[D6 EM] Sand Gets in Your Suit

[Eir]

The stick-figure girl wasn’t at all convinced about the swimsuit she’d bought. Eir was wearing a baggy white shirt that almost reached her knees over the modest one-piece. For the second time since leaving Coruscant, the girl had left some of her belongings in the hotel, and that made her feel more exposed than her togs.

She kicked idly at the dry sand, well above the waterline, waiting for Taime to arrive.

[Taime Jorel]

Taime came down to the water, wearing the same outfit he'd worn to the beach last time. He wasn't precisely sure what Eir wanted, but it was good to see she hadn't brought every single thing with her. That was a big step for her.

He waved as he approached, smiling at her. "Gonna swim today?"

[Eir]

"Yup," she answered cheerfully, "I got some shopping done yesterday, it was good." She toe-walked down to where the small wavelets washed back and forth, letting the water cascade over her feet and steal the sand from underneath her. "I figured it would be smart not to go swimming alone. At least this way, if I get eaten by a giant fish, or swept out to sea, someone will have the answer to the question hey, what happened to Eir?"

[Taime Jorel]

He looked concerned. "Uhh...Maybe I could get a life preserver or something. So I can come out and get you if something happens. I'm not a good swimmer, but that should help, right?"

He looks around the beach, trying to come up with a plan.

[Eir]

She giggled and kicked water at him, "I'm just teasing, fathead. None of you got eaten yesterday, right? And I talked to the locals and they said there were no offshore rips and the waves would be small all morning. It'll be fine."

[Taime Jorel]

He kept his hands at his side, though he longed to run them through his hair. "Ahh...yeah. I guess so. Just... be careful? I'll stay with my feet in the shallows just in case."

[Eir]

"Sure," she laughed and ran into the water fearlessly. It was just water, with salt in it, and a higher buoyancy than regular water, what could possibly go wrong? She kept going until she was neck-deep, the wavelets lifting her off her feet with each rush to shore. "Hey," she called back to Taime, "there's little fish out here, this is so cool."

[Taime Jorel]

Taime had to keep himself from running out after her, knowing she was probably in a better spot than he was. He couldn't even swim!

"What kind of fish? Like the ones we saw in the boat?"

He rolled up his pant legs and stood in the shadows, keeping his eyes on her the whole time.

[Eir]

"They're about three inches long, and," a slightly larger wave crashed over her head while she was looking back at Taime, and the girl went under for a moment, coming up coughing and laughing at the same time. "They're nibbling on me, they think I'm food. It tickles!"

[Taime Jorel]

Seeing her go under, Taime started plowing through the water, convinced she was about to drown. When she came back when he was only halfway to her, he tried to look nonchalant. "Ahh..That sounds...nice?"

[Eir]

"C'mon," she encouraged, "I can touch the bottom here, you'll be fine. It's not even swimming, it's just, like, floating. Hey, a jellyfish," she exclaimed, instantly distracted, reaching out to poke the almost invisible blob as it drifted by.

[Taime Jorel]

He moved away from the jellyfish, not being sure about it. "Uhh. I'll just stay here. In case something goes wrong. So I'm close by. You know."

[Eir]

Seeing Taime shy from the jellyfish, Eir gently caught the creature, cupping it carefully in both hands. It bumped blindly off her fingers as she moved it in the nagai's direction, "he can't hurt you, I saw these in the aquarium yesterday. The stingy ones," she opened her hands and the jellyfish jigged about randomly, "like deeper water. That's what the placard said."

[Taime Jorel]

He kept his hands back, still nervous. "Be careful. Maybe it has...poison spines or something."

However, after a moment or two, it was clear he was being a bit paranoid and Eir was having a good time. "I'm...just not very good at this whole...water thing."

[Eir]

"It's so floaty, I get why the otters like it." Eir pushed off the sea floor with her toes, trying to float on her back like an otter. She could get her knees up to the surface, but her toes and her rear remained stubbornly below, and she couldn't figure out why. "Have you been to the aquarium? they have otters, and they're adorable. And Silas said that there are lemurs in the old Jedi Temple, he's taking us to see them later."

[Taime Jorel]

A little distracted despite his imminent fear of death, he ponders that. "No, I haven't really been getting out much. I keep worrying my skin'll burn. Not used to all this sun and heat. What are the otters like?"

[Eir]

Eir paddled closer to Taime, the shirt billowing around her skinny frame, putting a hand out and steadying herself against his arm, trying again to float on her back. “Super adorable. You’ll be fine, the aquarium is almost entirely undercover.”

[Taime Jorel]

He moves his arm into better distance. "Ahh... That's good. Maybe I should go before we leave." She seemed so peaceful out here. It was...new.

"You really like the water, huh?"

[Eir]

She huffed and gave up, the otters had made it look so easy. Righting herself, she resumed looking about at the sea life, “huh, maybe I do. It’s nice, y’know? It’s kinda like being surrounded by the Force, but you can touch it?”

[Taime Jorel]

He smiles. "That sounds nicer than I'd pictured. I just feel smothered. But maybe I'm just seeing it the wrong way." He gave a tiny hop, feeling the water catch him and his feet slip in the sand as he went down for a second.

He came up sputtering and coughing.