fh_trips | Kohala Coast, Hawaii | Evening | Sunday

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spring break 2011: hawaii

Kohala Coast, Hawaii | Evening | Sunday | February 20

As the sun gave way to the moon, the lights around the Big Island started coming on, brightening up the dark sky. Night falling just meant several new ways for the guests to enjoy themselves! A slight wind ruffled the palm trees but the temperature remained warm, making it comfortable enough to take long walks on the beach or just enjoy gazing up at the clear night sky.

There was still plenty to do, though! Nighttime activities were starting to swing into motion, music was wafting along the breeze, drawing people towards it's rhythmic sounds, and the smells of Hawaiian dishes were prevalent.

It was nighttime in Hawaii and the vacation had just begun!

[OCD is up! Guest Quarters | Resort Activities | Dining | Luana Lounge | Kahakai Bar Oceanfront | OOC This is going up early for maximum play time for all timezones!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ben let out a little chuckle. "If that's how they want to play it, fine." He was glad that there was some good news that had come from all of the posturing and stress. "They're still tracking down the rest of the embryos?"

"Graff's digging up leads for them," Ender said, with a little nod. "With any luck, they'll work out."

Ben's jaw clenched at Graff's name. He tried to cover it by grabbing another snack. "How much time do they have?" he asked.

Ender noticed. He just didn't feel like responding to it. "Maybe two years," he said, quietly.

Maybe his feelings were all bubbling a little closer to the surface today.

"I'm sorry," Ben murmured, treading carefully. Ender didn't feel as buttoned up inside himself as he usually did, but Ben had a feeling noticing that wouldn't really be appreciated.

"I just hope they'll find them," Ender said, unconsciously wrapping his arms around himself. He took a breath. "Anyway, I never got to say goodbye to the planet the first time. The second time around, I... found myself thinking that's a little too sentimental. And yet..."

Edited 2011-02-21 20:15 (UTC)

"You're allowed to be sentimental," Ben replied, nudging Ender's foot under the table.

"Maybe," Ender said, gently nudging his foot back. "I don't know. The last time - before Fandom - that I spent any significant time on my Earth, it was just the one lake in Greensboro. I never really cared about the Earth before Graff took me there. I remember hating that I grew to love it."

His parents, his siblings, his home planet. Sigh.

Ben was just going to leave his foot where it was, then and ignore the butterflies that seemed to be swirling in his stomach. That sensation he was blaming on the eggrolls.

"Because you didn't want to get attached to the planet or because you didn't like that Graff could play you like that?" Ben asked.

"Because I quit fighting, or I thought I did. Because I'd quit the war, and then Graff had to remind me of why the world was good, and worth saving," Ender said, and he was starting to feel a little exposed in the light coming from the bar. The dark beach up ahead seemed much more inviting. Call it wounded-animal instincts. "Of the people that I loved down there."

"He's never once fought fair," Ben commented softly, watching Ender's face. "This was after Bonzo?"

"I quit after Bonzo," Ender said, reaching up to rub at the bridge of his nose. "He graduated me to Command School, but they needed to refuel on Earth. So we went back to Greensboro."

He reached over to give one poke at one of the appetizers, then finally just got up.

Ben watched him stand up with worried eyes. "Want company, kreetle?"

"Sure," Ender said, picking up a napkin and cleaning off his hands really quickly; then he turned around. And walked, past the chair and onto the sand, his hands sipping into his pockets.

Ben scrawled his signature and room number onto the check and caught up quickly, bumping his shoulder into Ender's as a quickly hello but staying silent otherwise.

Ender walked through the sand until he was only a few feet away from the water, and the noise - light, sound, and otherwise - of the bar was far behind him. There, he planted his feet firmly on the ground in a wide stance, like he was trying to ground himself.

For a while he didn't say anything, staring at the line where the water met the sky, and thought.

Ben took that moment to sit and take his socks and shoes off, then let his toes squish into the sand.

He was content to wait.

Ender reached up eventually, rubbing away some wetness by his eye with the pad of his thumb. "The first time I came back here, with Alai," he started. "I remembered Greensboro. It was the one real memory I had of the Earth. Everything from my childhood is a little fuzzy - I don't have your mind, I can't recall everything in detail. But I remembered loving the lake in Greensboro. Wanting to stay there forever."

Ben glanced up at where Ender was standing and chewed his lower lip, then reached out to touch his hand.

He couldn't just sit there and feel what Ender was feeling and not try to help alleviate a little bit of it.

"What did you love so much about it?" he asked.

"It was quiet," Ender said, but he didn't react to Ben's touch at all. "I could swim in the water, which was a little like zero-G. I could listen to the crickets; I could build a raft with my own hands, prove to myself I could do more than just tear things apart at the root."

Which explained the raft in Fandom.

Ben kept his fingers loose--the last thing he wanted to do was make Ender leave--and listened carefully.

"No responsibilities?" he offered softly.

"Yes," Ender said. His eyes finally glanced away from the horizon and landed on Ben. "Not that it was all a happy idyll," he said, "The ground on Earth--" He pushed back on his heels so the toes of his shoes came up out of the sand, "was too flat, the gravity was all wrong and the sky--"

He looked up. "The sky was new."

Ben smiled. "Your planet has a great sky," he agreed. "Especially at night. The sunset earlier wasn't half bad either."

"Any sky is a good sky if you're not used to it," he said. "Terrifying, too. But that was Greensboro."

"And with Alai?" he asked quietly. "Still terrifying?"

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