After today’s seminar, René went to the beach. It’d been ages since he had last gone, and he didn’t want to wait any longer, stripping off his shirt and pants and running into the waves. That was, sadly, when he found out that the water was a touch too cold for his liking. He retreated and sat on the sand to dry off and warm up, tide pushing up seafoam to lap at his feet. And after wrangling the nearest idle person to sit down and keep him company, he began gathering sand in his arms to make their very own castle.
Sand mound, so far, but it was a current work in progress. “This would be a lot easier if we had a bucket,” he said, sweeping his gaze around the beach to see if there was one lying around, but then looked back to Ridley when his efforts came up empty, “So how are you doing, Ridley?”
Initially, the little blonde next to him hadn’t considered coming to the beach unless invited. She had never been much of a water person, nor a bonfire and songs or roasted food over the fire sort, but it had less to do with the beach itself and more to do with her talk with Quen the night before. Ridley was rarely likely to be cagey, but talk of her mother made her clam up so fast, it was a wonder words came out at all. Her birthday was coming up and her mother, the only person she’d ever celebrated her birthdays with, was gone.
And yet when René drew her attention away from her thoughts, the curiosity to see what he was doing struck hard, and her cheek was practically half a foot away from his arm when he addressed her specifically.
She smiled, but it lacked conviction. “Well enough, thank you.” This wasn’t, strictly speaking, true, though it wasn’t a lie. “How are you? How is the bakery?” Her hands came together to add to his mound.
“Yeah? Well I’m glad to hear it,” he replied, noting that she hadn’t seem too enthused, and he didn’t think it had to do with sand castles. Ridley was a quiet girl though, and they had only just started talking, so René let it be and trusted that she would either open up or leave if that was what she wanted. Besides, he had enough excitement covered for the both of them.
“I’m good, it’s been a while since I’ve been at the beach,” he replied, eyes squinting against the sun. “Wish it was earlier in the summer so the water was nicer, but this is fun. Needed a break from fixing up the bakery.” To answer her other question, he explained, “We just have a few things left, but you wouldn’t believe how hard it is to make a shelf. My fault,” he added sheepishly, “for telling the carpenter that I could handle it.”
While Ridley added to the sand pile, shaping up to be quite the tower, he began digging around it. “Every castle needs a moat, don’t you think?”
Polite as she was, the scholar nodded at his words, soaking them in. It was easier to listen than to speak, and she had a feeling René minded little that she was quieter than usual. With her hands, significantly smaller than his own, she started molding the castle “walls” to be higher without crumbling, and wondered, for only a second, what it would be like to live in a castle. Lonely? Daunting? Or splendid? The thought quickly washed away with the tide, and as she dug her index finger into packed sand for a “window”, she tilted her head like she was caught deep in a conundrum.
“The castle is a bit too small for anyone to live in,” she pointed out, smiling out of his line of sight. “Maybe mice could live here.” As quickly as the humor had shown itself, it vanished, leaving a quiet, thoughtfulness in its wake.
“Thank you for those macarons. Before the riots.” A pause. “I apologize if that seems out of place for me to say.”