizes Kara up. "Unless you want to fight."
This, of course, asked in a quietly excited tone that implies he would very much like the answer to be an affirmative one.
Zachery and his question are met with a single blink before Kara looks back to Rene again, taking neither of them overseriously save for the very specific mention of what it is they've ingested. She has to weigh whether or not it's even safe for the agrokinetic to be bobbing around in the water like he is.
Probably not.
But what's the use in being a spoilsport?
Instead, that likely puts her on lifeguard duty.
Kara looks off into the middle distance for just a moment, eyelids fluttering as she resists letting her eyes roll back into her head. She lets out a long sigh in the end, and simply bends over at the waist, beginning to unfasten her boots.
She'd like to dip her toes in the water if she's going to be here for a while, thank you very much. "You can pet him, but if you hurt him, he might get to you before I do," is as much as Kara warns while she pulls the laces free, working one boot off.
The hyper-specifity of the name he uses probably doesn't mean a whole lot to Kara, but the prefix of 'psi' can clue her in regardless. Rene is blissfully ignorant of this, however, and he is quietly reciting latin to himself rather than listening to Zachery attempt to start fights. Ain't nobody got time for that. A few more long rolls of scientific terms that feel so funny in his mouth, then small hands clap back on the edge of the creekside rock again, a perfect seat for foot-dunking.
"Yesssss. And people say you can be a wet blanket. Psssssssshhhh." Complete with an exaggerated expression. Scoff.
"I'm fairly sure I don't want to fight a horse." This leaves Zachery quietly, and a little uncertainly, while he eyes said animal. But when he notices Kara starting to untie her laces, he steps back instantaneously, and turns on a heel to start back toward the water. What's he gonna do, have her BEAT him to proving she's not chicken? No.
"Listen," he says on his way there, hands balling up into fists with sheer determination as he keenly eyes the water that's moving a liittle more than it honestly should, "I know I'm probably going to regret doing this with clothes on later, but I definitely would be regretting it right now if I were to do the opposite, so." IN HE STEPS. Carefully. Like maybe this is genuinely the first body of water he's gone into that wasn't a meticulously cleaned pool. Very likely.
Kara looks up in the middle of undoing her second shoe, regarding Zachery with an unspoken weariness. Oh, good. He was going to amble in, too — much less certain of himself.
And fully clothed, to boot.
"At least get your shirt off," she advises in a mild, but direct way that brokers little argument. Granted, grabbing him by his scruff if he started drowning would make it easier to rescue him, and yet—
For her own part, Kara sets aside her boots to go up to the rock overhanging the water just slightly, sitting down on its wet surface and letting her feet — no, legs, drape down into the creek. It's a better position to shovel a handful of water at Rene's face, for sure. "People not brave enough to say it to my face, I'm sure," she ventures tersely. The corner of her mouth twinges with a smile anyway.
Stompy defiance is adorable. Rene cranes his head around, eyes lit up at the tentative steps before he is distracted with water up his nose. Ffft.
"Oui." Definitely those people. Rene wipes water out of his eyes and treads in a circle to watch the progress Zach makes. And keeps doing circles, chin on the water as he seems to concentrate on where his feet are.
"They'll just weigh you dooown. And why the hell would you regret it now? It's nothing I haven't seen before, dieu." Exasperation goes from him to Kara with a mighty roll of eyes.
"Fine, FINE." Zachery stops his slooow wade into the water, to start fidgeting with buttons. He might be on drugs but he's not an animal. His own fingers get a confused stare. "I'm doing it, look. I'm getting in the water and not getting a heat stroke and… undoing… these buttons with my fingers even though they don't look quite right. Rene, your fingers okay?" He asks, a little too loudly, grin fading a little.
Kara doesn't go for a second swat of water, lest she be accused of being a wet blanket. Again. Besides, the agrokinetic is involved in some very important business in the process of his spinning in the water, okay? She seems to acknowledge that. Her torso is pushed forward as Serej steps forward toward her, nose against the back of one of her shoulders. Who knows why, though Kara simply looks back to give him an apologetic look and a pat along this nose.
"I mean, it's hot out there, too. Why not take a rest here for a bit? Not walking, at least. We were due for a break."
Kara, the pragmatic, rationalizing with a horse.
Who chuffs in reply, nipping at the loose tee covering her body before she tugs it back down to her form, a patient if irritated look crossing her features. He leaves her be then to shuffle a few steps off, taking a long drink of water before finding something to gnaw on. He gets the picture — they're not going anywhere anytime soon.
Her own situation sorted, Kara lifts her head again to look long in Zachery's direction, unsympathetic to his struggle. She looks on the verge of either offering help or passing a comment about the trouble he's having, but she does neither thing.
"Whaaat have we here?" The small coo of amusement carries from the opposite bank of the creek. A large rock, worn smooth by the creek's many swells and floods in its infinite lifetime, supports a tiny little figure. For all her shadows and green hair, perhaps the group simply hadn't noticed her for the way she seems to naturally blend into the environment. But, then, perhaps not… With her elbows on the rock, chin her pals with her nails drumming on either cheekbone, her legs have a gossamer-ghostly quality. They are still coalescing yet.
In her djinn-like state, she cracks a bright and toothy grin. "If this is meant to be skinny dipping, you lot are failing miserably."
"Yes my fingers are fine." Hair floating around his shoulders, Rene stops his spinning and looks up for Zach. A few paces get him back on solid rock underfoot, but he stops at waist-deep and holds out his hands. Fingers wiggle in an effort to coax his buddy into arm's reach. Let's compromise!
"Yours look fine too." Except he can't do the patience thing quite like Kara, and in a moment he's sloshing up to help, because obviously that makes perfect sense why wouldn't he want help??
The addition of another voice doesn't have Rene looking at the source, but over at Kara's horse, momentarily bewildered before he realizes Sophie is on the other bank. "Nooope, just plain dipping today!"
Zachery's response to his realising there's yet another person here is — less friendly, maybe. Whatever he sees when his gaze snaps over to the new voice may or may not be what is actually there, but it definitely elicits a noise that is less word and more… "KkkHHGH."
The struggle to undo his buttons is immediately abandoned as he leans sideways and immediately trips on a slightly too slippery rock, before he falls over and away from Rene with a splash. Fortunately, the bit of water he falls into is so shallow someone would have to roll him over and sit on him for him to drown.
So as long as Rene didn't fall over laughing and pin Zachery, they'd be fine, Kara notes. She's still firmly in the position where she won't try to herd the cats, just keep them from accidentally killing themselves. Otherwise, someone in the group had to try and have fun in this goddamned heat.
She looks over to where Sophie's materialized after assessing the state of the splash Zachery made, inclining her head in greeting. Yes, they're just regular dipping. "Been wondering where I'd find you at," Kara calls out, the comment sounding indifferent save to those who know better. She'd passed the comment at all. "Figured you might be on the wind rather than put up with the weather today."
"Good. I don't think I could stand much more heat today." Sophies chuckle is lighthearted as vaporous molecules finish swirling about until they seem to melt into solidity - her feet kicked up and idly swaying in the air behind her. She's absent her usual trio of belts, wearing a simple sports bra, cargo shorts, and loosely laced hiking boots that have seen better days.
Zachery's reaction get a slow, lazy blink. Huh. "Who is the odd duckling?"
Sophie turns her sights back on Kara, smile renewed in an instant. "What wind?" the tiny woman calls back with playful bitterness. The breezes have been limited, and even they have felt more like the pass of a hot, heavy blanket on an even hotter day. Sophie sits up, swings her legs around, and drops into the creek with a little sploosh. Boots and all. Arms treading at the water, she starts picking her way across to Kara and her wards.
Zach tips, Rene grabs shirt to no avail. The former splats into the shallow water, the latter doing similar in the opposite direction as he's tugged off balance. Of course, the difference here is likely that Rene starts heaving with laughter. Nooooo.
"Are you drowning?" Rene pushes up and steps over to do the usual hovering overhead. They've got to stop meeting like this. "That's Sophie, she's cool. You're cool. And definitely not drowning, right?" Just to make sure, he asks a little loudly, still laughing in a fit. "She said something about ducks." Are they better than horses?
"DEFINITELY NOT DROWNING." This response leaves Zachery in the loudest possible way that it could without getting yelled, and suspiciously like he might be trying to convince himself more than anything else. He's — sort of propped up on his elbows, in the water, one knee sticking up, clothes properly soaked. He stares at Rene for a moment, until finally the laughter seems to return a bit of mirth back to him. Positive thoughts. Yes. Okay.
Sitting up and finally opting to just awkwardly trying to pull his half undone shirt up over his head, he shouts into the wet fabric with no small amount of idle amusement, "I'm not a duck! Or a chicken! I've told you already!" He's a person.
Zachery's wail that he's not a bird elicits a chuckle from Kara, too, though maybe it gets lost under the sound of Rene's more boisterous laughter. She closes her eyes for a second, shaking her head. "You see what I've been having to put up with, Sophie?" she asks, exhaling away a tutting sigh.
"Not to add fuel to the fire, but we all are sitting ducks out here," Kara admits, sending a look up and down the banks of the creek for the first time in … probably too long a time. Being vigilant every second of every day could get exhausting, though. Sometimes you had to live in the moment.
Could have been a gunshot instead of Sophie's surprise appearance, though, some part of her declares in silence. When you stop paying attention, you miss those things that could change your life in an instance.
Semantics.
In a bid of defiance against what's possibly overactive worrying given the heat, Kara grips the bottom of her shirt, both of them, and pulls them both off over her head, the undershirt threatening to cling to her by nature of being sticky with sweat. She lets the garments drop from her hand onto the rock, contemplating the water thoughtfully. "Yi-Min's going to be sore she missed out on this," she reckons absently, then moves to come to her feet.
"It's quite the show." Sophie's little hiking boots slip and slide on the riverbed stones when she reaches the shallows on the other side. Her little arms come up and out to help her keep balance, water raining down from shoulders to fingertips and droplets clinging to her bounce locks and eyelashes. She follows Kara's gaze upstream. "Relax. I made a loop-da-loop before I settled in." The smile Sophie flashes Kara is both comforting and proud. See? You taught me well. "We're in the clear. Except for… whatever this is." Sophie makes a swirling gesture of her pointer finger towards the boy-o's, smiling all the while. Okay, somethings up.
"Him I know," there's a nudge of her chin towards Rene. "But, is the new guy…?" A pause. Then, she reaches up and taps twice on a temple beside her sharply arced brow. Is he all there?
Positive thoughts is likely what led them to get here in the first place. Keeping them, possibly. The pair of them are a bit of a sight, one yelling into his shirt and the other leaning back on his heels as if the sound is pressure. Aaa. Still laughing, though.
"No, no, she said there were ducks. They must have flown away, I don't see any." Rene explains the situation Absolutely Clearly, reaching out to tug his friend into thigh deep water.
"Now Kara's making puns and doing the thing where she worries but she doesn't know where my traps are." Rene lifts a finger to his mouth in a 'ssh', skin flushed and wheezy laugh catching at his words. "See? Nobody saying you are a bird anymore."
Some of these inner thoughts weren't supposed to be heard, and yet. Maybe Kara should enlighten the new arrival.
"We DId SHROOMS!" Zachery very helpfully enlightens, once he frees himself from his shirt. Once that's done, he's pushing himself up and waaading deeper into the water in careful steps, barefoot and probing, thoughtfully continuing with more unnecessary words: "And as a doctor, you'd think I would have done that before, but really, I didn't have any sort of fun before I stopped giving a fuck fairly recently! It's been cocaine and stripclubs and secret society meetings and water feels very - this is - okay." The longer he talks, the more anxious chuckles are threaded through his words, until eventually he just freezes, water up to his waist and arm awkwardly up at shoulder level. "I don't know if the water does hug, Rene. I very much DOn'T KNOW if this is a HUG AT ALL."
Kara's process of coming to her feet takes longer than it should, given Zachery's rambling. She's still tilted to one side, very slowly drawing to her full height like an inflatable standing up on its own for the first time.
Now that she's adequately gotten over her initial reaction to him — the punching phase — she's coming to realize why Yi-Min continues interacting with him.
Because really, he just says the damndest things.
The fucking mushrooms help, too. She snorts at his declaration regarding the water's ability to hug, gaze falling to Sophie. Kara's serious demeanor returns for only a moment as she nods. She trusts the girl's perimeter check. All right, then.
Cannonball.
There's no run leading up to it, Kara just leaps from the ledge of the rock she's standing on, higher than one would expect of the average human being. Then it's a quick tuck of knees to chest, only one arm loose around her shins as she sinks like a stone into the swimming hole, sending water everywhere.
"Look at that. You have a commentator," Sophie remarks enthusiastically. This is fun! At Zachery's profound revelation of an announcement, the tiny woman's brows shoot up followed quickly by the corners of her dark lips. Her chuckle is hearty despite her tiny stature. "Oh! Well, yes, that would explain it. You're a long way off from strip clubs and…" Her brows and nose scrunch up thoughtfully, but her smile is undeterred. "Mysterious secret-"
SPLASH
Sophie lets out a whoop of excitement as Kara's splash rains down and her friend disappears into the creek. "How much we betting she wailed her bum on the bo—" Shkt! SPLASH Take Two Sophie's hiking boots do no favors on the slick riverbed rock and she suddenly goes under, popping back up just as quick sodden, and sputtering-laughing.
"You went without me?!" It's a small protest. Rene stops when Zach does, shorter frame putting him deeper. He blinks those crystal eyes upward, looking the older of them over with a more concerned expression. "No, it does! It really does, you've just got to get in all the way. It's doing it right now, it's a little hug, like a bath. "
"Deep breaths," To punctuate the hugging feeling of water and possibly testing to see if he breathes, Rene wraps his arms around Zach's middle. Squish. Splash? Cannonball water comes up behind them and drenches both. A smaller splash comes when Sophie tumbles in after, and it does nothing to quell a sudden peal of laughter.
If there wasn't any breathing happening before, Zachery certainly LEARNS how to do so when the splash of water hits him. He inhales sharply, arms still up high, elbows out, now with an extra person clinging onto his middle and his abandoned shirt floating gently away behind him — he looks like he might suddenly be realising how very out of place he is just as another splash of water hits his side.
Or maybe he's just remembered something. Or both. "Hey, Sunshine?" He waits a beat, no longer, staring off at a tree for no outwardly discernable reason, "I'm moving here."
Kara doesn't quite hit the bottom like Sophie was saying, but she does rocket back up quickly, hair plastered to her face as she breaks the surface. The echo of a laugh comes off her breath as she weaves her arms through the water and treads with her legs, head tilted back toward the sky. She only barely hears Zachery, but her gaze darts to him at hearing 'sunshine' anyway.
Figuring he's likely not talking to her, she tilts her head to the side so she can catch Rene next in the edge of her periphery.
Sophie wipes a tiny hand down her face, wicking away excess water with a flick of her wrist. She flashes Kara a bright smile, but her attention, too, turns quickly towards Zachery and the one-sided conversation. Who is the stoned man talking to?
Despite all the water everywhere, Rene is still there attempting to mimic the feeling of water. Somehow. It makes sense to him. Though when he peels back and half steps away, he looks a little drowned, hair plastered down his face like an Afghan in a bath. There's a snort from underneath before he reaches up to clear it away, soon turning into laughter.
"Now everyone gets hugs." See what you're missing? Blue eyes peer past a hand still swiping hair from eyes, tilted up at Zach as he speaks. "Aw, you remembered it!" Even if Rene didn't like Silas much, the nickname isn't exactly unwarranted. "Thanks, Doc Handsome." See, he knows the drill. "Move here? You mean hh- -" The word turns into a hissing intake of air.
"Seriously?!" Birds flap around above in surprise when the tiny one shouts excitedly, hands spread out at his sides like he isn't sure what to do with them next?
Zachery does not bother to wipe the water from his face, or to lower his arms, or even to look at anyone as he's talking. The shout causes him to pull away from Rene with a start, albeit one with a delay. Expression caught somewhere between confusion and determination, he starts to slooowly make his way back out of the water, like it's clinging to him and he's unsure it'll let him go on his way out. "I think… I have to. Everything here is mine already, it's been made that way. Like a bed.
That clears things up, right?
It's just the drugs talking, right?
That's the question Kara doesn't dare say out loud, as approximately 50% (or more, if Zachery's eavesdropping) of the people who could respond are also, in fact, impacted by the drugs. Instead, she treads water and swipes a hand back over her hair to sluice it away from her face, and listens more out of the corner of her perception than fully.
With a twist, she turns to Sophie and returns fire on the grin she's been given before leaning back, torso and stomach lifting to the surface before long. "Feels pretty nice out here," she comments, legs weaving lazily in the water. It seems like she'll attempt a float, bar any surprise assaults from Sophie, Rene, or the guy who earlier wanted to pick a fight.
Hey, you never know.
Tap-tap. Splat. Tap-tap. Splat.
Sophie’s little hands pat idly at the surface of the water with an idle, persistent need to be moving despite the way she otherwise lingers and watches the exchange between them menfolk. “Ohhhh.” She smiles at Rene’s back. “Sunshine. Cute.” On the subject of Shroomhead One moving here, who is she to say? So, she doesn’t. Instead, she pulls up her feet and sinks down to disappear under the surface of the water.
Duuuun-nuh. Duuun-nuh. Dunuh. Dunuhdunuh.
She tries to stealthily swim out under Kara and give a little tickle behind the knee.
"Is it?" Cryptic as it might be, Zachery calling it all a bed to lie in seems to make perfect sense, in some way, given that Rene returns a nod, for a moment Very Serious. Then, as sudden as it came, the look splits with a snickering hop past Zach's escape to catch the button-up floating merrily on its way. Looking back he spies Kara(no Sophie) who appears to have taken the break to heart. Perfect.
"Okay okay, no hugs then, but stay here and sit down, I don't have a fence just traps and pitfalls, and there's monsters out there," Zero context, before he sloshes away again with the shirt in tow- - to lay it over one of the rocks on the bank. Looks comfortable. Right?? He thinks so, given that he's pressed his hands and cheek against the other side of the wet stone, still wading while at the same time using his currently warped lizard-brain to mimic one.
Rene runs his palm over the eroded rock, brows pinching as he watches it. "Definitely a bed."
Of course there are monsters out there. Zachery casts a look back to Rene as he makes his sluggish way out. Is that a bed? Unsure.
Best… head over to find out. While he does so, he lifts a hand to prod some fingertips at his fake eye in a way that would definitely hurt if it were still organic. Bed or no, he stands over the rock, prodding still at his eye, then asks Rene at a slightly lower volume, expression neutral. "Did… the new person go invisible?"
Kara's currently blind, not deaf, head tilted to the sky with her eyes closed. But even hearing Sophie coming doesn't prepare her for where the vapor mimic attacks. She was prepared to be dragged under, not — this.
Sputtering, Kara jerks, limbs going down while others go up. She tries not to hit Sophie on accident, saving that energy for revenge, plain and simple. Assuming she had nothing to grasp at except vapor— she's not really sure how the younger woman's ability works in water.
"Soph—!"
As soon as she catches sight of her, Kara lunges, trying to grab her by her waist for either a good dunking or return fire.
Shaking out her springy curls like a wet dog when she surfaces from her sneaky underwater attack, Sophie is wholly unprepared for the lunging blonde that is her retaliating friend. She goes down, latching onto Kara all arms and legs like a clingy starfish, and the pair is briefly submerged again.
Good thing she’s tiny and light. It should be easy enough for Kara to right them both with Sophie still wrapped like a mischievous koala critter around the blonde’s torso. When the come up, her laughter sprays a mist of water and she lets out an excited yip. “Andale andale! Arriba arriba!” She relinquishes one hand and waves around an invisible cowboy hat.
"Hmh?" Oh, that's a question. Rene lifts his head long enough to peek over at Kara- - currently being accosted, and Sophie, doing the accosting as she pops back out of the water. "Not all the time." It's not quite right, but also, it is.
"Why're you poking?" Another valid statement as the blonde puts his face back down against the rock, eyes tilted up at Zach and his uncertainty. "You should get a magic one. It'll match the other one. You can't make that one glow, can you?" Another peek over his shoulder at the women, and a stage-whisper at Zachery.
"I think they //really like the hugging.//" Water. Sophie Cowboy. Etc.
There are so many things to think about, and so many words to say words back at. And strangers to blink at, angle his head at, stare… at. Zachery lets his hand fall down from his face, announces uncertainly but loudly, apropos of nothing, "… The water's swimming."
And with that, he turns around and starts back in the general direction of Rene's cabin. If he dies on the way there because of traps or monsters, SO BE IT.
Kara's clinging koala surfaces when she does, a little breathless but no worse for wear. The munitions chaplain struggles forward a few steps to get a better grip in the silt and rock below, a platform to stand on while she wrangles Sophie's form off of her. "Arriba?" she asks drily, voice hiding her amusement with the situation. "Okay, you asked for it." Kara stands with the water only up to her waist, arms hoisting the tiny vapor mimic. "Up we go."
And away she soars, back out into the deeper water. After pitching the younger woman, Kara continues to stand where she is, dripping wet with a small smile on her face. It persists even as she turns away and begins trudging out of the water.
As fun as this was, she thinks Zachery has the right idea of it. Besides, the risk of the boys drowning was minimal now. Fun's over. Back to work. Water continues to lap around her calves, resisting her retreat to the shore, but away Kara goes.
“I’m flyyyyyiiiiinnng!” She’s totally not. She’s falling. Like a rock. Tiny feet kicking frantically, Sophie’s hits the surface rump first, sending a fresh spray of cooling creek water blossoming out over the retreating party poopers. Righting herself under the water, her little mocha frame can be seen slicing through and making for the shore. The closer she gets to the troup and the land, though, the more gossamer her underwater silhouette becomes… until there is nothing.
A trail of bubbles percolates to the surface at the creek’s edge. A swirl of mist winds its way around Kara’s shoulders in a friendly, serpentine gesture. The sentient foggy creation dances a puffy little jig in front of Rene and Zachery before lazily folding over itself and drifting off into the shade between the trees in the general direction of ‘home’.
Rene crosses his arms on the rock for a moment, watching Zach tiptoe his way back to the cabin and listening to the girls horsing around at his back. He turns to look as Sophie splits up into her gaseous shape from the water nearby, and as she does that 'farewell', he lifts his hand in an energetic wave. "Bye, djinn! Watch out for lamps." Yep.
With two of the others breaking off, he is left to watch Kara as she sloshes up out of the shallows; when she reaches the bank Rene hauls himself up onto the rock, gathering up Zach's discarded shirt to wring it out.
"I don't know about you but I am star-ving. I have food that isn't a good time," Kara gets a stage whisper, despite there not being a need. "As much fun as drugging you might be I won't, don't worry, I like you." Did she have to worry at some point? Hard to tell with his labyrinthine way of asking her if she wants something to eat before she goes.
Kara waves one hand around her shoulders, a gesture both acknowledging the silent message given to her and shooing its bearer away at the same time. Wringing out her shirt and what little she can of her shorts, she looks back up to Rene when he speaks again. After all, it's just the two of them now. She seems to give it some thought as she scrapes her feet clean on a rock before replacing her socks and boots.
She lets out a quiet hmph while lacing them up, both amused and glad he likes her enough not to spike her food, apparently. "Only if you've got something for the horse, too. I think he's hungrier than I am."
And indeed, the stallion's head lifts from the growth he'd been nosing his way through, looking back at the two at overhearing words tangentially related to food. One of Semej's ears flick, sending some bug that had been investigating it spiraling away.
Kara looks back toward Rene with an expectant, amused lift of her brow without actually smiling.
If only there were more days like these.