Another Boring Day
Autum was sitting on a stool and leaning against the counter as she let out a sigh, "Today's gonna be another boring day." Seth walked into her shop silently. He then began looking around.
"I stand corrected." Autum said very quietly, and then she raised her voice a bit. "Hey, anything specific you're looking for?"
Seth looked up at her. "No, just browsing." Seth replied, and then resumed looking.
One of Autum's hands fell from her chin. "Alright, my name's Autum, if you need anything."
Seth looked up at her again, a slight smile on his face. "Thanks." He said, and then continued looking. Autum watched as Seth made his way around the store, without realizing it, she had started to stare.
Having the feeling he was being watched, Seth looked up. Upon looking up, he saw that Autum was staring at him. "Um...is there something wrong?" He asked. Just as he finished his question Yesenia walked into the shop eating a popsicle.
"Hey Autum, things over at the magic shop are kind of slow so I thought I'd pop in and give you a visit," Yesenia said taking the popsicle out of her mouth.
Autum snapped out of the stare. "Just admiring the scenery." She turned to the door. "Hey, Yesenia. Yeah, things have still been a bit slow here too. Everyone's gone on their annual adventures, so I don't have much business either." She looked to Seth and smiled. "But this young man here is my first customer in two weeks."
Seth looked at Autum again. He smiled slightly. "Glad to be of service." He said.
"Just make sure to buy something please, even if it's one of these cheep swizzle sticks." Autum held up the piece of candy, and took a bite. Yesenia began to stare off in a dreamlike state at the mention of adventures as she finished off the last bit of her popsicle.
"I'd like to be the one that goes on an adventure for once...Oooh candy, I'll take one. How much is it?" Yesenia asked.
"It would be fun," Autum said with a sigh, "but, alas, it isn't the kind of life for us islanders. The candy's two munny for a pack of eight, three for a pack of ten."
As Yesenia handed over three munny and took her pack of swizzle sticks she said, "Says who? We could go on an adventure if we wanted to. On our day off how bout it? We could go down to the beach and make up our own mini adventure if we have to. Better than staying home getting fat on swizzle sticks and popsicles..."
Autum gave a little chuckle at what Yesenia said. "You'd have to eat a lot of Swizzle sticks to get fat off of them. Why don't we just go by your next day off, as I basically own the place."
"Alrighty then," she answered, "my next day off is this coming up Friday."
"An adventure, eh?" Seth said, looking up at them. "Would you mind if I join? A little muscle could be useful." Seth stated with a smile.
"Well sure, what's your name?" Autum asked returning the smile.
Seth walked over to Autum and Yesenia with his unfading smile. "I'm Seth." He replied simply.
"Nice to meet you Seth. As you can tell by my tacky name tag, I'm Autum. This is Yesenia." Autum held out her hand as Yesenia gave a nod of acknowledgement.
"Pleasure meeting you." Seth said, taking her hand and shaking it.
Autum idly spun a bit of her hair that had escaped from her pony-tail around her index finger. The other girl started browsing around the shop eating the occasional swizzle stick and humming a tune that was stuck in her head. "So, what exactly is it that you do, Seth?"
"I uh...fight, I guess. My friend has a sword I can borrow." Seth said with a shrug.
Yesenia paused her browsing for a moment and looked over at Seth with a slightly puzzled look on her face, "You...fight? How d'you make munny off of that?"
"I don't fight for a living, I just know how. I help at my friend's shop sometimes." Seth replied. Yesenia simply nodded in response satisfied with the answer given and took a bite of her swizzle stick.
"Anyone we know?" Autum asked with interest.
Seth shrugged. "His name is Chris. He's got short blonde hair. He owns a shop up the street." He replied.
Autum tapped a finger to her chin trying to remember where she had heard that name before. It had sounded fairly familiar, she just couldn't place him "Chris, Chris, what's he do?"
"He sells weapons and shields and such." Seth replied.
A look of recognition spread across Autum's face as she realized who he was talking about, "I know him! Our companies are inter-connected. Were you that spaz that was interning there a couple years ago?" Yesenia smiled at the thought of Seth as a spaz, perhaps fumbling around with the weapons.
Seth blushed slightly. "That would be me." He replied.
Autum smiled. "I thought that you looked familiar!" Looks Seth up and down. "I can see that you grew out of that." A small blush found its way onto her face, which her friend reacted to with a knowing smile.
Seth smiled again. "I'm glad someone noticed." He said.
"How can I not notice! You were so scrawny! Now you're," she glanced him up and down again, "well, you!"
Seth scratched the back of his neck. "guess I'll take that as a compliment..."Seth said with a slight smile. Yesenia shook her head slightly, as she saw a crush develop right before her eyes.
"It is! I'm just not super great with words. At least I'm not as bad as miss swizzle stick over here." She gave a teasing smile to Yesenia.
"What? I am not bad with words...I just tend to get my foot in my mouth. Not literally. And what I think Autum meant is that she thinks you are...attractive, to put it lightly." She said laughing as Autum blushed again.
That comment made Seth blush slightly as well, "Oh, really?" He asked. He had never had anyone say he was attractive up until that moment.
Autum nodded softly. "Have you looked in a mirror lately, Seth?"
"Yeah, but I don't think about that kind of stuff." Seth said, feeling slightly awkward now.
"Awww now I've embarrassed him" Yesenia said while laughing sympathetically. "You know what forget I ever mentioned it," she added with a smile.
"You didn't embarrass me, it's just..." Seth started to say, but couldn't think of what to say next. Yesenia smiled at Seth's inability to finish his sentence. "Either way, forget about it. Want a swizzle stick?"
Autum grinned. "I can change the subject if you'd like."
"Be my guest." Yesenia replied.
"As I said," Autum said changing the subject, "business has been pretty sucky for me lately, how's it been for you Yesenia?"
Yesenia shrugged at the question, "Yeah it's been really slow, hence why we're all going on an adventure on my day off!"
"Speaking of which, I should probably tell Sally about it later, so she knows to man the shop. Where do you plan on going on this 'adventure'?"
"Um...good question," she said thinking for a minute, "I was thinking of just winging it, or going down to the beach. Unless you have any ideas?"
"Maybe take a raft and see how far we get? Sally just bought a few rafts for us, told me to use them. I'll also grab a radio from storage to make sure we don't get too lost." Autum pointed her thumb behind her.
"Sounds like a plan to me...what if we find other islands?" Yesenia said thinking out loud.
"Duh! We explore! This is an adventure is it not?" Autum answered leaning one elbow on the counter.
"I know it is, I came up with the idea for it didn't I?" she said rolling her eyes, "What if we end up like those other two kids who ended up disappearing to like some other world?"
Autum took a minute to think. "Personally, I'd welcome a change from this island life. It's practically the same all the time. But I think that I'd miss it after a while."
"Yeah, I know I'd get homesick for this old island after a while," Yesenia added, "But it wouldn't bother me too bad with all that would be going on, the places we'd see and people we'd meet."
"So, where will we meet on Friday? I have to go tell Chris I can't help out that day." Seth said, taking a couple steps towards the door.
"I say we meet back here since Autum's the one supplying the raft, then we can all go down to take the raft out together. Sound good to you guys?"
Autum nodded. "Sounds fine to me. I hadn't realized you still worked there, Seth."
"Should I bring anything along?" Yesenia asked.
"Food, unless you want to live on fish and flash frozen crap." Autum said pointing to the shelves that held freeze dried foods. "And some clothes in a waterproof container, just in case a storm hits and we have to crash somewhere for the night."
"Can do Captain Autum" she said saluting Autum.
Seth just chuckled softly, shaking his head. "How about I bring a compass and other survival gear? I'm sure Chris has plenty of it." He said, opening the door. "I'll see you guys Friday." He said with a grin, and then he walked out of the shop.
"Okey dokey. See ya then." She waved bye to Seth. "And anything else we may need, I can get it from our storage." Seth then made his way towards Chris' shop, so he could tell him the news. Autum turned as Shelly emerged from the back. "Well, I'm headed for my lunch break. Maybe I'll pay a visit to our partners in business." She hopped off the stool and walked to the back door. "I'll see ya later Yesenia." Autum walked through the beads to the back room.
