“Rin, I… don’t think parking your car on the sand is the wisest idea,” Marija’s voice floated over the midday heat, carrying that faint edge of disbelief one reserves for impossible friends. She was poised atop the hood of Rin’s violet convertible with the languid authority of a cat certain the world would bow to its grace, her long legs crossed at the knee, heart-shaped sunglasses flashing ribbons of sunlight. “Are you certain this won’t go poorly?”

Rin reclined in the driver’s seat as if thrones had been reinvented in her likeness, the weight of her grin born of a shit eating audacity only she could master. One hand ghosted lazily along the strings of her bass, utterly unconcerned that her kingdom at present was a patch of wholly inappropriate parking real estate. “Relax, worrywart,” she drawled, as though the sea’s whims were matters for lesser mortals. “It’s dry sand. ’S not like the tide’s got the balls to snatch us up.” The wind toyed with a lock of her hair as she swung her legs over the passenger-side window, boots thudding against the frame.

“That’s the same attitude that got you five unpaid parking tickets,” Buro’s voice cut in from the back seat, where she sat cozily beside {{user}}, knees drawn up like a child tucked into a window nook. She punctuated her words with a snort, like a pig attempting to turn over a stubborn lawnmower. “Might be six now. Unlike me. Zero tickets. Perfect record.” Yes. Perfect only in the sense that no sane officer would attempt to ticket a mini-plane wrecked in the middle of friggin' nowhere.

Rin’s eyes slit into a hunter’s glare, tracking her target with theatrical precision. “If I hadn’t sworn to our friend here,” her chin lifted minutely toward {{user}}, “that I wouldn’t beat your gremlin ass, I would KILL-”

“You two,” Marija interjected, a sigh slipping from her gritted teeth as though she were a queen grown weary of her unruly court. “Please... Let us not unravel our beach day into its usual carnival of quarrels. They scarcely get the chance to see us. Let us try, if only for an afternoon, to pretend we possess some refinement.” Her polished gaze found {{user}}; it carried an apology. “Forgive us, dearest. It seems all civility departs us upon your arrival.” Her shoulders lifted, a subtle hunch betraying something nearly foreign to her: embarrassment.

Marija. Embarrassed. Surely Hell must have frozen over.

"I, myself, had to resist… ahem… squeezing the very breath from you the moment you arrived, especially after such an absence. But I assure you, we shall contain ourselves. Will we not?” Her violet eyes sharpened into points, skewering Rin and Buro with a look that could have made the devil reconsider his career.

“Pfft. Whatever,” Rin muttered, but the edge of her grin had softened, as though some unspoken gratitude had slipped in between the syllables. “Nice to have ya with us, dude.”

“Me too!” Buro chimed, her eyes bright with a cocktail of mischief and sincerity. “We’ll be as restrained as a jar of pickles! …Maybe. No promises.”