pumpkinhollow | July Mini Event

July Mini Event - Seaside Sway

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It’s the end of July. Summer is peaking, hitting its stride. In the forest, frogs sing and fireflies dance through the night, and dragonflies go about their business in the sun. In town, farmers roll up their sleeves and young ladies swap out their many layers for breezy floral gowns. And on the beach, swimmers take to the sea for water at its warmest and young crabs climb up from the sun-drenched sand. Kora’s glory at its finest!

For about a week now, a flier has been up on the community bulletin board. :

Midsummer Beach Festival!

Join us on July 21st and 22nd for our annual beach bash!

Organized by the Temple of Sacred Roots in tandem with Town Hall, all townsfolk are invited to join in for seaside festivities in honor of the height of summer. Activities will include:

Live music (Sign-ups for performers will be available at Empty Pockets Music Bar)
Locally made strawberry wine from last summer’s strawberries
Beach pit barbecues for lunch on both days
A hot food banquet for dinner on the 21st
A fish fry breakfast on the 22nd
Paper lantern float
Beach games
Tents and bed rolls for beach camping

We look forward to seeing you there!

And, as promised, the festival opens up on the afternoon of July 21st, where the smell of barbecue rises up from Tawny Beach. Tables sit on wooden plinths to avoid sinking in the sand, bearing fresh summer fruit and drinks. Pork, fish, and lamb roast in a sand pit. Enchanted barrels covered in magic frost keep frozen treats like orange juice shaved ice and strawberry sorbet cold. A station for assembling little wood-and-paper floating lanterns can be seen off in the distance and Cormac and the Banshees are setting up for their opening set. Tents and bed rolls have been set up toward the Marina. Literally everything is decorated with thin golden coins on strands of twine, sea shells, and sea glass. In the center of it all, stones have been laid into the shape of a massive compass rose, whose center houses the makings of a bonfire.

Those who were here last year will recognize that this festival is much larger than last year’s, and was not preceded with desperate pleas from Town Hall for help providing food and decor. It speaks plainly to the health of the town now. Even with all that has been going on, the growing population and renewed sense of community and purpose have improved matters around the island considerably.

Near the tent area, a family of crabs (one red, one blue, and three purple) can be observed. The small purple ones are poking each other with sticks. The Limoncello has made port, and Royal and his crew are splitting helper duty with the staff of Town Hall, and are dancing and partying the rest of the time. All is as it should be. For once, there is no dangerous surprise lurking in the shadows.

So, what’s on your agenda? During the day, volleyball, swimming, and a game that involves throwing small fabric sacks of dry lentils into wooden hoops in the sand can be enjoyed, alongside a plethora of frozen treats. At night, food and wine and lemonade are served at the banquet tables and lively music plays on the temporary wooden stage for dancing by firelight. There is also the lantern float, which encourages participants to send a glowing lantern out on the water in honor of the lost and the distant, ending the first night in a moment of peaceful sobriety. You may also notice a charming stranger milling around, cozying up to Royal, and drinking after nightfall--- a woman with dark olive skin, raven hair that soaks up the firelight, and rum brown eyes who wears a billowing blue dress and (whenever she hasn’t placed it onto someone else’s head for fun) a wide-brimmed black hat.

Then, at night, camp on the beach under the stars or head home by additional lantern light. The festivities will continue until the following afternoon! Feel free to share your beach fit in the fashion show thread below, as well. Enjoy!

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The smile creeps into a grin.

"Oh my," he chuckles, nudging Radar's shoulder. "I see why Hawkeye likes you so much. I'll have to remember that."

He gestures with his head to the cup. "Don't worry about that, It's just water. It'll take the edge off."

Wow, he told a joke on par with one of Hawkeye's! He's so proud of himself. After a few tries, Radar manages to wrest his helpless giggling under control -- at least for long enough to say agreeably, "Oh. Okay. If it'll... it'll make things quieterer."

What does he know, maybe it's fancy magic water. With great concentration, he swallows down about a third of the glass.

"You known Hawk a while? He's great, huh?"

There it goes. He looks at Radar keenly. How much has he been told about practices surrounding drinking, he wonders.

Phil sits down on the sand. “Yeah, since April. Made a great first impression, too. Fixed me up pretty nice.”

He holds up his wrist, which has a slightly deformed starburst scar of a puncture wound. “We’ve been talking since, here and there. I even had dinner with him the other day. Good guy.”

Edited 2024-07-29 00:32 (UTC)

"Oh, jeez." From the way Radar sounds, you'd think the wound was still fresh and bleeding. "Oh no, that looks like it reallllly hurt. 'M sorry. But, but yeah, if y'want anybody patching you up it's Hawkeye. He's the best doctor I ever known 'n one of the best guys I ever met."

He turns that worried, muzzy look from Phil's wrist to his face.

"Is he doing okay?"

"Hey, don't sweat it. I've had far worse. I've got the pain tolerance of a cinderblock." Just don't ask him why.

At the question of Hawkeye, Phil sighs, looking out over the water at all those lanterns. "Well, uh... to tell you the truth, the last time I saw him, he looked a little bit like he belonged in the pile of unfolded laundry he tried to hide from me. I think he's still hurting a lot from whatever happened." He knows the broad strokes, but it's really not his place to pry. "But, um... I think he was feeling a little better by the end of the night."

They danced, he means.

"I think he just needs good company. Hawk's not the kind of guy you can leave alone. It's not good for him. He's like a bee, or a penguin. Or a termite." He leans over, putting his chin in his hand. "Or a siphonophore."

Radar nods miserably. He kinda figured. He's been feeling a little better since he and Hawkeye talked it out on Mr. Rambo's porch; he's glad he got to apologize properly, and so glad Hawk doesn't hate him. But he still feels lower than dirt over how bad he treated him without quite realizing. There's not much he can do about it, either, except just... not do it again.

But as Phil keeps talking, the gloom lifts. Unfortunately, that's just because Radar's too baffled to be sad anymore.

"A whatsaphore?"

There is absolutely no way Radar would be able to pronounce that even while sober.

"Siphonophore. From the Greek word siphon, which means 'pipe' or 'tube,' and the suffix -phore, derived from pherein, meaning 'to bear.' Tube-havers, in short. They're undersea colony animals. Very complicated organisms. When you see one of their colonies, you might think, hey, that's a pretty neat sea worm. But they're actually long chains of smaller, cooperative organisms that function as one big animal."

Uh oh, he's on a roll.

"Most of them don't get too big. But there's one that forms one huge chain in a spiral, which can get to over 150 feet long. Neat stuff, ehn?"

Radar, who parsed about half of that at best, blinks owlishly behind his glasses. "A hundred and fifty...?"

He stares over the water with a kind of horrified fascination.

"There's worms that big in the ocean? I w, was gonna go swimming in that! Why'd anyone wanna go swimming with worms that big?" With all the dignity of a farm kid from a landlocked state: "Some people're weird."

A beat.

"Hey, wait a minute, Hawkeye's not a worm!" he protests blurrily. "He's my friend!"

“Hey, now. Don’t be that way about worms. They’re just animals, the same as you and I. They can’t help being made that way. They’re not doing anything but being alive, swimming in the deep sea and eating tiny shrimp.”

His voice is as gently tempered as it’s been the whole time, but it takes on a distinct fondness. “Besides, I think they’re amazing. Siphonophores have such a beautifully complicated system of teamwork. And some of them can glow, like fireflies. They’re so different from us, but still perfect for what they do. Everything is.”

"Oh." Oh, no, now he feels kinda bad about insulting the sea worms. "Yeah, I guess you're right. They can't help it. I can't help being short or my eyes being bad, 'n I don't like it when people call me names about it."

He takes a slightly morose gulp of water, and looks briefly startled upon remembering that it is water and not another cup of wine. (Who knows where his wine cup wandered off to by this point. Maybe it's empty. Maybe somebody else snuck it away from him earlier to spare Radar a teeny tiny fraction of the inevitable hangover.) Carefully, he pulls one leg closer so he can rest his chin on his knee.

"Y'think they're getting confused?" he asks, watching the floating lanterns wobble in the distance: half rocked by the waves, half tossed by his own spinning head. "If they glow. There's all these lights out there now. Maybe they think they're more worms that can, that can come help 'em out. But there's not."

Poor worms.

Phil hums thoughtfully. "I think they're okay. Some species can live near the surface, but I haven't seen any here. Most of them live really, really far down, over a mile deep, where the light from the surface can never go. That's part of why they make their own light."

"That's so far," he whispers.

All the way down in the dark, all alone. Radar hugs his knee tighter. Out on the water, the lanterns swim and bob, stringing themselves together in a distant chain a hundred feet long. There's no light that far from shore but what they brought with them. What they make together.

He thinks of himself and Hawkeye and Father Mulcahy and everybody else from the 4077th, lamps lit, generator humming, driving back the dark of the war the best they know how. How could he have ever thought Hawkeye wanted to be left alone? They're never alone. That's how they've always survived. His eyes well up so fast that it hurts; pretty soon he can't see anything but a smear of faraway light.

"Guess that's why they stick together down there," he says, voice thick.

Phil doesn't know this kid. He doesn't even know what he's like on a normal day; he's only known him drunk for about ten minutes. But he does know that this kid is sensitive and probably thoughtful, and a war veteran, and Phil knows the weight of his own words about lights in the dark. His thoughts ring with an attentiveness, like instruments tuning while a voice hums something it knows, adjusting and wondering until he can bring all of it into harmony and make it all make sense.

He reaches out carefully to set a hand on Radar's shoulder, and squeezes. "It's hard being alone. Good thing they're not, ehn?"

Edited 2024-07-30 00:48 (UTC)

It's a strangely pretty sound. Unsorted, but not chaotic, each piece a beautiful note in its own right even as it searches for the company of its fellows. Radar tries to focus on Phil and tune out the rest of the noise surrounding them -- and it kinda works: between that and the hand on his shoulder, the tears back down before they get too embarrasingly bad.

He wipes his eyes clear. "Yeah." And thinks to add, "'M okay, I promise. It was just such a big screwup. Me'n Hawkeye talked and I apl -- apo... said I was sorry. And I know better next time. I know I can't do nothin' more than that but I really wish I hadn't messed up so bad in the first place."

“That’s the only way we know better, unfortunately. If someone doesn’t tell us first, we screw up first, and then they tell us. It’s okay to feel bad; emotions are there to tell you something, too. The trick is that even though you’ve gotta welcome them in to visit, you can’t let ‘em overstay.”

His hand draws back. Two notes begin to resolve, then draw away again. “Speaking of… did anybody actually teach you how to drink?”

He knows there’s about a 15% chance of this meeting being retained in the morning, but he may as well.

"..."

Radar squints at Phil like he just said speaking of which, the capital of Portugal is Lisbon. He can't even fathom what those two statements have in common. "Nobody had to teach me," he says, with all the drunken aplomb he can muster. "I know what to do. S'not hard."

Which... is pretty much the same thing he said the first time someone shoved a drink into his hand in Uijeongbu, even though he'd never done worse than steal a few sips of Uncle Ed's whiskey before. As if Radar was ever gonna admit otherwise.

Nobody had to teach me means nobody taught me. Ah, well.

"Let me rephrase. Of course you know how to drink, you're doing it right now. But did anybody teach you the tricks people use to handle their alcohol? And make the hangovers at least a little less terrible?"

"Well, you just gotta sleep as much as y'can and take some aspirin in the morning," says Radar with a loose shrug. "I know that too."

He leans closer to Phil like he's imparting a deep secret, pointing a slightly meandering finger at him.

"Also... y'don't wanna switch your glasses with anyone when you wake up. That makes it way, way worse."

Phil nods very sagely. He thinks about Hawk telling him about the farm life Radar comes from, how young he was in the Army. A chord resolves in his head; a complete thought, a confirmed insight. And with its resolution, a leading line begins to layer itself on top: I think I know where to take this.

"Right. That's all true. There's a couple of other tips, though."

He holds up one talon. "First, you drink a lotta water with it. That dilutes the alcohol so you don't get as drunk as fast. And alcohol tends to dehydrate you, so it keeps you more healthy too." And a second talon: "Second, you wanna have plenty of food with it. The food absorbs the alcohol instead of going straight into your intestines, so that paces out how fast you get drunk, too. Food and water. Got it?"

Edited 2024-08-03 19:59 (UTC)

"Yeah? Where? -- Oh," he says, realizing Phil didn't say that part out loud, and holds onto his knee tighter for balance as he listens.

It's a little tricky. He keeps getting distracted: first by the melodic ebb and flow that buffets Phil's words, then by the talons, because bless Radar's heart but he was far too drunk to notice them before. It's not a big deal -- he's met Cerrit already! Phil must be kinda like him! -- but he struggles not to go a bit cross-eyed as he focuses on them.

"Got it. Food'n water," he echoes. "...But I did eat a bunch. The food's real, real, real good. Hey, y'should have some if you haven't already!"

His head tilts at what reads to Phil as a thought come from nowhere, but maybe Radar just had a train of thought between ideas A and E that wasn't very linear. He's met abstract thinkers like that before.

He chuckles. "I ate plenty and then some, believe me. I guess you drank so much that you outpaced how much you ate. Not that I blame you. It's a party! The only reason I'm not drunk right now is because I've still got a kid to look after." Honestly, Darcy is probably the only reason he hasn't fallen back into alcoholism altogether, given everything.

"I saw you looking at my hands. Are you curious?"

"My mom said it's rude to stare," says Radar, very seriously. Couldn't be him!

A beat.

In the exact same tone, "Uh-huh. 'M curious."

Phil smiles, holding out his hand for Radar to inspect.

They're much like bird feet at the ends of his fingers. There are black talons curving out from where his fingernails should be. Scales emerge from them, fading back into skin before they reach the knuckles. Radar's closest comparison would likely be his chickens, the little raptors that they are, but these claws are different; though perfectly capable of bloodshed, the chicken's feet are for scratching and digging at the dirt. Phil's talons are hooked. They have the telltale scratches of having been filed and ground down to harmless nubs, without which they would have no doubt been pitiless weapons, meant to grab and never let go.

"I'm part owl," he explains. "So I've got a lot of bird stuff going on, including these. Thankfully they don't get in the way of too much. I can still pay piano, although it took some time to figure out."

"Oh, wow," says Radar, awed. After a few fumbling attempts, he catches one of Phil's talons so he can bring it closer and squint at it. "Y'know there's another bird guy I met here, but'm pretty sure he's an eg, eeg, uh, not an owl. And he's a bird all over. Got a beak'n everything."

He sputters a tiny giggle.

"I dunno how you play the piano -- how d'you even scratch your nose? Oh, hey, can you see in the dark, too?" His eyes widen; he drops Phil's hand and lowers his voice to a hush. "D'you have to eat mice?"

“Eagle? Yeah, I’ve met Cerrit. Good guy.”

He watches Radar inspect his hands, amused. “My diet’s the same as yours, and I still scratch my nose with my talon. I just have to be a little more careful. And yes—I do see in the dark. Really well. I could probably go my whole life without turning on another light.” Which is a bit of an exaggeration, because lamps are still convenient, but hey.

“And, I’ve got an extra eyelid like owls do. See?” He points at his face; a nictitating membrane, milky and opaque, slides over his eyes from the inside ends to out.

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