Logs:The Water Cycle

The Water Cycle
Dramatis Personae Beau, Kelawini, Marcus
In Absentia	2020-06-29 "I guess there's different kinds of hassle."
Location <XAV> Conservatory - Xs First Floor
Tall panes of glass and a many-gabled glass ceiling protect this large indoor garden from the elements, while welcoming in sunlight to keep it warm year-round. Adjoined to the southern face of the venerable mansion and surrounded by more conventional gardens beyond, the conservatory is all Old World elegance from the outside. Within, however, it is lush and green and in certain corners--whether despite its careful tending by the groundskeeper or because of it--seems practically wild. Footpaths and a burbling artificial steam wind through the space, connecting its disparate parts. Benches are scattered throughout, thorough soft grasses or mosses under certain trees also invite rest. The outside wall is lined with tropical and subtropical plants. The ferns and cycads and epiphytes are kept moist by artfully hidden misters that also give the place a sort of magical ambiance, dense foliage wreathed at times with drifting patches of mist. Nearest the building is a desert in miniature, with a few impressively sized cacti as well as palo verde and other trees adapted to arid climes. Between these, and by far the largest section, is dedicated temperate zone plantlife from around the world, the beds growing more carefully manicured and the pads less winding as one approaches the center, where a clearing with a small ring of seats is a popular spot for some teachers to hold court. It's a stormy afternoon, low clouds pouring down torrents of wind-driven rain punctuated by stark flashes of lightning and thunder that rattles even the sturdy glass walls of the conservatory. Kelawini is sitting cross-legged on one of the benches in the tropical section. She wears a purple babydoll shirt with an abstract flame graphic in reds, oranges, and yellows on the chest and cut-off denim shorts, a purple flip-flops festooned with red hibiscuses to match their red straps half-tucked beneath the bench. To judge by the book open beside her on the bench and the notebook in her lap, she's ostensibly studying, but she hasn't paid any attention to either for some time, her eyes raised to the rain-drenched glass and the storm raging beyond. There's a crash of thunder from outside, a heavy rattling judder that shivers the glass panes just as one door opens and shuts again with a bang. The skinny blue teenager who has just poured himself in from the yard is wide-eyed and drenched, jean shorts and pale grey tee plastered to his skin. His sneakers squelch against the stone path as he heads further in, batting watter out of his thick kinky hair and pausing only when he nears Kelawini's bench. His eyes flick to the book, then the notebook, then the glass. His nose crinkles a little sheepishly at the next roll of thunder, head ducking slightly as he squeezes water out of his tee. There’s another bang, this one coming from the other entrance as Beau fumbles with the door. After what feels like an eternity to the larger teen he finally manages to open the door without ruining it and squeezes through the snug portal and out into the plants. “Aight, halfway there.” he grunts, carefully closing the door behind himself. He’s wearing a black “Ghost” tee, a pair of beaten up denim wranglers, and a pair of rough canvas shoes. He turns around to move through the room but pauses at the sight of the other two people, but promptly settles on the blue one. “Damn son, you look like a drowned rat, y’all alright?” Kelawini's textbook is open to a graphic with several large colored arrows sweeping abstractly over a drawing of some hills above a body of water. The open page in her notebook has "water cycle" written across the top, but is otherwise blank. She turns away from the window at the thunder and the damp draft that enters with Marcus, but her eyes go wide at the sight of the boy himself. Her mouth opens and she is about to speak when the other door bangs open and draw her attention. Her eyes go even wider as they flick between the two others. "Howzit," she says finally. "Hope you didn't get caught in it by accident, but it looks amazing out there." Her hand sweeps toward the glass and, right on on cue, the storm supplies an impressive lightning strike into the nearby woods, lighting her gleeful smile to slightly otherworldly effect. Marcus ducks his head further when Beau addresses him, one toe scuffing against the ground. He nods, pats at his shirt, little though this does to smooth wrinkles out of the scrunched wet fabric. His eyes light after Kelawini speaks; he looks up again with an eager bob of head. "Amazing." This agreement comes rapidly, his accent thick. He rocks forward onto his toes, looking down at the textbook picture again. Back up at the driving rain, this time with some amusement. His hands spread, up overhead, gesturing towards the rain-drenched glass. "A demonstration." “I was about to head into it myself.” Beau turns his attention out towards the lightning, watching the rain fall for a quiet moment. “It’s nice, even if it always makes me want to take a nap.” Careful not to crush anything he creeps over to where the others are, though he doesn’t come too close. "Picked a good place to do my homework," Kelawini says brightly. "The demonstration is definitely better than the book." She sets her notebook aside, her smile sharpening to a grin. "Bet I'll get a much better picture if I go out there, too." She pales a little as Beau looms over them. Then sits up just a little straighter, as if this could bring her anywhere near equaling his stature. "I can't imagine sleeping with that going on. It's so -- energetic!" Another crash of thunder punctuates this. "Nap?" Marcus's eyes widen. He glances back up at the panels, head tilting slightly to the side. Lips pursing just before he bites down on one. "... very wet nap." He plucks lightly at the front of his sodden shirt, peeling it briefly away from his chest. The fabric settles back heavily. "Are you learning?" he asks Kelawini, then, still looking out at the blurred glass. “Have a tarp, it’s kinda dry.” Beau says with a small shrug of his massive shoulders. “Do my homework out there sometimes when it’s not so rainy. Better’n waiting for the rec room to clear out.” The large man shifts uncomfortably before dropping into a squat and wrapping his arms around his knees. “It storms pretty bad on and off for half the year down in Georgia. Thunderstorms are just sort of white noise at this point.” "Wow, I love being outside, but I'm not that committed." Kelawini's nod at Beau is faintly impressed. She follows Marcus's gaze again to the storm raging outside. "Yes? Not as much as I'm probably supposed to." She gestures sort of dismissively at the book. "Kinda hard to pay attention when the explanations are so boring and also I know most of them already? Just, not with the right...science words." She shrugs, glances back at Marcus. "You studying, too?" Her shoulders ease a little as Beau makes himself smaller, though she frowns slightly, head dipping. "I'm Kelawini, I'm--I don't know if I can still say I'm 'new' here? I still feel new." Marcus's forehead scrunches deep, his mouth twisting again to the side. One of his feet rolls to the side, weight shifting as he considers. "Mmm." His arms wrap around his chest, oddly long tapered fingers resting on the crooks of his skinny elbows. "Walk... fine. Sleep --" His head shakes, firmly, but a longer lower rumble of thunder brings another smile out of him. "Marcus," he offers. "Not new." After some consideration, he amends this: "... still feel new." “Beauregard. I’ve been here since I was fourteen, so three years now.” Beauregard adds, watching the lightning flash in the distance. “Still feel out of place here though. Doesn’t help much I’m one of the tallest people in the school.” He shifts slightly as to keep his balance. "Three years," Kelawini echoes a little incredulously. "Okay, I seriously thought--" She shakes her head, blushing faintly. "Nevermind. Couldn't they have like--made the doors bigger so you can fit through them easier? Or something." She brushes her thumb absently over the corner of her notebook, gently flipping just the edges of the pages. "So, you miss Georgia?" She looks at Marcus, her gaze drifting down to his long, long fingers and then back up. "Where's home for you?" Marcus's eyes open a smidgen wider; there's a slight constriction of his oddly square pupils on the next flicker of lightning. "Tall," he repeats, head dipping in acknowledgment. His fingers squeeze a little bit closer on his arms. "Yes. Very hard." He shifts slightly from one foot to the other, looks away to the flowers beside them with a deeper frown. Finally, clipped: "Canada." He looks back to Kelawini. "You come -- where?" “Alright, maybe it’s because I look like I’m thirty.” Beau allows. “Pretty sure they want me to squeeze in and stop breaking shit, learn to cohabitate with the humans.” The big man lets out a small sigh before continuing, “I can’t say I miss it too much. Sure it’s pretty and there’s room to roam, but the people are a real hassle.” "What part of Canada?" Kelawini asks, then scrunches up one side of her face. "I'm asking that like I know anything about Canada except it's really big and there's a--oh! Are you from Quebec?" She subsides a bit. "I'm -- from Hawai'i, but my parents live in Chicago now, I guess that's my new home." She does not sound in the least please with this arrangement. To Beau she shakes her head again. "That sucks, but...kinda sounds like people are a hassle here, too. I guess there's different kinds of hassle." "That also sounds -- hassle." The small tug of Marcus's mouth is sympathetic. He glances briefly to Beau, looks back away. His toe grinds against the stone path once more, spreading a damp splotch a little wider. He unfolds his arms. Twists slowly at the hem of his shirt again, though this time it wrings out only a few drops of water. "Canada is. Big. My parents..." He shrugs. "Quebec City. Chicago you -- not like?" “Well, I can’t really blame them too much here.” Beau pushes back up to his feet and stretches until his back audibly pops. “I’ve never been to any of those places but I imagine moving sucks, especially if it’s away from a place like Hawaii.” Kelawini shrugs, small. "Not really. I mean, I'm sure it's fine to like...visit? Or live, if you actually want to live there. But I didn't want to move, the reasons we moved were crappy, and then we had to quaratine pretty soon after we got there. So I guess Chicago didn't make a great first impression." She uncrosses her legs and stretches them out, nudging her flip-flops out from the shadow of the bench but not slipping into them. "I guess a lot of us have weird relationships with--home. You like Quebec City, though?" She tilts her head at Beau, her long dark hair falling curtain-like across her face until she tucks it back behind her ears "I mean, I don't know what exactly they expect from you or how hard that is to do, but..." Kelawini looks up, up, up as Beau rises. "It's not like you can uh. Be smaller." Then, half a beat later, "Unless you can? I don't even know anymore, around here." "No," Marcus answers Kelawini promptly. He wrings his shirt harder, fingers digging into the fabric. "Hawai'i -- you like?" The question draws his eyes up again. Sudden, curious, peering intently at Beau as if the larger boy might start shrinking right then and there. “It’s not so much the being tall as it is being strong enough to throw a car.” Beau explains, his hands moving to emphasize the words. “I’ve never worked out a day in my life, just blew up pretty much overnight. So sometimes it’s hard to avoid crushing shit. Figure as long as I don’t get any stronger I should have it down soon. Hopefully.” He scratches at the back of his neck and looks down. “It gets colder than a witch’s titty in a brass bra face down in the snow up here, can’t imagine it’s much better up around Quebec. Only thing I really don’t like about up here, don’t see how anybody functions in the snow.” Kelawini blinks at Marcus's abrupt answer as if expecting some elaboration or follow-up that never comes. But she lapses into a warm smile at his question. "So. Much. It's like, if I get started talking about the 'āina, I might never shut up." Possibly she's considering launching just such a rant, but Beau's kind-of answer pulls her up short. "Whoa," this is quiet, and just a touch reluctantly intimidated. "That's--very strong. And that's very cold! I mean I'm not an expert or anything, but I think mostly it's just like--wear a lot of warm clothes and also you get used to it in time, I guess?" She glances questioningly Marcus. Marcus's eyes open wide-wide-wider. He looks intently at Beau's hands, now, then down at his own slender ones, his mouth opening into a small O. Though his brow slowly wrinkles at the latter half of Beau's words, the expression melting into a warm smile when Kelawini speaks again. "Aina," he echoes softly, frowning uncertainly. "Sorry. That you -- leave." He lets go of his shirt again, this time not bothering to try and smooth out the wrinkled fabric. The question of winter clothes earns only a shrug. A small press of lips. "I go," he announces, plucking at his wet clothes demonstratively. His wave, at least, is cheerful. “Alright, y’all take care now.” Beau says to Marcus with a wave. “Reckon I best be getting myself. Forgot all about some work I gotta get done, might get lucky and catch some sleep afterwards.” "Yeah, me too." Kelawini agrees, but her smile doesn't fade altogether until Marcus's response to her question. Her head tips slightly in the other direction now, but taking in the boy's drenched clothing she does not argue. "Well, it was nice to see you both. Have a good night!" She slips her big, calloused feet into the flowery slipper, standing up and leaving her books behind. "I'm gonna go experience the water cycle."