Beach Escape!

"That's probably for the best, you don't really want this to happen anywhere else," said Aurora, smiling somewhat tiredly. At this point, she was wondering whether Lyntael had some kind of hidden inclination towards exhibitionism, though from the way she reacted, she assumed it was unlikely that she had initiated it herself--rather that she wasn't quite that bothered by it. Sighing internally, she wondered whether she had picked up something a little troublesome. Scratching her cheek, she stood back up, allowing Lyntael some space to move around on her own.

Eternalis, meanwhile, wasn't quite sure where to look, either, and the quick glances only afforded him less leeway in terms of where he could look, with Lyntael walking over to Sparky (and by extension, him as well). He quickly started to pivot his sight elsewhere, remembering that Lyntael had carried a shoulder bag up the path. "Ah, did you put down your bag somewhere? You had your towel and clothes in there, right?" he said, not knowing that she had approached Sparky for exactly that purpose, while going back to his aimless lookabout.

Meanwhile, Sparky tilted his head at Lyntael's approach, before realizing that she was trying to retrieve her bag from under his feet, and retreating quickly, with his ears still down. His reaction brightened up after Lyntael reassured him with a few pats, returning the gesture with an experimental lick and a quick bark. The group was otherwise quieter than before, with only the sound of Lyntael's cleanup breaking the silence.

When the girl broke the silence again, the first one to react was Sparky, barking as his ears perked up at having his name called. Eternalis and Aurora looked up at Sparky, noticing the dress caught on his back. "I'll get it," said Eternalis, disappearing into thin air, and reappearing on top of Sparky's back. He then dismounted, carefully avoiding Lyntael's gaze to hand the dress over to Aurora, which he found surprisingly dry. Aurora relayed the dress to Lyntael, who donned it quickly, much to the relief of everyone present.

"Right, yes, let's hope it doesn't happen again," said Eternalis, glad that he didn't have to avert his gaze as much now. Turning to Aurora, he found that she wasn't quite as convinced about the security of the situation, with her worried smile cropping up again.

"You might want to fasten it extra tight somehow, at least," said Aurora. "Do you have any fasteners of any kind in your bag? Sparky runs pretty quickly, and there might be a lot of wind later on, you know. Better to be safe than sorry."

Eternalis could only offer a wry grin at Aurora's worrying, and turned back to walk to Sparky. "Alright, Sparky, we're going to head out now. Could you lie down for a bit so we can climb up?" said Eternalis. The beast-pup was happy to oblige, kneeling down for the moment as Eternalis clambered on, while he waited for Aurora and Lyntael.
Exasperated, blushing and more than a little bit over her repeated decency accidents for the day, Lyntael nevertheless managed a small smile and a shake of her head in response to Aurora as she cleaned up.

"Well, it's not like I can get any more exposed, now... Damage is done, twice over by now. Just as long as no-one else comes by." By the time she was as dressed as she could get, Lyntael shifted back and forth on her toes, settling. She hadn't wanted to scrub at certain parts of herself too meticulously in these panicked few moments with friends present, and she was aware of feeling not quite clean in that area, but it would do until she could have a proper shower.

"You know," she murmured as she checked her remaining things and ensured that her belongings were secure. "When Eric made my original clothes, he wrote a lot of modesty protection coding into them. I've not been doing that, because it didn't seem like it really did much, in the end, but now I'm really starting to wonder. I didn't actually pack and extra change. I thought I had. Drat." Despite her searching, there was no additional pair of underwear tucked away in her bag for this emergency. Aurora's suggestion that she'd probably better do something at least did make the younger girl nod with a little bit of fresh nerves. It was breezy, and her dress was light, and as much as that normally wouldn't be a risk of it lifting high enough to show anything off, today had already been one of those days. She rifled her bag again, an new idea coming to mind.

"I don't really have anything I could use... but I could always..." She pulled the rolled up bikini out of the second towel, but winced and bit her lip as she examined the bottom half. Yes, she could put them on quickly, but they were also still quite, quite damp... enough that they'd certainly pass at least some of that damp through to the dress. In the end she opted for the lesser of two risks. It certainly wasn't classy to go about with wet patches making the lower parts of your dress sheer, as this certainly would, but at least then she'd have underwear on, of a sort, rather than risking the good behaviour of the wind with a clean dress but none. While Eternalis was attending to Sparky, Lyntael ducked her head and made another brief apology as she excused herself, then turned away and bent to whisk the stringy scrap of fabric under her dress and move it into a position where she could deftly ties up the sides again without flashing anything more.

Sure enough, she could feel the coolness of the damp swimwear in striking contrast to everywhere she'd just dried off, but at lest now she was safe from anything short of dedicated disastrous efforts. turning back she grinned, then shifted in mild discomfort and shrugged. Next came the question of returning to Sparky's tongue-range, but it seemed like Eternalis had things under control, and the massive bundle of enthusiasm was on his best behaviour, more or less. Lyntael took a few deeper breaths as Eternalis mounted up, then glanced to Aurora to see where the other woman would want to go. She ran hands through her hair and then down absently over the sides of her dress and hips, before looking at her palms more closely. For all the uncomfortable shock of the last few moment,s the previous relaxation and the comfort she found herself developing with Aurora and Eternalis seemed to have let her keep everything under control. Her charge was a comfortable hum in her chest, beneath her skin, but she felt confident that it was in no danger of shocking anyone as long as she concentrated. She nodded, confirming that she was good to go.

If Eternalis was in front, Lyntael herself was happy to be placed between the two, or to climb up behind Aurora if the other woman wanted to sit behind her partner. Either way, Lyntael herself climbed up gingerly, sitting astride and carefully positioning her dress so that she wasn't sitting on it; the longer she could prevent the damp patches showing through the better, in her mind. A though made her blush more brightly, when she contemplated the manner in which she would be riding if she hadn't put the bikini bottoms on at this point. As soon as she'd thought of it, the crimson glow refused to retreat from her cheeks, and she instead focused on hanging on carefully to whomever she found herself behind.

"Modesty protection coding...?" wondered Aurora aloud. Thinking back to their previous interactions, Lyntael's original outfit did have a relatively short skirt. As memory served, this 'Eric' person was her operator's brother. For her creator to provide such an advanced, yet helpless Navi, to someone like her operator, Aurora figured that it was quite odd. While Lyntael substituted her previously vanished underwear with a bikini bottom, Aurora exhaled quietly, expecting to have to deal with another potential wardrobe malfunction if she had opted to go without.

She looked up at Eternalis, who was waiting atop Sparky, in order to give her a small sense of privacy while she put it on. Soon, she heard Lyntael shuffle back, and she turned back to see the girl grinning back at her. Aurora smiled back in return, and approached Sparky, before ruffling his head affectionately. "Good boy," she said, as she clambered onto his back and seated herself in front of Eternalis. Then, turning downwards, she then extended a hand towards Lyntael. However, it was delayed for a moment, as the girl began to run her hands all over herself for some reason, eliciting confused reactions from both of the mounted riders.

It didn't last too long, thankfully, and Aurora managed to help Lyntael up onto Sparky's back, pulling her up by her hand and firmly seating her directly in the very front. Chuckling at the little blush, not realizing what it was actually about, she bellowed out. "Okay, Sparky! Get us down the cliff and over to the far side there," she said. Their canine mount responded with a hearty bark, and stood back up, before shooting off over the edge of the cliff. Rather than falling down it, however, Sparky continued to run vertically down its side, before landing down on the sands below and heading off over to where they had seen the cluster of shacks by the beach.

Their arrival was prompt, and Sparky skidded to a stop. Thankfully, not many people were around, and he didn't collide into anyone. However, the sudden stop did manage to lurch the riders forward. "Whoa!" "Wah!" With their exclamations, Lyntael felt Aurora's body press against her back, and Aurora felt Eternalis's jelly form against hers, complete with loud squishing noises. Sandwiched in the middle, Aurora felt her cheeks burn brightly as the amorphous body, in the process of retreating from her, tugged covertly at the straps of her halter top, causing it to loosen slightly. "Wha--" she blurted out, before the feeling of someone being behind her disappeared entirely. When she turned about, she saw that Eternalis had dismounted by way of teleporting off of Sparky's back. Looking up at her, the blob monster Navi returned her embarrassed glare with a knowingly mischievous grin.

Soon after, Sparky lowered his body, while Aurora pushed herself off of Lyntael. "Oof, sorry about that, Lyn," said Aurora, as she discreetly fixed the loosened strap before dismounting down the side. Now that they were here, smells of different kinds of food being cooked reached her nose, and her mood instantly picked back up. In particular, the smoky aroma of a nearby barbecue dominated the place, coming from a small open-air shop, with a green-and-yellow standard NormalNavi manning the grill. In line with the beach theme, the Navi was clad in a pair of bright green swimming trunks, a large straw hat, and a white apron, while wielding what appeared to be a WindRacket chip--except that he was simply using it to fan the flames on the grill instead of swatting away viruses. As her eyes were led to the shop, the Navi waved over to them, presumably to invite them over.
A few logistical shifts later, and the final positioning on their large-sized mount was not any of the possibilities Lyntael had initially considered, but on reflection, as she tried to settle herself and keep her dress in order with Aurora behind her, she guessed that Sparky probably didn't really need someone at the reins, so to speak, so there was no real reason why she should have assumed Aurora or Eternalis would need the front position.

In the midst of these thoughts, Sparky began to move, and Lyntael's breath caught with a small squeak. she hung on to his fur as he stood and turned, then gasped and lay low, pushing her self flat to him and gripping much tighter with her knees as his motion went from one plane to another. Somewhere in her mind, Lyntael knew this had to be safe... it had to be... but the rest of her was responding to the very sudden feeling of dizzying gravity as he started to plunge vertically down the cliff face. In the first second, her breath escaped in a short shriek, but beyond that there was no time, really. She felt like if things tipped a little more, she'd certainly fall free, but each time the incline did, in fact, tip little further,the feeling just increased exponentially without ever actually getting there. Her chest felt like it had seized up, and a trail of mad sparks were thrown back from her hair as they descended — Aurora would feel the electric current rise to the surface of the girl's skin anywhere they were touching, and unless Sparky's fur was fully insulated, he'd probably feel it too, coming from her hands and thighs, but the shock passed almost as quickly as her shriek, replaced by a brief moment of wild excitement for the rest of the rapid ride down.

The ride was over in only a few more moments, and Lyntael caught herself with a jolt as they came to a halt. Unconsciously, she's pressed down, chest flat to Sparky's back and arms forward, seeking something to grip. Her knees had come up to a better grip position and pressed her hips back much more obviously firmly against Aurora, all of which she only really became aware of when the stopping jolt pushed Aurora over her for just long enough to make her glad that it was aurora and not Eternalis. He was a wonderful person of course, but that might have been awkward. And possibly bad for her dress too. Fortunately the situation of having her behind pressed up against her friend's hips, and the thought of how much more awkward it would have been if she'd not put on the bikini, didn't manage to pierce through the flush of excitement and the heart-racing adrenalin of the descent, and Lyntael pushed herself up with a half-breathless laugh as aurora untangled herself.

She clapped a few times, before realising that she was, in fact, still sparking wildly, while astride sparky, and quickly apologised to him, jumping clear with an easy grace and landing on the sand not too far from her friends. She bounced on her toes, skipping a few paces back and forth as the reactionary rush of energy passed through.

"That was fun!" She didn't realise the sudden extra volume in her voice, nor the excited, gleeful tone. She did realise, however, that faint electric patterns were filtering across her skin and her hair was snapping. Still grinning, she tried to calm down and let the unexpected adrenalin subside with deep breaths. She closed her eyes and focused on getting a moment's calm back, drawing errant trails of wind in around herself and letting them out again in small spirals that ruffled her dress until her hair calmed.

"Hehe... sorry..." She bit her lip when she opened her eyes to look at the others, peeking up at them with a small amount of embarrassment. "After the first drop though, that was really exciting!"

Once she'd settled, Lyntael looked around at the beach area they'd moved on to, and eyes up the various cafes, food stalls and other beach-front outlets She was briefly wondering if it would be ok to purchase an extra swim suite from one of the stalls selling them, for the sake of having one that was actually dry, but Rogan most certainly wouldn't approve, and... the thought was cut off anyway as the sheer volume of interesting food smells began to reach her and her stomach made a distinctly eager voice about how important paying attention to those was.

Everything smelled appealing to her in different way, but that only meant that the nearest vendor was the first one to grab her attention. The man running the shop had already noticed their arrival and was waving, and without hesitation Lyntael let herself wander across, eyes dropping quickly to the grill products themselves after she had offered a small wave and a smile to the man.

"Oooh... what have you got, and can I try some..?" This close to food, her hunger barely seemed to want to be quiet for even a moment while she waited for Eternalis and Aurora to join her.

"Haha, sounds like it was pretty exciting," grinned Eternalis. Observing the electrified state of their friend, however, he couldn't help but add in another quip. "You look a bit shocked, though, might want to calm down a little--Ow, hey, come on!" Jumping a little from the slight taser-like shock Aurora had casually given him, who flashed him a mischievous grin in return. Eternalis pretended to sulk as he went over to Sparky, muttering things like "You like my jokes, don't you, boy?", though he only ever really got big licks in return. The grumbling noise of Lyntael's stomach brought everyone to attention as to what had brought them there, and they spotted the NormalNavi shopkeep waving to them.

"Come on, let's go take a look," said Aurora, walking alongside Lyntael, while Eternalis towed Sparky along. He stopped in his tracks for a moment, before considering that Sparky would likely be a little more difficult to control around food. "Sparky, base form," he said, causing a brilliant beam of light to consume the enormous beast, before it shrunk into a tinier ball and landed in his arms as Sparky's former puppy form. The blue Navi ruffled his head affectionately, and he let out a small bark before they both went to catch up with the two girls.

As they arrived at the stall, the Navi manning the stall spread his arms out, looking quite happy with the entourage. "Welcome, welcome! See anything you like?" the Navi said with the vocal equivalent of a jolly old man. Aurora began to inspect the things set out by the Navi: a tray set out with skewered meats and vegetables, sausages, crabs and prawns, all displayed in a neat arrangement. On the grill itself, the Navi was tending to more meat skewers above what looked to be some gleaming charcoal. Strangely enough, there didn't seem to be anything resembling a menu or a list of prices, or anything else of the sort.

"Don't be shy, just pick up whatever you'd like! Only ten zenny per session," said the Navi, turning around some of the skewers on the grill while merrily working the fan simultaneously.

"Ten zenny per... session?" inquired Eternalis.

"Oh! You're a newcomer, I see. Well, it's a bit of a nominal fee, anyway, it's not like it costs anything to make these. Really, just pick up whatever you'd like to eat, it's ten zenny for everything as long as you're here. I recommend one of these skewers. Nice and juicy, or so I've been told!" the Navi explained, picking up three of the ready-made skewers on the tray deftly between his fingers. With generous chunks of meat interspersed with slices of red and yellow peppers as well as green cucumbers, he offered it to the group, with Aurora taking up the first of them. As she eyed it with wonder, he turned to Eternalis as well, gesturing with the two skewers still between his fingers.

"I don't suppose you can eat one as well? At least, your little friend there seems interested," the Navi said, referring to Sparky, who was already barking in delight at the offered food.

"Alright, I'll take it. I'll pay for all of us," said Eternalis, accepting the offer and presenting it to Sparky, who was all too happy to tear bits of it off while Eternalis held the stick firmly. "Whoa, hey, calm down there, haha!" he said, retreating a little. "Aren't you the philanthropist," chuckled Aurora, before proceeding to partake of the food presented to her. The smoky flavor spread out in her mouth from the meat, along with some crunch from a cucumber she had also bit off. "Mm, it's good!" she commented, cradling her cheek with a smile.

Their host seemed all too glad that it was received well, laughing merrily in the process. "Hahaha! Glad you folks are enjoying it. Warms my heart good every time."
Lyntael's vaguely embarrassed blush at the quips about her sparks hadn't managed to dampen the adrenalin rush until well after she'd taken extra time to focus and make herself safe enough to approach the vendor that had grabbed everyone's attention, but she found herself struggling to take her eyes of the food objects presented while he gave his jovial explanation. There was a strange sensation under her tongue and near the back of her jaws in her mouth, and she swallowed subconsciously to clear the increasing excess of saliva she could feel there.

The first food she'd tried had been a desert food; lemon tart, and it had made her toes curl and caused a number of other unexpected reactions throughout her body at the taste. She'd known a little bit about what to expect, vaguely, but no foreknowledge had actually been sufficient to prepare her for the experience of it. These looked like meat and grilled vegetables, with some kind of sauce or marinade, as far as she could see, so, savoury instead. Understanding that she really had no idea what to expect, coupled with the hunger that had grown maddeningly insistent now that real food was close to hand, had given rise to an excitement that she was barely containing. She barely heard the finer details of the purchase being explained to Eternalis and Aurora, at least at first; the pair would likely see how tensely transfixed the girl was, consumed by her own thoughts for the moment. What did register after a few extra moments was the small amount of money, and her eyes darted up to look at the vendor again, blinking in a distracted way. She bit her lip. It wasn't much, really... and technically, Rogan couldn't have checked the PET yet, or he'd have surely interrupted them in some way... so the funds she had transferred back after they left Sharo wouldn't have been checked or or noted by him yet... it was only ten zenny, and he wouldn't even know.

The mild inner conflict she'd been feeling crumbled as the skewers were held out on offer, and her hand darted out to take one just a fraction of a second behind aurora. She should try each different thing on the skewer separately first, and take her time to experience each flavour, then maybe try a couple of pieces together after that, perhaps. Her eyes traced the stick; this one had browned neat that glistened in whatever marinade it was prepared with, but it had a couple of pieces of vegetable between each chunk, and she couldn't really tell, looking at it, exactly what sort of meat it was meant to be. It didn't much matter, since she couldn't really hold herself back any longer anyway. A swift, delicate motion let her pull the first chunk off the skewer with her teeth.

The effect was one that mostly defied proper conscious thought; the sensation was different, and pleasant in a variety of other ways that Lyntael couldn't have adequately described if she'd tried. Mostly, though, her mind lit up with an overwhelming wave of completely alien and new experiences. It wasn't just the taste experience, of course; there was the feeling of it in her mouth, as well, and the way everything combined with the scent, too, but taste was the predominate factor that made her eyes cast upwards, unfocused while her eyelids fluttered. She didn't hear the delicate, tremulous whimper that escape despite her closed mouth, or really notice the way that her body swayed and faltered; all Lyntael herself felt of these effects was that her knees weakened and she needed to put a hand down on a safe part of the stall to support herself. She needed something to lean on or she might well just sink to the ground under limbs that were too focused on getting in on this sensation to continue doing the work of supporting her.

She also didn't really notice herself swallow the mouthful she had and take another, though this one made her eyes fly open wider again; once more it was something different and new; what had been two slices of capsicum, one red, one green, and a mushroom, had translated into another section of her palate that had never been teased at and she swallowed far too quickly, gasping for air beyond the sudden flavour shock. Without thought, she bit again, unheeding of the quivering moan that came between bites; her body felt like it was on the tense, toe-curling edge of something that felt very suspiciously like something that she should absolutely not allow to happen in a public place, under any circumstance, and by the time she'd finished the struggle of processing that thought, Lyntael was looking down at a now barren meat skewer in her left hand. She felt hot all over and a flush had crept its way up her neck towards her cheeks in an alarmingly aggressive fashion, but as Lyntael swallowed one more time, between short panted breaths, her eyes moved from the empty stick in her fingers to the other ones on the grill. Her first instinct was to reach for another, and it was only a moment after that thought pushed forward that Lyntael became more aware of her other reactions and how it must look. she glanced quickly to Aurora and Eternalis, ducking her head, and then back towards the grill-navi with a sheepish grin.

"Ah... I-I'm just going to sit down I think... um... may I...?" With a shaky hand she selected a small plate, then quickly picked an assortment of other offerings, making sure she got at least one example of most of what was on offer, then stepped back again to the nearest small beach-side table and chair set that was, presumably, set up for people partaking of grilled lunches. As she sat, catching her breath and trying to reclaim her composure and dignity, Lyntael was keenly aware of the dampness of her bikini bottoms and what they were likely doing to her dress once she sat down properly, but in that particular moment she didn't much mind it; first, her legs felt like they were threatening to give out, and second... her body felt like it was still calming back from the threat of something that might have caused a different dampness entirely, and having a damp bikini covered that threat. The worrying excitement flush was receding again, gradually, but her cheeks pinked instead with an embarrassed blush as she thought about that reaction. As much as she hadn't really had the time or safety to think over-much about it, that certainly had happened the very first time as well. Smaller, shorter, sharper, and with less aftershock than 'normal' for her, but when she'd looked back over it, quite undeniable even so. She certainly hadn't read anything about food doing that... at least not... Well... some people had described some flavours along those lines, now that she really thought about it... She moved a little more cautiously as she lifted another skewer and examined it. This one seemed to be mostly seafood. She turned it over in her fingers, then looked up to see if the others were going to join her as well.

Both Eternalis and Aurora watched on as Lyntael reacted quite oddly to being fed, with a serving of whimpers and shivers and stumbles before the skewer in her hand was stripped completely clean. They stood there for a while, with Aurora's face flushing a little with the odd noises that their friend was making. Even stranger still was the fact that the straw hat-wearing NormalNavi seemed absolutely unfazed by the display, continuing to tend to the grill without as much of a stir. The last member of their party couldn't give half a morsel's worth of attention to the spectacle either; Sparky was too involved in finishing up the serving offered to him.

It was only when Lyntael managed to compose herself somewhat that Eternalis broke the silence, letting out a short chortle. "Well, glad to see you like the food, at least. Kind of reminds me of when Aurora got to try out food for the first time, too," he said, receiving a rather hard elbowing to his side in return, which would be a little ineffectual if it wasn't for the electrical charge mixed in as well. "Hey, ow! Hahahaha!" He took it in stride, however, almost allowing Sparky loose before drawing him back into a secure embrace. "Wow, you ate all of that up, Sparky! You didn't leave any for me, you little--!" laughed Eternalis, before smothering the pup with even more cuddling, causing a bit of a playful struggle between the two.

Meanwhile, the NormalNavi seemed quite happy to simply observe passively from the side, though his eyes made it quite obvious that he was enjoying the cheerful atmosphere. Noticing Lyntael's eyes on him, he turned towards her, while still idly waving the fan about. "Haha, of course, you can sit wherever you'd like. Feel free to have some more, please," he said, gesturing towards the selection of cooked items on the tray. Turning towards Aurora, he added, "You too, miss. Don't hold back on my account!", and offered one of the plates towards her, as well. Aurora's eyes widened for a bit before she sheepishly replied with a "A-Ah, yes, of course, thank you," and received the plate with a nod, taking up another meat skewer similar to what she already had, and some grilled prawns and a soft-shelled crab onto the plate.

She then made her way over to Lyntael, taking a seat next to her while smiling at the blushing girl. In front of her, Eternalis and Sparky seemed to have finished playing around, and the pup's owner seemed to be happily feeding an excessively long string of linked sausages to him with a boisterous laugh. Aurora giggled at the spectacle, and turned towards Lyntael, who seemed to be intently contemplating a seafood skewer. She tried a bit more of the half-eaten skewer she was already on, and the sensations of smoky meats and juicy vegetables once again filled her mouth; she couldn't help the beaming smile that resulted afterwards.

Then, turning towards Lyntael, she pointed towards her companion's plate. "That's quite a bit of food you've got there. Sure you can finish all of it?" she joked, before finishing the meat skewer in her hand and laying the empty stick on her plate.
In between brief glances towards the others as she tried to compose herself properly, the skewer that Lyntael had been examining went from full of various seafood bits, to mostly empty of them, before she really realised it; now that she'd started to actually eat something, her body was being unduly demanding that she absolutely needed to continue doing so, and as quickly as possible. Seafood was another new flavour, but savoury like some of the other bits, and as much as the subsequent bites made her fingers tense and her eyes flutter, she managed to mostly keep herself together through trying it. A second wooden skewer joined the first on her plate by the time she found herself nodding to Aurora's question.

"Mmm... I'm, ah, I'm fine... mnnn... It's just, I knew I... knew I was feeling hungry all the time, since... since that time before... last week.... mnnn... but I guess I didn't realise it was... was this bad." The fourth empty skewer clicked onto the little bundle and Lyntael picked up another one that had a different hard-to-identify meat product as its main focus. she slowed halfway through this one, and paused to catch her breath again, cheeks flushed. She swallowed then looked around for a napkin to wipe her mouth with, before continuing at a more delicate, in-control rate.

"Sorry, that was pretty rude.. I haven't even paid yet, I should have done that first. I just, um... I kind of..." Her eyes darted between Aurora, the grill navi and briefly to where Eternalis and sparky were enjoying themselves. "Sorry. I feel better now." Blissfully the dull ache that had been an almost constant companion for the past several days had disappeared more or less completely now, though there was a slightly different sensation of a stomach unused to being filled so quickly. With a brief, rueful grin, Lyntael put a hand to her middle, taking a longer, deeper breath. She finished the fifth stick carefully, one bite at a time, and savoured the flavours that flooded through her as she chewed, but the urge to rapidly swallow to make way for more was gone now. After setting the stick down, her plate was now depleted of food objects and she slipped it to the side so that she could rest her hands on the table and put her head down. A yawn crept up on her and she covered her mouth with the back of one hand.

"Hey Aurora..." She glanced at Eternalis with one half-lidded eye, meaning to include him in her murmur, but the other navi seemed quite occupied wrangling sparky so she let it go and turned the single eye back to the other woman. "Thanks for doing this for me. I know it's kinda wrong, because I was supposed to be doing other things for Rogan, and I really do want o be better for him, you know.... but I needed this, and you didn't have to help me, so, thank you." she let her eyes close and the tired smile grew across the edges of her lips further. "I mean, I know you've had fun too, but I don't ever get to do this, and I know it's going to be over soon. If I know Rogan, then he's only going to sit and talk about things for so long, once he gets the business with Harke out of the way. I'm surprised he hasn't discovered us yet, really... so I'm just going to rest here in the sun and the warmth and the breeze for a little bit, ok?"

With her eyes shut and her head down on folded hands on the table, the warmth and the breeze were the most prominent sensations for her, for a little while, alongside the sounds of food grilling, and Eternalis' play with Sparky not far away. Unfortunately, her own predictions demonstrated a keener guess of Rogan's thought process than perhaps any of them would have liked; it was barely a minute or two later that his voice made her eyes flick open and saw Lyntael sit upright at the table again , attentive.

"Lyntael. Wrap it up, my business is concluded and we're leaving." to Aurora and Etneralis, the voice could be heard as well, sounding almost as though it was coming from somewhere just above and behind Lyntael's back. She nodded, smile turning wistful and had just opened her mouth to speak when the voice continued. "I'm re-linking to your location now, say your farewells, this will only take a minute." The slower, calmer motions sharpened quickly as she frowned.

"Drat. I was hoping he'd make me walk back... sorry, that means I don't have long now! Oh, I haven't..." her eyes moved to the vendor then across to Eternalis and Aurora in a brief moment of panic. "I don't have access to any funds while I'm disconnected like this! I can't—" It took a moment to confirm that those details had already been taken care of, and the girl ducked her head with embarrassed gratitude, before turning to both aurora and Eternalis properly, shouldering he bag and making sure she had collected all of her other things.

"Um... I'd really like to spend more time with you both, if, ah, if you both wouldn't mind that. I don't really have many friends, and you're both so nice. I know we'd said that we were going to try to do more training things laer, before we got side-tracked, and I do really want to be better for Rogan, if I can, even if it's difficult, so... maybe we could... I guess... meet again some time?" the nervous uncertainty in her expression as she made the offer was too much to really hide, though she tried anyway. it wasn't that the pleasant calm of before was gone, in fact, she still felt quite relaxed, and the outing had done her a world of good, she knew that much for certain... it was simply that she knew Rogan would be pulling her out without any warning sometime inside the next minute, most likely.

"If, if you need, you've still got that communication from me, don't you? Just respond to that .ides file as though it were an email, like before. It'll give you errors, but I'll get it, I promise!" On impulse, she darted forward to give Aurora a quick hug, slipping hands around her back for a few moments before pulling free again. "It's been so great spending time with you both!" If the first hug had gone ok, Eternalis got a second one as well, just as briefly; he'd feel the warm hum of her skin, but thankfully no shocks. Sparky got a head ruffle and a couple of bonus scritches. She hadn't been pulled away yet, but time was almost certainly running short.

[Z > 45.]

As Lyntael proved the extent of her appetite to Aurora with gusto, the elder one of the two giggled to herself, picking up her own food so as to let Lyntael go at her intended pace. "Guess that answers that," she said. While Aurora was starting on the seafood she had gotten for herself, the other girl started talking, and she listened intently while going through her own food at a leisurely pace. "Hey, go a little slower, don't want you choking on all that if you can't handle it," she said, before Lyntael managed to slow herself down and thanked her.

"Well, hopefully this isn't the last time we'll be doing this. We'll figure things out somehow," said Aurora, turning around so that her back reclining slightly on the bench, propping herself up with her elbows on the table. She then closed her eyes, listening to the sound of the nearby grill, and the ocean waves in the distance, and the cool breeze passing by. As such, when Eternalis walked up shortly after, carrying a very happy-looking Sparky in his arms, she only heard their steps, and didn't quite care to open her eyes yet.

"Passed out already, huh?" she heard Eternalis comment wryly. Opening her eyes, she saw the two standing by next to her. The pup had a big bone in his mouth and a hearty wag in his tail, looking towards Lyntael resting her head on the table along with Eternalis. Then, Eternalis perked up slightly, as if he had recalled something, he turned to Aurora. "Oh, Aurora, did you tell Harke anything about us going here?" he asked.

Aurora's brow creased at the question. "Ah, I kind of forgot... I guess I can tell him now, at least if he's not busy," she said. Before she was able to, however, Rogan's voice boomed out from the vicinity, causing everyone there to look up at the source of the voice. As Lyntael apologized for her lack of payment options, Eternalis laughed, holding up a hand to stop her. "No, no, it's cool, I already paid," he said.

When Lyntael rose from the table, Aurora did the same, stretching herself out. "Guess we're leaving soon too, then," said Aurora. "And yes, of course, I'll shoot you a letter once we get back. How else are you going to pay back that enormous sum of ten zenny?" she quipped, laughing at her own joke. Suddenly, she was "assaulted" by a hug from Lyntael--she reciprocated it quickly, patting the girl on the back.

Eternalis and Sparky got theirs as well, and the pup licked the girl's cheek in return, while Eternalis simply ruffled Lyntael's hair slightly. As she watched the scene play out, Aurora turned towards the shopkeeper Navi and gave him a curt bow and thanks, to which he responded with a quick adjustment of his straw hat, and a cheerful "Come again!"

She was then about to establish a connection with Harke, when a text message preempted her. "I assume you guys got Rogan's message. Tell me when you guys are done and I'll jack you guys out," the message read. Aurora was slightly worried at the lack of vocal communication, but the message certainly came signed from Harke's PET. She turned to Eternalis and mirrored the text message in front of him in a floating display. Eternalis nodded, and turned to Lyntael, while Aurora relayed their agreement to Harke with her own text message.

"It's been good. Let's hope we see each other again. See ya!" he said.

"Bye!" said Aurora, before the two of them were covered in shimmering light, and vanished in a moment.
As she finished packing up and saying her own farewell,s the reassurance from her friends that they'd be up for more meetings in the future, and might even help her with the training difficulty spread a bright smile across Lyntael's face and lit up the rest of her expression. Even thought he outing was over now, she found herself content and happy; happier than she'd felt in quite a long while, really, and for the moment the other concerns and fears and worries that had been dragging at the back of her mind felt subtly further off, and less worrisome. Her situation wasn't really any better, she knew, but for the time being, it didn't feel so bad, and she was glad of it. She waved again as Aurora and Eternalis were pulled out of the net, Harke recalling them now that everything was done.

"Good by! I'll talk to you soon!" Her call followed them as they left. She also had enough to to grin and incline her head in thanks to the vendor they'd chosen to eat at, and waved to him as well, before another bolt of light grabbed her away. In the moments before it took her, she hunched slightly, her features squeezing into an involuntary wince, but even the recovered link was enough to dampen her present mood.

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((Lyntael, returning to => Rogan's PET, By way of Strelka Bar))
[Mutual FXP gained: 67 FXP]