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

"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?"

"No," Ender replied. He sought out the moon in the sky. "But it's funny. All I ever wanted was to go home, and yet when I stepped out onto the Earth again, all I could think of was that I couldn't root myself in that soil. Like I was a visitor on my own home planet. I never thought of it as strange on Fandom - it isn't the same - but there, it was..." He bit on his lip. "There was distance."

Ben gave his fingers a tiny squeeze, encouraging him to sit down if he wanted.

"You didn't feel welcome," Ben murmured. "Again."

Ender's eyes slipped back to him when he felt the squeeze.

He finally sat down, though it was like he was slightly unsure of his limbs; in the end, he wound up sitting on the sand with his legs pulled up against him.

"Maybe," he said. "Maybe I'd already said goodbye, and I just wasn't aware of what it meant, yet."

Ben let his hand drop down, giving Ender a little bit of breathing room.

"Maybe," Ben replied. "But I think you're mourning now."

"I own the house now, and the lake," Ender said, and his face did still feel a little wet, he realised. "Graff had them deeded to me. I own them, but I can't ever go there. How's that for irony?"

Irony, yes, but he didn't think it was funny at all.

"Painful," Ben replied softly, reaching out to touch Ender's back and trying to ignore the way his stomach was rolling over at seeing Ender's tears.

Dink's words were reverberating at his ears, and even though a part of him knew that Ender was way past due for a good cry, he still felt like he'd failed somehow by not taking at least part of the blow first.

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