[title]

The beach air suited Alvar. In the house everything felt still and sticky in the summer no matter how many people were moving from room to room, but it was easier to breathe out on the water. He didn’t know why. Probably some kind of science reason he might look into when he wasn’t busy learning to make household objects cartwheel or whatever bullshit. Or maybe some stupid brain reason. Sounded like something his brain would do, make it easier to breathe on the edges of things.

He tugged at the rolled-up bunch of fabric at the end of his trousers, pulling them more securely up his thighs. If he got them wet he’d have to just jump all the way in, because for maybe another science reason just having a wet couple inches of pant was worse than having a wet everything. And he couldn’t just dry them off with his wand in the summer. Well, he could. There were twenty magical adults on the property and nobody gave a damn. But his parents didn’t want them breaking the law or whatever. They kept their children’s wands under parental lock and key (of a couple different fashions over the years).

Alvar picked the roundest rock out of the water by his feet and tested the weight in his hand before pitching it out at the ocean.  He paused a second and then threw another.

The hollow thunk out in the ocean was as satisfying as the breeze and the waves around his ankles, but Alvar still felt like an idiot out here on his own. He should have called everyone out here to come throw stuff. Of course, now most of them were like fourteen and probably too old for this kind of junk. Even if Jari thought aliens were real he might not be willing to jump at the call to come toss rocks these days. Marlon at least would’ve come. Alvar appreciated the little ones at times like this, but after any more thought it made him feel immature and he didn’t care for that at all.

Three rocks later—two good throws and one that slipped out of his hand and made him curse—he heard footsteps on the beach behind him. Alvar turned to squint back, first at his sister, and then farther up the cliff to the get-together he’d escaped from.

“Hi,” he said, and then turned back around to pick up another rock.

He sort of wished Soléy would leave him alone, at least when he was being alone already. Not that he didn’t like talking to just her. But things being less weird with Soléy made them more weird in a different way, which was stupid and Alvar didn’t care for it either. Kind of annoying of her to come and confront him with it like this.

@Soléy Trickett

Stargazy pie again.

Soléy knew she was supposed to feel some sort of Cornish pride for this traditional dish, but it was all she could do to keep whatever food she'd already had in her, which was proving challenging when she could make eye contact with her food. The taste was alright, she supposed, and the boys seemed to like it well enough considering how quickly they scarfed it down, but maybe that had something to do with being macho, or some boyish thing she didn't understand (nor did she care to). Either way, it was a popular enough dish for it to appear on the table every other family gathering. It was much harder to pretend she was eating dainty finger sandwiches and macarons when fish heads were sticking out from your pie.

After one last disgusted stab at her pie, she announced that she was going for a walk with the dogs, and managed to cajole her mother into making a tomato sandwich for her. Not the most exciting dinner, but she supposed it was better than fish carcass. Once she got back to Hogwarts she really needed to seek out some advice on possibly going vegetarian.

Of course, she didn't really want a walk either. Tinworth was a tiny village near the ocean, and Soléy has never really decided how she felt about the ocean. She liked walking in general, but the salty air did strange things to her hair sometimes, and she wasn't a particular strong swimmer like some of her brothers either, which made it lose half its appeal. Their dogs loved it, however, especially Tawny. Soléy gave a squawk of laughter that was quite unlike her when the dogs started to shake the water out of their fur, getting her dress wet in the process.

It was a few more moments of walking by the beach before she noticed her brother Alvar, who, strangely, appeared to be off on his own today. As they got older it became more and more unlikely to see him alone without Rafnar by his side. Soléy didn't mind her brothers; she barely paid attention to them sometimes, but somewhere within her she was glad that it was Alvar she ran into alone instead of Rafnar. His lukewarm greeting wasn't exactly encouragement for her to stay, but better this than what she'd left behind– a room full of cousins that were way too old to have anything in common with her.

"Hiding from the family too?" She had to raise her voice slightly over the splashing of waves and rocks as she kept her distance. She didn't want to get more of her dress wet, and her mum had only just bought her the nice new sandals she was wearing. "Want half of my sandwich? I don't think I'm very hungry anymore." Boys his age liked food, right?

Tawny splashed over, splattering her dripping paws on Alvar’s leg. He groaned and scratched her head. “Oi, shithead,” he mumbled affectionately.  Giving in to the dog and the waves, he leaned in to the water and sat on the bottom. As Tawny galloped back to Soléy on the beach, he held his breath to duck under the cold water all the way.

He let just his face back past the surface of the water and lay there. His hair was summer-short, but still floated out a bit around his head. That was his favorite part about swimming—or baths. “Let some bird have it,” replied Alvar about the sandwich, busy being buffeted by the waves. “C’mon, Sol, come throw stuff.”

He’d never have asked her that if they weren’t alone. She wasn’t generally invited to whatever stupid thing he was doing, as a rule. But there was nobody around to object, and he really did at that moment sort of want to see her chuck a rock into the ocean. “It feels good,” he said. “I don’t think you can be bad at it either, not if you’re not trying to do anything.” That was another thing he liked about coming here on his own. If anyone else had been here it would have been a competition, who could throw the farthest or the heaviest rock or hit the piece of driftwood bobbing out there.

Alvar didn’t think he’d ever felt the desire to compete with Soléy. He’d  never competed with Rafnar either, not in any serious way, but that was just because he’d never wanted to be better. The competitive spirit was still there, he was just allowed to lose. Soléy sort of nullified that spirit altogether, or something. Maybe it was just that they didn’t share interests or want the same things. Whatever it was, being with her felt different, and being able to put some kind of words to it made Alvar feel a lot better about liking the feeling every now and then. Peace? Sure. Whatever.

He sifted around in the sand for another rock and got to his feet, tugging at his dripping shirt with his other hand. “Here.”

Soléy rolled her eyes. "Don't call our dog a shithead, shi–" she caught herself just in time and bit down on her lip. Holidays, being cooped up at home with the boys all the time were proving to be a bad influence on her. She petted Tawny absentmindedly and let her off her leash after she's done fawning over Alvar. She knew the dogs couldn't understand what her brother actually said, but she had a suspicion that even if Tawny did, she'd still love him unconditionally.

She raised an eyebrow at him, but daintily—and obediently—unwrapped half of her sandwich and left it in the sand. She had to shove away Mars' sniffling nose with her foot, but the sandwich was gone in no time. Carefully, she took off her sandals, placing it somewhere where it won't be lapped up by the waves, and edged closer to the water where Alvar was. "At you? Gladly," she said drily. The 'just kidding' was implied; she'd never really do that.

Feeling slightly self-conscious, she scoured the sand around her for something to throw. Apparently boys did that a lot, just throw things at other things, or even into nothing. She saw their father do that sometimes, even when he was alone, and she could never get the appeal of it. A part of her thought it was stupid, but Alvar never really asked her to join in on things; most of the time they just coexisted in relative peace, and while that suited her just fine, she didn't want to seem like she was not 'playing along'.

It felt almost like a ritual. Or an initiation. Maybe if she could do this right, she'd be accepted into some exclusive club she normally wasn't privy to. The rock that Alvar handed her was smooth, shiny black. She couldn't be bad at this, he said so himself. Why did this feel so important all of a sudden? Why did she care what he thought of her?

The rock—pebble, really—hit the surface of an oncoming wave, then sunk back into the sand with a small, anticlimactic little plop. Soléy buried her toes deeper into the warm sand, and tried not to look too disappointed. She expected that to be more fun than it actually was, but maybe that was the problem, she put too much expectation into it. It made her feel sort of like a fraud, even more so than usual, looking at her older brother who seemed to be able to enjoy this for what it was.

"That's..." she started lamely, "alright? I probably did it wrong." A part of her, somewhere deep in her subconscious, was sort of beginning to understand why boys thought doing things like this was a good time, but the girl on the surface was struggling to keep the sudden rush of humiliation at bay. A pause later, she spoke again, trying her best to seem as nonchalant as possible, "I'm surprised you even let me join you. I thought you never let girls join in on the... things you usually do."