Showing Off Our Teeth (GABE)

[rowancarr]

Rowan tossed her towel aside and stretched out on the warm sand. It was 5 in the afternoon, so chill air was blowing in off the ocean. Surprisingly, it was this factor that made the beach the best - the cool air. The sun had been heated all day in the sun, and laying in it to stay warm despite the air was like curling up in a comfy bed.

Typically Rowan didn't spend much time on the beach, but today the mood had struck her. So she grabbed her swimsuit - a bikini the same golden-brown of the sand - and her beach towel and headed out. With her skin bronzed from spending so much time outside, her golden-brown hair, and her sand-colored swimsuit, the only thing about her that stood out from the sand was the blue, green, and red striped towel that laying in a ball next to her. Sending up a brief prayer that people would pay attention and no one would trip over her, she closed her eyes.

A cat-nap would be nice. She'd be wide awake in a few hours, but what girl doesn't love relaxing on the beach? True, the sun wasn't quite so warm as was typical for relaxation, but really that would just keep Rowan from burning. All the other elements were there. The warm sand, the sound of the waves rolling up onto the beach, the calling of seagulls, and the almost-distant sound of other teens laughing together. Together it formed a compelling lullaby.

After about ten minutes, Rowan still wasn't sleeping. It was too close to night, when she suddenly seems to get a spurt of energy. Instead of sleeping, she focused on the sound of the seagulls, becoming less conscience of all the other sounds. She wondered if the gulls actually communicated. Well...of course they communicated. But did they exchange thoughts and ideas? Outside of "danger", "food", or "let's mate"? Do they even consciously make the decision to exchange those ideas, or is it all instinct? Even though Rowan could shift into an animal, she still shifted into only one kind. And anyway - who knows if shifters - even as animals - thought exactly as the real animals did? There was just so much mystery to it all.

With this thought, eyes closed and oblivious to the world, Rowan actually started to sink into a sleep.

[gabelangley]

Gabriel had taken the liberty to get up that morning and schedule a game session with some of his friends. With school not in session, he had more time to play sports than he normally did. Even though he still had to work, but it still worked out in the end. He only worked part time and rarely worked overtime hours, but he took them when he could get them, because the money was useful for paying his apartment rent. Rugby was what he had had in mind and after informing Pinky that he would be gone for a few hours, he had made his way out to meet them. They had already been playing for the better part of an hour and Gabriel was drenched in sweat from head to toe. During the next play he was tackled and the ball flew out of his hands and rolled off course and rolled down to the sand where the beach was.

“Go and get it, Gabe!”

No, it hadn't been a request and all of his teammates were staring at him, so he knew he didn't have much of a choice. It was almost as if they blamed him for it rolling down there, even though he had attempted to pass it off to his team mate and his team mate was the one who had dropped it. He supposed he could make it complicated on them and refuse, but it was just easier for him to cooperate and go and get it. He used it as a chance to have a little bit of a rest as he only half chased after the ball. At least that was until he noticed it heading for someone down at the beach and he didn't want to be responsible for it hitting her. Even though he doubted it would hurt, since it was slowly making it's way to a stop. It rolled to a stop as it came in contact with her body, before he could even get a chance to say anything. He jogged the rest of the way over and stopped when he got close. He wasn't sure if she was asleep or if she was just trying to tan.

”Sorry about that. I didn't think the ball would roll all the way down here,” he apologized, gazing down at her from where he was standing. He tried to stay out of the way of her sun and hoped she wasn't going to get mad at him, because on a hot day like it was, he really couldn't put up with people who were in a bad mood at the moment. It was enough just to get an apology out of him, wasn't it?

TAG - Rowan
WORDS - 455
NOTES – Shorter than my normal, but it will pick up. I just felt like replying and wanted to get one in before work! OUTFIT HERE
TUNES - devil in a midnight mass , billy talent.
CREDIT - template by MUNZTAR * of caution 2.0

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[rowancarr]

Rowan's eyes snapped open. Something had touched her. Something cold and smooth was pressing against her. Warily her eyes slid to her side to see what was touching her.

It was a ball. A rugby ball, to be exact. Rowans wary expression flattened to one of vague annoyance. Just as she had started to rest, too. That would figure. Murphy's Law, or something like that. Glancing up to see who the ball belonged to, she watched as a boy some years older than herself came to a stop next to her.

The boy had messy black hair, and had been sweating - from running around in the sun, she guessed. The hair drew her attention because it was so rare to see someone with true black hair. Did he dye it, maybe? As she continued scanning him, she noticed that he had several tattoos, and that he was obviously in shape, though not exactly a body-builder-must-have-the-biggest-muscles-ever type.

"Sorry about that. I didn't think the ball would roll all the way down here," the boy said apologetically. Rowan barely heard the words.

Rowan was in an odd sort of mood. She wasn't happy with the boy that had disturbed her, but she was too relaxed and lazy to be truly annoyed. It made her response to the kid rather curious.

"Were you the person that obviously doesn't know how to throw, or were you the idiot that couldn't catch?" It wasn't the words themselves that were odd - the words themselves would be rude upon consideration. But instead of saying them with the bite of annoyance, she asked it in a languid curiosity, so that it didn't really sound upon first hearing it like an insult. She hadn't done this to try and deceive the kid into not noticing the insult, it was simply how the question had come out in response to her mood.

Rowan glanced at the ball in her hands. Rolling it over slowly in her hands, she examined it. She imagined it could be fun. Maybe. Theoretically. Without offering it to the person standing near her, she looked up. "Do you dye your hair?" The question had no baring or relevance except that it was just so rare to see someone with black hair. Dark brown, sure. But black? Not so much. She looked closer at his eyebrows. They looked black to her...But sometimes eyebrows were slightly darker. It was a conundrum he would have to solve for her.

[gabelangley]

Gabriel didn't miss her annoyed expression at the fact that her alone moment had been ruined, but he had already apologized and that's all she was getting from him. Now that he had a good look at her, he really wasn't sure how he had spotted her so easily before. She practically blended into the sand by herself. Her question kind of surprised him – no wait, maybe the surprise came from how she asked it. He wasn't sure whether she was being smart about it or she really just wanted to know. ”Neither?” he offered, not really giving it any thought. Sure he had tossed it to his teammate, but it had slipped through his teammates hands and down to the beach. Therefore it really wasn't his fault that it had rolled down there and had managed to even make it to where she was at. ”If you really want someone to yell at over the matter, the guy you're looking for is up there.” He gestured with his head up to the group of people who were talking and joking around.

It wasn't as if he had wanted to chase it down there anyways. After he had seen her annoyed expression, it didn't quite surprise him that the first thing she said wasn't an introduction as to who she was. It didn't matter to him whether she did or didn't introduce herself. They would probably say a few things and then he would go back to playing rugby with his friends, and then it would all be over, right? Not that it would probably be the last time he saw her, since they were on an island after all. And if she came to the beach often, then they were ten times likely to run into each other again. Although perhaps not literally, since he was sure to get an ear full then if that happened.

Just as he started to say something else, she asked him another question. Did he dye his hair? He thought this was a weird question to ask randomly, but it couldn't exactly hurt to answer it. ”Yes, I do.. My hair is originally a dark brown.” It was actually getting a bit tiring to dye his hair so much and he had briefly considered letting it get back to his original brown and leaving it that way for awhile. ”Is that your original hair color?” he countered lightly, reaching up to wipe some sweat from his face. He was almost tempted to run and jump in the water.

TAG - Rowan
WORDS - 426
NOTES - sayWHAT?
TUNES - devil in a midnight mass , billy talent.
CREDIT - template by MUNZTAR * of caution 2.0

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[rowancarr]

Template:

(You don't know me)
"and I'll never be what you want me to be"

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Rowan's eyes flicked to the area of the beach the kid had pointed to, where his friends were waiting. Watching them, she knew she would never go up there to tell them anything. Not because she was too nice of a person, but because that would mean putting herself in a situation in which she would actually be interacting with someone. On her own. Voluntarily.

Yeah. She didn't think so.

Upon hearing he dyed his hair, Rowan smiled triumphantly to herself. She had been right. His hair was too black to be natural. Pleased, she turned the ball over in her hands again. She was really beginning to become fascinated with it. She rather wondered how long she could put off handing it over. It seemed slightly immature to hold a ball hostage, but she liked it. She could buy her own, she supposed. But she would never actually use it to play rugby, so this ball - having actually been used - had developed a bit of personality. It was slightly dirty and had a scuff mark here and there.

Interrupting her thoughts, the kid threw a question back at her. "Is that your original hair color?" Rowan's expression - which had already shifted from triumphant to absorbed in thought as she considered the ball - shifted again to a slight frown. Of course it was her original hair color. As original as sun-highlighted could be, of course. She didn't unnaturally color it. She didn't really understand why someone would want to put chemicals on their head, personally. However...she didn't really see any reason for him to know one way or the other (the idea of exchanging a truth for a truth having never really developed for her.)

"Does it look natural to you?" Answering a question with a question is one of the most juvenile ways to avoid actually answering the question, but most people didn't really catch that was what you were doing unless you did it continually. In this case, Rowan asked the question very blandly, so it was hard to tell if she was suggesting he was idiotic for thinking it was natural or if she was simply curious as to his opinion. Tone was something she had mastered, probably picked up from her mother. Although her mother used her tone to be polite, conversational, and an all-around people-person, and Rowan used hers to avoid divulging her thoughts. Whatever.

She scanned the kid again, wondering if he was annoyed that taking the ball was taking so long, or if he was kind of a go-with-the-flow type of personality.

TEMPLATE CREDIT: xoxphantasmic of Blank Pages
LYRICS: I'm Still Here
WORD COUNT: 433
SETTING: Beluga Beach
OUTFIT: None
POST STATUS: Finished?
ADDITIONAL NOTES: Hi!

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