milliways_bar | (no subject)

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When Viola's view screen pops up, she lets out an involuntary gasp and immediately hunches over to shield it from view: for there , next to the options to become a fox and a-- robot?--, is the option to become a boy. What are you trying to do, Bar, give her away?

...but then again...

She presses the button. Outwardly, nothing much changes. She always did look uncannily like her brother, after all.

Outwardly.

[ooc: moderate slowtimes, especially over the weekend, but since she hasn't been around in a while, open 'til whenever!]

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She smacks his arm. "--well, I cannot call thee out for such a word, being true. But 'tis ungentlemanly to say so."

"Indeed--'tis kingly said, not merely gentlemanly." It's his turn to shed upper layers, and he disappears for a bit as he pulls off his shirt.

He's accumulated some scars. Not a lot--that's what armor is for--but he's a king who's fought in his own battles.

Viola, meanwhile, has been attending to her stockings and hose, and is down her drawers.

"Hast breath enough to swim, good King?"

Hal's had time (since dying) to get used to fending for himself again, but he hasn't yet become tidy. He tosses his stockings, hose, etc. casually under a bush before approaching the edge of the lake and sticking in a toe. Eh, still a bit chilly, but about what you'd expect early in the summer.

Breath enough? He makes a face at Viola over his shoulder and charges into the water with a great splash.

She crashes in after him.

"--I should confess," she says when the water is up to about her waist, "I cannot swim."

Hal doesn't swim especially well, but he does swim; he's farther out into the lake when she speaks, and paddles back looking ever-so-faintly concerned. (Not that he's worried about Viola's safety or anything.) "Wouldst learn?"

Viola does not look deeply concerned herself. (To be fair, she has other things on her mind just at this moment. Like the fact that she can stand here in the lake with no shirt on.)

"Is't so easily learned?"

"Fools learn it. I learned it. Canst hold thyself loosely, and float?"

"Loosely?" Now she looks skeptical. "Sure I shall sink!"

"Loosely. The lake is thy feather-bed; thou'lt never sink. Not with mine eyes upon thee," he adds more practically.

"Well-- well give me thy hand, that I may lay myself upon it."

He offers it with a flourish. "There, thou'rt kingly borne. --Was thy father an eel? Thou must not twist thyself so--nay, thy ears will not fall off at the touch of water--"

Making her laugh isn't helping! She tries to relax, tries to trust that somehow, improbable as it seems, she will float.

(Maybe some other time, she would think of the ship, the sea, her brother-- but she has never felt less like Viola who was wrecked on the shores of Illyria. She is someone else now, as fully as she has ever been.)

She relaxes. Mostly. She's clutching Harry's hand for dear life.

"'Tis not to thy advantage here to be so slim, all bone; a fat man floats better. But--nay, nay, do not clutch at my hand so--"

(He's not unaware himself of her past, the ship, the sea, her brother. But if she's laughing, he'll laugh.) "There, thou art afloat."

Edited 2016-06-17 20:43 (UTC)

"Such swimming should make for passing slow travel," she says dubiously. She's floating! It feels... odd? Nice?

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