(2023-08-18) The Business of Leisure and Scheduled Idleness

Details

Author:	Athena
Summary:	On a lovely August day, the Fallons invite both Lady Cressidha and Lady Priscilla to come visit at Fallon House. Only one of them actually really leaves. It's not as ominous as it sounds. Fluffy fun RP of characters interacting. 23,500-ish words of play and conversation.
Rating:	M for Mature 17+

Chain: Siarenne

+ Show additional content warnings

contains some innuendo, romance, polyamory

The mid-August day in question is a perfect one to spend at the beach. The midmorning sky is a cloudless drape of azure-blue, the sun-drenched air balmy and ruffled by the gentlest westerly breeze. From the top of the cliffs on which Fallon House stands, the sea is a shimmering sapphire expanse stretched below, and the gulls that wheel above it flash silvery in the dazzling summer light.

The windows and front door of Fallon House all stand open to the glorious weather, and in the front garden just above the path down to the beach, a picnic has been arranged. I mean "picnic" in the comically wealthy person sense, like a picnic at Versailles, so imagine a couple of buffet tables bedecked with exuberant flower arrangements — as if the blooming gardens around the house were insufficient — and pitchers of iced water and lemonade with picturesque and unnecessary embellishments like sprigs of mint and lavender, and tiered dishes of chilled fruit and tiny pastries, and platters of seafood and sliced roast meats and absurdly ornate bread rolls. Footmen armed with wine bottles stand placidly nearby. It's okay, it's nearly eleven a.m., it's Brunch Wine.

The path that descends to the beach has been decorated with garlands of yet more flowers, and on the tranquil, sun-warmed sand itself are spread several broad blankets, one of which is arranged under a canopy out of consideration for Ladies Who Are Delicate In the Sun.

Sintha Fallon is presumably not Delicate In the Sun, to judge from her loose, sleeveless ivory-linen sundress, which displays an expanse of tanned bare arms and shoulders. She is wearing sandals and a wide-brimmed straw sun-hat, and in general looks breezy and Expensive. She stands above the beach, near one of the buffet tables in the garden, holding a glass of lemonade with a gratuitous ornamental raspberry floating in it.

Priscilla's carriage is first to arrive. It has a small, cramped interior, like she went for the budget option, but at least the carriage driver has the courtesy to help her with her luggage - two large suitcases on wheels, each with a different brightly-colored ribbon tied on the handle. Priscilla's sundress is yellow with white polka-dots, and the ribbon around her sun hat matches the fabric. Her long hair is tied loosely back in a low ponytail, but much of it has escaped containment already.

There's a bright, sunny smile on Priscilla's face as she takes in the sight of the Fallon estate.

Avrenne is dressed in a loose, dark pink dress, long sleeved and high collared, without ornamentation that might conceal some sort of bathing suit underneath it, a wide brimmed sun hat over her hair, braided down the center. It's longer than it was a few months ago, and it might have been due for a cut soon, but not any longer. Now it grows forever.

Her expression is her public facing one, cool enough to match the general refreshments vibe, but at the sound of the carriage, and the reveal of who it is, the composure is dropped for a genuine smile, as she strides forward to meet her friend, reaching out with both hands, just Avrenne for a moment. "Priscilla," she says in greeting as she gets closer.

Priscilla beams and rushes forward to clasp Avrenne's hands. "Avrenne!" she says, because they are not in private - someone from the manor has come to collect her suitcases from the carriage driver. "Oh, this place is so lovely, I could just paint the grounds all day and never get bored."

Avrenne lets Barbour manage the logistics of guest placement, smiling at Priscilla with a small humming sound like a trapped laugh in her chest. "It is lovely," she agrees. "I am very happy here." The way she looks back towards the house though, in an unerring direct line to where Siamus' office would be, however, rather than the grounds, suggests it isn't just the landscape that pleases her about living there.

"Come, you must be parched after the journey," Avrenne says with a knowing of how carriage rides in the summer feel. "Did you remember to bring water with you for the ride?" The mothering has already begun.

Finley emerges from the house with Isla and Otto both in tow. Finley doesn't look like a butler, and not entirely a gentleman either, in a simple short sleeved white shirt — well made and well tailored, revealing an expensive budget for even such a simple garment — and light brown linen pants. His hair hasn't been styled, and it's just a wild toss of waves around his face, but he seems easy going, one hand in pocket as he walks, saying something to Isla that looks like it might be sarcastic or teasing.

Given how Isla whirls on him with sudden rage, it probably was. The young girl throws up both her hands in the air, which is made awkward by the fact that one of them is still holding onto Otto's hand. They both nearly go down onto the gravel of the drive, but Finley catches Isla's other hand, and pulls them both right. Isla already has her bathing suit on, a modern thing of cap sleeves and a very small ruffled skirt just covering the tops of her thighs, a bright white material with yellow dots sewn into it. She has forgotten her sunhat.

Otto looks like he's wandered into the wrong place — he's wearing a very large hat more appropriate for working with bees or bugs, with a veil over it, a long white sleeved shirt and long white pants. He waves shyly at Priscilla after he doesn't crash to the ground from Isla.

"Scilla," Finley says as they get closer, with a smile that seems a little too soft for his sharper edges. "It's good to see you."

"I did," Priscilla says, which is true. Did she remember to take the water out of her suitcase and drink it, though? (Only once.) "Oh, just look at everyone." She waves brightly at Sintha and the trio as they come into view.

"Finley, Isla, Otto, hello," Priscilla greets the trio first, because they're approaching. "Oh, it's lovely to see you too, Finley. And Isla, your bathing suit is so cute!"

Avrenne narrows her eyes into even more narrow rectangles. She's onto you, Priscilla. Hydrate or diedrate, as the Azerothian saying goes. But, she lets it go. For now.

Isla beams at Priscilla and tries for an enthusiastic twirl, which is — once again — a problem because she's still holding onto Otto's hand. Otto just moves along with her like a dandelion fluff on a weird, spinny wind. This is fine. Isla has committed to this spin like this and by the tides she is finishing it. Her cheeks are a little pink now though, and she lets go of Otto's hand. "Isn't it? Mr. Latour made it for me." Which is a good sign of his ongoing health, if he remembers Isla, and that she isn't, you know, a toddler.

"Isla," Avrenne scolds. "Where is your sunhat?"

"Er." Isla looks at Priscilla. H-help. Quick, tell Avrenne she only had a single drink of water or something.

"Lady Moore," rhapsodizes Sintha, swanning over for air kisses. As she passes, she plucks off her own sunhat and plonks it onto Isla's head. One air kiss for Priscilla! Two air kisses for Priscilla! the lemonade held carefully away at her side, and then Sintha draws away to sweep the other woman with an admiring look. "Gosh aren't you fetching? So sunshiney!"

She doesn't wait for reply before stepping back and looking around. "Where on earth is my brother? Shine!"

The one-eyed footman appears at her side. "Lady Sintha."

"Can you please go inside and fetch His Lordship and tell him that guests are arriving? He said ten minutes an hour ago."

Shine does not smile, because he is an excellent footman. "Of course, Lady Sintha." He vanishes as smoothly as he had appeared, and Sintha turns a bright smile back on Priscilla and Avrenne.

"Gosh, I only just returned from Northrend a few days ago and saw the wedding portrait, aren't you brilliant? Absolutely stunning. Lord Bertrand is coming, yes?" Why Sintha would think to mention wedding portraits and Bertrand in the same breath is anyone's guess; she is an ephemeral creature of mystery.

Priscilla begins reaching up to her own hat, but stops as Sintha solves the problem the same way she was about to. "Lady Sintha," Priscilla greets, smiling. "You're too kind, I'm glad you like it. I do take commissions, if there's anything you'd ever like for yourself, although there's a bit of a queue at the moment." There's a wistful sigh. "Birdie can't make it, his unit is still up in the Dragonblight, and his free time is measured in hours that include sleeping. They really do keep a tight schedule, over in the 7th Legion."

Sintha's eyes gleam. "Oh, gosh, so I hear. It all sounds very naval, if I'm honest — well, the navy when at sea, watches and sleeping in shifts and whatnot — and I'm terribly excited. But gosh, I'm so sorry to miss Lord Bertrand, and I'm sure Shay will be as well."

Isla glows like a little pop of sunshine from under her Sintha Fallon sunhat, her expression clouding only at the mention that Bertrand won't be coming, too. "He never has leave at the right times," she says, a little sulkily, as she pulls down the sides of the sunhat more fully over her face. "He hasn't even seen the house or anything."

"Lord Bertrand will have significantly more time when this war has finished, and he retires from the military." Avrenne pats not Isla's, but Priscilla's arm in a distinctly motherly way. "Then he shall have to practice at measuring his time in relaxing and scheduled idleness, I'm sure," she quips, a touch of a dry note in her voice. Ha ha, idleness. What's that.

Priscilla smiles a dreamy sort of smile and sighs. Oh, that's the daydreaming about Bertrand look right there.

Sintha purses her lips and studies Priscilla's expression with vaguely patronizing anthropological interest. Gosh, aren't feelings sweet? Couldn't you just pat them on the head?

Isla is daydreaming with Priscilla. Her ongoing fanfiction of THE PAINTER AND THE NOBLE SOLDIER continues, now with, apparently, schedules! Isla has heard that there are ledgers for that. Should there be ledgers in this story? Stay tuned.

Avrenne pats Priscilla again by reflex. There, there. She'll be back. She surveys Otto and Finley. Hm. Acceptable. Men don't have to wear hats for the sun, for some reason. She leads Priscilla towards the refreshments. "Priscilla," it's important to use her name to call her back from Bertrandlandia, "Would you care for some lemonade, or are you in the mood for some wine? You did eat a proper breakfast, I trust?"

Finley ushers the two younger ones along. Otto is already starting to drift a bit, moving in less clear lines now that he isn't tethered to anyone specifically. "Those are pretty flowers," he says softly as they get closer to the tables.

"I did eat breakfast," Priscilla promises, following along. "Lemonade sounds better right now, though, to be honest." Was it a proper breakfast? Who knows.

Avrenne, herself, ate like a bird that morning, but that doesn't count because that's how the rules work somehow. She hasn't eaten well in the week since the failed invasion of Lordaeron, but at least she's eating something, so we're counting it as a win.

Shine returns and discreetly takes up his post by a table again. Sintha gives him a narrow look and he nods once at her.

Sure enough, a few moments later Siamus comes ambling across the lawn from the house. He is dressed in extremely Summer Casual, grey linen trousers and a white shirt open at the neck, his sleeves rolled. His hands are in his pockets and he is smiling his faint, enigmatic smile.

He tips his head at Sintha in a slight, sardonic nod, and then his smile warms genuinely at the sight of the assembled group. "Lady Moore," he greets Priscilla. "A pleasure to see ye again."

Avrenne lights up at the sight of Siamus, and without her social mask on over her expression, it's much more obvious. She doesn't really do dreamy, exactly, but her smile is warm and bright.

Priscilla smiles warmly. "Vice Admiral Fallon, I believe congratulations are in order."

Siamus's smile widens and he inclines his head courteously to her, even as he moves to Avrenne's side and lays his hand lightly on the small of her back. "Thank ye kindly, Lady Moore. I owe a great deal to the efforts of my lady wife."

Which celebratory thing is he referring to? Because that latter statement could apply to either.

Avrenne shifts her weight subtly closer, and there's a faint sound of a hum in her chest that might be a laugh caught there.

Finley gives Siamus a polite gentleman's bow, before going to collect Otto's hand, the younger boy already wandering towards the beach.

Isla is loading up on tiny pastries. They don't count as multiple if they're small, that's the rules.

Priscilla does laugh, and she makes her way to one of the buffet tables to get herself some lemonade.

"Have you finalized the inventories for your return to Northrend?" Avrenne asks, looking up at Siamus. Oh no. Work talk. Is work talk allowed on Beach Day? She might not be able to help herself. This is the same woman who speaks on war logistics at a Lordaeron Remembrance Ball when she's deliberately attempting to be charming.

"Nearly." Siamus smiles down at her. "I'm just finishing the – "

"You are not," says Sintha firmly. "You are not finishing anything right now, you are not doing work, you are spending a delightful day with friends and family at the beach. You've been positively frightful with work for the last ten days, the pair of you, and that is precisely why we are having a lovely, leisurely day today."

She looks at Priscilla. Back her up here, Lady Moore.

Priscilla misses her cue - she's drinking lemonade. Uh oh.

"Oh, very well," Avrenne says lightly, a touch of that ballroom behavior to her, but her smile to Siamus has a slightly wicked look to it. "The business of leisure first, and the pleasure of inventories later." There might be something slightly wrong with the workaholics, but it's fine.

Speaking of the business of leisure, another carriage seems to be approaching.

Siamus smiles fondly down at Avrenne again and puts his arm around her, tucking her comfortably against his side, just as the sound of carriage wheels on gravel becomes audible. He turns to look in that direction.

Avrenne follows his line of sight, and there goes the laughter, tucked expertly back into place behind a cool composure. She doesn't move away from Siamus' side, however, leaning her head slightly into the shelter of him in a way that might not be entirely intentional.

"Oh!" Isla cries out, clasping her hands to her face. "That must be the Lady Cressidha." She turns to Sintha, light panic on her face. "Do I look alright?" The panic may or may not be related to the potential for a renowned noble tailor to see an outfit. Or possibly it's the meeting someone famous. One day she'll meet the Cobalt Blade members and maybe explode.

Priscilla sets her cup down and turns towards the approaching carriage.

Sintha beams at Isla and adjusts the sunhat on the girl's head at a slightly coquettish angle. "You look darling," she assures her. "A little beach blossom."

Lady Cressidha Aspenwood emerges from the carriage with her usual careful poise. She does not have luggage, only a small bag secured to a woven belt around her waist. Her sundress is white, the fabric quite opaque at the top and a little more translucent towards the lower hem. There are ribbons tied on each shoulder, and underneath those, a second pair of ribbons in a pale blue color that might be from her bathing suit, perhaps layered underneath the dress.

After a very brief conversation with the driver, her carriage departs the way it came, and Cressidha moves towards the house.

Avrenne does not stride forward to meet her, waiting instead, as regal as a queen, to receive her. "Lady Cressidha," she says as Cressidha gets within speaking distance, holding out her right hand, palm down, for a simple, polite clasp rather than a handshake. "Thank you for joining us. I trust the journey was not too arduous?"

Cressidha's hand is cool, as if she spent much of the carriage ride purposefully controlling the temperature inside. She clasps Avrenne's hand with a faint smile. "Not at all. Thank you, of course, for the invitation." She turns to greet Siamus next. "Commodore Fallon." The news of his promotion has not yet made its way to her, apparently.

"Lady Cressidha." Siamus does not correct her because he is a gentleman. He inclines his head courteously, not quite a bow. "I'm well pleased ye could join us today." There is a suggestive glitter in his dark gaze, that slight curl of a smile.

"Would you care for any wine, Lady Cressidha? A little bit of celebration on our part, with Siamus' recent appointment as Vice Admiral yesterday, among other reasons," Avrenne says, a small smile on her face. "We have managed, it seems, to have come this far without any new catastrophes and might perhaps enjoy an entire afternoon."

"Oh, Avrenne, if you say it like that, there will be a terrible thunderstorm or some tragic accident," Isla says, although she should probably not sound so rapturous about it, as though these very dramatic things wouldn't be simply delicious fanfic fodder. Gosh, what if there was a storm and there was only one bed!

"No thunderstorms today, Isla," the Commodore Vice Admiral informs her genially. There are also a great many beds but he doesn't say that part aloud, since she didn't either.

That's fine, tragic accident that requires dramatic carrying around is still on the table!

Cressidha blinks. "Oh, my congratulations." She shakes her head to Avrenne. "Perhaps later, I think. Lady Sintha, Lady Priscilla, good afternoon. And… Isla?" Cressidha looks curiously at the teenager.

Oh, Light, she knows her name. Isla looks almost faint with it, very visibly star struck. She squeaks out, "Yes. I'm. I'm Cressidha. It's an honor to meet you, Lady Isla." Uh. She almost trips forward, putting up her hands, shaking them back and forth like it's an Etch-a-Sketch of conversation, blushing furiously. "Wait, no!" Delete, delete. "I— " Oh dear, she might cry.

Avrenne sets out a hand gently. "Yes, this is my youngest ward, Isla Lenaire. She has been very much looking forward to making your acquaintance. She has heard quite a bit about you in Cobalt Company in Northrend, and very much admires your efforts."

Cressidha covers her mouth with her hand briefly to hide a smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Lenaire. Might I call you Isla?"

"Yes?" Now Isla might cry for another reason but it's happy tears. Success.

Siamus smiles indulgently at Isla.

"Lady Cressidha, you are absolutely a picture, gosh!" marvels Sintha, and swoops in for an air kiss.

"Why, thank you." Cressidha is not much of an air kisser herself, but she accepts Sintha's with a faint smile.

"It's good to see you well," Priscilla says, approaching from her place by the food tables.

Finley has managed to at least herd Otto to under the canopy on the beach, where Otto is now happily digging a hole in the sand. Finley leaves him to that to return up the path, his stride hitching slightly at the sight of Cressidha, before he smooths it out, his shoulders hunching slightly, as he clears his throat awkwardly.

Avrenne's head turns as though on an invisible string of poise. "Oh, there you are. Lady Cressidha, this is my eldest ward, Finley Boutille. I do not believe you have met before?"

Finley cuts Cressidha a formal bow, which sits a little oddly on his otherwise casual vibe, but he might also recognize her. He's less starstruck than Isla, at least. Although that's an admittedly low bar.

Cressidha turns towards Finley curiously before returning his bow with the most appropriate level and duration of curtsy she has estimated to be correct for a woman of her station to the ward of a noblewoman. "I do not believe we have, no. A pleasure to meet you as well, Mr. Boutille."

"I hope your father's been well?" Avrenne asks Cressidha. "Last I spoke to him, he was talking about taking an easier summer next year, after this year's planting of the vineyards on your new lands, from your brother's marriage?"

Cressidha turns her attention back to Avrenne. "As far as I know, that remains true." Is it polite small talk time now? It seems to be.

Priscilla is contemplating the logistics of having the food over here and the beach down there. "Could we bring some of the fruit, perhaps?" she asks Sintha. "I feel like fruit always tastes better on the beach, somehow."

Sintha surveys the situation. "I believe we could, at that. If the wind behaves itself the sand shouldn't trouble us." She looks innocently at Siamus.

Siamus looks flatly back at her. "I don't believe we should count on the wind's patience for the whole of the time. We can bring the food covered." He looks toward the table himself. "Croft, will ye fetch us some baskets wi' the food, for below?"

The young footman bows courteously and heads for the house.

Siamus himself turns his attention back to the conversation between Avrenne and Cressidha.

"I am glad that you are finding some time yourself to relax this summer. It is very important that one takes regular breaks and refresh oneself, particularly during such tumultuous times such as these," Avrenne says, and we'll just ignore that this is advice she also absolutely does not follow. It's fine. The rules are for other people, not mom Avrenne. "Might I ask, how has your project been coming along with the, oh, auroraweave, was it?" She asks it as if she might have remembered the name incorrectly. She hasn't, of course.

"I have not made as much progress as I might like," Cressidha says. This is Cressidha for 'very poorly'. "The conditions of its creation have thus far proven impossible to recreate."

"'Auroraweave' is what, exactly?" Siamus inquites politely.

"I'm afraid I don't have it on hand to show you at this time," Cressidha says mildly, "but there was a bolt of primal mooncloth that - upon transport through the mail, which was unpredictable at that time - took on a uniquely shimmering appearance. A friend of mine has entrusted me with the task of being able to replicate this anomaly deliberately." Her face is expressionless.

Siamus raises his eyebrows. "Fascinating, aye?" He looks genuinely intrigued.

"It is truly a work of wonder, quite remarkable a cloth," Avrenne says, with such surety that even in the coolness of her tone, it's likely obvious that she's seen it in person, and was at least a litte impressed. "I understand that it was given the name for its resemblance to the aurora of Northrend, and it does quite suit. Given how high that auction went, it would be an incredible feat if there were to be more of it, even — or perhaps I should say especially — if it not in large quantities." It might even have the potential to throw some of the cloth market into disarray for a bit, but that's resource management for you. "It must be an incredible challenge, but I expect also that the process of determining the influencing factors in its creation may also provide valuable intel on the nature of the arcane mail and what influences it may have on goods shipped through it, if even in much smaller, safer amounts."

Wait a second. Is she still working? Maybe.

Isla looks at Cressidha curiously. "Does it feel cursed?" She really should not sound that delighted at the idea, but. "Or haunted? Could it be haunted? Wouldn't that just be terrible if it was like that because it had someone's immortal soul trapped inside it?" Uh oh. That's gonna end up the explanation in the fanfiction, isn't it?

Priscilla looks interested. Pretty cloth? Sign her up.

Cressidha looks very neutral. "It does not feel cursed," she says. "That I am certain of. As for haunted, I would not know. I had not yet considered that as a possible explanation."

"Mm," Avrenne makes a noncommittal noise at the possibility of haunted cloth. Is she interested in haunted cloth? Unclear.

"I confess entire ignorance as to the arcane," Siamus says, sounding perhaps weirdly proud of this fact, "but is the nature of the mail disruption in the first place understood yet in full? It was Cobalt had the untangling of that, as I gather."

Cressidha clasps her hands tightly in front of her. "Yes," she says to SIamus, and does not elaborate.

"Is Otto alone down there?" Priscilla starts moving towards the path down to the beach.

"Oh, gosh, is he?" Sintha swivels a look at Finley.

Finley looks immediately guilty, sticking both hands in his pockets. "Yeah, but he's fine," he says, and there's a defensive bristle to his shoulders.

Avrenne steps forward, moving to set a hand on Finley's arm as she uses her own momentum to pull Isla with her. "I'm sure he is," she says in a placating way. "I expect he's still working on collecting items for the mobile, for the baby." Oh, yes, Cressidha, there's a baby. Anyway. She continues moving, ushering now both of her wards towards the beach. It's only as she steps up to them that it's obvious that she's actually much smaller than both of them. "It would be good to help him." It's a "suggestion," but it's really not.

"Oh! Do you think we'll find more sea glass?" Isla asks, looking over her shoulder back at Sintha and Cressidha as she's pushed forward by the weight of Avrenne's manner. "We've been looking and looking."

"Perhaps Shay will help you today," Sintha suggests. "He is positively uncanny at finding that sort of thing." She twinkles at her brother.

This suggestion does not seem to disgruntle Siamus, unlike the one about the wind, and he nods gravely at Isla. "Aye, I could have a look wi'ye." And then, to Sintha, a little reproachfully, "Otto's fine. Finley'd no' ha'e left him otherwise." Whether he knows this last for fact or not, he does seem pretty confident that Otto is not currently drowning or being carried away by a riptide or anything.

Cressidha takes a tiny pastry from the buffet table to eat quickly and discreetly on the walk down to the beach. Some of the tension has gone out of her now that the topic of the auroraweave has been fully dropped.

Croft returns from the house carrying a pair of covered baskets, followed by the maids Moirin and Lyra, each of whom is carrying another basket. The baskets are, obviously, laden. Apparently rather than packing up this food, we're just going to bring new, supplemental food. There's plenty of food. It's fine.

Siamus offers Avrenne his arm to escort her down to the beach.

Avrenne takes Siamus' arm with a small smile, curling her hand around more than strictly necessary.

Sintha turns and solemnly offers hers to Isla, her gaze merry.

Isla gasps in delight at the offer of Sintha's arm. Lady escort! Oh, this is a perfect potential addition to the ongoing SINTHA AND THE PRINCESS (unknown) fanfiction. She almost trips over onto Sintha to leap to the occasion, but it's fine, she's fine, don't worry about it. Her sandals survived. Whew. Everything's chill, especially Isla, who can totally walk escorted like a normal person. Maybe.

Finley's bristle subsides at Siamus' agreement that Otto is fine. He trails behind with the maids carrying the baskets by habit.

Priscilla leaves her sandals at the last non-sandy spot available to her and heads out across the sand towards Otto. "Hello, Otto," she calls in a friendly singsong voice, announcing her presence.

And it's true — Otto is cheerfully digging a hole next to himself under the canopy, although his expression is vague and far away rather than focused on the task at hand, until he hears his name. He looks up at Priscilla with soft, wide blue eyes. "Scilla. You're here. Do you want more sand?" It's a bit of an odd question, but he pats his growing pile. Maybe Priscilla wants extra sand. Who knows. "There aren't any flowers but there are shells."

Priscilla sits down next to Otto, legs outstretched as she tries not to get unnecessary sand on the blankets just yet. "Sure, I could use more sand," she says brightly, and scoops up a handful, letting it flow through her fingers back down onto the sand pile. "What shells have you found?"

Otto tilts his head at Priscilla. "All of them? I only know they're there when I've found them." It's a sort of logic, in a way.

Priscilla chuckles. She flattens out an area of some of the slightly damper sand from the hole in front of her and uses her pinky to begin drawing a dandelion.

Cressidha smiles faintly at Isla. She does not seem at all bothered by her own lack of escort. Her aura of unapproachability is still active, whether she likes it or not.

Avrenne, however, moves a hand and her head slightly, as she continues forward.

Finley takes a deep breath. Oh, geez. He uses three long strides to catch up to the Ice Queen, to gallantly offer his arm to one of the most famous mages of the most famous mercenary company in the entire world. This is fine. He's got this. The sweat on his brow is from the heat of the summer day, of course. "Lady Cressidha, if I may," he says politely, more like the deference of a servant than a gentleman, but here we are.

Cressidha nods politely and takes his arm. There is nothing remaining of the pastry in view - it is all being eaten in one bite-sized bite. She tries to chew faster.

Finley looks away politely, with a bland disinterest to his expression of a butler not drawing attention to his lady's rapid snacking. It's fine. He also seems familiar with matching his stride impeccably to Cressidha's surprisingly shorter one. He could have sworn she was 6ft tall a second ago, but as it turns out, she's not. Huh.

Avrenne carefully removes her shoes at the edge of the beach, before linking back up with Siamus.

Siamus paused as well to remove his own shoes and, you know, socks, ugh, and then takes Avrenne's arm again to lead her toward the blankets. Sintha kicks her sandals off merrily and tows Isla along.

Cressidha has finished chewing by the time they reach the beach, but it doesn't seem like she is going to stop to take her own sandals off. She does look at Finley for direction - does he need to remove his shoes?

Isla forgets to take off her sandals, walking along on top of the world. Possibly soon to be more on the level with the world if she trips, but that might be inevitable.

Finley looks back at Cressidha, and again, that sweat is just from the summer day. It's hot. Don't worry about it. He gives her a winning smile that doesn't disguise the guarded look in his eyes. It's very possible he's flipping a mental coin, and if the lady isn't taking her shoes off, far be it from him to delay her with removing his own. He continues with her momentum, passing by the shoes as he continues onto the beach with his…boots…(and socks) still on. It's fine.

"I hope I'm not being too forward by assuming that this dress is another of your creations?" Finley asks Cressidha, and there's a flirtatious tilt to it, his shoulders hunched slightly but maybe it's because he's so much taller than her. "It's a beautiful choice. But I wouldn't expect anything less from a tailor of your caliber. I've heard of your masterwork shadoweave robe a few times. It's fair famous in certain circles." He's trying. How do you talk to a famous Ice Woman? Besides, obviously, sweat a lot.

Avrenne arrives at the shade, and immediately — and unselfconsciously — loosens the dress to remove it and the sunhat, revealing a long sleeved, mid-leg length maroon wetsuit bathing suit. She is clearly planning on swimming soon.

Siamus glances over, wearing his faint smile, and tilts his head slightly at Finley. It is the subtler, gentlemanly equivalent of a thumbs-up.

Cressidha stops by one of the blankets that is not currently in the shade. "It is, yes," she confirms. "Thank you." She reaches into the bag at her waist and begins to pull out an entire beach umbrella, currently folded so it fits through the opening of the bag. "Do you want some water?" she offers.

Finley is momentarily distracted in a stunned sort of way as he watches a beach umbrella emerge from a bag that does not look like it could fit a fan. "I — " He shakes his head a little more like to clear it than in negation. There's an involuntary glance at Avrenne.

Avrenne's expression is unreadable, a cool composure that makes it seem as though she might be entirely unaware of what is happening. Hm.

"I would hate to inconvenience you for it," Finley says politely, that deferential tone creeping back in. He pulls up a charming smile as he moves forward, intending to take the umbrella, to set it up for her it would seem. "But I've heard that every mage's water is different, and I'd be a fool to pass up a chance to try one summoned by such a mage as yourself."

Isla plops down next to Otto and Priscilla, and almost falls into the shallow hole. Oof. "Can you make more than one kind of water?" She asks Cressidha, as she starts to sift through the sand pile Otto's already made.

Sintha moves to the other sunny blanket and strips her sundress off over her head, to reveal a swimsuit in a shade of coral enormously flattering to her tan and general coloration. She drops the sundress heedlessly and, rather than head for the water, settles gracefully on the blanket to stretch her legs out and prop herself on her hands. Sintha, wait until you get the news from the real world about tanning.

Meanwhile, Croft and the maids proceed to the canopied blanket and arrange their baskets in a row along one edge. Croft flips open the lid of one of his to reveal it contains corked glass bottles of lemonade and cider. The remaining baskets remain closed, presumably out of consideration for sand; their contents are mostly fruit and sandwiches.

Cressidha rests the pole end of the umbrella in the sand and blinks as Finley reaches for it, but she hands it over obligingly and begins tracing a water-conjuring symbol in the air. "It's no inconvenience." She turns towards Isla. "More than one kind…? I suppose I've been refining the formula over the years, and I could return to a previous alteration, if need be?"

Poof, conjured water. Cressidha sets it down on the blanket, takes a small hand trowel out of her bag, and crouches down to start digging out a hole to make sure the umbrella doesn't just fall over. "You must be melting," she says in a much quieter voice to Finley. "Not a cloud in the sky."

As if in response to this remark — though of course it could not possibly be responding to a remark — the wind off the water picks up briefly: pleasant and mild, it offers a moment's relief from the heat, fluttering the edge of the canopy. Sintha's discarded sundress tumbles lightly backward off the blanket, and Avrenne's sunhat is snatched away, her braid dancing out behind her.

Priscilla makes a quick grab in midair for Sintha's sundress and totally misses it.

Siamus reaches up and casually catches the hat, offering it back to Avrenne with gallant solemnity.

Avrenne's real laugh is startled from her before she can catch it back fully, a sudden warmth of delight, before she closes her mouth and it's trapped back as a hum, as she fights to get her expression back under control, looking back at Siamus with her eyes bright with a wicked gleam to them even as she's pulled that coolness back on, both brows arched, chin tilted slightly.

Sintha makes an extremely exasperated noise and leaps up to chase the runaway dress. When she returns with it, she folds it this time in disgruntled fashion and tucks it carefully under the edge of one of the baskets. Fine, wind, be that way.

Finley startles a little more at the wind as if he's been jump scared, and tries to cover it with a partial bow as he accepts one of the waters with one hand, the other now holding this beach umbrella steady for Cressidha to dig a hole for. Somehow this is how this division of labor has turned out. "It's as fine a summer day as anyone could hope for," he says pleasantly, but his shoulders remain hunched like he's braced for another sudden gust. "There's no call for clouds with such fine company."

"The water will feel very refreshing," Avrenne remarks, her tone as cool. She turns her head slightly to Isla. "Isla? Do you want to practice swimming today?"

Isla looks up, and pulls her legs up closer to herself a little, glancing at Cressidha, and then at Priscilla. "Um."

Cressidha hums in acknowledgement. "There," she says, tapping the hole with her spade. "That should do." She does let Finley be the one to pick up the umbrella and put it in the hole, since he's already doing that, and then fills in sand around the pole to keep it in place herself. "Thank you."

Priscilla smiles at Isla and whispers, "Up to you."

Siamus stoops to roll up his trouser-cuffs. "I'll believe I'll first have a look for some sea-glass, if anyone wants to join me," he observes amiably and to no one in particular, Isla.

Isla leaps up — mistake, as her foot lands in the little sand hole, and she pitches forward onto both hands. Oof.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she says hastily, clambering awkwardly up. "I'll help you!" She volunteers. Whew. Deciding to practice swimming held off for Future Isla.

Avrenne just makes a 'mm' sound, resettling her sun hat on her head. She will check back in later, Isla. You can't escape swimming lessons forever.

Finley steps back from the umbrella, holding onto the water for a moment before he opens it to try it. He takes a sip in a way that suggests he's trying not to treat this water like it's a bottle of Aspenwood wine that he's just drinking straight from the bottle, and doesn't quite manage it. "Huh." Is the involuntary response, as he regards the water with some amount of surprise. "Wow." It's not the smoothest, but it seems an honest response.

Cressidha smiles at Finley, more visibly pleased with 'huh, wow' than she has been with any of the incoming flattery thus far. "Do you like the beach?" she asks.

"I'm not as used to it," Finley answers Cressidha. That guarded look grows a bit, as he lowers the water, moving to take a seat on the blanket, keeping his shoes off of it. "I grew up around Lake Lordamere. Never even saw the ocean until we got to Stormwind, Year 20. The water isn't the same, and the edge of the water was more grass and sand than this. But it's, uh." He shifts to fold his arms over his chest, shrugging. "It's nice, I guess."

Priscilla has finished her dandelion picture and now stands, tucking the brim of her sunhat under one of the baskets to keep it from flying off. She pulls her dress up and over her head, a little bit more demurely than the others. Her yellow one-piece swimsuit is doing its very best to keep everything contained, and it is a struggle. The cut of it is modest, as far as women's bathing suits go, but by the very nature of nature of it being a bathing suit, the size and shape of her curves are made very obvious. She folds her sundress up and tucks it underneath her hat for safekeeping.

Avrenne's face doesn't move at the mention of the Lordaeron lake — but there's a freezing of her expression for a few beats before she puts on a small smile, holding out a hand to Priscilla. "Shall we test out the water, then?"

"Gosh, Lady Moore," observes Sintha cheerfully. "Your swimsuit is adorable, so sunny!"

"Thank you!" Priscilla says. "And I love that color on you, Lady Sintha!" She moves forward to take Avrenne's hand. "Let's."

Siamus surveys the bathing suit Respectfully, and then discreetly stops surveying it to smile at Isla. "Wi' me, then," he tells her, and beckons with a cant of his head. He starts down the beach toward the water's edge, hands in his pockets again. The wind tousles his hair.

Cressidha sits down on the blanket near Finley, enough space left between them to be Socially Appropriate, and looks consideringly at her sandals. "The farm I grew up on wasn't near enough to the ocean or a murloc-free lake to make swimming safe, and by the time Stormwind was safe for habitation again… well. I simply never learned, not until a few years ago when my work with Cobalt Company made it a necessity."

Finley looks slightly baffled by this admission. Cressidha Aspenwood didn't know how to swim?

Avrenne pauses at that, her eyes flicking from Sintha to Finley and then to Cressidha. "Do you care for swimming at all, Lady Cressidha, or is merely a work related necessity? The water is quite enjoyable this time of year."

Isla starts to scurry along, is met with a look from Avrenne, and then tries for a more reasonable pace of sedate excitement as she follows Siamus. "Is there a secret to finding it?" She asks, not even remotely keeping her voice down.

"There's no real knack to it," Siamus admits to Isla wryly, "but patience and a sharp eye. Ye'll find more things of all sorts washed up after a storm, of course, when the water's been stirred, but ye must be willing to pick among the weed for that. Today the water's fine and clear for swimming, which makes it no' as good for casting up treasures, I fear." He wades into the water's edge and stands for a moment, considering.

"This way," he says at last. "Toward the breakwater arm. We'll see what's washed up along the stones." He moves in that direction.

"It will be a very pleasant day for swimming," Sintha meanwhile assures the ladies (and Finley) still ashore. "The weather for it is very fine and I expect the sea is in a gentle mood. Even if you don't feel like swimming properly, I expect you could wade out quite a refreshing way, hm?"

Cressidha considers this. "I, ah. I suppose I could stand in the shallows. I would prefer not to get in over my head." She finally begins to remove her sandals. "Please, don't delay on my account."

Avrenne holds onto Priscilla's hand. "Oh, it's no trouble to tarry a moment. There is no rush." She has a way of standing there that carries with it that sense of a person holding still for a portrait. "How are the Varleys, do you know? I don't believe I've seen them since your brother's wedding."

"Nor have I," Cressidha says. "I'm afraid I do not know. I hope they are well." She shakes the sand out of her sandals, off to the side, and sets them down on a corner of the blanket.

Priscilla waits, wiggling her toes in the sand. She looks less patient than Avrenne does.

Isla follows along, scanning the beach in what might be an enthusiastic attempt at being patient and sharp eyed. "Are you sure there won't be any terrible storm? Wouldn't it just be tragic?" This is uttered with a dramatic hopeful sigh, staring out longingly at the water, before she puts her attention back on being Patient and Sharp Eyed. "If we find any triangle rocks though, they have to go to Avrenne. She'll want to do the math of them."

"There will no' be a terrible storm," Siamus informs Isla gravely. "Tragic or otherwise, I fear. Ah." He bends to the water's flashing surface, fishes below it a moment, and lifts out a long, narrow obtuse triangle of soft-weathered, misty green glass. "For our lady," he says, and offers it to Isla.

Finally, Cressidha stands, still wearing her sundress, and walks towards the ocean. She takes a single step into the water, which comes up about to her ankles. There. That seems to be that.

Siamus glances over toward Cressidha, and then at Avrenne.

Isla gasps so hard she inhales spit into her lungs, and coughs while she lurches forward, nearly stumbling into Siamus in excitement. Magic?! "How — ! Oh, this is just — " Her words tumble over each other, as she raises up an arm to wave it wildly, jumping slightly. "Avrenne!" It's a high pitched, thready sort of yell from her throat, not any good for projecting over the distance.

Avrenne, however, seems to be attuned to it all the same, turning rapidly face to exactly where Isla is, as if she knew precisely where the teen girl was. She doesn't seem worried, but she does pause at the water's edge.

"SIAMUS FOUND A TRIANGLE," Isla yells, the sound mostly unclear by the time it gets to the three ladies.

"They found what?" Avrenne mutters to mostly herself, but the quality of her voice is such that hers is clear and carries much more easily, squinting in the direction of Siamus and Isla.

Priscilla waves back to Isla with her free hand. "I suppose we'll see, won't we?"

Siamus is not a fifteen-year-old girl, but a captain with a voice trained to carry at sea. "A triangle," he calls. "Glass." He puts a hand toward Isla — ushering, not touching — in a gesture to suggest she should bring it to Avrenne, and then wades a few steps back toward the ladies himself. "Lady Cressidha, how do ye find the water?"

Isla looks like she might take the bringing at a run, the start of it in her body language, and Avrenne takes a single step forward, a sharp, ringing, "Isla!" with a motherly warning in the tone. Isla shrinks a little like she's been caught breaking some rule, but then makes her way to the trio of ladies with her best impression of Avrenne's stately walk. It's, uh, not quite there, but it's slow enough at least that she doesn't trip on the sand, her hand curled into a tight, protective fist over the seaglass.

Avrenne waits for it with the sense of a queen waiting for a page to deliver news of the kingdom, neither impatient nor patient, her hand held out.

Isla smiles brightly at Priscilla and Avrenne, all thoughts of running forgotten in place of the rapture of this triangle. "Siamus found it for you right away! Like magic." She sighs. So romantic. She carefully hands over the seaglass like she's a little afraid she'll drop it and it'll be lost for all time in the…shallow water.

Avrenne's eyes flick to Siamus, and then to the little triangle, her expression softening in delight. "Oh, look at that." The interest and pleased sound are unmistakable, as she turns it over in her palm with a well manicured hand.

Priscilla chuckles and releases Avrenne's hand to head deeper out into the water and at least get adjusted to the temperature.

Cressidha seems to be taking a long time thinking about how she finds the water. "I suppose it's peaceful," she finally answers.

"D'ye no' care for the seaside?" he asks, arriving at her side. The question is not judgey; he has heard there are people who do not care for the seaside, in some parts of the world. He stands beside her and gazes outward rather than at Cressidha herself, his hands in his pockets again.

"I do not have any particularly strong opinions about the seaside, one way or another," Cressidha admits. "It is rather nice to see a murloc-free shoreline for once."

Siamus laughs. "Aye, we've no trouble wi' the creatures here. They're a plague off Westfall, to the south. As I expect ye know. We ship thresher oil for the lighthouse up from that way, and the murlocs are a constant nuisance."

He glances mildly at Cressidha. "What are your own preferred pastimes, then, my lady? Where would ye spend time of your choosing?"

Avrenne seems to be calculating something of the seaglass, before she hands it back to Isla. "Will you bring this to Finley, please?" He still has pockets, after all. "If you do not run, you will – "

"Not lose time when I trip," Isla says along with Avrenne. "I know, I know." She pulls her sunhat lower as she walks back to Sintha, Finley, and Otto with the seaglass.

Avrenne watches for a moment longer, before following Priscilla into the water, no hesitation to her whatsoever as she continues into the depths past her shoulders, kicking up into a treading water swim easily. Given how little the temperature of the water seems to concern her, she either is just that resolute, or possibly the woman with elemental fire in her doesn't get cold easily. Who can say.

"Well, my tailoring and my enchanting, of course, those are both indoor activities… I do like seeing new places. I suppose Cobalt Company has awarded me the opportunity to be a bit of a tourist. If you have ever been aboard the Exodar, or in the Outland city of Shattrath… the Naaru are truly remarkable. I don't believe one needs to have any particular personal connection with the Light to still enjoy the experience of meeting one of them. They sing." Cressidha shows no interest in going further into the water, although she's keeping an eye on Priscilla and Avrenne.

"I've no' been to Outland at all, as it happens," Siamus admits. "There was no call for a fleet through the Dark Portal in the most recent action there." His tone is very dry. "I'd be minded to see the place, though I understand all the sea's run right out of her. The Exodar I'd very much like to see — I'd like to recruit some of the draenei for the new navy, if it can be done. I've been to the Veiled Sea isles before, but no' since the landing of the Exodar."

He casts Cressidha another look, his brows drawn down. "They sing? The… Light-creatures?"

"They do. Although I'm told that not everyone hears the same song, which I think is fascinating." Cressidha smiles.

Siamus considers this for a time. "Fascinating," he allows, and smiles back at her. "Perhaps I'll visit, then, when I'm at the Exodar." Perhaps. "And where would ye recommend a man should see in Outland? I've heard tales of the strangest things."

"Nagrand is the most like what it was, I'm told. Or perhaps the Zangarmarsh? It's full of gigantic mushrooms. I admit I'm not certain where your interests lie, other than, well, sailing." Cressidha gestures vaguely at the ocean.

In said ocean is at least one (1) duchess of Lordaeron, who (with sunhat still on) is swimming like a very large, maroon fish, pulling herself through the water around Priscilla with a smooth breaststroke.

Siamus laughs again. "Sailing's my vocation, more than an interest. Astronomy, natural history, mathematics, exploration, geography and cartography, codes and signals, and horses."

Yes, horses.

Also some interests unsuitable for mention in polite company.

Priscilla treads water, spinning in place to track Avrenne and smiling.

Cressidha hums, considering. "I would again recommend Zangarmarsh. There's plenty of exploring to do just about anywhere you go. And in an area called the Netherstorm, if you aren't bothered by frequent strikes of arcane lightning on your way, the Ethereals maintain multiple… they call them eco-domes. Preserved portions of the land as it was, Farahlon, a little jungle island in the ocean."

Siamus's expression lights. "Fascinating," he says again. "Lightning I'm no' troubled by, but arcane — I've ne'er seen an arcane storm. What's the cause of them, then?" Do you like weather, Lady Cressidha? Let's talk about WEATHER.

Finally, somebody has found a topic that Cressidha is willing to go off about. She loves talking about the Twisting Nether leaking, and how the manaforges work. It is the most engaged in conversation she has been since arriving, with the exception of listening to Finley talk about Lordamere Lake.

Siamus, meanwhile, has taken his hands from his pockets to fold his arms across his chest and turned to face Cressidha, leaning in a little. He listens with obvious and genuine interest; while it's clear he has no background in anything to do with the Twisting Nether, and his questions on that subject and the manaforges are rudimentary, they're also reasonably intelligent questions that demonstrate his own engagement and attention.

Siamus loves a good nerd. Go off, girl.

On the beach, Sintha leans across her blanket toward Finley, shading her eyes with one hand (since Isla is now wearing her hat). "Are you going to swim, Finley?" she asks.

"Not unless someone's drowning," Finley remarks back dryly.

"Lee hates swimming," Isla tells Sintha cheerfully, sifting through Otto's pile.

"Isla," Finley grinds back out, crossing his arms with a bristle. "It's not that I hate it," he says to Sintha. "Just…doesn't feel the same, that's all. Learned in a lake and the water's different. Can't keep my eyes open underwater and I can't see…what's in the water."

"Living things," Otto remarks placidly, his voice a soft little wisp.

Finley shudders involuntarily. Thanks, Otto. "At least I can swim," he says, very pointedly at Isla.

Isla's expression contorts with a sudden rage, as she sets two sandy hands on her hips with a huff. "I can swim, too!"

"You can keep your eyes open, darling, if you get used to it," Sintha says. "It only stings a little at first, until you do. And you can float so much better than in a lake. Though lakes are lovely too, of course. You ought to just come wading, at least, and get to know her better."

She hops to her feet and offers Isla her hand. "Come along, Isla, you and I shall go in, hm?"

Isla takes Sintha's hand, removing the sunhat — hahahaha freedom! surely Avrenne won't argue with wearing the sunhat in the water (Isla…she's…she's still wearing hers in the water) — and getting clumsily to her feet. "Okay!" She is full of confidence and enthusiasm. It'll be fine!

Finley just shakes his head, sitting back in the shade, hanging out with Otto, who has started humming a children's song that lists a bunch of animals. For no reason.

Avrenne's eyes flick to Siamus, to Cressidha, and back to Siamus, and she allows herself a small smile of satisfaction, before looking back to Priscilla. "I don't suppose Lord Bertrand will make it down for a day for a portrait then, after all?" She says it as though they were mid conversation, which may be somewhat true in the sense that it's likely a continuation or follow up of another one from before.

Priscilla shakes her head. "Not here, but I do have plans to meet Birdie and Lady Cressidha in Dalaran to get the preliminary sketches done. Oh, they're coming in!" She swims back towards the shore until she is no longer treading water, smiling at Isla and Sintha.

"Oh, that's lovely," Avrenne says, somewhat ambiguously. She might mean to both, kicking smoothly to get herself back to where she can touch down.

Isla's smile crashes down as she remembers, oh yeah. Swimming. In front of Priscilla and The Lady Cressidha . Oh no. She doesn't exactly stop, but her enthusiastic forward momentum stutters a bit. She is still wearing her sandals.

If it's any consolation, Lady Cressidha is not paying attention to her at the moment.

Sintha stops Isla when the girl begins to slow on her own. "Sandals, darling!" she singsongs cheerfully, and doesn't let go of her hand. "Look at how lovely and still the water is, have you floated in saltwater yet? Honestly so delightful, it's what I imagine resting on a cloud is like. Shay, isn't the sea lovely and still for swimming today?"

Her brother glances over distractedly, knitting his brows. He flicks a look from Sintha to Isla, seems to catch her meaning after a beat, and looks around at the water. He looks back to Sintha and nods. Yes. The sea will be very well-behaved for baby swimmers today.

Isla looks down at her sandals like maybe she could take three years to undo them and delay this embarrassing situation.

Avrenne stands in hip deep water, folding her hands in front of her, as if in a ballroom, rather than the sea, raising her brows to Isla.

Oh no. Isla takes her sandals off, setting them on the shore. Oh boy, maybe the water can be too cold. Except. Even Lady Cressidha is standing in it. Isla makes an uncertain sound as she wades into the water. "I've…I've done floating," she says tentatively. "I'm, um." She's not very good at it.

"If you do not practice it, you will not get any better at it," Avrenne says, her voice cool and even, but she unclasps her hands, and sets one on top of the water, fingertips splayed as if assessing the surface tension. "We all had to start somewhere, Isla." Although, admittedly, some of them started earlier than others.

"Oh, gosh, it's quite all right," Sintha assures Isla conspiratorially. "The sea loves a Fallon, darling, and you are for all intents a Fallon, come along. You'll be a little minnow in no time at all."

Priscilla smiles encouragingly at Isla and holds a hand out to her.

Isla beams a sudden sunny look at Sintha. She's a Fallon! For all intents! She's a minnow! Or soon will be a minnow. Same thing, surely? She keeps moving forward, holding onto Sintha's hand and reaching out for Priscilla's. "It's warmer than it was," she says, although given how she squeaks when the water hits her thighs, suggests some of that assertion is for her own sake.

Avrenne watches, poised and her expression unreadable beyond it.

Priscilla links up as the third party in their chain. "It feels warmer the longer you stay in it," she promises.

Unfortunately, this catches the attention of Cressidha. "Ah. Would you like the water heated a little, Isla?" she offers. "I'm certain that between Avrenne and I, we could manage our immediate proximity, at least for a time."

Siamus does an eyebrow-twitch. Does the sea want to be heated? Has anyone asked her? He does not comment.

"Lady Moore is right," Sintha says cheerfully. "You only need to soak it in a little and then it's like home."

Avrenne's expression freezes, for a beat or two, not moving, before she directs a small smile to Cressidha. "I doubt any contribution I would make would be worth the effort, and it's true that Isla will be best off adjusting to it naturally. Learning how to swim in cold water can be most useful." There's actually an odd note of nostalgia in her voice, a little softening of her eyes, her accent strong and crisp.

Cressidha looks at Avrenne and says, "Very well."

Siamus studies Avrenne for a moment. He turns back to Cressidha and says mildly, "If ye will excuse me, Lady Cressidha, I believe I may join them in swimming. I hope ye might indulge me wi' further talk on the Netherstorm later?"

"By all means," Cressidha says, and leaves the water to go to not the blanket she chose for her umbrella but the blanket under the canopy. The reason for this seems to be that there is food here, because immediately she begins investigating the covered basket.

Finley gives Cressidha a polite seated bow.

Otto's humming stops when Cressidha comes back. Oh, person. "You're Mrs. Clara's daughter?" he asks her shyly. Mrs. Clara being, of course, the House of Nobles seated member, the Duchess Clara Aspenwood, whose many titles don't include 'Mrs' but it's fine.

Cressidha nods to Finley and turns a little to address Otto. "I am. My name is Cressidha."

Siamus follows Cressidha back up the shore, because he is still fully dressed save for his shoes, and he is not a barbarian who swims in expensive tailored linen. He does not, however, follow Cressidha all the way to the canopied blanket, because it is Incorrect to follow unmarried young ladies about to undress in their immediate proximity.

Instead he goes to the blanket where Sintha had undressed to begin shedding his terrestrial clothes.

Beneath his shirt he is wearing a sleeveless undershirt, and beneath his trousers a pair of blue swim trunks (thankfully). He folds his clothes precisely — they're linen, it won't matter, Siamus — and sets them aside, and then strips off the undershirt, too. Like his sister, he is very tan. Unlike his sister, he has a massive black-inked tattoo of a kraken over his shoulder, trailing down his chest and bicep. The bicep of his other arm is wrapped by an ugly, livid channel of scar tissue, and there is a second, jagged scar angled across his ribs on the left side.

He heads back for the water, unselfconsciously.

Otto nods at Cressidha. "Are you the same third letter as her?" His voice is barely audible, a little wisp of sound.

Finley frowns, studying Otto like he's not at all sure what the younger man just said.

"That's right," Cressidha tells Otto. "My twin brother Colson and myself are both the letter C children, because we were born on the same day."

"Who is his mother? Is she another third letter?" Otto asks. That's sort of an odd question, but maybe he assumed the same day didn't mean that it was by the same person.

Avrenne's eyes flick from Isla's hesitant movements into the water to Siamus and there's a bit of a flicker around her eyes and mouth but this seems to be a controlled smile, as she lets her eyes linger only for a moment, Respectfully, before she looks back to her youngest ward. Ahem. Serious duchess, not checking out her husband. Ahem, ahem.

Isla has drifted far enough into the water that if she wanted to, she probably could start floating. The confidence of the Soon To Be Minnow has started to wobble dangerously.

"Remember, if you get your head wet before you lean back into the water, it will not startle you," Avrenne suggests. This might have been a lesson already learned.

Isla makes an uneasy sound but she nod nods. "I know, I know." Oh, boy, here we go. She is going to have to let go of someone's hand. Sorry, Priscilla. She needs it to put over her whole mouth and nose, as she crushes her eyes closed and bends her knees to get her head wet under the water.

Sintha joins her cheerfully, ducking in solidarity. Though she does not put her hand over her face or squinch her eyes.

"We've got you," Priscilla says, standing by in case Isla needs rescuing. She glances at Siamus and immediately focuses in on his tattoo. "Is that a kraken?"

Isla comes back up with a sputter, despite having covered her mouth and eyes, and wipes at them, blinking uncomfortably. Gosh. She rubs more aggressively, trying to clear out the seawater. At the question, she gives a sudden yelp that threatens to be a scream, leaping at Sintha. "Where?! WHERE?!" Oh my god, there's a KRAKEN IN THE WATER?!

On the shore, Finley's head swivels at the sound, and he moves to a partial stand, looking at Avrenne.

Avrenne is utterly unalarmed. "It is not a real kraken," she says calmly.

Finley sits back down with a heave of a sigh. "It's probably nothing," he says to Cressidha, in case she heard Isla, with a small smile. "Isla'll jump at shadows sometimes."

"His mother is Clara, just like mine," Cressidha says very patiently. "Twins are carried together as part of the same pregnancy, so they have the same mother and the same father as each other." She glances towards the water, but Finley reassures her it's probably fine, so she picks a sandwich out of the basket for herself and remains where she is.

Otto nods. "That's strange," he says softly, with a smile, as he sets more sand to the side, his veil over his face lending him that odd air of a beekeeper. "Do you like it?"

"I do," Cressidha answers. There are a number of things that Otto could be referring to - having a twin, having a name that begins with a C, having parents, being Clara's daughter - but the answer seems to be yes to all of the above. "Your name is Otto…?"

Otto nods solemnly. "My mother named me it," he says helpfully. "I don't have fourteen siblings."

Sintha laughs and catches Isla, squeezing her. "It's Shay's tattoo, darling," she tells the girl. "Lady Moore was only asking. Now, you mustn't fight the water so much, let it be your friend, hm?" She herself has seawater running merrily from her nose and chin, her hair plastered wetly to the sides of her head.

Siamus had also focused on the sound of Isla's scream and picked up his pace, nearly breaking into a run, but when he sees Avrenne's calm and the way Sintha laughs and catches the girl, he slows again to a more gentlemanly stroll, and wades placidly into the water toward the group.

"Goodness, I'm sorry, Isla," Priscilla apologizes.

Isla sags onto Sintha in relief, and then perks up immediately, turning to look for Siamus. "Siamus has a tattoo?" She asks brightly, all fear instantly forgotten.

"Of a kraken," Avrenne answers, her voice a little dry.

"Like a — " Isla starts.

"No." Avrenne's voice is briefly sharp, a touch of something in her eyes, there and gone so fast maybe it wasn't there.

Isla ducks down, chagrined but she sees the tattoo itself and brightens back again, waving her free arm wildly in a wave (possibly at the kraken tattoo more than Siamsu), nearly smacking Priscilla in the face.

Sintha does a big-eyed blink-blink at Avrenne and arches a speculative brow.

Siamus waves back genially at Isla — with his right arm, so in a way the kraken is waving back, too.

Avrenne catches the look from Sintha, and with a faint tightness around her lips, subtly moves her right hand to her left, tapping between her forefinger and thumb, where a pirate P tattoo would go. Isla was wondering if Siamus had a tattoo like a pirate. The expression is wiped away in a blink.

Avrenne's voice reveals nothing more, back to its cool even tone. "Now, with that settled, Isla, all you need to do is lean back. Remember that the math of buoyancy dictates that you will float, you need only let it happen." Trust in the math of it, Isla.

Isla doesn't look especially eager to try to get back into the water, as she nods morosely, and then starts to lean back, arching her back too much, like someone trying not to touch the water while simultaneously committing to doing it anyway.

"Do you want to hold my hand again?" Priscilla offers, moving to Isla's side. "If I see you slipping, I can pull you up."

Sintha raises both brows at Avrenne and nods, enlightened. She glances at Siamus and brightens again. "Shay, look! Isla is going to float!"

To Isla she says, "Here, darling, like this, lean onto my hand. Oh, yes, do hold on to Lady Moore's, if you like! And just lie back on my hand darling, I've got you, see?" She lays her hand flat and firmly between Isla's shoulder blades.

"Oh, aye? I expect she'll float like a little gull," Siamus says with a smile at Isla. He moves to Avrenne's side and lays a hand gently on the small of her back, in a rather different manner than Sintha is putting her hand on Isla's back. "Lady Moore, how are ye finding the water?"

He does not remark on the lady's natural buoyancy.

"Oh, I just love it," Priscilla says happily. "I shall have to do a watercolor later."

Siamus flashes her a smile and inclines his head courteously as though he has personally arranged this stretch of ocean for her enjoyment and is so glad she likes it.

Avrenne leans into Siamus with a slight movement, a little inhale at the touch, as she watches Isla.

Isla takes Priscilla's hand, fumbling for it without looking. There might have been an accidental grazing of the emergency flotation devices, but Isla certainly doesn't seem to notice, as she gets Priscilla's hand and winces as she gets to the water surface, releasing her legs from the ground with reluctance. To no one's surprise except for Isla's, she floats.

"There," says Sintha with catlike satisfaction — but softly, so as not to startle the Floating Childe, perhaps. "Like a cloud, positively."

"Ye take to it naturally, Isla," Siamus assures her gravely.

"You're floating!" Priscilla tells her, less softly.

"What?" Isla yells with all the volume of someone who isn't clear on her own volume, her ears already filled with water and their words muffled. She seems mildly panicked. But no one looks panicked. She smiles, a little wobbly, at them. It's fine, maybe? Is she a minnow yet?

Avrenne makes a 'mm' sound.

Finley regards Cressidha for a moment. Since she doesn't seem to have been too weirded out by Otto, he gets to a stand, so that he can get to the basket of sandwiches to select one. He is still wearing his boots. He sits back down with an awkwardness that suggests a teenager who still isn't used to his full height, though at nearly 25, he's probably been that height for a while. "I think I've seen your brother — your twin, that is. I've seen Lord Bertrand more than a few times. Lord Colson is the paladin?"

Cressidha finishes chewing the current bite of her sandwich before answering, because ladies don't talk with their mouths full. "That's correct, he is."

Finley nods. "I don't have any siblings in the strictest sense, but there's four of us, and we've been together since the Fall." He means of Lordaeron, although technically there was a Fall of Stormwind as well, that the Aspenwoods dealt with. "Is it…weird at all, working with your brother like that, in a…mercenary job? I mean, do you two fight at all — uh, at each other, I mean, obviously you. You fight together with jobs." He frowns, and looks over at Cressidha again. "I mean, I assume."

Cressidha smiles, and it's the warmest she's looked yet, a soft expression on her face. "We fight together, yes. We don't fight against each other, no. I think Colson and I understand each other too well to want to do anything but support each other."

Finley looks at her as though that's the weirdest thing he's heard, very potentially ever, and then tries to cover it with a charming sort of smile that doesn't disguise the baffled look in his eyes. He's clearly trying to reconcile this idea that some siblings don't constantly bicker. "Huh." Is the witty rejoinder that he manages.

In the water, Isla floats uncomfortably, with the attitude of someone who is counting down the amount of time she has to do this activity. Her eyes are even more rounded than usual, as she looks over at Avrenne with a pleading expression. Is she done now? Successfully floated enough to be upgraded to Minnow?

Avrenne controls a sigh, as she gestures with a hand to suggest that yes, Isla can stop the torturous floating activity now.

Whew. Isla flails a little to try to get her head out of the water at least.

"Are you ready to practice kicking in the water, then?" Avrenne asks as soon as Isla's ears are out of the water.

Oh no, it was a trap. Isla looks at Sintha, and then Priscilla, and then Siamus. Does she have to practice kicking in the water to qualify as a minnow?!

Siamus smiles at Isla in reassuring fashion. He doesn't offer help. He doesn't seem entirely clear on what to do with a child who can't swim. If someone had simply chucked her into the water as an infant, this would surely not be a problem now. Mainlainder parenting, man.

"Here," says Sintha decisively. "Take both of my hands, darling, and I'll tow you while you practice stretching out and kicking. Hm? But perhaps — away from the others, a little."

Isla deflates into a wobbly shade of her former self. Woe betide! Forsooth, it was a trap!

"If you do manage to learn how to swim fully, you may be allowed to take the trip to the lighthouse," Avrenne says, dangling the bait she's been saving for who knows how long.

Isla gasps, stars in her eyes. The lighthouse?! The one of the legendary scrolls from THE DUCHESS AND THE COMMODORE VICE ADMIRAL (text revised)?! She's in! "Oh!" She looks to Sintha with renewed hope and enthusiasm. She is ready to kick! She drags Priscilla's hand for a moment before she remembers the correct order of letting go of Priscilla first, and then reaching to hold onto Sintha's other hand. "We could go maybe, um, pretty far?" It might be that Isla still does not manage to kick around without splashing everyone within a ten yard radius.

Avrenne's sound of a trapped laugh is very faint in her chest, as she controls her expression carefully.

Priscilla chuckles and moves away from Isla and Sintha in the water.

Sintha nods solemnly. She anticipated Great Splashing. She takes both of Isla's hands and tugs her away from the others by about ten — she assesses and keeps going. Let's make it twelve yards, to be safe.

Isla is an awkward tug, and making it more awkward by sort of kicking off the ground, but at least it's with enthusiasm rather than reluctance, so that's a win. She's not good at this at all. The coordination required for the large movements of swimming might be possibly beyond the teen, but by the Light, she's trying now.

Siamus puts his arm around Avrenne as he watches the two girls move away. "Can none of them swim?" he asks, a little bemusedly, and glances toward Finley on the shore.

"Finley can swim quite well," Avrenne tells Siamus with a small smile, leaning into him more fully, although she's careful with the brim of her sunhat. "Otto can swim reasonably, although he's more likely to just float and paddle a little with it. Daisy does not swim very well, but she can. Isla…" She sighs as she watches the teenager flailing. "Is still at the basics, I'm afraid. I started later than I probably should have, but I hadn't realized that she had never been down to the lake like the others. Mrs. Lenaire forbade it, for some reason." There's a tightness around her mouth, a strange shadow over her expression, and she blinks it back and away.

"Forbade it?" Siamus is baffled by this. "Why would ye no' want a child to swim?"

Avrenne shrugs her shoulders in a controlled motion. "I am not certain to the reason. Isla did not remember, except that it was the rule. It may have been an extension of…my father's own," she says, a touch of that tone creeping into her voice, as she pushes away from it, like it has something to do with someone else, not her. "Isla will learn. She has made improvements already."

This is the improved version. It is very loud, very splashy, and Isla is sputtering with the seawater, and the moment that it's touched her face, scrunched her eyes closed to now try to kick and flail without seeing. She's…she's doing great. Hang in there, Isla.

[On The Shore]

Cressidha makes a faint noise of amusement and eats her sandwich. It takes a few bites for a question to occur to her. "Four of you, you said. You, Otto, Isla, and someone else?"

"Ye — s." Finley manages to avoid saying, 'yeah' by only the barest margin. Whoops. "Her Grace's second youngest, Daisy Ducere. She lives in Stormwind at the townhouse there, and works for Flour Power Bakery." There's something very guarded about the way he tells her this.

Otto looks up from his sand for a moment, and then back down as he almost-whispers, "We'll be three soon." Okay, that sounds ominous.

"That bakery make very good croissants," Cressidha says, smiling. "Does she bake herself, or does she have another role there?"

"She's working in the back of the kitchen in…'prep work', is what I understand," Finley answers, in the tone of someone who might regard most kitchen things as a slight mystery. How happen? "You like croissants then?" The flirtatious note is back in his voice, a touch more of the charm in his smile.

Cressidha nods. "I do." She examines what remains of her impressively sand-free sandwich. She dug a hole in the sand, by all rights her hands should be sandy… except that they aren't. "Especially ones with filling of some kind. I may have a preference for dessert that comes in layers. For the variety."

"We'll have to let Mrs. Cook, our cook, know, next time you come for a visit," Finley says with all of the confidence of a man who has no idea how labor intensive croissants are. There's the charm doing its best to cover up the forwardness of an assumption that Cressidha will visit again. "There's something intriguing about layers, isn't there — in most things, really."

Cressidha, who might have just been thinking about mille-feuille, goes, "Hm?"

Finley doesn't physically flail as badly as his younger sister in the water, but emotionally…man, is it hot out there today or what. He drinks some of his water, to buy himself time and possibly a conversation flotation device. "I should say, I've never had this like before," he says as he lowers the water, looking at it again like, wow, it really tastes like that every time, huh? "Where is this from, if it's not too forward of me to ask?"

Cressidha blinks at him. "What, the water? Ah, it's from the Plane of Water. The same place water elementals are summoned from."

Finley's eyes grow wide, and there's a slight start enough to him, before he drops a bland bultler's mask over his expression, managing to make himself even more neutral even than the Aspenwood he's sitting next to. "I beg your pardon, my lady, but do you mean to say that I am drinking…a water elemental?" His voice has that even tone to it. He's fine, he's chill. All cool. Has he been drinking a water elemental? Ha ha that'd be fine. Totally normal.

Help.

Cressidha laughs out loud. "No, no. The water simply comes from the same source, the place where they live."

"So I'm…drinking a water elemental's…house? Or…" Finley stops before he continues with any other examples of things he might be drinking. You know what, maybe it's best to not think about it. "That is very interesting. I don't think I've ever had…water elemental source water. Lady Luc y — ille, Lady Moore's younger sister, makes water that I would swear tastes like nothing at all. It's just." He considers, and ends up with, "Wet."

"Do water elementals eat our houses on their plane?" Otto asks Cressidha, setting two shells next to each other. Is that a reasonable question? Who can say.

"Not quite. It's more like water from a spring, except rather than the spring being located in Elwynn Forest, it's located somewhere that we can't reach ourselves without the aid of magic." Cressidha shrugs. "I don't believe they do," she says to Otto. "But the elemental I conjure, Marina, likes swimming in Azerothian waters."

"The elemental…swims?" Finley asks it like a man who is so far out of his depth that he's almost comfortable now. Nothing makes sense. It's all weird.

Otto just nods like this makes perfect sense. "You should ask Marina. If Marina likes layer foods, too, we have two layers to our house." Thanks, Otto.

"She loves swimming," Cressidha confirms. "Would you like to meet her, Otto? She's very friendly."
Otto nod nod nods, his cheeks a rosy hue. "Will she want any extra sand?" He holds up a cupped hand full of sand in offer.

[In The Water]

"You're doing so well," Sintha tells Isla with every ounce of mustered Socialite Cheer she possesses. "Gosh. Now, remember you're not fighting the water, darling, nor do you want to hit out at her. The sea loves all her children and wants to hold them up. And a little water in your face won't hurt you, she's only flirting."

The sea is Westfall Strange, apparently.

Isla makes sounds that might or might not be words, but sounds mostly like, "Unnngh??? Nnokae?!" She tries fighting the water a little less, and that seems to mean mostly sinking a little and then flailing harder, as she squints her eyes open. It's a process.

"Your father?" Siamus asks Avrenne. "He had a rule against swimming?" He glances at Priscilla. Is this a thing? That people do here?

Avrenne's eyes flick to Priscilla as well, and there's a squaring off of her shoulders, possibly against a memory. "For ladies, yes." That's kind of vague, but she leaves it there.

Priscilla nods and makes a bit of a face.

Siamus Fallon, who can ordinarily Sexist with the best (worst) of them, doesn't seem to get that. He looks from Priscilla back to Avrenne, takes in the latter's expression, and decides not to press the issue. "Well. Ye both are very fine swimmers yourselves."

Has he actually seen Priscilla swim? No, but he's seen her in a swimsuit, and she gets an A+.

He glances toward Finley, ashore. More than one Esprit ward seems to be failing to float right now.

S-send help, Siamus. This is the deep end, and Finley's still got floaties on.

Priscilla laughs. "Avrenne's far better than I am. She's trained. But I can manage not to embarrass myself by drowning."

Siamus flashes her a smile. "Well, that's the heart of the matter, aye?"

"I'm not… well. I would not say that I am not trained exactly." Avrenne's voice has that touch of nostalgia. "I spent a little bit of time improving, when I was younger, that's all really." Just a bit of time, really. Four years. A normal amount of time, surely. "Mostly in the lake." Wait, the one her father had a rule against? Scandalous. "It is far more difficult to find a place to practice it in Stormwind. The canals are not suitable for swimming. Perhaps when you and Lord Bertrand marry, you will find a property close to the river in Elwynn, and have the opportunity to do more of it."

"Well, and Bertrand and Lady Moore will always be welcome here, aye?" Siamus looks between the two women again. "And from what I know of my mermaid, I'm no' surprised a bit she'd be modest of her training."

Avrenne makes an amused sound. "It was a bit of stubbornness, that's all, really. My sister Abrielle and several of her friends took to swimming on the lake for a summer or two, and taking a rowboat to the center island to do so. I could not go in the rowboat with the others." Siamus knows why. "So I learned to swim it instead." Simple as that. A very normal response to that problem.

"Renne, you should tell him," Priscilla insists in a stage whisper, giggling a little. "Or should I?"

Siamus looks between the two women, smiling a little quizzically.

Avrenne simply raises her brows. She might not know what Priscilla means. "I suppose you should. I don't have any secrets from Siamus."

"She raced the rowboat," Priscilla says at that same stage whisper, just loud enough to be heard over the sound of splashing. "And she won." She sounds very proud.

Avrenne's real laugh bursts free for a moment of a quick flash of brightness before she pulls it back, with a hum. Oh yeah, that. Heh. Good times. She covers her mouth with a hand to rub off the smile lingering. Ahem. Serious duchess.

Siamus stares at Priscilla. He raises his eyebrows and turns to look Avrenne over. "Ye've been holding out on me, mo chroí. Shall I see ye swim to the lighthouse next time?" There's an undercurrent of laughter in his voice; his gaze is warm with humor and approval.

"I did say that I can be delayed, but rarely stopped from where I wish to go," Avrenne quips back. She smiles softly, nostalgia in her expression and voice. "It took months of practice though. From one summer to the following, practicing in the lake through the autumn to the spring, pausing only when it froze over. But then again," she shrugs, a controlled motion up and down. "Mr. Granaud, if I recall the name correctly, was only a boy of, oh, 18 or 19. It took him on average 23 minutes to row to the island, and 36 to row back." If she recalls the numbers correctly. There's a brief pause. Oh, that's her Doing Math Stare now. Beep boop.

"By what I recall of the formula of distance, I believe you could row the same in, oh, 6 or 7 minutes, and likely repeat it precisely on return, if I have estimated correctly. I don't expect I could swim so quickly as that even with dedicated practice. But I suppose," she says, looking up at Siamus, with a very poised duchess expression. "I could swim the distance, given sufficient time to reacquire the necessary stamina for the length, even if I were to take it leisurely, rather than as quickly as possible. I would need to be quite patient." Well, that was certainly phrased.

Priscilla asks Siamus, "What is 'mo chroí'?"

Siamus, who is smiling down at Avrenne now with glittering, black-eyed humor, is recalled from conspiratorial reverie by Priscilla's question. "Mo chroí? It, ah — it's of the old language, from the isles." There's the barest hint of hesitation before he adds — smoothly, super casually — "It means 'my heart.'"

"I didn't know they had their own language," Priscilla says. There isn't so much as a flicker of surprise at its meaning, however. Priscilla has of course been assuming Siamus and Avrenne are madly in love since… well, before they actually were. "Is it still spoken?"

"No," says Siamus. "No' commonly. It's… tradition, an artifact of sorts. My mother and one of my grandmothers spoke it, and I learned songs in it, as a child."

[On the shore and in the water]

Otto waits to find out if Marina would like Extra Sand.

Cressidha finishes her sandwich and rises to her feet. "She just might. You can ask her when she arrives, hm?" She moves to an empty spot on the sand, close to the shore, where a summoned elemental won't get the blankets all wet.

Siamus glances back at the beach at the movement there. "What's Lady Cressidha up to, I wonder?" Look, over there! It's a change of subject!

Cressidha is in the middle of taking a pair of elemental bracers out of the little bag at her waist.

Avrenne turns to look, and frowns slightly, leaning forward to peer across the water at the other mage. "What — " Her gaze looks a little unfocused for a moment, and then sharpens. "She's summoning a water elemental." Her voice betrays the surprise at it, as she blinks.

Finley is watching like he's lost control of his day and this might as well just happen.

Otto has stopped scooping his sand, holding onto a handful, his knees up to his chest as he watches Cressidha with a shy little smile. He is waiting to find out if Marina wants sand, y/n.

Cressidha tosses the bracers off to her side, and the water elemental takes shape with her wrists bound in them.

Marina seems puzzled. There is no danger? She wiggles from side to side a little.

"Marina, Otto wants to know if you would like some sand," Cressidha says, calmly.

Otto holds out the sand in a single hand, his cheeks red all over, but he's smiling still.

Finley looks over at Avrenne.

Siamus has absently slid his arm around Avrenne's waist to pull her back against him in the water, but it's idle reflex, all his bemused attention on Cressidha and Marina. "Why?"

"I have absolutely no idea," Avrenne replies, her eyes scanning the surroundings, as she looks back at Finley from across the water, and then flicks her eyes to Otto. "Oh. Otto might have asked of it, possibly?" She doesn't seem likely to intervene at the moment, but she is watching Cressidha with a focused attention, as if the other mage has become a fixed point. "It is a highly advanced technique, requiring significant focus, power, and practice to summon and hold one in place for longer than a moment or two." And, one can infer, something far, far beyond Avrenne's abilities.

Finley sighs, and sits back to eat his sandwich. He might as well at this point. He watches Marina and Otto with the air of a butler who cannot be fazed any further.

"That's Otto," Cressidha says, and points. "You can go to him, just try not to drip on the blankets."

Marina floats across the sand, leaving a trail of wet sand in her wake, to hover in front of Otto. She slowly extends a fist towards him. She doesn't exactly have fingers.

Otto reaches back, and happily dumps the sand into Marina's waiting amorphous blob of an ending to her arm shape. As soon as he does, he withdraws it to giggle, and hold his hat over his head as though he's a blushing young lad having given a lady some flowers for the first time. Teehee.

Marina solemnly bows to Otto. The sand swirls inside of her.

Siamus watches the distant proceedings. He stoops absently to kiss Avrenne's ear, and murmurs, "I wonder if I could sing to her? I've ne'er tried it."

He does not, presumably, mean Cressidha.

Avrenne's expression grows softer at the kiss as she makes a contented little sound, and she allows a small smile to break through. "Oh. Mm." She considers something for a moment. "Shall we take a closer look?" She directs the question to Priscilla. "Have you had opportunity to see a summoned elemental up close yet? I imagine capturing it in some art form may be nearly as challenging as learning to summon one."

Isla splashes on, blissfully unaware of the water elemental on the shore. She is trying not to fight the water, but she might be arguing with it as much as she does with Finley. There might be tears and hugging, alternating.

"Up close? I don't believe I have. Lucy never summoned any." Priscilla moves on towards the shore.

Siamus inclines his head at the suggestion and offers Avrenne his arm to wade out of the water, as though they are both in formalwear and heading to a ballroom rather than in swimsuits at the beach.

Avrenne takes his arm by reflex more than conscious decision — see arm escort, take arm escort. Her manner suggests that she is, in fact, in a ballgown rather than a skintight and now wet wetsuit bathing suit that inevitably shows every angle and plane of her body. It's extra challenge mode to walk through water in a stately manner, but Avrenne passed all her Advanced Duchess Courses, and manages to at least achieve something adjacent to elegance.

Her escort is shirtless and tattooed, so elegance is relative.

Priscilla passes by the elemental in favor of looking for a towel. She didn't bring any of her own, but surely someone at the rich people beach must have brought them.

"Ah." Cressidha turns towards Siamus and Avrenne. "This is Marina. Otto wanted to meet her."

Avrenne's brows go up high enough to form faint lines on her forehead at the revelation that Cressidha has named the elemental.

Otto is just a giant veiled hat and a muffled giggling sound by a pile of sand now.

"I see," Avrenne says, in that way that attempts to impose normalcy by virtue of sheer dedication to poise.

"After my previous pair of elemental bracers were permanently destroyed in an explosion caused by a bomb constructed using the power core of a fel reaver," Cressidha says mildly, "I obtained a new pair. I found Marina's bracers in the Shadowmoon Valley region of Outland. By now, I do not believe it is my imagination that there is something more personable about her than Mi– my previous elemental. She has responded well to being given a name. The gender is, of course, arbitrarily chosen; I do not believe elemental beings understand the concept."

As Cressidha speaks to Avrenne, Marina turns away from Otto and floats towards Siamus. Marina bows to him, entirely of her own accord, and Cressidha raises a brow and looks at the elemental curiously.

Siamus considers the elemental, smiling. After a moment, he bows back to her. "My lady." There is genuine respect in his voice.

He straightens and extends a hand to the elemental, palm up, as if offering to take her… hand? in turn. It doesn't seem to be a request for that, exactly — just a sort of gallant's gesture of welcome or invitation.

Behind him, a rogue wave breaks higher than the rest and runs up the shore to wash around his ankles before receding.

Avrenne listens to Cressidha with that attentiveness of hers. If she has any feelings, positive or negative, about any of it is unclear. "How interesting. Have you noticed any differences, in vibrational or connectivity threads, in the elemental signature of the arcane bindings since bestowing a name, or has it been only notable behavioral changes in the elemental?" Oh, it's possibly magic nerd talk time now. Well. It beats small talk.

Avrenne doesn't even blink at the rogue wave.

Finley, on the other hand, almost drops his sandwich, and recovers with a flush to his cheeks.

"I admit I named her early on, so my primary basis for comparison is with my previous elemental, who I did not speak to. But the bracers…" Oh, this is also a topic Cressidha is happy to talk about.

Marina burbles something to Siamus and reaches out to engulf his hand with her watery fist.

Siamus laughs: his boyish, genuinely delighted laugh. "Ah, mo bhean chóir. Is onóir dom."

That is definitely not Kalimag, but who knows? Maybe elementals know a lot of languages. Maybe Marina gets the gist.

He bows again over their linked "hands," and doesn't seem inclined to take his back. Just gonna hold hands with the lovely water elemental forever now. Is he… flirting with her?

Meanwhile, Moirin the maid has discreetly reappeared by the blankets to offer Priscilla a giant fluffy towel.

Avrenne is asking increasingly detailed questions about the bracers, the precise mathematical degree of placement of the bindings, what Cressidha knows of the metal composition, and if she's conducted any extensive testing on the environmental influence of Shadowmoon Valley on them. Magical theory and material science nerd girl is out in full force. She does not seem even remotely concerned about her husband flirting with a water elemental. Charm that water, Siamus.

Cressidha has noticed that Marina's taken initiative to do things on her own, but she's busy talking shop with Avrenne. Maybe she trusts Marina not to cause any problems.

Marina burbles at Siamus and moves towards the ocean, except in such a way that she keeps her 'hand' around his arm, as if she's trying to lead him back there.

Siamus goes with Marina back down toward the ocean willingly.

Priscilla takes the towel and folds herself in it. "Thank you. I'm Scilla, what's your name?" she asks Moirin.

"Moirin* m'leedy," says Moirin cheerfully to Priscilla, her accent heavily Kul Tiran. She bobs a curtsey.

*Maureen

"Nice to meet you," Priscilla says. She watches Marina and Siamus pass by with an air of amusement and moves over to the blanket to sit down and maybe obtain some fruit for herself at last. "I can't follow a word of that," she says to Finley. "Mage things. How have you been?"

Finley's manner shifts into something comfortable, and relaxed as Priscilla sits. "I just listen for anything like, 'do you think it might explode if we — ' but other than that," he shrugs, a loose movement of his upper body. "I've been alright. It's, uh. Different. Not really what I expected when Avrenne'd get married, but." He looks down at his sandwich. Explain all the differences, little sandwich.

"Your birthday's coming up soon, isn't it? At the end of the month?" Priscilla smiles. "Any plans?"

Finley looks over at Avrenne, and his shoulders can't seem to decide if he wants to curl them more, or straighten up, and so mostly they just twitch, as he shakes his head. "I'm, uh. Did Avrenne tell you about…" He clears his throat awkwardly, the flush of his face going darker. Oh, no. Feelings again. Ugh. Maybe it's just the summer heat, Priscilla. "The wardship's being renewed. In perpetuity." Which is not what had been his plan until recently. For reasons.

"Oh, really?" Priscilla smiles widely and leans in closer, lowering her voice. "Between you and me, if I had a chance to live in a place like this, I'd jump right on it."

Finley just makes a sound like a scoff of a sigh. "There's still like six rooms here. You and Bir — trand could just take a wing and there'd still be the guest quarters." He gives her bit of a grin, but turns his attention to Isla. "You're doing sketches this time?"

Priscilla has found a handful of grapes in one of the baskets, and she holds them up as if in a toast before she starts eating. "As soon as I can get at my luggage, I will be."

Marina floats out into the water. She does a happy little water elemental shimmy and releases Siamus to dive and merge with the ocean, her bracers glinting in the light. It is actually possible to pick out her body underneath the water if one looks carefully - but a moment later she emerges with a splash, twirls, and goes back under. Is she dancing or playing? Maybe both.

Otto giggles again and says something inaudible as Marina dance swims.

In the water, Sintha still holds the wallowing Isla's hands, but her attention now is on her brother and the water elemental. There is a fond — perhaps slightly envious? — gleam in her warm gaze.

Siamus himself has dived beneath the water. He swims with strong, practiced strokes farther out, and then turns to search for the elemental, smiling. He tips back and floats, gazing at the sky, and sings, low-voiced and likely inaudible from the shore: a sort of wordless chanting rhythm, a song of meaningless syllables that run together themselves like water. There's a coaxing sound to it.

Please pay him no mind, Shore People. Siamus is charming a new girlfriend.

Marina swims towards Siamus and circles around him in the water, occasionally surfacing and splashing back down like a dolphin. She seems happy.

Avrenne, meanwhile, has turned to watch Siamus and Marina in the water with an evaluating look, as she asks Cressidha as a continuation of her last, "So, your elemental is doing so on her own accord, with a detectable active link of the bindings? How complex is this relative to what she has done independently before, in your experience and observation?"

Cressidha nods. "She's acting independently at the moment, although I could exert control over her at this range if necessary. I've seen her have a complex conversation with a draenei shaman who wanted a portion of her water to work with. She recognizes the members of my squads, current and previous, and will often talk to them or… try and fit in. I have seen her attempt to pick things up and carry them when the rest of us are doing so."

"Have you heard her use any Common speech, or only noticed effective communication with the shaman? And what is the range on her?" Avrenne's wheels might be turning in her head.

"I do not believe she can speak anything else but Kalimag, but she appears to have an understanding of Draenic, and she can recognize certain words in Common." Cressidha narrows her eyes at Marina. "I have not yet measured the maximum range of the tether."

Avrenne follows Cressidha's line of sight for a moment, before her gaze shifts to Siamus as if pulled by a magnet, a compass pointing inevitably north. "Mm. It is an interesting development. There are some potential applications for an elemental scout able to make independent decisions and communicate information, if only to certain people." Oh, we're back to War Logistics and Resources. Well. Probably no one is surprised by it by now.

Siamus appears to be talking to Marina. Or singing? Whether she is understanding anything is an open question. They're just hangin' out.

Finley gets that look, like he's thinking of saying something, and hesitating about it, but he holds onto his sandwich with both hands, as he asks, with at least an attempt at a casual tone, "Would it be alright if I watched?" He tries harder to force a casual tone, which means he comes all the way back around to making it sound very significant. "I've been studying. Stuff." Stuff and things. You know how it is. Just stuff. Ha ha any way.

"Oh, of course!" Priscilla says, beaming at him. As always, if she notices his nervousness, there's absolutely no sign of it. "You've been studying what, exactly? Do tell."

Finley's shoulders go up high in a reflexive guard. "A couple things." It's vague and defensive, and he sets his jaw for a moment before he forces his shoulders back down. "History, art, and some science, a bit more of math," he answers with the attitude of a porcupine deliberately trying to unruffle his quills. Wait, what was that middle thing?

"Oh, that sounds wonderful. They must have excellent resources available to you here. I hadn't realized - what mediums are you interested in? Sketching, you said, but what else?" Finley has Priscilla's full and enthusiastic attention, and there's nothing but open, sincere approval in her body language. She is still holding a bunch of grapes that have dropped very low on the priority list.

Oh, Light, is it just really hot out here? Finley could probably roll his sleeves up more, but his hands are sandwich, which is also preventing him from taking a drink of water for what might be a dry throat. "I've been learning some pencil. That's where I've been starting. Figure drawing. I'm just at the basics. But, then it will be. Paint. Oils, maybe." There's a longing in his voice that he does not conceal well, and at the sound, takes a bite of sandwich to cover it. Ugh. Feelings. The worst.

"Oh, that's so exciting," Priscilla gushes, still beaming. "Do you have an instructor, or are you just learning from books at the moment?"

There's another bristle that he pushes back down. "Instructor," he says, a sullen tone to his voice, as if expecting Priscilla to point and laugh. Ha ha look at that guy, he can't even learn from books. You know. Like lots of people, but #okFinley.

Priscilla just seems pleased to hear this. "What's their name?" Oh, she still has grapes. She eats another grape.

"Cal Harpen," Finley answers to his sandwich, which did not ask any questions, and is dwindling.

By 'Cal Harpen,' he can only mean Calia Harpen, a person in their early 60s, who retired from formal teaching over five years ago. But, who has obviously been persuaded, possibly by a combination of money and the asking of such a family, to come out of retirement for at least one (1) student.

"Oh, wow. I thought they were retired," Priscilla says, smiling.

Not for people like House Fallon, they aren't. Finley just shrugs.

"That's exciting. I've heard good things about them." Priscilla lowers her voice. "How come you never told me you wanted to learn? I could've gotten you started years ago. Not with an instructor like Cal Harpen, but even so."

Finley looks over at Priscilla with a come on expression, and there's a moment where he seems to be weighing her sincerity. Finally, with a guarded look in his eyes, he answers, "There's no call for a butler who knows how to do art, Scilla. You don't get a servant paints and pay for an instructor when you're trying make sure all the bills get paid." He glances over at Avrenne, still watching Marina and Siamus with a focused, evaluating look. "You know how expensive it gets. Getting materials."

The smile remains, but there's a seriousness to Priscilla's expression now. "You could've started with sketching," Priscilla says, "but I take your point, I do. Painting isn't cheap. I do know how costly it gets." And she knows about the old financial situation of the Esprit household - how it had been before Avrenne's marriage, but that part doesn't get said out loud. "Well, I suppose I'll be content with being very happy for you now."

In the water, Isla's enthusiasm for becoming a minnow remains at 11, but her body, unused to the exertion of swimming, is starting to flag enough that she takes a 'just a thirty second break' that lasts several minutes, and it doesn't look like she can resume, as she tries to float, her face red and her hair plastered all over her neck and shoulders, more out of the braid than in it. But no! She will keep going until exhaustion takes her!

Avrenne's eyes narrow as she flicks them over to Isla, evaluating for a long beat, and she raises up an arm. She doesn't sound exactly like she's shouting, but her voice projects over the sand with an opera singer's range for being heard, "Isla! Lunch."

Or Isla will stop for lunch, because Mom Avrenne said so. Whew. The teenager begins the process of wiggling and flailing back to shore. "I might eat seven sandwiches," Isla threatens breathlessly. She has never eaten seven sandwiches in one go, but hey, there's a first time for everything.

"I might eat nine," Sintha tells her conspiratorially, sidestroking smoothly alongside the girl. "Or twelve, if there are any with Cook's shrimp salad."

Meanwhile, farther out, Siamus has dived again under the water and is gone for a possibly alarming amount of time. He surfaces a good distance from where he'd gone under, rakes his wet hair back from his face and shakes his head, then searches the water around him for Marina. He looks sharply toward the shore at Avrenne's call.
Marina's head rises from the surface of the water. She is here! She is ready to follow her new best friend.

Avrenne watches Isla for a moment, setting her hands together in a habitual folding of one over the other, her right over her left, and looks back to the last place she saw Siamus — which is no longer where Siamus is. There's a beat where Avrenne's hands go a little tighter, though her face doesn't move, as her eyes flick across the water until she finds both the Vice Admiral and the elemental. Her hands relax.

"Avrenne!" Isla yells it, waving an arm in a way that starts enthusiastically and rapidly fades as fatigue hits. Oof. "Did you see me? I'm not fighting the water!" She isn't. Well. We'll call it maybe bickering occasionally with attempts at reconciling.

"Very good," Avrenne says, turning her attention to the teenager. "Don't forget your sunhat, and it is important to drink plenty of water. You should come eat now." Has Avrenne had anything to eat or drink recently? Shhh. Doesn't count.

Finley moves to make room, possibly assuming that Isla will sit next to him and Priscilla. He finishes off his sandwich.

Isla moves on slightly unsteady, tired legs to the baskets to collect two (2) sandwiches to start, and collapses in an ungraceful heap near Priscilla and Finley. "Gosh."

At the reminder, Priscilla fetches her own sunhat and puts it back on. She smiles at Isla. "You did very well," she says proudly. "Do you feel like a minnow yet?"

Cressidha has conjured several bottles of water and just left them by one of the picnic baskets at this point. She stands at the shoreline, watching Marina more than Siamus.

Siamus swims for shore, trailed by his new bestie. He's singing to her; it might be the Amhrán. As they get within wading distance, he lowers his voice, and by the time they arrive at the beach, he's humming half to himself.

Croft approaches to hand him a towel. Siamus towels himself and his hair off vigorously, and then trades Croft the damp towel in exchange for his undershirt, which he pulls back on. He drags his hair back, and looks toward Marina again. She, presumably, does not need a towel or a shirt.

To Cressidha, Siamus says, "Lady Cressidha, I'm obliged to ye for bringing the lady to join us." It is hard to tell whether he's joking or not.

Marina does not need a towel or a shirt. She is just dripping steadily onto the sand.

"Of course," Cressidha says with a faint smile. "The two of you seemed to be enjoying yourselves."

Marina burbles.

"Ah, well, she's a delight. I'm — a friend of the family, ye might say." He glances at Marina with a slight, wry smile like she might get the joke, and then looks toward the others on the blankets.

Isla perks up Priscilla's question. "I'm definitely a minnow!" She says with complete confidence, only to look at Sintha with a starry eyed pleading expression. She's a Fallon Minnow now, right?

Finley snorts quietly. He mutters something that if Isla heard it would probably cause a bickering/fight.

Avrenne shoots Finley a Warning Look, before she sits decorously on the edge of the avaliable seating. She flicks her eyes up (way up now) at Siamus, and then to Marina's bindings, studying them again.

Sintha smiles like a cat and pats Isla's wrist reassuringly. She does not use any words, but that probably just means she is agreeing with Isla, for sure. Certified Minnow Status. She leans toward a basket to examine sandwich options for herself, forestalling further questions.

Isla, unsurprisingly, takes this as confirmation, plopping back more fully into a hunched over, loose limbed bend that only the young can sit in for long and not feel it when they straighten back up. She's eating quickly through her two sandwiches, possibly not remembering that The Cressidha Aspenwood is right there. Isla just watches her new friend / mother / flirting girlfriend maybe, the ocean, happily. Success. She might be writing new fanfiction about THE MINNOW, a new character in at least two stories.

Avrenne adjusts her sun hat, and leans forward to select a Cressidha Aspenwood Water™️, opening it with that cool composure. "Oh, that is a dandelion, isn't it?" She asks Priscilla, of the flower drawn in the sand. The phrasing is a habitual softening. She doesn't give the meaning in the Language of Flowers immediately.

Priscilla looks surprised that her flower has lasted this long, but Marina dripping water on it seems to have helped the sand stay wet and in place. She giggles. "Mmhm. Faithfulness and happiness, right?"

"Yes." Avrenne lets a small smile through. It's a flower she usually has for Priscilla's bouquets, for the meaning and the easy access to the flowers both. She drinks her water, but doesn't select any sandwich or fruit to eat. Yet. Maybe. Who knows.

"Marina, do you want to go back and rest?" Cressidha asks her water elemental.

Marina glides away from Cressidha and towards the blanket, circling around it towards Sintha. She holds out one rounded, fingerless hand.

Sintha pauses, a just-selected sandwich hanging suddenly unregarded in her hand, and stares at the water elemental.

Her gaze slides from Marina to her brother and then back to Marina. "Hello," she says cautiously.

Marina burbles a friendly greeting and wiggles at her.

Avrenne's eyes flick from Sintha to the water elemental, dropping again to the bindings as if she can see something that isn't there and she's focused on it. What she says though to Priscilla is, "Are you still working on the flowers section of the mural, or have you gone on to, oh, the ambient lighting, was it?"

"Oh!" Priscilla brightens up. "It's actually almost done. I've been cycling back and forth between it and the commissions, you know, whenever I have to wait for the paint to dry, I just switch it up."

Siamus has arrived at the blanket's edge and caught Priscilla's last.

Avrenne's gaze moves off Marina to Priscilla, with an evaluating look that feels motherly. "Back and forth between the two — are you setting an alarm?" There's a touch of a scold to her voice as she starts, "If you set an alarm to remind yourself of the time – "

"You will remember to eat at the proper times," Priscilla recites, finishing Avrenne's sentence with her. "I–"

Oh, look, here comes Siamus with the distraction.

"Speaking of your work," he tells her, and settles down near Avrenne, "if ye've the time for it, I'd commission ye for another, Lady Moore."

"Another? Oh, do tell."

Siamus glances slyly sidelong at Avrenne, and then back to Priscilla. "Her Grace has got a blue dress she wore yesterday," he says. That seems to be it; that's the explanation. Avrenne has a blue dress. Now painting.

Avrenne reaches out to the basket to finally select a sandwich… to set down next to Priscilla in a not very subtle suggestion to eat more, with a motherly air. She looks only slightly surprised at the specifics of the commission request. She's been learning that Siamus might very well be serious when he says he'd like an actual painting of the picture she's made of herself in dress and manner.

Priscilla obediently exchanges her grape stems for the sandwich. "I can assume that you want a painting of her wearing the blue dress and not only the dress itself?" Just, you know, a dress. "Details, details. Pose, backdrop?" A quick glance at Cressidha, who is still standing with her feet in the water. "Level of formality?"

Siamus laughs. "Aye, the Duchess in the dress." He considers Avrenne, smiling. "A private portrait, I think, wi' her hair down. The sapphire and the rest — just as yesterday. She can choose the pose and backdrop. It will be for my room, no' for guests."

This is presumably not as salacious a request as it might sound, because there are children present and he did say he wanted her to be wearing the dress. Or maybe it is, who knows?

Sintha holds a finger out uncertainly toward Marina's water-blob hand, in a sort of ET phone home fashion.

Marina engulfs Sintha's entire hand in what might be a water elemental handshake. Hello, new friend.

Sintha does a timid little startle, not quite a recoil, and then glances over at Siamus, her eyes enormous and her expression electric, the look of a small child who has just pet a cat for the first time. Oh my gosh look I touched it!!! I'm touching it!!!

Finley looks at the water blob handshake with a skeptical, uneasy air.

Isla has finished her two sandwiches, and fallen back on the blanket with her eyes closed. She might be napping. At Siamus' description of the commission though, she smiles, adding new details to the on going THE DUCHESS AND THE VICE ADMIRAL (text revised), now with 30% more Paint Me Like Your French Girls salacious details. Should she be adding those, Isla Lenaire? Probably not. But. She's being raised by sailors, gosh.

Avrenne's brows go up briefly, and there's the inaudible but visible whirring of gears in her head. "Oh, for something of that nature…Mm. Well, we shall have to plan for another weekend stay, or at least an overnight. Unless you were to stay for an entire week, but that might be unreasonable." Her tone has that distracted, thinking out loud sound. Or Priscilla could just stay indefinitely. Move in. That's an option, although it doesn't seem to occur to Avrenne to offer it at the moment.

Priscilla smiles, her sandwich still uneaten. "Unreasonable? Not at all - that is, on my end."

"Hardly unreasonable on ours," Siamus says, more to Avrenne than to Priscilla. "She can have the west room, aye?"

(It is entirely possible that The West Room is the only guest room in his house Siamus is actually aware of. There are so many rooms. Keeping track of them is why he has Sintha and servants.)

(And a wife.)

Avrenne takes a sip of her water. "Oh, she could. There is also the South Room, with the larger windows that face the front of the house. You can see the sea cliffs to the west from them." It's just information presented, rather than a command.

"That sounds lovely," Priscilla says, smiling.

"Very well. We shall need to plan when you might make a longer stay of it," Avrenne decides.

"Oh, Scilla, you should just stay forever," Isla says in a rapturous dreamy voice. "Then we could do this every day. You could just paint and paint and never worry about anything." Beach Day forever. It might also be that Isla's impression of the life at Fallon House is somewhat influenced by her own.

Avrenne opens her mouth to say something, and then closes it with a "mm." She's thinking.

Finley, for once, doesn't argue with Isla. He just turns a look at Priscilla like, hey, he did say. There are so many rooms, Priscilla. So many. The house is enormous and the coffers are so deep as to be possibly considered fathomless. Just don't ask questions about why the bathtub has a bunch of gems in it.

Siamus laughs genially. Surely Lady Moore has her own manor to return to.

And then he detects — belatedly, from Finley and Avrenne's reactions — that… this might not be a joke? He studies Avrenne for a moment, a brow tilted, and then turns an inquiring look on Priscilla. Laugh twice if it's a joke, Priscilla.

Priscilla does not laugh. "My landlady has plans to sell the house after the mural is done," she says. Uh oh. That sure doesn't sound like she has her own manor. And she's renting? She smiles wistfully at Isla.

Siamus sits up a little and knits his brows. He looks at Avrenne again, and then back to Priscilla. "How many commissions is it I've hired of ye, Lady Moore?"

Avrenne's brows raise. She looks back at Siamus, and turns her attention to Priscilla. There's a look in her eyes now though that says she's run the numbers. The math checks out.

Isla remains plopped, eyes closed, blissfully writing the fanfiction of THE PAINTER OF THE HAUNTED MANSION. Is Fallon House haunted? No. But could it be? Yes. And that's what matters. Wait, Finley could be in this, too. THE PAINTERS OF THE HAUNTED MANSION. He he he.

"The portrait, the Lady Blanche, and now the one with the blue dress?" Priscilla counts off on the fingers of the hand holding the sandwich. She does not seem to think to include the formal wedding portrait, which was a gift, or any of the paintings that Avrenne has commissioned using Fallon-Esprit money.

"There is as well two portable portraits as a gift for Captain Tyrrell so far," Avrenne says with that cool tone, no sense of affection whatsover in either voice or expression, glancing at Cressidha by the water for a moment. You might think she is only doing so on Siamus' behalf, maybe. She sets her water down and folds her hands over each other and adds, "One more for Siamus at sea." Of whom? Don't worry about it. "And two for me."

Siamus smiles absently at mention of Captain Tyrrell, his awfully good friend, for whom his wife commissions art. He nods thoughtfully. "And I'll want another when Her Grace is showing, and there will be the birthday portrait in March, and one wi' the baby as well — Ta, have I any portraits of ye?"

Sintha blinks across the blanket at him. "Yes," she tells him. "From when I was four years old." She gives Marina a look like, This fucking jellyfish, man.

Marina looks back at Sintha. Somehow, she seems to be giving off a humans, am I right? sort of vibe.

Siamus nods thoughtfully. "A portrait of Lady Sintha as well, perhaps. So that's — I expect ye ought to stay, at this point, aye? We'd make a terrible monopoly of ye wi' travel time and so on, otherwise." He looks at Avrenne.

Avrenne's expression as she looks back at him has grown softly shining enough to shift the composure right off her face, as she smiles at Siamus. There's such visible happiness in her eyes that it gives away more than a little of her feelings for him, for anyone looking at her. It takes her a moment to dim it down, ahem. Right. There is Public here. She raises both brows, directing her attention to Priscilla, a smile still warming her features. "It would you give you ample time to put to the test if you could paint the grounds all day and not get bored," she says, a touch of a playful tease in her voice. Science!

"Oh," Priscilla says, setting the sandwich down on the blanket. (This is a mistake. This is how it gets covered in sand.) "I would be honored, truly, as soon as I finish work on the mural." To Siamus, she clarifies, "I've been painting the back wall of my kitchen. It's a bit of a gift to my landlady for the discount she gave me." There was a discount involved? Goodness. She definitely does not have her own manor.

"Ah," says Siamus. He smiles vaguely and then gives Avrenne a look that says, I have questions for later. It's not that subtle. Siamus is not that subtle.

To Priscilla, he says, "We'll be very glad to have ye. And perhaps we'll see Bertrand more often, when he's about, aye?" He glances at Sintha again. "And Ta's friend."

Sintha is making an OH MY GOD, SHAY face at Siamus.

Avrenne gives Siamus a returning look. She will answer questions later.

"Oh! When will Lucy be coming back? She's been gone forever." Isla whines from the blanket.

Sintha gives Isla an affectionate, approving look, and then shoots another tiny glare at Siamus. At least someone around here knows her friend's name.

"Thank you," Priscilla says to both Siamus and Avrenne. Her expression goes soft and dreamy at the mention of Bertrand, and she almost misses Isla's question. "Hm? Ah. It's just as much of a mystery to me, I'm afraid, but if you write to her, I'm sure she would visit."

"I shall be very pleased to have you here," Avrenne says to Priscilla, warmth audible in her voice. "And Lady Lucille is always welcome to visit."

Isla sighs dramatically and rolls over onto her stomach. "I'm going to write to her tomorrow and tell her to come here."

"She's busy doing things, Isla," Finley says, and there's a scold enough to make Isla whip her head up with a fierce pout, brows drawn down.

"Then all the more reason to write her! She's been busy for over a year ever since — " Isla just makes a growly, angry sound that probably stands in for Gavin's name. "She should have some — some — " She falters for a moment before smacking a hand down on the blanket, enough to scatter little bits of sand that have made their way onto the blanket from various sources. (Sorry, Priscilla's sandwich.) "Some scheduled idleness time, too!"

Priscilla looks down at her sandwich. Oops, it's covered in sand. Maybe she can get away with not eating one. She reaches for the basket that contains fruit instead. "There's no reason not to write her," Priscilla says. "Only you shouldn't be too terribly disappointed if she reads your letter and forgets to reply. You know how she is."

Isla harumphs, and flops back onto the blanket, face down.

Marina drifts away from Sintha and back to Cressidha, and she holds both arms out.

"Oh? Ready to go back?" Cressidha removes the bracers, and Marina vanishes.

Siamus startles slightly and glances over his shoulder as though he's just heard a door slam behind him.

Avrenne ignores the ongoing drama of Isla, reaching out to set a hand on Siamus' arm, her brows raised in question.

Siamus shakes his head at Avrenne, wearing a faint, rueful smile. He glances again at Cressidha and the place where Friend vanished, and then redirects his attention to the conversation at hand. "What room have we got Lady Moore in tonight? We should arrange to put her in the south one instead, so she can begin acquainting with it."

Avrenne doesn't take her hand off Siamus, resting there. She might not have realized she set it there. "I believe Barbour had a planned room. Finley," Avrenne says. That's all she says, but Finley brushes off his hands to pick up his shoes, and rise to a stand.

"I'll let him know," he says. He gives a brief bow to The Party At Large, before stepping off the blanket to go handle the logistics of room occupancy.

"Thank you," Priscilla says to Finley as he leaves.

Sintha throws a grape at Siamus. Why? Does she need a reason? It hits his arm — not the one Avrenne is holding — and bounces off to roll on the blanket. Siamus gives her a dire look, then picks it up and eats it.

He turns to Cressidha. "Lady Cressidha, will ye sit? I'd be glad to hear more of your work."

Avrenne looks down at the grape, and seems to see her hand on Siamus. There's a moment, brief, as her fingers move lightly on him, a small touch, but at Cressidha's name she curls her fingers up slowly to not draw attention to it, and sets her hands both together again in her lap.

"Ah." Cressidha looks at the group of people on the Primary Food Blanket without her. "Very well," she agrees, and goes to sit down. "Avrenne, would you care to see these up close now that she's no longer in them?" Cressidha offers, holding out Marina's bracers to her.

"Yes, thank you," Avrenne answers, taking the bracers carefully, rotating them in her hands. She very gently taps her fingertips against the metal, evaluating it with the attitude of someone familiar with materials who is mentally attempting to reverse source exactly what the bindings were made of, from where, and how old the materials are.

Siamus watches Avrenne's examination with interest, his brows knit intently. He flicks a glance up to her face, assessing what information she might be gleaning from them

The binding runes on the inside of the bracer are in an entirely different arcane script, perhaps something that originated with the Draenei. Some symbols seem familiar. Many don't.

Avrenne sets one bracer in her lap, staring at the other, as she raises a hand into the air and with mathematical precision, finger traces the unusual runes in the air. She's either familiar with them, or much more likely, just that good with relative spatial scale and lines, to be able to recreate them so precisely. "These are certainly not standard. I do wonder if the difference is draeneic? The materials are not from Azeroth, any of them. The alloy is a composite that suggests forging using methods that are not used by Azeroth based blacksmiths, either."

As she speaks, she continues air tracing. "And these runes are not Kirin Tor standardized. Perhaps with the integrated approach between elemental shamanism and arcane, someone created something unusual." She looks up from her study to Cressidha. "Well, unusual to us, at least. It may be that this is an older method." She lowers her hand, and politely returns the bracers to Cressidha. "It would be interesting to see if it could be replicated, if desired."

Cressidha puts the bracers away in the little bag at her waist. "I have not spoken to many draenei mages, but I suppose they would be the ones to ask."

"Or shamans?" asks Siamus. "If it is something to do wi' the shamanic traditions on Outland?"

"That would be my expectation, yes," Avrenne agrees. "It may be some combination of an elemental approach to the binding with the underlying principle of summoning, that has been used to create greater cooperation by allowing additional freedom for the elemental, yet still bound to this plane by a mage's power."

Cressidha hums thoughtfully. "I'm told that the draenei studying shamanism is a relatively recent practice. But I suppose I don't know how long the binding bracers were out there in the wild. It's all merely speculation on my part."

"With that sort of khorium alloy, given the known weather conditions of Shadowmoon Valley, you said it was?" Avrenne's voice has that distracted tone, as if she's thinking as she speaks. "The arcane bindings seem to have resisted the more recent fel corruption, leaving only natural source decay from external sources, but that suggests, oh, between 100 and 300 years of non-ideal condition wear, if I have estimated the state of the material correctly," Avrenne says, a genuine sense of humility in the guess, with the large range, but there's still that note of confidence in the guess. Oh, boy, Material Science Nerd out in force.

"The material itself is likely even older, given the discoloration, but I expect that would have been in ideal conditions prior. That is, the bindings material at least is quite old," Avrenne clarifies. "How long they have been in use for an elemental, or when these particular runes were etched onto it, I could only guess that they must have been on the bindings since before the fel corruption of Draenor, or they would show other wear that we see in Shadowmoon Valley now with untreated metals, but that is quite a large window. You would need an expert with tools to be more precise, and even then, they might only be able to narrow it down to a window of within 30 or so years, I expect." She pauses. "Unless, of course, they recognized the writing of the one who wrote the runes."

"Fascinating," Cressidha says, folding her hands in her lap. She sounds like maybe she actually does find it all fascinating.

"Lady Moore," chides Sintha, "you've lost your sandwich, we've got it all sandy, gosh. Here you go!" She rummages in the basket and presents Priscilla with a second sandwich, in a flourish.

"Oh, goodness." Foiled again. Priscilla accepts her sandwich from Sintha with good grace and a smile. "Thank you. If I'm to be staying here, please do call me Scilla?"

"Scilla," says Sintha, sounding delighted. "Gosh, I certainly shall, and you will call me Sintha." She leans in and says conspiratorially but absolutely without lowering her voice, so that she's perfectly audible to everyone else, "Shay will not call you Scilla, I'm afraid, as he will insist on being a gentleman, but you should certainly call him Siamus."

Her brother, meanwhile, is absorbed in the conversation about the elemental bracers, and paying no attention whatsoever to Sintha.

Priscilla beams at Sintha and does her own half of the conspiratorial lean-in to say, "I am terribly excited to have some company. I've been living alone since Lucy got married."

"I know exactly how that is. I was forever rattling around alone in here while Shay was off to wherever" — never mind there are like 42 servants — "and it's so lovely to have a house full of people now."

"Materials are something of my specialty," Avrenne tells Cressidha. "I am still learning the intricacies of Draenor's resources, of course, as they are more recent to my purview, but khorium I did take a special interest in. It's prohibitively expensive for large projects, but for smaller additions, it performed quite well in stress tests for holding certain magical properties without decay. Fel iron, however, has the greater functional tensile strength for larger scale military applications." Material Science Facts! "I understand from your mother that you have been working in combat and protective enchantments for the past few years? Have you noticed anything of interest in your work of it with materials from Outland?"

Siamus is smiling fondly at Avrenne — tiny cute encyclopedia — and then turns a more serious focus on Cressidha.

Cressidha does, this time, seem to have something to say on the topic: "Of the enchanting rods I worked with, fel iron was functional, as was adamantite, but eternium was the most conductive. I was unable to work with a khorium rod as a conduit for enchanting at all. The dust wouldn't transfer from the rod properly."

Priscilla smiles at Sintha. "You'll have to introduce me to all the household staff, hm? I'm terrible with names until I put faces to them. Once I've drawn them all once I'm sure I'll remember - if they're okay with that, of course." She sets the sandwich down. "Oh, I should go get my sketchbook!"

"Oh, fascinating," Avrenne says to Cressidha. "I have not dealt with eternium extensively." That seems likely to have been a money issue. Past Avrenne Problems. She glances over as Priscilla sets down food, with Mom Sense. "Would you care for company back to the house, Priscilla?"

Sintha, who had brightened in preparation for new raptures at mention of the sketchbook, looks between Avrenne and Priscilla with expectant interest.

"If you don't mind, that would be nice. It's certainly large enough for me to get lost in." Priscilla rises to her feet, leaving her fluffy towel behind. She puts her sundress back on over her still-wet bathing suit and gathers up her sunhat, shaking some sand off of the brim.

"Oh, gosh, would I be intruding if I tagged along?" asks Sintha, making big, limpid eyes.

Siamus eyes his wife and then his sister. Hm.

"Not at all," Priscilla assures her, smiling.

Cressidha has turned towards the shore again and is just watching the waves.

"Would you prefer to remain here, Lady Cressidha?" Avrenne asks.

There's a sleepy murmur from Isla as she turns over on the blanket. There's sand now pressed to her cheek. "It's nice. You could take a nap." She doesn't look like she's moving any time soon.

Avrenne reaches out to brush the sand lightly off Isla's cheek. "Otto?"

"I'm staying until I find the right shell," Otto says softly, a little wisp of sound.

"Hm?" Cressidha smiles a little. "Ah, yes. Otto, what sort of shell are you looking for?"

"The right one," Otto answers helpfully(?). He smiles to himself, barely visible from behind the hat, as he keeps digging a hole next to himself. There's no other words. That might be the full answer.
Cressidha smiles. "I see." For whatever reason, she looks like she totally understands this young man.

Avrenne just makes a 'mm' sound, as she readies to stand up.

Siamus rises reflexively to his feet to offer a hand down to Avrenne.

Avrenne takes it, rising with assistance, picking up her dress in the other hand. Avrenne's hair and bathing suit have already dried, faster than they probably should have. She releases Siamus' hand to put the dress on over her bathing suit.

Siamus moves meanwhile to collect his own clothes, which he drapes over his arm to carry; unlike certain tiny fire mages, he is not yet completely dry, and is disinclined to wear linen over wet swim trunks.

Sintha hops up to retrieve her sundress and pulls it back on over her head despite her still-damp swimsuit.

Priscilla collects her sandals, holding them in one hand as she starts up the path to the house barefoot. At the first flower garland, she pauses and asks, "Oh, what does this one say?"

Avrenne's head turns to look at where Priscilla has paused at one of the yellow garlands, and without hesitation tells her, "A true friendship of enduring affection and gratitude, for a lady of elegance and grace." She gestures with an open palm to the elements of the garland, her other hand on Siamus' arm in escort. "That is: yellow rose with gorse and agrimony, and the foliage from oak leaved geranium with yellow jasmine."

Priscilla clasps her hands to her chest. "Oh, that's so sweet. Maybe I can do a watercolor of it later."

"A watercolor," rhapsodizes Sintha. "Gosh, isn't that just perfect?" She laughs brightly.

Avrenne allows a small smile. "Should you wish for a chair to be placed nearby one or the other, you need only ask. Or you might take any of these with you for the room, later." Her eyes linger briefly on some of the other bouquets, of white, pink, and purple flowers. Those don't seem likely to be Priscilla's bouquets. "You would know better than I if the light will last long enough to capture them here as they are today."

“We'll see how long I spend on sketching," Priscilla says. "What about that one there?"

This time, there is a hesitation. It's small, but there's a moment of a pause, a controlled touch to her posture, as though Avrenne's stopped herself from looking back to the blanket. "May you be happy, perfection of female loveliness, on this amiable expected meeting." Again, she gestures to the components. "Volkamenia, justicia, white jasmine and nutmeg geranium. For Lady Cressidha," she explains, a little unnecessarily, possibly, nothing audible in her voice but the cool composure she still wears.

Siamus glances down at Avrenne, a brow tipped upward, and then glances back at Cressidha to survey her. He looks at Avrenne again.

"Perfection of female loveliness?" Priscilla sounds amused. "Which of the flowers is that one?"

"Justicia," says Siamus. "Though I couldn't tell ye which of them that is."

Sintha gives her brother a Very Surprised look.

Avrenne opens her mouth to answer Priscilla, and her eyes flick up to Siamus as he answers, and there's a smile that is too bright to be called small, too obviously filled with pleased affection to be mistaken for something cool. She doesn't look away from him as she moves her hand back to the justicia, as she tries to dim the smile back down, the warmth in her eyes remaining. "This one," Avrenne her fingers pointed to a mass focal point of the bouquet, a very showy flower plume, nearly 6 inches tall, of densely packed pink petals that drape down. "They do quite well in the heat."

Priscilla reaches out to brush the petals with her fingers. "Oh, that is lovely. I'll tell Birdie about it. You've studied the language of flowers as well, Siamus?"

"Only of late," he says; he's watching Avrenne with a slight smile. "And courtesy of my lady, who has graciously undertaken my education in the matter."

Sintha wishes that Finley were present so she might have someone to roll her eyes and make a gagging face at.

Finley, who is on his way back from the house with news of Priscilla's room change having been squared away, is grateful to have missed the moment.

"With the exceptional efforts of a most intelligent and dedicated student." Avrenne lowers her hand to set it on Siamus' arm, leaning a little closer. It takes her another second before she tears her eyes away to look back to the house. Ahem. Social Duchess. "You said, Priscilla that you were to meet Lord Bertrand in Dalaran soon? I know that Wintergarde's climate in the barracks prohibits a bouquet, but would you care to bring any with you for him for the day? Something for your hair, perhaps?"

Priscilla gives Siamus an approving nod. Yes, excellent. "Oh, that sounds fun. I shall enlist your help."

Avrenne nods once. That's settled. "Now, then. Let us get your sketchbook, and perhaps while we are at it, we might get your fencing gear." Is that a twinkle in her eyes? Possibly. The Duchess has Plans for this Business of Leisure, and she intends to see them through.

A Day At The Beach At Fallon House