(ooc: the following post is a Lakuri/IUMA collaboration)
"What
I'm going to do?"
Mercator looked at Saffron, seeing her stare with those curious eyes. Wondering what it is that people do at the beach. Slowly erecting himself from the beach chair. A roguish smile appeared on his face. Pulling from the large bag was a small radio. That without any explanation was activated and started playing beach music.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WP2exZurfcAs he pulled out a pair of sunglasses from his pocket. Placing them on, his appearance had greatly altered. Basking his pearly white teeth in the sun's ray's at Saffron.
A second set of sunglasses then passed from the old wanderer to the young girl. So that her eyes to were shielded against the bright sun. But to also give her the necessary factor of cool.
"Well, Saffron dear. I'm going to have some fun."
Since all of this beach stuff was still new to Saffron, she wasn't quite as used to... well, any of it as Mercator seemed to be.
They first took a walk along the beach. Mercator carrying a small bucket to hold all the treasures they could find.
The sea shells where pretty fun for Saffron to gather, simply because it gave her a slight challenge. Grab them, before the water hit her, cause it was cold!
Beautiful seashells were abundant on this beach. And it didn't take long for the bucket to be spilling over with them.
Then Mercator showed Saffron how to build a sand castle. Made sturdy of wet sand and using the buckets to give them shapes. At the end, a wind vane was planted at the center to finish it off.
The sand castle Saffron built, wasn't really that great compared the the one Mercator made to show her, which was fine, seeing as she didn't quite understand how the sand even worked.
A beach ball was pulled from the large bag. Mercator huffed and puffed with big red cheeks to blow the beach ball up. Then when the ball was blown up, both ended up playing beach volleyball. The net was a simple line dug in the sand. Mercator's old body was no match for Saffron's youth as she creamed him with 40-2.
Taking a rest from the exhausting volleyball match, Mercator laid down on the beach to get some rest and fell asleep. Saffrons plan hadn't originally been to bury Mercator in the sand... but somehow that came about sooner or later, before she laid in the warm sand and fell asleep as well.
Mercator was waking up from his nap, he first was surprised at seeing himself buried. But then saw the humor of it and rose up from his sandy grave imitating a zombie from a bad horror movie.
Saffron woke up however by hearing weird noises. She looked at him very confusingly.
Then a Frisbee got scooped up from the bag as Mercator and Saffron throw it over to each other. A repeat of the volleyball match was happening as Saffron was much better at throwing and catching the disk then the elderly Mercator.
Saffron was much more used to running on the sand now when Mercator started throwing the spinning disk of plastic at her. It also only took her a few tries to figure out how to throw it straight.
The first few tries however, weren't to great.
After all that fun, both paused for a beach picnic. Eating delicious treats and finishing with ice cream. The lunch also served as a short break, as a white tip of vanilla ice cream formed on Mercator's nose.
After the lunch, with both of them unable to enter the water right away, Mercator pulled out a kite as the wind had picked up a bit.
Holding it steady he gave the line to Saffron and stood downwind. Waiting for a good gale to throw it up and see how Saffron kept it in the air. Quickly joining her side as they did their best at some stunt flying.
The whole kite situation confused Saffron a bit. She didn't quite understand what they where supposed to do with it.... so she easily allowed Mercator to control it again so she could simply watch it.
With the wind dying down, the kite wouldn't stay airborne anymore. But the water was now invitingly warm and beautiful. Changing in a little wooden changing shed that was lined up at the back of the beach. Mercator emerged wearing a two part swimsuit. A vest with short sleeves and some long pants. White and red horizontal stripes followed each other on the old fashioned swim gear.
This was probably the most troubling part of the entire day for Saffron... bathing suit time.... After Mercator had changed, it was her turn.... she took a considerable amount of time doing this because of her own comfortableness with such a thing. The strings that where so nicely tied into cute bows by any of the other girls on the beach, where extremely knotted and tangled all over the place... she wanted to make sure it would stay on her.
Saffron walked out embarrassedly and didn't make much eye contract with Mercator. She walked back to their spot, and covered herself with a towel.
It took quite a bit of convincing on Mercator's part to get her to move.
Taking along some snorkeling gear, Mercator took Saffron to go diving with him as they visited the magnificent coral reef that was close by. Being dazzled by all the colors and beauty of the underwater world.
Saffron was happy that she had gone along with Mercator snorkeling, although the water made her feel even less comfortable with herself. The water straightened out her hair, as it does to normal people with curly hair. instead of it now being a manageable length of the back of her shoulder blades, it reached the bottom of her back, and got in the way... a lot.
When Mercator finally went back to the spot again, Saffron grabbed a hair Tye to keep her hair back, and was confused as to what she was handed. Mercator revealed the special surprise he had been saving for last. Two surfboards. One for himself and one for Saffron. As he spends all afternoon teaching her how to surf. First rehearsing the movement and techniques on land. Then heading out again in the water to catch some waves.
While Mercator could surf, Saffron could not, and she could barely sit on the thing without flipping over and falling off.
Both surfed until the sun colored a deep red and was starting to sink below the horizon. The air cooling off and the music on the radio dying down.
