Dairine had ended up with a rainbow one piece that fit her perfectly. Apparently it wouldn't stretch either. That was good. She had put it on under her star wars T and some shorts. Now she was waiting for Roshaun with Nita, Carmela, and Kit. They were all going to transit together. They hadn't been waiting long when they heard the displaced air and then the back door open, revealing Roshaun. Hello's were briefly exchanged, before the spell was constructed.
"We're meeting Nolan in Hawaii," Kit explained, "because neither Nita or I really like to vacation on the Atlantic, and Hawaii has some great little-used beaches."
Dairine shrugged, "seems fair."
Within seconds they were in Hawaii. Ronan was already there. He and Carmela began instantly going over some of their chocolate distribution company plans. Nita and Kit were already ogling each other, and they were still in street clothes.
"Yup, I was right. Hard core 3rd wheeling," Dairine proclaimed.
Roshaun shot her an amused look, Nita rolled her eyes, and Carmela just gave her a knowing smile.
"Okay people. Stop being all couple-y and start having some fun! Sand castle building!"
"In teams!" added Carmela.
Dairine groaned.
The next hour was full of Nita and Kit's laughter as they built, as well as Ronan and Carmela's. As for Dairine and her partner, well…
"Dhairine, what are you doing? A castle looks nothing like, that and I should know, since I live in one!"
Basically, by the end, Nita and Kit had a castle that obviously won, Ronan and Carmela a simple Irish looking thing, and Dairine and Roshaun had a feeble attempt.
But only because you kept destroying it.
I destroyed it? I was simply telling you how to make it more realistic.
By making it barely more than a pile of sand!
They lapse into silence, annoyed. Nita begins passing out a picnic lunch, and everyone lounges around, eating in the warm sun. Which reminded Dairine.
"Neets did you bring sunscreen?"
Nita laughed, "per my usual pattern, no."
"Spot!" Dairine yelled, and he appeared. "Open a portal and grab me several bottles of that new sunscreen dad bought."
She had barely finished speaking before they landed in her hands. She drank a swig of water, no wizardry was without price, and then removed her shirt and shorts and slathered herself with it. As did everyone but Roshaun. And Carmela, but she was putting on suntan oil.
"I don't care if you are a sun king, you can still get burned, which I would be responsible for since you are on my planet. You do not want to go back home and have all your people look upon a king who has been burned to a crisp and suffered from skin cancer," Dairine informed him.
"These Callahan women," Ronan said sympathetically at Roshaun, and Dairine and Nita both glared at Ronan.
Roshaun gave Dairine a look, then, he too took off his normal clothing, and began to put on the sunscreen. Unfortunately, this left Dairine to look at the couples, who were pretending that they were not secretly trying to look at each other in swimsuits. Kit was practically drooling over Nita, and Dairine rolled her eyes in his direction. He didn't seem to notice.
"Don't we have to wait like 30 minutes before we go in the water now?" Nita asks.
Carmela, who had put on tanning oil instead of sunscreen, snorts, "if you're planning on actually swimming and not making the perfect tan."
Carmela was in a tiny red bikini, optimal for tanning. Ronan had on black swim trunks, Kit green and blue patterned ones, and Nita had on her favorite white two-piece. As for Roshaun, Dairine sneaked a quick glance at him. Brown swim bottom things. It was just her luck that Wellakhit did not wear some sort of top as well, now she would have to deal with him shirtless all day. She became aware that Nita was proposing a game of cards. This would be right up her alley.
They had only just explained the rules to everyone when a tourist happened upon them.
"Oh my I am sooo sorry to interrupt you lovely young couples' day at the beach, but I am ever so lost," said the apparently southern tourist woman.
"Actually-" Dairine began, but Nita cut her off, "You just go down that path for a ways and then...," Nita explained.
By the time the tourist lady was out of earshot, it had been about 45 minutes.
"Oh whatever, let's just go swimming, we can play cards later," Nita offers. Then, she and Kit are off racing towards the water.
Dairine sighed, realizing that this meant she could either go swimming or be stuck on land with the lovebirds Carmela and Ronan.
"Roshaun, you coming?" Dairine questions. Ronan gave the two them a look they were familiar with, particularly from him.
"Oh stop it Ronan," Dairine muttered.
"Gotcha Runt."
Dairine stuck her tongue out at him, "what Nita ever saw in you remains a mystery."
"I see plenty," added Carmela.
"Why thank you, favorite business partner," Ronan said with a gleam in his eye.
Dairine pretended to gag and then turned her back on them, heading for the water which Nita and Kit had already vanished into. If her suspicions were correct, they had swam out a ways, then probably used wizardry to go farther. Right about now they would be below the surface in some sort of force field. Dairine allowed herself a brief picture of that before being utterly disgusted.
"Well that is certainly an interesting image," Roshaun teased.
"You're still hearing me think?"
"Well, if you consider everything, really we have only known each other for approximately two of your people's months, so it is not that surprising," Roshaun explained.
Dairine quickly began shielding her thoughts. "Yeah, wow, it really has only been about 2 months, hasn't it? I rescued you a bit after a full year of you being in the sun, and that was, wow, just a bit over a month ago now. Before that, about 4 weeks."
They had been wading out into the water this whole time, and as the conversation ceased, the silence became awkward. The water was only up to about Dairine's navel, which left all of the shirtless Roshaun out of the water. Dairine was beginning to seriously regret inviting him. She turned towards shore, and she could still just barely see Ronan's face. He was watching them. Dairine shot him a look, to which he raised some suggestive eyebrows.
"Damn you, Ronan!" Dairine yelled towards him.
Roshaun put up his eyebrows in that way of his, "language, Miss."
"Oh, not you too!" Dairine exploded and dived into the water as a distraction.
Roshaun was kind enough to 'send' her his laughter.
Dairine swam for a ways underwater, but eventually had to come up to breathe. When she did, she surfaced into a wave, and accidentally swallowed the ocean water. She gagged and the coughed for while, all under Roshaun's amused eye. This day was really going well.
"What was it that Ronan did to make you so angry?" Roshaun asked.
Dang. This was really a conversation she did not want to be having right now, after all they had briefly touched on the subject before. However, that was on the Mobiles planet, they had both been fully clothed and also had not been in the ocean.
She gave a weak laugh, "oh, you know Ronan. Isn't this water very, uh, nice and ocean-y?"
She sounded pathetic even to herself.
"Oh, yes," Roshaun nodded skeptically, "very ocean-y." Dairine winced.
She spoke the words of a quick wizardry and made herself a hard patch of water to sit on, just enough under the surface that up to her navel would be under water. Roshaun followed suit, and then offered her a lollipop from his seemingly endless supply. She gratefully accepted, and the tension between them loosened somewhat. It was so much better to have somewhere to sit and something to do while they talked instead of just standing awkwardly in the water. Dairine busied herself with swinging her legs under the water.
"What is it that Ronan did?"
"Um."
"Dhairine, I know you well enough to know when you are avoiding something," Roshaun explained to her.
"Oh fine. He was being, uh, suggestive," Dairine used what she hoped was the correct word in the Speech for the English word, and hoped that Roshaun did not misinterpret it.
The expression on his face was briefly shocked and Dairine felt him placing mental walls. Not that she blamed him. She had practically built a fortress. The silence had once more become awkward.
Then, a sigh, "Ronan would not be alone."
Another sigh, "tell me about it. If one more of your people asks if I plan to seize the throne of Wellakh through intimate means, I cannot speak for the consequences."
A wince, "I am rather sorry about that."
"Yeah, well I should have figured, based off my first conversation with Nelaid. And all the crap Nita went through with everyone about her and Kit being friends. Even though they are practically attached at the hip and head."
"Hip and head?"
"Well in my world be usually say hip, but I added the head part because they can hear each other think, oh nevermind."
"So then, they have always been destined for each other?"
"Oh, stop it with destiny. Actually, back all that time ago when I was twelve, Nita and Ronan had a thing going. Until Nita saw the One's Champion inside Ronan, which kinda ruined that."
"Interesting. And what about you?"
"Oh well," Dairine was horrified to find herself blushing. She thought quickly of an answer she could safely say in the speech, as saying that she was never attracted to no men ever would be a lie, and saying she wasn't attracted to anyone right now would be a lie. "Um I have never been that sort of a way with anyone." A safe enough reply, and one that was completely true, but vague. "Your turn."
"The same for me."
"Oh."
The silence was once more awkward. Dairine squirmed a bit on her patch of hardened water. Then, a lollipop went Crunch!, and Roshaun broke the silence.
She gave him a look, "Roshaun!" Secretly, though, she was glad, it broke the tension in a way that was comfortable for them. "You will get cavities. It's only a matter of time."
"My people do not have such things."
"Because they don't have much in the way of sugary food!"
He gave her a skeptical look.
"Oh well whatever. I'm going back to shore to see about that card game maybe I can convince them to play poker."
And with that Dairine dove into the water, swimming towards shore.
