Calan
"Whoa," Calan says at the exact same time, though for all he knows he might have shouted it because his ears have become full of bees and thunder and probably several other things he doesn't know the names of yet.
He is already reaching for the cord again, the movement less of a decision and more of a natural next step. If a thing can make that noise once, then plainly the sensible question is whether it can make it twice, and Calan is very nearly prepared to begin important research when the shout cuts through the ringing hard enough to turn his head. Blue eyes wide, grin wider, he looks at Carlo. "Right," he says, with the crisp certainty of someone who has just discovered consequences and decided to be somewhere else for them.
He runs. Not well, exactly, but with improvement. His feet still hit too hard and his balance remains questionable, but even so, Calan skarpers down the boardwalk with the grim focus of a boy who has done nothing wrong except possibly everything. Behind them, voices multiply as merchants come spilling from their shops, questions and curses rising over the docks while the sea still churns white where the cannonball has landed.
The first unattended stall presents itself like a gift.
Calan spots the food before he spots much of anything else: two fresh fish burritos sitting warm and half-wrapped where someone has abandoned them mid-task, likely because the cannon has made everyone in the marina develop urgent opinions at once. This seems less like stealing than timing; they have made a very loud problem over there, and now there is food over here, and Calan is not old enough, dressed enough, or guilty enough to see why those facts should not be connected.
He snatches both, tucks one awkwardly against his chest, and keeps going until he can thrust the other toward Carlo. "For you," he says, as if he has arranged it personally.
He is already reaching for the cord again, the movement less of a decision and more of a natural next step. If a thing can make that noise once, then plainly the sensible question is whether it can make it twice, and Calan is very nearly prepared to begin important research when the shout cuts through the ringing hard enough to turn his head. Blue eyes wide, grin wider, he looks at Carlo. "Right," he says, with the crisp certainty of someone who has just discovered consequences and decided to be somewhere else for them.
He runs. Not well, exactly, but with improvement. His feet still hit too hard and his balance remains questionable, but even so, Calan skarpers down the boardwalk with the grim focus of a boy who has done nothing wrong except possibly everything. Behind them, voices multiply as merchants come spilling from their shops, questions and curses rising over the docks while the sea still churns white where the cannonball has landed.
The first unattended stall presents itself like a gift.
Calan spots the food before he spots much of anything else: two fresh fish burritos sitting warm and half-wrapped where someone has abandoned them mid-task, likely because the cannon has made everyone in the marina develop urgent opinions at once. This seems less like stealing than timing; they have made a very loud problem over there, and now there is food over here, and Calan is not old enough, dressed enough, or guilty enough to see why those facts should not be connected.
He snatches both, tucks one awkwardly against his chest, and keeps going until he can thrust the other toward Carlo. "For you," he says, as if he has arranged it personally.
I've never been one to half-ass shenanigans.
