Leona Goes To The Beach

-Hargeon Town, the beach-

Wearing a white t-shirt and her "chocolate chip" desert camouflage shorts with tan boots, Leona walked onto the beach of Hargeon Town with only her backpack. It contained both a personal supply of water and her black one-piece bathing suit plus her green athletic t-shirt and khaki cargo shorts in case she needed a change of clothing. The Wizard Saint had left all her weapons and armor at Silver Wolf Guild Hall because she was here to attend the beach party that was going on today. Today was the first time she had visited Hargeon Town in quite some time... it had been several months at the very least. She began to think back to try and remember the last time she was here and as she went back she realized that Hargeon Town had played an important role in her personal history.

It had been the town where she had waited in line to get her passport.

It had been the town where she fought and killed a serial killer, though not without sustaining injuries severe enough to put her in the hospital.

Those wounds had convinced Leona to give up the Guildless life and join a guild. That decision led to meeting Leila Vergious, a meeting which ultimately led to Leona joining Silver Wolf.

The blonde wondered how much her life would had changed if she had never taken that job fighting the serial killer. Had she not met Leila Vergious that day Leona might still be a Guildless mage traveling about with no connections to any one place. There was also the possibility that instead of joining Silver Wolf Leona might have joined a different guild. Her career would have taken a completely different trajectory in another way because without meeting Leila, Leona might have never aspired to become a Wizard Saint herself.

Thinking about what could have happened was an interesting exercise, but it was not getting her anywhere. Leona had to focus on the here and now instead of dwelling on the past. Still, in her introspective moments Leona could not help but to think about what might have happened had things turned out just a little differently.

Returning her thoughts to the present, Leona could not help but to notice one last connection to her past.

If she remembered correctly, her current outfit was the same outfit she had worn during those life-changing events in Hargeon Town almost three years ago.

Leona noted the coincidence, then looked at the beach before her. The beach was full of people partaking in the various activities, activities that were new to her. Leona felt a bit of apprehension due to being around so many people, but soon eased it by taking a few quiet breaths. Once she was calm she then decided to walk around and take a look at all the activities before choosing one to participate in. With her mind made up Leona began a casual walk around the beach to see which activity appealed the most to her.

-Hargeon Beach, twenty-five minutes later-

Leona had to carefully work her way through the crowds of beach-goers without bumping into anyone, but she had finally finished her lap around the beach and had seen the all activities that the party had to offer. She was standing close to the Horse Show Throwing contest and was tempted to do that first, but before she did she decided to think over her options. There were plenty of activities for her to choose from, but now the trouble came from deciding which one to do first.

She mentally marked the limbo contest as a "last resort" activity to participate in only when everything else was unavailable because the objective was to lean backwards and go under a bar without knocking it off and her large chest would make achieving that a challenge. She ruled out volleyball because she had no clue how to play and did not want to drag down a team with her incompetence. That left five activities that she could participate in.

Once she had ruled those two activities out Leona could choose from Horse Shoe Throwing, a Surfing Contest, a Sand Castle Building Contest, a Tropical Feast, and a Fishing Contest. The Wizard Saint was not sure what activity she wanted to participate in first. If she wanted to start off slow she could do the Horse Shoe Throwing Contest and work her way up to the Surfing Contest. Or if she wanted to start off with some excitement she could do the Surfing Contest and wind down with a casual Horse Shoe Throwing Contest.

Decisions, decisions.

[Post Word Count: 776]
[Leona's Word Count: 776/2,000]

Leona is rolling for the Surfing Contest.

-Twelve minutes later-

After spending a couple of minutes deliberating what to do Leona decided to live up to her title as the Wizard Saint of Courage and participate in the Surfing Contest first. She went to a changing room and changed into her modest one-piece black bathing suit that covered everything, then walked over to the Surfing Contest area and stated her intent to participate. She was allowed to pick her surfboard and chose a green one with a white stripe running down the middle of the body. A female event staff member was entrusted with Leona's backpack of clothing and her socks and boots.

Once she had picked her surfboard and gotten into the water with the other contestants, Leona joined the other eleven contestants in paddling out roughly eighteen meters beyond the shore. Once in place she slowly climbed onto her surfboard and stood up straight. Leona took a deep breath to steady her nerves. She had never been surfing before today and was not feeling optimistic about her chances of staying on the surfboard until she got to the shore, let alone winning the contest.

It was too late to back out now.

She was already standing on her surfboard and waiting to catch a wave. After a two-minute wait a wave came along and lifted everyone up. The contest was on!

Leona did her best to balance on the surfboard but was caught off guard by the sudden upward motion of her surfboard. Leaning to the left, she leaned right to try and balance herself again. When combined with the forward motion of the surfboard she ended up overcompensating and leaning too far right, which caused her to fall off of the surfboard and into the ocean after barely making it a full meter.

Leona surfaced in time to see other competitors zooming ahead of her. Two of them fell off about four meters away from Leona and the rest continued towards the shore as Leona swam for the surfboard and grabbed onto it. She then carefully pulled herself on board and laid on her stomach, then began swimming for the shore. Whoever the winner of the Surfing Contest would be, it would certainly not be her.

-Three minutes later, on the beach-

After swimming back to the beach Leona walked up to the Results table and got her score. She did not do very well. The Wizard Saint expected that she would not do well because she had never surfed before, but coming in at a low ranking in the contest still wounded her pride a little. She would learn to live with it, but it would still take some time before the Wizard Saint's pride would recover from the blow it had just taken.

Leona returned her borrowed surfboard and received a white wreath of flowers from the judges. It was called a "lei" and even though she did not do very well she still received one just for participating. Leona then received her belongings back from the female event staff member to which they had been entrusted. Now that Leona had received the lei it was time to move on. Leona left the site of the Surfing Contest behind in order to find another activity to do.

[Post Word Count: 545]
[Leona's Word Count: 1,321/2,000]
Leona has completed the Surfing Contest and has received one Lei. She currently has one out of four Leis needed for event completion.

Leona is rolling for the Fishing Contest.

-Thirty-five minutes later-

Having placed dead last in the Surfing Contest, Leona had walked around the beach to walk off the negative emotions stemming from her poor showing and to see what she wanted to do next. After the walk she decided to try her hand at the Fishing Contest, which was located on the right side of the beach and well away from the crowds watching the surfing contest. Once Leona got to the area after a roughly ten-minute walk she found event staff manning a table and six other contestants preparing for the contest. Gathering her courage to try another activity she had never done before, Leona approached the table and stated her intent to participate. She was allowed to pick the color of her fishing rod and was given a large green fishing rod made for ocean fishing with a hook and artificial bait, a bucket to put the fish in, and a brief rundown of the rules of the contest courtesy of a tan-skinned young man with short black hair who was part of the event staff.

She had fifteen minutes to catch the biggest fish she could. She could catch as many fish as she wanted, but she could keep only one for judging. Once fifteen minutes were up the fish would be weighed for judging. Those rules were simple enough for Leona to remember.

Carrying her green fishing rod and a bucket, Leona picked a spot in between two young bikini-clad female contestants who had taken up places about ten meters apart and set her bucket down at her left foot. Learning how to cast the line by watching other contestants, she then cast her line and watched it plop into the ocean. The next step was to wait for a bite.

-Seven minutes into the contest-

Leona had been fishing for seven minutes and had not gotten a single bite. Meanwhile the young women to her left and right were catching fish with remarkable ease. It seemed like every time they threw their line they had to wait only seconds before getting a bite. Leona, on the other hand, had thrown her line into an area where she thought she was likely to get a fish but was not even getting a nibble. The Wizard Saint was more than a little bored and was starting to get discouraged when she felt a sharp tug on the line.

Leona spread her feet apart, planted her feet on the sand and quickly pulled the rod back with her right hand while working the reel with her left. The tip of her fishing rod was bent so far down that she was worried that it might break, but it held firm as Leona began to reel the fish in. The fish pulled and struggled against her as she tried to bring it in, but after an intense seven-minute struggle Leona finally managed to pull it in. She held up the large blue fish and looked at it... she had no idea what she had just caught, but it was almost as long as she was tall and was as wide as her torso. If she had to give an estimate, the fish she had pulled in was roughly 5 feet long.

Leona carefully hoisted her large catch and put it into the bucket, which was barely big enough to hold it. She was going to keep this one since it looked big and she doubted that she could catch anything bigger before the contest ended. Having decided to take the sure thing, Leona waited until a whistle blew and the contest was ended. Leona then picked up the bucket by the handle with her right hand and carefully secured the hook to the fishing line so that she did not accidentally hook herself or anyone else, then carried the fishing rod in her left hand as she hurried to catch up to the other contests to get her fish weighed.

-At the judging table, fifteen minutes later-

A short distance to the left of the judging table was a large set of scales used for weighing fish sitting on another table manned by a burly event staff member. On the scales sat Leona's catch. The Wizard Saint looked at it and wondered how much it weighed.

"You caught a southern bluefin tuna, young lady! It weighed over five hundred pounds and was the biggest fish in the contest! Congratulations on your victory!" Leona was told both the name of the species of fish she had caught and the fact that it was the biggest fish in the contest by a young male event staff member with red hair. The Wizard Saint was pleased by her unexpected win and gave a small smile. She returned the fishing rod and bucket and was given a blue lei, which she put around her neck on top of the white lei from the Surfing Contest.

Once the contest was officially over the next group of contestants filed in to try their hand at fishing and Leona made her way back towards the center of the beach to participate in further activities. She was not sure whether she wanted to partake of the Tropical Feast before doing the Horse Shoe Throwing Contest or vice versa. She would make her decision once she got back to the center of the beach.

[Post Word Count: 899]
[Leona's Word Count: 2,220/2,000]
Leona has earned the lei from the Fishing Contest. She currently has two leis out of four needed for event completion.

-At the Tropical Feast, forty-five minutes later-

After winning the Fishing Contest Leona decided that since she was not going to go near the water for the duration of the Beach Party she would change back into her white t-shirt and desert camouflage shorts. Or at least that was the plan before going to the changing room and seeing that they were all occupied with a lengthy line in front of each one. Seeing that changing clothes was not an option unless she wanted to wait at least an hour to get into a changing room, Leona opted to keep wearing her bathing suit and put her boots and socks in her backpack so that she did not have to keep holding them in her left hand.

After cleaning off the bottoms of her boots and putting them in her backback, Leona had taken only five minutes to decide to go to the Tropical Feast before she participated in the Horse Shoe Throwing Contest. The area that hosted the Tropical Feast consisted of at least ten tables lined up side-by-side and loaded with food of all kinds. Fish, barbecued pork, grilled fish, baked fish, a table of fruit, and even a small salad bar... there was certainly plenty to choose from. All of it was neatly labeled so that party-goers would know exactly what they were looking at before they picked it up.

Once she had gotten to the Tropical Feast it had taken twenty minutes to grab a sturdy tropical-themed paper plate with clear plastic silverware wrapped in a napkin and another twenty minutes to actually get to one of the tables that was loaded with over a dozen fish-based dishes for her to choose from. Leona looked around her at the Tropical Feast area and marveled at all the food available to choose from. She was not sure where to begin, but she did not have all day to decide because there was a line of people forming behind her.

Leona walked past the first table, which was loaded with pork-based foods. She stopped at the second table and got a serving of baked flounder along with a serving of grilled tuna. Once she had gotten her fish Leona walked along the rest of the tables to see if there was anything else that appealed to her. There was nothing else that struck her fancy, so the Wizard Saint kept walking and left the line to go to rows of wooden tables a short distance away from the tables of food. They were positioned in ten rows of ten tables apiece and there were plenty of people sitting at them.

In fact there were so many people that Leona was having difficulty finding anywhere to sit. Eventually she noticed that first table on the tenth row had just become available and walked towards it at a casual pace, reaching it and securing a place at the bottom left corner. She set her plate and silverware on the table, took off her backpack, fished out her dented old metal canteen filled with water, and set it beside her plate. She closed her backpack and put it on her back so that she did not take up the whole bench she was sitting on.

Once all of that was done Leona finally sat down, unfurled the napkin containing the silverware, and began to eat. The amount in her plate was modest compared to the loaded plates of some of her fellow party-goers, but Leona did not mind. This was a tropical feast, not an eating contest. She would be satisfied with her modest share of the feast.

-Twenty minutes later-

Having eaten everything on her plate, Leona got up from her table. She closed up her canteen, put it in her backpack, and shouldered the backpack before walking over to a trash can to dispose of the used plate and clear plastic silverware. She had just discarded both objects when a female event staff member with long, curly red hair approached the Wizard Saint and handed her a pink lei for participating in the Tropical Feast. Leona put it on her neck and thanked the staff member, then headed towards the Horse Shoe Throwing Contest at a leisurely stroll.

[Post Word Count: 710]
[Leona's Word Count: 2,930/2,000]
Leona has earned the lei from the Tropical Feast. She currently has three leis out of four needed for event completion.

-At the Horse Shoe Throwing Contest, ten minutes later-

After having eaten all she wanted at the Tropical Feast, Leona now waited her turn to participate in the Horse Shoe Throwing Contest. In between placing dead last in a field of thirteen in the Surfing Contest and winning the Fishing Contest, Leona had had enough competition for one Beach Party. Now she wanted to do something casual and throw some horseshoes. Once the current group had finished their game Leona walked up to an event staff member and expressed her desire to participate. Leona was given five blue plastic horseshoes and was pointed towards the peg that was her target.

Leona nodded and walked over to a space about eight meters from the peg. There she stopped and waited to see if anyone would join her. She was soon joined by a trio of elderly women all wearing tropical muumuus of differing colors; the first woman wore blue, the second wore red, and the third wore green. They each got their horseshoes and took their places.

The woman in the blue muumuu looked at Leona, then pointed at her and spoke to her two companions.

"That young lady looks like that Leena girl... you know, the Wizard Saint of Courage." The one in blue commented to her companions before throwing her first horseshoe and missing the peg.

"It's-" Leona started to correct them before the second woman spoke.

"That can't be her, Sandra. And the Wizard Saint's name is Lenora!" The woman in the red muumuu called the blue-clad woman by name before throwing a horseshoe and landing just a half-meter short of the peg.

"It's-" Leona tried again before being talked over by the third woman.

"You're getting it wrong too, Elizabeth. It's not Leena or Lenora. It's definitely Leonora." The woman in the green muumuu chimed in, calling the red-clad woman Elizabeth. She threw her horseshoe and landed about a meter to the right of the peg.

Leona did her best to ignore them getting her name wrong and focused on the task at hand. She took careful aim at the peg and threw her first horseshoe. It went over the peg and landed a meter behind it. Leona grimaced at how bad her throw was.

"It's Le-" Leona started to give her name before being cut off by the woman in red.

"Are you trying to help us guess the Wizard Saint's name, sweetie?" Elizabeth asked Leona. Leona looked towards her and shook her head.

"I don't need to guess. I'll tell you what her name is. It's-" Leona started before being interrupted yet again by Sandra.

"It's gotta be Leanna!" Sandra asserted and threw her second horseshoe, overshooting the peg by a good meter. Her horseshoe landed right beside Leona's.

"No, it's Linda!" Elizabeth argued and threw her second horseshoe. It was thrown too short and landed two meters from the peg.

"It's Loretta!" The woman in green insisted and threw her second horseshoe. The thrown horseshoe was about as accurate as her guess at Leona's name. It landed a meter to the left of the peg.

"It's Le-" Leona started again before Sandra made another guess.

"It's Leela!" Sandra said. Leona blinked.

Tired of being interrupted and ignored, Leona gave up on trying to correct the trio. Instead she took her turn and threw her second horseshoe. It landed a meter short of the target.

"Could it be Leila instead?" Sandra asked and threw her third horseshoe. It landed a half-meter to the left of the peg.

"I still think it's Lenora." Elizabeth said and threw her third horseshoe. It landed a good two meters behind the peg.

"I don't know what the Wizard Saint's name is, but I think we've discussed the subject enough. Let's finish our game!" The woman in green suggested. She then threw her third horseshoe and it rung the peg. Leona was impressed by the accuracy of the throw.

Leona threw her third horseshoe and rung the peg too. The three elderly women were impressed with her throw and commented on how good it was. Leona passed off the throw as "beginner's luck" but thanked the trio for their compliments anyway.

The woman in the green muumuu landed each of her last two horseshoes around the peg while Leona landed a half-meter in front of the peg on her fourth horseshoe and rung it again on her fifth and last horseshoe. The other two women were nowhere near as precise as the woman in green or Leona... they either overshot the mark or did not throw hard enough to get the horseshoe close to the target.

-At the end of the contest, five minutes later-

After all four women had thrown their horseshoes and the event staff member in charge of the contest counted up the points the winner was determined to be the woman in the green muumuu, whose name was Mary. Leona came second, Sandra was third, and Elizabeth was fourth. Even though she did not win, Leona still got a lei for her efforts. She did not mind taking second place because it was a casual game and it was surprisingly fun. She congratulated the winner and the three elderly women thanked Leona for being willing to play an "old person's game" with them.

After that the quartet parted ways. The three elderly women were going to the Tropical Feast and Leona was going home. Leona had had enough fun in the sun for one day.

Leona was going home to Silver Wolf Guild Hall. She wanted to get a shower and wash the salt water out of her hair and off of her skin. Taking one last look at the beach party, Leona then turned away from the beach and began walking towards the outskirts of Hargeon Town. There she would summon Winged Lion and fly back to Silver Wolf Guild Hall in order to get a shower before either doing guild paperwork or going to her room to sleep.

[Post Word Count: 1,004]
[Leona's Word Count: 3,934/2,000]
Leona has earned the lei from the Horse Shoe Throwing Contest. She has earned all four leis needed for event completion.