[end of vacation] cool youth party for cool youths

[and_survive]

It wasn't a birthday party, for all that she'd turned seventeen a few days ago. Or, at least, crossed the date that marked that; there was always that confusion about time, here, and not just how it meant she was either seventeen or wouldn't be born for another three years. It was, as a lot of things about Darrow were, slightly out of joint.

That wasn't why, though. She just hadn't thought of it such. It was a party to mark the creeping end of summer vacation, the fact that although the season itself was still going strong, school would have its claws in them soon enough and then it would be gone, the last of the hot days fading while they were stuck inside.

She thought it made for a good venue for the cause. Konoha-Uchi didn't entirely feel like hers; it was a home, but one that she'd moved into and been left behind in, as with so much in her life, and she didn't have a sense of ownership, just a simpler one of residence. Which seemed a little fitting, frankly, for inviting her friends and their friends and frankly anyone else in an expanding circle of youth to come on by and live it up before commitments got their hooks in all of them again. She'd loaded the pickup with food and drinks and ice and was still relying a little on people bringing a thing or two themselves, but she'd done alright, she thought, considering she still wasn't technically old enough to be getting some of what was absolutely vital to any good party, but she'd managed, with some help.

Aside from the bedrooms, which she'd closed off -- Korra's because she'd never been quite sure what to do with that one, now, her own because Kyle could make all the social media posts about soul-searching quests to be open and honest with his love that he liked, he wasn't going to be open and honest with his love in her bedroom if he showed up -- she'd opened all the living spaces up to the outside, allowing breezes and people both to sweep through as they would, between the indoors and the shaded spaces of the porches. Even the lake, if anyone got hot or drunk or just plain whimsical enough to throw themselves in.

On a day like this one it didn't seem like the bar for that would be very high. The water was clear and quiet and calm, much like the surrounds usually were. Sometimes, that quiet seclusion was a goal in and of itself.

Today, it was mostly a good setting in which to get raucous.

[gathering post for gathering in. gather. party.]

Comments

[iwasmore]

"No, I don't think so," Noah admits with a grin, "It's just me being weird. There was a sale, and it's summer, so like. Watermelon! Plus you could make tropical drinks."

"So your house is freaking amazing," he continues, looking around and taking it in. It doesn't look like it even belongs in Darrow, it looks like it came out of ancient Japan. "Is it okay if I bring these inside? I can cut them up in the kitchen. I probably should have done that before I came, but I don't think we have any sort of Tupperware at Hywel..."

[and_survive]

"I like that even better," Ellie said, because the things people usually did at parties were one thing, and she could get behind them in the spirit of being in tune with the time and place in which she lived. But the things her friends did that were just them were, obviously, superior.

"Gimme one of those," she said, fishing one out from under his arm. "Kitchen and tropical drinks it is. What's tupperware, though?"

[iwasmore]

Noah shifts his hold on the watermelon when Ellie takes the other, carrying it like a baby as he follows her to the kitchen. And man, he used to think living in a warehouse was the coolest thing ever, but this house? Really cool.

"Oh, it's a brand name. It's these air tight plastic containers people use to store food in. But then I think it turned into one of those things where like...it becomes the word to call all plastic containers. Like you call pop a Coke even when it isn't a Coke. Type thing," he explains, setting the watermelon down on the counter.

"So if you have an axe or something I'll cut these up for you."

[and_survive]

"With an axe?" Ellie said. "Like..." she held out her hands a distance apart, approximating the size of a decently sized axe like the one she had for cutting wood and things.

"I mean, I have one, but if we're smashing this shit with an axe maybe... outside. Or a machete? I have a machete."

[iwasmore]

"You have a machete?" Noah asks loudly, eyes going wide. "Why? ...Can we go on a hike through the forest later, cutting down overgrowth in our way with it?"

He eyes the watermelon. If they do it outside it will get dirty. It just feels too big for a regular knife, though. He doesn't know, he's never prepared fruit before. "I think we could do the watermelon sepuku with the machete in here. If it makes a mess I promise to clean it up," he adds, smiling winningly.

[and_survive]

"To go on hikes through the forest, cutting down overgrowth," Ellie said, echoing him without missing a beat. She was kidding, but it also wasn't entirely untrue, that was one of the reasons. Some of the other reasons had to do with uses in the outdoors, too.

Some of them didn't. Probably she wouldn't mention them.

"Also, hacking up melons. Hang on, I'm gonna go grab it."