Hi again! Again, if you're wondering, all Willow Rose's phics have been moved to their own account – Willow Rose 3. Yes with spaces.
ElfLover: Heh, nope. Neither of the two. You'll see soon enough. Although, yes, I do plan to put more of Raoul and Christine in it later.
Willow Rose: You did nothing, my friend. I just realized too late that I have to wait three days after making the account to upload anything – I deleted the phics then had to wait three days to put them back. Yes, I made it so that the email isn't shown, but it's my email anyway – anything that FFdotnet sends will come to me.
Songwind: Yeah, it was kind of a random impulse, putting her in. And I realized that in the first chapter, I said that there would be strictly no cameos. So I'm revising that. Strictly no cameos unless I decide to put you in on my own. No requests. Yeah…life sure does get in the way. But VACATION!
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Erik would have slept late the next morning – having successfully moved his cot away from the irritating sunlight – but Hana shook him awake before the sun even had a chance to try its hand…erm…rays.
"We're leaving today – we have to do as much fun stuff as possible." She was already in her swimsuit, and the sky was still purple. Erik glanced blearily out the window.
"It seems to be sometime around five in the morning," he said.
"You like the darkness, right?" Hana pulled the blanket off him.
"When I said darkness, I meant night, not dawn," muttered Erik, resigned to waking up. He'd sleep on the plane to Paris. Lord knows the flight will take long enough, he thought.
Erik once again decided against a shower. He was beginning to enjoy that. He never knew why he showered in the morning anyway. It wasn't as if he was dirty. So he donned his red shirt and a new pair of jeans, this time deciding to wear his new tennis shoes. He didn't plan to swim today, maybe just lie in the sand.
When he was dressed, he headed into the kitchen, catching his reflection in the shiny microwave. He wondered if red was really his color.
Hana presented him with a waffle, quickly cooked, and wrapped in a napkin with no syrup. "Take it with you," she ordered, ready to go outside.
"You need to learn right now," Erik said sternly in his Phantom voice, "that you will not be able to order me around as you have been doing so far. I will not follow your every command."
Hana blinked. "Okay." She grabbed her bag and ran out.
Erik blinked too.
He headed outside to retrieve his violin from the hollow tree in the back. Laying a towel out on the sand, he lay in the mounting light of the sunrise and pulled out his unfinished composition. He grabbed for the paper as Hana ran by, nearly taking it with her in her slipstream.
There was a loud splash, and Erik was glad that he and his papers and violin were far from the water's edge.
"Why do you insist on spending so much time in the water?" he called out to Hana, as she swam furiously.
"I don't get to come to Hawaii every day," she answered. "I want to enjoy it."
Erik turned back to his violin, playing back the few measures he'd written last night to refresh his memory. Not another opera, of course, but an adequate song in itself. He fiddled with the chords and found one he liked. It led to a full page of music being added to the original lines. The sun was completely up by the time he'd finished writing it all down. He played it once more to test it out.
Hana applauded, and came running up to see, trailing water behind her. "Pretty," she commented with a smile. Then she shivered. "The water's cold."
"Maybe if you hadn't gone in so early," said Erik smoothly, replacing his violin in its case to protect it from the water dripping off Hana.
She wrapped a towel around herself, looking around the beach. "Our sandcastle got washed away in the tide," she said sadly, noticing the mushy mound of sand where their creation had been. She walked over to it and pulled out the large shell that had held the built-in underground lake. Washing it off in the waves, she stored it in her bag. "I think I'll keep it for a souvenir."
The sun was now higher in the sky, probably somewhere around eight or nine o'clock territory. Erik lay in the sun on his towel, joined shortly by Hana. They both pulled out books and lay relaxing for a few hours.
Erik was aware of the glare of the sun suddenly diminishing. He opened his eyes, having laid the book aside some time ago. Long hair hung in his face, the head attached blocking the sunlight.
"Hi," said Aislin, leaning over him and waving. "Hope you two are packed, because it's time to go."
"Oh, but we're having fun!" exclaimed Hana, jumping up and spraying Erik with sand.
"But don't you want to get to Paris?" asked Aislin.
Hana paused, then dashed off to the little cabana. "I'll pack my stuff now!"
Aislin pulled Erik up out of the sand. "Ready to go home?"
"The cellar never sounded more inviting," he replied with a small smile. Aislin looked him up and down.
"You've been outside in the hot sun a lot. You…didn't take a shower today, did you?"
Erik frowned. "Does it show that much?"
Aislin smiled slyly. "I know there's no deodorant in your time, but nowdays…" And he glared at her, heading off to pack his own things. "It causes cancer anyway!" she called after him.
Although he didn't have many, it was hard getting all his new clothes to fit in with the old ones. He managed it at last. He washed his face (thouroughly) and combed the sand out of his hair, then rejoined Hana and Aislin on the beach. Hana was carrying twice as much luggage as she'd come in with.
"What do you have now that you didn't have before?" Erik asked curiously.
"It seemed such a waste to let all that food we bought go to waste," she said sheepishly. "And I'm sure you don't have ice cream in your house, so I'm taking my junk food fixes with me."
Erik didn't mention the gallon of rocky road he had waiting in his icebox – probably past its expiration date now.
"I've got all the stuff that was in the tree out back," Aislin told Erik, holding up a small black suitcase, "and I packed the hammock too, in case you liked it and wanted to set it up at home. Shall we go then?"
Erik nodded, picking up his violin case from the sandy beach towel. Aislin threw all the sandy beach supplies into Hana's bag, slung it over her shoulder, and headed off down the beach.
Erik had to admit, it was a lot easier walking through sand in these tennis shoes.
But then, there wasn't a lot of sand at the Opera House.
Ah…the Opera House. He couldn't wait to get back. Aislin led them back into a taxi, back to the airport, and into another plane.
"Settle in, you two, we've got a long flight ahead of us," Aislin told them.
Erik leaned back in his chair to catch up on the sleep he'd been deprived of that night, anticipating his beloved Opera House.
But what might be waiting for him when he returned?
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…Not much will be waiting, really. I just like ominous endings. Review!
