Breathing is a hard thing to do. (OPEN)

[Madeline 'Mad' Cheshire]

The sound of waves hardly brought Madeline any peace. Years ago the splashing were drilled in her brain while conversations were mumbled. Dark headphones that kept her apart from what adults with white cloaks and shiny bright shoes kept from her. She was hardly allowed around others after the fighting broke out among the residents, she hardly remembered them; she was usually woken up from the madness with sounds of waves crashing. The sand underneath her bare legs was uncomfortable and itchy, she was trying to meditate (per the request of her Cabin Leader). Playing meditation was fun, it made her giddy as she mimicked what she had seen around camp. Her eyes were closed, her legs crossed, and every few seconds she made an uncomfortable sound that sounded a lot like a tortured soul. 

[Deleted]

For someone who was so afraid of drowning, Chad spent quite a bit of time near the water, but to him it was the first step in facing off against his fear. It probably helped that the beach was one of the few places where it was easy to tell where everyone was unless they were in the water or something, and while he preferred to be left alone when he was trying to focus on something fate had something else in store for him today. Whether or not it would lead to something good or bad, there was already a girl on the beach, and she appeared to be meditating.

Walking to a spot that was a few feet away from her, he sat down and began looking at the water for a moment, but then his eyes glanced over at the girl. Chad knew that he should call out some sort of warning so that he didn't startle her by just being there when she opened her eyes. "Hope you don't mind some company. Just thought that I would test the limits on something for a bit," he called out. Whether or not she heard him was not really his concern. He had done the honorable thing by making an attempt.

[Madeline 'Mad' Cheshire]

The waves became background noise when Madeline heard a voice calling out to her. "It's okay," She called back without moving a muscle. Her position was stiff and she feared that if she were to move one muscle then everything she worked for would be gone, but the excitement of having someone around her was too much to keep still. She opened one eye, and she couldn't stop an uncontrollable grin from spreading as she intruded. "Test the limits of what?" Her posture was perfect but she leaned over to find out more about the company she had, her elbows rested over the itchy sand and she let her head rest over her hands. "I'm Maddie," She called out to the boy, praising him in her head for stopping the torture of the constant 'relaxing' noise of the waves. Mad dreaded the silence when in the presence of others and she was not going to let the waves crashing become too loud for her to hear.

[Deleted]

When he had called out his warning, the last thing that Chad expected was a question. A response to reassure him that he could stay had always been assumed, but the girl's inquiry caught him off guard. The last time this had happened, a conversation about dreams and psychology occurred, so he was beginning to wonder where this one would lead. If he was lucky, then an interesting topic like the one that Lydia had provided, but at the same time he was hoped that it wouldn't be another thing that would cause him to seek out the nearest book reserve to read up on it.

"My name is Chad, and I was testing the limits on my power to freeze things. Figured the best place to start was on the easiest thing to freeze," he said while gesturing towards the water. Albeit, it probably would have been easier to just get a bowl to do it, but something about being next to a large body of water with the wind flowing through his hair just made him feel better. "How about you? What brings you out to the shoreline?"