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Troy and Blink chuckled to themselves as they watched Runt pull a toolkit seemingly out of nowhere. They sat together on a beach towel warmed by the sun, letting themselves dry off after their time splashing in the ocean. Troy wasn’t used to the warmth, being from the snowy island of Wonder, but he had to admit that it wasn’t that unpleasant.
“Whatcha workin’ on, Runt? You know, most people go to the beach to like, chill out, not like, do work?” Troy called over to the girl, already screwing some scary-looking pincer things onto some sort of metal doo-hickey.
“It’s a rock retrieval device,” Runt muttered, pulling her goggles down onto her face. “It’s pretty simple, really. All you’ll have to do is activate the ignition, which then spurs and commences the rotation of the hyperboloid gears, allowing the apparatus to advance and–”
Troy made a face and held up his hand. Despite being friends for this long, she didn’t always get how to talk to him. “Sure, sure, but let’s just pretend I’m just some normal dude who doesn’t have an HGTV degree in thingies and whositswhatsits.”
Runt sighed. She did that a lot when explaining her stuff. “You activate the ignition with a key, which allows the screw gears–”
“In English, dude, plain ol’, nothing on it, English language.”
Blink rolled his eyes. He tended to do that a lot, especially when Troy talked.
“It…it picks up rocks from the water after you skip them,” Runt explained finally.
“Oh, that’s pretty cool,” Troy nodded. “I’ve skipped a rock or two in my life. You know they called me Skipper back in high school ‘cause I was so good at skipping rocks.”
“Really?” Blink asked.
“No, of course not, that’s a stupid name. They called me Troy. But I actually am pretty good at skipping rocks. C’mon, man,” he clapped Blink on the shoulder. “We can probably, like, help Runt out a lot by skipping some stones into the water so she can test out her new doodad.”
He hopped up and scanned the sand, making sure to grab only the flattest, thinnest rocks. After a few minutes, he had a good handful, and he carried them closer to the shore. Blink followed, standing behind him, talons empty.
“Here,” Troy handed him a rock. “Lookin’ like a three inch lightweight basalt. Relatively smooth.”
Blink’s eyebrows furrowed. “Who even are you?”
“I’m Troy all day, every day, dude.” He smirked, then expertly picked up a different rock–four inch moderately weighted basalt. He faced the water, pulled his arm back, preparing, then threw it forward, flicking his wrist. The rock went spinning forwards, skipping off the water once, twice, three times, four times, and…it kept going.
“That’s a classic double dozen Troy skip,” he proclaimed proudly.
“I-wha–I have so many questions,” Blink finally said.
“It’s all you now, man.”
“Oh, I mean, I don’t really know how, to be honest,” the bird admitted, tossing the stone from hand to hand.
“Dude, why didn’t you just say so?” Troy laughed. “You’ve got the expert here. It’s, like, my best sport, second to steamsledding, of course.”
He cleared his throat. “So the main thing is that it’s all about the angle you throw. Well, I guess the main thing is also the rock, and the way you flick your wrist, but it’s one of the main things. So you’re going to want to stand–no.” Troy tried not to laugh at Blink’s ridiculous form.
“Feet shoulder-width apart, legs slightly bent, turned with your shoulder towards the water–yeah, dude, you got it.”
Blink repositioned his stance while Troy spoke. It felt like he was controlling a robot-bird with his words.
“So then you’ve gotta hold the rock kinda like you’re going to throw a ball or punch someone or something.”
“Like what?” Blink lowered his arm.
“You know, any normal activity like that.” He shrugged, then waited for Blink to return to his stance.
“No, you gotta lower your elbow.” Troy reached out, fixing the odd angle his arm was at. Maybe birds had different bone structures or something. No, that couldn’t be it.
Blink’s feathers were so soft that he lingered for a moment, not quite wanting to let go. He shook his head, trying to ignore that strange thought.
“Uh, and then–” Troy hesitated, trying to get his head back in the game. Just like that one awesome movie he loved. He cleared his throat. “And then, you kinda gotta think about a couple things at once, which is pretty hard, but with some simple Troy math, you can get it done.”
Troy picked up a rock of his own to demonstrate.
“So like I said, you’re going to flick your wrist,” he showed the motion. “And then when you throw it, you’re going for that classic 20 degree angle, so you throw the rock out, but also down. You really want to hit it in that sweet spot that makes the rock skipping magic happen.”
Blink released his rock, and the two watched as it flew through the air and fell into the sea with a quiet plunk and a resounding splash.
“Well, was I close?” Blink asked, turning to Troy.
“No, dude, that was shit, just to be honest with you,” he replied, shrugging. “We’ve got more rocks, though.”
. . . . .
A couple hours and a couple hundred rock throws later—though many were successfully retrieved by Runt—Blink stood with a perfectly smooth stone in his talons.
“Troy, listen. No matter how this goes, it’s the last one, okay? No more.”
“Fine, man, it’s all you. I’m just saying that my practices were usually longer than this.” He shrugged, holding back a laugh.
Blink sighed, then tossed the stone to the ocean.
Troy watched the beautiful arc of the throw, and then admired the one, two, three, fo—
“YES!” Blink yelled, throwing his wings into the air. “FINALLY!”
“That’s what we call the half dozen Troy skip special,” he acknowledged, nodding.
He went in for a fist bump but paused as Blink seemed to be going for a high five. Troy switched to a handshake as Blink balled up his talon in a fist, and they ended up standing with their respective hand or talon intertwined with the other. Troy’s face burned.
“Oh, just kiss already! You two have been flirting all day!” Runt’s voice yelled from across the beach.
“I—do—wha—“ Blink stammered, pulling his hand away.
“Well, do you want to?” Troy asked before he could stop himself.
“Want to what?” The owl’s eyes were wide but fixed on Troy’s.
Troy hesitated, unsure if he could get the word out. His heart pounded in his chest, and he dropped the rock he’d been holding. It fell gently to the sand. Waves rushed in his ears, and he couldn’t tell if it was from the water or if it was just nerves. If it was nerves, apparently his sounded like the ocean.
“Kiss?” Troy squeaked out, as if he was the rat person instead of Runt.
“I…” Blink took a breath and then a step forward. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
Troy started to lean in.
“But—“ Blink started, eyes shifting over Troy’s shoulder. “Maybe around the corner, behind that cliff so Runt doesn’t see.”
Troy chuckled. “Sure, man.” He grabbed Blink’s talon, and they started running giddily down the beach each giggling slightly as they stumbled through the sand.
Each a little out of breath, they leaned against the cool rocky cliff. Troy could still feel adrenaline surging through him, and it wasn’t from running.
“You know Runt is never gonna let us live this down,” Blink commented, glancing back at Troy.
“Probably not,” Troy shrugged. “It’s worth it though.”
“Yeah,” Blink snorted, and he leaned in.
Troy met him in the middle. The kiss was quick but gentle, and it wasn’t as weird as Troy thought it would be that Blink had a beak.
“I—“ Troy started to say, looking deeply into Blink’s eyes. Owls did have really big eyes.
“GUYS, I THINK I ACCIDENTALLY MADE IT LAUNCH—“ Runt’s voice carried from the other side of the cliff, and something whizzed past them.
Troy blinked. “Was that a rock?”
Blink nodded slowly.
“Cool,” Troy replied. “I think we would get one more kiss in before we die.”
Blink nodded again.
They kissed again, this time lingering a little longer. Blink’s wing was wrapped around Troy’s back, and he never wanted to leave.
“Okay, we should probably—“ Blink said at last.
“Yeah,” Troy agreed.
They jogged around the corner, heading back up to where Runt was rapidly tightening screws and cutting wires and who knew what else.
“I may have slightly miscalculated the torsion coefficient!” She called out to them.
A rock fired out of the machine. Using some quick Troy math, he figured it was traveling at about 60 miles an hour. The group watched as it hit the water and skipped over and over, leaving a long trail of ripples behind.
“It appears the retrieval device is currently deploying rocks instead!” Runt yelped.
“Dude, it’s the quadruple dozen Troy skip!” Blink high fived Runt.
Troy nodded. “Yeah, that’s actually the advanced technique.” He gave Runt a fist bump and watched another rock hurtle off towards the water.