Hugging the chunky moose stuffed animal to her chest – warranting a couple of curious looks from the beach goers – the young woman openly admired the beauty of the location. Crystalline waters turned to white against the light, tan sands and in the distance she could just barely make out where the edge of the ocean gave way to the skies. Rolling cotton balls of clouds mixed about above, mostly dancing around the edges of the vast blue as if afraid to get in the sun’s way of shining down, adding a certain glow and glitter to everything. Even the green of the flora astounded her, as if someone chose to only paint in vivid colors, screw everything else!
Even the people seemed to be sporting a variety of rainbow as bikinis, swimsuits, and trunks milled around her vision. If it’d been her style, Shade might’ve reconsidered her choice of the white bikini set so plain by comparison, the white skirt tied around her waist dancing lazily in the occasional breeze not very decorated outside of a few pink petals at the bottom rim. The notion never occurred to her however as she finally stepped on the sand and felt the slight vibration beneath her equally white flip flops as they ground the grains together. It was so foreign the girl couldn’t help staring at her feet for those first few steps as she became accustomed to the sensation.
When had she last been to the beach?
Had she been to one before?
’Surely I have before? But it’s probably been quite a while. Definitely not the last visit.’ She frowned, trying to find any recollection and ignored any glances in her direction, but none came to mind.
”Shouldn’t you be looking for the guy?” a deep voice curiously quipped, the dark moose giving a slight wiggle in her arms to jar the short girl from her thoughts.
”Oh, you’re right!” she exclaimed aloud, startling nearby, their chatter little more than white noise to the white haired girl, ”I think it said he’d be wearing…a chef’s hat?”
It’d been some little odd event distributed places, the girl having come upon it at the corner of the bar back at the guild hall and stumbling upon it by pure luck. Intrigued by this notion of “Blind Date” she’d filled out the little form and handed it to the bartender, happily skittering off and forgetting about it until days later the same fellow offered her a letter. At first she’d tried to recall if she started corresponding with a pen pal before giving into curiosity and opening it, finding a letter declaring they’d chosen a match for her as well as a time and place that fit both of their availability – considering how open her’s tended to be though it wasn’t hard to do.
What luck she’d had when one of the little comments from the mysterious fellow had involved being hungry! Though heavens help him if all he offered was a lackluster (or soggy) sandwich! Luckily for him she had mentioned a love of ice cream and “interesting foods” – she hadn’t been specific, deciding that people should figure out it meant something along the lines of “exotic.” Generally she liked sweets, but ice cream had sounded positively wonderful at the time, and had been delicious too! With the heat however she couldn’t help imagining a bowl of the delightful treat even as she started looking for this fellow.
”Do you suppose he’s part monkey? I hope it’s a cute monkey and not like a chimp.”
”Aren’t those apes?”
”Quiet you…still it said he was half human, or not to mind them at least. I’ll be disappointed if he’s not at this rate. But could be worse: he could be part slime monster.” She had mentioned she wasn’t fond of overly goopy things that just so happened to be sentient, so if those people had decided to pair her with a slime monster then she’d see to it they found Paradise all right…As a man approached her those magenta eyes observed him, particularly around the head region, and just as his mouth opened to utter whatever nonsense the white haired mage dismissed him, ”You’re not him.” So stunned he didn’t even pursue her as Shade continued down the beach to find this chef-hat, monkey fellow.