Log: This Family of Hers - September 14, 2004

Harbor Beach

Sheltered between a cliff and the harbor entrance, this little beach is a favorite of locals thanks to that seclusion; most tourists don't know it even exists. The top half of the beach is cast in shade, twisted eucalyptus trees clinging to the side of the hill and sheltering a handful of picnic benches well above the sand. Rough, natural paths follow the tracks of erosion down to the sand itself. The waves tend to be pretty mild at this point in the bay, making this a popular beach for families. The sand ends to the east at a wall of jumbled concrete and stone that extends out into the harbor, part of the wave break that shelters the moored boats. The sand ends up giving way to sheer cliffface to the west, the soft rock worn into interesting shapes by the action of waves, wind, and the occasional helping human hand. When the tide is low enough, you can get far enough to see around the bend and get a postcard-perfect view of the Boardwalk.

Contents: Drina, Thistle

Thistle wanders down to the edge of the beach the next morning, with a large cup of coffee from one of the downtown cafes dangling from his fingers. Maybe he's just taking a look at the day before heading over to Snelling; it's hard to tell just from the watching, though while he thinks he's alone his expression is wane. There's no effort at all to hide the slight ache visible there.

There's a Drina swimming -- as so often is the case -- but this time it's not in otter form. She's swimming 'round quite happily and quite nakedly in human form, her clothing folded up and stashed somewhere near the upturned dinghy on the shore. She spends an awful lot of time underwater, which may be why Thistle doesn't see her at first. Eventually, however, she pulls herself up on the back end of the half-in half-out of the water boat and peers over it at him, arms folded along the bottom of the boat's hull, obscuring all but her eyes and spiky dark wet hair.

Thistle blinks briefly as he does spy her, watching her swim from afar without making any motion to get closer to shore. It's only when she's up in the boat and peering in his direction that he moves at all, and that's to lift his cup in her direction.

"Are you sad, Mr. Thistle?" asks Drina, peering over the boat at him. "It's okay if you are. Sometimes I'm sad, like when I can't find my superhero underpants."

Thistle pauses, then slowly makes his way down to the edge of the boat -- not quite so close that he can see inside and thus her undressed, but close enough for civilized conversation. He half-smiles then, and murmurs, "Perhaps I misplaced my underoos too, then."

Well, behind it, really, the boat's upturned and she's leaning on its back end, but either way, she doesn't seem bothered by the idea of nekkidness. "Maybe. But maybe you're sad over someone else being happy. And that's sad, too. Because then you're sad, and someone else is happy, and you feel bad maybe because you're sad and they're happy and you feel like you should be happy. Or I could be telling stories again. Corbin says I'm really good at that."

Thistle frowns for a moment, then shakes his head as he slowly sinks to the sand. "No. I'm not sad because someone else is happy, though I imagine it may look that way. I'm just sad for the world, in a way."

"Oh. Well. I get sad for the world, sometimes. See? I was just telling stories. Why are you sad for the world, Mister Thistle?" Drina continues to lean on the boat for the time being, her chin propped on her forearms.

Thistle tilts his head thoughtfully as he studies her, then offers a brittle-sad smile just before he takes a sip from his coffee. It's only when he lowers it that he whispers, "Because it's broken, Lady of the Waves. Broken, and so much of it doesn't even realize what it's missing."

"Everything's broken, Mister Thistle," Drina begins, and she looks like she's about to say something else, but instead, a slow glissando from bass to treble clefs rolls out from an unseen piano, and she sighs up at the dark sky -- because, dramatics demand moonlight for songs like this. "Everybody's broken. Not one family is whole," she speaks once more, before breaking into song in her soft alto voice, chin turned up toward the starlight and moonlight.

"Its the oldest story ever,
How a father was destroyed
By his daughters hands, he tried
To slip the tricks she had employed
Intending the very best for him,
She never meant it at the time
Thats the way the story goes
In a family like mine."

Thistle just stares, eyes gone wide as the music starts and the sky darkens. For now, he keeps his mouth shut and simply listens.

She slides up onto the boat, slimbing up slowly and singing up toward the moon. Her tail is curled up around her and held onto by both hands, knees bent up, head tilted back and feet propped on the hull's curve, fur slipping between black and silver in the moonlight. Classic 'longing solo' posture.

"It's the nature of her being,
To crack the shell he hid behind
But she wrecked him without meaning
To crush what she knew she'd find.
Raising his his voice, he shattered,
Stripped of meter and rhyme
That's the way the verses roll out
In a family like mine."

Thistle blinks, slowly. He shifts as well as the song continues, making himself smaller -- not so much hiding as taking himself as entirely out of the spotlight as he can. All his attention is on her.

"Mother dead and father broken,
she slipped deep into the sea,
to find all the dreams she'd lost
and to make sense of memories
from lives she's never lived
places she'll never find
That's the way the pages turn
in this family of mine."

Drina is entirely lost in her song now. Her voice is untrained, but a sweet alto nonetheless. If someone ever bothered to teach her how to use it, it would be quite pretty: one of those strong "head voices" that are made to belt out sea chantys or Broadway ballads. She continues to sit still, singing up to the moon.

"She's architech of her shadows
and he, unwiling prince of the sea,
She wants to give her daughter peace
He'd just like to see Boise,
We've got style, got grace, got moxie
But stability'd be fine
We're functionally dysfunctional
in this family of mine."

Thistle blinks a little, some glimmer of a thought...or maybe even understanding...flickering at the edge of his expression. He may actually be huming along with the music at this point, but clearly he thinks it's solo time.

"But here's the real truth of the matter,
that floating house out on the brine,"

Drina begins, turning to look directly /at/ Thistle, finally, her voice rising as she turns to plant both hands on the boat's hull, expression intense and intent.

"I wouldn't change one damn thing,
because that family is mine."

She rises to her feet, now, naked and unashamed in the moonlight, completely caught up in her performance. An accusing finger's pointed directly at her only audience for the next two lines.

"And if you touch them or you cross them,
don't be fooled by my sweet lies."

A fist thrown into the air, and she shouts, "Morte and Guerre!" before continuing on in song,

"I am a pirate --
these, our vengeful cries."

There's a great deal of passion in her voice, her right hand with its scar-crossed palm stretched up to the moonlight as she finishes,

"I would kill or die for
any of this family of mine."

The piano, which had been her only accompaniment throughout, rolls down to a final bass chord, leaving Drina standing atop the overturned dinghy, hand stretched up toward the sky.

Thistle has graze to at least drop his shoulders when she points -- no fight from /his/ direction. It's only when the last notes fade out that he dares to move, carefully standing to put himself between the street and the rather naked woman who might draw attention. He clears his throat, then whispers slowly, experimentally -- as if expecting to sing himself, almost -- "Are you all right?"

It's not the nakedness that has Drina looking horrified a few seconds after the song ends. She claps a hand over her mouth, and then the other, staring at Thistle as if the whole world had just falled down around her ears. She wobbles on her feet, uncertainly, and then whispers, "I don't like this game anymore, it's got the wrong pants on."

Thistle grimaces slowly, and murmurs, "It's getting worse, isn't it. I'm sorry...for what it's worth."

Drina gives Thistle another horrified look, claps her hands over her mouth again, and then turns to run down the hull and splash into the water, disappearing under the waves. A few seconds later, an otter nose appears out in the breakers, and then vanishes again.

Thistle stares out after Drina, then sighs deeply and mutters, "Right. I need duct tape or a very limited audience, I can tell..." He turns then, and trudges up the sand toward the street again, expression even more grim than it was when he came down to the beach.