fh_trips | Kohala Coast, Hawaii - Morning & Afternoon - Friday

"You're asking me?" Ender asked, quite sensibly, and with his eyebrow raised as far as anyone not trained in the art of eyebrow-raising could manage.

"It was rhetorical," Karla said, shooting him a look that suggested he was not properly moved by the wee bitty baby animals. In fact, her camera was hanging by the band around her wrist, so it hadn't even been misplaced, exactly. She pointed to a baby turtle, swimming contendly in the tide pool. "How can you look at that bitty face and not think it's adorable?"

Edited 2011-02-25 06:56 (UTC)

Ender pulled away from the rock wall he'd previously been leaning against to get a closer look. "It's adorable," he said, obediently, "And bitty." It was... kind of obvious that he was humoring her. Though mostly because he was making it obvious. "And a turtle, Karla."

Edited 2011-02-25 06:59 (UTC)

Karla just rolled her eyes. "What do you have against turtles?" she asked. "It's still all wee and cute and baby-like."

She snapped a picture of it craning its head up to her, and then turned and snapped another of Ender. "If you get closer," she added impishly, "I'll get one of the two of you together?"

"I have nothing against turtles," Ender said, lightly, "but as far as species go, they don't exactly raise my nurturing instinct." No, you saved that for bugs, Ender. But he did obediently lean a little closer. "But I promised you pictures," he sighed.

At least he'd worn the nice blue button-up instead of his monotonous collection of Property-of-the-International-Fleet t-shirts? You know, for posterity?

Karla happily clicked a picture of Ender and the turtle. "I think it's smiling at you!" she said, taking another that a generous viewer could perhaps agree that the turtle's head was angled towards Enders. "And baby creatures of almost any species are adorable. To keep us from eating them when they get annoying."

"Well, as long as you recognise the underlying reasons," Ender said, dryly. He did not think the turtle was smiling at him, no. He leaned back. "So I heard you got a few objects stuffed into a certain person's drink."

That was a better topic of conversation than turtles, right? ~~Ender, stop talking about Ben.~~

"It was hilarious right up until he decided that the plastic monkeys were giving him cooties," Karla said, laughing. "What am I talking about? It was still hilarious after that, too. Mother Night, Ben got so drunk."

While Karla had remained perfectly sober, thank you.

"Which was his own fault, because he kept stealing my drinks."

"Sounds like a fun night," Ender said, with no small amount of amused quirk-of-mouth. Though it wasn't exactly his kind of fun night. "I'm hoping the rest of the week was about as good," he added, because he wasn't, in fact, going to be spending the whole time talking about Ben being drunken ~~and clingy and rambly~~.

Suuuuure he wasn't. Suuuure.

"On Wednesday night ~~when you two were being completely heterosexual!~~, Warren took me out for a really impressive date," Karla said, flushing a bit while wearing a very large grin. "He chartered a boat to take us out to a pineapple-filled island. We had dinner at sunset on the ocean and then flew back after it got dark. It was wonderful."

Ender smiled warmly. "That's really good to hear," he said. "The two of you deserved a good time."

"There were crepes," Karla said, sighing happily. "Our special crepes. He thought of everything."

As half-versary celebrations went, it was going to be awfully hard to beat.

"And how's your week been going?" she asked, since a play-by-play of exactly how wonderful each minute of their date had been would probably wear even Ender's patience thin? "I saw you Sunday and then you were gone."

"My week has... gone," Ender said, still in a state of a sort of distant gladness that Karla was happy. He glanced down at the tidepool. "I needed a little time to myself, but I'm about ready to un-disappear myself now."

"With so much of the vacation left, however will we cope with the influx of Ender?" Karla asked dryly.

Which mostly was just a placeholder comment so she could figure out how to word the next question.

"Peopled out from the trip home?" she asked delicately. "Or needed some time to think and process...?"

"Both," Ender replied, glancing up at her, "But I'm all processed out on all sides." So no talking please, Karla. "And yesterday I had a lovely trip out to the rainforest zoo, so it's not all been brooding, I promise."

"So no poking, Karla," Karla said, smiling a little bit. Yeah, she could pick up on the unspoken when she really wanted to. "Aww, I missed that trip. I ended up sleeping late again."

Not that she needed much prodding to do that anyway.

"Does that mean you're all cute animal'd out, too?" she teased. "Is that why you have no love for the baby turtles?"

"I think when you've seen Raven stalked by a peacock, you've seen it all," he joked, gently. "Though I wouldn't call most of those animals 'cute' by any stretch. There was a tiger."

"Arcerian cats are very cute and cuddly," Karla maintained staunchly, ignoring the fact she only felt that way about kindred cats. "I'm sure tigers can be, too."

She darted him a quick grin. "We can always leave the tidepool to go set up a game of beach volleyball?"

Ender blinked at her. "Why beach volleyball?" he said. "You're not really the sporty type."

"Oh, don't worry," Karla assured him. "I'd just be taking pictures of everyone else playing beach volleyball. Document it for posterity and all that stuff."

Ender shot her an amused look. "I think I'll pass," he said, "I said pictures were okay, I never promised to be a performing monkey for them."

"I'll pay you in bananas?" Karla offered, laughing. "I don't think you'll ever get a better deal for beach volleyball than that."

"Which is why I'll probably never play beach volleyball," he said, solemnly. "Sorry, Karla. You'll have to find another victim. Ben will do anything for a meal..."

"Oh, I just have to tell him he agreed Sunday night at the bar," Karla said airily. "So that's...one! How many more people do we need for a game? You can referee!"

It's not like Karla had any idea what beach volleyball actually entailed--or cared. But pretending like this was actually a feasible idea would teach Ender to be dismissive of the charms of baby turtles.

Yes, Ender was certainly learning his lesson. Or something.

...

He could see right through your straight face, Di Glacia.

"A few," he offered, because his straight face was much better. "I don't know. Beach volleyball wasn't really big up on Battle School, Karla."

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