Pirate Pool Party

[draughtsman]

Who: Everyone!
What: The Captains Bonnet and Teach are throwing a Pirate Pool Party. This is it. Pirates. Pools. Parties.
When: August 1st, evening to ???.
Where: The pool.
Warnings: Probably some violence and swearing, also running around the pool, probably.

Lucius thinks he's getting rather good at planning and orchestrating these sorts of things.

He's got tables set up (dragged, painstakingly, from elsewhere on the ship) and each has snack-foods and appetizers (also dragged from elsewhere). There is a largely empty table for presents (not that he's announced that, but he has gone and started a pile already) and a series of smaller tables for games. With use of a few of the decorations from the Tommy Bahama, he's rigged up a Limbo pole. He's also dragged out a few of their fake palms, and one of their freestanding speakers to complete the ambiance.

Tragically, despite his promises of cake, he was unable to make any actual cakes. He did, however, assemble a large number of cupcakes together on one table and join them with liberal application of frosting until they looked like a single cake. There are two flavors to choose from--chocolate and walnut with a tan looking buttercream. Very subtle. Then there's orange, vanilla cream-filled ones with blue buttercream on top. Less subtle. In both cases, he refrained from writing Happy Birthday across the tops.

And, thankfully, it seems like the rain has stopped! He'd made an effort to build most of this under the bar's awning, but no rain is superior to, well, any rain over a party.

[OOC: Various top levels included for inspiration and a mild attempt at organization, you don't have to use them if you don't want to.]

Comments

[actuallyawolf]

This party isn't really what she expected, but she hasn't been to many parties. Never a pool party. Ylva managed to figure out Tommy Bahama and has come wearing a short white dress with some bikini bottoms, and right now she's sitting on the edge of the pool, feet dangling in the water.

Abruptly, she decides she wants to swim. And without any sense of self-consciousness, she slips into the shape of a river otter and slides into the water, swimming effortlessly and gracefully around the inflatables and any other swimmers in the water. Surprise!

[decohere]

There's a woman she doesn't recognize, and Ava finally works up the courage to go say hello. She's trying to meet people, after all, and can't really do that hanging at the edge of all the fun. She doesn't plan on swimming herself, but dipping her feet in wouldn't be so bad...

She's about to work up to the line of complimenting the woman's pretty dress, when she... what the fuck. Turns into some sort of water weasel and swims away.

Ava stands at the edge of the pool, staring at the little critter, certainly surprised.

[actuallyawolf]

Oh, she has an audience!

Ylva circles back, paddling contentedly, and offers Ava a few friendly squeaks and grunts. Well, it's definitely friendly if you speak Otter, at least. She rolls in the water, nose twitching in a curious way as she tries to catch Ava's scent among all the other scents in the party.

She could get out and start a conversation, but... not yet, nah.

[decohere]

It sounds friendly, but Ava doesn't speak water weasel, so hopes she isn't misinterpreting being told to go away. She gives a shy little wave, and then squats at the edge of the pool.

Reaching out, she pushes one of the floating balls out towards the critter playfully.

[actuallyawolf]

Otter paws aren't really meant for waving, but she mimics as best she can, and turns to splash after the ball. She tackles it, sending the ball spinning off across the pool.

Dignity is for, like, other people.

But otters can't talk. Ylva weaves through the water, hauls herself up onto the edge of the pool with her claws, takes a moment to sniff -- wet, whiskery -- at Ava's ankles, and sits back to shift back into her regular shape. She shakes her damp hair, doglike. "Hi," she says.

[decohere]

Ava giggles in baffled amusement. Because outside of... werewolves? Ava is completely unaware of the whole shapeshifting into animals thing as an ability anyone could have. And considering this is the first animal she's seen in a long, long time, she is a little transfixed.

She shuffles slightly at her ankles being sniffed, but patiently allows it despite the small tickle of whiskers. "Wow, that's really cool," Ava blurts out. Dignity is indeed for other people.

[actuallyawolf]

"Thanks!" Ylva grins up at Ava, leaning back. "Sometimes it's just a fun way to swim, you know. And since I can, I do."

An easy enough justification if she felt she needed justification at all.

"I'm Ylva. Sit down with me?"

otter!

[prince_of_beasts]

Uncertain what to do with himself, Dimitri's done what he usually does when nervous: find a way to be Useful. Which in this case means fishing the mistakes up from the bottom of the pool. He's not the most graceful swimmer, and while he's conceded to swim trunks, he's gone into the water with a shirt on. Even so, he's established a growing collection of salvage along the concrete rim.

He pops up from his latest retrieval towards the pool's deep end -- gets slapped across the side of the head by an errant wave, where did that come from? -- shakes the water out of his eyes, sets the plastic boat next to several of its like, and

is that an otter?!

His squeal of delight might be the least dignified noise he's ever made.

[actuallyawolf]

Ylva squeals right back, in a much more otter-like way, but no less delighted. She twists effortlessly in the water, circling him at playful distance. It's an invitation, definitely, and it's punctuated by her slipping down under the surface with a splash aimed in his direction.

[prince_of_beasts]

It has been so long since Dimitri has seen an animal. Just like that a chunk of the buzzing background stress snaps off. He's too excited to ask questions; he laughs (when was the last time he laughed?) when the-otter-he-doesn't-know-is-Ylva splashes him, then kicks off the side of the pool and dives after her.

Dimitri's nothing like an otter. The chlorine stings his eyes and gets up his nose, and his vision is a wobbly smear. But he can see well enough to grab a plastic ring off the bottom (huh, maybe this one's supposed to be down here?) and toss it towards the otter.

[actuallyawolf]

Some people might find this sort of game beneath them. Ylva is not one of those people. After a graceful circle around Dimitri, she turns and dives after the ring, a very easy task for an otter. She brings it back in her teeth, squeaking and grunting at him in the way of otters as she paddles around.

She's close enough for him to grab it back out of her teeth.

[prince_of_beasts]

Yes. Yes!!! Ylva you have singlehandedly (pawedly?) made this boy's year. Dimitri accepts the ring with a bit of caution -- those teeth are sharp -- and a little nod, because otters get courtesy, too.

He sends it spinning out again, this time a harder toss with more distance, but before he can see if Ylva catches it he's forced to surface for a gasp of air.

[actuallyawolf]

Otters aren't really meant for leaping dramatically out of the water, but with a kick of webbed feet and the swipe of a muscular tail, Ylva lunges forward and manages to catch the ring in her teeth.

Let her be proud of that. Normal people might not be thrilled about successfully playing catch as an otter, but come on, that was a good move. She comes paddling back to Dimitri at the surface, squeaking around the ring.

you otter know...or not...

[touchofcashmere]

[Stede has taken to the water, floating around with his eyes closed, only to put his foot down on something unexpectedly furry. He squeals like a suddenly deflating balloon and fairly leaps to the side of the pool, scrambling to get out of it]

Oh my god! What the fuck was that?!

[actuallyawolf]

Well, she definitely wasn't expecting to be stepped on.

The reflex is to turn in the water to bite him, and she almost does, twisting around in the boneless way that otters, like other members of the weasel family, inexplicably have. As much as she's lost in being an otter, though, she's still herself, and she still has her own mind, and Stede's retreating in any case.

Ylva swims up to the surface, ready to be angry, and definitely for a moment there's sharp teeth and bristling whiskers and angry squeaking, but she stops, and shifts back into her regular shape.

"You stepped on me," Ylva says accusingly, as she treads water.

[touchofcashmere]

"Oh my god!" He is out of the pool now, sitting on the edge, slightly weirded out by being cursed at by an otter, and then even more when it's suddenly a person.

"How... how did you do that?"

[actuallyawolf]

Ylva gives him a toothy grin, and makes her way over to the edge of the pool.

"I'm a druid," she says, hanging on the edge next to Stede. "It's kind of what I do. I have more interesting shapes, but otters are good for swimming. Until someone steps on you, I guess." Abruptly, she remembers to look cross again, lifting her lip in a bit of a snarl.

[touchofcashmere]

"Oh my apologies. I certainly didn't mean to. I wasn't really expecting anything smaller than perhaps a child to be scooting around and definitely not er... well a furry." A gesture.

"But that's mea cupla. You can never know what to expect here." And then because he's curious. "How did you decide on druidry? I've heard about them but don't know much other than mistletoe and strange rituals and the stag god."

[actuallyawolf]

"Oh, well."

Ylva is easily distracted from her annoyance, at least, ever a creature of the moment. It was an accident. "I think I sort of fell into it. Daenan found me living in the woods with my pack, and he taught me to speak Common, but also he was a druid so he taught me a little of the magic he knew while I was growing up. It just came naturally."

She wipes her nose with the back of her hand. "No stag god, though. I'm sure there's a stag god of some sort, but I don't bother with gods. They do their thing, I do mine."

[bloodmunchies]

Now would you look at that!

Diving into the water is, suddenly, another otter--this one jet-black in fur and with two red eyes smoldering like embers, slipping across the floor of the pool and then circling around the other, effortlessly as she but perhaps not as graceful.

He makes some chirping noises, which is otter for What is up, dude? and sounds very poor underwater.

[actuallyawolf]

Oh, now, this is delightful.

Ylva has felt the absence of everything alive since she got here. No animals, no real plants, can't summon a spirit, nothing. It all feels a little weird. So to be face to face with another otter is a surprise, but a welcome one. Even if he's a slightly unusual-looking otter.

There weren't any other otters here, she squeaks back, excited. I'm sure of it. You must change shape too?

[bloodmunchies]

Yeah, dude! he replies in kind, waggling his little feet in excitement in actually being face to face, really face to face, with a real, actual other animal for once, and one that can talk back to him as well. He's been similarly bereft; though not literally intertwined like a druid, he is very much an animals kind of guy. Enough of an animals kind of guy to have degrees in ecology and zoology, even if he's forgotten most of it.

I must say, it is a most excellent relief to see another animal here, even as one of the many bodies of a shapeshifter. Aiden nods enthusiastically. If you haven't looked in the ocean yet, I'll save you some time. Don't bother! It's totally empty all the way down like the world's biggest saltwater bath.

[actuallyawolf]

I did look, comes the mournful answer. And no birds anywhere, either. Or plants. And I can't summon anything, either. I tried.

Still, she loops around him playfully, trying to get a look at him from every angle. Ylva runs into other shapeshifters so rarely, druids or otherwise, so it's always a delight. But I can still do this.

[bloodmunchies]

No way, so can I! He swirls in the water as she makes her loops, doing his best to follow her. We could have totally awesome animal hangouts and everything. I've missed being in the presence of, like, actual non-humanoids. I have to do all of the animal heavy lifting around here.

[actuallyawolf]

Well, not anymore, you don't.

A series of squeaks, a sort of ottery laughter. Honestly, swimming in loops with another otter is the most fun she's had in days. Still, she has questions, many questions. Are you a druid too, or something else?