Owner	Pose
T'Challa	The temperature had dropped, and there were mostly grey skies overhead. Rain was in the forecast, though not projected to hit until later that night. The cause was a tropical storm offshore. Spawned in the warmer waters of the tropics as Hurricane Yancy, the late-season storm had meandered up the coastline. Thankfully it stayed far enough offshore that the Carolinas and Virginia only received some large waves, gusty winds and a few rain bands. Now the storm is further north and rapidly losing strength in the cooling waters. Yancy has dropped down to a tropical depression, and is set to reach the New York coast finally, but as little more than a long thunderstorm. Still, the storm is kicking up some waves, and the clouds overhead that turn the sky grey are interesting. Bands that move at quicker speeds than normal, giving being out beneath them a surreal effect. And that feeling is what prompted T'Challa to want to come out to the coast. He'd called Lara and told her his desire to go down to the water and watch for awhile the storm was still safely offshore. And would she be interested in joining him? If so, he arrives in a two-seater coup, driving it himself to pick Lara up and make the drive out to a spot on Long Island that is fairly isolated. There is some sandy beach, but mostly it's rocky, with large stone jetties that the large waves break on, sending large splashes up into the air.
Lara Croft	Lara had at home for only a few moments before T'Challa had contacted her, she'd been driving back from the Triskelion. She had enough time to change before he arrived to pick her up. Wearing a white tank top, with a light tan colored button-up shirt over it, untucked, with a pair of olive-drab capri cargo pants on her lower body, she has a light pair of leather shoes on, a nice beach attire. Her aviator sunglasses compliment her face, and her dark hair is tied back behind her head in a loose ponytail. When they arrive she's outed of the vehicle and standing on the edge of the shoreline, letting her covered eyes roam it over. She smiles over at him then. "I've always been a big fan of the coasts, the ocean, what have you. Glad to have this bit of relaxation tonight too." She adds. She looks back out over the waves, to the storm off in the far away distance. "Is that staying out east?" She asks of it, assuming that the King would have the answer to that question.
T'Challa	T'Challa has dressed fairly casual by any standards today. A pair of dark jeans and a plain charcoal colored sweatshirt. It looks slightly worn, the neckline no longer quite so crisp and a little spot on one sleeve that has a hole on it. If T'Challa caught Lara glancing at the garment on the drive out, he commented, "You have no idea the lengths it takes. To hide this from the staff so they do not replace it with a new one." Now they are out on the beach. T'Challa has a pair of sandals strapped onto his feet, the small rocks that make up more of this part of the shore than the sand, making noises underfoot as they walk out nearer to the water's edge. The clouds are much darker out on the edge of the horizon. But as far as they can see there are lines of white from waves breaking, even far out from shore. Nearer to shore the sound of the waves breaking is a constant, gentle roar. Many of them are as tall as a person by the time the wall of water topples in front of itself. "We might catch a few drops," T'Challa replies to Lara. "Though the worst of the storm will not reach us until later tonight," he says. He falls silent and just looks out at the sight. Finding such beauty even in the muted greys, and the clouds moving at a constant drift overhead, much faster than normal. "I love the ocean as well. As much for not having one nearby, I think," T'Challa tells Lara. "Though I've spent time on the coast in traveling. It always has a certain pull for me," he tells her. "I'm also one of those fools who enjoys a good storm."
Lara Croft	Lara stands beside him, her arms crossed over her stomach with her hands clutching the back of her elbows. Her outer shirt's sleeves are rolled up to just past her elbows. Her loose bangs are flowing around the sides of her forehead and she's smiling at the water in the distance. "I... will admit, I loved the ocean a bit more prior to the ... Endurance's sinking." Lara comments, unaware how much of her past T'Challa is informed about, she looks over at him. "Being apart of a ship wreck i na storm, it changes some of your perceptions on it all. But, I don't blame the ocean for what happened. No, the blame goes elsewhere for that." She steps back over to him, moving closer to lean her left arm against his right, and she smiles at him. "I promise to help you hide your favorite shirt too." She jests, of his story moments ago about having to hide it from his staff.
T'Challa	As Lara moves closer, T'Challa's hand slips behind Lara, resting on her lower back. "I hadn't thought about that," he says, his tone a little troubled as T'Challa hadn't considered the incident from Lara's past in inviting her out to see the ocean today. "If at any point you have had enough out here? You need only say so," he says as he turns to look across at her with a caring expression. The wind blows over them, the lighter breezes stirring at Lara's hair while the occasional gusts seem to want to make them whip about now and then. That rain smell can be noticed, melding with the salty tang of the ocean wind, revealing there is definitely rain farther offshore. T'Challa motions along the beach, in the direction of one of the breakwaters constructed of hard boulder-sized rocks. White water shoots upwards ten and fifteen feet above the barrier as the waves crash into it, though it is still some small distance away. "Is the Endurance a topic that you prefer to avoid? I know some little of it. But I also do not wish to dredge up memories if you would prefer to avoid them," he says.
Lara Croft	Lara gives him a quick, modest smile, before she looks away again. "No, it doesn't bother me to talk about it all. It probably would've, if it'd been a ... normal wreck. But due to the circumstances, I was forced to retell the story time and again. To the Japanese authorities, to the press, to the lawyers, to the surviving family members... and so on. It's become... well, it's moved past me. Like a storm out over the ocean itself." Lara takes a step forward toward a small metal railing in front of the beach itself, she palces her hands on it and then turns to put it against the small of her back as she looks at him now. Being that the sun sets on the Pacific, and rises on the Atlantic, the sun is on her face like this, and his back. "Not to mention my therapists insisted I talk about it, rather than let it dwell 'within me'." She states, adding another small smirk.
T'Challa	A seagull flies past overhead, not loitering to see if there might be food about. He moves on down the beach, determined to check out some things that have watched in from the pounding waves. T'Challa's eyes follow the bird for a moment before looking back to Lara as she rests back against the metal railing. "Ah yes. The therapists," he says with wry, knowing smile. His hands slip into the pockets of his jeans, a rather unregal posture perhaps, but it's the look of someone who is comfortable. At ease and unconcerned about appearances. "Still, I should probably be talking about something nicer," he tells her. "I'm glad that you were free though. I'd have come out here if it was just myself. But I would not have enjoyed it as much. Not without having someone to share it with," he says. His eyes drift to the side for a moment. "Not 'someone'. With you," he says, looking back to her. T'Challa's gaze moves across her face for a moment. "I can still see the girl from that party at your father's house. The precocious one. You know who I mean," he says with a soft chuckle. "But so very different too. You have been through a lifetime's worth of hard times already, I think," he says quietly. "Yet you endure."
Lara Croft	Lara's gaze goes to the road as another vehicle passes on down it, headed bck the way they'd come from. She looks back to T'Challa when he's complimenting her by simply just being here, which makes her smile at him from her leaning position. The ocean is behind her, the King is in front of her and she chooses to watch him, at least in the moment. "You're a sweet man. Possibly the sweetest there is." She tells him. "Maybe it was fitting that the Endurance as named as such. Though, also not surprising, considering that my mentor was the Captain, and the one who named it. Endurance... was a way of life for him, and he's the reason I endured, through it all. I--" Lara cuts herself off, she shakes her head and pushes off of the railing to finally look back toward the water. She raises a hand and removes her sunglasses from her eyes, looking down at them. "I hate to sound as though my life has been the hardest ever lived, because we both know that's the furthest thing from the truth. Look at where I grew up." She glances back over at him. "You've been there, few children get a chance to see a place like that, let alone live in it. It's just..." She draws in a breath, winces for a second, and shakes her head. "There's a... distressing contrast between the good of what I was given as a child, and the bad. Extremes, smashing in to each other. Like water against a shoreline." She smirks again and glances up once more to th eocean, then back to him, now on her right side.
T'Challa	The man's dark, soulful eyes take on a new light at Lara's compliment. As she's turned back towards the water, T'Challa gives a slow shake of his head. "No amount of advantages at some other point in life, makes what you endured any less difficult to go through," T'Challa says simply. "There is no cosmic scoreboard. Or balance sheet that these things cancel each other out." He moves forward, standing at her side now as they look out at the ocean that she just made a comparison to. "You are very... aware of the world around you," T'Challa says slowly. Seeming to pick his words carefully, as if expressing adequately what he senses in her takes some thought to do justice. "Many people just proceed through life. From one day to the next. Thinking ahead to the weekend. Maybe giving thought to how their life will be affected. By this politician or that event. But really not seeing beyond that," he says. He gives a quiet sigh with the gentlest notes of frustration. "It is difficult for someone caught in that. To focus instead on the bigger picture. I don't mean see it briefly. I mean to make the bigger world matter in their lives, as much as their immediate concerns do." T'Challa's head turns to look towards Lara. "I suspect you had that quality already. But the trials you've been through? I imagine have only honed your awareness of the larger world. Your desire to be a difference in it. I only wish it had not cost you as it did."
Lara Croft	"It certainly is far from being 'all bad' though." Lara replies after taking a few moments to let his words settle in, to let the ambient sounds of the ocean fill the void in conversation. She sweeps her chin up and smiles up at him with the sun on their backs it bathes the right side of her face in its comforting warmth while the left is left in the dimming rays of the darkening east. "My life has given me plenty of good too. If the events that transpired, hadn't gone as they did, I wouldn't have my friends. Sam, Jonah. I wouldn't have my job, with all its... utter oddities... and I wouldn't be here now, with you." She smiles more openly for him. Her eyes turn back to the ocean and she takes a moment to lay her head over against his shoulder and reach to take his left hand in her right, to slide her fingers between his. "You help me feel, relaxed. Feel as though there are not... monsters in the dark, lurking behind me at every turn. Your voice, your calmness, it ... centers me. Brings me back from the dark that still lurks and lingers inside my head. So yes, it's far from 'all bad' for Lara Croft today."
T'Challa	Hearing Lara finding the good in what she's gone through is the kind of heartwarming thing that can't help but show through in T'Challa's expression. His fingers closely gently, lacing with hers. "I find myself looking forward. More and more. To these moments," he tells Lara quietly. He breaks out in a soft chuckle. "I heard a report of a group wandering across our border the other day. I found myself asking if they were caught with any interesting artifacts," he says, having been reminded of the event that first brought him into contact with the younger archeologist. He reaches over with his other hand to Lara's shoulder to gently turn her towards him if she lets him. "I don't need such excuses though. I am not going to hide how you make me feel," he says quietly. Holding her one hand, he reaches up with the other then to softly brush Lara's blowing hair back from her face even as he leans down. His lips draw to hers as T'Challa kisses the younger woman while tenderly cupping her cheek. In the far distance the clouds on the horizon are lit from within by lightning. The sight of it gone unnoticed, and even the faintest hint of thunder that makes it to them can be forgotten as kissing Lara commands every bit of T'Challa's attention. While that kiss is slow, and gentle as the man himself can be, it still pulses with the warm energy that Lara injects into T'Challa when they are together.
Lara Croft	Lara turns to face him when he prompts her to do so, she smiles at him and looks up toward him as he moves in to kiss her. She returns the kiss, savors it, and leans in to him with her hands both going uup his forearms to cup his elbows, then venture up his biceps until the reach his shoulders, neck, and jawline. It's a process, a lingering one, allowing them to savor the moment before she pulls back from him and smiles yet again. "You didn't need to invite me all the way out here just to kiss me." she tells him then. "But I'm not complaining that you did." She gives a sly grin before she'll move to take his hand again. "Come on, lets explore the beach, before it starts to pour down from the heavens upon us." She says all of that in a happy tone, her British accented voice flavoring the words with a calme and serenity, lacking the underlying 'stress' that she often seems to have on her voice. She seems happy here and now.
T'Challa	T'Challa laughs softly and says teasingly, "No? Here I thought it was one of those English customs?" He takes her hand in his, bringing it to his lips to kiss the back of it, and then uses it to draw her with him out onto the beach. Not too far along there's a low spot where a small creek runs off the island and into the ocean, traveling across mostly sand and small rocks to get there. The ocean waves are crashing in though, passing up the little channel quite a distance before washing back out. "Amazing," T'Challa says as he wades out into it in his sandals, pulling up his dark jeans at first, but then just letting them get wet as the water is too high. "The force of it, even this little bit." He glances out to sea. The storm is still distant enough, though there are spots that rain can be seen falling, sheets of grey that block vision beyond them. "We have beautiful waterfalls. The power of the water's flow always impressed me," he comments to Lara. "They are one of the more beautiful sights I have ever seen," he says of the Wakandan riverlands.
Lara Croft	As they walk together, Lara pulls out her phone. She lets T'Challa walk ahead of her while she brings up the video recording. She watches him slip in to the stream and raises her phone up to record it all while she stands on the edge. A smile is on her face, her eyes are on him, not on her device, but she does glance at it to keep it angled properly to record a good image of it. The storm's are off in front of him, with a bit of the lowering sunshine down behind them both. "I want to remember this." She tells him. "I promise not to share it around, just keep it for myself. I don't often do this on a casual setting, admittedly I rarely think about it, but... the imagery is just too impressive. Too beautiful, and handsome." She states with a grin over for him. She doesn't have sandals on, she's wearing hiking boots, it'd be harder for her to just stand in the stream without taking them off. The winds are picking up off of the ocean, her ponytail whipping out behind her, not violently yet, just getting notably stronger. "Perhaps there's a place we can stay near here? If your people would allow that, I'm not... sure about the protocol of that yet." She admits to him, still holding the camera up.
T'Challa	As she talks to him, T'Challa turns back towards Lara. The camera can capture that smile that grows across his lips and shines back to the beautiful young woman. "I trust you, Lara Croft," he tells her, his accent making the worlds almost a little lyrical to hear. He wades across the little stream that turns into more of an inlet with the waves pouring up into it. Something on the other side has caught T'Challa's eye apparently as he scrambles out of the water onto the stony beach, moving over and then crouching down to brush some of the rocks and sand away. The bright white of driftwood is revealed. T'Challa digs just a little bit to be able to get a better handle on it. He pulls it out of the wet sand taking care to make sure it doesn't break. It's about the length of his arm. He carries it back into the water and submerges it, running his hands over it to dislodge the sand. When it emerges from the water again, it's wet but clean. The wood is bleached a bone white, that will grow even brighter once it's dried out. "I think this should come back with us," he tells her. "I have always wanted to try my hand at carving," T'Challa says as he steps out of the little stream back on Lara's side. Behind him the storm's approach is more visible. The white-capped waves in some places being lashed by wind-blown rain. Yet the beach is still dry enough, but the clouds hang low. Thousands of feet high, yet so much nearer than normal one could imagine they could reach up and brush them with their fingertips.
Lara Croft	While he gathers up that wood out from under the sand, Lara advances to catch up with him. She keeps her phone recording this picturesque evening together, while she hops from stone to stone to get across the stream to where he is. She's beside him, a little behind, while he suberges the driftwood and then brings it back, wet but clean. She smiles at him, her phone still captureing all of this. "My friend, Jonah, he served in the Navy after leaving Hawaii, he said one of his original items he wanted to make and sell at a shop on the beach wwere pieces of driftwood with all types of nautical knots tied in small lengths of rope. He said he included a little pamphlet with them that named each knot and gave instructions on how to tie them yourself." She smiles at this memory. "I... still need to get him tomake me one of these, it'd look nice hung on the wall." She glances down at the wood that T'Challa has claimed and steps aside for him to come back up the sandy shore. "I look forward to seeing what you carve."
T'Challa	T'Challa moves over to Lara as he listens to her speaking about her friend Jonah. He looks at the driftwood thoughtfully. "This thin bit at the end. It probably would not be of much use for a carving," he says, where it tapers at one end, thinning where the branch once broke off. He takes hold of it there, and just further up, and gently exerts pressure until the narrow piece breaks off rather cleanly. He turns the resulting smaller piece over a few times, examining the shape. It is still smoothly rounded over most of it, worn down by the waves and water. T'Challa offers it over to Lara. "We can stop and pick out some rope and send them to him if you like? Perhaps a nicely engraved card saying something elegant. Like... 'hint hint!?'" he suggests with a slight smile. Looking back to the rest of the wood, T'Challa says, "I will have to give it some thought. Though I have never really carved anything in my life. So most likely? I will end up with some magnificently covered shavings and an oddly shaped block of wood," he says with a little shrug and self-deprecating smile. There's a sound that joins the dull, constant roar of the waves. It's lighter sounding, and higher pitched. It might take a second to realize what it is. But then it can be seen as well as heard. A line of rain coming in towards the beach, thick drops hitting the ocean's surface, thousands of them to create that sound of pattering water on water.
Lara Croft	Lara watches him break off the thinner length of wood, and laughs at his comment about the hint-hint part. She accepts it when he offers it and looks it over with one hand. "Thank you." She tells him softly, affectionately, before she looks back up to him and puts the piece of wood underneath her arm, up against her side and holds it there. "You need to come with me to his restaurant sometime soon and meet him. He'll be... beside himself, to have you there. It only just opened up last month. It's his... dream, I've been happy to help him realize it as part-owner. One of the ways I convinced him to stay in New York... so it is rooted in my own selfish desire to have my loved ones around me." She smiles brightly to him before her attention is diverted by the incoming weather. "Perhaps we should make our way back to the car?" She suggests as she turns of fher phone and slips it back into her pants pocket. She grabs the stick from under her arm and holds it at her side then as she steps back toward T'Challa. "Seems the storm is ebbing ever closer to shore now. The clouds are moving so fast..." She states while looking off toward the eastern horizon.
T'Challa	T'Challa tsks softly after Lara speaks about her role in Jonah's restaurant. "So thoughtless Lara, always thinking of yourself as you help your friends fulfill their dreams," he says with a forlorn sigh that tries to hide the gentle teasing light in his eyes. He turns to see the wave of rain heading their way. "Yes, maybe it is time to be starting back," he agrees. He reaches over to take Lara's hand, his fingers gently lacing with hers. "And I'd love to meet your friend. And see his restaurant. Part-owner. Something else about you that I did not know. And does he know of your cooking skills? A ploy to keep him from putting you to work over a hot stove perhaps?" T'Challa asks, remembering their previous conversation about her prowess in the kitchen. With Lara's hand in his own, T'Challa begins a jog back towards the car. Before long it's clear that the decision to hurry their steps might be warranted. The drops are starting to fall on them before they reach it, a growing crescendo of falling drops that have the car glazed with beaded drops by the time they reach it. T'Challa unlocks the door from a distance, but moves with Lara to her side to open the door for her.