How Green Becomes Wood

"Hey, that's not a fair challenge to me," Daizi chuckled, getting up, "I had a baby nine months ago but Alec is sixteen!"

"It is not a competiton," Dark assured her, looking up at her. "Just go, there is nothing stopping you."

After some more hesitation, having not in many years, if ever, had this level of physical freedom, Daizi let herself run across the beach, slowly at first, and then as quickly as she could, her hair streaming behind her.

Dark watched with a grin, adoring the way she threw her arms out every so often, or jumped slightly when she veered towards the waves and the water touched her foot. He had never seen her run like that, "She is going really far."
 
"Go, Mama, go!" Alec yelled after her. He and Xander started trotting after her, not out of worry for her, but out of a shared joy of just watching her run and wanting to be able to see her better. "You're so amazing!"
 
Dark stood up, but the further Daizi went, the more uneasy he got. He didn't know what was so far down, so at some point he yelled, "Spider, come back! You can run back the other way!"

When it didn't seem like she heard, Dark rocked uneasily on his heels, and then handed Ivy to Alec and lightly jogged further out, trying to keep an eye on what she was heading towards.

However, at his call, she did turn around and began running back, while he jogged towards her, and when she did, she managed to run into one of the almost non-existent obstacles. Seeing her approach it, Dark ran over to try to prevent it, but when she tripped over it, he tried to catch her, and they both tumbled down onto the sand, collapsing into a heap. Without a care to the sand in her hair, Daizi rolled onto her back, her arms flung wide, and laughed so hard she thought her abs hadn't had this amount of exercise since giving birth, while trying to catch her breath.
 
Alec and Xander trotted over, Alec holding Ivy.

"Wow, that was an impressive tumble," Xander said, sounding truly impressed. "Is everything in working order?"

"Sure sounds like it!" Alec grinned, holding Ivy up so she could see, too.
 
"Yeah, I'm okay," Daizi laughed, rolling over on top of Dark, "Are you okay, Goose?"

Squinting up at her, Dark took an extra second to catch his breath, having hit the ground with more force to make sure she landed relatively softly. "Yes," he answered, and she bent to kiss him quickly before got off and offered her hand to help him up. "How was that?"

"It was really fun," Daizi answered, not doing much work to brush the sand off of herself, "I kind of want to do it again, without the fall, probably, though. You all don't know how fortunate you are to just be able to do that whenever you want."
 
"I think you are taking half the beach home with you in your hair," Alec giggled, reaching out to help her. "That was awesome! You were flying!"

Xander looked Dark up and down before asking, "Are you sure you're alright after playing mattress? Nice catch, by the way."
 
"I might be," Daizi replied, reaching up to try to fluff some of the sand out, but knowing it was at least a partial lost-cause until she was able to get to a hairbrush, "I had to make the most of it, because I don't know when the next time I'll be able to do something like that again is. There aren't many wide open spaces out in the world you're allowed to just run through."

Dark nodded, brushing the sand off of himself and out of his beard, "Yes, I am okay. The sand was soft." He stretched out, "My shoulder may be a bit sore tomorrow, but besides that, no harm done."

For the twins' sake, Daizi used all of her restraint to prevent herself from making a joke about Dark 'playing mattress' for her.
 
Alec lightly brushed down the back of her clothes for her and stepped back. "The next time you'll be able to do it is whenever you want for the next week," he told her with a happy smile. "The beach is yours for the running!"

"Especially if you wanted to run at night. Who'd come to a beach at night?" Xander agreed. "So, when do we eat? And what do we eat?"
 
"If she starts running around at night, we have to put tape reflective strips to her," Dark said, only half teasing.

"I meant when I'd be able to do it again after we went home," Daizi said, holding hands with her husband while they walked together, "We can eat basically anywhere. I'm sure there are a lot of restaurants that deliver to the condo, and there are even more we can go to in the area. We made reservations for my birthday, but the rest of the week, it is whatever we want and whenever we want."
 
"Woo-hoo! You hear that, Ivy? We're set completely free!" Alec cheered, throwing up his free hand.

"We're going to have a lot of cleaning up to do before we can go anywhere nice," Xander snickered, looking over the sand-covered group. "Unless we want to eat at the sand bar. I hear the line's not bad, but the food can be a bit gritty. Its position tends to stop boats in their tracks, so it's gotta be good."
 
Dark looked down at Xander, bewildered, "Since when did you decide you liked puns?"

"We do need to be cleaned up," Daizi replied, touching Ivy's sand-coated foot, "It might be better to order in for tonight. I don't know if I want to go back into the car today."

"Most of this area is walkable, so that is less of a concern." Dark said, "Actually, before I forget, you two, we did not firmly plan out most of this week, so if at any point, the two of you want to go somewhere, you are free to do so, as long as you tell us where you are going and when you intend to be back. I would only demand you not go out after dark without us, and be home before then."
 
"Does anyone ever say when they like puns?" Xander pointed out. At Dark's statement of their amount of freedom, he looked around in surprise. "Seriously? Nice!"

"I like the idea of ordering in, myself," Alec said while Xander was already planning when and where to go. "A nice evening meal with just us and our new space celebrating the first day of our first family vacation!"
 
"I have met some people who do." Dark replied.

"We actually portioned out a bit of spending money for the two of you," Daizi told them, "Nothing extreme, but we decided you should be able to get souvenirs, buy snacks, or go to some of the attractions in town or along the board walk, and rather than making the two of you run back to ask us if it's okay every time, we're going to give you a set amount up-front, and you can use it however you want to during the trip, however you want to budget it."

"For now, just look online where you'd want to order in from." Dark told the two of them, "There is no point in ordering food we can just as easily get at home."
 
Alec gave a little jump of joy and cheered. "Thank you, Mama! Thank you, Baba! This is going to be the best vacation ever!" He handed Ivy back to Dark and ran inside.

"You're not allowed to bring home a mountain of plushies!" Xander yelled, chasing after him. "We both have to fit in the room, remember! Hey! Don't start looking without me!"

"We should get something exotic!" Alec said, looking for his phone.

"Not too exotic," Xander said.

They both crashed onto the couch, practically sitting on each other as they fought to share the phone screen and pick out their favorite choices.
 
Dark bounced Ivy against his hip, chuckling softly at his sons' reaction and feeling rather satisfied they had done the ground work for a great vacation for them. Had they been other boys, he may have felt compelled to remind them they were still going to do some family activities, the twins were not just going to be running off together every day, but he knew they wouldn't.

"It's Virginia," Daizi said as she stopped briefly into their bedroom, but left the door open so she could still be heard, "How exotic can the food be?" Then she stepped back outside, sitting down at the small table near the kitchenette, and set about preparing a small travel-sized bowl of salt for their front door. There wasn't really a good place to put it, but it was better than not having one.

"The seafood will be better here than it ever is at home, because we are actually on the ocean, so it will be fresh." Dark mentioned to them, but he wasn't particularly concerned. He knew with complete certainty they would be eating lots of sea food on this trip.
 
"Mmm, seafood!" Alec moaned. "I love seafood!"

"Too many eyes, but I guess it's okay," Xander grumbled.

Alec pointed. "How about this place? It's... that's kind of weird. It's Thai and Japanese cuisine? Fascinating! It offers delivery and has sushi! You like sushi."

"I do like sushi," Xander agreed. "Mama, sushi? They have a good selection of rolls."

"And Thai," Alec added.
 
"Oh, I love sushi," Daizi sighed, tipping her head back slightly, "It was so hard being pregnant with Ivy, because I wasn't allowed to have it, but it's so good. It was worth giving it up, don't get it wrong, but I adore it, even though it takes a veritable mountain of it to fill up Dark."

"But they have thai food, also, so I would be able to make up the difference with that." Dark said, and told the kids to pick what they wanted to order before taking the phone from them so he could order, help Daizi order, and then pay.

As they ate, he looked over at the twins, "You need to wake up before sunrise at least one day this week," he told them, "to see the sun rise over the ocean."
 
"We'll give it a try tomorrow, but no guarantees," Xander mumbled around a mouthful of noodles.

"If not tomorrow, the day after," Alec promised. "What about you, Ba? What do you want to do while we are here?"
 
"You have all week," Dark replied, dipping one piece of his sushi into wasabi, "I would like to go swimming, and I want to spend time time playing the board walk games. They have one of the last Fascination Parlors. I am also interested in walking down main street because I know they have a number of curious shops I am interested in seeing. And I intend to see the sunrise."
 
Alec and Xander stared at Dark dipping his sushi. They'd stopped paying attention after that. Why would he do that? Why would anyone do that?? That looked absolutely horrible! They both forced themselves to stop staring. They didn't want Dark getting miffed and giving them a lecture on how it was perfectly acceptable to dip sushi in what was essentially horseradish.

"Can I come with you to the shops?" Alec asked, checking in in time to hear that much. "I think it sounds like fun!"

"Yay. Shopping," Xander said dryly.
 
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