The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom (and Beyond!), Wednesday afternoon

[betterthanaplan]

Duke had plans with Octavia today to show her the ocean -- or the parts of it that could be easily reached from Fandom in an afternoon, anyway. So while he waited for her to arrive, he puttered around his boat, checking over the engine and bilge pump, plotting a couple possible routes on his charts, and checking the weather reports and tides for anything that might give them trouble.

Everything looked good for a lovely day at sea. He put together some beer and snacks, and sat back on his favorite bench with his ukelele while he waited.

A pair of porgs hopped up on the crate by his feet. He did his best to ignore them.

[for one!]

Comments

[okteiviakom]

Octavia shrugged. "It's like space." Proper space, not being on a space station. "Open, vast, not filled with people looking at me like I don't belong."

[betterthanaplan]

"You know, I was just telling Jack the ocean could be like space. Good to know I was right."

[okteiviakom]

"You were."

Octavia wondered whether Jack's take on the comparison would be similar to hers. She knew Jack's experience of space was different, at the very least.

Maybe she should ask her, sometime.

She fell quiet for a moment, watching the water. A few thoughts drifted by, but one was insistent enough that it made its way out of her mouth. "Feels like we overdid the topic of why I'm a basket case," she rasped, with no small amount of wryness. Then she looked back over at him. "What did you do before you were this, a smuggler with a boat? Apart from the jailtime."

She'd picked up bits and pieces, but hadn't actually asked yet.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke shrugged, looking out over the water. "Grew up in a small beach town in Maine, about a thousand miles north of here. My dad worked on the docks, started taking me out on the water by the time I could walk. Sailing's pretty much the only decent thing he ever taught me."

[okteiviakom]

"Better than nothing," Octavia replied. So, so mildly. "But he didn't look out for you."

No, it was not a question.

[betterthanaplan]

"Not so's you'd notice," Duke said. "Had to spend more than a few nights looking out for him instead." He sighed. "He died when I was eight."

[okteiviakom]

"I'm sorry."

More for the rest than the death, honestly, but that was the beauty of not specifying out loud. Her tone had dropped back into a neutral, but there was an undercurrent of... something.

She sounded like she cared, was the thing.

Octavia watched him in profile for a few seconds more before turning her eyes towards the water, too.

"What about your mother?"

[betterthanaplan]

Duke let out a single, bitter laugh.

"Yeah, I don't talk about her."

[okteiviakom]

"Says enough."

For her not to press on any further with that. Instead, she fell quiet again, just watching the view for a moment.

[betterthanaplan]

“Been thinking of looking into a glass bottom boat,” Duke said, after left the silence sit for a moment. “I bet there’s some weird shit to see down there.”

[okteiviakom]

"That's an option?" Octavia asked, though immediately on second thought it was not that surprising. "Like a window right into the sea."

[betterthanaplan]

“Exactly. It’d be a smaller one than this, more of a skiff really. Though the water’s probably not quite clear enough up here. They’re a booming business in the Caribbean.”

[okteiviakom]

Octavia's brief pause and look to the side with an ever so slightly furrowed brow was her trying to place the Caribbean on a map in her head.

And then failing, of course. But, whatever.

"I can see why people would like that," she mused. "You get to see things without having to be in the water."

[betterthanaplan]

“‘In the water’ is a spooky place for a lot of people,” Duke said. “Am I right in guessing that you don’t swim?”

[okteiviakom]

"I wade, if that counts?"

You could tell by the faint wry smirk that she knew it didn't.

[betterthanaplan]

“Well. It’s a start anyway.”

[okteiviakom]

"I was the first Ark-born person in the water," Octavia drawled, "and immediately after, I was almost the first Ark-born person eaten by some kind of a snake monster." Mutated fauna was a blast. "That's my reason and I'm sticking to it."

She was mostly joking about that one, not that it was easy to tell.

"Learning's on my to-do list, though."

[betterthanaplan]

". . . Yeah, I can see where that would put you off it for awhile. I myself haven't gone swimming since I saw the giant sea monster that lives right by Fandom." He shrugged. "Also it's cold."

[okteiviakom]

"... Fandom has a sea monster?"

A beat.

"Of course Fandom has a sea monster. Why wouldn't it?"

[betterthanaplan]

"Thank you," Duke said. "Everyone always looks at me like 'oh poor baby' when I react to stuff like that. Yes. Fandom has a sea monster. And it would have been really nice if someone had warned me about it before I happened upon it while free diving."

[okteiviakom]

Octavia wasn't the type to say 'oh my God', but that didn't really matter when her raised eyebrows were really saying it for her.

"Oh, no. That is definitely worth a significant reaction." And also news to her, and maybe she would just continue to skip the swimming, after all? "And one they don't advertise much, apparently."

[betterthanaplan]

"I gather it spends most of its time sleeping. I might just have to brave it and try again -- just, you know, on the other side of the island."

[okteiviakom]

"Good," Octavia decided. "I don't want you to get eaten."

Because, again, she'd almost had that happen and so she knew first-hand how terrible that was.

But also just in general.

[betterthanaplan]

“I prefer to avoid it, myself,” Duke said. “I’m very trouble-avoidant.”

God help him, he actually thought that was true.

[okteiviakom]

Octavia had known him for like a week, and yet here she was, giving him a silent look that was on the dryly judgey side.

Because, really?