"No way! Wait, did you really?" Hitch stared at her friend in complete disbelief, attempting to process what she just saw or rather heard. "Annieeee, you finally grew up! My brooch is really working on you, I fricking told you."
"Shut up." the short blonde hissed and stepped closer to her, attempting to shut her up by covering her mouth, but Hitch still somehow managed to maneuver away from Annie's approach. The pregnant lady did, in fact, have some unusual reflexes. Even so, Annie didn't relent in her efforts to silence her gleeful pal. Like, for real? The wonderboy was only a few steps away! The worst part was that Armin gave a simper, indicating that he had heard them exchange words. Annie didn't know where to look at this point because her frustration was palpable. Hiding under a rock or in a pile of sand sounded desirable.
"I'll leave you two to have fun there," the young man was the first to speak up, a cheeky grin now turning into a soft beam, which was delivered to both women, but mostly to the woman he planned to go on a date with (if that wasn't obvious enough). "Annie," he said to the shorter girl, her gaze fixed on the stone-paved path. "I'll meet you at the agreed-upon location."
He submerged himself in a sea of people with a short wave of his hand, leaving the pair alone. Annie didn't dare to look at the woman next to her - she could definitely feel Hitch's grin forming and an upcoming teasing session, but it didn't matter.
What mattered was that a glass of kvass, a zwiefacher dance session, and some small talk had landed her on a date with a seemingly kind, young, and subjectively beautiful man.
But that didn't stop her from being concerned. Yes, she had a weapon. She didn't leave the house without her little penny knife, but that wasn't the main issue. It had to be her father. A long scolding and reproaching would be unavoidable if he found out about his daughter's daring dates outside of their small household. Annie, on the other hand, was willing to take a risk if it meant turning her life into something better, something that didn't revolve solely around the tavern's well-being.
The girls departed their ways, once Annie's friend insisted she must get some rest back at home before the date for whatever reason. Annie wasn't mad about this decision. She had a chance to fix the problem that was bugging her before - about not being a good daughter. It may have sounded like an exaggeration but the young woman had indeed felt guilty about not being good enough for her Father. But now she wanted to be better for him, to prove that she understood her place in the household, to show she was grateful to the man who raised her. So, once she returned back home, she went straight to work she didn't do earlier - she fed the hens and hares with their lunch, scooped off all the droppings and made sure that the stalls were clean. She also collected the eggs into the wicker basket and finally returned to their house. She was halfway done with what she planned…
The late lunch (or dinner, depending on when the Father would return) was finished and Annie allowed herself to just sit down by the dining table and just relax her muscles. Tomorrow's going to be a long day… or night, to be exact. The same noise, the demands for alcoholic beverages, an awful drunktard choir… the innkeeper's daughter didn't even want to think about all of that. Maybe it was a bad idea to agree to go on a date. She could've stayed in instead and had taken care of their house - that time would be spent more productively. On the other hand, she made a promise to meet up with a wonderboy. And if she promised something, she always kept her word no matter what.
"Midnattmorder… you better not ruin my date." Annie leaned back into the chair and stretched out her arms before turning to the side to look at the clock. There was still a little bit of time to spare. With that fact in mind, the innkeeper's daughter got up and decided to finish her chores.
The pair later on had met where they planned it out - right by the neighbourhood pasture, between the town and Annie's home. At the appointed time of the meeting, they crossed paths and proceeded to the wise trail that led them through the hills besides the pasture. As the girl grew up there, she knew the territory fairly. If they decided to continue walking on this chosen path, they would reach the birch grove in no time, circle the logging spot and lead to the village on the south. If they turned to walk to the right when they would reach the last pasture fence, it would lead to the seaport and the furthest spots where mostly the smaller ships have been parked. Armin has stated before that he's a traveller… but does he really know where he's going now?
"So where's that spot you were talking about?" This time, Annie was the one who initiated the talk.
"One path to the beach, you'll see. Are you sure you didn't need a jacket? You can catch a cold, the wind is coming from the north." Armin replied softly and Annie could see with her peripheral vision that now he was looking at her.
"I'll be alright, don't worry about it."
"If you say so." The boy chose the right path and walked ahead of the innkeeper's daughter, her following him from behind.
"Why did you want to go out with me? If you will say that it's because of kvass or how we danced, I won't believe that."
The wonder boy couldn't help but smile at her words, despite the confusion in her question.
"I would ask you a similar thing, Annie - why did you agree to go out with me if the only thing I did was to drink the kvass you offered?" he inquired but when he spotted her looking down, he just laughed softly and shook his head. "No need to answer that, don't worry. I just thought that you must be strong if you were able to work in such a dreadful environment. You definitely heard many interesting tales there that we could discuss. And you seem like a fun type to hangout with."
"So you have a thing for working ladies in the taverns?" Annie ignored the last statement and continued speaking. The only stories she has heard were about the guests' mistresses and the ongoing debates about Midnattmorder.
"You may take it as a yes." Armin parted the bush branches like curtains and let Annie walk ahead of him, which she quickly did.
Armin did indeed have navigated through the area well enough - just as planned before, they were now standing by the clearing with the view into the marine waters. The nightfall has already been painted in warm pastels of reds and yellows, the highest points of the sky revealing twinkling stars and other subjects of unknown skies. The ships in the endless horizon were covering the sun, mainly moving towards the seaport. The pair stepped on the hill which separated the beach and the forest, like two whole different worlds which yet stayed close to each other. The only border which kept them apart were the high stems of grass and the cliff itself. Annie, with her dress squeezed in her grip, stepped just a bit closer to the edge of the slope and let the soft wind play with her clothing's folds.
"Let's sit there." the girl suggested and looked down at the sand her feet were sinking in.
"Sure. Ah, wait," Armin stepped over and received a weird look from his date, when he started taking off his jacket but it all made sense when he placed it down on the sand, spreading it to the sides as much as he could. "There. Uh… sit on it."
Annie collected her dress in front of her and settled down on a spot prepared for her. It's not like his jacket protected her dress from the sand, but the gesture itself has warmed the woman's heart a little bit.
"So you travel all of your life and take the girls for sunset dates by the beach?"
"Come on, Annie, you don't need to be so suspicious of me." Armin laughed and flopped down on the sand next to the lady. "Actually, you're the first person to accompany me there. And it's not like I planned on bringing a lot of ladies on a date in the first place."
"Oh, is that really true?" Annie averted her gaze and began playing with the sand, scooping up a handful and tossing it back onto the ground. She needed to stop thinking that any well-mannered man was a womaniser. And perhaps she shouldn't take it all so seriously? Perhaps he just wanted to be friends, as she was with her male coworkers.
"Yeah. So, what drew you into the tavern? You don't appear to be the type to enjoy being tipped by drunkards."
Instantly, Annie remembered the words from the previous night when this guy approached her. You don't seem like you really belong here. Just a simple observation, yet it went completely over her mind.
"It's not like it was my decision, really. My father owns that place. He has kept me as a manager and the bartender for years now, so I don't think I would really want to alter my career anytime soon."
"Wow, you surely are a tough one if you managed to handle the guests from such a young age. Your father must be immensely honored to have such a daughter like you." Armin smiled and tilted his head to look at his date, but seeing the same tension building up in her pale face, he continued before she could speak up. "Perhaps, if you think the tavern doesn't have a genuine place in your heart, you'll wander around the places like I do, eventually finding your true duty and a place you truly belong."
Everything sounded poetic and wise, but he was mistaken at some point. Annie just shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment before speaking up,
"I don't have a brother or husband to travel with, as you can see. I might need to rely on my fate or father for my future."
"Oh? And why so?"
"You… do understand a woman cannot just travel alone like you, right?"
"Wait, for real?"
The pair of lost souls stared at each other in bewilderment, not being able to take in the information they've just shared.
"You do understand we can't travel without being accompanied, right?"
"I never… considered it to be the case, I apologise, Annie. I just assumed that you're a strong lady who wouldn't have any problem looking for your own fate without any fear."
The innkeeper's daughter shook her head and, by the time she decided to stare back up at Armin, her quick, yet somehow elegant move of her head was interrupted by the clash of the wind right into their backs. She hunched against the gust but right before her realisation, her bergere hat literally got blown away from her head, clashing into the sandy rocks and rolling off a cliff into the beach, bouncing like an unusually shaped ball.
"You truly are a foreigner, Armin." The girl collected the folds of her dress and was about to stir on her feet, until Armin caught her in a mid-act and pushed her down by her shoulder.
"Wait, I'll get back your hat, just stay here!"
The guy rushed down the hill, sliding down the steep area as carefully as he could, but it didn't stop his legs from twirling up and causing him to lose balance. A second after and the wonderboy was now face planting the sand. Everything happened so quickly that before Annie could ask if Armin was hurt or anything, he got up, sand-covered, and continued chasing the hat. That's when the innkeeper's daughter realised she couldn't just sit there and watch her date from up the hill run after her hat, which had been carried around by the wind.
"Armin," she called out to the wonderboy once she was back on her feet, then took his jacket into her arms and slowly began walking down to the beach after discovering a less steep path that led there. By that time, Armin has already fallen down dramatically, capturing the missing hat by laying down on it. "You better not tell me that you twisted your ankle…"
Armin, with a muffled huff, rolled to lay down on his back. But, instead of a pained grimace, Annie received a big grin and two hands holding her caught bergere.
"You shouldn't have run down there like that; you may have been hurt." The girl gazed down at him, intending to give him a serious look, but she couldn't help but smile at his goofy grin. It was silly, but also endearing and charming. What a mysterious boy he truly was.
"It's okay, just put an elastic on or bobby pins, so you wouldn't lose it again, okay?"
"For sure."
Armin was quickly raised to his feet with a quick grip on his hand, and they exchanged the belongings they were carrying. The vicenarians' smiles didn't fade away. Rather, they simply became larger and more genuine. They had only known each other for a few days, but sharing the moments together, acting without regard for decorum, and not worrying about whether Father would object to such an amity just felt right. It felt familiar, like two different souls from different backgrounds and their own life stories fit each other like two pieces of puzzle. Maybe it was too soon to speculate whether they'll be able to stay on the same friendly grounds but for now, Annie thought about trying to open up for someone she doesn't know but just feels right to be with. Life was full of surprises, that's for sure. And Midnattmorder wasn't screwing up the date. This birthday wasn't bad, after all.
The pair walked along the beach for a while, bidding farewell to the sun and greeting the airglow, which now dominated the sky. They talked a lot about life, the headlines of the scientists' manuscripts which they read in their free time. That boy, who spent half of his time bending down and collecting stones with various imprints, was actually a lot more talkative than Annie had presumed. He was shy, but when it came to science, he couldn't stop talking, and the excitement in his eyes never faded, if not grew even more.
"Are there really so many intellectuals visiting the tavern? I only thought that only people from field jobs are coming here." Armin stated as he was holding a stone in front of himself and analysing its patterns. Annie was only left wondering how he was able to see these small details in a darkening sky but didn't dare to ask. Maybe she was just the one who had a bad vision. "Have you seen any scientists recently?"
"Not exactly, but I heard a few guests discussing the hypothesis of evolution and the existence of folklore creatures. There weren't many notable scientists around, at least in my opinion, but some of them looked like they were extreme devotees of these ideas."
"Ah, finally, more people are willing to advance society... People are afraid of the truth and try to deny it, despite the fact that we have so much evidence about our stunning past. Though I'm curious as to why people want to learn about the existence of mythical creatures, out of all possibilities. Like, this is a fossil, I believe, an imprint of an ancient coral," Armin said, pointing to the rock he was holding, which had the shape of a detailed honeycomb. "I believe this plant lived thousands, if not millions, of years ago. Even so, mythical creatures... If they exist, don't you think they'd leave some kind of trail behind them if they truly existed?"
Annie bit the inner sides of her cheeks, still thinking of her thoughts before speaking up. Her hands subconsciously found its spot in the pockets of her dress, whilst one of them touched the handle of a knife.
"Have you heard about Midnattmorder then, Armin? That thing which makes some men just disappear out of nowhere and only find chunks of them in the water?"
"Oh? Aaah, I heard about it..." Armin scratched his head, then held the fossil in both hands once again. Annie continued talking while watching him very intently focus on the finding, taking it as a sign that he wasn't trying to avoid the subject.
"So people think that it's some sort of a paranormal subject doing such crimes, as far as I heard. And, so far, none of the criminalists were able to find any clues on what it could be, but all the evidence was hardly believable to be made by a simple human being. Don't you think that it's some sort of a mythical thing doing such a thing? We have highly qualified investigators and, as much as I was keeping up with the news throughout my working days, I never heard about someone hiding from them so well. And all those body parts found in the water… isn't it some sort of an imprint for the evidence you're talking about, Armin?"
"That's… actually a good point, Annie. But these imprints clearly show the history of the past. You can't just say that the body parts in the water were caused by a criminal action of a mythical creature, just because the crime itself was unusual?"
"So you want me to go and find the evidence of Midnattmorder and prove its existence?"
Armin this time looked at the short lady and delivered a sheepish smile to her before starting to go back towards the path they came from in the first place.
"I definitely don't want to risk your life just to prove an idea which has a major risk of being wrong. What I want to do is to lead you safely back home and call it a very nice date." he watched Annie smile slightly and move a strand of her hair behind her hair. She was really beautiful when she was herself. "Besides, we shouldn't be on the beach by now, it's almost midnight."
_
(A/n) Thank you for reading. Man, writing aruani is hard, haha. This little story is actually one on the list for being self published in a three short-stories' book. The names would be changed, of course. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this story at least a little bit. I have a few drawings made based on this fanfiction. It's posted on my Instagram: cherryblossom_artsy