Laima stared at the elf. She had no doubt about it-- that was Pide.
-- "Little boy."
She didn’t give a damn if paying for the dunk tank was helping him in any way. Hell, she would pay him loads if he was willing to swim in a tank of crabs and get pinched into oblivion.
“His name’s Pide, right?” She looked at the less bratty elf, keeping her temper in check. Removing some of the money from her pouch, she handed it to Paytel: What remained in it was 30,200 gold. Enough for 3 crabs and 6 attempts. If she hit him early, then they could just keep the extra hundred.
“Yes, that is my brother, Pide,” Paytel said as he was given the gold pouch. In the background, Pide was beginning to throw out insults at her. “Have you met him before…” He trailed off as he opened the bag. At first sight, he could tell it was already more than double of what they had made earlier today. Paytel shut his mouth in astonishment and simply turned around to put it away.
“...How much was in there?” Frankly, he was a bit too lazy to count it all.
Confirmation was all she needed. Ignoring whatever other insults Pide slung, she looked at the other man.
“Thirty-thousand, two hundred. And no, we haven’t met before.” Laima paused. How would she exactly explain her distaste for him? Well, whatever. “I was going to bring Mistreil to the promenade, but he apparently beat me to the punch by a few hours.”
Oh. Prom. The reminder had thrown back so many mixed feelings at him. “Sorry to hear that,” Paytel simply said. It really was a shame that Pide had to go instead of this girl, but he felt like he wasn’t really in a position to apologize for it any more than he just did.
Paytel picked up the bucket of crabs dropped three of them into the tank, one by one. “You fucking dyke,” Pide yelled out, “You’re wasting your money!” Paytel then handed the girl six sandbags and positioned her on the mat placed in front of him, as the set distance the player had to throw the bags at. said, “If you hit the target in your first three tries, you win the prize, okay? Good luck.” He stepped out of her way.
You hit the target right in the center, and Pide falls to his doom. He gets bitten by the crabs in the tank. Wrecked.
Paytel congratulates you and hands you a raffle doll as a prize. It is an Ishiki doll. Behind him, you see Pide struggling to get back onto his seat. He slips a little, and you can see the crabs still attached to him, but once he’s back on the chair, he picks them off and curses you quite excessively.
You decide that you are ten times cooler than this fucker and he doesn’t deserve any more of your attention. You take your leave. Swag.
“You don’t seem so damn straight either!” She retorted, throwing the bag. Her aim had never been very good, but surprisingly, she hit the target. Satisfaction quelled her emotions as she received a doll from Paytel. She simply left afterwards, refusing to be provoked any further-- she was in far too good of a mood. Perhaps this calm would let her brain function properly around Mistreil.
"Labentis?" Mistreil watched as the crow dropped some materials, as well as a letter from Laima. Something about "meeting someone she didn't expect to see" and "hopefully she'd be back soon, but here are some materials for the sandcastle in case she wasn't".
Well, at least it wasn't her fault. Probably.
The girl stared at the sand for a while and the materials. Lots of popsicles, cotton candy and... other food. Cotton candy was sort of like clouds, so... A castle in the clouds? Suddenly, inspiration hit her: Jack and the Beanstalk!
And thus she began building, using a bit of magic to help her keep the land stable. As she worked, she devoured the popsicles-- for Jack's house, of course. Grabbing a few leaves from nearby palm trees, she created the beanstalk and it's castle-- but she didn't really want to put the cotton candy on the sand. What a waste... She'd need something to block it.
As she thought about it, she made the 'goose that laid golden eggs' and placed it on a lemon, also building Jack's house and the fence. After a while, she noticed the lettuce and placed that to protect the cotton candy, which she aptly blended to make a cloud.
Ta-da! Placing the raffle dolls she received, her creation was finished: Oonthe was the giant, Ishiki was Jack and Milreaf was Jack's mom! Hooray! All she had to do was wait for judging and for Laima... Wherever she was.
--- Laima's Side
Eavesdropping, she overheard some singing. He wasn't bad, but she didn't want to admit it. After a while, she noticed his twin return to the booth-- so one of them really was "Pide".
10,000 gold for a crab. 100 gold to try and dunk him. She had 33,200 gold left.
It would be well worth it. She moved a bit closer, but figured she should probably wait for the blue-haired man in front of her to finish whatever he was doing.
Mistreil returned to her friends in time for the sandcastle building contest, Ishiki doll in hand. As soon as she reached them however, Laima pulled her away, much to the girl’s confusion.
“Laima?”
“We’re splitting into teams-- Those two against us! Let’s go.” The maid explained, dragging her away. Turning to face Guede, she stuck her tongue out-- a very unusual gesture coming from her.
“O-okay… Good luck, Arcelle! Guede!” Mistreil cheered them on, though sort of confused.
Laima was about to retort, telling the red haired girl not to wish them luck, but decided to ignore it. Hopefully this would earn both herself points with Mistreil and Guede points with Arcelle.
After a few minutes of walking, the red haired milletian looked at her friend. "Laima? We're at the other end of the beach..."
"R-Right." A little embarrassed, Laima released her hand. "I-I guess we should start."
"...? Laima, are you oka--"
"--! Ah. We need shovels and buckets and stuff. I-I'll be back. Don't worry. Just start thinking of ideas or something!" Shoving the raffle dolls into her arms, Laima quickly got up and walked away. Her brain was quickly becoming a mess. 'Damn. Mistreil looked cute holding that doll near the setting sun. Too cute. I'm way too nervous. This is bad.'
As Mistreil was left to contemplate whether she did something wrong, Laima headed to the booths. Shovels, buckets, some cute gimmicks they might use... She bought quite a few things until a certain stand caught her eye. A dunk tank. Inside it was an elf. Light purple hair, looked and sounded like a complete jerk. Sort of hot. He more or less matched Guede's description, although he was supposed to have a twin or something. It... wouldn't hurt to hang around and listen for a while though. If he really was 'Pide', then...
Well, she had around 30,000 gold left. It would be well worth it. It'd be bad to make Mistreil wait more, so she quickly wrote a letter and sent Labentis, their crow, to deliver it and their materials.
"Hello there! Would you like to have a try at the dunk tank? Only 100 gold!" one of the elves called out to them.
Byopia looked up at Umbra, finally realizing what her intentions were.
"Oh. She's taking her anger out at this poor elf instead of me."
He looked over at a bucket with a sign that said "Donate 10,000 gold to add a crab to the tank", which Umbra would surely do if she had the money. Or the patience to torture someone slowly.
Umbra pulled out the bag of gold they had packed into the bag earlier and plucked out 100 gold and handed it to the elf outside of the tank.
"Yeah sure why the hell not."
"Um, I'm gonna head on over to get some food, so enjoy yourself, Umbra," Byopia quickly announced, walking away quickly to avoid a very pissed off Umbra.
---------------
"Maybe I'll get some ice cream. I haven't had any ever since I came to Erinn, and I didn't eat a lot of it before I came to Erinn," Byopia pondered, walking on over to the ice cream booth.
When he reached the stand, he saw several people crowded around, presumably just chatting.
"I'll just stick around here. Not like Umbra needs me to be around her as she's letting out her rage," he thought over as he ordered a strawberry ice cream.
While waiting for his order, he looked at the small group and inspected each person.
A girl with metal wings, a pretty normal looking man with long black hair, and... a slightly familiar looking disheveled man in a dusty suit.
He grabbed the cone of strawberry ice cream, and walked up to Mr. Familiar-Looking.
"Have I met you before?" he asked, completely ignoring Ms. Metal-Wings and Mr. Normal-Looking. He didn't even notice the stench until after he spoke.
As Umbra was scrubbing her hair with saltwater, she felt someone pat her on the back.
Looking behind her, her head sopping wet, she saw the host of the surfing contest hand her a... doll.
A consolation prize? Perhaps he saw the seagull take a shit on her head. Umbra grumbled something incoherently, out of exasperation, and grabbed the doll from him with her sand encrusted hand.
She watched as he walked off, then resumed to washing her hair.
"This should probably be enough."
Umbra stood up to look for Byopia, abandoning her surfboard on the sand (shame on you, Umbra).
---------------
"Uh, sure?" the blond man answered Byopia, sounding a little bit puzzled, and handed him the box of cards.
Before Byopia could advertise his business or even say thanks, the man walked off, and Byopia sulked a little bit.
"I let a customer slip through my hands..."
He put the deck back into the bag, taking care to avoid the gaping hole in the bottom, and clutched the bag in a way so nothing would fall out.
When he started to walk back to the beach, he noticed Umbra making her way over to his direction, and started to wave his hands
"Umbraaaa! Over heeeere!"
He was overjoyed to see her come back, so he would find out what happened during the surfing, and he knew she could repair the bag.
As she approached, Byopia noticed she had a rather... murderous look on her weary face.
"You're... okay right?" he asked hesitantly.
"Do I look okay?" she snapped back.
"Soooo what happened? Was it fun?"
"Yeah, I caught a wave. And then a seagull used my head as a toilet."
He had to stifle a laugh, otherwise she would probably snap one of his limbs.
"Hey, there's a hole in the bag. You can fix it can't you?" he prodded her, remembering how she was fairly skilled with her hands.
"Yeah. Get my tailoring kit from out of there."
They both sat down on the sand, and as Byopia took out the small kit, Umbra let down her mint green hair, which was usually tied up in a ponytail with two curled bunches on the side. Now, it was stringy and coated with salt and sand.
[Umbra's hair will be down for the remainder of the event]
As Umbra patched up the hole, Byopia watched the people on the beach. He noticed two people and a dragon with an ice coated wing, but he didn't feel like getting up to interact with them.
"Hey let's go to more of the booths when you're done alright?" Byopia suggested out loud.
"I guess."
Byopia smiled a bit, feeling a bit glad that Umbra was willing to be more outgoing today.
After Umbra finished up patching the hole, they stood up and walked on over to the area with booths.
"Go wherever you want," Byopia said. He felt a little bit sorry that Umbra had to go through an ordeal he signed her up for.
She walked over to the dunk tank, where there stood a lavender haired elf and an identical elf sitting inside the tank, obviously very pissed. Standing next to the elf was the blond man from earlier.
[TLDR; They hang in Emain Macha and then Paytel brings Yasu to her home.]
“You’re amazing in bed,”
She had been married before, but she never consumed her marriage with him, and the fact of having sex with someone she just met not even a day prior to, just seems like a nightmare. She shouldn’t have drank all those bottles. She surely regretted it. There was no way she could ignore this man now. Even though she absolutely hated him, she had no reason to ignore him now. Even less if she had sex with him. She got up and looked around for her clothes, putting them on before Paytel finished with the bathroom. They were a bit moist. Why? Perhaps it rained yesterday. It wasn’t comfortable but she did not want to be naked around him and she didn’t have any other clothes.
She heard the door open.
Paytel stepped out of the bathroom fully clothed, wearing the oriental robe he always wore. He had left his prom outfit crumpled on ground since it was still wet from the night before, and wherever he had stored the spare clothes from was some kind of strange milletian secret.
He looked over at Yasu, but she was just looking down at the sheets. She had put on her dress from the night before, but considering how wet his own clothes were, she must not have been comfortable. She looked absolutely devastated by what he had said - and, kind of... shocked. He was certain she wasn’t willing to talk to him, let alone know him, any longer.
Well, she never wanted to know him, he supposed. But, he could fix that.
Paytel hesitated for a second, considering that he should perhaps give her something else to wear. But he decided not to. He wanted the full effect of leaving.
Without saying anything, he grabbed the keys on the nightstand and walked out the resort room door.
Trying not to look a Paytel, she heard the door open and then close. She turned around to notice that he had left. Without saying a word, she did not knew where he was going, nor if he was coming back.
She looked around for some paper and ink. After finding some, she started writing a letter to her maid, Okashi. She simply wanted to let her know that she might be home a bit late today; she could not simply leave immediately after what happened here. She told her to let Suppai know that she will not require him to pick her up, she will walk home through the moon gates.
After carefully writing the letter in her delicate printing, she folded it and put it into an envelop. She then grabbed a candle from last night and light it up with a firebolt spell. She waited for the candle to melt a bit and dripped some wax on the letter to seal it. After so, she signed it. She opened the window and noticed the area was damp; it probably rained. She then whistled for an owl. She attached the letter to the owl’s leg and then told him where to go.
A little while had passed since she started writing the letter. Paytel was not back, she was a bit stressed about what to do. She knew she had to face him one way or another. She sat down and then waited for him.
Realising he might never come back, she started feeling a bit dizzy and decided to lay down. She must of be getting a fever from yesterday, judging by her wet clothes, she probably was in the rain. Prideful as ever, she just decided to ignore it and fell asleep quickly on the bed.
It had been a while. Paytel stood outside of their resort room door, the key in one hand, and a plate of fish in the other. He took his sweet time eating the breakfast that the resort was offering that morning, since it was free… and delicious… and not consisting of forest snake or spider meat. The fish was for Yasu; he hoped that, since she was a cat girl, she might like it. He had no idea. If she didn’t, maybe she’d appreciate the thought - although he wasn’t on her good side enough for that to work.
“...I just don’t want to go home,” he sighed. He rested his head on the door for a minute before finally opening it.
Yasu was still there, sleeping on the bed. He closed the door behind him and came over to the bed. He nudged her softly to wake her up. “Hey… Good morning, Yasu. I brought you some breakfast.”
Something was poking her. She slowly woke up only to look up. It was Paytel. “Oh sh-” She quickly sat up straight and greeted him. “Oh hi, you’re.. back,” She was obviously nervous around him. She got up and looked around. She saw the meal sitting on a table. Fish. “Oh.. thanks, I like fish,” She sat at the table and started to eat.
Paytel was simply sitting on the other end and looking at her eat. She didn’t really knew what to say. She could feel his stare on her. She started eating a bit faster, not rushing it but still trying to be quicker. It was quiet. She had to prompt something. She then noticed he had changed clothes.
“Ah, you got yourself some spare clothes?” she said as she looked on the ground to see his prom outfit from last night. She didn’t knew what to say.. She wanted to ask about last night but she did not dare to.
He blinked. He shouldn’t have just sat there and watched her eat. He didn’t realize he must have made her uncomfortable, since she had started to eat a bit faster. “Oh.. Yes. I noticed you’re still wearing your dress from last night. It must not be comfortable to wear; if you’d like, I can let you borrow something of mine.”
Finishing her plate, Yasu looked up as he spoke. “Ah.. do you have anything that would uhm.. fit me?” she said, as she looked at him. Perhaps he had good intentions, perhaps not, but until now he seemed different than the man she had met at the restaurant the day before. She might aswell get to know him, since they had such an intimate night. They couldn’t stay in the hotel room the whole day either.
“Let me borrow something and after that we can go out and I can buy myself some clothes.. if you don’t mind,”
He couldn’t help but make a face. Was she careless enough with her money to be able to just buy something new like that? Or was she just rich enough? It was so different from the way he and his brother lived - scrounging up money for days just to run and buy something in the city. It took planning, but this felt a little careless. It didn’t matter, anyway. It was Yasu’s money.
“I don’t have anything that will fit you, but it’ll cover you enough until you find something else, I suppose.” He went ahead and pulled out his trinity wear from his logic-defying milletian inventory and handed it to her.
“Thanks,” she grabbed the clothes and went to the bathroom. She took off the wet, sticky dress off her body. Yasu had to dry herself a bit before putting on the trinity wear. She couldn’t find her underwear anywhere and didn’t have a bra.. this was quite embarrassing. She tied up the belt around her waist really tight so that nothing could move. The outfit was really big at the shoulders and was almost dragging on the floor. Her inner fashionista was simply crying for help.
She walked out of the bathroom, not really enjoying the outfit. At least it wasn’t wet and uncomfortable, but she would have preferred something else for sure. “Should we go now?” she prompted Paytel.
Yasu came out of the bathroom, looking a little bit pitiful in his clothes. It didn’t flatter her body at all. It didn’t really matter to him, though. She was still beautiful. “Should we go now?” She said. “...Yes. As long as we have everything we need.” Paytel looked around the room, picking him both his still damp prom outfit and hers, and then walked towards the door. Yasu followed him. He held the door open for her and they left the resort.
Now outside of the resort, Paytel looked around. They were in a town, apparently called Emain Macha. He was there with Pide just yesterday, he remembered, but they never came to this part of town. Frankly, he had no idea where he was. He looked at Yasu and said, “Wherever you need to go I can take you there. I do have a mount…” He trailed off.
Paytel was very polite with her lately, she felt like he was a different man. Leaving the resort, she noticed she was still in Emain Macha. This was good, she knew the area. Paytel told her that he had a mount, which was good. “I need to go to the Tailor, do you know where she is? If not, I can always lead.” She came here often before she moved to Tara, this area was very familiar. “It shouldn’t be too far away,”
“Okay,” he said. It was lucky that Yasu knew her way around her. She seemed like a rich city girl, anyways. Promptly, a brown spotted horse magically appeared before them. It stood still as Paytel mounted it. He held out his hand to Yasu to help her get on. “Just tell me which way the tailor is.”
With the help of Paytel, she mounted the horse. Sitting in front of him, she directed him towards the town square then the tailor. Once at Ailionoa’s shop, Yasu and Paytel got off the horse. Yasu spoke a moment with Ailionoa, requesting a dress. She had no time to make something up so she just bought a pre-made dress in white. She whispered to Ailionoa and asked if she had any underwears.. The tailor chuckled and said yes. She left for a moment and came back with a little bag. “Do you have any rooms in which I could change?” Ailionoa nodded and directed Yasu towards a dressing room.
There, she finally changed into a cute ruffled skirt, nothing too fancy. She gave Ailionoa the gold and then approached Paytel. “Is there anything you need, Paytel?” she asked as she hands his clothes back.
“Hm?” Paytel still wondered how she was about to just buy something on a whim, and then ask if he needed something. He didn’t even have money. “I’ll be fine…” He looked her up and down. She was so attractive; he wanted to hold her again. But instead, he just decided to take her home. He could just talk to her again another time, especially since he figured he must have done enough to her last night.
“I’ll just take you home now, if that’s alright with you.”
“Are you sure? I live all the way in Tara,” she replied. It was quite far from here. She felt bad that she couldn't do anything for him, he was quite nice for the small time they've spent together, while she was sober at least. She took a moment to look at him carefully, he was really good looking actually.. too bad she did not notice until now. Their eyes met and Yasu quickly stopped looking at him. “How embarrassing, hopefully he does not get any ideas..” she thought. She could feel herself blush a bit, and was pondering why she was even blushing. This was simply awkward.
“..let’s head to Tara then,”
“Are you sure? I live all the way in Tara,” she said. Where the fuck is Tara? It was sort of embarrassing that he didn't know this continent much at all. Since Uladh was a really crowded region, I guess she assumed that he did know. Paytel waited for her to say something else - like a hint for where that might be. But she didn’t say anything. He looked down at her and she turned away.
Was she just looking at him?
“...let’s head to Tara then,” she finished. “Alright,” he said. They got back on Adurelo. “...Which way is Tara?” Paytel reluctantly asked.
Yasu had to give directions, again, which was embarrassing, needless to say.
Tara was a huge city as well. How did he not know about its existence? It was absolutely stunning - he had never seen so many tall buildings so close together, so many people in one place. It was noon, and the streetlamps were not lit but they gleamed in the sunlight. The town was very clean and wealthy too. He regretted having never seen it before. He could tell that Yasu was indeed a rich girl, as if she wasn't already desirable…
They had finally arrived at Yasu’s house, a nice mansion a bit away from town. There was cherry blossom trees surrounding it. It was beautiful, fancy. Paytel realized how different their living situations were. He lived in a place completely different from Tara for all his life - the forest, uncivilized, crawling with all kinds of different creatures and fomors. It was beautiful, too, but in a completely different sense.
He unsummoned his unicorn and walked her to the door. Once at her door, he said, “I guess this is where we say goodbye.” For now. “Thank you…” for spending the night. He almost finished that sentence, but he decided it was best he didn’t say that.
Paytel gave Yasu her prom outfit. They then exchanged a very awkward goodbye. As Yasu was opening her door, she could see Paytel warping. He probably lived in Iria, no doubts, he was an elf after all. She went inside her house and sighed. It was quite a night, she probably couldn’t forget about it even if she wanted to.
The birds were singing as the sun raised up; it was morning already. Yasu slowly opened her eyes. She was laying in a bed full of fluffy red sheets, naked. Which was not unusual. Not noticing the man laying right besides her, she suddenly got up. Getting up, she could feel her head pound and her bladder about to explode. She quickly ran to the bathroom and sat down on the throne. “Man.. I shouldn’t have drank so much..” she thought to herself. She wasn’t feeling sick, her head was simply pounding.
Perhaps a shower would of made her feel better. She turned the water on and let it run for awhile, enough to get warm. She then stepped into the tub, drew the curtains and turned on the shower. Noticing that her legs weren’t so strong, she closed the shower after rubbing herself and then sat in a bubble bath.
She had no idea of what happened last night.. She could only recollect ordering booze. Why did she even do that? Ah, she knew why. It was because he never showed up. Feeling a bit depressed, she let herself slowly slip deeper into the tub, covering her whole body and a bit of her face. She regretted going. She didn’t see him, she got super wasted and now she doesn’t remember a thing.
Enough was enough, Yasu got out of the tub and took a towel to dry herself. Looking at the mirror, she noticed the bruise on her neck. “Did I hurt myself?” she softly spoke. She then just ignored it and dried her ears, followed by her hair.
Opening the door, barely covering herself, she walked out, looking at the ground. She was pretty focused on getting home until she heard a voice.
“Morning Yasu,” she looked up and saw Paytel, naked in bed.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY ROOM?” she yelled at the top of her lungs.
... Strange. Pide's tone had strangely gone soft. Cautiously, she took the key and opened the door. Meanwhile, the two were flirting or something-- she didn't really understand, but if it cheered him up a bit, that would be good. She didn't really want to get involved in whatever play they were going to participate in, though she couldn't help but curiously listen to them.
Walking into the bathroom, she took a towel and dried herself off a bit, taking off the ribbon that wrapped her waist as well as her corsage. She stared at the flower that she had removed from her wrist for a little while, fragments of the pair's conversation sticking to her.
Princess.
Pide wanted to be treated like a princess? She didn't really understand that wish very well. Being coddled, protected, unable to do anything-- all you could do was watch and listen. It was like being a prisoner... But maybe that's what some people wanted: To have a small world. That sounded romantic in a sense, she supposed. Maybe she was just a little tired of it-- of being protected all the time.
Well, speculation rarely brought her anywhere. Maybe she could ask later. She removed the outer layers of her dress-- they were drenched, and she didn't really want it to soak through to the rest. Taking a seat on the couch in the main room, she looked at Pide and the other man.
"You two should get dried off... And Pide, you should get washed up. I'll bandage you up afterwards, so..." Her voice trailed off a bit.
