Down By the Water

Renee was getting very confused. "I don't watch any?" she said quietly, with a small frown. Trying to figure out what these cartoons Celeste was talking about was, and coming up at a blank. "That'd be nice," she said. "Maybe sometime."

"Perfect!" Celeste, grabbing one of Renee's arms and pulling her along as she skipped down the beach. "I can already tell that we are going to be fantastic friends! This will be great."

Renee was dragged along the beach by the skipping Celeste, which made it hard for her to keep up, before she wasn't skipping. Celeste was different to what she was used to, she wasn't used to this open enthusiasm even in children. Pureblood children tended to be quite reserved, especially around strangers. But Celeste's enthusiasm was contagious, even if Renee felt a little out of her depth, as the girl wasn't abiding by the social rules that Renee had grown up with.

"Do you like skipping?" Celeste asked. "I like skipping. I like skipping a lot. Mama says that it is okay to like skipping, as long as I am wearing shorts on under my dress, so I always wear shorts under dresses. I like dresses. Do you like dresses?"

It was a never end stream of questions. "I like dresses," she said with a nod. She owned more dresses and skirts than she owned shorts and pants. "I don't really skip," she added on afterwards.

"How can you not like skipping?" Celeste asked, sounding completely appalled. "Skipping is the best and I love it!" She let go of Renee's hand at last, twirling around. "Well, maybe not the best. But it's pretty close to being the best."

"Mama doesn't like me skipping," the girl said with a shrug. She hadn't minded it much when she was younger, but as she got older her mother preferred she walked around. "What would you say is the best then?" she asked, thinking that it was her turn to ask a couple of questions.

"Hmmm..." Celeste said, thinking hard. "The beach. The beach is best. Water and sand and meeting nice, new people! I like strangers. Mama sometimes warns me that strangers are not always good, but I always meet the nicest strangers on the beach."

Renee thought about it. "The beach is best," she agreed with a firm nod. "And travelling, I love travelling. It's nice going back and forth between France and England, though I miss the other one when I'm not there. Strangers are sometimes not good, depends on the strangers you meet."

"Do you meet a lot of strangers? Tell me more about England? What is your Mama like?" Celeste had questions sprouting from her head, and she was having trouble holding them all back.

"I meet lots of strangers," Renee said thinking of all the people her parents knew. "England is," she struggled to find words to describe England. "It's different," she said lamely, she added a couple more sentences about how England was different to France before she went onto the next question. "My Mama is, she's strict, but happy, and likes to teach me how to play music. And," she shrugged. "I dunno. What about your Mama?" she sort of wanted to push the attention off of her and onto Celeste.

Celeste made a face. "I don't think I would like your Mama very much. My Mama is not very strict at all. She is creative and smart and Papa says she is a spaz but I like her, because she is sweet and she spends lotsa time with me."

Renee wasn't sure if her Mama would like Celeste very much either, but she held her tongue, because that was rude. "Well, I like my Mama," she said, though Celeste's mother sounded quite nice too and she told the girl as such.

"What is your Papa like?"

"He's, oh, I don't know," she frowned slightly. "Why do you want to know anyway?"

"I'm just curious! I'm always curious. Maman says that it can be a bit rude sometimes, but I just can't help it! I want to know everything about everything," Celeste said.

"My Maman says the same thing, she doesn't like it when people are rude. Especially when I'm rude," she wrinkled her nose slightly.

"Yeah. Maman likes telling me lots of rules, but she rarely ever enforces them. Papa is the one who enforces the rules in my house, but usually, he lets me do what I want." Celeste smiled. "I love my parents."

"Both my parents enforce rules. Maman more so than Papa," she said with a nod. "I love my parents too," she added.

"Do you have any siblings?" Celeste asked. "I hear that people with siblings tend to have stricter parents."

"I have a brother, his name is Xavier, he's only a couple of months old. He's adorable," she smiled thinking of her little brother. "Do you have any siblings?" she asked curiously, and wondered if what the girl had said was true.

Celeste made a face. "I don't like babies very much. I don't have any siblings, which makes me happy. It means that Maman and Papa get to spend all their time with me, when they aren't working. What is your baby like? Maman says babies are loud and messy. Is Xavier loud and messy?"

"Xavier is very loud and messy," Renee said with a scrunched up nose. Thankfully her parents had put spells around her room so she wouldn't be woken in the middle of the night by the crying baby. "But he is adorable and I love him."

"That is good, then!" Celeste said, smiling enormously. "Maman always says that you don't need a lot of children, but you need to love the ones you've got. I think it is probably true of siblings, too."

Renee nodded. "That sounds like a good thought," she said. "And is probably true."