Lucian almost laughed, running a hand through their hair. Con seemed rather scatter-brained, really, but they didn't see a problem with that. "A walk sounds fine." he replied, throwing his cup away and heading out towards the beach. Con, they figured, would follow if she actually wanted to go on a walk. And if she didn't? It didn't really matter anyway.
Con spun on her heel, hurrying to follow with a strange mix of grace and exuberance. "I don't know if you've ever been to Italy, but if you haven't–I try to assume people haven't been places because when I assume they have they get really weird, definitely recommend hanging around the coliseum in Rome. It's so pretty, and people are really nice as long as you don't act like a tourist. One of the best places for going on walks. Anyway, I know your name, but not much about you. Which is going to be weird if I'm calling you a friend, which I am, because I like being able to say I have friend all over the world. So…fun facts about you? At least two. Legally it has to be two at the littlest."
She didn't quite talk fast, exactly, but she talked a lot. Some people found issue with it. Some people solved that issue by ignoring her, others just asked her to repeat things or break things up. She liked that Lucian hadn't had any issue so far. If she was lucky, he wouldn't have any. Only time could really tell that, so for now, she stuck to darting back and forth across the sand as they walked, looking for signs of turtle nests.
"Alright." he said slowly. "And I have been to Rome, yes, though I wasn't there for very long." he considered the question about fun facts, and then spoke again after a moment. "My pronouns are he and they, and if you have a problem with that you can fuck off right now." he glanced over at her to watch her reaction to that. They had had some people sneer or scoff when he told what pronouns he used. He had had all sorts of reactions, usually along the lines of "just pick one, you can't be both".
"And the other fun fact is that I play music." he also wrote it, but they didn't like admitting that because people tended to immediately go "will you write a song for me??" and he didn't feel like writing songs for people.
Con glanced up from where she was peering at the sand, shrugging her shoulders. "At least now I know how to refer to you in my head. And in person, when it comes to it." She paused for a moment to stare out at the ocean, before returning to walk next to Lucian. "Does that mean you write your own music? Do you only play music, or sing too? I knew this girl who performed at Carnegie Hall once, she always wrote music and lyrics, but only ever performed the music. Said she couldn't sing well enough to put the lyrics out there, but she thought her songs were more complete with them."
He looked over at her, and considered the question. "I do, yes." they said slowly, shrugging their shoulders a little bit. "I also play other people's music, but I enjoy writing my own, when it comes down to it." he ran their hands through their hair, pushing it back out of their face and leaving some strands sticking up in wild, unruly tufts that swayed faintly in the breeze.
Con nodded, distracted by the movement of his hair. When she gathered her thoughts again, she snickered, eyes drawn to the sky this time. "I'm not very musically inclined. I've dabbled in dance, though. Ballroom, tango, interpretive. Never did ballet, I couldn't get with the diet. No chili fries? I could never. You said you'd been to Rome, right? Where else have you been?"
"All around Greece with my dad, uhm…really a lot of places, but he doesn't like to stay anywhere for too long." Apollo was always moving, always finding new places to stay, new places to enjoy for a few weeks before moving on again, so when Lucian was with him, they got used to moving around quite a lot. Living out of a suitcase, really.
(hey so I made an aesthetic Board for Lucian lmao. Aes Board)
((fdhjdc i love it and now i wanna make one for con))
"Just like me and my mom!" Con said, clapping her hands together. "My dad does the same, sometimes with us, sometimes not. His work takes him everywhere, just quicker than my mom's does. Have you been to Crete, then? Athens likely, seeing as it's a pretty popular spot. I was mugged in Athens once. They took my shoes. Beaches in Greece are the best. I think they could kick Cali beach asses any day." To be fair, her dad was a god of travel and her mom was a con artist. But that itself hadn't come up, so it wasn't mentioned.
(:D you should!)
"Both, I believe." They replied with a faint smile, nodding his head a little bit. "Only with my father, though. My mom….she doesn't travel." He grimaced a little, shaking his head at the thought of his mother traveling. The last time she had tried… oh, that had not ended well, not with his mother being the way she was.
"Some people just aren't made for it. They have roots." Con said, growing quiet for a second. "They're not like us. You know dandelion seeds? We're like those." She took a few fast steps to surpass Lucian, stopping sort of in front of him and motioning with her hand to the sky. "We've got places to be. Except I don't know if I'll ever take root. I might just keep going. I don't think that I'd mind that. Would you?"
He thought about the question, turning it over in his mind. "I don't know. I like having a place to return to, I think. Somewhere to call home. I wouldn't want to keep moving around forever, I want to have somewhere that's just my own." they looked over at Con for a moment. "Does that make sense?"
Con hummed, head tilted again in thought. "Yeah, I think I get it. Not get it, but I get it. We've been packing up and moving all my life though, so I'm not sure I even have that place. I've got mom though. As far as things to return to go, she's pretty great." She said, shrugging a shoulder as she continued walking. "Where's home for you, then?" Over time, Con almost seemed to have settled down. Like she had stopped feeling the need to cram as many thoughts into a few sentences as possible.
They frowned a little. "I don't know. Perhaps the home I currently live in, specifically my bedroom." his mother would never be home for them; not with the way his mother was. And Apollo could not be home either; the god was far too busy for that, what with all the many duties Apollo needed to carry out. That, and Apollo just didn't have the best personality to be a good parent; he was too busy pursuing his own goals to stop and think for long about the children he had sired.
Con blinked. "Gods, I haven't had one of those in forever. Is yours decorated? I miss decorating rooms, it's like pouring your personality out into a space." She said, glancing over her shoulder to judge how far they were from the bonfire. They'd been walking a while, but it was at a slow pace, so they weren't far enough to lose sight. The sun was beginning to set, the air cooling with it.
"It's…yes, I suppose it's decorated, though I haven't the best organization skills." he laughed a little bit, shaking their head and sighing faintly. "So it's a little cluttered, but it's home. It's my space, and that's what matters to me." they did not offer to show Con their room; they didn't generally invite many people over, both because they were a very private individual, and because they didn't like people meeting his mom.
"Now that, I definitely get." She said, tapping their arm to get them to stop. Sort of skipping, she motioned to the log she was making her way towards, before taking a seat on it. The 'bench' gave them a perfect view of the water. "You're cool, you know that? Like, really cool. Is that weird, if we've only known each other for…what, ten minutes?"
He raised an eyebrow just a little. "I guess it's a little strange." they didn't wait to be invited before sitting down, letting out a faint huff of breath and shaking their head for a moment, tufts of dyed hair falling across his forehead. "And yes, I'm pretty sure it's only been about ten minutes." they didn't have a watch anymore; it had broken three or four months ago, and he hadn't bothered to replace it.
She knew it was. Judging the amount of time it took to travel from point A to point B was something she'd been doing all her life. She just laughed, pulling one knee up onto the log. With an arm draped across it, she alternated between watching the gentle waves, and looking at Lucian. "I'm always in a rush anyway. Why not speedrun my relationships, too? In twenty minutes we'll have a falling out that'll leave us not talking for five minutes." She joked, lifting a hand to play with a strand of golden hair. "Or, you know, we could fall in love and get married in half an hour. There's a place a couple miles from here that's open until midnight. Tax benefits."
Lucian stared at her for a moment, and when he blinked he could see a future of that, though he wasn't sure if this was a possible one or a real one, but it was a future of falling for this young woman, a future where they could see a wedding and love and arguments that always ended well. Then it was gone again, and he realized he had just stared at her in silence for nearly a minute, and they quickly said, "I– am not curious in marriage at this moment."
Con's first snicker turned into full on laughter, shoulders shaking and all. When she finally calmed down, she shot them a wide smile. "I wasn't serious. Well, maybe. I've never though enough about it to really know if I'd ever even want to marry someone. But!" She tapped one of her earrings, shaking her head slightly. "I do have the diamonds. So if you change your mind, I've got you. I could even scrounge up a dowry. I'm a total catch."
They let out a relieved laugh, pushing aside the strange images of the future and deciding that it must have meant nothing. It couldn't have meant anything. "I see." he said, looking over at Con with his eyebrows faintly raised. "Although isn't your father supposed to pay the dowry?"
"He probably could." She said, tilting her head as she thought about it. "Actually, definitely. But like, so could my mom, and honestly I could probably get enough myself. He would think it was funny if I payed it though. I know it's a lot, but how much even is a dowry? Do you have to pay it in cash, if your family doesn't have prize-cows or goats, or other livestock? Can I steal someone else's livestock to use as a dowry?"
He blinked at all the questions. "I have no idea how dowries work, Con." They replied. "But I don't think you can use stolen livestock to pay it, no." They shook their head at her, laughing quietly.
"That's disappointing. What am I supposed to do if someone really wants a livestock dowry then? Actually buy the cows?" She wrinkled her nose, looking almost disappointed. "No one's going to marry me now, not unless they take cash. I guess it's fine, I'm not one for the farming lifestyle anyway." For a beat, she stared up at the sky, before her brain apparently switching tracks. "What's your zodiac? If you actually know it." She huffed a laugh. "I know some people don't put much stock in them. I think they're cool though, especially because I'm on the cusp of Gemini and Cancer. It's cool how that affects the normal zodiac things."