"Come on! If we flounder around any longer it'll practically be sunset before we get there!" Three particular trolls had spent the morning rushing around a bit more hastily than usual to prepare for their much needed vacation; they were supposed to have woken up over an hour ago to begin their morning beautification routines, but one of them- the violet-blooded one- had forgotten to set an alarm to wake the trio up at the early hour. This meant that the three were forced to make themselves look presentable to go out in public, pack their bags with beach supplies, apply sunscreen, eat breakfast, and load all of their supplies into their beat up Sedan within the next half hour of their awakening if they wanted to reach the beach before the midday rush arrived. The house was filled with a flurry of grey limbs, frustrated shouts, carelessly thrown bathing suits and the occasional toasted bagel being hastily wolfed down by whomever found the time to prepare their toaster for use. After hurriedly preparing for their trip, the three trolls, Sollux, Feferi, and Eridan, crammed themselves into their ragged human transportation vehicle and sped off towards the mystical land of "Ocean City."
After a few hours of driving, arguing, and ceaseless bickering, the three finally arrived at their vacation spot. The worn-down van creaked into one of the few remaining parking spots in the complete tourist trap of a town beside the beach, since so many 'double-parking assholes' and 'useless wastes of space' had filled up all of the spots within about a mile of the beach. This meant about a half hour of walking in almost 90 degree heat to reach the beach, but the eccentric fuchsia-blood was not to be deterred. Of course, the other two trolls weren't as optimistic as their female colleague.
"I really don't see what the point a walkin' along all these shitty rocks is." Eridan huffed and shoved a purple tuft of hair out of his line of vision. His cape and scarf flapped in the wind, gracefully dancing in the air behind him. He squinted his eyes, placing a hand to shield his brow as he tried fruitlessly to get a clear view of the path in front of him. The sun was shining directly in his eyes and his glasses weren't doing much to help the matter… Nor was his dark attire doing anything to aid the ever-growing beads of sweat that were forming in various areas on his upper body. Eugh, he was going to end up more dehydrated than a full body fursuiter at a California FurryCon before they even walked halfway across the jetty at this rate. The seadweller marched on, furrowing his eyebrows and quietly grumbling to himself about how he was going to 'fry to a fillet' before they reached the water and that 'even that hellhole LOWAA is better than this.' His bitter tone elicited a frustrated huff from his fuchsia-blooded companion, but the two continued walking down the path, accompanied by a rather distracted yellow-blood lagging behind them.
Seemingly hundreds of rocks stretched out a walkway of sorts in front of the three, all ranging in colors from a nearly crystalline pearly white to a deep, muddy shade of brown to a tone nearly as grey as the trolls' own skin. Most of the rocks had flat tops, but occasionally a jagged end would jut out, beckoning for younger wrigglers who weren't paying attention to their footsteps to trip over the harsh edges and scrape their knees on the boulders. This still didn't deter the occasional child from cartwheeling over the rocks as if the scene was nothing more than a stony playground. Deep cobalt tides lapped against the rocks, splashing slick droplets onto the outermost stones in the formation. A strong yet refreshing breeze whipped at the faces of anything daring to challenge it, grazing the three trolls as they continued on their journey. Eridan took a few more stable steps down the precarious path, easily keeping his balance as he griped to himself. Why couldn't he have brought a change of clothes, or at the very least some human legal tender to buy a garish souvenir t-shirt to parade around in until he found a suitable way to dry off? The highblood angrily muttered as he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
"Oh, come on! Lighten up for once fin your life, Eridan!" Feferi giggled, her tangled mass of hair fluttering in every direction as she gleefully skipped across the gaps in between the rocks in the jetty. Her shoes had been abandoned on the shoreline, leaving her feet bare, save for a mixture of sand, pebbles, and dirt that coated nearly every surface of them. However, the fuchsia-blood didn't seem to mind. She glanced around at her friends, egging them to keep walking. "A whole day at the beach just to ourseals! Think about all the things we could do on the shore alone!" Her fins wiggled in glee as she began to babble about the possibility of finding seashells and catching guppies and building sandcastles and…
"Seriously, ED, if you can't handle a few minutes outside you're honestly more pathetic than even I expected." Sollux chimed in, his lisp and sarcastic tone becoming apparent. He adjusted his red and blue glasses before using his psionics to teasingly tug at Eridan's feet, pulling him a few steps closer to Feferi. "FF really does seem lonely over there… maybe you should go give her a hug." The mustardblood snickered, watching the uncomfortably warm seadweller squirm in the sunlight.
"H- hey! Knock it off before I shoot your toothpick of a physique into a bubble so far away not even the horrorterrors will be able to find you". The violet blooded troll harshly whispered to his enemy, praying that Feferi couldn't hear him. It seemed that she had walked ahead about ten feet in front of the pair, oblivious to their bickering. "That adorbubble little candy shore had such delicious treats! Maybe next we could stop by a souvenir shop or try some elephant ears while window shopping! Ooh, it all sounds so perfect!"
"I'm simply trying to be the bigger troll here. Just trying to help my old pal Eridan across the wrigglertrap that for some reason is too complex for even his knucklesponged mindcave to handle." The hacker boomed, not caring if Feferi heard him or not.
This time the empress turned around. "Can't you two just gill along for once in your life? We came here to have FUN, knot to reel in drama like a bunch of human preschoolers! You could at least try to enjoy it, I mean look around! The sun is shining, the waves are nice and cool and for once everyone else seems to be having a good time. Honestly, I don't know why you two bothered to come here if you're just going to fight the whole time, you huge doofishes." Feferi's hands curled into fists as she glared at the pair.
"But he-" Eridan began, but was cut off by the fuchsia-blooded troll.
"I swear if I hear one more quip out of either of you, I'll be forced to separate you and I myself will go treat myself to a manicure with Aradia." The empress then mumbled something about 'just wanting to spend some time together' and asking 'why do they always have to act up like this?'
The three continued to walk along the rocks, silently fuming at each other. Eventually Feferi began to loosen back up to her normal self, telling stories of back when she lived in the ocean and how nostalgic the beach trip felt. She sat down on one of the rocks and dangled her feet in the water, remarking on the salty feel.
"Ya know, it's just so nice to finally eel like I'm back home, how it was before the game started. It's really clamming to just feel the cold water on my gills." She smiled and swung her feet through the translucent near indigo water. Eridan sat next to her, staring down into the water. He wasn't the biggest fan of salt-water, but his ankle-length pants were absolutely roasting him in the humid summer air. He rolled up the bottom of his pant legs and rested his feet in the water. Meanwhile, Sollux took this opportunity to check up on his avatars in a strange hand-held video game.
"For Christ's sake, it's too sunny to see the screen!" He continued to rant about how his stats would be ruined if he didn't find some shade soon, but Feferi only giggled and dragged him onwards, calling him a "blindle beeslinker."
The three soon came to the end of the jetty. The rock path cut off, leaving only deep blue water lapping on the front of them. The ocean continued for miles, with a faint outline of an island in the distance. "Isn't the view just perfect? You can see sooooo far out into the ocean from here!" Feferi's excited voice rang out as she squinted, pointing out in front of herself with one finger. The other two trolls followed behind her, squinting at the bright sunlight in their eyes.
"Yeah, it's cool and all, but I'd rather be sitting in the air conditioning with my grubtop. There are far too many chatrooms I'm behind on trolling." Sollux sighed and pulled out his gaming device again, fiddling with the brightness settings to try and get the screen to be viewable. Eridan glanced at the screen on the device. He could barely make out a scantily clad figure decapitating a soldier of some sort in a luxurious beach setting.
"Are you seriously watching your shitty pixel-collections prance around on the beach instead a actually turnin around to see it yourself? Or do those glasses a yours block out all rational thought, too?" Eridan asked mockingly, elbowing the yellow-blooded gamer in the side. This caused Sollux to fumble with the electronic, and it bounced out of his hands, scraping against a few rocks before landing in a shallow puddle. A petrified gasp was heard as Sollux realized what had happened to his gaming device. Water; the bane of every gamer's existence… and the liquid that covers roughly 80% of the Earth's surface. The yellow-blood's eyes began to burst with red and blue rays of energy.
"W- why- WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?" In a fit of anger, the yellow-blood roughly pressed his hands to the seadweller's chest, shoving him across the rocks.
And with the force of that one push, the violet-blood found himself falling backwards, his hands desperately grasping for something to grab onto. He clawed at the air, his grasping becoming more drastic with each passing second as he plunged downwards, his feet rapidly slipping off of the rocks. A harsh gasp was heard from Feferi, but her facial expression was unreadable as Eridan's sight was soon obscured by the sudden pain of his head slamming into an unyielding rock. A bright flash of light danced across Eridan's vision, and his mind was clouded with pure, unadulterated pain. A distinct ringing filled his ears, but for the fallen highblood it was difficult to focus on anything other than the unignorably sharp pounding in his head. As his skull grazed the boulder, a sharp thack was heard, along with a piercing screech that the male seadweller couldn't identify. He wondered if it could perhaps be his own voice calling out. Soon enough, violet warmth gushed onto his face, staining his eyesight and causing him, along with the other trolls on the surface, to panic to the nth degree. Eridan wailed in pain and terror, flailing his arms until he felt a freezing sensation encase his entire upper body. In a moment of adrenaline induced hysteria, the thought crossed his mind that at least he wasn't drenched in sweat anymore. Another sharp blow to the head would cause the seadweller to drift into darkness, leaving him with so little strength that he couldn't so much as raise his arms in an attempt to swim back to the surface. His mangled wreck of a body was quickly tugged down into the abyss, the water cascading around him like the toxic embrace of a lover.