[OTA] Day at the Beach

[falsepretences]

It wasn't, he supposed, really a beach yet, but the rhythmic movement of the tides were already starting to erode the the grace and soil and leave something sandier in it's place. Just at the edge for now, but in time it would become a mix of sand and stones, with only patches of the grass that was currently blanketing the ground in between patches of snow.

He kicked a pebble into the...well, sea, he supposed, and eyed it before looking out at the island with the door.

"Just when you thought things couldn't get weirder..."

Comments

[falsepretences]

"I've never known magic to be very cautious." At all. Though, even less cautious over the course of the last several months, frankly. He peers at the water as if it was planning to give him any answers. "Well. I don't see a giant squid, but that doesn't mean that there isn't one."

[jokeswithknives]

"Squiddies," Juliette echoed with childish delight, creeping up to crouch at the water's edge. She dipped long fingers into the sparkling water, holding them up to watch them drip, as if fascinated.

"And big tower," she added, referring to the newest architectural addition to Deck lands. "High windows. Hear ghosts inside. Memories past, methinks."

[falsepretences]

"I saw it when I went by." He hadn't stopped, though. He wasn't sure he was ready to dive into dead languages and mysteries untold just yet.

"Have you gone inside?"

[jokeswithknives]

She shook her head, looking a bit nonplussed. "Mm-mmn. High." She pointed upwards, unnecessarily. "And dark. Creepy." Juliette certainly knew dark and creepy. "Bad things wait up there. Scary." She sidled a bit closer to Jordan's side. "Don't want to go."

[falsepretences]

"Well, you don't have to," he says dryly. "I'm fairly sure Sophie Berthier probably got climbing gear as soon as she heard there were books." They'd know soon enough what was up there.

"But this isn't as scary?" The mysteriously appearing body of water and beach?

[jokeswithknives]

Again, Juliette shook her head. "Water...belongs," she tried to explain. "It's..." she scrunched her nose in frustration. "It's...part of this." One hand patted the ground. "Tower--doesn't. Not from this." Again, a pat to the earth. "Doesn't feel so. Old. Hurted." She bit her lip. "Can hear them, sometimes. Don't go too close. Might not come out."

[falsepretences]

Somehow he was more disturbed by the sudden body of water, but buildings had been popping up and disappearing for weeks now. This is a completely new thing.

Still, her words make him tilt his head to one side and raise his eyebrows. "What do you mean, hear them? Like ghosts?"

[jokeswithknives]

The little Joker nodded almost hesitantly. "They whisper," she whispered herself, hands to her lips. "So many voices. Many-many. Delah." A fitting word from her books.

Juliette tapped her throat three times, staring out over the water. "Tower-tremors-water-whispers..." Her sing-song voice floated up and around before fading and she looked back up at Jordan. "...scary sometimes, Mr. Spade."

[falsepretences]

Was he supposed to comfort her? Because, really, he was probably the worst at this kind of thing.

"Probably best to stay away, then," he says. "As much as you can, at least."